#very interesting people in the tags who see this post and still decide it’s a fruitful effort to categorize some kinks as immoral or bad

[femmeclefable]

definitive ranking of all kinks and fetishes by morality:

[invinciblerodent]

.

[aesthet]

A Painter's Drug𓍢ִ໋🀦

Day 1

tags: [Rafayel LaDs x fem!reader], [switch!rafayel], [aphrodisiac], [experimenting on unknown plants], [fingering], [p in v], [desperate Rafayel], [whiny Rafayel], [more than 1 round]

Summary: Rafayel is having an art block and decided to scroll on his social media and that's when he came across a particular plant thought it would make a good paint, so after finding the plant, he brought it home. Little did he know the effects he'll get if he experiments with the plant.

It’s not a surprise that Rafayel would be bored today out of all days, laying on the couch and his phone in hand as he scrolls through various social media apps. Even looking for games to play and kill time, Rafayel was considering calling you but before he pressed the home button something caught his eye.

In a post about a small remote area in a forest, there is a newly discovered plant. It’s a pretty pink flower that has a soft pink and a soft gradation from pink to a light blue, it also has a small middle that has very little to no pollen. Seeing the colors made him intrigued, so he clicked the link that is attached to the post and read the article. It’s still unnamed and the benefits are unknown about this flower, however they’re allowing people to participate in experimenting with it.

And from the looks of it, not many people are interested in the plant but being an artist who is known to try new things and even getting accused of using a dangerous material for his paint one time, he decided to sign up. What he didn’t expect is that the package would arrive the next morning, at his doorstep in a cute pink and blue box. He brought the box inside and opened it, a strong, sweet smell hit him and there on top of all the paper confetti he saw four pieces of the flower he saw on the post yesterday. They’re surprisingly bigger in person.

Under the flowers, there is a simple thank you card and a folded manual paper that also has a form that needs to be filled with the information that you’ve learned while experimenting with the flowers. Rafayel grabbed the biggest one out of the four and went to the kitchen, grabbing a mortar and a pestle. He then begins to grind the flower with the pestle, the more Rafayel grinds the petals of the flowers the stronger the scent becomes. It’s a pleasant and sweet smell, floral and almost sweet like candy, it’s addicting in a way. So he grinds the flower until it becomes, he also began pouring hot water that he boiled beforehand and the scent becomes stronger.

Thinking that the flower only makes a good scent, he doesn’t pay attention until a few minutes later. He began growing uneasy, his body felt hot and he feels his blood flowing down his cock and it’s not going away anytime soon. His already tight pants became tighter with the growing tent in his pants. He stops grinding the petals and gripped the edge of the kitchen counter while panting heavily, he walks over to the other side of the counter to grab his phone and quickly dials your number.

A soft buzzing vibrates on your coffee table when you get up to get a glass of water, you pick up the phone when you see Rafayel’s name. “Rafayel?” you asked after hearing heavy panting “y/n! there’s something wrong with me- i don’t know what’s going on- please” he pants and even lets out a groan. You told him to stay where he is and that you’re on your way, not long after you arrive at his big house. You enter the house and only to find no one, but there is a pink and blue box with flowers inside and right beside it is a mortar and  a pestle that seems to be grinding up one of the flowers, you then continue to look for Rafayel.

You hear Rafayel heavily breathing and letting out what seems to be noises that sounds like he’s in pain, worried for him you opened the door to see him on the sofa with his legs spread widely and an obvious tent in his already tight fitting pants. His head shot up when he realizes that you’re at the door with a confused expression.

“Y/n, I need you-hah” he pants out, looking at you with such desperation, you can’t help but chuckle at his state as you walk over to the purple haired man. “How bad do you need me?” you asked and with a flushed face he looks at you “really bad, i want you to touch me- please it’s so hot” he whines, you start to tease him by slipping down his pants, rubbing his hard length through his boxers slowly. He can’t help but to thrust up into the air as he craves for more but all he gets is a slap on his thigh that tells him to hold still. “P-please, please! touch me, it’s too hot” he whines as he feels the tip of your fingers touching his tip. 

“Y/n- ah!” he moans as you wrap your fingers around his cock so suddenly, he throws his head back as he bites his lip because of how sensitive his dick is. “You’re really sensitive today, aren’t you?” you teased as you began pumping him up and down and he whined. “h-hah y/n, your hand feels g-ah!” he cuts himself off when you begin to rub your palm on his tip in circles “yeah? feels good?” you asked, even though you already know what he was trying to say. His hips begin to move on their own, the more you stroke him. He then bites his bottom lip to hold his moans “What did I tell you about biting your lip” Rafayel looks at you through his wet lashes and shakes his head “don’t h-hold back- ah!- hah- god” he said shakily and you pat his head, “there you go, turns out my pretty boy hasn’t turned dumb after all” and he breathes heavily, cock twitching uncontrollably. 

“Remember you can’t cum without my permission” you smirked seeing Rafayel take a sharp inhale and his hips stopped moving as his abs flexed due to him holding back from cumming. “please please, I wanna- I need to cum” he choked out as his thighs began to tremble. “You do?” he sucks in his breath with his head thrown back “say pretty please” and your request is met with a “mmh~ please, I’m so cl-ose-”. Clicking your tongue, unsatisfied with his lack of obedience you repeat your words “I’m not letting you cum until you say ‘pretty please’. You can do that right, pretty boy?” When the nickname rolls off your tongue, Rafayel almost comes, letting out the prettiest whines that can make a succubus rub her legs together.

After so much writhing, and whining trying to get away from your teasing strokes, he finally gives in and says the magic word “Please! pretty pretty please” he cried out with tears threatening to fall from his eyes. WIth a satisfied hum and smile you pat his thigh, allowing him to come while countless praises flow from your mouth as he comes hard with a lewd satisfied moan.

“More- it’s still so hot” he said breathlessly as he slowly sits up, leaning towards you but before you can process what he’s doing you’re being pinned down onto the sofa, your shirt being ripped away as he easily unclasps your bra and sucking your nipples. In the midst of you gasping because of the stimulation on both your nipples, Rafayel begins to move your panties to the side and rubs his still wet tip onto your pussy. He grazes his teeth against your left nipple before putting his dick in, you can’t help but whine at the slight stretch caused by his cock. “So wet- hah” he pants, shutting his eyes tight, trying not to cum the moment he puts it in. “Rafayel- oh fuck” when he bottoms out and slowly moving. Messy hair, flushed out face and teary eyes, it really is a pretty sight for the both of you. Rafayel that’s losing his mind and you, who’s taking his dick that’s filling you to the brim. “so f-full” you mumbled, already cockdrunk as he begins to plunge deep into you.Rafayel, notices the slight bulge in your abdomen, and puts his palm over it, giving it pressure making you whine at the feeling and leaving you breathless.

 After a few thrusts, he grinds up and hits the spongy spot that makes you gasp. Hearing that, he can’t help but laugh a little as he thrusts more into you, making your legs tremble.

“Oh! fuck fuck f-ah! I’m gonna cum” Rafayel was about to tease her by asking her to say ‘pretty please’ but with the way she’s clenching down on him, the words that were about to come out gets stuck and he lets out a satisfied moan and shoots his warm load into you and you coating his length with slick.

After thrusting a little more, coming down from your high you finally asked him “Where did you get that plant?” you asked while catching your breath, Rafayel stops breathing, realizing that the reason why he’s really sensitive and turned on is because of the plant. His face reddens, feeling like he was fooled. In a way, they did say, participants are free to experiment with it. “Did you get horny because of it?” that annoying smirk you had on, just made him more embarrassed to the fact that the plant made him into such an animal. 

“I don’t want to talk about it” he pouts, as he gets up from the sofa, but realizing that his boner isn't going away anytime soon.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Was I an ahole for warning mutual's friend about his past? 🫶

I had a mutual in a big fandom circa 2017-2018. She was kinda sweet but shy, sometimes really bitter at people so I didn't get too close but we chatted often. Now my fandom had a big incest/ pedo shipping problems and she was one of the few people on my tl who were loudly opposed to it. I don't think she sent hatemails but she ranted in tags or her own posts often. Saying this because we had a few older fandom friends who were much more vocal and she followed their words like gospel. So the conclusion was like a betrayal.

Some years later I felt her slowly ghosting me before she finally left fandom and deleted her account. Then she came back after a few months in a new persona, totally new fandom, going by they/them, no attachment to their previous fandoms, like a new person. I don't know if they meant to hide their past or not. They contacted me and we became moots again.

Then after maybe a year I noticed that we were no longer mutual, we sort of ghosted each other as our interests diverged more so no big deal.

About 4 years since then I found myself getting into the thing they were last into. I accidentally stumbled upon their popular posts and decided to reconnect. They were going by he/him now so he was very nice and welcoming. He told me to chat with him and ask anything I needed to know, recced good blogs etc. We chatted frequently as it seemed like he was a completely different person, no longer shy or bitter, very openly into shipping and smut, happily engaging with dead dove content in the new fandom. This one also has canon incest, so I asked how he coped, he said he lost his mind in the old fandom he just filters the unwanted things out.

Now I don't know, how he changed that much or became friends with incest shippers, how he could be so casually okay with this when he was vocal about supporting survivors before. Then I saw him reblog posts shitting on sex repulsed people and some about BPD too. It wasn't hard to figure out why he changed so drastically.

I got really angry that day and accidentally sent a message to one of his "proship" mutuals how he really used to be. That guy saw my message, then blocked me, then my moot also blocked me without a word. I have regrets but I don't know what to do. Am I wrong for wanting him to not be friends with incest shippers? I miss him and I don't think he shipped them but he still joked about shipping them and being annoying. The last fandom harassed me a lot over not liking brother brother incest so I only have bad feelings. I don't think incrst shipping should be banned or anything extreme I just think they should have a separate platform so only they can see it.

[yanderestarangel]

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐊𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐌𝐊11 | 𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐀𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐘!𝐉𝐎𝐇𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐆𝐄

♡‧₊˚✧˖° request from: @little-bug-butt ♡‧₊˚✧˖°

A/N: I love this Johnny Cage- he's so dilf I'm very simp for him, I hope you like the post dear, thanks for the idea! PS: sorry tagging your @, my tumblr simply deleted my draft with your request <3

TW: age gap, afab reader, praise, smut, nsfw, v!sex, oral ( f!re ), sugar daddy concept, semi public sex, daddykink, degradation kink, blowjob, dirty talk, anal, sex!toys, power play, sub!reader, dilf!johnny, sexual positions/kama sutra, rec!sex, no pronouns used other than 'you', spoilers about the canon line of mk11, little angst.

♡ - After Sonia's death Johnny was lonely and a little too mentally shaken, Cassie was living her own life - even though he was still her father, she needed her own time to work and meet new people, unfortunately, the man It became increasingly lonely, so he decided to use some old contacts and discover the 'sugar daddy' concept - he would be reluctant at first when using the site, he clicked through several profiles, until he found yours - which caught his attention practically immediately, your beauty and interests, you seemed like a great company for him, and he stayed for approximately an hour asking if he should call you in the chatbox or not, he looked more like a scared teenager than a 50+ year old ex Hollywood actor.

♡ - But he took courage and finally started a chat with you - and to his relief, you were an extremely sweet and friendly person to him, the poor man had all his hopes up, you stayed talking for hours, in calls and text messages. Cage really wanted to meet you soon, but you wanted a little more time for both of you to get to know each other better. He would be a little impatient about having to wait a few weeks to take you to dinner, but finally, you agreed to go with him, and he was definitely very nervous.

♡ - Johnny chose the best suit he had, accentuating his muscles and applying a perfume with a strong citrus essence, fixing his hair with gel and proudly showing off the side gray strands that insisted on appearing more every day - not that he cared, after all, he knew you were a hot dilf - he bought the best limousine he could get and met you at the restaurant door; He had brought a bouquet of flowers, your favorites - he wrote down everything the two of you talked about, and all your likes and dislikes, it wasn't that difficult to get your favorite color right. "-You're even more beautiful in person (Y/N)... I hope we get along well tonight." Johnny said smiling as he offered you the gift, you could see the slight blush on his face but he looked away, taking you inside the luxurious restaurant - which he rented that night just for the two of you -

♡ - Dinner was going well, but Johnny was trying to control himself as much as possible. You were a beautiful person, your smile lit up the darkest corners of the fighter's soul, you even showed solidarity when he spoke about his wife's death, placing your hands on top of his, in a gesture of support and half a dozen sincere words and kind... That made Johnny smile for the first time in lonely years. The problem was also focusing on being a gentleman, his dick was pulsing and it was sore in his pants, damn, he really wanted to have a romantic dinner and not have sex on the first date, but with every sweet look you gave him, he made the older man feels his own shaft getting harder. He quickly pushed those thoughts away - especially the ones that projected images created of you sitting on his dick, with his hands wrapped around your neck - and focused on making your night good and enjoyable, and yes, obviously he's going to pay the bill. dinner regardless of your protests, he wants to treat you like a prince/princess, but luckily for you, he was a man who gave in to desires very quickly.

♡ - Johnny guided you to the limo - opening the door for you, he gestured for you to enter first, before entering himself. The interior was lavishly decorated with luxurious seating, a stocked bar, and a huge TV screen mounted to the ceiling - it all started with innocent, shy touches, but anticipation and desire hung in the air between the two of you, the movie star's voice rising. mixed with the wine you were drinking, while Cage's warm, veiny hand found your thigh, massaging it lightly with circular movements, then, as you talked again about the terms of the 'suck' relationship, you cheekily called him "daddy" and that was the end of Johnny's sanity. Reaching out, he grabbed his wrist and pulled it tightly towards his hardened member, pressing into his pants. "-Do you feel how eager I am for you? Fuck baby... I really wanted to be a gentleman, but you drive me crazy, do you want that too? I swear I won't force you into anything." And when you agreed, he just grunted in response as he ordered the driver to speed up and close the access window between you and the front of the limo.

♡ - Johnny pulled your clothes down in one quick movement, revealing your chubby and shaved pussy to his hungry eyes. It was even more perfect than he imagined – tight and begging for attention. "-You're mine now, baby boy/baby girl.." he moaned softly, his breath hot against your flushed skin. As if reading your mind, he pulled out his own cock from his pants, letting it spring free—a thick, veiny member coated in precum, ready for action. "-Now, spread your legs wider for me dear, open that pussy wide for daddy..." he commanded gruffly, his eyes ablaze with lust. The limo rocked back and forth on its suspension as he pounded into you relentlessly, his large hands firmly gripping the seats above your head.

♡ - That was your first date and your first sex, even though you insisted that he didn't need to give you gifts after sex, he insisted again - and this also happened after the first date, with Johnny cumming between your breasts and then you giving a kiss on the forehead and a swarovski emerald necklace, with a satisfied and even probably passionate smile on his face. His gifts are very expensive, if you want an imported car he will buy it for you right away, if you want to go to a parade on the other side of the world for a brand you like... He will find a way to put you in front row and with enough money in your account for you to buy more than enough exclusive pieces, the most futile luxury he could give you. But in the end, what he really wanted was your company, he wanted your affection and nights of laughter and silly conversations together while jazz played in the background of his mansion, maybe some slow, lazy sex after a long day, with him listening your moans and high-pitched squeals in his ear.

♡ - He is a very sexually active man, so expect to fuck him in various positions, some of them being: 'Bandoleer', 'The Grip', 'Afternoon Delight', 'The Clasp', 'The Curled Angel', 'The Plow', 'The Snail'. Johnny also has daddykink - so he will always want you to call him 'daddy' or 'my lord' or any power nickname, he will praise you while he fucks your pussy, especially if you ride on his face moaning and getting a dumb, trembling mess of pleasure because of him. "-Yes baby- fuck- no no, you're not going to cum yet ok? That was our agreement my angel, you're only going to cum when daddy lets you, otherwise I won't give you my card this weekend.." He would moan loudly against your clit, making you squirt on his face and making him cum without even penetrating you, staining the sheets of semen beneath both of you. "-Holy Fuck- boy/girl... You know daddy is going to punish you now, don't you?"

♡ - He spreads money notes on the mattress, a proof of how much he can spend monetarily on you, how powerful he is, while sticking his thick shaft in your holes "-Is that what you like little slut? Being my whore? My exclusive whore." - anal is also included, Johnny will buy anal plugs/vibrators and force you to go to dinners and events with the sex toys inside you controlling every high or medium vibration in your body, whispering dirty talk in your ear. "-Beg me to take that vibrator out of your little dear hole... And maybe I can fuck you right here." This would end with him thrusting into you once again inside the bathroom where the event was taking place, grabbing your face tightly and forcing you to look in the mirror, while his balls hit your clit painfully. "-Look at yourself honey, see how daddy Johnny can destroy that pretty pussy" a slap was given hard to your ass, making you arch even more towards him. "-Take all of this, like the good boy/good girl you are."

♡ - Johnny also loves blowjobs, especially in semi-public places, every time you guys go to buy you some clothes... It ends with you kneeling in front of him, with dollar bills spread across your cleavage while he recorded every gag you made it hit his member. "-Smile for the camera little prince/princess, you look beautiful while sucking my dick like a desperate slut." He would definitely cum on your face and take a photo to put on your wallpaper, in addition to spoiling you like hell that day. But aside from the sex and shopping and luxuries - Johnny really liked you, he really fell in love with you beyond being a sugar baby and a sugar daddy - and you could see it in his eyes every time you hugged each other and lay in the pleasant silence of the night. However, he was too afraid of expressing himself and ruining everything... Just keeping track of your sugar daddy for a long time, maybe, someday he would have the courage to tell you his true feelings for you.

©YANDERESTARANGEL 2023

[devsgames]

"Is Tumblr Blaze Worth It For Promoting My Indie Game?" - a Postmortem

Lately I've been thinking about marketing and promotion of my games and wanting to explore new avenues. Tumblr Blaze was one of those things I wanted to dip my toes into a bit to understand how it works and if it has potential for advertising my sort of stuff. Like as not, there's no point in making games if nobody actually plays them after all!

Conversely I have also heard bad things about Tumblr Blaze; that it's not very targeted, the reach is fairly limited, and people on this site generally hate anything that is Blazed to them.

I wanted to test all these waters a bit to see if it's something worth investing in, and share what I found for my own benefit and the benefit of others. Finding various info on topics like this for indie dev can be a pain, so why not share my findings?

The Plan and Goal

While Centauri Dark is still in development and is the thing I actually want to advertise more of right now, Bombing!! 2 is already out and is much more marketable with some cool art made by community members. I think as a first impression it tends to show well, so I decided to make my test post with that to get exposure to it and see how it goes.

My goal was mostly to see what a Blaze post does for advertising a launched indie game and how much "eyes on" it actually gets in terms of actual engagement.

Posting

From the outset I knew I wanted to make a post that 1) wasn't annoying to people just looking at the webbed site 2) featured a call to action of some kind I could measure 3) wouldn't break the bank.

Here's what I came up with:

The intention was to flash some cool looking art to grab their attention, explain what they're looking at, and then link the game a couple of times while mentioning "Buy or Wishlist" for good measure as a call to action.

Since Bombing!! 2 is such an art-forward game, I found the coolest art pieces made by community members that felt the most "Tumblr" to match the audience, and would also show off the range of art you could make in the game. I also wanted to make it personal, like me writing a message to whoever would read it instead of something that sounded like a standard ad. Generally I think it was a fairly reasonable little post that catches some interest and doesn't overstay too much of a welcome. What I think also helps is it's explicitly a "hey this might interest you" sort of framing (as opposed to a more "why am I even seeing this" sort of post you tend to get from Blaze sometimes).

I also think it's worth emphasizing that writing a posted explicitly intending to be Blazed was a much stronger approach than just Blazing some random post I had made for my own followers months ago, because I could align it to my promotional goals. It also assumed that random people on the Internet would be the ones seeing my post, and not the followers and friends who already know me and my work.

Blazing

As I looked into Blaze early on there was actually a few key things I wasn't fully aware of about the system.

It guarantees a minimum amount of views

It guarantees it will be Blazed for a minimum of 24 hours no matter how many views

You pay a single base rate for the whole campaign (great compared to some ads which tend to price based on views/engagement).

You can define an audience explicitly (some info that was floating around lead me to believe this wasn't the case).

Campaigns come in a few amounts:

I paid for the 2nd tier; $17 USD for a campaign, which amounts to $25 CDN. I wanted to go a little more into it than the lowest tier offered, since I figured the lowest wouldn't give me as much data as I would've liked and I wanted to know what to reasonably expect should I decide to do it again in the future.

Since Bombing!! 2 sells for ~$20USD I also figure if the Blaze campaign prompts at least two people to buy the game then the Blaze would have paid for itself.

Blaze lets you use tags to define which audiences you want to reach. Unfortunately it doesn't let you view that data after you've applied it, but the tags I chose were generally anyone who spoke English and has an interest in Digital Artist or Video Game circles.

The campaign ran for 24 Hours, starting yesterday and ending today.

The Results

I definitely noticed a sharp uptick in engagement during the campaign! It hit the target audience of ~7k around one hour into the campaign, after which point I noticed engagement take a sharp decline.

Here's the Blaze campaign analytics provided by Tumblr (which was also very helpful to have):

So it seems ~12.5k views from Blaze, ~370 likes, ~80 reblogs, 5 shares elsewhere. The post itself has ~520 notes, so I assume there's some reblogging and liking happening from beyond the Blaze campaign that isn't pictured here. The good thing is that despite having reached its 7k target after only 1 hour, it continued to circulate and be Blazed until 24 hours later. Eventually the post made it to ~12k views overall, which was nearly double the amount promised by the campaign - I attribute this mostly to a strong post/target audience/subject matter and I'm sure it's not standard.

Here's the general velocity of engagement around when the post was Blazed:

It jumped much more than I honestly expected, but you can tell Blaze seemed to put it in front of people's faces more than my regular posts do. You can see it drops off sharply as I hit the quoted amount as well, back down to the normal amount of engagement I get on Tumblr.

But this stuff isn't really what I was looking for; I was looking for sales and keeping an eye on 'conversions' - or how many users followed my call to action because of the post. Likes and stuff are fine and cool, but how many people bought or wishlisted the game on Steam as a result of seeing the post on Tumblr?

Tumblr and Blaze obviously have no way of telling me this, so I'm looking to Steam to show me changes there.

Here's what Steam shows me happened to the Bombing!! 2 views yesterday:

That's not nothing! This shows the last month's worth of traffic to the Bombing!! 2 page, and that number was at least double yesterday as it was regularly. It's very cool to know a number of people did actually click through to the game page in order to view the game from the Blaze post.

But the real REAL question is how many bought or wishlisted the game because of this post?

I'll start with Sales, on a graph of 1 month of data:

Flat line :( Which is fine though, as the game wasn't on Sale and was just reaching people for the first time. I didn't honestly expect any immediate sales from this, and was more focused on other engagement anyways. Honestly I would be surprised if someone saw the game on a Blaze post and bought it immediately. I mean it's good but it's probably not THAT good!

