#totally indistinguishable from the real one

[tyrantchimeraart]

@elsa-fogen for the Charlie's Toys AU.

[writers-potion]

What should you do if you feel that two of the characters are too similar and want to distinguish their personalities?

Characterization: Unforgettable Characters

I would say that's the whole point of characterization! Often we write about characters with similar ages, ethnicities, place of residence, etc.

It's all about: "How memorable is this particular character?"

Unusual Physical Features

Give your characters one distinguishable physical feature that can be referenced throughout.

Maybe one of them come from a family of redheads. It can be as simple as making one of them wear glasses.

The way we look, and the reactions we get from other people about our looks, form a large part of our own self-perception. This is especially true if your characters are teens, or have a job where they need to be particular about how they appear.

Quirky Body Language/Habits

Come up with some memorable, uncommon gestures that comes naturally to your characters. It can be something they do unconsciously.

What makes them make those gestures consistently?

A Distinct Character Voice

Dialogue is the window to the minds of your characters.

Give them a stock phrase that they use often, or a speech pattern

Give one of them a stutter, a lisp, a particular way of pronouncing some words, etc.

Nicknames (or teling names)

Nicknames are easy if your characters are part of the same group of friends or one of them has a reputation (whether god or bad)

You can also choose to give them telling names that hint at an immediately distinguishable characteristic, although this may feel shallow depending on the overall tone of your story.

What Do They Represent?

Characters often reflect types of people we have met in real life. Or, they personify certain values/perceptions we hold about the world in general.

If a character is the embodiment of "the silent genius", the way he carries himself would be totally different from "the forever insecure", although the two of them may simply appear quiet to someone who doesn't know them.

Think about what made you write those characters in the first place. Which archetype/person type did you want them to represent?

Combine The Characters

Sometimes, one of the two indistinguishable characters may not be serving a role that is big enough.

If there's not much story material to be divided between two characters, combine them into one, see what changes, and move on.

[vendetta-if]

Someone disguises as MC to dig out information from the ROs *gasp* Can they figure it out before it's too late?

I’m just going to picture that the impersonator has doppelgänger ability like Cara’s or illusion one like Yvette’s, so they look almost or even indistinguishable from MC physically 🤔

I’d like to think, of course, that all of them once they actually get together with MC or know them good enough (namely Santana and Skylar), would be able to figure out that it’s not the real MC they’re talking to. But the speed of which they notice and find out would differ 😆

Ash

Might be the one who knows MC the best out of all the ROs, and thus, might be the first one to notice first hints of irregularities. But also at the same time, they would probably be the one who gives the fake MC the benefit of the doubt a bit.

They might ask the fake MC what’s wrong or whether they’re feeling okay. But with more weird behaviour, they will quickly become suspicious and wary, and then they will finally figure it out—could’ve been faster if not for their complete trust in MC, but they will figure it out just in time.

Rin

At the very first hint of weird behaviour or attitude from MC, no matter how minor, they’re immediately suspicious. They’ll then proceed to subtly test and talk with the fake MC about memories or things that only real MC would know, putting the fake one’s ass on the grill.

Would totally be the first one among the ROs to figure out because of this.

Santana

Probably would take them more time than Ash and Rin to start noticing something weird, especially when they’re tired, but once they do, they’ll immediately be suspicious and on guard just like Rin.

At first, if the inconsistency is minor enough, they might chalk it up to them or MC just simply being tired or running on low sleep. But if it happens again or a more major inconsistency happens, they would immediately become alert, but also wouldn’t let the potential fake MC know that they’re onto them.

They’d prod around subtly, trying to gauge the fake MC’s reactions to some things they know MC has strong feelings about. Or, if they want to be 100% sure, they’d probably try to activate their power on MC.

Would probably take a bit longer than Rin, but would be able to figure it out pretty quick (depending on how exhausted they are at the time). What kind of detective would they be if they failed 😭

Skylar

Probably would be the last to find out among the ROs, not because they’re not familiar with MC or anything, but they love to gush to MC everything about their day or something they find interesting 😭

Hence, the impostor can kinda go under the radar a bit just by listening to their stories and commenting on it every once in a while. But actually, depending on the type of person your MC is, that can be the impostor’s downfall as well.

And also, Skylar’s talkativeness might also end up revealing the impostor because imagine if the impostor didn’t have a pretty strong reaction to Yvette while the real MC hates her or something 🤔

I feel like that’s how they would end up figuring out the impostor. It is definitely slower than the others, but they would know. Once they become suspicious, they’d still act as if they don’t know, just all smiles and lulls the impostor into a false sense of security before cornering and confronting them later on.

[bogleech]

I completely missed that a Mortasheen book was getting kickstarted! What's the best way to get updates on that? Is there some way to sign up for a bogleech.com news letter? I don't want to miss when it comes out

Oh it was kickstarted three years ago, but with the intention of coming out in only one year. A lot of stuff happened :( It's a tabletop RPG that's actually been in development by other folks for now a grand total of I think 15 years, with me just being the art and concept side. I was never really let in on 90% of that development or what caused it to go on that long but now I have enough stuff together that I should be able to get the book out for real in 2024, with the help of the remaining gameplay dev Morgan Mullins, a huge boost of additional development help from @gutsygills, and a dozen different artists I've paid to contribute.

Having sunk so much of my life into it, I won't make it at all possible for people to miss when it comes out. It's basically the thing I have to bank on as my main career for the foreseeable future, the first book is only intended as the start of a series of expansions, it'll have its own official website and get pitched to actual gaming stores. I've been really sweating to make it look as professional-ish as possible.

Like the core D&D books it will have to be fairly pricey, we're looking at 200-300 pages, but I'd also put out much cheaper digital versions, and maybe little skinny "monsters only" books for people who just want to look at those :)

The stats/abilities on these pages are already a little out of date, the gameplay system had some last minute updates following a lot of backer playtesting!

I dunno how many people reading this have maybe never heard of Mortasheen yet but it's a horror-comedy flavored homage to Pokemon and Digimon set in a world sort of like ours, thousands of years from now where there's goofy monsters and mutants and biotech while humans are very rare and endangered. Actually the setting most similar to it now is Adventure Time of all things, if it had a whole lot more body horror and no magic (but lots of biotechnology indistinguishable from it). But when development of this game began, Adventure Time was just that weird short pilot Nickelodeon passed up on. Now it will be coming out after Adventure Time had a finale, sequel movies and the first season of a followup series. It has literally taken more than an entire Adventure Time to get this done :( I did not mean for an answer to an ask to go on this long but it occurs to me as important information for my followers in general!!!

