#it literally makes sense for them to share some connection both in their original setting & in their modern verses

[nagweon]

i've decided that in modern verse, byan & si-u share a room in the group home they both live in. they definitely have some issues but, because si-u doesn't snitch when byan comes home late, drinks, smokes, etc., it's still the most agreeable byan has ever been with a roommate.

the main reason si-u doesn't snitch is that he's afraid of what byan will do if he does. however, they do also share some of the snacks they steal with him, which is pretty decent encouragement to keep his mouth shut.

[gleamingtempest]

Danganronpa Despair Time Foils

TL;DR - The foils of the main cast of the killing game in Danganronpa Despair Time are foreshadowed in the chapter 1 recap video. - Hey hey! As said above, premise is pretty simple. While based on the initial impressions alone not all of these seem to make sense, connections and shared themes can be found between all of the pairings presented in the chapter 1 recap video which is what makes me think they are foils. This is not concrete evidence and you are free to disagree! I'd love to hear others opinions and discourse regarding the topic in the comments. ^^ I will be making more in depth analysis posts on each of these pairings in the future. All screenshots are attributed and credited to the Danganronpa Despair Time channel. Please watch the original video & series as a whole! For some extra clarity:

From Wikipedia Here we go.

Foil #1 - Xander the Rebel & Min the Student

Shared Themes & Topics: Resenting their talents, resenting academia, importance to Teruko Tawaki, red/warm color pallets, pro & anti authority perspectives

Clarifications & Other Notes: They share a relationship of culprit & victim, giving them a unique dynamic in the story. A clear precedent for tension & conflict was set in their dynamic from their first interaction, though until the murder this was minimal.

Foil #2 - Teruko the Lucky Student & Charles the Chemist

Shared Themes & Topics: Distrust, social isolation, amnesia/obscured pasts, Pragmatism, Logic V. Fate Clarifications & Other Notes: Teruko & Charles had opposite upbringings with one being very privileged and the other being borderline or literally homeless. They have butted heads since day one and seem to be going in opposite directions as characters atm. They have had many scenes of direct conflict & tension.

Foil #3 - Eden the Clockmaker & Arei the Bowler

Shared Themes & Topics: Friendship, kindness/cruelty, Hope & Trust, Optimism, Naivety Clarifications & Other Notes: Arei has always been openly antagonistic towards Eden & Eden has expressed very clearly that she wants to get closer to Arei. Arei was devastated by Arei's death and Arei has expressed that Eden is everything she was not allowed to be but deeply desires to be.

Foil #4 - Nico the Pet Therapist & Ace the Jockey

Shared Themes & Topics: Bullying, Anxiety, Neurodivergence (Heavily Implied), Animals, Strength/Control Clarifications & Other Notes: Ace has an explicit history of cruelly bullying Nico while Nico has a confirmed past of being bullied by others for their identity as a non-binary person. Nico has attempted to murder Ace.

Foil #5 - Hu the Zither Player & Veronika the Horror Fanatic

Shared Themes & Topics: S*****e/S**f H**m, Lack of Purpose/Boredom Clarifications & Other Notes: There have been no explicit scenes of tension between the two. It is heavily implied that they have each others secrets. Hu has been portayed as 'motherly' & thoughtful while Veronika has been portrayed as 'childish' & impulsive.

Foil #6 - Rose the Art Forger & J the Effects Artist

Shared Themes & Topics: Identity Issues, Lack of Agency, Troubled Family Relations, Art/Performance Clarifications & Other Notes: There have been no explicit scenes of tension between the two. Rose has lost her passion for her talent while J has stated that she really loves her talent. Both have more powerful figures in their lives which have in some way stripped them of their agency to explore their identity on their own terms.

Foil #7 - Arturo the Plastic Surgeon & Levi the Personal Stylist

Shared Themes & Topics: 'Sinful' pasts, Troubled Family Relationships, Aesthetic/Cosmetic Talents Clarifications & Other Notes: These two have had one scene where there was some light tension & conflict established. Levi is portrayed humble & down to earth while Arturo is portrayed as haughty & excessively prideful. While Arturo's past is not explicitly or literally sinful, it is heavily implied that he subconsciously feels guilty for the death of his younger sister. Levi is heavily implied to have the heartless murderer secret based on the small number of secrets left & his secret quote where he laments over his 'heartlessness'. Both seem to have a tense relationship with their family with Levi having been literally disowned & Arturo seeming to be no contact with his family for one reason or another. Levi's talent focuses on making someone the best version of what they already are while Arturo's focuses on making you into someone else entirely. (Plastic surgery is not literally this but this is how he portrays it.)

Foil #8 - Whit the Matchmaker & David the Inspirational Speaker

Shared Themes & Topics: Optimism, Nihilism, Apathy, Depression, Kindness/Cruelty, Trauma Clarifications & Other Notes: Whit's primary visual motif is hearts while David's is stars. Hearts are essential, intimate & personal while stars are pretty but distant & uninhabitable. David's true nature is cold and uncaring while Whit is portrayed as very empathetic & mindful of others. Both characters seem to struggle in some way with feelings of apathy and nihilism, though they seem to deal with this in very different ways. Whit had David's secret & tried to keep it until he learned his true nature, at which point he remarked that 'his career was in trouble for reasons out of his (whit's) control'. David is intially inviting & kind while Whit is initially somewhat abrasive & insensitive. -

Tysm for reading if you did! I'd love to hear your thoughts down below, as well as any other shared themes/topics you can see applying to any of these characters. Hu & Veronika in particular is a pairing I don't understand super well but would love to hear more about!

Not sure when I'll post the individual analysis posts but I look forward to doing so when I do. Bye bye!

[izosdualpistols]

— Gojo and Geto, the Two Halves of A Whole

I absolutely refuse to believe people look at Gojo and Geto and say: "that's not gay".

The AUDACITY to say "they're just homeboys" when they're clearly so in love with each other and literally cannot live without the other.

The way everything about them complements each other - it's almost as if they were set up from the start to be soulmates! (they were.)

Yes bitches, I'm talking about YOU TWO. Don't give me that look as if you don't know shit started because YOU TWO decided to break up.

–

Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru, meaning natural born genius and genius through effort.

Their awful personalities and jujutsu abilities certainly make them the duo - calling themselves "the strongest" together.

If the fact that each other's presence makes them feel relief wasn't very lover-like to you, allow me to dive in deeper and introduce you to why they were the only people able to put up with each other and why in the world they decided to break up in the first place.

1. The Origin - (Credits to @/donyuji on tt)

Gojo Satoru was born with incredible abilities - both "Limitless" and "Six Eyes", making him the Gojo Clan's "once in a bazillion centuries genius" sorcerer. His god-like powers made the people around him treat him like a god by making Gojo shoulder their burdens. So when he came to think: "Why should I protect these weaklings?", Geto was the one who made him change his view.

It's such a Spiderman-like delivered line - "With great power comes great responsibilities".

Geto isn't wrong. "The strong would protect the weak" is a normalized view in the Jujutsu world. Jujutsu sorcerers serve the weak - that is their duty. But once that meaning of "duty" became a blur to Geto, his ideology was altered. We can see this evidently in these panels.

2. Geto vs. The World

The man who once believed sorcerers existed to protect non-sorcerers becomes a murderer - taking innocent lives for the sake of his unachievable goal of an "era of sorcerers". But why?

I have seen many Geto's character analyses and each one of them were very interesting! Some say he fell apart due to Riko's death (failure of the mission), others say he fell apart due to the strength gap he felt between him and Gojo growing bigger. Although they are not wrong, I wanted to toss in my own two cents and connect those two in a way.

Riko's death was only the start of Geto's downfall. When he slowly becomes to realize the ugly system in the Jujutsu world, he struggles to fulfill his role as a jujutsu sorcerer. On the other hand, Gojo becomes stronger day by day - each second, he becomes even stronger than before. His skills as a sorcerer excelling.

Here comes the power gap. Geto, who was once the strongest together alongside Gojo - started to drift away, stepping out of that "strongest" title. I like to believe that it was bound to happen - and Geto knew of this. Gojo was born a genius while on the other hand, Geto was not.

That is why he knew his goals would be unachievable and that if it were Gojo, he would be able to reach that unreachable.

He knew his skills alone couldn't make up for that gap, that's why he was obsessed with consuming and getting the power of Rika, the "Queen of Curses".

3. Geto and His Unattainable Ideals, Gojo and the Shackles as the "Strongest"

Woohoo! It's finally time to look at them side by side. If we think about Geto's goal, putting the murder and death of innocents aside, creating an "era of sorcerers" meant the strong would no longer have any weak to protect. In a sense, it's "freedom".

Gojo, treated like a god from the very start of his childhood, grew up tied down to the burdens of sorcerers and non-sorcerers. The reason he was obsessed with strength was because he didn't want to carry those burdens alone. So when Geto entered his picture, he was able to entrust those burden to Geto - he was able to share those burdens he wished to not carry alone so much.

Gojo is a lonely character. Ever since his birth, he was treated like an otherworldly being - he sat on a throne of rusted gold all by himself. So when he was finally able to find someone he could call an "equal" - someone that can match up to his strength and stand tall next to him, he felt that abyss start to fill up.

He didn't have to look down at Geto when talking to him, and Geto didn't have to look up. Shoulder to shoulder, side by side, they could proudly present themselves as a duo.

Throwing in my own headcanon - I like to think that while Geto was making a world of socerers - strong people only, he was also trying to make a world where Gojo didn't have to carry those burdens at all. Simply putting it, he wanted to set Gojo "free".

A world where nobody had to rely on Gojo's strength - where he didn't have to use his powers for others, where he wouldn't be used for his title as "the strongest", and where he could use his strength for himself.

But because he had been stopped by Gojo, that era never came and Gojo had to continue act as his role as a jujutsu sorcerer (Then eventually - he became a teacher, teaching at Jujutsu High of course).

In fact, Gojo came to use his power more because of Kenjaku - having to save more civilians, only adding weight to his title as "the strongest"; as the higher-ups visibly expects a lot from Gojo, setting standards that other sorcerers cannot surpass.

4. Soulmates and Their End (or not..?)

What's a couple without some angst, right? As much as I love Satosugu, they were (sadly) meant to fall apart. Gojo felt true happiness in this world and Geto didn't - they were bound to fall apart.

No amount of kisses or sleepovers or movie nights would’ve ever changed that. This is why we cope with fanfics!!!

We all know - but as an honorable mention, I cannot leave out this single line delivered by Geto as his last words.

"You should at least curse me at the end."

Fucking "You should at least curse me at the end."

I love how creative Satosugu fandom is! I am never shown mercy. Ever.

Mr Loverman is basically their song because of this. If I hear Mr Loverman within a 10m radius, I will start bawling on the floor.

We ended up connecting this panel with the one above and came to a conclusion that they did, indeed, love each other.

Though Kenjaku was able to take Geto's body because it wasn't cremated, I have seen people say it was the blank lines Gojo said that "cursed" Geto - and that being why he gained consciousness when Gojo called out his name.

If they didn't break up, I bet none of this would have happened. I bet Gojo and Geto would be teaching at Jujutsu High together, being all snuggly, cuddly, and unbearably cheesy and melt into ugly puddles of goo at each other's awful pickup lines.

Gojo and Geto were more than friends - even Gege said it himself. I need Gege to flash a huge text on the sky that says "Gojo and Geto were dating" like the Bat-Signal so that EVERYONE can realize that they have fucked and made out on the sheets.

-

Am I mad at Gege? Yes. Am I mad at Gojo? Yes. Am I mad at Geto? Yes. Will I ever stop gaslighting myself into thinking Gojo and Geto are happy and nothing happened? No.

This post was just for funsies and the majority of it are my headcanons - but! I hope I have ruined your day and doubled that Satosugu agony.

Therapy bills not included ♡

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log pt 12

56. Life Between the Tides by Adam Nicholson. This book really, really wants to be High Literary Art. The author writes about tide pools and coastal organisms, but is much more interested in dissecting what these have represented in art, culture and a Jungian sense of shared humanity more than he is in the actual animals, algae and other things he encounters. Throughout the book, he builds three artificial tide pools, each time devising ways to carve rock and set up filters to catch water but exclude some organisms, and I couldn’t help but think, why? Why not find natural tide pools and observe them? Why must you put your stamp on a coastline? His whole thesis seems to be something about the beauty of how the shore is a liminal place, between land and water, where ecosystems and humans alike exist in an unstable equilibrium, and yet he feels the need to attempt to control it, and does not reflect much on the contradiction. I did not care for this book, as either a work of natural history or philosophy.

57. Spirit Beings in European Folklore 1 by Benjamin Adamah. A birthday gift from my girlfriend, @abominationimperatrix. This is one of a four part encyclopedia of European monsters��this volume focuses on Scandinavia and the British Islands. The decision to edit it into multiple volumes was made relatively late in the book’s development, and it shows—there are cross references to entries that do not appear in this book, but are in other volumes. The author is an occultist, and so plays somewhat coy with whether or not he believes in the literal existence of supernatural entities; near as I can tell from this volume, he’s a believer in the idea that they have material reality as thoughtforms created by human imagination. Putting aside that quirk (which is fairly easy to do), this is a pretty good compendium of monsters, especially but not limited to the sorts of things that would be called “fey” and “undead” in RPG terms. I do have the whole set, and am looking forward to reading the rest of them.

58. If It Sounds Like a Quack… by Matthew Hongolz-Hetling. This book is a look into “alternative medicine” grifts and cranks, following the stories of six quacks from their origins to the modern day. This modern day is the COVID era, where even the most reasonable-sounding of them goes off the deep end into conspiracy theories and anti-immigrant hysteria. The author does an excellent job of using alternative medicine as a lens to look at how consensus reality has been damaged in the United States, and there are a surprising amount of connections, both direct and indirect, between these frauds and perhaps the most successful con artist of the modern era, Donald Trump (who the book refers to exclusively as “the game show host”). The book has a light touch and is very funny throughout, which makes the ending, where he discusses how people are committing real murders in the belief that COVID vaccines are turning people into zombies, hit all the harder.

59. Remnants of Ancient Life by Dale E. Greenwalt. This is a book about biomolecules found in fossils, from the famous (like pigments found in dinosaur feathers) to the rather more obscure (using trace elements to pinpoint the affinities of conodonts and Tullimonstrum). The author is an entomologist by trade, and so is a little bit unclear about the appropriate taxonomy for other groups—an editing pass over the chapters about dinosaurs would have been useful. Perhaps the most interesting chapter is on the supposed discovery of dinosaur proteins, such as collagen and even intact blood vessels, which have been almost entirely done by the lab of Mary Schwietzer, and thus are the subject of a lot of debate and skepticism.

60. Strange Bedfellows by Ina Park. This is a book about sexually transmitted infections. It can be divided roughly in half—the first half is chapter long looks at particular topics, like the stigmatization of herpes and the possible health risks of vigorous pubic hair removal. The second half is a historical survey of the history of government investigation of sexual health, including both unethical human experiments such as at Tuskegee and Guatemala, as well as the history of contract tracing in public health offices. The author’s voice comes through strongly—she’s funny and opinionated and not at all ashamed at working in a sex related field. Mary Roach wrote one of the blurbs on the back of the book, and that seems like a pretty apt comparison.

