#this would be true regardless but it’s especially true if people don’t know the race of the person they’re criticizing

[darkfire359]

Ed is a brilliant character. He’s maybe even beating out Lucius as my 2nd favorite now. I’ve written more OFMD fanfic with him as a protagonist than I have for any other fandom in over a decade. I’ve put an Ed-inspired character in a D&D campaign I’m in. I’ve forgiven him for things that I would have a priori considered dealbreaker traits in my favs (making someone kill their own pet). I don’t want to understate how excellent Ed is here.

But I feel like some Ed fans are very gatekeepy about it. Like, one of my favorite things about Ed is that he is dangerous and unhinged! It’s a great contrast with him internally being a cinnamon roll who just wants to be cuddled and held. Him being scary only heightens the cuteness of the scenes where he’s vulnerable, IMO. But I see a lot of takes that are like, “writing Ed as being violent or quick to anger is BAD and RACIST.”

Or like, talking about Ed’s flaws (especially with respect to his relationship with Izzy). Flawed characters are interesting! Ed is impulsive, and this leads to interesting plots. Ed has mood swings, and this something a lot of people find relatable. Ed doesn’t communicate very well with Izzy, and this combos with Izzy’s general social cluelessness to some exciting disasters (Izzy not getting the “no really, Ed doesn’t want Stede dead now” memo, e.g.) But again, I’ve seen takes that equate bringing up Ed’s flaws (even if only in response to someone else bringing up Izzy’s flaws) as meaning that the person dislikes Ed and also is racist.

(It’s worth noting that I think I’ve seen like, one person who actually says they dislike Ed, and they said that it was for personal issues. At no point have they indicated that they think other people are wrong for liking Ed.)

I *have* seen people write Ed and/or Izzy in OOC ways, with Ed being way more of an asshole to Izzy (while Izzy is way more innocent and selfless) than he should be. Sometimes I stop reading these fics, sometimes the fic is good enough that I just deal with feeling kind of annoyed. But I don’t assume that the author is malicious or racist just because of OOC writing. It turns out that OOC writing exists for all characters in all fandoms, and this is a general property of fanfiction.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Burn Bright White - Chapter Four.

Previous Chapters - One Two Three

Tag list - In the comments. DM to be added/removed

Words - 2,762

Warnings - 18+ content, minors DNI! Also, while I have tried to remain as true to how Niklas is in reality as I can, I have to have a little creative freedom of my own with him in this. If you don’t like it, simply scroll on by. Bitching isn’t tolerated here. At all. Remember, it’s fiction, not a documentary ;) It’s also worth mentioning that while Taissa has qualities of being quite charming at times, she is not, by any means, a good person.

Weed, ganja, chronic, herb, puff, whatever you wanted to call it. Taissa rarely smoked it, but when needs must. Truly, she needed a little mental steadying, her drive home perilous, her body still wracked with trembles. That, and a rapidly trickling deposit of cum wetting her inner thighs, too.  

She almost hated him a little bit for being such a good fuck.  

It was she who was meant to hook him, she the one remaining in control. However, now all she could do was resign herself to the fact that she knew, understood well, that there wouldn’t be a day to pass where she wouldn’t crave that man to his very bones. Five minutes and he’d turned her into a shuddering wreck. Five. Fucking. Minutes.  

“That fucking man!” she fumed, throwing her legs up on the sofa and shuffling down, resting the ashtray upon her stomach as she drew fiercely on the blunt in her hand. It hit her then, that she’d also left without payment for the drugs she’d dropped off, Taissa groaning, wiping a hand down her face with a sigh. That fucking man.  

He had no business literally being capable of fucking her brains out. In five minutes. Five fucking minutes!! 

A little internal composure was reined back, though, realising she’d left him there utterly breathless upon the floor. She did, after all, always give as good as she got. Who was to say that he wasn’t just as enchanted by her prowess now, too? Still, the balance felt off to her, and she was a sizeable wedge of money down. There was only one thing to do. 

‘Send me Kvarforth’s number.’ 

A few seconds passed before Miika replied. ‘Whyyyyy?’ 

‘None of your concern, just do it. I need to speak to him.’ 

‘Ohhhh, has Tai got a crush?’ 

Her lip curled instantly, knowing of course her brother was enjoying this greatly, his usual taunting of her. ‘Number. Now. I have business with him.’ 

“Does this business involve his cock?” he asked, after she’d begrudgingly answered his call.  

No, she’d had that already. “Miika, just text me the number.” 

“Why are you being evasive? What is this business?” 

She couldn’t reveal it, save being further harangued by her sibling. Nor could she admit that, for the time being at least, Niklas had scored his drugs on tick rather than paying for them immediately. Very few people dared owed either of them money, Taissa especially. He ferocity there was well known. “Send me the number, or I tell dad you once dated a black girl.” 

Leevi Aho was, at his heart, a hardened racist, a terrible trait that had fortunately bypassed his very unprejudiced children completely. They’d tried many times to update his thinking to little avail. Miika didn’t care who you were as long as you weren’t annoying, and Taissa – much like the man whose number she was attempting to procure – looked down upon anyone other than a chosen few with the same distain, regardless of race.  

“For fucks sake, no,” he groaned. Not that he really cared, but he could do without being berated for a good half an hour by his father and his white pride nonsense. It was a shame, because for all his criminality and penchant for narrow-mindedness, Leevi was a very amiable man with those he liked. “You wouldn’t, Tai.” 

Oh, she would. “Try me. I want that number, and I want it now, Miika.”  

Hanging up, it took a total of twenty seconds for the contact to ping into her messages, Taissa saving it under the name of ‘that fucking man’ before typing out a message. 

‘You still owe me for the delivery. Meet me at Goldie’s at six tomorrow, they have a good bourbon selection. I’ll let you buy me one if you’re not late.’ 

Hell, the least she could do was get a drink out of him, pissed off that she was. How dare he be that fucking good a fuck. Yes, despite the weed softening her edges, she was still annoyed that he’d gotten a hook into her.  

Niklas was in the middle of trying to feed Katze when his phone beeped, the meowing feline weaving his ankles in her impatience for the bowl to be offered.  

“If you break my fucking neck, I cannot feed you,” he spoke, placing it down for her once she’d cleared his feet. “I wouldn’t recommend eating me if I expired either. I probably wouldn’t taste too great.” 

Pulling his phone from his back pocket, he saw a number he didn’t recognise, opening the message. He grinned, returning it, leaving her waiting a little while. He had every intention of meeting her the following evening, but he wouldn’t show himself to jump at the chance. An hour later, and he finally replied.  

‘Six-thirty, and yes. I might. Depends, though.’ 

Ten minutes passed, Taissa busy preparing herself an early dinner. ‘On what?’ 

‘On whether I can follow that bourbon down your throat with my cock.’ 

Yes, he was about as subtle as a hand grenade, but he didn’t believe in coyness.  

She had to smile a little at such bluntness, very much liking that about him. ‘If you’re lucky.’ Oh, the glory she could hold at meeting up with him, dangling the promise of another dalliance with her, only to snatch it away and leave him burning on the memory of what had happened between them instead.  

‘I always am. See you at six-thirty.’  

With those plans made, she was in no real rush to move herself off her huge, comfortable white sofa, deciding to lounge around before she’d begin her night making drops to her customers as soon as the calls began coming in. That, of course, meant switching her work phone on first. 5pm and she’d do it, wanting time to herself first.  

With little else to do, she decided to indulge in a little more research about the man who she’d be seeing the following evening, deciding to look at a few interviews on YouTube. Very quickly, she saw a definite pattern begin to emerge. 

While Niklas was by no means tame in nature, he definitely had a duality. High and drunk, and he was a loud, obnoxious nightmare, but somehow still quite entertaining. Less so, or completely sober, and he was very engaging, intelligent and well-spoken.  

There was a candidness to him that some might find unnerving, but she could easily spot when he was embellishing from when he wasn’t, very much enjoying trying to provoke a reaction. Most of the time, though, he wasn’t, and that was perhaps the most unnerving thing about him. His life had been dark, and he carried it with him.  

They were very similar there. 

Also, he might’ve professed to have an extreme adversity to people, but he certainly liked being the centre of attention. Hell, he wouldn’t have been a vocalist if he didn’t, although she did sense there to be exhilaration and apathy in equal measures while watching him on stage.  

In her twenty-eight years, she had become extremely apt at reading people, even being able to pick up on when others were doing the exact same thing. Niklas definitely read people quickly and adjusted himself to suit, Taissa also noticing his very low threshold for either bullshit or boredom. 

Again, they were very similar there. 

Laughing to herself at the discomfort of one particular interviewer, who had sadly gone in woefully unprepared to deal with a drunken Niklas, his mundane mediocrity being met by – at least she thought – quite comedic hostility. Then again, she did have a darker sense of humour, and making people feel uncomfortable always had been a source of entertainment for her.  

And yet again, they were very similar there. 

Something else pertinent she noticed about him, after switching interviews to one he’d participated in just the previous year, was his view on relationships. He seemed to have no problem falling in love and being with a woman, but always, it would be sabotaged by his own misdeeds for the sake of lyrical fodder. He needed, it seemed, to live what he wrote.  

He also spoke of manipulating women to fall in love with him, Taissa feeling her mouth curl sinisterly. Oh, the thrill to be the one who manipulated somebody like him to fall head over heels for her, and then simply leave him behind. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d done it either, but god, the prize of knowing she could more than likely exert such over a man like Niklas. It was too tempting a thrill to pass up.  

Also, it meant she got to fuck him some more, too. That certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing. He was, as she’d recently learned, very good with his cock.  

It offset the feeling of knowing she was craving him all over again, and after only just about recovering from the sexual decimation she’d received, too. She could have her cake and eat it, as it were. Sex that good was almost impossible to pass up, should it be on offer to her again.  

And of course, it would be.  

Rising from the sofa eventually, she slipped on her shoes, her feet much more comfortable in the black Nike sneakers she chose, her attire casual in leggings, an oversized t shirt and hoodie, picking up her keys, phone and stash. She was running with one of hers and Miika’s underlings that night, going to fetch Henrik before her seven-hour hustle began.  

Pills, speed, mind-bending weed and what she had left in blow were all delivered promptly to waiting customers, Taissa keeping her eye out for the only worry she faced while working. Since she made a habit of changing her car regularly, though, it made it harder for the police to keep tabs on her transportation. Still, it didn’t mean she proceeded in her endeavours without caution.  

By 2am, she was out of everything, dropping Henrik home and happily returning to hers to crawl into bed and sleep for many hours. Awaking at a very late 10am, she threw herself out of bed and into gym clothes, using the facilities luckily on hand there in her apartment complex.  

While working up a very decent sweat on the treadmill, she couldn’t help but smile to herself through the thigh-burning torture she endured. It likely wouldn’t be the only cardiovascular workout she’d be getting that day, looking forward to the one that’d involve a certain tall dude with a lot of tattoos.  

Until then, she went to collect her new supply ready for work to resume the following day, took a long bath, not needing to worry about timing her getting ready to head out and meet Niklas. The reason beyond the plentiful bourbon choice at the bar she’d suggested was entirely out of convenience for her; Goldie’s was a two-minute walk from her apartment. 

Turning the corner at 6:29pm, she saw him sitting at a table outside, her stomach flipping pleasantly at the memory of the afternoon before.  

“Why did you tell me to meet you here?” he began, looking mildly vexed as she sat down opposite him, having a glass of bourbon slid across the table while he lit a cigarette. “This place is bullshit, the vast choice of that stuff aside.”  

“Because it’s two minutes from my apartment.” Her revelation did nothing to remove the unimpressed expression, Taissa clicking her fingers and holding her hand out. “I believe I’m owed.” 

He took the money from his pocket and handed it over. “For making me meet you here, I’m the one who is now owed. You’d better swallow.”  

“If you’re going to do a job, you do it right or not at all.”  

