#tldr: i liked it but it had its problems

[tea-cat-arts]

I simply think this fandom doesn't give Wei Wuxian enough credit for the various ways in which he saved Lan Wangji

[a-gaime]

Every time I see bull red son an angel (me) loses it's wings (gets mildly annoyed)

[gaytangle]

gonna be real u guys lanolin Is mean and thats okay !!! I've seen a ton of people pretending that she's not mean and saying that she isnt to defend her bc I guess people on Twitter are being weird about it but . she IS mean. like that's a part of her character. and the character is allowed to Be Mean. it's very obviously intentionally written and people are allowed to like Or dislike her because of that.

It's pretty clear to me with Lanolin's interactions with Tangle and how the both of them reacted this issue that this is going to eventually reach a tipping point and maybe she'll get some character development out of it. Lanolin is intentionally being written as being needlessly harsh towards her friends so I think it's a safe bet that people are Supposed to feel off about that aspect of her character and I feel like acting like she can do no wrong or is "just a little blunt" is hugely mischaracterizing her. Let Her Be Mean. I promise you can still like her.

And when the time comes in the story where she has some sort of intervention about how she's treating people or tangle or some other character blows up at her or something I don't want any of y'all to act surprised or like she didn't have that coming bc if you are then I'm not sure we've been reading the same comic

[streetdumpster]

I think (as much as I annoyingly complain and whine about not having a partner) being single this long has been good for me. I'm learning a lot about myself and I'm learning why I was a shit person, and through finding the root of the problem I can kind of... start to heal. I can be nicer to myself so I can grow and get better. Because TBH.. being mean and cruel to yourself doesn't make you become a better person. It just makes you believe that thats what you /are,/ and thats what you /always will be,/ as opposed to realizing that you are a product of your circumstances but that does not mean you can't get better and become a better person. Accepting help and trying to get better so you can eventually love yourself – even if no one else does – is the greatest and loveliest thing you can do for yourself. You deserve that love, you exist and you live and you feel and that is a truly beautiful gift.

[magnetoapologist]

love when ppl emphasize that nicky and joe only make it LOOK easy- bc its not and theyve had over 900 years of practice being a pair

[chisungie]

.

[phoenixwench]

Sad but true

Am I the only one that every time I get myself into new fandom I just sigh, knowing fully well that I just got next 20+ x reader, y/n, x Oc!whateverthefuck or just any form of self insert tags to blacklist?

[disteal]

I only ask cause you usually seem to be pretty up to date on the goings on of this site, but what the HELL is going on with tumblr's CEO? Why are they having a meltdown responding to asks? What's the trans misogyny accusation about? Why is tumblr apparently being run by children?

Thanks in advance.

This is kind of a long story so this is sort of TLDR for brevity but there’s more going on here.

Some context if you weren’t aware; Tumblr has been accused multiple times by its userbase for fostering TERF staff members and covering for them when making transphobic moderation calls. Things like; an overeagerness to ban trans women for posting nudes despite not addressing nazis or bots for years, or protection of notable TERF users who flagrantly break TOS by organising hate campaigns. The users who collected evidence of this became huge targets for these “””alleged””” TERF mods and users and were basically hunted online for sport. Up until recently the “terf mods” take was considered a bit of a conspiracy theory by some who assumed it was more likely to be an automation problem mixed with transphobic reports.

This week: tumblr user predstrogen was recently permabanned (for a second time) following a mass reporting by TERFs. This, obviously, pissed a lot of people off, and a fairly routine “the fuck haven’t you banned the nazis yet??” ask was sent to photomatt, the CEO.

Photomatt, INSANELY, replied, misgendering her multiple times and defending his decision to personally smack down the ban hammer by citing predstrogens nudes, but by his own admission the far more heinous crime was this absolutely ridiculous post;

Matt has also contacted the FBI over this stupid shit despite predstrogen not living in the US.

Lastly, during this very public announcement on the kangaroo court hearing, matty drops this absolute nuclear bomb about Tumblr having some internal drama when they’d discovered an external contractor was A) a transphobe wielding mod authority to be transphobic B) criminally selling moderation (likely to TERFs).

Despite this obviously being on the record somewhere, this is clearly news to fucking everyone including myself.

