#like the adaptation itself isn't bad by any means

[flashbastardsramblings]

I absolutely HATE the many discrepancies NOS4A2 has compared to the book. The worst thing is how out of character Vic and Manx are compared to the source material and it really bugs me.

[demeterdefence]

even ignoring everything else wrong with lore olympus (which in itself feels impossible) there is just something really egregious and insulting at the way a "modern retelling" over an ancient greek myth just full-heartedly whitewashes the entire culture and mythos.

and it's not like rachel is the first to do it - greek myths and legends have been whitewashed for centuries, depictions of the gods have been categorically stripped of their ethnicity and origins long before rachel got a hold of them. it's the fact that rachel goes out of her way to insult the original myths whenever she can, that she emphasizes and pushes a western-centric mindset and viewpoint over and over and over and not only reinforces the whitewashing, but continues it down the line.

like, this is the first episode.

rachel goes out of her way to mock the original styles and wardrobes of the ancient greek world, and i get her attempt was to make persephone feel "out of place" with the more "modern" clothing that the other gods wear, but it really just does more to a) demonize demeter, who is almost always in traditional clothing, b) sexualize persephone.

go even broader with it, move away from the clothing itself, and rachel doesn't even bother to use any of the ancient traditions that are core to the myths. like for the love of god, she uses a christian wedding for persephone and hades!

greece is the birthplace of modern democracy and had a powerful judicial system, and rachel instead uses the modern / western iteration of court because ... why not

(completely unrelated but the inserts of everyone except eros and aphrodite come from the stupid zoom session zeus had back when he first charged persephone with treason, meaning we have proof yet again that rachel isn't drawing the characters into the scene, she's making pngs and sticking them into pre-arranged backgrounds downloaded from stock images)

and there are ten thousand more examples i could pull, because this is just the whole entire comic. you can look at a lot of modern adaptions and see where things have been modernized respectfully, and where they are done with disdain for the source material - no one is claiming percy jackson, for example, is perfect, but the author took a great deal of care in his research, and the love for the original myths and culture shine through. lore olympus has zero respect for the original stories, exemplified in how rachel demonizes demeter - the actual crux of the myth. it's bad writing and bad research and further attempts to whitewash a rich and storied culture that had people from so many walks of life, who existed in full spectrum of lgbt identity, who did not conform or even know of the world that exists today. you can modernize without erasing it, and rachel's refusal to do so is one of the many issues tacked to lore olympus.

[gb-patch]

Sorry to send another ask amongst the sea I'm sure you're receiving, but I find myself more concerned about Rose being a sensitivity reader as I find more information. One of Rose's friends continues to insist that the conversation about Tamarack and male MCs was part of a larger discussion about biphobia in the fandom. However, they claim that Rose's position is "people erase Tam's bi/pansexuality by refusing to portray [her] as being attracted to anything other than men." This explanation of Rose's belief is, in-and-of-itself, biphobic. It claims that portraying Tamarack as attracted to men erases her queerness. This is textbook biphobia and bi-erasure that I as a bisexual encounter every day. It is NOT a good-faith defense of a queer character. It reduces us down to our partners and makes the claim that if we end up in a relationship that's "straight-passing," we're erasing our queerness. Especially as a bi sapphic myself, it reduces my identity strictly to the perceived-man I'm dating, and not my inner or previous experiences, or those of my partner. It's very uncomfortable that Rose, a non-bisexual, was discussing this like they're defending Tamarack's queerness when they're doing the opposite.

This is a doubly strange position when Our Life is a game about the acceptance of love in all its forms. The conversation could be different, MAYBE, if Our Life was a TV show or a book or a comic. But this is a game where people are meant to play as characters of their own design. I do not feel confident about Rose being a sensitivity reader for a game with bi/pansexual love interests if these are their beliefs about bi/pansexuality, particularly if they're unable to adapt their opinions to be relevant to different formats of media; this shows they're lacking in skill in the areas of media literacy and critical thinking.

I’ve been trying to make a post that presents the concerns people have about this, but your ask touches on the points I was going to, and I’d say it’s better to have it said by a player than me deciding what people are thinking. So, this is something that I want to make clear- that I see this and other asks/comments about it. What you’ve said is something a lot of people are unsure and upset about. I am sorry that you feel so out of place in this community now. And I am also sorry to players of any sexuality who use a male MC. That comment dismissed players and Tamarack’s identity.

It did come from a longer discussion about bi-phobia issues. The overall feelings were “if people did only want Tamarack to be interested in men, I really wouldn’t like that and wouldn’t it be a funny concept if Tamarack then left them for a woman?”. The comment itself didn’t encompass that idea at all. It does not give a good impression about where they’re coming from. It was unkind.

The viewpoint Rose is trying to have isn’t that “Tamarack can never express an interest in men” which would be wrong, it’s “I stand by the fact that Tamarack is someone who wouldn’t only be interested in men and no one else”. If it’s true that Rose likes Tamarack being interested in all genders and doesn’t want her bi-ness to be forgotten, I’d say that’s an acceptable view. If the point actually is that Tamarack should only be with women and if she’s not than Tamarack is no longer bi or she’s a bad character, then you're right- that isn't acceptable and that is going to get someone removed from the project. I do believe Rose agrees with what you’re saying and means it when they say they want to stop bi-erasure, not participate in it for real. But they had a very harsh way of talking about it.

I understand that people don’t know Rose and this situation has made them believe they do seriously hold that first view. But from working with them, there’s never been any feedback that shows an opinion of the sort.

Right now, I think that comment was being edgy and making a quick, very poorly-worded quip to people they’d been chatting with about that topic already. Rose has left the GB Patch discord servers, they used to be a mod, and may or may not ever be back in there. Rose won’t make blog posts responding to players going forward. They’re going to take a break from this and then try to give helpful feedback. We’re going to see if things can be okay from here.

And with this coming up, we’re all really aware that it’s something to consider about the game. I’m going to be as conscious as I can for any advice that seems to go against the character’s identities and I’m going to question my own knee-jerk choices for how I handle things. Other sensitivity readers will be able to give their viewpoints as well, so will the players. If the game’s content isn’t welcoming or is biased people will notice, and I’ll be here to accept what I’ve done. I don’t want that to be the result of this, of course. I hope the game will be thoughtful and considerate, but I can’t fire Rose at this point to try doing that.

No one has to keep following the game, though. I’m sympathetic to anyone who is too uncomfortable with all this to stay around.

