#i dont ship this but this is great actually

[catamaurrr-star]

YANQING MASKED FOOL THEORY!!

[CHAPTER 1: WATER]

so yanqing has a Bunch of secret water motifs, such as this moment in his trailer and this entire post i made

plus generally being near water in many of his scenes (his trailer, myriad celestia trailer Cloud Knights Martial Doctrine, On Swords, fighting dhil + blade)

there's also his clothing! his sleeves have a wave pattern

swirlingish designs like water mixing with something else on his Whatever's at the end of his clothes i dont know the name

also i might just be reading too hard but his hair drooping down feels a little bit like water flowing down

misc motifs: his boss's skill names being "CASCADING laceration", his bp pfp being named "yanqing: ODYSSEY", the story where they go on a ship in the SEA, ult name being "amidst the RAINING bliss", swallow motifs and swallows being commonly found near water (source)

[CHAPTER 2: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT]

so why am i telling you all this on the masked fool theory? well the path of elation does have some ties to water! such as:

s: masked fools databank

s: mourning actors databank. this is a bit of a stretch but Bare with me

s: "inquiry into the gods: the sacrosancts" readable

plus, two of our confirmed masked fools have fish/water motifs [feroluce made a great post on sampo and the elation's fish/water motifs go check it out !!!!] and while yanqing doesn't exactly have fish motifs, he sure has a lot of water details on him. and both of them dont really have anything in common in terms of gameplay so its fine if he also doesn't really fit either of their playstyles.

[CHAPTER 3: BUT WOULD HE REALLY]

but now we gotta ask ourselves. WOULD he be a masked fool? he is indeed smiling in almost every picture of him, but it wouldn't really fit with his personality sadly… he has a strong sense of justice and even though he's playful, he never breaks it just for fun. there is a chance that in his backstory, he could've been a masked fool that just happened to forget all his memories. but considering how young yanqing is and was when jing yuan first found him, its highly unlikely unless hes some sort of rebirthing species like the vidyadhara.

(side tangent you can ignore this) an npc does talk about (qingzu) this but i really do not think she is being serious about it. however she does also say jing yuan spent the first 500 years of his life as a crosstalk comedian and yanqing only stayed with him to learn it so it does tie in to the theory a bit. i still really do not believe her since even the trailblazer doubts her words, and they sound really outlandish with little evidence.

the idea of yanqing not being a xianzhou native is really easy to believe though. there's the whole six phased ice thing, but id like to bring something else up to the table. all human character bosses have physical weakness such as bronya, argenti, kafka, etc. cocolia doesn't but your encounter with her in the storyline wasn't actually her, it was a fragmentum echo of her, and even then her echo of war doesn't have physical weakness. so this implies that yanqing isn't human, unless one of the other bosses is also not human. also nobody knows where he came from or who his parents are, even himself.

[CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION]

so basically: theres proof that he could be a masked fool but unless we know his age or know what his backstory is if he just suddenly got amnesia we will never know. he's probably not one and im just smashing puzzle pieces that dont fit together but im going to tell everyone hes secretly a masked fool though anyways because its funny

[aroaceleovaldez]

i still think a lot about how technically, it's implied Anubis and Walt started dating each other before they asked out Sadie, and if Sadie had said she wasn't interested they would have gone "Entirely fair have a nice day" and proceed to just go continue to date each other.

Cause like, that was the entire thing. They decided that themselves. That things would work best if they were together (as in both physically sharing a body and also relationship-wise). The "asking Sadie about it" part was secondary. If she had said no, they would have stayed together, because among other things Walt would kind of die if they didn't. Walt and Anubis are technically the first gay couple in the Riordanverse. AND they're in a polyamorous relationship with Sadie. Why does no one talk about them ever.

[deus-and-the-machina]

ngl I might get crucified for this but I think the dunmeshi yuri/yaoi discourse was stupid and misrepresenting the ao3 factoids. as of today the most written for mlm ship is labru with 69 (nice) and the next most popular has less then half that at 31. meanwhile farcille has 125 out of the 154 F/F ships in the tag. it is by FAR the most popular ship, with the next two most written about sapphic ships being marcille/izutsumi (9) and kiki/namari (4) and also a couple of x readers? so farcille dominates by far

it seems to me that what's going on is that several mlm ships are in rotation in terms of popularity whereas farcille dominates as the singularly popular wlw ship.

and this doesnt mean that the issues people were bringing up about the general lack of sapphic content and the way fandom treats female characters aren't valid, but idk man when farcille fanart is cropping up daily and getting thousands of notes and has about twice more the amount of fics that the most popular mlm ship on ao3 has its like. I dont think this is really a fandom that proves that point.

