#I think we need to address some things

[little-laurance]

Tbh I think this fandom needs to settle tf down. There is a not a single (mainish) character I can think of in mcd who doesn't act a little bit fucked up. You can like or dislike whomever you wish, but we are all pretending our fav didn't do some messed up shit. Jesson cannot write consistent characters and they most definitely cannot write characters without questionable morals or behaviors.

Too many people seem to get on a high horse about their favs in comparison to other peoples, and it leads to arguments cherry-picking actions on both sides. Let's be real for a second, none of us are writing these characters the way Jesson intended. We're taking their characters and restructuring them to better suit our personal preferences, morals, or story structures. Everyone's rewrite is about two steps away from original fiction. No one is justifying every bad action from a character by enjoying them. Some may justify some morally reprehensible things, but I'm under the impression most of us are simply ignoring the parts of characters that don't align with our view of the character (or reconstructing some morally dubious actions to properly be addressed within the plot).

In short, stop fighting over the block men being sexist. All of Jesson's block men are sexist. Every single one. If they aren't in mcd, they'll basterdize them to be in mystreet (sorry Dante). They all kinda suck at one point or another for one plot point or another. Let's try to stop acting like we're 10 year olds in the aar/laur/garmau wars PLEASE

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[winteriron-trash]

rdj the (whitewashed) electric boogaloo

This is a reminder to everyone who's excited about RDJ's casting as Doctor Doom that this casting is whitewashing. Victor Von Doom is a Romani character and has been a Romani character since his introduction in the 1960s. (Fantastic Four Annual #2 [1964]) Not only that, but his Roma identity and the persecution he and his family faced due to it is integral to his character, it is what forms his identity. (Books of Doom by Ed Brubaker) Even if on the off chance this casting is meant to not be Victor but instead be some variant of Tony or whomever else becoming Doctor Doom, it is damaging to the character to rob him of that important cultural background. Doctor Doom does not exist without that history. Fans have been pushing hard to cast Doom as a Romani actor for years, especially since the MCU has whitewashed other Romani characters. (Wanda, Pietro, etc) This casting is not a celebration moment, it's fucking heartbreaking that the MCU repeatedly ignores the important and nuanced cultural backstories of characters.

I know I can't change anybody's mind on whether or not you want to be excited about RDJ's return to the MCU. But I do think at the very least you should be mad that the MCU is baiting us all and destroying nuanced and interesting characters for the sake of self-referential easter eggs and nostalgia bait. Because that's what it is. Feel how you'd like to feel about RDJ's return, but personally, this is soul-sucking. I had such a deep love for the MCU as a teenager, it was obviously something incredibly formative to me, especially Tony Stark. This isn't recreating what I fell in love with the MCU for. This is turning a well-planned and artistic storyline of adaptations into cheap cash grabs and fan service. Because, I think we're past the point of being able to call the MCU an adaptation of anything. They can use existing characters' names and powers, but to say they're being properly adapted is laughable.

This is not an adaptation of Doctor Doom. This is RDJ the Electric Boogaloo because Marvel's fear of losing the interest of dedicated MCU fans overrides their willingness to tell stories that are genuine to the characters. I don't know what there is to be excited about that. The MCU has lost its authenticity and aside from a few projects, feels heartless. Every movie is a copy of a copy. This announcement isn't something celebratory, it feels like a death knell of a cinematic universe that's so desperate to cling to relevancy it's resorting to nostalgia for a character/actor who hasn't even been dead for a decade. We're not getting anything new, we're just rinsing and repeating the same song and dance.

I get it. I love Tony Stark, his death destroyed me and I to this day, rue the ending he got in Endgame. It misunderstood his arc and it robbed him of a satisfying conclusion. But the solution to that isn't dragging the corpse out of the grave five years later to whitewash an existing character with rich and interesting nuance, just to forcibly tie his existence in the MCU to Tony. Whether he is a variant or not. Why would you want someone else's fave's legacy to be destroyed simply so your fave's legacy can go on? Hell, if we were really all so hellbent on the return of RDJ and/or Tony to the MCU, we have the multiverse for a reason. There were other ways to do it that didn't whitewash and ruin someone else. This just. Isn't something to be happy about.

