#what is our purpose why do we exist etc etc and is it okay to simply want to survive

[nonbinaryphantom]

ah shit here comes my tendency for dropping unknowable gods into my fics who have plans that are beyond humanity’s goals

[familyabolisher]

you said that you don’t take lines of questioning / thought about “romanticizing” dark topics (SA, incest, etc.) seriously. would you mind elaborating on that? what does it mean, if anything, to romanticize? i think i get why it’s a fundamentally reactionary (or just silly?) thing to be concerned about, but would you mind elaborating on why?

thanks! your posts have been very illuminating on this sort of thing.

okay so let's talk about "romanticise" as a literary discourse for a second because there are a handful of things happening with its usage:

is the assumption that there exists a state of non-'romantic' discursive matter from which something 'romantic' is being created, and the content of the text in question is the process by which that creation is happening;

is the use of 'romantic' to describe something that appears to the viewer as desirable and attractive, thus obscuring the ways in which it is harmful/abusive/violent/&c.;

is the idea that this 'romantic' state represents something morally odious due to the ideas it might impress upon the audience about the nature of the discursive matter made 'romantic' in question.

i think it's worth breaking each of these assumptions down because i don't believe that any of them actually hold water, and i find that they in fact telegraph some pretty reactionary paradigms around literary criticism.

first is the idea that there exists discursive matter that is not "romantic," here to mean suffused with cultural narratives that render it desirable, and that the matter in question only takes on these desirable qualities after undergoing this process of "romanticisation." by this logic, the matter is in fact prediscursive; the onus of constructing a “romantic” discourse lies solely with the cultural response. when in practice, normative cultural assumptions and the media that interacts with them exist in a feedback loop relative to one another, and it surely makes more productive sense to engage with the apparently objectionable material not as an object that creates or even necessarily reifies a normative cultural standard, but that interfaces with that standard in what could potentially be any number of variant forms. this widens the scope of our response as an audience—we might well say that a depiction of XYZ was tasteless, clichéd, voyeuristic, lacked interest in the interiority of its subjects, &c. &c., just as easily as we might say that it engaged with extant cultural narratives in compelling, thoughtful, meaningful ways. we're not taking the cultural object as the didactic “creation” of a social norm—we're situating it within the norms from which it already emerged.

the second is the idea that this ‘romantic,’ aesthetically desirable construction must necessarily obscure the ways in which the subject matter is harmful (however we define ‘harmful’). i find this position v condescending, towards creator and audience alike—one way of crafting horror that can be really exceptional when done right is the total sealing-off of the narrative from any didactic intervention, any suggestion that what's being depicted is morally “wrong.” the dissonance between subject matter and audience—and/or between subject matter and creator—can be brilliant when you can have faith that that dissonance exists. audiences aren't little babies who learn our morals from our media; we're prepared to critically engage with and respond to a discourse presented to us. as i said above, doing away with this whole “romantic” sheen as an obfuscator of violence opens us up to new, more precise, more compelling readings.

the third – and imo, the most damnatory – is the suggestion that the narrative itself represents a potential site of harm due to the underlying ideology that it imposes on those who engage with it. like, we're still adopting this approach whereby we construct and engage with narratives for instructive purposes; if we see a depiction of sexual abuse that renders the abuse pleasurable, aesthetically pleasing, desirable, then we absorb this idea that sexual abuse is pleasurable and aesthetically pleasing and desirable and thus covet the position of the subject in question. i don't think this is necessarily true! i'm obviously not suggesting that we don't absorb and reproduce our cultural narratives in media – as i said in the first point, there exists a feedback loop between the two – but i think we as audiences and critics ought to think more highly of ourselves than to imagine that we are incapable of seeing some fucked up shit given an aesthetic gloss without asking why the aesthetic gloss is being used, how the creator is making use of perspective, how we might respond to it, etc. and i just don't think narratives ought to be instructive or didactic; nor do i think creators bear responsibility for how their work is received to the extent that they are obliged to orient their discourse towards a presumed impressionable individual for whom every action or aesthetic contrivance is a categorical imperative. this is the oldest and honestly the most boring debate in the book; the question of "moralism" in fiction has been done half to death by now, and i don't see any use in rehashing it to any significant extent. suffice it to say that the “moralist” approach is stultified and limited and intellectually dull.

note that nowhere in this did i say that there are never narratives that ought to be called into question for their depiction of X, Y, or Z; just that i think we need better, more precise language to defer to do when we do so. simply put, i think it's possible to make a piece of art that holds these “romantic” qualities, and doesn't have a guy walk in midway through and go “by the way, abuse is Bad/age gaps are Problematic/mental illness is Unsexy,” &c., and still greatly compel me wrt its subject matter. & that is a statement which exists in straightforward contradiction to the idea that the term “romanticise” communicates anything necessarily and inherently condemnatory about a text, so, i don't use it.

[takeme-totheworld]

Aziraphale and Forgiveness, Pt. 2: The Source of Salvation

This series is now complete! Here's where you can find the other parts.

Part 1 here. Part 3 here. Part 4 here.

(This post ended up being way longer than I intended, oopsie! And no fun GIFs to break it up this time. Hope you like reading lots of words!)

So why would Aziraphale, an angel who has not fallen despite bending/breaking the rules many times, have so much emotional baggage around the topic of forgiveness?

Some disclaimers:

Disclaimer 1: I've seen enough of tumblr already to know that "does Aziraphale really have religious trauma?/how much does it motivate his actions?" is the subject of Discourse around these parts. I don't want to have that argument here. Aziraphale's experience with Heaven has strong parallels to my personal religious history, and those specific parallels are what I'm here to talk about.

Disclaimer 2: I am not a bible scholar or religious historian, if I mention specific church doctrines or bible verses it's only to illustrate the experience of growing up in my church. My actual biblical/theological accuracy may be sloppy.

Disclaimer 3: I haven't read Good Omens the book. I know there are differences, but I'm not addressing them. All my thoughts are about show!Aziraphale and show!Heaven only.

Okay. Here goes.

The next point I want to make is that Aziraphale has spent his life inside a system that has weaponized the concept of forgiveness. Because Heaven, in the Good Omens universe, operates a lot like a particular flavor of toxic Christianity that I happen to be very familiar with.

In the version of Christianity I was raised with:

Your only purpose is to serve God's will. Our own needs, wants, goals, etc, were all understood to be secondary to that purpose.

The specter of eternal punishment is always present. Like any self-respecting Evangelical church, we believed that if you weren't "saved" before you died, you would go to Hell and be punished forever. How do you make sure you're saved? Well...

The rules are not clear or consistent, so you're always left guessing. We were a Protestant denomination, so a foundational doctrine was "sola scriptura." (We weren't fancy enough for the Latin, though, we just called ourselves "bible-based.") The basic idea is that the bible is the word of God, it's infallible, and it's the only authority we need to follow. But the bible is a cobbling-together of texts written thousands of years ago, that have been translated multiple times. It's not self-evident to a modern reader what any given passage means. It contains internal contradictions all over the place. So...the bible is the only authority we need to follow, but it's confusing and needs interpretation. Enter pastors and other church leaders to help us interpret. Only...they each have their own pre-existing biases and preferred scholarly interpretations, so even within the same church, different pastors might have different ideas about things.

So, to summarize: Follow what the bible says! Don't understand what it's telling you? Ask your pastor! Different pastors give different answers? Ugh, you're thinking about this too hard. Go pray about it or something. Just figure it out.

New ideas and experiences are, at best, begrudgingly tolerated. Because doing God's will is your only purpose, remember? And the Bible (and your pastor) are the source of the only wisdom you need to fulfill the only purpose you have. So really, you don't need anything outside what the church has to offer you and it's all a distraction anyway. (...okay, if you really must, here's a watered-down, church-approved version of the thing, now shut up.)

This isn't just the church being a buzzkill. It keeps you dependent on them and ignorant of the outside world to whatever extent they monitor and censor outside influences. My church was not even that extreme about this, relatively speaking, but it was still enough to profoundly impact me and leave me confused and floundering in the larger world after I left.

No matter how hard you try to measure up, you're ultimately at God's mercy. So you spend your life trying to follow a bunch of confusing, opaque rules in the hopes that you can be "saved" and avoid eternal punishment. But here's kicker: none of it truly matters anyway, because we were also taught that everyone falls short in the end and that the only real salvation comes from God forgiving you for your sins. All you really have to do to be saved is accept his free gift of forgiveness...by...believing the right things in the right way and praying the right prayers about it. And then spending the rest of your life still trying to follow all the convoluted rules, because doing so is proof that you were sincere...in your acceptance of God's forgiveness...which you accepted by following even more instructions regarding what to believe and how to pray to ensure that you were accepting it correctly.

How do you know if you've done any of this right? You never can, truly, until you die and find out. Because God's not actually talking to anyone. So in the end, no matter what you do, you end up in the same place: at the mercy of God, who decides whether you're forgiven or not.

If you're thinking that sounds like an incredibly confusing and exhausting way to grow up, you are correct! It also has a lot of parallels in Good Omens.

If you are an angel working for Heaven in the world of Good Omens:

Your only purpose is to serve God's will. This one is obvious. If you're an angel, it's literally the only thing you were created for.

The specter of eternal punishment is always present. The eternal punishment that can happen to an angel is falling. We know it's a punishment, because we know Crowley's fall was painful and because we can see that Hell is a miserable environment for the demons. This isn't The Good Place, where demons gleefully sit around eating snacks in conference rooms and brainstorming new fun ways to torture humans. Hell in Good Omens sucks for everyone there. And we can assume falling is meant to be permanent, because if it wasn't Crowley and Aziraphale wouldn't have been so gobsmacked by the Metatron's offer to restore Crowley to angelic status. Because there's no precedent for that. Crowley himself says that being a demon has automatically rendered him unforgivable. As far as anyone in this universe knows, "fallen" is a permanent state.