[nfcv-saltmine]

Arikado gushing about Trevor

The comments:

I will never understand why some people think Alucard shitting on Trevor is an improvement over Trevor and Alucard respecting each other

I fucking hate this with all my heart ❤️ NFCV fans be like "why do you feel the need to compare the games with the adaptation? Why can't you see it as it's own thing and let people have fun?" and then pull off shit like this.

Why can't NFCV fans keep their NFCV shit to their NFCV spaces? 🤡 Why do they feel the need to go on GAMES spaces and act as if their show could even remotely fit? 🤡 Not to mention... Haha yeah, isn't it so funny that Trevor is a drunk and an idiot? Isn't it so funny that the noble bloodline who have dedicated their lives to protect the same people that fear and reject them, probably because they understand they're scared and weak and don't know any better and just want to survive, are reduced to some rich guys with a leather whip and a collection of books about penises? Isn't it so HILARIOUS that Alucard express no sympathy and no respect for Trevor and his dead family??

The fact those fans see no problem not only with how purely mean and petty N!Alucard is to N!Trevor, but also with making fun of N! Trevor's drinking habit when it's a coping mechanism for his trauma...! I get that the show itself doesn't care about this fact, but for the love of God is it too much to ask fans to think for themselves??? Is it too much to ask them to CARE about how poorly their favorite show handles trauma?? And everything in general?? Do they HAVE to blindly follow the "haha drunk man funny" train??

I am not against the very idea of Trevor being a drunk and having fun banter with Alucard. But that's the thing. Not only Trevor being a drunk is only there for jokes and never truly explored, and he never gets to process or get over his trauma of SEEING HIS HOME AND ENTIRE FAMILY BURN AS A CHILD... But his "funny banter" with Alucard isn't actually funny banter. Alucard is mean, straight up. I mean Trevor says one bad joke about Alucard's parents around a campfire, but next to that, Alucard constantly shits on him and his bloodline!! As if the framing and the very story wasn't doing it enough already!!

The "eat shit and die" "yes fuck you" moment could have been funny... IF THEY FUCKING KNEW EACH OTHER. THEY LITERALLY JUST MET. THEIR ONLY INTERACTIONS SO FAR WAS THEM FIGHTING EACH OTHER. THEM SWEARING AT EACH OTHER AND THEN LAUGHING AFTERWARD ISN'T EARNED, THEY'RE NOT CLOSE ENOUGH FRIENDS FOR THAT AND THEY WILL NEVER BE. NOT WITH N!ALUCARD'S SHITTY ATTITUDE. It's not a fun dynamic to have two manchildren saying fuck yous at each other! It's not a fun dynamic to have one of them insult the other's dead family while the other isn't even allowed to talk back because "oh he has to be the bigger person" according to Sypha!! It's not a fun dynamic to have NO ACTUAL BONDING MOMENT BETWEEN THE MAIN CHARACTERS and instead, have them spend their screentime being assholes to each other, with their mom friend having to be the braincell that keep them in line!!

I hate that Netflixvania felt the need to pretend to be an adaptation of CV3 and CoD(?). That's why we get shit comments like this and shit takes pretending their characters are improvements from the games they know nothing about. At least with Lords of Shadow, it is VERY OBVIOUS that it's an alternate universe. It doesn't pretend to want to change or "improve" anything from the classic timeline, it does it's own thing on it's own little corner, and it's very easy to appreciate it along with the OG timeline thanks to that. Even if it uses familiar names like Trevor and Simon and Sypha, no one with a braincell would even think to compare them to their classic counterparts (at least not in a "this version is better than the other" way), because it's not the same universe.

NFCV isn't like that. NFCV pretends to take place in the classic timeline. NFCV pretends to bring improvements to it. When all it does is destroy. And I'm not saying this just because it changed a lot of stuff. I'm saying this because everyone, Ellis the first one, just HAVE to shit on the games to praise the show. It was intentional for it to be percieved as being "better than the games". 🤡

Anyway game Trevor and Alucard my beloveds I love you and your respectful and wholesome relationship 🥺

[sciderman]

Yk..i feel like i would enjoy Deadpool and Wolverine more if i liked these versions of the chsracters as much as everyone else seems to. And it's not that i hate them or anything, but they're just not MY guys, Hughs Wolverine is a tall ruggedly handsome leading man who's a typical berserker, the Wolverine i am into is a short, kinda ugly feral asshole that's both the biggest badass in the room but also a weeb bookworm and an unintentional adoptive father/older brother with his dumb fucking hair and side-burns and dresses like a bisexual lumberjack/cowboy, he hates poachers and loves petting deer, and he can talk to animals making him a Disney princess too. The movies just don't give me that, it's too serious, too embarassed of itself, Logan isn't enough of an unlikeable messy asshole in the movies, he's not explosive enough, he's a very Clint Eastkwood type. And same for Wade, i like Ryans Wade well enough, but he's too clean, too marketable, too empty and dumb. I am just not into them, they're too pretty, too nice, too clean, too marketable, they're made into more typical leading types and i am not a fan.....God, sorry for that rant.

hey. i love these versions of the characters and i hated the movie. i honestly really do like movie-pool - i just hated him here. i love hugh jackman's wolverine. but this – 

i get that logan is quite a different character in the movies vs other interpretations of him, and it is downheartening that we might not ever get a more faithful to comics adaptation of logan onto the big screen but - i don't know, i'm not too sad about it because everyone always has their own version of a character in their head. my version of peter parker will never be the same as the guy on screen.

i like hugh jackman's wolverine plenty. i think hugh is great. i love his wolverine. but - this isn't even his wolverine. this wolverine is a stranger. and actually - that kind of means something. it means it's not the wolverine we've been invested in all these years, and it's not the wolverine we cried over during logan. it's not him. it's just some guy. and that's - that's not great. we don't really know this guy. i think that's the thing. the film thinks it's enough to squeeze hugh into yellow spandex and all the fans will do the heavy lifting because WOOOAAAH it's the costume we all recognise but. underneath that costume is a guy we've never seen before. never introduced to before. isn't even the guy we invested decades of films with. they're asking us to project our expectations on him, overtly. wade does it. laura does it, yadda yadda. but that's not him. it's pointedly not him. it's a blank slate in wolverine's clothing that we're meant to project our expectations on. so. you need to actually put the work in to make us care about this guy. we care about him SOLELY because of our expectations of him, based on all the familiar iconography. the suit, hugh jackman, the claws... this movie is dependant ENTIRELY on you being able to recognise things and attach meaning to them. otherwise, there's no actual substance there.

if you didn't know the yellow suit from the comics you'd probably look at it and say "that's a stupid suit" - that's it. they're just banking on you overlooking the objective stupidity of it, because you recognise it and therefore it must be important and not stupid.

i think it was a bad move to make this a different wolverine. i think it was a bad move to have this movie follow-up on the events of logan - i think it was all bad moves. it should've been our logan, of wade's era. it doesn't even make sense for this to happen after logan. logan is set after the x-men are gone. so how is colossus and negasonic and yukio there and how did wade have all those x-men shenanigans in previous movies? that's fine. who cares. no rules.

it's just maddening to me. 10000 decisions that crumble immediately under any sort of scrutiny whatsoever. can't do it. can't do it.

