#since i know it's a bit of a contentious topic

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Your (Curtain) Call - Thoughts

Hey, it's been a while, huh? But the call of plot progression was too exciting for me to remain silent any longer. Trial 3 baby here we go!!!

And what a way to kick off the trial! There sure is a fair bit to talk about, so let's do just that.

CW: Murder, suicide, suicide threats, psychological torture (Unforgiven votes)

General Thoughts

WOOOO MILGRAM TRIAL 3 IS COMING!!! The excitement is through the roof!!! I am very desensitized to character deaths so my desire for more content currently supersedes the sadness I am feeling!!!! Still, without any other info on T3 atm, I should probably talk about the thing we do have, no?

First thing to establish, I'm going in with the assumption that the three who didn't show up in Your (Curtain) Call are just dead, because I see no reason to believe otherwise. So, Haruka, Shidou and Mahiru are gone.

I'm frankly not all that surprised. Like, we knew what Haruka was gonna do from the moment Muu's verdict came out Unforgiven, the conversation Mahiru had with Kotoko in Kotoko's last birthday made it pretty clear she wasn't going to last much longer, and Shidou's death was always on the table when Amane's voting period finally closed. The big question was whether the writers would commit to killing off the characters before the true start of T3, and I'm actually kinda glad the answer to that was yes. Obviously I would have appreciated more time with them, and I sincerely hope against hope that we still get a T3 song for all of them, but the deaths are a good way to send the message to the audience that yes, consequences exist in Milgram, and yes, they're very serious.

Basically I'm actually kinda chilling, but that may just be because I... Look I like all the Milgram characters, but these three were never my favorites. I appreciated them, I enjoyed their existence and discussing them, but I'm ultimately more attached to other characters. So, in a sense, I kinda lucked out. Very sorry to those who can't say the same.

Where We Go From Here

Now, before talking about where I think we may go from here, I'm going to talk a bit about the verdicts that led to this. But since this is a contentious topic, I'll establish a few things that I'm sure you're all aware about, but bear repeating just in case.

-I don't believe there are any "right" or "wrong" verdicts, just those which I agree or disagree with. The decisions are difficult and multi-faceted, and usually had to be made with limited information. We're all trying our best here, so even if you disagree with someone else' perspective, it's important to remain respectful of it. If at any point in this post I come off as insulting to anyone else's choices, I apologize, it's not my intention.

-Hindsight is 20/20, but that means it's a distorted perspective. No one was completely certain of many things throughout the voting process. Even if things turned out exactly how you thought they would, or nothing happened like you hoped it might, keep in mind that no one could be 100% sure of some things before the release of Your (Curtain) Call. Basically, going "I told you so" doesn't help anyone.

-At the end of the day, these are fictional characters. It's perfectly fine to be emotionally invested in them, and feel strongly about their fates, but perspective is important. No one actually died, no one's hurt. You can regret your choices or be upset at the verdicts, but keep in mind it's ultimately just a web series.

With that established, the voting. Now, the arguments about Forgiven or Unforgiven have already been had and I have little interest in repeating discussions from the past. But I've never talked much about some of these verdicts here, and I know some of you may be interested in knowing my perspective on them and how I feel about them. Again, the following is simply my opinion, no better than yours, we're gonna disagree on some things and that's fine.

Haruka, Shidou and Mahiru will never get to react to their T2 verdicts in earnest. The verdicts to discuss, then, are Muu's and Amane's from T2, and Mahiru's and Kotoko's from T1. Obviously there's other verdicts involved here, but those are the most pressing ones in my eyes.

-I don't agree with the Unforgiven Muu verdict, and I held that opinion for a long time before Your (Curtain) Call released. I fully understand why it happened, I'm not upset it happened, and I don't hold it against anyone who voted her Unforgiven, but I respectfully disagree with the decision.

Of course, it's easy to say I would have Forgiven her when we now know for sure it would have avoided a death, but an Unforgiven vote was always way more dangerous than a Forgiven vote. Sure, Haruka, could have survived the attempt, but the best way to guarantee his safety would have been Forgiving Muu. That's why I held this opinion before the release of Your (Curtain) Call, even if I don't think I ever mentioned it.

Mind you, a Forgiven vote came with its own risks. It would have enforced a very dangerous mindset on Muu's part, and bending to the suicide threat would have enabled Haruka's self-destructive and manipulative tendencies. He probably would have made the same threat in T3 if we'd let him have his way. This is one of many reasons why I understand the verdict.

But those are things that can be dealt with once everyone's out of the hell prison; death isn't. And while it's true that an Unforgiven vote is the only way we have to get across to Muu that she did a bad thing, that doesn't mean we have to take it. Especially since mentally torturing a teenager to get a point across is... morally dubious, on its face. There's no shame in admitting we lack the tools to properly help someone and stepping back to focus on damage control, as helping without the proper tools can do more harm than good.

Again, though, that's my perspective, one which comes from someone who can only talk about the vote in hindsight as I wasn't around when the voting was actually happening. So, it should be taken with a lot of salt. I sincerely hope those who didn't Forgive her get what they wanted out of the verdict and that Muu will become a better person because of it in some way, even if I have my doubts about it. What's done is done, we should just hope for the best now.

-The Amane vote was a lot harder, because neither option came with a guarantee of safety, and neither option came with a guarantee of death. The setup was always there for a Forgiven Amane to kill Shidou (which is what I assume happened), but there was also setup for someone like Kazui saving him. It was entirely possible that Shidou could have survived with injuries, and just because it didn't happen, we shouldn't forget that it seemed like a real possibility at the time.

That isn't to say I blame Kazui or even Shidou or anyone else for what happened. Trusting a child isn't a crime, and people shouldn't have to be babysitting Shidou the whole time. The fault is entirely on the people who raised Amane, the audience who allowed her freedom of movement, and Amane herself.

In the same vein, an Unforgiven vote could have carried no inter-prisoner fatalities, but it would have been Amane's second Unforgiven, meaning there was a real possibility she'd die. We don't know how that works, after all. I don't even find it particularly likely, but it's a real concern that I took into account.

Basically, unlike Muu's vote where one option was clearly safer than the other (in my eyes), Amane's vote was a gamble either way, and we had no way to genuinely tell what the odds of Shidou's death (and Mahiru's, as we believed back then that they were linked) on a Forgiven vote were compared to the odds of an Amane death on Unforgiven.

Which is why I don't regret voting Amane Forgiven. We can speculate on what we'd do with the information we have now and the information we may get later, but with the information we had at the time, I find it a perfectly reasonable decision. If the information we'd had was different, and you could guarantee that no one would die to an Unforgiven vote and that Shidou would absolutely die on a Forgiven, I might have ended up voting Amane Unforgiven. It would have hurt me a lot and I'd feel gross doing it, but I stand by the principle that preserving human life is always the priority.

However, such a guarantee didn't exist. So I had to weigh the possibility of life and death against the other aspects of the vote. And to put it bluntly, I've never personally found any Unforgiven argument unrelated to Shidou's safety to be particularly convincing. We've seen what an Unforgiven vote does for Amane, and it's not good. I sincerely doubt that doing the same thing again would carry different results.

Also, there's another reason I found voting Amane Forgiven when Shidou could die easier to justify than Not Forgiving Muu when that could get Haruka killed: it's just easier to sell me on a Forgiven vote than an Unforgiven vote. That's a personal bias I'm aware of, but not one I particularly mind having and acting upon. Hot take, mentally torturing teenagers is Bad actually, and should be avoided whenever possible.

-I didn't talk about Mahiru much in the previous section, because I'm pretty sure she was dead from T1.

[2024/12/15 Timeline] Mahiru: I also have to, say my thanks, to Shidou-san. Kotoko: I can’t even laugh at how carefree you are, going out of your way to call me over. Well...... if you have any grudges in your last moments, I guess I’d consider listening.

In this recent timeline,, Mahiru talks about Shidou as if he's still alive, but Kotoko seems pretty convinced Mahiru's not going to last much longer. This seems to imply, at least to me, that Shidou wouldn't have been able to keep Mahiru alive for T3 even if he hadn't gotten stabbed by the child. She was likely just kept alive to explore her character further before killing her off.

Now, I don't hold any votes cast against anyone in general, but I especially don't hold anything against the votes from T1. From my understanding, that was the wild wild west when it came to voting, as there was no precedent for what the votes would actually do. I don't even know what I would have voted Mahiru, since by the time I joined the fandom, the consequences of the voting had already been made relatively clear. I have no basis for what I would have taken into account when it came to casting votes in T1.

That said, I would have voted Kotoko Forgiven, probably. I tend to trust fictional characters more than I probably should, and the partnership she offered in TASK sounded quite appealing when we had no precedent for inter-prisoner violence beyond John Doe. HARROW made it look (at least to me) that Kotoko did a lot of research before attacking her victims, so I'd have given her the benefit of the doubt and thought she wouldn't attack the others until she learnt more about their crimes. Without Deep Cover, there wasn't any reason to believe she had that info at the time. Clearly, I'd have enabled the bullshit that happened in the T1-T2 intermission. Oops.

Okay that's way too much yapping about things that no longer matter. The votes are cast, the decisions are made, we move. What's next?

Well, that would be discussing how these deaths affect our choices moving forward. I don't feel like speculating on how characters are going to act in T3 when it's likely we're gonna get more info on that soon anyways (I can't believe it!!!), but what are my plans for voting?

Well, you can probably guess, but I'm hoping for an inno sweep. Unless we get confirmation on what our votes are gonna do before casting them, the possibility that a T3 Unforgiven will kill the character is too dangerous for me to consider that, unless there's some reason to believe a Forgiven vote would also carry risk of death. I think I've made it clear that I don't usually find the mental torture that an Unforgiven vote carries to be particularly helpful, so unless the consequences of the vote change, full Forgiven is probably the best we can hope for. I really doubt it's going to be so simple, of course, but I can't comment further without more info on the trial. I'm very excited to see how they try to avoid the full Forgiven sweep over at MILGRAM HQ (?).

And I'll actually get to vote for all of them this time! Well, the ones who are alive, anyways. Yippie!!!

On a completely unrelated note; really love the title of the video. The play on "your call" (your decision) and "your curtain call" (the end) is fun.

I wonder what other routes would have been called, though. Because obviously you can't have a name for every possible combination of T1 and T2 verdicts, so you need general names like Your (Curtain) Call for most of them. I kinda wanna know what decisions could have led to a different route name. If I feel like it, I might make a post with some other route ideas for the fun of it. But I have like a bajillion posts I want to write on my main still, so. God knows when that would come out.

Alright I've evidently run out of meaningful things to say. Hope you enjoyed this massive rambling session, that you don't hate me if you disagree with my opinions, all that stuff. In any case, thanks for reading, see ya'!

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

Home (Not So) Sweet Home

Chapter Four of Sweet Home Alabama

Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x OC (Linley Mitchell/Floyd), Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x OC (Linley Mitchell/Floyd)

Description: A trip to jail was not on your list for things to accomplish during the short time you were home in Pigeon Creek. But, like most of the predicaments you find yourself in, it's all thanks to Jake. So much for a half an hour trip into town to get the papers signed and then back to New York soon afterwards. Instead you get a high-speed trip down memory lane as Pigeon Creek, and Jake himself, dredge up ancient history.

