#anon i don't know why either

[dont-open-dead-inside-net]

You are chronically online

You are also tumblr famous

Like everyone knows you

Why

woag..... you're like. the third person to tell me i'm tumblr famous. i'm starting to believe you guys

[aclockworkreader]

thoughts on sabrina carpenters controversial new album cover?

i *get* what she’s trying to do, but in order for satire to be effective, it has to be distinguishable from what it’s trying to satirize. it should make the group it’s trying to poke fun at (in this case, men who view women as submissive and subservient) feel uncomfortable. but the cover doesn’t do that, it only replicates a misogynistic image we’ve seen countless times in magazine ads, movies, shows, music, etc, for decades. so it’s not really subversive in any way despite the themes in her music

[rattusrattus3]

Do you have any opinions on how it seems it's so difficult to find unique punk/goth diys on the Internet nowadays? I feel like the only things that I can find are always the same ideas and always have to do with clothes. In your videos you explain a lot of original ideas and good tutorials on that sort of stuff, but I can't find that specific type of content anywhere else on the Internet...any places you'd recommend?

aww thanks!!! not sure why it is,

 i also sometimes find it really difficult to find 'unique' ideas sometimes (it feels like the channels i love get so little attention despite their incredible and fantastic work!! its so sad); 

that said i do have some recs for channels i enjoy who do cool youtube stuff, (and if you like me you might like them too) 

/..... though -- my interest is primarily in fashion so a lot of these are a bit more clothing focused, (but i still think you can apply concepts/ideas from them in whatever art/decor style you want!)

DIY/art channel Youtube Rec list (in  no particular order, and incomplete): (you can also click on my channel and scroll down and see the ‘creators i <3’ tab for more) (youtube wont let me copy paste more than 10 links) (this is a graphic i made from a different video)

here on tumblr id also reccomend (off the top of my head, sorry this is super incpomplte, folks — feel free to add yourselves):

and everyone is welcome to add on their own blogs for recs! please lets diy folks find eachother :3 <3

[canisalbus]

Vachete Suomi AU. Vesuri ja Vaski asuvat suuressa kylässä jossain sisämaassa kaukana suurista kaupungeista kuten Turusta. Kirkonkylän pappi, Vesuri, yrittää parhaansa mukaan vakuuttaa kyläläisiä kasvattamaan perunaa, koska se on satoisa ja ravitseva kasvi mutta kyläläiset eivät tahdo luopua nauriista. Vaski on kartanonvoudin poika ja yrittää pitää suhteita yllä kyläläisiin, että he olisivat suostuvaisia maksamaan veroja kuninkaalle eivätkä hyökkäisi hänen isänsä kimppuun.

Loose translation:

Finnish Vaschete AU.

Vesuri (a type of pruning knife/billhook) and Vaski (brass/copper/bronze) live in a big village somewhere inland, far away from the country's populous cities like Turku (Finland's oldest city and former capital located in the southwestern coast). The village priest, Vesuri, is trying his best to persuade the villagers to start farming potato, a high-yielding and nourishing crop, but people are reluctant to give up their turnips (one of Finland's most important staple foods up until 1800's when potato finally took over). Vaski is the son of a local lord of the manor (or maybe you'd call it bailiff? Or even jarl?) and is doing his best to get along with the villagers so that they would continue paying their taxes to the king and wouldn't turn against his dad.

[allastoredeer]

Do you have any headcanons about Alastor's participation in WW1? The Selective Service Act of 1917 made it mandatory for men aged 21-30 to register for military service and was later expanded to include men as young as 18, so if the stream saying that Alastor was late thirties to early forties when he died is still canon he'd have lived through that

So, I hadn't gotten to this part in my development of Alastor's backstory, but it got me thinking because, huh, how DID Alastor manage to get out of that?

Unless he just served in WW1. Which...I find oddly funny. I don't know why, but the the image of Alastor in the trenches...

But anyway, you got me curious so I looked into it. You're 100% right about the Selective Service Act of 1917 making it mandatory for men aged 21-30 to register for military service, and they even came up with different "classes" of the men who qualified, and if they exhausted one class, they'd go down to the next.