[alyjojo]

Twin Flame 🔥 Journey - June 2024 - Cancer

Your Energy:

8 Swords rev - Knight of Pentacles - 7 Cups rev

You’ve been apart from this person for quite some time, at least a year, probably several. I can see you’re the chaser, you’re the more spiritually awakened, and you’re the one that’s been confused for a long time. Because it felt so REAL, like this person was genuinely your match, where the hell did this go wrong? You come up as a divine pair, both reversed, both not in your natural energy and there’s a lot of lies and manipulation that kept you in the dark for a long time. When I was shuffling I kept hearing “finally, I can see it”, whatever the clarity is that you’ve needed - you’ve gotten, it’s involved untangling webs 🕸️ of lies, manipulation, behavioral tactics, possible affairs or outside bs with 3 Pentacles here. You assume this is a karmic, because this was so difficult and probably has caused you a lot of damage and heartbreak internally. No, well yeah but it’s your Twin, and letting go was exactly what was necessary, even though at one time it devastated you. You just wanted them back, that’s it. You seem to be at a place of acceptance now.

Oracle:

KARMIC RELATIONSHIP 🪢

- Resentments & Triggers

- Perception

- Intensity & Letting Go

- Turmoil & Fleeting

3 Share

To help you make progress, it’s a good idea to share what you have and what you care about.

75 Originality

Feel lighthearted and free while trusting that your unique way of doing things is the right way.

Messages:

- Questionable past/morals

- Light of my Life

Their Energy:

Knight of Swords rev - 10 Wands rev - 9 Cups

Their energy isn’t great, or bad, not all of them anyway, but it is clearly not for you. In any sense. They don’t want what you want, it’s in their feelings, behavior, and messages - it’s crystal clear. Especially if a child is involved in this. You may have a child outside of this connection and they don’t want to get involved. You may have had a one night stand with this person and got pregnant, or they did, and they never wanted to be a parent - leaving you and the child behind. I’m also seeing a possible abortion or even an adoption that was one-sided or felt forced even, due to one person not at all interested in that role. Any gender, doesn’t matter. They don’t feel fit to be one, they can’t even get their own shit together - much less set an example for a child. That’s the vibe, right or wrong. They could simply not want kids at all, and you do. However that fits.

This person feels like there is no way in hell they can give you what you want. They know you want them back, and know you want them to play a role they have no interest in playing. They can’t make themselves care or be who you want them to be, in fact they’re kinda pissed off and resentful it’s played out this way. Coming back would be more difficult than staying away, to them, so they stay away or are very hands off with what little you get from them, if anything. If there’s a kid, they know they failed the kid, or they feel that way often. They feel like a failure about a lot of things in their life, not even involving you.

Oracle:

MIRROR 🪞

- Mirroring Each Other

- Self-Reflection

- Introspection

- Inner Wounds

11 Overwhelm

The hard work we love can leave us feeling burdened, drained, and burnt out, among other problems.

42 Courage

Have the courage to see the lessons on all situations and face them constructively.

Messages:

- Money Issues

- We don’t want the same things

Mutual Energy/What is Mirrored:

The Hermit - Queen of Cups rev - Page of Wands rev

Even the mutual energy is largely not even about this person, just you. You need to focus on yourself, what you want, what makes you happy, and head in a direction away from this person that literally does not have the capability or desire to provide that for you. On some level, you have to provide it for yourself, and then you’ll attract the right person for the job - which still isn’t this person. This may be a Twin, but it’s like they sensed the depth and seriousness of the soul tie and went bolting in the other direction. They’re terrified. They’re unfit and undeserving, even they would agree!

There is no reconciliation and honestly it doesn’t feel like there ever will be. Not if this person stays exactly how they are, and right now they’re so hard on themselves, feeling like a failure, insecure af and terrified of this and you, I don’t see them coming around ever. Your side shows it’s already been some time passed. Double that. Triple even. Maybe never, it’s safer to assume never than to hold onto something or someone that’s nowhere near where you are in terms of future focused and progress, especially spiritually. They may be a Twin but in this case, you’ve done more for them than they can ever do for you. Because of them, you’ll wake up to how great you are - maybe that was the whole purpose for this ❤️ I picked up on the song at the end here, and idk why, but I’m not getting a good vibe from it. Not. At. All. Maybe just assume things work out in a way for a reason. People have free will, and this person is choosing things you don’t need to be involved with. Their side is just “I can’t” and that feels genuine, they can’t. When I listened to the song, the energy got very dark and I got the worst chills - I have to cleanse the energy and delete this song from my playlist now, I don’t think I’ll ever hear it the same again. And I love The Doors ❤️ Not on your level 💯

Oracle:

ASCENDING 🎈

- Learning & Expansion

- Transcending

- Preparing for Union

- New Phase

1 Fear

If you want to be free of fears and phobias, then you have to understand why they exist, and make peace with them.

57 Worry

Worry is attachment to a particular outcome and the fear that it will not come to pass.

Possible Signs:

Virgo, Gemini, Sagittarius, Scorpio & Cancer

Charms:

Crown 👑 rev on Queen of Cups rev shows you being in a not great place either, or were at some point. You both feel sorry for yourselves, both exhibit toxic feminine energy in that, no one takes responsibility and no one takes action. You can’t help what they do or don’t, but you can brush off your crown and start feeding your own soul, doing things you love, self-care, meditation, aromatherapy baths, getting a nice haircut, things that make you feel good. Get yourself back out there feeling your best, you’ve got someone coming in, it’s just not this person. They literally *can’t*. There are reasons, but Spirit is being elusive with that��idk. For at least one, I don’t want to know. Something ain’t right.

Opal 💗 rev on 3 Cups rev (both) shows a lack of balance, a lack of fairness, a lack of general diplomacy or understanding of people, social expectations, friendships, you name it. They don’t celebrate things, love is not something they feel deeply, there’s no loyalty. It feels more like their energy, maybe this is something you’ve picked up on or about them or just understood generally. They could have a rough story. That could be what brought you together, you’re empathetic and understanding. They’re not 💯 They’re a loner and there’s a reason. Deep down they’re likely very selfish, imbalanced *inside* and idk what that entails. Trauma. They can’t find peace in their soul, in themselves, and they seem to be a consistently spiraling 🌀 sort of person. You can’t save them. There’s no reconnection shown here, and that’s probably a good thing.

[somedeepmystery]

These retreat mentions share more if you are ready and want too :)

I will admit that I’m not sure it will ever be ready to post, but I do have a two sentence synopsis. But the bitch is 375k (absolutely ridiculous) which makes it difficult to fit into any size synopsis.

Elevator pitch: Two people with disastrous sex lives are matched together on an exclusive sex retreat, and the sparks fly. Months later, fate brings them together again but, to have any chance at a real relationship, they’ll have to overcome past traumas, personal conflicts, long distance, and a hidden connection that puts them both in the cross-hairs of a maniac.

(If you don’t like sex scenes, this fic is not for you.)

Getting Illya to go to a sex retreat? I know, I know, friend. It did take work. lol

I want to give a list of tropes but I’m drawing a blank, except for the most important one, lol, the Size Kink. Hahaha! Most important one to know going in, anyway. 😂

Gaby’s owns an automobile manufacturing company, Schmidt Automotive, which she inherited from her foster father. Things are going well in that department, but her sex/dating life is in the trash. All the men she dates end up being selfish/clueless in bed. After a particularly disappointing (insulting) encounter, she gets a call from long time rival Victoria, offering her a free trip: to an exclusive, tailored, sex retreat.

She doesn’t take her up on it immediately but eventually decides that, since she can turn down the person she is paired with, she might as well give it a try.

Illya owns/operates a company that offers security and protection services. His sex life also sucks-- mostly because of his, shall we say, anatomy? It’s more than a little intimidating. It sucks, sure, especially since his last long time girlfriend dumped him over it. **  He is ready to just deal with it, but his partner and foster brother, Solo, is not ready to leave things be and decides to but him a trip to this very exclusive retreat where they are experts at matching people up for sex. Illya immediately rejects this but, after some time and trials, he decides that doing something different is better than just doing nothing/same thing over and over. He decides to take a chance.

After a slightly awkward beginning to their first meeting, things between them go VERY WELL. In fact, it’s almost like they were made for each other somehow. Problem? This retreat was only supposed to be a one weekend deal. While Illya is hoping she’ll be willing to keep in touch, Gaby and her abandonment issues are immediately in retreat because of how much she actually likes the person behind all the great sex. She leaves without exchanging numbers, or even last names.

Six months later, her company is experiencing a security issue. Important, proprietary information has been leaked to the competition: Vinciguerra Motors! Waverly sets about hiring a security expert to come in and close the gaps. And who walks into Gaby’s conference room but the guy she left behind at the sex retreat. The guy she has totally not been thinking of ever since.

ANYWAY - there’s more after that, because it’s like three books in one lol, but that’s as long of a post as I want to make. Writing it all out makes me see how ridiculous it all is. But, in my defense, when I was originally writing it, it was just for funsies, so I wasn’t trying to make it make sense.

Hope that gave you a little of what you are looking for, anon. And it’s not just torture for something that will never be, because I cannot guarantee I will ever post it.

**all the tictok girlies calling out how ridiculous large dicks are in romances/erotica is so funny to me now because, yeah a huge dick seems normal when you read this shit but in reality? Sure. Illya's dick is too big, that's literally the point. *snerk* (Also, I started writing this Dec 2015, friends. And the idea was born after watching Magic Mike XXL, bwahahahahaha!)

[venjamin-kingdomhearts]

OKAY I HAVE TO APPROACH ON MAIN THIS TIME

i got to read a couple of your writings after the past few days of work and i just ??? Holy crap, what a stroke of genius to take the replica concept with Roxas. im always enamored by the reality that KH has set up, with the rules behind hearts and bodies and souls. like a heart being able to shatter. having a replica start to break down? im gonna sound like an insane person, but there's just something there that's intriguing.

the manga for chain of memories and 358 tried to tackle that kind of thing, but it never went too far past some creepy visuals. but having it written out, something like losing your sight, the sensation of touch. it's terrifying, and it's so fitting for Roxas. it would be horrifying for him, familiar in a sense to when he gave up his life to Sora in kh2 and was forced into non-existence.

IM BAD AT WRITING LIKE THIS, but I wanted to come and sing some praises bc it's just so interesting as a premise. i am going to continue reading everything, but i wanted to drop this comment before i forgot :3

AHH hi again!! im so happy to hear you enjoyed some of my drabbles, thank you so much for stopping by! oooh, eheh, this is a headcanon i haven't talked about too much but have written about a few times!! iii should really post my other stuff to AO3, i have a few older fics that kinda touch on this headcanon... hmm... I've always had a headcanon that since Roxas was brought back into a Replica body in KH3, he sometimes has dissociative episodes and more literal moments of disconnect from his Replica body! I think it can both be terrifying for him and kinda just... "a thing that happens". I have a lotta headcanons about Roxas, Xion, and Ventus, and the effect being a part of Sora has on them. For Xion and Ventus, I kinda imagine they have a lotta issues with their identity (Xion being scared of losing herself again and not wanting to be compared to Sora, while Ventus has to deal with this odd attachment/desire to be more like Sora) while Roxas is more confident in who he is, but has a lot of frustration realizing that other people don't see him as "Roxas", and see him more as just "Sora's Other". Along with that, I like to think all of them are susceptible to feeling "disconnected" from their own bodies, with Roxas in particular having problems adjusting to his Replica body. (Xion's fear is losing herself to "Sora", Ventus' fear is that he misses being "Sora", and Roxas' fear is being seen as a shadow of "Sora". And they all have a hard time being used to just being themselves again, both mental hurdles and physical ones. ) I don't really see the Replica bodies as robotic, buuuut I kinda feel like they wouldn't be 100% human, either. I don't mean in the cyborg sense, juuuust that maybe they'd malfunction sometimes! Especially if the Heart inside (Roxas) wasn't originally a Replica (unlike Xion, who was literally made to inhabit a Replica). Though, I guess every human body can "malfunction". But Replica hiccups are more Heart-magic related, or somethin, like the Heart has trouble connecting to a new body. I just like messing around with that idea, aaand I'm really excited to share my thoughts about this eheh. I don't know if it would make too much sense in canon, but! I think it's fun to think that people who's Hearts have been "disconnected" from their physical bodies at some point might have some issues just... being a person again! Xion, Ven, and Roxas know this best, of course. So they're always looking out for each other. Xion's a lot calmer/more understanding when it comes to Roxas' Replica hiccups, while Ventus is a huge worrywart and is usually in charge of going to get help when Rox wants it. Oh man, I can imagine Ventus doing a lotta research into Keyblade Transformations so he can convert his glider into a wheelchair of sorts if Roxas ever needs it.... though on this note! i didn't know the KH manga touched on this sorta stuff!! if you or anyone has the pages as examples, feel free to tag me in them, if ya want! either way, thanks for chatting to me about this and giving me an excuse to ramble, eheh. 💚

[heathersproship]

I’m saying this in anon bc I’m scared irl friends or followers will see this but I like the pro-ship community.

I’m new to it, and while I don’t have any kind of ships that anti’s usually hate (minor/adult, family/family, etc.) I do have a lot of age gap ships and one ships that’s especially problematic.

My super problematic one I use for coping, and I want to talk about and share and stuff, but I’m worried people will send threats or call me things like an abuser bc I like this certain ship.

It sucks that I can’t just talk about my problematic ship, but the pro-ship community makes it better. I just wish there was a way to make sure only pro-shippers see my toxic/coping ship posts, and not anyone else like anti’s or irl friends lol.

I’m not really sure what the point of this was, so I’m sorry if this was annoying, I just like your blog and wanted to just say that I appreciate pro-shippers :)

Everything is /g

You’re not being annoying, no worries! I’m glad you’re having a nice time in the community! (Also thank you, I appreciate you taking time to tell me you like my blog! That’s really sweet! Sorry I took so long to respond, I had a very early night lol.)

Someone put Howl’s Moving Castle on a list of “problematic media” because for the majority of it Sophie is cursed to be a 90yo woman and Howl is in his late 20s. Both the novel and the Ghibli movie had the romance as the subplot, but antis are still against it cuz age gap (also spoilers, she turns back to her original age of 18 at the end, so while the gap is still there it’s not even half as severe). But nooo, a gap is a gap so in it goes! Also, Tangled is problematic. Frozen. Zootopia. Disney as a whole is problematic “just” because “racist.” (While I won’t deny there are some very racist things in Disney media like SotS, the depiction of Native Americans in Peter Pan, the Siamese cats in both Lady and the Tramp AND Aristocats, and the company itself is capitalist asf, to condemn Disney based on “just” racism alone is a bit of a stretch.)

Haters gonna hate for the sake of hating. There’s a high chance it's not going to make a lick of sense to you because of the long leaps in logic to get to those conclusions. And that’s entirely a them problem. I’m actually really surprised When Marnie Was There didn’t make it on the list (iykyk!).

Anyway, back to you. There is a way for you to post freely about your ships here! Two ways, actually!

The first is to make a sideblog.

Pros:

great option if you’re lazy and don't want to log out

anonymity. no connection to your primary blog unless you link it (literally or if there’s enough info to reasonably ID you)

much like a vent blog, a writing blog, or an art blog, can be dedicated solely to one thing so you don’t have to clutter your primary/stuff won’t get buried if you want/need to find them later

can be as private or as public as you want

can get asks (anon or not) and submissions

can block people*

can send Tumblr DMs

*Blocking someone on mobile only applies to your primary blog. I don’t know if there’s a way to do so for sideblogs but if you’re on browser you’ll have go to to Settings > select the sideblog URL > scroll down and manually type in/copy-paste the URL of the person you want to block into the Blocked Tumblrs section. Which leads me to

Cons:

the blocking thing, as mentioned above. if you block from your primary account, you can’t see them, but they can still see your sideblog unless you block them there.

can’t send asks, reply, or follow from sideblog; all interactions will come from your primary

always the risk of posting content to the wrong blog so whether you’re on the web or on mobile, double-check and save as drafts just in case!

if you’re going by a different name/persona, you may need to be careful what headcanons/aus/ideas you put out there. this goes doubly so for artists

The second is to make a new account.

