How evil is arlecchino and what is she cooking
As of 4.2, I’m really curious what they’re planning with Arlecchino as a character, especially as a villain/antagonist/morally dubious character, and how far/which direction they may go with that
Intuitively my impression is we’ll see her do something way more “villainous” than she presents herself as being for majority of Fontaine’s AQ in front of us right—(which isn’t a surprise given that, you know, Arlecchino nor the House of Hearth have never been presented as 110% ethical LOL) but I find myself not being in complete agreement with most analysis or speculation threads I see about Arlecchino’s morality and the like, level of sinister people seem to ascribe to her.
Idk how to put it, especially in regards to her children I do agree they are not a wholesome found family, that Arlecchino is not above pulling strings or using them for her own ulterior motives, but I kind of hesitate on the idea she only cares about the Hearth children as a means to the end/things she can control and there’s nothing else going on with her characterization wise there. I’m not saying that impression seems remotely unreasonable or unfounded, but just that it feels there’s something intentionally missing in how we are supposed to conceptualize her as a person
My main reasoning for this hunch is the fact they have not elaborated on Arlecchino and the previous Knave—who Arlecchino is stated to have taken over the position from by force. The extra tidbits I think about are that 1) Arlecchino was previously an orphan in the Hearth 2) the previous Knave is described as way, way crueler to the children of than Heart than Arlecchino was from when she took control of the House
Often, people’s major indicators that the House of the Hearth is kind of super fucked up are the NPCs we meet in world quests who are part of it and clearly suffering. But one thing I haven’t ever seen people mention w this that i think is a very interesting detail is, in The Very Special Fortune Slip Inazuma worldquest, where we stop this House of Hearth guy (Efim Snezhevich) from manufacturing tension between Watasumi/the Shogunate to restart the war with his other Hearth subordinates, at the end of the quest we get this dialogue that reveals he had been acting under the previous Knave’s directives:
It’s also mentioned he’s employing this plan in an attempt to “rebuild the prestige of the Knave” following Signora’s death, iirc? Now, see, the dialogue itself says that this is “assuming our captive is telling the truth” so who knows what’s really going on, but I find this a really odd/interesting thing to highlight. I’m a bit fuzzy on other world quests with Hearth members, and am not saying none of them were acting and subsequently being treated poorly by our Arlecchino, but like, this gives me a lot of questions especially when paired with implications this previous Knave seemed to be way worse
Like, what drove Arlecchino to take over? How unexpected and controversial was this within the House? Assuming the above information is all true it definitely says something this guy went rogue and acted on what the previous Knave would want and didn’t think our Arlecchino would greenlight it, which does feel consistent with the previous Knave being described as basically worse & crueler than our Arlecchino. It also makes me question how much house of hearth things we’ve seen outside the main story are the work of our Arlecchino or if there’s a bigger divide of loyalty. Heck, I could be wrong but it doesn’t even seem like we know if the previous Knave is dead or not
This isn’t me saying Arlecchino couldn’t possibly be treating hearth children worse than she wants us to know, especially ones who aren’t her “favorites” the way the fontaine trio seem to be, but I really don’t feel sure about making a solid conclusion of her exact level of malice the way ppl r generally understanding it rn when it feels there’s going to be more about her. Just the idea of she, as a Hearth child, clashed with the previous leader who was known for being cruel, overtook their position and took on less harsh methods of leading that made at least some members with more power/possible closer proximity to the previous Knave go rogue and try to commit atrocities in the previous Knave’s name…I feel this leaves a lot of room to suggest there’s more going on with how Arlecchino is as a person
I don’t mind if she’s just very evil and deceptive bc if she totally had me fall for thinking she was less evil than she actually was that’s fun tbh. But I feel people suggest that’s all her character could be with no degree of like, “sympatheticness” or deep grey morality and that if her character did go there it would be automatically poor writing and genshin walking back on making a truly evil woman when IDK. I feel you can claim at this point they have left it open ended and it’s never been completely confirmed she’s pure evil. Also sometimes I just get a hunch and feel cautiously confident in Genshin executing certain characters well. Not all characters, just certain ones. Especially given Fontaine’s character writing being very good and a character like Lyney feeling very solid to me when any development with Arlecchino would likely involve him and his siblings as well, I honestly feel open to the idea of Arlecchino being satisfyingly written to be both villainous/morally dubious but “sympathetic/likable as a person” in ways outside of just her ruthlessness if that makes sense
If I’m wrong/they drop the ball with it more than I anticipate I’ll eat my hat but I am pretty excited about her character and which way they decide to go with it. I will say the only potential impression I have of where they’ll go with her has been wondering if it will go in a “cycles of abuse” direction—I’d be surprised if they ever elaborated on Arlecchino’s character especially in how she feels about things and her also growing up as an exploited child of the hearth wasn’t relevant
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u are literally so strong for being pre med. im also 21 and ive just about given up on taking the mcat and doing extracurriculars after army crawling through all the prereqs 😭 much luck to you!!!!!! praying john hopkins takes u 🙏🙏 we need more lovely, kind and genuine doctors like you and u deserve the best of the best 💖💖
Thank you my dove <3 no it’s literally the most ruthless thing ever. People don’t understand the mental stamina it takes to fulfill all facets of the application med schools expect. It’s more than a full time job—sometimes it doesn’t feel like there are enough hours in the day tbh, between doing research and volunteering and shadowing and gaining hands on experience. And don’t get me started on the mcat lmao, preparing for it feels like I’m training for the Olympics. I’m into it most days, it’s fun to be consumed by something you’re truly passionate about, but I also completely get how it predisposes all of us to frequent burnouts. Add to that the stress of meeting the still more extraordinary, still more impossible standards of elite med schools…
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i’ve seen some people claiming you’re a terf or at least friends(?) with a terf. is this true?
