#What would I use my MA for if not to ramble on passionately abt a game

[danteinthedevildom]

Like, ok, hear me out. My last post was quick and rough bc it was late at night, but now it's 4pm and I've had a thought, and I can def. explain it better now.

Ppl from minority groups esp. the queer community almost always end up connecting best with characters that are similarly othered and mistreated and demonised. There is a genuine, historic media trend of coding villains and monsters with our identities, and for a very long time, that was the best representation we could get. We grew used to identifying with evil because then we could take those characters with little fragments of our experiences in them, and we could re-write them in fandom to be sympathetic, to be loved, to be understood.

A game that takes the original story of the biblical Fall and translates it into a romance game is practically guaranteed to be a hit with queer people. Especially considering the context of the Fall - the fact that it's love that condemns them, a father who ousts them, a family that betrays them, and a situation in which what they stood up against wasn't legal but the punishment and injustice wasn't morally right.

It's quite literally a game about helping and loving beings who have been demonized, and helping them realise they're worth loving. It's a game that is going to strike home harder for people who have been othered as callously as the brothers were, and for people who grew up seeing characters like these as fictional representatives.

Solmare's decision to ultimately make the MC gender neutral futhered this drastically. The genre of otome is so naturally assigned towards straight, cis women that it can be difficult for anyone else to enjoy the games as much. We know, once again, that we're being othered; that the concept of creating a game like this for us is so unthought of, even the ones with M/M or F/F content are targeted more towards fujoshis and rated 18+. They're so very rarely meant for us.

But this game, centred around concepts of identity and family and loss and love, exists to give us the chance to fully immerse ourselves in a way most games of this genre often don't. Yes, sometimes it's evident, especially early on, that Solmare struggled to decipher how to slip out of inherently fem!MC tropes - but it's even more evident that genuine effort was placed into the game to welcome everyone. To let as many people as possible slot into MC's place, regardless of race, of sexuality, of gender.

This game, with its overall gameplay and storyline formula, is the perfect fit for people like us. The reason this game exploded so much more than Solmare's other games - the reason this fandom is so much bigger than the others before it - is in part because it drew us in like moths to a flame.

I literally cannot express how excited people were when we realised this game let you be you. I'm a gay trans guy; my best friend is a bisexual demigirl; the people I knew at the time Obey Me! was released were nonbinary, trans, gay, pansexual - a plethora of different identities and experiences, and very different game tastes. But all of us were enthralled by the concept of this game that didn't force pronouns or designs on you. That let us love beings we'd all felt sympathetic for in other iterations in other media. Even people I knew who hated the otome genre showed interest when they were told that the only identifying feature for the MC was a name.

This is one of the first times I have ever seen - let alone experienced - a game in this genre that not only allowed but actively encouraged people like us to play.

Obey Me! was not made for the queer community, but it was made in a way that welcomes us as much as the original target audience. That gives us as much importance and presence as the straight, cis female audience these games are usually pandered towards.

And now, Solmare are giving us something even more wonderful. Solmare have seen their fandom growing and diversifying, and they have accepted this. Accepted us. These new Exchange Students are being added to reflect the diversity of the people who play the game, and to include us in a way we often never get to experience in these genres.

We don't know who these characters are yet. We don't know anything about them beyond current speculation; that one of them is femme-presenting, and that at least two of them may be nonbinary. What we do know, at least, is that these characters are likely love interests, and that's genuinely incredible.

Because that means these characters are being added for us to love; those of us who aren't the original target audience, but who found the game and its themes and fell in love, anyway.

Because that means Solmare are acknowledging that a gender neutral MC is more than just "straight cis woman Lite"; that some of us do love women; that there's more to the spectrum than just male and female, and that they're just as viable to be loved.

So for the love of fuck, please let queer fans be excited. Please let us thrive in this one fucking game that thematically chimes with us, that lets us love, that lets us be ourselves. I don't care if you don't like the new femme character because you're not attracted to girls; you don't have to date them. I don't want to hear your comments about these characters "stealing your boys away". They aren't made for you. They're made for us.

Maybe it's weird to have content that's not aimed towards you. Maybe you were tonedeaf to the way the fandom grew, or to what it really meant when Solmare said they wanted Obey Me! to be an inclusive game. But please, please, read the room now. Let us love them without making it feel weird.

Because these characters in no way take from you, but they give so, so much to us.