Now to Wishlists, which can be a good indicator of who might likely buy your game in the future. Basically if someone has added a game to their wishlist, there's reason to believe they might buy it in the future, which is good for your game.

Here's the Wishlists for Bombing!! 2 from the last month:

That's 23 Wishlists in one day! That's roughly ~18 Wishlists more than an average day!

It's hard to know if some of these are because of the post or just a statistical fluke. However, when compared to previous trends on the game page that's quite a noticeable difference. It means even if no one bought it now, they were interested enough to add it to their shortlist. Looking at it another way, if two people who Wishlisted decided to buy the game in the future the campaign will have paid for itself.

Conclusions

I think like any advertising if you go into it with a plan in mind and try to build something around a specific action, Blaze seems pretty worth it to me especially if I just want to get eyes on something. On top of the obvious data telling me people were interested in the game, there was a few folks who just plain complemented the game or acknowledged it 'was the first Blaze post they were actually interested in', which felt worth it in it's own qualitative sort of way. It's also worth noting my game sells for $20USD, so the margins are large enough that making it back isn't too challenging.

I think having an idea of the message I wanted to send really helped, and I'm sure I'd happily do this again with a larger audience and another plan (and probably will do it for when Centauri Dark releases).

[luigixfanxayjay]

game!luigi headcanons!!!

i keep seeing a lot of people make headcanon dump posts, so i decided to make one of my various luigi headcanons myself! heres to anyone who wants to read this post! i hope none of you mind the tags, and i apologize if i bugged you!

@peaches2217 @pianokantzart @loud-kid2 @jelly-fish-wishes @itsavee4117 @silenzahra @supa-mehyro @supergay-64 @acen402 @totallyking @oh-my-gosh-its-j0sh @dayseedrawz2 @bberetd @megamagimugi

-_-_-_-_-_-

- luigi has autism spectrum disorder, he was diagnosed at a young age along with marios adhd diagnosis. he also has generalized anxiety disorder and sometimes depression, but he has found many great ways to cope throughout the years.

- luigi LOVES cows. any animal he doesnt know the name of would be called "cow". he uses this as a placeholder word, and he doesnt express the fact he doesnt know the animal directly.

- anytime luigi is overly scared, nervous, shy, or excited, he tends to have a stutter. for him, its hard to find many words in this state.

- you may think luigi is just a plumber, but he also has many different hobbies! these include mechanics, arts, sports (especially tennis!), photography, gardening, and even music!

- luigis favorite colors are green and "porpol" (his pronounciation, not mine).

- luigi is bisexual. he has a strong romantic relationship with princess daisy, but fails to admit it to anyone other than his loved ones in fear of judgement. he also has had interest in prince peasley, but unfortunately wasnt able to talk to him about it before they departed.

- luigi hates loud noises, which led to a childhood fear of lightning and explosions. thankfully, his fear of that significantly lessened thanks to his thunderhand.

- luigi posts polterpup content EVERYWHERE on social media. he may be a cat person, but polterpup is a STRONG exception. have i mentioned he loves his pet ghost dog with all of his heart?

- luigi is generally a pretty emotional guy. barely slamming his hand on the wall? crying. getting a game over in a video game? crying. watching a sad moment in a babies show? crying. just arrived at the doctors office for a checkup? crying. these were mostly exaggerations, but the fact that luigi is emotionally in touch when needbe still stands. this, of course, is a positive thing.

- pancakes is luigis favorite comfort food. he simply stims with joy just ready for a bite! he especially loves it with syrup and blueberries! mmmm... now im hungry!

- when luigi succeeds in battle, he breaks into the sickest dance moves. dont ask me why.

- luigi has a strong feeling of fear, almost anytime he feels it. its either "oh, this is scary :(" or "OH MY GOODNESS I AM PISSING MY PANTS IN TERROR I NEED TO DO SOMETHING OR ESCAPE OR ELSE IM GONNA PASS OUT!!!". absolutely NO inbetweens.

-luigis body has a hard time adjusting to temperature or sudden gait changes. goes out in 50° fehrinheit for a millisecond while wearing a baggy jacket, and hes shivering like a wet dog. he loses the cat powerup after using it for not even 5 minutes, and hes tumbling around as if he were incredibly drunk.

- speaking of drunk, luigi almost never drinks alcohol. he always drinks non-alcoholic alternatives unless on VERY special occasions such as his own wedding or a "our lives are saved again thanks to the bros" party.

- luigi prefers to not be the leader in groups. it makes him very anxious anytime he has to take that role, especially if its a larger group of unfamiliar people.

- luigi is so so so ambiverted. he doesnt want to socialize with new people as he prefers sameness and familiarity. but, when hes with people he knows such as mario and friends, he talks more than youd see in an eminem song. craziest part, hes actually great at making new friends.

- luigi enjoys storytelling. like mentioned in the last headcanon, he enjoys telling people he knows about his day or any sort of scenario that popped up in his head.

- luigi has a high iq, as he can use his logic quite well in tight situations. mario and luigi brothership shows that far enough.

- luigis thunderhand can be helpful, but sometimes it can cause more harm than good. hes normally invincible to his own attack and just lightning in general, but when hes under strong enough emotion, it can lead to his invincibility shield dissipating and him getting hurt.

-_-_-_-_-_-

thats all i have for now! someday soon i may work on headcanon posts for other mario characters and perhaps characters from different fandoms! lemme know if you wanna see more!

[tsukimefuku]

The man who played with fire

After some drinks by yourself and getting frustrated with someone, you stupidly knock on Higuruma's door to test a theory.

To vibe: Misery - Maroon 5

Tags: +18 (!!!), WITH PLOT (there is always a plot), Jujutsu Kaisen, SMUT, f!reader, Higuruma x reader, some alcohol consumption,  he's so in love, she's so clueless, reader is being kind of an asshole, oral sex, cunt-locking, penetration, light f!top x m!bottom dynamic, involves some love-triangle classic shenanigans.

WC: 3.4K

Hey, this is actually my first smut piece! Hope you guys enjoy my filth. This is part of my "Jujutsu Partners Canon Divergence AU", a sequence of short stories and random drabbles for a Nanami x f!reader x Higuruma fanfic I'll eventually write (eventually). This is preceded specially by "Kindness and Sunflowers", link here. To see the ever-growing list of one-shots, please visit my masterlist :)  

Disclaimer: they’re NOT written and posted in chronological order of events. To see where this story fits in the timeline, please check the masterlist mentioned above.

Fair warning: I like writing characters being humanely assholes and clueless idiots. Be warned. 

"I can't believe this," you muttered to yourself. You were drinking alone at the bar, and the darkness served to hide your blushed-by-fury face. After what you called The Event, Nanami asked to talk, only to end up lecturing you about the shortcomings of a jujutsu sorcerer's life. As if you didn't know, given all the losses you had experienced over the years, precisely due to Tengen's established Jujutsu Society. "He can't be serious, lecturing me about this shit." Still talking to yourself, like a crazy person, you tried to let your anger go down with five cold pints of beer. It was definitely not working.

Your phone rang, and Nanami's name lit up on your screen, much to your annoyance. You immediately refused the call and flipped the phone down on the table, feeling all your rage bubbling up from the darkest depths of hell. You needed a release, any kind of release — an exorcism, most likely.

Or, you could try something else.

Peering around the bar, you started looking for someone that you could consider even remotely interesting — but no one, nothing, nada. Given this was a Tuesday night, there were only you and some monotonous people scattered around the murky lighting, encompassed by the noise of a few clicking glasses. 

That was when your phone started to rumble to the sound of some text messages, and you grabbed it ready to pitch the phone across the vicinity, believing it was Nanami again. But, much to your surprise, it was actually Higuruma texting you. You were so angry that you had completely forgotten to talk to him today.

He was basically asking how you were, given that you hadn't texted back since yesterday, and you were both chatting on a daily basis for weeks by this point.

That was when you had a greatly horrible (or horribly great?) idea. After all, how could a decision made under the influence, at night, while angry at someone you knew you had feelings for, be bad? This is fine.

"Are you busy right now?" You sent him, feeling the beer breeze warmly through your nostrils every time you exhaled. You have a crush on him, but that's it, this is fine. And oh, you did. Ever since you dropped him off in his apartment the night he was freed from Jujutsu High's headquarters, you knew that there was definitely something stirring up — at least from your end. Higuruma was drunk, he didn't make a move, and could just have been kind of clingy, to be honest, so you decided to let it go for the time being. Every time you got a little too excited to meet or talk to him recently, you reminded yourself very sternly you weren't a schoolgirl.

But you wouldn't let it go today, because today, you really wanted to know.

"Nothing, really. I just got home." Higuruma promptly answered.

"Can I come over?" You texted back, and locked your screen right after, instantly anxious and eager at the same time. What the fuck is wrong with me? What am I thinking? What am I doing? This can't be a good ide-

"Of course, I'd be delighted." He replied. "And then you could actually see the sunflower is doing very well, in spite of me."

You left the money on the counter and ran off, shushing your thoughts out loud.

***

This was a terrible idea, but I think I can just hang out for an hour, make small talk and then leave, you started to negotiate mentally with yourself right after the three knocks on the door gave some sanity back to your brain. 

However, after Higuruma opened the door and cocked his head to lean it against the door frame, you knew you were completely doomed. He had the top of his white shirt unbuttoned, his tie was hanging loosely around his neck, and his sleeves were rolled up enough for you to see his beautifully defined forearms. His hair had the perfect messy-I-just-got-home look to it, and you instantly wanted to drive your hands through his pitch black locks. 

Oh shit, you thought to yourself, feeling something stir up in your body — and it surely wasn't anger.

It must have been a moment, because he started to look a little puzzled. "Hey, come in." Higuruma said, as if he was repeating himself. Did you not hear him the first time he invited you in? 

"Of course. Thank you." You replied, looking down and hushing yourself inside his apartment. You could feel your face burning, and imagined how much of an idiot you were being right now for ever believing this could go anything but wrong.

"Are you okay? You seem out of sorts." He pointed out, closing the door behind him. "Can I get you anything? I got some beer from the convenience store, and there might be water somewhere in the kitchen."

"I'm fine, I just ran here to get some cardio." You clumsily replied, sitting on the couch. "I came from the bar, actually. Already drank some beers. No need."

Higuruma huffed out a soft chuckle, still a little confused, but now intent on prying. "You're not helping your case. You mean to say that you, a jujutsu sorcerer that exercises heavily, decided to get some cardio done while walking under the influence, from a bar, at night, to meet me?"

"Yes. That's what I meant. Quit prying." You responded, not knowing what the hell else you could say. Tell him that you came rushing just so you wouldn't have the time for second guessing on having s- no, you wouldn't do that.

"Hm." He hummed to himself, grabbing a can and sitting beside you, bouncing the sofa slightly. "I mean, I'm always happy to have you come over, but the only time you came here was to bring me drunk from a bender. And to get me flowers."

"Get you a sunflower, because yours had died." You corrected.

"Precisely, a sunflower." Higuruma replied, taking a sip from his beer. "So, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I just wanted to see you." You said, earnestly. And deep down, it was true, if only half of it.

Higuruma immediately seemed content, even if he only had a small smile to show for it on his face. "Oh."

You were both silent for a moment.

"I never got to repay you for your kindness that day." He said, out of the blue, taking you by surprise.

"It was nothing." You said, shrugging. "I just got you home and gave you a flower."

"Oh, if I remember correctly…" He began.

"Do you remember anything?" You asked, mockingly.

He looked at you, slightly grinning, and continued. "You had to blow up my lock to bust us in. In some places, that would be considered a felony."

"You're saying I could get arrested for busting into a home while I'm with the man that lives there?"

"You also used explosives and damaged the door, let's not forget that." Higuruma said in a mix of playful and matter-of-factly.

"I couldn't ask, because you were completely wasted! Just getting your address was a pain in the ass."

He chuckled. "Was it?"

"Yes, it was." You replied, more relaxed, thanks to coming back to your old banter. This came for the both of you so naturally that you barely realized Higuruma had rested his arm on the sofa right behind you, leaning closer. "Higuruma, why did you drink so much that night?"

That question surprised him, as you could deduct from his eyes widening lightly. He put his beer can on the coffee table and ran his fingers through his hair, inhaling deeply. "I don't know. I guess-" he stuttered for a moment. "I guess I was just nervous to be out again, finally and properly going for a drink with..." his last word lingered on the air, as he unconsciously looked at your eyes, and then your lips, "with you all."

"Do you remember what you said when we got here?" You asked, shamelessly staring at his lips too.

"I believe I said, 'you are too kind'." Higuruma leaned over even further, and you felt his entire body go rigid for a second as you drifted closer to him, heat crawling all over your skin, putting your forehead to his. After some seconds, he rested the palm of his hand over your knee, and from how needy you felt for that man at that particular moment, even such a small thing was enough to make you trip over to the other side.

You immediately crushed your lips to his, putting your hands behind his head. You kissed him eagerly, letting out an extremely faint moan as you drove your fingers over his hair — he tasted like beer, his worn off cologne from the day was completely intoxicating, and you found yourself nearly lunging at the man like a starved animal. Realizing what just happened, you pulled back, starting to apologize, eyes wide and face completely flustered. "Higuruma, I'm so sor-"

Your apologies were cut short with his own lips now clashing into yours in a passionate kiss, as he pushed you under his weight to lay on the couch, his fingers interlocking in your hair strands from the back of your head. His hips effortlessly slid in between your legs as your hands made their way to brush his shoulders, and you let out another moan against his lips, this time much louder, thanks to the dry pressure of his now bulging pants against your clothed core. Higuruma groaned satisfied in response, tracing the outline of your mouth with the tip of his tongue. Your mind was becoming hazy, and he parted from your lips for a moment to gaze at your face. His eyes were locked on you, studying every feature and investigating for any sign of discomfort or second thoughts.

You caught up on that and made your way inside his slightly open mouth with your own tongue, intertwining it with his in between gasps and huffs. Now you separated just enough to breathlessly say, "Bed. Now."

You gasped against his mouth, before holding yourself throwing your arms behind his neck and locking your legs on his waist, grinding on him. He moaned loudly at this stimulation, before smiling sheepishly and putting both of his hands on the back of your thighs for support, knowing full well you meant for him to carry the both of you into the bedroom.

"Yes, ma'am." He replied, propping the both up and then lifting from the couch. Higuruma pressed open-mouthed kisses all around the nape of your neck, as he walked towards a dark room, parting his hands from you just to switch the light on. "I want to see you," he said, breathing heavily against your skin, as he threw you on the bed, climbing on top, one hand to each side of your head as he stared at you with a lustful look in his eyes. You instantly pulled his loosened tie to kiss him again, and he lost balance, basically falling with his body over yours. You whimpered at the feeling of having his now full-blown clothed erection grinding against your core, and involuntarily opened your legs to accommodate his hips over yours.

Higuruma started to take off his tie and shirt, and you followed suit, removing your top and bra. He basked on the sight of you, and cupped both of your breasts in his hands. His digits felt rough, and frictioned just the right amount against you, as he squeezed both of them, satisfied and reverent. His hands started traveling down your figure, contouring every curve, hill, and valley of your body, reaching the edge of your pants. "May I?" He asked, his face lightly blushed as he awaited your response. You nodded, and he promptly unzipped you, pulling your pants and panties down, the slight stimulation from the fabric sliding over your legs being enough to make you mewl with satisfaction. Every nerve in you was incandescent with absolute hunger for him.

You opened your legs, and he could see you were already completely wet from arousal. Letting out an audible satisfied moan, Higuruma began tracing your belly with his mouth, planting long kisses as he went down, leaving a trail of heat wherever his lips touched. As he got near your core, he kissed one last time one of your thighs, and sniffed on your folds. You smelled sinfully sweet, and he made no effort to hold back his eyes fluttering shut with pure bliss. "Could I, please?"

This was his prayer, the bed was his altar and he was determined to worship you.

Without a word, you simply grabbed the top of his hair and drove his mouth in between your legs, whimpering and mewling as his tongue started to rub against your clit. His chin would grind forward on your entrance whenever he changed the angle, and you involuntarily pushed yourself down when that happened. He noticed it, and slid his tongue inside you, eliciting a loud moan in response, with your walls clenching around it. He groaned back in appreciation, and his husky, low voice reverberated throughout your entire being. You arched your back, beginning to feel that familiar heat and fire pooling on your lower stomach.

"H-Higuruma... I-" You sighed, in between mewls and moans.

He immediately stopped and brought his face up to look at you. You let out a complaint sound, glaring at him to ask why he stopped.

"My dear, I'm literally with my face in between your legs, eating you out." He said, unfazed by your annoyance. "We're way past last names. Call me Hiromi."

Incredulous, you let out a mixture of a chuckle and a scoff, having the top inside of you wiggling its way out to the surface. You grabbed his hair strongly, and he cinched his eyebrows, cock twitching inside his pants, as the corner of his lips formed an open-mouthed smile. His eyes were softly resting on you, and he wouldn't mind if your naked, flushed body was the last thing he saw before he died.

"Shut up." You said, grinding your pussy against his mouth, and locking his head to your core with your legs tightly holding around him. Higuruma proceeded more eager than before, lapping at your clit relentlessly with his tongue, alternating with sucks that were having you seeing stars. He was absolutely pussy drunk with the heavenly taste of you and had, at this moment, relinquished any control, as he let you face fuck him chasing your release.

The heat came back again, and you closed your eyes, sinking the back of your head on a pillow. Waves were starting to form, and your orgasm hit you like the crashing water against the shore. You began to tremble and vibrate, coming hard in his mouth, and Higuruma feverishly drank you up, completely hypnotized with how amazing you tasted and felt, falling apart under his ministrations. 

Letting you finish riding your high, licking gently on your overstimulated core, he waited until you were barely moving before removing his own pants and climbing his way back on top of you. As he got close enough to your face, you looked at him, completely flustered and debauched, resting the palm of your hand on his cheek. "Higuruma, I want you inside of me." His tongue, albeit magnificent, just wasn't enough, and you could feel the same anticipation and neediness coiling in your stomach again, as the tip of his cock rested on your entrance.

He looked at you and grunted, displeased. "Hiromi." Higuruma reached to the bedside table and pulled a condom. The movement had him rubbing his throbbing length, already leaking with pre-cum, right against you, forcing him to let out a strained groan.

You gasped at the sensation and chuckled at his annoyance right after, suddenly locking his hips in between your legs, rolling you both so that you would be on top of him. "We'll see, if you ask nicely." You replied, locking him in between your arms, hovering. Higuruma's eyes instantly softened, and his cheeks took a pinkish-red tint. "You're bossy." He said, turning his head towards your wrist and planting a chaste kiss on it, lingering with his lips for a moment on your skin. "I like it."

You smiled, more pleased than you'd like to admit it, because the both of you fit so well it was astonishing. You never thought it would be happening like this, and for a moment, it felt so right you wished you could be here forever. But nothing that good ever lasts long enough.

Grabbing the condom from him with one hand, you motioned the other to grab his neglected cock. As your fingers grasped around his length, Higuruma let out a satisfied and urgent moan, slowly arching himself under your touch. The sight of him completely pliable to your will had you fluttering, as you began to rub your hands up and down, pumping his girth to pleasure him. Higuruma plastered his palms over the plush of your thighs, and groaned your last name, holding out on some kind of desperation. 

"'Way past last names', huh?" You scoffed, playfully, starting to slide the condom over his cock before he could hit you with any witty comeback. After, you positioned yourself above him, holding his length against your entrance, and started to slowly descend over it, feeling it thrust in you to the brim, stretching your walls as he bottomed out. You both let out a gasp, now connected, and you waited a moment to adapt and take all of him in.

"Come here." You said, pulling on his shoulder for him to sit up, so that you could feel and touch every inch of him. He obliged, and sat up, immediately driving his mouth to kiss your neck insistently, brushing the tip of his tongue on the edge of your jaw. Higuruma began to rock his hips, and you did the same, each in the opposite direction, so that his cock would slide in and out of your pussy easily.

You moaned against his scalp, and he held his hands to the small of your waist, leaning you backwards to suck on your breasts. The moment his mouth latched onto one breast, he rolled your other nipple between his fingers, eliciting loud moans and mewls from you. You had your head dangling back, as he began to thrust into you quicker and harder. He slid the hand previously on your waist to the back of your neck, and pulled you in for a kiss, taunting your mouth with his tongue. You opened it, and both your tongues intertwined, as he, now, chased his own release, panting and groaning into your lips. You weren't so far off, feeling the familiar coil tightening in your abdomen, yearning for release.

"Higu-"

"Hiromi, please. P-please... Please..." He implored and begged, kissing desperately your jawline. You lowered your gaze and met his eyes softer and more tender than you had ever seen, so urgently pleading for you to let him in, give him this inch of intimacy, and that was the moment you caved. You pressed your forehead against his, and started to cry out his name. "Hiromi... H-Hiromi..."

Letting out moans and groans in between the squelching from your juices, he pulled you impossibly close, eyes piercing and locked onto yours. This was the moment you felt more naked, bare and vulnerable the entire night, and the coil that had formed in your belly snapped, sending waves of pure pleasure from the tip of your head to your toes. Feeling your gummy walls clenching all around him, Higuruma also hit his orgasm intensely, thrusting into you fervently to ride off his high. He stopped slowly, ready to crumble underneath you at any moment.

"Hiromi-" You said, brushing your lips against his cheek, then under his ear. "Hiromi, Hiromi, Hi-ro-mi. Happy? Just for tonight, though."

Higuruma chuckled soulfully, realizing how much he absolutely loved the sound of his name on your tongue, purred through your whispered voice, reverberating on his flushed, sensitive skin. It made his body quiver and tremble with pure satisfaction. 

It was right there, at that moment, with his heart fluttering while you leaned back to gaze at him, stroking his hair strands between your fingers with a gentle smile, that he realized just how fucked he actually was.

Sighing softly and smiling back, Higuruma pushed his lips against yours. He knew that by playing with fire, he was bound to get burned, eventually — and burned he was.

[polinsated]

@polin-erospsyche said these tags i wrote shouldn't be tags, and i trust her with my possible-inpending embarrassment, apparently, so, here you go:

i adore this look so much. the way colin looks at pen here will never not be used as a defence against people saying polin are 'rushed', or 'have no chemistry', or whatever it is they're saying now. and here's my little take on it.

-> you know how they say, you don't know what you have until it's gone. in this case, colin didn't realise how much he needed pen and her letters until they were gone....