So how does an angel avoid eternal punishment? How do angels make sure they don't fall? Well...

The rules are not clear or consistent, so you're always left guessing. Was falling a one-and-done mass exile of everyone who rebelled, right after the war? The way both Heaven and Hell talk about the fall and the "casting out" of the demons would seem to suggest so. But fear of falling is obviously ever-present among the angels, so they clearly don't know for sure one way or the other. And what would cause an angel who wasn't part of the original rebellion to fall? Aziraphale thought he would fall for lying about Job's children. The archangels threatened Aziraphale with falling for "consorting" with Crowley in S1. Gabriel expected to fall for saying no to Armageddon the Sequel in S2. But none of those falls actually happened. Clearly even the angels in the highest positions of authority don't know exactly what the rules are about falling. And who decides who falls? Gabriel says the demons were "cast out" after the war, but who did the casting out? Did God handle that directly? Was it the Metatron? Did the transformation just sort of...happen, leaving everyone unsure about the details? And what about present day? The Metatron said that Gabriel would have his memory wiped instead of falling, but does that mean the Metatron gets to decide if an angel falls, or was he covering for the fact that he doesn't know how it works either?

We, the viewers, don't know the answers to any of these questions. But it's fairly clear that the angels also don't know.

New ideas and experiences are, at best, begrudgingly tolerated. The angels know little to nothing about the world or humanity and are disdainful or outright suspicious of earthly experiences. In the case of the ones who have never been sent to Earth, this makes sense, although it begs the question of why there are so many angels who have never once been sent to Earth, the planet that is supposed to be central to the Great Plan.

It's obviously, at its core, about control and keeping the angels ignorant of anything that would broaden their perspective. But listen to how the angels themselves talk about it. When Gabriel sees Aziraphale eating sushi, he asks, "Why do you consume that? You're an angel." (Subtext: You don't need to eat, so what's the purpose of indulging in this experience?) When Aziraphale suggests he try the food himself, Gabriel starts talking about sullying the temple of his body or whatever. (Subtext: It's not technically forbidden but it would be a deviation from my function as an angel so I'm suspicious of it.) And look at Aziraphale himself. He lives on Earth for many hundreds of years before he can be persuaded to even try human food, and Crowley has to work at convincing him it's okay. He seems to know it's not forbidden but he's deeply distrustful of it anyway. (I have a theory that a holdover of this mindset is why he's so set in his ways, behind the times, and still more ignorant of humans that you'd expect in the present day, but this post is already too long.) The attitude cultivated among the angels is These things are not meant for us, we don't need them, and they are a distraction from our higher purpose, so it's better if we don't.

No matter how hard you try to measure up, you're ultimately at God's mercy. So, if you're an angel, you're meant to be doing God's will, and if you fail badly enough you can be punished forever by falling. But the rules are unclear, the way falling works is unclear, in most cases you're kept ignorant of everything but the bare minimum you need to know to do your job, God isn't talking to anyone, and the (seemingly) officially appointed Voice of God is also pretty remote and mysterious most of the time.

So the only time you'll ever know for certain that you've crossed the line is once you've already crossed it, when it's too late to do anything about it. At that point, the only thing that could save you from falling would be if God just...decided to be merciful, to grant you a pardon (i.e. to forgive you) and not do the casting out thing.

Believe it or not, I had to work really hard to keep this as short as it is. If you've read this far, I salute you. Now, what's the point?

Aziraphale and the other angels are part of a system where they understand very little, they have no real power, the stakes are eternal, and their only hope of escaping endless punishment if they fail is the possibility that God will decide to show mercy and forgive them.

Yes, in the real world this is all just bullshit spread by religious leaders to scare and confuse and manipulate people into compliance and in the world of Good Omens it's actually real. But the emotional impact of feeling that confused and powerless and at the mercy of a higher authority is going to be the same. Of course Aziraphale has some Big Feelings about the subject of forgiveness. Of course it's one of his favorite things. It's not just a nice thing you do for people. It's powerful enough to rescue someone from eternal punishment when nothing else can. Powerful enough to wield as a devastating weapon by withholding it. It's a tool of control in Heaven, but it's also the source of salvation.

I was going to segue from here into what I think the specifics of Aziraphale's mindset are, but it took me so many more words than I expected just to lay out the parallels between GO Heaven and (my experience of) real-world toxic Christianity so I'm gonna stop here. Next time I'm going to dig into what I think is happening in Aziraphale's head when he forgives Crowley, and also when he does things like shelter Jimbriel (a very forgiving action, even if the words "I forgive you" don't accompany it).

[the-smut-analyst]

Making Characters That Make Sense

Walk-through character template & "how to" guide for writing complex, original protagonists.

If you google "character templates for writing", you'll get a lot of very basic examples that read like a grocery list: eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, positive traits, negative traits, etc.

And sure, filling out this kind of template isn't completely useless - but it's also not particularly useful, either. Choosing whether your protagonist has blue eyes or green eyes isn't going to determine whether readers connect with them or not.

Instead, I prefer to use the below template:

There's some fairly left-of-centre categories here, so in this blog post I'll be creating a character from scratch to demonstrate what each section means and how to use the template effectively.

Primary Goal & Raison D'Être

Fantasy Romance is having a bit of a tournament-to-the-death moment right now, with Hunger Games-inspired stories like Fourth Wing, Throne of Glass, The Savior's Champion, and The Serpent and the Wings of Night in high demand - so that's what we're going to work with in today's blog post.

The story premise and primary goal of the protagonist are almost always interconnected. In this case, the story premise is a tournament to the death - and the character's main goal is to win that tournament, obviously.

But where there's room for some originality is in the raison d'être. This loosely translates to "reason for being" or "purpose". It's the why of it.

For example: what motivated this character to risk their life by entering such a tournament in the first place?

It is sometimes helpful to look at similar stories when thinking about this category. Not so you can copy their protagonist's motivations - but so you can do something different.

The whole selfless-self-sacrifice thing, for example - that's done. At least in relation to this particular sub-genre. We can do better for our hypothetical Maera Mystfang character.

Actually, let's really turn the trope on its head and make her raison d'être incredibly self-centred.

Already, this is character is shaping up to be something a little bit different within the niche of tournaments to the death. Which goes to show how putting a little bit of thought can go a long way, even with something as simple as identifying your character's initial purpose.

Primary Obstacle

Every protagonist needs a goal - and every goal needs an obstacle. This is what gives the story some tension and keeps readers turning the page.

An obvious choice of obstacle for this hypothetical character, since we're dealing with a fantasy romance, would be that Maera starts to develop feelings for one of her fellow competitors.

This concept has definitely been done, but that's okay. Not every section of this list has to break the mould. Tropes exist for a reason and it is totally okay to lean into them sometimes.

However, just for funsies, I'm going to try and put a slightly different spin on this one too.

Instead of the obvious "I love one of the people I'm meant to kill", let's make Maera's (previously dormant) conscience be the problem. Her reasons for entering the tournament may have been self-motivated, but as she gets to know her fellow competitors - admires some of them, even - she starts to second guess those reasons.

Core Traits

A lot of character templates will divide personality traits into positives and negatives - but I don't think this is particularly helpful. It is far too one dimensional - not to mention unrealistic. The key components of someone's personality aren't usually so black and white.

In fact, most core traits are both good and bad at the same time - it just depends on the context.

Instead of being wholly positive or negative, try to think of three core character traits that can serve as two sides of the same coin, with both positive and negative implications to each.

For Maera, I've given her these core traits:

Self-reliant;

Rebellious; and

Good-humoured.

Her self-reliance means that she is incredibly capable - but it's also the cause of her selfishness. She's always had to look after herself, so she expects others to do the same.

Her rebellious attitude means she isn't willing to accept the status quo. But at times she is also a rebel without a cause, causing trouble just for the fun of it.

Her good sense of humour means she is fun to be around, but she also tends to not take things as seriously as she should.

Thinking of core traits in this multi-faceted way not only adds realistic complexity, but it also sets you up well for showcasing character development and growth throughout the story.

Fatal Flaw & Character Arc / Growth

You've probably read negative reviews that throw around terms like "Mary Sue" or "Gary Stu". People tend to be over-zealous with these terms, especially for Mary Sue, but the gist of it is that the character in question is "too perfect".

They're the chosen one, they're good at everything, all the boys like them, etc.

Some characters can get away with this just fine. Look at Aragorn. He's the ultimate Gary Stu but I still swoon every time he opens those damn doors. You know the scene I'm talking about.

Ooft.

But for the most part, you want to incorporate a fatal flaw into your protagonists - because this is what gives them room to grow.

And, no. "I was born to be King but I don't wanna" does not count as a fatal flaw.

Instead, think bigger. Think worse. Think about where your character starts versus where you want them to end up. Think about how you want the events of the narrative to change their world view - or even their initial goal.

For Maera, her fatal flaw is pretty obvious, given her initial motivations for entering the tournament. Similarly, her growth/arc is linked to her primary obstacle, which is developing a conscious.

Her journey throughout this hypothetical story might be learning to appreciate how her past shaped her, while also acknowledging that there are things she can do to ensure others don't have to go through what she did. By being shown acts of kindness, she learns to appreciate their value.

First Impression

Now that we've covered all the "big picture" stuff, let's get into some of the smaller details that give your character some texture.

The first impression category is a hypothetical exercise where you image how your character might appear to a room full of strangers. In dual, multi, or omniscient POVs, you might even get the opportunity to include this impression somewhere in the story.

But even for first-person narratives, it is still worth thinking about, because it will help to inform how other characters interact and respond to your protagonist (at least at first).

For Maera, I've written this first impression as: a fun person to have a few drinks with - so long as you keep a close eye on your wallet.

From this description, we can guess that Maera probably likes to have a good time, but also comes across as untrustworthy. Whether that impression is deserved or not is up to you, as the author, to decide.