[dairy-farmer]

You know what there's not enough off? Bat Stalking. Their fucked up, codependent love language. And! Not enough Messy Bitch-ness. Why ADMIT your feelings and have clear and open communication, when you could bury it niiiice and deep and keep it there until you DIE! Spy on them instead.

With their boyfriend.

Their kinky, kinky, Kryptonian boyfriend.

Who can TOTALLY hear you getting off to him fucking his boyfriend through the mattress. Can hear the slick sound of that probably expensive flashlight that is no where NEAR as good. Can hear the filthy praise they mutter, when he gets Tim to ride him. The envious sounds, when he eats Tim out.

Who is totally getting off on it.

Because naked? He is almost indistinguishable from his template. Does watching a young Superman fuck Tim DO it for ya? Bats? It clearly does. Which of us is driving you more insane? My tight ass and his hot puss?

How bout YOU Nightwing? Imagining the forbidden? Kal doing something he shouldn't with his best friends protégé? With Tim? Wishing you were HERE. Or one of us? Which one?

And, please, Hood. Let's not insult ourselves. You've wanted to rail Tim for years. Wanted Big Blue to rail YOU for longer. But you can't admit that. Let yourself have nice things. You're jerking it like your DYING, moaning and gasping like you're in HEAT, and we both know? You'd sooner die AGAIN then ever let yourself have a peice of this.

Then there's the stabby little shit. The lethal, pigtail pulling, little fuck. Get a good eyeful. Kon's never letting you EVER have a taste. He holds grudges. Hope being "the blood son" feels good around your cock, because you're NEVER gonna know how good it feels to fuck a REAL Robin until he BEGS.

Yeah... Kon REALLY likes it. Fucking at Tim's place. For... Reasons.

And Tim? He just enjoys the "absolutely destroyed", well fucked, afterglow and cuddles. Plus the take-out of his choice. Date nights are AWESOME.

-🐼🐼🐼

yesss!!!! kon knowing tim's family are there and watching as he fucks tim who has no idea they're being watched and listened in on all while kon is getting off on his smug feelings and the voyeurism!!

[sapphorror]

I am endlessly plagued by totally normal and appropriate feelings re: Zim and Dib saying each other's name's like that (if you get me, you get me), but I'm too lazy to make a compilation so I did the next best thing and wrote this piece of highly questionable literature about it instead

It's when Zim drops the suffix that Dib knows for sure things are about to get serious.

Most times, Zim spits out Dib’s name like it’s an insult, the tone indistinguishable from the one he uses when cycling through his roster of a schmillion and one derogatory titles, all of which smear together but might as well be a single moniker for the uniform way in which they’re spoken. Really, it’s not much different from the way most people tend to address Dib, as if the burden of tolerating his presence is an unpleasant but inevitable chore—just a bit more vehement and with the addition of arbitrary modifiers Dib’s long since learned to tune out. Sometimes it’s as if Dib has ceased to be a name at all and is instead a definition, the scientific classification for a new species of grotesque freak.

But every now and then—just often enough to keep Dib perpetually suspended in a state somewhere between eager and on-edge—the energy shifts, his last and most dire signal that a very dangerous game has already begun. There’s just as much contempt and an even nastier mocking edge, but there’s no mistaking it for another petty jab. It’s a knife shoved right in his middle, cold metal chill and the sharp numbing spark of a body going into shock, precise enough to leave his psyche spitting up rivers of rage or fear or both, but even as he’s shuddering around the lethal wound, there’s something in him that can see the care with which the blade has been sharpened.

More often than not, Dib only gets to be stabbed through the fuzz of a transmission as Zim describes his doom to him from wherever he’s judged a safe distance, the edges dulled by that slight alteration in quality that not even the best in Irken tech can entirely eliminate. That’s all well and good and gruesome enough, but it’s the occasions on which Zim’s enacted his plans in person that really stand out in Dib’s memory. Felt from beneath the full weight of every decibel, Zim’s voice almost sounds less sing-song than serenading, some single-minded ritual of seduction. A taunt, yes, but also a reassurance—that he really is every inch the monster Dib needs him to be, and that just for this moment, Dib is the sole locus of his attention. A creature of the cosmos, witness to incomprehensible wonders, stirred by Dib more than anything else, and under such exceptional circumstances, could anyone really claim he’s crazy just for being a little bit obsessed?

Zim's name sounds good in Dib's mouth.

Granted, Zim’s name sounds good in anyone’s mouth; there are some things simply too perfect to be butchered. With Dib, though, there’s a difference Zim can’t put his finger on. Of course, Irken names never roll off quite right from the humans’ flat, flappy tongues—too many hard consonants and clipped syllables for them to manage. Tak’s always sounds like the slam of a door, and poor Skoodge got stuck being addressed as something seen smeared on the sidewalk, stretched and squished at the same time. Even Zim’s name, unbutcherable as it might be, sounds slippery in their mouths, or else too quick, too sharp. Not with Dib, though—coming from him it’s slow and sibilant, a sort of sliding hiss, and that isn’t right either but for some reason Zim likes the sound of it, maybe even more than he does the real thing.

Things aren’t always so theatrical, of course. Far too often, Dib just shrugs the word off with all the dismissiveness due an old raincoat or coats it in enough casual contempt to make the internal cooling systems in Zim’s PAK falter by a couple dangerous degrees. No, if Zim wants the reverence he’s owed, he has to earn it, and that’s perfectly fine—it’s not as if the Dib has ever proven particularly difficult to entice. A mysterious occurrence, the suggestion of a scheme, any lure to lead him in by his overactive sense of curiosity and he’d be there, crying out for Zim’s attention as if his arrival hadn’t been half the goal in the first place. Sometimes he shows up already stumbling-sick with anger, at others sounding so ecstatic it might even be mistaken for sign of fondness, but in every case there is the one critical constant; that his presence itself is a papered-over proclamation of the most all-encompassing, unashamed want.

Not that Zim has ever been unwanted—the very notion, absurd!—but within the most walled-off corners of his mind, he’s willing to allow that maybe, just possibly, there’s a chance he’s never been wanted quite like this. Like a prayer or a pipe dream, the promise of settled scores and spiteful satisfaction, as if Zim’s somehow both the solution and the cause to all of Dib’s problems at once. The grating celebration always comes so premature, as if just seeing Zim, speaking to him, is by itself a form of vindication, and Zim’s never been the least bit pleased to let Dib have it. He knows it’s not much like an Invader to be running from something he could so easily fight, not much like an Irken, but the inevitable dogged pursuit that follows is proof of Dib’s dedication desperation, and what possible shame could there be in indulging that? After all, no consequence of getting caught is scarier than losing all cause for a chase.