—

this lonely, weary traveller has been away for months. we know his family doesn't often reply to his letters. and although he jokes about it, and they do too, we can all agree that he's upset by this, yes?

so in this moment, he turns around and sees the only person who has been corresponding with him throughout his journeys. he sees the woman who not only responds to every letter he sends but also who does so with genuine interest and fondness. the person who has made him feel like he has had a friend there with him on his travels. i personally believe he was alone for most, if not, nearly all of the time he was away. though, even if he did have some companionship; penelope was his constant for that time.

she has probably been keeping him entertained with stories, making sure he knows his family is okay, and asking him about every detail of his adventures. and in my opinion, i believe she barely ever mentioned herself in these letters. she has really been there with him every step of the way via her open ears (nay eyes) and written words.

and so finally, he sees her there, and i don't think he knows what to do with himself.

does he want to just say hello? probably not - look at his face! does he want to sit down with her right away and ramble on about things he has yet to say? or maybe just tell the same stories - because he knows she will listen, and she will understand, and she will enjoy hearing about them. maybe. does he want to hug her and say thank you? possibly.

my point is that i think he doesn't know what to do. it's such a short look that he doesn't have time to decide. and he's suspended in those moments when he sees her looking back at him with a huge smile on her face. he's overwhelmed.

i may be wrong in this part, but i also think he's a little surprised. he knows pen hangs out with his family a lot, but i don't think he expected her to be there right at that very moment he walked in the door. the man is baffled, to me. and in love.. despite not knowing it yet, hehe.

and it leads me to the sudden and heartbreaking point of 3.01. when colin has finished greeting his family, he turns to look at the featherington house because he notices right away that pen is not there like last time. and now it feels wrong that she isn't.

and if you watch that moment, the exact part when he turns back to his family again, there is something in the way his hands swing loosely at his sides, like a defeated sigh from his body - if you know what i'm trying to say.

his body language, to me, just screams disheartened... dispirited, or whatever other fancy word you'd see fit to use. but it's so subtle...

and then later we find out that penelope didn't respond to any of his letters this time. and i can only imagine how confused he is. because, honestly, he probably forgot about the horrible courting comment he made, and even if he remembered, he doesn't know then that pen heard it. so in his mind he is wondering where on earth his friend is. the possibility that she could be unwell has probably also crossed his mind. he is just - desperate, most likely - at this point to find out what's going on.

the thought of him, on his travels, everyday wondering why there still hasn't been a single letter signed 'penelope' absolutely breaks my heart.

and while i was about to end this post, i just thought about colin actually writing his own letters, and how he might've changed his tone along the way... do you think they ever included such words as something like: "i eagerly await your response." / "i hope to hear from you sometime soon." / "are you well, pen?"

or even this soul destroying, lump in the throat inducing quote that my mind has just come up with: "i've begun to think that there's a possibility you have not received my recent letters. for several weeks i have not heard back. not even a single tidbit about your mama, or my bothersome siblings. i must admit, my travels have not been as such fun or as fascinating as when i have my good friend to tell them to. i hope my writing finds you soon enough, or that yours finds me."

......

anyway, i don't write metas.. or i do and i never post them because i feel stupid and rambly and i'm never sure if it makes sense, but, i'm being a little brave here, haha. (thank you, luwen)

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

he’s the adult supervision, he’s the voice of reason, he’s a cringefail king, it’s Captain Haddock! Quite a few people asked for a timeline post for Haddock after I posted one of Tintin.

I found the whole idea of the Haddock family curse to be very interesting, and the implications behind it to be pretty dark... cw for alcoholism and childhood abuse. Let me know if you need anything tagged.

To figure out the timeline the evidence for Haddock’s age I found was in an animated adaptation of Explorers on the Moon where Haddock mentions he has around forty years of sailing experience. I doubt he was running around on ships as a newborn so that places his age during the canon comics at around 60ish, give or take a few years, which in my timeline places his childhood during the late Victorian era!

Left to right, top to bottom:

Child - Archibald Haddock had a pretty rough childhood and family life. The legacy of the “Haddock family curse” weighs heavily on him, and so does the alcoholism that runs generationally. His father is often drunk, taking his anger and frustration out on Archibald. Fully believing the family curse, Archibald’s father drills the idea that he is destined for failure into his head. 

Archibald’s only respite is his grandfather, who tells him stories of Sir Francis Haddock and other tall tales from the sea. His grandfather also would take him out on fishing trips, the lochs and the sea being his refuge. 

Teenager - It’s the 1880s and Archibald is left aimless after his grandfather passes away, passing the time by hiding from his father and drinking during the day. He fully believes he has no real future and lets himself get swept up by whatever will come along next.

Young Adult - Archibald decides to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and becomes a sailor, feeling at home at sea. He cleans up somewhat after befriending George Chester as the two train on the same merchant vessel. Chester drags a reluctant Archibald along into all kinds of crazy antics, with Archibald wanting to stay on the straight and narrow.

Archibald is drafted during the First World War, serving in the Grand Fleet. He is stationed at the Orkney and Shetland Islands with Chester.

Canon - After the war Archibald relapses on his addiction again, but is able to hold onto work in the merchant fleet. He eventually becomes a captain of a merchant vessel where his mental health issues are taken advantage of in the Crab with the Golden Claws. 

Seeing his crew mutiny, kidnap (and attempt to murder) a boy on his ship was a major wake up call - Haddock is now imbued with a sense of responsibility for Tintin (even if Tintin seems to handle things better than Haddock!). He doesn’t understand what Tintin sees in him but he’ll be damned if he proves him wrong. He’s not above calling him an idiot when the time is right though.

Post Canon - After Tintin loses his job Haddock does his best to support him.  He uses his wealth to further causes he believes in, donating money to artist collectives and scientific research that was repressed by fascist governments. Before Belgium even joins the Second World War he and the Marlinspike team proactively go out and foil various Nazi plots. Marlinspike Hall is firebombed by the Nazis in retaliation, but after the war Haddock funds various housing cooperative projects. Coming from a working class background he hasn’t forgotten the hardships a lot of people face.

Elderly - At this point Haddock is secure in his found family. He’s been living with his partner Ramo Nash, and has taken up various arts and crafts as hobbies. Looking back, he never expected to be a father, but is incredibly proud of Tintin. He never officially adopts him as a part of him still fears the family curse (plus they both agree “Haddock” as a name definitely does not suit Tintin)!

[amorgansgal]

Healing Touch - Part 1

I've started writing my idea that I brought up in the Halsinners community featuring Halsin taking care of a sick female reader who has a son. I've decided to split it into two as it was getting very long, so hopefully I'll post part 2 later this week.

@halsinsgate, @thepickledmermaid, @thoughts-of-bear and @embrulee just tagging you all in case you're interested in reading.

Your son clung tightly to you as you hurried through the smouldering wreck of the city, it took you twice as long to reach Basilisk Gate just because of how many streets are blocked with the smashed remains of buildings. Not to mention, you had to carry a sack of your belongings on your back and hold tightly onto your child as he gripped onto your dress with his fists. But at long last you could see the line of wagons and you let out a shaky breath of relief. 

The elf in charge, the hero of the Gate, the one so many have whispered about reverently, Archdruid Halsin was helping to pack the last few boxes and you called out, fearing even now that you might not make it in time and would be left behind. ‘Master Halsin! Master Halsin, please I am here! Please don’t leave without us!’

He turned to look at you and then quickly put down the box he was holding, and made his way over. ���We had no intention of leaving until everyone was here,’ he said comfortingly. ‘Can I help with your bag or find a place for your son to sit?’

He smiled gently at your son, who eyed Halsin warily and then hid his face in your chest. ‘It’s alright, Seth,’ you murmured to him softly. ‘This is Master Halsin, the defender of Baldur’s Gate, a hero like one from the old ages.’

Seth peeked up a little, curious, though he still apprehensively clung to you. Halsin chuckled. ‘Well, I don’t know about that, and Halsin will do just fine.’ He helped to remove the bag from your shoulder and securely packed it in the wagon. ‘Is this all you brought with you?’ he asked, his brow furrowed a little with worry.

‘Well once we came out of hiding in our cellar, there wasn’t a good deal left. It’s mostly clothes, Seth’s toys, a few odds and ends…’ your cheeks warmed with embarrassment. It was not like you had wanted to take so little with you, but given you hadn’t had much to begin with and had to consider carrying a child, you hoped you would not be considered a burden. ‘I mean to make myself useful, I can sew and knit and weave well, and we won’t want for much…’

Halsin nodded reassuringly. ‘I am sure you will. I was just concerned that you had brought so little with you, but we will not leave people to the wayside if they need something and you need not worry about proving yourself useful.’ 

He offered you a hand, helping you up into the wagon and you gratefully took it, wobbling a little as you climbed up. His hand was rough, callused, but warm and so large in comparison to your own. It would dwarf Seth’s and you gave it a little squeeze to silently thank him.

As Halsin resumed his work on packing the wagons, you watched him easily picking up boxes and bags. ‘Is he really a hero, mama?’ Seth’s little voice interrupted your reverie and you cuddled him close.

‘Yes, he defeated the Netherbrain, the mindflyers and the shadow curse that gripped the land where we’re going now.’

Your son’s eyes grew as wide as dinner plates and he peeped around the canvas covering of the wagon to look at Halsin. You smile as he did, your son is already overawed by the idea of such a hero being amongst your midst.  

‘Can you tell me a story about him on the way there?’ Seth asked, as he settled back beside you.

‘Of course. Once upon a time, there was a noble druid called Halsin-’

‘And his friend Seth,’ your son insisted.

‘And his good friend Seth…’

You had been fortunate that there had already been houses enough in Reithwin for you to have a little home with your son, but given how so many of them were made from the naturally abundant stone there it was a cold place. Like so many others in the village you had fallen ill with a nasty flu. You had doubtless caught it from Seth, whom you had nursed for a week or two, but now it was your turn! 

Halsin had done everything to ensure everyone’s comfort and wellbeing, especially during the colder winter months and had provided plenty of herbal remedies to help with the worse of the flu’s symptoms. But as you struggled up from your bed, your head swimming, your skin prickling with heat, the deep seated painful exhaustion that made even just a few steps from the bed feel impossible, you knew there was no chance you would be able to make your way outside, trek along the deep drifts of snow and make your way to find him in order to beg a cure. 

You curled back into bed, only managing to lift your head on hearing the little patter of feet across the floor as Seth made his way to your side.

‘Mama,’ your son said. ‘It’s time to get up.’

‘I know,’ your raspy voice sounded so pathetically weak. ‘But mama isn’t well, can you go next door to Helga and ask her to go to Halsin for a cure? And ask her if you can stay and play with Johan?’

‘I can get Halsin, mama!’ your son said eagerly and he began to pull on his little boots.

‘No, Seth, do as I say, go and get-’

‘Don’t worry, mama, I’ll get Halsin!’ he said, giving your forehead a kiss.

‘Seth!’ you cried out, but he had already run out the room, tugging his cloak off the back of a chair. You heard the front door bang loudly. You groaned at the sound, it made your head ache and throb. You attempted to get up again, but even sitting upright made your head swim. ‘Seth!’ you called again, but evidently he was too far away to hear you. You took a moment to rest against the bedframe and even that was enough for you to drift off to sleep, only startling awake when you heard the door open once more, the howling gusts of wind sent a flurry of snowflakes across the central room. You could hear your son’s light pattering of feet across the threshold, followed by a heavier tread.

‘See, papa Halsin, mama is not well,’ your son’s piping voice could be heard outside your bedroom and you did your best to open your eyes and pull your shawl around your shoulders as the two entered your room.

‘Seth,’ you rasped. ‘I told you to go next door to Helga and have her fetch Master Halsin.’

‘But mama, she’s old and takes forever! Look mama, this is what she’s like!’ Seth said, then mimicked poor Helga with her walking stick, hobbling across the room. Which was quite unfair given the woman, despite her age, was rather sprightly and quick and you were sure she would’ve hot footed it to Halsin’s hut.

‘Seth, don’t be rude, she’s not that old or infirm.’

‘What does infirm mean?’ Seth asked.

Halsin chuckled and placed a soothing hand on your forehead. You shouldn’t have done so, but you found yourself leaning into his touch. Many a time you had dreamed about him touching you. During the last warmth of the early autumn months you had seen him working with the others, forgoing his tunic, his chest bare and with a thin sheen of sweat that made your mouth water at the sight of him. The veins that corded his arms and hands made your mind swirl at the thought of him laying his hands on you, firmly gripping your waist, your hips, your thighs. 

‘Infirm means someone who is not strong and Helga is a very strong woman, despite her age,’ Halsin said. 

‘Oh! Well you are not imfirm, papa Halsin,’ Seth mused.

Halsin laughed quietly. ‘Hopefully not just yet!’ He moved his hand to the back of your neck and hummed in thought. ‘It certainly seems like you have caught that flu going round and I’m afraid what I can give you will only lessen the symptoms and help you sleep, I do not have a cure.’

You gave a weak nod. ‘Well, perhaps if you’d be so kind to fetch Helga, I can see if she can look after Seth and I’ll think about a way to pay her back.’

The druid frowned. ‘You should not have to worry about such matters and this flu can last a while. Who will care for you?’

‘Perhaps Helga can look in on me…’ you said, but you doubted if that would be such a good idea, you didn’t want to pass the illness on to her or her grandson Johan.

‘I think it best if I stay and look after you both, that way you needn’t worry about Seth passing on the illness to anyone and I can ensure you have plenty of tea and broth to keep your strength up.’

It was silly that such an offer of kindness made you feel weepy, but you bit back your tears and weakly coughed. ‘But what about the work that has to be done in Reithwin? Aren’t you busy? People look to you as our leader and I don’t want to take you away from all that with a silly little illness.’

‘You know as well as I that we are waiting for the warmer months to resume the building and farming work. And I would make for a poor leader if I did not care for everyone here, though I do only see myself as one among many leaders, I can find someone else to care for my duties in the meantime.’

‘Halsin,’ you whispered hoarsely. ‘That would not be fair, I do not want to take you away from your duties.’

He looked at you so sincerely and sweetly that you felt the little lump rise in your sore throat once more and said, ‘You are my duty. Now, please rest and sleep, and do not allow yourself to fret any further upon the matter.’

His tone boded no argument and you rested back on the pillows, the last thing you saw before sleep took you was Seth taking Halsin’s hand as the druid said, ‘Come Seth, let’s see if we can make you and your mother some supper.’ The image warmed your heart and you burrowed further into the blankets, glad that Halsin was here to care for your son. Before you drifted off, you allowed yourself to imagine the pretty fantasy that this was always the case, that Halsin was your son’s father and he cared for you more deeply and sweetly.

[pianostarinwonderland]

maybe skully isnt dead 🤯 [half copium half srs]

listen. ik ive been on copium for a while. ik we all are, ive seen twitter, tumblr, and everyone’s tags on my posts when they reblog

BUT PLS HEAR ME OUT. IM SO SERIOUS RN WHEN I SAY: if u wanna be technical about it, if u wanna stretch it out somehow, you can argue that the game never outright states that skully is dead, only that the skully we met was from hundreds of years ago.

“but mamsir pianostarinwonderland, how in the fuck can that be???? we HEARD that invisible kiss” LET ME COOKKKKKK 🔥🔥🔥 I SWEAR EVERYONE, I AM COOKING U JUST HAVE TO HEAR ME OUUUUUUUUUUUUUT— knocked out

Ok serious time, let me mansplain to you all the possibility of Skully being alive

Establishing first of all, Twst has kept Skully's nature vague

Simply put: we don't know if Skully is human. In his live 2D, Skully's ears are completely covered. Even in his illustration, we can barely see his ears. It's an interesting design choice. However, in his chibi (which wasn't revealed until Episode 5), we can see his ears aren't shaped like a fae, but are round like that of a human.

However, it's pretty hard to think he's human either, when we consider his "moshi, ne moshi" greeting in Episode 1 and its connection to the supernatural. Voiced, to be noted. Exactly what kind of creature he could be is currently unknown, but because this part was voiced, it's something we need to pay attention to at the very least.

In regards to his mortality, the only clue we're really given is Skully himself saying that he may never meet us except through Halloween, which implies a lifespan similar to a human or something similar. But Skully doesn't know how far into the future that the cast is from. Heck, does he even know of his nature?

Now, addressing that invisible kiss...

I feel like this is the main thing that told all of us that Skully is long gone. Heck, if you catch me in my right mind, I might just tell you that yeah, that should be enough proof that Skully is dead! Little signs from the dead such can manifest in similar ways to what Jamil and Leona sensed: hearing a kiss and feeling a kiss on your hand.

(unfortunately i'm not in my right mind so you're getting my dumb reasons why i'm arguing for otherwise)

However, if Skully is gone, I find it interesting that this is the way they decide to show it. We already know from the very first Halloween event that ghosts can manifest all year round in Night Raven College due to the high concentration of magical power in the area. Outside of that, they cannot be seen. If they really wanted to confirm with the audience that Skully is a ghost, they could have had him appear as such at the end, when they all returned to Night Raven College.

But they chose a scenario where people can draw a lot of conclusions from it: Is their senses getting fucked over as they wake up? Are they still reeling from the magic of the book? (though rationally, we know that Leona is not one to be easily stunned, so the first question is at the very least easy to dismiss)

I've also seen some people theorize that he's using invisibility magic during the invisible kiss scene. And well, while I find that funny, it makes me wonder if he could be some other kind of spirit that's not dead. Like an undead of some sort, which the residents of Halloween Town are. Heck, Azul's card line about Skully talks about how he seems to fit right at home with the Halloween Town residents. Again, we don't know Skully's true nature, but the possibility of him being a species that can turn invisible is interesting.

Moving on, we have what Dire Crowley stated about Skully

At the end of the event, Crowley tells us that he found Skully’s portrait while rummaging through the storage and shows it to us and the 11 boys who went inside the book

What he tells us is that Skully J. Graves is a NRC graduate from hundreds of years ago, before Crowley was Headmage. Note that he only was appointed for the position 100 years ago; the Skully we met is at least from around 200 years ago. During his NRC years, Skully got to share Halloween to NRC. It was a hit, and when he graduated, he spread Halloween all over the world in his travels.

I'd like to take a little detour first to discuss something that's been weighing on my mind: Some people have thought that Crowley is lying to us when he speaks about Skully and his achievements, but... I don't see why he would lie. For one, there is a decent chance that Crowley might not have gotten to see Skully. Even if he did, it's even more unsure if he was involved in Skully's affairs.

However, there's one main reason why I do think that Skully got to live a fulfilling life instead of facing an overblot that killed him or some other tragedy. I'd like to dedicate a longer post to this matter, but to make it concise, I think through Skully, Twst is starting to establish something new regarding their history. I think that historical teachings, folktales and stories, and rumors that are well-known tend to be lies or twisted truths. Whereas those that are obscure and not known are actually what occurred. Skully is called the King of Halloween who's done so much to spread the holiday to the world, yet not even NRC students, who should be the first to know considering that Skully is an alumna, know of him. Although there may be other reasons why that's the case, I like to think that at the very least, Skully's obscurity indicates that he did live the life he wanted and succeeded in working for a future that generations after him can enjoy.

Anyway, that actually isn't the main point of this section of the post, but I kind of want to air that out first. The main point is that Crowley only really said that Skully is a former NRC student from hundreds of years ago who traveled around the world to spread Halloween. But he never told us where he was buried or whether he saw his ghost roaming NRC. He never said anything about Skully being dead.

He probably said the hundreds of years ago bit, carrying the assumption that of course, Skully may have passed away. But we have to remember that we have long-living species in Twisted Wonderland. Fae that were students 200 years ago are very likely to be alive now. Crowley himself is a long-living creature, having been Headmage for 100 years. I think with that in mind, it's important for him to emphasize that Skully's gone if he really is. But he never mentioned it. Therefore, there is a good chance that Skully might just be somewhere else. That or Crowley just doesn't give a fuck where his alumni go, and I might be thinking too deeply about the absence of certain words. Honestly, that's a pretty good chance too.

Lastly, we have the scene where Jack Skellington gets shot down but survives it

Here's where it gets a bit more into speculation, but you're going to have to hear me out.

In the movie, Jack Skellington gets shot down by the military for impersonating Santa Claus. When the Halloween Townspeople watched it, they all despaired, and the mayor started declaring to all that Jack has been blown to smithereens and proclaimed him dead.

But that's not what happened: we find Jack landing on an angel's statue, alive and definitely not blown to smithereens.

And considering that Skully is still very much twisted from Jack Skellington... do you think the writers are pulling a similar move? Making us think that he's dead, just as the townspeople thought he was dead, only for us to learn eventually that he's alive.

This of course depends on what happens eventually in the sequel. From the way things are proceeding, what happened in the Lost in the Book with TNBC is events prior to the movie, and we could very well have the sequel be set during the movie events. (If you ask me, I kind of doubt that actually. I feel like Skellington got inspired by Skully's love for Halloween, enough to stay true to his identity as the Pumpkin King, which would mean the movie wouldn't happen the way we know it. So if anything, I feel like TNBC 2 would focus less on the actual movie and more on the side games where Oogie takes over Halloween Town and even kidnaps Santa and other people, but I admit, that's a stretch, especially considering that we will get Santa giving Halloween Town a taste of Christmas)

Of course, this post is really just to let some of my copium out. Rn, it's still safe to assume that yea, Skully's dead. And though I am coping hard for Skully to be alive, with the way Twst treats the dead, it's not exactly a bad thing. Ghosts continue to stay in NRC like they're living people. They honor the dead, and let the dead live among them. And even if he is in the afterlife and not stuck in the mortal plane, I have faith that Skully did live a fulfilling life that may have been forgotten but clearly changed the world. :'D

[katyspersonal]

In defence of Shadow of the Erdtree + Getting my grudges with the fandom's bad takes off my chest

(! if you are seeing this caption it means the post was shared via queue feature, thus I must be STILL on my hiatus! will respond to comments when I am back online and thank all 5 of you for waiting for me! )

*deep, tired sigh* Allllright so... Ever since SoTE came out, it has been a rocky patch for me growing past initial shock, absorbing new lore and above all, dealing with some conflicts that transpired over it! In the end my grudges, as well as disagreements with popular attacks on this DLC accumulated enough to make me feel like smoking volcano, I swear.. You might have observed some anger already slipping through the cracks, but I've decided to place ALL of my opinions in one easily skippable post instead of turning my blog into a toxic pool with endless negative posts, so I'll just get to it!!

YEAH YEAH I know, a TRUE comedy genius remaking my DLC predictions bingo post to structure what I want to address fdhhdsf This is basically a 'so how is checking Elden Ring tag going today? :)' bingo but... it is easier to put it like this. I just need some way to simply vent my own frustrations because I hate everything featured in this image with THE burning rage. Putting my opinions and everything under cut but fair warning, not only it is going to be very long as if anyone who knows me is surprised dfhshfsd, but also very ANGRY! ANYWAYS!