He might have been stewing in a bad mood, mostly from being stared at by half the vastly different patrons in the bar who’d viewed him as some kind of oddity, but he couldn’t help but laugh quietly. “I’ll be the judge of that.”  

She was just about to deliver an equally smart mouthed retort when her eye was caught by somebody on approach, a certain someone who froze as soon as he saw her. Rule number one with Taissa Aho; never be foolish enough to owe her money. 

“Wait here.”  

She was out of her seat and running in chase down the street after the man in a flash, Niklas turning to look over his shoulder, impressed at her speed and ability to run in high heels if nothing else. Never being one for obeying the will of others, he sank his drink and got up, walking in the direction they’d ran.  

He saw her catch the guy, dragging him between two buildings, keeping his pace casual as he drew on his cigarette, entering the narrow alley to witness a sight his eyes fixated upon keenly. There was the man who had unsuccessfully fled, pinned to the wall by his throat, Taissa punching him repeatedly in the face with a knuckle duster donned hand, looking beyond irate. 

“Where’s my fucking money, Eino?” 

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it for you soon, just give me a couple of days! Fuck!” 

“Wrong answer,” she hissed, her fist meeting his cheekbone again, the skin splitting. God, the dick twitch that gave her audience, Niklas leaning against the wall and spectating keenly. He much preferred it to the bar. “I want all of it. Now.”  

“I haven’t got it, Taissa! Fuck, let me go and I’ll make a call, get it here for you!” 

Her laughter was a dark bark of disbelief, her fist connecting with his face a couple more times. “Liar. Give me my fucking money.” 

“I... but...” he spoke, turning his head to view Niklas, standing there grinning. “What the fuck are you looking at?” 

His eyebrows rose, lifting his chin with a sniff. “You, getting your face split open.” Drawing on his cigarette, he continued to watch the scene unfold, more than impressed at the way Taissa handled things. He missed a good fight. Being on probation sucked. 

Oh, now he knew her name, too. She could now be known as something other than the hot blonde with a beautiful cunt and an acerbic temperament. “I’d give her the money if I were you.”  

Taissa jerked her head in his direction, her fist once again cracking Eino’s face, this time shattering a couple of teeth. “What he said. Money, Eino. Now.”  

With his mouth, eye and cheek pouring with blood, Eino went into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and shuffling through to grab the required notes. Taissa tutted, pulling the full wedge out. “No, no. All of that will be fine. The rest I will take as interest. Now, if I were you, I’d lose my number. If I ever see you again, the other half of your face gets broken. Understand?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good.” One more punch for good measure had him knocked into a daze, Taissa releasing him to fall down into a heap, turning to walk back to Niklas. “I thought I told you to wait...” 

That was as far as she got before he grasped her face in his hands and pressed his mouth to hers, her display of undiluted aggression acting more than favourably upon him. In short, he was so turned on, he was surprised he could even stand up.  

The kiss was a lot less animalistic than the last time, but fuck, if it didn’t smoulder with exactly the same level of heat. “I think that’s the sexiest thing I’ve witnessed in a while.” 

Slipping the knuckle duster from her fingers, she pocketed it, flexing her hand a few times. “Just wait until you see how sexy I look with your cock in my mouth.” 

He barely could. “Hmm, yeah,” he breathed, kissing her again. “I think I might like you. As much as I can like someone, that is. Because I don’t. I do not like people at all.” 

The corner of her mouth tugged upward; her face full of triumph. “I know.” Another kiss was shared, her tongue rolling pleasantly with his, his arms tightening around her. Oh, wow. He was hard. An interesting response to her giving somebody a beating, if nothing else. “At least one man in this alleyway knows what’s good for him.”  

Never let it be said that Niklas didn’t know a good thing when he saw it. Except truly, she wasn’t. Taissa was just as bad as him. Maybe worse. And that was exactly why he liked her. 

[cupiidzbow]

hie i know you don't know me but i did want to reach out and say that you're so valid in sharing your discomfort and rightful anger/hurt regarding racist attacks on you, your characters, and your art. i understand what it's like when people say awful things to you on and off anon and how damaging it can be, BUT in the end know you aren't doing anything wrong. i love your art! if i could commission you, i would!!!

i think the way you draw your sona and monkeys overall is cute and charming, and furthermore, your race will never EVER make you unloveable to your f/o.

all the same know you're not alone and know you have sooo much support esp from fellow black folks and black self shippers like me!!! i hope you have a beautiful and peaceful week regardless 🥺💕 take good care of yourself!!! 💕🐒

IM REALLY SORRY I GOT TO THIS SO LATE but ouhhhh ouggghhgh……. this really means so much to me you don’t even know …… 😢😢😢😢😢 im soso sorry you had to experience your own share of mistreatment , I wish it was something you didn’t have to deal with and I wish it wasn’t something people feel so free to do ):

AND THANK YOU SO MUCH…. That’s such a sweet thing for you to say AND PLEASE DONT WORRY…. I appreciate you even thinking about wanting to! that genuinely makes me so happy! 🥹IM SO HAPPY YOU LIKE HOW A DRAW MY SONA THANK YOU SO MUCH…. i love to draw silly little monkeys im so happy you feel that way…..

and you’re so right!!!! that’s something I will always remember and always ring true for everyone there’s nothing that can make you unlovable to your f/o ): especially your race ):

I appreciate you for making me feel seen and to have someone who had similar experiences to my own, it’s always such a joy seeing other black self shippers and it makes me so happy to know you’re out there too, it’s so wonderful to meet you!!!! 🥹🥹🥹 . thank you soso much for you kind words to me!! I hope you have a wonderful day and the week treats you so kindly , take care of yourself too!!! 🥹🫶🏽💕💕

[stranger-rants]

people think about racism in a... weird way, let me tell you that. it's either you are, or you aren't. that's a problem because of the way systemic and ingrained racism is built in the roots of our society. people have done racist things out of ignorance or any number of factors and people will continue to do so, even people we admire. people fall into pipelines as kids, people commit microaggressions that they genuinely do not understand, people share racist memes because they don't see the dogwhistles/ don't understand the severity and only think of it "as a joke", whatever.

thing is, billy could be completely innocent in his eyes. he could believe that he genuinely hurt lucas to protect max and nothing else. but his actions still contribute to racism. and it's fine to acknowledge that. whether he was raised to have racist biases, doesn't think of himself as racist but still carries these beliefs subconsciously, or he genuinely isn't, it doesn't really matter because his actions were harmful and they hurt lucas. and again, it's okay to acknowledge that.

i wish people wouldn't really swing the pendulum one way or the other, you know? there's a lot of complexity here. people either characterize him as a violent racist who chose to torment lucas incessantly, or an innocent boy who did nothing wrong. fellow people of colour can have their interpretations, but i like it when the complex nuances are actually acknowledged. billy, whatever he was thinking (even if he was justified or innocent in his eyes), still did something racist, and that's still something he can atone for by apologizing and working to amend his errors. it's not okay, but he can change for the better and do good.

i simply think characterizing him as a violent abusive racist is damaging overall. it paints a very specific picture of racism that renders every other form of harmful discrimination obsolete, especially subtler forms. people think racism can only exist in violent people with hate in their heart, and that's simply not true. anyone can say or do racist things. anyone can cause harm and further perpetuate hurt to the people around them. anyone can thus apologize for these things, grow, and change for the better. as people of colour, it shouldn't be our job to rehabilitate or soothe people who did racist things, but growth they choose is a net good. and acknowledging racism as something that exists outside of plain evil bigots works to tackle the very ingrained racism in our world. just think that's important to consider for everyone, and it makes me happier now that i've understood billy like this, because i don't like viewing the world in such a strict, rigid moral way.

I agree. There is a lot of nuance to the conversation that gets ignored one way or another. It’s easier for people to identify overt racism that manifests in physical violence, but not so much racism that manifests in institutional violence. While I am white and I don’t think it’s my place to tell fans of color how they should feel about Billy, I think a lot of white fans are unwilling to confront the ways in which they are racist and/or contribute to institutional racism. They think that as long as they like the right characters and perform allyship then they can absolve themselves of their own bigotry. Regardless of race, I think fans need to also confront how their own traumas impact their world view because a lot of people use trauma as an excuse to perpetuate institutional harm.

What Billy says and does can be triggering to people for different reasons, and I don’t fault people for that. However, we can’t just use our own traumas to ignore his or ignore the context of his words and actions. If you don’t take the time to contextualize his behavior then you will never understand how to address it. Yet, there are so many people who don’t want to contextualize his behavior because that would require uncovering really uncomfortable truths about society… and themselves. I think a lot of hateful reactions to Billy stem from people’s own guilt and shame and in performing such hate for this fictional person, they are “checking” themselves. Making themselves feel good. It’s much much harder to think, hey, I might have been a bigoted person in my youth and it takes hard work to unlearn it.

That’s why people are comfortable taking a pro-punishment, pro-carceral stance when it comes to “dealing with” Billy’s racism even when that very mindset stems from institutional racism. It doesn’t emphasize growth and change, which are entirely possible with a teenage boy who was surviving abuse at the time they said and did those hurtful things. It emphasizes violence as a solution, which is how institutions already respond to marginalized people who are perceived to have done something wrong - with violence. This isn’t to say people can’t or shouldn’t defend themselves from racists or racism. It’s specifically this idea that Billy needs to be eternally punished for his actions even when he hasn’t shown himself to be a bigot that doesn’t resolve racism but rather feeds into it.

These people don’t want to admit that they’re doing harm or perpetuating cycles of violence themselves, so they need to be right. They need to feel good about hating him, and they need to perpetuate this false idea that people are static individuals who cannot change. You either are a bigot or you’re not to them, and I think feeling the need to defend their investment in such a character many people who like him feel the need to call Billy’s actions something other than racism. It’s still racism. You can be racist without being a card carrying member of the KKK or a neo-nazi. It’s important to acknowledge that, but it also is important to acknowledge that you can learn from that and grow and change as a person. That is what ends the “cycle.” Not more institutional violence.

[bohemian-nights]

Someone on twitter pointed out that Netflix gets some portion of profits from the books because of the show-adjacent book covers (or vice versa?) which is why they absolutely will not and cannot change Michael to Michaela. Whether or not that's true (the profits thing) it's honestly a good point regardless. The book sales are bolstered by the show and the show gets Netflix more subscribers. Aside from the fact that Michael is the fan favorite male lead from the books too, it'd be impossible to sell WHWW by genderbending him into a woman because the book isn't queer. Michael and Francesca's story relies on the fact he's a man. Now one can argue that, for the show, they can switch things of inheritance by making it so John and Fran already have a son when he dies so there can be a happy queer ending since inheritance of estate would no longer be a problem, just the guilt. But in that case the entire story still ends up different, there's absolutely no conflict and, again, there's no correlation to the most popular Bridgerton series book either. They would be fools to change that. They won't be able to market the book adjacent to the show and they'd have a lot of people from one of the most popular sides of the fandom pissed off. Also didn't JQ say they're not gonna be changing any of the love interests? Idk but genderbending IS changing. If we go by the casting call that the woman they cast is going to be in a leading role next season and we suppose this is Michaela, Francesca's story being next also makes no logical sense because even tho it's guaranteed Bton—being Netflix's cash cow—will end up renewed after S4, they spend A LOT of money on this show and need to prove its worth the investment. Benedict is a fan favorite. He's for sure the next story especially because Cinderella as a story is popular with the masses too. It'll garner massive amounts of views for both those reasons. As opposed to Francesca, who viewers are just getting to know and most are even confused about (seen a lot of "where did she come from" comments), and if they make her love story queer then even less people of the core target demographics (casual viewers, not fans, altho they'll be isolating fans too) who watch Bridgerton will watch it. Unfortunate, but it's a fact. Changing Michael to Michaela and making Fran's season next would be a surefire way to tank views right before they're up again for another renewal evaluation and a surefire way to lose a lot of the readers who pick up the books that generate profit. They won't do that. Even by pure sense of logic: Masali is Sophie.