However, even with the Selective Service Act, there was still a lot of draft evasion going on. In fact, a significant amount of draft evasion happened in the South, which, as I'm sure you know, Louisiana is part of (some of it was in part of Southerners not having documentation, and thus, unable to even legally draft, which would probably give them a whole other slew of problems).

So, I was looking into how people evaded the draft. A lot of it is split up into different groups, like draft avoidance and draft resistance, with their only little list of things, but that's a lot and I don't wanna get into all of that. But my bet is on Alastor doing draft avoidance.

And there were actually quite a few interesting ones, like:

Claiming to have a mental or psychological problem (if you could find a doctor willing to certify that for you)

Student deferment, when someone is primarily in school to learn and study (or obtaining one in an effort to avoid the draft)

Deliberately failing the military intelligence tests

Professing sincere or religious ethical beliefs (join a church, avoid the draft!)

Bribery

and my personal favorite:

Being homosexual.

Because, as you know, the government can't allow the gay in the military!

And look, I'm a silly goober, so of course I immediately went to Alastor claiming to be homosexual. But the thing is, I kind of do think that is something Alastor would do for a majority of reasons.

In the 1920's, social values were evolving, and a lot of postwar "youths" began questioning traditional concepts of family, sexuality, and gender. There were "little Bohemia's" around the US, including in Manhattan and San Francisco, with communities and groups like this, and they weren't exactly unknown.

Back to Alastor, he lived in the French Quarter in New Orleans (or, at least, that's where I think he lived as a majority of mixed-raced Creole people lived there, which we know Alastor canonically is). And it just so happens, that it became the birth place of New Orleans gay community in the 1920's. There were entire gay neighborhoods, there were clubs where people dressed in the clothing of the opposite gender, they had parties and bars, and while it wasn't "the norm" to live this "lifestyle," and there was still a lot of harassment, it was still fairly normal to see. (Of course, then came what we can call the "gay panic" where government started cracking down on it, and claiming the gay community were all predators and pedophiles, and - well, you know. You know.)

But that was after/close to Alastor's death, so...

Anyway, I 100% believe that Alastor did take part and lived in communities like those. Names and labels for those things didn't exist at the time, so it's not like he knows what they're called, but homosexuals, cross-dressing, drag queens, they were normal to him. He's lived with them, partied with them, maybe even tried a few things out himself(so many headcanons, guys. So many).

This is to say, I think Alastor would 100% be comfortable claiming to be homosexual to avoid getting drafted. You've seen getting married for tax benefits, now consider becoming gay for draft evasion! I actually had a pretty fun talk about it with a friend in Discord, which only cemented it in my mind LMAO.

I have SO many headcanons around Alastor and him living in the French Quarter, in gay communities, where they challenged social norms (and we all know how he feels about challenging status quo's 😏)

But if not that, my runner up is that he totally bribed his way out of it. I don't know how he got the money, maybe he killed someone and stole their wallet, IDK, but bribery is a yes from me.

And if not THAT one, then he joined and church and claimed to have sincere religious and ethical beliefs 😇 🙏 (Yes, this is inspired by Nun Alastor, and no, I do not take constructive criticism. That's what happened guys, I was there). Besides, New Orleans was pretty Catholic, I'm sure he could find a church somewhere.

That's my take on it XD I think the one closest to Alastor's canon character would be bribery, but this is fandom, and if I say he claimed to be gay to get out of going to war, then goddammit he claimed to be gay to get out of going to war.

[nebulations]

Fish, 7 (For your prompts! ❤️)

Hi, anon!! Thank you for the prompt, you were the very first one to send one in! 7 was, again, the wildcard, so I randomly generated a different number to land on Yue Qingyuan (from Scum Villain)! I have no choice but to dedicate this to @bytedykes, because I told her about this prompt and she said “yqy pet fish mental health speedrun” and we went, uh, a little insane about it. Enjoy some yuefang, folks!!!!

“Mu-xiong,” Yue Qingyuan says. “I’m sorry to bother you. Are you available?”