Themes: angst, love, smut, attraction

Warnings: Mentioned miscarriage (non-graphic) Please do not read anything between As your belly grew and the bed sheets if this is an uncomfortable topic for you. I have italicized those sections in this to account for this.

Word Count: 2719

A/N: First of all, I'm sorry this chapter is a bit late! I went shopping today because I needed a new coat and I just got back home! This is the chapter where we get to see a little bit more of Jake and Linley's relationship after the seven year separation they've been on. It's nothing short of explosive! All of my thanks to @desert-fern for beta-reading and refining this chapter for me!

AO3: Cross-posted here!

Wattpad: Cross-posted here!

My Masterlist

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Well, you ended up in jail. You've never once been able to out-dare Jake in your life and you weren't able to out-dare him today either. When Jake had unplugged the phone and taken it to the bedroom, it had been to call the Sheriff. The Sheriff of Pigeon Creek and you have a contentious relationship, to put it lightly. Too many run-ins with the law for your comfort when you were much younger and more foolish. Of course, just as the sirens show up on the front lawn, you're already booking it for the back door. This is the last thing you need, getting arrested on your first day back in Pigeon Creek. The only person you can call other than Jake is your dad. Fuck! Maybe you ought to leave quietly and come back later?

But to your surprise it isn’t the old Sheriff you tormented as a teen. It's Mickey Garcia, and he walks right in through the back door. You grew up with Mickey. He’s Jake’s best friend and somebody Jake loves like a brother. Hell, Mickey was Jake’s best man at your ill-fated wedding. Really, if Jake believes Mickey would ever arrest you, then he has another think coming, or so you thought.

“Well, well, well… If it isn’t Misdemeanor Mitchell!” There’s a huge grin on his face showcasing the new smile lines around his eyes and the dimples in his cheeks.

“Mickey?!” You’re wrapped up in your first hug since you got back home and you can’t help the smirk you throw at Jake over Mickey’s shoulder.

“Hot damn, girl, did we miss you around here!” He holds you out at arm length and drinks you in. 

“Hey, I think I saw poor, old Fuzz just the other day.” You laugh at his words because you haven’t thought about Fuzz in years. You hope that old cat is doing well, even after all this time. But, it looks like some things will never change, like how Pigeon Creek is never going to forget why you’re so notorious.

“Oh, God, you just had to bring that up, didn’t you?” You can sense Jake’s irritation from where he’s leaning on the wall and it drives your smile even wider.

“I can't believe you're the sheriff!” The last time you saw Mickey he was moving to college on a baseball scholarship.

It doesn’t surprise you at all when his voice takes on a flirtatious tone. “Yep, I get to frisk pretty little things like you all day and get paid for it!”

Jake’s scoff breaks up the convivial atmosphere. “Mickey, can you try and be a little more professional? We got us a prime suspect here! This woman broke into my house!” 

You just know the man’s smirking again. Is it so hard to just sign some papers and be done with this whole situation? Now he’s dragging Mickey into this? Why the hell is your ex-husband so impossible to live with?

"Aww, Linley, you know that you can't trespass in other people's houses." He's smiling as he looks between Jake and you.

"I'm not trespassing, Mick. I used my key." You tug it out of your bag as proof, noticing how Jake’s eyes darken at the sight of the spare key he’s never known how to find.

"Honey, I'm sorry, but whether you have a key or not, I'm going to have to escort you out of here." He sounds genuinely sorry for your plight.

Jake, of course, has something smart-alecky to say, like always. "In handcuffs please, Mick." 

"Mick, if you can get him to sign these papers, I'll let you run me out of town as fast as you want." You pull the papers out.

“Don’t drag him into this, Linley.” Bullshit. Jake’s the one that dragged Mickey into this. He could have just signed the papers and you’d have left town fifteen minutes after you’d blown in. He wanted to play hardball, hardball is what he’s going to get. You hand the papers to Mick and watch Jake’s expression change even as a smug grin curls your lips.

"Sorry, man. If you're still married, this is her house too. So at most, this is a domestic disturbance. I don’t see anything to arrest anybody for." He turns back to you with a wink. "Unless, that is, Jake hit you. Now, honey, you'll tell me if Jake over there ever hurts you in any way, right? Cause we take that kinda thing seriously now."

Jake's face falls just a little as you glance coolly over his grease streaked face. You’re not sure what he thinks you’re going to say. But the realization feels like a bucket of cold water dumped over your head. He thinks you’re going to lie and say despicable things about him, doesn’t he?

Your voice is soft, softer than it has any right to be."Naw, Mickey. Jake's never hurt me. Not a day in his life." 

Jake tries any and every way to get you out of the house. But none of them work until he mentions how Mrs. Garcia's tractor ended up in the pond and how there was an open warrant out for the perpetrator still. That rat bastard. 

Now you're sitting in a chair in front of Mickey's desk wearing handcuffs contemplating who you can call to get you out of jail. Mickey's on the phone with his ma, letting her curse you out in Spanish. You don't really have many options. Your dad and Jake are the only two people who'd ever bail you out if you were in trouble. For obvious reasons you can't call Jake. So your dad it is.

You dial the number you've known by heart for most of your life and have barely used for the past seven years and wait. It's only a few minutes before he picks up.

"Hello?" He sounds exhausted, like he does after working a particularly grueling shift at the shop.

"Dad? Surprise, it's Linley!" His voice makes you feel safe.

"Hi, kiddo! This is a surprise! I wasn't expecting to hear from you for a while!" That statement hurts.

"Dad, it's not the call that's the surprise. I'm actually in town." His little intake of breath has tears flooding to your eyes.

"Really? Well, kiddo, you didn't have to call. You can drop by the house anytime you want." After the fight you had before you left, how can he still welcome you home?

"I know, Dad. But that's not why I called. I'm in custody at the Pigeon Creek Police Department." 

You can hear his fond smile with every word and it makes your eyes roll. "I should've known you would have already gotten into trouble. I'll be there in fifteen, kiddo. I love you." 

You murmur your love back and settle back into the chair to wait. It’s a formality after your dad works through the doors of the Sheriff’s Office to get you out of handcuffs. You may have had to profusely apologize to Mrs. Garcia, but at least you’re not in a jail cell for the night.

Of course, as soon as you’re in your dad’s truck, he lets you have it. Mickey had kindly offered to drop your rental car off, so your bags are in the backseat.

“You just got into town. How in the world did you end up in jail again, huh?” He sounds so relaxed at having rescued his only child from jail. Since this was not an uncommon occurrence in your teenage years, it’s a little shocking that he’s not more worked up about this. After all, you’re twenty-five and an adult. Childish things like getting dragged off to the Sheriff’s office should be behind you.

You shrug as your dad drives you home. The roads are dark, illuminated only by the streetlights spitting out fat pools of golden light. “Jake and his big fat mouth. It’s just a misunderstanding, Daddy.”

“Why don’t you try to fix things with Jake, kiddo?” You sink a little bit deeper into the seat. “I went to all that trouble to pay for that wedding after all.”

“Daddy! That was hardly a wedding! He was hungover, threw up all over my dress and then I had to go to our reception alone, in my puke covered dress while he got to sleep off his hangover. It’s not exactly a wedding I want to remember.” It fills you with disgust to think of the heirloom lace of your Grandmother’s wedding dress getting ruined like that. You’d managed to save it, of course, but it’s something you still haven’t forgotten. That first night should have been the first evidence that you and Jake would never work out. But you were young and stupid and in love. So you disregarded every bit of evidence until something big enough came up that you couldn’t ignore anything anymore.

“He’s a good guy. Just give him another chance!” This is why you fought with your dad before you left. He’s always been fond of the Seresins. He has been since your ma skipped out on you both when you were two years old. His soft spot for Jake is so strong that he never sees anything wrong with a single decision he makes - including throwing up on his baby girl on her wedding day and everything else that went wrong afterwards. He’s never once been willing to see that maybe Jake was a little bit to blame as well. But no, that dubious honor only ever went to you.

“You always side with him, daddy! He’s the son you’ve never had, I know. But I’m your daughter. Your only daughter and you don’t even care to know what I’ve been doing with my life?!” Your breathing is a little ragged. This is why you’ve never come home over the past seven years. Why would you when your dad had something better, someone better than you in the boy you’d lost everything to? The hand that covers yours is warm and jolts you out of the impending spiral your thoughts try to yank you into.

“Alright, sweetheart, tell me what’s going on.” You’re not sure whether he’s just humoring you, but now’s your chance to tell him. How he’ll take the news and whether he’ll be okay with it, you don’t know. But you have to tell him.

“I… met somebody. He’s a catch. He’s in politics, his family is in politics, and I love him.” Your dad doesn’t so much as blink. The radio’s off and you sit in silence, trying to gain control over your fraying emotions.

It’s not until you’re back in the house that you pickup the conversation again.

“He asked me to marry him, daddy. It’s why I needed to talk to Jake. He needs to finally give me that divorce.” Your dad tugs you onto the sofa and takes your hands in his own.

“Are you sure about him, kiddo?” Your dad’s green eyes look deep into your own. A lot of you may be Pete Mitchell, but the one trait of his you never inherited were his eyes. Your eyes are your mama’s, and most of the time you’re glad her eyes are the only part of her you’ve inherited.

“I - I don’t know, Daddy. He makes me happy when I’m with him. He makes me happier than I have been in a long time.” You’re so confused. Coming back to Pigeon Creek was supposed to be easy. You sit with your dad on the overstuffed sofa facing the tv for a long while. The silence is draining, but you can’t force yourself to get up and walk away or break it. 

It’s your dad who breaks the tense hush overtaking the living room. “Alright, kiddo. If he makes you happy then that means that he’s automatically got my approval. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. We’ll see what we can do about Jake. But right now, your old man needs to get into bed. It’s been a long day for me, and I’m sure it’s been just as long for you. Why don’t you head to bed?” Your nod is mechanical as you walk into your childhood bedroom and lay down. You’re asleep in minutes, but your sleep is anything but satisfactory.

All of a sudden you're thirteen, fifteen and seventeen again, noticing the changes in your best friend, noticing how all the girls see him in a way only you've ever seen him before. You remember the urge to ensure he loved you as much as you loved him. You still remember his words from the day you and Jake were struck by lightning, "Will you marry me, Linley?" 

Ten year old you was an idiot. Jake Seresin, quarterback and All-American heart-throb, wanted you to marry him and you told him no. It's a decision you kick yourself over every now and again, especially when you see Mindy Jefferson making out with Jake behind the bleachers one afternoon. Is it possible to be both jealous and sad at the same time? Because that's what you are.

You spend most of your senior year of high school feeling like that. The night of the last football game of the year is when everything changed. You'd hitched a ride with Jake home, and Pigeon Creek is not the biggest town. You should've guessed something was up when he drove the opposite direction from home. When he kissed you, you'd melted. When he pulled you into the bed of his truck you went willingly. And when he made love to you under the stars, you climaxed with tears in your eyes.