There's also a lot of deeper directions you can take this first impression category, too. Like if most people react to Maera this way, but one particular character doesn't, then your readers are going to sit up and pay extra attention during that interaction. Especially when that person reacting atypically is the future love interest.

Spirit Animal

Ah, this one is a fun one!

I always encourage my authors to assign a "spirit animal" to their characters - especially when they're doing multi-POV.

There are two main reasons for this:

It will allow you to assign some very distinct adjectives and verbs with that particular character; and

It is an opportunity to flesh out some additional character traits beyond the core traits.

For Maera, I've chosen "spider" because she is solitary by nature, opportunistic, and patient.

But, more than that, I also like the idea of Maera being the kind of person who knows how to watch and wait. While her first impression might be "here for the good times", her joking façade is actually a mask she wears while carefully observing others.

For example:

Her words were laced with venom. She crawled her way across the rooftop. At some point, weaving lies had become more of a past time that a necessity. Her thoughts were a tangled mess. She didn't bother to conceal her predatory gaze. Inch by cautious inch, she crept forward. Her sanity was already hanging by a thread. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was spin a good story - truth be damned.

I've never outright compared Maera to a spider in these examples, nor have I made it blatantly obvious that that's what I'm doing. But by peppering these kinds or words throughout the story, I'll be able to subtly create a very distinct kind of impression for her character.

For comparison's sake, let's assign "cat" to the love interest. Examples of possible words to consider in this instance might be:

He clawed his way through the bushes. "What are you doing?" he hissed. The comment had some bite to it, that was for sure. He slunk away into the darkness. His still, unwavering focus was unnerving. He prowled towards her. In a few quick, agile steps, he'd made it across the parapet. He yawned and stretched out beside her.

Of course, not every single word you use in association with a character needs to be related to their spirit animal. But keeping a certain type of animal in mind - and finding opportunities to throw in some subtle messaging through language choice - can be beneficial on so many levels.

It helps to distinguish your characters from one another through the kind of language you use to describe them - but it's also just really, really fun way to add some bonus texture to your characters. Giving your readers some little easter eggs like this is never a bad thing.

Love Language

If you're unfamiliar with the concept of the five basic love languages, then here's a quick visual overview:

Love languages aren't a consideration that's specific to romance. They're important for friendships and familial relationships too.

Because thinking about what your protagonist values most in love is going to tell you a lot about who they are. Especially when you take the question deeper and think about why this is something they value.

For Maera, I've chosen "Acts of Service" because this ties in quite well to her character arc.

In terms of Maera's why, I could easily go with "because this was how she was shown love as a child" - and this is a good enough option most of the time. However, since her love language is very much tied into growing out of her fatal flaw, then I actually want to do the opposite.

Maera winds up valuing acts of service because this is something she craved - and wasn't given - as a child. She had to do things the hard way instead. Hence why she ends up appreciating the kindness of others so much. Such generosity is new to her - and precious.

Conflict Response

This is potentially one of the most overlooked character components. Conflict and tension is central to story telling, yet there is so little attention given to creating authentic, original responses to conflict.

The way I see it, there are three main considerations in regards to conflict response:

How your character reacts in the moment;

The unhealthy methods they use to deal with the aftermath; and

The healthy methods they use (or discover) to self-sooth.

When faced with conflict, Maera's immediate reaction is to antagonise. She doesn't like to back down and enjoys creating trouble.

However, in the aftermath, the conflict affects her more than she lets on. She stews on it - and her solution to that is to get drunk until she can forget about it completely.

But even though she sometimes forgets it, Maera has a more healthy coping mechanism at her disposal. When she is surrounded by nature - in the forest, by the sea, whatever - it calms her.

In addition to identifying your protagonist's various responses to conflict, it is also helpful to think about why. Again, this is a great opportunity to insert something unique into their character backstory.

With Maera, for example, let's think about why she finds nature so soothing. Perhaps, amidst a very bleak childhood, one of her fondest memories is of picking grapes in a vineyard.

Perhaps the elderly woman who owned the vineyard was very rude and abrupt - but also quite kind to Maera in her own way. Maybe she would sometimes stitch up Maera's clothes or feed Maera a hearty, meaty dinner - even though she didn't have to.

If you're struggling to think of a real, tangible, unique memory such as this - then it's always helpful to go back to the old classic of write what you know. Think of a real life moment or memory - something that's stuck with you, no matter how simple - then adapt it to your character.

To create this vineyard example, I simply drew on my experience of picking strawberries with my Nonna after school.

Mentor / Idol

I could write an entire thesis on mentors. Or, more specifically, the "death of the mentor" trope - both in its literal and metaphorical interpretations.

But, for the sake of brevity, let's save that sh*t for another time and focus on what's important for a basic (yet complex) character template. And that is:

The Formative Mentor (past); and

Transformative Mentor (present).

The formative mentor (or idol) is someone who influenced your character prior to the events of the novel. Sometimes they're a character the reader will meet, or other times, they're long gone before the novel even begins.

The transformative mentor is a much looser term. It doesn't necessarily have to be a traditional mentor character, but rather it is a character who heavily influences or changes your protagonist throughout the events of the novel.

For Maera, I want her earliest idol to be a random female sell-sword who she crossed paths with. Prior to meeting this sell-sword, Maera was living without hope for a future, surviving on scraps and petty crime.

But after seeing an independent and moderately wealthy sell-sword in her local tavern, Maera got a glimpse into the kind of life that might be possible if she learned to fight. With the right kind of skills, she might be able to earn some decent money for a change - and travel the world.

This is an example of how "mentors" don't always have to be a wise wizard who oversees your protagonist's training and education. Young minds are impressionable - and even distant figures can have a lasting impact.

Just look at all the women who cite Legally Blonde as the reason why they were drawn to law. Elle Woods wasn't even real - but for plenty of young girls, she made an impact.

Similarly, your protagonist's "present" mentor or idol doesn't necessarily have to be a wise wizard either. It can simply be someone who motivates them to change their world view or strive to be better.

In romance, it is more than acceptable to have the present mentor coincide with the love interest - especially in standalone enemies-to-lovers. I know this seems counter-intuitive, since the word "mentor" implies a power imbalance, but it makes more sense if you readjust your definition of mentor to be "inspires change".

However, for Maera, I kind of like the idea of pairing her up with a love interest who shares some of her flaws. I vibe with the idea of making him a bit self-interested too, although for different reasons.

So in her example, I've listed the present mentor as a selfless secondary character. The way I would envision this going is Maera and the love interest team up early on - but somewhere along the way a secondary character saves them both. They're both heavily influenced by this character before this character sacrifices themselves. The aftermath of this incident rattles both Maera and her love interest, and serves as the spark for growth.

I hope you found this template - and very long explanation - useful!

[betterbemeta]

I think AI Art exploits and degrades not just artists, but every single person who looks at it in some ways because 'how we look at art' is part of art itself.

This principle is super easy to experience as an artist. All you have to do is practice and reach a plateau where things you did before seem worse to you, that felt great at the time you made them. Your ability to see art changes as you make art, and as you view art.

It's not snobby to say that there is a low average level of 'seeing' art. There's also a low average level of seeing technical design, or seeing weather patterns, or seeing copy editing mistakes and that's why we have architects and engineers, meteorologists, and professional editors. I think a lot about this bit by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics:

Like the point here is not that 'most people are superficial', but that the surface of art is what most people are familiar with. And it is this basic familiarity that I believe AI Art exploits to fake integrity, something that even the most well-known laughably 'bad art' still technically has.

Like, laugh all you want but effort went into the surface of this art such that it appeared 'okay' to the one who made it, and to those who maybe aren't paying attention or see that its colored and shaded first, the anatomy last. It relies sort of on your familiarity with 'what art looks like' to accept it, but not completely. Someone did work to try and earn your acceptance even if, uh, it's not very good in some ways.

But AI Art relies fully on how unfamiliar you are with art. Let's call this principle 'glamour'.

At first 'the glamour' is unconvincing: this is during the AI's training. But the first 'pass' is the threshold where information builds up about how to reproduce a minimally acceptable image. This is where the glamour is set: the minimum accuracy to convince a human being to fill in its gaps. To basically capture their imagination. From there, front-end use of the machine learning model is released for general users, and it is those users who then select out of many outputs which glamour fools them most. As the other half of this system, the hidden decision-maker, humans are also 'learning' familiarity with the glamour: comparing it to not just our surface knowledge but to itself. We have left reality.

A good example of this can be seen in AI-generated pictures of fiber crafts. It's possible that traditional or digital artist might not be perfect with their drawing or perspective or coloring etc. or may stylistically push the boundaries of perspective or form on purpose. But for a knit, crocheted, or sewn piece a final product often can't exist without its craft having physical integrity:

Aside from the issues that are obvious (fake tilt shift photography with no consistent field of blur, a spaghetti yarn ball, unknown stitch on the vest, no comprehensible seam between the arm and the body, etc.) here are some things that stick out to me to knowing even a little about knitting,

The fake stockinette on the helmet is confused about whether it is completed horizontally or vertically: vertical on the headband (many hats terminate this way, so there are plenty of images to sample) but indecisive when it has to become a round hat shape.

The number of rows on the arms is inconsistent, decreasing strangely where a k2tog would never be.

There is no consistent way the hands make sense, if they are 'mittens' or if the stockinette ridges become 'fingers'.

We can't see how the bottom of the foot was finished: the left foot either began or was decreased to meet at a central point but it doesn't match the right foot and it's not clear how either foot keeps it shape.

Beyond the plagiarism of the images that went into generating AI outputs, your diminishing time to learn about/be exposed to 'things' (beyond just 'art,' anything that isn't essential to your survival) will become increasingly exploited in the future. If left unchecked, images like these will represent not only novelties or etsy scams but a large amount of people's exposure to 'things' in general. Which then leads to something like AI inbreeding (AI generating based on AI), except like... with you.

When people are more familiar with a glamour than 'the real thing', even superficially.

