#anyways. I have so many things to write non of which are relevant and are purely for my own amusement <3 love wins
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concerningwolves · 2 months ago
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I just finished First You Write A Sentence by Joe Moran & I loved it (so much so that I procrastinated on the last chapter for like a month bc I didn't want it to be over). in no particular order, are some of my favourite things about it/reasons why I think it's great for writers to read:
It really feels like a nice guy is gently but enthusiastically nerding out about sentences and creative writing, in a non-preachy way
encourages writers to think about their voice! Moran isn't a prescriptivist. He talks about why certain styles of writing sentences feel more natural to read, psychologically and linguistically, but also explores lots of ways in which the writing "rules" have been (successfully) broken and explains why these worked
and, similarly, explores different pieces of advice from multiple angles – e.g., instead of "you should avoid the passive voice", Moran's approach is "here's what the passive voice does well, why it's sometimes necessary, and why it weakens our writing at other times"
Little anecdotes that kept it interesting. A lot of "how to be a writer" books wear me out because the focus is so heavily on writing that I get over-saturated with advice, but Moran goes on well-timed and relevant meanders that both reinforce and let you take a lil break from the advice
Takes you through from the small, mechanical level of What Is A Sentence (i.e., nouns & verbs), to word order, to sentence length, to the effects of different punctuation marks, to how to connect sentences seamlessly, to the larger scale of fitting everything into paragraphs and prose
It put into words so many things that I do semi-intuitively bc I've been writing for so long now, but never really thought about. And now that I'm actually thinking about them, I can feel the skills getting stronger!!
Like, you can shift where your reader's attention falls by placing a word or phrase at different points in a sentence. Which i realised I'd been doing anyway, but now I can consciously think about it when I write and revise, and it's really fun to play around with :D
Big focus on clarity and conciseness, but not at the cost of voice and personal style. Really helped me see how to find a balance between the two, especially in my academic writing.
The writing of the book itself feels so graceful and easy to read that it's like you're in safe, knowledgeable hands. this is someone who absolutely practises what he preaches (although, as I said, it doesn't feel like you're being preached at)
There's probably more, and if I get the time and mental space I certainly want to summarise my favourite points from this book, but for now my parting endorsement is that I already want to read it again, this time with a notebook and page markers on hand.
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fresne999 · 23 days ago
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Murderbot - Ep 3-5
So, um, this is very long. I am very much enjoying the show. I very much enjoy the books. I think they complement each other in interesting ways. While also understanding that not everything hits for everyone. See also, folks I was *sure* would like the Good Place and bounced right off.
Anyway, post Covers Ep3-5 (which I watched last night).
I continue to find the places of divergence between books and tv show fascinating, if ultimately symbiotic.
Anywho, many thoughts.
All Systems Red (ASR) versus TV - Pin-Lee Researching the Satellite
Rewatching Ep 3, I was once again struck by the difference between how Pin-Lee's research into the satellite glitches is handled book vs show. 
Quick note, 
-book Pin-Lee - she, 
-tv Pin-Lee - they 
Book Pin-Lee looks into the glitches. MB tells us that it's noticed this because the company requires that its SecUnits watch / listen to every private moment of clients and analyze for minable data, but does not tell Pres-Aux / the team that it has been monitoring Pin-Lee's research. 
Tv Pin-Lee gets the same moment with a significant difference. 
They state that they've been researching the glitches, get a "What really" (tagging for later) and tv-MB backs them up. 
Doylistically, this lets Pres-Aux (and the audience) know that data mining is a thing that is happening without it being a voice over, which works in 1st person narrative, but less well in a show.
Non-Murderbot Digression about Security Versus Privacy
I write about this for a living, so let's take a moment to hyperfocus shall we…
Security is about protecting people/things/data from bad things happening. 
Privacy is about defining individuals' rights to control their own data. 
Privacy and Security intersect, but they are not the same thing. 
To get some terms out of the way, a Data Subject is an identifiable natural person (i.e., not a legal entity like DeltFall) whose personal information is being collected and used, and *may* have certain rights with regards to their data. 
Because there is no uniform law, these rights may vary. But collectively these rights are referred to as Data Subject Access Rights (DSAR) and most often include: knowing what data is collected and why, and by extension the right to consent or object to that collection/use, ability to correct errors, and a right (under certain circumstances) to have your data removed.
Where most people encounter consent agreements is Terms of Service, which is the consent document. So do actually read them, so you know what you agreed to. They also toggles in privacy and security settings.
If you live in a place with defined privacy rights. 
Privacy rights may vary wildly.
In a totalitarian / capitalist hellscape, an individual might not have DSAR. This is relevant because CorpRim is a Capitalist hellscape.
Back to What this Scene says about Privacy / Lack In Pres-Aux vs CorpRim
For book Pres-Aux I have no sense if they know that MB/HubSystem are watching them every moment or not. I mean, book-MB tells us everyone knows it, but ASR is so deeply in MB's POV it's hard at times to know what Pres-Aux characters know/don't know. 
And fairly significantly, when writing cross cultural documentation, it's important to understand that it's easy to make assumptions. We the viewers neither live in the CorpRim (I mean, I feel you, but I have DSAR where I live/work), nor do we live in the Preservation Alliance, which is socialistic and communal. Mind you, the part of me that is really interested in how pre-modern society barter systems work is really interested in this -- particularly as it applies to women's labor -- but doubts I'll get much detail either way. 
In the show, the DSAR of it all is explicit. Pin-Lee did not know, because they react to MB telling them their logs are being reviewed, and they take this as an invasion of privacy.
To be clear, I don't think this means that as a lawyer, Pin-Lee should have read where the contract said that the Company could data mine Pres-Aux logs, because I don't think the contract needed to mention it at all, or for that matter mention they are being watched at all times.
In the Corporate Rim, no one has DSAR. Everyone is the product and no one has privacy of any kind. 
It's something everyone in the Corporate Rim knows, but is not written down. 
This is a lovely example of cross-cultural misunderstanding. 
Because I'm fairly certain the Preservation Alliance does have defined privacy rights for their residents.
Unless Pin-Lee is a privacy lawyer (rather than a corporate), I'm not sure they would have a reason to know that. The focus of a Privacy lawyer is ensuring that customers/residents have their rights followed. The purpose of a corporate lawyer is to ensure that the corporation/legal entity they represent interests are supported. They are different focuses. 
And other Privacy Violations
It's why I'm glad shortly thereafter we see MB watching Gurathin go into Mensah's room/sniff her pillow. Because (pure speculation) this information is going to come out in a MB - Gurathin spat. 
Both what MB is doing and what Gurathin are doing are violations of privacy. 
MB's is the legal privacy DSAR context expressed above. Gurathin's violation is more rooted in the idea of privacy in one's domicile. Or possibly not. It's possible, he has permission to go in there and seek comfort when he needs it. Not sure. There's a very interesting dynamic between Mensah and Gurathin, which I suspect has a great deal to do with the trauma of coming from the Corporate Rim and Mensah getting him out of the Corporate Rim. 
Hyperfocus - Pin-Lee and the What Up the Satellite
I realize that everyone in fandom has zoomed in on Gurathin as neuro spicy, but I would like to argue that they are missing the bus on Pin-Lee as equally (if not the same) spicy. 
While deciding to research something in one's spare time isn't necessarily a sign of hyperfocus, nor being neuro diverse, a lot of Pin-Lee's interactions (relationship by contract, hiding interests, satellite research) are pinging neuro diverse bells for me, but presented in a way that…look I don't want to misgender tv Pin-Lee, but they ping a lot of information / signs for neuro-divergence in women being under reported. 
Anyway, Ratthi saying an equivalent of "No you didn't" in response to Pin-Lee saying they are researching satellite malfunctions comes across as Ratthi is aware this is something Pin-Lee would do, but is being playful in the same way as, "Who is this?" on seeing MB without a helmet.
While to MB, it's Ratthi saying, "No you didn't." Flat denial. Much as book MB took Ratthi as not recognizing it without the helmet, "Who is this?"
MB has been watching Pin-Lee conduct analysis. MB conducts analysis. Half-assedly because it hates the Company, but certainly book MB seems to enjoy analysis once it can do it for its own purposes. 
So tv MB see's Pin-Lee conduct analysis, and speaks up in Pin-Lee's defence, and immediately regrets it.
Yes, this then tangents into the whole discussion around privacy / lack thereof, but at it's basis, MB's motivation is still to speak up for a person who is hyper focusing, and hasn't repeatedly spoken about melting it down, etc. 
Doesn't put them on the same wavelength, because there's lots of plot to go, but it's some interesting foundational leg work.
Auto Grinding
If I'm understanding correctly, when Ratthi tells Pin-Lee and Arada his level on shooter-videogame, Pin-Lee's response is to suggest that Ratthi has set up code to play the game for him so he can get to that level. 
His reaction to this statement makes me think that is exactly what Ratthi is doing. It's some interesting character development congruent as it is to the self-loathing as expressed by his rant about being too hung over for weapons training and recontextualizes his Golden Retriever surface. 
That he decides to go try to rescue Mensah is an interesting play with tropes of hyper masculinity. 
He's choosing to take action when he doesn't know what he's doing and is just as likely to be a detriment. It's action media-its video-game, I know what I'm doing. But he also compliments Arada and Pin-Lee, asks for their help, acknowledges they were right about the setting thing, isn't embarrassed to have bonked himself in the head, and cheers when they arrive / deal with other SecUnit. 
This plays into the moment when he says that Seccy is their friend. "That's right, I'm a SecUnit's friend." It's simultaneously standing up for MB, because Ratthi is a sweetie, reacting to LeBeeBee's WTF energy, but also part of the narrative that Ratthi's telling in his own head. Badass/friend to a SecUnit, yeah. 
This is a premature statement. He's not (yet). There are many miles to Babylon, and they haven't gone there and back again. 
Arada and the Wind Chimes
Arada bringing a gift for DeltFall is simultaneously profoundly midwest US "Don't show up without a casserole dish", and Proto-Indo-European guest/host obligations, and also seems somewhat idiosyncratic to Arada.
After all, it's not, they consensus discuss that they need to bring a thing as uninvited guests to DeltFall, and decide what that thing is. Arada decides to bring a thing. A thing she made out of found material. 
On one hand, it's very '70s macrame art, but simultaneously, there's that moment when the throuple (for the length of the contract) are about to go into the hopper. Ratthi wants to make way for Pin-Lee, and they want to make way for Ratthi, and Arada walks through the middle, because she'll go first per usual.
This strikes me as less neuro-spicy than Arada has made some choices about how she's going to live her life. She's not going to awkwardly do the "You, no you." thing. She's just going to go first. She made a wind chime. Giving gifts feels good. She's giving the wind chime away. 
She wants to make connections. 
It's an interesting expansion on Arada from the books who is nice, doesn't want people to be hurt, but I don't know much more about her. 
Again, that works in the books, because we are so deeply embedded in MB's point of view, but in an expanded story, getting additional characterization is useful.  
Identifiable Individuals
To get back to Privacy, when the Corporation manufactured SecUnits with unique faces, they made identifiable individuals. 
I mean, for the purposes of privacy law no SecUnit isn't a natural person, but we get into this interesting space that by hacking its governor module, MB is not freeing itself. Legally within the Corporate Rim, it is enslaved property governor module or not. Physically MB is not freeing itself, it is still on a Corporate Rim mine surrounded by Corporate Rim security / infrastructure. 
But by hacking its governor module, it is granting itself control of its own data / thoughts / choice of actions. It's taking the DSAR it has not been granted. 
Tthe tv show is making me think about MB as an identifiable individual in a way the books -- which I adore and love and have read many times -- didn't because book MB has never had a face for me. 
I mean, yes, I know it has a face, that has definitely been a key point that comes up time to time, but because maybe because 1st person narrative, I have been behind the face not in front of it. 
I get others have a definite idea what MB looks like, but, okay years ago I wrote a story that featured (among others) a sentient block of stone. She identifies female, but she is an eight foot tall obsidian monolith. Who can move (and joins a girl's sports team for plot reasons, but I have about as much sense of book MB's appearance as the monolith.
Giving it a face has been a shift in perspective that I'm not sure will carry over to reading the books, because they are very separate experiences. Only time will tell.
Creating Chronically Depressed Individuals
The opening scene of creating SecUnits was a delightfully economical way to get across to the viewer that in the Corporate Rim no one has autonomy. Humans work long indentures where individuals expect not to survive because to the corporation, they are as disposable as a construct or bot.
The way many of the workers are dressed in hazmat outfits with glassy faceplates, creates a visual similarity between humans and SecUnits. 
"Have some pride in your work," yeah, no. 
The difference between MB's narration about the control and cleanliness of the creation of SecUnits versus the reality, and yet that line about accidentally creating a chronically depressed MB gives lie to the narration. That it flashes back later to images of its creation and that it was able to reconstruct what happened while it was -- technically speaking -- dead makes me think it knows exactly how much care went into its creation. 