[queer-geordie-nerd]

"That spring in 1971 I was in second grade high school. Suddenly, politics or what we thought was politics, stopped being so boring. In a delayed, faint echo of the 1968 movement in the West, revolutionary ideas were making their way towards our forgotten little corner of the world. Suddenly, every walk back home from school became slightly dangerous. People were gathering in the streets, shouting “We want democracy” and “Stop totalitarianism!” and “We want reforms” and “Liberty for all political prisoners.” Every day there were fights in the streets of Zagreb, with the police brutally attacking protesting students.

At home my parents were contemplating signing petitions for the liberation of dissident writers imprisoned because of their political views. Since they had been imprisoned themselves by the Communist regime, they were always very cautious about any protest. “Stay away from politics,” was their main advice. Before the events of 1971 there was no need for that advice since I didn’t have any interest in politics anyway. Who cared about those boring Communist politicians, all in their ill-fitting grey suits, indistinguishable one from the other, talking in a language that put you to sleep as soon as you heard it!

But all at once and without warning, everything changed. What was happening in the streets was real and exciting. I desperately wanted to be a part of it. We, the kids, were, of course, automatically and unquestionably, on the side of the protesters. We were, of course, against the police who were beating the demonstrating students. We were, of course, against totalitarianism and pro democracy. There were no dilemmas. We were all for freedom.

But things in the Balkans are never black and white. As they aren’t anywhere in the world, we would learn later.

The pro-democracy protests included another element that wasn’t too obvious to a second-grade high school student. Not only were the students requesting democratic reforms; they were also questioning the federal structure of Yugoslavia, asking for more autonomy for each republic, in this case Croatia. I went to a student meeting, my cheeks burning with newly-discovered political passion. I was puzzled when I realized that the meeting was being held in a Catholic church and that one of the speakers was a Catholic priest. Hm….

Since the beginning of my life I had listened to passionate anti-religious rants at home. My mother would get physically sick inside churches; my father was an outspoken communist who loved to quote Marx’s sentence about religion being the opium of the people; my grandmother thanked the priest who chased her away from the Church, thus saving her life. So now, wanting to join the exciting political movement, I was suddenly faced with the other constituting element of that movement: religion. And, yet another one: nation. I didn’t know anything about either. As for nationality: I was a Yugoslav. That’s what I would write in all my documents. Yes, we lived in the republic of Croatia, but I saw it as an administrative category, something to do with the general organization of the state of Yugoslavia. We did learn about the existence of different ethnicities at school, but I didn’t feel it affected me in any way. I saw any discussion about nationality as something regressive and belonging to the uneducated peasant masses.

We were taught (and I was totally buying it) that our society had triumphed over all those destructive forces from the past, forces that had killed millions of people in the last war, that had set up concentration camps and slaughtered children in the name of ethnic purity. Who would ever want to go back to those “dark times?” It turned out: almost everybody.

At that students’ meeting in the church there was no discussion of freedom and democratic reforms. To my absolute horror, I heard students singing songs from the Second World War, songs sung by the Ustashas, the Croatian Fascists who had killed my Jewish grandfather. “Zovi, samo zovi” (“Call us”) was a battle song of the Ustashas. Why were these exciting young people with glowing eyes singing it? I couldn’t understand it. I ran out of the church, scared."

- Mira Furlan, Love Me More Than Anything In the World

[thefinalwitness]

it hit me this morning why i like the uniformity of the ancients so much and why i generally disagree with the idea they should be more visually weird. not that i think anyone is BAD for thinking this, i totally get it, especially in the context of azem and wanting to make yours FEEL like your own. (tangentially, i also think azem is one of the best ancient characters TO deviate from the uniformity, given what we know about them and the people born of their soul.)

but what i find so compelling about a society of people whose Whole Thing is creation magic, the ability to Make Anything, having a lot of stigma against deviation in the form of self expression with one's own body is how SAD it is. how DYSTOPIAN it is. you can invent the most creative, stunning objects and creatures known to man, but you can't even show your face.

i think it's a really powerful, subtle piece of the puzzle that ties the whole concept of the world unsundered together—in particular, how miserable it really was, how unsustainable their society really was, how prone to characters like hermes and venat it really was. it reminds me of some of the worst elements of real life; how creators and inventors are lost and forgotten behind their works (instead accredited to companies, or a single person), how artistic and creative careers are typically treated as unsustainable and simultaneously exploited, how unyielding and suffocating the concept of "normal people" is (to the detriment of anyone who deviates, be it by gender, sexuality, race, abledness, religion...). i think it's genuinely meant to be a commentary on things like that, or at least i think regardless of intention it IS an incredible commentary on that.

i think the ancients are SUPPOSED to be boring and uninspired—wearing the same clothes, concealing their faces, never using their transformations—and i think it reflects such an important element of why the world unsundered was awful: ancients were amounted to their creations and duties, not their own selves. you can even see this in the convocation seats, how you're given a new name that EVERYONE, even your closest friends, almost exclusively refers to you by; the implication that you must not only uphold your duties, but blend in seamlessly with your predecessors and successors, that you must be indistinguishable.

this is HOW characters like hermes and venat developed their respective discontentments with their lives; you were not your own person, but a cog in the star. you did not get to have your own passions, styles, ideas—and even when your role was complete, you couldn't be yourself. you were expected to remove yourself from society. you were expected to cease to exist beyond your function. even despite the fact that the ancients WERE individuals with personalities and dreams. their actual bodies vary widely, their eyes glow vibrantly; almost as if they're MEANT to burst with uniqueness. and it's all buried in black robes and masks.

and i think all this is why i LIKE the uniformity so much, because narratively speaking, it's such a fascinating concept. there's a lot of room to explore how it works, why the people of the unsundered world got to that point, how it might disproportionately benefit some people and hinder others. emet-selch calls it perfect and a paradise, but i always got the impression he was meant to be an INCREDIBLY unreliable narrator; i think he was among the people that benefitted from the uniformity and the "this is just how life is, don't resist it" of it all, and i think you can see him recreating it even worse in allag and garlemald. i think it explains the DEPTHS of his hatred for the sundered too, beyond obvious things like "they're not the people he lost".

because the sundered world, conversely, is FULL of individuality. people look, act, talk and live countless different ways; every city and region has a completely different way of life, so much so that you can tell where someone's from just by how they talk or dress. i think venat understood, especially after meeting the wol, that people needed to be free; that a world like hydaelyn would be someplace people like hermes could thrive. and that this plethora of individuality would be the world's salvation—in all things, not just the song of oblivion. i think this is what "hear, feel, think" MEANS.