Yeah even if they just put Francesva the title of the book is literally When He Was Wicked. As someone who has read both WHWW and AOFAG(lol they were the first Bridgerton books I read) it makes about as much sense to genederbend Michael as it does Sophie aka it makes 0 sense.

It’s not like racebending because race isn't important. However gender dynamics are very much in play. Michael and Sophies genders are integral to the story. Michael becomes the earl because he’s John’s closet male relative. He has a lot of guilt surround that. They are cousins, but they grew up as brothers so inheriting an earldom that is John’s causes a lot of inner turmoil.

Francesca has fertility issues. When John dies she’s pregnant with his baby, but she loses that baby. She’s desperate to be a mother which is one of the things that makes her reconsider marriage, and after struggling some more with her fertility she eventually has children with Michael.

You take those plots away and you’re creating a whole story where the issue is overcoming homophobia rather than the actual plot.

That’s what these people don’t get and that’s why it’s not making any sense. The very essence of WHWW would be gone.

You can't genderbend Michael without creating a whole OC story and while Shonda can be stupid she isn't that stupid. Plus I can guarantee if that happened the show will be canceled after that mess airs.

And yes that casting call states that the one cast is next seasons lead. If people genuinely believe Francesca is next and they are pushing back Benedict again for a season that will do even worse than Polin’s🤣

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

To the four people I blocked who have called me racist:

I’m sorry you’re too antisemitic to understand the fact that Jews are important.

I knew that people would assume I was mad about Nora being Black when I started calling out the Jew-erasure, but I think I’ve made my position on the matter pretty clear. Especially considering how vocal I am about the fact that they could’ve cast a Jew of color as Nora, and how great that would’ve been. I’m not going to defend how I’m not racist, because I know I’m not, but haters gonna hate, and multiple things can be true at once:

You can be upset about Jew erasure, and call out a movie for casting a non-Jew who happens to be an actress of color while also not being racist. Calling out antisemitism does not mean I’m a racist, it means I’m against hate. Clearly by the messages I get, that isn’t true for a lot of others.

I have and will always continue to fight back against ALL antisemitism in the media. I do that frequently elsewhere too. Most recently I have been in contact with countless people about the new Marvel casting of Joe Locke and the casting of Daisy Edgar-Jones as Carole King. I have also written published articles about MoonKnight and the Jew erasure there, as well as the use of Jew-face in Hollywood.

This isn’t a race issue. I don’t hate that Nora is Black, I hate that they erased my ethnicity and religion and took joy in it and refuse to own up to it. If they had cast Rachel and then explained why, or apologized, or acknowledged it in any way whatsoever, I wouldn’t be as angry. But using Jews when you want them and throwing them away when you don’t, is shit.

If you’re calling me a racist because you can’t handle the fact that I’m calling out the antisemitism here, then your problem is with Amazon. Not with me. They put us in this position. I would be doing this regardless of the non-Jewish actress they cast as Nora, believe you me.

Rachel is incredibly talented. She’s a good person. She’s a brilliant professional. She was not the right choice for Nora, since she’s not Jewish. She has no Jewish heritage even though there was a lie going around months ago that I debunked, about her possibly having Jewish heritage. She herself even strongly alluded to not being Jewish in an Instagram story (along with many other posts). So, she wasn’t the best choice for Nora. If Nora wasn’t Jewish then for sure, but as is… No. It’s just a fact. I’m sorry if that upsets you, but it’s just the truth. UPDATE: As of the movie’s release, it’s clear that the movie erased the Jewishness entirely, Rachel was great (like I knew she’d be) and since Nora was no longer Jewish in the movie, her casting can’t be looked at through the same lens as a Jewish character directly

And here’s a fun fact: antisemitism is racism against Jews, so defending those who commit antisemitism is defending racism… So the racist here, is actually you.

[acourtofthought]

I feel like SJM missed an opportunity by not making Az’s mate an illyrian (if his mate is Gwyn). Or at least half illyrian. Not Emerie since their personalities just wouldn’t mesh well together. We really could have gotten deep into the conflict + have a pro-illyrian pov. Because Az is pretty much avoiding all illyrians and I feel like having an illyrian mate (who doesn’t hate that she’s illyrian) would make Az want to get involved.

Tbh the whole illyrian situation pisses me off. Rhys and Cass have “hopes” for their people but don’t see the issue that for centuries said people have been fighting and dying to protect Velaris - a city they didn’t even know existed and can’t set a foot in. And let’s face it… I love Rhys, but he’s protecting Velaris, not the Night Court. The whole idea of him being High King is ridiculous - he’s literally the only High Lord whose court is divided in three and he only gives a fuck about one third of it.

Maybe I’m biased but the only character I can see as a potential High King is Lucien. Especially since his mate is Elain. They’re both strong and will probably grow in power (love your theory about Elain having goddess-like powers btw!!) but they’re much more compassionate than Feysand.

I think you made a lot of excellent points.

It definitely looks as if SJM has made Gwyn and Az very compatible, but I think it would have been meaningful if she had been Illyrian. I appreciate that SJM writes diversity in her main pairings (mating canonically white characters with those that are POC) rather than making both characters of the same race but in Az's case, I think him falling for an Illyrian would have made a lot of sense and it would be nice to have two POC main characters ending up together.

I love that though Lucien originally had prejudices against humans, he ended up living in the Human Lands with human friends which will make him more sensitive to why Elain struggled so much with the loss of her humanity. We've witnessed those prejudices disappear in the way he speaks about Jurian and Vassa.

Az has very strong (negative) emotions about the Illyrians regardless of the fact that his best friend is Illyrian (and the other is half Illyrian). Obviously that's not been enough to change his mentality. But falling for a female who felt a true connection to their culture (I imagine there has to be some female who appreciates it while also acknowledging that changes need to be made) would force him to see things in a way that being mated to a non-Illyrian never will. Even if he makes his peace with the Illyrians, he can always keep one foot in / one foot out with them.

And I do think Rhys would not make sense as High King. It's not that he wouldn't be capable because he actually would. But it's going to take more than a couple of years of Rhys taking off his mask for everyone to believe he is who he says he is. There would still be too many suspicions surrounding him and his court for others to feel comfortable following him.

But Lucien.....

I have no doubt Day would follow him, especially after he and Helion learn of what they are to one another. Spring for sure, especially if Elain has any say in it after her book. Rhys doesn't want the position and Lucien has repeatedly shown he's trustworthy. I think Eris would be a bid in to support Lucien. Not only does he seem to want to make amends over the past but he grew up with Lucien and is aware of how intelligent he is. That leaves Winter, Dawn, and Summer. We don't know what they think of Lucien but we do know he has contacts in all courts and I really don't know of anyone outside Beron (and the sons) and maybe Az who has any real issue with Lucien. Not to mention Lucien will now have strong connections to the Human Lands through Queen Vassa and maaayyyyybe someday King Jurian. He's a fighter when necessary but spent his youth learning the ways of not only his court but others through the friendships he'd made.

If SJM goes the High King route, there really is no other character who is canonically more in a position than Lucien. And if he and Elain end up together, I don't think her ability to "convince people to do anything with a few smiles" is going to hurt the publics perception of the duo.

[toothlespoggers]

I just wanted to talk about what I’ve learnt through my years of writing and learning about how to write characters n stuff

If there’s any young writers or people who want to make ocs or whatever out there i thought I’d share my mistakes and what I’ve learnt so that others can improve as I have.

Always research everything you write about, regardless on the topic. I’ve learnt that the best thing todo is really study when you’re writing a character, regardless of what the situation is.

when able, make sure you don’t just listen to one persons feedback on your writing or your characters, I got into a dangerous concept of characters and world building because my writing teacher thought it was a good idea when I later learned it wasn’t.

ALWAYS make sure you don’t tackle real world stuff and issues in your writing unless you really want to fully commit to studying that stuff and writing it in a way that does it justice. The last thing you want todo is have bias or misinformation in your writing. This ESPECIALLY applies to mental health.

4. make sure you’re careful about the dynamics and the way you write characters, make sure you don’t do something subtle that would lead the reader to think you’re endorsing problematic behaviour. I could use a bunch of examples but you’re probably familiar with this concept if you look at most media, for example.. the issue of making a serial killer or someone of that nature the ‘protagonist’ in a piece of media, be that writing or show or whatever, it doesn’t matter what the excuse is, if you make the main character a certain thing that would probably be problematic irl, it doesn’t matter the reasoning. People are made to assume the protagonist of the story is the hero or in some what supposed to be rooted for, you have to be very conscious of writing techniques and the effect tropes have on your audience before making a piece of media with this sort of thing.

5. know your audience, and know what you need todo to protect them. If your audience is young, make sure your writing doesn’t contain anything that could hurt them. Etc

6. When writing or coming up with a story it’s very important that you remember why people read books and stuff in the first place, it’s a form of escapism. What I’ve learnt is the best thing todo for a creative writing thing is to make it just distant enough from reality through fantasy or whatever to not trigger a panic or paranoia response in the readers subconscious, or whatever. Examples of this is sweettooth from Netflix, it’s got an otherwise cool story and concept, but because they made it so much like real life in aspects.. its not safe for someone like me or others to watch it as the story no longer feels like a story, it becomes too real and you really don’t want your story to distress or upset people.

7. Work with people who have whatever your character has or whatever race they are etc, work with a variety of people when producing a creative media that showcases a protagonist or characters like that. Of course studying on your own is good, but it’s important that the voices we want to write for are heard.

8. don’t go for cheap emotional shots, these days writers seem to think making stuff angsty or fluffy and wholesome or sexual are the only ways to make good writing that invokes an emotion, but that’s not true. There are so many untapped emotions and so many things you can do with your writing, don’t fall into the trap of ‘all I wanna do is make angsty content haha no character is safe from my torment’ or ‘I just want all my characters to be happy all the time’ or, ‘haha sex 24/7’ remember that good writing comes in all different shapes and you need to have a mixture of different elements in order to create good content, at least that’s how I see it in most good media.

9. find inspiration from books or stories that you like, for example. Undertale and deltarune is an inspiration for me.

and that’s it, I guess.. I’m not an expert of course I just wanted to share what I’ve learnt with anyone who could use the information, it’s been a slow progress trying to find out what works and what doesn’t with writing but I’m improving everyday.

[f0point5]

I completely agree with you when you say that Daniel’s last race (if it truly is) wasn’t as bland as people say it was. I think most of it is due to the anger felt that he was essential left out to the wolves right before and there was this whole wishy-washy it “maaay” be his final race from everyone.

Shame on the team principals for not stepping up and either killing the rumor completely to let him get some breathing room or just letting him confirm that YES, it is his last. But the race itself, I don’t think he would have a better send off this year:

- very good drive despite starting from not the best position. Up to P12 before they swapped him with Yuki and kept his tires alcove for 30-odd laps until they had nothing left

- didn’t hesitate to go for the fastest lap when the boxed him a third time even though he knew he was at the back of the grid. The “thank you Daniel” from Max as a sweet send off.

- new lap record at one of his favorite circuits to drive and DOTD on top

If this really is it, I’ll take the ending in singapore over some P12/whatever in Abu Dhabi. I really don’t think, regardless of any forthcoming announcement, he’s getting back in that VCARB

To be fair, it seems like Mekies has as much info as you or I do about whether Daniel will continue lol. It’s clear the decision is being made by RBR because not even the lead connection of the title sponsor (Zak Ashley) knows anything. Plus, Daniel was followed around by a comms person from TR and RB this weekend, so obviously RBR are heavily watching what’s being said.