I would like to see some more variation in smaller wlw pairs to make up the difference though! I dont think I see any tade/izutsumi fics and we need to change that they could be so cute.

[skiespaintedblue]

If ur romantic f/o has any siblings, they're ur in law(s) now!!! How do you feel about them? How do they feel about you? What does your f/o think about you guys? Do you hate eachother, or are you friends?

[booksandpaperss]

is the byler fandom finished yet with their weird worshiping of jopper. is it finally safe for me to officially announce that I think jopper is overrated as hell

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

You know, I think what really bugs me about the "Dadworth" dynamic applied to Kay and Edgeworth's relationship is that it usually makes Kay out to be this hyperactive, slight problem child (in the 'stealing and pranking' sense rather than the 'moody and abrasive' sense), occasionally with deep-rooted daddy issues like Edgeworth has, when that's... the opposite of her character.

(This post got away from me, so TL;DR: Kay is a quick-witted and independent young woman who has worked very hard to be both emotionally and practically intelligent enough to be seen as a legitimate successor to her father's legacy. Making her out to be the traits mentioned above, so she functions as Edgeworth's daughter rather than his investigative partner and equal, undermines her character and semi-conflates her with Maya [the deep-rooted issues bit]. Also I don't like it wksgskaj)

Kay is very, very sharp.

The thing about Kay is that she's not actually in the series as much as it feels like she is, which makes it easy for her character to be altered to suit the needs of the story (which I think happens in The Forgotten Turnabout, but I won't talk about that here). She turns up in two cases as herself in AAI (as in, teenager Kay whom we're most familiar with) and shares her role with Gumshoe, Ema and Franziska when she does, lessening her appearances even further. Nevertheless, there are still concrete elements to her personality that we're made aware of right from the beginning, and the first major one which I feel gets overlooked in favour of her hyperactive characterisation is this:

In terms of mainline assistants, I'd consider her the sharpest of all (maybe after Trucy? But I don't remember enough of AJ to comment on that). Yes, she's shown to be reckless and impulsive, but, when it comes to actual investigating and reasoning, she is solid. With Nick and Maya, you sometimes get the impression that they're both fumbling along until Phoenix catches on (most of the time with Maya's usually a little accidental help, and he still has to explain things to her near every time [not Maya's fault. Following Phoenix's reasoning is like being on a rollercoaster in a minecart]), but Kay is very rarely like that with Edgeworth. Within minutes of meeting him, she can predict what he's going to say (or 'steal his lines', as the game puts it), and there are several moments after he uses Logic and is about to explain what he's connected where Kay interrupts with the correct conclusion herself:

Edgeworth: A second Blue Badger that shouldn't exist... Clearly, the true identity of the person underneath is...

Kay: Oh, I know! It's one of the kidnappers, right!?

There's even a point where she tells him off for overexplaining things to her:

Kay: Yeesh, I told you I got it! Do you feel the need to explain everything!?

And, near the end of their first case together, he acknowledges that's she's generally quite quick:

Kay: OK, what should I re-create first?

Edgeworth: ...You haven't figured it out yet?

Kay: Heh, maybe I have, and maybe I haven't.

Even if you don't take these points into consideration, the fact that she comes up with a new way to use Little Thief, and knows how to use it at all actually, shows you that she's a really intelligent girl! Continuing on a bit from the point I made earlier about her being brash, Kay may be reckless, but she isn't irresponsible. Whenever she rushes into situations, she doesn't expect other people to come save her; she's quite assured that she can and will get herself out of them on her own, and, if she needs help, she asks for it in advance. She treats Edgeworth less like her guardian and more like her investigative partner:

Kay: I didn't get permission to enter Allebahst... so we're going to go gather whatever info we can over on the Babahlese side, OK!?

Edgeworth: Alright, I'm counting on you two.

Kay: Right, and I'm counting on you and Ms. von Karma to sniff out clues in Allebahst!

...

Edgeworth: A number of pieces connect in a very complicated way in this case... It's almost enough to make one completely mentally exhausted.