[etirabys]

It's very sweet about CS Lewis to idiotproof Paradise Lost against atheists. He didn't have to do that. He was a Christian writer in a Christian society and I assume he could have gotten away with just talking to other Christians about it and ignoring annoying people who wrongly read subversion into Milton. Instead he gives us a Christianity 101 chapter in A Preface to Paradise Lost and says, "this is the theological canon of the church, and here is how Milton hews to it again and again".

So now I think I understand Christianity. Maybe?

CS Lewis, explaining the canonical beliefs: Everything in nature is intrinsically good. Bad things happen when conscious creatures become "more interested in itself than in God", or assumes it can exist independently of God, as when Milton's Satan says that he is "self-begot".

me: Just for fun, let me enumerate the possible answers to 'who begot us?' – (1) conscious supreme being – e.g. Christian God, (2) our parents – e.g. Confucianism, (3) the self, (4) the weight of human history – humanity co-creating itself by maintaining a matrix of culture, (5) Nature – non-conscious but still revered, e.g. planet worship / I hecking love science, (6) null answer – non-conscious material processes.

Lewis: God knows in advance that some conscious entities will voluntarily make themselves bad and also knows what good use He will make of their badness. As [Milton's] angels point out, whoever tries to rebel against God produces the result opposite to his intention. At the end of the poem Adam is astonished at the power 'that all this good of evil shall produce'. This is the exact reverse of the programme Satan had envisaged in Book I, when he hoped, if God attempted any good through him, to 'pervert that end'; instead he is allowed to do all the evil he wants and finds that he has produced good. Those who will not be God's sons become His tools.

me: That's such beautiful cope! I've heard the badly-articulated versions of that Christian belief but it turns out I'm unprincipled and like it when you, Charisma Stat Lewis, say it.

me: It's also hard not to speculate that this belief is more adaptive in a world with e.g. a 50% child mortality rate.

Lewis: Also, The apple wasn't magic. THE APPLE WASN'T MAGIC. The only point of forbidding it was to instill obedience. The disobedience was so heinous precisely because obedience was so easy.

me: it was a shit test

Lewis: The Fall consisted of man's disobedience to his superior and was punished by man's loss of authority over his inferiors – chiefly over his passions and his physical organism. "Man has called for anarchy: God lets him have it." After the Fall, understanding ceased to rule and the will did not listen to understanding.

me: okay so what about the physical organism

Lewis: Man used to control his erections before the Fall

me: what

Lewis: That's right. No accidental boners. No morning wood. No dead bedroom subreddits. You can clench your fist without being angry and you can be angry without clench your fist. The will controls the fist. The sexual organs used to be like that.

me: That follows splendidly from "man was punished by the passions overruling the will" and yet I wasn't expecting that at all. Probably because I'm female? I annotated your "the will did not listen to understanding" with "we didn't have akrasia before the fall", because akrasia is a big problem for me. But being horny isn't.

me: I mean, obviously some women are really horny and causes them to act in unwise ways, and some men aren't horny. But "single men under age 25 are the most societal-problem-causing demographic" is well known, and even outside that age range, men seem to be, like, "cursed with horny" in a way that requires managing & makes them miserable on a day to day basis... so it makes sense that male interpreters would identify that with the Fall. It's conceptually congruent in a way "the Fall caused childbirth to be painful" isn't.

Lewis: Anyway, the Fall – people overcomplicated it. The apple is just an apple. It's not an allegory. The Fall consisted of Disobedience – doing what your superiors told you not to do – and resulted from Pride, which is forgetting your place. This is what the Church has always taught. Milton states it in the very first line of his poem and all his characters reiterate it from every possible point of view. Don't read false emphases into Milton! This is what he is saying: obedience to the will of God will make you happy and disobedience will make you miserable.

me: Well, obviously you know that your modern reader doesn't like this. You're pleasantly cognizant of atheist readers who are into self-governance and equality.

Lewis: The modern idea that we can choose between hierarchy and equality is not quite right. The real alternative to hierarchy is tyranny. If you will not have authority you will find yourself obeying brute force.

me: I simultaneously have a suspicious-resistant feeling and the perception that, when people in my milieu disagree with this, your view is the baseline from which we deviate minorly. Any form of functional social arrangement is going to have something that looks like authority and obedience.

Lewis: Understand this: Milton's poem belongs to a hierarchical conception of the universe where everything except God has some natural superior and everything except dead matter has some natural inferior. Superiors should rule over inferiors. When Milton protests an instance of rule (he was against the monarchy of the Stuarts) he is disagreeing that the Stuarts are superior while still thinking that hierarchy is cosmically good. The justice or injustice of any given instance of rule depends wholly on the nature of the parties, not on any social contract.

me: I have little respect for Confucianism because it strikes me as so overtly a system of thought with no internal merit or wisdom on the micro, whose only function is to make society run on the macro. (I'm sorry to say "only" there, because that's a big function.) What you describe has the same feel. This isn't a great label for it, but I'd call both Confucianism and Christian hierarchy 'biological philosophies', in that of course this is the philosophy that materially deprived apes who want both power and stability would equilibriate on: a system of subjugation and cope. The hierarchical conception itself is "understanding ceasing to rule".

Lewis: [Lewis would doubtless totally own me. But he doesn't directly address this in anything I've read by him, and I can't simulate him in enough detail to generate his response.]

[suemooon]

Let’s talk about Oncest

softsue-sue: An small analysis and review

Random post here, I just wanted to talk about this, because it’s something that really hold my attention, see. Do you remember the Oncest? of course you do if you are in, you were in, or you know The Once-ler fandom, and if it’s not the case, maybe you had seen these fanarts before.

As someone who hasn't been in The Once-ler fandom in its golden age (I've only been here for a few months now). I notice that definitely the Oncest doesn’t have a very good reputation, I think it never had a good reputation (?) but anyway. My point is, is very noticeable the REALLY HUGE REJECTION that this ship has today, I just saw an amount of people that actually like this ship, the other hand, there's these people who really doesn’t like this ship, and seems that they doesn’t want to bring this ship back in any other wise, seriously!