[supercantaloupe]

What is the antisemitism in TUC season 1? Does it have to do with Wally the golem?/gen

[ID: an ask from an anonymous tumblr user that reads "would love to hear more about the antisemitism in unsleeping city! was a while ago that i watched it and can't remember what you might be referencing but definitely want to be aware of it.]

no, it's not about willy the golem -- i actually think willy is a great addition to the season (even if i wish we got to see more of him), and an indication to me that brennan/the showrunners were definitely trying to be sincere and inclusive. i want to make it clear that i don't think anything antisemitic in tuc is there intentionally; i think it's there out of simple ignorance, which is also why i think fans don't frequently see/comment on it either. but i don't think that's an excuse, either.

my grief with tuc1 is largely centered around its portrayal of robert moses as the villain. especially by making him a greedy, power-hungry lich working en league with bloodsucking vampires. (also his mini is literally a green skinned skull man in a suit. yikes.) here's the thing; i know robert moses was a real life horrible person, who actually was racist and powerhungry etc etc. and i know that robert moses, the real actual person, was jewish. my grief with tuc1 is not that they chose to use robert moses over literally any other person (real or fictional) to be their season villain (though i'd be really curious to know what tuc1 would have looked like with a different villain), but that they chose to take a real jewish person, turn them into an antisemitic caricature, and then only barely add other portrayals of judaism to balance that out.

like, tuc isn't completely devoid of other jewish representation. as you mention, there's willy the golem -- and again, i really like willy, and i love that it's a portrayal of a golem that's faithful to jewish folklore (ie as a benevolent, guardian construct rather than a mindless destructive monster. i am not a fan of how 'golem' is so frequently misused as a generic enemy creature in other fantasy and ttrpg spaces, including other seasons of d20). but as i said earlier, i wish we see more of him in the season, because he's not around very much, and feels a little more like worldbuilding than a full character to me. also, he's not human. jews are people.

the only other human jewish character in tuc1 is...stephen sondheim. which, again, yeah, that's a real person who really was jewish. but i really wouldn't blame you if you had no idea of that when watching tuc1. maybe from the name you could guess he might be jewish, but i don't think people ought to make a habit of trying to 'clock' someone being jewish by having a 'jewish-sounding' surname. as he's portrayed in tuc1, you'd never know he's jewish, unless you happen to already be pretty knowledgeable about the man in real life. it's far more likely you'll know him as a theater legend than anything else (may his memory be a blessing).

now i'm not saying that brennan or the showrunners should have played up the jewishness of Real Person Stephen Sondheim to counterbalance the depiction of robert moses; that just feels weird to me, especially considering that sondheim was literally alive when tuc1 was filmed and released. it's a tricky thing to portray real people in fiction alongside made up characters, especially when they are contemporaries, and i don't think 'outright caricature' is the way to go about that. nor do i think that moses' jewishness should have been played up at all, because again i don't think that would have been particularly true to the person/character, and also Fucking Yikes. but, c'mon, if you hear the names 'moses' and 'sondheim' next to each other, which one do you associate more with judaism?

and as it stands, these are the only representations of judaism in tuc1. one admittedly nice but very minor nonhuman character; one human character you'd never be able to tell was jewish; and a third human character who, while never explicitly referenced as jewish, plays into some really hurtful antisemitic stereotyping. and it was a choice to not include anything else. maybe not a deliberate one, probably more likely one made out of simple ignorance than anything else, but a choice nonetheless. in a city with one of the largest and most visibly jewish populations in the country, and a culture that is inextricably influenced by that jewish population. a jewish population which has been and continues the target of rising hate crimes for years. i know that nyc means different things to different people, and everyone's nyc is their own -- but my nyc is jewish, and it sucks that that its jewishness is referenced directly in only one very minor way, which is greatly overshadowed by its, in my view, really insidious indirect references.

i don't know exactly how to go about addressing this. obviously, the show can't be changed by now. even if it could, i think the final product would be very significantly different from what it is now if the villain was something/someone else. i think including more references to jews in new york, more (human) jewish characters, hell, even mentioning hanukkah celebrations and menorahs in windows (it takes place in late december, after all; depending on the year it's not at all out of place for hanukkah to coincide with xmas!) would help. having literally any more positive jewish representation in tuc1 would, i think, help balance the bad stuff that's there. because, yeah, robert moses was real and he was terrible and he was jewish. but he's one jewish guy in a city with over a million jews, the vast majority of whom are just normal people. i don't want him to be the only vision of us that people get, in tuc1 alone or in any media. i'm not saying that jews can't or shouldn't be villains in fiction; but especially if you are a goyische creator, you should be really careful in how you're portraying us, and if there are other contrasting depictions in your work, too, in order to not (even accidentally) demonize jewish people as a whole.