There were tears of a completely different kind in your eyes as you sat in your bathroom with a multitude of drugstore pregnancy tests on the counter in front of you three months later. You had to tell Jake and your dad and his mom. Obviously all of Pigeon Creek knew within an hour. That was why you'd married Jake. For the baby that was half of you and half of him. Other than the aforementioned reception incident, the two of you settled into matrimonial bliss quite easily. Jake gave up his dreams of pro football, deferring college to work at the tire factory. You had taken in mending, sewing, and darning to help. 

As your belly grew, so did your happiness. At least until the night you woke up to red streaking your thighs and staining the bed sheets. After you lost your baby, you weren't sure how to be with Jake, not anymore. He tried to be strong for you, be your rock when you were grieving. But it was just putting more stress on your relationship. You weren’t sure you could ever be enough for Jake, not anymore. The fissures in your relationship became suddenly, wholly apparently clear.

So one day, while Jake was at work, you'd left a note on the bedside table along with your wedding ring and gone to see your dad. You told your dad why you were leaving, fought with him when he objected to your decision and bought a bus ticket to New York with everything you owned in a bag. You've never told another soul why you left, though you’re sure most of Pigeon Creek could assume the reason why, especially considering how you’d been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. You're not sure that even Jake knows the real reason why you left. It wasn't the fights or yelling or how Jake wanted you to stay home when you wanted to chase your dreams, either. It was because you couldn't face him after your body had destroyed the one thing you loved more than Jake - the one thing you only had because of Jake.

Ancient history clouds your thoughts when you wake up the next morning. Your head is in a fog of what was. More than ever you're filled with the urge to leave Pigeon Creek, maybe for good. But first you need to make a couple of phone calls, withdraw some change from the bank and go talk to Jake again. Maybe this time you’ll finally walk away with the divorce signed? If only it could be so easy.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN HERE, ON WATTPAD, OR ON AO3 BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN HERE, ON WATTPAD, OR AO3, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

Taglist:

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[magicalgirlagency]

What do you think of the “Cute girls doing cute things” (CGDCT) subgenre of slice of life? I know that one of your faves—The Demon Girl Next Door, falls into this category (though it’s not always 100% slice of life shenanigans)

There’s Shoujo CGDCT series too! Like, “Sabagebu!” and “Pon no Michi”, it’s not all Seinen, but I know that most/a lot of it is since a lot comes from Manga Time Kirara and that can be a bit of a contentious topic for some people because of the “Stories of about girls for men” thing.

I wish I could enjoy this specific breed of animanga more, but they turn out to be fetishistic most of the time...

Like Onimai!, for example! I've been wanting to watch it because hey! Cute trans girl with cool friends who support her transition journey with a bubbly pastel tone!

But then I saw Kaede (the gyaru character) and how her breasts were SO huge, a discrepancy from her manga appearance...

And it's such a shame, because I LOVE gyaru characters! I like their bold style, their confidence, their charisma... and YET AGAIN, they're treated like FETISH FUEL!!

And that's not even mentioning the scenes where the MC ends up wetting herself because she wasn't used to having a small bladder, too...

FIVE minutes. Can the animanga industry refrain itself from sexualizing female characters, for FIVE MINUTES?!?!

[rollercoasterwords]

Hi! I found your blog through the female rage substack article that you posted and I’m curious about a couple things (so I hope the tone of this ask will read as genuine/non-confrontational etc).

I really liked the article and the anti-gender essentialist content, so I looked through the others and eventually found your jegulus article (which I read and also liked) but I was sort of surprised to see that you are a part of the hp/marauders fandom. For me personally, everything related to that franchise has just been tainted since the whole jkr terf debacle really took off. I was big on hp when I was younger and wolfstar is a ship/dynamic that I enjoyed back then, so I’d probably like your stuff if I were to read it. But I decided some time ago to give any and all hp content the chop, because to me it didn’t feel right to engage with it anymore. So I was just wondering how you feel in that regard, if you don’t mind sharing. I don’t have anyone in my internet content circle that still actively posts about hp and if irl friends still enjoy it then it’s not something we talk about, so I’d just like to know how you juggle the ‘two sides’ in that sense of your trans-positive/anti-essentialist beliefs and fandom content that’s still so intrinsically connected to jkr and her politics. (Also, sorry if you’ve answered a question like this before. I scrolled through your blog a bit, but if yes then not far enough.)

Anyway, hope you’re well and I’ll probably keep an eye out for any future essays on your substack even if I don’t follow you on here. cheers! (and thanks for the “playing the whore” book rec, I’ll be looking into that. a rec from my end would be paul b. preciado's "can the monster speak". it's the written version of a speech he tried to give at a Freudian psychoanalysis conference about the position trans people occupy in psychoanalysis before being booed off stage. it was short and pretty intriguing, in case you're interested/haven't heard of it yet.)

hi! happy 2 hear u enjoyed the female rage essay--i wasn't expecting it to spread as much as it did + had to turn off reblogs for my own peace of mind 2 keep terfs away from my blog, but it's nice to know there are still people getting something out of it. also appreciate the book rec--that definitely sounds up my alley + i'm excited to check it out!

and i'll do my best to answer your question about hp, but i'm gonna put it under a cut because i know this is a contentious topic + i have a feeling my answer's gonna get long--so if anyone doesn't want 2 read abt my conflicting hp-fandom thoughts, just scroll away please xx

so, quite honestly, i'm in agreement with you that the entire franchise is tainted by jkr. the truth is that it was never really my intention to join the fandom--i read a single fic because it went viral on tiktok, then decided to rewrite the fic from another character's pov just for fun. at that point, i hadn't read any other hp fic and had never been involved in any kind of online fandom space, and although i'd read the hp books + watched the movies growing up i hadn't touched them in years + was so far removed from the franchise that i vaguely remembered hearing jkr had said some terfy stuff, but wasn't aware of the extent to which her politics were like. actively and significantly causing real-life harm.

anyway, i'd done a rewrite for fun of another story i liked and had posted it on ao3, and that had received a handful of people commenting + talking about the story with me as i wrote but had remained pretty self-contained + small. i was expecting the same sort of thing with the hp fic i rewrote, but instead someone posted about it on tiktok and it went viral, and then suddenly there were thousands of people reading every ch update and hundreds of comments. like i said, i had never been involved in an online fandom space before, so i sort of awkwardly stumbled into it and tried to figure out what i was doing as i finished up writing the fic. this was at a point in my life where i'd recently moved to a different country and had to go back in the closet after being publicly out for years, and this online fandom space became my only queer community and a bit of a lifeline in that way. i started making actual friends and talking to people + getting more deeply involved in the community aspect of things.

at the same time, i started actually educating myself on jkr + her politics + her impact, and the more i learned the more uncomfortable i became with being part of anything hp-related. now, i've been writing hp fic for almost two years and 'active' in the fandom for ~one and a half, and despite being grateful for the friends i've made and treasuring the space i've been able to cultivate, i've become increasingly disenchanted with 'the fandom' as a whole and have increasingly found it to be a hostile space, so i've sort of taken a step back from broader engagement and more + more have limited my interaction to just my mutuals here on tumblr. unfortunately, i think many of the 'bad parts' of this fandom are somewhat built-in because of the source material; there are a lot of people who agree with jkr's politics to varying extents and that can make it kind of a miserable place to be sometimes. i know many people insist that hp can be completely removed from jkr, but i don't think that's the case, and i've talked on my blog before about the fact that her politics are built into the very foundations of the text, so i think it's necessary to acknowledge her influence if we want to actually engage with hp at all in a way that isn't just perpetuating her politics.

all that being said, the point i'm at currently is that i'm not really sure that this fandom is a space i want to be a part of forever. again--i understand how it can be lifeline for some people and a queer community they might not have elsewhere, because that's been the case for me. but for me personally, as much as i value my own carved-out space, it doesn't completely outweigh the negatives that i have found myself coming into contact with more and more in this fandom. writing hp fic is also something that i keep strictly separate from 'real life,' contained solely in this online space, because i know that any engagement with hp is a red flag for many, many trans people and i don't want to bring it outside of this space. within this online space, i don't keep it a secret that i write hp fic; it's right at the top of my blog so that anyone who wants to can easily block and unfollow me. i only post my fics on ao3, where they are clearly tagged as harry potter fanfiction, and i only post about hp fic + fandom stuff on this blog, which was specifically created for that purpose. i've requested that people no longer post about my hp fics on platforms like tiktok where the algorithm could send it out onto anyone's fyp, and that request is also in my pinned faq. keeping my hp fic as contained as possible to only people who are already engaging with hp fic is one way that i try to mitigate any harm that might be caused by my fics contributing to hp's ongoing popularity.

the other ways i try to mitigate potential harm are by actively discouraging people from giving any financial support to hp + jkr and by being very vocal about my politics on this page, so that anyone who is following me will be getting pro-trans and anti-gender essentialism politics along with any hp engagement. i also don't engage with hp uncritically; i am specifically critical of the shitty politics in the books both in my posts on this blog and my fics themselves. i don't make it a secret that i think the books are politically rotten all the way down through to the foundations.

none of this is to say that there's, like...a Right Way to engage with this content or a set of rules that, if followed, Absolve All Shittiness. this is just an explanation of the personal evaluations i've had to weigh when it comes to deciding how i'm going to interact with content that is fundamentally opposed to my own politics. and again, i don't blame people who think that any amount of engagement is morally untenable and completely block it out. this is a growing source of cognitive dissonance in my own life, and i'm increasingly considering whether/for how much longer i want to continue to write fic + be involved in hp fandom. but for the time being, i'm still here + still writing fic, and i guess my feeling is that any harm that fic causes is a drop in the bucket, and even if i were to stop writing it wouldn't necessarily have a huge impact either way. i'm just some random guy online like everyone else; even though i talk about politics, that doesn't mean that i'm asking to be held up as some sort of moral standard, nor do i think anyone should be expected to be 100% politically perfect in every action they take--like, for me, writing hp fic kind of falls into the same category as like...eating mcdonalds even though i think factory farming is fucked, or buying + wearing makeup sometimes even though i think the beauty industry is fundamentally corrupt, or paying to see the new guardians of the galaxy movie in theaters even though i think marvel movies are us military propaganda. i don't think "no ethical consumption under capitalism" is an excuse to completely abandon any attempt to mitigate the harm our actions might cause, but it does matter to me the way in which someone is engaging with a fundamentally broken/corrupt piece of media beyond simply whether or not they're engaging at all. at the end of the day, it's up to everyone on their own to evaluate where they draw the line on hp, and i am not looking to make that judgment for anybody else considering that my own thoughts + feeling about it are still changing.

[louisisalarrie]

People are saying Louis has a grace period where he can’t do/say anything - meaning contracts I guess - but he is saying something. He’s saying he’s not with Harry. Surely if he was under any kind of NDA he wouldn’t be able to comment at all??

I’m not an anti. I would love the boys to be together. I’m just suspicious of Louis’ random out bursts where he does seem p*ssed off at Larry. I mean if he really loves him, wouldn’t he just say nothing? If I were Harry, I think i’d be a bit insulted if my boyfriend continued to make public denials (and referred to it as childish conspiracies) whilst I kept quiet.