“Yue-xiong is never a bother,” Mu Qingfang says warmly. “And I am, actually, yes. Is everything okay, Yue-xiong?”

“I think I need help.” A bit dramatic, perhaps, and Yue Qingyuan hates to trouble Mu Qingfang on a rare day off, but Yue Qingyuan and impulse have never been the best combination, and he would appreciate a second opinion.

Mu Qingfang’s voice turns hard. “Where are you? I'll come right away.”

“What—?” Yue Qingyuan stares at his phone like the blank call screen will tell him why Mu Qingfang suddenly sounds so serious. “I'm at home, but—”

“I'll be right there,” Mu Qingfang says, and hangs up.

Yue Qingyuan stares at his phone for another second, then lifts his gaze to his sparkling new aquarium. His new betta, white and black and resplendent of fin, stares back. Was his crisis of faith about his viability as a fish owner really so deserving of such urgency…?

—

“So,” Mu Qingfang says. “This was your emergency?” He looks about as unimpressed by the betta as it does by the two of them.

Yue Qingyuan feels obscurely like he’s being scolded. Mu Qingfang is one of the nicest men he knows, but that just means that his censure takes the form of a blunt instrument of mass disappointment.

“In my defense,” he points out meekly, “I didn’t say there was an emergency. Mu-xiong just assumed.”

“That’ll teach me,” Mu Qingfang huffs, but at least he looks amused. “Yue-xiong should get used to asking for help more so this gege doesn’t have to panic every time he does ask.”

Yue Qingyuan’s mouth almost drops open. He can only hope his cheeks aren’t as red as they feel. “Er—well, I asked this time, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Mu Qingfang allows, looking something horribly close to fond. Yue Qingyuan swallows and tries to hurry on.

“So—not an emergency, but I do want your opinion,” he coughs out. “I’m having… doubts. About the fish.” Mu Qingfang’s eyebrows contract. Yue Qingyuan rushes it out. “Do you think I should keep it?”

“Yue-xiong…” Mu Qingfang looks politely incredulous. “Why does my opinion matter? The fish is already yours, isn’t it? If you don’t think maintaining its upkeep will be feasible, that’s one thing, but… Surely Yue-xiong did the research before getting it?”

He doesn’t sound judgemental, but Yue Qingyuan feels his cheeks warm. “I did, but I wasn’t planning on getting a fish; I was only admiring the tanks. There was a salesperson who was… very insistent.”

Mu Qingfang regards him doubtfully, which is fair. Yue Qingyuan towers over most people he meets, and his bulk only further adds to the impression of immovability. It’s only when he opens his mouth that it becomes clear how spineless he actually is.

Yue Qingyuan falters. “I had thought… I thought it might be nice.” The bettas had seemed so majestic in their tanks, iridescent monarchs of false grass and plastic coves, and Yue Qingyuan had thought, wildly, that one might be rewarding to keep, might breathe a touch of life into his immaculately sleek living room. The whole affair hadn’t even been expensive by his shiny new standards, forget difficult to physically arrange. It was only when installation and set-up for his new aquarium had finished and he was left to watch that jewel-bright being swim disaffectedly through its new home that doubt had seized him, all-consuming and black. He had, admittedly, panicked a little after that.

(Yue Qingyuan’s apartment is very large, and very clean, and very empty. It holds the barest amount of decoration and muss to qualify as lived-in rather than a snapshot from a magazine ad. The fish may, in fact, be the only thing in the entire place which really qualifies as his. No wonder Yue Qingyuan wanted to jettison it from his life as soon as he got it.)

Mu Qingfang’s expression hovers between concern and simple confusion. “I’m sure Yue-xiong will be a more than adequate caretaker,” he says, more gently than Yue Qingyuan and all his neuroses probably deserve. “What’s this really about, Yue-xiong?”

Ah. There it is. Being the mildest person of Yue Qingyuan’s admittedly sharp-tongued social circle doesn’t preclude Mu Qingfang’s wit from being as keen as the scalpels he works with.