[solradguy]

The hell's up with all these anti-trans men/masc memes lately because I'm getting real sick of it real quick. It's not cute and it was never funny.

[snekdood]

if ppl telling you "jewish ppl in israel were already kicked out of other countries and have no where else to go" makes you feel compelled to call whoever said that a "zionist", I really just dont think you give af about jewish ppl's lives quite frankly.

if your "free palestine" means "getting rid" of all jewish civilians in israel I think you're probably just a heartless asshole.

[taeyungie]

😺

[cattailtales]

seeing the reactions to this latest chapter I can’t help but to think back to the first post-war arc and remember how little was ever addressed then too.. like dgmw I enjoy all these characters and think horikoshi is insane for trying to juggle so many but in the end he kinda like. Cannot handle it all. maybe he could if he didn’t waste time on silly things.. like I get that he’s trying to uplift the story in the end but it kinda falls incredibly flat with so many anxious questions looming and a rapidly approaching finish line…

[is-this-really--life]

I pretty much *only* trust ecologists committed to responsible degrowth with socialism at this point. They tend to be committed to reality and humanitarian ideals more than any ideology. The rest just want to see the world burn.

[welcometogrouchland]

Getting back into comics is fun. Minus the Getting Back Into Comics part of it all

[candyriku]

finally getting a chance to work on chapter 15 today :-)

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I feel like whenever people discuss "gender roles" on social media and just in society at large, they simplify it way too damn much.

[princesscedar]

Trying to tell mom "hey maybe don't call j ewish people rats even unintentionally" event leaves 10 dead thousands injured

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

A Tale of Seashells & Shenanigans

YA fantasy

follows a grumpy 19yo who works in the fantasy thriftstore

when a girl tells them she accidentally donated her selkie sealskin on their watch, they have to go on a quest with her across the sea to the other store the donations were sent to against their will

but things quickly go wrong and they get stranded on a desert island, and they have to survive by busking, and hitchhike with some pirates to make their way there, and their frustration eventually grows into attachment

nonbinary ace disabled (cane user) MC, aroace ‘love interest’, QPR-ish

[molagboop]

Thinking about language, gender and Chozo society again. Today, we are discussing what level of cultural importance is ascribed to gender as a descriptor, gendered symbolism/literary tropes, and a unique facet of Chozo grammar.

Massive text dump under the cut. Here be headcanons.

Cultural Symbolism

There's not much in the way of significant Chozo cultural symbolism that's "gendered": unlike some human cultures, Chozo literary/artistic symbolism has no notion of stereotypical male protectors or mothers as a symbol of gentle nurturing and care. The Warrior encompasses the meaning of the first symbol, and the Guardian fulfills the purpose of the latter. However, broader Chozo culture does acknowledge the literary concept of parental wrath (Wrath of the [Mother]*): the idea that a mated pair will viciously defend the nest from threat of predation by beasts or destruction by their enemies.

The Wrath of the [Father/Mother/Nest Guardian/Caregiver] is often linked with the Mawkin practice of parents carrying their children into battle on their backs. Tribal tradition holds that a warrior will display exceptional ferocity in battle if granted a defenseless subject to guard. They believe this is true for most soldiers regardless of their parental status, but especially so for those who have had children, and markedly so for those who are currently rearing one.

The last thing you want to see in battle is a Mawkin soldier with a baby strapped to their back. Chances are you'd come face to face with a new mom covered in blood from her face to her breast, and you wouldn't have time to examine the two large eyes peeking out from the ball of fuzz behind her shoulders before the vertebrae in your neck are separated from the rest of your meat.

There's historical precedence for this trope dating back millions of years, before the Chozo had even developed the advanced technology for which we know them best. Back in ye olden days, the Mawkin had a reputation as fierce protectors of the nest: parents and childless adults alike worked together to care for their communal nests. Parents who weren't out hunting or doing some other task relevant to the tribe's survival and general upkeep would sit among the eggs, cleaning them, rotating them, teaching them the ancestral war songs, etc.