Kay: Let's not over-complicate matters, OK, Mr. Edgeworth? We've been so focused, like a laser, on only what seems strange and out of place... it's no wonder nothing's clicked and we haven't unlocked anything yet. But, if we think things through calmly, the answer should come to us!

There's an independence to her proactiveness that kind of forces Edgeworth to meet her on equal grounds, and this too is an element that gets lost when the Dadworth dynamic comes in because it involves making Edgeworth responsible -- or feel responsible -- for her actions and general wellbeing when Kay has never expected nor wanted that. She does things on her own terms, and she walks the path she's chosen by herself:

Edgeworth: Preposterous! On what grounds do you suspect her of such a thing!?

Shih-na: The fact that she calls the Yatagarasu. That in itself is a more elegant proof.

Kay: Ms. Shih-na.

Shih-na: Yes?

Kay: I... have no intention of taking back any of what I've said.

Shih-na: ...?

Kay: I am the Great Thief Yatagarasu. And I refuse to allow some imposter to claim that name as their own! The path of justice that my father pointed me towards... I will walk it the best I can!

Her relationship with Edgeworth works as an inverse to that of Nick and Maya's in the way that, where Nick and Maya have deep respect for one another beneath layers upon layers of playful insults and messing about, Kay outwardly respects Edgeworth first (and expects that respect to be returned) and razes him second -- that, too, never to an extent she wouldn't with anyone else or that crosses a certain boundary. Her messing with Edgeworth is shown to be more an attempt to get him to lighten up or not take himself too seriously than an act of (platonic) intimacy as it is with Nick and Maya (which makes sense because Nick and Maya have spent years together, while she's known Edgeworth for all of two weeks) or genuine obliviousness/silliness (although it definitely sometimes is). This is pretty obvious simply from the fact that she always calls him 'Mr Edgeworth', though she's perfectly comfortable calling Gumshoe and Badd, people whom she is more familiar and comfortable with, 'Gummy' and 'Uncle Badd' respectively. Also Kay, in general, is quite polite? Edgeworth calls something she said rude at one point and she gets insulted, and, when you ask for her opinion, she doesn't go 'What?' or 'What is it?', she specifically says, 'Yes?' (this changes in AAI2, which I promise I'm not discussing here) Upon meeting Oldbag, she has this exchange with her, where Kay chooses a more formal mode of address than what is actually offered:

Oldbag: My name is Wendy Oldbag. But you can call me "Wendy", or "Granny", or whatever suits your fancy.

Kay: Nice to meet you, Ms. Oldbag! I'm Kay Faraday.

She's also had moments where she calls Edgeworth out for being 'tactless', and she's shown to feel very strongly about rudeness throughout the whole game. I'm not saying she isn't mischievous or playful, she very much is, but the point is that she's really quite respectful, and this extends to her relationship with him. Her characterisation in Turnabout Ablaze, where she's considerably more excitable/high-strung than in Kidnapped, seems largely due to them chasing down Calisto Yew. Edgeworth even comments on this:

Edgeworth: Kay, you need to look before you leap. You tend to lose your cool when it comes to anything related to that woman.

Generally, though, you can tell that she was obviously raised with an adherence to certain formalities. She's not looking for another parental figure (because she doesn't need one, which I'll go into after this), but, if she was, she'd make that clear.

Kay's a very straightforward person at heart; she doesn't hide any part of herself, even the part that should be hidden (i.e. the Yatagarasu). There are points where she suggests that Edgeworth reminds her of her father, but, in AAI, she specifically mentions that it's both Edgeworth and Gumshoe who remind her of her father and Detective Badd. It's not about her seeing Edgeworth as a father figure; it's about their and her own dedication to the truth. Even in AAI2, where her comments could be read as leaning more towards the former angle, she doesn't get cut up about him not picking up on that or really paying it much emphasis at all, because it doesn't matter. The fact that he reminds her of Byrne is just that: a fact.

Returning to the point about Kay not needing/wanting another parental figure, I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but to put it succinctly: Kay has the guidance she needs without him.

To put it less succinctly, Edgeworth's possibly the worst candidate to go for for emotional support and guidance in the first place, and by the time she meets him again, she's basically processed her father's passing and has a better handle on herself emotionally than Edgeworth does (not a brag; most characters have higher EQ than Edgeworth); what she wants isn't necessarily closure for Byrne's death in the emotional sense but in the I-want-answers-to-this-mystery-that-will-restore-my-family's-honour sense. You could make the argument that Kay becoming the second Yatagarasu and shaping her entire future around continuing her father's work prove that she isn't over his death, but I don't think that's true and more of a result of conflating her with Maya a bit.