But what is annoying is that 99% of “rumours” in the paddock are leaked by the team themselves. Especially those that turn out to be true. I absolutely think Red Bull “leaked” that Daniel may be binned and frankly leaking it when they had so little clarity and didn’t intend to have any until after the break was insane. I guess it would have been bad if they said nothing and then just showed up with Liam in Austin because Daniel would have not got a goodbye at the circuit at all but it’s still so messy. And they were not at all transparent when asked about it. And it seems like they aren’t even being transparent with Daniel because he didn’t have anything to say and didn’t seem like he was keeping anything back. Plus he’s in Australia now so it doesn’t seem that they will be having him in MK for any in person talks. They’ve just fucked this up a bit.

Literally the send off would have been the same, it just would have happened in Abu Dhabi, and maybe he’d have gotten a few more “goodbye” graphics on the f1 Instagram but the messages and emotions he got from everyone in the paddock were raw and genuine and I’m not sure he would ask for more than that really.

Not to mention going out with a fastest lap and a circuit record (and not to harp on this but with how vocally supportive he’s been of Max this year, and after he wrote the article celebrating Max’s 200th race, I think it means something that his last lap was to help Max and the team that made him feel at home and that he wanted to get back to).

I don’t think they can put him back in the TR now, not after the emotional goodbye. And for his own brand, he can’t just trundle around in a junior team for years, it looks silly. He came back because he had a clear path back to Red bull (and I think he would have been there had it not been for the LM intervention), that’s where he wanted to finish his career. They’ve pretty much said that can’t happen, what has he got to stay for? Also once you’ve been benched for a rookie, the writing is on the wall. It’s just time now.

[fearthereaperx]

“No, they’re not,” Laura agreed with a soft chuckle, happy to hide behind the jewelry she made for a living. No, it wasn’t near as exciting as dashing into a fire, but it was all she felt she could handle, and she was glad that there were people out there like Taliah who could handle racing headfirst into the flames so that the rest of them didn’t have to. Sobering then, her features softened as the younger woman opened up about how dreams and goals tended to shift once life got ahold of them. “Life’s odd like that,” she mused aloud, both to show Taliah that she was listening, but also to show her that she wholeheartedly agreed. Fate had a way of taking everything a person knew and shaking it up a bit– often in the best and worst ways. And while fire had stolen Taliah’s dreams right out from underneath her, in a way, it had also laid the groundwork for a different one, and Laura could see that the younger woman had seized that opportunity in a way others might not have. “Hey, don’t apologize,” she murmured, quickly shaking her head, “You have no idea how much I love hearing all of this.” Especially because she knew bits and pieces of the horrors that had brought Taliah to that place. After losing her mother in such a horrific way, she’d found a way to honor her in her life’s work– of course Laura admired her for it and would never tire of hearing about it.

Chuckling softly, she nodded, “Sounds pretty familiar, yeah,” she agreed, easily drawing the comparisons between Cole and Kip. It wasn’t hard to do, with both of them being tragic enough to make her heart ache with that need to show them they were loved. With Kip, though, she’d stood back, giving the next generation to step forward…and they hadn’t disappointed. “Just bring him close,” she murmured, nodding firmly, “He’ll be just fine, just like Cole was.” With the sort of support system Kip would have, Laura had to believe that.

Grinning wide, Laura found herself feeling warm from the outside in just by Taliah’s words, because it was everything she’d ever wanted for her nephew. She wanted someone to realize his worth and then meet it. Luckily for her, Taliah did more than that– she surpassed everything she’d ever hoped for whenever it came to Cole. Laughing as she turned that little half-hug into a full one, Laura shook her head as she rested her chin on Taliah’s shoulder, “I’m just glad you two figured it out while I was alive– I’d haunt both of you forever if you hadn’t.” Later was better than never in her view, and it always would be. 

Easing back just enough to get a better look at her, Laura raised a hand, her thumb brushing a few of Taliah’s free falling tears away, “It’s what you needed,” she pressed, head shaking gently, “What you deserved.” In her mind, what she’d done all those years ago wasn’t anything spectacular, it was simply what she thought was right. Laura had lost her own mother far earlier than what she’d felt was fair, and so gravitating towards Taliah after she’d emigrated from Turkey had felt as natural as breathing. “Hey…well, I’m always here, alright? Don’t care what it’s about, what hour of the night– you’re family.” That had always rang true, even before she’d been involved with Cole, and it’d be true regardless, though Laura selfishly hoped she wouldn’t even have to factor in that possibility. “I can agree to that. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right?” She was talking about keeping the tears to themselves, of course. That was easy enough in her mind. Really, she’d rather focus on a different promise– the way Taliah vowed to keep her nephew safe. Promising to love him was a given– the bare minimum she’d expect– but keeping him safe? It was something altogether different– a weight Laura felt that Taliah truly understood. “You know what’s nice?” She started, tipping her head to the side as she gazed at the other woman, “I actually believe you when you say that– that he’s safe with you. That’s a first.” For so long, she’d been so reluctant to let go and actually trust someone to give a shit about Cole the way she did, but this…here and now? It felt easier than breathing. “I mean– of course, there’s the club, and all that, but…as far as keeping his heart safe…I know you mean it.”

"Yeah, I get that. Not everyone's made to run into fire," in the literal sense, she meant. "I guess I wasn't either." The words came out before she'd even considered them and it made her pause, and think about what drove her to follow that path. A light, tainted smile graced her lips. "Life is curious that way. All my life I had one dream and one goal, I knew I wanted to be a dancer, and then all of a sudden, everything changed." Taliah shrugged a shoulder, knowing she didn't need to delve into what that change was, it was what brought her here to Tonopah, to the club, public information. "I had a new dream, goal, ambition, whatever you want to call it. I like the idea that through my own loss, I have the power to stop others experiencing that same feeling." The feeling of losing a loved one through fire. "Sorry," she quickly adds with a half laugh, half scoff, waving her hand as if to wave the conversation away. There was just something about Laura that always made her feel like she could open up. The Monroe effect, always present and active, apparently.

"He's just so young, and he's been through so much, more than any of us know right now, I'm sure of it. Because you're right, it is the blue eyes... The sadness there even when he smiles. Something awfully familiar to you, I'm sure," a cheeky little smirk as she thought about Cole. "I think that's why he pulled him close, you know? Cole sees himself in him, and so do I." It was actually quite undeniable, and all she knew was that she wanted to protect Kip as much as Cole did.

"He's good for me." She replies softly, not wanting to steal any spotlight from the fact that she was as good for him as he was her. "You kinda make me want to say sorry for how long it took us to see what apparently everyone else did," she chokes on a laugh, finding herself all the more emotional the second Laura's arm comes around her. Deciding to twist around and give her a full hug, a half hug didn't feel enough for the depth of the conversation. "Blood isnt the only thing that makes a mother, because when I needed mine and she couldn't be there, you were. You were patient, warm and kind, everything I needed when I needed it the most." Squeezing gently at the sides of her arms, she doesn't bother to hide the gentle tears that fall.

"I just needed you to know that. Because I've looked to you and up to you for years, I need you to know that feeling in me has been there long before now," meaning, it wasn't just because she was now romantically involved with her nephew. "Oh yeah, I'm well aware." She huffed out a laugh as she brushed at her eyes and took a deep breathe - an attempt to collect herself. Glazed brown eyes look towards her, nothing but a solemn, kind smile and a slight nod of her head, "Always, I swear." Taliah felt like she had always tried to take care of Cole, so it wasn't a chore, it wasn't a stress, it was an honor to have the ability to be there for a man who deserved to be taken care of.

"I mean, if you're going to deny it, maybe we can just keep the tears between us." She laughs softly, knocking her elbow into hers. Telling Laura that these personal specifics? They didn't actually need to be shared or talked about, it was just a beautiful moment between two people who adored and wanted the best for the same person. "I got him now. He's safe with me."

[do-not-burn]

Humans in Space: Suggestive Sparring (2)

Fighting can relieve or sexual tension between the right people. Humans are known to be especially sexual and aggressive - likely for a reason.

( @faeriereader )

--

Human-Erin seemed to avoid me for all of our shift. Anytime I saw her, I felt an uncomfortable tension somewhere in my cardiorespiratory system - so, perhaps it was actually me avoiding her. It wasn’t until I left to retire to my quarters that Human-Erin addressed me by forcing herself between me and my door - finding her face level with my lower chest.

“Human-Erin, I’m afraid you are in my path.”

“I know. I just wanna apologise for interrupting and startling you during your workout.” Workout is Human for exercise.

“All is forgiven, Human-Erin. You did not frighten me.” This was true. She did not scare me. My response was pure reflex as a predator species - it is rare my people are ambushed.

“I... didn’t?”

“Correct.”

“Why’s that?”

“You are small. Your skin is soft and easy to penetrate. Your teeth do little damage to your predators and prove to be a poor defense. You have no claws, wings, or tails. Your extremities are mostly bone and your bones break under little pressure - or so the manual says. I suspect that needs to be updated.”

“Oh alright.”

“You are not shocked, are you?”

“Only a bit. Every one of your kind on this ship treats the rest of the Human crew like some sort of gremlin.”

“Pardon?”

“Small, vicious creatures.”

“Much like your cats?”

“Yup. Anywho, I was also gonna ask if you would like to properly spar.”

“I just explained to you that you are not a threat.”

“And I would like to become a threat.”

“You will never be big enough to be a threat.”

“I don’t have to be big to be a threat.”

“Are you extending a challenge?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright.”

--

Human-Erin had changed into her sparring gear. Human sparring gear never ceases to confuse me - when practicing close-up combat, they prefer to expose as much skin as possible. The manual has not settled on an exact reason for this. I believe they do it to move faster and to manipulate their opponent into thinking their skin is dangerous. I have read that their skin contains oils that harm many Floraens and races like them. It does not harm my kind, so I could not understand why she only wore a “bra” and “running shorts” [I never witnessed the article run]. I discarded my gear and left my chest exposed as their males do, leaving on my uniform pants. She frowned at me as we began to circle each other - a common ritual in both of our people’s competitive fighting styles. 

“Is something wrong, Human-Erin?”

“You took off your gear?”

“I wanted to make it closer to fair for you. You have even less chance to be a threat to me when I wear protection. In all honesty, I do not need to wear it with you.”

“Is this you trying to psych me out?”

“To what?”

“Nevermind. Just don’t take it easy on me, understand?”

“Why not?”

“Just. Don’t.” Her hands opened and closed, seeming to mimic claws with her fingers.

Respecting her wishes, I started at her, my tail low and still, going in to grab her and pin her. She dodged my passive attack and dealt a blow to my core with a closed hand while simultaneously grabbing my left arm with an open one and hooking her left leg around my left, pulling my leg to her and pushing my arm down. I didn’t go down, but, rather, coiled my tail and leaned back on it, kicking at her with my free leg, careful not to scratch her with my claws. She was thrown back, hitting the ground. I was going to ask if she conceded. 

HUMAN COMBAT RULE #???:

Humans rarely concede willingly. They will not stay down unless held down by force. They have no claws, but will scratch regardless. They rarely break skin and, lesser still, scale, but they have oils and bacteria on and under what they call “nails”. Do not engage in combat with a Human with untrimmed nails.

I quickly leapt to hold her down but she rolled away and I hit the mat before I could rotate. In a matter of moments, she was sitting on my back - apparently aware of my tail - and taking hold of my arms, contorting me against my will. I had not seen this tactic used before and I was in shock for seconds before I snaked my tail around her waist and pushed her off of me. I didn’t release her of my tail until after I rolled over and applied only some of my bodyweight to her legs and arms - face to face once again. Her face was not this dark when she tried to trip me. She bared her teeth at me - I knew she did not mean well - grunting as she fought against my hold.

I dropped my head so that I may speak directly into her ear. Humans do this to be private or intimidating [it is called whispering]. I intended to be both. “Do you concede?”

I felt her turn her head to whisper back, I assumed. I assumed incorrectly. Instead of her voice in my ear, I was met with what must have been her teeth trying desperately to break past my scales. My head dropped to her shoulder as I let out a short cry of pain - one of my scales was torn from me. I was once again in shock. That wasn’t supposed to happen. And she wasn’t supposed to be able to flip me onto my back.

