#...but I'm VERY(!) against removing a character's agency...

[desultory-novice]

Where comes the idea that Kirby "needs adult guidance?" When has Kirby been shown to ever need guidance by anybody outside of the extraordinary circumstances of Rainbow Curse and Mass Attack?

Kirby is always the one doing the guiding. He's at the head of the party. He also isn't native to Dream Land and we're left to assume he cared for himself perfectly fine before arriving there in DL1.

(Let's not be so quick to remove "traveling" from "traveling youth." Remember that the travels Kirby have been on are inter-planetary ones. This isn't the anime where he was a sleeping infant. The series tells us he's been on galactic adventures before arriving on Popstar.)

Kirby IS a childish character, of that there is no doubt. They are quite likely to be a childish child! But Kirby is no one's dependant.

Kirby is perfectly capable of surviving alone, on their own, in situations that have toppled kingdoms. He can also logic out what is going around him with only loose context. In fact, he picks up on complex situations like Susie's and Taranzas really fast.

Kirby can be young. How young is up to each individual person. If it's your HC or you want to write familial relationships with him and the cast, by all means, write him as whatever is cutest/most fulfilling!

But for the series in a general sense? The evidence of Kirby needing other's supervision, protection, and guidance isn't there.

[bob-artist]

Just found you via your funny dream comic. Good stuff 😆. Definitely gonna read the rest, and I was surprised you had your own website. Looks good on mobile too. I’ve got a comic that some friends keep trying to build me a site for but I’ve been telling them no because it seems like between webtoon and social media nobody is interested in personal sites anymore.

Have you noticed an uptick in engagement from your site? Would you recommend going that route? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I’m also interested in how you decided to build/host it, if that question isn’t too lame.

Anyway, glad I found your comics!

Ah thank you for checking out Into the Smoke's website!!

Oh, I have SO many thoughts about independent webcomic sites and why people should have them. I have so many thoughts, and I'm so so sorry.

Why did I decide to have my own webcomic site?

First of all, this is not a lame question and I wish we could all have this conversation more often, so I could maybe write just a paragraph instead of this whole dissertation!

1. Because I lived through webcomics history.

I launched my first webcomic in 2011. I watched the webcomics scene shift over the years from self-hosted sites to third party sites, and I saw what it meant for independent creators. We lost vital infrastructure, relationships, habits, and control over our own work. I think self-hosted sites are an important backbone for creators, even if/when their largest *numbers* come from a third party site.

We’re all supposed to be helping each other, not fighting each other to satisfy the algorithm. Our early tools (webrings, link trades, comic databases, sharing each other’s posts) were small but meaningful, and they also helped us maintain a community mindset in a long and sometimes lonely line of work. When we started leaning on hosting sites, we let a lot of those tools and relationships decay. And now a lot of people are locked into imbalanced relationships with hosting sites that leave them with very little agency and control over their work and how it’s shared (or isn’t shared).

Hosting sites are great for removing barriers to entry (cost/time to build a site). And a lot of them have large built-in audiences. But the big ones aren’t run by people who care about creators. They’re designed to extract the maximum value from your work while giving you the least they can get away with. Use them if you want (I do), but don't be dependent on them.

2. Comics are the main thing I do for a living, and a website gives me the tools to promote my work and build relationships with my readers.

Most apps and third party sites actively prevent or suppress these things. On your own site, you can share all the info you want about your upcoming Kickstarter, your tradpub book release, your merch, etc. You can collect email addresses for your newsletter. You can literally just talk about your weekend, and you’re not gonna have a 150-character limit.

Yeah, not everyone wants to read a wall of text (ha ha...), but acting like a person reminds readers to treat you like a person. This is one of my main gripes with the apps and social media - they suppress human connection and present you like a cog in their machine that only exists to churn out free content.

3. I have a consistent home base and full control over how my work is displayed.

I don’t have to fight against an app that’s trying to direct my readers toward whichever content is most profitable for them. On an app, the readers “belong” to them, not you. (Who has their email addresses?) So if I'm putting effort into promoting my comic, I'm promoting my own site. (oh look, I just did it.)

Hosting sites/apps aren't designed to showcase your work. They showcase the app’s collection, and they're designed to keep readers on the app, jumping from creator to creator. This can help readers find you, but it also devalues your work and dilutes its impact.

And the app might not show your work to anyone anyway. Tapas is a great example; they recently redesigned their site to prioritize their Originals, and independent creators are hidden away in a “community” tab with barely any discoverability anymore. This is always the struggle on a third party site.

4. I hate censorship.

Into the Smoke is Teen 16/17+ and Demon of the Underground is R/18+. My comics aren’t even explicit, but I still can’t post my true, uncensored vision for either story on third party apps governed by Apple’s App Store and Visa/Mastercard’s tight content restrictions.

If webcomics exist exclusively on apps with heavy censorship, we’ll never have the diversity of storytelling and freedom of expression that’s necessary for groundbreaking or subversive art to happen. And that’s bad for everyone.

Adult brains need to engage with adult concepts. Difficult and triggering topics need to be explored in creative spaces. Artists need freedom to stretch their creative muscles without falling into the damaging patterns of self-censorship that come from having to tiptoe around arbitrary platform rules.

We can’t let the rules of like 3 American companies dictate what every webcomic reader around the world is allowed to read.

5. An independent website can’t easily be taken away from you.

Just make regular backups! You can always move to a new web host and redirect URLs if needed, and you won't lose your readers. On the other hand, you can easily lose the bulk of your audience on a third party site based on circumstances outside your control.

Let’s talk about Smack Jeeves, a formerly popular webcomic hosting site that was bought out and then shut down, leaving lots of cartoonists homeless. Or we can talk about the Tumblr NSFW purge of 2018, where I lost a huge chunk of my first webcomic’s following and most of my webcomic mutuals, even though my own account stayed within the rules. Or Musk buying Twitter, the platform where I once found my literary agent through a publishing event but now get no traction at all.

Have I noticed an uptick in engagement from my site?

I don’t have analytics on my site yet. But, up until a few days ago, that's where people were reading, thanks to my own efforts and the support of my comics friends and all of y’all who shared my ITS posts. (THANK YOU ALL!) I didn't have any discoverability on Webtoon or Tapas yet.

I got 10-15 new patrons between May 25 and June 5. Up until a few days ago, I even had more ITS newsletter subscribers than Webtoon subscribers.

What happened a few days ago is my Webtoon mirror suddenly blew up with 100+ new subs a day. I don’t know where I’m being featured, but I know I’m only getting those readers because Webtoon suddenly chose to grant me visibility. That can end just as instantly with an algorithm tweak or them deciding not to show my comic anymore. (When my first webcomic was in one of their pay programs in 2018, I went from $300 or $400/month to $0 overnight due to a policy change.) So I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, but I won't de-prioritize my website.

The new Webtoon readers are awesome and supportive, and I’m 100% thrilled to have them. But the Webtoon influx isn't resulting in a Patreon influx like my website launch did. I wouldn't expect it to, this early in the story. But it's consistent with my past experience polling my patrons: even when 50% of my readers came from the apps, 90% of patrons read on my website. (Your audience may vary.) And since I depend on crowdfunding for my comic, that's important to me.

Would I recommend going the route of having your own site?

For anyone who’s just testing the waters with webcomics, it might be overkill.

But for anyone who’s committed to their webcomic, I recommend having your own site AND mirroring on every third party site you can, provided you’re cool with their terms of service. It's important to meet readers where they are. Let those hosting sites lend you their readers. Some readers will even want to visit your home site where they can read ahead, read the uncensored version of your comic, get more info, or sign up for your newsletter.

Just remember, no one will discover your independent website all on their own. They’ll only find it through the work you put into promotion. But the reader that cares enough to come to your home site is a special type of reader.

So how do you get readers to visit an independent webcomic site?

Find your allies

These are people who work in similar areas as you who want to help you succeed, and whom you want to help succeed. Chat with each other, help each other, promote each other, boost each other, link to each other (psst, my links page just went live!), be there for each other - behind the scenes and in public.

God, I am SO bad at approaching people, but this is important, and not just for comics.

Be part of a community

Really, this is an extension of the above point. It's easier to find your allies if you're part of a community.

I’m a member of the Cartoonist Cooperative, and they’re a GREAT group of talented people all across the comics industry. The mission of @cartoonistcoop is to help create better conditions for comic workers through cooperation and collective action, and I’ve found so much help from them with Into the Smoke and comics as a whole. (JOIN! They're great!!)

The goal of the co-op isn't to drive traffic to your website. But being part of it has helped me at every level of crafting my comic, including promoting it and making it good enough that I can take pride in promoting it. And it's helped me ground myself as part of a community after I lost so much of mine in past years of burnout and platform enshittification.

Another option: @spiderforestcomics is a great webcomic collective full of supportive creators, and I believe they’re open to submissions till the end of June! They also have an awesome collaborative community mindset, and I've known some of their members for years.

Direct readers to your RSS feed and newsletter

Getting readers to your website is great, but they need to keep coming back for future updates, and it’s hard to remind them without an app notification. You may need to teach younger readers what RSS feeds are. Inoreader is a great RSS reader for the 2024 era.

The dreaded SEO

That’s Search Engine Optimization - optimizing your website so that people can easily find your comic via search engines. That’s a topic for another day, but feel free to research it!