and so, to me, so much of the picture is lost if the ancients had utilized their creativity inwardly. that's not to say i'm telling anyone NOT to do it—again, i think azem is a great character TO push against this ideology, and i even have an ancient oc (non-azem) who does the same! i think these people absolutely existed, and were simply drowned out and ostracized by the rest of society. mostly i'm just excited to finally be able to articulate this, and i've seen people also question why the ancients are so boring, and wanted to share my thoughts in case it helps! i really like the ancients because i think they're startlingly human (to say nothing of their actual human resemblance), and i think that's so much more interesting than if they'd been super diverse and alien BECAUSE of how much it harms them as a society. super flawed characters fascinate me and make me reflect on my own choices and ideologies, and i think that's both a lot of fun and super useful just in general!

edited to add: i think there's also the mechanical element of game design, and signaling things to players. while a fictional world can be endlessly different from our own, as creators, we still need to communicate the ideas in a way people who live in our world understand. this is, for example, why i think the ancients appear human; being FROM a world where everybody's human, we immediately associate their resemblance to us as benign and unremarkable. and that's what the ancients, i think, are SUPPOSED to be, or rather, what their society has imposed as "correct". the developers using appearances that we'd see in everyday life makes us think, "oh, that's not very fantastical," which is exactly what the ancients' society wanted people TO think of each other. obviously this is a much more technical reason than the rest of this post, but i think it helps explain why they specifically are uniformly human, and not, like, uniformly purple mantis people (which would be cool and different and fantastical, hence muddying the message!).

[paperbag34]

You could say I'm. I'm explaining the uh. The art of the deal.

So, since this post is helping me get off my ass and actually try to write again, I'd thought I'd outline the main answer in this AU to the obvious question of "Why does Alastor care enough about sinners to do this?"

so, I contrived this (lol). tell me your thoughts, y'all.

I stated that it was because he wanted to do something his mom would be proud of, and while true, that's the catalyst. Why would he start caring now about doing something his mother would approve of after decades in Hell?

Simple. The Deal with Vaggie!

How Deals work here in this AU:

It's common knowledge in Hell that a Deal is a form of soul magic. how else would it be able to have real, physical consequences on those who break it? Thing is, what's not common knowledge, is why Dealmakers gain power from making more Deals.

A being's magical power is linked to the strength of their soul. When they die, the weight of their sins or the light of their good deeds for sinners and Angels respectively, come together to form the strength of their soul. This is why even new sinners can be more powerful than Hellborn sometimes, though not often. It takes someone like Alastor, serial killer of 49 people, to pull something like that off.

A Deal is the only known way to directly and safely increase the strength of your soul. When a Deal is made, the participants' magic intermingles. Most assume that this s what makes sinners more powerful, that somehow the magic mixing strengthens them.

What they don't know, is that when a Deal is made, a small piece of each of the souls of the participants breaks off and merges, into a sort of indistinguishable soul-mass. The magic poured into the Deal then does something that is seen in no other process; it mixes with the soul-mass, and grows it. In this way, when the soul-mass splits itself evenly between the participants of the Deal, their total soul-size actually increases, which is the real reason why demons (and angels too, if they participated!) can gain power from this process.

The soul-mass splits off, the magic and terms of the Deal engraved into it, enforcing the Deal. This isn't well-known, only those rare few with soul-sight or access to it know about this.

Now, why is this the answer to why Alastor cares? Well, the soul-mass is a mix of the two or more souls involved in the process. Which means that some measure of the self of the participants is sent to each other once the Deal goes through. Now, normally this is unnoticable. Sinners making contracts with each other are all, well, in Hell. They're there for a reason. Plus, it's a pretty even split, so usually the change is negligible.

Sure, if Charlie in canon were, under this ruleset, to make Deals with, say, a shit ton of Val's prostitutes, or a shit ton of the Exorcists, you'd start noticing some pretty significant personality drift from all the similar differing worldviews she's taking into herself. But the fact that this requires so many Deals to be made with people of the same or similar self, means that only ancient Dealmakers can really get affected by this, and on the off chance that they do make enough Deals with people with similar selves that it actually shifts their own self, it's chalked up to changing with time. Plus, the original holder's self is also in there, so it heavily offsets the change.

But, what about in Alastor's case? Well, few have made a Deal with a Angel before. Almost none, in fact, given that Lucifer is kind of a recluse. But one thing to remember is that Angelic magic overpowers Demonic magic. It's why demons can actually "die" from Angel attacks. So, when Alastor makes the Deal with Vaggie, what's different from the normal process is that her Angelic soul and magic almost completely overpower what little piece of Alastor is in the soul-mass, so the majority of the self in the bew soul pieces is hers, and despite the violence, she genuinely wants to do good, it's why she was misguided into the Exorcists.

Add to that the fact that Vaggie's never made a Deal before, and Exorcist magic training amounts to "make a big fuckoff laser with it and fire", (yes they can do that in this AU), she puts way, way more magic into it than Alastor does. So while the soul splitting evenly means that Alastor gains a truly immense powerboost from it (and Vaggie too, actually!), it also means his self is strongly affected by Vaggie's. And since Angelic magic overpowers Demonic, a part of his soul is now irrevocably Angelic. It's a really small part, not enough to qualify at all to be any sort of demon-angel hybrid like Charlie, who's half-angel-half-demon, but boy is it there.

Thus, to summarize, TL;DR: Alastor's personality slowly changes to be more chill, and he grows something of a conscience because his soul and a part of Vaggie's merge and his personality was affected.

also also, just a thought completely unrelated to this AU, but what if Charlie has a true demon form where she gets wings! now she can fly with her girlfriend!!

[cardentist]

If you’re gonna argue with this post then these are required reading: [Link 1, Link 2]

but:

there’s a Purpose to exclusionist groups blocking their targets from creating words to describe their experiences, and the whole point is in cutting out All avenues for discussing them.

you tell asexual people that they aren’t Really gay, or if they Are really gay then they shouldn’t bring up their asexuality in conversations about homophobia because that’s homophobic.

you tell asexual people that they aren’t Really queer or that Nobody’s Allowed To Say The Word Queer, and if they try to talk about their issues under queerphobia then that’s homophobic.

you tell asexual people that they aren’t Allowed to make a term to describe their own experiences, Aphobia and Allo aren’t real and it’s offensive because it lumps gay people in with their oppressors (nevermind that that’s what all labels do, because they’re labels).

asexual people are now not allowed to Either have a space within the wider queer/lgbt+ communities to discuss their issues, Or To Create Their Own Spaces. you won’t realize that this attempt at total silencing is happening unless you see/experience both sides of it.