Exploitation of this type isn't even a new thing. It's just that AI can speed it up or extend it to new spheres. Anyone can see a physical table and think 'this table is crap' if it's poor quality because of how much we use tables and our knowledge of what tables are and should do. But I think the blog McMansion Hell actually illustrates a real, practical situation where the familiarity level with a craft (architecture) is low and standards lower to meet it. These hulks were certainly built to invoke 'glamour', but when closely inspected, they have the design equivalent of 12 fingers or bra straps bleeding into someone's skin.

Another easy example might be the excessive 'glamour' that surrounds selling cars in the USA. Very few people will buy enough cars to become more than superficially familiar with them and the amount of people who are car-related professionals is negligible next to the number of people who require a car.

Both cars and houses are expensive purchases that are made relatively infrequently, which is why their brokers and dealers can bet against a customer's average level of knowledge. But soon, many more things may become like buying houses or cars: obscured by glamour.

AI Art relies on you to be a sucker, just like how a sketchy sales rep depends on you to be a sucker. Except even worse than the sales rep, your brain is expected to not just be dumb and inexperienced, but also to get actively dumber over time from doing all the work too.

[gojosbf]

why do you think that female char are no longer well written on jjk? /genq (i am caught up with the manga so don't worry about spoilers)

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! for me all of this began with nobara's death and it went downhill from there, now see I understand it might've been important to give yuuji motivation etc but when a roach naoya get's to survive again and again after getting killed but there is no hope for nobara who was one touch kill and had chances of survival but doesn't purely for shock factor, it doesn't sit right with me.

Okay, ignore even that maybe it's my attachment to the character talking so let's talk about other female characters: most of the fandom forgets momo exists that's how useless he made her, she suffered no serious damage (not as far as I remember) and her only active role was in kyoto goodwill arc and an appearance in shibuya we barely see her after that.

Gege treats female characters as a catalyst for mcs, either they're completely useless or get killed off or even if they're powerful enough they're barely mentioned or shown doing something useful.

Example for catalyst: We literally never really see Utahime in action except in Shinjuku Battle to boost Gojo's ct. Like really? That's your semi grade 1 sorcerer and all throughout the manga that was her only role?

Example for completely useless: I already talked about momo, lets about miwa okay, she put her everything to that one swing post-shibuya against kenjaku only for him to deflect it with his bare hands and what about her after that? Nothing!! She gave up everything and now she cannot do anything, just another cheap tactic to get rid of another useful character.

Example for killed: Listen I will accept Mai's death because it served the purpose and was one of the most impressive parts but other than that? Yuki Tsukumo, the special grade, the star plasma that rejected even tengen and cornered kenjaku, her death was so anticlimactic and unsatisfactory, she was practically winning but apparently "a miscalculation" caused her death, listen I like a shocking plot twist and death but that seemed like nothing but an excuse to get rid of another strong female character because gege had no idea how he'd use her in future.

More example for catalyst: Tsumiki and Yorozu (aka the same body but!) she was such a driving force for Megumi but after Culling Game arc hit we got a tease of her (or them) and that provided more motivation for megumi to fix things to work harder to bring his sister back but instead of seeing more of her gege killed her off after sukuna took over megumi's body because her purpose was served!! Done. She was there as long as she could be used as a beacon of hope for our poor boy.

Example of if powerful then they're barely shown: Shoko and Mei Mei, we know both of them are quite capable, they've proved their worth and aside from the fact that Mei Mei is a fucking pedophile she's still a great sorcerer but now she doesn't care about sorcerers and henceforth isn't present/doesn't provide much or any help at all other than the telecast. Shoko on the other hand, we're supposed to believe that her using rct is special and she's one of the most important characters mind you she's the part of the og trio but we rarely get to see her. Even know (the up to date manga chapters) they keep talking about taking the injured sorcerers to shoko but they never !! show !! her !! in !! action !! Like c'mon she's been working overtime but SOMEHOW gege can't dedicate more than four panels to her?

Now onto Maki, the only one standing, the only female character gege truly utilised gave her one heck of goal and arc and then very conveniently forgot her for next 100 chapters. She's great yes, and gege's finally back to currently giving her the attention she deserves which I am very skeptical about because if he just kills her off in next chapter to make a statement istg...but everytime she's mentioned they HAVE to mention toji, it's almost like she'll never leave his shadow, all her achievements are boiled down to FEMALE TOJI which, don't get me wrong I love toji but she's more than that, she's a monster because she wiped out a whole clan not because she shares same superhuman powers as her predecessor and dare I say she's already surpassed toji at this point.

Let's not forget Uro and Angel/Hana whom gege brought in once for one job and then we all completely forgot about them. (I am mentioning them last because he's done this with many other characters so they're truly not an unique case in that sense)

Returning back to when jjk first was fairly new and we had these panels

it was hype we thought FINALLY!!!! she doesn't denounce her femininity but isn't used as a fan service material through them either and she's fucking nuts and strong FINALLY!!! only for gege to go well now that you've had the crumbs you're getting neither, not the pretty ones nor the strong ones and even if they're strong I am going to act like they don't exist so have fun!! And that's why I think he's really downgraded.

[scretladyspider]

saying that the aces who are sex favorable/neutral/have sex are treated like the only “valid” aces is just

wow

…no

I have thoughts and experiences and thoughts based on those experiences

here I go

sex repulsed and averse aces treat sex favorable/neutral aces like we’re just trying to appeal to allosexuals, like talking about our experiences is inherently harmful, like our very existence is harmful because they get told that somethings wrong with them and as a result become very defensive of their aceness — but instead of taking that anger at being constantly dismissed out on dismantling allonormativity and compulsory heterosexuality, the framework and expectations that harm them… they say that if you say “hey I’m an ace and I have sex, we all have different relationships with having sex, some of us don’t, some of us do”, that we’re saying that we’re the better aces and are going out of our way to appeal to allosexuals at the cost of how our sexuality intertwines with our personhood, that we’re trying to appeal to allosexuals, and it might make allosexuals think maybe they can have sex with any ace actually, even tho we never told them that and specified it was just our experience (because we all know all allosexuals are mindless sex machines who only think about sex and are never capable of respecting boundaries or asexuality, no sexless relationship between an allo and an ace could or has ever healthily existed) (that in parentheses was sarcasm)

allosexuals treat sex favorable/neutral aces like we’re not really ace, like by having, or god forbid, enjoying sex, we are invalidating our sexuality, like asexuality and celibacy are the same thing and therefore we’re not really ace, and any acceptance comes at the price of respect and understanding of who we actually are, and (often) don’t accept us for who we are because “you’re not like those other people”, so to be acceptable means again paying the price of constant insults, invalidation, and depending on the situation, much worse stuff actually

so we’re left in this weird place where we know personally it’s important to talk about it because we didn’t know what was wrong with us for so long but then when we do, our own community acts like saying “I exist too” out loud is purposely harmful to them, like we’re trying to hurt them, like it’s personal and vindictive and not just “I also exist, just differently from how you exist”

we go to allosexuals and say “hey I exist” and are met with “no you don’t” “not really” “oh, you just want to invade the queer community” “you wanna be oppressed” “you need to stop taking antidepressants” “you’re just a woman/feminine” etc etc, and depending on who/where we come out it may not be safe, and may even be traumatizing if it goes badly, a risk that is always taken when coming out, but surely our sex favorability is just to try to appeal to allos, that couldn’t be who we are

but if allosexuals who are acephobic start to loudly say “oh asexuals just want the right to not have sex, that’s not a sexuality”, THEN all of the sudden it’s “that’s not what asexuality is, some aces have sex!” and the same it’s sex repulsed/averse aces saying it when the community is being put down, all of the sudden we’re important and our stories matter and our perspectives matter and help challenge misconceptions about asexuality

which is it?

Why are we only allowed to say we exist when asexuality as a whole is being put down?

why is the rest of the time if we say “hey some aces have sex, we exist too” harming you, but then when acephobes take a swing at all of us, we’re suddenly important and it’s good to acknowledge the spectrum of asexuality and then it’s okay to say there’s a spectrum of sexual attraction and of sex favorability

why are you mad at us, not the structures and people and sex Ed and purity culture that says none of us are allowed to exist?

if we can’t fit in with other aces and are only valid in the eyes of sex repulsed/averse aces when we can be used to prove a point, and we can’t fit in with allos because we’re invalidated and treated like we don’t exist while still having an ace experience

where the fuck are we supposed to go?

you’re mad at the wrong thing; you’re mad at the wrong people

aces who have sex, aces who like sex, aces who rarely/conditionally experience sexual attraction, are not out to hurt you by saying “I do also exist”

we are here with you trying to find a place to fit in

I’d like to think you’d understand that but it seems like there’s a part of the sex repulsed/averse ace community determined to lock the door on a part of your own community

and I dunno

it just puts a bad taste in my mouth

[howgalling]

Okay can someone tell me the actual difference of a femme and mech in transformers. Because I understand it was just a kids tv show and the complex concepts of robot self perception (never mind gender!!!) weren’t really ‘a thing’ that was explored at the time and transformers was just a relatable fun mimicry of our society for cartoon purposes and to make figures for sales.

But step aside from the origins- because we have made the series more complex now, functionally it makes no sense right? What is it for now?

When I make a femme oc it’s with the intent of ‘this character has female origins’ but that doesn’t apply to transformers/cybertronians because quite frankly they are not a.. species? That use procreation to increase their population (in a way that’s relatable to us), so the concept wouldn’t even exist? On a base level as a concept. There are no ‘gender’ stereotypes when every single cybertronian has a purpose that is completely dependent on what they were programmed/made to do. Unless they tie their pronouns to what their purpose is (possible for an alien species that is not analogue, and increases caste exclusion) but do you see what I’m saying?

Now don’t get me wrong, they are plugging in and doing file transfers with intent and feedback loops (in my humble opinion) which is its own form of intimacy, but why would they have genitalia before exposure to anything that even uses sex as a way to reproduce? Unless it’s from the series with quintesson (sp?)origins, but I don’t like those implications.