Paid promo

This can be tricky, and I really only recommend spending promo money if you’re making a comic on a professional basis, because then it’s an investment you'll make back.

That said, Comicad.net is a great independent site where you can buy banner slots on other creators’ sites. I just ran small campaign myself. (And no, I won’t ever be offended if you outbid me!)

I haven’t bought any Tumblr Blaze slots, but I got BOPPed (blaze other people’s posts; apparently that’s what it’s called, lol) once on this account and once on a side blog, and both were highly impactful. (Thanks, friend!!) So I consider it a solid option, and it looks really cheap compared to other social media sites. (Never trust Meta.)

And where can you learn more about building a webcomic site?

I know you didn't ask, but if I'm gonna share all this, I might as well give folks a starting place to actually do the thing.

Now, I’m *bad* at offering cheap and easy web solutions. My specialty is hard and expensive. But my one piece of advice: PLEASE make your webcomic site mobile friendly for the current generation of readers! When we talk about barriers to entry, remember that more people have phones than computers, and many can't afford computers.

Anyway, here's some webcomic website resources from OTHER people!

The Cartoonist Co-op has LOTS of great resources on building webcomic sites! Several of them! Check them all out!

@screentonescast has a podcast episode on webcomic web design and one on RSS feeds!

@jeypawlik also has a great comic about how RSS feeds work.

So, congrats if you made it this far. Go make a website, y'all! And if you read any indie comics, go visit the creator's website!

[lookingforhappy]

Hi! I just wanted to say I really like your blog and the ideas you have for TUA. I have a question if you don't mind? If you've read the comics (I just got to read You Look Like Death and....my head hurt alot after) is there anything you wished they had kept from the comics for the show or vice versa? Personally I wish they had kept Luther and Five being twins in the show. I get why they chose not to do so but come on.

Five doesn't get his dog and then he also doesn't get his biological brother? I love the Pub scene from season 2 and it would have fit really well for them to learn it (just my opinion)

Thank you and I hope you have a lovely day! :)

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoy my ideas!! I love asks lmao so no problem at all!

I have read the mainline comics and a few spin offs (the Diego & Vanya band AU one comes to mind??) but I'm a show main sadly. I like the comics as an informant to the show, so generally I prefer how the show depicted things.

I do want to briefly (edit: it was not brief... i am so sorry) talk about the Five DNA thing because that's one of the things I love in the show.

in the comics Five is genetically altered by the commission

this only works in the comics for me because every character is an asshole, Five especially (he literally prefaces this moment by bragging that he's fucked a lot of women). So for Five to have this excuse? to show horror at the very idea? that's a redeeming quality.

but in the show, they make every character likeable to an extent (recall that in the comics Allison rumours Luther into loving her), so this wouldn't have the same impact because it just makes Five less of his own person - removes the agency from his actions.

Five in the show is someone forced into a corner, and his actions in accepting and carrying out his job as an assassin, as well as his willingness to kill innocents and his own brother throughout s1 show how his experiences have made him desperate and ruthless in his pursuit of love and happiness.

it's a psychological exploration/study.

which to me, is infinitely more interesting. Five doesn't kill the board because his DNA dictates he will, he kills them because he chooses to. He is not cruel because his DNA dictates it, he is cruel because his experiences have made him that way.

and I think overall, this approach is adapted very nicely to fit the tone of the show, as all the same beats are hit. Five has been made into the Commission's killing machine against his will, and he is resentful of it,

but that doesn't mean he can undo the damage done, his psyche is forever attuned to this line of thinking no matter how much he hates it he doesn't know how to break the cycle of violence inflicted on him,

but because Five hasn't been genetically altered, he is fully responsible for his actions and he has to live with that.

the DNA altering in the show would feel like a cop out to me. and also the interesting aspect from the DNA altering is that he is essentially made into a psychopath (most famous serial killers are - Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, etc.), which means removing his empathy.

because despite his dislike of the non-consenual genetic surgery, comics!five doesn't have empathy.

and show!Five is interesting because he has so much empathy, yet he remains a killer. he is never given the opportunity to use that for good.

without that empathy we wouldn't get scenes like this where he admits guilt,

and in all honesty, isn't it more interesting that the best and most prolific killer in the show possesses a large amount of empathy?

idk sorry I got sidetracked - I've seen a lot of people who say they prefer the DNA plot of the comics and I just feel like it's very contradictory to what a lot of people love about Five.

anyway, the only element of the DNA plotline that i'd want to see adapted further is the non-consenual surgery itself

largely because I love Five!whump and despite comics!Five claiming it was painless it's fairly obvious to see that it wasn't (and I love when this is expanded on in fics so much - no time, no time, dear brother o' mine is an amazing read because it deals with this)

but I also think it would do a good job at reinstating the commission as the villians they are rather than the weird, nebulous thing it currently sits as (Five would never entrust Herb or Dot to the Commission it's so ooc and it's canon??? Dot and Herb were both 100% in support of the commission's ethos, even if Herb was a bit shit at his job. Dot literally was in charge of the apocalypse and saw Five arrive & at no point thought that this was fucked actually).

plus, we already know they waited until Five was hopeless, alcoholic potentially passively suicidal, weak both physically and mentally, desperate. all likely to better control him.

what's to say they didn't also pick up him just in time to prevent his death? 45 years in a polluted wasteland can't be good on the body - and I don't about the general population, but most of the people I know in their 50s aren't fully grey. the stress was probably killing him all on its own.

they could have seen his death and gone back a few years/months/days to recruit him. but then that would mean they still have to fix whatever illness was killing him, and how do you do that? surgery.

perhaps that's how they recuit all of their agents. maybe that's how they get away with it not disturbing the timeline, take someone who was going to die anyway, and then force them into a debt of gratitude for saving their lives. idk.

I also think AJ was criminally underused. He's supposed to be the big bad of the commission, his character was originally adapted into the Handler but then they decided they wanted his design in the show or something.

I think his role in the comics is much more interesting, as a person who selected Five from a line up of assassins already in the commission and gave Five personal training, and assigned him to the JFK case,

I think he could have been adapted a lot better than he was, and like the surgery, he could have steered the commission back towards the villains they were always supposed to be - instead of The Handler (as amazing as Kate Walsh is to watch on screen I love her) we could have had AJ manipulating Five throughout s2.

as for Five & Luther, I don't mind them not being twins, because honestly their genetics are so different (Aidan is 20 something and he's probably going to stay at 5'5" while Tom is like 6'5", plus hair colour, skin tone, bone structure etc.) and we already know that they weren't planning on making them twins from the pilot script (Five is born a singleton to a polish teenager I believe).

I do think it would have been fun to repurpose this plotpoint for another pair. of the Umbrella's I actually think Five and Viktor pair quite well as they both have similar heights, hair colour, they both have that square jaw too. but I also think that this could have been an interesting way to give depth to the sparrows - Jayme and Alphonso could have been the twins.

Pennycrumb was... a let down? I don't think he should have been a big part of Five's character, but I also don't think he should have had 0 affect on it either.

otherwise??? honestly Hotel Oblivion was wayyy more interesting in the comics than in the show. I would have preferred something more in line with the comics but I think they were afraid of the classic horror elements and the classic superhero elements.

like the faceless bus boy guards

the hotel rooms, seemingly ordinary, being prison cells

the prisoners having enough freedom to move around the hotel and have relationships with each other but not enough to feel safe hanging around the hotel

i just.. i wish more of this had been incorporated into the show.

also.. art deco buildings.. my beloveds

this could have been the hotel Oblivion..

like ik they planned to go to japan to film s3 and that got fucked over by covid but like.. art deco is such a good aesthetic for a horror setting compared to the japanese style hotel we got (i've heard it called hotel orientalism as well so, theres that too).

if I had been in charge I would have had s3 focus on the mothers, develop their stories & why the umbrellas were given up for adoption & then linked this all to the 43 being the 16 instead. have the reveal be not that theyre dead but missing, non existant. because the children were taken by hargreeves to power Oblivion. if we somehow keep the kugelblitz then we use that as a distraction as to where and why all the sparrows keep going missing, and eventually the umbrella's numbers start to dwindle. until Oblivion is discovered and we find that every hotel room corresponds to a member of the 43 - maybe even have the brellies/sparrows numbers correspond to their door numbers somehow, or floor level.

idk I'm not a good writer but thats a bit of how i feel about the comics being adapted into the show..

sorry idk if i even answered your question? thank you again for the lovely ask!