“I don’t…” Yue Qingyuan falters. How to express to Mu Qingfang how manifestly unfit Yue Qingyuan is to care for any living creature at all? He changes tack. “I think he hates me,” he admits dolefully.

Mu Qingfang stares at him for a long time, long enough to imply that he’s reevaluating certain opinions about Yue Qingyuan’s intelligence. “Yue-xiong, with all due respect to your new pet—it’s a fish.”

“Fish have emotions!” Yue Qingyuan argues. He flushes at the volume at which it comes out, and at the way Mu Qingfang’s eyes go wide-eyed in startlement. But the salesperson had been very insistent about that, as well. “Bettas are intelligent animals. They dislike certain colors, apparently, and they’re very sensitive—ah, to environmental disruptions, that is. And—”

Mu Qingfang’s eyebrows are still high, but his face has relaxed into a smile. “It sounds to me like you like it quite a bit already. Isn’t that reason enough to keep it?” His tone curls with sudden mischief. “Have heart, Yue-xiong—you’ve hardly known each other for a day! Give it time to adjust to you, and I’m sure you’ll win it over as surely as you do everyone else.” And he grins, sure and easy in his trust that Yue Qingyuan won’t fumble and shatter something so small and monumental as a life that he could cup in his palms.

While Yue Qingyuan is still dazed by that, Mu Qingfang’s eyes alight with interest. “Ah, Yue-xiong—what have you named it?”

“...”

Mu Qingfang’s face falls as devastatingly as it had lit up. “Yue-xiong…”

“Mu-xiong is aware that I was unsure of whether or not I’d keep him!” Yue Qingyuan is terribly aware that his ears are now heating up to match his cheeks. Mu Qingfang’s ensuing laughter does not help with that matter.

Yue Qingyuan is not very good at holding onto things. More often than not, he makes a mess of whatever he’s set his clumsy hands to, lets it fall right through his scarred fingers. But Mu Qingfang’s words ring through his head: Isn’t that reason enough to keep it? And, well, isn’t it? Surely Yue Qingyuan is adult enough to follow through on this. Maybe happiness can be look like his new betta swimming up to the tank to observe the new colorful form moving in front of it, can come as easy as Mu Qingfang quipping that his knowledge about fish is clearly lacking and vowing casually to read up on bettas to be a better fish uncle.

Yue Qingyuan buries a smile and walks over to let Mu Qingfang know that bettas can be trained to follow fingers around. The betta’s clear preference for Mu Qingfang over Yue Qingyuan is as good a marker of intelligence as any fun fact the pet shop worker could have given him. Yes, Yue Qingyuan thinks with a smile��he thinks he’ll be keeping this after all.

[omgcatboi]

I don't often post my non kink related art but I'm tryna get the attention of someone else in the community and am too shy and cringe to reach out so. Here, have this portrait I did of Hanzo Shimada. With my finger. On ibis paint. This took me four hours. Progress for proof below.

[hislittleraincloud]

Poor thing.. now I know why you identify with and pedal Xavier's importance and presence in the show..

You were made cry-cry by someone and somebody you fancied or held important has dismissed you or was uninterested. And now you're so underappreciated and Fucking lonely that you have to project on a teen that you once were similar to.

Xavier might have been important in several instances but overall he is an overbearing, entitled little shit with a tonne of daddy issues and an infatuation stretching from childhood. He does not get what a no is and what should one do when repeatedly rejected.

He was the endgame?? Phhh, a wet noodle with the blandest characterization ever.

Enid has her problems (too shallow in many instances and indeed too juvenile), Tyler has his - being a deceiving bastard who we still as the viewers were not shown to be either really brainwashed or truly enjoying everything Laurel made him do.

This is not about shipping - this about them being at least semi-fleshed-out characters. Xavier is not one. He is too whiney, thinking he deserves everyone's attention and gratitude, etc.

Booo hooo Tyler beat him up - I doubt that Xavier was all that innocent in this sitch. But thankfully we will never know cause he is not in the show anymore.

You will find lots of nasty words to hurl at me right now. But that won't change the prevailing opinion - Xavier was nothing... Half the time is not even crucial to the plot - anyone could have been in his place.