Pros:

brand new shiny clean fresh start! anonymity!

sending asks, following people, replying to posts, all the perks!

no worries about posting to the wrong blog

block to your heart’s content without jumping through hoops

again, can be as private or as public as you want

Cons:

a bit more work (emails and passwords and all that)

might feel trapped to just be about One Thing

same con as the sideblog if you’re going by another name/persona, in that very specific or niche hcs/ideas/aus/art could be used to ID you. or just go for it and pretend this really is another person who just happens to share your exact opinions on things. who’s going to know but you, ya know?

Whichever route you take, do what you need to keep yourself safe. You can’t stop idiots from seeking things out they don’t like (you’d think they just wouldn’t but antis aren't known for being logical, ironic they insist they are), which is why proper tagging is so important. Note the tags proshippers use and tag your posts with those. Pop into inboxes to say hello, a majority of us are friendly and chill! And regardless of what the antis say, you do belong in the main tags. People just need to learn to filter and block shit they don’t like, but that’s far more work than screaming at other people to a) block them first and b) not post things they worked hard on making.

If people call you an abuser for liking something in fiction, they need a serious reality check. Tell them to grab the fictional character’s hand with their real one and drag them away from the person harming them if they’re so concerned. Please. Don’t grab a plushie because that’s a doll and that's not alive. Don’t grab a body pillow because that’s a pillow and not alive. Don’t grab a drawing, that’s paper and not alive. Grab the real, living, breathing character who’s being abused and make it all better. Guaranteed they can’t.

How you cope is your business. You’re not self-harming unless you’re intentionally triggering yourself, and you’re not harming another living person if they happen to see something they don’t want to see. You are not responsible for their reactions. If it matters to them so much how you cope, if it offends them so much, they’re not worried about you, they want to control you. There's no one-size-fits-all approach for dealing with shit. Some people go to therapy, take medication, or both. Some people talk to friends, some people run, some project onto characters and draw vent art, write stories, or read those stories about characters suffering through their same problems to feel less alone in them. All are valid. It’s about what works for you. Not them. You. And if they can’t understand that, they also need help.

Happy shipping, friend! Take care of yourself!

[translationwala]

Unleash the Power of Words: English to Telugu Translation for Creative Expression

The human spirit lives on stories, poems, songs, and other forms of writing that touch on our inner feelings and experiences. However, language hurdles can make it hard for some people to enjoy these colorful works. But what if there was a key that could let your work reach people across cultures and touch their hearts and minds? For artistic expression, dive into the interesting world of English to Telugu Translation.

More than 80 million people speak Telugu, a rich and beautiful language that opens up a world of artistic opportunities. Its huge language, vivid images, and flowing poems can give your English works a new lease on life, making them more powerful and reaching more people.

Why Translate Your Creative Work into Telugu?

Reach a Wider Audience: Connect with the active Telugu group to get the most out of your work. Share your songs, poems, or stories with new people who want to hear different kinds of stories. Think about how your words would sound on the busy streets of Hyderabad, the calm beaches of Visakhapatnam, or the historic churches of Andhra Pradesh.

Expand Your Creative Palette: Telugu has its own set of subtleties and cultural references that make it a unique language. You can use this wide range of colors when you translate your work into Telugu. This will add real emotions and images to your story. Learn about the power of Telugu words and the beauty of its traditional forms of writing. This will help you add a cultural depth to your work that will appeal to Telugu readers.

Forge Cultural Connections: Translation helps people from different countries understand and care about each other. By translating your work into Telugu and sharing it, you help break down ethnic walls and make real relationships. Your stories can start talks, change people’s minds, and help them understand other cultures better.

Elevate Your Art: Your work can be more artistic if it is translated by a professional, especially if the translator has a good sense of how to show creativity. They can get to the heart of what you’re writing while adding the subtleties and flow of Telugu, which will take your creative work to a whole new level.

Unlocking the Magic of Translation for Creative Expression:

It’s not enough to just change the words in your work to be written in Telugu. You, the writer, and the interpreter are all working together on it. It’s a trip of cultural discovery and artistic interpretation. Some important things to think about are:

Find the Right Translator: Find a translator who is fluent in both English and Telugu, and if possible, someone who has translated artistic works before. When hiring someone, make sure they know how to handle cultural references and can really get your voice and style.

Collaborate, Don’t Delegate: Translation is not an easy process. Make sure the translator understands what you want, share examples and culture notes, and be involved in the translation process. Remember that it’s your work, and your input is very important to making sure that the translated version stays true to your original idea.

Embrace Cultural Nuances: Don’t be afraid to look into Telugu proverbs, phrases, and literary references. Your translation can help you add these real touches that will give your work more depth and cultural flavor.

Go Beyond Literal Translation: Don’t forget that translation is more than just words; it’s also about showing feelings, goals, and cultural background. You can trust your translation to change your work so that it speaks to the right people without changing what it’s about.

Additional Points to Consider:

Think about websites and apps that help creative writers meet with professional interpreters.

Check out websites, literary papers, and journals that print translated works in Telugu.

Take part in workshops and cultural events to learn more about the Telugu language and culture.

Don’t forget that translation is a continuing process. Accept that you are learning and enjoy the artistic exchange that it provides.

Ready to Unleash the Power of Words?

Using English to Telugu translation for creative purposes isn’t just a way to reach more people; it’s also a way to improve your art, encourage culture exchange, and let new people hear your unique voice. You can find the true power of words and share your creativity across language barriers if you work with a skilled translator, are aware of culture differences, and keep an open mind throughout the process. Don’t forget that everyone wants to hear your story. Tell it in Telugu, and watch it grow!

Let the power of words flow, believe in the magic of translation, and let your creative voice reach people from all over the world. The world is waiting for your Telugu masterpiece!

Source: https://translationwala.wordpress.com/2024/02/09/unleash-the-power-of-words-english-to-telugu-translation-for-creative-expression/

[undertale-data]

[Image Description: an Undertale chat box with the name "PAPYRUS", in all caps and Papyrus font, in its center. On its left is a talksprite of Papyrus sweating anxiously, and on its right is a talksprite of Papyrus wearing sunglasses. End I.D.]

The Great Papyrus is the most popular Undertale character among the fans surveyed here. 19.6% of responders chose him as their favorite. That’s a total of 519 fans! (Wowie!!)

Not all Papyrus fans are unified on his characterization, however. The most obvious divide was between fans who call him a “cinnamon roll” or “precious baby,” and those who find these takes infantilizing. A lot of people like the friendliness and optimism of this character, while others recognize this but highlight his maturity too. Fans who worry about his infantilization seem most concerned with how he can be portrayed as naive or dumb by the fandom. A portion of fans specifically mentioned this naivety as a point in his favor, though the marginally more popular take seems to be that he is not naive, regardless of how he first appears. This fandom divide seems to relate to Papyrus’s autistic or ADHD coding. Many fans relate to him as ADHD and autistic themselves.

Fans also related to him in his desire for friends. Many responders think of him as a friend and a comfort character, so at least in one way his wish has been fulfilled.

The phone calls were a major reason that fans said they felt connected to Papyrus. Thanks to these calls, he has the most dialogue of any character in the game. His humor and dialogue were often highlighted as favorite qualities.

While fans may disagree on some aspects of Papyrus’s personality, it is clear that his fans all value his optimism and kindness. His fans do not see his kindness as weakness. Many talked about the complexity of his character and the strength it took for him to show mercy to the player character, even when the player doesn’t show it in return. He believes in himself, and he believes in you! This kindness and trust has inspired his fans to be kinder themselves.

Papyrus fans were also drawn to his mysteriousness. Several responses pointed out that he is a more mysterious character than Sans, who is also often loved for his mystery. As shown in the phone calls, Papyrus will put on fronts depending on who he is around, making it even more difficult for fans to uncover his secrets. Some people in other sections of the survey found this frustrating, but Papyrus fans tend to see it as another point in his favor.

Among the greatest proportion of responses were from fans who couldn’t choose a favorite trait, or who just love everything about Papyrus. While these responses may be less lengthy, they are still as full of love as the essay-length answers. These responses tended to say phrases like “cool dude” or “Papyrus my beloved” or “THE GREAT PAPYRUS.”

(You were overcome by writing about such a handsome skeleton. He understands.)

Highlights: (under the cut)

Honestly Papyrus just feels like joy. Funny, incredibly kind, with a few mysteries/weird quirks about him that are fun to ponder over. I especially love how he often acts proud and self aggrandizing without putting others down, and in fact sometimes uses that to lift his friends up alongside him. You don't see this take on proud characters often.

Papyrus is strong. Strong in body, but also morally strong. He knows what is right, what it means to be merciful and kind, even in the face of danger or death. Some think him naive. And yet, even facing death and seeing the dust of those he knew, he did not falter or turn from his ideals of mercy and change for the better.

BECAUSE HE IS THE GREAT PAPYRUS

His optimism and his overall personality is endearing! You're always having fun with him :D

He's meeting all of my standards.

Papyrus is very under appreciated, and overlooked, and it's very frustrating to me—he's a complex character but people treat him like he's a baby!!! I like him because he's kind of goofy with how he talks and he's just very charming and kind.

He's weirder than Sans, and it wasn't acknowledged for years because he acts oblivious and dumb, even when he's clearly not. Quite frankly, I find it iconic. Also, his entire personality helps a lot.

I'm ND, trans, and projecting!

OK SO he's just a friendly guy!! A dude who likes cooking for his friends!! We love a hype man!! Also smart as hell and I feel like fanon majorly overlooks this. Making good, fun puzzles is HARD and setting up a flamethrower to go off wirelessly is complicated. Like even if that bridge puzzle didn't go off the components were complicated. Love that cool dude!!!!

I heavily relate to Papyrus as a character and consider him my favorite fictional character of all time. He is a very well-written and thought out character with several quirks and layers in his personality. It is headcanoned by some (myself included) that Papyrus may possibly be on the Autism Spectrum due to his nature, his interactions with others, and overall how he displays himself to the world we see.

I could talk about Papyrus forever, and you have made a grave mistake in allowing me to do so. He is a charming, strong spirited, well intentioned, complex character that is often wildly misinterpreted, and I think originally this is why I was drawn to him. He is presented as one thing and in fact acts as one thing (though not the same way as presented by fandom), and in reality when you look closer than you are meant to he is not, in fact, any of these things. It was intriguing to me. Secondly, and rather contradictorily, another thing that drew me to him is that he is very true to himself, when it comes to idiosyncrasies and moral values. It's true that he does not offer much in the way of personal backstory and feelings, but he offers very much indeed in the way of personality. What a guy! He wears silly crop tops and bright colors, he speaks in a manner specific to him that sometimes doesn't make sense, he cares about something or someone and goes whole hog with it -- he's passionate, damn it! I love him and his weirdo, goofy self with all my heart. He cares about other people to a fault, too. He would sacrifice everything to help someone, and his belief in the potential of both others and himself is indomitable. When faced with the responsibility of a kingdom, his friends gone, his brother lying to him, and himself all alone without a reliable support system, he recognized what he was facing and still bucked up and became determined to get through it. When faced with a murderous, over powerful enemy, someone who had killed many of his friends and fellow monsters, someone who had repeatedly been rude and borderline aggressive and showed no signs of stopping, he saw that they were having difficulty and offered to help and to care for them, and didn't regret his decision or change his opinion on what they needed and their potential for change, even when quite literally killed by them a moment after. Even in death, even directly after a betrayal like that, he never stops believing that they can get better, that anyone can be a good person if they want to be. That's important, I think; that concept of giving people the chances they need to grow and to change. I have a tattoo of that moment on my thigh, it's that important to me. I guess I really like Papyrus because even though he is fictional, watching him out there makes it easy to believe in people, in our inherent goodness and desire to love each other. He makes it easy to see that we can change, that no matter what you've done in the past or who you currently are, no one is inherently a bad person, and no one is incapable of learning how to be a good one. It is just a step by step process that we have to take day by day.

[Image Description: A wordcloud shaped like Papyrus. His gloves, boots, and cape are red; his Battle Body is blue, yellow, and white; and his bones are white. Some of the most visible words are: Kind, Love, Good, Cool, Relate, Funny, Friend, Mystery, and Papyrus. These are the words that responders mentioned most in their essays about him. End I.D.]

Read the full list of responses shared with permission by clicking this link! (The document is 25 pages long, so you may want to make a copy to prevent lagging.)

[pumpkinpaix]

mdzs fandom, diaspora, and cultural exchange

Hey everyone. This post contains a statement that’s been posted to my twitter, but was a collaborative effort between several diaspora fans over the last few weeks. Some of the specifics are part of a twitter-localized discourse, but the general sentiments and issues raised are applicable across the board, including here on tumblr.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably seen a few of my posts about this fandom, cultural exchange, and diasporic identity. For example, here, here, and here. This statement more directly criticizes some of the general issues I and others have raised in the past, and also hopefully provides a little more insight into where those issues come from. I would be happy if people took the time to read and reblog this, as the thought that went into it is not trivial, and neither is the subject matter. Thank you.

Introduction

Hello. I'm a member of a Chinese diaspora discord server - I volunteered to try and compile a thread of some thoughts regarding our place and roles in the fandom expressed in some of our recent discussions. This was primarily drafted by me and reviewed/edited by others with the hopes that we can share a cohesive statement on our honest feelings instead of repeatedly sharing multiple, fragmented versions of similar threads in isolation.

This was compiled by one group of diaspora and cannot be taken to represent diaspora as a whole, but we hope that our input can be considered with compassion and understanding of such.

For context, we are referencing two connected instances: the conflict described in these two threads (here and here), and when @/jelenedra tweeted about giving Jewish practices to the Lans. Regarding the latter, we felt that it tread into the territory of cultural erasure, and that it came from a person who had already disrespected diaspora’s work and input.

Context

The Lans have their own religious and cultural practices, rooted both in the cultural history of China and the genre of xianxia. Superimposing a different religious practice onto the Lans amidst other researched, canonical or culturally accurate details felt as if something important of ours was being overwritten for another’s personal satisfaction. Because canon is so intrinsically tied to real cultural, historical, and religious practices, replacing those practices in a canon setting fic feels like erasure. While MDZS is a fantasy novel, the religious practices contained therein are not. This was uncomfortable for many of us, and we wanted to point it out and have it resolved amicably. We were hoping for a discussion or exchange as there are many parallels and points of relation between Chinese and Jewish cultures, but that did not turn out quite as expected.

What happened next felt like a long game of outrage telephone that resulted in a confusion of issues that deflected responsibility, distracted from the origin of the conflict, and swept our concern under the rug.

Specifically, we are concerned about how these two incidents are part of what we feel is a repeated, widespread pattern of the devaluing of Chinese fans’ work and concerns within this fandom. This recent round of discourse is just one of many instances where we have found ourselves in a position of feeling spoken over within a space that is nominally ours. Regardless of what the telephone game was actually about, the way it played out revealed something about how issues are prioritized.