Also, is Louis annoyed at Larry in terms of being linked to Harry OR is it more related to the insinuation that Freddie isn’t his and he’s not really denying ever being with Harry?

I know this is a contentious topic but I wanted to ask. No judgement either way from me!

Heya anon! I’m gonna break this down a bit.

Louis’ online presence has been very yikes since the first Bullshit tweet. You could see the moment his Twitter started being controlled in one direction, with how different his content became, interacting with the boys (Harry) slowed right down, and his typing style and tone changed. Social media accounts, particular for influential people with a large following, are ran by PR folks on their team. It means the artist can have a more hands off approach, and doesn’t have to worry about posting marketing content at certain deadlines etc., and it’s the easiest reach to get news spread fast. Now, in terms of how much control an artist has over their accounts, differs depending on their contract with their team.

One Direction were the biggest of the big. And when you have 5 teenage boys with huge accounts, it’s pretty safe to say they didn’t want one of them accidentally posting something incriminating towards themselves, the band, or their team, so, they would’ve had very little freedom on their social media when they hit the big point of their career a bit down the track. However, control is not entirely taken over, as the artist still needs to look authentic. They need to connect with fans, get them engaged, and tweet them back. Then, they get trending on Twitter and that’s a win for them, obviously.

So this kind of social media handover is specified in their initial contract, with subcontracts specifying exactly what and how the PR team and the artist will use it. The artist might need to personally post at least 3 times a week across platforms, for example: one tweet replying to a fan, one promo tweet for their music, and one Instagram post/story that ties into whatever the narrative/promo is at that moment, and the contract might be more lax during the months where there isn’t anything to be marketed. Other than that, the team will take care of everything else. That’s their job after all, to market the artist!

So, what’s the best way to dispel rumours about a conspiracy theory when the people in question struggle to talk about the theory on camera? A tweet, of course! It goes straight out to the fans, spreads like wildfire, gets their name trending, and screenshots go straight to the media. The artist doesn’t wanna deal with the inevitable backlash and chaos that ensues after a tweet like that, so, the PR folks say “let’s try and get them to stop talking about larry, by talking about larry…” which makes 0 sense right? If larry isn’t real, they could just leave it alone. Hell, larry aren’t the only pairing in the world, and plenty of other people who have had theories about them like this have just… never commented. Even when they had a big fanbase of people like larries, who believe that they are in a stunt relationship/have been hiding a relationship with another famous person, they’ve just left it alone.

If you have a watch of the Four Hangout interview, where they are all asked if there are any rumours they’d like to deny, Louis and Harry are dead silent. That was the time to do it.

So I think maybe your question leaves out the contracts and closeting of larry, as you’ve said Harry would be pissed that his man has kept denying their relationship to the public (it has been far and few between, though). I would be too, but he’s not doing it on his own accord. the boys, and many other artists in the industry, have been victims of closeting/het pushes. Even just basic PR stunt relationships, that straight people have, are for marketing purposes. There are narratives in place so these artists keep their name in the media, keep looking attainable to a fanbase with young woman fawning over them, and keep selling records/movies whatever it might be. I won’t go deep into Louis and Harry’s stunt relationships and narratives, but it’s very obvious they’ve been victim to them.

So, two birds one stone, right? Deny a relationship that your fanbase has a theory on, on Twitter so there’s proof and it reaches those fanbases fast, while encouraging the stunt narrative the public sees of you, ticking the boxes above. It’s a quick Band-Aid for now, because the longer they don’t say anything, the easier it is for people to assume they’re together. So a little tweet here and there helps. And, unfortunately, Louis has always been the one in the firing line of denials.

Even in the early days of Larry, back in 1d, I think Harry only did one denial on his own, with niall and Liam. H+L did a couple together, and then @Louis_Tomlinson took the reins. Every larry denial on camera was hilarious, poorly responded to, and was laughed at by the fandom. It didn’t jolt us whatsoever, but when you can’t see the person behind the tweet, it is meant to cause a bit more doubt for us. Did he post this on his own accord? Was it PR? It’s not as easy as looking at their body language and seeing them stutter in a video, and that was the point of moving the denials off camera.

These “ask me anything” tweeting sprees that happen, are for the sole purpose of pushing narratives. Louis ticks off a couple of things on his list each time he does one, which are: talk about F, get rid of larry rumours by talking about larry rumours (it’s an absolute joke, the way they do that hahaha), and promo some new music. He also replies to fans about football and other stuff, but that’s because he always has to keep it as authentic as possible. And he does like talking to us, he just has a couple of obligations during this.

In terms of F and bbg, I believe that’s a stunt so I don’t think Louis is mad about people not believing it, so I can’t comment on that, unfortunately!

Now, NDAs. This term is thrown around A LOT in this fandom, and the actual way one works can get lost in translation through misinformation and overuse of contractual language that confuses folks who don’t have a deeper knowledge of entertainment law and the entertainment industry. NDAs are not a one page contract that states a couple of things that you can’t do, and you just scribble a signature. They are big documents that are overlooked by several lawyers and adjusted/assessed/edited over a long period of time, depending on the importance of why someone needs to sign one. There are already basic drafts for fans/crew who see something they shouldn’t see etc., but they are edited to be specific as possible to that situation, so there are no blurred lines. There are no mistakes. No loopholes. Everyone around the boys has signed one, which I’ve discussed a little bit about before.

When it comes to keeping a relationship under wraps from the public, both parties need to sign a separate copy, often times of the exact same document. But, NDAs are different to other PR and marketing contractual Agreements. NDAs say “hey, don’t talk about this thing or any other of these things! It can’t be leaked! If you do, there will be huge consequences and you’ve broken the contract and we will take all your money and sue you and you’ll never have a career again!”, while marketing and PR Agreements are “hey, so people are talking about you being in a secret relationship, and you’ve signed an NDA so you can’t say you are in one, so we’re gonna give you a fake relationship to help keep things quieter and hopefully dispel the beliefs (which will make it easier for you to not say anything if people leave the topic alone!!) and we can get some good marketing in and grow the band yada yada yada”. Which, they thought would work, but we’re still here haha. So the two can be mutually exclusive for artists like Harry and Louis, but their team will obviously just sign an NDA.

So, my advice is, don’t take everything at face value. Louis wouldn’t want to lose any fans, regardless of what they believe in. And same with Harry. They just have different narratives to appeal to different demographics.

[impeccablebackside]

are any of the cats up for golden showers/other piss plays?

What a perfect topic for Valentine's Day anon. There are admittedly few things as intimate and personal as getting peed on by someone else. That is a level of dedication and trust that has a romantic undercurrent whether it may be evident or not (and whether people accept it or not).

Someone has asked this sort of thing before, so please see here. My opinion has not really changed since that post, so I do not have much more to add unfortunately. I did mention in a non-specific ask about 'hidden' kinks that Deme, due to the fiery ownership and control of a dominant partner has lead for her to have a seed of piss related kinks planted for her. Mainly from a desperation play point of view, where she is getting fucked while also needing to relieve herself. Mac liked seeing her squirm for more than one reason. That also manifested in minor marking on his part once in a while, specifically on her thighs. In turn, Deme would like to make Munk hold it in at some point in the future while she plays with him and denies his release. She has not quite communicated the desire yet, but he would be open to it even if he does not quite get why she likes it.

Anyway, as passively mentioned in that linked ask, pissplay and watersports are a bit positively contentious for me. It truly boils down to the colour of the fluid. Mellow yellow is a turn off for me, but if it is clear, then it truthfully sparks some interest. My admiration and appreciation for female orgasms is strongly conflated with female ejaculation. I think squirting is one of the straight up hottest things ever. If it is indeed piss in the end, then I am certainly into it.

Please let me know what ideas you have about this anon. I am interested in your perspective.

[nyangibun]

Okay I'm a Jonsa shipper all the way but I still love Daenerys a lot. She's not going to go dark at all lol. It makes me sad when my fellow shippers insist she will. The real enemy is the white walkers.... and they need Daenerys in order to defeat them. It makes me sad to admit that J0nerys has been planned the entire time and is probably endgame but that doesnt mean our ship is any less valid or wonderful ❤️ we shouldnt bash so much on all these wonderful, strong female characters

Dearest fellow Jonsa shipper,

I don’t bash on Dany because I want Jonsa to be endgame. Canon does not make a ship. At the end of the day, if they don’t end up together, it won’t make me ship them any less. Like you said, it doesn’t invalidate the fun and joy I’ve had being in this fandom and speculating all of what will happen in the following seasons. My opinion on Dany and her narrative trajectory and how I feel about Jonsa are mutually exclusive. Neither informs the other. 

I do agree that Dany will play a large part in the war with the White Walkers and that they are truly a very big threat. Season 8 will absolutely be more about the supernatural than about Westerosi politics and they’ll all have to look towards that fight soon. 

However, what makes me sad is people’s inability to see Dany for what she is. She is canonically known as a conqueror. The Targaryens were conquerors. Aegon’s post-nominal title is literally The Conqueror. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the Targaryens come from a race of people who are considered super-humanly beautiful with silver blonde hair and blue/violet eyes. I mean if you really want to go further back, Westeros was never the Targaryen’s home. They conquered it and forced the country under one rule because they believed their rule was best. For a lot of people, this resembles too closely of white colonialism. I’m not even reaching here to “bash” Dany. It’s literally there for you to see as plain as day. 

In fact, take a look at this scene and tell me it doesn’t make you uncomfortable: 

A white woman being heralded as their saviour and carried on the shoulders of brown people. That’s so squicky I don’t know how anyone can watch it and think otherwise. The fact that they call her their mhysa is just so gross. It perpetuates the same ideology that white colonists used over the natives – that it was their burden to educate and nurture these savages like a parent would a child, and isn’t their benevolence so wonderful? When in actuality, this justification is just a way for them to exploit the people and their land. Yes, Dany does feel very strongly about freeing the slaves. Yes, she has a good heart at the very core, but hell is paved with good intentions. And the imagery and the connotations are just too obvious to ignore. If this isn’t addressed in the show, if there are not any repercussions to how wrong this is a la showing Dany’s ultimate fall from grace because she is a conqueror with a very high sense of self importance and entitlement, then I’m sorry I have to say this is so unbelievably fucking racist. 

I want Dany to have this arc. I want the show/story to prove to me it is self-aware enough of these scenes and they were filmed for the specific purpose of hinting at Dany’s downfall. Otherwise, they’re so ignorant and racist and unbelievably dumb they didn’t realise how wrong that scene looks. 

If you want a more recent example, take a look at Dany’s scene with Olenna Tyrell in 7x02:

The reason Tyrion’s suggestion made sense was to demonstrate to the people that Dany isn’t as destructive as Cersei is making her out to be. Having a Westerosi army conquer King’s Landing was important in showing Dany’s alliance with those here and that she is one of them. Having the Unsullied, the Dothraki and her dragons take King’s Landing in contrast would make her look like a foreigner come to invade their country, and although Cersei is evil and they don’t like her anyways, maybe she is the lesser of two evils. 