[atthebell]

Why are the qsmp family allegations on twt such a bad thing? /genq I'm genuinely curious, I'm not a fan of people found family claiming everything these days, but I was wondering about your reasons for this specifically! Feel free to ignore this ask if you want o/ cheers!

i think there's a few big issues i and many other people have with this:

usually it's based on nothing, or on nonsense jokes. like cellbit clearly jokingly calling phil dad. that's not basis for anything. putting that dynamic on the wiki after one joke is fucking insane, and i think the fandom wiki editors are actually nuts for that and all the other stupid shit they pull like this.

it's used to avoid shipping people pretty often, which frankly is ridiculous in the first place and is also often an issue of dumbass misogyny/cooties bullshit. you can maintain a creator's shipping boundaries (if they even have them, which, sometimes they don't even!) without having to family code them with every other character. phil does not need to be techno's dad for you to not ship them. and on the cooties/misogyny angle, it's used CONSTANTLY to avoid shipping women with men. like, firstly, people's insistence against shipping female characters with men serves to continuously sideline them in fan content. 90% of the time the most popular ships are m/m and women in canonical relationships with popular male characters get treated like garbage for "being in the way." secondly, it's cooties shit, like i said. women and men can be friends and don't have to be related for you not to ship them. just don't ship them if you don't want to. this goes for any set of characters. if you don't want to ship phil and cellbit, just don't do it. and don't get pissy with other people when they do want to do that.

for phil in particular: it serves to infantilize characters who are grown adults and pushes phil into a constant parental position with people. like, phil is very dad, he's just like that, he's very responsible and good with people, but he's not EVERYONE ON THE PLANET'S DAD and acting like it's his responsibility to care for everyone he interacts with sucks. case in point, the way people treated him during dsmp when fans would not let go of family sbi dynamics, even when he said that tommy wasn't his kid and was not his responsibility. phil does not owe any other character anything, and that expectation is a sore spot for many people, especially phil mains. and the agency it takes away from the characters that people child-code is annoying and shitty.

people make it super nuclear and weird when that's almost directly opposed to the notion of chosen family in real life

basically i think it's a really weird practice that people have fallen into that often feels regressive and annoying and removes character agency and independence. like, i enjoy family dynamics when they're actually relevant and when they don't ruin character's individual personalities, but the automatic reaching for that when it's not true and the insistence that family dynamics are somehow morally better than shipping is obviously very stupid and very much fandom purity culture.

[kohubohu]

About Minthara's break up dialogue

(TLDR at the end)

My biggest fantasy would be Larian bringing it back reworked in patch 7 because it actively gave her the best reaction to rejecting Bhaal out of the entire party and it's such a good moment to give her more character development.

Tbh, I was never really mad at the dialogue existing in itself. It's just that it felt poorly executed and very incomplete, and it's annoying to think that they just removed it (it was bugged anyway, but you know), when there are multiple ways in which it could have been fixed, depending on if you consider the break up out of character or not.

Take 1: Her reason for breaking up is not OOC.

It's less that I'm mad about the dialogue itself, and more that I'm mad that you, as the player, are forced to stay kinda silent and powerless about it.

You know, I personally see rejecting Bhaal as a matter of regaining agency over your own person and your destiny rather than choosing the "good" path. My durge personally isn't good, and she'd still reject Bhaal to get her freedom back. When you think about it, it should resonate with Minthara due to her backstory with Lolth and the Absolute, but you know, we're all at risk of being hypocritical sometimes, especially in high pressure situation like these, so I don't necessarily see her reaction as being automatically OOC.

But if Larian were/are 100% set on going down that path for her, please at least give the player choices other than downplaying her anger or begging her to stay with you.

Downplaying her anger just feels shitty to me. She's absolutely right about being angry over the situation (for multiple reasons I'll explain in the alternative take). I've seen a few people commenting on my video about the break up on how she should be relieved instead of angry, and like... it's not a Karlach situation, you got resuscitated in front of her eyes by Withers. She would at least be fucking mad at you for doing that whole stunt lol.

Alternatively, begging her to stay with you just doesn't sit right with me. Like, idk, if my SO got mad and broke up with me for wanting to be free from a parent's toxic influence and control over the vague promise of maybe earning something from them but probably not, I'd 100% not want to be with them anymore lol.

Let's not even take her hypocrisy into account, it's not as if something bad would have happened to her if you rejected Bhaal (whereas accepting Bhaal just makes her a convenient breeding machine in his plan, and just sets her up into another abusive relationship where she's always at risk of being discarded anyway) (and you really don't want my opinion on that)

Her anger, when laid out and explained that way, just gives me the impression Durge is getting used to gain status and power, which is even worse considering you get her alurlssrin dialogue 10-15 minutes before the break up, which in turn kinda goes against the fact that her devotion/tenderness/love is a good chunk of her character development and cheapens literally everything surrounding her romance. It basically goes back to "minthara is a drow and therefore evil" and just goes back to unidimensional evil woman concept.

But you know, if they really wanted to punish you for rejecting Bhaal, the least they could do is to let the player call her out on that, or give them the opportunity to say the break up is mutual because what she just said is pretty fucking shitty, especially coming from her. Like, I personally wouldn't want to be with someone who want me to stay stuck in a toxic relationship, and being forced to make that choice is infuriating.

Take 2: Her reason for breaking up is OOC.

Or more accurately, there is more to the dialogue/situation than meets the eyes but Larian just kinda started something without finishing it.

Lots of people consider the dialogue as being OOC because she keeps touting Durge as being the heir of such a powerful god and is mad over the fact that they gave up the power Bhaal promised them, when she is vocally critical about gods and cults many times over the course of the game.

She clearly hates Lolth and the Absolute, calls Lolth's and Bhaal's followers victims. She disapproves of you praying to any god in act 3 (especially Lolth, which gives you -5 approval instead of -1) and will criticize you/your worship if you're a cleric. She encourages Gale to free himself of Mystra (or go against her orders) and assures him he doesn't need her, that gods need you to think you need them, just like the absolute. She says that Shadowheart freeing herself of Shar's influence is at least a bit of comfort after killing her parents, and encourages Shadowheart to get vengeance from Shar when she learns the truth from Aylin. She's outright ectastic when defeating Gortash, because they're "defying divinity" by killing the gods' chosen, and seems kinda, idk, smug? over the fact that so many gods seek the one thing they are in possession of.

However, there are a few moments (other than rejecting Bhaal) where she'll be pissed at you for going against the gods. She chastises Lae'zel if she rejects Vlaakith and calls it a "childish rebellion", and approves of her if she kills Voss instead, because she should know better than to anger a god. She criticize the player/the party (if you play as Shadowheart) for holding Shadowheart back from her destiny directly after sparing Aylin, and will tell Shadowheart that Shar was right for punishing her for it. That's basically the closest equivalent we have to Durge rejecting Bhaal. So like.... It could be because of power after all...?

But when you look into it: Minthara doesn't even hold it that hard against you when Shadowheart gives up power, hell, in every case she never even holds it against Shadowheart at all, going as far as blaming herself for holding Shadowheart back, when playing as her origin. And she just let go of the matter after Shadowheart learns the truth from Aylin, and switches to advising her to seek vengeance.

With the exception of Durge's and Shart's situation, it really boils down to really not wanting to be on some god's bad side. Why would Lae'zel want to screw up their plan when she could just.... shut up and follow the rules? Better tip-toeing around all powerful beings than pissing them off because you heard a *maybe* very real rumor about them.

And that's the thing about Minthara: we're talking about a character who just started their religious deconversion, after spending their whole life, not only as a member, but as a high ranking figure of the cult. And considering Lolth is very real in the setting and is very proactive when it comes to testing and punishing her followers, it's only natural for Minthara to still default to trying not piss off a god. She literally spent 200+ years with no choice BUT to hold herself to Lolth's standard, dedicating her whole being to her, while having to witness other people being punished for crossing Lolth more than a few times. Deconverting is already a hard thing to do, taking years, if not decades, but when you live in a world were divine retribution is a very real thing, I assume it's an even harder thing to do.

You can even add more layers to the situation, or like, go for different interpretations, cause you didn't just piss off a god and gave up the power and status that he promised (even if the bargain is shit and won't end well and will doom everyone, like Minthara isn't planning that far ahead, and she's still convinced it's just something you can just... take control of if you make the effort lol). Add to that the stress of facing Orin and dealing against a big ass cult. The fact that you're romancing her, like, girly already had to kill her first girlfriend against her will, this time she's not even the cause of it but she still can't even do anything against it, and that death looks real fucking painful and she can't even try to make Durge feel better by whispering words of comfort or anything, and she's surrounded by other people, and idk, due to how things are in Menzoberranzan, I don't think she'd let herself be sad in the moment anyway, no matter how deep it cuts. Also, you know, she seems to be pretty preoccupied about her death and mortality in general (due to the fact that her soul will either go back to Lolth, or end up wandering in the fugue plane, I assume), so seeing you not only escape death that easily, but being resuscitated by a fucking god, when she's pretty sure no gods would extend the same grace to her, would probably be pretty upsetting. I know I'd be seething lol

So, to me, having her blowing a fuse because of any of those things would make the whole scolding feel a lot less hard to swallow without dumbing her character down? Hell, even in that case she would still yell at you about how you turned down power. Girly wouldn't let herself be that vulnerable in front of the whole party, so of course she'd blow up over the shallowest reason. You could literally have a follow up dialogue, explaining her reaction and resolving the whole situation. Larian gets to keep the first dialogue, Minthara gets to have character development, and you get more Minthara content and balm for the scolding you got as the player.

TLDR

It's less that it's OOC, and more that the dialogue feels like the start of an unfinished idea.

Minthara is the representation of an emotionally constipated boomer dad who just randomly drops traumatizing lore about themselves while trying to make a joke without even realizing what they went through was trauma. Of course it's gonna sound like angry hot garbage when she's trying to explain herself the first time. Let her think about it for a while and she'll get back to you.