Emphasis was put on mated pairs with eggs to perform incubation duties like egg rotation. When the nest was threatened, these caretakers would drive away predators (or sapient invaders) with ferocity unmatched by their neighbors. There are ancient tales that tell of Mawkin mothers slaying beasts or enemy warriors with their bare talons and stringing up their remains around the perimeter of the nesting grounds as a warning. A sort of meat-driven "fuck around and find out" signal. The Mawkin were renowned as fearless allies, and weaker or less well-armed tribes would appeal to the Protectors to lend warriors to guard their own homes.

The Wrath of the Nest Guardian has little to do with the gender of the protector. It is a vessel at once for two purposes: communicating the Warrior's drive to protect, and linking that drive to the bond between children and their guardians: those who watch the nests. Anyone charged with caring for something weak or defenseless is capable of displaying this strength.

The Role of Gender in Language

Gender is not quite as important in Chozo societal structure as one's role in the community. There are "gendered" words, yes, but they are treated flippantly, and occasionally used interchangeably. "Rook" and "tiercel" are usually applicable to "male" Chozo, while "formel" and "hen" may be applied to "female" Chozo. "Hen" is generally reserved for older individuals who have previously laid eggs, midwives and nursery guardians (regardless of gender), or parents with many children. However, it is not considered derogatory to refer to a younger, childless individual as such.* The innumerable gender-irrelevant uses of the term "hen" is just one example of how loose these words are as gendered indicators.

Linguistically, Chozo language puts less importance in identifying people based on their gender, and more on their role in society. Most "gendered words" refer solely to a partner's abilities in the process of making more Chozo. The aforementioned "tiercel" and "formel" can be loosely used to refer to one with the potential to fertilize eggs and one with egg laying capability respectively, but this really only matters to people when they're looking to bolster their tribe's population with new children. A formel's "motherly duty" ends when the egg hits the nest (See Life on ZDR: Vol. iii for elaboration on the societal perception of family).

Put it this way: there will always be a need for more Chozo to fill the tribe's ranks. But when they are not working on increasing the population, they do not think about "men and women". There is only "Chozo". They share the same flesh, the same feathers, the same keratinized protrusions. They think, they work, they care for their communities with whatever skills they can muster. There is no "difference" between Chozo from an objective standpoint.

There are also no "male clothes" or "female clothes" in Chozo culture; there are only "clothes". Clothing can have many functions, but the Chozo have not considered the idea that clothing "should" be worn by a particular kind of person and not others on a physiological basis. There is no stereotypical "male" or "female" body type for Chozo because their exterior physiology does not change between the sexes. There are different body types, yes. But there is no "broad shouldered male frame/hourglass figured female" in the Chozo cultural lexicon. Raven Beak possesses an "hourglass" frame: this says nothing about him to the Mawkin, except perhaps that the bridge between his waist and torso is curved.

In the grand scheme of things, Chozo find gender about as relevant a descriptor as whether or not you possess two kidneys.

That is why the Chozo are so indifferent to gendered language, but in what ways does this manifest in the language itself?

The Chozo's general disregard for gender as a descriptor is reflected in formal language: they put less of an emphasis on gendered pronouns to replace the name of a person or thing and more emphasis on what its role, function, or place in society is. They have pronouns to refer to people from different tribes, as well as doctors, scholars, non-military guardians, and community leaders. Scientists, high ranking warriors, respected warriors, venerated warriors,* medical doctors, professors, and the professor emeritus are all roles that the Chozo feel warrant their own descriptive pronouns, among many others.

The Mawkin in particular have specialized pronouns to refer to their Warlord: the leader of the Mawkin tribe overall, who commands the army and represents the tribe in dealings with other Chozo groups among other duties. Raven Beak may be referred to by his subordinates with "cua" (possessive "cuamahar"). Former Warlords (all of which are dead; there is no such thing as a "retired Warlord" in Mawkin culture. A Warlord must be killed in order for a new leader to take their seat) have "cuar"/"cuarmahar".

This is not to say the Chozo do not have gendered pronouns. They technically do... it's just not strictly gendered. "Ninu" is translated as "he" (in canon), but the Chozo do not strictly use it to refer to "one who is capable of fertilizing eggs": it is also used in cases where English speakers might feel compelled to use "she". It should be noted that "Ninu" does not function as (plural) "they/them" in English, for it is a singular pronoun. "Hum" is the (canon) plural pronoun for describing a broad group with no singular identifying feature, as "they" and "them" are used in English.