So I'm gonna make this example:

Let’s cheek out this video, this Oncest edit video, uploaded 9 years ago (uploaded in march 9, 2014) by mewnadja:

Let’s cheek the older comments:

Now let’s cheek at the most recent ones:

I understand why a lot of people in the fandom used to like this ship, first, because was it was the most popular, so people took it and begun to like it, and second, it was like the only existent ship, yeah, Normaler exists too, but it wasn’t and isn't the most popular ship, let's say it, it was probably : 'or you were team Oncest, or you were team Oncest!' so people who was an artist for example, to get more notes or adapt themselves in the fandom, they begun to draw Oncest. As I said before, it was the most popular ship in the fandom (and is still, we like it or not).

Oncest itself was born as a… desperate? way to ship The Once-ler with someone else, because let’s remember this, of course The Once-ler fandom, was only focused on The Once-ler, that’s why his name is the name of the fandom too (obviously, there was exceptions of people that were Interested in all The Lorax stuff too and not only The Once-ler, but the point itself was The Once-ler for mostly the majority).

Today I see inside the fandom that a lot of new Oncelings that doesn’t want to be related with this ship just for being in the fandom, making a totally no worries comments about ‘hating on the Oncest’

Other ones can even throw hate on people who actually likes this ship, and you know, that’s… that’s just bad, it doesn’t even need to be clarified.

A lot of them doesn’t like it because they are seeing it bizarre, other people maybe because the ship itself is very… unfriendly with sfw stuff, if you know what do I mean (c’mon, it’s true that this ship as A LOT of nsfw stuff, let’s say it) other people seeing it in both ways.

Conclusion.

This ship doesn’t have a normal point, or you love it or you hate it.

And… look guys, we shouldn’t care about if someone likes Oncest or not, that’s not our business and are their likes and dislikes. Whatever, if it doesn’t hurt real people, then there’s nothing wrong with that.

So…

If you’re a veteran onceling or ex-onceling (or oncelut, let’s go wild if it's the case), I would love to hear your experience and why do you think this ship exists in first place.

thx for read this garbage.

[multifandommadnessblog]

Narilamb; an in-depth(ish) study by Rachi that is totally deranged but maybe someone else will like it :) - aka it's her headcanons and stuff (with videos from other creators)

okay so why am i so obsessed with narilamb? uh... look i can explain i swear

Okay first off: my opinions here are probably very similar to many others and I know I'm not original in any way, shape or form. BUT, I like to talk (or type I guess).

SO... why is narilamb so good?? Most of us agree it's kinda pretty toxic. I see it as a relationship that was (heavy on the was) built on unhealthy power dynamics, manipulation and overall nuh uhs. To be clear it's kinda toxic on both sides, Narinder and lamb both at some point in the overall relationship do bad things and that's just how it is. it's complicated

but anyways

Idk how many of us actually chose to spare Narinder versus kill him at the end of the game (I personally spared him) but this is where a lot of these headcanons (and I'd argue the ship itself) starts.

When spared Narinder is escaping the jail that he was held in for thousands of years, but then forced to adapt to a new life in the cult. Which kinda sucks, and most of my headcanons center around Narinder going through some deep character arc (not excusing his previous actions) and learning to live life again basically.

and obv the lamb's personality is supposed to be based off the player since we play them, but I picture them in two ways:

Classic sunshine, happy go jolly. Their "cult" personality if you will - they're silly and goofy and meme worthy

Numb, cold and just trying to get by. Without proper support they withhold all of these negative emotions and experiences. They didn't want this - they just knew this was their only chance at life again (this video by Paper SU conveys this)

Part of me thinks that the lamb never wanted any of this cult business, they probably had a simple life before. The only reason they are here is because they truly don't have anything else. Their cult members don't really have the depth to help them, and lamb sees them more as children to live for than a companion or someone who truly understands their experiences.

then black cat babygirl Narinder comes in and BAM.

The two have been harmed by deep trauma without a proper outlet for it. I picture both having to live with these and just kinda hide that part of them (for Narinder it comes out as anger and falsely guarding himself so he doesn't get hurt again. For lamb they just hide behind this happy facade they put up, Ratau and his folks are the only ones who see some of what the real lamb is like)

When first interacting in the new dynamic (Nari is in the cult now) it's messy to say the least. Lamb finally realizes someone could potentially understand what they had been through for the past uh.... many many years. Ofc, Narinder kinda started it all but he also gave them life again. It's complicated, and lamb's feelings about it are also complicated. Narinder is just sassy and mean like usual, refusing to accept lamb as the new god, still angry from their (and others) betrayal, blah blah blah, kinda wanting to just live his new life but he has lived for so long in anger it would be weird to not...

and for a while lamb thinks it's not going to work :(

But then MmMMMMMMMM THE IMMORTALITY OF IT.

Okay look look, can we all agree that Narinder is canonly immortal (cause of his trait if you spare him) and Lamb ascending to godhood is immortal? Yes? Cool.

I love the idea that these two got literally all of the time in the world to figure out their dynamic and help to heal each other after all of their traumas. Even if they go through rough patches they have all the time to work it out and that just gives me so much hope :,) Cause in the real world relationships can't work like that so I almost feel like there is a pressure on relationships to rush through and never have extreme conflict bc there isn't enough time in life to work through it and still enjoy the time together (existential crisis)

A really great video I watched that (in my opinion) demonstrates this idea is this animatic by Strawdool on youtube! (it's also just really cute please watch it)

So even if these two are as different as can be, both mentally damaged and overall not doing so hot, one is angry as hell, and the other is in denial and just sad THEY GOT ALL OF ETERNITY TO FIGURE IT OUT. They can learn to live together because they know they will always have each other :>

I mean there is a tumblr post i saw where someone complied the official art of Narinder and it shows him just being kinda silly n goofy

i'm sure it's for the sillies BUT PERSONALLY I see it as Nari finally being comfy in his life (maybe a very long time after he is indoctrinated) - finally working on healing and he's just chilling

i wanna thank lamb for that, and i hope lamb also is doing just as good because of nari

please i need to write more of this its so unhealthy all of these ideas sitting in my little brain - for now i must shut up

(also I have SEARCHED FAR AND WIDE for fan content of this ship so if any of y'all are up for fanfiction or fan art reccs hmu I have many)

okay thanks

bye

[maxphilippa]

lookie i did a mario au with limited knowledge haha... look. estella

her backstory will be under read more i guess-

Rosalina in canon doesn't have much of a story except for the story she tells the lumas, which technically are like her children considering what happened with them. The main ideas I was having yesterday before designing her were Rosalina going through an very VERY emotionally expensive arc to then end up becoming who Estella is

Estella is similar to Estrella which means star on spanish so you can kinda can guess what this direction might be like, in a way (?)