Background

MDZS is one of the first and largest franchises of cmedia that has become popular and easily accessible outside of China. Moreover, it’s a piece of queer Chinese media that is easily accessible to those of us overseas. For many non-Chinese fans, this is the first piece of cmedia they have connected with, and it’s serving as their introduction to a culture previously opaque to them. What perhaps is less obvious is that for many Chinese diaspora fans, this is also the first piece of cmedia THEY have connected with, found community with, seen themselves in.

Many, many of us have a fraught relationship with our heritage, our language—we often suffer from a sense of alienation, both from our families and from our surrounding peers. For our families, our command of the language and culture is often considered superficial, clunky, childish. Often, connecting with our culture is framed as a mandatory academic duty, and such an approach often fosters resentment towards our own heritage. For our non-Chinese peers, our culture is seen as exotic and strange and other, something shiny and interesting to observe, while we, trapped in the middle, find ourselves uprooted and adrift.

MDZS holds an incredibly important place in many diaspora’s hearts. Speaking for myself, this is literally the first time in my life I have felt motivated and excited about my own native tongue. It's the first time I have felt genuine hope that I might one day be able to speak and read it without fear and self-doubt. It is also the first time that so many people have expressed interest in learning from me, in hearing my thoughts and opinions about my culture.

This past year and a half in fandom has been an incredible experience. I know that I am not alone in this. So many diaspora I have spoken to just in the last week have expressed similar sentiments about the place MDZS holds in their lives. It is a precious thing to us, both because we love the story itself, and because it represents a lifeline to a heritage that’s never felt fully ours to grasp.

It’s wonderful to feel like we are able to welcome our friends into our home and show them all these things that have been so formative to our identities, and to be received with such enthusiasm and interest. Introducing this to non-Chinese friends and fans has also been an opportunity to bridge gaps and be humanized in a way that has been especially important in a year where yellow peril fear mongering has been at an all-time high.  

History

However, MDZS’ rise in popularity among non-Chinese audiences has also come with certain difficulties. It is natural to want to take a story you love and make it your own: that’s what transformative fandom is all about. It is also natural that misunderstandings and unintentional missteps might happen when you aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of the culture and political history of the story in question. This is understandable and forgivable—perfection is impossible, even for ourselves.

We hope for consideration and respect when we give our knowledge freely and when we raise the issue of our own discomfort with certain statements or actions regarding our culture. Please remember that what is an isolated incident to you might be a pattern of growing microaggressions to us. In non-Asian spaces, Asian diaspora are often lumped together under one umbrella. In the west, a lot of Chinese diaspora attach themselves to Korean and Japanese media in order to feel some semblance of connection to a media which approximates our cultures because there are cultural similarities. This is the first time we've collectively found community around something that is actually ours, so the specificities matter.

There is a bitterness about being Asian diaspora and a misery in having to put up a united front about racial issues. Enmity towards one group becomes a danger to all of us, all while our own conflicted histories with one another continue to pass trauma down through the generations. Many of us don’t even watch anime in front of our grandparents because of that lingering cultural antipathy. When the distinctions between our cultures are muddled, it feels once again like that very fraught history is flattened and forgotten.

Without the lived experience of it, it’s hard to understand how pervasive the contradictory web of anti-Asian and, more specifically, anti-Chinese racial aggressions are and how insidious its effects are. The conflation of China the political entity (as perceived and presented by the US and Europe) with its people, culture, and diaspora results in an exhausting litany of criticism levied like a bludgeon, often by people who don’t understand the complicated nature of a situation against those of us who do.

There is often a frankly stunning lack of self-awareness re: cultural biases and blind spots when it comes to discussions of MDZS, particularly moral ones. There are countless righteous claims and hot takes on certain aspects of the story, its author, and the characters that are so clearly rooted in a Euroamerican political and moral framework that does not reflect Chinese cultural realities and experiences. Some of these takes have become so widespread they are essentially accepted as fanon.

This is a pattern of behavior within the fandom. It is not limited to any specific group, nor does it even exclude ourselves—we are, after all, not a monolith, and we should not be placed on pedestals to have our differing opinions weaponized against one another in fandom squabbles. We are not flawless in our own understandings and approaches, and we would appreciate it if others would remember this before using any of us as ultimate authorities to settle a personal score.

It is difficult not to be disheartened when enthusiastic interest crosses the line into entitled demand and when transformative work crosses into erasure, especially when the reactions to our raised concerns have so frequently been dismissive and hostile. The overwhelming cultural and emotional labor we bring to the table is often taken advantage of and then criticized in bad faith. We are bombarded with racist aggressions, micro and macro, and then met with ridicule and annoyance when we push back. Worse, we sometimes face accusations of hostility that force us to apologize, back down, and let the matter go.

When we bring up our issues, it usually seems to come with the expectation that there are other issues that should be addressed before we can address ours. It feels like it’s never really the time to talk about Asian issues.

On the internet and in fandom spaces, Western-coded media, politics and perspectives are assumed to be general knowledge and experience that everyone knows and has. It feels like a double standard that we are expected to know the ins and outs of western politics and to engage on these terms, but most non-Chinese have not even the slightest grasp of the sort of politics that are at play within our communities. We end up feeling used for our specialized knowledge and cultural background and then dismissed when our opinions and problems are inconvenient.

As the culture represented in MDZS is not a culture that most non-Chinese fans are familiar with, we’d like to remind you that you do not get to decide which parts of it are or are not important. While sharing this space with Chinese diaspora who have a close connection to the work and the painful history that goes along with being diaspora, we ask that you be mindful of listening to our concerns.

Cultural erasure is tied to a lot of intense historical and generational trauma for us that maybe isn't immediately evident: the horrors of the Pacific theatre, the far-reaching consequences of colonization, racial tensions both among ourselves and with non-Chinese etc. These are not minor or simple things, and when we talk about our issues within fandom, this is often what underlies them. This is one of the first and only places many of us have been able to find community to discuss our unique issues without feeling as if we’re speaking out of turn.

With the HK protests, COVID, the anti-Chinese platforms of the US election etc., anti-Chinese sentiment has been at the forefront of the global news cycle for some time now, and it is with complete sincerity that we emphasize once again how important MDZS fandom has been as a haven for humanizing and valuing Chinese people through cultural exchange.

Experiencing racial aggression within that space stings, not just because it’s a space we love, but because it feels like we’ve been swimming in rapidly rising racial aggression for over a year at this point.

Feelings

This is a difficult topic to broach at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. Many of us have a wariness of rocking the boat instilled in us from our upbringings, and it is not uncommon for us to feel like we should be grateful that people want to engage with something of ours at all. When we do decide to speak up, we’ve learned that there is a not insignificant chance that we’ll be turned on and trampled over because what we’ve said is inconvenient or uncomfortable. When it is already so difficult to speak up, we end up second-guessing and gaslighting ourselves into wondering whether there really was a problem at all.

We’d like to be able to share what we know about our culture and have our knowledge and experience be taken seriously and treated with courtesy. This is a beautiful, rich world built with the history of our ancestors, one that we too are trying to connect with. When we find it in ourselves to speak up about it, we would appreciate being met with consideration instead of hostility.

We don't have the luxury of stepping away from our culture when we get tired of it. We don't get to put it down and walk away when it’s difficult. But if you're not Chinese or Chinese diaspora, you get to put this book down—we'd like to kindly request that you put it down gently because of how much it matters to all of us in this fandom, regardless of heritage.

What we are asking for is reflection and thoughtfulness as we continue to engage with this work and with one another, especially with regards to how Chinese issues are positioned. When we raise issues of our own discomfort, please take a moment to reflect before reacting defensively or trying to shut us down for spoiling the fun—don’t deprioritize our concerns, especially in a fandom for a piece of Chinese media. We promise most of us are not trying to start shit for the sake of a fight. Most of the time, all we want is acknowledgement and a genuine attempt at understanding.

Our hope with this statement is to encourage more openness and understanding between diaspora and non-Chinese fans while we navigate this place that we’re sharing. Please remember that for many of us, MDZS is far more intense than a typical fandom experience. Remember that the knowledge we have and research we do is freely and happily given, and that it costs us both materially and emotionally. Please don’t take that for granted. Remember too that sometimes the reason for our discomfort may not be immediately evident to you: what seems culturally neutral and harmless might touch upon specific loaded issues for us. We ask for patience, and we ask for sincerity as we try to communicate with one another.

We are writing this because there’s a collective sense of imposed silence—that every time the newest round of discourse crops up, we often feel as if we’re walking away having created no meaningful change, and nursing new wounds that we’ll never get to address. But without speaking up about it, this is a cycle that will keep repeating.

This is not meant to shame or guilt the fandom into throwing themselves at our feet, either to thank us or beg for forgiveness—far from that. We’re just your friends and your fellow fans. We are happy to have you here, and we’re happy to create and share and play together. We just ask to be respected and heard.

Thank you. Thank you for listening. Several of us will be stepping back from twitter for a while. We’ll see you when we get back. ❤️

* A final addendum: here are two articles with solid practical advice on writing stories regarding a culture other than your own.

Cultural Appropriation for the Worried Writer: Some Practical Advice

Cultural Appropriation: Some More Practical Advice

The thread on twitter is linked in the source of this post. Thanks everyone.

[phoenixyfriend]

👀 PLease tell us your thoughts about the Jedi babies re-growing up among different cultural contexts.

Oh fuck okay

Context: original post, chrono The specific post this ask is referencing: here

Summary of the AU: Disaster lineage got tossed back in time. Anakin stayed 21-ish, but Obi-Wan and Ahsoka got deaged, took new names for time-travel reasons (Ylliben and Sokanth, or Ben and Soka), are now staying with the True Mandalorians under Jaster Mereel because the Force said to, go back to the Temple after about a decade. They grabbed Shmi about three months after arriving.

So as far as the cultural background goes, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka had similar upbringings. She spent a few years on Shili first, but both spent the majority of their childhoods up to age 13/14 being raised in the creche. So that's the basis that they would default to, in a vacuum.

Nobody is raised in a vacuum.

Along with the Jedi cultural background, they're being raised by Tatooine natives in a Mandalorian environment.

Shmi and Anakin are both former slaves who have desert survival baked into their bones. The longer Anakin spends around her, the more his accent slips, the more he talks about old folktales, the more he uses idioms that don't exist on a cityplanet like Coruscant. All the things that he tamped down to be a Jedi come floating back to the surface, and Shmi's never known anything else. Anakin's knowledge of slave customs make her feel more comfortable, which in turn makes him feel better, and so on.

Mandalore is just... the culture they're living in. You don't grow up in a new culture with a new language without picking up on it personally. (Source: I moved to the US when I was a little under two years old.)

I think the thing I'm going to focus on as an example is the way each of these cultures approaches family, and then maybe how they approach the keeping of peace/what peace means.

Jedi: Where you come from means little, only the legacy you leave behind in your students. Mandalore: You protect your clan and your children; adoption is a major cultural value, if not actually practiced consistently. Tatooine: You can lose your family at any time, so you value what you have in all its forms. You don’t forget where and who you came from, to family of blood and family of choice alike. You cling to your memories and what little you still have of them, to what your master cannot take away.

These are all valid ways to approach family, and each of these approaches can have significant meaning to different people. But they do all, to a certain degree, conflict with one another, despite all three being fairly communal cultures.

The Jedi have a culture, one that’s built on a shared ability and religion over thousands of years. It’s not just an organization, but a continuous community with legends and traditions and art and records. But it’s one that is built on new blood coming in from the outside, volunteers who join because the religion speaks to them (near literally, given the nature of Force Sensitivity), given up by families who couldn’t or wouldn’t teach them in a way that let their talents flourish instead of pushing it all down.

For the Jedi, a culture built on people coming together due to something they have in common intrinsically that their families of blood do not, it makes sense to put emphasis on letting go of that past when they can, and to place importance on teaching lineages. It’s not just the official master-padawan pairs, either, but that’s the most obvious and easily paralleled element. Moreover, a lot of the Jedi culture is about gaining knowledge, so obviously spreading it is good, and also on supporting the galaxy to make it a better place; to view the Jedi order as a heavily communal culture would make sense, since their values are all about selfless betterment of the universe, which on a larger scale is about the galactic conflicts, but on a smaller scale is about supporting their own community, the children and the ill and elderly.

So that is the specific culture that Obi-Wan and Ahsoka grew up in, one that holds blood family as relevant but not particularly crucial to one’s identity, but is structured so people leave behind legacies through education in a manner that often becomes adoptive family (depending on your definition, I guess). Jedi are encouraged to connect to their home cultures, if not their families, with practices like the coming of age hunt for Togruta leading to the young Jedi taking a trip out to Shili to engage in that cultural milestone. This can also be viewed as a way for the Jedi to maintain personal connections to the wider universe, a (not entirely successful, but certainly attempted) way of keeping them from becoming too isolated and insular from the universe at large, and losing touch from what the galaxy actually needs of them.

They’re now growing up with two cultures that do place emphasis on blood and found family.

Mandalore, as presented in The Mandalorian, has their traditional values set as being heavily associated with their armor, battle skills, and childcare. While that’s clearly a set of values that aren’t actually followed by everyone with full sincerity, we can assume that these stated cultural values do have at least some impact on the way the society is structured, since we do see more traditional characters (Jaster, Din) adopt orphaned children and then have the Mandalorian elements of their immediate circles support that claim.

(We’ll ignore Jango and the whole clone army thing because the amount of Sith influence is up for debate and also holy trauma, Batman.)

However, we also see that a lot of Mandalorian culture is built on their family histories. On the New Mandalorian side, we see emphasis placed on the fact that Satine is House Kryze and that she’s a duchess. Her bloodline is relevant, though not the most important thing about her. On the Death Watch side, we have Pre and Tor placing emphasis on the fact that they’re Clan Vizsla, descended from Tarre, that this is important to why they deserve what the darksaber represents, this is part of why they not only deserve to lead, but should for the good of Mandalore.

Bo-Katan’s armor is a family heirloom. Boba’s armor was Jango’s, but before being Jango’s, it was Jaster’s. Armor is important enough to pass to family, but the family can be adopted. This all tracks.

The resol’nare specifies loyalty and care for the clan/tribe among the six tenets.

These two elements seem relatively well-balanced: the importance of adoption and the importance of family as a larger unit on the level of a house or clan.

And then you have Tatooine, which also balances blood and adoption, but for entirely different reasons, that being this: it can always be taken from you.

For all that a Mandalorian could historically expect their family to die in battle, and a Jedi could expect to lose their master the same way if things went poorly, those were usually choices. A Mandalorian was raised to walk into battle, and then they could make that choice to do so. It wasn’t often much of a choice, but they could feasibly turn their back and choose to be a farmer or a doctor or something, and support the people who went out to do battle instead of being the one on the field themselves. A Jedi could choose to be a healer or an archivist or join one of the Corps.

A slave does not get that choice. A slave can be killed or sold on a whim from their master. It’s not a one-time trauma, but an ever-present fear. Your parent, your child, your sibling, your spouse, all of them can be separated from you at any time. You can always lose them, and you have no choice but to grin and bear it, or try to run and die before you reach freedom.

In a context like that, I imagine Tatooine places a very heavy emphasis on family, both of blood and of choice, and on treasuring what you have while you have it. A person is always aware that they can lose whoever they have in their life, and so they make the most of their times together, have clear and consistent ways of expressing that love (I imagine primarily direct verbal confirmations and physical contact, practical gifts like water and fruit). Childcare is important, elders are venerated. Those who survived that far have valuable wisdom, and the children are to be given what happiness they can have before reality wipes that ability from them.