Her eyes met mine. She wore a grin and my blood on her mouth. I wanted to say she broke the rules, but we never put any in place outside of not taking it easy on her.

“Am I a threat now?”

“What?”

“Did I frighten you this time?”

Absolutely. I would be rude to withhold the truth from her and I was too stunned to keep fighting.

“Pty, did I frighten you this time?” Her hands started to burn me again and her skin darkened. My ears rose. This wasn’t quite fear anymore. My tail loosely circled around her waist again. “Or do you want to keep fighting?”

“Get off me, I have first patrol after breakfast.”

“Concede, then.”

I slipped my wrist from her hand and pressed my open palm to her chest, about to shove her off but pausing. Her free hand rested on my chest now. Her heartbeat was going as fast as earlier but she already caught her breath. She stared into my eyes and swallowed without eating. Her mouth opened to say something, then closed having said nothing. She made me uneasy. Her palms got hotter.

“It’s okay. I know you concede.”

She pushed off and my tail fell from her as she stood up. I remained on my back as she left the gym. I only bowed my head when she thanked me for humouring her - whatever that means. My neck was still bleeding but I could only feel the burns on my wrists and upper chest. She was right. I did concede.

[botanyshitposts]

is that why you think mammals have more than two sexes

idk if this was supposed to be like, a bizarre transphobic jab, but partially, actually. in biology very, very few things actually occur in binary groups; i prefer to imagine biological sex, as well as gender, by imagining two overlapping bell curves. there’s an average that we expect from gender and sex matching up at birth because most people will fall within the first quartile of the curves where all the most average genes were turned on and all the non-genetic factors surrounding that turn out in an average expected way, and there are more people who still are just as male or female but have different genes turned on and off or whatnot and wouldnt check every single box if like, The Chromosome Police showed up and made them do a cheek swab or whatever, and there are people who are intersex, which covers a wide range of different expressions of the genome.

but! we don’t have The Chromosome Police and we don’t need them, because we have gender to do this for us, which is something that has much more to do with a mix of genetic and sociological factors. in my opinion, gender makes it so that even if you’re a cis man who doesnt have like, idk penis gene #435 on the Y chromosome, youre still a man, and even if youre a woman who doesnt have vagina gene #874 turned on, youre still a woman. hell, some people go their entire lives without knowing that they have full extra chromosomes. it just....it just doesnt matter.

to expand on this, my theory is that gender serves the function of convenience more than like, a law or whatever; we have a system where there are usually a small set of things that happen as a result of a wide range of thousands of different things that turn off and on during development, and a lot of different moving parts are going on in that department that help mitigate disaster if one deletes itself or whatever, and not all those things are guaranteed to turn on or off, and as a result we’ve developed a system where regardless of whats in your pants- because anything could be there, honestly, evolution works in systems and as a result doesnt know or care- there’s a social thing that functions differently on another level thats more elastic, so no matter if you’re a woman who was born with one singular penis gene turned on or a woman who had a lot of them turn on, you both can kind of be in the same clump of ‘people who are this’. not ‘people who look like this’ or ‘people who do this thing’ or ‘people who have x combinations of chromosomes’, but ‘people who, for whatever multitude of reasons and results or relationships with themselves, are this way or another way or are existing successfully in some distant combination of ways’, and having those people around- if we follow this theory- apparently was not at all disastrous enough for evolution to pump the breaks and start killing people who never activated Penis And Vagina Gene #1456. in fact, trans people have been around as long as humans have, and that includes nonbinary people, intersex people, and cis people with different gender expressions. ancient societies had us around, there are just as many of us now as there always was, and biology just. it does not care.

think of all the things that go into a person. there is a whole lot of stuff that we do not understand. there are so many things that could change, or differ from individual to individual, and having a lot of moving parts like this with millions of different viable combinations of biological and environmental things works, because it means that the entire system doesnt break like a fucking twig if both a penis and a vagina gene turn on at the same time, or if little grog in the forest grows up hunting mammoths with his 8 moms and no dads in a nomadic tribe in prehistoric france. it also means that even if someone ends up as another combination, they dont immediately collapse into a heap of dust! great system, for the most part.

now, this is all contentious. first of all, this is my own set of theories on why this exists, and second of all i have complex feelings about the science surrounding this itself; as a biologist im fascinated, but as a trans queer person it’s terrifying. the reason this is is because there are two groups of people who want to learn things like this: people who actually want to study the details of human sex and gender, and people who want to find The Ultimate Queer Gene to ‘fix’ us forever, which like. as ive covered before. egregious moral, ethical, and basic human rights reasons aside. not something that actually would improve us as a species even if we did go to the farthest ends of the bell curves i mentioned and manage to transform the entire human race into two massive homogeneous supermale and superfemale groups with only the the most Epic And Extreme big dick and boob genes selected for (or, if were going off TERF logic, femurs of a bizarrely specific length or like, a skull shape or smth, you can see where this goes very quickly).

like. this shit is complicated. it is. sometimes, things in biology- especially when it comes to real people of our own species- are best left as enigmas, you know what im saying. but in the meantime, we can take estimates, we can say ‘we can make an educated guess about the biological sex of a skeleton by looking at their pelvis’, but we cant say ‘all cis women have femurs of exactly x cm, which is absolutely a normal and not creepy thing to obsess over’, and we cant say ‘all human beings are either male or female and that looks one of two ways’, because as we know from intersex people and all the other caveats in this subject, this is not true.

we can say with confidence that most human beings have a gender that matches what is average for their biological sex (which doesnt always define itself as the exact same set of characteristics to begin with) but not always, and most human beings have have a gender which falls vaguely under the umbrella of two vaguely defined existences, but not always, and most women have a femur length between x and x cm long, but women come in all shapes and sizes and therefore it isnt a good way to define what being a living breathing person of a particular circumstance means or looks like, holy shit, etc, and we can use this knowledge to make educated guesses about the world, but we can also use knowledge of what isn’t the majority of people to make educated guesses about what those guesses mean, and what roles they play (and hopefully will get some more rights in the meantime).

so yeah like. most people are one of two biological sexes, but its more complicated than ‘peepis or vagornio’, you feel.

[borkthemork]

The Wu Whereabouts Theory

Now that people are getting hyped for the month countdown toward Amphibia Season Three’s release, I am going to be talking about a theory my friend and I talked about over the past few months, and it’s time to buckle up because we’re going to be tackling this theory from a production, character design, and semantics perspective.

And why these specific factors? Because the theory revolves around these three characters.

And why I believe all of them are related in some way.

Now, you might ask yourself: Bork, how in the hell are these characters related? The old woman character doesn’t seem to have any semblance of features relating to Marcy. What about the dad, are you going to explain the dad? Are you pulling my leg?

And to that, we’re going to have to start small. I’ll first explain why the character on the right seems to be an important character to the story, how all these characters can be connected through deliberate design/semblance, and then I am going to hit it out of the park with the probability from a logical perspective with what the intro and past Marcy interactions seem to give us on why everyone is where they’re currently at.

Especially where Marcy’s father is currently located.

This theory is very, and I mean, very long, so hang on to your seats as we dive into my thoughts about where Season Three might lead us.

And credit goes to @CynDavilaChase on Twitter because she made me realize the probability of this theory in the first place.

And with that, let us begin!

Section One - Who’s This Woman?

With animated introductions, I think one of the big things I noticed with Amphibia Season Three’s intro is that it’s heavily serialized. Compared to Amphibia’s introduction with Seasons One and Two, there are a lot of animated scenes found in the sequence where the story is already being told in a narrative.

You get shots of Anne being introduced to her house, you get new important characters introduced in a lot, there appears to be insight into future events such as Anne getting a moped while being chased by government agents or the massive monkey robot chasing her through the alleyways.

A lot of the intro is prioritized over its serialized format, and that means the characters seen and animated in the foreground have to be important characters or else the studio is basically wasting time focusing on a background character that will never be seen again.

Of course, you get some sliding shots like with the construction workers or the beach scene with the beach-goers but that’s only for a second and they’re not truly the forefront.

But during the shots between 0:29 and 0:49, the sequences we see include a lot of what appears to be important scenes with important characters that will play some role in the story itself.

There are no parts in the sequence where background characters are put in the foreground. Each bit of the animation needs to count, it needs to tell a story of what’s to come and what the audience can anticipate to see.

Now that begs the question:

Why is a supposed random background character in the foreground?

We got some reason as to why the engineer lady looks important since she was in a shot full of important or supporting characters, but why her??

Sure, one could argue this shot could just be indicative of Andrias’s invasion, but there are numerous other ways to show that there’s an invasion without putting too much animation effort on one background character, especially from a composition perspective.

Pardon the messiness, I had to do this quick, but look at how all three ladies are lined up.

The far left grandma, when following from her head to the the front lady’s creates a line that not only creates a sense of direction for our eyes to follow but follows the more significant and foreground character of all three. Look at how the dragonflies occupy most of the top of the frame while the two older women stay in the marketplace’s form, and how this leaves the younger woman to be abruptly placed in the open — creating a visual that this character in particular is more important than the rest in the shot.

Check the way the characters move their eyes when the scene happens too: the background characters quickly look to the right, then the woman out in the open then directs her eyesight to the skyline, where all the dragonflies are flitting by.

Now, I’m not a storyboard artist or composer, I could be wrong on how the crew created this scene all together, but regardless it is still so odd to put emphasis on a background character in the front and then just leave it at that.

She has to be important in some way, and this is where I want to talk about character design.

Section Two - All Related or Am I Just Racist?

When it comes to character design we need to talk about how the character designers make sure to give Anne some form of semblance to her parents, and in this case, she looks a lot like her mother.

They got the bushy hair, the same skin tone, eyebrows, etc. And with her dad you could even see that Anne got her fluffy bangs from him specifically. Only one shared genetic trait, however.

This is deliberate, we know that for sure, and that is why I need to make this very clear as we transition to the similarities found in Marcy and the theorized characters, and why I believe they’re related in design. Mainly because the concept of race and appearance could be quite a debacle and I wanted to make sure that all of you know I am not assuming things out of naivety, and if I am, feel free to get my ass.

Other than that, let’s look at them again.

And here I shall compile the appearance stuff that each character seems to have.

With these three characters they seem to connect to one another with one genetic trait, but if one looks closely, there comes the question of the older lady (who I will just call Marcy’s mom at this point) and why she’s vastly different to Marcy when it comes to skin tone, hair color, and hell — if we look between Marcy and the engineer — why these two characters have vastly different hairstyles compared to the woman.

Even though I could give speculation and some doubt to the engineer and Marcy’s mom being related, and on first glance I couldn’t do the same with Marcy and her mom either, but then I did some digging and realized something. I can connect Marcy and her potential mom in one way — hair design.

Marcy and her mom both share the same poofy hair, it’s just that one is more short and the other is allowed to grow out in a nice little nest.

Don’t believe me?

They got the same floofy bangs with that specific hair line.

And when Marcy was little, Marcy appeared to need a hair tie because her hair was growing out, and it looked like this.

If we consider that what Marcy’s hair tie is holding up might be her bangs — bangs that might cover her eyesight from how floofy it is — then if you removed the hair tie then she and the woman would have a very similar looking design hair-wise.

Even with these hair similarities, however, there is still inquiry as to why Marcy is vastly different compared to her mother when it comes to skin and hair color, and here is where I go into some speculation to piece all of it together:

Marcy actually carries the appearance of her dad more than her mom.

Her dad has olive skin and black, straight hair, while her mother harbors tan skin and floofy, brown hair.

It’s this one piece of speculation that basically slides everything into place, but regardless it’s still speculation and one that I cannot confirm or even argue much about due to the nature of genetics and the limited info we have. But with this piece set in place, we could start to create the argument that maybe, just maybe, these characters are related.

But if they are, why do we only see Marcy’s mom and her supposed sister and not her dad?

Why do we get no indication of Marcy having a sister until Season Three?