So.

you tell trans mascs that they’re not Allowed to use the term misogyny because they’re Men and Men aren’t allowed in women’s spaces. or because they only experience Misdirected misogyny so the conversation isn’t For Them. or because the very act of Being a man automatically shields someone from experiencing misogyny, even when someone presents indistinguishably from when they identified as a cis woman.

you tell trans mascs that they are not the primary victims of transphobia Because They Are Men. they aren’t affected by this bill, they aren’t hurt by these people, they don’t have This experience, they don’t look this way, they aren’t hurt by That Thing. they Exist in trans spaces sure, but they don’t Add anything to the conversation around oppression the way that trans fem people do because their oppression is less. they don’t have the right to be a Part of the conversation because they aren’t affected by it.

and if trans mascs Disagree with those points, if they point towards their own experiences with having been affected by these things, then it’s claimed to be transmisogynistic.

And Then

you look at trans mascs creating terms specifically to describe their own experiences (whether that be transandrophobia, anti-transmasculism, whatever) and you Combine those ideas. you tell trans mascs they aren’t Allowed to create a term because they Only experience transphobia, because trans mascs don’t Need a term for their own experiences, because trans mascs having their own term Takes Away from trans fems.

people who aren’t aware of the former don’t understand why the latter is happening, why trans mascs would feel motivated to carve out a space to talk about their experiences when they face hostility when they try to speak in general trans spaces.

but think about what the Point is. what the Point of saying that trans mascs don’t belong in conversations about misogyny, that they don’t belong in conversations about transphobia, And that they don’t belong in conversations that they made for themselves in spaces they made for themselves. what the point in cutting trans mascs out of All conversations they could have about their experiences Does, what that tactic is For.

and mind you, this is not an issue of trans mascs vs trans fems. this is something you hear from cis women, from trans mascs, and yes sometimes from trans fems. but more over, this is rhetoric that you see everywhere and Have seen for decades. the problem is exclusionists and people who buy into exclusionist rhetoric, not any one demographic of people. anyone can be an exclusionist for any group of people, even one they belong to, it’s a Mindset.

and it’s important that we Reject this mindset no matter who the victim is. because when we Only call out the targeting of a specific victim but Don’t dissect and reject the mindset then we allow it to be perpetuated. but just as important as rejecting it is Learning To Recognize It, learning what exclusionist tactics look like and what they do so we can recognize when it’s happening in front of us.

[anndramarama]

Dihua fic recipe. Suitable for beginner and experienced cooks.

Add Li Lianhua's fear of intimacy and Di Feisheng's lack of boundaries to a medium saucepan with a generous tablespoon of the self-loathing/anger/guilt felt by both parties regarding 1) their past failures and 2) the helplessness brought on by corruption and betrayal within their martial organizations.

Whisk aggressively.

Keep in mind that both ingredients are touch-starved martial geniuses who struggled to tell the difference between sexual attraction and the impulse to fight nearly to the death.

As orphans whose education was incomplete or completely lacking, you might assert that these ingredients should not be served together at the same banquet, let alone combined in such a way, but be patient and trust the recipe even if it's hard at the start.

Di Feisheng in particular will constantly assert that he wants to be "on top" and not know what that means or why it makes Li Xiangyi's eyes flash and cheeks turn pink before he fights him harder, ever harder.

Li Xiangyi will be baffled when their relationship doesn't seem to change no matter how many brain-breaking orgasms he wrings out of the other man, or how many kisses are shared, and will arrange several more negotiations and secret meetings than strictly necessary to try to establish the ultimate, final, total, and most all-encompassing peace the jianghu has ever seen.

But don't worry: Li Xiangyi's bafflement and Di Feisheng's trauma-induced cluelessness are complementary flavors that will only add spice to the dish.

When you get to the point where you're tired of stirring it will still be almost impossible to keep them from separating in the pan, so don't even try. In fact it is essential to the recipe that their essences separate and come together continually in a clash of swords, an exchange of looks, and other forms of rough, suggestive touching.

(Give up on plot at this point. You don't need that, it's expensive, and hardly anyone will notice. You can throw in some implausible machinations by side characters later if you're concerned.)

Next, add two cups of salted water and bring to a roaring boil. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for ten years.

Ignore any sounds of anguish that escape the pan. This is a necessary step that lets them work things out, if only mentally and in the form of heated, yearning nightmares (Li Xiangyi) and repetitive, dissociative hallucinations that for anyone else would be indistinguishable from pining (Di Feisheng).

Finally, uncover and get ready to plate.

At this point both ingredients' idealism, which could barely be detected as a standalone flavor to begin with, should assert itself and almost dazzle the senses, if only briefly. As they slowly re-enter the world together that synchronicity will bring with it a renewed appreciation for life, for gentleness and roughness as appropriate, for tantalizing secrets and lies, and extra time for boning behind closed doors. They will feel young together, and then they will feel middle-aged; Di Feisheng will let himself feel real emotions and, watching him both in and out of bed, Li Xiangyi -- now Li Lianhua -- will wish he had more time.

Add a dash of Fang Duobing at the end, but keep in mind that he isn't just there for garnish: when introduced in the right amounts Fang Duobing can add to the flavor and complexity of the dish, particularly by improving its general sweetness and, for the two main ingredients, he adds an extra note of innocence tempered by regret, sacrifice, and love.

Serve with wedding wine, in secret, under a crescent moon on a day that no one else knows is auspicious.

[goodqueenaly]

I just finished The Black Rose, a 1945 historical fiction novel (though I’m using the term somewhat loosely) written by Thomas Costain. GRRM has openly described his fondness for Costain (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) - not the least example of which is in his creation of House Costayne, whose sigil references both this novel and another, The Silver Chalice - and I thought it would be fun to read more GRRM inspiration books in the new year (although that’s not a demand for anyone to stop asking me about The Accursed Kings and ASOIAF, of course). As a story set in the 13th century across both England and the Mongol Empire, starring a young aristocratic would-be knight, this novel seemed like much more obvious grounds for comparison to ASOIAF than, say, The Silver Chalice (a Holy Grail origin story set in first-century Judea) or one of Costain’s (ostensibly) nonfiction Plantagenet histories, like The Conquering Family. (You might say I should have started with GRRM’s own Costain favorite, The Moneyman, but I didn’t, oh well.) 

Now, do I think The Black Rose is on the same level as, well, The Accursed Kings in terms of specific influence on ASOIAF? Probably not. While there were definitely elements to this book that I could reasonably believe were in GRRM’s mind while he was writing ASOIAF, these parallels remained largely surface-level, and in some ways indistinguishable from familiar tropes of romanticized medievalism.