I know cybertronians are made to purpose and have a nice freaky soul/spark put into the already prepared system by their god computer (have we discussed robotic religious zealotry also) that develops its own sense of the world as it experiences more and forms the conscious cybertronian over time (my theory, you learn as you grow etc. each tf is a blank slate when they become conscious. Made with a base task associated personality type that grows and changes dependent on their life experiences to adapt and develop problem solving skills. Still made for purpose- but organically adaptable, like dogs! But developing sapience like we did as we evolved on a much faster scale. It also explains why they are at risk of traumatisation which we see frequently throughout the media of tf)

So my question now looking at it from a modern perspective with all that we’ve learned, what is the use of mech and femme in transformers media, for a species that doesn’t physically reproduce with each other so would never have the concept in the first place? Genuine question not trying to sound smug.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Hey I saw your post about the legal rights of marriage. I was wondering, if you are someone who is currently single, polyam, or otherwise not remotely in a place to get married, and also someone who is estranged from their parents, is there a way to legally remove the parental relationship? I know a lot of us queer folks would be in danger if our parents were to be involved in our legal lives, and rushing into marriage is not a great solution to that.

Honestly, that would be fantastic if it were an option. But no, you cannot legally change your status so that your parents aren’t your parents anymore, at least not in the US.

And, to be clear, that doesn’t happen with marriage, either: marriage bumps your spouse to the top of the list in terms of priority but doesn’t get rid of other ties. And this is true of any blood relation: you can’t legally make your sister NOT your sister anymore, for example.

Incidentally, this is also true in the other direction. Your parents can say “I have no son” like it’s Game of Thrones or something but that doesn’t make it legally true. Even if they cut you out of their will or something, that only changes who gets their money when they die, not anything else.

Couple of caveats:

Adoption as a child usually does change filiation (who legally is in the family). The adopted kid’s new parents are their parents and the birth parents are legally strangers. And for that to happen, the birth parents both either need to voluntarily give up that right or have it terminated involuntarily. That second one only happens in cases involving neglect or abuse that are prosecuted by the state.

Parents can’t give up their rights without there being someone else to take their place. Like, a dad can’t give up his rights regarding his children unless someone else, like a stepparent, is willing to adopt.

Legal emancipation of a child (which is extremely uncommon) also doesn’t legally change who your parents are. It makes you a legal adult, but that’s it.

Adoption as an adult usually doesn’t change who your parents/kids are in terms of status. It usually changes inheritance rights but not the rest of it.

Frankly, having other mechanisms to make someone your family other than marriage would be a great idea. The point of filiation is to establish a default in case other legal documents (a will, an advance healthcare directive, whatever) don’t exist, which is why that part can’t be changed even if those documents DO exist.

Like, okay, if you die without a will, the default is your stuff goes to your spouse, and if you don’t have one or they’re dead, it next goes to your kids, and if you don’t have kids or they’re dead it goes to your parents, etc., etc. If you have a will and leave everything to charity, you’re saying, “Don’t follow that default, do this instead.” But if something goes wrong with that default-override (like, it turns out that your lawyer forged your will to make you leave everything to charity), we still need to know what the default is in case we need to go back to it.

So, having a way of legally saying, “No, I want the default to be changed” other than marriage would be great, because it would avoid a lot of the problems I talk about. Honestly I’d think it’d be cool to be able to, say, make someone your legal sibling for X purposes but not others (like, it doesn’t mean they’re your parents’ child if your parents die without a will, but it means they’re treated like your sibling if YOU die without a will). If you can split filiation and other rights in cases of adult adoption, why not with other relationships?

But we don’t have that right now, is the problem.

[mdhwrites]

I believe the villains in Owl House got screwed over because Dana disliked writing them. Belos was stripped of his complexity, ignoring his lore, Kikimora was reduced to a joke, and the Collector was transformed from a malicious, cruel person to an innocent kid who only wanted friends. It feels like Dana doesn’t enjoy writing villains.

So I don't think it's that Dana hates villains. I think it's that the TOH writers had no interest in writing an adventure series. Because of how much time is wasted, even in S2B, purely on romance and schoolkids being schoolkids (Them's the Breaks still has no point to exist after all) and how the villains are barely there outside of something to beat at the end of an episode, it kind of feels like the crew just wanted to do a magical school show which makes the supposed claim that Hexide was Disney mandated hilarious.

This actually also goes for the characters too though. A real adventure show would care about its power levels, its tricks and tools and actually showing the growth of our characters as fighters, not just as people. TOH... doesn't. Willow's big gimmick when she's first introduced is that she is incredibly powerful but can't control it. Then THREE EPISODES LATER, in the first episode that has Willow in it for more than a minute, it's resolved. Period. Until fucking S3. At that point, she is all powerful. Luz is all powerful by the beginning of S2, literally three episodes after she got her last glyph. Arguably, by Young Blood, Old Souls because she kicks the shit out of the entire Conformatorium in that one.

Even before then, most villains show up, cause a slight problem and then are quickly defeated after the character moment that the show setup with the conflict is resolved because their purpose is not as villains, it's just for the sake of it being an adventure show. Even the creatures of the Isles are for this purpose. That's also why most villains in TOH get like MAYBE three minutes of screen time at most. This would actually be okay if interesting things were being done with the characters but... Well, Luz goes through the same lesson multiple times in S1 about not taking cheats for magic and listening to Eda, almost ALL of King's plotlines in S1 are just repetitions of "Maybe don't see people as disposable pawns?" until S2 it's all "FAMILY!" until he's unrecognizable from his S1 counterpart. Then Gus has shades of self confidence issues in ALL of his episodes and never anything else. Then in S2 we have Hunter who is just mostly there in his episodes and learning constantly, "Maybe... Maybe friends are nice?" rather than actually challenging his world views and making him grow that way. That's also why I claim the show actively ships him with every girl his age.

It ironically makes the fact that TOH is so split in its identity feel like a necessity for the writers to have had more than at best two season's worth of material. With how much they recycle plot points, characters, etc. like that, of course it wastes time because it has no idea what to do with the amount of time it had.

Ignoring Belos' lore though is a different problem that has to do with his role as the big bad clashing with this, because he can't just be a slight obstacle to be overcome or else he looks like a joke like Kikimora or the coven heads came off as, but also that... Well, the show was ending.

So because they had nothing to do in S3 to keep audience interest because S2 had wrapped up too much, they leaned hard into saying "We have a complex villain, we swear," to keep people theorizing and invested in the show until the third special came out and the show went "JK LOL! We need to wrap this shit already. BYE!" Like they KNEW they didn't have the time, it's ENTIRELY on them to have focused so hard on Belos and then pulled the rug out from under everyone but...

But that's also just the normal trick of TOH. Here's the golden guard. No wait, he's a sad but mad boy, let's wrap this up. Here's a bully character who has deep ties to wanting the status quote to stay and should have a dozen anxieties about liking Luz. Never mind, none of that mattered, she's actually a good girl and has no issues getting into love besides the basic question of 'will she say yes?' Here is the ex-coven head for the EC who got betrayed and hurt by Belos while trying to just be a good sister fi- ISN'T HER TRAUMA HILARIOUS!?

If Dana disliked writing the villains, frankly, that means she disliked writing 90% of the show because most parts of the show aren't actually any better than the villains. They just got more screentime.

========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[officiallralsei]

ok since you all have been asking for it: here's my ramble/essay on Why Being A Darkner Sucks. also read this post by @tvlandofficial as a sort of starter introduction to my thoughts first since the op lays out most of the basics for me. sorry in advance for this being sorta disorganized and rambly; I slept very little last night so im just gonna blurt out my thoughts now and then maybe type up a neater and prettier version of them later for a more formal essay lol

so we all know that darkners are represented via objects in the light world. seam is a plushie, queen appears to be a specific program in a computer, lancer is a card, etc, etc. they don't appear to be aware that they are literally objects, mind, but they do believe that they exist to serve lightners and that without being useful they lack a reason to exist. a version of the toy story problem, if you will.

this is horrific for multiple reasons.

there's a lot of purely physical considerations. imagine being an object. if you break, do you have a guarantee someone will fix you? do you just have to deal with it if they don't fix you? (yes.) imagine your whole world and existence being represented by objects in a room. what if a higher being can just scoop you up and take you away from everything you've ever known? what if a higher being comes in and decides that, actually, they'd really like to smash you apart and leave you that way? or smash apart the room that is your world? you don't have a way to protest that.

then we get to the psychological. okay, so you, and everyone you know, purportedly get some level of fulfillment/satisfaction from being used. that's horrific on an ethical level (imagine being psychologically engineered to enjoy existing for someone else's benefit!) but also just horrific in general. what if being used burns you out or torments you in some way? is that possible? what if the beings you rely on to give you that satisfaction abandon you? can you even easily find happiness once those beings are gone? what would losing that purpose do to someone?

well, we get our answer, and we get it literally in spades! both the route bosses and the secret bosses deal HEAVILY with the consequences of potentially losing that purpose. spades king raging against the lightners, queen wishing to control them in some ways, jevil claiming that true freedom is found in his prison, spamton desperately and wretchedly trying to claw his way to heaven. and seam, also, with their worn body and extreme nihilism. losing the purpose that gives their lives meaning fucks a darkner up bad.

and losing that meaning... it's kind of inevitable! all objects break someday. this isn't a bad thing in the real world, since objects don't have people attached to them. we can just throw things out if we don't need them anymore. but to a darkner, this represents irreparable psychological suffering. we don't see much evidence that darkners know how to construct meaning for themselves. once the light abandons them, that's it. they're done. they can rage at it or claw at it to get it back, but ultimately, it's pretty futile. there's no escaping that fate.

so they're stuck at the whims of these higher beings. no way out of it, no real agency within it. even objects that are very loved will likely be abandoned or broken someday. look at seam! they appear to be someone's favorite plushie once upon a time! and now they're just a jaded old creature in their shop. being free of the lightners just means fading into despair. a darkner will be used, or it will lose all meaning. these two very terrible options are the only ones they have. they don't even get to pick which one they get.

there's also the level of horror that is the lightners' ignorance to all this! tvlandofficial has a really good take on it with their characterization of tenna: she worships toriel, but toriel is just a lady watching television. she doesn't know there's guys in there! and they don't know she's just an ordinary person! granted, this is a fanon take, but I think it's a really good one. it highlights the fact that the darkners are dependent on beings who are completely unaware of their existence.