With Maya, becoming the Master isn't something she chooses; it's given to her by Misty and Mia. With Kay, it's the opposite. Kay's decision to become the Yatagarasu and pursue the truth is wholly her own, and her approach to that goal reflects that. While Maya uses her cheery, upbeat attitude to conceal a lot of self-doubt and vulnerability (and Franziska does the same with her hostility), Kay does not. Her cheerfulness is precisely who she is; it's not a mask so much as it is a distraction. It keeps people from looking at her too closely and realising exactly how capable she is, and, while I don't think it's fully intentional (again, she believes in living her life in a straightforward and upfront manner), she does imply that it's sort of her (or the Yatagarasu's) MO:

Kay: Well! By the time everyone notices, it's already gone! That's the Yatagarasu way!

Interestingly enough, this unintentional tactic of using humour and cheeriness as a distraction from her abilities makes her a mirror to Calisto Yew, who also uses her seemingly always light-hearted nature as a disguise for what she's actually capable of (Calisto's joviality is her true self, too, or at least as 'true' as she can get). The difference between them is that Calisto delights in ironically mocking the world around her, whereas Kay finds joy in life itself, and she's stronger for it.

The only part where we see Kay attempt to mask her feelings is when she's a child, and even then she admits that she feels better after crying, which, I believe, led to her becoming more open with her emotions later in life (see how her older self has a teary sprite which makes pretty frequent appearances where her younger self does not). In any case, to me, this shows that she has people in her life already who are helping, and have helped, her confront and process her trauma. She's not looking to Edgeworth to help her make sense of her father's death and she definitely isn't looking for a replacement (again, literally dedicated to continuing her father's [and Badd's] legacy). Whenever Edgeworth even gets close to becoming parental with her, she dismisses it, unless she acknowledges that she is in the wrong:

Edgeworth: ...Kay, it's not good for you to stay up late, you know.

Kay: Yes, gramps!

...

Edgeworth: ...I appreciate your sense of justice, however... I would appreciate it if you wouldn't go running into the heart of any more raging fires.

Kay: Nngh... Yes, Mr. Edgeworth... I'll try...

Despite her buoyancy and bright attitude, Kay is quite firm that she be treated as an adult (she doesn't see her cheeriness as a mark of youth; it's joie de vivre, it's who she is, and that's that), and, throughout the game, she gets annoyed when people don't respect that (her arguments with Lang are largely over how he calls Little Thief a toy and her crow-girl). She holds her own and relies on herself while being unafraid of asking for help.

Anyway, this post has gone on for long enough and I think I've addressed the points I wanted to. I should mention that I realise that a lot of how many people portray/interpret their relationship is validated by AAI2 but that's honestly a discussion for a separate post HAHA I feel like, when it comes to AAI, the father/daughter interpretation can maybe be argued with regards to the way Edgeworth treats her? Honestly, though, I think he'd treat any young lady who suddenly becomes part of his team/responsibility in pretty much the same way. And, like, he drops the ball almost every time he's supposed to give "fatherly" advice because he's just not that great with it/children!! It's actually hilarious HSKSDHSK

Either way, yeah! I just think Kay is actually given a lot less credit than she's due when the Dadworth card gets played and I just! Want better for her!!

[schlawa]

It’s a (translated) quote from my favourite bands live banter, where the drummer asked if anyone still needs a guitarist and I just thought the vibe fits them so well

[viewlumia]

Behold, my least favorite line in the entirety of Ninjago!

[fitzrove]

Started watching a "problem with greek myth retellings" video and it began with a blurb montage like "Condemned by the misogynist guys of history, this is the true girlboss feminist story of [A WOMAN]" and like. brb writing one of those about crown prince rudolf. It's ok he's like a misunderstood girlboss to me<3

[im-the-queen-of-stardust]

We all know the pain of being in small fandoms where you sometimes quite literally read every single fic available with your favourite character. But no one talks about the struggle of the big fandom with loads of fics but you don't like how a huge part of them portray the character and the relationships. Because you sift through pages upon pages trying to find one of the fic writers that have at least a similar opinion about the characters to yours. And it's impossible to filter! Maybe a bit easier if you're looking for something specific but if you're just looking for anything how do you exclude dodgy characterisation?!