The family ‘networks’ among Tatooine slaves are smaller and tighter knit. There’s less trust for outsiders, but once you’re in, you’re in until you are taken away. Still, families are torn apart regularly, and often can’t contact each other after being separated if they’re sold far enough away, so families stay small because they’re always being broken up. Unlike Mandalore’s tribe/clan system, or the Jedi’s wide, loosely-structured community, Tatooine’s slaves form smaller groups that cling for as long as they can, and try to support each other. (There are selfish ones, of course, especially the newbies, but... well. Most try.)

Tatooine is also much more likely to assign a familial role (e.g. referring to an elder as ‘grandmother’). It’s not uncommon in the others (multiple Jedi refer to their masters as a parent or sibling, like Anakin’s “you’re like a father to me” line), but it’s not as baked-in that such a role should be given.

So on a structural level, we have two people from a community culture with little emphasis on blood family or formal familial roles are now being raised in a community that has them asking “what can you do for the people around you first, and then the wider world?” by people who tell them “your family, blood and found, is the most important thing you have; never let anyone take more from you than they possibly can.”

And that shit has an effect.

For all that Sokanth and Ylliben were once raised with a knowledge that their duty, their goal, was to better the galaxy as a whole, they are now being told that the community that raises them asks their loyalty back, because societies are built on support networks, and if you support the tribe, it will support you. There are parallels to that kind of thinking among Jedi, because it is basic social theory, but it’s not presented as the same kind of cultural value. It’s not given as something to strive for, just a basic fact.

This, for instance, means that once they’re back at the Temple, they have a tendency towards suggesting study groups and other ways of supporting people in their immediate circle, often structured in very unfamiliar ways. Again, this isn’t uncommon among Jedi, but it’s not done in the same way, or with the same emphasis. The Jedi also often approach problem-solving in a different order, so the step of “meditate on it and you may find your solution” often comes before “gather information from people who know more about it than you do,” while Ben and Soka have by this point learned to do it the other way around, because that’s what the Mandalorian system taught them: rely on your family first.

Meanwhile, the Tatooine element of their upbringing has them being much more willing to just... casually refer to ‘my dad’ and ‘my sister’ and so on. They use those words. It’s not just “my master is like a father to me,” but “this is my father.” They don’t hesitate to talk about the family they had and still have in Mandalorian space. None of the Jedi begrudge them it, really, but it’s always a shock to hear for the first time, and between the Tatooine refusal to pretend the connection is gone and the Mandalorian tendency to err on the side of roughhousing as affection, they’re just... odd. It’s not like none of the other Jedi know family outside the Order--some of the old books had Obi-Wan visiting his brother on Stewjon once in a while--or like none of the active Jedi are loud or boisterous, but the specific manner in which Soka and Ben interact with the Order, especially when their dad is around, is very weird.

More Soka than Ben, really, but that’s mostly just because Ben’s a very quiet person until he gets a little older, so it’s harder to notice on him.

Point is, while they still hold to their duty to the wider galaxy and will continue to keep that duty above almost anything else in their lives, the way they talk and act about the subject of family, especially in private, is heavily influenced by their new cultures.

This is already very long but I promised I’d talk about peace so let’s go:

The Jedi seek peace as an absence of war and conflict in the portion of the galaxy under their purview, in hopes that they will prevent as much suffering and death as they can.

The Mandalorians are varied, but Jaster Mereel’s group (which is the community the Skywalkers are with) is likely to view peace as unrealistic to achieve in the long term. They do not seek war, but they know the world they live in, and are prepared to protect against violence as their first resort. They always expect an attack, even if they don’t seek it.

The Slaves of Tatooine view peace as the calm in a storm. It is the status quo. Nobody has escaped tonight, for the guards aren’t searching, but neither is anyone dead. The Master you have is in a good enough mood to not sell you, to not kill you, to not beat you. Peace as an absence of suffering is impossible, so you seek for your master to be peaceful, that is to say: not raging at you.

The scope of each of these narrows significantly. From the known galaxy, to the wars that meet Mandalorian space, to the household one serves.

A community like the Jedi can choose to address peace as something to be sought on a large scale as an absence of war. They primarily function within the borders of the Republic, which has its problems but is largely structured to prevent such things from occurring until the Sith interfere. The Jedi have a structure that allows them to address peace as an ideal to be sought, at least within the borders of the territory they serve.

Mandalore, meanwhile, has been at war on and off for... ever. When they are not at war with themselves, they’re at war with someone else. ‘Peace’ is just the time between wars, and they know that if they do not attack first, they will be forced to defend. Jaster Mereel was known as the Reformer, and part of that was that instituting a code of honor, one that was intended to prevent Mandalorian warriors from acting as raiders and brigands, but rather acting as honorable hired soldiers, or taking roles such as the Journeyman Protectors. Given that, I imagine that he views war as something inevitable, but also something that can be mitigated.

War doesn’t touch Tatooine.

Oh, it might raise taxes and import rates. It might prevent visitors who come for the races. It can do a lot of things.

But to a slave, these are nothing. The only thing war does is affect the master, the person who chooses when their slaves get water, when they get beaten, when they are no longer useful enough to keep around or keep alive.

The peace of a slave’s live is dictated by how much abuse they are subjected to by the person who owns them.

What this means for Soka and Ben is... well, they are viewed as war-hungry by the people who don’t know them very well. They have armor. They focus on fighting, both with and without their sabers. They know tactics better than most masters. They claim that war is coming, and don’t seem too sad about it.

(It is a fact to them. War will come. All they can do is meet it. They’ve already done their mourning once.)

They also... well, Shmi tells them things in hidden corners. How to duck their head to hide the hate or fear in their eyes. How to watch for the anger in the tendons of a hand. The laugh of someone who enjoys the pain they’ve caused, not just the adrenaline of a fight. She is free, and so are they, but she has not forgotten how to hide in the shadows until the master’s ire has turned elsewhere. How to be small and quiet and unseen until the danger passes.

A Jedi’s first resort is words. Their second is their saber. But the Jeedai hold their heads high, and the Mandalorians do the same.

“You rely on the Force, and you have your pride,” she tells them, her hands on their own. “But there will come a time when you will not be able to remind people that you are free. You will not be able to say that you are a person, that you deserve the respect of a living sentient. Perhaps it will be a politician who treats everyone like that. Perhaps you will be captured by an enemy. Perhaps you will be undercover. You will not be able to fight, with words or with weapons, and you will have to know how to survive.”

Tatooine does not have peace. Tatooine only has survival.

And while Jedi fight for the survival and peace of the universe, they are refined and composed. Mando’ade fight like warriors of old, and Tatooine slaves fight like cornered, rabid anooba.

The galaxy comes first, but when the chips are down and the Sith come out to play, Soka and Ben do not need refinement, because they know how to toss aside their pride and live.

[jdrizzle15]

Her Second Return

Just like all of you, and especially my fellow Penny fans, I am absolutely devastated by the Volume 8 finale. I had been in quite a state these last few days, utterly heartbroken, and actually nauseous at times. It feels strange to me to be legitimately grieving a fictional character, but it’s not a bad thing to feel this way. To me, this just shows that CRWBY loves her just as much as us to have written her so well that we connect so completely with her, that it feels like we lost an actual piece of ourselves when she’s gone.

But as you can probably tell by the title, this mega post isn’t gonna be about accepting this end, not in the slightest! Today I want to share canon evidence that can point towards another return of our beloved quirky red headed cinnamon bun! I’m here to spread this hope that I and others in the Nuts & Dolts dolts Discord server have!

I have this separated into many different sections to keep these thoughts organized. With that said, here goes…

A Father’s Words:

In Episode 7 of Volume 7, ‘Worst Case Scenario’ we learn the origins of Penny’s aura, and thus her soul. We also learn that it takes more aura each time she’s brought back. This leaves open an option that could be used at a later point.

Many people theorized that Pietro could indeed revive Penny one more time, which he would absolutely do. But there also lies the possibility that someone else could donate some of theirs, I’m not sure about this as I feel like it’s akin to blood donation where compatibility matters or there's a high risk of altering her, but the possibility is definitely there.

Now, the conversation in Chapter 5 of Volume 8, ‘Amity’ that Pietro and Penny have is an important moment for both Father and Daughter. It was there to show how her death in PvP all that time ago really did have a heavy impact on him and is still affecting him to this day.

Instead of continuing to pretend that everything is A-okay, like he had done for most of Volume 7, he finally lets his true feelings about how it come out to Penny for what is quite likely the first time. Even going so far as to say "Are you asking me to go through that again?" when she offers to take the risk of trying to lift Amity with her power. He wants Penny to be able to live her life.

This entire scene with Pietro established “this is what will likely happen” even if circumstances are much different now, it doesn’t negate the fact that this is a key part of Penny’s story. Scenes like these have a purpose beyond simply making an eventual death all the more heart wrenching. Her never actually getting to live her life makes those scenes basically moot. It makes them effectively pointless from narrative point of view. Unless there's more to it.

Building Relationship:

The build up between Ruby and Penny the last two volumes has been absolutely phenomenal with a definite destination in mind, and this doesn’t feel like that destination. So much of the arc of this season was to help Penny. This girl that our main protagonist absolutely adores and treasures, it would just be awful to throw all of that out for what amounts to an avoidable end. Why use so much of their precious and very limited runtime on deliberately building up this relationship only to end it abruptly, and permanently, when they’re separated?

In my opinion, RT is definitely smarter now than to intentionally set up what was really looking like a budding gay relationship only to kill one of them for good. If N&D wasn't actually going in a romantic direction, why would they leave in all of the romance-adjacent stuff that they got, that's not how ‘just friends’ act. And that is not something you use such valuable time building up for absolutely no pay off whatsoever...

Representation of Hope:

At its core, RWBY has always been about hope. It’s not at the forefront the whole time, but there's been an underlying theme of hopefulness that has persisted since it began. Some describe the show as a Hopepunk, I personally find this to describe RWBY really well. This genre of storytelling is about caring for things deeply and the courage and strength it takes to do so. It’s about never submitting or accepting the way things are. Fighting for what you believe in and standing up for others. RWBY fits all of this extremely well. How does this relate to Penny? She has been shown to be a sign of hope for everyone, but especially for Ruby, the main main protagonist. A prerequisite for a Hopepunk story is the hope.

Her first death in V3 was something that fundamentally changed Ruby. For the first time in the series, we see our main character all but broken by this event. With the loss of Penny, immediately afterwards, Ruby’s hope followed. She made up for it through determination and force of will. We see it affect her multiple times throughout the journey to Volume 7. But upon her return in V7, Hope reached a high point for everyone, the sheer relief on Ruby’s face is plain to see!

In V8 chapter 5 ‘Amity’, Penny literally raises hope by lifting the arena into the sky so Ruby could spread her message. And when she falls, and Amity with her, the connection is lost and hope plummets again. From there things take a very negative turn with the hack begins to take Penny’s agency.

In chapter 11 ’Risk’ is the point in the arc where everyone is reunited for the moment, so two separate hero stories are no longer a thing at that point in time. For the time being focus seemed to be shifted to care about the characters and how they’re going to solve the current problems. This is also where Ruby reaches her lowest emotional point in the season.

It’s not huge, but it’s interesting how connected this is. Before Ruby and Yang share a good cry over learning the possible fate of Summer, Yang brings up restoring optimism and hope to Ruby after the younger sister storms out of the room in frustration. This is where Penny’s scenes take up the rest of the episode. Getting Penny back in control of her own body and safe again is what makes the ending of the episode much brighter, when just 5 minutes before Ruby had been distraught and scared. This then spills over into the group coming up with the plan to use the staff, putting the main group in a much better mood. Of all the things to go right, it’s interesting that it’s Penny.

Things go wrong with the plan in the end and Penny dies. I find it interesting that once again, Penny got them hopeful in their chances of doing something right. Given said plan succeeded but at the cost of Penny of all people, Penny is shown to be the beginning and end of hope for them

The highest and lowest points for hope seem to directly correlate to when Penny’s around. When she comes back again, hope will return too, just like it had before. And because she’ll likely be back for good this time, the second return will probably be close to when Ruby is nearing the complete abandonment of hope. This would be pretty par for the course of the show honestly.

A little aside, but in a sense, Penny also represents Unity. The CCT in Vale fell after her first death, knocking out global communications and the unifying connection it gave. When it was restored for the briefest moment, she was there. Her body connected so she could allow for its launch, her soul lighting the night to hold up Amity with every ounce of her strength. So of course when the Hack succeeds and she falls, she takes global comms down again with her. At a smaller scale - even at the Hack's second last attempt to control her, she draws everyone in the Schnee Manor together. At the start of the volume, Yang states the one thing that they all agree on is not surrendering Penny.

Unity seems appropriate for one whose first song and wish was for but one friend, who would go on to find so many more in the process, and permit for a moment the possibility of all Remnant becoming friends once more. Where she first died, the name of the episode devoted to her story - Amity, "friendship", from the Latin root amicus, "friend" - she almost lives and dies with the very possibility of a united Remnant. It's no wonder she's a priority target for Salem, the great divider, and it seems natural that her next restoration may very well allow the next bid to bring the world together.

The Void Screams:

Moments after Penny's death, we hear a weird scream in the void space. It was a guttural, pained, angry scream, almost like the void space itself was crying out. All the portals shuddered and flickered when it happened.

Some think that this scream was Salem returning, but that happens earlier than Penny’s death, her return is signaled with cinder's arm acting up. We know this because after the arm finished flailing uncontrollably, Cinder said triumphantly "she's back." If it were Salem screaming, it would have happened after she fixed herself, but it didn't.

And I doubt Cinder would have been surprised or unsettled by it considering she was happy Salem returned not long before it. And why would a Salem scream affect the portals anyway, she has no connection to the staff or it's magic.

Another thing to consider is the fact sound is not transmitted through the portals. Otherwise, they would've heard Oscar and the rest calling for them, or the screams of the citizens of Mantle and Atlas. This lowers the possibility of that scream being from Salem even further.

The sound really seems to be coming from something else entirely within the void, and that something is not at all happy. There’s also the fact that Penny was the only person who died in the void space, everyone else was just thrown out of it like Ruby and Co. The only logical cause to me is Penny. Her body was a product (or byproduct) of the same creation magic that made the void space, her blood seems to have been a trigger.

Now I can't be sure about it, but this makes me feel like Penny is almost a part of creation itself? For whatever this thing is to be so angry, that is the only explanation I can think of currently. But all of this could possibly relate to the Narnia allusion of 'the willing victim killed in a traitor's stead' that others have brought up, which will be covered next.

Narnia Parallels:

Atlas has several parallels and references to fictional places (putting aside real world ones like the United States). One of those is that of Narnia, both on the surface and on a deeper level. It is a land of winter year round, where people struggle to survive and there is a present divide between those loyal to the current Monarch and those who are not. James is a parallel to Jadis, the White Witch, a ruler whose thoughts and cares aren’t exactly centered around the actual well being of the people. The hologram table in Ironwood’s office is designed to look like stone, like the Stone Table which features prominently in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He has a handpicked cadre of special agents/secret police, like how Maugrim and his wolves served Jadis. Another key parallel is how Jadis’s winter sets in to oppress and kill everyone in Narnia, but the Witch provides aid and protection to her loyal followers. She has all the power to spare harm to others, and uses it only for the loyal. As soon as Mantle splits from James and Atlas, no care is taken to protect them from the cold of Solitas even though he has every ability to turn the heating grid back on. His protection is only for the loyal.

Now that the parallel is established, let's look into the details. Starting with how James plays the role of Jadis.