Literally, due to her personal backstory and ongoing deconversion, it wouldn't be that far fetched to say that you telling Bhaal (a god) to go fuck himself (which makes him real angry) because you (his child) don't want to become his chosen (with the powers that comes with it), even if he's the only reason you've been born and becoming his chosen was basically the plan from the start (so it's basically your life's duty), which results in you (Minthara's only person of trust and SO) dying a pretty painful death (it's not the first time she's had to see a lover dying in front of her) just after having killed orin (the whole ordeal being very stressful to Minthara), before being resuscitated (look at you, you're putting her on the worst emotional rollercoaster of her life right now) by Withers (a god, basically) like it was nothing (when no gods would come to her help), would get her at least a little bit angry.

But since there's no follow up on it, it just... sours an event that could lead to great character development if it had been completed and fully implemented.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

If dazai ends up transferring to the PM, how would you feel? 😭

Idk the ADA panels are making me anxious..

Hey hey!

Honestly, I think Mori trying to bring Dazai back in this way wouldn't be a good play on his part at all, and I think he knows this. Dazai has to choose to return himself, otherwise Mori won't end up with an asset at all, just a hindrance. I really can't see that kind of transfer going any way other than Dazai just... up and leaving again first chance he gets. Hahaha

Besides, it'd be a weird move on Fukuzawa's part, and I do believe both Ranpo and Kunikida (as well as Atsushi and Kyouka) would strongly protest - Fukuzawa is shown taking Dazai's advice when meeting with Mori during the Guild arc quite seriously, and even if you think that he somehow doesn't consider him part of the group (I seriously doubt it), Dazai is still an incredible boon to the Agency, especially in dealings with the Mafia or against powerful opponents like Fyodor. It would be a really poor decision to try and transfer him.

While I poked fun at the panels with a couple of memes, I really think Dazai not being there has a lot to do with Fukuzawa's ability - remember that he knows the status of each member of his Agency; of course, with the exception of Dazai.

Also, I seriously don't know if the transfer is going to go through at all at this point. While the Mafia did rescue the Agency members from the Hunting Dogs, it was a traitor in their midst that assured their later capture, and the vampire infection completely ravaged the Mafia's ranks. As far as everyone knows now, it was Fukuzawa and the Agency that "saved the day". Do they still owe Mori? It seems unlike either of them to back out of a deal, but I'm honestly not sure.

If it does still go through, let's think hypothetically on who Mori might take based on what he'd be looking for in a potential transfer member.

Yosano: Obviously he wants Yosano back. But he can't get to her because Fukuzawa guaranteed it.

Dazai: Obviously he wants Dazai back. But I think due to the reasons above, Dazai is safe.

Kyouka: She just left. Also I think Kouyou understands that she's happier here and would not let this happen. Atsushi and Dazai would also not let this happen.

Kenji: Very strong, and recognized as such by Chuuya. However, I don't think his attitude is something that Mori would be looking for. He doesn't exactly scream "operating under cover of night" hahaha

Ranpo: I doubt it, but there could be some advantages. Mori would have another genius tactician for one. However, Ranpo's methods are far removed from Dazai's and Mori's own, and I think he'd have a hard time convincing Ranpo to do anything he doesn't want to... Ranpo is a detective. Case closed. Maybe if Mori had found him instead of Fukuzawa when he was young, but now? No.

Kunikida: This could be interesting. Kunikida is a very moral man; however, he is far from bound to the law (fully willing to break it if he disagrees or thinks it's necessary for the sake of his ideals) and has recently had his ideals and spirit damaged almost to the point of suicide. Transferring him would be devastating. I don't know that I see what Mori would get out of taking Kunikida though, other than weakening the Agency (remember that he's next in line to lead after Fukuzawa). I just don't think there's enough in it for Mori to bother. I also think taking Kunikida would piss Dazai off royally.

Tanizaki: The fan-popular choice. He does, admittedly, make the most sense. Multiple Mafia characters have seen and commented on his talent for assassination. His skills are very useful and his morals basically hinge on Naomi's safety. If Asagiri wanted to elaborate on Tanizaki's character, this would certainly be an interesting way to do it. If Mori can assure Naomi's safety, then he will have Tanizaki's loyalty and a powerful new assassin, and that is what Mori would ultimately be looking for.

Atsushi: Okay, hear me out. Mori has to be well aware of Dazai's creation of a new double black in Atsushi and Akutagawa. He knows full well how powerful the tiger is. Might it be useful to have a double black purely under his command once again? Now, I honestly believe that Mori understands the value of balance in these things and wouldn't take Atsushi so as to have their duo be part-Agency, part-Mafia in accordance with Natsume's tactics. We've also already seen mafia Atsushi in the Beast universe. However, this could be a really interesting way to have reader focus shift to exploring more of the Port Mafia by having our main character literally end up mired in that world. Mori has already worked with Atsushi before (against Lucy), and let's think of what he knows - Fitzgerald set a bounty on him, Dazai recruited him and partnered him with his former mentee, and he's able to work well with Akutagawa (who pretty notoriously isn't a team player). Mori may just find himself intrigued enough to see what the big deal is...

[crusherthedoctor]

Hi! I just thought I’d throw my hat into the ring with the whole conversation about the whole tails being willing to use his weapons more if it wasn’t for sonics interruption because as much as admit that some people can take it to far (just like on any side of the fandom with any character or idea) I think the actual idea of it is being misinterpreted.

The idea that I’ve seen always centres around how they respect each other, tails before he met sonic is a knowledges by multiple sources that he had a rough upbringing before he met sonic, this is mainly shown through the bullying that has left such an impact on his self-esteem he’s still dealing with it in recent games and still trying to overcome it. Tails is also skilled in making weapons, things he can use to defend himself and his friends.

Now no one’s saying that sonic known about the weapons or that he’s a weapons expert because that isn’t really what the head canon is about and I’ve never really seen anyone say that to be honest? The head canon mainly comes form the idea of ‘what if something went wrong and his friends were hurt and tails saw it as a last option’ this brings us back to tails upbringing

And as much as some people like to make him act more mature this is still an eight year old child who for half of his life basically was bullied so bad that it’s still impacting him. The headcanon usually (it can vary from person to person) makes tails feel the need to defend the people or things that have defended him. Mainly sonic usually.

So since tails is smart it’s only natural that he’d be quicker to the opinion ‘if I took the threat out I’d never have to deal with it again’ because it’s the most logical conclusion. I think where the head canon is mainly misinterpreted is that I don’t think anyone’s saying that tails is using his weapons on every single opponent or every single threat that comes his way. From what I’ve seen is that if it comes down to the last few options in a split second his mind will go to that logical conclusion.

However, sonic basically raised him. Sonic wouldn’t even have to literally point out what tails is doing (most of the time) because tails stops himself, because Tails knows that what he’s doing is something against his own moral code

It’s the way sonic raised him and it’s the way tails lives his life.

I think the headcanons mostly just ‘survival instinct vs moral code’ and I think that’s why people like it so much, it’s less about tails being reliant on sonic (which is what I think it’s being misinterpreted as) and more Tails respecting the way sonic raised him and the moral code he was raised to believe in to not forget it even in the heat of a battle

I apologise if I'm blunt, but you're missing the forest for the trees with all this.

This post wasn't really about Tails' willingness to use weapons. Rather, it was about fans' penchant for infantilizing Tails to the point of exaggeration, despite him showing capabilities even before Sonic showed up in his life. Tails has been enriched by Sonic, he's even said as much, but there was never an indication in the games that he would become a psychopath without him.

It removes too much agency on Tails' part for the sake of leaning too hard on Sonic's ability to affect others around him. No amount of headcanons and "well, he is a kid"-style justifications can salvage Tails straight up being done dirty. Rationalizing it is all very well in the realm of fanfiction, but not so much when dealing with the official work proper, when everything has already came, went, and influenced fandom mentality for the worse.

[spiritedscorpio]

What would the bsd characters do if they walked in on you changing?

When they walk in on you changing

Warning: Suggestive content

Afab reader

Includes: Atsushi, Dazai, Kunikida, Ranpo, Yosano, Chuuya, Akutagawa, Higuchi, Fyodor, Nikolai

Atsushi

Immediately blushes when his eyes fall on you

Looks away and apologizes a bit more than necessary

Shuts the door and waits for you to come out

Scenario:

Today the agency ended up in another fight with the Port Mafia. It completely caught you off guard but in the end you all came out okay with no major injuries. Since Atsushi was much more involved in the combat he had a few injuries so you patiently waited for Yosano to treat him before going home together.

He was exhausted so he went to rest on the couch for a bit while you went to get changed. Your current outfit was practically drenched in sweat and stained from the attacks against you so you wasted no time peeling them off.

"Are you okay y/n?" He came to ask you since he realized he hadn't and wanted to see if he could do anything for you. When he saw you, you weren't even completely undressed, still wearing panties and a tank top however that didn't stop him from blushing his face off.

Afraid he let his gaze linger to much he quickly looked away, "Oh my god I'm so sorry, I should've knocked!" He frantically waved his arms in front of his face, continuing to apologize. Eventually he stopped and closed the door, going to the kitchen to make some tea to distract his mind while he waited for you.