1) "They excused genocide by giving Marika a sad backstory"

Sigh… Instantly off to a terrible start, and it is truly the most Tumblr take out of all Tumblr takes imaginable. So let me suggest something actually ground-breaking here… Giving your villain reasoning not only makes for a more realistic and interesting character, but is also crucial because nobody is just BORN evil.

sorry I had to I understand the temptation of wanting a villain whose sole drive is power control preserving privileges etc because it resonates more with the narratives proposed in real life and people's struggles, but not only even in real life things are FAR not as often as simple… but even if they were, Fromsoft is always dealing with more complicated matters that touch the nature of existence in general, and not just power and control over it someone could gain! Marika was not "just" evil even in the base game either, giving off the impression of someone wanting to build a perfect world of light, life, safety and abundance even at the expense of oppressing "potential threat" species (Omens serving as…. well, omens of the threat of returning to the primordial state of things or Albinaurics, creation of Nox, who angered the Greater Will itself once).

She waged war on the Fire Giants who had 'evil god of fire', caused natural disasters and whose fire existed as anathema to the Erdtree and declared her victory the start of the "better age"! That already spoke of a lot of complexity, without forcing the audience to agree with her motivations and actions but instead understand what weight they held in the grand scheme of things! Again: much like Gwyn who destroyed Dragons thus creating time, light and life the way it is known now and who for all his agenda against humans had a pretty solid reason to fear the darkness within them, which effects we've seen across the trilogy!

What DLC did add was simply a lore on Marika's origins as a Goddess, and what made her vulnerable enough for the Two Fingers to seek her! Divinity is further stated to not be a great thing via Miquella's whole arc, but the wish to change the world to the better hits harder when you personally were a victim of its fundamental corruption! She did not instantly become a good person over DLC lore, nor she was just evil person and nothing else in the base game! War against Fire Giants (maybe Dragons?) was the means to topple the current powers and establish her reign, oppressing certain species was the mean to preserve it. She searched not solely to take revenge on the Hornsent, but to build a different world where what they did would not happen, ironically ending up causing more injustice ANYWAYS! Miquella fell into this trap. Heck, GIDEON fell into this trap!

Even then, her machiavellian character does not explain why even after Hornsent were completely defeated that war continues forever through Messmer and his forces. Could this be just what Messmer insisted on and THUS she cast him away, or she lost any and all sight of what pusher her to it initially? In either case, even the game itself makes it very clear that Marika/Messmer are not heroes here in the SLIGHTEST!

On a more general note, detached from the specifics of this game: I do still find it more strange to be angry about villains being given sympathetic traits, as a concept. People who are just "born evil" are such a minority that they hardly can say anything about nature of men. Bad people, by proxy, are a combination of some sort of unhappy event (trauma, bad upbringing, faced oppression, mental illness that was not treated if not had its negative traits amplified due to environment, growing in propaganda and ignorance, abuse etc) and person's unwillingness or even inability to heal and stop the cycle of pain by refusing to cause more of it. It is not that simple, and often, people who were hurt so are past the point of not letting it make THEM evil, or lack resources to do so, or have their attempts to change if they WERE bad actively sabotaged.

This IS the true horror of existence: freedom of will itself being put in question. We might be not defined by our pain, but how we will respond to it might be defined by prior events, information we had, circumstances and society around us. How can ANYONE tell what they would be like if they endured the same? Can we be sure that we "endured the same but reacted differently" wasn't predefined by other, nicer factors? To be angry at the fact that a bad person who did bad things had a reasonable, even sympathetic explanation at the core of it all is to be angry that one's privilege to use "born evil" to mistreat and emotionally distance from those people is put into question!

In any case, 'explanation is not an excuse' works not only as a tool to still judge someone's sins, but ALSO to explain that writers making a character more elaborate is not a demand to like this character or excuse their actions! Everything has reason… This is why no one is entitled to declare they know what is good and bad for everyone. Not just people like Marika or Gwyn, but even us.

2) "Hornsent are dangerous and deserved extermination"

…okay, look, yes this is another heavy topic, and it does deserve a separate post which I did make already in the past ( x )! It is another topic that sort of transcends the boundaries of this story (another common Fromsoft W for making people question life and society themselves)! To put it down simply, of course no race is inherently evil, what is the reoccurring topic here is the culture! And what is on the surface is that Hornsent as culture and species, in many ways, are victims of its own oppressive religious institution and questionable traditions. Bonny Village's potentates are hostile, dangerous cult serving as a the weapon of """justice""" and """purification""" within Hornsent! They possibly go back-to-back with their religion but except they are extremist. We cannot tell whether general face of the religion, the Inquisitor hags, would do anything about it had they have more control, whether they tolerate it for convenience, or whether they encourage and utilise its existence. But what we CAN tell is that not only "impure races" are punished/killed, but even "unfaithful" Hornsent themselves!

Yes, definitely there are also Hornsent children who would have no choice regarding their upbringing, information, nor much agency over their actions, and we know they did not spare the children either from the story of Hornsent NPC that we follow! But even then, it is clear that Hornsent that were in disagreement about their culture's demands had to be quiet about it either, or else they'd likewise be persecuted!

"Why could not they just have started a revolution" is a very unfair criticism towards a culture/place oppressed by corrupt religious (and military?) institution on many levels! As someone from the country ruled by a tyrant feeding the civilians propaganda excusing genocide and promoting xenophobia, as well as very corrupt and oppressive religious institution that yet is hardly a HALFWAY as awful as some countries I could explain how hard (impossible) it is to reliably as much as gather enough people to rebel (with no results but legal troubles down to getting imprisoned). Let alone gather enough people to go an die for the cause. Especially when almost everyone with ANY power and weapons is already by the government's side completely rotten by propaganda. Feeling outnumbered, not having any resources because they're all in the hands of people who ARE corrupt, knowing even out of other people who disagree most would not risk leaving their children and sick relatives and alike in trouble rising up against the enemy they can't reliably take down is already a huge problem here. Even considering the (very idealistic) sentiment that dire consequences doesn't erase the blame that comes from not speaking up, it doesn't change that there are real and reasonable people who don't agree! Let alone the separate topic of how even people rotten by propaganda deserve a chance for rehabilitation! Propaganda is a horrifying tool and not having immunity to it should not be automatic death sentence!

Shadow Realm is already full of burn Hornsent spirits questioning what did they even do wrong and claiming they only wanted to live and didn't do anything, further proving that they might not even be much aware of what their Inquisitors and Potentates do, let alone not being a solid monolith race of those who agree with extermination of the "impure"! They are people, living in conditions of the culture held by the throat of those truly evil! It were a bunch of civilians burnt, as well as Hornsent's (NPC) wife and child who 99.99% didn't do anything. To think of it, it makes it very bitter that Bonny's Village and Inquisitors in the Tower clearly were able to recover and bounce back, when it were civilians who payed the price. Very grim yet clever remark about the real world as well, but I am sidetracking. In general, yes, a culture that considers itself holier than others with extremist forms of it deeming them unworthy of living should be stopped and criticised, but genocide can NEVER be the answer!

^^^ It fact, something already suggests there was a different answer, an even obvious one. Marika's "betrayal" suggests a long social game on her part, as well as the fact that Hornsent culture were trusting her! Maybe they knew she was a shaman and things were happening past the point where they stopped persecuting them, maybe they had no idea. Yet, in any case, Marika held enough social power to bridge the gap between the cultures, to let them evolve beyond their past, traditions and prejudice against 'outsider' cultures and instead learn from them!

^^^ In fact, the gap was bridged, since Crucible, THE Hornsent thing, WAS considered divine even as Golden Order was established! That was like… after getting Elden Ring instead of Dragons (whatever the reason was), war with the Fire Giants and murder of the Fell God and removal of Destined Death from the Elden Ring? Nonetheless, with the power to stop vicious cycle and to let the horrible practices and past be buried and dissolve in her new order of life and radiance, so-to-say "civilization", she chose the path of genocide and revenge that has not ended even to this day! As well as essentially became "the very thing she sworn to destroy" by keeping those like Omens and Albinaurics oppressed!

And to bring back the previous chapter of this post, it is not an invitation to say 'aww then it is fair that she hates Omens so much 🥺', but a pointer that what she did was wrong. And so, yet again, the cycle continues, take Vengeance-Seeking Hornsent that swears to kill not only her and her family, but everyone affiliated with her in any way even if they were innocent and simply were born under such order! He mirrors how she/Messmer did not simply stop at punishing those who WERE guilty, how violence and revenge will always only birth more of violence and revenge, until someone decides to stop it and chose to solve the situation the pacifist way to their best ability. Even when some people claim that within this option those who will want their power back can survive and ruin everything again: likewise, if culture is exterminated, victims will survive and come back with revenge. Either way suggests the risk, but only one of these ways has even a CHANCE of better future! What IS certain is that humanity could never be at better place unless we as species keep trying peace over and over, that won't banish all evil from the first try, but we must choose peace and not genocide over and over!

3) "Miquella's character was assassinated"

No, it wasn't.

OKAY FINE but it is one of the topics that are hard to approach seriously, when someone mistakes the arc of the character falling from grace to a complete rewrite of the character's personality! How falling from grace inherently suggests there was no grace to BEGIN with? Character assassination suggests Chloé Bourgeois from Ladybug that the character has been written a certain way, but then deliberate effort was done by the writers to damage their image and make the audience hate them or no longer care about them!

What we learned about Miquella from the base game was all information about him from the times long before we, player, arrived in the game, and before his departure in the Shadow Realm! He was kind, he cared about his sister to the point of creating a new school of magic and then creating Unalloyed Gold all to heal her, he wanted a gentler order than the Golden Order and created his own tree that welcomed everyone but first of all those oppressed by the Golden Order, he wished his brother Godwyn could die honourably instead of being a growing virus to all living past death. At the same time, he naturally needed military force to protect his Haligtree, as well as was able to bewitch people with his powers!

In Shadow of the Erdtree, nothing that followed erased that information! In fact, he still boldly stated that he wanted Age of Compassion! What we DID witness though were two things: 1) the fact that he had to get a bit machiavellian, something that already was obvious from the base game because kindness alone is not enough to survive in this world and you HAVE to do some planning as the leader up against the current order with its own fans, as well as people who hate the compassion as an idea and 2) that he has been leaving behind what made him the person that he was, including his feelings and attachments, which logically included caring for Malenia for example! So, the dearest sister is 'loyal blade', because he abandoned his love! He does not still love Radahn either, but Radahn was a part of the promise; a very pragmatic thing and memory that did not have to go as his feelings did. He simply was part of the initial plan to ascend to Godhood; Miquella sounded scared of the idea when he asked Radahn to be there for him, but abandoning his fears and doubts would not automatically erase the OATH. Effectively, a "contract".

Miquella was hyped up as that kind, almost perfect, noble person, for us to find out that he is not anymore. The 'anymore' part here is crucial! Fromsoft have previously did the trick with hyping a character up to be great but us finding out they were not with Vendrick and Gwyn (and very briefly with Artorias who didn't DO anything yet was hyped as THE hero when he was in fact defeated)! Miquella repeats the trend with reveal that he did charm Mohg back then (was not perfect in his actions, but I'll get to it later), but also has the story of further descent from that not-perfect-yet-GOOD person that we follow! He is effectively the most elaborate incarnation of the concept, and we know Elden Ring includes Fromsoft learning from their previous games a lot, polishing the concepts they want to use! Miyazaki confirmed that Elden Ring is "close" to the dark fantasy game of his dream, yet is still not it (someone stop this madman fhfdhs)!

To suggest that revealing him as complex, as well as adding the tragedy of repeating Marika's mistakes no matter how much he was running from this sad fate, equates the devs wanting us to hate him (that is what CA is) is ABSURD! He REALLY did not want to be Marika, he was AVOIDING it, yet no matter what, it caught up to him... How comes you equate tragedy and imperfection with suggesting that you should hate him according to the writers' intention? I will go further and say that if your expected reaction to finding out your fav was never perfect in the world where perfection doesn't survive, and had road to Hell paved with good intentions is 'oh devs made him hateable' it only speaks of your own lack of understanding and compassion. Miquella is as much of the victim of this wretched world as everyone else, where you die a hero, remain a lazy fence-sitter or try to do something but only drastic means to do it make a change. Really, this is just Fromsoft's world and Elden Ring is in no obligation to change their philosophy of existential horror!

4) "Fromsoft failed fans by not making it [insert a thing from a wishlist]"

It could be a bit subjective, but personally I think this is simply not how creativity works as a concept. This kind of criticism suggests that upon deciding on the DLC, developers were supposed to look at the fandom's discussions, determine what would be most emotionally satisfying for them, and go that route regardless of what their vision of the story was or what…? It feels like a very entitled kind of thinking for me. Creator's one task is to bring their own vision to life and tell the story and messages they want to deliver! Not to cater to the audience, not to tell them what they want to hear, not to do what sells well or, god forbid, fanservice. (and you can probably see in which paragraph I will need to touch this one too!)

Miyazaki has a rather grim vision of the world and humanity, that is not completely nihilist and devoid of hope, but never gives the coherent answer to what the better future IS either. Character Aldia from Dark Souls 2 (and vaguely in DS3) is probably the best personification of his philosophy. The world is wretched, but the means to change it are so terrible that one might question whether it is even all worth it and whether the new world built on sacrifices is truly better, toppling the corrupt power just replaces it with the other corrupt power unless you decide to straight up destroy the world, but there must be something, right? We just lack insight to understand what it IS, but how can we obtain that knowledge without losing our humanity? Happy ending or blunt message about how if you remove corrupt authority things will magically be good are not his style.

And… regarding smaller things, honestly? He had a right to throw in a random ship that didn't have any foreshadowing if he wanted! It is HIS story and HIS characters! Creator must not obstruct THEIR vision and preferences for anyone, but it is OUR choice whether to take it or leave it. Just because we gave Elden Ring that kind of popularity and influence with huge amount of support and bought copies of the game doesn't mean that now Miyazaki is under obligation to serve us and think about our reception and tastes as sort of "gratitude" or whatever… And on a relevant note, it is his choice which topics he wanted to explore in SoTE and which topics he was done with and decided to leave be.

Again I might be different, as the very moment we had a DLC confirmed I emotionally distanced from Elden Ring knowing that any headcanons and expectations could get jossed at this rate! Getting invested into series that is still in development suggests obvious risks! No one is obligated to ENJOY whatever choices he made, but what we should do is to remember that he had RIGHT to HIS choices.

5) *claiming all hinted that it obviously should have been Godwyn*

I've heard it often that base game all foreshadowed that Miquella was departing in the Shadow Realm to bring Godwyn back to life, Eclipse thing and all, therefore SoTE "betrayed" fans by not focusing on Godwyn. Everything was supposedly set up for him to be prominent or maybe to be a final boss instead, even if he'd be a through and through failed attempt of resurrecting him! But…

Even in the base game, it was suggested that 'Eclipse' was already attempted, and failed. Nothing to suggest that they would go and try again via different means. And, in fact, there is another piece of evidence that Miquella was not going to attempt another way of resurrecting Godwyn! 'Please die a true death' suggests that Miquella wanted Godwyn to not exist as Prince of Death, but to die fully; with his body too, not only his soul.

This is certainly not about resurrection, so it is safe to assume that Golden Epitaph was made as Miquella gave up the hope of returning Godwyn's soul to him! 'Eclipse' was attempted, and it failed! Moreover, 'Eclipse' is a thing associated with the Castle Sol / Mountaintops! Nothing to suggest that it is properly done in the Shadow Realm, it is very much Lands Between's thing to do. (could it be relevant that Fell God of the Fire Giants was killed, and even before Furnace Visage thing his fire was shaped like an orb, so like a sun? no sun to eclipse to begin with? now Erdtree is THE source of light? some fuel for interpretations)

This is not the only reason, as we have a more bold one, that is Fia's quest getting broken! One of the endings is Fia laying with Godwyn and bearing a Rune to bring Those who live in Death back in the Elden Ring, and one of the remembrance bosses is Fortissax fighting within his dream! If Miquella's goal was to go and try to resurrect Godwyn, that would already remove his body from that area by the very existence of the DLC! So, should have Fia's quest/ending and Fortissax battle been timed events only for pre-DLC era? Or, again, if you say that event would only happen if we followed the entire DLC story to the final battle: Fromsoft's DLCs typically do not have any significant effects on the base games, it is usually just some extra dialogues here and there. And what would be about Godwyn's "virus" growing in Stormveil, as well as on some enemies and deathroots in the ruins where Mariners resided? What is considered his body goes FAR beyond just Deeproot Depths, should they have programmed removing of ALL that to not contradict their own lore, then? It really doesn't feel like the case even from technical standpoint already!

From narrative standpoint, both Godwyn and Radahn should (have) stay(ed) dead for the story and emotional weight, however, elaborating Radahn didn't make his presence overbearing for Fromsoft's standards! On the contrary, he got more role besides kinda 'just being there' compared to other Demigods! Godwyn had a lot of impact and presence all over the story in the base game and one of the endings being tied to him! I will get to it in the paragraph about devs allegedly 'abandoning' some things that needed elaboration though!

Yet even then, devs still added Godwyn bits with Knights of Death getting sort of rebranding to still stand by him in death and the bit about Godwyn having custom-made medallions for his special knights! It is very clear that devs have not forgotten or forsaken Godwyn but instead keep reminding us how much he mattered for the idiots living in this fictional universe! However, they know where to stop so the character isn't devouring the story too much as they have their own style with balancing characters' presence! Saying that "only" adding Knights of Death going to protect what's left of their Lord like sort of fucked up plant culture in Shadow Realm is some sort of grave insult to his fans is just weird, because in fact devs were not supposed to add this EITHER!

6) "Scadutree fragments is a cheap way to force players to explore the map"

I don't think there is anything wrong about rewarding the players for exploring the open world map that is meant to be explored! And, yes, it is rewarding, not forcing! The bosses COULD be beat even without Scadutree fragments if you know what you are doing! Like, what surprises me the most is that this take typically comes from the gamers! You know, THE people who would know a thing or two about imbalanced builds or weapons, or have enough time and patience to memorise every single movement by the boss, let alone liking to challenge themselves!

Even then, Scadutree Fragments are supposed to be discovered naturally as you walk around, check niche places on the map, do platforming and search for optional enemies and bosses! If all you wanted from this DLC was to run very straightforward to just beat the boss already with ease so you check the remembrances faster, are you sure that you actually like PLAYING this game? Getting into an open world game when you don't want the 'open world' aspect seems counter-productive to me :/

Bonus mention: some people finding Abyssal Woods sequence frustrating and annoying! It is somewhat relevant to this complaint! Losing Torrent in this area perfectly adds to the sense of not being able to escape, and stealth game with Aging Untoucheable is straight up horror stuff! How are you supposed to experience getting into the forbidden area infested by the force that every living (and dead!) being in the setting fears, if you just can run straightforward to the boss willy-nilly without any buildup or obstacle! It feels like the same sort of complaint as Malenia being unfair boss when she should be hard as someone who "never knew defeat"! Fromsoft is very good at using gameplay elements to confirm what the lore says! This "criticism" just looks like straight up impatience to get your dopamine injection already instead of enjoying the process of learning this story like devs intended!

7) "Miquella has always been evil"

I suppose it goes as a sibling paragraph to 'Miquella's character was assassinated', except this time from the standpoint of those who either liked the "twist" or were indifferent to it… I think this is just a confirmation bias at play from the people who assumed this about the character from the start, often including but not limited to Berserk fanboys. I agree that the fact he has never been perfect was plain to see either, with Bewitching Branches being a sinister power as a concept and Haligtree Soldiers suicide-bombing being a bit too fanatical, but yet again: nothing erases the notion that he had good intentions!

Ansbach kind of reminds me of the same effect Kenneth once had; Kenneth described Godrick as pathetic and everyone agreed completely ignoring the bits that suggested otherwise, and now Ansbach described Miquella as a monster and this is what some people believe! Honestly, how do I develop this level of charisma to make people believe me uncritically fhfdhhfsd In any case, the "unreliable narrator" effect is very prominent in the game, and it is important to remember that developers make the character say what the character would, not give us the directions on what opinion to have!

Miquella's power is further elaborated upon in SoTE, as not inherently brainwashing one but a very strong remedy for someone's problems! Leda's fanatical murderous fixation, Hornsent's obsession with revenge, Moore's insecurities and Ansbach's fixation on avenging Mohg's "honor" (which is likewise a very questionable concept lol) all were muted, giving them peace and friendship instead of attacking each other OR himself! The key to them being pacified and happier being to fix their love on someone else doesn't make Miquella evil megalomaniac wanting an army of loyal dolls.. on the contrary, often caring for someone else IS the feeling that brings out the best in us humans!

Again, this one is subjective, and of course people can read the character any way they want! But I start to take an issue with this reading when people claim that it is canon and dig at the base game saying how he never cared for the compassion but just was sort of narcissist seeking the oppressed to make an army of admirers from or whatever… The DLC accentuates on how he has been abandoning the 'humane' parts of himself, that were making him vulnerable and as Demigod more human than God, so we meet him at his "lowest". Even then, he states his motivation to make a better world full of compassion and free of evil! He would make everyone hold hands in more peaceful ways if he could, but even from the base game his arc was basically trying and failing to heal his sister. Besides, Dane's last and only words are asking him to make a gentler world, without his spell in the effect-

Like, there are enough things that show he had enough reasons to make people see him as symbol of hope even without MAKING them to. With Radahn, we are repeatedly told that "he and Malenia helped him to cosplay Godfrey" stems from the oath they shared and Radahn agreed to! Whether you see Caelid battle as him wanting to die (to go to Shadow Realm) in a battle, or him rebelling against Miquella's world of shining flowers and kissing bunnies in the end as a warmonger but twins not having this "change" it still doesn't straight up speak of evil intent. Could be taken as despair and reaching that 'giving up' state! With Mohg we are not sure either. Maybe Miquella just wanted to "heal" his pain but his personality persisted and obsession/kidnapping happened, so he knew he was beyond help and TOO soaked in blood and sin! Or he was beyond help / didn't want help from the start, so EVENTUALLY (key word) amounted only to sacrifice in Miquella's eyes on his path to Godhood as he NEEDED one, maybe it was even seen as 'mercy'. Help is to build a better world as a honor and all.

He very likely wanted to make a better world for him too! Both their goals were connected to "love" after all! The reading of the character as evil is not as cut in stone and evident as some people make it look like!

(In fact, shortly after BASE game released, Miyazaki confirmed that Martin wrote some nice characters and Miyazaki wrote the ways to corrupt them. So, Martin wrote the kind guy, and Miyazaki put him through corruption arc. But I will get to it in due time -_-.....)

8) *views Messmer as just another (boring?) victim of Marika* (and variations)

This one I kind of saw in two forms: people who dislike the character or not care about him writing him down as "boring" for this one, and simps who kind of lift agency off the character in order to be able to like him! This is to put it roughly, as again, there are various variations but with the same sentiment at its core!

I do think that Marika having enough influence over his actions, and even having abused him emotionally in some way, is entirely palatable interpretation! The nature of Base Serpent, as well as supposed connection with the Fell God, is debatable and can vary from truly harmful thing to simply a force of nature that exists to ensure forces like Erdtree can't live forever. Regardless of interpretation, would a kind, loving mother truly allow for her child to hate himself so much?