But here, Olenna is telling her to ignore Tyrion and to be a Dragon (yes, with a capital D), and do you know what Dragons do? They conquer. Olenna couldn’t give less shits whether the people love Dany or not. She wants blood, fire and destruction. She wants Cersei to suffer as much as she has. And that’s what Dragons do. 

Now that we know that the Greyjoy/Dorne invasion can’t happen, it becomes all too clear that Dany will be a Dragon and take King’s Landing the way she always wanted to by blood and fire. Tell me, how is this supposed to garner the people’s love? All of whom have suffered so much already and who will only suffer more when their world is burnt to a crisp. 

Yes, while I agree that Dany is an incredibly strong female character, it doesn’t mean she is the hero. They don’t have to be one and the same. Strong women don’t necessarily mean good women. I think that’s an incredibly important message too, which is why I’d like to reiterate that I don’t hate Dany. I just recognise her for what she is and appreciate the complexity of her character and her story. That’s all. 

And I am sorry, Anonny, you don’t happen to see that and if it sounds like we’re just hating on Dany for the sake of being mean. It’s really not. You’re absolutely free to believe what you believe, but then so am I. 

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

How do you think a genderbent Savanaclaw would be like? Cuz, personally, I dont think Ruggie and Jack's respective personality and backstory would be changed but given Sunset Savannah's more gender equal society, it begs the question on how Leona wouldve been treated if he were a girl. Would he still have been feared and looked down upon? Would he have been more respected? Would there be different expectations on Leona?

***JUST A QUICK THING:*** I go off on a tangent about some feminist and egalitarian points in this post; I wasn't sure if I should tag them as content warnings or not (since I don't think those topics are too contentious?), but I wanted to at least slap this little message on here for those who may prefer to not read too deeply into that.

In the case of sexual dimorphism in wolves, male ones are larger and more aggressive (some sources I looked at also said males’ fur is fluffier). For hyenas, it is the females who larger and more aggressive than the males. As for lions, the males are larger and stronger (+ they have manes), but it is usually the lionesses that do most of the hunting. (Note that in Twisted Wonderland, lionesses are said to be stronger than lions.)

If those traits were to be carried over to fem!Jack and Ruggie, well 🤔 it’d probably have an impact in how they present themselves and in some behaviors, although I don’t think to such an extent that they come off as totally different characters. I don’t get the sense that these changes in personality and/or minor physical traits would alter their backstories in any significant way either 🤷‍♀️ This is honestly true of most genderbent characters; unless there’s some inherent part of their past, identity, or other lore tied to the concept of their gender, then it doesn’t largely impact the story, their background, or their character. (For example, Epel struggles with having his views of traditional masculinity and femininity challenged by Vil; Epel also has insecurities associated with how naturally feminine he looks despite wanting to be seen as “manly”. How would these issues be perceived and addressed differently if it were fem!Epel wanting to be masculine, given that society more readily accepts a girl wanting to be a tomboy over a guy that presents as feminine?)

I don’t know if I’d call the Afterglow Savanna necessarily more “gender equal” just based on the one bit of lore about how most warriors (especially the high-ranking ones) are women. I guess it’s more “gender equal” if we compared it to some societies in the real world, but different societies differ in their values; there is no set monolith for comparison.

Another thing to think about is that we don’t actually have a lot of information about what it's like to be a woman in that the Afterglow Savanna. We know that women are respected, but I don't know if that's really an indicator of anything since ‘respecting’ is a vague term. It doesn’t automatically mean that women are put on pedestals or that they are treated the same as men. (Consider that we don't know about how women are perceived in other placed in Twisted Wonderland to use as a means for comparison. To say the Afterglow Savanna is "more" gender equal means there is something else that sets the baseline and is being compared to; in this case, we don't have that baseline.) On top of that, we only know a little about a single specific sector (military/the royal guard), which probably makes up only a fraction of the total women in the Afterglow Savanna; we don’t know if women are actually given equal opportunities on a larger scale or how that compares to those of men. (Like… what about women in STEM, art, etc??) It’s premature to suggest their entire society seems more gender equal based on just one area of specialty. Something else I have to wonder is this: if the women of the Afterglow Savanna are mostly expected to be "strong" warrior types, is that truly "equal" if it's basically no different than shoehorning them into any other position in life (for example, stay-at home spouses, or expecting men to also be a certain way)? There tends to be this belief that if women are in a traditionally male dominated role (ie warriors/soldiers), then that's empowerment. That's true to some extent, but that pigeonholes female empowerment into one "type" and leads to looking down on others that don't fit that mold (ie traditionally feminine women). In truth, true female empowerment is when women are free to choose to do whatever they want without repercussions or judgment, whether that means being traditionally feminine, traditionally masculine, or anything inbetween. I can kind of see why you’d come to the conclusion that you did, but 💦 I hesitate to agree with the phrasing. There isn’t a lot of evidence for the Afterglow Savanna being more egalitarian than other societies in the TWST world (or in the real world, for that matter).

fbjswbksksow Okay, back to the topic at hand! While Leona doesn’t have a large struggle that ties in with his gender, there is lore surrounding gender which may have had an impact on his (er, her?) childhood. In Leona’s post-OB flashback, we see a bunch of servants gossiping about Leona’s incredible power and being terrified of him because of it. Because females typically make up the warriors for the Afterglow Savanna and are admired for their strength, it’s possible that fem!Leona wouldn’t have received the same harsh criticisms that OG!Leona did?? As a woman, her powers would be admired as being a trait befitting a powerful and noble warrior. This, however, creates a dilemma and a contradiction for the main story—“How is fem!Leona supposed to be angsty and OB if they don’t get the same kind of childhood trauma as male Leona did?”

First of all, I’m going to avoid the “high expectations are put on Leona to take over the Lion Guard, so she gets stressed out” route because it doesn’t carry the same energy as the original. It gives way too much “hope” for the future when the OG idea is that Leona has none and keeps being beaten down no matter how hard he tries. Here are some alternate proposals for fixes (though, admittedly, none of them are perfect and they’re just ideas I came up with off the top of my head):

Make the servants dislike and fear Leona anyway regardless of gender. chajwjksksdo This is the laziest option in terms of rewrites (and ignores parts of canon lore), but I figured I’d slap it on here anyway 🤡

Make the situation progressive. Maybe everyone praised Leona at first, but then they grew to be fearful of her as she grew up (and her powers along with her). This option lacks the childhood trauma being concentrated in the past and is more of a slow burn. The issue with this one is that I don’t know if Leona’s bitterness would be as intense if the servants were so slow in the development of their apprehension.

[i-was-a-teenage-eldritch-horror]

You turned on anon a long time ago and I forgot to ask. Sorry! I just wanted to ask what is the proof that Gendo SAed Rei? Here's an interesting thread by the way. I just wanted to know your thoughts.

Hi, thanks for your question.

This has been a rather contentious topic for a long time in the eva fandom. The thread you linked started in 2009, but I'm sure this was being discussed before then as well.

Before I get into anything else, I want to point out that this is an evageeks thread. The evageeks wiki is somewhat useful for things like trivia, but it is not a good place to go to for in-depth analysis of the girls and women in eva, their trauma, and how that relates to gender. Evageeks is rather misogynistic and clownish.

I have to assume that by "proof" you don't mean explicit dialogue, since you're talking about Neon Genesis Evangelion and asking an analysis blog about it. Analysis is about reading between the lines, yes? But I suppose it's worth bringing up that Ritsuko does mention the abuse pretty explicitly in a draft of episode 24, if that's worth anything to you.

To me, it's obvious that Gendo was sexually abusing Rei. The fact that she's a teenaged clone of his dead wife is suspect enough, but let's dive deeper.

The scene in episode 5 where Shinji tries on Gendo's cracked glasses in Rei's apartment is pretty solid evidence. The glasses represent Gendo's worldview -- his gaze -- and the fact that the lenses are cracked, distorting the sight of the wearer, signifies that Gendo's worldview is very warped. The first thing Shinji sees after putting them on is a naked Rei, too. Shinji then falls on top of Rei, accidentally grabbing her breast. This mirrors Gendo's purposeful action in end of eva. The cherry on top of all this is that Shinji violated Rei's space -- he not only walked into her apartment when he believed she wasn't home, but was also snooping around in her room! He could've left her new ID card on her bed or dresser and left. This is interesting when you compare it to Toji's attitude towards Rei's space in episode 17 -- he's a bit weirded out by Shinji's willingness to just barge in and clean up while Rei isn't home. Also, in the scene from episode 5, you can see shoe prints on the floor in the apartment that don't look like they come from Rei or Shinji, so make of that what you will.

Another tidbit I want to mention is that there's a scene in episode 23 where a bunch of tiny Reis pop up out of Shinji's hand while the angel is attacking. In the ADV dub, what the tiny Reis are saying is "Ikari, it hurts!" I'm not sure what the Netflix dub dialogue is, and I doubt this dialogue is indicated in any subs. If anyone reading this speaks Japanese and wants to weigh in with what the tiny Reis say in Japanese, please do. Being that the later, more psychological angel attacks dredge up the pilots' past and ongoing trauma, I find this relevant to mention.

There's also the many scenes of Gendo gazing at a naked Rei throughout the series. Most notably in episode 15, which also shows Ritsuko glaring angrily at Gendo in jealousy while he does so. Later, in episode 23, Ritsuko says that she lost to "these dolls," meaning Rei and the clones. Lost in what respect? In what ways are Ritsuko and Rei different? Well, Rei is younger -- the same as Ritsuko was when she first met Gendo. Also, even though Ritsuko is thoroughly traumatized, she still retains some semblance of an ability to say no, and conceptualize the consequences of saying no. She had a life before Gendo. Rei has not experienced a version of life without Gendo. In episode 5, Rei asks Shinji why he doesn't have faith in Gendo, to which Shinji replies that he doesn't trust him. The "faith" vs. "trust" distinction is pretty consistent throughout English translations, and Rei's usage of "faith" indicates the god-like power that Gendo holds over her.

Ritsuko inherited the tripartite division that plagued her mother: that of woman, mother, and scientist. She views Rei as sexual competition (I hope it's not controversial to state here that Ritsuko and Gendo had a sexual relationship? Also there's that part in episode 24 where she basically says that he's raped her), which is "woman." She's one of Rei's caretakers, arguably spending more time around her than Gendo, which is the "mother" part of it. Finally there's the "scientist" part -- Ritsuko is a scientist and Rei is her test subject. There's a scene early on in the show that's rather striking. Rei is bandaged up in her underwear undergoing a full-body scan. This procedure is supervised by Ritsuko, who coolly converses with Misato as if none of this stuff with Rei is happening. Despite the fact that Ritsuko's the one supervising it! Not an ounce of concern or compassion. Because that's what abusers do, they divide, conquer, and pit their victims against each other.

It's worth noting that if you look at the Gendo-Ritsuko-Rei dynamic as a warped version of a nuclear family, it aligns very well with what is known about families where the daughter is being sexually abused by the father. Typically, the mother (Ritsuko) in this situation will only tolerate the abuse of her daughter if she is also being abused or if she feels especially powerless. Both of these describe Ritsuko, who thinks of Rei in much the same way Naoko thought of her. Naoko was sleeping with Gendo and being manipulated by him, too. Also, a lot of people in that thread you linked deny that Gendo was sexually abusing Rei because "he thought of her like a daughter." They point to the line in one episode where Gendo says that if his and Yui's child is a girl, they'll name her Rei. But sadly, fathers do sexually abuse their daughters. Even ones who are biologically related.