[wvrmtails]

(  and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?  )

( keiynan lonsdale, twenty one, agender ) my goodness, is peter pettigrew back? it’s been a few years since the halfblood has been around the castle, but i’d recognize he/they anywhere. rumor has it the seventh year spent the past few years aligned with the order. they’re stillallocentric & cunning and obsessive & passive, though. and the gryffindor still reminds me of ketchup stains on band shirts, an incomprehensible minute long string of curses, tracing the veins in your wrist, the smell of breakfast and fresh coffee, card tricks at three in the morning. well, then, i guess some things never change. 

links:  playlist.  pinboard.  stats. 

triggers: child abandonment, eating disorder (specifically bed/bulimia), depression, anxiety, weed. there’s a heads up before every bulletpoint!

history.

child abandonement mention |  peter grew up in glasgow, scotland and was raised by his mother, a halfblooded witch called daraja pettigrew. his dad wasn’t in the picture, hadn’t been from the moment his mum had told him that she was pregnant. | end of mention

which meant peter learned how to be alone from a young age. his mother worked a lot, after all, so she could pay the rent of their small flat and give peter the bare minimum, the things he needed. peter delved into fictional worlds: he read books. comics, mostly, but also a lot of roald dahl. he also watched a lot of telly, because tv is the bomb.

went to muggle elementary, where he was kind of? an odd one out. his clothes were always a bit lumpy, his words a bit jumbled, his eyes shifty. was an outsider on good days, a target on less good ones. he spent many lunch breaks eating alone, and most of the time he didn’t mind — being alone meant he could let his mind wander.

still, it fucked with his self esteem. no kid likes feeling alone, or like an outsider.

and then hogwarts rolled around and! friends! marauders! peter felt so at home! oh my god okay listen. he loves the marauders so much and he was so hyped and happy to be part of this little group and there was a Lot of hero worship there, esp in the early days?

peter always loved heroes. he loves comic books and people who save the day and get the girl and do it all. i think he kind of … projected that onto james and sirius especially? did not know how to do this friendship thing as an 11 year old tbh, was a mess, was blinded by their amazingness damn

also. re: being sorted into gryffindor! peter admires heroism and bravery and chivalry, and it’s your values that get you sorted some place. and he does try to be brave, and he IS, because he becomes a damn animagus for his bud! i mean! he was not a hatstall btw  — i choose to ignore that stupid bit of post canon. it took a while for the hat, sure, but no more than two minutes. 

pete was & is a shit student, not bc he was dumb, but just because school was not. his thing. his jam. the system was just not for him. deadlines? exams? homework? no thank you. anyway, peter’s skills flourished a lot more in different settings, like … using charms for convenience. or becoming an animagus for his bff. making potions against hangovers. etc.

becoming an animagus for remus was ! important ! to peter ! he did it for remus, not because of peer pressure, or anything else — he did it because it was right, and his friend deserved it and ! he did it, too, because he could. sure, his transfig grades may have been more than poor, but the kid did have some skill. he just needed motivation, which mcgonagall didn’t give (bc. she scared him.) and this situation? motivated the hell out of him. 

peter would be lying if he said he wasn’t taken a bit aback when he learned about remus’ lycanthropy — not because he was scared of him, to be honest, but he was just ? shocked ? he was more scared for remus, and so sad? so fucking sad for him? : (

collects chocolate frog cards like it’s his damn job. i mean, he did it before hogwarts, but once he arrived and there was more opportunity to trade and a whole club dedicated to it, peter grew more and more driven to complete his collection, lmao. peter also really likes playing gobstones and is pretty good at it? same with chess & card games — he loves games!!!! so much!!!

weed & anxiety tw | peter started smoking pot in the summer between his fourth and fifth year, and never really stopped. it made him slack more at school, but also eased his anxiety, which had started to develop in his fourth year. as months passed, peter became more and more of a stoner, which made him both more relaxed and funnier, but also ... a whole of a lot lazier. | end of weed tw

peter had always been a bit ... fidgety, easily on edge, a bit nervous, but he’d never really known anxiety until around fourteen years old. his insecurities grew, as he started comparing himself more to his friends and finding nothing but things he lacked in comparison to them, and questions as to why they put up with him. | end of anxiety tw

so his schooldays mostly looked like ... doing nothing, playing games, having fun with his mates, getting high, forgetting his homework, stressing about homework, and somewhere, in a tiny corner of his being, worrying about the war. whenever those worries started coming up, though, he was able to push them away, because the war was not yet there, not for him at least. there was graduation to worry about first, and once that was done, then he could worry about the war.

and then the war came to hogwarts. peter was shocked. peter had been in denial about the war and how close it could hit him, because in his mind he and his friends would be safe at hogwarts, would be safe until at least graduation, and then that was all gone. peter didn’t do much during the battle. i can imagine that he just hid, that he tried to stay out of trouble, that a side of him showed itself that he did not like at all. he worried about his friends, hoped they were safe, but didn’t go looking for them, didn’t try to protect them: he clung to safety and hid. like a fucking coward. he prayed, for a moment, and then cursed god to hell and back. probably smoked a few cigarettes, too.