Marika has….. a problem with fire. Waging war to put down the Flame of Ruin because it could burn the Erdtree and removing Destined Death that was fire-affiliated power already showed it; as 'Eternal', she of course wanted to live forever, same for her Erdtree! Messmer manifesting fire element would certainly be a problem for her, but was it though? Base Serpent is malicious but for this reason Winged Serpent exists, no? Can another side of universal balance be something that must be removed from the scheme of things? Can fire, or death, truly count as 'evil' things? Are not they simply forces of nature that Marika being the MILF Gwyn that she is did not desire personally, in her vision of a brighter, bountiful world?

My point is, even though she created many Divine Blessings to help him, she did likely inflict some sort of negative self-image on him anyways. Maybe it was not her intention, but she always feared him and eventually that brought her to hide him away!

So like, how does this NOT make Messmer just a victim? Okay, so here is the error that kind of started it all:

User drenched-in-sunlight explained it better in this ( x ) post, but the point is that taking up the Crusade that Marika wanted was Messmer's own initiative and not something she forced him to do like English localisation made it sound! So, she was still possessed with the wish for revenge, but Messmer was like 'hey no need to make your hands dirty, I can do it'! Like drenched-in-sunlight explained, Marika's 'wish' here is the same as in the description of her braid (same symbols), so Messmer sees what is hurting her, and ASKS to be the tool of her vengeance! I'd say that even without this bit, simply the fact that he is a grown ass man should give him agency and hold him up to proper judgement, but nuance is always important!

This does paint an interesting picture though: Marika has been trying to "heal" him (which is a debatable concept considering her character and what fire, save for Frenzied Flame, means in the setting, but I don't insist), he asked to deliver her vengeance FOR her, but also despite having sealed the Base Serpent within him she was still scared of him and sealed him away making everything connected with him heretical and warriors standing by him still shunned, and Messmer lived in hatred, begging her forgiveness before crashing her seal yet cursing her name upon his death! It looks to me as though she grew truly scared of him and decided she wanted him gone BECAUSE of seeing him in action during crusade! Him hating her for ditching him implies that was not something he expected, so maybe seeing him in Crusade made her go 'wow, my son is actually more scary than I thought'!

That speaks of Messmer as someone who can get carried away with cruelty in blind, fanatical devotion! (that also makes Queelign an interesting mirror into his youthful, more """innocent""" self but that's not the point fdhfhds) Marika might have been horrified by it, or horrified by her own ugly reflection in the monster she (unintentionally) created with her parenting, but nonetheless it describes Messmer's personality more. Someone whose reaction to his mother's trauma and yearning for vengeance was to not only take such terrible plan in his arms, but also to go too far with it, maybe even too far for HER. Not everyone would react the same way. A better person would've probably focus on helping his mother to heal and move on, or maybe even turn around and refuse to comply with such harmful intentions. But he, being a grown man who could think and choose, chose to commit genocide. He is evil! He is not JUST evil, either. He is NOT boring tool of Marika with no agency, though!

And on a relevant note, for the simps..

No but seriously fdhfhdfds I understand how that sentiment could have left a sour taste after SA Mohg truthers kept saying 'hey guys you aren't real fan of Mohg if you ignore what he did 🙄' (that certainly aged…….), but I still want to remind that a fictional character doesn't need to be stripped out of his agency to be found attractive! With Messmer what he is doing is a bit more direct, and it is NORMAL to simp for the characters you could not stand in real life! What is the fun of engaging in fictional worlds if you turn it into a morality contest and sort of a "practice" for what kind of endeavours and relationships you'd want in real life? It is for going wild and satisfying curiosity and dark impulses. No limits needed. This is just an advice if anyone needed one like this, because we just never know really.

9) *"corrects" people's interpretations (especially of Nanaya)*

Sigh...

This kind of behavior in the fandom is certainly not exclusive for the past-DLC era, but it really felt more relevant to address again and- yes, like I said, with Nanaya thing it is something I've witnessed the most! Not long ago I said that despite hearing people question why there are so many uncharitable takes on Nanaya I haven't really seen any? But yes, like usual, it happened because Tumblr bubble is often different and you need to catch updates from Reddit and Twitter to have full fandom picture! An example: not reposting the art of course, but here is a cute comic of Midra reuniting with Nanaya in spirit after death ( x ). And do you know why the artist had to add a caption to ask people to not correct their headcanons? …..because on Twitter, they got pestered with people "correcting" them that Nanaya was aKtUaly evil / Shabriri / etc. 🤡🤡🤡

Honestly, I approve of correcting people when they legitimately, objectively contradicted or missed something stated in canon! I disagree with the notion that canon is just a suggestion and the whole fun is to just use names and concepts from it to create one's own thing! I am one of the guys that wears the T-Shirt that says "Just make an OC then" because primarily fandoms are about studying and enjoying the source material! A good headcanon knowingly differs from canon, know rules to break them at the right places, all that. It is especially relevant in Fromsoft's games because the information in them is very scattered and obscured. You WILL miss something, and so communicating with the fans, double-checking wikis etc is crucial! Similarly with fanart: there is a difference between giving a character heterochromia and more interesting look to add flavor in design and drawing them incorrectly because you haven't SEEN their datamined face and need a pointer (looking at you, white Henryk Bloodborne fanarts all because not everyone checked datamined faces!)!

As I got this off my chest that I am not an absolutist with the 'let fans do what they want' because if someone doesn't need canon that much they can always make OCs or original settings…. …when something is not canon but simply a popular interpretation, don't "correct" people! Midra asks Nanaya to forgive him when he succumbs, and it is anyone's own choice whether they take it as her never having wanted him to succumb when she was still alive or her having been secretly lyinh and ensuring long endurance would made him explode into more "sufficient result"! Fromsoft's lore often leaves bits of information that can be used to justify any interpretation! And discussions, even debates, to prove why your version is better are very interesting! Fromsoft's lore community at its best feels like we are all academics defending our thesis before the audience! But the whole "well aktualy" + "there is no proof so your headcanon is bad" + "let me educate you media illiterate casual" + "but [popular loretuber] said this" attitude just isn't it.

The last example is important! This problem IS also often the result of latching onto what a popular loredigger says. Usually Vaatividya (video lore), charredthermos (wrote a popular Bloodborne interpretation document), Lokey's Lore (has whole website with his interpretation of Fromsoft games bits) and so. And I often see people hate these popular Youtubers too, but I think that the blame lays on the crowd! It is none of these guys' fault that the crowd decided to promote them to the fandom's idols and give them this sort of influence! They were not loredigging to gain this kind of power, they probably never expected the popularity, and they would sure be unhappy to know that their work is used to shun creativity and start fights in the community that they care about! Yes, even when they 'lokey' (haha geddit?) speak in the manner that suggests being close-minded to other interpretations, they are not forcing and CAN'T force fans to idolize them.

In the end, they were just doing what they loved, and popularity probably came from them being pioneers. But instead of spilling vitriol towards them and saying how they should be "dethroned" as if they damage the fandom, why not turn our anger towards THE people who idealize them? We are all angry when we are "corrected" and they use lore of someone popular as a "proof", but this is the fault of THE people who "correct". Discourage this behavior, encourage thinking like individuals and not like sheep. No one asked for the popularity or the power to stomp out any curiousity and creativity. Don't hate the big guy AND don't take the big guy's word as a gospel. In the end, we are all just guys looking for answers in the places where they were NOT given.

10) "Mohg beating allegations made the story worse"

Sibling paragraph to 'they've failed the fans by not making it a thing from my wishlist'. Themes of sexual abuse and incest ARE quite interesting and important, but not inherently THE most important, or more important than any other themes! The information about Miquella having put Mohg under spell opens up equally interesting things to talk about and look for! How did he end up like this? Was it an accident of him trying to "heal" Mohg and it no working, and then he decided to just use what he had when he followed his plan? Had he written Mohg down as only working as vessel sacrifice for that mad plan from the start? What was the backstory between Miquella and Mohg considering this? There are still interesting things to work with, regarding relationship of the two, but now with added spin of Miquella's fall from grace arc that starts with following the plan with Radahn. Because, I remind you, requirement for a vessel, so, someone powerful dying and being used, was part of it from the start! Since Radahn needed to die! It is dark, just in a different way, and divided between two characters instead of just clear stated victim and abuser without shades of grey or nuance!

I say 'divided between two characters' instead of 'they've switched' because Mohg didn't instantly become a GOOD person over this reveal! I praised him as a valid character to point out that not all victims of awful childhood and mistreatment are automatically good people, which is a good way to diversify the characters! Make things more realistic than black and white thinking. Similarly how Rykard or Dung Eater are evidence that not all people up against the oppressive system are automatically good people. That benefit of Mohg as a character didn't evaporate, he still serves that point well enough! Nothing in the DLC said that all the kidnapping of surgeons, corrupting people with the blood and bringing in sacrifices happened because of Miquella's charm. Ansbach, in fact, confirms that the blood cult madness existed before Miquella's charm! When we admit to him that we killed Mohg, he also states that such were understandable risks of seeking Lordship, implying that Mohgwyn Dynasty, so, attempt to insert himself into Golden Lineage through mad, violent means, was also already a plan before! To think of it, SA accusation is the one and only thing he beat x) Reminds me of this meme: ( x )

Again, the story allegedly becoming "worse" solely boils down to 'they've made it about a starter point in Miquella's descent from grace and not about sexual abuse' that is simply not true. It is still interesting and valid story, just in a different way! I would normally argue that as far as fandom life goes, it should have in fact improved things; whereas Mohg was never addressed and explored as a character beyond "mohglester" thing, now he should get proper respect and analysis by the fandom, right? …right? WRONG, now people do often simplify him in a different way and forget that he DID do all that other bad shit! 🤦🏻‍♂️

And I can imagine that complaint about this reveal is not limited to but INCLUDES fans being annoyed by how people simplify Mohg and make him a good guy now! But fandom's habit of selectively reducing characters to just one trait ("mohglester" before, "victim of brainwashing" now) is not the fault of writers. How exactly the fact that we, as a community, are too shallow and unprepared for complex story and characters Fromsoft offers to us, is the fault of Fromsoft? Creator should not simplify their writing or direct it a certain way just because of the notion that majority will lack attention span or insight to understand it! We are the ones who should do better! Mohg offered enough complexity in SA allegations era, he still offers enough complexity now, it is right there in the source material for those who seek and care!

11) "Why some people are still coping instead of admitting the writing is bad???"

Yeah very mature of me to single out this paragraph by making the headline sound like the speaker is having a fit, I know. 🙄 In my defence, this particular one also truly got on my nerves, but it lacks the same huge gravity as the topic of approving of Hornsent genocide did so it is just… it is certainly something right.

Certain kind of fans that I lovingly call 'Twins Cultists' (as opposing camp to 'Chadahn Simps') has been terrorizing the fandom with the attitude of singling out and shaming other fans for "wrong" interpretations, saying how they "disrespected story and characters" with the awful sin of not reading characters Malenia and Miquella deeply enough while at the same time reducing Godrick and Mohg to a bad punchline and insulting fans that read deep into THEM, trashing everyone outside of their echo chamber, putting characters/ships malicious ragebait takes in the TAGS and then playing victims of the "toxic community" and such and such. And you would expect this kind of behavior to get significantly humbled up and them to self-reflect on how they were treating fans when THEIR takes were disproven? And I am glad that some people DID!

Full respect to the guys who reconsidered the attitude of swinging their One True Reading at the heads of "heretical" fans like a bat now knowing Fromsoft always has some cards up their sleeves! Especially if they apologised to the fans they were rude to! But also enough people didn't and now not only hate differing fans harder, but also are furious that writers sorta took away their privilege to be mean to "media illiterate weirdos". I wish I had the patience to accept the fact that of course people are angry, because something so important for them was……. no, fuck that lol I don't.

Okay jokes aside, yes I am aware that it is not possible to care about something passionately without at least somewhat slipping into the territory of defending your understanding from "threats". All we can really do is to draw the line between getting too carried away by our passion and outright obnoxious toxicity in the fandom and TRY to not cross it. To CHOOSE to not cross it when we see it, and step back if we did cross it. I do, however, take an issue with people who refuse to try and even encourages the mentality of seeing fellow fans as "enemies" and gets proud knowing they angered someone or discouraged them to check the tag. In Fromsoft fandoms, it is almost exclusively Tumblr behavior, we are sure luckier than every other fandom in the internets, but I still want to get it off my chest. Like I said, this particular attitude developed a new form after SoTE released, attacking the fans who seek reasoning within the writing decisions they deemed badly written or fundamentally wrong.

And these instances are EXACTLY where I put "just caring passionately" as their motivation into question. Because if someone says it makes sense to say that Miquella and Malenia admired Radahn's kindness when they all were younger and thus he likely faced a negative character arc since then into becoming obsessed with war instead, and you get mad at them for "coping when calling a warmonger kind is dumb and makes no sense"…? Sorry, but who cares about characters MORE in this situation: the person offering proper thought about them given some new information, or the person who is mad that their one-dimensional vision got broken?

People finding creative, interesting and reasonable ways to incorporate new information into lore, in the ways that do not contradict the base game (!!!) is not "coping" or "seeing through pink glasses" or "refusing to admit their fav dev can do wrong" or whatever you choose to call it. It is simply using analysis and imagination, it is adapting and accepting. If you can't do it, you are welcomed to do rewrites of SoTE reveals and characters and ending, it is not illegal! But don't go and say that the writing is so awful and broken that everyone who accepts it "never actually loved Elden Ring" or other nonsense just because for YOU this writing didn't work! The one and only unforgivable thing the devs did starts and ends at the fact that Radahn thing was not foreshadowed, and yet even HERE his relevance is EASILY incorporated and developed into backstory if you are willing to put in effort! This retcon is such a nothing thing compared to what some other writers do glares at Ladybug retcons for comparison. Like, working with it is possible, and if you don't want to it doesn't mean others shouldn't.

And in fact, at first I saw a lot of enthusiasm regarding the rewrites, AUs, "fixes", dwelling on pre-existing lore ignoring SoTE and all that. I really did, and it was valid. But then what I saw, personally, was that flame dying down and amount of such posts shortening but out of those who left this brand of toxicity followed! My interpretation of this change is that when initial shock and frustration waned, more people started to notice SoTE was not bad.. and THAT made people who continued hating SoTE feel less validated, in a way. When people started to warm up to certain plot twists and decisions, to elaborate new information into their vision of the lore… people that still hated and disapproved of the thing lost the image of being "the saviors of the fandom from Miyazaki's garbage writing" and became simply people who do their own thing. And for people who are driven with negative impulses, 'just enjoying the things they like' is usually not enough. They need to be "right", they need to "contribute to the fandom", they need to be "better" and so on. It is a known thing about fandoms even aside of SoTE and Soulsborne fandoms altogether, and I feel like this situation is the return of it, personally.

Of course, this is all speculation and the dynamic I've observed. Maybe someone observed different processes entirely! I just think it is safe to assume as I've seen absurd level of toxicity even despite staying away from 'active' fandom (no 'cool kids' circles, no following popular creators, no open Discord servers, no checking tag or Reddittube etc)!

Still, "I'll fix awful creators' writing because I actually love and respect the characters unlike they" is already a very questionable sentiment, but to attack the fellow fans over this is beyond any patience and understanding! Eventually there is no "right" or "wrong" way to love the characters and story and to be passionate, even if we are naturally inclined to believe in our own vision the most! Perhaps you express your love by putting in a lot of effort to give the characters different writing entirely, to "save" them from decisions of creators you don't agree with. But it is an OPTION, not the One True Way, and… really, it is strange to be mad at people for being happy and satisfied with the story and finding a lot of valid things in it and call them blinded Fromsoft dickriders incapable of critical thinking or whatever! Bonus points when such sentiments come from EXACT same people who resent the Youtube bros that bash every other new TV series AND insult people who dared to enjoy such aaaaawful product or whatever… You guys really hate the type of YouTube "critics" who take personal insult in people who enjoyed a thing and even reasonably justified the parts that THEY declared disgrace to the series and disrespect to true fans? Yeah most reasonable people hate them. We all know at least one modern TV show whose fans got this sort of treatment. But don't you guys see how you've became exactly the same type of "critic" at this rate? Unacceptable behaviour, not justified by 'but it comes from place of passion'! I am passionate about Soulsborne as you could tell and I disapprove of it, no correlation!

12) "Fromsoft became woke" (and variations)

For startes, I have to wonder whether we've been playing the same games all along. Where was it when Gwyndolin was intersexual and affirmed himself as a trans man later? Seath is also blind and has what is a disability for his species? Where was it when Pharis/Evlana was a very GNC woman in Japanese original, but for you she looked a trans woman because English localisation made Pharis a he/him a removed Pharis' nametag from "female archer" in the woods? Where was it when our good friend intersexual trans man was literally killed by the church? Where was it when they had female doctors, church leaders and scholars in Victorian era? As well as strong female hunters like Maria or Gratia? Gratia and Rom are also confirmed intellectual disability rep via Japanese script? Or when both male OR female hunter could propose to Annalise? Or positive sex worker representation in Arianna being the only kind person to step in Oedon Chapel? Where was it in the BASE Elden Ring with Ranni being bisexual, Malenia representing severe physical and mental illness, Miquella being GNC at least and trans+neurodivergent-coded at most, Dolores being a return of GNC woman, Blind Swordsman, Niall being another prosthetic-using fighter and Marika/Radagon? Speaking of blindness there were also Maiden in Black, Firekeeper, Irina 1, Irina 2 and Hyetta? Where was it when through their whole games they never sexualized their female characters and the ONE exception in Gwynevere was not even on purpose? WHERE WAS IT WHEN TRANS COFFIN???

...okay, I can continue and I'd love to be reminded of more examples. But on the serious note, this complaint has two ways to go about it: 1) an understandable fatigue with writers and stories placing pseudofeminist agenda on bland unsympathetic female characters, retconning pre-established characters to pretend to care for diversity and generally hating the audience for merely being born cis/white/male and 2) people being upset at diversity in the cast to begin with and complaining about "forcing the politics in art". And in both cases, this just doesn't apply to Fromsoft.

In the first case, they simply aren't hating their "privileged demographics" audience through characters and narrative, and doesn't seem like they will. They write very compelling, nuanced and even sympathetic characters, as well as the stories that make you ask questions to yourself! They insist on messages against corruption of religious institutions and fascism, but even THEN they'll give sympathetic characters on that side (!), show that not all people who oppose them are good either (!!) and make damn sure to recognise at the start of it all were good intentions (!!!!!!). From this angle, you could argue they are not woke ENOUGH, actually, because of how merciful, open-minded and non-forceful their messages are! They deliver their points through characters who are actual people, rather than writing characters as bland plot devices that hate you!

In the second case... Yeah, as memey as the phrase is, but "they've always been woke". Just because Miyazaki loves motherly woman archetype and and Fromsoft games always had compelling married hetero couples doesn't mean they are your allies in "preserving traditional values"! Again, messages against religious corruption and preserving long-overdue order of things fearing change are plain. Elden Ring had a slight increase in diversity, but to think of it, Elden Ring is also a bigger game with bigger cast. I do want to point out though that the very concept of worrying that with more diverse characters somehow cis and white cast will no longer be a part of From's stories is strange. They'll never make it all about JUST one demographic because they cover nature of humanity in general, but if anything, adding way more angles than their staple Medieval Europe culture route gives them more power for TYPE of the messages they want to tell! Because their power is, and always been, showing the situation from different perspectives.

13) COMMERCIAL BREAK LOL

14) "Devs artificially increased difficulty instead of WORKING to make battles"

This is very unfair criticism already from the very concept! Players had two years to advance through the base game, and if you play consistently, it is enough time to become ridiculously overleleved! Overleveled to the point of not being able to enjoy playing SoTE at all, as all enemies would drop dead instantly! It was easy to sabotage the challenge and simply not let the devs give us the fun experience they intended. But, no! Devs cared to make things so that even if you are 300+ level and have godly build, you'll be down in two hits by the first Furnace Golem, let alone bosses! So, yes, you either need to run around and collect Scadutree Fragments, or seriously study your boss and come up with clever strategy! I am still proud of a really smart way to fight Rellana I invented x)

This complaint did have a period of initial shock when it was really blown out of proportion due to the comfort zone of being overpowered broken, but this opinion still lingers and I just find it strange! Why NOT make sure that players of any level physically can't be too strong to actually PLAY SoTE, instead of just running through it with ease? Even then, how comes they "didn't work on bosses"? Boss battles like Messmer, Bayle and Midra are absolutely wonderfully well done on every level! Romina, Rellana and Putrescent Knight are really great and have super interesting battles even if not as epic and show-stopping, aesthetic and moves alone are immaculate. Non-remembrance bosses who are also very fun and beautifully designed! There are annoying bits about Scadutree Avatar and Gaius, but you can't seriously say they did not WORK on them! The bosses are challenging not only due to artificial difficulty, because even at high Scadutree Fragments level you still need to give them thought! And while you do… right, you can admire the sound and the battle design!

I am just really confused about this complaint because it could only be applied to reusing Radahn for the final boss.. but even then he is not fully reused, and sure not so reused for Stage 2 where you can't see shit because of Miquella's spells. One "kinda mid" boss can't and should not eclipse all those awesome bosses! If anything, he feels more like a hard to get joke! Fans have been saying things like 'oh if only we could fight Vendrick at his prime', 'oh if only we could fight Gehrman at his prime' etc etc… now, as they ALSO did want to fight Radahn at his prime, they got an option to do so, and he is not all that impressive, right? :p Let's be real he only sucks because Leonard isn't here hgfhhhgb

15) *admiring how fanatical Leda is while hating other (male) characters with the same quirk*

Sigh... I will just leave this meme by the user wraith-caller here: ( x )

Yes, fandom does have decent amount of simps for this type of male character, I know. Lautrec, Alfred, and D twins. (Coincidentally, all women-killers x) Even if Devin is actually justified) I suppose Queelign would go here too if people didn't write him down as a joke character by proxy over a cursed cleric haircut? 🤔 skill issue btw So of course it is not to say that they are not given enough love/lust/other positive interest…..

…but for some STRANGE reason, people who feverishly admire Leda and simp for her or at least hail her as such compelling character that ALSO hate Alfred or D for being such horrid fanatics are almost a staple by now! Why!!! This problem existed to a smaller extent with people who hated Alfred while simping for Adella and even shipping her with her victim- and no, it is cool and based, one does NOT get into a media with dark themes to demand healthy characters and healthy ships, but why so many times gender defines it? I don't care if you are a lesbian; whether you give character a justice should NOT depend on whether you are attracted to them, or else you are no different from straight girls that would like a male character and hate female character with the same issues! And sure I don't care if you are a feminist and are inclined to give "pay back" for years of misogyny in the fandoms by applying double standards!!