How do we put all of this together?

Section Three - Distance and Finance

I rewatched True Colors numerous times when it came to understanding and interpreting what I could with the limited Marcy-centric flashback we had. I even went through episodes such as Maddie and Marcy, New Wartwood, and a lot of other episodes just to fit everything into place. And I think I have a good indication as to why this family is the way that it is.

First off, we’re going to be talking about Marcy’s dad and his new job out of state.

California is a very expensive state. And as someone who lives in California, the housing crisis and the ability to even stay in a house/dorm without sweating over the idea of being bankrupt is a very real thing.

So it is a curious thing that one of the reasons that the Wus had to leave came out to moving out-of-state due to a new job offer, one that infers a lot more money and probably a more stable living environment.

You could even hear the dad saying “Marcy, you have to understand!” when Marcy runs out, meaning that there’s probably a good reason as to why the parents believe that the move is essential, and I am banking on the idea of money for a number of reasons.

One, living in Los Angeles is expensive as hell.

Two, the coping mechanisms Marcy has makes sense if finance is the main comeuppance.

Three, the background art.

And four, why this girl has straight A’s and a PSAT book.

We already covered number one, but let’s take a look at what I mean about coping mechanisms.

Marcy Wu’s many flaws come from what looks to be the fear of being alone, and the fear of being seen as unvaluable and worthless; that if Marcy doesn’t prove herself lovable and essential to the people around her then she gets anxious and will do anything in her powers to make the people around her like her or stay with her.

She will omit information, move along objectives through passive and indirect persuasion, allow people to assert their will over her because they said so and, most importantly, does all of this because she fears the consequences when she gets outed or rocks the boat. Because rocking the boat means people will get mad at her, and she appears to try to avoid that situation of vulnerability like the plague until it all culminated into True Colors.

She is terrified of getting hurt. She is terrified, specifically, of consequences — punishment through stress, frustration, the people she loves looking at her differently because of the mistakes she’s made, etc.

Why do I say this? It’s because if we look into Marcy Wu with her pre-Amphibia self, a lot of these fears could be placed into that middle school scenario very well. Marcy Wu plays videogames and loves fiction because it is a form of escapism or happiness away from stress; she has this intense curiosity to basically anything of interest and uses that to thrive with getting straight A’s and an overall very solid record, but there’s still a probability that high expectations or making the people around her love her comes through said status of being the smart one (after all, she prides on her intellect, and sees it as essential to basically surviving the day to day).

Look at Marcy’s flashback in True Colors. She’s a middle schooler but is studying for the PSAT, which is mainly held in High School, and I’m no expert but I don’t think you read that stuff for fun or at least study it that early.

And I find it interesting that that’s the first shot we get of Marcy before we dive into her parents’ argument — education, studying, the expectation of high scores.

And then when you remember that Marcy is the least athletic of the girls, the thrift shop’s street she retreats to away from her parents is not that faraway from her neighborhood.

And this street, is messy as all hell. And with the revised background art for this area, nothing about the place changes but instead gets emphasized through more shots of how rundown it all looks!

The fact there’s a bail bonds building behind Mar-mar also doesn’t reassure me in the slightest.

So here’s where we are: Studying, getting good grades, a serious financial situation, lives near a rundown section of the city, high expectations, and the evaluation of one’s worth through intellect and academia.

What we are witnessing is a nuanced family situation. If we go by the assumption that the three girls’ lives are not only vastly different in personality but upbringing, then on an income scale, Anne would be middle income, Sasha would be high income, and Marcy is low income.

Her family’s struggling to be stable in a city that they can’t afford to live in, there’s a very high emphasis on good grades and education in the household, and the situation is so bad that her dad would take the proposal of a higher-paying job out of state than finding a similar job out in the city.

However, in this household’s struggle to have a better life, the parents had to focus on their children getting better living than them, and this means Marcy had to live in an environment where the biggest source of reward and praise is through intellect, academics, the approval of the parents.

And I could probably assume that this focus on finance also lead to very rough patches where Marcy was unable to be encouraged over stuff she loves like C&C or videogames, since the level of attention is low compared to the amount of happiness and pride her parents get when she gets an A+.

Especially when we consider that in the dialogue we hear from Mr. and Mrs. Wu, her dad is more assertive while her mom appears to care but doesn’t seem to go against her husband’s tone, so a lot of the probable issues might’ve come from Marcy wanting her dad’s approval and her mother never standing up for her when he became frustrated.

That would make a lot of context with Andrias even worse in retrospect, because that means the moment a male adult figure decided to care about her and give attention to what she loved, then Marcy fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

And could you blame her?

Now, let’s finally get a glimpse on one other character I’ve been neglecting in this essay.

This gal! Because if Marcy and her are somehow related, then we need to question why she was never mentioned or why she wasn’t involved in the conversation between Marcy and her parents.

I’ve done a massive theory post about this already, but the biggest probability comes in the design itself, since if Marcy’s sister went through trade school to be a mechanic/engineer then there’s a high probability she’s in her mid-Twenties. And if we consider that Marcy is 13, then Marcy would’ve been born when her sister was 12 or 13, and ultimately leave the household when she turned 18.

This means Marcy would’ve gone on with less contact from her sister for 6 years, and that’s a lot for a developing child.

It’s not improbable for Marcy to have lost contact with her big sister, or at least had lesser time to meet up with her due to work, college, or her own adult life now that she’s out of the house.

After all, in Maddie and Marcy, I find it very interesting that out of the advice Marcy could’ve given to Maddie about siblings, Marcy tells her that even though Maddie is the older sibling and is allowed to have her own life she suggests that maybe she should make some time for her sisters occasionally. Almost as if this was a ditto moment for her, that she understands but also had a good example of a sister who made time whenever she had the chance.

On more speculation terms, it would be cute to think that the reason Marcy has so much fire and spirit toward her fiction and love for games is because of her sister. After all, Marcy harbors the same interest toward engineering and robotics, it wouldn’t be a stretch in the imagination that perhaps her sister encouraged her to keep on going with what she felt passionate for regardless of their parents’ lack of response, to basically be unapologetic of what she loves, and this mantra kept her going for a lot of her life even when her sis went for trade school.

But let’s go on a side note here. I find it quite interesting that the character design of Marcy’s sis is also very telling, because not only does it tell a supposed story about who she was in the aftermath of graduation, but we could find a way to also put the theme of income and finance into her story as well.

Let’s be real these two are partners in all the way — from mechanics to engineers to straight up girlfriends, these two basically have their own business going on and I find it interesting that none of them just go with robotics or mechanics as a full-time thing, it’s mainly two jobs rolled up into one.

Why is that? There is some speculation that maybe they’re specialists and work in a very science-related area, but it seems highly likely that their main jobs are being car mechanics by day and robotic expert nerds by night. After all, the city can be hecked with money so I wouldn’t be surprised if they did two jobs at once to keep the lights on. I could also see them doing freelancing to repair or experiment with engineering projects since they take more money than actually makes in most cases.

Overall, money plays a big part with the family, and culminates to what I like to call a Massive Shitfest TM when they get alerted over the girls’ disappearances.

Section Four - Massive Shitfest Boogaloo and Where They Are Now~

In the aftermath of their teleport to Amphibia, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wus had a big argument over Marcy and what should be done in the aftermath. Really, the family still needs to take that job because of finance, people are blaming each other over who pushed her to the brink, and then you have Marcy’s sister — who was probably out of the loop but probably knows how it was in the household — getting added into the mess of what just happened and adding her grief into the mix.

It is a blunder, terrifying and could break apart a family if I’m being honest. but what comes through is this:

People have now become stubborn in the Wu household, and no one is going to back down.

And what I mean is that Mrs. Wu, devastated by what happened ever since the argument in True Colors, will stay in Los Angeles out of grief and a supposed hope that Marcy would return. While Mr. Wu, determined to keep the finance going and keeping everyone stable and safe, abides by Mrs. Wu and decides to go out of state regardless, bringing back a flow of money to keep the Wu household stable through the aftermath.

It would make sense as to why Marcy’s mom is present in the intro but not any suspecting candidates for the dad.

Or how we see that there’s two older ladies with her in the intro. They might actually be close relatives who moved into the household out of the obligation to comfort Mrs. Wu but to also keep her company throughout this dark time in her life.

After all, when one loses a child, a lot of prior relations start to unravel as the status quo changes, and we are definitely going to see Anne confront the Wus and Waybrights when it comes to upbringing and home life.

But really, it is all up in the air. With Season Three around the corner, I am excited to see what the story has in store for us when it comes to the deep-diving into Marcy’s home life. She might’ve had a nuanced family life. She might’ve had abusive parents, perhaps no sister at all but a lot of relatives who grieved for her.

But with this theory out to the public, thank you all for reading along with this massive beast of a post, and I hope we get to see Marcy out of the aloe vera sauce very soon!

[hapigairu]

Ahh, I was wondering when someone would pull the “Akshually” card...  I’m not going to bother replying to them, but I’ll just say this: Edelgard does say that she intends to dismantle the nobility system, true. But we don’t really see this in practice. Like, at the end of CF, House Nuvelle is reinstated (as well as given Hrym territory, I think?) and many of her buddies inherit their titles. So despite Edelgard’s claims, nobility is still very much present. “Yes, but you can’t change the system overnight, it takes time” Exactly, hence Dimitri’s position. Dimitri isn’t paralysed by fear, he just wants to be careful. Faerghus’ situation is way different than Adrestia’s and I wish more people would understand this. Besides, changing the way people obtain their position (ie: through mehrit rather than blood) doesn’t mean much if there are such stark social inequalities. Former nobles will still be rich, therefore they’ll have access to the best education possible and a peasant’s child -no matter how brilliant they are- would have to work very hard to catch up with them (best case scenario), free education or not. And nobody said Rhea was fighting for humanity at large, she fights for the safety of the people living in Fodlan, regardless of their race. And even then, she still helps the Kingdom in restoring Duscur. What a terrible person, truly. Anyway, back on topic:

It’s a shame we don’t get more information about Sylvain and Miklan’s childhood. Especially because we know that Sylvain’s mother took Miklan’s death pretty hard. She clearly loved him despite everything, so she could’ve seen that his behaviour was unhealthy at best, no? Welp, guess that’s what fanfictions are for. But I do appreciate the little tidbits we get about the dads’ past. It does a good job at enriching their characters without being info-dumpy. The way they talk about it feels just... natural? Idk, I just like it.

Oh for sure! Miklan’s appointment is very important in the grand scheme of things. It actually reminds of the theme of The Good Place (heck, even Orange is the New Black) in that it’s not enough to get a second chance, it’s just one part of the equation. You also have to give them the proper tools so that they improve. If Ashe was caught stealing and was given a slap on the hand and a ‘second chance’, would he say “Oh gee, I understand the lesson and I won’t steal anything anymore even if it means my siblings and I will die of starvation”? No. He’d steal again. But when Lonato adopted him along with his siblings, he had both a second chance and a real opportunity to do good on it. And, like, very few bandits started this life just for the lolz. In most cases, it was because they had no other way of surviving and ended up in a vicious circle. So seeing Miklan, an infamous bandit, being given the chance to turn a new leaf would encourage these bandits to maybe change their way of life. It’s the same with pirates, in a way. Pirates don’t choose to become pirates for the lifestyle or forever. In most cases, they engaged in piracy for a couple of years until they had enough money to survive and build something somewhere. It’s not hard to imagine that it’s the same thing for bandits. It’s Dimitri is offering them a pardon but with caveats (ie: if you try anything harmful, it’s over, but we’ll find something for you to do). Dimitri and Yuri’s supports in Hopes are amazing! (like most Blue Lions supports in Hopes, tbh). I also think they work better than Edel and Ferdie’s House support in that it feels like Dimitri is actively thinking of practical ways to improve the lives of his citizens. Whereas Edel seems to not think her future regime through... I wouldn’t say that’s because she’s dumb per se, but she tends to have somewhat of a tunnel vision. Yeah, unfortunately, we know next to nothing about Faerghus’ justice system, but maybe he was going to have a trial at some point? I can see practical reasons as to why he wouldn’t be executed. In AM, they still have yet to really understand what happened in Duscur, and this man could still know a few things so killing him would be unproductive. I don’t have much more to add about Dimitri’s decisions regarding Miklan, except that it proves that the “Dimwitri dumb” takes are unfounded. What he did shows how politically savvy he is without compromising his morals. Even when his friends are protesting, he doesn’t try to make excuses at all, he merely argues that Miklan has a lot of skills and that he needs more competent leaders as it is. He gave logical arguments, which, funnily enough, seems to calm Felix down somewhat. Conclusion: Dimitri smart.