[fluffyartbl0g]

Going through all my follows rn, what's your favourite character/ship (platonic or otherwise) dynamics?

(also I know I've just randomly shown up in your asks, your time travel au has been an absolute joy to read, keep it up friendo!!!)

Thank you so much :DDD!!! I'm so glad that you've enjoyed reading my time travel au and I super appreciate the ask cause I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY ONE PIECE OPINIONS >:DDD!!!! I'll put it under read more ouo

Anyways my OTP,,,, is,,, NAKAMASHIP!!!! There's nothing more that I love than the strawhat crew ; - ; I have literally shed tears over all of my strawhats and I love that they all love eachother deeply... On my one piece reread- I made sure to pay extra attention to all the character interactions and jokes. And can I just say, I see so many people talk about how the strawhats barely interact post time skip, or that some characters are basically strangers to each other (I saw someone say this about Franky and Zoro), but THEY DO TALK!!! THEY HAVE SO MANY FUN INTERACTIONS!!!

Oda is SO good at balancing these funny little character moments between important story beats >:O I think Zou in particular had a bunch of nakamaship moments that I really loved. One of my favourite lesser loved dynamics in the crew is usopp and robin (which you would know if you looked at my art of them XD) because they have a bunch of funny bits between them :3

My romantic OTP of all time is ZOLU THOUGH. And I tried really hard to not ship it immediately when i first started reading one piece, because I do this kind of thing alot when I get into media where I latch onto the protag and the guy close to the protag and ship em together??? Like I was so obsessed with JohnDave that DaveKat just hurt me,,, And I liked bakudeku so much that I couldn't get into kiribaku... AND I DIDNT WANT THE TREND TO CONTINUE TO ONE PIECE T - T And it SOMEWHAT did, but it also somewhat didnt. When I first heard Zosan was the most popular ship, like leagues above zolu, I was in physical pain,,, But REMEMBER; nakamaship is my first otp, so I still really enjoyed the idea of zoro and sanji because I enjoy the dynamics between ALL of my strawhats >:(!!!

I'm super duper obsessed with one piece and it sucks that there's all this great fanfiction out there that is effectively barred against me because there's a ship that I don't like >:/ So what I did to become more accepting of Zosan is,,, I drew them making out a ton XD If you look at my early one piece doodle piles, you'll see one of them with a couple of zosan things HAHAHA. Honestly it vaguely worked, but I'm super picky about the zosan fics I read, cause I feel like people can wildly mischaracterize zoro pretty easily.

Anyways I don't think I really answered ur question properly, I really love the king/knight loyalty but also just good bros dynamic that's happening with luffy and zoro :) But in general I just love a good sunshine person/grumpy person ship! (geraskier, bakudeku, megamenace, kagehina, hitomi and shousuke <<< quite upset that the ship sank, Fakir and Ahiru, wrightworth, etc)

Thanks again for the question <3

[lastoneout]

tbh my friend was right if I was gonna ship anything in One Piece it would probably be Nami/Luffy/Zoro if only bcs they have fantastic dysfunctional besties who have 0 boundaries to the point of perfectly anticipating each other's moves/preferences/ect. energy and it's pretty fun

[strrwbrrryjam]

for all my grievances with tangled the series, one thing i cannot criticize them for is their songs, i mean, sure, not all of them make sense in context (let me make you proud comes to mind), the songs are spectacular, from the vocals to the instrumental, all of them are a joy to listen to, whether they are just incredibly goofy, like the buddy song, to heartbreaking, like waiting in the wings, whether its a solo, a duet or a group, they are wonderful to listen to

[todayisafridaynight]

can i say the line and say infinite wealth drops in two months

[urfavoriteshippingservice]

Could you draw some of my favorite mlm ships which are Devil/Dice, Specter/Cagney, and maybe even Beppi/Djimmi if that's not too weird for you ?? love the blog btw!

your name is about to be the death of me/lh/j

also thank you so much <33 now for your long-awaited gays!

they are lowkey judging you

"that's pretty corny huh?" "no, anyone would like it" /ref

betcha jealous but you can't have his balloon gun wielding bf

do come by the mailbox again!

[rmbunnie]

While I’m on here i have to say its a goddamn tragedy that the jjba fandom went the basic portmanteau/mashup ship name route because its already full of music references so it would be really fun to get creative with it. In a just world fugonara would be called Strawberry Switchblade instead. A single tear is rolling down my face as i type.