Most other pronouns that don't describe one's role in the community are some derivative of "of the people", which makes no reference to an individual's identity on a singular, personal level.

One such word is "ne", which is "individual", and is used to refer to a single person (often used where English speakers would expect to use "he" or "she"). This pronoun is derived from "nehasa", roughly "one of the tribe", with "-hasa" being derivative of "hasana": "tribe". There are tribe-specific variations of this word. The Mawkin have "nemawk" or "nemawkin": "of the [Mawkin] people", and the Thoha have "netho" or "nethoha" ("of the [Thoha] people"). Altering these niche pronouns to their possessive form is as simple as removing any obstructive consonants at the end of the word to make way for the appropriate suffix: "nema(w)mahar" and "nethomahar". It was collectively decided long ago that exactly how many consonants should be removed from a tribe's name for their pronoun is a matter of making the word comfortable to say: nobody wants their Elders tripping over their own tongues in polite company.

For the sake of convenience, these tribe-specific pronouns are usually reserved for describing heroes or historical figures. A couple thousand years before Raven Beak was born, Chozo society at large was far more strict about using tribe-affiliate pronouns in regular speech, particularly at events where the different tribes gathered. Nowadays, the Chozo use normal pronouns in place of these tribal indicators for the sake of convenience. This lessens the risk of a nervous speaker accidentally associating the War Councilor of the Hotu with the War Councilor for the Albis and causing tension during negotiations.

"Ne" and "ninu" are functionally interchangeable in many cases, and the matter of which one sees the light of day during conversation depends entirely on which regional dialect is being spoken. Some tribes exclusively use "ne" and don't bother with "ninu", and for others, it's the opposite. Whether or not a Mawkin uses "ne" or "ninu" is determined by their upbringing or the manner of speak prevalent in the subculture an individual is apart of.

On ZDR, "ninu" is common planet-wide, but diplomats who travel off-world to meet with other tribes, construction workers, miners, and the fast-talking rural cliff fungus cultivators all have a tendency to use "ne" in everyday speech. "Ne" rolls off the tongue far quicker than the two-syllable "ninu" (which is partly why "ne" gained use in old cliff fungus farmers in the first place).

The major difference here is that "ninu" can sometimes be translated as a gendered pronoun, and "ne" has absolutely no potential to be. It's easy to translate "ninu" as "he" in a sentence that makes no explicit reference to gender, but you can't do that with "ne". "Ne" refers to an individual and is almost wholly nondescript on its own. Think of it this way: every time "ne" is used, picture the speaker gesturing to who they're talking about and referring to them as "this one" or "that one". You know who it's referring to, but the word "ne" in and of itself offers no description of the person it's referencing.

The nondescript nature of "ne" is almost comparable to the English "it", but "ne" isn't used to mean "it" in Chozo: the Chozo "ne" refers to a person, while the English "it" refers to a thing. In English, if you use "it" too many times in a paragraph and make no reference to what "it" is, somebody could get lost and ask "what's 'it'?"

You can elicit the same kind of response by using an English gendered pronoun too many times without referencing who you're talking about, but in that case, the gendered pronoun has a description, unlike "it". Excessive use of "him" doesn't tell you who "he" is, but you know the perceived gender of the person in question despite not knowing his identity: you have some form of information.

The Chozo "ne" offers the same amount of descriptiveness as the English word "it" (which is next to none), though they don't mean the same thing. "Ne" is like the "it" of the Chozo pronouns that are used exclusively to refer to sapient people. "Ne" and the Chozo word for "it" are entirely separate: we don't have a canon word for "it", and I don't feel like making one up right now, so I'm going to leave you wanting more on that.

The ne/ninu dichotomy doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but it's an interesting cultural phenomenon. Linguistic rules can bend to the will of the speaker: hence why the Chozo throw "ne" and "ninu" around seemingly wherever the heck they want. And descriptive pronouns, which the Chozo put more cultural emphasis on than any form of gendered language, are largely considered a part of formal speech. You use descriptive pronouns in writing and when it's considered respectful: you wouldn't dare refer to the High Priest of the Ancestors with "ne" during the sunset rituals, but you don't always need to refer to your best friend (who is also a doctor) with their set of job-specific pronouns while you're just hanging out. Referring to your friend Jon Doe as "the venerable Dr. Jon Doe" while you're out for drinks sounds a bit stuffy. "Ninu" is a less loaded way of gesturing to someone without using their name.