Go cry into your pillow how unloved you are and mourn the loss of the representation you so crave be absent from the show your latched on because of a young girl you don't even respect as a human being.

I'm not saying the certain People in the fandom are right or not out of their lane.

But so aren't you.

Oh look, another illiterate Anon asshole who has no clue about who I am and can't fathom contexts when a 🏳️‍⚧️ person is talking to them.

Poor thing.. now I know why you identify with and pedal Xavier's importance and presence in the show..

*peddle, and no, you don't.

You were made cry-cry by someone and somebody you fancied or held important has dismissed you or was uninterested. And now you're so underappreciated and Fucking lonely that you have to project on a teen that you once were similar to

Nah, that's you. Why else would you take time out of your Sunday afternoon to dump your fuckass assumptions into my 📥.

My ability to empathize with Xavier comes in the art and accusations part of his character; I pined for no one in high school because I had massive romance drama that you cannot even fucking fathom.

You're just a fucking retarded newb who hasn't been with me here for the entirety of this blog's existence, so you don't know or didn't pay attention to the fact that I've told y'all multiple times that as a sophomore in high school, I was accused of attempted murder by the girl who was stalking me. (Another difference though, is that we HAD been in a sexual relationship.)

We were two female bodies.

🏳️‍🌈Les. Bi. Ans.🏳️‍🌈

according to that little townie society in 1990. The town I grew up in even resembled fucking Jericho in parts. We even had a lake. 🫠

The events of that time in my life are so crazy and convoluted that I just can't format it properly for one post. I've told a couple of my regulars about it in great detail, but after retelling it recently to another, I've decided that it would make a twisted Based on a True Story screenplay (a coming of age story that involves the gay sexual awakening and a psychotic girlfriend whose own trauma was affecting how she behaved towards me).

So when Xavier was being framed on such scant evidence (I never bought that he was the monster from the first watch on), I felt that shit. To reiterate:

I know what it's like to be accused of attempted murder as a sophomore in high school.

It's a serious fucking thing, you fuckass cunt, so step the fuck off.

Xavier might have been important in several instances but overall he is an overbearing, entitled little shit with a tonne of daddy issues and an infatuation stretching from childhood. He does not get what a no is and what should one do when repeatedly rejected.

This is a deluded, irrational interpretation of who Xavier Thorpe was, and what his actions and intentions were.

And that "infatuation stretching from childhood" is as gross as the same shit anti-Snape people said about Severus Snape in the Potterverse.

You little fucks are pathologizing children and childhood friendships/memories. Little Wednesday literally saved his life at ten years old. Almost dying in a cremator/retort would be traumatic for any child, yet here you are, dismissing Xavier's feelings about it and his gratitude towards Wednesday for it. That's his core memory because he almost died and cared about living; it wasn't part of Wednesday's core memories/she didn't remember him because to her, messing around with death and dangerous shit is normalized for her and her family...gods, why do I even have to explain THAT?

You say that he didn't know what no meant, yet Wednesday was the one who harassed him. Y'all cunts like to talk about how he entered her room, stalked her, etc. when you forget that she's the one who violated his space and privacy multiple times. She entered his room when he was in the fucking shower (bitch, he could've come out of the bathroom naked while she was there 😭), she stalked him/entered his art studio and stole one of his drawings and then came back three four times, once to steal his bloody rag and again to ask him for help with her Gates Mansion sketch, and then again with Fester to... put the tracker on his bike to follow him:

"Who are you talking to?"

"It's none of your goddamn business."

"I know who you are, Xavier *smiles*"

"Can you stay the Hell away from me?"

The reality of that scene is actually heartbreaking. Xavier was having terrible visions of the Hyde murdering his therapist, who he obviously liked and cared for. He was scared and anxious on the phone with a potential victim, and there fucking Wednesday pops up with her lameass accusations which he has no clue about since he wasn't fucking guilty. HE is the one who had to tell HER to stay the fuck away from him. (The fourth time he entered his space is when she and Donovan set up the sting. She also abused his art studio again when she tortured Tyler, so you could count that as an invasion of his privacy too.)