It’s also worth noting that predstrogen has not been the only recent ban; several black people and black transfems have been instabanned after directly asking matt for accountability (the user i’ve seen specifically named was @rulerofpurple and his partner)

So, naturally, people are fucking furious they spent years getting gaslit by staff, who had been assuring us of their even-handedness, but surprise!!! Trans women WERE being uniquely targeted, and even worse, likely targeted by the people who they could never seem to deplatform despite constant death threats and doxxing!! And despite all this assurance that Tumblrs internals are now perfectly free of transmisogyny and racism, it’s pretty obvious to just about everyone that Tumblr staff are chomping at the bit to ban trans women.

[sluglore]

Some Thoughts on Karma, the Natural Journey of Ascension, and Why the Ancients/Benefactors were Kind of Wrong

I'd like to address the community-wide misconception that you can only gain karma through "shedding your urges" when both in game and within the text of the game, we see this isn't true! the whole "shedding urges in order to ascend" stuff was only really a thing before the void fluid revolution, as Moon states in the bright red farm arrays pearl. The discovery of void fluid entirely trivialized needing to completely shed your urges by providing a much more natural method of ascension, and we see this play out within Rain World's story and gameplay.

In-game, we gain karma by directly engaging with our urges, whether it be sustaining our hunger, holding treasured items close or just survival in itself. From the beginning we are deeply ensnared within the struggles of living, "caught in the net" as the ancients/benefactors say. However, over the course of our gameplay, (I'm using survivor as a baseline, since their campaign illustrates the core of this) as we learn and grow and become more knowledged, living becomes easier, the struggle is not as harsh as it was before, and surely but slowly we die less and less as time goes on.

Simultaneously, this is reflected in our karma, as by dying less, we now hold higher karma more frequently. This coincides with the natural gameplay loop of rain world; the more we explore and learn new things, the more we grow and learn about the world and our place within it, we tread further and further away from the struggles of life, and become closer to enlightenment.

Ascension is the natural culmination of this journey of enlightenment, the next step on the path beyond. It's not inherently the right or wrong choice to make, its a step into the unknown, in search of something greater, of answers to our own existence, true spiritual self-fulfillment. This is how the ancients/benefactors saw it, but you could say they still got parts of it pretty wrong...

This is treading more into personal headcanon territory now, so bear with me, but I believe the issue lies within the great problem that the ancients built the iterators to solve. They wanted to find a means of evicting all life, material, the entire world from the cycles entirely, eliminating the personal struggle tied to ascension, taking away the choice and the journey that are so unbelievably crucial to it. This is also why I personally believe that a solution to the great problem doesn't or can't exist, as it would go against the fabric of their universe, from which the cycles are built upon. (LTTM describes the group behind this ideology as "triangulators"; they believed a solution was dangerous and had to be inferred rather than solved)

Ironically, in their desire to become effortless, by creating the iterators to make living easier, and to detach themselves from the struggles of the cycles, (just as we do within our own journey to ascension as the slugcat) this could also only be achieved through massive effort, so they even weren't truly "effortless" in the end, as nothing can be. Of course though, the few echoes in-game demonstrate that same ideology slipping through. Those ancients/benefactors became echoes because they hadn't experienced the personal journey paramount to ascension, or maybe they just didn't want to leave, but regardless, they weren't able to let go of their place in the universe and move on, and thus, they stayed behind.

TLDR: The ancients/benefactors were wrong about ascension because as a society they didn't fully recognize how important personal struggle, journey, and choice is for ascension, and sought to remove that struggle entirely.

[lordgrimoire]

So, an Idea, or AU I had regarding the good ol DPxDC.

I’m not sure what sort of disaster Amity’s ghost problem would be classified as, but think of what would happen if the local EMS (Emergency Services like Fire Departments, Law Enforcement, Emergency Medical, etc.) pretty much started jumping over the Mayor from the get-go? What if hard proof of these hijinx, for a brief time, were able to get out of Amity?

Well the Governor would probably have someone take a look, and once nonsense is confirmed (especially of its weird nonsense that looks a little to close to supers) they send in the National Guard, at first to keep an eye on the situation.

Then comes the Ghost Investigation Ward, and things go from moderately worrying to “WTF” real quick. And things start looking less Small Town USA and more Stalins Town USSR, at the height of Stalins Purges.