"I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny." These are the words Jadis says in the Magician’s Nephew to justify the blood civil war she and her sister had waged for rulership of Charn, before she came to Narnia. She won that war, technically, but only after the last battle had been lost and her sister had marched right up to her so that they were face to face. Jadis’s troops were dead, her followers had surrendered, and the capital was under full control of her sister. But, she still had one card, one ultimate play to win and prove the throne of Charn was rightfully her. The Deplorable Word, a piece of old magic that killed everyone and everything except for her on Charn. It was monstrous, senseless, cruel beyond measure. But it got her that hollow victory. This mindset, the disregard for the people except as tools for her own will, the ultimate ‘aoe’ destructive move that no one had even considered her using, the unwillingness to stop even when by all practical measures the war is over, is a shocking parallel to James. In many ways, he is Jadis in mindset and deed.

Then there is the shared desire for A Thing that both James and Jadis have. For James it’s the Winter Maiden and control over her. For Jadis it’s the Silver Apples from the Tree of Youth. And funnily enough, the Maiden Powers parallel the Apples quiet well. These apples grant power and a life of eternal beauty, but should not be taken or eaten on one’s own initiative. They must be given, a gift granted by another, or only suffering will come from obtaining them. "For the fruit always works — it must work — but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be.” Jadis’s immortality, and some of her power, come from the fact that she ate an Apple of her own will after stealing her way into the garden where the Tree of Youth had been planted. She gained the eternal life she had wanted and the power along with it, but she did so by taking it and was cursed because of it. Her skin turned pale and her lips blackened as if she were a frozen corpse given life. She will be trapped in a life of misery and hate according to Aslan- oh hey Cinder, how’s having stolen the Power you always wanted working out for you? Cinder had the power she wanted, but she only got hungrier, eager to claim more and increase her might. But in her pursuit she was defeated and humiliated by Raven, had to steal her way out of Mistral, and then suffered defeat after defeat while in Atlas. Only in the end, when she didn’t keep pursuing the Maiden Power, did she get any kind of victory.

The reason these parallels to Narnia are so important is one of the most famous events of the series. The cracking of the Stone Table and the rebirth of Aslan after his death. ‘When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.’ Well, the ‘Stone Table’ in James’s office has cracked, and Penny strikes me as a pretty willing victim. She has never actually committed any actual treachery or harm, as she was the Protector of Mantle, and fought for its and Atlas’s people until the very end. And because of her death, the actual traitor, Winter, who loyally served James until he had gone too far, was saved. Through Penny’s self sacrifice, Winter was saved. So now Death itself will start working backward.

(Major props to my friend @catontheweb for writing this section, I was getting nowhere with it, if they weren't there this part wouldn't exist!)

Norse Mythology:

The tree we see in the post credit scene gives off some serious Yggdrasil vibes. Also called the World Tree, it is essentially all of creation in Norse Mythology. It connects all nine realms, including the God realms of Asgard, the human realm of Midgard, and the underworld of Hel.

Humans are born from the branches of Yggdrasil. The web of Wyrd is woven for every person once they're born, and their path is set from there regardless of how many times the souls cycle over. But at the end, they're destined to end up in one of the worlds, for a myriad of reasons.

I believe Penny landed closest to this giant tree. She was on the center platform in the void space, so if that space is directly above the island(?) the tree is on, it makes sense for her to fall by the center nearest to the tree. This would not only open up all kinds of possibilities for the volume in general, but it would also create options for Penny.

The whole of Yggdrasil’s representations fit well into Penny’s story. Birth, growth, death and rebirth. We can count Penny’s appearance in V7 as birth for now, her growth is all her development in leaving =the military and becoming a Maiden, her death just happened, and her rebirth would be her revival. And this is a cycle she’s gone through before.

The Norse god Odin and Yggdrasil have quite a connection. In one story, Odin cut out one of his own eyes to gain knowledge from a pool underneath Yggdrasil. The only one that fell whose eyes alone are incredibly significant to the story was Ruby. So, they could choose to have her allude to Odin by having Ruby make some kind of deal with whatever entity likely rules over this magical place. An eye for Penny’s life.

There’s another story about Odin, Yggdrasil and the pursuit of knowledge. Odin so loved knowledge, that he sacrificed himself in a quest to learn the deeper magic of runes. It was believed one could only learn the magic spells from runes in death. So, Odin hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days as an offering, and teetered between life and death. After he mastered the last spell on the ninth night, he ritually died and all light was extinguished from the world. Odin’s death lasted until midnight, when he was reborn and light returned to the world.

This story doesn’t fit Penny perfectly, but allusions often don’t. So If she really did land near the tree, she could be another loose representation of Odin’s story here. What she did wasn’t for knowledge, but to save her friends and keep Cinder from getting the Winter Maiden power. She believed it necessary that she sacrifice herself to achieve this end. As we established, Penny represents Hope, so her death means the loss of hope. This parallels Odin’s story of his death meaning the loss of light itself. So if this theory holds up, it would make this death temporary, until her rebirth and the return of Hope with her once again.

Alternatively, Ruby has the potential of loosely representing Odin in this story as well. Odin later uses the knowledge of the runes to do many things, but the most relevant one right now is awakening the dead. Both of these stories are about making a personal sacrifice to gain something that is desired. Ruby would absolutely make such sacrifices if it meant saving Penny.

It is said that Odin lived “according to his highest will unconditionally, accepting whatever hardships arise from that pursuit, and allowing nothing, not even death, to stand between him and the attainment of his goals." This sounds like Penny's arc of accepting the WM powers. This is more just a general connection between Penny and Odin, but I found it interesting.

Side Note: I encourage anyone who’s interested to look into RWBY connections to Norse Myth, there’s a surprising amount of things that feel eerily similar to the show. Likely just coincidental, but it’s fun to think about!

(If I got any of this wrong, I sincerely apologize by the way. I researched as best I could, but I admit it could have been lacking.)

Ambrosius and the Staff:

Ruby told Ambrosius "we kinda wanna keep her around longer than that" as part of her very specific instructions. Then Penny died about ten to fifteen minutes, at the absolute most thirty minutes later in-universe. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems very short to be considered ‘longer than that’. Technically it is, but when writing a story and a character says something like that, you typically don’t just kill the character they were referring to basically right away. It makes sense for a week-by-week watch, but in a volume binge, which many viewers do, it becomes ironic how fast Penny dies after being removed from her robotic body.

The first time we see the staff of creation being used, it's to save Penny. Using the staff of creation to help Penny is a sign of how incredibly important she is.

They’ve even got this entire transformation sequence for her, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to throw all that away two episodes later. In a meta context, it’s a massive waste of time and budget considering the asset creation for Penny.

Penny is a character who has already hopped bodies two times. And now we're supposed to just believe that this time it really is a final death? Just two episodes after we were explicitly told her body isn't what matters, that "Her soul is who she is" and that "the mechanical parts are just extra"? From a writing perspective, it feels strange, like your breaking a promise right after making it. And frankly, CRWBY is better than that, which makes me think this is not the actual end for her.

A possible connection between Penny, Ruby, and the Staff (thus Creation) can be seen in the intro. As Ruby is falling and being dragged down into the darkness, she is shown reaching for the staff. In the void space, Penny is the one with the relic. So with Penny having this strong connection to Creation, and the lyrics “fight for every life” playing as Ruby reaches for the staff, it’s a safe assumption to make, with the knowledge we now have, that the Staff of Creation represents Penny in this particular moment. Which could mean that V9 will be about, at least partially, fighting for Penny’s life.

Musical Hints:

In terms of music, Friend, as a song for Penny, is very dissonant from the episode itself. The song is oddly cheerful for Penny’s recent untimely death, and it overall highlights the wrong parts of death. It’s simply too happy to be a song about losing one of the most, if not the most joyous characters in the entire show. The song also abruptly ends. There’s no outro, and while this could symbolize the fact that Penny died young, it could be that the song itself is unfinished in a story sense.

What do we hear just before the song finishes, though? A progression of notes that sounds eerily similar to the last line of the opening of Volume 8. The notes for “Fight for ev’ry life” and “Who fin’lly felt alive'' share a similar melodic structure, they aren’t perfect clones of each other, but they are incredibly similar, to the point where it seems intentional. Penny may very well be the life that the opening song is fighting for. It is also worth noting that the line “Fight for every life” comes just after “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall,” which is the exact wording used for the description in the Volume 8 finale. Team RWBY risked the fall, yet, strangely the opposite of fighting for every life happened with Penny’s sacrifice. Perhaps the time to fight for every life has yet to happen, and we will see it come Volume 9.

For another thing, the lyrics for Friend are entirely centered on Penny’s feelings for Ruby, to the point where they read very much like a bittersweet love song. The music itself is incredibly cheerful, as mentioned previously, creating a mood whiplash with the end of the volume. Why would we hear a song about Penny’s feelings for Ruby, sounding like a love song, if her death is supposed to be a tragic sacrifice akin to Pyrrha’s? The song may very well be giving a clue into its future use in the show proper.

If this was meant to be a good bye song, why make it so cheerful and romantic sounding? There's only one part about her dying and even then, it's just too accepting and goes right back into cheerfulness. The song is also pretty hopeful, telling Penny's story in a fairly chronological order. And the part where she talks about sacrifice is quite pointedly followed up by one about feeling alive. It also ends with the super cheerful chorus, the word "alive" being the last... (Remember the episode title: The Final Word)

(I want to thank my friend @shadow-0f-x for writing the majority of this section! I was struggling to choose how to tackle it as I am not well versed in music theory.)

What We Didn’t See:

It is likely that Penny understood Jaune's semblance better than him and figured something out about it’s abilities in the same way that she understood Ruby's semblance better than her. She had plenty of time to observe his semblance up close as he boosted her aura to stave off the virus. Because of that intentionally timed cutaway in the finale, we don’t get to hear her explain herself after her strained “Trust me.” All of that seems really suspicious to me.

Pyrrha Parallel:

Pyrrha and Penny both sacrificed themselves to stop or stall Cinder. Jaune tried to convince the both of them to stop. With Pyrrha, he failed, while with Penny he actively helped her sacrifice herself. Doesn’t make sense for the guy who was determined not to let anyone else do what Pyrrha did, unless of course Penny assured him she’d be alright.

The Moment:

RT including the suicide hotline in the description shows that they're aware that Penny basically committed assisted suicide, seeing it as a noble sacrifice worth doing to save her friends. They're aware, and I believe they're smart enough to condemn that decision to hell and back.

The best way to do that in my opinion is to pull her back into the land of the living and let her witness first hand the consequences of throwing her life away so freely. This would show Penny how her actions affected others so maybe she could learn to truly value herself. To not think herself expendable. It would be bold and unwise to portray this choice as something good, unless it was going to be called upon later and be pointed out for how horrible it really is.

On top of this, Penny was way too content with her death, happy even. There's no way team RWBY is letting her stay content with it. It’s almost as though we're supposed to join Ruby and Co. in calling bullshit on what Penny is saying and doing because no, Penny, this is not how things are meant to work. It's as if Penny was basically saying "I want to die for my friends" because most of the volume had been about everyone else making sure she didn't die. She knows it will hurt them. She knows.

At the peak of it all, a choice like this will totally destroy Ruby. It may very well be her breaking point for Volume 9. Curiously, the moment itself is written like it’s the first choice Penny’s ever made, yet the entire Volume shows this isn’t the case. However, this is the first choice that Penny’s made solely independently and it’s rather pertinent that the choice she makes is a mistake. Outside of giving Winter the Maiden gift and saving the day temporarily, this sacrifice will not have any lasting positive effects. Jaune will be saddled with the grief of killing Penny. Ruby will have to live with losing her best friend and not being able to protect her a second time, and Winter now has the burden of the Winter Maiden abilities, making her a target of Cinder. This is a bad thing, and Penny needs to see the long term consequences.

Transfer of Power:

As we all know, colors in RWBY are really important and get a lot of focus in the show. That means the yellow we see as Penny gives Winter the Maiden Powers was intentional and likely important, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It’s possible that the transfer effect being yellow could have something to do with Jaune’s semblance. When Fria gave the power to Penny, the effect was very much blue, so this transfer should have been green since she was the one giving it this time. The weirdness of this transfer and the focus on color in RWBY really makes it look like something’s up with how that went down.

A little off topic, but Penny saying "I won't be gone, I'll be part of you." makes me think... Winter is smart, so when she gets time to think about what Penny said, maybe she'll arrive at the same question many in the audience came to; if she's literally part of Winter, can they be separated again? If Winter starts questioning that, the possibility of Penny coming back just skyrockets.

Fria actually tells Penny "I'll be gone" before giving her powers up, which is an interesting contrast to Penny telling Winter "I won't be gone". She may have gotten that line from Winter be all philosophical in V7, saying Fria was now a part of Penny, but it hits differently coming from an actual Maiden. S5o it’s possible that Maidens usually actually will be gone, but Jaune's semblance did something to change that.

This could go well with the theory that they won't need to find an aura transfer machine, or build another one, because Jaune will have a semblance evolution allowing him to do the transfer instead. It might actually be that this evolution already happened and the golden light we saw was Jaune transferring penny's aura to Winter in some way?

An observation that I find interesting is when Penny gives winter the powers, not only is the aura yellow but penny completely glows yellow too, and she obviously starts to disappear, but she doesn’t seem to fully disappear, she just glows.

It's possibly a fading out effect and she does fully fade but animation makes bright light easier, and so we don't actually see her disappear because she's dead and not gone. But it does once again emphasize the color yellow here!

And the color is coming from Penny, it does go up Winter's arm a bit, but Penny is clearly the source. This transfer is so weird and I’m not really sure how to interpret it. There's just actually no reason that we are aware of to make the effect yellow here is the thing. Unless it has something to do with either Jaune or Ambrosius, or potentially a combination of both...

Jaune’s Aura:

The way we see Jaune's aura break in the finale is strange. His aura shouldn't be breaking here. It had been long enough since he was boosting Penny, he's had time to recharge, and it didn't look like it was a strain on him at all. Plus, we know he has a lot of aura, so there probably wasn't too much to recharge in the first place.

He has a massive amount of aura, it has never broken before as far as I remember. Even if it has though, that doesn’t make this occurrence any less odd. It should absolutely never be a one-hit KO. We didn't see anything that would've drained it, that should not have been enough to break his aura. Unless he did something - something that would require a huge amount of aura - that we just didn't see. That amount of aura drain is far more than just an attempt at healing would do, Jaune absolutely did something with his semblance that took up almost all of his aura.

Pinocchio Allusion:

As any Penny fan knows, her character allusion is Pinocchio, the puppet who became a real boy. Penny deviates from the allusion by having always been a real girl, as Ruby is quick to point out, but she shares many story beats with her original story including multiple deaths. In the original story, Pinocchio dies from being hung by his own strings due to his poor decision making and he dies. Sounds a little familiar, does it not? This is where his tale originally ended. Readers were unsatisfied with this ending however, so the author decided to change the story by reviving Pinocchio and teaching him to be more careful.

Unlike Pinocchio making all the wrong decisions, Penny often makes the right ones, or ones she thinks is right, when concerning others. While usually a good thing, this has meant Penny almost giving herself up multiple times during V8, her last attempt being successful. This is where Penny and Pinocchio begin to share similarities again. They are both very reckless when it concerns themselves. This carelessness comes from different places, but it ends with the same result of them endangering their lives and even sometimes losing them.