Dazai

Comments on how good you look

Apologizes when you tell him to get out but intentionally closes the door slowly

Makes a comment about what you had on through the door

Scenario:

Today you had the day off so you were able to sleep in. When you finally woke up Dazai had been gone for about 4 hours. You checked your phone and saw a bunch of texts from him, complaining about you not giving him attention and work. After responding to him you decided to get dressed for the day. You had just pulled your shirt over your head when your boyfriend appeared in the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" You lifted the shirt to cover your chest.

"Ditching work so I can see my absolutely gorgeous partner, what else?" He leaned against the doorframe to get more comfortable as if he was waiting for you to continue.

"Don't just stand there, get out!"

"Okay fine, sorry" He moved to the other side of the door and held onto the side, pulling it slowly while keeping his eyes on you.

"Quit it!" You tossed your shirt towards the door, briefly revealing your body but still making him close the door.

"Fine I'll leave you alone... nice panties by the way"

Kunikida

Shuts the door as quickly as he opened it

Stutters an apology on the other side of the door

Afterwards he sits down and waits for you, trying to calm down

Scenario:

It is very well known that he has a strict work schedule and that is no different at home. He always made sure he was in bed by a certain hour so he would get at least 8 hours of sleep. Once you started living together you noticed how much your schedules differed.

You regularly stayed up late, despite him advising you not to and because of this, running late wasn't uncommon. This morning you woke up to the sound of your alarm but when you checked the time, you realized you had slept through the first one and was already 30 minutes late. You scrambled out of bed, immediately removing your clothes so you could change and get on with the rest of your morning routine.

"Y/n! Are you still sleeping? How many times have I told you-" He stopped mid-sentence when he opened the door and saw your basically naked form. Before you get the chance to say anything he shuts the door again. You hear a "s-sorry for intruding" on the other side of the door, the anger in his voice being replaced with nervousness. He returns to the kitchen to eat his meal, attempting to calm himself down before you came out to join him at the table.

Ranpo

Knew you were getting dressed and walked in while you still had some of your clothes on, he didn't want to embarrass you too much

He lets his gaze wander before meeting your eyes, claiming he didn't know you were changing

Tells you to hurry up with a flirtatious remark

Scenario:

You two had the day off so you decided to go see a movie. Ranpo was wearing his regular clothes but you still wanted to dress up a little. Since you weren't going anywhere fancy you just did a more natural makeup look and left your hair down. You decided to wear a white skirt and black top.

The skirt had already been put on and you had the shirt in your hands, about to put it on when he walked in. With his hand still on the handle, his eyes landed on your legs and travelled up to your chest before finally reaching your eyes.

"Oh, sorry darling I didn't know you were still getting ready" His voice wasn't sincere in the slightest.

He excuses himself from the room, leaving you alone again. "Don't keep me waiting too long, who knows how much longer I'll be able to resist you with you looking that good"

Yosano

Admires the outfit you had laid out

Apologizes and she shuts the door

Says she's looking forward to seeing the outfit on you

Scenario:

It was Valentine's Day and you were going out to dinner for the occasion. You kept messing up while doing your makeup so it was taking you a while to get ready. When you checked the time you realized you were late and started panicking, scrambling to finish up.

In your state of panic you didn't hear her knocking at the door and since you didn't tell her not to, she walked in. You froze when you saw her, embarrassed about being seen with just lingerie on so suddenly despite wearing it for her. Her eyes briefly scan your body before landing on the dark purple dress laying on the bed.

"Sorry for coming in y/n" You apologize for taking so long and she reassures you before closing the door.

"Please try to hurry up! You know how much I love that dress on you" You can't help but blush at her comment.

Chuuya

Is initially flustered but plays it off

Comments on what you're putting on, a cocky smirk on his face

Says something flirty before leaving and giving you your space

Scenario:

Today was your 4 year anniversary and he was taking you out to a fancy restaurant. The reservation was for 8 pm and it was currently 7 and you weren't done getting ready. He had been dressed for a good while now and was waiting for you downstairs. It was taking a while for you to get ready since you wanted your hair and makeup to be absolutely perfect.

After another 15 minutes he went upstairs to see if you were done and since the door was slightly open, he walked in. When his eyes land on your partially naked form and the deep red set of lingerie you were wearing a shade of pink spreads across his face. You immediately pull the dress you had in your hands closer to your body while he was stuttering, struggling for words. He's quick to clear his throat, a smirk playing at his lips.

"Is that just for me? You know how much I love that color" He leans against the doorframe, awaiting your response.

"J-just get out, I'll be ready in a few minutes" You avert his gaze and he chuckles at your timid response.

"Well, you surely won't be needing all that later" His tone is smug and he finally leaves the room, shutting the door behind him and leaving you a blushing mess.

Akutagawa

His eyes slightly widen when he sees your half-naked form, he is flustered but hides it very well

Leaves just as soon as he entered

Tells you to shut the door next time before walking away

Scenario:

Today the two of you planned to go shopping after he finished work. Although he didn't particularly care for it, he secretly enjoyed accompanying you and seeing your face light up at the sight of the things you liked. Due to his schedule he couldn't give you his entire day but he did promise you could go once he returned.

It was getting close to the time that he normally came home so you went to get ready, eager to spend as much of the rest of the day with him as possible. Either things weren't busy for him or you had taken too long to decide on an outfit, probably the latter, because he walked in your bedroom while you were undressed, the door being wide open since you didn't know he would be home yet.

Once your eyes meet you notice that his slightly widen and his cheeks become a bit more pigmented but he just clears his throat, breaking the brief silence. He avoids staying in the room for too long and exits, not wanting his flustered state to become any more visible. You hear a monotone "close the door next time" from the other side of the door before his footsteps progressively fade away.

Higuchi

The second she sees you her face turns pink

She immediately apologizes, shutting the door in the process

Her back stays against the door as she tries to collect herself

Scenario:

Lately your girlfriend had been running herself absolutely ragged at work. After coming home she would pass out almost immediately and when she didn't, she would insist on doing stuff around the house despite the prominent dark circles under her eyes.

Once you finally got her to rest, you decided she could really use a break. The next morning you suggest going out for brunch since you were both free and she lit up at the idea. She went to the bathroom to get ready while you began to get changed.

Typically you procrastinated actually getting dressed when you went out so she wasn't expecting to see what she did. You had just slipped out of your nightwear when she returned to your room, a bright shade of pink spreading across her face at the sight of your half naked body.

After you noticed her your hands moved to your hips, "Like what you see?" Deciding to avoid your question she bashfully apologizes, exiting the room promptly. Once she releases the door handle she collapses against the door, fanning her face in a desperate attempt to cool down her cheeks.

Fyodor

Intentionally lets you see his eyes wander, enjoying the way you get all shy and cover up in embarrassment

Reminds you to lock the door and goes to shut it

Opens the door again briefly to comment on your outfit

Scenario:

Recently you had been complaining that Fyodor had been away from work too long and after a while he finally gave in. He decided to have the other Decay of Angel members over to your house to discuss future plans. Since it was your idea in the first place, he wanted you to serve tea, bring him anything he needed, as well as dress appropriately for the visitors.

Before the others arrived you went to your bedroom to change. You decided to put on a short dress, nothing fancy but it still made you look good. After pulling off your previous shirt you also discarded your pants the very second Fyodor walked in. He shut the door behind him clearly showing no intention of leaving right away.

His eyes shamelessly scan over your body, the way your eyes shied away from his and your arms slowly moved to cover yourself amused him. Since he wasn’t leaving you reached over to pull the dress over your head. “The others have arrived, please be sure to lock the door”

He left the room but not even a minute later he opened the door again, “And please put on something more modest” His eyes wandered to your chest where a few remnants of last night could be seen. “I don’t want them seeing what’s mine”

Nikolai

Gives you a super dramatic compliment

Laughs at your reaction before leaving

Apologizes and keeps replaying the image of you in his head

Scenario:

For a new mission you and Nikolai were supposed to attend a masquerade ball as a couple. Someone attending it supposedly possessed a special artifact. Fyodor sent you two to retrieve it since you were actually dating and therefore your cover would be more believable. He was able to decide on an outfit much quicker than you and therefore was already dressed and waiting for you downstairs.

It was taking a bit longer than usual for you to get ready since it was probably the fanciest place you had been and you wanted to make sure you looked good. After you finished your hair and makeup you went to put on the dress. Meanwhile, Nikolai was downstairs and watching tv when a notification was heard from his phone. It was a text from Fyodor and he was telling you to get going or you'd be late. He replied by saying he would check if you were ready before going to do so. You had the top of your dress at stomach level when he walked in and you quickly pulled it up the rest of the way.

"Oh dear lord, my eyes have been blessed with an ethereal being!" He threw his head back with his hand on his forehead, acting as if your beauty physically stunned him. Your face instantly turned pink as you straightened out your dress, avoiding eye contact. He chuckled at your expression before saying a super cheery "sorry". As he returned to his original place the image of you in your lacy bra and your adorable flustered face continued to replay in his head, making him temporarily forget what he was supposed to be doing.

[iamnmbr3]

❤️🧡💛

If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose? What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with? What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

1)

Oooh! Not sure! I think if Ron didn't come back or died in book 7 it could've been really interesting and would make for fodder for a nice AU. I also felt like Ginny's characterization changed a lot in book 6. I liked how she was written much better in book 5. So I wish book 5 Ginny could've been in book 6 and 7 lol. But yeah for real in general I think the characters in the series are overall interesting and dynamic and I like them and the narrative potential they have, even if I feel JKR doesn't always allow them to live up to that potential so there aren't really characters that I'd want to excise, even if there are definitely writing decisions I'd like to remove.