Admittedly it’s not immediate, and during the time between being put on “Indefinite Alert” and actually being relived this unit (I’m thinking a Battalion Sized force so about 1,200 soldiers/guardsmen total) ends up befriending the locals, and much to the Mayor, and GIWs, frustration, Phantom, as well as Red Huntress.

This leads to a standoff, the GIW can really only do what they want because of the Governments permission for them to do so, but engaging National Guard, who had not been federalized, may cause an issue or two. So they bring up the issue with someone who they think will back them up, their new boss Lex Luthor.

Now Lex isn’t a fool, but he figures out how the Justice League isn’t being called is due to a jammer the GIW set up and figures he can take a look around incognito like, or more accurately get trusted members of The Goonion, who he had Federally given approval to, to go take a look around.

When Alex gets the full story, and not just the GIWs original story but also updated info from the Doctors Fenton, who are now VERY worried, because they were wrong about Ghosts in more ways than they originally thought they may have been. Suffice to say, when Lex manages to get a copy of "The History of The Infinite Realms" and finds that Krypton's Afterlife is GONE, as in they did something similar to what the GIW is planning, he starts hitting the "Abort" Button with fury. Only to be told "Too late we're underway, we're going through a tunnel, what? What?" And now Lex decides Enough is Enough. Lex does two things, first he sends the GO order for the National Guard Battalion in Amity Park, then he starts trying to get a hold of the Justice League because "Listen I know you dislike me but I am willing to drop it all if you HELP WITH THIS BS THAT I JUST INHERITED!" Meanwhile back in Amity Things go from 0 to 100 faster than an Flash, that being the National Guard heard "GO" and immediatly started blasting. The Townfolks: Confused The Ghosts: Confused Team Phantom: Confused and Afraid The Ghost Hunters who are now studying Ghost Culture and the like: Very Confused and sorta getting Arrested. The GIW: Full of Bullet Holes, Screaming, and On Fire Meanwhile, The National Guard are waiting around two hours later with Phantom for any "Federal" News to come through: So the New President decided the Anti-Ecto Acts are BS, unfortunately they haven't been overturned yet so we're all most likely going to be marked as traitors. Mind if we hide out somewhere our bosses can't find us? Also the Justice League never actually knew any of the BS we've been going through, GIW Had some Jammer set up.

Phantom, Tired of all the damage and killing the GIW has caused in Amity Park: I'll try, but I'm not sure how much good it will do if the League shows up.

TLDR: Amity Park during it's entire run has a Battalion of US National Guard camped out in the outskirts/abandoned parts of town and they figure out most of the situation regarding Phantom not being the Villain Mayor Masters and the GIW Claim him to be. Following this logic they turned around and at the first opportunity attacked the GIW and pushed them out of Amity Park.

[oatmealdoodles]

My messy thoughts on the new episode

(spoilers for Ghostf**kers)

tldr I LOVED this one the animation saw POPING OFF the writing was great, it was well paced, everything. I just wanted to ramble so here i am talking to no one:

Ok right off the bat i had to pause this like 7 times in the first five minutes because the beginning of this is just packed with insane jokes, glass to see they havent forgotten about being a comedy show

It’s so sad to see Blitzo in this state, especially that it’s been over a month. Like look at this guy he is GOING THROUGH IT.

also this was uncalled for how can you do me like this?

ok like my one problem i don’t like this little Scooby-doo reference with old people. I just skipped it and lost nothing, i don’t know why this is here.

the fight between Blitzo and Millie in the vents was also really well done im so glad Millie is putting up boundaries on dealing with everybody elses Bullshit.

I also don’t hear anyone talking about this but Vivinie Williams (Millie’s VA) did so well in this. Like all the voice acting in this show is peak but I’ve only really heard praise for Brendon and Bryce. Their argument here specifically, the fury in her voice was so well done, bravo.

JESUS CHRIST THEY DID NOT NEED TO GO THIS HARD this scene has been stuck in my head for the past two days, Brandon killed it in he recording booth, the animation is also just so VICERAL. Also the way the fire starts from his hands because he blames himself for it, like Viv went too far with this one. That was not ok.

Bitzo’s panic attack was also done so well. Little detail but i love that when Blitzo screams “Don’t touch me!”, Millie respects this and doesnt, instead comforting him with words. They only touch when he’s calm and ready. Love that.

Bro i was NOT expecting a flashback on how Millie met Blitz, also Millies design slays so hard

the way I gasped.