In the Disney movie, Pinocchio dies by drowning after going to rescue Geppetto and washes up on the shore (like the beach in V8’s post credit scene). His father is devastated and takes him home to grieve, but as a reward for his selflessness in rescuing his father, the Blue Fairy returns and brings him back to life, as well as granting him humanity. Penny sacrificed her life as well, and it stands to reason that she should be rewarded for it, much like her allusion was.

Penny got her maiden powers from someone with blue aura and then gave her powers to someone with blue aura. So it could be that not only Ambrosius, but Fria and Winter as well represent the Blue Fairy. It could be set up for Winter helping to bring Penny back to life once more. It’s an out there theory I admit, but it’s not outright impossible either. The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio saved him three times that I know of, so RWBY having three representations does make sense.

Geppetto wished for him to live as a real boy, but it depended on what path Pinocchio took. This is very reminiscent of Penny and Pietro. Pietro wants to see her live her life, and surely with him absent in V8C14 that didn't work, despite Penny choosing. Her father did not see her happy enough to live her life, and will only be able to learn her death through others. But Pinocchio's themes were life and being alive. So the likelihood that this is not her end yet is quite high!

A Girl That Fell Through the World:

Penny could be the girl who fell through the world. The girl in the story fled the consequences of a choice. The only person who chose her ultimate fate was Penny. The others were pushed into the void, but she chose to die. The consequence of her choice is Ruby’s grief first and foremost, which Penny won’t see. The girl who fell through the world does come back though, and the world will be changed severely with Penny’s absence. Alternatively, it could also be Penny coming back to Wonderland or wherever they currently are, as long as it’s unrecognizable to her.

What Returning Brings:

Others might say another return would have no story relevant purpose, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Penny gives a profoundly youthful, joyous, and wondrous outlook on the world and story that we hadn't seen since Ruby in Volumes 1-3(not the end), Penny returning would bring a much needed levity back in after the despair they will undoubtedly be going through. While not necessarily a huge thing in most other shows, for RWBY, a show largely about keeping up hope, an ounce of such relief is a necessity.

As much as I hate saying it, Penny’s death does actually make some narrative sense because she had to pass on the Maiden powers. (They could have done this in a number of ways, and I personally think they chose rather poorly, but I digress.) Throughout this whole volume, we can see Penny seemingly being set up to join the main cast, but would have been too strong with the powers. This also accomplishes ridding her of the burden of responsibility that comes with being a Maiden and lets her obtain the freedom that’s so important to her character.

Once she returns, seeing this grief that her actions caused, particularly to Ruby, will get her to realize more that her actions can have serious repercussions. She made a choice, but that choice hurt the people she loves. She must have known that it would but I’m not sure she ever realized just how much.

I didn’t want this post to be heavy in the shipping department, so I largely left it out, but I am going to say this one thing that could have an impact. If Nuts & Dolts is on its way to being canon, which this volume makes it feel highly likely, this could be a catalyst.

It could prompt an arc for the both of them in which Penny learns to live her life fighting for her loved ones, rather than sacrificing it for them. A relationship could potentially start from there. And Ruby seeing Penny learn these things may also help her to stop doing the occasional but very dangerous and reckless things she does. Ruby witnessing Penny coming to terms with what she did to the people that care about her would actually make her stop to think “wait, is this how everyone else would feel if I got myself killed?” That would be a very important moment of character growth for her.

I’m certain there are other significant things that Penny returning can bring to the show. And there are definitely more sections I could add to this. At this point though, assuming anyone even made it this far, I think I’ve been going long enough already. So let’s just roll into the outro!

As painful and hopeless as it seems, I'm choosing to trust them with this because there is absolutely no way they didn't see backlash coming. The way this finale went makes me think that they calculated for backlash and aren’t jumping into something they don’t have a plan to recover from. Whether this trust is unfounded or not remains to be seen, but I don’t think it is currently. I do think, however, that the cause of this backlash was a major misstep. Now that it has happened though, they have a chance to do something good with it.

I know for a lot of you, trust in CRWBY has been damaged, some even irreparably so. And for those that feel this way, I don’t blame you. My trust in them took a hit too, but isn’t broken completely yet. There are many ways that they can bring her back that would make sense with the narrative, they have the ability to make it right, and after going over all of the hints and general weirdness of things many times, I think they will.

I'm feeling pretty confident now and I really didn't expect that to happen at all to be honest. But discussing and theorizing with the discord server seriously helped get my hopes back up surprisingly fast! It’s actually thanks to all of them that this gigantic post even happened! So thanks a ton my fellow Dolts! And a special thanks to!!

@arcana-amicus

@catontheweb

@cosmokyrin

@gaydontmesswithme224

@jammatown919

@shadow-0f-x

They really helped get this thing across the finish line!

And thank YOU for reading all~ of this! I sincerely wish it gave you some of the hope and confidence that I now have!

[twilightpoison]

It’s been brought up to me that a lot of my content is Isekai based. However I didn’t want this to be a Ieskai HC post. Instead let me tell you all about a stupid thing I came up with as a kid that I’ve been meaning to make into a fic for so long.:

What if the characters you play actually can feel your presence and/or can hear your commentary when playing?

Fair warning I never play Hyrule Warriors and Twilight Princess so let me know if I got things wrong.

Head canons under cut!

General head canons (These are all platonic headcanons btw.):

- Let’s say that the simple reason that you are here was to help the chain. Think of it like you’re the groups companion on this journey. Who better then someone that knows about each hyrule?

- The people who dealt with a lot of magic recognize you at first. The others need a bit of a push to connect the dots but everyone gets there.

- The connection wasn’t as strong at times during their original adventures, so its not like they could always hear you or sense you.

Time:

- You saw him and it was clear he has another sibling now.

- Time knew you where telling the true, that you followed both of his adventures however he wasn’t going to be fully open to you.

- Guess who isn’t scared of Time? You.

- Literally at one point you’ve pointed at Time and with a straight face says “thats a child���.

- This is also how the chain found out that Time actually fought the moon technically.

- “You fought Majora on the moon while it was falling. That’s not the same thing.”

- You meet Malon and it was an awkward first meeting since how do you explain this in the first place.

- Yet the two of you got along amazingly.

- When you and time are alone you instantly ask Time if he knew how she got the cow in his house. He kinda just… stares at you? Like you just met his wife and thats what your asking about?!

- The answer was that he wasn’t sure how she did that but the cow isn’t in his old house anymore. Since different timelines and all.

- It’s honestly weird for him to have someone remember both of his adventures in confidence.

- All be a little awkward hearing someone go, “oh yeah! Time had to do something similar.”

- Early on Time did go over boundaries since he really doesn’t like to talk about his adventures to much.

- So instead you both agree to be as cryptic as possible or at least there is an attempt on your part. Since your the only other person that can confirm or deny his claims.

- And no. You also don’t know his true age. But your guess is the closest.

Twilight:

- Since he is one of the Link’s that is drenched in magic, he recognizes your aura instantly.

- Chaotic sibling energy.

- If he is giving Wild or any of the other Link’s a hard time you are by his side calling Twilight out. Unless if the person in question did something truly idiotic then you let him go off.

- Speaking of, you call this man out as much as you possibly can. Like hell if you’re going to let the others think he isn’t a gremlin.

- He did try to stop you by covering your mouth but you licked his hand. So…. guess what he isn’t trying again unless it’s necessary.

- Somethings are kept a secret though. Since he did live through it and even if it was stupid he still could of gotten really hurt.

- You both play good cop, bad cop to the younger Links all the time.

- Twi is surprisingly very open with you about his adventure, to finally talk to someone about it with out having it sound crazy is nice.

- He also has some questions about you and your life. Since before this adventure started you just disappeared.

- The two of you honestly get along like two best friends who haven’t seen each other in years but still can banter like its the good old days.

- Knowing only small amounts about what they all been through it’s nice to know that you’re looking after the others as well.

- That feeling makes him really push himself to protect the family he has here and luckily you are here can smack him upside the head before lecturing him.

Warriors:

- heeeeey… you know what happen the last time he met someone that was suppose to be watching over the hero’s spirit?

- Yeah, so….War’s isn’t so keen on trusting you like some of these Heroes.

- You seem nice and not obsessively crazy. If anything what makes him decide to give you a chance. It’s seeing you get along with the other Heroes post battle or around the campfire when you think no one is watching.

- The moment that he recognizes you. You were cursing out some monsters and calling Dink every name under the sun. Which he actually remembers hearing your panicked voice briefly when fighting Cia.

- Anyway, you guys are a sass duo and even a trio when you get Leg involved.

- You steal his scarf sometimes with Time and Wind’s help

- He finds you and Wind wrapped inside of it leaning on time and his heart just- clenches, he has more siblings now!

- Then Warriors realizes he has another sibling… another sibling that will prank him…

- You two can be found discussing tactical strategies. Mostly him teaching you though since depending on the person not many people will know how to lead an army. Yet he is a good teacher and you catch on pretty quickly.

- Same with Twi, Warrior’s needs someone to pull him back sometimes it seems. Who better then to remind him then the person that already saw his lowest moment when his ego got the better of him?

- Seriously speaking. He wouldn’t come to you to talk. If anything he will try to avoid you if he wasn’t his best. In his head he has a reputation to uphold. Which will lead to a heart to heart. No sass. No banter. Just you and him sitting down to remind him that he is human.

- He needs a hug. Please give him a hug.

Sky:

- Sky actually didn’t recognize you at first!

- Yes he felt your presence and hear your voice in his adventure, but that was a while ago at this point. Also he isn’t as connected to magic as the others are.

- He does slowly befriend you despite everything.

- It wasn’t until you referred to a certain demon lord as a ‘B*tch A** Clown’ and a flood gate of memories open up for him. Memories of you cursing out Ghirahim, calling the imprisoned an ‘avocado with feet’ and so on.

- Nothing really changes between you two honestly, he just accepts it.

- If anything he becomes more open to you about everything, setting clear boundaries on what he doesn’t want to bring up. He will tell everyone about the curse eventually, but just hasn’t found a good opportunity too. Things like that.

- You do have to argue with Sky that the curse wasn’t his fault since you were also there when it was put on him, also the fact that he didn’t asked to be cursed in the first place.

- Most of the time you two are together its to get away from the chaos that the group of nine heroes could bring.

- Walking or sitting in silence is how you two end up most of the time together. It may not look like you two are bonding. There are some days while Sky is wood carving you would work on your small hobby as well. Then there are days he plays the harp and your reading.

- Despite it all he really enjoys the peace you bring. There is a sense of comfort that you have.

- When you and Sun finally meet. The first thing you ask him is to be invited to the wedding and it may or may not been in front of her too…

Wild:

- The recognition was really slow for him like Sky. Since Wild just got off of his first adventure he didn’t actually notice you were gone.

- It was until he realized that he couldn’t hear your panicked voice or snarky remarks when fighting in his head. That he finally realized you where outside of his head. He was quick to connects the dots after that.

- There was a moment where he didn’t know how to react since he just figured that you were just from his imagination.

- He now has another adventuring buddy with Hyurle! Though luckily you do keep the both of them from harm. Mostly because if something happens to them you will get in trouble with like Twi and Leg and thats never fun.

- Though you have your moments. Shield surfing and paragliding are on top of that list and Wild is all up for teaching you the ropes.

- The topic of the history of hyrule gets brought up a lot with the two of you. Since his era has a lot of connections to the past era’s. He is all up for learning about what came from where. Soon theories start to fly about.

- When You, Him and Flora are finally all together. There is nothing stopping you all from bouncing off theories. With your outside knowledge mixing with what they know. Things start to fall into place.

- The answer to why the timeline is like this doesn’t get answer. But hey! At least you all are having fun!

- If you can’t cook he will teach you that too! If you can! Well buckle up your going to share your knowledge with him whether you want to or not.

- Once you know how or get used to cooking while camping, you help him out a lot and its these moments where you both talk the most.

- It’s comforting to him to know he wasn’t alone this whole time.

Legend:

- As soon as you two locked eyes he felt instant dread. Yes he knew. No he isn’t going to opening up to you.

- Playful Insults to bond? Yeah that’s literally how he talks to everyone so no special treatment.

- He keeps you at a distance but its not actually working.

- You talk about his adventures so casually like it happened a few days ago. You avoid Link’s Awakening though. If you got hurt with the plot twist then you could only imagine the pain Leg went through.

- “I’m still trying to process the fact you married a tree.” “Hey remember that one time with Yuga, you slammed face first into a wall so hard you knocked yourself out?” “God do you not wear pants because of the fish thing?”

- This relationship is literally: Only I can bully this one.

- He fears the moment you meet Ravio and Fable knowing full well you all will bond over teasing him.

- Overall though he knows you got his back no matter what, to the point he finds himself confining in you slowly.

- Guess who is also teaming up with Hyrule to get Legend to sleep. It you.

- Once you probably have forced him to sleep by getting wolfie to lay on him. It was the wolf or yourself. In the end it was both of you and he was trapped.

- A sign that he was becoming soft towards you was when he started sharing his items with you. He trusts that you know how to use them and if you don’t he is actually willing to show you.

- He regrets giving the bee badge to you.

Hyrule:

- Another person that is drenched in magic. It only took one look at you for him to realize who you were.

- The two of you were awkward as anything at first. Since to you he never really spoken in his adventure so you didn’t know how to picture his personality.

- There’s a lot of mystery in your mind about him since again there isn’t much to go off of with what your given in game. It’s weird for him to hear about how you interpret his personality from that perspective.

- Hyrule didn’t honestly expect you to try and befriend him tbh. It mostly him over thinking it.

- You do follow him sometimes when he wants to wander around and explore. Mostly because you claim he finds the coolest things when he does.

- But its just a excuse to actually get to know him.

- The two of you trade stories and questions about each of your lives. There might be things you know that he might not know of about his adventure and his hyrule.

- Of course never going into to much details since there are things you couldn’t tell him.

- Hyrule honestly was dreading the day you all would land in his Era. He loves his home but is also very aware of it not being the most…welcoming place.

- So it’s more then surprising to him that there is even more then the glint of familiarity and excitement on your face. Knowing full well what dangers where a head of you, you still were open to exploring his world to the fullest.

- It’s honestly refreshing to see someone love his era as much as he does.

- Another boy that needs hugs, please give him a hug.

- You both cheer each other on though.

- This relationship is just aggressive support between you two and the others.

Four: (I’m actively mixing the Four Sword game and manga just to be clear.)

- Not sure if he would know exactly who you where since during the second adventure your voice and presence bounce between the four of them.

- Yet I also feel like he took after you because he was a child in his first adventure, which worries you a lot. Since you did have choice words for Vaati.

- The first to realize was Vio then it went Blue, Red and Green. Despite being in the same head it was just a theory they had over all. They all had their own ways of confirming it.

- Vio noticed the small things you do around Four. Like not stepping on their shadow, and covering Four when things got chaotic in their head. Small references here and there. When the two of you are alone he almost quizzes you about things. Just to see how much you know and to see if your telling the true or not.

- Blue recognize your mannerisms being something he picked up on during the first and second adventure. Only vaguely since again he was a child / there was only a small part only with him. Your fighting banter when your in battle made you see where Blue got his colorful language from…

- Your comfort was what clued Red in. He remembers your presence more clearly then the others from the first and second adventure. It was a comforting (yet chaotic) presence in their adventures that he latched on to. More so from his first adventure since as a kid he made an imaginary friend to process the fact he could sense and hear your presence. When you came back in the second time around it felt so natural for Red to have you there and really helped make him go forward through his small journey.