2)

I personally hate the theory that Regulus was forced into becoming a death eater. He literally had a little Voldemort mood board in his room. And he joined up when Voldemort was active and being pretty clear about what he stood for. Plus he seems to have liked his family - he painstakingly hand painted the Black family crest in his room. And we know from Kreacher that he very excitedly and enthusiastically talked about how wizards were going to rule over all the Muggles etc. Which isn't surprising given the family he grew up in. Acting like he was a soft uwu baby who never made any bad decisions and was forced into everything robs the character of agency and makes him far more shallow and less nuanced than he is. Which is such a shame. Because Regulus is fascinating. Let characters make mistakes and suffer the consequences. Let characters be flawed. Let characters be hypocritical and complex and interesting!

Something else that I don't feel as strongly about but am a bit iffy on is the idea that Harry literally became the Master of Death in the end of the series. Look, I've read some great and compelling meta on Master of Death Harry and I've also seen some fics that do it well. But generally speaking, it's not an interpretation I enjoy. I tend to prefer the idea of the Hallows as very powerful magical objects with a lot of mythology around them. (And possibly some connection to the Veil in the Death Chamber which may be what the "bridge" between life and death in the story is based on).

In general though I'm not thrilled with like the idea of them actually being three things that if united literally give the user power over life and death. To me that feels just a bit op to the point of being underwhelming (yes I understand I am saying this about the series with a magic luck potion and time turners). It's just narratively kind of uninteresting and unsatisfying to me and it feels way too abrupt to introduce it so late in the series since it fundamentally changes the world building, feel of the story and style of magic we see in the series. And it's just...usually not that cool to me. Plus, I don't think it's even really especially supported by the cannon. I think JKR's intent was to leave it ambiguous or even to hint that there is no such thing as a true Master of Death, and in this case I think she did a decent job of executing on that intent. That's just my read though.

3)

This is hard for me to answer because I'm very much of a ship and let ship mindset even when I don't personally back something. One ship that I haven't yet found content for that I enjoy is dramione. I've nothing against it, but I feel like a lot of dramione fic tends to reduce Hermione to a Mary Sue and get rid of all her complexity and flaws and rough edges, which is a shame. I feel the same about a lot of tomione fics too, which is also a shame because Hermione has a bit of a ruthless streak that could be very interesting to explore in that context if done right. Maybe I just haven't found the right fics tho. Also in canon, Lupin/Tonks. Just what? It always felt like it came out of nowhere to me and didn't feel like it had enough buildup to make sense. It always felt very weird and random and jarring to me.

[carriehobbs]

13, 34, 35 for AlinaxNate beloveds for the couple’s questions, please! 🥰 (~agentnatesewell)

omg ty for asking mar 💕💕💕💕

13. What is their go-to for making a partner feel loved?

Whether intentional or not, I think the thing that Nate does that makes Alina feel loved is simply listening to her. He asks her about how she's feeling and actually pays attention when she answers. He remembers the things she says and considers her. It's a level of consideration that she isn't really used to and therefore doesn't expect, and so she's always pleasantly surprised and touched when he goes out of his way to be attentive and considerate.

Alina is a very tactile person, and tends to be very touchy with the people she loves. She doesn't really realize she does this, but she tends to gravitate towards Nate any time they're in the same room together. She wants to be physically close to the people she loves, whether that's leaning against them or holding hands or just sitting next to them. Compassion and sympathy, for her, are always accompanied by touch - a hug, a squeeze on the shoulder, a hand on their hand.

34. Under what circumstances would they feel protective?

I think we're all a little familiar with the circumstances that would make Nate feel protective, lol. Any situation where Alina could be in physical danger will bring out Nate's overprotectiveness (like during the trapper fight in B3, or before the auction in B3, or even after the detective tells UB about their unplanned meeting with Falk in B2).

For Alina, I think Nate being in danger does bring out protective feelings, but they aren't as extreme as Nate's seem to be. She doesn't like when he puts himself in danger and she will urge him to exercise caution, but she doesn't prevent him from doing his job, either. In the fight in the sewers in B2, for example, she knows that Nate is in danger, but trusts him to be able to handle the trappers on his own (and therefore focuses her attention on Sanja instead).

I'm not sure if it's truly protectiveness or if it's more defensiveness, but she tends to be more protective (defensive?) of Nate when she perceives someone as questioning his character. If Rebecca were to come to her and tell her that, as much as she likes Nate, she doesn't think it's a good idea for Alina to be with him (due to his obvious blood stuff/things Rebecca might know about his past/etc.), Alina would pretty much try to shut that line of conversation down immediately and make sure that Nate never knew that someone was speaking about him that way. Similarly, if someone at the Agency insinuated that Alina only got her position on UB because Nate pulled some strings to get his girlfriend posted to his unit, she would do anything up to and including physically removing Nate from the situation to keep him from having to hear someone question his character that way.

35. Would they get a pet? What kind? Who brings up the idea, and who takes a little longer to convince?

I think Alina and Nate are back and forth for quite a while on whether or not they should get a pet, oddly enough. Nate strikes me as the type to like animals (and specifically dogs - I remember Nate with the dog in the B1 bakery scene), and so I can imagine that he'd want a pet but likely doesn't have one because of the nature of his work with the agency (long hours, traveling a lot, etc.). For Alina's part, she hesitates at the possibility of getting a pet because she's never had one before and wants to be certain that she could properly care for one (which, like Nate, she doesn't feel like she can do given the current intensity of her work with the Agency). Even after the events of the books (when, hopefully, things slow down a bit for Unit Bravo), Alina still worries that they wouldn't have the time for a pet, no matter how appealing they may find the prospect of having one.

I can see them getting a dog a long time after the end of the books, once their children get to the age where kids start asking their parents if they can get a pet. Alina still hesitates, but Nate convinces her that, if they're settled enough to have multiple children, then they're probably settled enough that they can handle a dog (especially if the children are actively involved with taking care of the dog).

[thesherrinfordfacility]

hii! you've probably talked about this before, sorry if i missed it, but i've seen a lot of people talking about that last shot of aziraphale smiling in the elevator and used it to support the idea that there MUST be something else going on about the whole bussiness that we haven't seen. i just want to say, that even though i'm not closed to the possibility of a different explanation, i think his expression that makes sense with just what we've seen.

we, as an audience, know about the second coming. aziraphale, up until that moment, does not. he accepted the position because he was given the opportunity to make the change he has always wanted to do. pressured or not, threatened or not, his decision makes sense with his character. he risked it all to change the curse of events heaven had planned in s1 being just a principality. now not only has he the will to change but also the power.

so when the metatron tells him that he will be in charge of the second coming bussiness, of course he's "happy". he knows what the second coming is about, and he has just accepted a position that will guarantee him direct access to all the information and enough power to make decisions.

hey anon!!!✨ oh no i definitely agree with you!!!

ive always felt rather... contemptuous? of any external factor in the FF that would influence aziraphale's behaviour (e.g, at the extreme end, the coffee theory), because ive largely seen aziraphale's decision to return to heaven as a very in-character one to make, and one that doesn't remove aziraphale's agency etc.

ive flitted on the edge of whether or not i think aziraphale is being threatened, and/or whether he feels threatened (as two very separate things), but as you said - the choice to return to heaven feels very neatly the culmination of his character traits and development that we saw throughout both seasons. aziraphale doesn't run from things, he's tenacious until the last possible moment to change the status quo, and he certainly doesnt back down from a fight when it's unavoidable. add to that the 'new' context that he and crowley have now basically acknowledged to each other that they want to be together, and the drive to change the only thing that could stand in their way is doubled.

i think what i wanted to entertain in that rb is how aziraphale might have been coming into the conversation with crowley if he was indeed under threat; hypothesis being that if he was lying, as the comparison with ep2 indicates, why would he have been lying? and why would he lie to crowley so profusely with his back against the wall? the (not unique) conclusion i arrived at is that not only was crowley in danger in that scenario, but aziraphale knows that he is in danger too, but can't admit out loud for fear of worse repercussions should metatron catch wind that aziraphale knows. he needs to play into being underestimated in order to survive.

as for his smile in the lift, im similarly torn, but it does seem to me that at the very least, aziraphale is coming up with a Plan. when he first gets in it, that absolutely looks like fear - 'oh shit im really on my own, and they want me to head up the second coming and essentially the actual end of Everything. i don't have crowley with me this time; what the fuck do i do'.

we then see throughout the credits expressions that indicate that aziraphale is running through about 800 scenarios, lightning-speed, in his head on what he can possibly do. it's then this part that gets me - aziraphale has been pretty static physically until now, when his eyes start to dart around. that to me is the moment where he realises, or comes up with, something, a revelation of sorts, or just makes a plan, and the following moments leading up to the Smile are, 'would that work? is that possible?... yeah... yeah, it's possible, it could work.'