(by the way, this has slowly become my favorite headcanon for why kris' side of the room doesn't have more than the bare minimum. I like the idea that kris found out about darkners, was freaked the hell out by the idea of their objects being people who are forced to serve them, and threw it all away in an attempt to liberate them. this is also the reason why the TV keeps getting unplugged - kris feels weird about using it and so unplugs it frequently. now this SUCKS as a method of liberation for reasons I've already outlined, but I quite like the idea that kris is a compassionate kid who doesn't have the best grasp on what they're doing. they canonically have a tendency to project their own struggle for agency re: the player onto other things, if the game's narration is anything to go by. they may have thought that simply stopping their usage of the objects would fix the problem, since the player stopping their possession would certainly help THEM.)

it sucks. there's no way out. ralsei, the character who seems to be the most aware of what his position as a darkner means (he knows about the light world's layout! he knows that darkners are objects! and he knows about the player!) appears to be pretty entrenched in justifying the horror inherent to his own existence, but I think it's a losing battle. being calm about unimaginable cruelty won't help you through it. it'll just blind you to your own suffering and the suffering of others. something's got to give. these characters have got to have agency.

and what will give them that?

well. I think that whatever method kris eventually finds to permanently break free of our control, they won't leave the darkners behind. someday, I'm certain, all of them will be free. what that means exactly is still up to the future of the story, but I'm very sure it'll happen. the implications of this world suck, kris' agency is a struggle that's centered, and it's reflected in the darkners. there's gonna be a payoff somewhere that frees them of their fates.

[ihopesocomic]

[Wall of possible spelling errors, my pride related]

I think the reason why people include homophonia, biphobia, acephobia etc. in content that's supposed to be about LGBT characters is to convey a form of empowerment.

Like "despite their homophobic parents X was finally able to come out and get with Z, and they've found friends that accept them" in that example it's showing preserverance it's creating a sense of hope for LGBT people still in the closet.

But then there's cases with TOO much homophobia in LGBT content, yes there are ofc sad stories that aren't supposed to end well and people watch them at their own risk. BUT this isn't the case for our lovely example MY PRIDE (I know it's referencing a lion pride but something's telling me it meant LGBTQ pride too)

I know the wlw romance isn't the 'main story' per say of My Pride, but it's the part most people talk about/ got advertised and it still takes up a large chunck of the plot.

But you see the problem is most of that plot chunk is taken up by everyone crapping on our LGBT characters. I cannot find a single supportive moment in this show where it's like "hey nothing it's okay to find other lionesses hot". The characters that are supposed to representing us get nothing but crap after crap, so any sense of empowerment they were trying to convey is killed because there's no satisfying end.

But that's just my take on it.

You are absolutely right, it was never a point of conflict for either of the characters. Like. Ever. The only time homophobia was ever a "problem" was when Proudmane said something all the way in episode 7, and even then there was no consequences for it. I will however argue against Hover or Nothing being treated badly for being gay in any capacity tho. Nothing was always ridiculed for being physically disabled. And Hover was sort of antagonized for being prideless, but that was never a personal conflict for her. And the way the two of them got together told me their love was only forbidden because Hover wasn't in the pride, not because they were the same sex. There was no context clues for homophobia being a thing and I presented plenty of times they could've included it in our review. Hell even Powerstrike was like "We don't kill our gays anymore" like what was the point then? Oh there wasn't one. You just happened to be taken over by the one Pride Law fanatic on the entire continent. Because "drama" I guess.

Just to point out to others tho, no one here argued against the existence of queerphobia in media. It has its purposes, like people recounting their own experiences, and making meaningful social commentary on it, but in most cases I've seen its about telling cishet people to not be queerphobic. Which. Sure one could argue that's a good use for it. I don't feel that way about it tho. More often than not, queerphobia exists in media that doesn't actually give a fuck about it and is just used because it's "expected" to be there, regardless of context, tone, messaging, etc.

Or my favorite argument in the case of My Pride is "it's irresponsible to not include it". Like that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. MP can't even take responsibility of its own trigger warnings, and they want to be judgmental about media that chooses to not include queerphobia? What, are people gonna /forget/ that queerphobia exists? Should people be told "Fuck you, that's reality, bitch" when they don't really wanna see it everywhere they look, cuz they already do? Give me a break. Maybe deconstruct why you think the existence of a queer person justifies the inclusion of discrimination. You can ask this same question about anyone tbh.

People just quite frankly don't know what to do with homophobia in fantasy, they just think it makes for decent plot elements, and to that I say "you're boring" and "Maybe take a creative writing course." It's especially egregious in MP because the homophobia in MP is as shoehorned in as the queer romance. (And Moonstrike's existence just creates a whole mess of questions the show has no intensions of ever answering.)

Like maybe the show didn't include any previous mention of homophobia within prides because it was never intended to be there in the first place. That would be MY guess. It would make sense since Nothing and Hover's failed Romeo and Juliet plotline is abandoned about as quickly as they get together, and served about as much purpose as genderbending the mouse in live-action Cinderella.

We've said this before, MP was stronger with the initial plotline, and including homophobia just made it unnecessarily complicated and stupid, especially since there was quite literally no consequences for it. Call me old fashioned, but discrimination in writing should have a point. - Cat

[totaleclipse573]

Can I dump some lore on yall real quick. Actually a pretty long post if you're interested but its

About Doleon, the Supreme, the Shards of Chaos, etc. Basically the beginning of it all.

Oc Universe lore has been on my mind recently (I may have talked about some of these things before, and if I have, HERES A BETTER EXPLANATION.)

FIRST, THOUGH! LITTLE WARNING BECAUSE THINGS DO GET VIOLENT TOWARDS THE END. NOTHING VERY GRAPHIC DESCRIBED, JUST A MENTION, BUT JUST IN CASE...

Before anything, the personalities and powers of the brothers, just a recap :

Akmad : The over-the-top, plays by the rules and makes sure you will too brother. NO CHAOS (fun) ALLOWED. We have a PURPOSE here and its OUR JOB to make sure we do it right. Doleon, Lorcan, no, you cannot use your energies to race around and go fast. Each "shard connection" grants them an ability to better protect them. Akmad's is light (the power of flashlight-)

Erebus : Cold, serious and secluded. He pretends not to care when he really does. His power is foresight, but its really random, and typically, no one believes him (until it happens)

Orpheus : Really silly, kind of dumb, acts before thinking. He's very kind hearted and gentle, despite his ability of overwhelming strength. The one who doesn't know whats going on most of the time but thats okay.

Ragnar : ANGY, short tempered, impatient. His ability goes well with him, pyrokinesis. (I imagine he gets angry and just starts flaring at the tips of his quills.)

Lorcan : The goofster, "I ain't gonna listen to no one," living by his own rules (or, trying to. Thanks for that, Akmad.) He can just go really fast 👍

Doleon : Doleon. Electro energy thing.

Kieran : Selective mute (except with Doleon, for some reason,) little baby man, scaredy cat. He doesn't really know his ability yet but he's made some funky purple portals once.

So to start, it all began with the Supreme. The earliest known guardian to all seven Shards of Chaos. But they've (behold, an all powerful enby entity,) been guarding and keeping their power safe from the universe for SO LONG, centuries, perhaps longer? That its negative effects start to take toll. The shards begin to corrupt them, and it takes EVERYTHING THEY'VE GOT not to go in too deep and stay morally good. But the power is killing them, they know they're going to die soon. But the Shards can't just be left unprotected. They need a new guardian. New GUARDIANS. One for each, so the power doesn't become too much to handle.

One by one, Supreme "creates" each guardian (who needs childbirth? JUST LITERALLY CREATE ONE OUT OF PURE ENERGY. They're created using shard energy, and that gives each of them their connection to a specific shard.)

The order goes, from "eldest" to "youngest," Akmad, Erebus, Orpheus, Ragnar, Lorcan, Doleon, and Kieran. They technically don't have ages, nor can age physically. They're adults in the brain.

They were created as small children, raised by the Supreme until they could handle themselves (cough cough a few months cough) HAD THEIR OWN PARENT ERASED FROM THEIR MEMORIES TO PREVENT ATTACHMENT, and then sent into this weird little "world" that only they could enter. It was really to prevent any distractions from their main goal of protecting the Shards (which is a memory they're left with. Call it destiny. They know the Supreme EXISTS, they just don't remember ever being around them.)

They specifically aren't supposed to abuse the power of the Shards. It's always been DANGEROUS AND FORBIDDEN. Akmad especially enforces these rules (he SWEARS he remembers encountering the Supreme once before…he'll be the one to enforce their will.) Of course, though, A LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time passes (remember the ageless thing?) and Doleon is kind of sick of it? Always just being told to DO THE THING BECAUSE ITS WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO. Like, what if he's a little curious? All Akmad or anyone will ever tell him is that its their PURPOSE or some crap. He needs MORE THAN THAT. Why CAN'T they use the Shards energy unless its to protect them? He's used it for fun a few times before and come out just fine! Maybe he would…experiment a bit.

So he does and the results are a disaster, obviously. He overloads on the energy, whoops.

Essentially, it takes the connection Doleon has with the energy of his shard, breaks a sort of "barrier" meant to keep him safe from its negative effects, and disguises itself as a good thing. Like look, you let me use you as a host for more power? You get more power. Simple as that. And that's what it is, he's able to use his energy without barriers. In other words, he overloads on it.