For one, the novel’s hero, Walter of Gurnie, is a little bit of a Jon Snow figure. Like Jon, he is an aristocratic bastard openly recognized by his father (ostensible father, in Jon’s case), and perhaps like Jon, his (biological) father and mother had some secret pledge to marry prior to his birth (though unlike Jon, Walter’s father broke that pledge to marry another woman, the daughter of the Norman family that paid his Crusader ransom). The “Saxon” ancestry of Walter, derived from his mother’s family, compared to the “Norman” ancestry of his father, may likewise parallel the First Men ancestry of the Starks, and specifically Lyanna, versus the Valyrian ancestry of the Targaryens who had conquered Westeros in the same fashion as the Norman William the Conqueror. Too, each bastard son physically closely resembles his father (or, again, ostensible father for Jon): Walter shares the blue eyes, blond curling hair, and “Norman” nose of Earl Rauf, much as Jon shared the long face, dark hair, and gray eyes of the Starks. As with Jon, there is no love lost between the bastard son and his father’s wife, with “the Norman woman” (othered by her foreignness, very loosely akin to Catelyn and her southron origins) denouncing Walter as a “Saxon cur” (though the dowager Countess of Lessford is a tyrannical and openly villainous woman, in all other respects totally different from Catelyn). This is about where any real, even if minor, parallels to Jon end, to the extent they existed in the first place, but they’re worth noting as possible ideas for GRRM when the latter was first dreaming up Jon.

Additionally, Walter’s love interest, Maryam, has her share of parallels to Daenerys, though I think this comparison is even more limited than that between Walter and Jon. Maryam enters the story as the beautiful teenage sister (or, rather, ostensible half-sister) of the rich and thoroughly unlikeable Greek merchant Anthemus, who wishes to sell Maryam to Kublai Khan to be part of his harem - a plot point recalling Viserys’ willingness to sell his sister to Khal Drogo, into a position not too dissimilar from what Costain envisions for Kublai Khan’s harem slaves. It is worth noting, in exploring this parallels, that Maryam is revealed to be the biological daughter not of her and Anthemus’ Greek father Alexander, but of an English soldier-turned-slave in Alexander’s household, insofar as this ancestry marks Maryam (in the opinion of herself and the two main protagonists, at least) as “English” rather than foreign (much as Daenerys, though raised almost entirely in Essos, is still Westerosi in her birth and (recent, for the Targaryens) ancestry). Indeed, Maryam and Walter’s pseudo-familial connection - Walter believes that Maryam’s biological father was his own father’s faithful squire, captured during the Crusades - may link them to Jon and Daenerys, themselves related much more directly by their shared Targaryen bloodline. Again, these comparisons are pretty thin - Maryam certainly never comes into power in her own right as Daenerys does, and most of the novel consists of her either being rescued and/or protected and hidden by Walter or her attempting to reunite with him after being separated in China - but there may have been some limited inspiration here. 

There are, moreover, some other minor points of potential inspiration in the novel. Costain’s version of the medieval Oxford University, where Walter begins the novel as a student, might have resonated in GRRM’s mind when the latter was creating the Citadel (especially the divisions of learning among the students - Walter’s program of study focuses on languages, for example, while his comrade and secondary protagonist Tristram Gruffen studies math and science with Roger Bacon), though Costain hardly invented either Oxford University itself or the general idea of a medieval institution of learning. Bacon himself might have figured, or will go on to figure, into GRRM’s development of Archmaester Marwyn - an intelligent but controversial scholar, rumored to dabble in magic, fascinated with the technological innovations and learning of the east - although again, the smart, unorthodox teacher who Doesn’t Play By The Rules TM is not a trope unique to either Costain or GRRM. Overall, I think, this novel belongs to that same class of what I’ll call midcentury medievalism that seems to have had quite the impact on GRRM, without necessarily being foremost in the author’s mind. 

(Also, a friendly word of warning for anyone else who wants to delve into The Black Rose. If you thought ASOIAF occasionally falls into bad old orientalist tropes - and it does, no question - these tropes are magnified to the eleventh degree in The Black Rose. Maryam, for example, is initially introduced by Costain as having “skin of a slightly olive tint”, but consistently thereafter is referred to, and indeed defended as, “white” or “English”, specifically to negatively charged accusations of being “Greek” or “dusky”. The cruelty and barbarism depicted as normal for Mongol warriors make GRRM’s descriptions of the Dothraki appear subtle and nuanced by comparison: Costain spends several paragraphs in one chapter detailing the gruesome Crusade souvenirs carried by Mongolians (including “skin (flayed, presumably, from the hides of Western soldiers) … as saddle-cloths” and “a human skull … which had been converted into a drinking cup”) and the child-murdering game supposedly practiced by Mongolian riders, ending with the conclusion by the main character that “[t]hese Mongols are not human — [sic] not as we understand human nature”.  Even Costain’s attempts to portray one (real-life) Mongol, Bayan of the Hundred Eyes, in a relatively more positive light reflect the author’s general antagonism toward the Mongolians: Bayan is distinguished initially by Walter because his “eyes … lacked the cruel slant at the corners” and were instead “full and large … and warmly brown, glowing with a pleasant intelligence”, while Walter later informs Maryam (convinced that Bayan “must be as cruel as all the other Mongol leaders”) that Bayan “has been criticized for his leniency many times”. What’s more, when Bayan confronts Walter on the seeming hypocrisy of the Christian crusaders, who profess monogamous love while raping women in their campaigns, Walter never actually provides a defense; Walter’s later criticisms of the English feudal structure do not extend to either a repudiation of the sexual crimes associated with Western chivalry or a reconsideration of Mongolian society as anything other than terrifying and brutal.)