16) "Why could not we have JUST ONE genuinely nice character?"

Alllllright so… apparently, I was wrong this whole time about SoTE. I was convinced that it had no impact on the base game beyond like, Leda greeting us in Mohgwyn Palace, but I suppose I was misinformed very much? Because turns out that this whole time I was not aware that SoTE removed existence of Roderika, Hewg, Boc, Melina & Torrent, Latenna, Albus, Thops, Jar Bairn, Millicent and Enia from the base game!

….fine, okay, sarcasm is not my forte at all, but what I said still stands from both subjective and objective standpoint. Subjectively, I don't think counting out minor characters does any good for enjoying and analyzing the story! Should anything only "really" count when it is a significant, major character? This reminded me of that time when someone said it was 'incredibly fucked up how Bloodborne only had 2 non-white characters' when in reality it has 13 but minor characters supposedly didn't matter much…?

I want to specify though how this bit is more about how I interact with fictional worlds; I take them as just fictional realms that I enjoy exploring and "living through", I do not put much emphasis on how much 'weight' characters representing certain demographic OR worldview in the story as someone able to love every other minor gremlin genuinely! Maybe it is autism, maybe it is the fact that I am naturally hesitant to interact with the 'big guys' anyways with real people too. I enjoy tending to flowers and I suppose for most people the point or representation they want to see should be visible from every angle, like Erdtree x) With major characters, I think Rennala and Godwyn are the closest we have to good people, yet they were not able to be 100% good conceptually due to their high status.. much like Miquella himself, which brings me to a more objective point!

Conceptually, it is already impossible to be fully good when you as much as hold a lot of power! Some people have to be neglected if not straight up stomped out, for your own safety or safety of others, and it won't be a good thing *regardless *of intentions! Some sacrifices have to be made because if you are nice to everyone while having a lot of power, bad people will try to use you! Some social games, if not straight up violence, have to be applied if you want to make a change in the world! The big, important person can't be perfectly kind, because in that case they will no longer be big and important! It is just cruel truth about how society works! And Miquella HAD to be big and important. He had huge plans for the world, and as much as keeping himself and what tribe he has built within the Haligtree safe implied some morally questionable acts, let alone making his path through the position where he can change anything!

Pacifist character with unyielding principles who has a say in the fate of the world can often be portrayed from a very unpleasant angle, like, 'hug and forgive war criminals with unreal body count :3' angle (Steven Universe comes to mind first of all). Like, such decision make you wonder how this is being a GOOD guy here! But at the same time, is taking down those war criminals truly good either? When the character combines being the force of good AND being the force able to effect fate of the world, they inevitably are faced with the dilemma of either getting their hands dirty, thus sullying their grace at the very least, or making a decision that would feel like betrayal for the victims… which, again, sullies that grace but in another way. Miquella was already conceptually doomed to act Machiavellian by the virtue of being an Empyrean who wished change, much like Ranni except more subtly so!

And this is why true goodness could only come through the little guys. They don't have to make morally questionable decisions with no outcome that spares their innocence; their field of influence is to just care about their closest surrounding and to do their little tasks! They can't change the world, but they can change just the lives of their friends and their own.

Malenia, one of the key figures in the story, was faced with the choice to either "abandon her dignity" and nuke the continent to deliver Miquella's plan in full (the route she did end up doing), OR to preserve that "dignity" but thus hinder their plan that I remind you was against the Golden Order, to build a better world (which is also sort of morally questionable decision in the grand scheme of things)! She could not win and with all information we were given, more suffering in the setting would ensue no matter what! Do a drastic sacrifice for the greater good, or forsaken that greater good to preserve more lives but doom them to live in the same bad conditions forever was her picture! Yet Millicent, effectively a 'little guy' version of Malenia, had the privilege to die with her integrity intact without any big consequences for the world and great scheme of things! True good, certainly, can only exist in the smaller scale.

When it reaches the higher plane and higher decisions there is no way to remain 'unalloyed'. So, yes, we could NOT have 'just one genuinely nice character' out of people with huge power and importance. Not because Miyazaki allegedly hates hope and hates you! But because he is a writer that seems to understand such fundamental things and philosophical dilemmas from the track record of his games so far. ANY mature, insightful writer knows that the idea of someone 'important' forever being good might be a thing the audience wants, but not a genuine thing. "No matter how tender or exquisite a lie will remain a lie" and all.

17) *hating Radahn's inclusion because "dudebros got validated" and not over the story*

To be honest, this IS something I am also familiar with. I won't play the "unlike you snowflakes I don't care about online discourse uwu" persona because I SURE do! I used to dread Mariadeline ship because fans of it were easily the most toxic and unbearable type of Bloodborne fans, choosing to remain willfully ignorant about Gehrman's character actual lore, showing near-biphobia regarding Maria, having era of acting personally attacked when their ship was implied to be anything BUT cottagecore fluff dynamics without corners, playing victims of hate and "misogyny" when they themselves maliciously rage-baited fans that were just enjoying themselves, and doing that ableist 'no reading all this get a life' thing when shown where they were wrong! I had a period of really disliking Leda because she was an in-universe manifestation of aforementioned 'Twin Cultists' who act very similarly to common Mariadeline fans with spreading the "us CORRECT fans with MEDIA LITERACY who RESPECT story and characters vs them WEIRDOS" toxic mentality, with the whole joys of echo-chamber stuff, playing victims when they knew they were PROVOKING anger and feeling attacked when anyone dared to as much as to look at their favs as anything but perfect. I dealt with both and enjoy the ship now, and like Leda now. These are just two recent examples, but I faced a similar problem often, in previous fandoms as well. And I will be real here:

What helped me every time was to distance from the 'vocal' fandom, gather around a few friends to private chats and bounce around the ideas on our own. Without any outside influence, without deliberately skewing interpretation to "spite" anyone, without any motivation in it besides trying to look at things with clear gaze. The cure against the sour taste that bad fandom experiences have left is not to have the writers to "validate" you or to "spite" your opponents or whatever. The cure is ALSO not to completely abandon the ship/character/concept/etc giving up on it as if it was rotten and "not worth the stress". The cure is to hide away from this negative influence for a time being and build your own vision, that might have only like 3 other fans but be immune to everything! Us very few people here who like Mariadeline the different way keep FAR distance from its more 'common' fans, and we are pretty glad that we grew a Halightree in the contrary to their Erdtree x)

I do not really see why could not the same be done with Radahn as a character. In fact, it feels like there is an unspoken DEMAND for it. For 'reclaiming' him, even! My friend heraldofcrow made a post ( x ) about why Radahn is not 'Chadahn' at all but actually a sad character in his own right and just LOOK at the notes! Clearly, he does not have to remain a "mascot" of those dudebros and remain associated with the dumbest discourse you ever had to read!

I think the fandom really has lost the objective when prior the DLC you guys started to hope for certain outcomes based on the fandom experiences! People hoping for Miquella to be kind to make 'annoying Berserk fanboys' shut up, people hoping for Miquella to turn out evil to be vindicated after his annoying fans were toxic over "wrong" interpretations of him, people hoping for Mohg to be confirmed bewitched so everyone who called them media illiterate could eat their words, people hoping for the answer to Caelid battle to invalidate Malenia haters from Reddittube…… Like, how comes that we have forgotten that the first priority is to hear what the writer has to say and try to accept it as fans, or at least to have objective, reasonable wishes for the story rooted in our knowledge about writing and NOT in fandom discourse? It should not be a matter what group of fans gets validated or screwed over, it should be a matter of what it does to characters! It should not be important that now Malenia haters will NEVER shut up, but it SHOULD be important that we now have a better context for her moral failing and can work with it. She is not THEIR to trash on, she is YOURS to cherish as the girlfailure now with extra information!

There is a Russian saying: "Мышки кололись, плакали, но продолжали есть кактусы" (literally "(the) mice prickled themselves, cried, yet kept on eating the cacti"). It is a figure of speech describing someone who keeps stubbornly doing something that only brings them suffering without a reasonable purpose to it. This is exactly what those dudebros have been doing thinking about Malenia within the context of their fav and what they have been doing complaining about how hard it was fighting her when no one forced them to. But this is ALSO exactly what Malenia fans have been doing engaging in bad faith "debates" started by those guys and checking Reddittube knowing full well no good takes exist there!

If what you wish from it is effected not by your knowledge and tastes, but by your bias stemming from fandom experiences… really, distance from the fandom and heal. Characters are their own entities, not your tools to own other people in the fandom. It goes to both Reddittube AND Twitbr, to both people who started it and people who merely developed negativity as reaction. Fans are NOT part of the story and should never be, we are all just people observing it and reacting to it.

18) "They clearly gave Radahn spotlight because he was popular in (western) fanbase"

It is absurd to assume that Fromsoft would turn the planned story around because a lot of people on Reddit and their YouTube lore influencers declared 'Chadahn' their king. In fact, judging by the merch they're offering, Malenia is recognized as equally marketable if not MORE marketable! Besides, had they cared about Western fanbase's reception specifically (which IS where Radahn is loved), they would have likely avoided the potential backlash by that type of fans regarding making their fav LGBT+! With half-brother, no less. I've also heard a theory that they included Radahn as the very last moment solution, but I doubt that baking in Freyja into the story with her and Ansbach's questline, as well as creating Gaius, could've been something done in the last moment! I am not a game developer so correct me if anything, but it looks like a lot of work to do. Besides, there is not enough cut content in SoTE to suggest the plans were far different! And we all know that cut content always still lingers in the game's files with Fromsoft!

They can care about marketing- heck, using Vargram, an existing character with his own lore, to portray the "Tarnished" in promo materials because his set is more catchy than Knight/Tutorial set, for example! Or how replacing an option to murder Orphan of Kos as an infant with 'shadowy presence' because it felt too grim didn't undo the option to kill Arianna's infant and other celestial children, nor it undid how horrifying Fishing Hamlet was. They also obscured the fact that Annalise's baby got aborted, but not the fact that Queen Yharnam's baby was stolen while she has a bleeding wound where a big belly used to be. These are examples of making posters more eye-catching and dodging potential scandals about promoting abortion respectively, but nothing about nuking the plans for the story!

You know what sells even better than Radahn? Big boobs! Yet over and over they make their female characters have smaller chests, even Marika, and the ONE exception Miyazaki ever made, Gwynevere, was done because the guy who drew her concept was too happy! Heck, assuming that Miyazaki included Radahn because his coworker wrote a Miquella x Radahn fanfic he liked is more realistic assumption than him wanting to "sell better" jggfggfhgn In any case, my point is, they follow the vision they like and don't sacrifice integrity of the story!

(+On the relevant note, back then there was a scandal with press calling them "homophobic" for Mohg supposedly perpetuating a negative stereotype with incest/pedophilia accusation….. but while they debunked that impression, they've added consort thing with Radahn that falls for the exact same issues potential lol!!!! You know the only reason "Radahn is a groomer" takes don't exist is because people who care about Radahn aren't the discourse-starters of the fandom. They didn't escape certain side-eyeing even when they COULD and it is funny)

There is another thing I want to address though!

The screenshot is from this reveal trailer, and the excerpt is from Miyazaki's interview ( x ). I assume that this COULD be used as a reasoning behind thinking adding Radahn and final Miquella cutscene in the "last moment"; like 'you see, there was an ending where he 'reveals' (?) the Scadutree, but they cut it, and offered that unfinished clip of Miquella asking Radahn to come with him!' ..okay, sure, but you know what else was in that interview?

The confirmation that there would not be an extra ending for Elden Ring, of influence on the main game! Right off the bat, right after this trailer! Miquella "unveiling" the Shadow Realm or anything like that would have had consequences on the main game, certainly! They might have animated this prior because they wanted to add a new ending but then decided to not touch the main game under any circumstances but kept it for the cool trailer, or they animated it for the trailer from the start (like if Miquella is unveiling a new location for us, metanarratively)!

19) *refuses to use information and lore from the base game while looking at the DLC*

Yet AGAIN, "Free my man Mohg from SA allegations (he did do all that other shit though)". XD True, when it is not that people reduce (?) him to just a victim upon learning Miquella's Bewitching lore for the sentiment alone… it is then because they sort of forget. :clown: Ansbach's entire existence and what information we receive from him confirms that Mohg's scary bloody cult existed before Miquella's spell! It is up to anyone to interpret whether 'love' theme about his cult also existed before what Miquella did, or was, in fact, a side-effect, but kidnappings and sacrifices definitely were not caused by Miquella!

Another example off the top of my head is Maliketh and even Hoarax Loux / Godfrey basically evaporating from Marika's backstory, as though nothing ever existed besides her time at the Shaman village, Messmer and Fell God. And the latter one makes it especially odd, because base game hammered it down in every other Fire of the Giants' incantation that the motivation to put that fire down was because it was capable of burning the Erdtree and existed as anathema to it altogether, but now it got basically forgotten, as if all that ever existed about it was Messmer's presumed connection to it! I even got """corrected""" once when I stated that war with the Fire Giants happened to establish and protect the Erdtree, with something along the lines of 'we don't actually know what the motivation was but very likely to help with the curse that he caused on Messmer'! Also seeing the turning point of Marika's story in her becoming a God through Divine Gate, when in reality it was first her being chosen as an Empyrean by the Two Fingers! So, first someone now qualified to create the new order, and then actually creating it by entering the Divine Gate!

There were also Miquella things such as saying that he abandoned Malenia when she described his absence as "he will keep his promise", or saying that him forgetting Godwyn was a weird decision when the base game already suggested he failed and gave up with failed Eclipse and Golden Epitaph with words 'please die a true death'! To be honest, with Malenia one I myself fell for it at first, but… yeah, base game suggested he was going to return to her after/if his plan succeeded. Romina "creating" Scarlet Rot I also found to be often disconnected from (Outer) God of Rot existing 🤔

I suppose this could be justified because many people finished Elden Ring significant time prior the DLC, so many lore details got blurred and only general impressions of specific fixations stayed! It is just how memory works, and revisiting the source material from time to time is necessary! Even then, SoTE is so full of new information that it is easy to just completely fixate on it! I just think that it is important to remember that SoTE is still not just a whole game despite its absurd side and saturation with the new things, and things in it add into the base game! Not always like missing puzzle pieces but sometimes in a way that makes the puzzle itself bigger, but still. Gaius existing didn't replace Alabaster Lord that was Radahn's Gravity Magic teacher and Ogha, but he was also a "classmate"! Radahn being stated as an important sibling for Miquella and Malenia didn't replace Godwyn, but rather is added as someone also important! Hell, maybe he even became so close with them after Godwyn's assassination, but I'll get to the "it doesn't contradict stuff" in the meantime! Dryleafs and Needle Knights aren't supposed to make anyone forget about Loretta and the plan to find "proper" Haligtree Knights but never finding a master for such sword! They are just people who put faith into him after Erdtree started to die and his police force respectively! (Also no if I saw that Needle Knights are police then so have to you all, fuck you)

20) "How could they abandon [insert a thing that had enough place in the base game]?"

This kind of happens frequently, and usually it is about Godwyn! Sibling paragraph to 'it obviously should have been Godwyn' I suppose! Godwyn is not the first character who is very significant for the story yet everything happened behind the scenes, through descriptions and dialogues of other characters. In fact, meeting him in "person" is already a luxury by Fromsoft's standards! He had enough of spotlight already with his death triggering the VERY events of the plot with Shattering, one of Miquella's failed plans being about 'Eclipse' to bring him back, being grieved for by other characters, making peace with Ancient Dragons and thus a whole type of incantations in the game being linked to him, haunting the environment via Deathblight and being core figure in the questlines of Ranni, Fia and Rogier who are pretty significant characters all! He had enough development and presence in the narrative, I'd say to the point where bringing him into SoTE would overload the story with his presence! Not making him a core figure in the DLC and limiting new information about him to his most significant Knights rebranding into Knights of Death to protect the places where Prince of Death "grows", again, not some grave insult to his fans because what was there to tell about him happened in the base game!

With Fromsoft characters, THE tragic culmination of their story often happens behind the scenes and we are intended to meet the character at their lowest point, or just dead! With Godwyn, that culmination did happen behind the scenes, with such beloved, important, enigmatic figure getting assassinated and sending Marika over the edge, and we have a second emotional culmination for the character that we get to experience where we DO meet him at his lowest - an abomination on all living and mockery of former self, knowing Miquella did not get the wish to either return his soul OR let him die a true death! He did not have enough screen time, but he had enough presence in the story and feelings!

A similar complaint could be made regarding 'Well, Miyazaki said that Miquella would be a focus of the DLC, but we only meet Miquella in the end and he just sits on Radahn's back instead of at least fighting us himself'! (no not me making up a guy, it was an actual claim towards Miyazaki allegedly "lying") First, you people take it BACK about a very clever Dark Souls 3 reference and Miquella's spells not letting me see shit. Second, like I said, his presence is all over the narrative! All core NPCs talk about him, we follow his traces and find flowers growing from his blood, we learn more about him and his past, Radahn's story is now connected to his and Mohg's story with him given some insight, Trina is inseparable part of him, Dryleafs and Needle Knights are HIS covenants, we see effects with and without his spell… How is all this NOT 'being focused on the character'? Fromsoft's style of giving character time and space is not specifically to show them on screen or let us battle them or have dialogue with them!

Personally, I also at first wrongly assumed that they forsaken Miquella and Malenia's connection for the sake of Radahn, but this is, again, the case of one not excluding another! His connection had enough weight in the base game: he started Fundamentalism with Radagon primarily as a sort of magic to heal Malenia and abandoned it when it was not working, she always identified as 'Blade of Miquella' and it is the only thing she holds onto as she is falling apart, her clothes, prosthetics and armor pieces are made of his Unalloyed Gold and it even digs into her very body, all which he created for her, Ephael is full of statues depicting their younger selves holding each other, she was the one to have his needle (different from the gold needle) and she awaited him to keep his promise since he was "the most fearsome Empyrean"!

(Cut Rico's dialogue in the base game's files ( x ) ( x )) The original intention seemed to give Trina less of a 'personality', making her more inseparable entity from Miquella or even straight up just his disguise like with cut Merchants' questline, so the plan to ascend Miquella to Godhood was already in the plans! They have changed the dream realm thing since, recontextualizing Miquella going to sleep to ascend into presumed dream realm into Godhood with dream Trina persona to Miquella departing into the realm where rather all dead drift to, but the POINT of him leaving for that mad plan rather than mysteriously vanishing and Malenia not knowing why was there from the start! Writers didn't just "randomly made him abandon her" - he ALREADY did so in the very early draft of the story!

In the interview ( x ) about SoTE, Miyazaki also confirmed how many things that were planned from the start were cut from the base game's story because it was getting too big:

Miquella also abandoned not just her but everything, and Radahn logically got special treatment because he was part of the plan from the start! Miquella, who left every feeling that made him the person that he was, did not need to love Radahn or care for him to remember that a God requires 'consort' (in this setting's lore). It is not outlandish to assume that he wanted Radahn to share that fate (a fate so bad that Trina begged us to rather kill him that allow it, mind you!) and not Malenia because she already suffered enough for him in his eyes, for example. She depended on him for everything, so why not ask the other tough guy rather than a person that never knew independency and true agency outside of his influence?

My hot take is that not asking her to hold his hand through horrifying ordeal further proved him caring about her with all the context! He maybe ideally would not have asked Radahn either but if you need the Second Guy as a God, who will you rather ask: a person that already never knew life besides self-identifying as your tool or a kind tough guy who was the second most reliable figure for you BOTH after Godwyn? And would Godwyn be interested in the idea to abolish the Golden Order anyway? Radahn presumably changed his mind later in life, but Godwyn was THE Golden Order guy since the start! But my interpretation is not so relevant, it is subjective and again saying 'there is no glaring problem that people think there is, it comes down to interpretation'. There was still nothing else to add about how Malenia and Miquella were connected in SoTE, it was already all said in the base game!

I might be talking from the standpoint of someone who very much used to the way Fromsoft reveals information; they are very minimalist and precise, they give as much of it as needed to understand the gist, and bringing up something not in one description of an easily missed item but several times across unskippable lore is generous for them! They said enough in the base game for everyone to get the point and decided to not milk the same thing in SoTE, nor they erased or contradicted the information from the base game!

Wanting more information for the sake of it is valid and natural for fans, but Fromsoft doesn't give it just for the sake of it! They didn't abandon these topics, they simply finished talking about them! Even so, Godwyn got now got confirmed to have his version of Cleanrots/Redmines, and Romina offered a fantastic narrative parallel with Malenia as someone unable to bring Scarlet Rot to blooming from the buds state yet cherishing it, when Malenia wanted nothing more but to get rid of Scarlet Rot yet it kept getting through no matter what! They added some extras without exhausting the point itself!

21) "Sote was a mistake" (and variations)

YOU take that BACK about Thiollier and Ansbach. You take that back about Leda and her potential of interacting with Loretta, about Freyja, about insight on how Tanith looked like before marrying Rykard, about Moongrum having a twin sister- heck, about RENNALA having a super cool badass sister! You take that back about Midra and Nanaya and the whole cool Abyssal Woods location, about cool Midra's Manse lore and the best fucking boss battle and soundtrack ever. You take that back about Messmer and the Fire Knights. You take that back about cool battle mechanics additions with many two-handed arms, hand/legs combat mechanics and throwing weapons mechanics. You take that back about Romina and super cool insight on Scarlet Rot. You take that back about Ymir and super messed up cool cosmic eldrich stuff with cosmic fingers and Metyr being a return of Ebrietas archetype no one could expect. You take that back about how everyone finally pays more attention to the Fell God and worldbuilding in general. You take that back about immaculate aesthetic and captivating lore of Hornsent. You take that back about meeting Trina. You take that back about how significant and important topics they managed to raise- no, honestly, how cool is that that they got us to discuss the topics of fascism and genocide, as well as cycle of revenge and dilemma of limiting free will vs accepting cruelty of the world so hard that we FORGET to simp for [choose Messmer or Rellana or both depends on you] during such passionate debates? You take that back about coolest fucking sets ever and ability to become a dragon. You take that back about Igon, Florissax, finally getting an explanation about why Dragon Communion was a thing if Golden Order made a pact with Ancient Dragons and BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYLEEEEEEEEEE! You take that back about Gaius- actually no screw that man, remove his battle lol

…sorry had to add that punchline.

My point still stands: you cannot objectively say that SoTE was a mistake. Subjectively, you can; if you were a fan that solely cared about Miquella only through a certain lense and nothing else, then sure, SoTE fucked your headcanons over and all the cool stuff won't make you shift your hyperfixation. For you, it would have been better if SoTE never existed, you would've been better off in previous state of things, endlessly debating Radahn's fans and bullying people with charitable Mohg interpretations and whatever. But people like this do NOT represent the fandom as a whole at all! Not even in relevance to the gaming-only part of it, I am talking about artists-writers part of it as well! Objectively, SoTE contributed a lot of interesting lore and characters without breaking pre-established lore; as I stated earlier, importance of Godwyn and Malenia did NOT get erased just because Radahn had a retcon to also be important person! SoTE answered some questions that required answers, like origins of the Formless Mother, Dragon Communion, Trina's nature, what happened with Mohg, what was the reason for Caelid and what were these darn weird crawling hands enemies!