- For Green? It was a lot of things but when he see’s you treating each color differently when they are in charged. It’s a refreshing sight to be honest. He just enjoys hearing and seeing that his brothers had someone to confide in. Even when they switch who is in control you some how could tell and spoke to them accordingly.

- They were all some what surprise that none of the others picked up on your treatment of him swapping so much. Yet their also glad because their not ready to reveal themselves quiet yet.

- As Four or as you nicknamed him ‘Rainbow’ the two of you tend to sick together when the world’s shift around. Since his body needs more time to recover.

- You two are another pair that cheers each other on when the moral is low.

- He introduces you to the Minish! Getting you a jabber nut so you can speak to them too. You can’t shrink down to properly talk to them so this was the next best thing.

- The four of them makes you a dagger to bring home to remember him by, there’s a kin stone imbedded where the blade meets the hilt.

Wind: (hello self projection my dear friend)

- Wind didn’t recognize you ether at first, yet he didn’t even blink when you join everyone. He was fully on board with getting a new member and is easiest the most opened.

- It was when you two are alone together that something clicked in his head. You see during the Wind Waker he was alone most of the time when he was on land. So he had to face a lot by himself.

- Having you was reassuring to him when facing some of the monsters alone, especially with the puppet ganon fight. The two of you both agree that it was creepy.

- CHAOTIC SIBLINGS PART 2… well kinda

- Wind is a lot more mature then you realized but you two still have those moments.

- You, Aryll and Grandma get along too! So he and his family basically sees you and the chain as family.

- Pranking buddies! You’re targets would never know. Mostly because your covering up for him. You two team up with Four and Wild so the pranks can get chaotic at times.

- No matter what age you are compare to him and if your ok with it he does like platonic physical affection. Your going to be trading off with Warriors a lot of the time for cuddles or it’s the three of you together.

- You teaching him our worlds sea shanties and him teaching you his? Heck yeah! Even making up songs with the others is something on the table and in the works which is nice.

- It’s another thing to bring back home thats personalized!

Honestly since I’ve written all of this down I want to write the fic more. Though I’ll probably not only because idk if people would even read it lol. So it will just be a bunch of head canons. Anyway rambling is done.

[quillinthedas]

Dwarves and Magic in Dragon Age

SO I am a devotee of dwarves in pretty much any media that provides them, and Dragon Age is no exception.  My most canon-y Warden and Inquisitor are both dwarves, and the greatest sadness of DA2 is that I have to play a human, which I would never play if literally any other race is an option.

I am also deeply fond of stabbity rogues, because I love the speed and the skill set in real-time battle play.  So both Warden Commander Natia Brosca and Inquisitor Mahliel Cadash are duel-wield rogues. 

The PROBLEM is that, especially in DA:O, abilities in the general rogue tree really act like magic.  And in DA2, the more you fight Carta assassins, the harder it is to explain their speed and invisibility skills without magic being involved, even if provided by potion or bomb. 

So I have my own little pet theory of how dwarves have abilities that APPEAR magical but AREN’T.  Instead, they are based in the “stone sense” that Surface Dwarves are said to lose, and how this is really a “Titan Sense.“

Bear with me, I am going to ramble about dual wield dwarven rogues and their connection to the Stone.

DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS

First, I recognize that a number of issues with the rogue abilities looking magical were actually fixed in DA2 and DAI, where they throw bombs and spikes instead of clearly using magic.  But I like this theory, and it’s my headcanon so.

There you go.

The rogue tree that I find the most incongruous when playing a species that can’t use magic is the DA:O Ranger ability set.  How the hell is a dwarf magically summoning an animal AND magically powering up said animal?  In fact, it’s so magic-based that I think it should be a closed tree for dwarves, annoying as that would be with one entire class already blocked.  I played a dwarf Ranger for a while and it felt incredibly off.  So I’m just kicking that one to the side.

This leaves BARD which is similarly very magical in design, but I’m going to nudge it more toward the DAI Artificer class. less singing and dancing, more concoctions to the face. Still a stretch for a dwarf, though.

This leaves us with DUELIST and ASSASSIN.  With DAO:A we also add LEGIONNAIRE SCOUT and SHADOW.

DUELIST abilities I find very lore-friendly for dwarves, being based primarily on skill.  I grant it a pass. In fact, I think it dwarves should be better at it than humans or elves.  More in advantages and disadvantages, below.

ASSASSIN, however, provides speed bonuses that can’t be explained by “and so the dwarf runs really fast suddenly.”  This becomes more of an issue in DA2 with the introduction of the Carta Assassins and their ability to disappear and reappear, which is shared by the general rogue Backstab skill.  So how does this work without magic?  In my headcanon, it’s because of stone-sense, and how stone-sense appears to be more of a Titan-sense, post DAI: The Descent (my beloved).

Dwarven warriors work perfectly with the concept of a link to the stone: they grow heavier, stronger, can tank.  But rogues are different.  Rogues gain speed, strength, and flexibility.  So their connection to the stone must be more about lift and bouying than weight and tanking: they are lifted by the stone and taken back, making their feet more sure on the ground and making them hard to trip up or throw back while also allowing them to move faster along the ground.  Combined with the abilities of an artificer - smoke bombs, essentially - the abilities of dwarven rogues can appear to be magic.  They’re so fast moving along the stone that they are literally hard for the eye to follow. 

Similarly, some of the abilities in SHADOW can be explained by a connection to Titans providing a skill that would otherwise be unavailable to non-magic users: the ability to disappear (or rather, the speed to be unseen).  In DAO the character clearly actually disappears; if we ignore the mechanic and go more for how it works in DAI (ie, that it is essentially an artificer ability, since they throw a bomb for concealment), then Shadow fits a dwarf rogue’s skill set without the need for magic.  Similarly, DAI redesigned Mark of Death as a chemical thrown at the enemy rather than a magical sigil.

Just as Ranger shouldn’t be available to dwarves, I also believe that LEGIONNAIRE SCOUT shouldn’t be available to any non dwarven character.  Legionnaire Scouts are essentially rogues that pick up some tanking abilities - an interesting match to the idea of the connection to Titans making certain dwarves hardier.  There’s no reason that it should work with humans or elves, however; the power set specifically deals with connection to the stone.  (In the DA RPG that I desperately want the book for but I am not a millionaire, only dwarf rogues can pick up this specialization, as it should have been in the first place).

(Why NOT give dwarves a specialization only for them since they have no access to an entire class other races have?  Hmmmm?  Bioware???)

DRAGON AGE 2

Tragically, one can’t play a dwarf in DA2, but Varric’s Archery skillset happens to work well with the idea of the Stone giving dwarves enhanced strength and a lower center of gravity to hold a solid stance.  But also, Varric could HAVE NO stone-sense, and that’s why he’s the world’s slowest rogue (sorry, babe, but you are the pokiest). 

The use of smoke bombs makes the general rogue abilities more accessible to dwarves, but only if there is a reason they can move so damn fast that we can’t see them.  That reason?  A connection to the Titans that allows them to move faster across land.

DISADVANTAGES and ADVANTAGES

Since I like the idea of different species actually having different advantages and disadvantages, I’m fond of the idea of dwarves not doing well in situations where they aren’t in contact with stone.  Walking across a wooden bridge would feel like floating without real control.  Running across roofs made of plant materials, jumping on the backs of creatures - they would lose that certainty of step and have to work hard and practice to do those as well as other rogues. Does the top of a man-built tower count as stone?  (It better, I don’t want Natia sliding all over the place in the archdemon fight.)

On the other hand, speed and steadiness would build faster than other species, and they would be able to develop some tanking abilities a la Legionnaire Scout which other rogues can’t access.

And dwarves can see in the dark.  I never understand why the popular fancanon is that elves, who live above ground, see in the dark, rather than dwarves, who literally...live in...the dark....places....

So if you want a creepy sheen in the night, get ye a dwarf.

[interact-if]

Day 2 of Pride Month interviews! You know them, you love them…. give it up for Ames!

Ames, author of Attollo and Metamorphosis

Pride Month Featured Authors

“…and it was a singular, terrible thought, which burrowed itself into your mind like an engorged maggot. This was not a man nor a monster. This was a concept, an ideology, a terrible myth, which had personified itself to stand before you now.You were, to put it simply, screwed.”

After several years of radio silence, you receive a message from your younger sibling that carries a strange sense of urgency to it. Either out of familial concern or boredom, you embark on a journey from your residence to your sibling’s apartment in New Hampshire to see what’s going on and, hopefully, be home before the weekend.

Too bad it’s never so simple.

Demo: Attollo, Metamorphosis (TBA)

Tags: cybernoir, thriller

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)

Q1: Tell us a little bit about your project(s)!

Attollo is a cyber-noir horror set in a walled city off the coast of the Atlantic that’s been a victim of a nuclear disaster. After several years of radio silence, you receive a message from your younger sibling that carries a strange sense of urgency to it. Either out of familial concern or boredom, you embark on a journey from your residence to your sibling’s apartment in New Hampshire to see what’s going on and, hopefully, be home before the weekend. Too bad it’s never so simple. Attollo is a 17+ game that deals with heavy topics and a lot of moral questioning; from cults to corrupt government, it has no shortage of monsters in the dark—both metaphorical and literal.

Metamorphosis is a crime/horror story based in the world of crime scene cleanup, where there are three simple steps: Get the call, clean the scene, and don’t ask too many questions. These are the rules that you live by under the employment of Noctua’s Crime Scene Services, and you credit them for keeping you alive.

However, after a routine house call brings forth nightmares of memories that are not your own, you find yourself pulled deeper into Noctua—a city of both monster and man—in a bid to find out the truth behind the murder of Deirdre Callow, and better yet, how her memories came to be yours. Your job mandates that you don’t dig too deep—but could this finally be the exception?

Metamorphosis is 18+ and will have explicit content; follow the last moments of a stranger to find out not only who took her life, but how this connects to the underbelly that Noctua works so hard to hide.

Q2: Why interactive fiction? What drew you to the medium?

Lmaoo, oh man. I think it really all began last summer when I first found examples of interactive fiction. I don’t even remember how I came across it, it might’ve been that I saw it mentioned in a post or I saw it as a tag on Itch.io, but at some point, last summer I began to investigate it more. I think what really drew me in was the ability for the player to control the narrative; it was like playing an old RPG, but modernized, and the fact that I could see a story unfold that was influenced by my decisions was so fascinating to me. Not to mention that IF allows so much more character depth than regular novels, in my opinion.

I’m 99% sure my first exposure to interactive fiction was through the game Crème de la Crème (a fantastic game, by the way) and I just enjoyed it so much that I went haywire for the genre. Then Temple of the Endless Night came out (another fantastic game that I’m looking forward to!), and that was really the turning point for inspiring me to give it a go. Now, almost a year later, here I am working on my own two games!

Q3: Are your characters influenced by your identity? How?

My bisexuality doesn’t have much of a major influence on the game, but I do think it contributed to the way that I view and write relationships. I figured out my sexuality around high school (I kissed a girl in high school and found out I liked it just as much as when I kissed a boy) and since then I’ve been very involved in the LGBTQ+ community of both my hometown and uni town.

I think this involvement, like being able to hear about other people’s experiences and share my own, has made me feel a lot more comfortable writing some of the characters in the game. Although Attollo and Metamorphosis both don’t focus heavily on relationships (both have murder in them, which I feel is a bit more pressing), I do keep the option for any RO’s to be romanced by anyone, regardless of gender or preference, because that’s simply what I’ve become so attuned to. In terms of side characters relationships as well, I think my involvement and my own experiences have allowed me to write far more diverse relationships than I might have, and I think that this has also allowed a more fulfilling experience for players when reading through.

I also have incorporated some struggles that I’ve faced before because of my identity into the games. For example, I and a few others have faced issues with religion due to who we are, and I incorporate this into both games. Dreamwalker, Pariah, and Sysba from Attollo all have shadows of this experience in their character origins, and Ilali and Ariston from Metamorphosis has a major point involving identity and beliefs. Both games also have undertows of ostracization and division between groups, which is also something I’ve experienced in the past. Being able to grapple these moments and control them via a narrative has been eye opening for both myself and others involved, and I’m hoping it can be a learning experience for the readers as well.

Q4: What would you like to see more of in LGBT+ fiction?

I think, now, the amount of progress in LGBTQ+ fiction is expanding at a wonderful rate. There are so many interactive fictions with options to select sexuality, select gender, select beliefs, etc. However, despite this expansion, there’s still a good deal of backlash against some aspects of LGBTQ+ fiction.

For example, as a bisexual woman who has dated men, I know there are some individuals who may not consider me a part of the LGBTQ+ because of this aspect. Not only is this incredibly disheartening, but it’s a viewpoint that I think should be educated against, and fiction is a fantastic pathway to do this. Another example I can think of is a friend of mine who identifies as asexual but is sex-neutral rather than sex-repulsed. Most people can’t believe her when she says this, and she often faces backlash for this declaration as well. This is another thing that I think that, with exposure through a medium such as fiction, can be worked on.

What I’m trying to say here is that I think LGBTQ+ fiction can be a brilliantly educational platform—if used right. Although it already teaches so much with what it has, I think having that representation of different subgroups of sexuality, of their experiences and beliefs, so people can become aware and knowledgeable of these options, is something I’d like to see more of.

Q5: What or who are some of your biggest inspirations?

Oh man, I struggled to list off inspirations because I know I have some, but as soon as someone asks me who they are my brain just goes ‘brrrrrr’ LMAO.

In terms of the games that I write and the worlds that I build, I think David Lynch and Robert Chambers are probably the two that I somehow incorporate. Attollo and Metamorphosis both have a lot of surrealist horror, which are what these two really specialized in. Shirley Jackson is also another person who inspired me a lot when it came to the writing and creation of Attollo, especially the intrapersonal relationships between the characters.

In terms of life, this is something else I really struggle to answer. I don’t really have celebrity inspirations or anything like that, but I do get inspired by my close friends and sister a lot. Seeing them go through the struggles that they face and absolutely thrive really drives me to push through my own struggles. They’re the strongest, most brilliant group of people that I know, and I consider myself incredibly fortunate that I can be a part of their lives. Not only that, but we also all collectively encourage each other to push further and to chase our dreams (as cheesy as that is LMAO) and that’s something that I think is another stroke of good fortune. I struck gold when I met them, and they’re some of the biggest inspirations in my life.

Q6: What’s a super vague spoiler for your current project?

For Attollo, I’d say ‘Home is where the heart is.’ For Metamorphosis, to quote John Berendt, ‘Always stick around for one more drink.’

Q7: Lastly, what advice would you give to your readers?

What advice would I give to you all? Oh my, I’m not exactly a wise woman here, but I’ll do my best to give you something lmaooo. I think what I really want you to walk away with, from both my stories and this interview, is that if you’re passionate about something, then share it with the world. Don’t let anyone deter your passion.

I remember listening to this painter once who commented to his friend how he ‘really liked painting’, and his friend’s first response was ‘but are you good at it?’. He then compared this to the scenario of walking; would you say, ‘but are you good at it?’ to someone who said, ‘I really like walking’? No, because it simply wouldn’t make sense, and it doesn’t make sense to say that to anyone who’s doing something out of passion.

To put it simply—if you love something, then don’t let anyone take that passion from you. I began writing these stories because I’m passionate about Attollo and Metamorphosis; I love each character, each bit of lore, and I share it with you because I want you all to enjoy it as well. Am I the best writer? God, no. Does everyone like what I write? Definitely not. But will I let this stop me from writing, from enjoying what I’m doing? Never, and I want you to do the same.

Explore your passions, embrace your passions, and let what makes you happy continue to do so