[zombubble]

From In Memory; In Truth Chapter 13:

“It’s my job to help make running the sect easier, right?” Mo Xuanyu asks. “Not your job, anymore,” Jin Guangyao says, “but a favor that Gege would appreciate greatly. Do you think you can keep a secret for me?” A jolt of something in Mo Xuanyu’s core, the words familiar in all the wrong ways. Oh, he feels sick. Really fucking sick. “Of course,” he says, closing his eyes. Breathing. “A-Yu? Have I upset you?” Jin Guangyao stops him, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Gege is sorry, he didn’t mean—” “I’m just… seeing things,” Mo Xuanyu says. “Sorry, I—I didn’t want to appear weak, but I…” “Oh. That’s… It’s okay. Gege doesn’t think less of you. Why don’t you rest? I’ll come see you later about everything; there’s no rush.” Nodding, Mo Xuanyu bows his thanks to his brother. Lets a-Zhen lead him away. Tries not to get sick while they walk because his mind is reeling and everything is cold and hot and he doesn’t—doesn’t know what—why—when this happened but something happened. Something that started with words much like those. Not for the first time, he fears the full, unknown extent of what he’s gotten himself into. Not for the last time, he tells himself to stay strong, that he needs to help, that he can do this.

Got this snippet in the post in time, but then I realized this was the perfect moment to go into how Mo Xuanyu is characterized/portrayed in this fic, and it ended up taking me some time to write that up.

Given how little we know of Mo Xuanyu's particular brand of neurodivergence in MDZS, I've decided to put him on the schizophrenia spectrum, he has psychotic episodes, but does not have paranoia, (and believe me, I'm doing literally everything in my power to do this with respect to schizophrenic and psychotic buds out there, I don't want to do any of you dirty with this, you deserve better). He does have auditory, olfactory, and visual hallucinations throughout the fic, which get worse over time as he is under more and more stress.

In this scene, however, he's also lying to his brother and playing it up so Jin Guangyao underestimates him for his own reasons.

CW for nonspecific mentions of sanism, ableism, and various forms of abuse and discussions of consent following this, as I am going into a little bit of detail about how I've chosen to portray Mo Xuanyu, so people know what to expect from this fic with him being such a major character.

The tl;dr is Mo Xuanyu is treated with dignity and respect by those working alongside him, and is given adult levels of agency throughout the fic's present timeline. His mental illness is acknowledged and described, but not made fun of within or by the narrative. It is not considered a character flaw, but a disability, and I've tried to portray it respectfully. While some characters are sanist/ableist both to and about him, they are not major characters, nor are they in control of him. There are mentions of past abuse, but he gets good medical care throughout the fic. He is an important character with major positive contributions, could not be removed or switched out for another without drastic changes, and gets the happy ending he deserves (without a magic cure).

More on how I'm handling Mo Xuanyu after the cut (a little spoilery, but I've kept it as vague as possible. See above content warnings):

I don't want to spoil the plot too much in public, though I'm happy to answer questions privately via message or ask, but I will say up front that Mo Xuanyu is, very intentionally on my part, given adult levels of agency throughout the fic in decisions both big and small.

There are (brief) mentions of him being treated badly in the past, including not giving consent (informed or otherwise) to medicine/medical procedures and other instances of abuse similar to canon, including being relocated and restrained against his will, but within the present timeline of the fic he is under the purview of the Nie Sect and working with a doctor with whom he has a good, mutually respectful relationship.

He makes his own decisions (and has established plans for what he wants done when he's unable to do so safely), gives informed consent to all instances of medication and relocation that happen during the present timeline of the fic itself, and is treated respectfully by the people he's working with. Like Jin Guangyao above, some people make ableist (and sanist) assumptions (and commentary) both to and about him, and he does personally lean into those assumptions for the purposes of making people underestimate him.

Those who are working with him and care about him only play up his mental illness with his prior input, consent and at his behest, and these instances are few, far between, for the purposes of the mission they're on, and never used as the butt of a joke, or done in a mocking way.

Mo Xuanyu has a solid, well-developed personality outside of his mental illness, though does talk casually and frankly about the symptoms he experiences, including hallucinations and his disconnect from reality. He doesn't enjoy having symptoms, but he does not have a self-pitying or self-loathing inner monologue. Though sometimes he tries to hide his symptoms from others (and, at times, fails), he does not make a habit of minimizing them (or exaggerating them) when he's describing them seriously.

When he does speak lightly of them, it's not mocking, and I intentionally avoided anything that sounded like it might come across as "LoL so random omg!" types of humor. Overall, though, he typically refuses to go into details with others, though his inner narration in his pov does, on occasion, describe what he's seeing, hearing, or smelling, without lingering too long on the descriptions.

His visual hallucinations edge more towards abject horror (monsters, things moving that shouldn't be moving in the ways they're moving, people looking dead/like ghosts with unnatural features (pure black, bleeding eyes, far too many sharp, non-human teeth, as a few examples)) instead of utilizing potentially-real facial/muscular/skeletal differences or movement disorders for shock value.

I do not portray him as someone bloodthirsty or irrational when it comes to killing. He wanted his family dead for the abuse they caused, he wants his brother dead (and wishes he didn't) for various shitty actions at various times. With everyone else, he's kind of just trying to keep to himself (or, when he can, be helpful to the people he gets along well with) and not get involved with any more conflict than he has to. He does not kill anyone in the course of the fic.

Jin Ling has a bit of trouble understanding at first, but does make efforts to be respectful and he improves over time. They end up growing close, and Jin Ling is not distrustful of Mo Xuanyu by the end of the story. The other juniors are similarly respectful.

The help Mo Xuanyu offers everyone is a) help only he could give, utilizing his skills and/or achievements specifically (e.g. making arrays/talismans a certain way, other forms of espionage that rely on his ability to lie and/or memorize information) and b) crucial to many of the successes they have. He is an essential member of the core cast of this fic, and it would be markedly changed if I were to remove him or switch him for someone else.

Mo Xuanyu does not die, nor does he get cured at the end of the fic. He ends up in a loving, mutually respectful relationship where his agency is respected, with a man who understands full well that loving Mo Xuanyu includes accepting his schizophrenia, psychosis, and the symptoms thereof. While Mo Xuanyu is doing better at the end than he was just before the end, it's because he's in a stable home and being treated by medical staff, rather than a magical cure.

[killingsboys]

Hey Jamie, I was thinking of watching the RWRB movie and since I’ve seen you didn’t like it I wanted to ask if you think I should only read the book instead? I don’t mind spoilers and I wanted to know what do you think they failed to adapt to the screen. (Also, if you think people will annoy you if you answer this with the things you disliked you don’t have to answer, ok?) I love your blog! 🫶🏻 Hope you have a great week ahead of you!!!

hi anon!! i'm going to answer this beneath a 'read more' so people who don't wanna see negativity about the movie don't have to read it🫶🏻 trigger warnings for discussions of sexual harassment & assault and forced outing.

obligatory disclaimer that the book is not without its flaws & there are very valid criticisms of it!

a big part of the RWRB book is the main character, alex's, journey through realizing he is bisexual, and pretty much all of it was cut out of the movie — for what i consider to be completely ridiculous reasons. the director said that the characters were older in the movie than in the book — which i don't think is actually true? alex is in law school in both the book and the movie so idk what this guy is going on about — as if someone in their midtwenties couldn't possibly still be discovering their sexuality. he also said he wanted alex's "angst" to only be related to henry and not his sexuality. lol.

almost all discussion of race is also taken out of the movie. for context, alex is a biracial Mexican American, and this shapes a lot of his journey throughout the book. aside from one line, all of this is taken out of the movie.

also taken out of the movie are two big characters from the book: june, alex's older sister, and rafael luna, alex's mentor. june's absense is explained by the director (in the same article linked above) as being about not wanting "two young actresses who are each being given half a meal." so he keeps nora, alex's best friend, and cuts out the sister, but funnily enough, nora doesn't even get half a meal. pretty much all of her personality & story are cut out of the movie.

rafael luna, in the book, is a gay senator who takes alex under his wing. he isn't in the movie because the director said, and i quote: "Anything that isn’t about Alex and Henry and their relationship and their own personal journeys to the narrative doesn’t belong in the film." i don't know how he can explain rafael (or june) as not being about alex's personal journey, but whatever lol.

[this is where the big spoilers start] the climax of the book is when the emails that alex and henry have been sending each other are leaked to the public, outing both of them. in the book, it is revealed that the emails were leaked by the republican running against Alex's mom in the 2020 presidential election. it is also revealed that he has a history of sexual assault & harassment, and that rafael luna is a victim of his.

in the movie, though, they scrap that whole plotline and imply that the emails were leaked by a jealous gay reporter who used to hook up with alex and is mad that alex isn't in love with him. aside from just being a stupid change to make, this is a genuinely harmful & homophobic stereotype, and honestly it really upset me. taking out the entire plotline on institutional homophobia and making it all about ~jealous gays~ is just sickening imo.

i was also annoyed at how characters like henry's sister bea and his best friend pez were given almost no personality or screentime when they were, in the book, fleshed-out and lovable people. henry's mother was also removed from the movie — in the book, she has a bit of a rocky presence, but ultimately stands up for henry against his grandmother — because the director felt that "robbed henry of his agency." which is an especially interesting take from the person who changed alex's coming out scene in the movie so that he comes out publicly and tells the world that he and henry are in a relationship without talking to henry about it first, giving a speech on how "queer people deserve to come out on their own terms" while doing that exact same thing to his boyfriend. but whatever!

on a more petty note, i just think the movie is extremelyyyyy cheaply made, that the actors playing henry and alex have absolutely no chemistry, and that uma thurman's texan accent is godawful. but i could live with all of that if the movie had literally any of the heart that the book i had! but i think "gay media should be allowed to be bad or silly" only goes so far.

ultimately, i would definitely recommend just reading the book & skipping the movie entirely, but it's up to you! i'm sure there are other people who would say it's a perfect movie and they loved every second of it. but it couldn't be me lol

i hope you have a lovely day/evening, anon!! i hope your week is lovely💛💛

[utilitycaster]

Do you think that the issues with Imogen and Laudna ties into the campaign being more railroaded (compared to C2 specifically) and with less campfire conversations, shopping episodes etc. where more organic character development can happen? While I do find all C3 character's interesting on their own, I feel like most of their relationships with one another are more shallow compared to C2 (that had the Empire Siblings, Veth and Caleb, The Detectives etc.). Do you have any thoughts on this?