So I'm thinking that the reset, despite it being something that Rosalina got adapted certainly quickly and wasn't too worried about it considering all of her years being alive and her power, the whole disaster and the events themselves did leave her a bit more paranoid that expected instead in this one. And with a bit more I mean by a lot. Being used to a journey of losing what she loves, her feelings and uncertainty grow as a result, add to that the fact that she's feeling a much more bigger sense of protectiveness over the galaxy, especially for those who she met.

In fear of being alone and adding the slight paranoia she was going through, Rosalina ended up stopping with her coming to home every 100 years plans and decided to focus on trying to make sure that nothing else like that happened again.

With emotions acumulated, her physical form suffers from change, although it isn't a good change. The stress and certainly the pain she has been feeling for a while took the best of her, add that to her loneliness, and it was like a combo.

Of course she had the lumas, but they were like her children. But she also didn't want them to be worried about how she was, she was supposed to be there for them, and didn't want them to worry.

At the end, it didn't do her any good. Her body changed and changed and so did her mental state. She became more and more scared, doing everything to stop any threat, making sure that if given the case, bowser doesn't try to do any of that (though it is... VERY unlikely), but her feels pile up and she's feeling like she's dying. Why, she can't tell.

Her love for life and the beings that were there was so strong that it kept her going, but it was also killing her emotionally so to speak.

At one point, Estella couldn't do it anymore, weakened by her feelings and stress, by the amount of power constantly being used to protect everything, the goddess was being too rough on herself and didn't realize her limits.

She felt so... alone. But she knew she wasn't. But it was a different type of alone. The lumas were all she had now, and so was her newest friend, but she couldn't bring herself to express those worries. She was a protector. She can't just let her guard down at all.

And she pushed them away with that thought in mind.

And it got so bad to the point in which her body. Started "breaking" itself. Giving up in the way a star would.

She didn't know what to do at all and didn't want others to worry. But if she somehow got into a terrible state, how is she going to be there for them?

She's scared.

She has given herself such pressure when it should've never really been like that on the first place. She was already strong. She was aware that the Lumas were following a cycle. But one can only hold onto hope so much before they break down.

Now basing this from the whole "Rosalina was also a princess back in her place" theory, I think that even if the Lumas did comfort her in her most vulnerable moment, losing her mom and then not being able to communicate with her dad and brother really made her feel worse in the end.

She can't afford losing anyone again.

And that fear, pain and stress almost leaded her to, practically experience what Lumas go through.

Her body breaks, yes, it was giving up due to all of what was going on. The cracks can be seen on her face and everything, and that alarms her a lot.

And so, she realizes that she needed some time. She wrote some letters, sent them, and told the Lumas the truth at the very end.

And she ended up in a slumber so she could either recover, or go through it finally.

As to how much time she was in slumber it's unknown, but things changed a lot.

Star dust started to fuse with her body, star dust from The Lumas who cared for her more than anything, in order to make sure she was safe and healthy again. Which time, her body started to recover, the cracks leaving scars, sure, but recovering. The love of the lumas, her kids, gave her strenght and made her feel like she was going to genuinely be okay again.

One way or another, her family was going to be there with her, always.

And when she was back, everything about her look changed.

For the good.

Long and lovely hair that was taken care of, a star crown, comfortable clothes, the sparkles in her skin, everything about her. And she felt at peace. But she started crying once she processed all of it.

She was alone, but not really.

The Lumas wanted her to be okay. To feel safe. To feel loved. That she's enough. That things will be okay.

She would never really be alone again. But they sacrificed their cycle/life for her. All because of her fear for them to get hurt.

And now they're there with her.

After realizing all of that, Rosalina decided to go by the name of Estella, in memory of the Lumas that she loved so much and now were a part of her.

And now she's still doing her duties. With confidence and always with company despite everything. And yeah.

[maverick-werewolf]

Hi! I suck at sending asks so I hope I don’t come off in any kind of bad way

I know you very briefly mentioned Van Helsing (2004) in one of your ‘Vampire vs Werewolf’ posts, but I wanted to know your thoughts on the werewolf designs in them. I was doing research for one of my characters, and I’m not really sure if drawing inspiration from their designs would fit/work with the actual folklore.

Maybe you could even list some of your favorite designs or good places to reference from, if you know any?

— House 🩵 (I love your blog so much it’s a literal godsend for Vamp and Wolf research)

Not at all a bad way; thank you for sending in an ask! And I'm so glad you enjoy the blog, thank you for the kind words! :D

I actually love the werewolf designs in Van Helsing, overall. They're very cool - they're big, scary, muscular, and wolfish (all traits I personally love), but they are also varied according to character...

This is concept art from the film. Notice how they all look like wolves and have a coherent common design while also having unique and characterized features and builds. I really love that. You may not have even noticed it a whole lot in the movie itself (I did, though), but it really makes them feel more like an individual turning into a monster instead of just someone turning into a standardized creature like a transform ability in a video game.

I'd say they're a good starting point for any werewolf concepts that want to go for the big wolfish humanoid look while still being scary and characterized!

Designing werewolves after folklore can be tricky and even odd, given folklore varied very widely and also wasn't always very specific. Most werewolves in folklore turn into wolves, which leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Some also had paws they used as hands (does that mean they had hands? etc) and other variations. Some even looked quite ridiculous and not even very wolfish, with things like a tufted lion tail and red hindquarters! It got wild in folklore.

Personally, I wouldn't restrict yourself to trying to stick too closely to folklore specifically. Design something cool, and most importantly, have fun with it and make it yours. My recommendation is just to stick with what you like and think looks cool and things that look wolfish in some way. Don't do like a lot of designers and tell yourself that a wolf is the last thing you should be drawing reference from; that's just silly. They're still werewolves. Granted, since you're interested in folklore and enjoy my blog, I doubt I need to say that, lol. I have other personal preferences, but at the end of the day, that's my advice to others.