Why is this so complicated? Why can't they just make it easy and use words we can reliably use to say "he/she/whatever"? Because the Chozo are long-lived and care immensely about acknowledging one's experience and expertise. The Chozo want you to refer to their doctors as doctors in the appropriate situations because these individuals have spent many years accumulating comprehensive knowledge of their field, and the Tribes believe that is worth acknowledging. The doctor's gender is not an accomplishment: their vast knowledge of pulmonary systems and their contributions to society are.

If you want an easy way to say "this person" without worrying about fancy honorifics, just use "ninu" or "ne".

* Terms nestled within square brackets are loose translations of a Chozo phrase. In the case of the Wrath of the [Mother], the word within the brackets is fluid and context-sensitive. The trope is not always referred to as Wrath of the Mother: the last word is either replaceable or the closest English equivalent of the original Chozo.

* There are no gendered insults in the Chozo language. Instead of having countless different slang words for genitals to sling as profanities or words used to define "a disagreeable [man/woman]", many insulting words and phrases in the Chozo language revolve around failing to perform at one's task or being a disgrace/dishonor to one's tribe. If I continued, I could branch out into a connection with Mawkin death/funeral-related lore, but that is a topic for another day.

* These different categories of warrior are not considered the same; the Mawkin are especially pushy in differentiating between them. "High ranking" is an army thing (think officers and special ops with a public face), "respected" is a matter of martial skill and reputation, and "venerated" refers to old warriors with an emphasis on those who are "retired" (i.e.: no longer serving the tribe in a combatant role) or recognized as highly decorated war veterans. The pronouns used for non-Warlord high ranking military officials are also used to refer to highly specialized (usually smaller) arms of the Mawkin army, like the subterranean ops, whose training revolves around scouting/securing locations such as caves and tunnels on foreign planets and such. They're the ones who go into these enclosed environments before researchers or soldiers from the greater army. In this case, the pronoun isn't used to refer to any of the individuals within the branch, but rather referring to the branch itself in conversation.

* It is optional to refer to Raven Beak with cua pronouns; they are considered formal. It's a bit like using usted instead of tú while speaking Spanish. Some Warlords care more about the address than others; Raven Beak takes it fairly casually, except during occasions when formality is a necessity. In contrast, High Lord Stone Breast would take offense with people using anything other than cua to distinguish him during his reign.

In fact, the usted/tú comparison can also be made with every fancy job-related pronoun. A student refers to their professor with the descriptive pronoun for her title because she is respected and they are in an academic environment.

[pepprs]

meant to post abt this yesterday and ik it’s kinda mean but i think the counselor i have rn is the worst one ive ever had possibly even worse than (or tied w) the one i had over the summer who kept ending our sessions well before the full hour was up when i was going thru a horrible time and kept spending the sessions mostly talking abt herself and her own problems. actually no now that i write that out she was probably the worst (though she was one of the warmest / nicest and our personalities meshedreally well so i feel bad saying that she was the worst). but the one i have now is so…. lke idk. my experience w the worst counselor made me rly want to work w a clinical intern again bc i wanted someone who would like. actuallytake things seriously and give me the time i was paying for and spend all of it talki ng abt the things i was paying to talk abt and draw from the most recent / cutting edge info instead of entirely personal experience (WHICH AGAIN I FEEL SO BAD ABT BECAUSE. my work is all abt healing each other by sharing things like that and i realt did like her but it just wasn’t appropriate i guess bc it was a counseling relationship!) but my current counselor is so… rigid and restrictive. like i think he is trying too hard to apply what he’s being taught and he seems like nervous and talking out of his ass and he masks that by taking up SO much space and spending like 3 minutes responding to every one minute i talk and literally like strongarmimg the convos and deciding what we’re going to talk about and moving us on to a new topic abruptly before i feel ready to move on and like taking time out of our sessions to do paperwork / admin stuff so he doesn’t forget later (and a lot of the time i think he’s doing it while im talking bc i see his eyes moving around his screen and the light on his face like he’s not even listening to me). and it fucking sucks. i want to crack him like an egg so bad and make him realize it doesn’t have to be this way but i know that’s not my responsibility and in our session last night i basically gave up trying to create enough space for myself and just let him steer things bc i was having side effects and it was just rly unsatisfying