I don't actually think so!

I agree that we haven't had as much downtime - and that more downtime would help flesh out all the relationships - but Imogen and Laudna have talked frequently, and all of these things would have helped and wouldn't have taken up significantly more time.

They still don't really feel like they've known each other two years. I bring up that they have because I feel like that fact should be informing their relationship and that they should have the security to disagree with each other, but the fact remains that Caleb and Veth, Fjord and Jester, and Yasha and Molly felt like they'd known each other before the campaign and Imogen and Laudna...really don't. Like, we know they met in Gelvaan, people were doing something to Laudna, Imogen used her powers, they ran off, and they arrived in Jrusar a few months prior to the campaign, but that leaves the entire middle year-plus as a big empty blank. (For what it's worth, I'm also still like, yes, Laudna, I get that you were in the woods for 30 years doing crafts and making Pate, but like, make me feel it; why were you in a point of stasis? Ironically, I feel like Ashton has more sense of history even though the whole point is that they don't feel like that. Fearne was just bopping around at her Grandmas for 90 years and she feels like it. This is a whole separate post but like...this came up with Patia too; I feel like Marisha has a good sense of her characters in the present, but I don't always get a sense that she fills in the backstory in the same depth as much of the rest of the cast; and Laura also tends to work from something a bit more solid in terms of ambiance and vibes but often doesn't have a ton of intricate plot beats. Anyway, point being that Marisha and Laura fleshing out those two years would have done tons of work for the relationship, and that was pre-campaign and totally unaffected by the pace of the campaign.

Any one of these existing conversations could have been a turning point - ie, this is no more extra time. They could have leaned into the gnarlrock fight being a betrayal; when they spoke in the Calloway Getaway they could have talked more; Imogen could have actually asked Laudna to come back (or even said "it's your choice" rather than "I can't ask you"); Imogen could have actually asked Laudna how she felt and what would have been upsetting to her after she was resurrected instead of making assumptions and just telling Vex; last episode, as I said, Laudna could have quite literally just said "I want you to be happy but if you side with Otohan I can't come with you."

I think this is brushing up against something I really try to avoid, which is removing the agency that the women in the cast have. If Marisha and Laura wanted Imogen and Laudna to kiss last episode? they could have. They chose not to. As I mentioned before, Marisha decided to have Laudna have a drink with Ashton. On the airship to Yios, for example, the two of them could, in fact, have said "I go seek out (the other)," and they didn't. There is less organic time to do this the way there was in the Nein campaign, but that does not mean there haven't been opportunities. They've chosen not to take them.

Which means I also think we need to ask ourselves: how do we know that this isn't how Marisha and Laura want to play it? Like, it is, actually, a very interesting dynamic, and the gaps in the backstory honestly work in favor of it if you see this as a codependence that came because both were so trapped in their own loneliness they became stuck rather than a fluffy cottagecore romance. Why assume these actors are aiming for something and falling short, rather than achieving precisely what they want?

[aotopmha]

anime only aot fan since 2013 here 🙋🏻 when i saw the ending, i thought, "people hated this so much? this?" it was the only fitting ending i could think of for the series. and i'm glad the reaction for the anime ending was overall very positive. feels like a very heartwarming closure for both the series and the fandom. i think aot will always be my most favorite piece of fiction. but if you could change things about the ending, what would these changes be?

Hey, got into it through the anime as well, but pretty much almost immediately caught up with the manga.

I think about at ep 7/8 airing?

2013 was a time. Anyone remember all of the op 1 memes?

As for changes to the ending, remove the entire Historia pregnancy subplot all the way through the ending.

It's pointless and destroys one of the best characters in the story.

Make her a part of the action just like everyone else, just like what her character arc was about – becoming her own person and putting behind her passive facade.

I think her friendship with Eren was one of the best parts of the Uprising arc.

And this reversion of her character isn't even fully explained.

She goes against the status quo by giving in to the status quo?

In hindsight, especially, pretty much everything to do with her serves no purpose.

If her royal blood is an issue to the plot, I can think of many other ways of restricting her than pushing a pregnancy on her and essentially removing her voice.

Make the pregnancy fake to just trick the incompetent MP and have her join for the final battle at the point where Shadis catches up with the group, for example. That's it.

Her smacking Eren in the cave was great.

A lot of people think Eren's negative character arc isn't done well enough, but to me her reverting to a passive doll is the most puzzling bit of writing.

The most I get out of it is the horror of women being denied their agency in an awful world and a metaphor for the birth of a new world and for all of the work and substance Historia got as a character, that's an awful payoff.

It's so puzzling. Literally everyone else were allowed to keep their character.

That's the one part of the final arc I think 100% sucks.

OG Ymir got a more complete arc than Historia did and she was there for two chapters, not a large swathe of the series.

Annie, Pieck, Gabi, Mikasa. All of the main character girls got to be awesome during the finale and got complete stories.

It's so jarring because I think the series is 90% of the time super solid with character writing.

To me just...

??????

Thank you for the ask!

[mr-orion]

I think a lot of the trans community and lgbtq+ community is misogynistic. And while we can all point out the way it is misogynistic towards the women, we never point out how it is misogynistic towards the men.

I'd like to add that misandry is an incorrect interpretation of these things. To say that I am experiencing "misandry" would be a bad faith argument and show that I do not know what misogyny is. It would show that I do not know how misogyny can benefit women while hurting men. Misogyny is the oppressor of all, while misandry is an unlayered concept meant to divide the oppressed.

Here's just a list of misogynistic things that trans men deal with in the (lack of) community:

Hatred towards masculinity. Exclusion. Only femininity can be good because women are inherently less violent and don't hurt people. Expression of masculinity means you cannot be trusted.

Lack of respect towards feminine men. Femininity is bad, and men should be ashamed to love feminine things. You cannot be both at once.

Lots of berating. Men deserve to and can handle abuse because they are strong.

Criticisms of other trans individuals, primarily women, are seen as misogynistic. Can also go for other trans men.

POC Men being excluded from conversations of gender dysphoria repetitively because they are seen as "more passing." Not only misogynistic, racially motivated.

POC Men being seen as toxicly masculine because they have adopted neutral behaviors of their communities or race. Once again, racist and misogynistic.

POC Men percieved as feminine or non-passing despite culturally transitioning to being masculine and being seen as masculine in their culture.

POC Men seen and treated as dainty and feminine despite developing many traits that are very masculine.

Not being taken seriously because we do not voice our own abuse nor do other trans individuals advocate or believe us.

The uwu-fication of men because we are seen as the "softer" version of cis men.

Mens surgically created genitals being described as weird looking and disgusting.

Lack of knowledge on what a hysterectomy actually does for a person during sexual intimacy.

Assumption that men are inherently overly sexual because they are men or not sexual at all because they are afab. They have no agency in their sexuality because gender directly decides a persons wants.

Preferential treatment to desireable looking men. Reinforces that appearance directly decides the amount of respect you give a person.

Men advocate repeatedly for womens struggles but are ignored because they are now men.

Advocating for mens struggles is treated as feminine struggles erasure.

Intersex trans men being incorrectly categorized against their wishes.

Assumption that a cis or unknown man must be trans because he is slim and sexual. Additionally, the assumption that a fat asexual man must be trans. A direct play into desireability and almost fetishization. Seriously, how often do you see the jock type of character headcannoned as trans with people being receptive to it? It's almost to indirectly say that only "undesirable" men can be trans. This is not a call to remove those types of people from trans representation but to instead add more types and address your biases.

Assumption that men want to neg their female bodies. It's expected that men hate their bodies because they're feminine looking.

The expectation that men should participate in misogyny because they are men.

There's a lot of trans masc erasure. People care a lot about trans women because they take the brunt of bigotry, it's expected. Women deserve to be listened to. Despite that, though, it's almost as if trans men are expected to be okay with suffering. Heck, if I didn't acknowledge trans women in my post and this hit a wide enough audience, a large amount of trans people wouldn't listen and assume I'm fighting trans women. There's this weird expectation where if I ever say anything about being miserable as a trans man, that means I don't think trans women have it worse or bad at all.

Many people assume that when trans mascs point at themselves, we want to take from women. No. We just want you to also pay attention to us.