Fucking Hell, why do I have to explain such simple storytelling to your fucking inbred brain?

And approaching her for friendship or just merely being there and talking to her isn't fucking stalking or entitled anything. He was fucking trying to be nice in offering her something at the Weathervane, where whoever put him there — probably Gates, since she knew of his assault — stuck him working with the motherfucker who beat him up during the LAST Outreach Day a year before ("Told you he was bad news." and yet y'all clasped onto Wednesday's "admirable" assertions where yanno...she turned out to be completely wrong to disregard Xavier's warnings). And he followed her to the ruins because he was concerned about her (likely through his visions, like the gargoyle one in his sketchbook). From his perspective, he didn't want her to fucking die, FFS.

"Repeated rejections" tells us that you just have no clue. Everything he said in the Nightshades library was precisely correct, and Wednesday was the one with the problem [seeded by Donovan in the beginning]. (Wednesday is more problematic than Xavier: where Xavier was accused of something he didn't do, Wednesday WAS ACTUALLY GUILTY of the criminal mischief she was accused of doing.) The whole fucking point of the entire storyline was that Wednesday was wrong about Xavier and Tyler (and about friendship with Enid), yet here you are, blaming Wednesday's victim for his station and his assault

Booo hooo Tyler beat him up - I doubt that Xavier was all that innocent in this sitch. But thankfully we will never know cause he is not in the show anymore.

Victim blaming is disgusting. You're disgusting.

Go cry into your pillow how unloved you are and mourn the loss of the representation you so crave be absent from the show your latched on because of a young girl you don't even respect as a human being.

I don't have to mourn any loss of representation because I still have Wednesday, and it's always been about Wednesday. My readers and regulars are very well aware of my childhood connections to being this incarnation of Wednesday Addams (Latina, braids all the time (which I fucking hated), played the cello, was quiet/introverted loner that stared at people/people watched, was advanced and stuck in classes/programs for the gifted...eventually accused of attempted murder [except on that end, I could identify more with Xavier since I didn't do anything]).

Just because I understand Xavier's character and can identify with him does not mean I still can't also identify with Wednesday, since they're pretty similar (except for their methods of expression and personality quirks). You can identify with more than one character and you can definitely identify with the two separate individuals within a coupling. Someone asked me about Wenovan in this context, so I'll be answering that one in a bit.

And make no mistake about it, Wavier was a coupling of sorts. He gave her her first Smartphone at the end. There was intent of at least friendship, if not courtship; one doesn't buy a cellphone for someone else for nothing, and while Wednesday told him good bye/didn't answer him, she still used the phone in the limo (while if she really hated him, she could've tossed it/disregarded it in a bin before leaving the school).

As for whining about not respecting Ortega as a human being, I don't fucking blow sunshine up anyone's ass. I'm not your flavor of Stan™. I'm critical of celebrity culture and those within that perpetuate stupidity or unnecessary perfidy, and Ortega is definitely guilty of the latter since she lies all the time. I would be equally critical of whatever or whoever else came under my umbrella of attention regarding my interests. That doesn't mean that I don't have any respect for her.

You, though. Your media illiteracy has devalued you enough that you felt that this argument was worth the energy of typing out. You're the one projecting, kid.

I have little worries about being liked or loved, either. I'm not here to be liked or to be popular and have never cared about the amount of likes I get anywhere (not on Facebook when that became a thing, or any social media thereafter; you'll never hear me whining about the Likes or lack of Likes on my posts). I'm here to do my thing. Maybe you should shut the everloving fuck up about Xavier for Christ's sake. Do you see me stanning him (or Percy) here? Eh?

No, they're all in my 📥. Some Percy stans annoy the fuck out of me too, with their hate towards the Mogwai.

[joy-girl]

Oh the struggle is real, like Lola my girl, I understand and respects your wishes to marry in your own terms, I really do, but did you have to run off without leaving a note for Loki? Or maybe she did leave a note but Big Mom destroyed it.

Fr!!!!