My advice might also sound a little bit canned, but that's how I feel. My werewolves in Wulfgard have a variety of designs per individual and other factors in the story/world itself and many other elements; their designs are something I have hashed out over the course of literally my entire life, so it isn't something to rush. I like a variety of designs, and curses are complicated in my world, and I've adapted that into the entirety of werewolf designs themselves. I'm really proud of what I came up with - be sure to check back to my blog in November for some big news in terms of my own werewolves and their designs... Sorry - shameless plug! I've got a big thing coming.

Hope this helps, and hope you're having a great day! :)

[chocomd]

ATLA Live Action Final Thoughts

So I'll start by saying that I went into this show with zero expectations (including the expectation for it to be any good at all) and focused more on questions like: How is the acting? Does the writing make sense? Is the story decent? Do we have emotional scenes?

I didn't care about sticking to the og ATLA's ships, lore, or any of the details really. Even changes to the characters were fine with me. But the most important question of all is: Does it work?

The answer:

No.

There are lots of well thought out NATLA critical reviews out there, so I'll try to keep this short. NATLA tweaked a lot of things, tried take elements of the og and make them subversive, changed the themes, completely nerfed Katara, watered down almost everyone else...and I could go on and on. But essentially, NATLA was a "remix" that stayed too close to the original in that the changes they made felt like empty imitations and clumsy efforts to improve on the og. They really should have created a completely different story while keeping maybe a handful of elements of the og. And even if they changed core traits of the characters, that would be fine. It just has to work...and it didn't.

So some main points:

The acting was terrible to ok for the most part. Overall stiff and stilted with almost nonexistent chemistry. Sokka, Jet, Ozai, and June (😍) were the standout actors. Katara had one facial expression and one tone of voice 95% of the time.

Ships I actually enjoyed: Sukka, turnip Jetara, sokka x hahn (hakka? sahn?) and ZUKAANG

The writing often contradicted itself and there was very little emotional resonance or depth. So many lines and moments felt unearned, or simply didn't make sense.

Telling. SO MUCH TELLING. The constant exposition killed so much in this show. I groaned almost every time an actor opened their mouth.

Katara. Why was she in this story again?

The only time the show felt fresh and interesting was the spirit world segment with visions and flashbacks in episode 5...the one time they took ideas from og ATLA and truly remixed them and it was actually decent to good.

The Blue Spirit episode (ep 6) was amazing (relatively speaking lol), and I think it's because Bryke co-wrote this episode AND it was pretty faithful to the og AND the Pohuai Stronghold fight was incredible AND the Zukaang was even more deliciously Zukaang.

The overall plot did not feel cohesive and felt like a disjointed imitation of og ATLA.

Even if I wasn't familiar with the og, I would not have enjoyed this show because it's not good or interesting TV. One person I was watching with (who didn't see the og) left the room because "this is so bad" and "the acting is really stilted."

In the end, I'm not surprised by any of this. Animated stories usually suffer when they're translated into live action, because animation typically has much more emotional and dramatic range. And while og ATLA isn't perfect, it very nearly is because even its imperfections still manage to work in the bigger scheme of the story. Adaptations of og ATLA are pretty much doomed to fail, unless they completely rewrite the ATLA story (and I do mean completely).

Do I regret watching NATLA? That's a hard question to answer. There's no way I was watching this on my own, so I got to enjoy the unhinged company of my friends. If nothing else, watching NATLA made me want more og ATLA and sucked me back into ATLA fandom again.

[marshmallowprotection]

V with a partially blind MC?

Jihyun's eyes have been in poor condition for a while.

It is something that can be remedied with surgery, but even the surgery won't fix his vision back to the way it was before the accident. He's been living his life ever since Rika injured his eyes by adapting as best as he can by adapting to his circumstances. It certainly wasn't easy to go from being able to see clearly to having trouble with his vision in such a short amount of time, but he has the benefits many people do not. He has the time and money to learn how to take care of himself.

Granted, he is awfully stubborn and likes to take care of himself instead of feeling as though he's burdening the people around him, but we know that he has communicated with doctors before about his condition to get help. He has denied the surgery but that doesn't mean he's denied himself educational resources to learn how to live comfortably. Deep and Casual Story Jihyun uses a marshmallow tip cane to get around, but his sight deteriorate far more in that timeline compared to Another Story given how long he went without talking to someone about it.

Given the fact that he has been working to educate himself on visual issues, I think he's been learning more about blind culture and how the world works for people with any visual impairment from full blindness to moderate impairment to minor impairment. This is Jumin’s best friend, after all, you know he wants to educate himself about everything he can. The only difference is that Jihyun tends to dive into topics that become important to him as opposed to jumping into stuff immediately once it makes itself known to him.

This means if he encounters an MC who lives with visual impairment, be it minor, moderate, or severe loss of vision, he’ll have a better idea on know how to interact with them. Less misconceptions floating in his end, after all.

He's not going to assume that they need somebody to take care of them. A lot of people will touch someone who is disabled without a second thought because they think they need help. People often infantilize individuals with disabilities, especially people who are in wheelchairs or get around using a cane of any kind, assuming we need people to help us as soon as possible. It's not a bad thing to jump into action if you see somebody having a hard time, but you shouldn't touch somebody without asking them first. If it's not something you would appreciate, don't do it to another person. 

He would be interested in having a conversation with you about your feelings about your vision. It's something he hasn't allowed himself to think about that much. He's been pushing himself for so long with his injury because he felt like he deserved it. Having someone there with him to help him better understand that? It would be helpful to further his journey of healing. He wasn't born with a visual impairment, but if you were, it would be an interesting discussion to have with you.

How does your view of the world differ from his? How do you see the way the world treats you? He's not asking how distorted or warped the world may appear through your eyes due to spotting or cloudy spots, he's asking how you feel living in a world that isn't always very kind or considerate to your disability. He's been living in denial for a long time, after all, telling himself that his disability is something he deserves, and that's not a healthy mindset. 

A disability is not a punishment from God. Your disability isn’t a punishment at all. It's disgusting when people imply otherwise. His train of thought isn't in the best place, and I think he would benefit from having a healthy conversation about accepting himself from somebody likely in a better place than he is about it. It's okay to be frustrated and to grieve what you might have lost, but it's not healthy to beat yourself up all the time. 

Perhaps, you're in the same place as Jihyun is... and maybe you need to talk with him about the same thing. It's better to talk about what you're going through than it is to hold it in, and if you find peace in a conversation with him, by all means, you should know that he'll find the same peace once you're both comfortable with one another. It's nice to be with you, he'll think, because you're a wonderful person in every way imaginable, and he wants to journey through life with you and you alone.

You'll walk together, side by side, knowing you've got someone who understands you right there.