I also didn’t realize how much I needed an episode focusing on these twos friendship until now. Like FINALLY a Millie episode that doesn’t suck!

Little thing i realized but notice how Blitzo doesn’t make a sex joke at this. Blitzo. Not making a provocative joke. Really just goes to show how UNCOMFORTABLE and SCARED he is. I physically recoil every time I see this it’s gross

Those flashback scenes were also just so brutal. Like chaining his horns so he’s FORCED to watch is so psychotic I can’t.

its kinda sad that Blitzo’s whole motivation for doing this is to distract himself from his feelings, when that’s what he’s literally forced to confront by Ronaldo.

Love a possession story. I can really appreciate how Millie does not believe Ronaldo for a second, she knows that Blitzo would never think that of her and she trusts him enough to be confident in it. Nice subversion, you go girl.

This was so needlessly brutal and funny, they really went all out with this one

Yeah I think that’s all I wanted to day, just again i loved this one and it was definantly worth the multiple-month wait. Though my Hyperfixation has mostly died im hopeful that it will resurrect soon. We’ll have to wait and see.

[we-ezer]

PJO x DC AU

Percy's powers are growing at an exponential rate. This means that when he grows even slightly upset the ground trembles and it's scaring the people around him. Alright, he can take a hint. Besides, he doesn't want to hurt anyone he cares about. Even if his loved ones-Annabeth- don't care about hurting him. He thought they were fine after Tartarus, but he can see that his power scares her more and more everyday. So, he's leaving. Problem solved.

Percy moves to Bludhaven with a single duffel bag and a rickety wood boat that wouldn't be missed from the camp's boathouse. He sets up shop in the Swamplands by the airport. No sane person would live there, but Percy certainly would. Plus, he's banking on his ability to figure out woodworking enough to ramshackle together his own living quarters. . . . okay, a lean-to would probably be more accurate. It's not like he had any money right now, and he wasn't going to take any from his mom. She was finally doing okay. It was Percy's turn to find his own way.

So fuck paying rent. Shoddy lean-to it is.

Except when he got there it was disgusting. Beer bottles littered the marshes, shoes of all shapes and sizes floated between the grasses, and was that a flamethrower?!

Percy had expected to work his way up to a proper living situation, but this was worse than he thought. Sighing, he bent down to throw another bottle into his boat. This was going to take a while.

TLDR; Percy moves to Bludhaven to deal with his growing powers because he doesn't want to be anywhere too populated or far from NYC, so the compromise is the Swamplands outside the city. Eventually, Nightwing discovers this guy bumming it in the marshes and starts using him as an informant for any criminal activities he's witness to in the area. Percy becomes the Bogeyman hermit of the marsh that people "pay" for info and is known just as 'Jackson'. He's also grown out his hair and the start of a beard and started dressing like his dad to really sell the hermit look. Not like he cares much for personal upkeep out there.

Payments include help fixing up his property, cleaning up the marshes, and food. Meanwhile, Percy sits on his shitty lawn chair sipping fruit punch and watches a bunch of goons pick up trash. It's a good trade in his opinion.

When Nightwing is surrounded one night when he's going to visit Percy for info, an alligator comes charging out of the brush and takes a goon down. The rest scatter after its siblings appear too. Turns out Percy had adopted a clutch of abandoned gator babies when their mom was killed for sport. The hunter never left the bayou after that.

Nightwing and Percy get closer after that. *eyebrow wiggle* This has gotten long for a TLDR lol I just wanted a Dick/Percy AU so let's say that eventually Dick takes Percy home with him to the Manor after getting him a haircut and Steph is like "this is not the swamp man we were promised" but Percy absolutely refuses to get rid of the Hawaiian shirts he's stolen his dad's brand and made it his own (Poseidon keeps sending him more via Hermes Express it makes him feel connected to his son).

[lunarblossomyuehua]

oh god this was a mistake

Oh my god why did my manager think I was good to be assistant manager I totally walked into this by just nodding along when asked if I could supervise for a week while he's gone but TF I'm so stressed god have mercy on me I was not built for this

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

Been rewatching the early Marvel movies and apparently this is the time of my life where I just get re-obsessed with characters I love so here's some random thoughts about Loki/Thor the Dark World:

Why. In the world. In the universe. Did Odin not ask Loki ANY questions when Loki was brought before him for judgement in Dark World? Like, at the BAREST MINIMUM he should have asked where Loki got an ARMY, the last time he'd seen Loki was when Loki fell off the Bifrost and then he vanished for a year and showed back up with the glowstick of destiny and an army that Thor says "are not of Asgard or any world known". ODIN. WHY ARE YOU NOT ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS?!