Also, there's an interesting punch down quality to the indentured worker telling MB's disembodied head that it will kick it's ass. The repetition of the story that SecUnit's go rogue all the time. 
Corporations have media that tells people SecUnits always go rogue. Don't trust them. 
It reminds me of race-class narrative discussions about how the elite / corporations create divides between natural allies so they don't go, "The reason my life sucks is the person with five yachts and twenty houses." and instead go, "XYZ is stealing my job! / are the reason the world is on fire." 
LeBeeBee - WTF Gurl
The only question my friends and I had after finishing watching was: EvilCorp agent or ComfortUnit/Evil Corp construct? There is no way she's on the level. 
But I do see where she is a necessary addition / divergence from the books.
Because the ASR is a very quick read, it's hard to notice that we/the characters don't actually interact with anyone from EvilCorp until very late in the story. I mean yes, fighting a SecUnit, but that's a bit different from in person interaction. 
What we get in the book is MB speculating to itself (so much internal speculation for MB) that someone pretended to be PresAux to gain access to DeltFall to kill them. Also, in the book (as here), there's a fight with an EvilCorp SecUnit, but we don't see its Corp handler. Despite having established elsewhere that SecUnits (though it can be lengthened) have a distance limit from their handlers/protectees. 
Edited -- apparently that's not how it goes in the book (as a friend reminded me on a different platform(DW), but while writing this I had such a clear image of reading this bit. Hmmm…a dream. Me being like MB remembering GanakaPit. Well, hopefully not. Anyway, in the book it's PresAux discussing to get to this realization, which shows MB-PresAux interaction, instead of a more contained MB-Mensah interaction. With that lovely little realization that it is having a conversation. Anyway… back to the original post.
So introducing obviously sus LeBeeBee allows for that very nice quick cut of tv MB talking with Mensah / speculating that EvilCorpy pretended to be PresAux kill-kill-kill, cross cut with LeBeeBee being obviously sus. 
Ominous LeBeeBee is ominous.
The part where she asks Gurathin if she can get him something from the MedUnit (and thereby get access to it - poison/drugs) or food (and thereby get access to it - poison it) is um…look she's sus. 
I sort of go two ways on LeBeeBee's sexualized conversation.
I tend to think she's being deliberately off putting so everyone avoids asking her questions. The journey back where she starts speculating on MB's non-existent pee-pee is…Jebus I have been in so many awkward conversations over the years and everyone's WTF is just so relatable. In a flight, fright, freeze, fawn, situation, they freeze / flight.
But I also think it's an indicator of punching down. I suspect LeBeeBee is indentured. I mean, I think everyone in the Corporation Rim is in some sort of contract. Like the workers who the more shifts they do (unless they die), the faster their indenture is done, this mission is more time off her indenture. The "Don't look at me / you stop looking at me," and the kiss are both retaliatory / punch down. 
As we get even deeper into speculation, if LeBeeBee is a SecUnit handler, she knows that they have faces and not other bits, and it is entirely possible that she regularly punches down / sexualizes the SecUnits under her control as a way of striking out a corporation that she can't touch. We'll find out.
MB Figuring Out Its Own Rescue
In the book, MB chooses where to shoot itself based on that being a recoverable spot, and expects as an expensive piece of equipment to be revived. 
TV MB didn't. I'm not sure I'd call it sacrificing itself exactly, because the shooting itself is very much part of the realization that it is about to lose autonomy. That it's fate is to be trapped in its own body, killing everyone, to become the stereotype of a rogue murderbot (lower case), and in it's words, "Fuck that." 
So there's this interesting quality of it going, "Why did I sacrifice myself, if I'm just going to end up there anyway." because it does not yet trust PresAux to be capable of saving it. But they are.
I really love that Bharadwaj is getting a highlight here.
In the books, she's this sort of second-remove character where MB will talk about talking with her, about things / the documentary, but there's very little in person dialog. So the series is doing a great job of characterizing her for me in a way the books (as novellas in 1st person) don't have room for, and I'd like to carry over into my thinking when I re-read the books the next time.
Why is Pres-Aux on Survey?
Rewatching Ep 3, reminded me that I really like that tv show adds Mensah talking about how some people in PresAux want to join the CorpRim, and Preservation Alliance is resource…"not rich" as an explanation for why Pres-Aux is there and that provides a context to something that isn't really explained in the the books / MB don't care.
To wit, why are they surveying the planet at all?
Preservation Alliance took an option on the planet, for which they had to go through the CorpRim. Why? Mensah's speciality is terraforming. Why go to this planet?
Neither book nor tv Mensah want to take on a SecUnit, but they want to go enough to agree.
Why? 
The tv show gives a possible answer.
Preservation Alliance may be consensual, socialistic/basic income, but also not infinite in resources, and humans are by nature fallible. We don't always think through the consequences of things. Like the paternalistic way Preservation Alliance defines construct/bot rights.
It gets at that sometimes, because people have needs, we compromise on our principles to get something or avoid something. 
By explicitly articulating that PresAux has a reason to be there, that opens up more plot path arcs for the other characters in future (please) seasons. 
But also opens up some of the internal conflict we're seeing in the episodes so far. MB is a person, but that is an abstract concept. Its you support immigrant rights in social media versus you contact your reps in support of immigrant rights/donate/volunteer/are ready to go to a protest at an ICE detention facility where you expect to be pepper sprayed and arrested. 
So to bring us back around, when the moment comes down to it, there are discussions about whether to rescue MB or not. Pin-Lee with Mensah, and later back at PresAux. 
Principles are a first step. Action based on principles is harder the more personal cost there is the principle and the show is illuminating that beautifully. 
So its a very lovely touch of Mensah knowing what she has to do to stick to her principles, but she's afraid. Having Mensah just go do the action, puts her in the realm of the unrealistic space adventurer. A title she explicitly rejects.
That there are physical consequences before after living up to principles is part of the reality of the thing.
Hair
Can't express how much I loved MB's little Sanctuary Moon delusion. It gave itself a Pike's peak, huzzah. 
So not to deny what I already said, but the MB's physical characteristic I remember the most from the book is from Artificial Condition where it spends pages talking about not having body hair. Not an offhand reference, pages
Which is why I am very delighted Alexander Skarsgard (on his own it sounds like) got full body waxed because he grokked that it's something MB has thought about / thinks about / will think about. 
So giving MB a Pike's Peak in the fantasy is fascinating. That's bouffant. That's glowing colors. That's bright visuals. That's MB's happy place. Also, possibly one that got deleted by the combat override. 
It's not real that moment with the intrepid Captain Mensah with the amazing braid. MB isn't quite ready for real interaction.  
Sanctuary Moon in General
The show within the show reminds me so much of the science fiction dramas that I loved (adored, sang along to) as a kid/young adult. It's ST:OS, which I watched obsessively whenever it was on, and it's Buck Rogers (where is Princess Ardala with her Space-Dynasty clothes?), and Logan's Run (with the future-mini van), and original Battlestar Galactica (space angels!), and…so many cheesy shows that didn't make it past half a season. 
It's big and over the top and I'm right there with you MB. Unashamedly love the thing you love. 
Seeing MB articulate that hyper fixation is so lovely, and the more it opens up about it, defends it, the better.
Because my absolute favorite scene from the book is where Ratthi very cleverly establishes MB is watching the show by bringing up a plot point that you just know in universe fandom circles was this huge flamewar thing.
It's watching the show. 
It's loving the show.
What Gurathin, you don't know Sanctuary Moon.
Crap, you say.
Them's fighting words.
Seeing it even subtly expanded on with additional details was lovely. I also understand why they delay learning MB's private name for itself. The viewer/characters are already about to the shock of SecUnit lifting Guarthin by the neck, it softens the scene a bit, but also gives us chance for Gurathin to reveal the information later.
Again, that's a private name, and this is such a show and book series with an understanding of privacy issues. Because the loss of privacy of that information could be detrimental to MB. It named itself Murderbot, and they are depending on it for safety. 
Anyway, looking forward to the delayed reveal. 
Out in the Open
I'm fascinated by how MBs speech cadence changes with the combat unit forward. There's a lot less speech wobble, hesitancy. Once it spits out that they need to kill it, it's speech is much smoother.
First, declarations, such as letting Guarthin know that it doesn't like him. Ah, my poor traumatized character, you and Gura are very similar and that's why. Also, he's been a jerk to you for completely understandable reasons, but I understand not liking someone who has said that he wants to have you melted down for parts at the end of the mission. I mean, MB wasn't there, but I assume MB watched that. I also assume Gurathin of anyone knew that MB would see / hear him say that. 
The dynamics of that scene are mostly interesting to me because of Mensah. She de-escalates the scene (just as she does in the book) to get MB to let Gurathin go.
But then the show extends on the interaction. She negotiates for MB to continue to protect them, because they need MB. 
In this moment, she shows she respects MB's autonomy and ability to say no. Offers it something it will want, help to get away from the Company. 
She continues on the trend of asking MB to do things and successfully getting the result she (her people) need, while doing so in a way that lets me/the viewer know she's uncomfortable with its attack on Gurathin.
Lets Go Set Off a Bomb
I think MB set itself up a bit for the conversation about Mensah's kids. It's the reverse of the conversation with Arada out of the worm pit that revealed its face to the team.
Mensah is trying to create connection by talking about her kids. Before broaching more serious subjects. Also, I think it speaks to Mensah being from a society that welcomes/accepts/celebrates sharing, interaction, community, emotion.
Doylistially, it also gives Mensah an opportunity to self-correct using one of her children's pronouns, which is a nice touch.
But um, MBs not ready to talk about her kids. 
But they do have a conversation. It's first. Back and forth. Ideas. Recognizable because of shows. While also, setting up for the non-book reading audience LeBeeBee's deal. 
All as prelude before getting to Mensah's actual point, the subject of, "Hey, choking Gurathin, not cool." 
Alas, this is a serial and a giant bomb (that's what a rocket can be) interrupt. 
Until more revelations next week. 
Well, two weeks from now for me.
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madamscream · 2 months ago
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Many people think that the sloth is the slowest moving mammal on the planet. It’s actually me. Anyways, here's that list of erotic fanfiction I promised @trashy-corvian way too long ago. It's not complete but I've somehow become sort of busy and I figure I can always do a part two!
Since we’re talking about my favourites, there’s going to be a lot of Barbatos, monster-fucking, and dominant!reader. I Know What I Am About.
Will offer the pairing(s), a blurb, and information on reader gender if that’s relevant. As for kinks, please check the tags in any fic before reading, I literally have no way of accounting for everyone’s tastes and I enjoy some odd things. 
If a fic covers most of the cast but excludes some, I’ll list that instead of a pairing. None of the links have anything sexual with Luke, but I’ll still list him in the exclusions if I’m listing exclusions.
Lessons in Demonic Anatomy by Sexxica (tumblr)
MC has no gender, their genitals are not mentioned. Luke, Raphael, Mephistopheles, and Thirteen aren’t in the fic, but everyone else is.
One of my favourite, if not my very favourite smut fic because… I like reading about people jacking off, and this is basically a list of my favourite characters doing that. They are all amply aware they’re being watched, it’s all consensual. A+, have kinda wanted to write my own fic along a similar premise since reading it.
—
wear your independence like a crown by Koumine (thesecretsavant) on Ao3
Lucifer x MC
Written in second-person, the reader has a vagina, gender-neutral though Sir is the chosen title for MC.
I’m pretty eh on Lucifer, but people write some really tasty smut for him. A friend sent me this one, and they were correct to do so. By and large, it’s a collection of explicit scenes between the two that take place over time. It’s well written and the author has at very least done a lot of research into BDSM relationships if they don’t partake in them personally, which is always nice to see in a BDSM fic.
—
Mammon's First and Mammon’s Second by Avatar_Saiki
Mammon x MC
Gender neutral MC, no genitals mentioned for them.
Set shortly after the taming of Cerberus in Nightbringer. Mammon gets a blowjob. Genuinely really good characterization of the brothers and the MC is fun. The blowjob is nice, but I like the conversation between Asmodeus and Mammon ABOUT the blowjob best, because it’s honestly pretty cute imho.
Warm Inside and Out by HiddenOnyx
Gender neutral MC, implied to have a vagina in some of them. Luke, Raphael, Thirteen, and Mephisto are not included.
It occurs to me I’m sort of handing out a very public kink list. Anyways, this is a series of drabbles about cockwarming with the cast.
Kinktober: Obey Me Edition by InvertedPhantasmagoria (tumblr)
Possibly varied on the pronoun/genital situation, honestly not sure. Everyone but Luke, Raph, Mephisto, and Thirteen.
I will not lie, I haven’t read every entry because I just don’t like some of the kinks. The ones I do like are very good though! To no one’s surprise, chapter 31 is my favourite. They’re good at capturing desperation, which is something I enjoy GREATLY.