It's horrible -- nobody wants to think of it, but it's an uncomfortable truth. For far too many men, the definitions of "daughter" and "lover" are not mutually exclusive. I believe that "incest" as a term applies to Gendo's abuse of Rei because he's in a caretaking position, Rei thinks of him as a caretaker, and carries all the baggage that comes along with having an abusive caretaker. Nobody with more than 2 braincells to rub together would say that the Nanami-Touga thing in RGU isn't incest simply because they're not biologically related. Rei's afraid of being abandoned by Gendo, works hard to figure him out, why he treats her the way he does, why she was created, and what to do with herself. Shinji and Rei's Gendo-centric angst are two sides of the same coin; the edge that separates the two is gender.

With all this in mind, the structure of Gendo and Rei's relationship heavily gestures towards the familial. The evageeks users in that thread correctly observe this, but they allow their own naive assumptions about abuse to prevent them from taking the next logical step in their analysis of the show.

Lastly, a major part of Rei's character is her relationship with her body. Any type of trauma and abuse, but especially sexual abuse, has a nasty habit of disconnecting victims from their bodies. A major theme surrounding Rei's character is her body. It's so overwhelmingly obvious that even the dullest viewer would pick up on it. Rei spends a decent chunk of her screentime naked, and her status as a warm body is relevant to Gendo's plan for 3rd impact (he needs Rei because she houses Lilith's soul in a physical form -- this was his own design), the dummy plugs (which run off her decision-making process), and Gendo's abuse of her (she is literally a clone of his dead wife, whom he spends the entire show trying to reunite with).

I hope this answered your question!

[icarianncarrionn]

“I mean… I ran into Matt.” Tisha says, “I live in the same borough he teaches in. He’s a teacher now,” Does he know that? Charlie has been such a contentious topic, largely off limits outside of their daughter, that she has no idea what he might know or not know. It leaves her at a bit of a loss for what to tell him: well I left my entire family behind to pursue my career and had no support system here, but somehow in a city of eight million people I managed to run into your former best friend and he’s been acting as a surrogate father to the daughter you didn’t even know existed ever since. Don’t worry, it’s purely platonic except for the couple times we hooked up, and no, I don’t know why you’d worry since we haven’t even been together in sixteen years and even when we were- No. None of that, definitely none of that. “He’s actually Chaarvi’s teacher, but we- I put her in his school on purpose, we ran into each other before she was in high school. He’s been a big help, he and his parents both have been really supportive. My family is still all back in Canada, so…” she clears her throat awkwardly. “But, uh, no. Definitely not a prank. I’ve got the stretch marks and the grey hair to prove it. I mean, you can’t see them, I’ve got both of them covered up, but they’re definitely there. Oh shit, hold on-” This isn’t really proof that he needs, she knows he wasn’t really asking, but she pulls up her mother’s facebook page. Tisha finds the private album, the one with her maternity photos, and the pictures from the hospital, all the way up to Chaarvi’s first birthday in the living room of the house on Sweetbirch, and passes her phone to him. “I can send you copies of these too, if you want. I’m not as good at taking pictures as I should be, but we lived with my mom and dad for a long time, and they never stopped taking pictures, so… you gonna share? I think I could use a drink too.”

She kept touching him. She kept touching him and he kept waiting for the moment where he asked for space, the moment where he took a step back so he could breathe properly. Charlie had never been any good at thinking through panic when people were close, or at least that's what the last few decades taught him. "I don't," He kept not moving. Tisha's touch too soothing to be that easily discarded. "I can wait, I mean. I can wait however long, I'm not going anywhere, I can— Do you have my number? You can just message me when you think it's right and I'll—" He shrugged. The tour would have to be canceled. No way he was leaving New York now. Not for a while at least. No way he could go back to the life he was living. "I'll just, give me—" When Charlie did move it was to get a tiny whiskey bottle from the group of drinks set up on a nearby table. Taking a swing with a large sigh. The soothing burn settling on top of his chest to slow his heartbeat. "Are you sure this is not a prank?" He laughed softly. More air than noise. He almost did get a kid once. At least that's where he thought it was all going. He was thirty and almost happy, planning an engagement with the ring already picked out. It all ended when the pregnancy scare left him disappointed and her relieved. How old must Chaarvi have been by then? It was impossible not to reframe every event of his life like this. She was ten by then, probably. Seven when he got a grammy. Ten when his relationship ended. Twelve when he took a break from music. Fourteen when he came back. "I don't even know enough about kids to know which milestones I lost." Running a hand through his hair with a shake of his head. There were so many things running through his mind at the same time that some of what she'd said only registered several minutes later, "What do you mean you ran into Matt?"

[thefirstknife]

Heya! I saw that you are a Destiny lore expert, so I wanted to ask you something: do you think it's possible that Savathûn used Rasputin to shoot the Traveler?

We know that Savathûn somehow saved the Traveler during the Collapse and, as far as I know, nobody told us how yet, but I think it would explain a couple of things like the frozen Hive on Mars and why the Witness needed to gather information about the Collapse specifically from Mars

Now, I realize this sounds like a bit of a stretch and I'm pretty sure I'm missing some lore here (tbh, I still don't know if Rasputin shooting the Traveler is considered canon or not), but I wanted to ask if you think this theory can somehow stand or not

Hey! Thanks for asking :) It's a huge point of interest for me as it's a very unclear and contentious topic! But it's also very important for the lore going forward, with all the recent focus on new information about what happened during the Collapse.

First, to clear things, Rasputin shooting is not considered canon. As a matter of fact, most people consider it a crackpot theory that has been disproven many years ago. For context, this was a very popular theory that got used and abused to prove either that the Traveler is evil (because it wanted to leave) or that Rasputin is evil (because he shot) or that both of them are evil. The theory was incredibly annoying, especially when we didn't have enough information so it ended up being labelled as crackpot.

However, I disagree. The theory was "disproven" before Y3 od Destiny (Shadowkeep release). Shadowkeep, its associated seasons and everything released since has been filled with information that seems to be indicating otherwise. Not to mention that a lot of the new stuff is reframing our understanding of the Collapse and we are probably going to be getting a lot more information about it soon. My post discussing newer information about the possibility that Rasputin shot is here. I wrote it before Witch Queen so there's nothing about the newest info of Savathun being there, but it still mentions many details that seem to indicate that Rasputin may have shot after all.

Now we know that Savathun was involved. We don't know the full details because she didn't want to share them. The best info about her involvement with the Collapse comes from her worm, in Of Queens and Worms quest. This is all we know:

Savathûn’s Worm: Always violent. Fine. Have information. But only this. No more. Ever. Truth you seek. Humanity’s Collapse. Even the Witness deceived. The Witch Queen did its bidding. Earned its trust. Rode alongside to apocalypse. Watched many burn. But the Witness turned a violent gaze to Traveler. Witch Queen projected lies. Clever deceptions wrapped in shadow. Tides turned. Witness sent away, back amongst the stars. Ghost: Are you saying Savathûn deceived the Witness? Is she the reason humanity survived? Savathûn’s Worm: Not the reason. A reason. Not for humanity, but for Traveler. My promise, delivered. Will say no more. Ever.

Savathun deceived the Witness, projected lies and deceptions. This helped turn the tides and the Witness was "sent away." Ghost asks for clarification and the worm says that Savathun's trickery was not THE reason, but one of the reasons why we survived. So Savathun was involved, but she wasn't the only reason we survived. Her trickery helped, but there were other factors like Traveler's own actions and, possibly, Rasputin.

We have no clue what was the nature of this deception Savathun pulled on the Witness. Some theories:

Savathun projected a lie about the Traveler being defeated already which made the Witness leave (this would make most sense given that the Pyramid fleet remained completely dormant outside of the galaxy until the Traveler woke up at the end of the Red War. The Fleet must've thought the Traveler is dead and therefore had no reason to come back until it became clear that the Traveler is still alive).

Savathun tricked the Witness into leaving before the job was done by pretending she will do it herself. This may have involved Nezarec because we now know that he was the disciple assigned to our system and that he led the first wave of attacks on Earth, but he is also known as a "traitor" (to the Witness?) and as someone who commited a sin (to the Witness?). Savathun may have tricked both the Witness and Nezarec into believing that she will finish the job, but then betrayed them and also left Nezarec hanging which led to his death.

There's other theories and possibilities too. It's impossible to tell right now. Both Savathun and her worm were vague, and every other character that can tell us more is indisposed (Rasputin, Nezarec), our enemy (Nezarec, Witness) or we aren't aware of them yet (Neomuna).

However, Rasputin is known to have fought in the Collapse. He was very active and fought relentlessly against the Pyramid Fleet, though none of his attacks worked. He had a protocol ready for the event of the Traveler leaving: shoot it so it would be forced to react. That was the final desperate plan in case everything else failed (which it did).

Is Savathun aware of Rasputin? Was she aware of him back then? Could she have used him? I don't think she would've personally risked damaging the Traveler, since her only goal was to keep it alive, no matter the cost. So Savathun using Rasputin to shoot wouldn't fit her line of work, at least in my opinion. We don't really know and she may have been desperate enough to use Rasputin or just trick him into thinking he's working with an ally.

As you said, the Hive were in our system already around that time. They were on the Moon because the K1 research team scientists mention Hive tunnels and those huge bones in the Hellmouth. Nokris and Xol were also already active at the time of the late Golden Age and the Collapse. The lore on this is from last year's Festival of the Lost (a little bit goofy because it's lore of a Techeun telling Glint stuff during his investigation about "the headless ones"):

"Bray used the tools of the Vex, while Hive blasphemers practiced the magical art of necromancy." Her tone darkened. "Both succeeded, after a fashion."

"The early Hive experiments were done in secret, under the guidance of a powerful Wizard, whose name we'll not mention here."

"Nokris," Glint offered.

However, Nokris and Xol ended up being frozen on Mars until the end of the Red War, when the Traveler's awakening unfroze them. For the record, Nokris and Xol and their Hive were frozen on Mars due to Rasputin. He couldn't fight them so he used a protocol called "Siberian Entropy" to freeze that area of Mars, including his own bunkers and facilities:

"Rasputin activated protocol Siberian Entropy for a long term plan. Did I happen to find him on my own?"

So Rasputin definitely had altercations with the Hive, but it's unclear if he ever interacted with Savathun, knowingly or unknowningly.

Is it possible that Savathun's plan to save the Traveler involved Rasputin? Seems to be. Is it likely she used him? I don't think so, mostly because that's not her way of doing things (she doesn't brute force things; shooting seems more like a Rasputin-only action) and her plan seemed to have been mostly around tricking the Witness. However, if Rasputin did shoot, Savathun could've used the Traveler being damaged to convince the Witness that the Traveler been dealt with.