[sarahjacobs]

i find it really interesting how, as newsies made its transition from film to stage, it took on a rhetorical militancy that wasn't there before, ie "once and for all there'll be / blood on the wall if they / doubt us."

which bothers some people because of how violent the language is, but i think the rhetorical militancy itself isn't bad, per se. the state is already waging war on the oppressed, one of the most obvious examples being how usamerican police were drilled in military formations to break strikes by the mid-1880s. when leftists use language that evokes the military, even in non violent contexts (guerilla gardening), it's not about militarism, it's about militancy, and recognizing the terrain of struggle.

and violence is more complicated than we often like to believe. when the state enacts violence on people everyday, ranging from slow (poverty) to fast (police brutality), it's only natural that people resort to violence as a means of liberating themselves. and these expressions of violence aren't equivalent at all because of the context, resistance vs reaffirming pre-existing power/authority, illegitimate vs legitimate violence. to elaborate on the latter, pulitzer is allowed to sic strikebreakers and cops on the newsies without facing any kind of consequence, but it would be a completely different story if the newsies even tried to assault pulitzer.

my criticism of the rhetoric lies in that it's just a veneer of militancy, of rebellion. newsies live also likens the strike to revolution, which the 92 film didn't do either —

MEDDA: Welcome, Newsies of New York City. Welcome to my theater and your revolution!

JACK: (being funny) Bill? So I suppose you're the son of William Randolph Hearst? BILL: And proud to be part of your revolution!

— but newsies is incongruous with revolution. i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing; like anarcho-nihilist serafinski says, "it is not the outcome of the act, but the moment of action itself that speaks the loudest here. . . . [whether or not revolution succeeds] can only be secondary to the visceral need to rebel against the shitty conditions of our lives." but we should also be accurate and precise in our assessments of resistance. revolutions are specifically about the overthrow and replacement of the current order, or, at the very least, the deposition of rulers, and the newsie strike, historically and across adaptions, ends with a return to the status quo — back to work under the same employer, with marginally better wages, which are still poverty wages and still under an inherently exploitative, industrial-capitalist system. in her coverage of the strike on the podcast cool people who did cool stuff, margaret killjoy calls it insurrectionary unionism, which more accurately reflects the spontaneity, informality, and emphasis on direct action seen in the strike, but also acknowledges that it didn't achieve, nor was it necessarily seeking, systemic change/destruction.

with this in mind, newsies live is especially not revolutionary. it proposes that class struggle is interchangeable with generational divides, and it favors a more conciliatory, employers and employed as partners approach to unionism. again, i don't think the 92 film is a perfect political text, but the older script’s references to socialism and eugene debs make it clear to me that they at least did the reading. newsies live lacks this political framework, which is necessary to make the rhetorical militancy work in the first place. i mean, when you have the newsies singing, "we'll be ready to fight us a war" and "they're gonna damn well pay!" and follow that up with katherine reading the newsie banner, in which they declare that "we will work with you" to pulitzer, doesn't that contradict? there's no real way to reconcile the newsies's call for escalation into open class war where the employing class and the working class are inherent enemies, with the more palatable/liberal willingness to "work with" pulitzer, building off of all the other business unionist like desires to have a "place at the table" and be "treated like equals," which culminates in a negotiation scene full of concessions.

in general, i find that newsies live is self conscious, in a way, almost constantly referencing its place in history as being unique —

DAVEY: We're doing something that has never been done before. How could that not be dangerous?

DAVEY: Newsies of New York… look at what we've done! We've got newsies from every pape and every neighborhood tonight. Tonight you're making history.

— in addition to the script noting that roosevelt is "recognizing this historical moment" as he delivers his last lines, and the previous examples of the strike being equated to revolution. there’s this eagerness to singularize the newsie strike as something that's never been done before, as a one and done revolution rather than revolution/abolition as a continual process; just as capitalism is a structure, not an event, true revolution isn’t an event, either.

newsies live as a whole is eager to claim easy victories. it's comforting to believe that we should work within and with the confines of institutional power and the piecemeal reform it affords, that a government official like roosevelt will intervene in favor of the workers, and when pulitzer says he can't put the price back where it was, the newsies giving up their only leverage at the height of its escalation (the localized newsie strike into a generalized, children's strike that stops the city) in favor of concessions is still a "win." similarly, it's comforting to believe that these institutions, and power itself, can be fixed, so long as the right people (the young people, in this case) are in power — as if there's anything even worth saving about these things. these beliefs don't demand much of us because it doesn’t disrupt our worldview, just asks us to keep holding onto what we already know.

to me, newsies live is part of a broader conversation about how anti-capitalist struggles and forms are recuperated and re-integrated into capitalism, how discourse reflects and codifies power, even as it makes room for dissent — or more accurately, controlled opposition. even as the show dons the mantle of revolution, of rhetorical militancy, a part of it is unwilling, perhaps even afraid of, to let go of its liberalism. it can't quite acknowledge the possibility that what’s needed is the end of the World — both the newspaper world and the literal world — as we know it.

(i highly recommend "a love letter from the end of the world," a short essay that more thoroughly deals with apocalyptic anarchism.)

[lemonhemlock]

hi! I wanted to know your opinion, I also love helaegon, but even in books it is written about aegon's infidelities. do you think he loved Heleina romantically if he was cheating? yet before B&C they slept together

i ship helaegon, so yeah, i do think there was romantic love woven into their sibling bond. which, in and of itself, is a curious and fucked-up starting point to expand upon. was he a perfect husband? lol no. sure, fire & blood doesn't stop to spell out every relationship and interaction between these people, bc the medium just doesn't allow for it.

but we do know some things about helaena. she is hinted to have been a very popular and charismatic person - she was an involved mother to three children, was beloved by both alicent AND viserys. even rhaenyra didn't have any particular beef with her. the common people loved her so much they rioted in her name, which means she had a very active public persona, perhaps related to charities and other good works and wasn't holed up in the palace all day.

she claimed dreamfyre, so that proves she was a brave and enterprising person, not afraid to take risks and take charge of the situation, if needed. milquetoast pushovers are not really successful dragon claimers - i feel like fandom glosses over this aspect a lot and the show doesn't help. can you imagine how it must feel like to fly in that time when the only method of air transportation is a dangerous fire-breathing creature? or to have a deep telepathic bond with one?

so, in this context, aegon isn't really given any particular reason to dislike her. she has a retort at hand whenever needed, is not afraid of her husband, is involved in political decisions before B&C and aegon even listens to her. is that a whole lot of build-up? ofc not. but it's really not the "helaegon h8 each other" gotcha zinger that's become popular in the fandom. although hotd does not help in this regard.