No I am not rofling, I was seriously very confused about them and made at least three attempts to solve the mystery of their nature, but SoTE finally freed me from that torment!!

Adding more characters absolutely was not a mistake! None of these characters broke pre-established things, they are merely more 'dolls' to play with! Answering some questions was also not a mistake; whereas people might not like what the answers ARE, tying some loose ends of the story was a good call! It is not as if they've written elaborate document explaining every single bit of lore to the point no one can make interpretations or create new stories anymore! All they did was putting an end to some arguments, however new questions arose in their place; questions more interesting than who is "misogynist" and who is "media illiterate".

From the gameplay standpoint alone, I do not understand this claim either. How exactly SoTE would ruin base game, which is intact and still accessible map without changes? Shadow Realm's map exists separately from the base game, none of it breaks the main game's locations and bosses! I doubt that new mechanics and weapons from the SoTE completely ruin the main game and make it imbalanced either! For most of them, having a strong weapon doesn't automatically make you skilled and even base game's bosses could still kick your ass. And as for "imbalanced" ones, gamer bros of the fandom have been doing great so far self-regulating themselves to shame people who used Mimic Tear, Comet Azur, Blasphemous Blade etc 🙄 Their field of creating artificial "honor"-based difficulty and challenging themselves would not suffer because of the weapons from SoTE! They are able to make the challenges and PvPs what they want within themselves, encourage or prohibit anything. It is not as if Miyazaki is holding them at the gunpoint telling them to use mechanics introduced in SoTE that they believe "ruin" the playing process! Simply not use new weapons or not go in the Shadow Realm altogether if you don't want to - and Elden Ring will remain what it used to be for you!

I guess I can only agree with the notion that aside of SOME story loose ends, base Elden Ring was not lacking in anything. It was a very huge game, with many characters, many locations, many worldbuilding things to touch upon and discuss, many mechanics, very contained and packed with things for years ahead to dissect, discuss and create art and writing and videos for! SoTE just made it even bigger! We were mostly living fine without these characters and new information, save for the frustrating arguments I've mentioned!

Mohg fans against SA interpretations could disagree entirely because as SoTE aired they all said "the night, and the hunt, were long…" But, like I said before, fandom experiences should not define what we want from the story! Some questions remaining unanswered was bearable from the STORY standpoint, but it is objectively NICE that they did get answers! And… just adding more characters is definitely not a problem. Not characters that break the story, just MORE characters. There is a Russian saying, "Кашу маслом не испортишь" ("you can't ruin the porrige by adding more butter in it"), and it applies here very much. Unless some people, for example, hate Messmer and are frustrated that they have to remember about him when writing Marika's backstory or anything.. I would not get it either way because giving a character a couple of sentences of acknowledgement and tossing them away feels like the easiest thing to do in my eyes. Fandom is always doing it, they have always been doing it, so why NOW this is something so hard to do?

22) *blames Martin for all the parts of the story they hate*

As funny as the joke about Martin being responsible for the "incest ship" is, considering his track record, Miyazaki actually confirmed in the interview right after the first SoTE trailer that Martin did not have anything new to add to the DLC story! But then, just because he didn't turn in to add new lore for SoTE specifically, how could we tell that he didn't write these "plot twists" previously? For this, we need to dial back to when his contributions to the Elden Ring were discussed after base game's release!

(Start watching from 6:00 to 7:25)

“Elden Ring was going to take place in, let’s say the present of their game universe. But what they wanted me to write was what happened like 5,000 years before that,” he said. “So I went back and wrote a history of what happened 5,000 years before the current game, and who all the characters were and who was killing each other and what powers they had. They had these runes that were at the center of the game, and the rune got split into many pieces, and that’s what screwed up the world. I laid all that out.”

So, he wrote the base premise for the backstory - what happened and existed before the Shattering, and up until that point! So, how characters got corrupted, how their plans changed and what happened to them later etc was up to Miyazaki to create! Take the concept of the character - who, what power, what status - and put them through the arc and development! Not Martin wrote the events that unraveled after the Shattering AND unravel as we play the game! Miyazaki himself also confirms this, according to this ( x ) interview:

“So it was more up to us to interpret this and say, ‘how did they become such inhuman monsters? And how did the mad taint of the shattered shards of the Elden Ring and its power affect them?’ So that was our job to take these grand heroes and sort of misshape them and distort them into something they were not.”

"…if we get a chance to show Martin and if he gets a chance to see the game and see these characters, I think he might be a bit shocked. When he wrote them, he was really envisioning something a little bit more human, a little bit more traditional human drama and fantasy characters. So I hope he gets a kick out of that.”

I recommend reading the whole page, but this is the gist of it! So, not only what events we are following are Miyazaki's work, but also their fall from grace, their sins, their mistakes and everything you might hate ('you' mostly as in, people upset that Miquella was not as perfect and pure as you wanted) is ALLLLLL on him! YOU leave Martin OUT of this! we also all know he only writes hetero incest fsdhfdghsfdg

23) "SoTE contradicted the base game's lore [example that doesn't contradict it]"

This one is less focused than it may seem, because it is not just about Godwyn and Malenia! In fact, it is rarer about them as complaints about them mostly do the "they got abandoned" route that I've already ranted a lot about! god it feels so good to finally rant lol I've seen some instances of people JUST throwing the 'ohh my GoD this new info is SOOOOO contradictory to [thing]' and refusing to elaborate, pouting and playing victims of blinded fanboys when questioned, which is in itself very infuriating! Regardless of how you are frustrated with SoTE, how it screwed your expectations and preferences personally, you are a garbage critic if you just waste your emotions without any real argument to your point, there is no way to put it lightly! That being said, for this particular reason, it would be easier to address concrete examples that HAD some explaining behind them from the critical people! But, it NEEDED to be said!

Personally, I've stumbled into a couple of things, in which I managed to add my say! The first was a claim that the whole story of the base game was not supposed to happen because if Marika got driven by the impulse of revenge and despair, she was supposed to succumb to Frenzied Flame but she didn't! And this is NOT some groundbreaking discovery about how the story is allegedly fundamentally broken, but simply a huge overlooking of pre-existing information, if not confirmation bias! Frenzied Flame and Three Fingers are very interesting topic in general, that I've covered in a couple of lore posts already, but for the subject: whereas the sickness of Frenzied Flame, aka the 'become too sad and you will start to burn' illness, is the case in the Lands Between and started because of Shabriri's crime, the story of Marika and Midra's Manse logically happened before Shabriri! Abyssal Woods and Midra's Manse have the eyeballs that are evidence of being directly grasped by the Three Fingers as the only eyeball items, whereas the Lands Between has Shabriri Grapes as eyes scorched from within but being grasped by Three Fingers became not a staple but an exception (Vyke)! Marika was contacted by the Two Fingers, not Three Fingers, to have the power that she does. Even then, is not it logical to assume that even after Shabriri caused his curse on the Lands Between, a God would be immune, especially if the "counterpart" of the Three Fingers is their guide? Not to mention how Messmer did take a lot of burden off her by doing her wish for revenge by himself-

Alright, you got the point. It is very easy to logically conclude why there is no glaring contradiction at all, and you don't even need to dig deep into lore to find out why! This is the brightest case from my memory that is best described as 'if you WANT to believe that Fromsoft completely broke the story, you WILL find a backup claim for it'! But unfair criticism that doesn't address the possible counter-evidence is not the way to analyze! When you want to make a claim, you need to scan the overall volume of information for possible objections to your claim and deal with them! Explain why they do not work, or why they are not truly saying anything! Sometimes, as you deal with the potential counter-evidence, you find that there are things you cannot reliably argue against and it might make your initial claim appear less solid or lose validity altogether! And this is fine! As big as the temptation to "prove" something is, the true purpose of having a claim should be to make sure that it is valid all things considered!

Just because you are already too upset with the story and the writers to give it proper effort and analysis doesn't mean you can just toss a bold, easily debunked statement and expect to not have any objection! This is not in particular to the 'Frenzied Flame makes Marika's backstory impossible' person at all, but about a behavior in the fandom I've also noticed; where someone's response to the information that deconfirms their criticism is 'well, but I am already too hurt and disappointed to dig deep and analyze, so…' No, not how it works. You are making a claim about existing piece of writing and thus put skill of the writer up to scrutiny, not writing your own AU/headcanon, therefore be ready to deal with counter-evidence if there is any!

Another example off the top of my head was that existence of Gaius allegedly contradicted the pre-established lore about oppression of Albinaurics! I want to point out though that the person who originally made this claim was nice and never denied validity of the counter-arguments! But as for the subject, I will repeat that it is very easy to assume that there would be some double standards put in action! Like 'oh yeah Albinaurics are cringe, but this one is nice to me so he is an exception'! Or 'yeah we all hate Albinaurics, but this one is HELPING us in the Crusade against those spurned of Grace, he is paying the price for being an impure species himself, let's be nice to him guys :)' (🤡🤡🤡).

In this case things are easy to explain not through digging into information in the game further, but through putting into consideration how humans tend to work! Though Messmer, for one, has his more humane traits stated with how he respected the wishes of his Fire Knights when some of them protested against burning Rauh Ruins, and Gaius might be an extension of that sympathetic side of him! Opinion that saying Radahn was admired by the twins for his kindness contradicts the lore falls apart even EASIER; it is not hard to assume he maybe used to be kind! Miquella even specifically revived his younger version, and it is very telling!

All in all, the writers do not need to overexplain every single thing to prove that there is no contradiction or things make sense! Elden Ring is entirely written in such a way where by just digging deeper, connecting the dots or even applying your imagination and experiences you can easily explain why things work! I just want to really, REALLY accentuate it that before you cry 'bad writing!!!' or 'contradiction!!!', give it SOME extra thought! And if you are not willing to because of disappointment/weak attention span/anger/etc, then don't make the claim to BEGIN with! What is the point of making a claim when you are not in the right state of mind to make SURE it is valid? Bashing a story or a writer while willfully not being fair to them with your effort and research is something better reserved for private chats with the friends just to let it all out, but not for the public blog for all other fans to read and REACT at!

24) "If fans have to fill the gaps and think themselves it's a bad writing"

Sigh… This is relevant to the earlier addressed complaint about fans 'coping', and somewhat relevant to the complaint about 'they should have given more information', AND reverse complaint to how they've answered some questions in SoTE, I suppose. For starters, this argument could not be further from truth at all! Do you really, genuinely, want to say that instead of provoking you to think, to express creativity and curiosity, to apply your knowledge or experience for understanding, writers should have just spoon-fed you every single thinkable bit of information as if you are a toddler? For sure, the discussion about how writers treat reading comprehension of their audience cannot come without addressing the demographics that supposedly would benefit from "over-explanation", so I'll jump RIGHT into it, skipping through the normies:

As an autistic person, I do have my own problems with sometimes skipping through a subtext or an "obvious" clue in the writing, this is true, and maybe people who want to state this are also autistic, I can't know for sure. But.. do we REALLY want to have our intellectual abilities insulted, as a group? Accommodating to autistic people should come locally, like in teaching the society to be more patient with 'stupid' questions and explaining the 'obvious' social cues! It SHOULD be about society being better! It should NOT be about quality of fiction in videogames and movies and TV shows dropping! It should NOT be about writers sacrificing the amazing language of subtlety, nonverbal storytelling and speaking through assumption that our own experiences as human beings will fill in the gaps! We can understand subtexts and unspoken lore, even if it might be harder. When we cannot, autists that did understand the subtext explain it to us! When THEY cannot, there will always be the guy on Youtuber or elsewhere musing about what they liked or disliked in the writing, revealing the information that we might have missed, and we will go 'huh'. We can help ourselves and each other!

Instead of being mad at the writers for not giving more spoken information and evidence, let's place the pieces of the whole puzzle that we did find together to discover a full picture and teach others AND themselves to be patient instead of screaming "reeee media illiterate!!!" at every sneeze! I have insulted another autist's intellectual abilities over not reading the clue I managed to. I had MY intellectual abilities insulted by another autist over not reading the clue THEY managed to! We should strive to be better and kinder as society, AND we should have pride in the ability to do so and ourselves, instead of implying that complicated, subtle writing is "too hard" for our "tiny toddler brains"!

Aside of the general sentiment that the writing that provokes you to use your brain/heart/both to fully comprehend it and gives fuel for debates and discussion, I want to address specifically Miyazaki and how he approaches writing, and why he does so. I want to link the video by Zullie regarding the topic, too:

To paraphrase it: Miyazaki, in his youth, loved reading English novels, but because he didn't have as great knowledge of English language at the time, some words or even sentences evaded him and he had to use his own imagination to understand what might have happened in the parts he could not read! The experience of having general layout and understanding of the story, but details being missed here and there and left up to you to think about, is precisely what he wanted to emulate! You might guess "the words lost in translation" correctly, or you might end up with a completely different meaning than the actual one, but what matters is the fun of this process! To include YOU, an individual, into completing the story! Bloodborne was the first Fromsoft's story I've gotten into, and even before knowing this information I had the feeling like, 'ah, they've written the full story, but then dragged an eraser across random parts'… and so, the hunch was correct!

Miyazaki doesn't just lazily drop ingredients in your direction expecting you to cook anything from them and then praise it as though it was HIS brilliant recipe, that some writers WILL do to sorta take the credit for your creativity! Nor he just cooks the full meal and gives it to you. He removes some ingredient from it so you CAN eat it and enjoy it, but you are always tempted to add something! Something feels missing, but it is up to you WHAT spice you add to complete it! Yet this meal is coherent enough for you to have a hunch on whether you should add something sour, sweet or salty, it is not quite JUST anything! But if you don't think hard about it and add what YOU like, regardless of whether you think it fits the meal or not, the meal won't necessarily taste bad… There IS recipe that exists. He DID write the story. He just lets you choose your own experience!

^^^ It goes in line with how he creates the games; he stated they are not adding the difficulty levels so players can overcome the challenge in some way that suits THEM as a player. Whether you want to cheat, or to grind levels until you become a God, or to cleverly use the tools and items you are given, or to study every move until you dodge them all or whatever! There is no "right" way to beat these games, though we could conclude from levels designs and tools what was 'intended' way to beat them! A 'suggestion'! You might end up going just the 'intended' way, or you might not! You might just happen to guess the missing story bits 'correctly', but also not, and this is okay!

We are endlessly teased with this feeling that if we think just a bit harder we will discover that hidden "right" way, and we all want to believe that we did! Fandom has two extremes between people who DO believe in One True reading of the story and stomp out every alternative suggestion AND people that claim there is no story and you can do whatever and canon doesn't matter and doesn't exist and all. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and it is so frustrating, it is so torturous at the times… but also, so clever and beautiful.

This approach is why discussion about the meaning of Dark Souls and Bloodborne is STILL alive a decade later and even "apparent" lore questions constantly get revisited, and Elden Ring will meet the same fate! Every boss will be beaten but there is always a different way. Every lore question will be answered, but there is always a different answer. Isn't it much better than if we just cOnSuMeD cOnTeNt in a short time and forgot it all, waiting the next one?

25) *frankly unfair toxicity towards creators, down to racism against Japanese*

(Jeez.. I am REALLY paying a hard price by not saving the screenshots of the terrible takes I am referencing, aren't I. -_-" Everyone will just decide that I've made up a guy because a take like this sounds too awful to be real, doesn't it…..) Look- Some lines should NOT be crossed. Say all you want about the writing quality, but how DARE you to bring in this sort of anime fetishes into this discussion? I am just without proper words, and I will not tolerate this slander of Miyazaki! Everyone, EVERYONE knows…. that his fetishes are feet and dying in absurd ways.

sdfjfdhfdsh OKAY OKAY SORRY I HAD TO, but in any case! Did you guys miss the part where Miquella's ever-young body was a curse, was acknowledged as a curse, was a counterpart to Malenia ever decaying as inability to change at all, and something he transcended when he became a God? At NO point his curse was brought up as something quirky and attractive, at NO point Radahn or anyone was addressed as someone finding guilty attraction to him! We had one (1) guy suggested to do that, Mohg, and they confirmed that his behavior was result of enchantment, but even if it was not: without the new information, it already looked like a BAD thing. Like a HORROR thing, even! Miquella wanted Radahn to be there for him as a consort/king, by STATUS, that we know as much! Nothing is there to outright state any of 'that' brand of attraction! It can range from 'yeah they kind of pulled the dynasty-preserving incest thing, very authentic to medieval royal dynasties vibe' to 'it was innocent and not romantic or sexual in any manner, consort is just a status of the second person after a titular God in this setting that doesn't have to be a partner'. You know what is missing from this range? This being a "fetish" that you could flail around in that 'well what else to expect from jApAnEsE developers, you know jApAn has a problem with such things right??????' (🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡)

________________________________

*long, relieved exhale*

So..... yeah, I am done I suppose fhhfds I know I forewarned it as sort of super angry and rude rant, but in a way, it turned out to be more of a love letter to SoTE than a hate letter to a certain kind of fandomry that I just was not able to avoid..

It is funny how it turned out, as at first I've had strong negative reaction of shock, and Radahn consort reveal even soured the first days of playing this DLC for me, heh. That disappointment hadn't vaned yet.. I do not vigorously oppose weird, problematic ships of course, I still stand by what I said about creative freedom. But I guess I kinda did not want Miquella to have any "ship" in canon...? It is hard to explain why, since I do not insist that he is mentally a child too. Maybe I've fallen for the person he WANTED to be, a 'God' that 'loves everyone equally / no one', so him singling out someone disagreed with that "possessive" streak more than I disagreed with how random Radahn felt?

Even so, aside of this, I've been slowly understanding writers' decisions more and more! And those I did not understand I've found to be valid and not broken at all as well! But despite warming up to SoTE more and more with every day and becoming a fan, I was not able to avoid the "window" to VERY toxic and awful takes, some from very toxic PEOPLE, that was my (ex) mutual abundantly reblogging them and.. I guess when I've finally snapped about how strongly I disapproved of that behaviour and how it was all passive aggression all along, my very only inhibitor was just- *snaps fingers*

Moral of the story: if something rubs you a very wrong way, do not keep it in and ADDRESS it. Because if you hope that the alert factor will go on its own, all you'll end with is telling each other very unpleasant things. Pent up aggression ALWAYS breaks through.

In this case, I just feel relieved after having finally written all these thoughts down SOMEwhere. They were eating me from inside, reducing my HP by randomly appearing in my brain even when I was busy and I just could not help but rotate them. Venting is good and healthy. I have some bad troubles with both mental and physical health these days, but at least now there is one LESS thing to siphon my energy away. 🛏️

[ace-disgrace-from-space]

Literally my first post in the CB tag, so: hello, hi, nice to formally meet you all. I don't post but trust me I DO lurk in this tag. Doing this post so I can share my deteriorating thoughts but also so that in five weeks when I've forgotten everything I can see if I was right or not and whether I've earned a treat. Fair warning: I only know how to write essays. Big long theses. My bad. Whoops. All of this is PURE THEORIZING. I have no idea what truly happens, all information I gather is from the free episode(s) or what's posted here. I am simply taking shots in the dark for fun. Please don't yell at me. only saying this cause I normally post in communities where everyone has the same information but you all seem very nice so I'm not really worried about it :]

OKAY! SO! As a very normal human being with very normal interest in this silly comic, I scroll through the tag and see what you goobers post (because you're all very funny, talented, and entertaining) and I noticed that this week's fast pass episode has people in emotions. Very MUCH in emotions. I also noticed someone mention parallels to this week's free episode- which I spent way too long agonizing over but that's IRRELEVANT -and so my brain got to thinking. I could just satisfy my curiosity by using money but the way my anxiety will just beat me up for that is crazy. So, instead of that, I've decided that it's time to rabidly theorize about what happens for giggles. Basing my thoughts on the idea of this week's episodes having parallels, I have a few different thoughts.

All of my ideas are parallels of things that happened in the dungeon in the free episode since that has the most content to parallel and was the most prevalent part of the episode. With that in mind, here we go and apologies in advance.

Idea Number One: My first idea is that maybe there's a parallel to the scene where Buddy saves Chase from the creepy guard. Perhaps there's a similar situation to what happened in the free episode or- an idea I'm more partial to -within this book there's a person, place, or scene that reminds Buddy of Ex-Libris which causes him to have some sort of panic attack or a clearly afraid reaction. He's placed in a situation where he's reminded of something from EL that he is afraid of or has bad memories of. Something that Chase has to pull him away or calm him down from, but something that Chase has to save him from. Like how Buddy saved him this week.

Idea Number Two: This idea is based on the statement about ulterior motives and hiding things that Buddy made to Chase- who we all know is hiding something. In this idea, maybe Buddy finally finds out about Prunella and isn't pleased with Chase's lying to him and hiding things. They aren't besties but there's a thin line of trust between them that Chase potentially breaks by hiding Prunella. A person Buddy thought was honest and open suddenly hid something from him, so who's to say he's not hiding more? So, the actual IDEA is that maybe Buddy parallels the statement he makes, but this time in a more hurt tone or accusatory. Instead of apologizing and admitting "you can't have ulterior motives and you're pretty honest", he goes the opposite direction of "I was wrong, you're a liar and blah blah blah" (sorry didn't wanna write more lmao). Still, for a parallel, the statements would likely have to be similar in structure and in nature, and a line that has been living RENT-FREE in my head since this morning is: "I was too dumb to think you didn't have ulterior motives. Too dumb to see that you were hiding something." Or something to that effect. Paralleling that previous statement.

Idea Number Three: This idea I'm less sold on but screw it, throwing it in for giggles because I can and that's one more idea I have lying around. This one is based more on the situation between Chase and Buddy (Buddy being like "wow! thanks for not hiding things" to Chase "definitely hiding a whole ass child" Hollow). A simple switch of roles is what my third thought is. Chase takes Buddy's role of "Wow, so honest" and Buddy takes Chase's role of "Hiding things". The reason I don't like this one as much and I'm not as convinced is because for it to have as much emotion as the Fast Pass episode clearly had, there has to be some sort of emotional investment to whatever the thing was. And for there to be emotional investment, we would likely have to know what exactly Buddy would be hiding from Chase in this potential scenario. As of right now, we have nothing of the sort since getting that kind of information would require a Buddy POV episode which I don't think we're getting any time super soon? So, unless we suddenly find out things in the next four weeks, I doubt it's going to be something like this.