Like, we are aware that Odin is. partial to giving his kids harsh punishments. He obviously doesn't care about Loki's motives. Like, a good parent would look at their kid who disappeared for a year and then came back insane and be like "hey so what happened to you when you disappeared? you didn't get captured by a super powerful being and tortured into submission did you?" (Thanos tortured Loki I have SOURCES and I WILL cite them upon request) But even a bad parent who was a decent king would wonder how their kid suddenly got an ARMY out of NOWHERE and yet Odin never questions this at all. Even Thor in Avengers at least asks Loki "Who showed you this power? Who controls the would-be king?" (which just shows Thor would honestly be a better king than Odin tbh) but Odin is just like "nah this is not important. imprisoning my son for life and telling him how worthless I think he is is more important in this moment."

I wonder if she'd had more time if maybe Frigga would have been able to get Loki to tell her what happened and if maybe that was part of her goal of visiting him (beyond just, you know, actually being a decent parent who cares about her child and wanting to keep him company) because we know she's clever (she's smarter than Odin good gravy, is there like an age difference between them is he going senile or something) so PERHAPS she thought if she talked to Loki she could puzzle out what had happened to him and find out if there was, you know, a potential universal threat Asgard should be aware of. And like, if she had found out anything what was Odin going to say? He can't actually punish his wife in any meaningful way (lol imagine he tries and she just grabs her two grown sons and leaves, help xD) especially if she found out IMPORTANT INFORMATION that he SHOULD have discovered on his own.

This does kind of highlight an underlying problem with Odin, where he seems to think that Asgard is invincible and is, well, lazy about defending it. Like, I've seen posts about how Loki letting the Frost Giants into Asgard in the first movie is actually him not just showing that Thor is not ready to be king, but also demonstrating that Asgard has dangerous holes in its defenses. Because yeah, Loki can HIDE HIMSELF FROM HEIMDALL and sneak into Asgard. Heck, he can sneak OTHERS into Asgard while he's not even WITH them. That- that is a security threat, because if anyone BESIDES Loki could do that then Asgard could easily be invaded and- wait a second, that happens in The Dark World! The Dark Elves hide themselves from Heimdall and sneak an invasion force into Asgard! Destroying it's defenses and KILLING ITS QUEEN. Like, my goodness, do you think Loki is the only person with these abilities? Are you even trying Odin? At all?

TLDR; Odin is an idiot for not questioning Loki about the Chitauri/where he was for a year between Thor and Avengers, not to mention an awful father and an incompetent king.

[steorrneleom]

BG3 Elven Names: A Watsonian Perspective

Amongst folks who like Astarion as a character, the meaning of his name is a common topic of discussion. The answer is typically that it is a variation of Astērion (Ἀστερίων), a Greek name meaning starry, which makes complete sense considering that he is likely a moon elf, but it is based in a language that does not actually exist in the Forgotten Realms. This isn’t a problem, a Doylist answer is completely valid, but I thought it would be fun to figure out what the meaning would be in Elvish (the D&D version), a Watsonian answer (1). After Astarion's, I set out to see if this could be done with Halsin and Cazador as well. I present here my results, with narrative. I have also included a TLDR at the end for those who want to skip the methodology.

(1) To any who may not be aware: Doylist means that it is what the author was thinking when writing / what their intention was. Watsonian means the in-universe perception / explanation. Example: Why did magic change so much between D&D 3.5e and D&D 4e? Doylist answer is that they wanted to simplify how magic worked to draw in new players. Watsonian answer is that Mystra was assassinated by Shar and Cyric resulting in arcane magic becoming unstable and changing its behavior.

In the Lack of Duolingo

First things first, I needed a resource for the Elven language in D&D. As with many collaborative canons, official uses of the language were spread through many mediums and over the course of decades. This makes hunting down sources difficult, but luckily a wonderful person by the name of Diane Morrison was kind enough to create ‘A Treatise on Espruar,’ which offers a complete dictionary. This is what I will be using:

A quick disclaimer that, also like with many collaborative canons, this language has inconsistencies and gaps which makes a true cannon language impossible until a complete conlang is officially released. What I present is to the best of our current resources.