So despite how terrible he felt afterwards, when he WAS able to use it it actually felt pretty good? Like he was the most powerful person in EXISTENCE. THERE WAS LITERALLY NOTHING THE ENERGY DIDN'T ALLOW HIM TO DO. NO LIMITS! Kind of addicting, really. A little too much so. If ONE shard did all that…what kind of power would ALL SEVEN give him?

So Doleon knows he probably cant get the shards on his own. If the guardians aren't around, the little temple thingies they're secured in have slight defense mechanisms. Still not enough to keep them fully protected without their guardians, which he probably needs to lure away somehow, but still risky. He needs help. Maybe from someone who would do anything for him…? No matter how crazy it would sound to everyone else…?

That's right, I'm roping Kieran into this mess.

"I just wanna try something out! It won't hurt anyone, promise!" Oh Doleon if you knew. It seemed a little odd, but Kieran would try and be as helpful as possible!

Summary of the whole process bc its too long to describe in full : They find ways to get the shards however they can. Sometimes, it was pretty easy (especially with Orpheus…easiest one yet) but other times, it proved difficult. A few times, they even accidentally managed to activate the defense mechanisms (one of these being…particularly traumatizing for Doleon, where the temple might have sort have began to close up on him and if Kieran couldn't find a way to stop it in time, he would be killed through two walls literally colliding against his body and squashing him to death slowly and painfully. How silly. Wonder where he got that claustrophobia from.)

Little by little, the more shards they collect and hide from the other brothers, the more changes Kieran notices in Doleon. It scares him, but he'll keep going. Just…maybe keep a close eye on him. Eventually, they run into Erebus, not really paying much attention to where they're going, and Doleon just crashes into Erebus, much to the older brother's annoyance. But something happens. He sees something. A quick little flash in his mind, but still. One of what looks to be one of his own brothers still stands, he can't really see who, but the others? Nothing but shadowy, blurred corpses on the ground. When his two younger brothers have already left and he's alone again, it snaps him back to reality. Remember when I said he pretends not to care about anything? Well shit, what he just saw looks bad. REALLY bad. Someone must have…broken through, somehow. Hurt all but one. He NEEDED to prevent that. So he goes to his other brothers to tell about what he saw, all while Doleon and Kieran go about getting the last shard remaining. No one could FATHOM one of their own hurting the others…it makes no sense! Ruled out automatically.

But what if I said.

Doleon doesn't even know what he's about to do. Literally, mind disconnected from everything else. Once he decides to do what he planned to try with all seven, the shards are in control now. But it doesn't fully happen until he decides to SNAP. And when is that? During an argument with Akmad over his recent strange behavior where Doleon insists nothing is happening or wrong. The shards take over and whoops! You stabbed your brother with an energy spear straight through the heart! Cool, heres some more energy to do a little more violence to the rest of them.

You have to But you know who he snaps out of it at. Poor little Kieran, who could do nothing but watch all that time…the others all fought, so why didn't he?! Why did HE have to be the coward?! Why did HE have to be the little weakling good for nothing at all?! And to make it all worse, he HELPED cause this. He was SOOOOOOOOOOOO WILLING TO HELP! Did that make the half of it his fault?

He's just so done with Doleon now. He may be blaming himself too but Doleon killed all the rest. He's actually angry. He's never risen his voice before, but look at him now. Neither of the remaining two are themselves anymore.

He just turns away. Doleon knows he's not coming back. That hurts…but the shards tell him it shouldn't. You're all powerful now, aren't you? That's what you wanted from the start! Do something with it! Forget Kieran, forget your brothers! You never needed them anyway!

And he turns away too. Shame, they had the strongest bond out of all seven…

And for the rest of his immortal life, Kieran decides he needs to be better. Just. Never care again. And what does that turn him into, centuries later?

In the oc universe au, Kieran is in the place of :

Black Death :) Now, I'm aware that Doleon and Kieran being brothers...does not make Shadow and Eclipse brothers. But here's the thing about that, idk WHAT they are actually. Bc to that extent they aren't canonically "brothers" either. In canon, Doom created Black Death, and he created Eclipse. Who knows what that makes them. Due to that, I headcanon that "brothers" in the Black Arms is just the general familial term. Therefore, to me, it makes sense. Sooooooo...random lore drop! Hooray!

[twilightknight17]

P3R while I was gone, part 3: The False Prince and the Rainbow Disco Party

Life is good in the aftermath of the final shadow. Yesterday was a terrible battle, but I must still go to school today, etc. And after school, it’s time to celebrate!

We’re all so glad to be done with this nonsense. Even Mitsuru’s dad is here, to officially disband SEES at midnight.

I forgot Ken has never met him. XD

The only people missing are Aigis and Ikutsuki; he took her back to the lab to check up on a few things. Junpei really wants a group picture, and since they still aren’t back, we’re just going to have to take another one later.

He asks one of Kirijo-san’s guys to take the picture for us. It goes great. XDDDD

It’s getting later and later, and I like to think that Mitsuru’s dad enjoyed spending time with us. We had a good time. We ate so much sushi! And now it’s time to count down to midnight.

...well, fuck. X’D

Yeah, there was no way that was the final boss. Ikutsuki and Aigis still aren’t back, and Mitsuru’s dad is furious, because this was supposed to be the end of things. We get Fuuka to search for Ikutsuki, and she locates both him and Aigis at the entrance to Tartarus.

Ikutsuki has removed her free will to make her obedient to him. But aside from that, SEES wants to know what the fuck is going on, because ridding the world of shadows and the Dark Hour was our entire purpose, and it’s still here.

Apparently the end will come and free the world from despair! The only salvation lies in ruin!

Right. Sure. Why is everyone always trying to free the world from despair in the wrong way?

Well, that’s a bit arrogant, huh? Somehow I don’t think that getting us to kill the shadows makes you the prince. I think you’ve misinterpreted something, since the note we found in Monad said that the Prince of Salvation would be “born” after gathering all the shadows.

You, sir, already exist. Regrettably.

Ikutsuki gets Aigis to capture all of us and drag us up to what would be the school’s observatory in normal time. God only knows how you find a specific room in Tartarus when it’s constantly changing, plus, like… did the shadows not bother you and Aigis while you hauled seven people and a dog up the tower?

Not to mention, how long were we out, because how long did it take to do this?

Oh, yeah, Mitsuru’s dad came after us and wants to know what the hell is going on. Ikutsuki is very chill about mass human sacrifice of teenagers and children.

Mitsuru’s dad is NOT down with this, because he does not want the world to end, and he ends up getting away from Aigis to take a shot at Ikutsuki.

Ikutsuki gets gut shot and screams at Aigis to kill the rest of us.

Mitsuru’s dad collapses.

And Aigis looks at all of her friends, and shoots out the chains to free us.

Ikutsuki wants to know why we’re even bothering to search for a reason to live in this “broken world”. No one really has an answer for him, especially not Mitsuru, who is busy trying to save her dad. And failing.

You really weren’t.

Ikutsuki stumbles back and falls from the edge of the observatory platform, so we’ve lost all the adults who knew what was going on in one fell swoop.

It’s just us now.

But I must still go to school today?

Ah. Yeah.

Mitsuru doesn’t have any other family to deal with arrangements or the company, so… Yeah.

None of us are really okay. But there’s not much we can do at the moment. But Fuuka did dig into Ikutsuki’s computer files. He doctored that video of Yukari’s dad to make it sound like we needed to destroy the shadows, but Fuuka found the original.

This leads to Yukari’s second awakening, changing Io into Isis to symbolize her newfound resolve. That’s five teammates so far! Mitsuru, Aigis, Koromaru, and I are left. And I don’t think Koromaru gets a second awakening.

My schedule returns to normal, and I’m wandering around as usual.

I will find my Fortune! Even if it won’t be official. ^_^

Igor also wants to talk to me, but other than opening up some more special fusions, he just wants me to remember that I have to take responsibility for my actions.

Honestly, my guy, I still don’t know what fate I chose?

Or maybe it’s the fate I’m going to choose, in which case, there’s only one choice.

On the social link front, Kenji has come to a decision!

Well, I don’t know what the fuck is going to happen with you from here, but uh, good luck I guess?

Hey, who’s that over there?

Oh. Oh… Okay, yeah, you’ve just been an idiot this whole time. She was talking to her fiance.

But… I dunno, I feel like at some point she should have noticed how Kenji was acting around her and shut that down a lot harder.

Chin up, Kenji. I guess. I’m gonna go ask my weird blue cousin what she wants to do tonight.

Huh. Ken has one of those! We can talk about how the ending of season 2 was such a disappointment for the shippers.

(Also, is that a Sailor Moon reference?)

LIZ. OMG.

Okaaaaaaaay, what is everyone else up to?

...too real, sir. I’m going home.

…...not sure how to tell you, Mamoru, but I do not take the sport seriously.

ANYWAY. I guess after Featherman tonight we should head back into Tartarus. It’s the only lead we have, and there has to be a top up there somewhere. Besides, I’m gonna be busy tomorrow, so let’s go now and see what’s up with the next area. We were at a border floor before.

...wait.

Do you hear that?

It sounds like… eurodance Caramelldansen remix.

Getting closer.

I love Harabah. Oh my gosh. This is fantastic. It’s hard to see the shadows roaming the floors, but I don’t even care, this is incredible. It’s SO different from all the other blocks and it’s amazing. I’m gonna have so much fun here.

I also finally fused Decarabia, so I got a new fusion spell!