OKAY, I'M DONE NOW I SWEAR! I am so sorry for how long and unnecessary this post was (whoops) but I need to scream somewhere! I'll revisit this in five weeks I suppose to see if I'm right or not and if I've earned my little treat (reward yourselves for things man. self-love). I'll still be lurking, as always, but I guess I'll see y'all formally once again in like five weeks. Have a lovely day! :]

[asumofwords]

Smoke, Fire and Ash

Warnings: This fic includes noncon, dubcon, manipulation, violence, death, forced marriage, and inc3st. Tags will be added as the fic goes on.

This is a dark!fic. 18+ only. Read at your own discretion. Please read the warnings before continuing.

Summary: You are the eldest daughter of Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen. You are forced to navigate the difficult surroundings of your upbringing and the eventual disintegration between your family and the Hightower's relationship. What will happen when your older and estranged uncle suddenly takes a more sinister interest in you? (Dark!Aemond x Reader)

Masterlist

Characters: Aemond Targaryen X Reader, HOTD characters.

Note: Oh my GOSSSSSH, with every chapter I post, we get closer and closer to the end and I'm literally wriggling in my chair in excitement, like holy shit! hahaha, anyway, I so hope you enjoy this new chapter and the remaining ones to come! ENJOYYYYY <3

Chapter 101: The Merciless Queen 

“If we are to give Flea Bottom gold to build new dwellings, whose to say that the other small folk across the realm won’t decide to take arms and demand the same?” Lord Tyland Lannister, elder brother of Jason Lannister and Master of Coin argued, seated amongst the other Small Council members who seemed to be in a disarray since the slaying of their previous King, Aegon.

It had been a few days since his death, and whilst Aemond and yourself could not keep your hands off of each other, there was no denying the tension that still circled around the two of you. 

You had been coronated as Queen Consort, a short lived affair in the throne room with only the Small Council present, letters written to be sent out shortly thereafter to their supporters. There was no celebrations to be had, no drinking or dancing. It was short, brief, and most importantly, political move.

And now, all sat in wait for the more pressing question at hand.

What was to happen to the treaty?

And yet despite this question, and the sheer multitude of meetings with the council, Aemond let the unknown hover over your head like smoke, filling your lungs thickly and choking you.

When once Maester Orwyle had asked the same question, which was asked more than once a day, Aemond had barely given the man a second glance, and redirected the question elsewhere. 

In no time however, much to the urging of Otto Hightower and Lord Jasper Wylde, word would soon reach Dragonstone, and the Green Council would need to be ready for such events.

There was a very real possibility that at the knowledge of Aegon being indisposed of, and the Greens thus only having one dragon rider, may invoke the wrath and fury of all the Black’s power. 

And in this moment, they had it. 

And the council, knew it. 

There was an all encompassing feeling of dread that filled each member. The anticipation being a most poisonous thing, and at any loud noise or uncertain sound, Alicent Hightower would jump in her seat, eyes skating to the doors of the chamber they were in, or looking out the window to the skies. 

“Then see to it that they do not.” Breezed Aemond, the Conquerors Crown seated atop his head, ruby glinting in the light of the chambers.

“I do not see why we need to do so in the first place, Your Grace.” Maester Orwyle spoke, “The small folk are not in need or want, nor do they know more than what they have.”

Aemond blinked slowly, finger impatiently tapping on the table as he looked at his men and mother, the gold ring upon is finger clunking on the wooden surface.

“We have the gold, not much, but enough. As it is, their disdain for us was exaggerated by my brother and his selfish disregard for their needs." Aemond began, "I couldn’t care for what they do below in their shit and piss, but my Lady wife has spoken of the benefits of having the love of the small people, and we are in dire need of support.”

You shifted in your seat, suddenly feeling the eyes of all the Lords at the table, and the ever present scowl of Alicent Hightower directed at you. Swallowing, you licked your lips, fingers finding your council sphere and spinning it in its dish.

“My mother is loved by the small folk, as was I,” Before they dubbed me the Merciless, “‘The Realms Delight', they named her, most beloved and fair, much the same for my sweet aunt Helaena."

You paused, letting your gaze stop on Alicent, "Where as when they think of the King, they have little good things to say. Two Kinslayers on the throne would no doubt further press their disdain." You turned back to Aemond, "The support of the common folk is important when ruling, it makes things easier, and if the time comes, they will take up arms to support your cause.”

Larys Strong’s voice carried across the table, his high lilt directed at you. His hands were crossed over the top of his cane delicately between his knees at the table, “My spiders have told me that there are ample supporters of your rule, Your Grace.”

You scoffed, “Supporters of the Faith perhaps, or the whispers of the old militant sect even, but that support lies with Alicent, and they would surely have issue with mine and Aemond's union, as is our tradition as Targaryens, and also the very issue of us both being Kinslayers," You looked to Alicent, "Which we are very much reminded of. But the small folk, the true small folk who live in poverty, where sickness and disease is ripe, have no positive feelings of loyalty towards a King who does not see them and gorges upon riches unimaginable. My father took to the streets and killed every rapist and murderer in Flea Bottom, punished thieves and crooks, and the small people felt safer.”

“They were scared out of their wits.” Otto sighed, “The small people need nothing but the clothes on their backs. Simple minds think not of extravagant pleasures.”

Anger rolled through you, “Having proper housing and not living in the streets is not an extravagant pleasure. I would say it is a right for them to live freely and happily, to pursue their desires and passions.”

Jasper Wylde placed his long fingers upon the sphere, several gold and silver rings adorning the digits, “The Queen makes a point, Your Grace. King Jaehaerys was loved by the small folk for his benevolence, and the actions of Maegor the Cruel brought him nothing but trouble. Perhaps the spending of a few Gold Dragons on Flea Bottom’s worse affected slums could bring you support, especially now that the treaty is in question.”

Lord Jasper Wylde, Master of Laws, opened the conversation for the treaty to be discussed. 

Again.

All eyes were now on Aemond, who sat stiffly in his chair, one elbow upon the armrest, the other still tapping against the table.

“Has word reached Dragonstone?” Aemond questioned Larys, noncommittally. 

The brunette leant forward, bowing his head slightly as he spoke, “As it were, a spider intercepted an attempt to alert them. Though I have no doubt they will receive word by the morrow.”

The King hummed.

“Will the treaty be renewed, Your Grace?" Maester Orwyle began, eyes flicking to you, then back to the King, "I believe it to be prudent that we do so. As it were, we are outnumbered in dragons. You are but the lone rider here at the Keep.” You narrowed your eyes at Maester Orwyle, “Perhaps if we sent word and new terms, Rhaenyra will be-“

“-No.” Aemond’s word cut through the air like a knife. Crisp. Icy.

Final.

“No?” Otto questioned, “The realm will fall to war again if-“

Your heart beat against your chest like a drum, iciness spreading across your skin and at the base of your skull.

No.

“What do you mean, no?” You breathed.

Aemond did not turn to face you.

You snapped, “If you do not sign a treaty, they will come for you, Aemond. My mother and father will come to claim what is theirs.”

The King’s nostrils flared, “Let them. I ride the largest dragon in the world. If my half-sister wishes to declare war at the risk of your safety, then it shall be your blood upon her hands, not mine.”

Your breath caught in your throat.

“My blood?”

Aemond did not even turn to face you.

Your hands slammed against the table, and you shot out of your chair, leaning towards your husband as you sneered, "Have you learnt nothing? You are blinded by your hatred. You will be our ruin, not Aegon.”

Aemond breathed sharply, eye solely on you as he spoke to the table, “Send coin to Flea Bottom. Hire masons and workers, or let the small folk build it themselves.” He looked to his men before finishing, “Clear the chambers.” He commanded the room, and all Lords and Lady Alicent, stood and quickly shuffled out of the room, leaving Aemond with an enraged wife.

“Are you to doom us all with your stubbornness? Have you gone mad?” You growled, “Your thirst for the throne will kill us, Aemond. My mother and father are not to be trifled with. My brother and sisters are not to be trifled with. Do you think that we will survive this?”

Aemond simply stared at you, hand still on the table tapping, whilst the other gripped the arm of the chair fiercely, knuckles white.

“Is it your true desire to have another war? Or is this a foolish little boys dream?” You said in disbelief, looking down at him from your standing position, hands still flat against the table to ground you, “I barely survived the last one, and yet you wish to play games with my mother and father? With my life? Do you know what they will do to you? What they could do to you? You would be dead before you even reached the skies.” You sneered.

The King’s lips pulled into a thin line, brows furrowed as he looked at you, barely contained anger burning behind the violet of his eye.

“They would not do it if it meant jeopardising your life.”

You flinched backwards, as though he had hit you, curling your hands into fists at your sides as you tried to steady your breathing, but panic coursed through your veins, and your throat grew tighter with each passing second.

"Is that a threat?”

Aemond frowned at you, the lines in forehead pulling the crown down in the slightest of movements. It was as though he was offended by your question, and though you had questioned every natural fibre of his being. 

“You think I would harm you? After all that has happened? After all I have done for you?” His voice became raised, anger leaking into each syllable. 

You scoffed, “You just said that them acting would put me at risk. What will you do? Have Ser Cole at my side, sword ready to cast against my neck or plunge into my heart?” 

Aemond leant forward and sneered, “Do you truly think so lowly of me? I did this for you! I love you!”

“Then do this for me, too! Renew the treaty, Aemond.”

“I can’t do that.” He breathed.

The backs of your calves hit the edge of the chair as you leant back, looking at your uncle from down your nose, “You can. But you won’t.”

Aemond did not respond.

“Sign the treaty.” You said more sternly, anger causing the words to come out harsh, and biting.

The King's broad chest rose and fell in his robes shallowly, his one eye watching you as his hands flexed upon the table.

“Why do you wish to sign a treaty with them? After all they have done?” Aemond growled.

After all they had done?

“They cast you aside! Abandoned you here to be tormented by Aegon.” Aemond continued, voice rising.

“They did not abandon me!” You snapped, hurt and betrayal causing tears to prick in your eyes.

“Oh? But they knew what would happen to you once you were wed to me. They let you be raped. You were sold to me like a brood mare.”

“And who did those things to me?!” You screamed, a tear falling down your cheek, “Who, Aemond? Who raped me? Who defiled me? Who scarred me? Because it wasn’t them.”

Aemond’s anger seemed to bleed out of him as he looked at you.

You pushed the chair backwards hard with a kick of your foot, sending the high-backed wooden seat to crash against the stones loudly, “You raped me. You hurt me. You did that. Not them. You! You act as though you’re innocent in all of this!”

“I don’t-“

“-I will not survive another war.”

The anger was back.

Aemond’s lips curled in disgust, “You expect me to bend the knee to your mother? The very woman who wished to punish me after her son took my eye?”

Your face fell, “No.” You declared, “I expect you to give the treaty a chance. Countless lives will be lost if you start another war, Aemond. Needless blood will be shed. Could you live with yourself knowing this?”

“Yes.”

The answer came so quickly, that it seemed that Aemond had not even needed to give it a second thought. As though he had already weighed all possibilities against each other, as though he had measured the odds.

And still, he had said yes.

You swallowed thickly, wishing the damn lump to leave your throat. And so quietly, you asked a question which clawed at you from the back of you mind. A question of doubt. Of fear. Of another ‘what if’ that you had to bat away with a swift blink of your eye.

“Even if it is mine?”

It was an uncomfortable sort of silence, and this time, Aemond did not answer straight away. Not like how he had a moment before. As though he had not weighed up this question in his mind yet, or perhaps he had, and had come to no conclusion. You watched his face as he stared at you, his seeing eye flickering across your face as a finger twirled the ring upon his hand.

“I will not lose you." He began, making a move towards you, "But I will not bend a knee to Rhaenyra, and kiss her old cunny for the sake of peace.”

His tone was final, he had hissed your mothers name like a curse, and there was no changing his mind. No shifting of the tide that had been steadily building for months now, a tide which had moved away from the shore, sucking the water and life away from the beach, revealing the jagged rocks that were hidden beneath.

You blinked again, another tear falling down your cheek.

Your uncle continued, “And if it need come to war, then so it shall be.”

It was so point of fact. 

So emotionless.

Toneless. 

Void of anything other than finality. 

War was to come.

And there would be no changing that.

“But,” Aemond’s voice startled you from your thoughts, your eyes racing over his face, “You are Queen now. My Queen. Something that is and was always your birthright.”

“Like my mothers.” You sneered.

Aemond ignored your comment and continued, “And you, as Rhaenyra’s heir shall sit the Iron Throne in her place. And then, when the time comes, our heir shall follow."

It was clear to you then, that Aemond had thought on this.

"If Rhaenyra’s concern for succession is blood, then she can be satiated in knowing that the daughter she denied shall sit where she is owed by her birthright.”

You stepped towards him, hands clenching and unclenching, “Aemond, please. Think about this. You are asking me to depose my mother.”

“I ask nothing of you. I am telling you, zaldritsos. I will not have you be pushed aside again for your bastard brother. I will not bend the knee to my half-sister. This throne is ours. It is ours by birthright. And I will be damned if I let anyone take you away from me again."

The air in the chambers shifted, and you inched towards your husband as he continued to speak.

"Do you think that if I bent the knee to them, that your father would let you stay wed to me? Think on it a moment, Y/n. Do you think that your mother would let you stay wed to a monster? The man who killed her son? They will take you from me."

You stepped away from him, turning your back as your mind raced a as you looked around the chambers, eyes casting out the veranda at the clouded skies. Dread settled in your gut.

You didn't want to be parted from him.

You loved him.

The air was charged as you spoke, voice shaking, “So what now? Are you to send word to them?”

Aemond stood behind you, the chair scraping against the stone floors.

“I will be sending Otto and Ser Cole to Dragonstone as envoys to give word to Rhaenyra and Daemon. They will be told that their blood sits upon the Iron Throne as Queen. They will be allowed to live where they do. My half-sister can have Dragonstone, I have no need for it when I have Kings Landing and you. And they will bend the knee.”

You shook your head, still not turning to face him, “You should know that they will not.”

“Not if you don’t encourage them.”

Your eyes widened as you spun on your heel to look at him.

He was deathly serious.

“You wish for me to ask them to bend the knee to you?” You laughed.

Aemond frowned, “A letter from the Queen is a hard one to refuse. Especially if the Queen is their own daughter. Tell them of the fears that you have. That war will break if they do not swear me as their King and you as their Queen. They can remain on Dragonstone, and you shall remain here, with me. Where you belong.” 

He seemed so sure that it would work. So sure that a simple letter from you would bring the water back to shore. But the tide was gone from your reach, and you were anchored on the coast atop a beached ship with no way to get off. 

Aemond stepped forward, cupping the side of your face gently as he looked at you, "They will listen to you.”

You grasped his wrist tightly, “I am not so sure.” Your voice was quiet, so fragile, like the finest of glass from Essos. One octave higher, one shift against your throat could cause them to crack or break.

If you did this, you would be betraying them.

You would be deposing your mother.

Aemond pulled you into a reassuring kiss, one he poured love and adoration into as he cupped your face in his hands. When he pulled back, his eye roamed your face softly, “I do not wish to see bloodshed, nor do I wish to see you harmed. This is the only way, surely you can see that."

And you did.

You did see that.

You saw it all clearly.

Your husband pressed another kiss against the top of your hairline, your eyes sliding shut as you breathed through your nose, preparing yourself for what you had to do.

"I trust that my Queen will know what to do.”

And you did.

You knew what you had to do.

And so with a short nod, you agreed to his terms.

“I will have Otto deliver your letter by hand.”

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[loveless-arobee]

Writing Loveless Characters

(Pt: Writing loveless characters)

Because I want to see more of them but non-loveless people often don’t have any idea where to start, or how to write them respectfully.

Loveless / heartless people are welcome to add their opinions! This is by no means a complete post, I'm just trying to give a starting point.

I’ll also discuss the decentering of love in stories a bit, even if there’s no explicitly loveless characters present. So if you’re interested in that, read on!

Definition

(Pt: Definition)

Let’s start with the simplest bit. What does it mean to be loveless (or heartless)?

Being loveless means not experiencing anything that could be described as love, feeling a disconnection from the entire concept of love, and/or it refers to the rejection of the idea that people need to experience love.

A lot of people who use the loveless/heartless labels are also neurodivergent and may feel a connection to this label because of that, but not all.

Being loveless can mean multiple things for one person, too. If you want to read more about the meaning of being loveless from a loveless person (me) you can read this post (link), or scroll a bit through the loveless aro and heartless aro tags.

What is love?

(Pt: What is love?)

Because we can’t go on without clearing up what this word actually means.

Love is just a label for an emotion. Nothing more. Love is not an action, actions are actions. Love is not a choice to care for some one, that is simply the choice to care for someone. This choice can be made completely without love, for example out of compassion, or because of a feeling of responsibility.

So, in short, "love" is just a label that a lot of people have decided to use for a specific emotion, and that label might not fit everyone.

Building a character

(Pt: Building a character)

For this, I can’t give a 100% conclusive answer, obviously, because all loveless people are different. Here’s just some things to keep in mind:

To respectfully write a loveless character, you should just throw out the idea that feeling love is necessary to be a good human, to care for other people or animals, or that not feeling love makes one immediately an asshole who doesn’t care for other people’s feelings.

Being loveless, in and off itself, says nothing about how a person acts. It only means that they don’t experience love (or any other part of the definitions above).

Things to avoid:

I can only think of two things you should definitely avoid doing, and that is connection lovelessness to being evil in any way, shape, or form. Also, avoid making your loveless character non-human if the rest of you cast is human (if all your characters are fantasy-races, that’s fine, probably just have a character, even just a minor one, of that same race who isn’t loveless, just to show that this isn’t a trait of this species that differentiates them from others, or make that very clear in the narrative.)

Yes, your loveless character can be evil, or morally complex, but you shouldn’t explain their villainy with them being loveless.

Yes, your loveless character can be emotionally distant, cold, or un-empathetic. Those words mostly describe me in some way. But again, you should decouple all of those things from being evil. Empathy doesn’t make a good human, and not experiencing empathy doesn’t make a bad person. Same with having shallow emotions.

But with all of this, you should still think about why you want to write them in this way. For example, do you want to write a loveless character with low empathy because you want to represent people like me, who are neurodivergent and don’t experience much empathy, and are also loveless? Or do you want to write them because those are things that make them more unlikable, or show their villainy?

Do you want them to experience shallow emotions to represent people who feel that way, or to explain away their lovelessness with "no normal person would feel this way"?

Do you want to write a loveless villain because it makes them more complex, and allows you to explore their emotions to a deeper level, or because you equate not feeling love with being evil and being evil with not feeling love?

Because there’s a very big difference, and your intentions matter a lot here, because the way you think about your character influences the way you write them.

Things I’d like to see / ideas to include

Besides "really, any loveless person who isn’t demonised" ofc.

- characters being open about not experiencing love, and not being judged or "fixed" for it.

- The narrative not treating lovelessness as a bad thing, and other characters just simply respecting their boundaries.

- A character with boundaries around the word love in general, doesn’t have to be loveless, and them being respected. Some people just don’t like hearing "I love you"s all the time.

- Just generally decentering love from the narrative (see more below)

- ND loveless people who fit the "bad stereotypes", turning them on their head (like me, hi.)

- not repeating respectability politics ("I might not feel love but I still care for people, I’m just like you!") This is not to say that loveless people don’t care for other people, just that it shouldn’t be shoe-horned in as a way of "showing that they’re still a good human being, despite not feeling love". They can just care for other people normally, without making it seem like something special or strange because they don’t feel love.

Questions to ask

To get a better understanding of your character:

- Why does this character identify as loveless, or could be identified as loveless? What does it mean to them, personally?

- How does being loveless affect their relationships?

- How does being loveless affect their view of the world, and other people?

- How important is their lovelessness to them? Is it something they’re proud of and show openly, or just something that’s a part of them that comes up when it gets important, but is otherwise just "background noise" for them?

- How do they feel about being the "target" of different kinds of love? Does love in general make them uncomfortable, just specific kinds, or do they not mind other people’s feelings towards them?

- Adding to the point above: Do the other characters respect their boundaries? If not, why? Does it add something important to the story?

That’s the most important points I can think of rn.

Decentering love

(Pt: decentering love)

Even if you don’t have a specific loveless character, this can still be done and often times make for some more interesting stories and characters that mostly haven’t been told before.

What do I mean by that?

Well, first off all, almost everything in most modern books is about love, contains love, or centers love in some way. There’s barely any new books coming out that don’t put the main characters in romantic relationships, even if they’re not in the romance genre, and if they don’t, these books are usually about the importance of platonic (or familial) love instead.

Im not saying these books shouldn’t exist. What I mean is that not everything has to center around love when there’s so many more emotions and experiences that could be written about, but instead we have millions of books that basically have the moral "You’re only worthy of humanity in the context of you relationships to other people, your only importance comes from finding people who love you / who you love, or character finds happiness through love (either their ~one true romantic love~ or platonic love)", because they obviously couldn’t learn to be happy with themselves, or that they didn’t need to center other people in their life constantly, or that they can be a complete and happy human on their own, too.

People can exist without basing their whole self worth on other people’s emotions towards them, and their emotions to other people.

To decenter love, you need to take the concepts, and ask "Why?" Why does this character need to be taught to accept themselves by falling in love? Why does this character need love to be happy, why can’t they just be happy as they are? Why should not loving make their life miserable, and why is the only way to fix it to find love, possibly even change themselves to finally be accepted by other people, instead of accepting themselves as they are, and finding community, if that’s important to them, as that?

You can even write about human connection without centering love, or about love without centering it, and portraying love as this universal, perfect good thing that makes us human and that everyone experiences. That is completely possible!

It can be just simply making sure that the narrative makes clear that this is these characters experience, and not a universal one. That there’s people who don’t feel this way. People who don’t love, don’t need love, and feel happy as they are, without relying on other people to make them happy.

Decentering love can also be about finding other ways to explore human connection. Relationship that are deep and emotional, but the characters don’t use the word love do define it; characters who are looking for community, for support, and giving community and support to others even if they don’t love them, maybe just because it’s the right thing to do, or because it’s the way they’d want to be treated, or because they have a deep seated care for humanity as a whole that they don’t describe as love.

There’s so many more emotions, so many more types of relationships, that deserve to be explored. Don’t limit yourself to just love and romance, or just (queer)platonic relationships as an aspec writer. You can write about sexual relationships, or about completely non-typical relationships that don’t really have a good term to describe them.

Write about relationships based on compassion, on sexual attraction, on mutual interest in the same topic, on what ever other emotion you can think off. I’ve once read a fantasy book where two off the main characters were different species, and mostly interested in each other to find out more about these species, and that was interesting; wonderfully written and it’d be awesome to have something that focussed on such an absolutely non-normative bond.

Don’t limit yourself to just "love", to just what society has put on a pedestal as the best and solely most important thing that connects everything and everyone. Think of all the other things that exist. Be creative.

Have fun creating!

(pt: Have fun creating!)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

Thank you for reading this. Have a good day, and happy writing!