And yeah, Crests are mostly important in Eastern Faerghus, because of the conflicts with Sreng. If you have a Crest, you can use the relic that matches it, so you can defend Faerghus against Sreng’s raids (also, just in case: I’m not saying that the Sreng situation is black and white, with Faerghus being completely unarguably good. It’s a very messy political situation). That’s all. Baron Dominic doesn’t have a Crest, and he’s still the head of his House. And he’s only one noble amongst many others who are crestless head of House without any problem. Even Rufus was the Grand Duke of Itha, he may not have been chosen as King, but he still had a whole territory. So it’s not like nobles without Crests are treated like trash. But Faerghus BaD. Oh... Since Miklan dies in AG and Sylvain in SB, does that mean GW is the golden route for real?

I feel like he could be sarcastic, but not in an insulting way? Like, he‘s just joking. But of course, the localisation team had to add some insults lol

Faerghus dads can’t do anything right. Either they’re caring too much about their kids to the point where they’re smothering them (and you can kill people this way!) or they just don’t care about them at all because how dare they have their own struggles and also want to support the Crown Prince/King.

I think Edelfans were quite happy with Hopes (bar AG), but Claude fans were very much not (rightfully so). But overall, many somewhat enjoyed it (at least in the West). In some regards, I prefer AG to AM, because AG allows characters such as Dedue and Felix to shine instead of (mostly) just Byleth, who is... well... who exist to be pandered to. And the little bits of political stuff we get are great! But Hopes is indeed quite strange in a way... You get two routes where you’re told certain things and one route where you’re shown that it’s utter poppycock. Sadly, Dimitri can’t tell that to their faces in the Zahras chapters, because... uh, you still need to play the final chapter, I guess lol.

Dimitri protecting Edelgard at Arianrhod is yet another proof that he’s a sensible leader, tbh. His needs for answers is not just for him, it’s for Faerghus as a whole and Duscur and he knows that. And yes, it helps that he’s mentally sound (ish) at that time! Golden Deer student be like “I haven’t talked to Edelgard ever and she’s invading my country, but boy don’t I just wish I could walk with her”. Yeah, it’s... weird.

I can maaaaaaybe understand why they didn’t get an A support in Houses? Maybe? But in Hopes? Nah. They could have had an A support that would unlock after Miklan’s death and they could talk about his legacy (if there have been improvements in terms of bandit activity, etc), how Sylvain feels about this, Dimitri relating to him, etc. Instead we got Bernie getting freaked out by someone trying to be nice to her AGAIN. Yet another missed opportunity, wouldn’t be the first time, as you said.

As for Felix, honestly, it’s just a complicated situation where no one is really at fault? You can find good reasons for Dimitri either telling him or not, and, in the end, he chose to be cautious. But Felix is also the Duke now (and the highest ranking noble in Faerghus IIRC and basically the King’s right hand), so you could say that’s something he should have been told about.  But, like you said, it’s first and foremost a family matter on top of being a very delicate one where mistakes had to be avoided at any cost. Yeah, I’ve never realised how bad the localisation was until I discovered Houses’ datamine site... I’d really love to know what happened, or how that happened. Cause in some cases, the localisation feels rushed at and others, it seems the localisation team made a lot of effort to botch it. I’m also a bit of purist when it comes to translations, localisation (I don’t like the Ace Attorney’s localisation for example but I realise that’s a very me-problem and that they did a good job overall), so comparing the original vs localisation is... an experience. It would be nice if, instead of forcing their own ideas about the game, they respected what the text says.

Yeah, promises are all good and all, but if you can’t fulfill them, then what’s the point? (Our president was just taking the electorate for morons, got elected, and now is doing is damnedest to anger people while pretending to seeking to calm things down lol)

Damn, a Dimitri-Lorenz support chain would have been so interesting! Both are willing to admit their wrongs and improve, albeit in a different way. Both (in Houses at least) grow out of their initial mindsets. Both thought of implementing a more democratic process. You could imagine an ending where they focus on that. Or - if in Hopes - have a support where Yuri is also present (though it might have been complicated, but still, one can always dream) for a bit and they talk about how to make Faerghus better, Lorenz being a third party (since he’s not from here) but offering good suggestions! True, Dimitri is too good to be true as far as monarchs go (and some people will still harp on about how he’s actually a terrible ruler who should be put out of his misery...). I don’t know if you’ve read the Mistborn series, but he reminds me of Elend in some ways. Both are extremely concerned about the lower-class’ living conditions, they wouldn’t hesitate to stand down if it’s what’s best for their people (No, Edel taking over Faerghus doesn’t count), they don’t abandon their people even when the situation is dire, etc. And yeah, Dimitri (and the rest of the Blue Lions) are too nice sometimes, but idc, I’m a sucker for kind characters anyways lol. It would’ve been interesting to see some of his character’s flaws have more of an impact on his rule. Like Dimitri making some mistakes because he hasn’t slept in days like he should have, idk. I guess this kind of subplot wouldn’t work that well in a hack-and-slash...

Aaaaand that’s why I always snatch Petra away from the Empire. In CF, she mentions that she still a political hostage. After 5 years. Edel had time to kill people and simp over sensei but she couldn’t find the time to free one of her supposedly closest allies? Why? Seriously, why? Points to Edelgard for telling her it’s okay to go back to Brigid if she do wants in SB, but... it doesn’t make the whole situation any better...

The only thing I could think of (and that’s hardly a charitable read lol) is about possible reparations? We don’t know how Brigid was treated by the Empire, but Brigid’s vassalage might have done some damage to their economy (maybe they were no longer allowed to trade with Dagda and it had no choice but to sell some of their products to the Empire at a cheap price without much compensation on the Empire’s part? So maybe Edelgard wants to give as little reparation as possible, which Petra agreed to somehow. So maybe Petra’s successor wouldn’t be so lenient and ask for more? Brigid would have every right to ask for reparation, but I can see Edelgard not wanting to grant much.

(Also, Petra in GW can be quite... unlikeable IMO, mostly because of her lines about how the Kingdom won’t have much power in the future and Brigid will take its place.)

You’re right, Dedue would be a good choice for helping in Brigid’s independence! It just really depends on who’s taking the reins of the empire, IMO. Brigid being a vassal State of the Empire, it might be necessary for the latter to take part in the negotiations, even if its role is purely symbolic. And I’d argue that Brigid wouldn’t necessarily feel indebted to Fodlan, but rather it’d be Fodlan repaying their debt to Petra (for eventually turning on the Empire and fighting against it).

But yeah, at the very very least, Duscur (represented by Dedue) could be present to ensure that everyone is negotiating in good faith. And it could also be a good time to start talking about trade between Duscur and Fodlan and Brigid? Y’know, once Brigid’s independence is settled.

I'm having a really hard time fathoming how some people consider SB to be a righteous/heroic route or a route where we're the good guys. The route where:

You invade two independent nations under the pretence of "saving their citizens from oppression" (though I guess you can't be oppressed anymore if you're dead lol) even though Her Majestic Hypocrisy repeats a bunch of times that she's in for conquest and that she'd obliterate anyone who stands in her way.

The cast keeps victim-blaming the invaded parties for *checks note* defending their countries. 

The death toll is the highest. You have to kill Ingrid, Rodrigue, Gustave and Sylvain. And you can also kill Ashe, Mercedes (btw, if she dies, the cutscene where Dimitri and Dedue grieve changes slightly, which is nice), Annette, Shamir, Ignatz, Raphael and Marianne (how does Margrave Edmund feel about Claude's alliance with the empire knowing his daughter was killed by its army?). 

IIRC, this is the only route where you conscript merchants into the imperial army. No wonder the empire has the biggest army.

Based Rhea who, despite being hunted, still thinks about the safety of the continent first in the final chapter. It's hilarious how characters like Edespot or Clyde harp on about how Rhea is the big bad, and in the few scenes you have with her, she's just kind? Anyway. Rhea based.

In the C support conversation - which happens right after Felix got seriously injured and Sylvain got killed- there's this bit where Dimitri is like "I don't know if I can talk with like everything is normal, so many have died already" and Edespot's response is basically "yeah I don't see it that way. Let's agree to disagree". Also, I believe she wonders if she shouldn't just kill Clyde and Dimitri once they're out. Even though Clyde is her ally at the moment. You bet on the wrong lord, Clyde... 

I probably forgot a few stuff, but... oh well.

To be honest,

The only things I like about Supreme Bullshit are :

Its ending! Supreme Leader and Barney (well, at least they throw a sword?) being sitting ducks while Rhea steals the show, and sacrifices herself in an epic shonen scene to get rid of the real threat, aka showing that unlike someone, she knows how to prioritize, and it ends up in an explosion. It matches the ending of the F-Zero anime (at 0.48!), Rhea/Falcon rushes to deal a blow (a Falcon punch and a Seiros strike I guess?) to their mortal enemy, there is a giant explosion, and both Rhea/Falcon fade away in a blinding light. Too bad the Supreme Bullshit BGM is eons away from "Searching to the Truth" :(

The reveal that Rhea kept the keys to the sekrit passages in the Imperial Palace - or Rhea knows more about Enbarr and its castle than the current Emperor and her aides...

Doro's paralogue being incredibly tone deaf about, uh, soldiers being "too busy" by the Mittelfrank troupe, that they can't basically protect the dancers/performers from bandits, when the paralogue happens in an area that is expressedly supposed to be full of soldiers!

If starts align in a certain way, it's the only route in Nopes where Clout dies!

Leopold! He's like Victarion Greyjoy, only if he was taken seriously. But we, as players, know better! Also he's a living retcon, from having a major cichol crest to gift to his son because he fought well (and not to, say, Big B or even Ferdie) a sacred weapon despite the route being all about muhritocracy!

Supreme Leader plans and plays with the cards she has in her hand - from trying to get good PR to get rid of people (Varley sr) by pitting them against her next target (the CoS)!

An entire game full of new Supreme Replies (tm)!

For shippers around, it has a Cathmir scene where everyone knows Shamir will prioritize Catherine's life over her allegeance! too bad this is a Supreme Leader route, so no, Shamir won't fucking try to kill her for blackmailing her and can even kill Catherine herself later on....

That's not a lot lol, and most of it are breadcrumbs because for the proper plot...

Yeah, it kinds of sucks.

Supreme Bullshit is even more tone deaf with the War and its realities than Tru Piss (and that's a feat!), Ferdie being completely, uh, off the mark about everything (invading lands and rekting people, and then saying those people's fears are only in their heads! Pal, one of the first missions in the SB exclusive chapters is to rout refugees??? + the nonsense about the Kingdom having more crested generals, when data shows the Empire has more crested peeps than the Kingdom!), Caspar being turned in the worst version of himself who dgaf anymore about protecting "innocents" and "justice", and, uh, everything with Monica.

Victim blaming is the norm with Fodlan games, but yeah, it really feels odd that suddenly, in the Zahras chapters, Dimitri's all "okay" when his closest friends either died or were grievly injured and the game proceeds as it does when, come on, why wouldn't Dimitri kill her the second they're out of the Zahras verse??