In my analysis of the new stuff in regards to whether or not Rasputin shot, I mentioned that we know the Traveler was being somehow affected by Darkness during the Collapse. I made a suggestion that the Traveler was being pulled by Darkness' gravity powers, since the Traveler does mention being "pulled":

You want to run, but you are pulled in all directions by opposite and equal forces that hold you perfectly still.

I also made a suggestion that perhaps the Darkness began overtaking the Traveler and the Traveler positioned itself in a way for Rasputin to shoot the part of it that was being corrupted; this would explain why there's a huge chunk of the Traveler missing and why it was blown away by some incredibly powerful force that propelled it possibly thousands of miles away (the Shard of the Traveler in EDZ: the only thing we know about the Shard is that it happened during the Collapse). Darkness doesn't use conventional weapons, neither does the Traveler and neither does Savathun. The only one shooting nukes around the planet was Rasputin.

This could also now be explained with Savathun. Maybe it wasn't the Darkness corrupting the Traveler, maybe it was Savathun's webweaver wizards holding it in place, just like during WQ. Maybe she did that to take the Traveler away and Rasputin shot it because he didn't understand what was happening. Or Savathun did it on purpose to make him shoot so that the Traveler would be forced into a state of dormancy to trick the Witness.

It's unclear right now. I believe we'll get a full explanation once Rasputin returns and we will be able to put this debate to rest once and for all. I think there's reasonable evidence that he did shoot, but all of that evidence can be explained in other ways as well. We just need to find out what really happened. No matter what Rasputin tells us, it should be huge for our understanding of the Collapse, Savathun's involvement, Nezarec and the Lunar Pyramid and the Witness. Rasputin was there and he knows.

And if for some reason he doesn't remember (he was damaged pretty badly in Arrivals), we're still left with Neomuna in Lightfall. Neomuna should be aware of what was going on during the Collapse since they remained hidden and were able to observe from afar. And on the topic of Rasputin, he was the one that helped them stay hidden and even deleted their location from his own database in order to ensure their safety. He's intrinsically linked with Neomuna, the Collapse and our survival.

Ever since Shadowkeep, we've been getting crumbs of new information and lore on the Collapse and what really happened. This has been increasing ever since then and WQ was huge with the reveal that Savathun was there and helped save the Traveler and, by proxy, humanity. But this story isn't over and we still need a lot more information to fully understand what happened. Rasputin waking up has to be a huge source of this information, and so does Neomuna. Probably Savathun as well when she is rezed again, and it's likely that when we assemble all relics of Nezarec, he might drop us some hint or two. And of course, I feel like the Witness will have things to say as well.

I fully believe next season will feature Rasputin up and operational in his new Exo body so he can give us information on his previous fights against the Black Fleet, the Collapse and information on Neomuna. Hopefully he will be able to shed more light on what happened, his perception of the Collapse and possibly, if he was able to identify Savathun's interference, more about what exactly she chose to do. I believe it's possible that Savathun used everything at her disposal to trick the Witness, even if that meant counting on Rasputin to follow his protocols.

[doshmanziari]

Old Hegemonies, New Hegemonies: The Delusions of Vanguard Media Criticism

Hey, everyone.

I’d like to let subscribers here know that I have a new essay on Substack: “Old Hegemonies, New Hegemonies: The Delusions of Vanguard Media Criticism.”

The piece partially ties into another essay I started writing during 2021, some examples from which I’ve used here to create a bit of a rough -- as I note, “admittedly more of a sketch than anything” -- but, I think, still useful picture of transitions within critical writing on media (here, videogames).

My point here is contentious, and takes issue with the narrowing of range I have witnessed within supposedly forward-thinking/counter-cultural critical, or analytic, writing since the mid-2010s. I was inspired to write after reviewing the year’s end roundup on the aggregative website Critical Distance and being repulsed by the myopia on display, particularly on the section devoted to Elden Ring, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne. It would be both ironic and untrue to say that this contention has to do with “seeing less of myself” in the literature (or whatever poses as literature). Rather, I am seeing a diminution of modes of understanding and the potentials of critically comparative synthesis; in other words, the negative inclinations and realizations of tribalism.

To distill the piece to some basic points:

These trends form a part of a broader picture wherein the critical landscape has been so topically flattened that only a few increasingly narrow, shallow avenues appear to be the alternative, or counter-cultural, option. One hegemony is supplanted by another, just as rote, jargon-laden, insular, and critically deflecting as anything beforehand, and coupled with a powerful collective pariah complex.

. . . media analysis herein is turned into a sort of explicit self-portraiture, a zone of mirrors distorted in such a way as to show the viewer only what they wish to see. Of course, self-styled countercultural criticism is hardly unique in falling for what is essentially a device of the overt consumerist structure girding media consumption and the culture wars of today: that is, the need for media to “validate” notions of self-value and integrity according to a few easily marketable, stereotypical parameters (gender, sex, race).

The special challenge . . . of bringing criticism to this domain, which purports to elevate marginalized voices, and having it land at all, is that the domain is so bound to, as I noted, a powerful collective pariah complex with group interests which, quite naturally, resist structural critiques. When this is coupled with the desire to identify oneself with the consumed media, most criticism of these self-portraits or of the embedding culture will tend to be taken as nothing less than an attack on the authors or editors themselves at the deepest level.

. . . the issue I take with Critical Distance, and the broader critical landscape which it represents on a micro level, is twofold — first, that we’re drowning under loads of writing which may have been groundbreaking within the pop-cultural environment over a decade ago but has done little since except camp out on that ground and exclaim how great its breaking was; and, second, that the “forward-thinkers” have all too easily bought into those readymade parameters of identity.

My hope is that readers who may have followed my work for a while will not knee-jerkingly interpret this as some sort of betrayal, but, instead:

... [not] out of line from what I’ve done for years. [...] . . . I see this as another one of my pushes for greater specificities, wider mindscapes, and bigger and better voices. A critical culture which comes to hold up a wall against criticism of itself for the sake of the lethargic tribe, and which thereby promotes the insufficiencies and endless duplications of a discursive bondage, is just intolerable to me, and it has not been unusual for me to rankle some people within the communities I’ve attended because of this irritability.

I want to end with a wonderful response from a friend of considerable intellect, and literate capacity, who has a less combative edge than I do, and thus brings, and has brought, a valuable perspective to many discussions.

I was thinking about this from a “nothing is new under the Sun” perspective earlier today. Mediocrity is, by definition, the majority of work created under any set of circumstances. As a qualitative term, mediocrity also generally refers (I think) to people who are uninspiringly iterative and who borrow without synthesizing (distinct from plagiarism since influence is natural and good).

I don’t ascribe a 100% negative value judgment to mediocrity. Mediocrity gives you the high points of convention. Mediocrity shows you the genre and teaches you the language. Mediocrity gives more people the change to participate creatively. I have indulged a lot of mediocre media and I am more aware for it, despite my desire not to create mediocre work.

So, taking the older style of games writing as the pre-GG old guard, I can see the pushback coming from a place not just of moral conviction but of a sheer overwhelm of mediocre expressions of a known range of ideas. This is extra more likely to happen when you are on a content crunch to update your publications, not just monthly (as in the print mag days) but daily, even hourly.

I think a lot of present-day game writing fills the same rut simply because it’s the way things go — the dominant mode becomes a genre, and mediocre expressions boost the same known range of ideas. Frustration sets in when the fashion has a sanctimonious edge that is unlikable and, mistakenly, suggests to the sanctimonious that they are the majority because no one else wants to talk to them.

It’s unfortunate, but I wonder if it is avoidable. Even more so, I wonder what discursive challenge is up next (or happening now below our awareness) since we are now aware of echo chamber effects — what, in other words, will be the next obstacle to communication growing under the rock that we have now learned to see given its impact on elections, public perceptions of public life, etc.

[smokeys-house]

got any facts on sword breakers in that brain o urs smokey. I just foundem and I think they look so badass and also I enjoy listening 2 u talk ab swords

Ohhh these are quite contentious among arms and armor enthusiasts! As with all things context is heavily important. I'll go over a few things in brief under the read more!

The name "sword breaker" is a bit of a misnomer and to my knowledge there's little written evidence for their use or efficacy. They're primarily used in the off-hand in place of a buckler or other offhand tool, of which there were a decent variety at the time. Things like main gauche, a wrapped cloak around the arm, those funky bucklers with the multiple attachments, etc. Anyway since it's in your off hand that means it's your non dominant hand usually. Ever tried to break steel with both hands let alone just your non dominant?

Since use hasn't been well documented their use is largely up to speculation, but through surviving texts and "experimental archeology" and just basic human biomechanics we can figure out a decent bit of how we think they were employed. The "teeth" are presumably designed to catch a thin blade and trap or otherwise maneuver it out of the way, but it's almost guaranteed that they weren't intended to actually break or even disable a sword of any kind. Swords of that time period typically had thin thrusting blades but they weren't brittle nor were they incredibly malleable. So bending or breaking them is kind of out of the question especially in your offhand during a fight.

See the ring sticking out of the guard? That's meant to protect your hand. Primarily in the use of a dagger of the period excluding sword breakers it would cover your knuckles when you fight with rapier and dagger. Matt Easton of Scholagladiatoria as well as Tod of Tod's Stuff do some great videos on the subject of use, things like how you might grip them and use them in a duel. Iirc they suggest using a grip with the thumb on the flat of the blade on the opposite side of the ring. The teeth are almost always predominantly facing in the direction you see here, which has some implications for use that are difficult to explain without showing you so I would recommend watching those videos!

There's a lot to be said to folk who are less familiar with swords, their use, and this time period specifically. To anyone involved it would sound like I was dumbing it down but to anyone not involved it might sound odd or strange because it varies so much from the commonly held misconceptions about these topics! So to make a few brief notes, these were rare, these weren't battlefield weapons, and they were likely always used in the off hand. They were also likely never intended to actually break a sword. The primary use of these was likely to add benefit to fighting with rapier and dagger instead of rapier and buckler. (I say rapier but it could've been any of the swords under the umbrella of transitional rapier style swords such as smallswords and sideswords) but the truth of the matter is, we don't actually 100% confirmed know a lot about these! They're a lil mysterious.

Most of that's just basic trivia stuff so I hope it's interesting! If I had a lot of time and could like actually show u I would love to get into my thoughts on them and how I would use them, pros and cons over other tools, their origins, etc. There's a lot of room for interesting discussion! Thank you for the ask ❤️

[ambiguoussorceress]

Came back basically from the dead to rant about something that isn't at all topical.

Merlin (from the bbc show) is a Slytherin 100%. I'm tired of reading fics that make him a Hufflepuff (or any other house). It really is annoying me, so I came here to lay out my points. Feel free to argue back, although I might not see it. I may be biased as a Slytherin, but I think I have some good points.