[hecksupremechips]

When I think about Mizuki in aini it’s like, I know something is just so off about her but I have trouble articulating it. It’s really frustrating cuz she was like my favorite character in the first game and when I play the first game I feel like I have a really good idea of who she is as a character. Like she acts strong and and hangs out with people much older than her and has to take on a fuck ton of responsibility but she’s also just a kid she cuddles with a rabbit toy she raises fish in the fridge she can be kinda gullible in the way that kids are and she doesn’t always understand more mature jokes. She acts sassy and hostile towards Date but she’s described as kinda and compassionate by Hitomi and she defends the weak and loves her friends deeply and thinks Aiba is cute. She pokes fun at Date for being grumpy at the shrine and then excitedly holds his hand and drags him over to the offering box to pray for his safety and she gets scared when there’s danger and she hugs Date for comfort but then tries to brush it off because she was taught to feel shame whenever she required basic attention and affection. She was hurt badly by her biological family and finds herself at home with Date despite her fears of him not caring for her. Like she’s a really solid well rounded character with strengths and weaknesses and her story makes me feel every possible emotion known to man

Then I play aini and I was soooo excited to see that Mizuki was gonna be a protagonist and that she had Aiba (its what made me buy the game immediately after finishing the first game lol) and then like. I honestly can’t tell you a damn thing about her character in aini. Like she’s the protagonist for half that game and I can’t think of any particular struggles she has as a character or like any moments where she stands out. It’s like, I know this is Mizuki she has the same basic features of that character but she’s not really given much? And anything new you learn about her is just like, retcons of her already established and well written backstory that just. Really didn’t need to be made and honestly they just kinda do a disservice to her character

Like first off there’s the Bibi twist which. Oof. I have some pretty complicated feelings about Bibi in general like okay. When she appears as the masked woman I was totally on board and thought she was really interesting and I was so prepared for her to be a favorite character her somnium is probably my favorite one in the game. And then she was revealed to be Mizuki. And it was revealed that we were playing as her for half of the B side of the story and we didn’t know it. Like, where to even begin. They stopped writing Bibi as her own character and she pretty much just became Mizuki except idk, she has a bigger grudge against Ryuki and has a heart condition I guess. And like I think it really speaks to how flat Mizuki was in this game if we can play as two completely different characters and have them be indistinguishable. Bibi shouldn’t be anything like Mizuki, they’ve lived completely different lives. And I hate the clone twist like good god I really hate the clone twist because IT ADDS NOTHING TO MIZUKIS CHARACTER OR HER CONFLICT. In fact it like, actively goes against her arc from the first game??? Cuz like half the point of Date and Mizuki’s relationship is there to show that family isn’t what you’re born with, it’s what you make. Both Date and Mizuki feel like their little family can’t exist because they’ve been taught, like most of us have, that biological family is the most important and real and valid way to have a family. You’re supposed to love and respect your biological parents because they MADE you, and Date has to live with the anguish that he can’t be Mizuki’s REAL father because they aren’t blood related. So like, to pull the rug away and go "oh yeah btw I guess Mizuki was adopted lol" it just completely erases what made her story so impactful to most people. And the clone reveal adds nothing like Mizuki doesn’t NEED this at all she wasn’t looking to discover the truth of her backstory because. There wasn’t any truths that needed to be discovered, we already know her deal and so does she. And her having a clone doesn’t really fit with the half to whole theme cuz like, she wasn’t looking for a fucking clone or like a secret sister or anything like that. It’s just stupid it’s so stupid

What Mizuki needed was like, a new actual conflict that required her to overcome challenges and grow as a character. A lot of people, myself included, have complained about how her relationship with Date just isn’t talked about hardly at all, how he went missing for 6 years and they didn’t even get a proper reunion and the game kinda mocks you for wanting one. We dont get any context as to how Mizuki coped during that time like she was completely alone for the most major years of her life she was separated from the one person who was her real family and we don’t know what she felt during all that cuz the game refuses to talk about it. And there isn’t much indication that the adults care about this either, Boss maybe has a soft spot for her but that’s kinda the extent of it, she makes a joke that Date is probably off chilling in a hot spring in Atami so clearly no one is giving Date’s disappearance the weight it deserves. So like, we have this potential thing we could work with here like why is Mizuki a detective now and why does she care about this case? Because her dad was taken by tearer and has been gone for 6 years and she’s been all alone and she wants to find him and find out if he’s even alive and she wants to kick tearers ass cuz he tore (hehe) her family apart. And this can also give her an actual connection to Ryuki too like Ryuki is the one who betrayed Date and knew some shit about tearer and saw what happened to Date and he just never told Mizuki the truth and she’s spent all this time looking for Date so this would be like, pretty major conflict when it all gets revealed. And it actually gives what Ryuki did actual consequences that affect him cuz honestly the fact that no one seems to care that much about Date’s disappearance makes Ryuki’s guilt and depression seem completely fucking useless lol. So here we go, that’s some conflict for Mizuki to have and it gives her a personal connection to the case, we can add more to it but really even this alone is way more than what she’s given in the actual game. And I think just the big problem with her in aini is I think the writers were too afraid to do anything that could ruin her character or cause her to change too much so they just like. Didn’t write anything that could allow her to develop and instead just fucked with already established information about her which. I honestly don’t know how that is seen as better??? In what fucking world. It just feels really pointless to have even made Mizuki a protagonist to begin with since they don’t really do anything with her and lol I think the writers realized this so that’s why like. Ryuki gets all the character conflict but makes lowkey no progress in the case and the real investigation doesn’t happen until the Mizuki side cuz they needed to make up for the fact they didn’t write anything for her alskla

So yeah just to wrap things up, Mizuki just didn’t get to be a character in aini and she wasn’t given any interesting conflict despite how easy it would’ve been cuz the writers were too scared of doing anything with this character that could ruin her but dude. Dont fucking make her the protagonist then if you’re too scared of doing anything with her. Don’t piss me off like that

[heterophobicdyke]

I resent the fact that even the most outspoken, eloquent, and balanced lesbian radfems on here still have to bend over backwards to comfort het women about getting misogynistic hatemail from random anons and new blogs that have nothing to do with you. You shouldn't have to preface everything by reaffirming that misogynistic name calling is bad, because you're not the ones sending it.

Like honestly? They can log out. If their bfs are so great and their relationship fits their supposed praxis, they can just go offline. Problem sloved.

If they don't want to actually practice any amount of radical action towards liberation, even one so basic as distancing from men/being sexually unavailable to them... why are they proclaiming themselves radfems? I think 99% of het partnered radfems on here are living irl lifestyles indistinguishable from women with no feminist leaning whatsoever.

They just want to LARP as a mean outspoken liberated women, but in reality they're totally fine with the gilded cage, because it's familiar and comfortable.

Lesbians, febfems, and celibate women are a living reminder that there's life beyond the male-centric norm. We get shoved into the category of "mean women" and lumped in with random weirdos so we can be tone policed into silence.

💯💯💯

Considering they use non-radfem “lesbians” saying gross shit to discredit radfem lesbian points on OSA relationships maybe we should start a receipt list of the worst homophobic shit het-partnered women say with actual account receipts.