How do you like your tea? by wubzee
SolomonxBarbatos
I’m a sucker for aphrodisiac fics. Barb + Golden Hellfire Newt Syrup + Solomon’s a bastard. I’d say this is pretty non-con. It’s been a while since I read it properly, but skimming through… it’s pretty non-con.
carpe dick-em by wubzee
LuciferxSolomon (though I don’t think that ever happens actually)
Okay… so… to be fair… when I initially asked someone for the link to the Lucifer erectile dysfunction fic they mentioned, I was not actually aware of the clown fetish aspect. I like clowns just fine, but I am not personally horny about them. Despite the fact that there is next to nothing in this fic I would ever seek out, I did end up really enjoying it. And I’ve just noticed wubzee is on here twice so maybe I should read the rest of their stuff.
Arvandus writes really good Barbatos fanfiction. Also other things too, just… I have a particular area of interest.  As far as smut…
Of Love and Pacts the smut is great, of course, but I read this and my brain has not stopped riffing on the concept since. Making a pact mid-intercourse? Fucking amazing, no notes. Other things also, but it’d be kinda wild to put spoilers in my fic rec…
The Divine is fun because the first half of the fic is a date, deals with mortality, and made me cry like a baby. Then the second half hit me with some of the best-written smut anyone’s ever put to paper. Amazing. I wish all fics were like this… or maybe I just wish someone would pay Arv millions of dollars to write fics about Barb as a full time job.
Really can’t go wrong with earthliving, aka another-lost-mc
If I had to pick favourites… 
Angels at the Door tops the list. Something about characters listening to someone fuck the person they’re into and jacking off to it the next room over is entirely too lovely.
For Your Ears Only I don’t have any specific praises for this one, the whole thing is very nice.
Put A Spell On You I may or may not rotate the bit about Barbatos excusing himself around in my head More Days Than Not 
Got Milk? probably isn’t a favourite out of all their works for me personally but it did spark a very long series of daydreams and thus Must Be Mentioned
Human by getosubaru
Barb x MC, no pronouns but MC has a vagina
I asked a friend for their favourite fics and they happened to drop this one in my lap that I’ve been looking for for AGES. It’s pretty vanilla compared to a lot of the other stuff but it kicked down the door and made a home in my brain.
Various things by frenchfry_writes
Special shout out. They no longer write for the fandom, but they wrote good fic for a lot of very niche kinks that I like a lot and several that will make me tap out of a fic instantly. Often wrote AMAB or trans male reader. I’m not really warning for specific kinks in this list, but piss and vomit are a lot for many people (me included and I’m actively into omorashi) so like… they write for various watersports and emeto. Be aware of that. 
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Special note: There’s one I skimmed my entire Ao3 history trying to find to no avail, to my severe distress. It’s largely about learning through experiencing how courtship works in the Devildom… Mammon leaves MC the heart of a big bird on their bed, then kills a guy for them. Levi kills a BUNCH of guys for them and they do the nasty while one of the corpses is floating in his floor-to-ceiling aquarium. If anyone knows where I can find that one again, I’d really like to have it back, it had some interesting world building :c I really hope it wasn't deleted.
EDIT: cosmicstarlatte comin' in clutch "the levi fic (you can then click the author for the others): https://archiveofourown.org/works/38520418"
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friend-of-a-cat · 1 year ago
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So... I'm doing research for a piece of creative non-fiction (a personal essay) I'm writing for one of my uni assignments about the fact that I'm asexual and demiromantic and think that we, as a wider society, have gotten the concepts of love and attraction all wrong, and I've been researching more into the split attraction model because, well, I see it as something that's important and relevant, and this came up in my Google search:
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The initial red flag of this article is the fact that it's on BetterHelp. I didn't see this at first, and did a double take.
Anyway, the first thing I would like to ask is: what are these 'cons'? As far as I'm concerned, there are none. I understand that, for many people, romantic and sexual attraction are intrinsically linked, but, for many, they're not, and the split attraction model existing doesn't harm the former - it helps the latter. The latter includes people who are on the asexual and/or aromantic spectrums, as well as people who are, for example, heteromantic and bisexual, panromantic and homosexual, biromantic and heterosexual, etc. - basically anyone whose experiences differ between their romantic and sexual attraction.
I do find it a bit annoying that, when many people talk about both of these kinds of attraction, they lump them into one 'label', which is mostly [something]sexual (e.g. heterosexual, homosexual, etc.). But, for them, the two are linked, so referring to themselves as [something]sexual to cover both seems fine and dandy. Which... it is. However, I find it wild that people don't realise that, despite the fact that the two may seem linked to them, they are actually two different experiences. People who are both alloromantic and allosexual should be able to see this, right? They can think someone is sexually attractive yet not be romantically attracted to or want to date them. That is a thing that can happen.
Anyway, I decided to read through the article. It isn't bad, per se - much of the information is useful, and it seemed to be quite positive. Until I got to the 'cons':
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Now, I'm not really into the discourse surrounding the split attraction model - in fact, I didn't realise there was discourse surrounding it. This is because I tend to, either accidently or on purpose, avoid discourse in general. But... 'oversexualisation'? In what context? If anything, not using the split attraction model would be considered 'oversexualisation' (even though I don't think that that is, either - I honestly don't know why this word has been brought up here) due to the fact that many people focus on sexual attraction over any kind of attraction and use it to cover romantic attraction, too, when they talk about it. I genuinely have no idea what they are referring to here.
In regard to the second point: what? Attraction is complex. That's the whole thing. The split attraction model makes it less complex for many people. It allows people to figure out who they are and have the terminology to be able to voice it. Attraction is a spectrum and so is gender. Of course both of them are going to be complex. Society made both of them rigid in the first place, so breaking out of those rigidities is going to be confusing for everyone. The split attraction model helps people understand themselves, and I would like to think it helps them understand others. Everyone benefits.
I don't know if I can speak much on the third point, as I'm not familiar with the discourse, as I previously mentioned, and don't really know what it entails. Though, in saying this... what do they mean? When has asexuality - or aromanticism, for that matter - ever been prioritised over other queer identities? There's a severe lack of discussion and education surrounding both of them. That's just a fact. People who are asexual and/or aromantic are oftentimes even shunned by the wider queer community they are a part of. I don't really have much more to add on this point because I'm so confused by it. By the way, this article barely talks about aromanticism, despite the fact that it's an important part of this model, too.
The last point is just a rehash of the second point. If I was told about any of this stuff growing up, I would have realised I was ace and demiromantic from the start. Instead, I realised I was ace a few years ago after watching Jaiden Animations' video about the fact that she's aroace (I don't want to use the term 'coming out' here because, frankly, I hate it - I'll save that rant for another time). I only realised I was demiromantic in the past month after... realising that people getting romantic crushes on and/or falling in love with someone when they barely know them is actually a thing that happens and isn't fake. These two terms fit me best at the moment, and explain everything. If I had've known these terms as a teenager, that would have been great. The split attraction model helped me so much in breaking down myself and my identity, and offered me the foundation I needed to ask myself questions. Yeah, attraction and gender are confusing - I said it before, and I'll say it again. But why would you cast something so helpful aside? That will only hinder people - both those who are struggling with their own identity and those who are trying to understand the identities of others. Education surrounding the complexities and spectrums of attraction and gender are so important, and this model will help people teach other people about attraction.
I also read a bunch of hate comments, as one does whenever they go on Reddit or Twitter or literally any social media platform ever, regarding the split attraction model. This didn't surprise me. These specific people seem to hate this model because... well, I don't really know. They were mostly spewing aphobia. I don't think a single one had a constructive point. Also, most of the search results for 'split attraction model' on Google are actually critiques of it, or articles talking about critiques of it and being on the fence. Come on, people. Do better.
Anyway, the split attraction model is important. Education is important. Allowing people to figure out who they are and express it is important. This should all go without saying.
That is all.
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panharmonium · 3 months ago
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you and i have both found precious friends, haven't we?
every so often, i get the urge to journal out insignificant fandom annoyances. i rarely have the time and generally manage to resist because, again: insignificant. extremely so. none of this is remotely important.
however, stumbling into bad fandom "takes" on the scene i'm about to discuss has prompted me to gnash my teeth so often ("how many times am i going to have to see people refusing to actually read the text?" i repeat to myself over and over) that i'm finally going to just get it out of my system. (i'm making it non-rebloggable, though. me happily typing up my own thoughts on my own blog does not equate to an invitation for internet strangers to debate inconsequential fandom opinions with me. i just like writing things down.)
anyway. i find it deeply frustrating when people complain about kakashi saying "the ones most precious to me have already been killed" as if they think it means he doesn't recognize or value the new bonds he's made, when two panels later he finishes his speech by doing just that.
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it's literally the ENTIRE point kakashi is making. we've lost so much - but that's not all there is.
i don't understand how this scene became such a magnet for willful misreads. people either fixate on kakashi saying "the ones most precious to me have already been killed" and don't read beyond that panel, or they fixate on him sharing a relevant piece of his life experience with sasuke and then accuse him of "projecting," or they claim that this is a failed teaching moment when it demonstrably, textually is not! hours later, after the sun has gone down and the moon has risen, sasuke is voluntarily still sitting there, thinking about naruto and sakura, questioning the hold his quest for vengeance against itachi has had on him all his life.
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this entire sequence was one of my favorite scenes when i watched/read part 1, and it was so bizarre when i broke my fandom isolation after finishing the story and saw some of the blatantly non-textual takes people had on it. there are people who talk about this scene as if kakashi waltzes in here and tells sasuke that their situations are exactly the same and orders him to "get over it." there are also people who talk about this scene as if sasuke's role in it ends with and is defined solely by his reflexive "what do you know about it?" rejection of kakashi's earlier advice. neither of these takes are remotely accurate descriptions of what happens on the page.
at no point does kakashi say "i know exactly how you feel." there is no point in this conversation where he tries to equate their situations. what he does say is "the ones most precious to me have already been killed...i know the pain of losing somebody more than i'd like to." both of these are true statements, and both of them are offered only after sasuke's highly charged, furious threat to kill the people kakashi cares about, which kakashi (CORRECTLY) interprets as sasuke's way of accusing him of not being able to understand his feelings until he's experienced the pain of loss.
kakashi answers sasuke's threat with that calm, nonconfrontational disclosure of his personal history because sasuke asked him to do so. sasuke asked "why should i listen to you??? what do you know about how much this hurts?" and kakashi doesn't brush that accusation off or say "you just have to listen to me, period, because i'm in charge"; he answers the question! he says "that's fair. here's what I've experienced. here's what i've found, after living through it." and then he steps back to let sasuke reflect on it and decide what to do next.
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just because the characters in this story don't use the kind of therapeutic feelings-speak that people think defines healthy conversations doesn't mean something is missing from this interaction. the text is VERY clear about the fact that kakashi makes a successful connection with sasuke here. kakashi's disclosure snaps sasuke out of his rage. it allows sasuke, who is hurting so badly that he can't see anything outside his own pain, to experience a momentary window of clarity - to catch a glimpse of the world outside the cage his grief has constructed around him. sasuke is so activated at the beginning of this scene, incapable of listening or recognizing anything that isn't his own hurt, but the minute he hears kakashi's calm admission that the people he loves most have already been killed, all that anger dissipates. suddenly, for a brief moment, he can see. suddenly he's listening. suddenly he's genuinely thinking about what kakashi is saying.
i know some people would prefer their version of sasuke to get up and throw kakashi's counsel back in his face and march out of the village with his middle finger raised to everyone he's leaving behind, but that's not what happens. that's not how sasuke feels about this conversation. that's not the effect this interaction has on him. he's not sitting there listening to kakashi's gentle disclosure of personal information and thinking "what an asshole; he's trying to minimize my trauma!!!" he's genuinely affected. his perspective is altered. his teacher does precisely what teachers are supposed to do: give their students something to think about! and sasuke recognizes it as something that's worth considering!
does it keep him in the village? no, but that wasn't the purpose of the conversation. when kakashi and sasuke speak, there's no inkling in anyone's mind that sasuke might leave - not even sasuke is planning to do that. the purpose of this intervention is to address the conflict on top of the hospital, where sasuke let himself get so out of control that he attacked naruto with a lethal-sized chidori, nearly killing sakura in the process. kakashi doesn't have to know that orochimaru is about to make a play for sasuke's allegiance to know that sasuke's current situation is a disaster waiting to happen. he isn't "projecting" by recognizing that sasuke is in danger of hurting somebody (or himself!), and it's completely appropriate for him, as the adult in charge, to start addressing that. nor is he "projecting" by correctly recognizing that sasuke is going through a similar change to one he himself experienced, in that sasuke is being drawn out of his isolation and into genuinely caring about his teammates. those are just the observable facts of the situation. sasuke was the first one to pass kakashi's bell test. he sacrificed himself for naruto in the land of waves. he landed himself in the hospital by trying to protect naruto from itachi. right before that, he almost died trying to save sakura from gaara:
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"you and i have both found precious friends, haven't we?"