Method to the Madness

I have the words, but next comes the challenge of using them. These names were not made to be interpreted in the lens I am using, so it is kind of like trying to fit a square peg in anything but a square hole. Some words can line up near perfect but have meanings that make absolutely no sense, like dragon royal world, or some words can have the right meanings but have the wrong letters. I resolved this with the following criteria:

The words used must be as close to the name as possible.

Sound shifts must be minimal and not drastic.

As few letter drops as possible.

A meaning that makes sense in context (as much as possible).

Key

Word / part of word Meaning

Astarion

Something noteworthy about Astarion’s name that I kept in mind when translating it is that it was his ‘child name’, the name that was given to him by his parents and not one he chose for himself (2). This means that the meaning wouldn’t necessarily be one that he himself liked, but rather one that a parent would like to ascribe to their child.

Searching for words, one almost seemed perfect at first: Aasterinian (meaning quicksilver). It was already so close to his name without having to Frankenstein words together, but sadly it broke nearly all of my rules. It had three letter drops and two sound shifts: er to ar and ian to ion. I also was of the opinion that while quicksilver was a fine name meaning, it wasn’t one that felt like it was meant for a child.

So, the next option was a combination of Aestar (meaning together or one heart) and -ion (meaning noble). I was hesitant of this one at first. The meaning I wanted to use for Aestar, heart, had seemed to be reserved for the context of marriage at first glance, but then I saw the name Araestar with its meaning of Goldheart. This is evidence that heart is valid for names as well.

Thus, my Watsonian idea is that Astarion’s name comes from Aestarion, which translates to noble heart. This only has one letter drop and a slight sound shift from Ae to A. I also personally think noble heart is a fitting meaning for a child’s name.

(2) Astarion’s tombstone has his name and states he was 39 when he ‘died’. Elves are typically considered adults and choose their new name when they reach the age of 100.

Halsin

Halsin was a bit of a hard one, where there were tons of possibilities but near all of them just didn’t fit right. Halsin is 350 years old, he would have presumably chosen his name with a meaning that represented him as a person. He, in my opinion, wouldn’t have a name that meant something random like weak brook or red. In addition, I had to find a combination of words that fit my rules.

So, I had to write down three prefix possibilities, five word possibilities, three suffix possibilities, and mix and match until I got something that met my criteria. I won't include my rejected combinations due to their number, but here are some reasons I rejected them: ‘r to l sound shift is too drastic’, ‘the on sound is too different from in’, and ‘though m and n are close in the IPA the sound shift feels too great’. Luckily, I did find a combination I was satisfied with in the end.

My Watsonian idea is that Halsin’s name comes from Halasan which translates to one who is free and wild. The ending of Halasan would likely be pronounced like in already so it would only be a letter change instead of a sound shift. The only other change needed would be a letter drop, the a in las.

Cazador

Now this name I went in thinking that it would be the true challenge, the 'z' felt distinctly non-elven to me, but much to my surprise D&D elven does have the z sound and letter. It was still hard to get a good meaning out of it, especially since it is unknown whether this would be his child name or his adult name and there was only one combination of words that worked.

The collection of words at my disposal were cas which means herald, -adar which means world, and za which means royal, of royalty. From this, I got Cazadar, which is a modification of Casadar that adds za. This would give a direct translation of herald of royalty world, which I feel would be interpreted as royal herald (to the world). It isn’t the cleanest meaning, but I feel like there is ego and world domination vibes to it, so it works.

A slight tangent, it is debatable how valid my overlapping construction is. It is possible that the shift from cas to caz would be seen as just a letter shift and not an addition of the word za. This wouldn’t be a problem, herald of the world is still a valid meaning for my purposes, despite it losing some of the ego. There is also the possibility that the za is seen but it results in the caz being interpreted as ca, a letter shift from ka which means dragon. Since there is no dor or dar in elvish, it is possible that it would be seen either as an ornamentation or a shortening of -adar, in which case the translation becomes dragon of royalty or dragon of royalty world. These meanings aren’t horrible in the case of a wrongful interpretation, but it doesn’t entirely make sense, and Kazaadar breaks the rules I imposed.

