look gang i know the cishets are going to be annoying about chappell roan like they are with every popular queer artist but we CAN'T gatekeep, because think about how much it would've meant to your little queer self to hear songs about girls kissing girls being played on the radio every single day
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lord its so dark in here the sahara desert of tsaritsa content you are like a shining oasis. your characterisation of her compels me & mihoyo would be hard pressed to top it imo.!! caaaaan i humbly request yr thoughts on her first meeting w a reader of any kind, or maybe even multiple kinds (sagau, sagau god au, isekai, etc) if you so desire...
it really is like a desert here. being the fan of a character we aren't getting until the last damn nation is driving me up a wall but i will persevere bc if nothing else i support morally bankrupt women in media. we r in a severe drought over here but i do my best. unfortunately nothing i say is ever coherent so pull out your translation notes its abt 2 be messy
also this got out of hand but thats bc first meetings w the tsaritsa are tricky to write + a LOT of her characterization lies in deeper exploration then just surface level yknow...NOT A DIG AT YOU this is just my excuse for rambling. gently pats the tsaritsa she can hold so much complexity i do not have the word count to delve into it completely :]
gonna talk cult au for a bit here though because that's 99% of my content. and honestly? she thrives in sub au's of the cult au like villain au + imposter au. it's basically made for her. i mean, early days, the imposter au had been going around for a little while but one of the first few ideas was the Fatui taking reader in so like. it kinda technically actually was. pretty sure cult au Tsaritsa popped up because of the imposter au. a lot of it's writers kinda left though which. man am i getting old or.
anyway.
there isn't much of a chance her first impression is all that positive. at best it's usually neutral, imo, but rarely if ever positive. specifically because i view the Tsaritsa as someone who isn't as fanatical as most of the acolytes typically are towards the creator. she's not exactly going to worship the ground you walk on unlike a certain geo lizard. which is partially why i think she thrives in the sub au's i mentioned.
imposter au, for example. she meets you at your lowest. there's no gaudy extravagance or pampering from the acolytes waiting for you because your own acolytes have turned on you. for all intents and purposes you aren't a "god" at all. which is why i don't think she meshes well with normal cult au reader. the Fatui are made up of outcasts, basically, and imposter au slots right in just perfectly. you're weak, at your lowest, when you meet the Fatui in the imposter au. and the Fatui can help you, too.
a mutual exchange, really. the Tsaritsa sees a tool she can use to one up the rest of the nations and especially Archons, and she has no qualms about you using her and the Fatui in turn. you both want something out of it, after all. whether you just want to be safe from the rest of the acolytes, or you want revenge, or whatever else..she'll give you the power to fulfill it, and she gains the strongest piece on the chessboard when all is said and done.
the best way i can describe the first meeting is "practical", i suppose. she sees an opportunity in you. the ultimate gamble. because if she "saves" you, and you dont trust anyone else because they tried to kill you, well..she holds all the cards, doesn't she?
but the Tsaritsa, imo, is just as capable of being just as fanatical towards you as anyone else. she just won't worship you as the creator. but as yourself? clawing your way back to your divine power and taking back what belongs to you? the Tsaritsa is, to me, a character who's character flourishes in long-term fics more because she changes a LOT between "just met reader" and after having been with reader for some time. she's practically apathetic at the beginning but a lot of her character, in my characterization, shines through LONG after the first meeting.
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I’m gonna say it once real clear so I have a post to refer back to the moment it happens again (cause it will). I don’t give a fuck about any other reader on a personal level when I am reading a book. I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, the people who claim you, the degrees you hold and in what subject. Not a damn. When I’m discussing the book, I am discussing the things the author wrote in the book. When I am discussing characters, your personal life experiences or cultural “expertise” factor 0% into my analyses except as an addendum to my thoughts if it matches what the novel or author has already said. That means that I will not automatically bow to a reader just because they claim to be Asian in general or Chinese specifically (cause I’ve had people try to flex with both, before). I am just as capable of reading and thinking on my own, and mxtx is just as capable of conveying what she wants us to understand from her story without the “cultural translators” acting as the unwanted, unasked for middleman. Especially when that middleman is directly arguing against what the book tells me. Heritage isn’t a “get out of jail free” card for intentionally shitty analysis and willful illiteracy.
So no, I’m not entertaining your argument that a child abusing character is just fine and dandy cause “I’m Chinese, my parents beat first and ask questions later and that’s called love 🤪” You’re Asian? You’re Chinese? So what? The author is also Chinese and disagrees with you. I also have Chinese friends who’d disagree with you. Are they less Asian than you? Do they not count because they don’t confirm your self-interested generalizations? Newsflash: Chinese people are not a monolith, and the continent of Asia definitely isn’t. Unlike in this cursed fandom, most people irl can think for themselves.
I can tell you one thing, though: mxtx damn sure didn’t write any of her novels so that a particular group of Asian diaspora readers can run to a majority-white fandom to play “cultural translator” about how “inherently abusive” Chinese culture is to a round of hehe hahas at their own expense. And for what? White validation? Western approval? Over a web novel??? Does that not sound demented to you? Is that not the definition of self-hate?
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[3]
For a moment I thought Doumeki was going to mention that Kohane was worried about Watanuki and asked Doumeki to look after him - but instead he pivots to the thing I had completely forgotten about and mentions the balloon.
How long ago was the balloon. Forever ago. It was from before Watanuki fell out the window.
NO WAIT I WILL FIND OUT. PLEASE HOLD.
Balloon appeared in Chapter 50, which I seem to have read in 2017, and Watanuki gives it to Kohane in Chapter 58. So this balloon is seven years old for me. This balloon is the age of a small child.
I suppose it’s not as extreme if you go by publishing date. Volume 8 was published in Feb 2006 and Volume 14 was Feb 2009. But that’s still three years!
Clamp really playing the long game here as if we would expect anything else at this point.
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