So let's first recognize how people think of him, and how he gets lumped in with other houses. Merlin's main character traits are as follows; Loyalty, secrecy, a goofy outward appearance, and some (not me exactly) might argue bravery. Let's quickly get what he obviously is not out of the way. Most people will agree that Merlin isn't a Gryffindor despite the assumption about his bravery. I think this is something we know through vibes. Merlin is not focused on glory or being a hero. And, I would argue that he isn't really that brave. I think most people associate Merlin with bravery because Arthur often refers to him that way. Why does Arthur think Merlin is brave? It's because he is a powerless man that followed them unarmed into battle on many occasions. Now run that back. Since we know the truth that Arthur didn't, I think you understand what I'm getting at. Merlin is a powerful sorcerer. The most powerful sorcerer. He has always had his magic to fall back on if things go south. And, I'd say that his magic is one of the few things he in self assured about. I would argue that Merlin walking onto the battle field is only scared for one thing and that's Arthur. We have never seen him do outright acts of bravery when you really think about it. In fact, a Gryffindor would have told Arthur about his magic way sooner. That would have taken some guts. Merlin literally only told him the truth on his death bed, and that was only because he had to.

Now onto Ravenclaw. People also tend to put him in this house in fics, but I don't think there is much evidence. I mostly assume the person doing it is either a Ravenclaw themselves, want more eagle representation, or they want to put him in a neutral house outside of the argument. Im not going to argue that Merlin is stupid or that he doesn't have what it takes to be a Ravenclaw or anything. But, I'd like you to really think about why you would associate him with 'the smart house'. Merlin is the Physician's assistant (which probably does take some brains granted), but does he ever show outright interest in it outside of what he has to do to earn his keep (and living quarters). It's not like he came to Camelot because he wanted to learn medicine. He is only shown going through books when he has to find something to protect Arthur or his friends. Even his magic book. I think there was lots of opportunities to show Merlin knowing things from previous studies or just actually studying, but you almost never see that unless he needs something specific. I would also argue that he isn't that creative. We see him mainly use the same spells throughout the show. I think a Ravenclaw would have shown a greater variety from memory even if there was some they fell back on. They also might use the same spells in different ways, but Merlin always uses spells in very straightforward ways. TLDR I would classify him as witty and wise, but he isn't the type to learn something for the sake of knowing.

Now let's look at the most contentious one-- Hufflepuff. This is the one most people put him in, and I don't blame them. One of his defining character traits is his loyalty to Arthur, and he has the vibes of a Hufflepuff (friendly, helpful, and a bit goofy). But, that is no Hufflepuff loyalty. I would like to point to the Slytherin trait of fraternity-- Loyalty with a more naferious name. So what is the difference between these two houses different brands of loyalty? Hufflepuff's are loyal as a general rule. They won't break a promise to any person regardless of closeness, and they will likely prioritize loyalties based on what's right or who will be the most hurt. Slytherins on the other hand will always prioritize what/who they consider theirs above anything else. I tend to think of this as a ranking system. My sisters are first rank so they will always come first, my parents the next, friends next, ect. Now think back to every loyal thing Merlin has done. He is generally a nice and helpful person. I won't deny that. However, its clear that he will ALWAYS prioritize Arthur above everyone else-- even above what he knows is the right thing to do. I could bring out evidence all day, but I only need this one to prove my point. Do you remember the episode (in season five I believe) where the triple goddesses try to force Arthur to choose between freeing magic or saving Mordred's life? Merlin had that opportunity. Arthur asked him what he should do and was very receptive to the idea of freeing magic. But, if Merlin chose magic Mordred would presumably live on to eventually kill Arthur (mind you this is based on prophesy not anything Mordred had done up to that point) . Merlin has to make that choice. His freedom and the freedom of countless others in the balance. Yet, he chooses Arthur. He proved that he would condemn a boy who has never done anything wrong, condemn thousands to death-- all only for Arthur. So Arthur could live. That, my friend, is a Slytherin brand of loyalty-- pragmatic yet hierarchical. I'd also like to add that, while he does have to do hard work, I wouldn't classify him as hard working. He is always willing to take a shortcut when given the opportunity. He is also often late or nowhere to be found. We know why, but I think someone hard working would at least ask someone to help with things he can't finish.

Now, when you add up all of the facts, Merlin is clearly a Slytherin. He is witty, often turns to being secretive even if he doesn't have to because it is easier, he has a Slytherin brand of loyalty, always willing to take shortcuts, and he must be ambitious with a lofty goal like keeping Arthur alive (and the whole freeing magic thing. I'd say that is one of his ambitions). So there you have it. If I haven't convinced you yet, feel free to make your arguments. I, however, am convinced. Also as a plus, Merlin is canonically a Slytherin in the HP universe (not that I am such a stickler for what's canon. Lets just have fun).

++ I forgot to add that as physicians apprentice, his main duty is making potions. Which house is best known for producing potioneers? That's right, Slytherin!

[wildwoodgoddess]

Notes From 221B: A Study In Garnet Ch1 and James Barry

In the year 1878, I was the first woman to take my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and then, disguised as a man, I proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. How shocked and humiliated our army had been, only thirteen years ago, to discover, upon his death, that their celebrated doctor, Inspector-General James Barry, a contentious, fiery man who revolutionized the British army’s medical department, had the body of a woman. As much as Barry inspired my own actions, given how humiliated the army was over his deception, it was a matter of considerable delicacy and stealth for me to then also infiltrate those fraternal ranks. I wouldn’t have succeeded at all if it hadn’t been for a well-placed uncle and my good friend and orderly, Gideon Murray, who kept my secrets well, as I kept his.

(A Study In Garnet, chapter 1, by Meredith Rose)

Since it seems people are enjoying my little peeks into the Victorian history you didn’t know, I’m going to continue with some tidbits relating to each chapter of A Study In Garnet. I will keep using #A Study In Victorian Women, and if you have something in particular you’d like me to talk about, let me know!

If this post is the first one you’re reading from me, I am launching a new Victorian femlock series The Ladies of Baker Street. (a gender-swapped Sherlock Holmes series, where Holmes and Watson are both queer Victorian women) I’m publishing the first book in serial form on Patreon, and I’m posting the first 10 chapters for free. I’ve also been posting about how Victorian women had more going for them than we usually assume, and how Holmes and Watson could absolutely have been women during the late Victorian period without compromising too much on the original canon. I’ve covered topics such as how a female Watson could have gained her MD from the University of London in 1878, and what Holmes’ education at Girton College (women’s college, part of Cambridge) would have been like, as well as the New Woman movement and women who cross-dressed.

I just posted the first chapter of A Study In Garnet last Saturday, and I’ll be putting up new chapters every Saturday. In this first chapter, Dr. Siân Watson is snowbound in a miserable hotel and occupying herself by journaling. She mentions that she was able to sneak into the army and go to Netley to be trained as an army surgeon by disguising herself as a man.

I debated whether she could have gone into the army as a woman and decided that likely not, since women had only just recently earned the right to become fully credentialed doctors in England within a year of when canon Watson joined the army. So instead, I have her cross-dress as a man and get in that way.

The inspiration for this was Inspector-General James Barry. You may have heard a bit about James Barry before—his story has been widely circulated in recent years. You can read a good summary here on History.com (please note that the article uses she/her pronouns for Barry’s early life and then switches to he/him pronouns when Barry appears to have taken on his male identity.) This Atlas Obscura article is also very good, and it mentions that after Barry’s death, the maid who outed him sold the story to the press and it became a popular topic of news articles, a novel, and even a play.

Eventually, the army was successful in suppressing information about Dr. Barry, and his story was largely forgotten until the middle of the 20th century.

These days, the biggest controversy about James Barry is whether we should view him or refer to him as a woman or a man. Personally, I believe that there is every reason to think that if Barry had been alive today, he may have identified as trans. That’s why I use male pronouns when writing about him (both here and in the book itself), and it’s why I chose the two articles I linked to above—they reference Barry mostly using male pronouns.

But it’s also important to recognize that 1) the way we look at gender today is different than it was 200 years ago, and 2) we don’t have the ability to look into Barry’s heart or mind and know exactly how he identified. What we can do is acknowledge that Barry made it very clear that even after his death, he wanted to be known as a man, and we can honor that in how we refer to him. We don’t have to know what his precise motivations were for that desire in order to respect it.

For the purposes of my story, I reasoned that since Barry died in 1865, when my Siân Watson would have been almost 13 years old, there is every reason to think she would have heard the stories, maybe even read the novel or seen the play.

This could have later inspired her own choices to cross-dress and slip into the army medical department that way, even as she is able to acknowledge that James Barry’s preferred gender identity isn’t the same as her own.

I’ve read that Barry almost certainly had help in maintaining his male identity without discovery. In medical school, he was nearly barred from taking the exam because his smooth face and petite features made the school officials suspect he was too young. Family friend and confidante, Lord Erskine, Earl of Buchan, intervened. When he decided to join the army, he would have again needed some kind of powerful help in order to get the army to either skip the required physical exam or to cover up his biological sex.

In my story, Siân Watson had such help in her uncle Ian, who had an administrative job in the army high enough to allow him to pull strings on her behalf. He also arranges for her to have Gideon Murray assist her as her orderly. It would have taken a lot of behind the scenes work to carry it off, especially after the army was so furious about James Barry.

But I think it would make success just that much sweeter, not just for Watson, but for all involved in making it happen.

[burst-of-iridescent]

Have you ever come across an idea in a Zutara fic that you enjoyed but sadly just wasn't used enough should totally be explored more?

Any tropes you love and just can't get enough of?

hi anon, thanks for the ask! sorry it took me a while to get to it!

three words: single. dad. zuko. i've been obsessed with this trope since i read evergreenonthehorizon's fic partners in learning (a modern au featuring katara as izumi's teacher, which i cannot recommend enough). i know children in fic is a bit of a contentious topic, and i'm not a huge fan of it myself, but there's something about the thought of zuko and izumi realizing katara is the missing piece of their family that just does it for me. katara stepping in as the mother izumi never had, and zuko falling even deeper in love with her seeing her interact with his daughter? *chef's kiss*

also the comedic potential of izumi embarrassing both zuko and katara by innocently (or not-so-innocently) pointing out their feelings for one another? unmatched.

another trope i can't get enough of: fake dating zk!!!! i've only found 2 fics with this premise (the proposal and souvenirs we never lose) but god they're SO GOOD. fake dating in general is such an amazing trope, but when you pair it with zk???? GOD-TIER.

as for other tropes i adore in zk fics:

- the fire lord and southern water tribe ambassador mutually pining for one another!!!! especially if it's slow burn adkfkdfldkf

- toph being the first one to realize they have feelings for each other, closely followed by suki. they go mad because no matter how much they assure zuko and katara their feelings are reciprocated, these two idiots just refuse to believe it

- iroh being the number one zutara stan. teasing zuko about his feelings!! embarrassing him in front of katara!! pushing him to confess!!

- modern au tea shop zk!!!! this trope is just so sweet and i love fumbling tea server zuko trying not to get all tripped up over the pretty girl who soon becomes a regular

- the sparring that ends up with them just conveniently a bit too close to one another and their gaze drops to each other's lips- (god, i live for this trope)

- travelling together!! i love any fic where they end up separated from the gaang and have to navigate their way across the four nations with only each other for back-up, especially if it happens when they're still enemies (either book 2, or book 3 post-DOBS). enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers slaps every fucking time. the color of the stars by bluenebulae is based on this premise, and i don't have enough words for how good it is.

and yes, this is an invitation to drop any and all fake dating/mixed family zk fics. i will be forever grateful.