kakashi can see that sasuke's bonds to his new friends have become strong enough that they might actually be capable of displacing the self-destructive desires that have been controlling him for so long. and yet there are still people who talk about the tree scene as if kakashi is wrong or deluded for choosing to have this conversation with sasuke now - as if the things he tells sasuke are trite or irrelevant or insensitive, as if sasuke isn't in PRECISELY the right place in his growth process to hear "your desire for revenge has started to hurt you and the people you care about. are you sure this is what you want?" in the past, sasuke might not have been ready to consider that question, but now - look at how hard he fights for his friends! look at how he refers to them! "my precious comrades," he says, when he used to consider them so beneath him.
it's time. when he first met team 7, he didn't have anything to counter itachi's pull on him, but now he does. he's at a crossroads. this is the right moment for him to hear what kakashi says to him here, especially when kakashi is able to say it in such a calm, neutral way. it would be negligent for kakashi not to say it, after what just happened. sasuke almost killed one of his teammates that morning. it is not malicious for an adult whose responsibility it is to keep these twelve year-olds from hurting themselves to tell sasuke, "i know it hurts. but what you're doing right now is going to end badly." or: "the power i entrusted you with is not to be used to hurt your friends."
and once again, crucially - the text is clear that sasuke hears him. sasuke absorbs what he's being offered. he is still sitting there, thinking about his friends, questioning his old goals, fighting the powerful pull of his revenge, until orochimaru's minions show up and do something that kakashi never did - manipulate him so someone else can use him for their benefit. orochimaru's minions prey on sasuke's pain in order to push him down a path that benefits orochimaru, but kakashi speaks to sasuke plainly and honestly, without judgment or self-interest. his only concern is sasuke's well-being. (you wouldn't know it, though, to hear some of fandom's hot takes.)
the thing is: everything people claim they want this scene to be is already there. "if only kakashi had used this opportunity to connect with sasuke - " that is exactly what happened. you're lamenting the absence of something that is in fact the text. no, it doesn't look like a scene in a fanfic where kakashi sits sasuke down for tea and helps him unpack all his traumatic experiences and offers lots of verbal reassurance that sasuke's emotions are Valid and he is here to Support Him No Matter What, because that kind of explicit emotional exploration would be wildly inconsistent with the source material. you have to approach stories from the inside to legitimately appreciate what they're trying to say. you have to accept their rules. and in this story's context, in no way is this scene meant to convey "kakashi's so out of touch; he totally missed the mark on this talk." this scene, as written, is a powerful moment between him and sasuke, where sasuke does hear what kakashi is saying and takes it to heart, and chews on it, and fights to believe it. ultimately, thanks to some last-minute interference from people who want sasuke to continue suffering because it advances their interests, it isn't enough to save him.
but that's not a condemnation of either party. it's the narrative, and it rocks.
i love this scene. i love how kakashi lets sasuke snarl and shout at him without ever biting back, without ever escalating, always staying quiet and calm. i love how patient he is, how an angry kid with no clue about kakashi's personal background says cutting things like "if i killed the people most precious to you then you'd understand that you don't know shit," and yet kakashi never bristles - he has no ego, no self-interest; he absorbs the anger without protest and responds by offering a private piece of himself. i love the way sasuke's expression instantly transforms from enraged, to stunned, to softened. i love how kakashi is able to tell sasuke "no" with such compassion, every time he has to say it. i love how he still believes in sasuke and gives him space to reflect and make decisions on his own. i love how even the sealing jutsu kakashi placed around orochimaru's curse mark requires sasuke's consent for it to function ("you have to want it to work"). i love how badly sasuke wants team 7 to be enough for him. i love how desperately he wants to be free. he's trying so hard.
it's so frustrating to see complaints about this scene written by people who aren't actually reading it, or who are dead set on interpreting it in direct contradiction to the text. there are enough ungenerous "takes" out there on various aspects of naruto as it is (sakura, you have my forever sympathy). criticizing this sequence in defiance of what it actually shows us on the page has never struck me as a particularly accurate or useful way of appreciating the story.
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abstractdiagram · 2 months ago
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i fail to understand how you can support harry potter after all the things JKR has done to the trans community. watching it gives her money, writing fic about it keeps it relevant and makes more people interact with her content, which puts money in her pockets. that money goes directly into anti-trans laws. i hope you know that what you're doing still supports her and harms every trans person you know. there are no excuses, none
I don’t understand cancel culture. Too many creators in my life have turned out to be horrible people for me to delete their works from my life. Bill Cosby turned out to be scum, but that doesn’t change that when I was little we’d listen to his comedy albums for fun. I can’t delete that positive time for me just because he’s awful. Same for Neil Gaiman. That was devastating but I still read the books I have because they’re good, despite him being bad. JKR is an unmitigated twat but that doesn’t mean that my continuing to write for an existing audience is going to victimize anyone. I highly doubt anyone would specifically search for non-canonical m/m smut fiction for a fandom they’re not already familiar with but if I inadvertently cause someone to get into the HP fandom, I hope they get used copies of the books. I haven’t purchased an actual product or book or anything from the franchise in… over a decade and a half I think. I’ve had the books since most of their release dates and just kept them. I don’t like the movies so I don’t have them. My minor purchases over previous years hardly pay JKR squat and the fact that I haven’t purchased anything likely makes no difference in the bottom line. I don’t go to Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-a either but they’re trucking along anyway.
I also don’t understand how someone which such a massive dislike for all things JKR and HP would just happen across my insignificant blog without specifically searching for the tags I used. If you don’t like it, don’t read it please. I give tabs and warnings for what I post.
I’m not angry about this note. I’m really not. I mean no sarcasm and no irritability on my part in writing this post. I do my best to support my beliefs and I love my trans cousin and his trans husband. I’m just making my way along like everyone else and if someone becomes problematic after their career affects me (Gaiman, Cosby, etc) then I stop buying new content and I don’t defend them. But I can’t and shouldn’t have to permanently erase all works, memories, items, references because they’re assholes. That money is spent, those memories are made and for the few shitty fanfics I’ve written, well those aren’t exactly raking in the new readers that don’t already know the IP.
If you truly believe that once a person reveals that they’re predators or anti-something that you believe in or alien drag queens from beyond the moon then you have to drop and hate everything they’ve ever created, well, please drop me. I’m not a rapist and I’m inclusive to pretty much anyone (except certain political/religious people. If you think someone should die just because they exist, fuck right off away from me). But I’m agnostic and have reasons to dislike organized religion (enough for some to cancel me right there) and I won’t give up things I already have or have done from now-toxic fandoms. I don’t protest or march or petition or walk for causes that I believe in 99% of the time (though that’s mostly because I’m at work at night and either don’t know it’s a thing until too late or I’m sleeping). Some would even say I’m a bad person. Shit, I was arrested twice as a young teen for shoplifting. I eat THC/CBD gummies for fun. I’ve been so blackout drunk in the past that I don’t remember whole nights. I swear, I lie, I hate most politicians. I’m not a great human!
TL;DR. Your opinion is yours. That’s fine. I have mine. We will never meet in the middle because we are diametrically opposed. I don’t want to waste our time arguing over something neither of us will change. Please don’t seek out tags that actively piss you off and I won’t post without tags.
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cpvnksabm · 7 months ago
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i think sometimes rtc fans (fic writers especially) who are aware they aren't disability experts will try to "play it safe" and avoid depicting anything that could end up being offensive or inaccurate, because they'd rather not handle something at all than risk handling it badly. i understand this approach, and don't get me wrong, it's a good thing to want to avoid offending people - and it's also a good thing to be aware of when you don't know enough about something to write about it.
but it's upsetting when ricky is sidelined or excluded because people don't know how to depict him. and "include ricky but avoid going into detail about his disability" isn't a perfect solution either - for shorter fics it tends to work fine, but in longer fics, it becomes noticeable when something hasn't been mentioned. ricky's disability would realistically affect his life in many ways, such that if you're depicting him realistically for an extended period it's likely it will be relevant at some point.
on top of that, sometimes the "play it safe, don't do anything that could be problematic" approach extends to people removing parts of canon* that they think may be problematic. and i'm in favour of improving/ignoring the shitty parts of canon, but this needs to be done carefully and with a good understanding of what specifically needs improving and why, because sometimes it's a fine line between "removing the shitty parts of canon" and "erasing disability representation". there are some issues where, even if canon was flawed in its depiction of something, erasing/ignoring it is actually worse.
*when i say canon i mean the 2016-2018 script. i feel we've all agreed that the ableist 2022 script changes are non-canon for obvious reasons
one example of this is ocean's canonical ableism, and how often it's just ignored by the fandom. i think sometimes people are unsure how to handle it respectfully, or feel like it shouldn't have been in the musical in the first place. and different disabled people have different opinions on how well it was handled in canon, i have mixed feelings myself, but regardless of if it was handled well or not, i don't think making her some sort of Perfect Disability Ally Who Loves Ricky in fanworks is a good solution. because as a disabled person, i don't see ocean's ableism as something trivial that can be easily removed, and when people do casually remove it, i find it to be dismissive & minimizing of a real problem. it makes me uncomfortable.
which is funny because i'm sure, at least some of the time, people go with this depiction of ocean because they don't want to risk making any disabled people uncomfortable by depicting ableism!
basically what i'm trying to say here is: when you're depicting a disabled character, you have to make a lot of choices about how to depict them. and if you're scared of accidentally handling something badly, you might try to set it up so you don't have to make a choice on how to depict it, because it just isn't relevant - because ocean was never ableist in your headcanon, or because ricky's disability never impacts him in the story you're trying to tell, or because ricky barely appears in your fanworks anyway.
but choosing not to make a choice is still a choice. when you can't decide how to handle ocean's ableism, so you just don't acknowledge it - that's a choice! when you can't decide how ricky's disability would affect him beyond what we see in canon, so you just avoid going into detail about it, that's a choice. and sometimes the choices that you see as "playing it safe" and "not offending anyone" are, in fact, making some readers uncomfortable - disability representation is very rarely something as simple as "go with the safe option that cant possibly offend anyone", and avoiding showing disability is not a good approach.
and to be clear i am absolutely not saying i think everyone should have to go into full detail on how ricky's disability (& ableism) affects him in every fic. that would create its own set of problems. i think it's important for able-bodied people to be aware that some stories about the disabled perspective are not their story to tell.
but there's a lot of middle ground between "fic entirely focused on depicting disabled experiences in detail" and "ricky's disability is barely mentioned, his backstory is edited to remove ableism references, ocean is his best friend who was never ableist"! having some exploration of ricky's disability as background info or side details can really elevate representation - some of my favourite rtc fics ever are ones where, even if ricky's disability is never plot-important, it was always handled with care and there were clearly no points where the author could have forgotten he was disabled.
i don't have an easy solution here that makes this simple. but i do have some important advice:
just because something can be depicted badly doesn't mean it's always inherently wrong to depict it. there's a big difference between, for example, "the rtc writers could have done a better job handling ocean's ableism in the musical" and "ableism should never be shown in fiction, it was wrong for them to show it on-stage and we must never show it in-fic". there is really no need to entirely avoid something just because it could be done badly.
as i said at the start, it is a good idea to be aware of when you don't know enough about something to write about it accurately. but this doesn't mean you can never write about it, it means you can learn! research is super important and super helpful, and a lot of strictly factual stuff (i.e. the effects of neuromuscular disorders) can be found on a quick google search. writing advice specifically can be harder to find, since it's more opinion-based, but i find you can find a lot of general posts on tumblr and other social media
If you've tried doing research but there's something you don't understand, or you want to depict a really specific situation that nobody has made a general post about - you can ask! my asks are open for this exact subject! another knowledgeable person in the fandom, @icepoptroll , also has asks open and has given me permission to @ them
if you ever DO accidentally come across as ableist or just misinformed... it's not the end of the world. you can receive criticism, and you can listen to that criticism. this happens to everyone because nobody is perfect. you can apologise if necessary, you can go back and edit your own work to make it more respectful if you see a need to do so! while cyberbullying & harassment in fandoms does happen sometimes, most people aren't looking to "cancel" you, and most people will be understanding when you make mistakes.
so if you tend to sideline ricky, or write around his disability, because you're not sure how to tackle it and you're afraid of getting it wrong - please reconsider. there are things you can do to better equip yourself! ricky doesn't have to be a main character, nor does disability have to be the main subject of a fic, but it shouldn't be ignored entirely.
go forth and be brave in your depictions! thanks for reading!