i’ve answered this before and i really don’t want to talk about it again because it’s super upsetting to me that people would even think that with 0 evidence but i’ll lay it all out one more time:
a friend of mine from irl also just so happens to have a blog. she accidentally reblogged a picture from an apparent terf on here and didn’t know. since then someone on here made a post about my friend saying that since this happened she must be a crypto terf and that since i know her, i must be a terf apologist or a terf myself. this post included absolutely no evidence that i hold terf ideals except for the fact that i simply know someone who accidentally reblogged a picture. since this person has a following and once someone in here is called a terf it sticks to them, now a large amount of people who know nothing about me and have no real facts to go off of are calling me a terf, telling my mutuals im a terf, and spreading a huge fucking nasty rumor about me.
for starters, my friend is not a terf. me and her are a part of the same irl community so i’ve seen her interact with trans people and trans women in our community as well as my friend group which consists of trans people and she’s nothing but kind. we also have had conversations about transness in the lesbian community so i know exactly what her morals and thoughts are on this particular topic and she isn’t a trans exclusionary person. she says she just doesn’t check where she reblogs things from as many of us do because we have lives and don’t have time to research every single username we reblog from. I am believing her because i know her actions in real life and my real life friendships and relationships are more important than what ppl i will never meet on the internet think of me.
i don’t want to have to prove myself because it feels fucking ridiculous and weird and performative to have to make a list of reasons why i’m not a terf but since people keep saying this about me:
i have trans femme friends, i have lived with trans femme roomates and currently live my my best friend who is a trans man, and a i have little cousin who i adore who is a trans woman. When my cousin came out i sent her a huge box full of old clothes, makeup, books about queerness and transness, buttons, accessories, etc. and my aunt called me crying saying what a huge difference it made. When i am out at queer events and see trans women who are are by themselves i always try to make a point of saying hi or complimenting their outfits so they feel a little less alone. When creating my zine, i knew that it would be imperative for me to include trans femme voices in it to create a proper narrative of the lesbian community because trans women are an important part of our community and i have nothing but respect and adoration for them. I always try and do my best to be a trans ally especially knowing the privilege i have as an afab femme in the lesbian community, and I have never once in my life held any terf ideals and never will because that is genuinely not how i am. it’s extremely extremely upsetting that people have stuck this label to me without knowing anything about me and especially without having any proof that i’ve ever said anything against trans women, trans people in general, and tbh i don’t even know anything about radical feminism.
the person who made that post also claimed i was friends with 2 people on here who are terfs, one of them being the person that said something along the lines of: “i would only fuck a femme but i could only be with butches” and it caused a huge fucking mess on here a few months ago. I need to make this extremely clear that we are no longer friends and haven’t been in over a year and have been no contact, again, for a year. i was in an absolutely terrible toxic sexual friendship with them that made me feel genuinely horrible about myself and I spent weeks in therapy trying to unpack it all, get over it, and get out of it. having this old friendship that was so awful for me being thrown in my face as if i’m still in it also is super upsetting for me.
if u want to see the post, im pretty sure the user that made it is meansweatydyke or something like that and im sure it’s still up so u can see for yourself. i want u to pay attention tho to the fact that nothing in their call out post actually pertains to my personal morals or thoughts and only is about my proximity to people who have mistreated me/ or have done things unknowingly. it’s super fucking irritating and upsetting. I am 100% on board for calling people out when their actions show that they are bad people, but i have made 0 actions that show this besides being guilty by association.
short answer: no i am not a terf, have never been a terf, and will never be a terf. it says that in my pinned post, and i always strive to uplift my trans friends and trans voices in the community with the platform i’ve made for myself online and in my zine. anyone who knows me knows i am not a terf.
id really love it if people would stop spreading this horrible fucking rumor about me and stop telling people i am a terf now with absolutely no evidence to back it up
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