I have a semi-big lesbian-related Facebook page and most times I post something I get random American het-partnered women (and men) saying the most vile gross shit - and their pages are actually proven real people with photos and all

Oh but OSA HP radfems will be like “that’s not us!!! they’re not radfems!!!!!!!” yeah and neither are the screen grabs you took to discredit us. But if we want to compare the things lesbians say and do to OSA HP women versus the shit said and done to lesbians by OSA HP women it’s clear who’s actually oppressed LMAO

[teecupangel]

If the "Desmond is Jennifer's son during her time in TopKapi palace" route is further developed, won't people outside of Ziio's tribe start to think that Desmond is Ratonhnhaké:ton's real father? (I can see Desmond quite embarrassed but enjoying the mess with Ziio and Jenny after Haytham finds out about the rumours)

The idea of Desmond being reborn as Jennifer Scott’s son here.

Okay… So let’s see if this would work… math-wise.

Since Jennifer was sent to Topkapı in 1735 and Ratonhnhaké:ton is born in 1756 (with Haytham saving Jennifer in 1757), that means that Desmond would have to be born around 1736~1740 for people to think that, yeah, he could totally be Ratonhnhaké:ton’s father. It is also possible for 1741~1743 but that’s like the iffy questionable age group.

In other words, yes, this could work.

You know what would be funny?

If Desmond knew Haytham would be coming to save his mother but not when. So he’s been preparing, even has a failsafe in case Haytham took too long and he needed an exit strategy soon.

His plan?

To frame Haytham Kenway for murdering the sultan’s favorite son and that son’s mother.

Desmond needed to fake his and his mother’s death and, as much as Desmond knew that Haytham had a sucky childhood, and he was truly coming to save his mother, Haytham Kenway was still a dangerous Templar who willingly tried to kill his own son...

Said son is also one of the few people Desmond cared about, either out of his own freewill or because of the Bleeding Effect doesn’t matter to Desmond...

He embraced his Bleeding Effect and Haytham is a danger to Ratonhnhaké:ton regardless of what noble intentions he may have in saving his mother.

Also, Desmond was still annoyed by Haytham’s backseat sailing from that memory, and he knew that Haytham would be able to survive this.

… he might be forever hunted down by the Ottomans but Desmond sees that as a good thing. Gonna be hard to do Templar shit in Desmond’s territory now, right?

I’m just imagining that Desmond had his mother taken out by the Assassins already and is wearing a guard’s outfit. Two bodies that are quite similar to them, both Templars or allies of the Order, are staged into a bloody massacre and Desmond made sure that they would be indistinguishable even by modern means, and he looks Haytham dead in the eyes as he said, “Hello, uncle.”

With fake politeness he had learned as a son of a sultan, he said, “I am quite glad that you have come to save my mother. And, if you truly do care for her, then you must know what role you have to play.”

Haytham doesn’t get a chance to say anything as Desmond puts on the guard’s helmet and shouts, “Intruder! The intruder has killed the prince!!!”

And like the guards have been stationed to be near Desmond and his mother’s rooms, they all get there quickly and find Haytham standing in a bloody room while Desmond pretends to be injured, clutching his arm with bloody hands that were actually from the two fake bodies he had prepared, “He did this! He killed both the prince and his mother!”

And Haytham plays along because he has seen Desmond’s face, know that he is his nephew and everyone here knows how much he loves his mother. If he was being used to finally get away from this place then he will simply applaud his nephew’s audacity and play along.

Only to finally get a headache when it turned out that his nephew and sister has sailed back to the colonies, and he had to learn that from an Assassin who went, “On behalf of the Ottoman Brotherhood, we thank you, Grand Master Haytham Kenway, for becoming a pawn to our mentor’s escape plan.”

For a brief moment, he wondered if it was Jennifer. If Jennifer had managed to become an Assassin and a mentor while stuck in the harem but then the Assassin continues, “The mentor told us to let you go this time as a sign of his thanks to his mostly absent uncle. He did leave you a message: ‘See you in the colonies.’”

And Haytham realized that, if anyone was succeeding his father as the goddamn Kenway Assassin, it would be his devious nephew.

Sidebar: Holden was knocked out by the Assassins because he saw them taking Jennifer to safety but, because Desmond insisted there will be no deaths, they had to take Holden with them and gave him back to Haytham (unharmed other than the ropemarks on his wrists and the bump on his head) when the Assassin came to give Haytham Desmond's message.

Smashcut to Desmond unintentionally undermining Achilles’ mentorship and questioning the Colonial Brotherhood’s actions against Shay Cormac. By the time Haytham gets there, Desmond had already made contact with Shay and was trying to appear as a kind of Assassin inspector and that Achilles’ actions have come into scrutiny and the Brotherhood wishes to hear Shay’s side of the story.

So now, whatever kindness Monro showed to Shay (whether genuine or not) takes the backburn as this becomes a tug of war between Desmond and Haytham to sway Shay to their side with Haytham going for “you know how the Assassins are now, can you truly trust him?” while Desmond is going for “This is not what the Brotherhood is meant to do, Shay, you know that. Help me make this right.”

Then that’s when we smack Haytham with news that Desmond has a child (with a ‘savage’) and Haytham knows he couldn’t have one. The timeline doesn't fit.

He sees Desmond with Ratonhnhaké:ton and he grows suspicious…

Then he hears Ratonhnhaké:ton call Kaniehtí:io mother and…

Desmond raised his head to look at where he had been spying at them and waved at Haytham.

And Haytham just knew…

His nephew certainly got the audacity and the deviousness of a true Kenway.

(Meanwhile, Jennifer is enjoying her retirement in the homestead. She has nothing to add to whatever drama is happening in the Brotherhood but she’s not inclined to help Haytham as well because, as much as her heart warms at the thought that Haytham came to save her even though it was a bit too late, he still became one of them. One of the people who killed their father and Jennifer may not hate him for it because she understands the circumstances that led to it but, at the same time, she feels no desire to reunite with a Templar)

[lumsel]

So they invented a way to digitise yourself into a machine but it doesn't work by scanning your brain or anything. Basically they put a chip in your head adn that chip scans the way you move, the way you talk, how you respond to stimuli, basically just collects data on who you are. All saved locally, of course, no security issues there. Anyway, when you die, they feed all that data into a predictive algorithm and use it to construct a simulacrum of how you'd act. So like if someone asks you a question it basically tries to predict what your answer would be.

If you get scanned in too soon after getting the chip installed the illusion just isn't there, like you can tell. Your loved ones will talk to the copy and know it's not you, something about the way it moves and the way it talks, and everything it says seems just a little bit hollow. But if you get like, at least 20-25 years of data, it's totally indistinguishable from the real thing! The copy says the words you would have said, makes the art you would have made, expresses teh feelings you would have expressed. Even your closest confidantes can't tell the difference. At that point, really, who's to say it isn't you?