With all this being said, my Watsonian idea is that Cazador’s name comes from Cazadar, which can be translated to royal herald (to the world). This is the one name that I created that feels like a stretch, but I tried my best.

Last Names

I originally only did the first names when I decided to make this, but then I realized while typing all this that this probably wouldn’t be complete without trying the last names too... and so, I decided to give them a try. I sat down with the elven dictionary and felt the hope leave my body as soon as I wrote them down on my scrap paper. Ancunín, with a little accent on the ‘i’ and a super rare letter for D&D elvish, ‘u’; and Szarr, with two consonants (S and Z of all things) next to each other. I predicted a struggle, a struggle is what I got, and I fled the battle, unsuccessful. I was not able to find anything that met my rules… yet.

I will revisit this someday, but it will require a lot more research on Faerûn than I am able to put in right now, sadly. Here is the fun thing about last names, they are often more influenced by location as opposed to the ethnic origin of someone. Case and point: in the US a lot of folks changed their last name upon arrival to better fit in, or it was messed up enough times that they changed it for convenience sakes. Examples: Müller turning into Miller (a spelling change), Zimmermann becoming Carpenter (a direct translation), or going from Sadowski to Smith (A complete change to assimilate). They also have a different meaning convention compared to regular names to begin with, where they can be based on the location an ancestor lived, their occupation, or their nickname.

A Watsonian answer may exist for Ancunín and Szarr, but it would be rooted in where their families lived through the eras and other local languages that might have influenced the original elvish version. Like perhaps the location the Ancunín family is from has a predominant language which favors ‘u’ as a vowel. Maybe Szarr isn’t elvish at all and is an occupation name. I don’t know if I will be able to find a satisfying answer, but if I do one day I will be sure to post it.

Bonus

Espruar is the alphabet of the elvish language, which looks really cool in my opinion. Before I even started looking into the Watsonian origins of the names, I thought it would be cool to see what their names looked like written in it and so vectorized all the letters. Below are the character's names and their origin names written with Espruar.

Astarion

Aestarion

Halsin

Halasan

Cazador

Casadar

Cazadar

Little End Note

I want to thank everyone who read through my long explanations and tangents, I hope you enjoyed reading the thought process behind all of these ☺️. I also wanted to let you folks know that I am going to make another post soon with my vectorized Espruar alphabet so anyone can write with it should they want to.

TLDR

[so-i-did-this-thing]

i‘m struggling with a decision and dont have many trans friends who have transitioned or been out very long and would appreciate your thoughts on it - I haven’t changed my gender marker yet, and was planning to try to push it through on my social security before they start enforcing not changing it (not sure if this will be successful). However, with all the concerns regarding trans people and lack of protections, I‘m starting to wonder if thats a good idea. I pass physically and live entirely as a guy now (on T for 2.5 years and have had top surgery), and I live in a big city in a trans friendly neighborhood and state. But if that gender change is on record, I wonder if that could cause more problems than not changing it, or if it‘s kind of bad either way. My chosen name is gender neutral, so it won‘t inherently out me on paperwork either way. I‘d appreciate your thoughts (even if its just ‚consult a lawyer‘ haha)

I would suggest getting your driver's license changed to match the gender you pass as. It is what you show at traffic stops, domestic travel, and for most job onboarding, so should give you a measure of protection from police violence and job discrimination. (All bets are off if you are arrested, but that is a case where you are fucked regardless of what your paperwork says.)

But not knowing what state you live in makes it difficult to advise, because in places like Florida, you cannot change the marker anymore and at this point might even get your license revoked trying to change it.

For Social Security, since the marker is not on the card, I cannot say who actually will see it. It always felt to me like a completionist thing.

What will likely out a trans person on a bog-standard background check is if you don't pass as your birth name. For folks who have a completely gender neutral first and middle name, it may not be worth changing it, because folks do raise their eyebrows at name changes outside of marriage.

If you pursue jobs that have more extensive background searches, you are fucked either way. I am a (soon to be ex) federal contractor and my having "M" on my IDs but no Selective Service signup meant my background check got flagged for further investigation.

Tldr; If you have medically transitioned, you are always vulnerable to discrimination and violence, so it's really up to you what kind of risk you wish to take on regarding your paperwork. Me, I am leaving federal service because I will always be outed via the background checks those jobs require.

There are likely those who will have different advice and at the end of the day, it's up to you to decide what is best. Good luck.