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stelladess · 1 year ago
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EDIT: I only now found there are more complete translations of the new lorebook, that may alter things here quite a bit depending on if it touches on relevant stuff. Ill probably write a more easy to follow and updated version of this post when I got less schoolwork anyway so yeah. Arknights Theory: The nature of the Lord of Fiends powers and the purpose of the black crown. IDK how to spoiler and non of what I find onlines helps with that so just know... spoilers ahead. I also wanna say that I havnt double checked a lot of this stuff, I did for some of it but id like to re-read a bunch of this when some of the CN only stuff has come to global anyway. So take with a grain of salt is all im saying that I remember right since I dont remember exactly where to find all of this info, altough I will mentioned where I thought I got it from for various evidence. So tl;dr here is that I think Amiya´s powers is actually about manipulating originium, the memory, emotion and energy blasts (also making a sword) is all extensions of that and NOT fully distinct powers like some believe, also the Lord of Fiends has to have oripathy. Also the black crown was made by Priestess to eventually facilitate her resurrection and the reason doctor convinced Theresa to transfer her powers to Amiya was part of that plan. Now, why do I think all this? Starting on Amiya´s powers. While dialogue indicates some skilled casters *can* learn multiple types of arts, Amiya is not a skilled caster. She is very powerful but not particularily skilled at it. Her powers are ALL derived from the originium arts her oripathy and Lord of Fiends nature grants her. She also had all these powers pretty much from moment 1 it seems so it seems unlikely she learned it trough practice to do many different things. So its likely one ability that is just very broad in its usage, similarily to how Rosmontis´s powers work (if I remember right Kal´tsit even says their powers are very similar in nature). Amiya can do energy blasts, view memories and sense emotions... according to Kal´tsit in chapter 7 the way sarkaz prophecies work is basically that thoughts are stored in originium allowing other sarkaz to tap into the memories in that originium to calculate a likely outcome with multiple people´s brains. So originium can store thoughts/minds. And by extension memory would be a part of that. There is also clearly stuff relating to the dead but ive heard several CN server events have gone into that more so I dont wanna speak about anything regarding dead souls until that comes to global because I do not wanna go reading very complicated lore stuff in a language I dont understand really, so ill adjust or drop this theory as nescesary based on future information of course. So, then the emotions and memory stuff is covered, making the sword is also simple, its just made of originium. So the energy blasts? Well the main way originium is used is as a power source and its required to cast arts for those without oripathy (who have originium inside them to channel arts anyway). Another piece of evidence here is that Manfred could disrupt Amiya´s arts with his own, which seem to revolve around detonating or manipulating the energy in originium, allowing him to harm Amiya when she tried to gather up energy from nearby originium. When she pushes herself extra hard she probably draws extra power from the originium in her own body, which is why it has such a negative effect on her physically even compared to other casters. This, and a bit from the new lorebook revealing the first Lord of Fiends was the first person with Oripathy, is why I think the Lord of Fiends HAS to have Oripathy.
So, with that established, why do I think the Black Crown is meant to resurrect Priestess? First of all, the Black Crown or Civilight Etherna, is tech from the advanced precursor civilization (it was not found by them but invented by them, its directly referenced as a different project to the AMa projects, which is part of what Kal´tsit is refered to by certain beings in the know about the previous civilization, the crown also resembles Mon3tr in appearance). Its stated in Amiya´s module that its purpose is to store information, memories and emotion. And we know for a fact that they were capable of brain uploading, as seen with Friston in Lonetrail. Its original purpose was as a historical record, but that doesnt mean it cant have been altered later. Priestess is stated by Friston to have created Originium, something we will likely learn more about in the Victoria arc on account of certain reveals in chapter 13. Since Originium is so closely linked to the crown, by virtue of the first infected being the first Lord of Fiends, originium was clearly created in relation to something to do with the Crown. And well.. when Priestess put the doctor into the sarcophagus she said they would be reunited and their love would outlast the stars. Despite her seeming convinced she would die.... Kal´tsit seems to have been either created or turned into what she is now by Priestess too, or well by their people at least. But for dramatic convenience I think Priestess makes the most sense. I think the crown getting linked to the sarkaz collective unconcious/dead souls (this is the part im most uncertain about because there is so little info on this on global especially) was NEVER part of the plan. Since it seems likely the previous civilization created the ancients (animal people) to drive the sarkaz away (and also be slave labour, this isnt like 100% confirmed but there is some hints for this) I suspect they saw the sarkaz as lower beings and had never considered the crown would link up with them. So I think the original purpose was that some sort of great calamity fell upon their people, Priestess tried to store her mind in the Black Crown in some process that led to the creation of Originium and because the first person to down the crown was a sarkaz made her unable to do what she originally intended, possessing a later wearer of the crown and reunite with the doctor. This part is of course pure speculation as well with very little evidence, but it does line up somewhat. And I think some of the concept trailers supports the idea the crown can let someone store their mind to take over a later host (altough not with Priestess specifically).
So, fast forward to Amiya... she was born in Rim Billiton a normal cautus girl, her family were miners and lived on a normal landship in Rim Billiton... but one day disaster struck and the ship got destroyed in a horrible disaster. This is all gone into more in To the Grinning Valley but was already implied beforehand. To the Grinning Valley is also interesting for several reasons to this theory, they explicitly call attention to how strange it is that the doctor would bring Amiya with them after finding her in the wreckage. Saving her is in line with their behavior, but why bring her along? Its common in Rim Billiton for miners to adopt other children. Why not leave here somewhere? Why bring her with them to Babel? And this isnt just Amiya wondering or an outside observer, we find out from Savage that Kal´tsit doesnt know why the doctor did what they did. And whats more, Kal´tsit believes the doctor convinced Theresa to transfer her powers to Amiya, and since no previous Lord of Fiends had done so directly, the crown picked a successor, I think the doctor also taught Theresa how she could directly move it, circumventing the dead souls of the sarkaz will being imposed on the crown´s choices. So, why Amiya? Kal´tsit either doesnt have any idea why or just didnt want to tell Savage, but it is clear that she NEVER agreed with the decision. We have some ideas why Theresa did it, Amiya not being a sarkaz would mean she would be less strongly influenced by the dead souls and the lords of kazdel would refuse to follow her. Or at least chapter 12 and 13 heavily implies this was her motive. But why did the doctor want that? In To the Grinning Valley the question of if the doctor always intended to use Amiya for that from the start and grew to care about her over time, or if they took her in with no ill intentions and then got the idea later out of desperation, is raised but left unanswered because the doctor cant remember, and no one else knows why.
I believe the doctor also wished to undermine the crown´s link to the sarkaz, and that the plan was to use Amiya as a vessel for resurrecting Priestess. And it is an interesting topic, its often brought up how much even pre amnesia doctor cared about Amiya... but in To the Grinning Valley we focus a bit on the insecurity and uncertainty Amiya and Savage have about *why*. Savage telling an anecdote about a friend who went bad after fame got to their head and admitting she doesnt know which is worse, if the doctor did love Amiya and their circumstances made them so willing to trample over what they loved that they would force the black crown on her, or if the doctor had always been intending to just use Amiya for that purpose. And Amiya admitting she never knew why doc would care for her so much. And here is an interesting thing... in anything post victoria arc, we have NEVER seen Amiya and the doctor interact so far. Amiya is in Arturia´s oprec but otherwise she hasnt been on screen post victoria arc. To the Grinning Valley is set before it. The doctor has been doing all manner of things all over Terra in that time period, but Amiya isnt there with them, she is still with Rhodes Island is clear though. So... does Amiya and the doctor still have a good relationship post Victoria arc? Doc clearly cares for Amiya still, when Rosmontis talks about missing Amiya in Lonetrail (she had been away for some weeks or months, unclear) doc agrees that they miss her too, but they dont really go into any detail and are talking about both Amiya and Logos. Depending on what we learn in the later chapters of the Victoria arc, I could see Amiya feeling rather betrayed by the doctor. Not to the point of completely cutting them out but that it might still make her a bit more distant to them. I think it would be interesting to see how Amiya would take it if she learned that the doctor had originally intended to use her for very selfish end goals. Surely the thought has crossed her mind and she just isnt willing to entertain it, but if she learns something in the climax of the Victoria arc that shakes her absolute confidence in the doctor? That could be a pretty big deal. We already know Amiya has a habit of rather then accepting people wronged her first try to look for excuses. What Theresa did to her Amiya refuses to admit is wrong even when directly pointed out to her how messed up it was (chapter 8 Rosmontis compares what Theresa did to Amiya with what Loken did to her). She isntead focuses on how she must be failing to live up to Theresa´s expectations, an idea NO ONE tried to put into her head as far as we can tell. Altough it is a little unclear because she gets VERY defensive about it when the Damazti Cluster suggests she was forced into her role at Rhodes and given too heavy responsibilities to carry. Will she do this this time as well? Look for excuses why what doctor did was "justified"? But in chapter 13 she also finds meaning in rejecting the legacy of the black crown and that she will use its powers purely for her own ideals and not worry about what its purpose is. With that in mind how would that color her perception of finding out an even older purpose for it that implicates the pre amnesia doctor?
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courfaeriedust · 3 months ago
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Alexander H— and the Merlin Story
So almost anyone who has talked to me about The Night Circus has been treated to my pet theory that Alexander is Merlin, which I’ve never really explained. I’ve changed this slightly based on my latest reread, and I figured it was time to finally write it down. My theory is no longer that Alexander is Merlin. It’s that Merlin is Alexander.
So, first off: the story of Merlin in the Night Circus is usually there as a metaphor for being trapped. Widget tells the story to Poppet, and they have a conversation about whether it’s such a bad thing to be trapped somewhere (which is heartbreaking because they’re 8 at the time of this scene, but that’s another post.) It also comes up later, when (spoiler) Tsukiko intends to imprison Marco in the Bonfire.
Tsukiko doesn’t call it the Merlin story, though. She calls it the story of the Wizard in the Tree. And Kiko always, always knows more than she is saying. Now that could just be that — it could just be about entrapment and confinement. But the ground is soft and I’m here to dig.
Here are some facts about Alexander:
He doesn’t have a shadow
He doesn’t interact with the world as others do (as a child Marco never manages to be as silent as him in museums; at the party to celebrate the 13th anniversary of the Night Circus Alexander doesn’t stir up the rose petals littering the floor as everyone else does)
He is very, very old (though not immortal)
He is always grey. He’s introduced as the Grey Man, and he’s never associated with colour (aside from maybe the black cradle he sends for the twins, and the black rose at Tara’s funeral. However, when it’s just him everything associated with him is grey.)
Alexander has seen the decline of magic in the world. This is inferred, I grant, but he’s very dismissive when Widget says that there’s still some magic about, as if to him it is nothing. And although we never actually see him do much magic (he binds Celia, manipulates Tara, and teaches Marco, but that’s all I believe we see directly), his power feels present.
Following from that, very few people remember his name. Is this the manipulation Marco picked up? It could be. It could also be that he’s not fully there. Furthermore, his name isn’t really Alexander.
He is, at heart, a kind man. (This isn’t relevant to the theory, I was just surprised by how often it showed up. Anyway.)
I have always taken these things to mean he attempted what Hector did, but much more successfully. He disdains what Hector tried to do, though — he’s uninterested in immortality, and unimpressed that Hector attempted that. And so, I posit: what if Alexander did this to himself not as a choice, but because the other option was being a tree? What if the tree is his touchstone, just as Celia and Marco’s is the Circus, just as Hector doesn’t have one and is therefore diluted? A smaller area, and presumably stronger magic (assuming this is long ago when magic was more than it is today), would make him more able to interact with the world than any of the other three. This explains his lack of shadow, and his minimal interaction with the world.
It’s unclear how old Alexander is; the only real clue we get is Widget at the end saying that “if I calculated the ages of everyone I have behind this proposition, the total might trump your own age.” That doesn’t actually help that much, because we don’t know how many the Circus number, and theoretically Rêveurs could count amongst that number. So he’s very old, but human. I have just now realised that Hector is one of his first students, which means he can’t be that much younger, so what I’m about to say won’t hold up with this revelation but hey, we got here already so I’ll keep going. Trees can live a lot longer than a regular human. Trees can lose branches in the way that some parts of Alexander’s history are lost to Widget. Tree growth is non-linear, much like the circles and overlaps Widge sees in his history too.
Okay, back to things I won’t immediately poke holes in myself: Alexander lived through the downfall of magic. And what if that’s because it happened to him? I do think this makes Hector the beautiful student he told all his secrets too, which is again another post for another time, but the tale it has become doesn’t have to be the tale of how it started. Hector is, frankly, awful. He’s a horrible man. Can you see him imprisoning his teacher to get more power for himself? Easily. Now Alexander isn’t much better, but he claims he was a romantic “in his youth”, and also, when he gets the chance to be he is so often kind. He tells Celia she’s an Angel. He takes Marco out of an orphanage for his own ends, yes, but also to give Marco a better life. He does care, deeply, about Marco. He tries to save Herr Thiessen. He has many many moments of small kindnesses throughout the book. Can you not imagine him trying his best to share his knowledge of magic? Can you not imagine him settling for more knowledge by way of a challenge, instead of enacting revenge?
(Hey look at that, Alexander’s kindness did turn out to be relevant!)
There’s also something about young Celia pointing out that Alexander is to him as Prospero is to Hector. I don’t know what to make of that — perhaps Alexander’s true name is just old, and would draw too much attention. When Marco summons him, he inscribes symbols in the shape of an A, though. The Night Circus feels like it takes place in a world where true names have power.