post battle & currently.

peter is ashamed. ashamed of his cowardice, ashamed of his passiveness, of his incapability to stand up and fight, like so many of his friends did. a disgust grew in his chest for himself, and yet he was glad, somewhere, that he had hidden. he’d not seen as much as others had. he’d not gotten hurt. he had not died.

he did join the order, along with his friends, in an attempt to make up for his earlier lack of bravery, but he finds himself incapable to do much. he’s not good at dueling and while he’s able to be strategic and cunning, his mind seems to shut down whenever he tries to apply himself. he’s terrified, frankly, and he’s angry, because he should just be at fucking hogwarts. 

that idea i mentioned earlier, that the war wouldn’t be real until after graduation, and then graduation being postponed significantly, kind of froze peter up. rather than dedicating himself to the order in his own ways, as he would do in a canon verse, or eventually deciding to walk over to the death eaters, peter just became passive. i think peter hung around hq a lot, cleaning up and cooking food and making sure there was always enough tea/coffee/beer/liquor around for when there were meetings. would rather clean a dirty toilet than go on a mission. The Order’s personal MAID! 

depression & weed & eating disorder (bed/bulimia) tw | peter feels useless. he feels like a shitty person. he feels like he’s a burden. he hates himself. peter starts secluding himself, hiding in his mother’s home. he smokes more pot. he sometimes goes a week without seeing someone besides his mum. he watches too much telly and reads comics and drowns in fictional worlds and he becomes depressed. he sinks into it without noticing and can’t come back from it. his eating habits ( which have always bordered on unhealthy ) turn worse; peter binges, and then restricts, falls into a cycle. it’s the only routine he has.

when he’s around his friends, he lives up a little. he cracks jokes and wants to play games and laughs and feels a bit more alive, but he always craves his time on his own. that’s his new way to feel safe: to stick to his newly found routine, hidden in his room, away from reality. | end of tw

and then, finally, he was able to return to hogwarts. the three years spent away from school feel like a blur, if you ask him now, a useless blur, and peter’s laughing when he steps on the train. he’s glad. he’s glad. he can return to his plan to graduate and then, maybe, find the power in himself to face the war, rather than still, kind of, deny it. peter just wants to return to his last year and make the most of it, and return to the way life once was. ( that that’s kind of impossible is, well, yet another thing he’s in denial about. )

random facts & ramblings.

peter parker is his favourite superhero just because ... they share a first name and because peter parker is a bit of an underdog too and peter is just like! amazing! he named his owl parker.

he hates cats. used to love them --- he was allowed to take the cat from home with him to hogwarts when he was eleven, but he brought him back home after an unfortunate incident where his cat nearly ate him while he was in his animagus form. “sorry ma, i don’t love him any more. here. have him.” 

peter is actually a solid cook. this is because he learned to make some basic food when he was still a kid, first with his grandma, and later on his own. he liked doing it for his mother and he was. .. good at it? peter is also just passionate about food and finds comfort in cooking. breakfast food and baked goods are Prime Food Categories. 

he is asexual af, panromantic. has kissed both guys and gals and nb pals but did not like it??? confused. does not understand sexuality and all that jazz but tries not to think abt it because like! he’s got enough stress! doesnt need to think abt this!

peter is also agender, but i think he’s a lot less aware about this, because it’s confusing and so he just tries not to think about it. he does feel okay with he/him pronouns, but just doesn’t feel connected at all to being a boy/man

peter has abandonment issues because his dad, well, never even bothered to be there. not even for a second. he’s just constantly scared that people will leave and it’s funny, because he will probably end up abandoning all of his loved ones KDJFHSDF.

peter is quite non confrontational but also not ... meek? he just avoids it, either by physically staying out of people’s way or by dismissing most of the things said and getting out of there. a Passive Kid. will, however, defends his friends honour, because damn it, he loves them so much.

he’s such a fucking dork i swear to god. but he’s funny! peter is really funny. i deeply believe in this. he makes great puns and is able to just come out of nowhere and make a comment that just. hits the nail right on its head. 

peter curses a lot and has a scottish accent and sometimes he will have a minute long cursing session that no one rly understands.

listen i have such a wide array of hc’s im not going to list them all here just ask me

possible plots.

tutors. someone help peter graduate bc that is like. something he does want to do. he’s taking his newts in transfig, potions and herbology.

fellow collectors. please trade chocolate frog cards with peter and help him finish his collection before he loses his gd mind.

let’s play a game! peter rly likes playing games and tbh he’s usually in for one ( though it does depend on who you are, lmao ) so! maybe your character and peter just like hanging out and playing some Games.

i will add more im just so tired of typing rn KSDFHSJKDFHKJSDFKDSFH