I love Star Forneus, too. <3

Tomorrow is Monday and we will go back to school and all will be right with the world because it’s November 9th and I have reasons to Scream. :D

[pokemonbiologyirlthetabletop]

Dhelmise

Dhelmise (#781)

Alganchora alganchora

General Information: Dhelmise, the Sea Creeper Pokémon. Like all ghost Pokémon, these creatures have mysterious origins that is difficult to concretely pin down with only science or only folktales.  With all folklore surrounding their origins, there is some truth to it. Between putting together maritime tales and modern scientific understandings of Dhelmise, there’s a loose agreement that the first Dhelmise was likely some weird combination of the drowned soul of a sea-farer, seaweed, and an old ship. Ghost Pokémon have weird origins, okay!? And then after this initial birthing of a Dhelmise, it almost certainly reproduced through periodic agametic/asexual reproduction processes. This tracks with modern Dhelmise, fitting with the fact that they are unable to sexually reproduce except with Dittos (and under mysterious circumstances) in captivity.

Dhelmise average at 12’10 feet (3.9 M) and weigh 463 pounds (210 kg).

Habitat: They can potentially live in any body of water that has drowned sailor souls, seaweed, and shipwrecks—or were able to migrate there from these origin sights. Yes, this does mean that they live in the Great Lakes of the world, including and especially Lake Superior and Lake Michigan in the United States.

Life Cycle and Relationship with the Food Web: Here’s the thing, no one actually knows for sure what the Dhelmise life cycle looks like. We don’t know how long they live (probably a long time), we don’t know how they reproduce except that they can, and we certainly don’t know what their mating habits are like if any. Dhelmise are rare, but this is for the best, because we do know how they interact with the rest of the food web.

Dhelmise are mega-fauna specialists. They will swing their anchor at Wailords, Wailmers, Laprases, Milotics, Gyaradoses, Mega Sharpedos, Araquanids, and Avaluggs to hunt them and devour their souls. Yes, their souls. They love eating the souls of large Pokémon because they have more spiritual energy to eat in the first place. The actual body is left alone, and these megafauna will sink to the ocean floor, to be consumed as Whale Falls. But don’t worry, before you start thinking that they’re these voracious predators driving our megafauna to extinction, they only feed once or twice a year! Well, sometimes more often than that if they’re feeding on smaller creatures.

Scientists believe that Dhelmise may be important nutrient recyclers in oceanic and Great Lake ecosystems. But what eats the Dhelmise? Why, Pincurchins, of course! Pincurchins love to eat seaweed and are the bane of every Dhelmise’s existence! And the Pincurchins are eaten by the Mareanie, and so forth.

Behavior: Dhelmise are not particularly chatty Pokémon and can be quite territorial and aggressive. This also makes them excellent guardian Pokémon for those with a need for an aquatic/marine guardian Pokémon. As a literal anchor and some seaweed, Dhelmise don’t need to put up with that much that shouldn’t be put up with.

It hunts by stretching its anchor for hundred of yards using its seaweed body, and then it drains the lifeforce of its prey by wrapping itself around it.

Interestingly, Dhelmise seem to really get along with Skrelp and Dragalge, both in the wild and in captivity.

Conservation: Unknown. They are a low abundance species but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re endangered in any capacity, but also humans haven’t really been able to accurately assess how many there are and how many is healthy, etc.

Relationship with Humans: Dhelmise exist because of humans. They likely originated from one or more of our drowned souls, and its anchors that we make that they use to hunt. However, humans and Dhelmise rarely interact. They can often be found living in our old shipwrecks, but they do not attack unless provoked. The biggest obstacle Dhelmise tend to create is the difficulty in scouring shipwrecks for archaeological purposes or treasure hunting, since they tend to be quite territorial. Otherwise, they do make excellent examples in ecology classes of the food web at work.

Classification: Dhelmise are in a taxonomic family to themselves, and apart of the “Probably Came From Human Souls Originally” Order, Anthroriginia… which means “Originally Human.” Yes, once you learn the Greek and Latin roots of scientific names, suddenly they don’t seem nearly as creative, alien, or fancy. Its scientific name Alganchora alganchora is a combination of “alga” (seaweed) and “anchora” (anchor).

~~~~~~~~

Hey guess what, if you like my stuff, this is my website where you can find other Pokémon I've written on and more information about the game that I’m slowly making! Check it out! I write books sometimes too.

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Damn now other people are starting to send asks...I need to up my annoyingness ante more /joke /lh Kazui and Amane will be the last two I ask about since you already did posts on them, and Es and Jackalope will be the next one, so as I see it the next one on the list isss...Yuno! She's currently fighting in my mind to turn my favorite quintet into a senary because one of my friends really likes her and it kinda got me to analyze her more, so I'm interested to see what you think !

Yeah I don’t why why everyone suddenly started sending asks I wonder who gave them that idea Õ_o /j /lh

CW: Abortion, sex work, suicide.

Uh… so you know when I said Shidou was the character I thought about the least? I… may have deadass forgotten Yuno existed when I said that ngl. I’m sure I’ll go insane over her when I get to analyzing her videos more in depth, but for now she’s kinda flown right under my radar. I’m sorry, I just weirdly can’t find it in me to care much about her. Obviously it's perfectly fine for others to enjoy her, and I don't think there's any major issues in her writing, it's just I can't get too invested.

I mean, it’s sorta similar to the Mahiru situation for me. It’s implied by the fact she really doesn’t seem to care about money that she was engaging in compensated dating just for fun, which… I just can’t relate to, I don’t like sex or dating. But sure, stay safe and slay or whatever.

(T1) Q20: The most expensive thing you've ever bought?

Y: What did I buy? I think a stuffed animal.

(T2) Q7: What would you do if you receive One Million Yen and you must spend right now?

Y: I'd have a nice meal with my family, then give them to my friends.

Now, I actually could sorta relate to her whole deal about always seeking “warmth” because she always gets bored of things easily (I think that’s what’s going on anyways).

(T1) Q24: Do you have a future dream?

Y: I wish I can find something I can really get absorbed into.

Me before DRDT and Milgram.

However, I just feel like it’s not explored in a very interesting way? She's not exactly Veronika Grebenshchikova you feel. Maybe I’m missing something, but “bored girl finds a hobby” is not the most compelling storyline in Milgram. Am I supposed to be scandalized by her compensated dating? Cause I’m not. I’m not gonna tell her how to live her life.

You could argue there's maybe safer and possibly better things for her to get into, but any actual discourse which could exist around that part of her story comes from the subject matter more than Yuno, if that makes sense. And I'm just personally not very informed in the whole subject of compensated dating, plus I find it a bit uncomfortable to research too much for personal reasons, so I feel like I can't fully immerse myself in it.

Which gets us to her “murder”, and I’m gonna be honest, I feel there’s some kinda culture shock thing going here. Because a big part (read: the main damn point) of her second VD is that it’s stupid we try to justify her actions for her, that we pity her without knowing the full story, that she doesn’t want to hear our excuses for being forgiven, etc…

Tear Drop: Feeling magnanimous? INNOCENT? I'm so not that

(2nd VD) Y: Even if I was scorned by you, I would have been okay with being told I'm not forgiven. I don't believe I'm not in the wrong. I'd accept it.

So she doesn’t think she’s innocent necessarily. She speaks vague on purpose, but that’s what’s she’s getting at. She thinks if we vote her innocent it must be because we’re looking down at her or assuming things about her life which aren’t true, it’s the main point of Tear Drop.

But… We don’t need excuses, Yuno. You did nothing wrong.

I usually say that as a joke, but here it’s just true. And any kind of moral ambiguity which may have existed is completely thrown out the window by the fact we’re comparing it to actual first degree murder. Girl we forgave the fucking organ harvester three numbers away from you why do you think we need excuses to forgive you? Innoing her is the easiest decision in all of Milgram imo.

Like I said, possibly a cultural issue? It’s not like I live in a particularly progressive country, but in the online circles I run in its very much accepted abortion isn’t murder. Yet, that’s not what she believes.

(2nd VD) Y: I have no intent to say abortion isn't murder. I'm a respectable murderer.

Or… does she?

(2nd VD) Y: To the extent of understanding the feeling of actually taking a life... I couldn't feel that that was a life. A discomfort and…the sensation of a foreign body….

Girlboss make up your mind.

The point is that she even regrets what she did, and wishes she could have prevented it.

(T2) Q10: If you could turn back time, would you commit the same murder once again?

Y: I'd make sure that I won't have to commit it. That's it.

In any case, I hope I'm making some amount of sense, and I can get across why I struggle to really get invested in analysis of her. Sorry.

Of course, voting isn't the only aspect of Milgram, but I also just don't find her personality and character arc all that interesting. Personal opinion, I don't think it's badly written or anything, but I just find it significantly less interesting than other characters.

That said, the most interesting thing to me is that she might be dead?

Y: Oh! Also, that reminds me, there was one thing I'm curious about. Es: What? Go ahead and say it. Yuno: Am I…really alive? Es: That's…what do you…. Yuno: Hm…if you don't know, then it's fine. Es: Yuno…. Yuno: Hey, it's time, right? Es: Y-yes. Prisoner number 2, Yuno. Sing your sins.

That's peculiar. Given the Haruka suicide theory I brought up in my post about him, it's definitely a possibility she's dead. It's possible she went through an unsafe abortion, given this question:

(T2) Q20: Did you hate the person you killed?

Y: It was too much of a pain to for me to think about anything.

So there's potential death one. Potential death two is her Undercover silhouette shot.

Given I have no idea what the deal with this scene is, it's possible she jumped from here? I guess she does fall from stairs at the end of Umbilical, although she lands upright, though maybe that's her landing in Milgram? The issue with this suicide idea is this answer:

(T2) Q17: How many years do you want to live?

Y: About 40 years would be just right, I think.

... Okay, well, that's a concerning answer, kinda wish we got a bit more insight into what the deal is with that, but the point is she's currently not forty, so.

Anyways, that aside, I don't know what else to say. Yuno really hasn't rotted my brain as much as the other prisoners, so, uh, sorry I can't go any deeper atm. I feel kinda bad I can't say anything more positive since you clearly like her (_ _). Hope it's alright! Take care!