In conclusion: I think Alexander is the basis of the Merlin story, and textually there is little that denies that. I hope you’ve enjoyed this freshly ploughed ground; feel free to plant seeds in it should you wish.
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commander-frostii · 8 months ago
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I'm late-ish to the beta party, but writing this sort of stuff out helps me internalize it for myself, so i'm doing it anyway.
data collected so far:
in recruitment, you spend "gold tickets" (Access Permission) to get 1 pull. These are relatively rare. I've collected a handful from doing starter missions, and I suspect you'll get a trickle from dailies, too.
You can exchange collapse pieces for access permission at a rate of 150 -> 1, so they're analogous to stellar jade. You get these from first time clear rewards, getting a certain amount of stars on completed missions... just like I have 12000 jade saved up, I figure you'll wind up with lots of this over time.
You get Krolik, your first 4-star character, from a forced standard banner pull, just like Asta in HSR.
There's a beginner banner guarantees a 5-star ("elite doll") after 50 pulls, and you only need 8 tickets per 10 pulls, so in total it's 40 tickets to get your guarantee.
There's a hard pity limit on the standard banner of 80 pulls; also, after 260 pulls on the standard banner, you can choose one of the non-limited elite dolls guaranteed. I expect that hard pity limit will also carry to event banners. (Also, you're guaranteed a mid-rarity drop every 10 pulls.)
Soft pity kicks in at 58 pulls (thank you for including that very clearly in the rules, Mica!). Before that point, your base rate for elite drops is 0.3% and your base rate for "standard" (mid-rarity) drops is 3%.
We don't have any event banners in the beta, so it's unclear whether pity will carry over between event banners or if it's "use it or lose it".
Guns and dolls share a banner. You can brute force rare weapons using redundant pieces (though it's very expensive) but there appears to be no guarantee you'll get a character you want from the gacha at all.
The "fodder" you get from gacha are weapons. Weapons also come with rarity.
Weapons exist within types, and dolls can use any weapon of a compatible type (Groza can use the QBZ-191 but she can't use a three-line rifle or an LMG). There appears to be implications of preference or affinity for certain weapon frames, but right now it's unclear to me how much this is just flavor text vs actually gameplay relevant - maybe you can only use rare weapons on their "intended" doll?
You get withdrawal receipts from low rarity weapon drops (2x per) and "redundant pieces" from higher rarity stuff (12x per mid rarity and 60x per high rarity, be it dolls or guns). You also get extra redundant pieces for duplicates of dolls you already have at max fortification (see below).
Receipts can be used to purchase basic supplies - things like combat reports, a handful of access tickets, doll and weapon enhancement materials - but there's a limit on how many per month, and the beta has a very aggressive economy that will clearly be much more limited on release, so I can't tell you exactly how many of things you can get per month. Unless they really intend for you to get 100,000 combat reports a month.
Very high numbers of redundant pieces can be used to buy elite weapons (instead of pulling them), but they really are very expensive. Looks like the available stock rotates every month.
Duplicate dolls give Neural Archives which appear to be analogous to fragments from Neural Cloud -- they're needed for "Neural Fortification". These are linear upgrades that, on the surface, appear uncannily analogous to HSR Eidolons; however they also appear to be the only way to enhance a doll's skills? Unclear how necessary they are, or if there's a way to get archives other than by pulling dupes.
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intothepast9 · 4 months ago
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hi!! do you have any wlw fic recs? I adore your writing and was wondering what some of your favourites were as well
Hi Wren! First off thanks : ) :) Second—I am replying way too in depth considering that this is basically a non-answer. I’m procrastinating on cleaning my shower drain.
I feel like I’m not the person to ask about this; my life has probably been negatively impacted for the paucity of sapphic media I consumed until the past few years. Like I think the only thing I ever read with any sapphic plotline before university was L’Invitee by Simone de Beauvoir, which is honestly pretty messed up (semi autobiographical about de Beauvoir bringing one of her high school students into a threesome with her and Sartre). Maybe that’s why when I was 14 I remember thinking that, “objectively” women are much more attractive than men—but I thought maybe I was just telling myself that bc I had heard that men think lesbianism is hot. I put that aside and was completely agnostic about my sexuality for years.
I think the next thing I read, many years later, was The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall, which is a good book although somewhat depressing, and it doesn’t really resonate with me, personally, bc it’s a lot more about gender than sexuality. While it’s considered a seminal work of lesbian fiction, I’m pretty sure the protagonist would identify as a straight trans man today—which makes it a very important book, just not as relevant to my personal experiences. In the past few years I’ve read way more wlw fiction—Casey MacQuiston/Malinda Lo/Jeanette Winterson etc + a bunch of memoire type things, one of my recent favorites of which was Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.
(Dw it’s not like I was reading straight romance until a few years ago—I was just reading… like nonfiction about the Spanish civil war.)
Now, before I give you a rundown of half the books I’ve ever read to avoid my shower drain, I should remember that your question was about fic, and like… you’ve probably already read The Hand that Feeds by rollercoasterwords or the rush of rarities by bizarrestars, both of which I love. But honestly a lot of my favorite fics have been mlm, just because it’s most of what there… is. I don’t really know why we write so much of it, since I assume a majority of us writing/reading fanfic (at least in this fandom) are queer women/sapphic NBs. Hell, I’ve ended my own moratorium on it by trying to write some of Regulus’ POV to WWPtB, which I am taking less seriously than the original story even though it’s a lot darker. Strange Aeons had a video recently on why there’s so much mlm fanfic written by women in general—though of course the Marauders does have some men/NB writers that that wouldn’t apply to! But I have a few theories—I know in this fandom, the characters that have the most interesting canon storylines are men. Lily is the only one of the girls who has more than a name in canon, and her personality is Head Girl/Slug Club/dies out of love for her son/boys fight over her. There’s a lot to work with there, but we only see her through the male gaze, mostly in the form of Snape’s memories. But anyways some jegulus and wolfstar fics have some really good side wlw storylines—I absolutely love Mary’s POV in Kill Your Darlings by messermoon. I’m also SO invested in Isolde Zabini in HYF by bizarrestars
Sorry, I feel like I’m just naming the most popular fics in the fandom!
TheBiButterfly writes some very cute short Pandalily fics such as Worshipping at the Altar of Lily Evans but there are also plenty of others
I am eagerly awaiting more updates on Guilty Pleasures by lifeisabitch
Note that those two are both more explicit than like anything I’ve published on ao3
Sorry that’s not much help! Hope you have a good day! Wish me luck with this shower drain!!
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hellobiscuit · 2 months ago
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A note on Biases, Tropes, and Stereotypes in Overwatch's character + skin design
Disclaimer that this isn't a proper thesis- there's no proposed solutions, and this is neither a condemnation nor a defense of the way this game handles any of these topics- these are just some things that were brought up in a discussion in a discord server i'm in. obviously many of these topics have been discussed in the larger overwatch community before, but some i haven't seen mentioned at all, so i wanted to spotlight some of them.
Also you may find parts of this discussion hard to follow if you don't play overwatch- i can't really do much about that without making this miserably long, and i'm NOT a good enough writer to justify dragging it on any worse than i alr will
Neglecting heroes with darker skin
specifically what began the conversation was it being pointed out how there's a correlation between skintone and how many skins a hero gets
for reference, the heroes added since overwatch 2, in order of release are: - Sojourn - black north american woman - Junker Queen - white australian woman - Kiriko - light-skinned asian woman - Ramattra - robot - Lifeweaver - brown asian man - Illari - brown south american woman - Mauga - brown pacific islander man - Venture - brown north american non-binary person - Juno - light-skinned asian woman - Hazard - white european man - Freja - white european woman - "Aqua" - light-skinned asian man
you'll have to excuse me for the way these characters are kind of broken down into these specific characteristics, but for the sake of what i'm discussing here, these are the traits that are relevant. Aqua is in quotes because as of writing this (may 15 2025) he has not been released yet, and therefore isn't in the skin discussion really, but he will be relevant LOL i prommy
anyways, specifically what prompted the discussion was that specifically kiriko and juno have gotten a LOT of amazing, detailed skins- both have gotten mythic skins already despite many beloved ow1 heroes not getting any. kiriko specifically has had 11 skins over the past 4 seasons, and juno already has 6 legendary skins (3 times as much as Venture, who's been out for nearly twice as long)
and while it's Arguably not fair to compare these supports to venture, who is a relatively niche dps pick, i do want to compare them to sojourn, who has been a relatively popular pick since her launch (which coincided with ow2's launch- her, kiriko, and junker queen were released simultaneously)- sojourn currently sits at 10 legendaries, while kiriko has 21.
for some ow1 heroes who have gotten a lot of LEGENDARY skins since ow2's launch, we also have mercy, widowmaker, and dva at 15 each, rein and soldier at 14, hanzo at 13, and genji, reaper, and tracer at 12
and on the other end of the spectrum, the heroes with the least legendary skins are doomfist, hog, bastion, and cassidy at 7, mauga and winston at 6, zarya at 5, wrecking ball, junkrat, and baptiste at 4- and again, Venture (while they've only been out for about half of ow2's life) only has 2 legendary skins
this data is from the document linked in this reddit post and isn't the full story or anything- there is other factors like, some of these skins are just recolors of existing skins, some heroes have also gotten more epic skins, there's more cosmetics than just skins, some designs are more difficult than others to make skins for, and the most obvious point which is that some heroes are just going to make more money than others, like the mercy mains are very clearly buying more cosmetics than say, bastion mains.
i do have a LOT more to get into about the skins and what standards a hero has to meet to become a Blizzard Skin Favorite, but i want to TRY to keep this organized LOL
all this to say, even without being given data, players have noticed which characters are the most popular- of the 9 heroes i mentioned with the most skins, only one has darker skin (reaper), and all the rest are white or very pale asian- of the 11 with the least, 3 are white, 2 are black, 1 is brown, 1 is a robot, and 2 are literally animals.
again, data is more complex than just what can be described using these numbers, but i am far from the first person to mention that it does feel like heroes with dark skin are being neglected in terms of cosmetics, even without numbers to back it up, and
just anecdotally, a lot of people have been Less Than Satisfied with a good number of the skins that these brown/black heroes have received- Especially the recolors, which brown/black heroes have seem to have gotten more of than other more "popular for skins" heroes (i am NOT running numbers on this, there's too many cosmetics for me to count them to take it with a grain of salt, BUT this has been community sentiment- lucio specifically comes up a lot wrt too many recolors)
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this is sojourn's base ow2 design, an original legendary that was generally well-received, and then a recolor that is largely considered to be A Worse Version of the original
And one more thing wrt the idea of skin distribution is that, for some of these heroes (for example, venture who is non-binary!!) have not even had the chance to have good skins be released to Prove themselves as having a potentially dedicated fanbase who will buy their skins
Colorism in Hero Design
there has been this sort of trend where, a lot of heroes who are not white will be pale, even when there are a Lot of people of that ethnicity/race that are not.
i specifically think this is noteworthy in the context of the asian heroes- there are currently 9 heroes who are asian (i am counting unreleased "aqua" because we know his nationality and what he looks like- i am NOT counting echo because she is a robot)- of those, only two have brown skin, those being sym who is indian, and lifeweaver who is thai- the others are chinese, japanese, korean, vietnamese- i know already that many many people from china, japan, korea, and vietnam are pale, but ALSO many people from those countries do have darker skin and face really severe colorism, where pale is beautiful and skin bleaching is a common cosmetic practice.
during this part of the conversation, a few people who live in or are from south asia did express how they have noticed that most of the asian heroes are very pale, but they did also say that they appreciated that lifeweaver was designed to be brown even though he Could have been pale, and Especially appreciated that symmetra was designed with such dark skin.
i think that sym is especially notable too, because she's kind of an Icon(tm) within the community, like she has a really dedicated playerbase and a lot of people love her
but idk there are also plenty of people with brown skin in like, china, japan, korea, and there IS a chance to have some of those heroes from those places have that trait- the hero designers just are not taking that opportunity.
Another note on Colorism
this is another thing that i will not be pulling numbers for, but i have heard from a Few people i talk to that it feels like heroes with dark skin are far more likely to have cosmetics that give them an unnatural skintone, as compared to white heroes
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some really random examples of what i mean
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you'll have to excuse the shitty images for these ones, i don't actually own these skins >.< there are deff white heroes who also have unnatural skin tones for some cosmetics, BUT aside from torb (who is also skin-neglected), these white girlies all have a solid amount of other skins as well.
i will say regardless of if You think the numbers add up to it being problematic or not, the fact of the matter is that there are a good number of poc that i've seen express this sentiment that it feels like something that skin designers gravitate towards more with dark-skin heroes.