Like on one hand we don't know what actually happened behind the scenes, so we can't really judge her... but I do really hope she tried to leave a note or something, especially because Loki seemed very gentle with her in that panel where he brought her the flower 🥺

Or maybe she didn't leave any note because she was scared that either Big Mom or maybe even Loki (he wouldn't do that but still), would have tried to stop her somehow, if they got the note before she was far enough away from them...

[danieyells]

Daniel quick question

Do you think you can also do ghoul-cats? After you're done with the characters even if it will take a long time we can wait. Appreciate your hard work

The ghoul cats, chibis, ragnarok/game of claws towns and castles, and campus buildings and features aren't live2d and can't be extracted the same way. I don't know how to extract/acquire the sprite sheets for the Spine files, so no I can't get those.

The artist for them uploaded the stills to twitter though. Here's everyone but Lyca and Ed, and here are Lyca and Ed.

[atopvisenyashill]

do u think hbo could do justice to robert's rebellion?

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[kiyomitakada]

ao3 needs to have an option to let you anonymously comment on works while logged in i can't keep living like this

[pynkhues]

Poor Lestat laying in fetal position, looking so small and having dead eyes :( Armand saying he's come home was so creepy, wtf was he thinking. You know, this scene just doesn't make any sense to me, why would Lestat go out of his own will to a place that's the biggest ptsd trigger you can imagine. To punish himself I guess? Sometimes it feels like Rolin wants Lestat to have so much agency that he never allows him to be a victim. Kinda worried how they'll handle s3 wrt this. I hope they won't victim blame him for every bad thing that happened to him because 'he deserved it'.

Oh, anon, I'm sorry because this is probably not what you want to hear, but I love that Armand said that Lestat's come home by going back to the place he was turned and assaulted, because it feels really emotionally honest and true to these characters.

Claudia, Armand and Lestat are all victim-survivors, and I think the show's demonstrated that it's really curious as to what that means.

There's a school of thought that's currently becoming more understood in feminist circles that victim-survivors can often not believe each other, or diminish each other's experiences. The nature of the sort of abuse that Claudia, Armand and Lestat have all experienced is that they've had to process it to a point where they feel they are the expert of their story. They know what happeend to them, they've gone through a lot to know what happened to them, and it's a way for them to take control back of their own stories. An unfortunate side effect is that it can lead to these victim-survivors feeling they know more about your story than you.

They've survived it, so they feel they can tell who's the liar and who's the truthteller, who got off easy, who had it worse, who's stories are more than or less than, and that idea itself is a trauma response manifesting as something ugly, right? Abuse and assault are felt in so many different ways and manifest in so many diffferent forms, but this idea can take hold in victim-survivors as a means of taking control over what happened to them. If they can use - which Lestat does when he weaponises Claudia's rape against her in the train to force her to come home - undermine - which Claudia does against Lestat when she tells Louis not to take Lestat's truth as fact - or diminish - as Armand does against Lestat when he shrugs off Daniel's question about Magnus in 2.03 and talks about Lestat coming home in 2.08 - this subset of people will.

Armand is a character who has endured unimaginable sexual abuse. To divorce that from his understanding of Lestat's own trauma does both characters a huge disservice. How they navigate each other as two survivors of (very different!) forms of sexual violence is interesting, and it's unsurprising that Armand, having been groomed and assaulted by Marius, would view a maker's home as - - well, home.

And frankly regardless of that, if the show stays true to the book, Lestat will live there for a while after Magnus' death because he has no money, no one to call on, and no idea who he is now that he's been turned. Gabrielle lives with him for a while there! Magnus' tower is, in the books, a very complicated place for Lestat.

[not-poignant]

I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you and your writing. I have read almost everything you have written that has been posted online and I am always invested in your stories and delightfully surprised by how talented you are. Your characters are multidimensional and the worlds you create are inspired. Wishing you good health and all the love from a forever fan. Cheers.

askfjdsa *flails quietly*

[pocketramblr]

I love if when two people are having an argument on the dash without actually arguing and also are clearly having two very different conversations within different paradigms. Vague abt each other more