in the show she is kind of the opposite of what she was portrayed in FB - she's shy, withdrawn, keeps to the palace grounds, is mostly ignored and content that way. these traits are not "bad" or "good", but it does change the family dynamic and imo not much is done to compensate for it. i don't get the feeling they're telling a better story with this, just a more frustrating one by not providing some kind of counterbalance.

at the end of the day, this relationship has a lot of potential for interesting exploration, but any adaptation will boil down to what specific themes the writers want to develop. and, whenever readers interpret this ship, they're also going to be viewing it through whichever lends they find more compelling. it's always going to be like this with any underdeveloped aspect of any story.

so, if you make aegon hypersexual and helaena withdrawn, that's definitely a choice that's going to inform how these characters interact with each other, but that new dynamic is different from the text and we should acknowledge that, not pretend it was like this all along.

as for whether it's a good change to make or not, i'm not inclined to say so. transforming helaena into another long-suffering wife, when she is already going to lose her mind over the trauma she is subjected to, is boring. they already explored that with alicent and, at the end of the day, helaena is not your typical westerosi lady. her dragon is bigger than aegon's, but nobody bothers to take that into consideration. she should be whacking her brother over the head if he's being annoying, not cowering in fear of him.

[gumdefense]

Rewatching the anime and I’m at farewell my turnabout now, which always reminds me the magatama just… isn’t a thing they adapted, for some reason. When Phoenix asks engarde if he killed corrida, they adapt it by having engarde be like oh nooo I’m so upset over his death how horrible and Phoenix trusting him based on that. Which I think works and also doesn’t. With the magatama, there’s a concrete reason why Phoenix and the audience think without a doubt engarde has to be innocent until he reveals he isn't, with the magic lie detector not detecting any lie. Without it, it kind of makes Phoenix look overly naive, blindly trusting the guy just because he said he feels so bad without even answering the question. But on the other hand, it fits really well with Phoenix’s character arc in this case and the exploration of the “always believe in your client” motto. Because here the problem directly comes from that belief and trust; while it’s still there with the magatama, the anime might give it a bit more weight since it just makes sense to trust Magic Lie Detector. I mean, why wouldn’t you. It’s kinda less about Phoenix trusting engarde too easily and more “woahh you can bypass the magatama by answering a certain way”

This isn’t me arguing farewell anime version is better, or that the game handles the trusting your client theme badly, not at all, I just like comparing the differences with the choice of removing a key element of the game in an adaption and how it then handles it

Speaking of the game since I’m not done rambling: I think the game gives the case itself more suspense and tension, because even when literally everything points to engarde, even if your faith would normally waver, you think no, he literally CAN’T be guilty, the magatama said so ! While I played the games (moreso early on), I was bad at trusting clients lol, even characters like edgeworth got “yeah no they did it” from me. But in farewell, as it was the 9th case after 8 cases of innocent clients, I had the instinct of “well the client is always innocent so even if he seems guilty as hell he’s probably innocent too” (which is one of the million things I ADORE about farewell, how it plays with how the previous game and previous cases affected the player psychologically). Add the magatama to that, and I was truly convinced there was no way he could have done it for once, which made the reveal a huge shock and made me really connect to and empathise with Phoenix’s inner conflict. While I think the anime adapts the case very well, it does have that aspect I mentioned of Phoenix just looking naive for trusting engarde. Though to be fair it might be bias from already knowing what happens

[aortaobservatory]

hello again! i previously asked about your thoughts on the blood aspect, and now i'm back to ask about the inverse - breath. for maybe 8 years, i've completely switched back and forth between identifying with blood and identifying with breath. so, i would enjoy hearing your thoughts

Certainly! Debating between an aspect and its inverse isn't uncommon from what I've seen. In fact, I'd say it's quite common for certain classes, particularly those who are passive classes (as those who are active classes have direct relationships to their aspect and indirect relationships to their inverse, but passive classes have indirect relationships to their aspect and direct relationships to their inverse).

Breath is the aspect of the main character of Homestuck, so logically we should have a pretty firm grasp on what it means to be Breathbound. There's a tendency to go with the face-value meaning of an aspect among those who consider classpects; however, with the deeper intricacies I've been able to pull out of Blood, I've been able to dig deeper into Breath as well. Where Blood is a steady pulse, Breath is an erratic impulse. If Blood is represented by chains and the ties that bind, Breath is represented by freedom and individuality; feathers and wings, flight, and solitude.

From The Extended Zodiac, I pulled these keywords from the Breath Aspect description. These would be the "canon" traits; they are what I adhere to when analyzing, but it should also be understood that this concept encompasses much more to do with than these keywords. Its "vibe", if you will, is much more than what is written.

TEZ Breath Keywords: Flexible, driven, independence, motivated, adaptable, forward thinking, (volatile, avoidant, gullible)

The keywords I chose to represent Breath are "Impulse, Adaptability, Freedom, Independence". This aspect, like all the other aspects, is inherently neutral. It is not good or bad, but has the potential to be either.

Breath is the unique independence of someone; it is about the individual themself. Focusing on what makes an individual unique and why it is unique can divest from the Breath aspect, as Breath itself isn't really meant to be defined into one specific thing. It is, appropriately, hard to pin down.

Breathbound "go with the flow" of things, but do not allow themselves to be compromised within it. Breath is a focus on the unique individuality of an individual and only that. Focusing then on who they are would be delving into the Heart aspect, and why they do what they do could be anywhere from Hope to Life to Space, so on and so forth. Above all else, the Breathbound value freedom, and freedom itself has many forms. The aspect is not defined by limitations; (see: John performing what should have been a Space/Time job by retconning the alpha timeline). Breathbound do not let themselves be defined by the presence of others, instead relishing in the freedoms they obtain. "Escaping" is particularly what passive Breathbound value most of all.

We may debate the ending of Homestuck and what it means, but the most popular iteration I've seen is that it is an escape made by the characters from the story that was planned out for them; if John were any aspect other than Breath, this would not make nearly as much sense. As an Heir of Breath, John embodies the purest form of Breath and allows it to change who he is as a person; much of Homestuck involves John going with the flow of everything that happens around him, but when it comes down to it, he is the one who creates the escape from an inevitable demise for everyone. Tavros as our Page of Breath, meanwhile, is learning how to be individual on his own, and much of his struggle comes from the fact that he cannot seem to figure out how to not let others define who he is.