Overwatch is weird about Africa
idk how else to say this. one of the noteworthy features of overwatch at its launch was how diverse its cast is, in Several ways, but for this section i'm just gonna focus on how they're from all different countries- very few countries have multiple heroes from there, and generally fans look forward to the game adding new heroes from Their country. it is A Big Deal w the game.
but for some reason, the entire continent of africa is sooo neglected.
as far as african heroes, we have doomfist, who is from nigeria, and orisa who is a robot, and not even from a real place in africa? she's from numbani, which is a fictional city-state that was invented specifically for overwatch lore. there's over 50 countries in africa, and this game has representation for One of them.
it is fairly likely, from the little nose-ing around that i've done, that overwatch adds more representation for countries/cultures with a bigger playerbase within the game, which is reasonable, but i think it is a bit difficult to look at the african representation in the game and not be a little ?? about it
Asian Women with Colorful Hair
when i brought this up, a lot of people had never heard of it, but it is definitely a thing in overwatch hero design, and honestly it does kind of also apply to the men BUT i feel like i have to note that this trope is about WOMEN specifically because the expectations for asian women is different than for men
juno and kiriko both have unnatural hair- they are also both very mischievous characters who are Different(tm) like kiriko is a Rebel and juno is literally a martian- then you have mei who has natural hair, very quiet, polite, etc, or symmetra who is extremely proper and a perfectionist (noteworthy: her design has changed in ow2 to showcase how she has become less rigid in her personality not by dying her hair, but by giving her a loose strand that hangs over her forehead)- dva also has natural hair and while she is silly, she is also notably a workaholic who does not really ever go against the status quo.
among the men, we don't know much about aqua's personality (again, unreleased, but we know what he looks like), BUT hanzo who has natural hair is Extremely proper, and yaps all the time about honor- he does not have a rebellious bone in his body, but genji has a notable character arc where he was a very rebellious teen/young adult and had green hair then, but after ditching that life, it goes black. lifeweaver is also defined by his rebellion, and has white hair.
i'm SUPER not the expert on this, i only have what i've read from others on social media and from articles online >.<
Slim-Thick Body (and body types in general)
in addition to diversity wrt nationality, one thing overwatch rly had going for it was how diverse the bodies were- from like, a mechanical perspective, this is great because if you have a game where different characters have different abilities, it's helpful for players to recognize them at a glance, and it's EASY to tell apart characters when they have very different statures
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even with my ridiculous skins on, you can tell these characters apart at a glance
but a lot of people have noted lately that a lot of the heroes look VERY similar, ESPECIALLY the women- one noteworthy example was the second lesserafim collab where a lot of peoples reaction to it was "who are these characters...?"
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i mean... mercy has wings... if you Happened to notice the jetpack, you'd recognize juno... but is that... sombra or illari...? is one of these kiriko? or maybe dva? or maybe that new girl freja?
a lot of people credit overwatch's same-face syndrome which is deff an issue in several cases, but i've opted to talk about the bodies because i think even when overwatch manages to hit the mark on diverse faces for its women, it completely misses wrt the bodies every time.
and even when it hits the mark with the bodies... it STILL somehow manages to do something insane to make them skinny
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lest anyone forgot pajamei- that second image isn't even how they actually fixed it, it's a fanmade edit- the skin still looks like that in the live game ;-;
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poor brig was also done dirty- this was her when we first saw her, and then her most recent skin which everyone has been dunking on because for NO reason they made her very skinny (i also have her regular ow2 model for comparison- the legs are especially egregious)
but i'm getting off track- this is about how almost all of the women in the game have the exact same body type- small waist and curvy hips/thighs (and additionally, in overwatch, long legs)- this has been called "slim-thick" and it's the kind of body that people get BBLs or takes ozempic for- it is a body type that very few people have naturally (and, notably, most of the people who do have it naturally are black women who were mocked for Years for their "fat asses," but that's a whole other topic), but everyone wants it, and for some reason every woman in gaming has it.
overwatch does have a few women who don't have this body type- for example:
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zarya who was introduced specifically to have more body diversity in overwatch! and who has gotten only 4 legendaries since ow2's launch, 2 of which are recolors of ow1 skins... and notably None of them have been cute girlypop or high-concept skins that are Really exciting to get (the skin i'm using is brand new this season and is unironically the most exciting skin she has)
we also have junker queen
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who also has a smaller waist and big thighs but is at least muscular which is new!
besides that, we have mei who often reads as having a more "fat" body in-game despite the skin designers often trying to make her skinnier, and brig is also seemingly meant to be a bit more stocky/muscular, but has the same issue as mei where skins often ignore this
and i feel i should mention that the other characters don't all have the Exact Same Body- like, you do get a good bit of variation- sojourn and moira for example do have very obviously different bodies
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but so many characters have such similar proportions that it sort of undercuts the diversity by sort of suggesting that this body is the default for women, that all other bodies are slight deviations of:
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yes i bought the stupid lesserafim skins are you disappointed in me
even echo has a robo-bbl with robo-tits
it's worth noting as well, that the characters that fit into this "default" body type are the ones who get the most skins- i don't have the source for this but i swear i remember in a reddit ama or tweet or something where a hero designer said that dva is the hardest to design skins for because of her mech- despite that, she is near the top of the list for most skins in ow2- she's ALSO not insanely popular (look at queue times for diff roles...) but she is a cute girl with a slim-thick body type.
and if you look more closely at that chart of skin distributions i sent earlier, you can see this corroborated there as well- aside from race, body shape is the other big indicator of who gets more or fewer skins
btw i did google search to try to find the name of this body type and the top results were half either articles on how to get this body type through diet and exercise (which... is not going to work for 99% of people because this is, again, NOT a common body type), or plastic surgeons encouraging people to get it. all of them were referring to this body type as the "ideal" for women.
Final Notes
to reiterate, i'm not trying to take a hard stance on these things or defend OR condemn these things- some of these things, i don't even know how many people would consider it to be a problem, so i CERTAINLY don't want people hailing it as proof that there's a serious issue in the game.
i am not nearly as insane about this game as i used to be, so i'm deff not up to date on a lot of the lore, and i cannot keep track of all these skins- i'm also only one guy, didn't go to college for this stuff, i could be wrong about any of this
my ONLY goal here is to bring up that some of these things have been discussed, to offer a few examples, and to encourage people to think about these topics for themselves
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latriviata · 2 months ago
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Book log April edition! I’m in the middle of two chunky non-fiction books and not going to finish either this evening. My original plan for this log was to have a single post for the year i add to, but that was getting annoying to both write and read, and is kind of redundant when you can just tag.
Another fairly busy month (finished some but not all of the books I’d had on the go for a while) and I hit @batmanisagatewaydrug’s bingo, whoo! Twice!
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(Gonna keep filling out this card but also start a parallel one for non-white authors I think. I don’t know if I can entirely complete it bc I’ve never made a zine in my life but definitely have plans for other squares)
26: The Transgender Issue - Shon Faye. I think this might be the best of the primers I’ve read on trans topics for mixed audiences - really appreciated the chapters on issues that aren’t as palatably media-friendly like low-paid work, sex work, and incarceration, and reflections on changing terminology. I honestly don’t know based on my own close observations whether this book would do anything to sway entrenched terfs and other transphobes, but also I increasingly think that’s an unrealistic or at best semi-relevant standard to hold trans and queer books to. Kira liked it, anyway:
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27: Kintu - Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi. This is hard for me to post about because there’s no real metric by which I can say it isn’t a good book, I just wasn’t really into it. It flips from the mid-18th to late-20th century and just after the millennium as somewhere between a mosaic novel and intergenerational saga loosely structured around a family curse. It does have some really interesting nuance on gender roles and religious practice, and I loved the decision to skim loosely over the colonial and Amin periods in favour of less-written-about moments in Ugandan history.
The things that felt most first-novelish towards the beginning (mostly over-exposition, which is harder to fault a historical novel for) bugged me less over time; I think one thing that stopped me connecting so much with it is that there are so many POV characters and half get dropped with no warning. I do want to read her later novel, I just struggled a bit with this one. Interesting and more positive discussion from a sff perspective here with an author interview. (another interview here)
bingo square: set in a country you have never visited (again, because my last entry was a little borderline)
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28: A Case of Conscience - James Blish. I have read pretty little pre-1960s sf and if this had just been about the first half of the book, it would have been among the best I’d read from that period- it’s striking that all my cultural osmosis knowledge of it was the basic theological crisis set up in the first half, because that’s the most compelling part. The second half bounces between several potentially interesting ideas - a future Earth driven underground by nuclear arms races, a solitary alien on the planet, a lot of Jesuit intellectual angst - and didn’t quite deliver for me on any of them. secondarily, while i had fairly moderate social expectations from a male SF writer in the 1950s, i do have to note that it took til fully half way through for any female character to show up. She was very good when she gets to do stuff rather than be described in vaguely creepy/exoticising tones.
I did like it! I just could have liked it a lot more. I did find it hilarious that the author has a foreword replying to all his theological critics with “it’s the future and in space, deal with it”, enjoy this energy.
bingo square: 20th century speculative fiction
29 (reread): Over Sea, Under Stone - Susan Cooper. I loved this series as a kid - mystical Arthurian contemporary fantasy with a great sense of place - and am enough of a completist that I wanted to reread from the beginning even though this book is kind of an outlier. It’s still good for what it is! It’s just pitched a bit younger and is much more of a straightforward E Nesbit-esque adventure story than the later ones. Also fairly dated in both language and craft - the children have very limited internal lives - but it was formative for the time. I’ll carry on reading but maybe later in the year, The Dark is Rising is such an intrinsically wintery book.
bingo square: reread a childhood favourite
30: Whites - Otegha Uwagba. On the fence about whether to count this bc it’s a standalone essay, 70 small pages, but it was published and I bought it as a paperback, so. It’s a set of reflections on George Floyd’s murder, and the most interesting part to me was her writing as a Londoner about white British people still viewing racism and anti-blackness as something that happens Over There - also a lot on Black writers being treated as anti-racist homework rather than artists and what allyship actually means in practice. I also have her book on money queued up so will read that at some point!
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31: Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia. S M-G has been on my to-read for years after I read a couple of short stories and she keeps writing books faster than I can keep up, so I picked this semi at random to start. It’s great - as the title suggests, moody and atmospheric and menacing. I realised reading this my Mexican literary knowledge is a) scant and b) mostly non fiction so I can’t trace that many likely influences/references, but I felt a lot of echoes of Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier (and, switching medium, more than hints of Get Out). Except that here it’s low-key intensely relevant that the lead is Mexican mestiza and her sister’s in-laws are English settlers with an interest in eugenics who never learned Spanish.
bingo square: historical fiction
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32 (reread): The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell. Yes, I reread this after liking A Case of Conscience (above) but being keenly aware of how much better that book would have been if it had had Emilio Sandoz. I’ve read this book maybe ten times in the last decade and will almost certainly read it another ten. It’s not perfect - I have issues with Emilio’s crisis of faith, and the cultural narratives are sincere but often in broad strokes - but ugh, it is such a beautiful and painful book. About religion, yes, but also about systems protecting themselves, and good intentions, and the perils of translation and exchange.
bingo square (reread): 20th century speculative fiction
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33: Manifesto - Bernardine Evaristo. I loved Evaristo’s books in the noughties but haven’t read anything since Mr Loverman - started this last month, forgot about it and then read most of it in a day! It’s autobiographical and structured in an interesting way, by theme (family, houses, relationships, theatre etc) rather than chronologically so it darts back and forth and layers on top of itself. I loved the chapter on her sexual identity and relationships evolving over time, but it’s all interesting and very compassionate about the family members who made her life hard growing up. I will read Girl Woman Other at some point, ik, shame shame shame dot gif.
bingo square: memoir
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34: The Man Died - Wole Soyinka. This is Soyinka’s 1966-69 prison notes, on the effects of his detention without trial during the Biafran war and on the links between Nigerian dictatorships and political movements and parallel global civil rights movements. A lot is on the psychological effects of the simultaneous tedium and peril and being moved from prison to prison. I honestly don’t know how comprehensible a lot of the detail would be to people who don’t already have a fairly in-depth knowledge of Nigerian politics and c20th history - there’s a lot on very specific names I wasn’t familiar with, and I had previously read up on the period - but the writing is extremely powerful. I really need to watch some of his lectures because he comes across as the sort of person who naturally speaks in soliloquies.
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Also, my second hand copy had an original Penguin review copy flier in the front, almost exactly fifty years old! That’s cool.
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35: Strong Female Character - Fern Brady. This has been on my tbr since I saw her on Taskmaster. It’s pretty good though not entirely what I was expecting - it’s mostly about late autism diagnosis and was a harder read than I had thought. I did appreciate the attention to all the less palatable parts of autism and mental illness, and discussion of what jobs autistic women can and can’t easily do (stripping, in her case, surprisingly compatible), but fundamentally a lot of stuff about people having a shit time at university is just not that interesting to me. Worth it for the first few pages alone on talking to her dad about autism, tbh, which is an uncanny preview of what it would be like to talk to my father or father-in-law.
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36: The Wishing Pool and other stories - Tananarive Due. I’m not a huge horror reader but have enjoyed Due’s work in the past, this is her second short story collection and a large section of it (even the works written pre-Covid) is preoccupied with pandemics. Varyingly creepy supernatural stories mostly with Black characters and families, mostly in the southern US, back and forth across the 20th century and future. Still not my top genre but these were all good and I liked the sense of a loosely interconnected universe in many of them. I really need to read The Reformatory, I’d like to see what she does in long form!
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37: My Sister, the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite. This has been on my tbr for years and was such a quick and entertaining read? It’s a fairly low-key thriller where (similar to reading Yellowface last month) the guilt is revealed from the start and the tension is just in which conses are going to quence. Really refreshingly different from most other stuff I’ve read that got its initial publishing deal in Nigeria (which was also good! but considerably more serious), and pretty darkly funny, though it wrapped up quite abruptly. Interesting interview here also:
Braithwaite is unabashed that her novel makes no attempt to address her country’s difficult past. “I don’t have that knowledge. I can’t give you what I don’t have,” she says. The idea that writers can represent some universal Nigerian experience is a chimera, when a universal Nigerian experience simply doesn’t exist, she explains. “We have a wide divide between classes and we have a wide divide between cultures because we’re from different tribes, we have different religions. You don’t have to walk very far to see someone who has a really different life from you.” She may live in a house where all you have to do to turn on the light is flick a switch, but in Lagos you only have to cross the road to find someone who has never had electricity. “I wouldn’t want to write a novel and people feel that I’m speaking to a Nigerian experience – I’m speaking to my experience, to the things I’m interested in, and that’s all I can do.”
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38: Feminism, Interrupted - Lola Olufemi (available on jstor and archive!). This is short but pretty dense - it feels almost like a taster session of a ton of contemporary feminist issues, with a focus on Black and Asian British women. I liked it a lot but did have the experience of being thrown out of every chapter after about 15 pages just when it felt like it was getting into the issues. There’s a really good range of quotes and interviews from both more- and lesser-known activists and artists to balance out more academic summaries. I couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if it had either been fifty pages longer or gone into more depth on a slightly smaller range of topics, but I can’t say it was wrong to be written the way it was - I’m maybe not the target audience in that I had already read most of the theory and seminal books she’s referencing.
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39: Star Trek Lower Decks—Warp Your Own Way - Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio. This is a choose-your-own-adventure comic and I still don’t feel like I’ve fully read it because I haven’t followed every possible path, but I’ve been through it a few times and it’s so clever and fun! Beautifully in the spirit of the show and immersive. I thought it would be easier to navigate with comixology but it doesn’t have hyperlinks quite set up (missed opportunity tbh), so I might look out for a paper edition to reread/return to. Also, Abigail Nussbaum did a delightful CYOA review.
bingo square: graphic novel, comic book, or manga
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menkhu · 1 year ago
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It's your turn to go off! What's your favorite piece of media right now and why? Do you have a favorite character??
i'm not sure i can live up to the glory of your example but sure i'd love to go off hehehe >:3 i'm interpreting these as two completely distinct questions for maximum rant ability. y'all get to hear about chrisjen avasarala from the expanse and no gods no monsters by cadwell turnbull
i've been obsessing over chrisjen avasarala from the expanse for a hot minute now, and since i'm like halfway through the show and watching one ep each week, i have many months of obsessing left. and the other day i just discovered? when i went to see if my library had the expanse audiobooks? that there's a mini graphic novel series focusing on her? i didn't look into it too much because it's later in the timeline and i didn't want to be spoiled but just by looking at the cover i saw that it also features the character that i ship her with(?) most and i'm soo excited to get far enough in the show to read it.
the question mark next to ship is because she and bobbie draper have suchh a fun dynamic that the exact capacity in which they are together doesn't matter as much to me as them being together. when bobbie was first forced to work with chrisjen, she had just been through a precipitous change, discontent making her kinda petulant and bitchy, did not like her, and then the moment things Got Real and chrisjen's life was on the line, bobbie instantly went from not caring about the old lady to being ready to die for her and it was sooo funny. and the petulance and bitchiness did not leave. and chrisjen herself--she comports herself with such grace and poise but inside, she, too, is petulant and bitchy, and bobbie is one of few people with whom she lets that part of her show. it's beautiful. i'm looking forward to reading the comic and seeing all the gorgeous illustrations of them cussing at each other.
my fav thing about chrisjen is how she's both idealistic and calculating. she's a politician, scheming and playing chess with people, whispering into the right ear at the right time to manipulate people into showing empathy.
as for my favorite piece of media right now, i'm honestly not sure what it would be, but i've been having thoughts and feelings about no gods no monsters by cadwell turnbull. reading it is a different experience from most fantasy novels. ik prevailing advice with writing is to keep the action moving, keep the pace quick, trim out anything unnecessary, but this book takes time to sit with many different characters, to show you their backstories and motivations so that you understand what roles they take and why. like, there's a guy who you get to learn about how his marriage came together and fell apart and how it affected him and it isn't until you get to the part where he turns to online communities to fill the hole in his life that you start to see how he's relevant to the wider plot. and the story is soo much stronger for it bc ultimately, it's a story about otherness and community and the werewolves are just a cool side benefit. it plays with perspective in a fun way, it's deeply queer, and it feels more real than many non-fantasy stories.
anyway people on goodreads weren't especially kind about it so i decided to love the book all the harder for it.
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akirakirxaa · 1 year ago
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Final Thoughts on Dawntrail
Final thoughts on MSQ. There are some positives that I will open with, but as I do have many criticisms and overall did not have as good of a time as I've had in other expacs, I will put it under a break. This will also be quite long.
I will start off by listing some of the things I enjoyed. I liked the overall themes of found and adoptive family, as well as family in general. Most of the plot threads and cutscenes around these themes tended to be quite good. I will admit, I bawled like a baby when they introduced baby Gulool Ja to Koana. I also very much enjoyed the plot revolving around the milalla and honestly wish there were more; I love Erenville's mom a lot as a character, but I feel like she took up comparatively a lot of narrative space when Krile's parents were much more plot relevant. I also liked Bakool's character arc as I'm just a sucker for the bully becoming a big well meaning lug. This is another plot I wish we'd gotten more about since, once we left the woods, we never see him outside of combat again; I'd have liked to see him struggling to connect with the people in non-life threatening situations and learning to not react to everything with violence.
Unfortunately, that is the end of what I actually enjoyed without a "but" that isn't "I'd have liked more". I am so sorry, but by the time I got to the end I did not like Wuk Lamat anymore. The sheer amount of time we spend with her and the sheer amount of that time spent on the same exact speech again and again grated by the end. There were some moments where she really shone though, and that's why I'm putting this to poor writing and misuse of her character than her character actually being bad. I loved her in the whole bit with Zarool Ja, and during the Rite it was fine because her learning to grow up was the point. Which leads to the second thing I really did not like; that we existed to be a camera for her story. 99% of the story could have happened even were we not there, and the last 1% is honestly iffy. I understand letting her have her time, and despite finding it excruciatingly dull to my tastes, the rite was fine and she should take point during it since it's to test her abilities. But...there was not one moment where we got to be the hero. Not one. Hell, in several cutscenes I could barely even see my character because it's her show the whole time. Even at the end, where it finally matters that we're here, because we have the magic crystal that lets us call backup and stay and fight...it still didn't, because she just broke into the fight anyways. Once again, we might as well not even be there.
"Well what's the problem with that!" I hear you cry, and the problem with that is this is a Final Fantasy. I'm here to play the protagonist. I'm not here to control the camera while the writer's NPC does everything. She can be the main character of the expac, but I should not be able to remove my character entirely and have everything go the exact same way. Literally any scion could've done the same things we did while we drank on the beach and nothing would change. A great example of this was when Gulool Ja Ja was killed. Not only did we just stand there and not even attempt to interfere (this could have been a good moment to push the difference of another culture by having an ally stop the WoL), we barely had any reaction at all to it and were covered up most of the time by NPCs. At that point, just have us not be there, have us out protecting civilians and we arrive too late. We've had cutscenes from other PoVs before where we show up right at the end (for good or ill) so no excuse.
I very much did not like any of the plot around Alexandria and Living Memory. It strikes me as that meme of "can I copy your homework?" "Sure, just change it a little so it doesn't look the same". Tell me if you've heard this one before. Immortal being, unable to bear loss, creates a city full of the memories of their lost loved ones in a recreation of their former home. They want to sacrifice the people of the Source to restore these loved ones. When we try to reason with them, they tell us that they cannot give up on their fallen loved ones and refuse to move on. They show us their memories of their loved ones in their former home. At the end, they turn into a big damn monster that we fight. We're close to losing when an ally falls from the sky to our aid. When we win, they ask us to remember.
It's knock off brand Shadowbringers.
Not to mention it seriously feels like the writer forgot while doing Living Memory that, not only does no one remember these people we're erasing, but their souls were eaten so that people can not worry about, idk, falling pianos and such. These people literally just do not exist anymore and we are now the only people who remember them. What's worse, there are probably millions more people we didn't get to meet that we still erased, so they're just gone forever. That's...literally the opposite of the plot of Ultima Thule from EW. We, in this case, are playing the role of Meteion, and not a single Endless seems to have an opinion on it outside of Erenville's mother and Krile's parents.
Never mentioning Dynamis really bugged me too. I was kinda hoping that Wuk Lamat's "specialty", the thing that set her apart, was maybe she was just very good at subconsciously wielding dynamis, letting her easily befriend others and draw greater strength when she needs it. But, like many many pieces of lore, it's never even suggested. In fact, if a piece of lore was in EW, you can almost guarantee it isn't mentioned. Like the boy with a lightning aether imbalance. We literally have the cure for that, but say nothing at all, not even to our allies when we meet back up. I'm hoping this will be addressed in a later patch since it was specifically pointed out (chekov's gun and all) but still. It felt over and over that things we learned in ShB and EW were glossed over at best or outright ignored at worst. The pacing of everything after the dome appeared was strange; some parts went too fast, then some went on forever.
Unfortunately, this comes in as my least favorite expac. Even below SB, which I famously dislike. I'm hoping moving forward we'll see some more interesting stories that once again require us to be present to be told, and I am curious about why the key bears Azem's symbol, but I will not be rushing to play through this expac again any time soon. And will most likely be tweaking the scenes in anything I write to make more sense, flow better, or actually require Akira's attention.
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mercurial-tenacity · 4 months ago
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I fucking love your Cruel World series so much. Something I was curious about was, does Credence ever use magic? Im sure he’s not allowed to, but it’s so interesting how you almost frame the dynamic with the psychology as if he’s a non magical character held by two magical captors. Have there ever been accidental emotional outbursts? Has Grindelwald ever made him use magic during torture? Does he even remember that he’s someone who can use magic? If he was in a life or death situation, not at the hands of his captors, would he remember he could save himself?
Ahh thank you for asking! I spend so much time thinking about this series lately, I love the chance to talk about it! This question is also extremely timely, as it happens.
I admit it's been a little inconsistent in how it's been referenced (Grindelwald says in the first or second installment that they own him "mind, body, and magic," implying that he... well, has some magic), but since those first couple stories where I didn't yet have a long term plan, I've been thinking of Credence's magic as having been severely injured or damaged after the incident with the aurors in the subway at the end of the film, to the point that he appears non-magical. Graves and Grindelwald probably abducted him in the first place in the hope that they could get their obscurial after all, but when the obscurus didn't manifest anymore, they kept him anyway.
I was JUST thinking this very afternoon that if I were to go back and make any changes to the early part of the series, I'd really like to explore how Credence feels about his magic. Like, how does he feel after the first time they rape and humiliate him, and he wakes up the next morning and they aren't dead? If he had his obscurus, they would be. His anger is such a crucial part of his character, and his only expression of it has been stripped away, which must be terrifying. He's used to getting even with people even if he isn't really in control of it, but now, for the first time, he's actually helpless. Maybe it's not too late to go back and insert an installment along those lines, or maybe I'll touch it all up once the series is finished (hopefully that doesn't take another several years, yikes!), but it's definitely something that's been on my mind.
And I don't want to give too many spoilers, but it's very hard to resist talking about it, so I will say that Graves and Grindelwald are not in alignment on Credence's perceived magical status and that is about to become relevant.
Oh, I just had an idea - "Has Grindelwald ever made him use magic during torture," - what if Grindelwald tortured him to try to make him use magic? To find out whether he's still useful? Damn, that's something I want to write.
Also if you ever want to talk about more spoilery-type stuff feel free to DM me! I'm happy to share, I have so many ideas for this series rattling around, but I don't want to give the whole thing away out here in public. I promise to keep usernames a closely guarded secret if you promise the same for my plot details!
Actually, I may be in need of a beta reader for the next installment, so if anyone is interested feel free to reach out and let me know? The line between what happens and what SEEMS to happen is going to get... complicated... and feedback on how it comes across would be incredibly valuable honestly.
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