I really disliked how Supreme Bullshit yeeted Ionius from Adrestia, or how it didn't explore in more depth the Insurrection of the Seven, especially since we side with Leopold'n'Waldemar against Ludwig, who used to be allies! Also, as far as I remember, no one mentions anything about Arundel, why he ran away to the Kingdom with a young Supreme Leader and how he changed when he returned, or something?

If Ludwig is pushed by Supreme Leader, reciting her Dad's words, as the one who led the insurrection and the experiments on her, why the fuck no one else mentions them, as Leopold and Waldemar were on Aegir's side back then? They don't even mention "Arundel" participating, like, Volkhard sides against Ionius and hides his niece, but 3 months later, he returns and offers her as a guinea pig?

As is the norm with the Supreme Leader routes, the "truth" isn't what we're looking for, because we know Supreme Leader pushes a narrative she will follow to reach her goals, but where Tru Piss gave hints here and there about her narrative being, uh, rubish, we have no clues here, and Leopold prefers to flash his loincloth than giving us anything meaningful about that incident.

When you compare them to Matthias and Rodrigue (and Gilbert?) who often mention Lambert "back in the days", it's more and more obvious that... we're not supposed to ask questions in Supreme Bullshit, and just go with the flow.

And it ends with a high five.

I'd say it deviates less from Tru Piss than Golden Shower does from Verdant Winds, but it's an "expected disappointment".

That's why my only higlights are not plot relevant (save for the Captain Falcon - Rhea parallel) - because we know the plot will never deliver something meaningful in a Supreme Leader route.

[rev3rb]

How Kakyoin vs T. D’arby Supports Kakyoin’s Backstory

Given that this arc is over 30 years old now, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has said this before, but this is something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

So let me start off by saying that I actually personally hate that Kakyoin lost the fight vs Terrence T. D’arby. The loss by itself already felt cheap. When you take into account that Kakyoin just rejoined the group after being severely injured and proceeds to die shortly after this, then it makes it all the worse. I get the meta reasons behind why Kakyoin lost, but Kakyoin had nothing go right for him (unless you wanna count figuring out The World) for the entirety of the Crusaders’ time in Egypt and that sucks.

With that out of the way, let’s dive in.

At the start of the race, T. D’arby uses Atum to help boost his car. As shown by Kakyoin’s commentary, not only is he familiar with this strategy, but he also knows approximately how much time it takes to pull off, which is why he doesn’t start trying to do it himself. What’s worth pointing out is that Kakyoin isn’t surprised by T. D’arby using his stand here but that T’Darby is applying this strategy in the first place.

This is likely because Kakyoin is shown to be as accustomed to using his stand while playing F-Mega as T. D’arby. In fact, I would argue he’s even more accustomed to it as this is a very strange move that is implied to only work with stands. After all, the two times we see it, it’s Heirophant Green doing it, not Kakyoin himself. It should be safe to then conclude that Kakyoin truly is surprised by the application of the strategy itself more so than anything T. D’arby is doing physically.

So, this begs the question, if Kakyoin knew about this strategy and is accustomed to using his stand while playing video games, why didn’t he immediately start mashing the gas button with Hierophant Green himself? It’s not like he can really afford to lose this game. We’re just going to ignore that he does and things turn out fine regardless for the moment.

The answer is simple.

Kakyoin never had any friends growing up. He wasn’t interested in other people, which means it’s highly likely that anything he did in his leisurely time was done alone/with only Hierophant Green. He has likely never played F-Mega with another person. Possibly, he’s played with a family member that decided to humor him, but it’s pretty safe to say that most of his experience with the game comes from playing against bots.

On top of that, it’s important to establish that Kakyoin is incredibly good at and familiar with F-Mega. It’s a sentiment further backed by pretty much everything Kakyoin does/commentates on in this arc.

I don’t know if you’ve ever played a game to the point where you start memorizing events and maneuvers down to the exact second as Kakyoin has, but as someone who has (not nearly to that level but close enough), I can tell you that you start self imposing handicaps to keep the game fun. This is especially true in a game as arguably repetitive as a racing game where the bots can stop being a challenge after a while. Purposefully putting yourself at a disadvantage vs the bots is a great and easy way to keep the game feeling fresh. Not using the starting boost is then one of the simplest handicaps you can give yourself.

“But wait,” I hear you asking, “you said yourself that Kakyoin can’t afford to lose, so why is he purposefully putting himself at a disadvantage? His background shouldn’t matter.” A good point. Especially since Kakyoin isn’t the kind of person to do that kind of thing.

Joseph makes this clear. Yes, the DIO situation is a lot more dire than this one, but Kakyoin’s soul and Jotaro’s well being is still on the line here. There’s no real room for anything beyond trying your best. So the answer?

Habit. Again, he’s just not used to playing with other people. Maybe he’s played with someone who was willing to humor him before like I said earlier, but they likely didn’t have much skill so even if they knew about and used the boost, Kakyoin wouldn't have to try that hard to win. Between that and simply underestimating T. D’arby’s skill/knowledge, Kakyoin likely didn’t even think about using the starting boost. He’s probably never needed to use it himself to win. When you get used to purposefully not using an advantage, sometimes you momentarily forget it even exists in the first place until you see it being used.

And it’s not like Kakyoin doesn’t have a plan to deal with putting himself at an initial disadvantage.

Kakyoin’s spin move has to be incredibly practiced. Beyond having to know it’s even possible, something T. D’arby doesn’t seem to know until Kakyoin does it, it’s incredibly risky.

Kakyoin can’t afford to fall off the track. If he had miscalculated it, he would have lost right there and then. If the move is so risky, it seems a little drastic for the beginning of the race, and Kakyoin isn’t one to take unnecessary risk. However,

He’s well aware of his own limits and generally never over exerts himself. He wouldn’t risk pulling a move that could so easily lose him his soul if he wasn’t confident in his ability to pull it off. The fact that Kakyoin uses this spinning move twice supports his confidence in his ability to safely execute it.

Speaking of that second spinning maneuver, let’s talk about how that, and its failure to win Kakyoin the race, further showcases the idea that this arc perfectly supports Kakyoin’s friendless childhood.

This is a solid plan, and against anyone other than T. D’arby, it probably would have worked. It certainly would have worked against even the highest level bot.

Meanwhile, T. D’arby’s strategy is something that would only ever work against another person specifically. Not only do you have to get two cars through the tunnel, but you then need to have the proper power level discrepancy to be propelled to the other track. Not to mention that this all banks on the other player/bot deciding to hit you in such a way that propels you towards the other track. It’s highly unlikely you’re going to get two cars into that tunnel if one of them is a bot. You as the player would have to choose to enter the tunnel with a bot by driving on the wall as the bot is never going to do that itself. Sure, getting into the tunnel alongside a bot is possible, but if all that was highly unlikely, then getting a bot to not only not lose power in the tunnel but also knock you off the track at the right time has to be damn near impossible.

T. D’arby obviously knows this strategy is possible given the way he explains the situation here, which means he has to have done this before. Good luck getting this exact situation to happen with a bot not once, but enough times to know that this is a surefire strategy.

Quick aside. Given that I mentioned that Kakyoin’s spinning maneuver doesn’t seem to be something T. D’arby is familiar with, and therefore couldn’t have practiced against, I should point out that knocking cars off the track is something a car can do with simple bumping. You theoretically don’t need to spin like this to knock someone off the track. It should be even easier in this section of the race as, as we see in the beginning of the game, there are barriers in place that would make it difficult to fall off the track,

while in this particular section, there is nothing to prevent you from going over the edge.

In short, Kakyoin’s strategy relied solely on well established game mechanics and his own proven strategies that he could have figured out playing against anyone, be they bots or real people. T. D’arby’s strategy on the other hand relies so heavily on specific circumstances that he only could have ever figured this out by playing against someone else skilled enough to help him set up the situation. The only way Kakyoin could have learned of this strategy is if he played with other skilled players, and given his backstory, that would likely never happen.

It’s worth noting that Atum’s mind reading abilities wouldn’t have been useful in this situation either.

It only seems to work when T. D’arby himself asks a question with only two answers. No questions were ever involved in this race, so T. D’arby would have had to rely solely on what he knows works within the game. It really was just T. D’arby setting up a situation where Kakyoin was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t using incredibly specific circumstances.

At the end of the day though? I still think it’s such an asspull that T. D’arby won this one and will forever be salty about it on Kakyoin’s behalf LOL

[leqclerc]

Sigh. As much as I love and respect Laurent and personally believe he’d be a much more palatable TP than Binotto this unfortunately points towards a bigger issue within the team, this idea of constantly reiterating that nothing’s wrong, there’s no reason to change anything, most of their poor results are down to outside factors, no one really understands their plight, etc.

Granted, they’re hardly going to openly admit morale is poor or whatever, but not taking responsibility and doggedly defending bad decisions, when everyone else can clearly see many, many costly mistakes were made, is not a good look either. It’s difficult to feel sympathetic when the team’s policy so far has largely been denial (there’s no reason to change anything within the team), deception (claiming the race in Hungary was unwinnable regardless of strategy simply because the car had “no pace,” which was absolutely not true for Charles), and delusion (there’s no reason we can’t win the remaining 10 races), or some mix of the three. It’s frankly insulting. To Charles, to all the people back at the factory who worked so hard to make a championship contending car, and to all the fans tuning into this clown show. In all my years of following F1/Ferrari, I don’t recall a time when they so blatantly made so many bad calls with such frightening consistency. It’s not just a genuine mistake here and there. It’s week in, week out; the rule, more so than the exception at this point. You can comfortably go into a weekend and predict that the pitwall will do something to compromise Charles’s race and be correct more often than not, and that’s concerning.

And now, a little over halfway through the season, they’re closer to Mercedes in the standings (30 points difference) than Red Bull (97 points), who started off as their main rival for the championship(s). My prediction? They’re going to be pipped for second by Mercedes and ultimately finish the season in P3 in the Constructors’ standings. Mercedes. The Mercedes whose resurgence was supposedly a good thing for Ferrari, because it would “take points away from Red Bull.” Yep. P3. From P1. P3, where they finished last year, a result that was considered a massive success for their then-midfield car, coming off the back of a disastrous season. And the worst part is, should it happen, it will be absolutely deserved. P3 is just a more accurate reflection of their goals and ambitions than P1. After all, Binotto shamelessly moved the goal posts while the championship fight was already well underway and downplayed their ambitions from winning a title to just winning some races here and there.

In its current form, with its current attitude, this is not a team that has a genuine hunger and determination and desire to win championships. When Red Bull or Mercedes lose out, they are sick. They’re disappointed, they (generally) hold themselves accountable, and they analyse their weaknesses in order to come back stronger at the next opportunity. To them, anything less than a win is not good enough, especially when they know they have the car and drivers to achieve such results. They’re always pushing for more, bigger, better. There’s ambition there to win - and not just a race, but races, and, crucially, titles. Ferrari, meanwhile, seem to be content with mediocrity, treating the ultra-competitive sport that is Formula 1 like it’s a school sports day, where everyone’s a winner simply for showing up and participating.

In the past their title bids have also been flawed and ultimately fruitless (2017, 2018) but, I don’t know, at least I could feel they tried, they wanted it, which is more than I can say for the current pitwall/management. It’s this feeling that they just don’t care, that they’ve thrown in the towel much too prematurely and are now pretending this was the plan all along...that’s the inexcusable part. To have everything in your grasp, have the driver, have the car at your disposal...and then so carelessly dismantle everything for no discernible reason. If there is one given behind the scenes for this fiasco, then we’re not privy to it.

If the management, the people who hold actual executive power, who are responsible for making important decisions, really and truly see no issue with how the team is being mishandled at the moment, the way it’s failing to reach its full potential, then this malady is more serious than we initially thought. If there’s only talk of “learning lessons” and no actual, tangible action follows - worse, if the same mistakes keep being repeated over and over and keep being defended in the face of fair, constructive criticism, then the team has a massive problem, and I can’t, right now, see any clear solution. They are insane for this (derogatory). After all: