#which i also thought would play more largely into the plot. like for instance. the house burns down or his family is caught in a house fire

[vicsuragi]

okay i finally watched an episode from the correct season of ordinary lies and i am so fucking confused that was such a 90 degree turn they took in the last 10 minutes.

[grif-hawaiian-rolls]

Anyways the “essay” about the energy sword to character development pipeline below the cut

Ok so like yea tucker-crunchbite-junior is, obviously, the first instance of the sword-quest-companion theme/trio that im like, rattling in my head rn

Tucker finds the sword, crunchbite shows up and theres the “quest” that challenges tucker both in the false intent (you need to be the hero) and the true intent (SA leading to Junior which is not handled well but it IS important) which is a push against tucker’s character thus far in that he’s the comic relief, make everything a sex joke archetype— he doesnt take it seriously, he doesnt see himself as important beyond getting just enough recognition to be “hot” and now he’s made to be the so called “hero” and the true plot puts him in the one position that he probably never thought could be him. Bc he wants to get laid so… yeah. Pushes his character if you give it like three seconds of critical thinking and not just the standard “haha alien baby bullshit” (that said, i do enjoy fics that explore crunchbite more and play with the potential of the “joke” shitty character into someone less sinister, but im doin my best to stick to canon rn)

And JUNIOR, oh man, because theres the thing that really solidifies this for me like

The dude who doesnt care doesnt bother is all jokes and ‘man whatever’ energy is a dad, and it starts with him trying to avoid it but he really fucking quickly steps the FUCK up for Junior and its the start of his development that people are like “oh he learns to be a leader on chorus” which i mean kinda yeah but he never struck me as a Leader even on Chorus even tho he does decidedly lead, its not the same as when kimball leads or when wash leads or carolina

He’s leads as a dad bc he is a dad

Not always a good one, but he’s trying and yea sometimes that means being the asshole, sometimes that means screwing up but it also means you fucking care and you take responsibility and you put yourself in danger first (the rescue mission, leaving the lieutenants behind)

And that doesnt start on chorus! Its the most evident there sure but

it starts with junior

It starts with him going after tex to protect his son, it starts with him trying to be a diplomat so they stay together, in sending junior away so he is safe while tucker buys time protecting the temple, it STARTS with him looking at church and going “leave my kid out of this” and yeah the way rvb was written and approached does Not take that seriously bc it wouldnt and if it did it would be a very different show but the implications are there and its acknowledged with tucker’s photograph of junior with his 5th grade basketball team (“i know right? Who carries actual pictures anymore” -tucker) which i could go on about THAT too but suffice to say its very clear that tucker cares so gd much about his kid and yeah his character development isnt super linear but you can basically pinpoint when it starts with the sword and junior

The second run of this trio of things is actually grif which is admittedly, a stretch, a big ol reaching for straws (okay, TECHNICALLY grif is the third run, but i’ll address that in a minute) largely a stretch bc grif… does the pattern backwards

This IS S16 stuff so if ur a shisno paradox hater i respect that, i however am gnawing on it with everything i have and will be going feral so this is your warning thank u for reading the tucker side of it mwah appreciate ya

Anyways

Grif does his plot backwards during timetravel shenanigans

He gets the alien companion/friend who contrasts his character first in Huggins

Grif is a loyal friend, but he is lazy, even after s15’s breakdown and apparent change of tune, he’s still looking to take the path of least resistance, avoiding the call, trying to keep things from moving

Enter Huggins: zippy, full of energy, excitable and just so different in that she is not only so proactive she puts herself in danger (which helps everyone in the long run/plot but its the principle) but shes so fucking lonely

As far as she knows, her family is dead, except for muggins who is so dettached from her, he might as well be a coworker and not her brother

Compared to grif, who has a family even when he tries to push them away (the reds, the blues, KAIKAINA) but hates taking action

Huggins is the start for grif’s arc of “it sucks but someones gotta do it” which in their case is best shown as the trudge across the bottom of the english channel which is so fucking funny to me but it really pushes both of them and puts them firmly in the friends category

Huggins cant zip ahead without grif, grif cant stop moving because huggins wont let him, so they find their little balance of gas vs brakes and together they cruise along p well

The actual push of the “quest” is grif having to be the one who steps up (kinda like tucker but its to the left) he’s the one who starts getting everyone together again across the timeline, even if he is very,,,

Well he’s very Grif about it, but it is still fundamentally, the change in character

Tucker isn’t a always good dad, Grif isn’t always a good instigator of action

But theyre trying and theyre working on it and grif’s arc suffers a Little from being so late in the show and thus not having much of a parallel to pull on but you could argue he gets the parallel from s15 anyways with the refusal of the call (from fake church/loco) and rescue mission but i hesitate to call that a parallel bc its literally back to back but an argument could be made for it which i love

Enter part two: the alien quest giver

“Wait wasnt that huggins”

NOPE huggins was alien companion! The Bestie in grif’s case,

The alien fetch quest comes from atlas, in that stupid wishing sequence but cmon it wouldnt be rvb if the character development wasnt sandwiched inbetween obnoxious gags and stupidity

The quest is less important here admittedly bc again, with grif doing this in reverse its not the challenge to his principle character that it was for tucker, his connection to huggins was the challenge, and this becomes the final push into the development, the “you have a role, now play it” that gives grif the final shove into Doing Things literal!! And his prize? For this character development arc? An alien sword

And thus the inverse version reaches an end, sort of (im pissed that technically he loses his sword, im also ignoring that he loses it in canon bc he fucking earned it okay this is a bit of canon i will ignore and loophole my way around it)

And now we track back to Chorus and to the second iteration of the sword-quest-companion plot

Locus

Now okay i will admit this is conjecture and pepe-silvia-on-corkboard-with-red-string fuckery at this point but hear me out okay!

He gets the sword with Felix’s death. We know this. What we dont know is how the fucking hell he gets off Chorus! We just see him show up later with A’rynasea. The vaguely alien (maybe sentient?? AI? Its implied with the way he addresses her but we literally have her for like two episodes) ship that seems to be the driving force (literal) (bc shes his ship) behind his chosen redemption arc where he pushes himself to help others at no apparent benefit to himself, but because it is, and i quote “the right thing to do”

Arguably, Santa could be Locus’ quest giver, seeing as how he is the one who triggers the whole shift in view for Locus in the first place and that is, technically, what crunchbite does and what atlas finalizes for grif! But the problem is we simply dont have enough of A’rynasea to draw the parallel between her and Locus as personalities, as companions for it to work for me??? But that might just be me overthinking? But it does make Locus’ version is a bit messier depending on who you consider his quest-giver but as far as I’m concerned, he’s still on his quest snd its just up to interpretation if A’rynasea is his companion?? or if theres a secret third alien for Locus that we never wouldve seen even if they planned for that bc its red vs blue and im just delusional about locus and his role in plot and this is just me firing concepts blindly into the sky at this point like - yeah i could still theorize what kind of companion characterization i think locus would work well with bc its more about the wielder than the companion in this sense (sorry junior and huggins i love yall i promise) but thats a completely separate rant at this point and not nearly coherent enough at this exact moment to add it PLUS its ridiculously self indulgent and only marginally canon compliant/adjacent but i will never not be amused by this very specific plot beat happening enough to draw these parallels, as tenuous and vague as the parallels are

[blueskittlesart]

i see discussion abt the traveler in the notes of a reblog and i think it’s very interesting you say that bc honestly i think it’s the amount of disconnect present in The Twins Themselves and The Player that intrigues me but also intensely frustrates me. it feels like “the traveler”/you as a person playing the game and lumine/aether/the twin chosen are two separate entities and honestly that could be Really interesting if it was acknowledged and could fit in nicely with some of the vague themes of otherworldly/fourth-wall breaking stuff and personal autonomy they’ve got going on. but Nope! i think this is yet another issue of the Gacha Mechanic too in a way bc honestly all of the instances of x character bonding with The Traveler ends up pissing me off REAL bad lmaooo. i would much rather there be some kind of genuine distinction in the twin’s dialogue too bc the whole idea of. “oh this character you are playing is Their Own Character but also they have the exact same story interactions and dialogue as their twin” is just. Eeufhhh. maybe this is just a lot of personal issues i have with the setup because i am someone who not only enjoys lore but also characterization and character interactions with other characters and the world around them and i am not a fan of when a You The Player character is thrown into that. sorry for dumping this here i just need to let out these thoughts somewhere

I think what it comes down to is that on launch hyv was worried about player immersion but reluctant to commit to a true silent protagonist. in most actual gameplay, the protagonist twin functions as a silent protagonist, meaning a blank-slate character with no autonomy, completely at the mercy of the actions the player chooses for them. (the only exception to this rule is A-plot quests which directly involve their sibling.) But in the A-plot of the story at large, the twins, regardless of which one you choose, are NOT blank slates in any sense, and that's what leads to the disconnect during gameplay.

Silent protagonists are a method of storytelling unique to video games and they're specifically a vessel to further player immersion, the idea being that a player character whose backstory and personality are unknown or nonexistent is much easier to insert one's self into, thus creating a more immersive experience for the player. I think that this was probably the original intent behind the twins, at least to a certain extent, and is likely at least part of the reason that hyv is still keeping all their story cards so close to their chest--the more we learn about the twins, the less our chosen twin functions as a silent protagonist. In a game with so many playable characters that AREN'T blank slates, hyv may have worried that having no designated player-insert character would break immersion from the get-go. However, the story planned for the game at large relied on a protagonist that was, from the very beginning, NOT a silent protagonist. the twins have personalities. they very obviously have backstories and pre-game relationships with each other at the very least. they have NAMES. The fact that genshin has you 'name' your character who quite literally already has a canonical name and gives you no reasoning behind that is one of the most glaring examples of this weird inconsistency in the writing imo. It almost seems like they want it both ways. they want a perfect silent protagonist for player immersion, but they ALSO want a protagonist who is tied up in the story because of their history and relationships and personality. and it doesn't work, because those two things are fundamentally incompatible. you cannot allow your players unlimited choice in the actions, thoughts, and feelings of your playable character while also requiring that character to make certain choices and have certain feelings and relationships for the story to progress. The result of attempting to do both is a story which promises unlimited choice to the players and then jerks them along in one direction anyways, which only results in frustration and immersion-breaking. there are plenty of ways to do a non-silent protagonist in a video game without sacrificing the player's experience, but what genshin has done is given us this weird worst-of-both-worlds combo that just. does not work.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Hiii, I really love your ATLA analyses. I'm genuinely interested, what can you say about this take? I mean, it sounds pretty logical, and I'm really interested to know what objections there might be to that view of EIP?

https://www.tumblr.com/writer-rider-dirty-thirties/744225630324965376?source=share

There's a few main things that meta like this one, I think, miss out on. That said beyond the two paragraphs I'm not really discussing their meta in particular. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but it does play into why I think EIP gets blown out of proportion while ignoring the more... grounded subtext there? Which is what the rest of the meta response here is about as follows. Please refrain from sending me specific metas in the future - discrediting other people's work is not what I'm about, even I don't necessarily think it's always well argued.

They acknowledge the Doylist perspective... and then completely ignore the actual, textual Doylist perspective they have going on. The writers' intent was to, very evidently, use Ember Island Players to acknowledge their own and fans' reactions to the show (which is why the Great Divide, an episode that the writer of EIP wrote, gets the shaft in the play) by exaggerating and making fun of their own characters and plot points. Grounded in their portrayals yes (Katara does indeed make speeches about hope) but so heavily distorted; just look at how they portray this Katara and Jet, who are completely remorseless about drowning a town ("Oh Jet, you're so bad~").

But the distortion is key. The play pretty glaringly says "Canon Katara would never like Zuko" or vice versa, "because to do so would be a great distortion of her character and characterization." Furthermore, for Katara to only see Aang "like a little brother, and that you don't have feelings for me" is also a distortion, which is why Katara outright states on the balcony, "I didn't say that. An actor said that". It's also worth noting I think that the play itself also erases Aang's romantic feelings for Katara ("I wouldn't want it any other way!"). He doesn't make his feelings plain and be rejected in the play; they just don't exist. So even the play itself isn't saying that there's a love triangle, they're saying that a distorted version of these characters would feature a Katara and Aang that don't have feelings for each other, and a Katara and Zuko that would.

Now, I don't think the play is meant to be that dismissive of fans, either. Like I said - it's meant to poke fun, and the ZK faction had always been quite large and vocal. The crossroads of destiny and its associations with Oma and Shu (which serve the basis for Kataang's love theme) are the bulk of what the ship tends to stand on, 'canon' wise. It makes sense if you're going to do a ship tease with them to do it there, and it's also the last instance you can really make actor Katara 'like' anyone.

It's also a misread to assume Aang would get this angry over jealousy, as well, given that Katara was very obvious with Jet both times, and Aang was very sparingly jealous in Book 1 and only slightly so in Book 2. EIP is one of the rare instances where Aang projects onto other people, a trait more usually seen from his friends.

What makes him upset - and we Know this, because he repeats it outright when they actually Talk about it - is this exchange between actor Katara and Zuko:

EIP!Zuko: I thought you were the Avatar's girl. EIP!Katara: [Laughs] The Avatar? Why he's like a little brother to me. I certainly don't think of him in a romantic way.

That's what makes him potentially upset, which fair enough: it can be upsetting when someone doesn't like you back, especially when Katara previously has given plenty of indications that she does. But he's not mad at her on the balcony. He doesn't take his frustrations over her not seemingly returning his feelings out on her. He's mad because Katara can't, or won't, give him a straight answer.

Aang: You said that I'm just like a brother to you, and that you didn't have feelings for me. Katara: I didn't say that. An actor said that. Aang: But it's true, isn't it? We kissed at the invasion and I thought we were going to be together, but we're not. Katara: Aang, I don't know... Aang: Why don't you know?

AKA "if you don't like me, which I just gave you a perfect out to acknowledge, can you at least confirm it for me?" And she won't even do that.

Katara is usually a very openly emotional person, which is why when it comes to whether she has feelings for him or not (and he has very good reasons to think that she does, given if you remove the Aang's POV we see, Katara is wayy more obvious with her affection than he is), it's accordingly frustrating that she won't just come out and say it. When does someone like Katara hold back? Well... normally when she's concerned about Bigger Things (i.e. not initially pushing with Pakku because Aang learning waterbending is more important to her) or when she's not sure what to do (when Aang rejects her comfort in The Serpent's Pass).

Conversely, his feelings for Katara also makes Aang more likely to stop evading or dodging and to stick his landing. He's the one who tries to confess on two different occasions. He's the one who kisses her first. And he's the one who wants to actually discuss their relationship now. (These are all reasons why I think, if they ever did break up, Aang would actually be the one with the guts to say it out loud, just FYI.)

Alternatively, if we wanna talk about Framing, let's talk about the actual balcony scene, namely Katara's dialogue, and the placement of the moon:

Not only does this balcony scene take place on a balcony like their infamous finale kiss, with parallel framing of Katara walking up behind Aang and seeking him out to talk (if Katara hadn't approached him, it's likely neither would've happened either time) but like

When Yue finds herself in a similar situation with Sokka - a young man she loves, has kissed, but finds herself unable to be with for a variety of reasons - she says almost beat for beat what Katara says here about her feelings and reasonings for wanting more distance. But like both Yue and Katara say, there's more important things going on:

I say this because everyone ignores the aspect of Katara's bond with Aang that is informed by her own trauma and fear of losing people. Aang kisses her because "What if I don't come back?" Katara literally watched him die and brought him back to life. She watched her father mourn her mother and Sokka mourn Yue (The Swamp), which the play likewise gives her an ample reminder of. She watched Jet die too. Katara has faith that Aang will be different ("I knew you'd come" from CoD and "He's gonna come back; he has to" in Sozin's Comet) but that doesn't mean she's not scared. Everyone else going on is complicating her feelings for Aang, and that's perfectly valid -- but like I said, it's a 1 for 1 with Yue.

Which is why she kisses Aang first after the war, on another balcony, because now it is the right time.

This isn't even touching on the in-universe canonical reading of EIP being Fire Nation imperialist propaganda, but that's a meta for another day.

Not to mention: EIP also teases Zukaang through Aang and the Blue Spirit, has them similarly react in distaste, you can equally read Zuko wanting to sit in between them as wanting to sit next to Aang, and Zuko and Aang's dialogue is a lot more ship teased in canon, Anyway.

June: What happened? Your girlfriend run off on you? Zuko: It's not the girl I'm after. It's the bald monk she's travelling with.

Zuko doesn't even correct June for implying a romantic connection, only who he's looking for (love you Avatar "Zuko I want you to dance with me" Aang).

I also personally think that basically any episode that has 'strong' Zuko-Katara subtext actually has far stronger Zuko-Aang subtext, but that's a meta for another day.

I do always think the ZK fandom is a fascinating example of what can happen to a fandom when they only have maybe 5 episodes to work with, nor does ship teasing make something implied canon, otherwise The Dragon Prince (also created by Aaron Ehasz) would have a very different endgame ship (to the point that every Soren/Rayla shipper I've seen also ships ZK, funnily enough, because neither of those are remotely canon).

People have gotta stop taking the bone they're thrown and acting like it's a feast.

[pinchraccoon]

Pinch Reviews: Castlevania: Nocturne

I watched the new 8 episode series from Netflix and Powerhouse Animation, Castlevania: Nocturne. Nocturne serves as a stand-alone sequel to 2017's 4 season "Castlevania" from the same production hands.

While this Tumblr blog is to keep my followers up to date on the games that I've played lately, I have been slacking on my reviews and I am hilariously behind. This is to say, since my initial playthroughs of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, I've engrossed myself in the Castlevania series wholly, having played a total of 8 games in the series this year, and watched the initial series as well.

This review will come from someone who holds the games in very high regard, and *particularly* the stories and characters of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night.

I'll be starting with a largely "spoiler-less" review of the series for those who would like to watch it, and it'll consist of about 1 paragraph of text.

Castlevania Nocturne is absolutely unrelated to Castlevania at large, with only tangential thematic or plot themes that connect it to the series' larger identity. While some might point to the presence of Vampires, Belmonts, and magic and say "well what else do you need?" I find many aspects of the series' identity in campy fun, but interesting and thoughtful instances of character writing the likes of which are seen in games such as Lament of Innocence and Aria of Sorrow, as well as the immense colorful, high-contrast visual style present in Castlevania media since the *very* beginning as elements that I lament the lack of presence of. At numerous points in the show, I thought "Why is this Castlevania? None of this is related to anything Castlevania? Why not just make an original property?" Which I personally find to be a damning sentiment, but I cannot fault the show for that which it doesn't do. To longtime Castlevania fans, you may find the show somewhat underwhelming. However, on a more general term, the show features more instances than not of choppy, flat animation, flat character writing, an irritating dialogue style, and underwhelming gore elements. However, they do *some* good things! There are a few characters who I could see viewers latching onto, and there's occasionally something cool that happens.

With that out of the way, I'll now be entering my *Very Spoilery Review*

First and foremost, Castlevania Nocturne's premise, while not completely and inherently distasteful, nor impossible to do in a way that's interesting, is done incredibly distastefully and uninterestingly. I am referring specifically to Nocturne's insistence on hilariously, absolutely wildly evil Vampires who "run the planet" essentially, who are motivated to put down the French Revolution because the existence of Democracy threatens the ease of the Vampire elite to control the Royalty of the world. I expressly don't think that this is a dumb, uninteresting, or distasteful idea inherently, HOWEVER, due to the nature of Vampires existence in their original literature and folk lore implications, it's incredibly easy to see the anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant inherent themes of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" all over it.

Again, I'd LOVE to see an idea such as this executed properly, however that isn't present here. Here's why. Nocturne features a cast of characters whose motivations are all in some way or another related to incredibly flat vampire characters who do nothing but kill for their entertainment and pleasure. I'm not calling for a reason to not kill the bourgeoise in the French Revolution, I just want a reason to latch onto the motivations of the characters in a way that isn't just "they're a different species than me and are also doing like, slavery and taxation and stuff and they killed someone close to me." Genuinely, EVERY SINGLE main cast member has someone who was killed by one vampire or another in the past, and while that works somewhat to unite the heroes emotional issues such that they can support one another (theoretically) it serves to illustrate the entire, sentient, living, vampire "species" as comically evil, wildly uninteresting, and most damning, caricatures of marginalized people being blamed for controlling all of human civilization. Which, to spell it out more blatantly to avoid the lack of nuance present on the internet, becomes uncomfortably synonymous with long-running theories of jews, or "lizard people" controlling government institutions.

I want to compare to Castlevania's own interpretation of Dracula as a way of demonstrating a "controlling vampire" done Right. Dracula has *very specific* *very pointed* origins and motivations that make him a far more compelling, and more than that, HUMAN, character who has a degree of feeling, despite the evil that he performs. Dracula does what he does because he's hurting, and he feels as though the world has turned and left all it's goodness behind, which, in his eyes, is the truth! It's not that he wants to control all of humanity, it's not that he wants to be worshipped as a god, it's that he just has beef, like people do.

Few to none of the vampires hold that same quality of "beef" in Nocturne. Most of the vampires don't speak, save for a few main heads of their movement, however, even these heads hold hilariously overblown, stupid, uninteresting, unsympathetic motivations that JUST serve to make me hate them on the notion that they're Objectively evil. Like, OF COURSE, I hate the Caribbean slave-owner vampire, and OF COURSE I side with Annette on hating him. He was a slave owner? Duh? You don't need to provide a thousand other scenes of the man being just flat out cruel in the interest of making me hate this man More. Half of his lines are belittling Annette, the other half is justifying slavery, and I'm not exaggerating.

Or, perhaps, consider the "main villain" of the show, Bathory. She's built up as "The Vampire Messiah" for FOUR EPISODES before we actually see her, and then when we do, FINALLY, get to see who this OVERWHELMING threat is, she just laments about, get this, HATING THE SUN. Of course she hates the sun, she's a vampire! That's the actual lamest conceivable motivation. Not to mention, she's insufferably annoying and isn't remotely entertaining to watch, nor are we ever sold on her power to any degree whatsoever other than a bunch of side characters saying "ah, well, she drank the blood of the Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet, so she's pretty strong, we would die for her." When your allegory for the ruling class is this comically evil in the "killing and maiming people" way as opposed to the "capitalist allegory" way, it reads as really wildly uncomfortable.

To summarize the last point, because of the commitment to making each and every vampire character comically evil, and the premise combined, it easily reads far too similarly to monster literature of the past which would seek to conflate the evils of the monsters in question with a specific demographic of people, which is uncomfortable to watch, and rather distasteful to write.

But my distaste for this show doesn't end there!

I'd like to discuss Annette. A lot of people are getting mad regarding "race swapping" or "omission of character in the interest of wokeness" which I think is a load of shit that I couldn't begin to entertain. I am not perturbed by the same things that those people are. Instead, I feel that the explanation of Annette and Edouard's backstory is incredibly poorly paced, and above all, gratuitous in their depiction of black generational trauma.

Annette in this series is an escaped slave who comes to France in search of a Belmont in order to hopefully be able to kill the Vampire Messiah who was foretold to increase the scale of the institutions of slavery that Annette had been fighting against for her entire life. I actually really like her motivation and how it reflects very real attitudes of Caribbean revolutionaries regarding how they felt about the French Revolution. But my main issues with the communication of her motives comes in the gratuitous depiction of a slightly dramatized form of the *very very real* trauma of slavery. This isn't like Toni Morrison's Beloved, or even something like Django Unchained, both of which don't shy away from detailing slavery in as gruesome of detail as possible for the purpose of demonstrating character as well as history. Nocturne demonstrates slavery comically, as it attempts to roll it's own fantasy elements in the same breath as their real-world slavery depiction. For example, the reason that Annette's mother is killed isn't related to the injustices of the notion of slavery in general, it's instead because her mother was practicing magic. I find that these elements in conjunction with one another create a dissonance that puts a bad taste in my mouth, all for the only real payoff to be such that Annette is knowledgeable of, and holds hatred to, the institution of slavery as well as magic.

It isn't a BAD thing to discuss, depict, or have subject matter related to slavery, that's absolutely not what I'm trying to say. What I feel that the issue here is is that a significant amount of the information and cruelty shown could have been omitted and the viewer would have the same understanding of Annette's character. Because they committed far more to demonstrating than was necessary for what elements they were attempting to explore, the incredible commitment to demonstration of black generational trauma feels gratuitous and somewhat cruel. Sorta like the writer is holding it over your head like "hey! you! did you know that slavery is ALSO bad when vampires do it? let me show you some just TERRIBLE subject matter to let you know!" Like, yes, I knew this already, slavery IS evil and is perhaps THE MOST evil, so we were already on the same page here.

This concludes my largest issues with the show from a standpoint of legitimate mishandling of social issues and sensitive subject matter, the rest is more about the show in general.

I don't entirely dislike the way that Richter is written on the macro scale in Nocturne, I feel that his very real connection to the Belmont Clan and the depictions of his mother Julia Belmont, as well as his grandfather, Juste Belmont (who I felt happy to see), was very interesting and worked to the themes. BUT: On the individual, what the character says level, I find Richter SO annoying. This is related to a larger dialogue writing issue with the show in general, which is the inclination to curse like a third grader who has just learned of what swearing is. The number of times that a character uses the term "fuck" or "fucking" purely to provide unnecessary emphasis to their sentence that was perfectly good without swearing comes of as flat out cringey. Now, I swear a lot! I'm not *against* swearing! But the way that Richter and every other character is written makes them all feel unbelievably annoying. Heroes, villains, everyone says "fucking" like it's going out of style! So much so that I might propose a drinking game where you take a shot every time there's an unnecessary use of the word "fuck" in a scene. Granted, I can guarantee you'll be wildly hungover the next day, so I can't recommend doing that.

One particularly damning scene is Richter's moment of personal growth this season, realizing that he has to fight with the whole of him to protect those who he loves, and has a cool fight scene with a bunch of vampires, in which he then says This:

GENUINE COP OUT. I cannot stress enough how every single character's childish inclination toward being edgy by swearing undermines every single character.

I'm beginning to ramble somewhat though, so let's touch on a few things that I think were good and bad, but don't have a ton to say about before we wrap up.

-Drolta is a cool character, and genuinely should have been the only main villain of the show. I also adore her character design.

-The action scenes lack interesting gore, which I felt was a overwhelming positive of the 2017 Castlevania series.

-The monster designs (and show in general) lack color, and it feels like a deliberate attempt to push against the legacy of the source material.

-The animation is excellent when characters are using whips, but very jarring in scenes of standing and speaking, or even in the use of magic.

-Tera is an awful mother figure character and I felt nothing when she was turned in the finale. It doesn't help that they only drew her face twice and copypasted it between scenes it feels.

-The romance plot between Richter and Annette appearing at the end of the show is the Most Forced shit I have ever seen, almost like the writers forgot that they were love interests in the original and decided that of All of the things they had to include that that was INDISPENSABLE.

-Richter, Annette, and Maria's dynamic as a group barely exists beyond each of them calling eachother "Wankers" "bastards" and other terms of endearment. It's a hollow and ineffective means of emulating the good writing that Trevor, Sypha and Alucard had in the 2017 series, and was that show's highlight.

-I like Edouard's arc of being a monster with a soul, and it DOES help to begin to demonstrate the theme of "the lack of absolutes in good and evil", which I'll discuss later.

-Olrox is excellent. He's written well, his motivations are kept close to the chest, and he's genuinely intriguing as a character. I quite like his motivation, I like his design, I like his voice, no he's great. Best part of the show, honestly. (and the only evidence thus provided [save for alucard] of a "not completely evil" vampire)

-again, the commitment to every character exaggerating their sentences by cursing like a child is unbelievably grating.

My final point is one related to whether or not I think that in it's current state the show is worth watching. Generally, with shows, I prefer that the show have some sort of thematic relevance that reflects the progress of the story, and while I can somewhat see elements of that being shown in the "absolutes of good and evil" theme explored by the Abbot, Olrox, and Edouard, nothing is actually done with this theme, and it only comes into contact with our main cast in the finale. As such, these themes are only seen in the same way that dramatic irony is set up, but not executed on. Because of the half-execution of this theme, I feel that the show feels hollow thematically, and feels as though absolutely nothing happens or changes for a single character throughout it's runtime.

In some ways, this show being 8 episodes is really fitting, as it feels like in any other anime when you watch a show to episode 8 and then stop watching, but in this case they didn't release or make the rest of the season, which will likely be released later on in a "season 2" that does literally anything at all to provide the themes or story elements any merit.

Personally, I think I would confidently call this show "unfinished." There is no "win" to match the characters growth, the little that they did, and I felt that I was left on a lazy cliffhanger because of arbitrary fail-states.

As a fan of Castlevania, this could not be further from its source material, as a fan of shows that are good, Nocturne also manages to fail.

It pains me to say that I don't think it's worth your time, as I really want people to get into Castlevania, but I really cannot stress enough that this show is not even close to a good demonstration of what the series is about, or what the series' themes are. Genuinely, I don't care if you don't care about the games, they are better than this show, which is hard to measure, because they're different mediums, but I'm confident in this assessment.

[ot3]

so i see you tweet sometimes about gw2 and im just curious about your thoughts on it like, plot wise.

i think the story of early guild wars is pretty par for the course mmo storytelling where im paying mostly superficial attention to the plot and mainly enjoying how fun the game is. but around the time you get to heart of thorns they start introducing enough interesting concepts that you decide its worth paying slightly more attention to.

there was a huge problem in the way guild wars 2's narrative flowed because of the way they handled the living world stuff. i love the living world in concept when it was unreplayable because its just neat to me to be able to take such large story beats in an mmo. where you literally nuke your entire main city and change its appearance. but i appreciate the fact they decided to retroactively let you play that stuff in the end! however making it, in the case of living world season 2, optional to buy, but then not also doing lws1 in the same way? it just meant that you got the story non completely and non sequentially. if you just go straight to core from HoT you have to do soooo much Inferring Shit About This Plot from it. It's like your character blacked out and lost several years of their life. 'hello? commander? its us. the guys who are totally already your best friends'

anyway once i got through HoT then i found myself going back to lws2 specifically to unlock the luminescent armor and the respective ascended trinkets since back pre-lws3 the only stat selectable ascended trinkets were from raids, i believe. and then once again it was really interesting to get the map meta-events recontexualized to me from going through the story. and then after that i was invested enough in these characters to go watch the howeverlong supercut lws1 movie someone had on youtube for anyone who hadnt been there to play through it.

all this to say i think there was a lot of interesting story stuff here that would have helped hook more people earlier on if it had been freely available to play in its intended order. anyway

hot: i feel like it benefitted a TON from playing through this on a sylvari pc the first time because the custom dialogue they give that taints it like all of the npcs are suspicious you are going to fucking turn evil. like the sort of 'youre the coolest strongest character in the world!' stuff never really does it for me. i'm way more into 'youre a very powerful person in an extremely fraught and complex political situation' and HoT really felt a lot more like that, with i think it doing a good job of setting the mood for being In An Active Warzone. i like dragons stand meta a lot in terms of things where gameplay really makes the story hit in a certain way. the challenging, large-scale metas make a better multiplayer use of a high fantasy war shining than a lot of them do. getting events that genuinely do take several dozen real human beings coordinating in real time to accomplish makes there be a sense of difficulty and scale that would be rather punishing and frustrating as instanced single player combat.

i know i kind of talked more a bout the combat than the story. oops. but to me the sort of positive feedback loop between getting more invested in playing the actual game and then getting more invested in learning about the characters to continue to future expansions.

I wish I could speak more about lws3 and PoF but i will be real with you right now. those years of my life are kind of a blur and i do not remember a lot of the story beats right now. lws4 felt pretty weak to me in a lot of ways, pretty disparate from itself. PoF though i had a hell of a fun time with. joko was a fun villain he was serving necromantic cunt.

lws4 was ok. definitely more cohesive overall and had some cool stuff. lws5 i think on the other hand really suffered from a bit of covid slump in its content which i will absolutely not blame them for. I would much rather they put out slightly subpar content during a massive health crisis than they overwork people.

CANTHA, ON THE OTHER HAND. WAS EXCELLENT. DEFINITELY THEIR BEST STORY WRITING YET. i had a blast of a time with it and i was specifically fond of what they did with mai trin, a character i was well acquainted with via getting my ass kicked in her fractal back when she was scale 100. they gave her some INSANE dyke drama. it was catnip to me. she fucked that asura they had toxic yuri i knowww they did. kelly hu did her voice for EoD, who i immediately clocked as stacy from phineas and ferb and was as such predisposed to be endeared to her. also who doesnt love an ex supervillain pirate captain. mai trin you will always be famous.

anyway. that is my extnesive opinion on the plot of guild wars 2. great game everyone play it i have over 3000 hours in guild wars 2.

[thatsparrow]

thoughts on lady chatterley's lover (2022 version)

visually stunning—every shot of the grounds, wragby, the fashion—lush and delightful the whole way through

deeply sexy, not just in the sense that, you know, there’s a good amount of sex, but that the sex itself is uh pretty damn hot, tender and intimate, messy and urgent and desperate, the hands! every instance felt like it spoke to the connection connie and oliver have, what they needed from each other in each moment. I also loved that the scene with the most nudity was the two of them playing in the rain, which was fun and romantic and easy and also not particularly sexual at all

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really know much about the plot before watching, and so was surprised at the start to feel so fond toward connie and clifford’s relationship—they genuinely seemed to love one another and make each other happy, and it’s not like that all just stops after clifford is injured and they move to wragby. in no way am I trying to justify clifford’s possessiveness, but I do think the beginning of the movie gave more nuance and understanding to the conflicting needs of the marriage than the latter half. it’s understandable that clifford wants to move to wragby after his injury, to return to a place where he feels safe and secure while recovering (as well as maybe wanting a level of privacy as opposed to the visibility of london) but it’s also understandable that it leaves connie feeling isolated and lonely. I think it’s understandable that clifford is reluctant to have anyone’s help but connie, particularly as he’s newly vulnerable and requires more assistance than he’s used to, but it’s also very clear that clifford prioritizing his own needs has connie feeling overwhelmed and exhausted (“when she’s taking care of you, who’s taking care of her”). now, clearly things become a lot less understandable when clifford refuses to let connie visit her sister, which is why I really love the scene when hilda shows up to call clifford on his bullshit, and he listens (albeit temporarily) and hires mrs. bolton for help. but then as the movie goes on, it feels like the treatment of clifford becomes unambiguously villainous—he takes on this very paternalistic view of himself and the surrounding time and the mines, he exploits the miners, he admits to seeing them as distinctly lesser than himself. given that the movie is largely concerned with class dynamics, it makes sense that it would draw a sharper contrast between clifford and oliver, but it does feel like by the end of the movie, clifford is much more a charicature than the character he started off as

also speaking of, I loved mrs. bolton, and how protective and non-judgmental she was of connie’s affair, both to connie herself, and also while defending connie’s character and refuting ned’s rumors to the other women

it surprised me that we got that scene of connie in the town while the miners were striking, where she’s confronted by this very uncomfortable reality, and then we don’t return to that issue in any real way beyond hearing about how clifford is further exploiting the miners of the town

thinking about the nature of possessiveness and possession in the movie — of course there’s how clifford views connie, any potential child she has, the town, the miners, but to me a sense of possession also felt present in connie’s first interactions with oliver (when she visits his cabin and there’s this sense of expectation that he invite her inside, and then later when she discovers the hut and asks for the key), but also thinking about it in terms of the title—“lady chatterley’s lover,” connie is only identified in relationship to her husband, and oliver in relation to her (compare to oliver’s letter at the end of the movie, where he’s relaying the story in which they now have their own distinct identities, connie is “the lady in love” and he’s “the gamekeeper”)

my understanding of the book is that it has a much more ambiguous ending (we get oliver’s letter but no proof that the two actually end up together), and there was something—reassuring? interesting? comforting? that the movie is so clear that these two get a happy ending. like there’s a moment where it doesn’t feel it’s going that direction (hilda warns the two of them what will happen if they're found out, the rumors spread, oliver is fired, mrs. flint wants nothing to do with connie in case clifford kicks them off their farm, women are gossiping about connie in venice) but then it pivots and we get mrs. bolton saying (maybe just me, but felt very fleabag s2 fourth wall break) “this is a love story,” and not only are they together, but together in a place where they’re both free from their prior marriages and the complications of their pasts and can raise their child and live together in peace

[lampmanliveblogs]

Where we last left off, the true form of Doppelgänger was revealed and Luz, the sweetheart, continued to be unusually sympathetic to the literal snake that stole her identity.

Namedrop! Doppelgänger’s real name is Vee! Which I already knew. Although that’s probably a good thing, otherwise I’d probably spell her name Wea or something. Ví. Wii. V.

When Luz asks about her name, Vee hesitates and stumbles over her words. I’m not quite sure, but I think she says something like ”I never found-” Now, this would not be the first time my ears have played tricks on me (see previous episode for a demonstration), but it sounds like Vee might not have found out what her real name is. So a similar situation to King then.

Also, I guess it wasn’t Vee who was behind the traps like I thought. I was thinking, 'cause you know… snake. Snakes eat rabbits, right? But Luz was familiar with how the trap worked, so someone’s been setting them before she departed for the Demon Realm.

I’m gonna be thinking about Vee slipping up and calling Camila ”mom” for like a week, aren’t I?

We also get a namedrop for Luz hometown. Gravesfield! Which I already knew, although for once, I inflicted that particular spoiler on myself.

Luz dismisses it as junk, but lets take a quick look at the first page. The first thing that caught my attention was that this Jacob Hopkins fella appears to have noticed strange goings on in Gravesfield. Like how someone is stealing garbage and also putting feathers in his coffee. That’s obviously Eda, as confirmed on the next page. We know Eda has been coming to the Human Realm for some thirty years now, so that’s plenty of time to cause plenty of mischief. Like harassing random strangers at a cafe and then enchanting some books to attack them when they don’t let her skip the line.

It seems Luz has the idea to visit the cafe so Vee can gobble up some of that leftover magic so they can shapeshift. Thats’ good and all, but ah… to do that, Vee’s gonna have to get there, and she’s kinda… conspicuous.

If we look at the first image again, we can see an old-timey fella there shaking hands with a witch (who has a devil tail). Say, do you guys know of any old-timey fellas important to The Plot of this show?

Philip Wittebane’s from Gravesfield, I’m calling it now. That’s why the portal door leads there. The image is either of him with a witch/demon he brought back with him, or based on rumors spread about him as he told people back home of his adventures. Because, you know, witches and the devil…

So with this in mind… if it wasn’t Vee, then who has been leaving the traps? It could just be some guy who really wanna eat some rabbits, but… if the portal always opens at this old shack, then it’s not unreasonable for someone to notice strange things happening there, like an owl dragging comically large sacks of trash there. Heck, that’s how Luz ended up in the Demon Realm to begin with! So I’m wondering if these traps might have been set up by someone, like the Jacob Hopkins dude for instance, to try and catch Owlbert and/or Eda. It might be a stretch, I just have a feeling is all.

OKAY, turns out that it was not a stretch at all, someone is clearly very interested in this old shack. And now they have footage of what looks like Luz transforming into a strange monster. And if the camera records audio, then they have even more than that. This can not be a good thing. For starters, it has the potential of ruining Luz’ and Vee’s little scheme of making sure Camila stays happy and ignorant about her daughter’s disappearance and replacement. If go even further, it could also mean that Vee could get captured, killed or experimented on. Or all three and probably in that order.

So Gravesfield was founded in 1635. You know who else was from roughly that same time period? Philip Wittebane! And granted, this one might actually be stretching a bit, but those wings on the town shield look a bit like the wings on the Emperor’s Coven symbol.

I will also point out that Gravesfield is a strange name for a town. It’s kinda ominous. It sounds of death.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i think i've only seen a soma playthrough twice and the first time i didn't absorb it great lol but upon just some light brushing up (incl a short article that was one of the few results that cropped up when i was like "show me the images for 'soma's save feature featured fisting, right' (yeah basically)") it's like, it's always fun when you're just left with a lot of room to Interpret Themes and unsurprisingly at this juncture i'm lasering in on just, like, the matter of [the self vs the other] via this premise that basically people can just make a copy of their Psyche at any point (but needing to find a new & different Soma in which to upload it but like, largely setting that aside when In This Scenario the new bodies don't affect their minds / sense of self at all....except for when they sometimes do? or maybe not. the like glitchy monsters are just kind of WAU automatons, right. and the people are all able to act / communicate themselves as people, though they might be affected by like, existential crises over the goings on) wherein like....the protagonist can Split In Two* at a few points via the psyche copying/uploading, and then the game Follows the copy that will be continuing to advance the plot, and the version of the protagonist we Were following is now An Other even though it's like, that was The Self (at least insofar as that was our first person pov player character) up till just now. and the protagonist can Know like, yeah that's You right over there also. and yet iirc from like, yesterday's light research, in the first instance he at least gets the Option to kill that Other/Self who was, up till just then, the Self to us too, if that makes him feel better abt the existential crisis, or at least discomfort, enough to like, keep moving right along lol (speaking of. just the other day i was like "adagioly onomatopoeiaing the opening banjo strums of rainbow connection from the muppet movie soundtrack does so much for me" and then i learned it was the anniversary of its theatrical release. hell yes. also memorably once when like marinating for hours in a general malaise & failing to find the wherewital to get up i was like "haha oh wait. i'm playing the song 'movin right along' from the muppet movie in my head. okay" up & at em)

anyways the fisting article (which, i was wondering what thoughts it would have on that truly interesting facet of the game. mostly it posited that the uhh sphincteresque penetration of it all would be Typically considered to make cishet men anxious / threatened / vulnerable, and notes the protagonist (hypothetically a cishet man) is indeed trepidatious about it, while also arguing he markedly Doesn't really hesitate in shit that hurts or endangers others in the course of his shit (though ig that can also depend on the player? haven't really rewatched it recently enough to know how much his dialogue adds to [as a character though he's making it clearer he just wants to cut a swath through your shit asap]) and also questions whether the game thinks of (or, from their argument, knows of) the protag as pretty sphincteresque himself. and like yeah probably imo lol like thee ending being what it is, and as far as i know no like Multiple Endings like in amnesia series* stories usually, and thus more room to have a protagonist who talks to characters in the present and i think like, without the ability to choose what he says

anyways that the protagonist can Understand like, hey see that guy over there, that's literally also you rn, and yet he can [Not accept that] in one case such that he'll kill that Self for "his own" Self's comfort really, as the fisting article expressed, to continue believing he is Unique and the One True Self, the only Real [himself]. when, to be sure, the game Could have kept the first person pov on that version of him we'd Been up till then, and had that pov of the one killed. or maybe left behind in another instance, i don't remember all the "transfers"....catherine Explicitly explaining that only the copy/upload format is possible, Not Transfers, making sense what with like. her magic brain scans that can can wholly parse & store your Psyche data, whatever that'd be like, definitely not being meant to, say, Extract the person's Psyche from their living human body upon doing so. while the ending's drama comes from the game Now staying with the version of the protag who'd been our first person pov character prior to that "transfer," who is Again like "why am i still here" despite having the "it's not actually a transfer" explained, b/c This version Just So Happens to be the copy of the copy of the copy like simon(4) or (5) or whatever and ofc can't have been the one(s) already just left behind somewhere back there in the complex or he wouldn't have been able to be at that point in the first place. and then "killing" catherine b/c he's so pissed, i remember it as him hitting whatever device was her effective Soma, but the article i think suggested she just got too stressed in turn and that Output fried the device. while, of course, post credits shows us their "transferred" selves just fine chilling in the ark like whew glad all that's done with

anyways just getting around to the fact of how it's easy to land on catherine as the center of the game....and of course she's the one really Not having crises over [my god, copies of my Self] or others' selves or what all, having even less of a usual Soma than simon but rolling with it, and evidently having already fully absorbed her Self as a distinct version from her original Self, despite having the same links to her that make simon or anyone else who's been copied into whatever other Soma feel like he's continuously been Himself(tm), the one true Real Self he's always been....and like, naturally catherine being the one behind the entire project of [what if we copy/paste people's psyches into a big ol mmorpg server & shoot it into space so that Maybe something can happen with them / in a way they can continue to exist] so she's Been thinking of, you know, being separate from these Selves turned Others who you'll jettison into space beyond even the body of the earth. unless it's supposed to stay in orbit lol i do not remember the details....and ofc like plenty of other people are like wow that's Fucked Up or it's Not Us and like, the latter sure is true with with the [copying, not transferring] element, but also the former is more choose your own adventure (interpretation) when the game isn't about like, and the simulation Is fucked up, or there's any element of distress or dissonance to existing on the ark, though you can't really know that until the post credits scene confirms you're just hanging out for real....which, that article was also going in on the character who's on this quest to kill the WAU as like "the versions of us it makes isn't Real it's Corrupting" and like, arguably the WAU as just kind of, naturally, something capable of growing, and doing so, and the real problem seeming to come in with the [doing whatever for supposed safety but superceding/supplanting/displacing autonomy in doing so] like, people who did not agree to whatever was done re: their Somas or they would've remembered & been like yeah i'm hanging out as a robot now, or a goop guy, gunk [YES], etc. but separate from that obvious issue it's like, my guy, You're a copy made by the WAU now lol, you're your whole person that you are, with the thoughts & feelings to decide you wanna go on a quest to destroy it, and whatever capacity to pursue it....either way i think the game makes it clear enough the WAU is a Neutral force exercising no conscious discernment, it Is a body, or it's some body (once told me) anyways lol, though i guess i did just go "those Monsters that can chase you are just wau manifestations right" so that's getting kind of complex lol, but even that can be taken as, like, it Mimicking human's shapes & bipedality & other external characteristics, i guess, and just the way an overall theme can be [hmm where's that division between the soma and psyche, machine and ghost] the WAU has been expanding and making various forms of itself, and of humans, and that's also an element of the fisting that starts out as a fingering and can end with having to leave part of yourself in WAU's core if you have completed the choice to corrupt & destroy it, that Connection and Interfacing is required, with increasing [get it in there] required as well though there's no given clear in universe reason why (w/my theory here being: just the Themes of the increasing interaction / reducing Boundary)

where was i going with this. idk naturally there's people like "well you don't have to see the wau as evil or at least required to be destroyed" like yeah one can imagine the case for that, wherein again this one guy's hypothetically mad abt like oh it can't be Us it's making, like, brother in christ You are here as You are b/c of what wau did, if you don't think You're legitimate enough, how can you be dead set on pursuing any decision you make. but also the lack of autonomy wherein wau has (probably? again would have to rewatch) killed people to transfer them to a less fragile soma, but a) also maybe it's just acted when people were already dying / killed from other causes, and naturally there's the Everyone There Doomed To Die Fairly Imminently factor and b) that [wau's neutral / purely soma no psyche (or is it. etc)] aspect that is that classic mixup of wau just acting on its programming in a way unintended by its programmers re protecting life and c) i think WAU can sure be interpreted as a parallel counterpart to the ark project, where people agreed to the latter, & get to chill with simulated bodies in a simulated world, versus the WAU being that [body, world, realm of physical existence] which is funky & Not like a cool nice recreation of the usual world & is also at the bottom of the ocean, but it's sure trying to extend the existence of ppl's psyches by shoving them into whatever robots or slapping together parts or propping up their original body or what all, i don't remember that many of the characters encountered

Anyways Back To Catherine For Real. i'd forgotten this element completely, but that when catherine finds out her original self had been killed by crewmates (lol. amongst) for being set on carrying out the plan for the ark, Her Project, (i.e. launching it into space (risking that launch going incorrectly) vs keeping it on site at the bottom of the ocean here (theoretically less risky, according to at least the crewmate who killed her about her insisting on launching it anyways)) and catherine's copy / now alternate self comments on being like, a bit disappointed And surprised b/c like she says "i knew they didn't like me, but," like not thinking that dislike would lead to a semi accidental killing her (where apparently the guy who killed her may have been wearing the like powered diving suit w/the extra Strength to operate in the water pressure, like oh didn't mean to hit her That hard. in a different soma already) and seeing other ppl (not in universe) commenting on how it sure did seem to be culmination of like "the way others treated her" and how catherine always mentioned like, never having really had friends including as a crewmate here, being an Introvert....in fact, now i'm remembering that catherine doesn't even say "i knew they didn't like me, but" but rather something very close to "i know i'm not easy to like, but" like, aaaugh....like, as ever, a character or a Real Life Person sharing any particular info like "i'm [xyz]" Isn't Required for just trying to always not be ableist and to always treat other people as people even if they don't "just be normal" correctly enough, supposedly. rather than [what is "just being normal" is Correct & Good and you do Not need to undergo a continuous lifelong journey of in fact questioning this & navigating & learning how to communicate & interact & relate, you just need to fleetingly muster some superficial unhelpful Bonus efforts sometimes when you encounter the rare "exception" like someone who hands you their License To Autiste and you can let them keep their fidget cube and continue treating everyone you encounter ever organic aba style]....like, naturally in the game there's no twist where catherine turns out to be Evil or even antagonistic. she's like, patient, encouraging, friendly, helpful all throughout. she's also, ofc, simon's only guide (adding to the suspense of that [my god. my only guide was evil, and/or just my antagonist now anyways]) so he doesn't really get to pick someone he'd Like more. but that like, lifelong matter of why catherine doesn't Get to have had friends. that even as this professional associate she's treated differently, and worse, b/c you have to personally like someone & find them charming & je ne sais quoissy to Not be worse to them? it's fine to be shitty until catherine can, say, say "i've noticed you're being kind of shitty. it's probably b/c i'm autistic, officially, which i'm choosing to share with you & am now presenting my license about it, so maybe be cool about it" and then and only then go "oh ok" and Make The Exception rather than shifting your entire shitty Rule (they also would not actually really make the exception. "shoutout" too to the concept that, of course, it's actually Disrespectful to stop hating autistic ppl b/c you should treat them The Same as anyone else, and you're bringing that organic ABA all the time as part of your "just be normal" ethos life, so be sure to keep being an asshole to them & double empathy probleming putting all the depletion, extraction, punishment, losses, harms on them and all the rewards on yourself)

and like, catherine being killed b/c she was this Body who was going to take away the ark (her project / creation, which she was also just insisting on following what'd always been the plan for) wherein like, even if this guy didn't mean to kill her, he sure did after lashing out at her, same as happens w/simon in the end....and catherine also failing to be thee most "normal/default" version of a person as well by being a Woman, and probably not white either, and, of course, a nonwhite woman, also making her that much more vulnerable to being Out Of Line(tm) by just like, existing as a person & trying to do her shit, though misogyny, racism, orientalism or the like isn't explicitly invoked or especially implicitly hinted at that hard either, but it's like, how does this [scifi magical realism set in the not That distant future but material made in the way less distant past, i.e. all intents & purposes modern / current day of: in the 2010s] have Relevance beyond "would that be fucked up or what" type Invention that doesn't map on to our experiences at all....you don't Have to read into catherine twice being killed by a man who's lashing out b/c she's not delivering what he wants, but you sure don't Have to Not and be like "this is definitely No Misogyny world" like they're still being implicitly ableist b/c she's just not deemed Winsomely Likable enough, she's internalized that with that "i'm not easy to like" framing, why assume a premise of [misogyny is over] [racism is over] etc. whilest soma doesn't really proffer any scenario of like "oh if it weren't for our being able to perceive our designated Physical Differences in our human bodies, all that oppression would be over," that's not being explored even in the specific situation of its plot in the first place; people on the ark seem to have the simulation of the same bodies they originally did, ppl Can retain like, how they'd move, their voices, their sense of their bodies: elements of their physicality. and, you know, whether one even supposes there Is any meaningful body/mind division, though in soma it Is this premise like oh yeah we can digitize your psyche perfectly okay, such that your copy would experience no disruption in that Sense Of Selfness, which is what makes everything particularly like, whoah, and [wow this is just like soma] whenever something kind of invokes similar enough What Ifs but probably less engagingly lol....while also soma is flexible and spacious in letting you interpret shit, you Can defer from fisting wau to death, you don't have to be like "it's so true. thee horrors" abt the Copies Of Selves, who really just become Others to whatever now-other versions of that person, i.e. how catherine, who, as the person who wanted to scan copies of ppl's psyches & put them in a just chilling simulation server launched into space for the Chance of being copy/pasted elsewhere eventually and the chance for the participants to Exist in some form Now, and who did so, is never like, shocked or freaked out by the notion / reality of these copies' existence even though she didn't set out figuring any scans' uploads would end up on the ocean floor stations, she's not aghast & distressed in the end when after having uploaded her latest Self data to the ark & launched it, she's also Not on the ark and Still in the eventually / doomed ocean floor station, even if it's a bummer, b/c she has already just accepted That's How It Works....this [her] was not going to experience being Transferred, like she's Been saying, like she again tells simon while he's blowing up abt [why wasn't i transferred]....just clearly being an example of like, not everyone is like horrified and freaked out and like "that's fake &/or wrong" and you don't have to decide she's incorrect for being Like That, i.e. like, yep, this is the situation, i know there's the me who was killed and the me on the ark and the me here, and i know also we're also for intents and purposes separate people

all that is to say, like, yeah the Scifi What If specific [you can copy/paste your consciousness into a different soma] is there, but also you can be looking at it as just this like, pushing to thee limit of the Self(tm) and the Other(tm) insofar as imagining yourself, as the only Internality / Mind / Selfhood you have access to, as The One True Real Self and all Others as mere somas/bodies, whether you take that to as dehumanizing an extreme as you can or you just put some double standards on Others / treat them as lesser/less Real, or oh but just Sometimes, in Some Cases, which is fine and relevant to anything, rather than what's fine and relevant being to always be aware that everyone's Otherness is a matter of perspective, you're the Other to everyone else, everyone is just as The Self as everyone else, You Could Be That Other, that other Is [you] to themself, you are the "that could be you" to them....with soma, it can just be elevated to "that Other WAS you from 0.5 mmsec ago, and continues to be them, b/c they didn't experience any disruption in their existence, though now you're both in different situations of: different locations, different bodies, the awareness there's that Other Self over there now, possibly the difference of killing that self you were just copied from so you can go on feeling like the One Real Self"....but wherein like, that's just like, [What If: you Were able to wholly & accurately Know the self inside an Other? b/c it's you from 5 min ago] of like, scenarios like [what if you time traveled 5 min into the past] except wherein that case there's usually the efforts to Resolve(tm) the timeline of that One True Self one way or another, ultimately. or is there. obviously who's positing that soma is the only material to be About the "whoa lol. me as an other" concept made scifily literal or anything

anyways that like, it creates that situation wherein one Can point & go "literally literally me" but also simultaneously one Can go "that's Not literally me arrrgh" or "that's also Not literally me, matter of factly"....simon's wrangling with the Othering of his One True Self, but he can also Know, should he choose to shift to that perspective, that all the Others who aren't alternate copies of him are all Another True Selves, An Other True Self even, though ofc as per the nature of not having a collective consciousness, he Doesn't Know the accurate whole of their psyches b/c he was not ever [literally them], but he doesn't need to to know they're just as [a whole psyche in there] as his own have been. original catherine with her fellow original crewmates being othered enough by them for the dehumanization of treating her worse, her being isolated, that indeed her being killed doesn't feel separate from all that by her or by anyone else, just an escalated extreme final fatal manifestation of it, b/c nobody ever liked her in the first place and then she became a (psyche Piloting a) body getting in the way of what one guy with amplified strength at that moment wanted from the project she made to let others' psyches keep existing in some way, which was deemed valuable enough by that guy to want to commandeer it and keep it at the bottom of the ocean versus risk a launch, regardless of how you the player think of the idea

and thinking of the way you can like, effectively befriend that boxy underwater little propellered Regular Simple Robot Helper that follows you around at some point, that is, of course it can't talk to you, it's definitely Just(tm) this not-ever-a-version of a human robot for practical tasks (dyspeptical tasks, clerical tasks, hysterical tasks) and like, imagine Its interiority, get invested, try to protect it, humanize it regardless....whereas with actual humans, and their psyches in a microchip, you can kill them for not perfectly delivering whatever you wanted even when that's not what other humans ever exist to do. then simon loses the Company he still could've Gotten From catherine, [guy who killed original catherine] didn't succeed in keeping the ark unlaunched, b/c that's what you go and do....but really just thinking of that Thread that feels so extremely relevant of like, catherine copy being simon's only option sure and working With him on this mission until we stay with the edition of him who realizes it didn't lead to his escape onto the ark, i.e. always being in relation to him in a manner of a direct practical teamup & a [take it or leave it] sole option for that anyways....but that in her original, human-bodied life, she was always "oh only a little bit" dehumanized by everyone such that she is very much aware of the way that's defined & limited her life, never had friends, i know i'm difficult to like; until that dehumanization escalated to the extreme of trying to hit her to stop her from seeing her project through, and just happening to kill her, and the fact that this seems to no one just a coincidental whoopsie of a fate just entirely disconnected from the way others always saw her and treated her as this Other among others, while other [psyche/soma]s of others who are clearly not Your Self get to have friends and not be isolated and feel hard to like forever and end up killed by coworkers

tl;dr like love a text just inviting plenty of interpretations and lenses and perspectives, ofc gonna look at it like whoa it's anarchy in there (political cats sense) where are the borders where you are thee self above thee other....soma providing that thinnest boundary of like, yeah that mf over there? there but for the [being in a different body, in a different place, with 7 seconds of negligibly different life experience] go ye. but also the usual boundary of "that person is in a different body in a different place with a different whole life but you're [that] to them and they're just as much a person and a self and an other as you are" like catherine center of the game to me

(* just remembered i had these asterisks: sure enjoying how the premise of amnesia games effectively creates Alternate Selves b/w the protagonist's present self, with however much missing time, and past selves whose goings on are completely relevant to the in media res situation you're also tackling while obtaining pieces of that past to priovide further context/info, and how this premise manifests for different stories each time; you've even got oswald like physically divided into Two Selves in a:amfp, though iirc it's not like, psychically equivalent, kinda "regular oswald & nefarious destroy the world duplicitous oswald" lmao, classic....uhh and shoutout to penumbra being similar ish in that the protagonist's story isn't want's relevant, he's trying to find out what happened to his dad and more broadly the like underground pocket world he enters for those answers? iirc....but that soma shares that amnemonic premise of [intro] [suddenly like ???] [having to navigate your present mission & figure out the past & your Missing time] but like, thee respective Lores don't overlap really, soma obviously starts present day and takes an even more obvious leap into a future / completely different location, rather than amnesia games being set in the past with missing time of like, idk months? to even just days, uhh supposedly like [forever] in justine but that's like, i dunno sure lol, the peak mysterious / withheld protagonist really, on purpose. while naturally there's also the fact that, technically, this simon we are following at the start of the game did not actually forget anything, and that's a fun distinction despite that it otherwise initially seems like the same [amnesia] premise....and that he did kind of ""forget"" things in that original simon lived however much longer before dying, that his scan then ofc didn't retroactively include. so once again it's like, well, in amnesia ppl have likewise kind of rewound to a Past Self before the missing [crucial context to your in media res misadventure] time, w/daniel (and justine) even doing this On Purpose, though as is the nature of the amnesia series, everyone regains enough of that missing info about their goings on anyways, though you the player are Not in a story of like "wow they did Exactly the same thing again and ended up in the same place anyways" and Do get to kinda choose who they are / indeed end up with some Alternate Self, potentially, despite there being plenty of room wherein like, it's not precisely, granularly laid out Exactly Who They Are at any point anyways. only just now getting extra amnemonic lore that yes daniel got all fucked up on vitae rituals b/c that's just what happens! and people are fairly horny for it! always a possible interpretation that he was high on vitae (okay one proffered pronunciation of "curriculum vitae" (which i was like lord i feel like i've gone "what tf is that" about before but what tf is that. turns out it's what CV stands for as your specifically educational resumé) does say "vitae" would, in that case, rhyme with "nigh." other sources are listing like a million different combinations of a million different ways to pronounce each syllable. also they gotta say it a way in the game but i forget. daniel's VA apparently being some chemistry teacher? just like alchemy. not what the pope said to do, weird science, it's my creation....) anyways! the psyches diverge, the bodies don't, unless they do (oswald....uhh the guy in the bunker. lambert :( ) like catching up with The Self again, encountering extreme examples of Othering and Dehumanizing and [you are just like only a soma to me] with various means and ends of acting thusly to get xyz results

[kyogre-blue]

I’ve finally managed to finish the second playthrough of the main storyline for Liyue. It was... torturous. For Inazuma, I’m going back to afk’ing the storyline. I can’t take it. 

Anyway, I’ve been trying to formulate my thoughts on Liyue for the last few days (as I dragged out actually finishing) because it’s such a weird chapter. 

As much as I hate to say it, I do think Liyue is the worst written part of the archon quest. There are nuggets of potential there, but they are utterly eclipsed by its many, many failings. 

One thing I kept puzzling over was that... ok, so I am now on board with the rumor that the writer team changed, at least in part, between Liyue and Inazuma. (It’s even possible they changed toward the very end of Liyue’s creation and parts of Liyue were finalized by the new team, but this would be too hard to pin down.) 

Inazuma to Sumeru is very clear line. They have the exact same core issues but Sumeru seeks to mitigate them somewhat, whether because the writers are addressing the criticisms or because they had gained some experience and just tried to do better. And on the other hand, Mond and Sumeru/Inazuma are just entirely different on every level. 

But what I couldn’t figure out for a while was how Liyue fit into this because on its surface, it wasn’t particularly like Sumeru/Inazuma OR like Mondstadt. 

However, after some consideration, I do see where Mondstadt and Liyue have the same issues, and what Liyue lacked that made Mondstadt work (or at least work better). 

What made Mond work was that it centered on characters and an emotional narrative. 

Mondstadt is about Venti in large part, and Venti is eminently likeable, with a larger than life personality and lots of antics. Venti is also very deeply concerned about Dvalin, which translates to us becoming concerned about Dvalin. He is a sad child, hurt and crying and being manipulated. The story of Mondstadt is about saving Dvalin because we sympathize with him. The rest of the cast also has clear personalities and is present in a lot of what happens, further helping things.  

Liyue does not have this. There is no emotional core or drive. 

Zhongli is still present in good part, but he is never particularly emotionally involved in what’s going on. He is written to be mysterious, which means he can’t give us much to work with. Childe is similar, he’s present but has no emotional investment we can share in, just detached scheming. The rest of the cast have one scene to introduce themselves, and then vanish until the final battle. Everyone’s motivations and actions are played as mysteries and uncertainties, making it hard to care about any of them in particular. 

This means that Liyue is written almost entirely on the basis of this mystery plot, but the plot is extremely weak. There are numerous instances of things happening without logical justification, and the actual events or actions that would set up the mystery all occur off screen, relayed to us second or third-hand. Some concepts and motivations aren’t even introduced until the same scene they’re resolved in, and the stakes are entirely ambiguous and ill-defined. 

Without that emotional connection to Venti and Dvalin, the story has nothing to carry it forward. 

With this key difference in mind, it’s easier to see the smaller similarities in writing, both good and bad. 

The way politics and Fatui scheming are presented are actually quite similar. In Mondstadt, they are also largely secondhand and relayed to us by Jean or Diluc. It’s just that in Mondstadt, they’re more like window dressing and excuses for less relevant points, since the main story is about Dvalin anyway, so this doesn’t stand out as much. 

Additionally, in the rare cases where they do appear, Liyue still writes the characters in a way that imo makes them more distinctive and... defined than in Sumeru. Zhongli is certainly presented as smart and knowledgeable, but we mock him quite often and he still walks headlong into the cocogoat situation. Childe is outwardly amiable but his eavesdropping is clearly conveyed and we never forget that he has separate motivations. Ningguang’s friendliness and social adeptness is very noticeable when you keep in mind that she’s a politician and, as Keqing puts it, “would talk everything out” because that’s her forte. It’s extra funny when she does stuff like directly lie about Rex Lapis coming to her in a dream (before he actually does lol). Even the funny animal buddies get characterized when they start squabbling after Osial. 

There’s just a certain deftness to the character writing and even the plot beats we do get that I think is missing from Inazuma/Sumeru. 

However, it’s worth noting that Liyue and Inazuma both have a similar issue where the writers seem to struggle with converting their story into a game, with actual gameplay. Liyue Act 2 is basically nothing but going to an NPC, buying a thing, going to another NPC, and Inazuma is a lot of that too, especially in the beginning. Ritou was another buearocracy simulator in a long time of those. 

That said, I do regret that the writers switched. No matter what, we’d have to put up with the writing team learning and improving over several chapters, but I think it’s easier for writers to get better at doing plot than it is to get better at doing characters. So I would have preferred that they correct on Liyue’s failure to fill in the outline of its plot rather than Sumeru/Inazuma’s failure to write characters in a meaningful way. I genuinely feel that, while it was worse, Liyue at least had more potential. 

But of course, there’s nothing to be done about it. 

[cripplecharacters]

What do you think about a blind character who uses her cane as a magical focus? it's in a fantasy setting where magic is very widespread and works in a variety of ways, mostly based on the channels that work well for the individual. I thought it might make sense for her to use her cane for that, because it would be an object with a lot of significance that she would have around all of the time, but are there problems with it that I'm not aware of?

Also, would it be okay to have spells to give her a sense of an area or tell her where people are? I imagine they would have a limited scope and she wouldn't be using them all the time, so I don't think they would fall under "superpowers that allow the character to see," but I want to be sure. They're space pirates, and I planned for this character to have a fighting role, but I can find another job for her if that's bad. Or she could do that without orienting magic?

Sorry for my several different questions. I don't even know how large of a role this character will play in my story, I just start designing characters and get carried away. thank you have a nice day

Hi! To answer your first question about using her cane as a magical focus, I don’t think there is much inherently wrong with that idea. Personally, I find it more interesting to separate disability and powers, and would more enjoy seeing a blind character whose focus was something completely unrelated to her disability, but I don’t think it’s particularly problematic on its own. The only thing that comes to mind is that it can run the risk of making everything revolve around this characters blindness, so I would personally encourage you to consider who she is outside of her blindness and what other kind of object she might choose. It helps when a disabled character isn’t just disabled as there only predominant feature and has other interests that are reflected in other parts of themselves. Make sure the object she chooses fits who she is as a person, not just what her disability is.

As for giving her spells that would allow her to form a mental image of an area, I would generally advise against that as it does cross into the territory of super powers that negate a disability, giving her a sort of magic vision. Powers that would replace a mobility aid are frequently a little too conveniently powerful and wind up allowing the disabled character to read more like an abled one, erasing big chunks of the disability. It’s often used as a way for abled writers to be able to just write the disabled character the same way they would write an abled character, which can lead to a lot of instances of it feeling like the character is only disabled when it’s interesting or plot relevant or convenient for the author. However, I do very deeply appreciate that you still planned to give this character a cane and not fully replace it with these powers. That is already a huge and awesome thing to see that doesn’t happen often enough.

I think it’s super important to consider exactly how a power like that would convey all the necessary information as well, in order to really understand what benefits might be possible, what the drawbacks might be, and where its limitations are. Often times, powers like this are used as sort of a shortcut to avoid finding out those answers, so I would suggest doing a little more research about what kind of information a blind person can receive already without powers and exactly how a power might provide information that is more useful. Often times, when people come up with super powers or even real life technology that is supposed to provide information to a blind person, it ends up being information that a blind person can already receive pretty easily with their own body and senses.

For example, if she needs to know where people are in a space, people generally make a lot of noise, even if they don’t realize it. Breathing, walking, the shifting around of fabric from their clothes — heck, even if the person is standing totally still, in close range, a blind person who’s already learned how to adapt can usually hear the fact that the air is not very open in that spot and it sounds like someone might be standing next to them trying not to breathe and be caught.

In particular about your character, close range fighting is something that is super easy to do without any augmentation. Plenty of blind people are on wrestling teams in school or blind sports teams with only minor modifications to equipment, and it’s really easy not only to hear where your opponent is moving based on the sound their actual body is making, but also based on the openness of the air and the feeling of air displacement as limbs move about quickly. They might miss a few things here and there, but by and large, physical close range combat is pretty easy to do without seeing.

This topic comes up a lot when people try to design real life technology to tell blind people if their friends are nearby or if there are objects in their paths, because most of the time, your own senses will give you a ton more detail and specificity. Simply hearing a person talking to you will tell you who it is, their exact angle, and a pretty solid estimated distance from you, but technology can often only give you a vague idea such as “left.” But then, in that situation, you are left wondering who is to the left? How far to the left? Are they 3 feet to my left butt 10 feet back? And even if it can tell you in that exact specificity, it often takes several sentences for technology to describe exactly where, and can only tell you about one person at a time, and it’s often faster and simpler to just call out your friends name and hear them respond. The same thing applies with powers, and it’s often a case of “don’t fix what’s not broken.”

Similarly, there are a lot of technologies designed that claim to be able to replace the white cane, such as vibrating tools that buzz when you are near an obstacle. But it cannot tell you what the obstacle is, what size it is, exactly how far away it is, what kind of angle it’s at, or any other super important pieces of information. On the other hand, if you simply touch the object directly with your cane, that alone already tells you exactly where it’s located and what angle it’s at, what material it is, how big it is, and what exactly the object might be, because not only can you feel it directly, but you can hear the way your cane interacts with the material which tells you a ton of information all at once with one single tap. This method is often far more effective and efficient then standing around waving this little buzzing gadget for a minute and a half trying to build the most vague outline of the object.

All this is to say that I think it’s important to consider exactly what kind of information these spells can supposedly provide and ask yourself if it would really be any more effective than regular non-visual techniques. Sometimes there are spells and powers that can totally be useful, such as transmutation spells that might be able to raise printed letters so your character can feel them, thereby acting as an accessibility aid. But more often than not, navigational powers like this often don’t really have any benefits that can’t already be gained in the traditional ways even better. Frequently, the answer turns out to be no, or at least not without straying into disability negating territory.

Other important questions to ask before giving your character a power like this include the following:

How time consuming or energy intensive is it?

In what situation is it not useful?

Does it come with any negative side effects?

How else could the character accomplish this task without the power? How do they do it if they are in a situation where they can’t use the power?

How long has the character had this power and known how do use it? How did they accomplish the task before that?

Would this character actually want powers like this? Does it fit who they are as a person and what their interests are?

I think my final — and possibly most important — point on the topic of spells that would allow her to navigate is to really consider whether or not this character as a person would be interested in those powers, especially if these are her only or primary spells and powers. Too often, disabled characters are given magic or super powers that are conveniently tightly tied to their disabilities, rather than powers that would suit the character, the way powers would be assigned to any other abled character. It’s often fueled by an underlying assumption that of course a disabled person would want to feel less disabled. Of course a blind person would want to see or get as close to it as possible. But in reality, that’s not always the case, and very frequently is not the case at all.

Would this character personally take interest in spells or powers like that? What are her other interests? What other kind of powers would she like to have? What kind of powers might suit her personality better? What method do you use to determine the spells and powers used by your abled characters? Whatever that method is, apply it in the same way to your disabled characters. Allow their character as a whole to dictate their powers, even if the powers you come up with using that method have nothing to do with their disability or are even outright contrary to it. That goes along way toward making a disabled character feel more well-rounded and human and complete, rather than just a living embodiment of disability.

The blind character with blindness accommodating powers is often not just common but the default. If there is a blind character with powers, it is almost always powers that a little too conveniently happened to revolve around hearing or feeling or augmenting other senses in order to negate chunks of the blindness. I have seen hundreds of these characters, but hardly ever have I seen a blind character who can fly or speak to animals or just blow things up with their mind. I would love to start seeing more blind characters who have magic or super powers that have nothing to do with blindness whatsoever but instead have everything to do with the character as a person.

I’m sorry this answer has gotten so incredibly long! I will undoubtedly end up using lots of this to make a more generalized post about giving magic or super powers to blind characters, but I hope it wasn’t overwhelming. Thank you so much for asking this question!

Mod Lane

[sweettodo]

Promiscuous.

⟿ Levi Ackerman x freader x Eren Jaeger

Includes : threesome, swearing, smut.

word count : 4,5k.

for 300 followers, i promised i would bless you all with a few stories. this was a tough plot to come up with b/c the age difference, but i always come thru :)). enjoy. thank you for 300 friends, readers, and fans. one more story on the way, hope you like !!

Being in the scouts wasn't necessarily all that bad, especially when you had all the strong, agile men to look at all day long.

You didn't bite your tongue, the gushy, teenage girl flirtatiousness that you bestowed upon not one, not two, but a good sum of the boys you worked and trained with every day. Most of whom were your closest friends, who put up with your promiscuousness. For the most part, they fed into it, reciprocating the behavior. But it couldn't be avoided that you took a special liking towards your Captain; Mr. Ackerman himself.

Call it unnatural, call it unusual, but you had a justification for liking him so much. If he said the right thing in the right context, your knees would be shaky and weak, for instance, when he demanded you to 'shut up' half-jokingly for fooling around with Connie too much. You left training that day with a waterfall between your legs, leaving you stunned for at least a week.

The ideas in your head were endless and slightly disturbing. There was no denying you were captivated by him, and he knew it.

Not to mention he took a fondness to you too...

Well, not how you quite anticipated him too. He just believed you were a capable scout, thus him taking you under his wing with your friends. Leaving aside your whorish comments. He took your ignorant attitude with a grain of salt, not allotting you the time of the day- which only made it more of a challenge to get what you yearned much for.

He would scoff, walk away and roll his eyes, reprimanding you on behaving yourself and acting your age. You were 19, you were acting your age, 'I could be worse,' you mumbled under your breath.

Being the species of girl who was drawn to a particular type of man, power play, that sharp attitude which one with a level head and a drop of common sense would take as a definite red flag, the type of man that would punish you for being horny or bratty- you could only dream- it was also clear you couldn't bluff and say that you didn't favor the infamous Eren Jaeger: the strong-willed, wild, dominant and overbearing youthful man. He could command you to get on your knees, and you would in a flash.

Alas, you would not be seeing the pearly gates with what went through your mind about the long-haired, tall, demanding man. On the plus side-unlike Levi- Eren enjoyed the attention you gave him, he played the game with you.

And he played the game good- you liked it.

On numerous occasions, you would be more than touchy with Eren, the little 'not so serious' back rub, or a hand on his thigh under the table to make him hot and bothered. And once or twice, the rare make-out session in an alleyway while your friends shopped or by the stable of horses one time when you were sixteen. Though the sexual tension grew once you turned eighteen when you two were less apt to get in trouble for your conduct- yet you never took it all the way, liking the idea of having him on his toes every time he saw you.

Anyways, today was different than most days, you all were honored with a few days of relaxing, sleeping in, and extra time to eat and shower with no training, or missions.

Appreciating the peace, you lay in your bed buried under the blankets half asleep, taking in the unusual time of relaxation. While nearing slumber again, you're rudely interrupted. A pounding on your door riddles throughout your body, frightening you half to death, you flinch, sitting up in an instant.

"Food! y/n." oh, it was Connie.

You untangle from the blankets, sauntering to your wardrobe, and pulling out a regular old white shirt with shorts. The heat was not something to take lightly around here, you could collapse and suffer from a heat stroke if you weren't careful, so you rolled up your shorts a little and slipped on shoes, taming your hair and heading out of your messy room towards the mess hall, eyes finding your friends and groggily plunging into the bench besides Eren and your other buddies, "sleep well?" Connie laughs, you scowl at him.

"Yea! I was dreamin' about you too! Too bad you ruined it, I was just getting to the good part."

Connie laughs and shakes his head, shoveling food down into his mouth, "I don't even wanna know what that dream was about." Jean grumbles, ruffling his hair to remove it from his clammy forehead; Jean was a difficult one to crack, he usually blushed and would cut your trifling demeanor right off at the knees, he was more for Mikasa's quiet and ethical personality.

"Shut it Kirstein- I do!" Connie protests, you wink at him.

"I'll tell you when I get you alone, how 'bout that Springer?"

Eren could be heard from your left, snorting, you glance over and see his arm raise and head towards your back, yanking your bra and snapping it back against your skin, you unleash an 'ouch' and attempt to reach back and rub the area, "White shirt with a red bra underneath? Who're you tryna' impress?" You shrug.

"Captain, of course."

"More like you dressed in the dark this morning." Eren bullies.

"Captain, what?" Connie and Sasha childishly roll and bounce around in their seats, bellowing laughter while you slowly turn around to face your boss, he reiterates one more time before you chuckle and scratch the back of your neck.

"Talking about how good my boss looks today," the words that roll off your tongue make The tense up and sigh in annoyance, beginning to walk away, you pout, tilting your head, "am I wrong?"

"Keep it up, y/n, I'll have you in a cell indefinitely if you continue this adolescent behavior." He doesn't look twice at you, leaving as quickly as he came. Halting your comments right as they came flying out of your mouth, he had to have been enjoying them! Perhaps a little.

Right as the man in charge begins to leave the hall, he stops, peers his head over to meet your eyes.

"-In chains." Your eyes widen, a perverted grin growing onto your face, looking left to right baffled, 'in chains?' gawking to see if any of your friends noticed the innuendo, but it seemed they were well absorbed in their own business.

But someone heard him.

"In chains?"

You look at Eren, he shared the same shock as you, you wriggle your eyebrows and nudge his side, "I'm not the only one who heard it, so maybe I'm not going crazy." You giggle, finishing your meal and gossiping amongst your friends until it was time to go.

To pass time during the day, you all wasted hours cleaning up to your captain's expectations, finally relieving yourselves for the rest of the evening before dinner; walking down the streets of your town, stopping at the shops down the gravel streets. While everyone talks, your head is elsewhere; replaying that remark Levi made about the chains, borderline obsessing over it- rightfully so.

When he said the word 'chains', you instantly recalled the context behind his innuendo, unless you were going insane, but you had made a joke- your first endeavor at flirting with your boss, mentioning to him using the same chains he used on Eren in court a few years back, your friends condemning your extraverted behavior on the spot; when to no avail, Levi did not feed into that well, sending you to isolation shortly after. And then to Erwin's office to explain yourself... in front of him, Commander Hange, and Levi. Nonetheless, it didn't stop you from toying with the man.

You were somewhat... wild.

Enjoying the rest of your stress-free hours, you spend the evening sitting comfortably in the large common area after dinner; all of you except Eren, who didn't appear at dinner either. God knows where he was.

You lounge beside Armin and Jean, your head on Jean's shoulder per-usual.

"Jean, has Mikasa told you how good you look today?" You hum, his face is instantly soaked up in a rosy flush as he throws his hands over his ears to block your weird comments from reaching his ears, "Mikasa?" you quirk an eyebrow.

"Don't be absurd, y/n" she laughs, "Jean, don't listen to her."

"Jean, you look extra good today," you lean over closer to him, "just thought I'd tell ya'."

"Yeah, yeah." He cracks a small smile, you pat his shoulder then fall back into your seat.

"Awh- c'mon Kirstein, you know I-"

"Y/n, Captain needs to see you..." Eren's voice interrupts the chatting, his head peers into the room, you and your friends falling silent.

"You're probably in trouble again." Armin sighs disappointingly. You promptly stand, "good luck." dragging your feet towards your supposed 'escort', Meeting Eren at the door frame of the corridor, his hands stuffed in his pockets with a deadpan look, watching you begin to take lead ahead of him, "how do you know Levi wants to see me?" You question, examining him whilst walking through the hallways, up the stairs, and around the corner, a few feet away from your Captain's headquarters.

"We talked."

With an uncertain look on your face, churning with turmoil, Eren is knocking once, then twice before pushing open the engraved wooden door, 'Captain didn't even ask who it was at the door-' you furrow your eyebrows, his hand on your back, quickly whisking you into the large room, abruptly stopping in front of his desk.

Your feet are glued to the floor while Eren is closing the door. Levi stands there, propped up against his desk with his arms crossed. The room was eerily silent, you were becoming slightly intimidated. Do you stand? Talk? Sit?

The silence was unbearable.

"Do you need me-"

"I'm fed up, with your manner, cadet." Levi interrupts.

"If I may- Captain," He nods for you to proceed, "why is Eren here?" Captain was very much capable of taking care of reprimanding you on his own, you were almost irritated that Eren was lingering behind you, feeling his eyes burning voids in the back of your head, disrespectfully.

"Isn't that what you want?" Eyes doubling in size, you swerve your head to attempt and get a view of Eren, but Levi halts you once more, treading closer to you so you can look at him, "you don't need to look at Eren."

"I- I don't quite understand."

No one says anything. The air is now thick, more difficult to swallow for oxygen, you were entirely thrown off track with the way he was speaking to you, the way he was looking at you made you want to make a run for it, "Cat got your tongue? Y/n?" Chills rake up and down your body when you feel Eren's breath on your neck, sending your head flying behind you to see the blue-eyed devil almost pressed against your back, you look back at Levi frantically.

"Sit."

Without pause, your ass is planted into one of his chairs, "why aren't you being stubborn? Where's that attitude that constantly gets you into trouble?" Feeling as if you're shrinking, the two men are overlooking you, "go on."

"I- well,"

"She has nothing to say for herself, Cap." Eren looks at Levi, "told you she was all talk." He jabs, were you dreaming?

Your heart thumped out of your chest, you never dreamed of Levi taking it this far, especially when he was so professional... "y/n," Levi's finger touches underneath your chin, raising your head to look at the two men, "always teasing me when you do the same to Eren, so slutty, don't you think, cadet?"

Your mouth drops open at his use of words, finally- the game caught up to you, and you were facing the repercussions, "don't be all shy now."

"I'm not-"

"Then if you're not shy, get on your knees and show us how much you’ve wanted us.”

You hesitate to move, but eventually find yourself slowly sliding out of the chair and onto your knees, "not in my office, go in my room." Eren grabs your arm, walking towards his adjoining room, Levi opens the door and permits you to be ushered in by both him and Eren; Eren grabs you by the hair and directs you back onto your knees in front of your captain's bed, "she's so compliant now that she knows we aren't joking anymore," Levi scoffs, standing behind you while Eren is unbuttoning his jeans right in front of your eyes, a combination of anxiousness and warmth growing in the pit of your gut, looking up at him through your eyelashes, licking across your bottom lip hungrily.

"Be a good girl and open for Eren," Levi bunches up your hair from behind, removing it from around your face.

"Yes sir."

Sticking out your tongue, you try to relax your throat once seeing the size of the man, Levi's grip on your hair prevents you from getting a good look at it before his cock is nudging gently into your mouth, down your tongue, and to the back of your throat, fastening your lips around the base of his cock whilst swirling your tongue when he pulls out of your throat, groaning when your tongue works him with ease.

"So good," He hums, grabbing the sides of your face, Levi drops your hair from his hold so Eren can pick up his pace, using his hands to guide you; gagging and choking while he fucks your throat, saliva dripping down your chin, at the verge of tears, you take his length as far as you can manage. Eren grunting and huffing; only throbbing more when he sees the little tears drip down your cheeks. He heaves out of you, your tongue lolled out while strings of spit follow his cock, the men are astonished at the sight of you gasping for air, but they weren't going to tell you that.

"Are you gonna be good for me and our captain, princess?" Eren crouches down to meet your eyes, clever smile on his face, you nod and he stands you up by your armpit.

You had virtually no control over yourself, they were moving you to where they saw fit; right on your hands and knees into the soft plush sheets, "what do you want, y/n?" you listen from behind you, your head is yanked backward, Levi is there, his free hand wrapped around your jugular loosely, his shirt unbuttoned.

"I want you both to fuck me," you gasp out, they both snicker at you.

"Too easy, way too easy, such a fuckin' whore, imagine wanting both of us," Eren taunts, snatching your shorts down to your knees and lifting your shirt to grab onto the thin waistband of your underwear, "you want Jean to fuck you too? Got any other favorites?" Levi shoves you back onto the mattress, your arms catching you while Levi continues to remove your shorts from your knees, tossing them on the floor, rough hands caressing and pulling apart your ass, both men watch your panties slip in the separated cave of your ass, Eren pulling off your shirt and unclasping your bra.

"N-o, only you guys."

"Who do you want more? Me or your other little fucktoy?" Levi sneers, moving to your front, once again lifting you by your chin, keeping you still while Eren rubs his fingers against the soaked cloth. Pulling upwards against your cunt, the pressure making your clit spasm and scream for the touch of his actual fingers, looking desperate and hungry at your captain.

"I- I can't choose."

Your chest rising and falling, Eren is finally relieving you from your panties, fingers instantly meeting your folds and slipping past your entrance with his two fingers, you whine, eyes rolling to the back of your head, knuckles curving downwards to hook into you and find your sweet spots.

"Well aren't you lucky, you get both of us, even though you don't deserve it," Your captain smirks, getting on his knees, fiddling with the button of his slacks, zipping them down and pushing them past his thighs, "I think she needs to beg for it." He looks at Eren, his erection making itself known from beneath his boxers, fingers quickly scissoring the roots of your hair while he frees himself from his constraints.

"I wanna be your slut- please make me cum." They smile, pleased with your submissiveness.

Cock spilling with precum, he scooches towards your salivating mouth and holds your level to his cock, centimeters away, "so fuckin' wet, can't say I'm surprised you get off to this." Eren's tip rubbing between your folds, collecting the slick that was seeping from your hungry pussy. He pushes into you while Levi is pushing into your mouth, both holes becoming occupied by their pulsating cocks; they longed to fill you up, the torturous teasing you put them through the second you turned eighteen was bound to make them snap- you didn't know what you expected, to be honest, you asked for this.

Eren fucks you slow, savoring the feeling of you clench and suck him in further, pussy stretching from the sheer size of him, veins from the base of his cock hitting and rubbing against the very nerves that were screaming for him to go faster.

Levi fucks deep into your throat, he was about Eren's size, perhaps a little thinner, but he was no match for your throat, choking up the spit from past your throat to lube his cock further. You bring your hand up to assist you, twisting your hand back and forth- up and down while you stimulated his sensitive tip with your tongue, hollowing out your cheeks to suck him back in and repeat.

He was becoming unkempt, his mouth ajar with little moans slipping past his lips, hair dangling in front of the sides of his face while his hips bucked back and forth into the depths of your cave.

"My God, so wet."

You moaned against Levi's cock, Eren speeding up and reaching your cervix, your juices slushing and pussy squeaking while he stretches you out. When his hips connected to your backside, you only want to shrivel up more from the pace he was hitting the hole of your tight cervix. Initially, it hurt, but almost instantly it began to feel pleasurable for both you and Eren, he was reaching great lengths inside of you. He's always wanted to fuck you; almost disappointed in himself that he didn't do this before.

"Taking me so well, I can barely fit," he grunts, "you like my cock y/n? Isn't this what you wanted with your bullshit teasing?" he smacks your ass, crying out, his hips jutting back and forth against you mercilessly, sending jolts into every bone of your body.

He slaps you again, your right ass cheeks burning and tingling from the strength of his slap, "fuckin' slut, better be quiet."

Levi pulls out of your throat, finally able to audible out the loud weeps and cries, he throws his hand over your mouth, "shut up before you get us caught."

"Fuck, Eren!" you wail, ignoring Levis commands, gasps and moans fly around the room, his cock filling you perfectly to the point where you felt like you were made to shape him.

"Open." his hand is forcing your jaw open, sticking your panties into your mouth to silence you. You cry into the fabric, the coil twirling up in your stomach, clenching your walls while he drills into you, his cock rubbing against your g-spot, sending you into a frenzy.

Levi fists his cock for the time being while Eren is chasing his orgasm, knocking into you- inching you towards your orgasm. The back of your head tingling, your pussy twitching, and your stomach tightening, the room spiraling around you while you drop your head into the mattress, eyes screwed shut; Eren tearing an earth-shattering orgasm out of your body.

You see stars and a bright white consumes you, hands reaching to grasp anything, finding Levi's bicep and digging your nails into his skin for support while Eren's cock bathes in your cum, his hands pressing into the small of your back, "'boutta cum, right in this pretty little pussy." He spits, pinning your back to a better arch, you cry into the sheets when Erens thrusts loosen a little, sporadic and stabbing thrusts until he's panting and dumping a large load of his seed into your cunt, letting out moans and swears of approval. Your body convulsing, wanting to collapse.

Erin's lightheaded, dizzy and sweating, little bangs and baby hairs sticking to his soaked face, watching your cum drip down your thighs, the wetness from your pussy which had soaked his stomach, it was a fucking mess.

Everywhere.

He pulls out of you, your cream coating his cock; snatching a shirt and wiping himself clean, hiking up his boxers, "you're not done. On your back, now."

Without warning nor regard, you're pushed forward into Levi's hands by Eren to get you moving quicker; you slide onto your back, Levi takes charge and steps off the bed, hauling you by the thighs until you're at the edge of the bed, Levi pressing his hands under your thighs, holding them up and letting his cock slap against your cum-filled cunt, biting onto his bottom lip, teasing his cock into you.

He leans down, taking out the pair of underwear from your mouth, "keep quiet, understood?"

Quickly nodding and bracing yourself, happy to feel warm again.

"Did Eren fill you good?" he asks calmly, you nod.

"Yes- Levi."

Levi halts mid-thrust, peeved look on his face, "yes what, y/n?" you swallow hard, throat dry from the cloth.

"Y-yes Captain, he did." You mewl, he nods once before finishing his thrust.

"This pussy is so tight, even after he stretched you out like this?" he huffs, head dipped down- eyes filed to your pussy sucking in his cock so well; hair flopping back and forth, "I told you I was gonna do something about that mouth of yours, didn't I?"

"Y-you did, sir." You wail.

Levi didn't hold back, each of his sharp thrusts made you more tender inside, little cries fall from your swollen lips while Eren sits beside your head, big arm reaching over your face and kneading your boob, he watches them bounce slightly as Levi ruts into you. Rolling your hard erected nipple in between his fingers, "look at that face, are you gonna cum again?" you look up at Eren, who wears a smug look on his face, "are you gonna cum on Captain's cock, y/n?" you whine, trying to remain quieter under your Captain's directions.

"Gonna-" Eren's hand moves once more- over towards your clit.

This was the first time tonight you had felt this overstimulation, hissing in air and biting onto the skin of your lip, hand grasping Eren's wrist as he swirls little- yet strong circles into your clit, your mouth slacks open, “please! Feels so-" another burst of spasms erupting, thighs shaking and clenching around Levi's waist, "f-fuck me- Fuck me harder Captain, please!" You cry, walls convulsing, cum seeping out of you, down your ass and the base of his cock while he fucks you silly, Eren bringing you that much closer to a euphoric feeling again as he rubs your spasming clit.

"Yeah? You want me to fuck you like the whore you are, right?" Levi pants, cockhead rubbing against your sensitive and exhausted g-spot.

"Who can fuck you better?" Unable to audible, Eren moves faster around your num.

"Don't disobey our Captain, pretty girl- use your words." Screwing your eyes shut, the two men await your answer.

"I-I don't know- Ah!" Your back arches, core tightening for the second time tonight- body shaking as the following orgasm sends you over the moon, Eren's hand smacked over your mouth, you wail into his hand, Levi pins your legs open, leaning down to fuck into you harder, thrashing into your guts, pussy gushing around him until he is groaning and throwing his head back while he slams into you, his stomach nearly slapping against Eren's fingers, his dick twitching. His cheeks rosy and his muscles flexed.

"Fuck, so good- so tight- keep squeezing-" he breathes.

You're dazed from the rocking of his hips, he slows, catching his breath while he releases, coating your bruised walls with his cum. Your body left empty and quivering as Levi is slipping out of your cunt, Eren handing him the same shirt he used to wipe himself off with; your captain retrieving it and cleaning the amount of cum that was left on his softening dick, moving to you and carefully wiping the inside of your thighs and beaten cunt.

Catching your breath, Levi is picking his boxers up from the floor and pulling them up along with his pants, “don’t stay there forever, my sheets need to be switched.” He states, Eren reaches for your hand and helps you sit up, putting his shirt over your head and you slip through the arms, feet meeting the cold wooden floor, you attempt to stand, your knees buckling, Eren grabs you by the tricep before you land on the floor and sits you back on the bed.

“I think it would look suspicious if I carried you out of here, can you walk?”

You nod, “yeah.”

Standing again, you're able to succeed, reaching for your underwear, Eren already had it swinging around his index finger, “I’ll hold onto these.”

With no willpower to object, you just pull up your shorts and pick up your shoes.

“Walk her back, Jaeger, don't do anything stupid.”

You and Eren both leave your Captain’s office quietly, the hall empty and empty, you and he slowly walk back, you laughed at the thought about how it would be a tough one to explain why Eren was shirtless and you were- quite obviously- wearing his shirt while he holds your stained shirt in his hand.

With great luck, you and he make it without running into anyone, reaching your door, you and him enter and you shut the door behind him.

“Here’s your shirt.”

He watches you as you throw off his shirt, tossing it to him and opening a drawer, and grabbing one of your own.

Before you realize it.

“Uhm, Eren, I forgot my bra.” Glancing down at your bare chest, Eren shrugs it off and laughs.

“Captain wanted to keep something too, princess.”

[drabsyo]

I was wondering...I was always confused about Narcissa’s hair. It’s been a while since I read the books. Did she color it blonde to show her now belonging to House Malfoys. Or was it naturally blonde? Movies confused me a bit I guess.

Yes, this had me confused too! I've agonized and toiled over it, more than I probably should, about how I should draw her hair because people have generally different views, which is totally understandable! 💕

And I've always wanted to discuss it, so now that I've been given a reason to... Well.

If you take a look at some of my Narcissa fanart, you'll notice the different ways I'd color her hair. I was so confused. Is she a light blonde? Dark blonde? A mix of raven hair and blonde hair? If she has blonde hair then why does her family have (mostly) dark hair? And WHY does she have blue eyes?! This woman is absolutely confusing! (Which is kind of, you know, fitting because Narcissa always loves to be a mystery to literally anyone lol)

So I did my homework, asked around, and scoured every bit of information, canon or otherwise, that I could find about her. It led me to this:

In canon, this is what the Black sisters look like. You can find the page here. Narcissa is a child here, and already has blonde hair. So we can go ahead and safely assume that she was born with natural blonde hair. But in the films, Narcissa has black and blonde hair. I don't actually know why they gave her that hair color, maybe so that the audiences wouldn't question her blood relations with the Blacks--I don't know. I really don't. But now we have a book version Narcissa, one who has full blonde hair. And a movie version Narcissa, one who has raven and blonde hair. At least, that's how the different hair colors started: a movie version, and a book version.

So... here's where it gets confusing.

To my knowledge, it isn't actually explained why her hair color is the way it is in both the movies and the books. Having blonde hair does raise many questions, how is she the "only" blonde in a family of dark hair and dark eyes? To top it all off, it gets even more confusing, because fanon writes and draws her either as a full blonde or a mix of raven and blonde hair. We just have this large pile to sift through of her having either hair color. No one actually explains anything. She's just... infuriatingly there. She's either blonde or raven haired and blonde. BUT fanfiction writers, as I've observed, give their own reasons why Narcissa's hair color is the way it is in their respective stories. And it's actually pretty creative and interesting! It adds even greater depth to her character, and it fits the narrative of the story even better. Remember, the character we're dealing with is Narcissa Black. One of her main traits is "she won't do anything unless there is a clear purpose behind it." This character is deliberate, meticulous, and she makes sure to plan ahead at all times. And so, some fanfiction writers decide to play on that.

You can skip this part if you want to avoid spoilers but I've compiled a small list of instances in (Cissamione) fanfiction where Narcissa's hair is mentioned.

🔹 In Extinction by rubikanon in Chapter 10: Build and Break, Hermione asks Narcissa about it. Here, Narcissa has black and blonde hair. She explains that she only decided to dye it blonde to "fit in with the Malfoys." We can gather two things from that alone, which resonates with her character perfectly: 1.) Narcissa is loyal and 2.) Narcissa purposefully wants to show the rest of the world how loyal she is by committing to having blonde hair. The woman has some serious commitment, and it shows. But now, the way that it's slowly growing back into her natural black hair color, hints that perhaps Narcissa no longer wishes to fit in with the Malfoys. However, if we take an even closer look, we can safely assume that Narcissa isn't the kind of person to just leave her hair color "unattended" like that. Remember, she's meticulous. And this is a big deal for her, the fact that she's just kind of letting it grow back instead of either fully dyeing it back to black, or dyeing it back to blonde. It suggests that perhaps she's a little unsure this time, perhaps it is her uncertainty that is the reason why it's now a mix of both. Another grey area? Or maybe it's actually something more deliberate? Maybe now, she likes that it's a mix of both. That other half now being solely for Draco, and not to fit in (completely) with the Malfoys any longer. Who knows why Narcissa does things the way she does? We can speculate to the ends of the earth, or be as smart as Hermione Granger (or with the case of Extinction, see Hermione's thoughts), but something tells me we'd still be a good step behind.

"Which one is your natural hair color?" I wondered aloud.

(Narcissa) She glanced up at the unexpected question. I was relieved she hadn't sensed my attention yet. It's not like I meant anything by it, I told myself. She was so beautiful, one couldn't help but notice. And feel physically drawn to her. And want to see her two-toned hair fanned across her back, slipping over the bare skin, silky beneath my fingers...

"Why do you ask?" Her query brought me back to reality, and I hurriedly corrected my imagination to include a pretty dress covering the rest of her.

"I don't know." I chewed the inside of my cheek, suppressing my other thoughts. "I'm just curious."

Her gaze returned to the fire. "You've seen enough of my relatives to guess which color is genetic. The blond is something I added to fit in with the Malfoys, after Draco was born." She was quiet for a moment. "He looks so much like his father. I suppose I wanted to share some resemblance."

🔹 In Killing Me Softly by Looktotheedges in Chapter 4: Nagging, Hermione suggests that perhaps Narcissa is part Veela because of her blonde hair and very attractive features, like Fleur. Which is this whole other theory/plot that's very interesting, but won't be discussed in this post. Narcissa tells Hermione that Sirius has always been blonde, and that it isn't out of the question for her to be blonde either. Sirius Black. A blonde. I know! Maybe it's there because it's funny that Sirius is actually blonde like Narcissa. Prissy, haughty, lady-like Narcissa. Arguably the 'girliest' cousin that he has. No, no, no. He doesn't want to be anything like Narcissa. Anyway, if that's the reason, I think that's hilarious and cute.

Narcissa turns away. 'I am aware my appearance is frightfully drab. Work has been…'

Hermione holds back a disbelieving scoff. 'Narcissa. You always look beautiful. And you’re talking to the witch with grass in her hair who practically lives in her office all week.'

Narcissa just leans further over the crib. 'A blonde little boy. It has been so long since… I can almost imagine…'

Hermione stands next to her. Looks down at the peacefully sleeping Louis. He does look remarkably like Draco. 'Are you sure there’s no Veela blood in you? You weren’t secretly switched at birth?'

'Like a changeling?'

'It would explain your blonde hair.'

'Sirius was also blonde, it is not completely out of the question for us Blacks.'

What?!

(...) 'I know. But it is the truth. He was blond until he was about seven… then it began to darken. Mousy. Dull. He wanted to look cool and brooding instead, so he got his hands on some kind of charm right before he set off for Hogwarts. A new, edgy Sirius. It was around then he forbade us from calling him Siri. Said it sounded too girly.'

🔹 In Fixed in Time by TheWorldsaBeastofBurden in Chapter 9: Sisters and Saviors, it's also tackled a little humorously. Andromeda let's a little comment slip while they're in the middle of trying to heal Hermione. Something funny, something that suggests Andromeda and Bella, when they were children, have always wondered why Narcissa is blonde unlike them.

The first words spoken occurred after they’d risen and attempted their casting. Andromeda’s preparedness to take on their task had been clear in her mind so Narcissa rose with her sister, wrapped an arm around her waist and held her near as the woman raised her wand to draw up the rest of the injury she’d dropped, half a slash across Hermione’s hip bone…

That remained half, as Andromeda growled out, “...it isn’t working.” she looked to Narcissa, “Why aren’t you powering me?”

What nonsense? “I am!” she insisted. She was! Or “I- I am trying to!” Her magic was active and alive, pulsing to rise from her skin and transfer into Andromeda’s but it- it wasn’t working! “Could...could it be that you were disowned?”

“Disowning doesn’t take away the fact that we share blood, our magic is directly related. Ugh, Bella always said you were adopted!”

“Oh ha- oh.”

“...oh?” Andromeda returned.

“...it’s not an issue of power. It is what I intend to aid in casting,” Narcissa slowly worked out. Oh, it was most blessed Mister Goyle could be brought to assist the present Hermione. If her present self had been brought to aid Andromeda? “...I cannot harm Hermione.”

Andromeda sighed with some frustration. “I understand you are so tenderly in love-”

“It isn’t- I’m avowed! I- when we arrived from the future we had to escape Malfoy Manor, I couldn’t bring Hermione through the wards without...I couldn’t add her directly, that would be visible. I had to...attach her permission to mine.”

🔹 In Glass Silence by Zarrene Moss (Menzosarres), which probably gives one of the most interesting backstories for Narcissa's hair, for why it's blonde. I can't put a clip of the scene here without hogging up a huge chunk of space on your dash, so I'll try to explain it as best I can instead.

Understand that these come with serious 🛑spoilers🛑 so please do read it at your own risk.

In Glass Silence, Narcissa's hair and eye color was black at birth. But after an accident with raw magic, something Bellatrix wasn't able to control when they were children, Narcissa almost dies. Bellatrix, using even more raw magic, tries desperately to pull Narcissa's "life force" back, but at the cost of losing the eumelanin that made Narcissa's eyes and hair black. Narcissa survived, but now has very little eumelanin left, which is why she's so pale, blonde, and has blue eyes. Every time Narcissa looks at a mirror, her reflection is a reminder of the day she almost died. Bella, on the other hand, is reminded of that day every single time she looks at Narcissa.

So! These are only a few fanfictions I could think of at the top of my head that tackles the issue of Narcissa's hair. In the books, to my knowledge, she is described as having blonde hair and very pale skin.

But let's take another deep dive, if you're up for it.

These are mostly theories, which are largely unconfirmed, but I think they're interesting to think about.

There's this description in the wiki:

"Narcissa Malfoy is described as tall, slim, "nice looking", and very pale, with blue eyes, long blonde hair, and a clear, cold voice. Her hair colouring thus differs from most of the House of Black, who generally have dark hair, though Narcissa does possess the arrogant good looks characteristic of her family."

There's also this pinterest photo of the Black sisters being compared to each other side by side, descriptively and physically. I'm so sorry, I don't know who drew it, but here's a link to the post on pinterest.

"Narcissa threw back her hood. She was so pale she seemed to shine in the darkness... long blonde hair streaming down her back."

Which is interesting because this hints that she's... different. It's a bit literal in this sense--she comes from a pureblood family, arguably the most influential and notorious one, the Blacks, who mostly have dark hair and eyes, and yet her physical appearance directly contrast that. There's also the matter of her namesake. She's the only Black to be named after a flower instead of a galaxy or a star. We aren't really given any explanation why she's the only one who's different. Even Sirius, who fought and died for the side of the Light, is named after the brightest star in the sky. Even Andromeda. It's been said that this is actually meant to be a parallel of some sort to Lily Evans. Narcissa and Lily are both named after flowers, even Petunia (Lily's sister). And I know there's this thing where it's a tie up to how Harry was ultimately saved by a mother's love: Harry lived at the beginning because of his mother's love, and Harry lives once again at the end of the books because Narcissa, a mother who wanted to save her own son, saved him.

If you read that scene in the books where Harry is saved by Narcissa, the whole scene is actually... pretty soft? There's that sort of disarming softness about Narcissa in that moment, where Harry expected to be callously dragged and prodded for a heartbeat. Instead, he gets a surprisingly gentle touch, a curtain of long blonde hair shielding him from the darkness, and the kind of tenderness he wouldn't expect from his enemies, "Is Draco alive?"

It's almost like Narcissa's appearance is something of a "tell". With Andromeda, she's described to have kind eyes, open, unguarded. She inherited her family's dark eyes and dark hair, and she even looks like Bellatrix's twin. I suppose we could say, Andromeda wants to fight that in any way she can by being openly kind. Narcissa is quite literally the opposite--guarded eyes, stoic expressions, cool and calculated emotions. We're veering into this fine line between fanon and canon in terms of their characterization (but only due to lack of canon materials) but personally, I think Narcissa having blonde hair and blue eyes is somewhat more fitting for her character. Again, this line:

"Narcissa threw back her hood. She was so pale she seemed to shine in the darkness... long blonde hair streaming down her back."

It's like that one glaringly obvious hint that everyone overlooks simply because... because it's the most obvious one. "Me! I'm different! I'm the last person you'd expect, but it really is me!"

Anyway. I've rambled on long enough. Hope this clears up some of that confusion, anon. Hoping it didn't ADD even more confusion... 😂 At the end of the day, this is just me speculating, gushing, and being One Big Fool™. So.

But either way, blonde hair, dark hair, mix of both, I adore her. Pretty much.

[captainsspnanon]

C3E35 reaction

I skimmed some things before hand, so stuff I knew before watching:

1) They interrogated Treshi some more (but no context for what about)

2) There was a skill challenge at some point that involved Calm Emotions

3) Ashton is confirmed to have chronic pain (no context as to HOW it was discovered, but that FCG was feeling Ashton’s body at the time, so I guessed the scene but nowhere near how it ended up playing out)

4) Keyleth brings them to Whitestone.

I’m glad the Treshi plot point is now wrapped up.  It was a fun impetus, but so much ended up happening all around the beat that it no longer felt like a driving force, but instead an anchor that was holding back their progress.  To have it resolved means that they are now free to travel and move fairly freely.  The time limit of a month could be up to another almost year of gameplay, so that should give them plenty of time to do things.

Skill challenge was super fun!  Also now gave a taste of the sinkholes, which should hopefully satisfy Travis a tiny bit about not being able to thoroughly explore the map and all the points.  (Though I agree with him, there are a number of places with very interesting sounding names!)

I’d seen somebody comment that they thought Thull was going to end up killing Eshteross because the Hells left, which had made me think that they never reported to him at all.  I’m very glad to be proven wrong, I missed him and his (justified) paranoia.  I’m relieved they gave him some detailed information about Thull’s fighting style, though this is one of the instances where I sort of wish they would just go “and we update Lord Eshteross about everything that happened in Bassuras” or some other narrative shorthand which would imply that they shared everything with him, and not just the parts that they actually roleplay through.

Yay for completing the bounty and getting funds!!  NO BEING BROKE THIS CAMPAIGN!  Checking now, M9 got about 8k gold in E30, and then no particularly large sums until E63.  They’d made just under 20k total by E35, compared to the Hells about 38.5k.  They’ve spent about the same though....maybe I just feel like the M9 was poorer because of the memes XD

The scene with Imogen and Fearne in Ashton’s mind was HARROWING.  Nothing new was found out during the memories, Milo had already told Ashton that they poured the potion in their head, but I guess Taliesin may have forgotten or misunderstood.  Ashton acted like he was just learning the information for the first time.  ON THE OTHER HAND - STRESS.  I cannot tell what Matt is planning with this, and it’s awesome and terrifying and I want more.

There’s been tons of speculation of chronic pain for Ashton, though at least among those that I follow the speculation had died out fairly early on.  It’s a hell of a thing to have it confirmed, and I wonder if it will ever come up again, or if it’s something which Tal has put out there but doesn’t really portray ‘loudly’, so to speak.

Mixed feelings on Keyleth appearing and the party going to Whitestone (TLoVM!Whitestone, at that XD), but Matt did seem like he was cutting off a lot of other possible options.  ...well, just Eshteross and Seshadri, I suppose.  Hexum could still have been an option, but I am glad they didn’t go with that.  (My mom was shouting at the screen for them not to tell Hexum or go to her XD)

I’ve read a lot of good posts about how it makes sense for PCs to be meeting high level NPCs around this point, and that we can just consider VM to be high level NPCs.  Personally, I still struggle with it a bit.  Again, mixed feelings.  Honestly, I think my feelings on this will really only be decided towards the end of the campaign when I will know how frequently or heavily involved VM is in the entire situation.  I really did love the fact that the M9 were so unrelated to C1 with only minor references tossed in until Allura, and C3 is being handled so differently just from the start.  It’s something I can’t decide until hindsight.

Either way........UGH HAVING TO WAIT TWO WEEKS INSTEAD OF ONE NOOOO

[talesfromlittlecarping]

3. Early Days - The Goths

So you might be wondering why Mercer was so bad, what happened to Cecilia and how did the Sororah sisters end up with one dad apiece.  It all started in October 2004.  I managed to get a whole lot of play in in Little Carping, before the release of University in March 2005 when, finally, I brought in some new characters so the following stories are about the early residents of Little Carping.  The Goths, Vaughans and Phoebe Sororah all moved on quite considerably during that very brief time just after the game released and the arrival of the University expansion.  It’s kind of strange writing up these stories more fully after so much time.  The original events were much more fragmented of course, and I kind of melded the sims responses into a story for each family based on my interpretation of what they did.  When I talk about Randolph’s response to Cecelia’s boredom and frustration below, for instance, he did actually have the gall to lecture her one evening.  If I had been Cecelia I would have punched him but she just apologised at the time.  Still, Cecelia’s frustration stuck at home looking after Gunther, as a knowledge sim, was very apparent at the time.

-------------------- The senior Goths quickly settled into a large square house (based on their house in TS1) on the most exclusive road (Buckingham Road) in Little Carping.  They had almost no money left after the purchase of the house and grounds and much of the interior was not even furnished but they still just managed to buy it.  Randolph though thought that it was important for them to live in a property commensurate with his social standing and Cecelia’s for that matter – Randolph had married in Cecelia, a scion of the Crumplebottom family of course.

The house has an impressive entry with two story windows and a double stairway to the upper level.  To the right is a large dining room at the front and a kitchen behind.  The kitchen had some furnishing (in blue!) but the dining room was unfurnished at first.  To the left of the hallway is the lounge (or drawing room probably for the Goths), furnished in red and cream.  This was also unfurnished at first.  Behind that is Randolph’s study and then across the back of the ground floor is a music room (nothing in there at first, LOL) and the downstairs bathroom.  Just in front of that is a set of stairs which lead to the cellars.  Going upstairs, there is also a large landing space with five bedrooms to the sides.  The master bedroom is at the front of the house to the right with an en-suite bathroom.  There is another large bedroom on the left frontage.  Three smaller bedrooms are at the back of the house.  Only two rooms had beds at first – there was nothing else up there apart from bare wooden floors and one small wall light on the landing – they couldn’t even afford to decorate the walls.  Randolph and Cecelia got depressed just going to bed.   I’ve always liked having sims earn absolutely everything they have – I don’t use money cheats all that often.  In buying the plot of land and building the shell of the house, the Goths were practically broke.  They had one toilet and a fridge, counter and sink downstairs and a bed and crib upstairs.  There were several rooms where the windows had not been put in and the upstairs landing had no bannisters (so watch your step in the one light dark up there – sadly sims don’t fall off edges).  So although Randolph had a place to live that was sufficiently impressive and reflective of his status as a representative of the Goth family, they were flat broke and he had to get to work pretty quickly. 

Randolph naturally went to see his father

“I need a job, father”, he said, “or Cecelia and I won’t be able to manage.”

“You will need to learn the ropes my boy, if you’re to be any use to the firm” said his father

and so Randolph started at the very bottom in the mailroom at the family firm and started bringing home a small salary with which to keep the family afloat.  For the first few years, they were living hand to mouth buying food and paying bills and occasionally buying some décor or furniture to open up a bit more of the house to use.  Most evenings were spent studying for the skills and knowledge Randolph needed for work leaving little time for his wife and son.  After that, he also had to spend quite a bit of time socialising and pressing flesh to develop the necessary friendship network in order to advance.  And advance he did, as time passed, Randolph was a success at work, earning several promotions in rapid succession.

In the meantime, Cecelia stayed at home.  She spent most of her time reading cookery books with the aim of not incinerating her entire family at dinner time.  She did wonder why she had spent all that time at school studying hard and doing well when what she ended up with was caring for a small child all day, doing the housework and not a lot else.  Little Carping offered her little in the way of distraction and entertainment.  The only community spaces at that time were a grocery, a clothes shop and a – albeit nice – little park.  “There only so much shopping and strolling I can do,” she complained to Randolph one evening, “and you can’t have an intelligent conversation with a small child.” 

“I really think, as my wife, you need to remember what I am trying to do for our family,” Randolph responded pompously, “I need to come home to a quiet well-ordered house and to be able to get on with preparing for work.” 

Cecelia then became pregnant again and barfed all over the place – apparently Randolph didn’t need to spend absolutely all his time pursuing knowledge and skills.  The physical toll of the pregnancy, her constant hunger and tiredness, plus looking after Gunther’s needs, meant she hadn’t time to get round to everything and much of the housework got left undone.  Randolph was often doing his studying surrounded by dirty pots from breakfast which meant the socialising he had to do was done outside the house since it was not a pleasant place to invite people over.  Cecelia was miserable and found herself thinking back to when she was at school.  “I was such a good student,” she thought, “I enjoyed it so much.” 

Poor Gunther was stuck between a bored and increasingly fractious mother and a father who had no time to spend with him. 

On the other hand, Randolph’s success meant more money coming into the house in wages and a series of bonus payments.  This meant that completing the build by inserting windows and the occasional door and decorating and furnishing more spaces was possible.  They furnished the lounge (in the aforementioned red and cream) and bought a TV so Cecelia had at least something to watch and pass the time.  They bought an easel to stick in the study though that appealed more to Randolph than Cecelia.  He needed the creativity points.  They were even able to afford a new bed for Gunther when he aged up which was fortunate as Marianne arrived shortly after.  She was a brown haired, grey-eyed baby like her mother.

Then, while partially furnished (they may have had the piano by then), they invited the Headmaster of the local public school (one Vince Walter*) over and Cecelia gave him Mac n Cheese for dinner (not burnt).  Both Randolph and Cecelia schmoozed for all they were worth and Gunther showed Mr Walter the piano.  Gunther got into the local public** school – probably more on the Goth name than how impressive the Goth residence was at the time I should imagine.  The Mac n Cheese was probably good though – Cecelia is pretty clever and practical after all and she had several points in cooking by this point.

So Cecelia was bored and being lectured to by her ambitious distant husband with a small baby to look after, Randolph was out most of the time with work concerns and Gunther went off every morning in his natty school uniform.  Randolph tried not to show disappointment in Gunther’s slow academic progress.  Because he was a bit slow.  Poor Gunther. * This is the early days of the game remember, so I still had all the regular Pleasantview townies in the game.  I got rid of them all later ** yeah, I know private school in America but I’m British so I’ll call it public school.  Actual schools for the public are called state schools here.

[gunterfan1992]

Episode Review: ‘Wizard City’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 4)

Airdate: September 2, 2021

Story by: Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, Kate Tsang, Hanna K. Nyström, & Charley Feldman

Storyboarded by: Maya Petersen, Hanna K. Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, & Aleks Sennwald, & Haewon Lee

Directed by: Miki Brewster & Jeff Liu (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

An episode focusing on Peppermint Butler’s dark side is something that the fandom has craved ever since the little guy demanded Finn and Jake’s flesh in season two’s “Death in Bloom.” While installments like season five’s “The Suitor” and season six’s “Nemesis” did much to scratch that itch, the story of the Dark One remained mostly unknown…

And after “Wizard City,” it still remains largely unknown. But that’s OK, because instead of focusing on the character’s history, this special focuses on Peps’ quest to relearn magic at a magic school. Put most simply, this special is largely a fun excuse for the show to riff on Harry Potter and The Owl House-style “magic school hijinks,” and it mostly all works.

The special follows Peps quest to go to WizArts (a definite play on CalArts, the school that Pen Ward and Adam Muto, among many others, went to) so that he can relearn magic and once again become one of the greatest dark wizards of his time. Initially, Peps tries to make friends with cool kid Spader and his posse, but once they learn that Peps is not as talented at magic as they had initially thought, they kick him to the curb. It is at this point that Cadebra, Abracadaniel’s adorkable niece who is fascinated with stage magic, enters the picture. Cadebra tries everything in her power to befriend Peps, but Peps pushes back, since she’s not “cool.” It does not matter, though, because both Peps and Cadebra are sorted into the same “house”—the “Skink House—and are forced to work together.

While Peps and his cohort begin learning more and more complex magic, a secret cult of school professors, led by the otherwise caring Dr. Caledonius, are scheming to resurrect Coconteppi, a powerful dark wizard whose putrid heart has been discovered underneath the school excreting a very powerful ichor. The school cult kidnaps Spader and gives him some of the ichor to drink; they hope that because of his talent, he will be able to house the spirit of Coconteppi. This does not go as planned, and Spader is graphically killed (albeit off screen). (In a more humorous moment, Bufo, the scam wizard from season one’s “Wizard,” also ingests some of the ichor, believing himself powerful enough to handle it, but it kills him.)

Eventually Peps and Cadebra learn what is going on. Dr. Caledonius welcomes Peps, believing that he is strong enough to handle the ichor. When Cadebra’s life is put in danger, Peps reluctantly gives the putrid fluid a swig, which infuses him with the power of Coconteppi. Coconteppi-Peps then kills all the cult members before Cadebra manages to remove the ichor from Peps body. For uncovering a heinous plot, Peps is promoted to the highest house, “Salamander,” but he decides to remain a Skink and learn magic “the hard way” with Cadebra as his friend.

As I mentioned near the start of this review, “Wizard City” spends most of its time riffing on the “magic boarding school” trope, with much of the episode feeling like a light-hearted parody of Harry Potter: The characters, after all, are “sorted” into “houses,” they learn various types of magic from skilled “professors,” and they bunk in different parts of a large castle-like campus. Of course, Harry Potter didn’t invent the idea of a boarding school, but when setting your story in a school for magic, it is very hard not to lean at least somewhat into the Hogwarts relation. And this really is a double-edged sword, for while Harry Potter references can be fun here and there, they can also make the overall story feel like a fanfic parody. This special does a good job focusing more so on the characters rather than the setting, but I won’t lie, at times it did feel as if they show was really trying to make you realize it was making a Harry Potter joke.

Of all the characters introduced in the special, the breakout star is easily Cadebra, voiced by Chloe Coleman. Radiating a sort of Mabel Pines energy, Cadebra is the beam of optimism who shines brightly in an otherwise macabre special. There is something about her plucky personality and sense of wacky individualism that charms the viewer. I appreciate how the show compared and contrasted her with her uncle, the one and only Abracadaniel: like her uncle, Cadebra is a good person who wants to help others, but unlike Abracadaniel, she has a sense of courage and fortitude that results in her taking on a Coconteppi-possessed Peps at the episode’s climax. (Say what you will, Abracadaniel stans, but our favorite custodian would never have done that!) Thanks to her bravery and dedication to Peps, Cadebra is easily the heart of the special.

The episode throws an interesting little curveball into the mix by having the ‘ghost’ of Past Peppermint Butler constantly haunt Peps in the here-and-now. Past Peppermint, it seems, was so determined to become a great wizard, he cursed himself, so that if anything were to go awry, his Past self could materialize and set him straight. It’s confusing, but I do think that mixing the “overbearing parent” trope with a curse is a clever idea; it gives the whole special some dramatic heft. The whole setup is made even funnier by the special’s conclusion: After Future Peppermint Butler is ‘defeated’ and the day is saved, Peps reveals to Cadebra that he still wants to be a great and powerful dark wizard… but he wants to earn that power through hard work and determination. (Peppermint Butler might commune with demons, but he would never sell his soul to one for power; Glob helps those who help themselves, ya know?)

One of the special’s strongest points is its background art. Adventure Time always had some beautiful set pieces, and this special goes above and beyond to give WizArts an ancient sense of grandeur and mystery. Ghostshrimp, a freelance artist who was the show’s lead background designer during seasons 1-4, return for this special as a “visual developer”—basically, he mocked up a bunch of rough designs for the locales, and then the episode’s background artists worked up the final pieces in his style. On his podcast, Ghostshrimp mentioned how hectic he found Adventure Time to be, because he was used to taking his time on pieces. As such, the decision to bring him on for just development was smart, as it allowed him to still come up with iconic background designs while also playing fast and loose with everything. Hopefully the show will continue this approach with the Fionna and Cake miniseries that is coming up. After all, Ghosthsrimp’s style is the look of Adventure Time.

Another strong point for the episode is its voice acting. For one thing, you have your regulars like Tom Kenny and Dana Snyder, and Duncan Trussell, who all give a solid performance. But to voice many of the special’s new characters, the show brought on a bevy of fun actors: Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader, for instance, is now voicing Bufo, and he does a solid job hamming up his role as the old fogey. And then there’s Toks Olagundoye, whose British accent gives Dr. Caledonius a sense of knowledge and expertise. To my delight and surprise, SungWon Cho, an internet personality and voice actor perhaps better known as ProZD, was tapped to voice Brain Wizard, and he does an excellent job. And finally, Anthony Stewart Head, a very talented actor who I know best as Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, voices Con Wizard, and is even given a fun little ditty to sing. I can safely say that the voice acting in this special is likely the best of the bunch, and it’s obvious that the actors were all having a great time playing their parts.

What drags the whole thing down, in my opinion is the excessive murder. (I joked on Twitter that during the climax of “Wizard City,” it felt like I was watching an Adventure Time-ified version of Invincible!) Infused with the power of Coconteppi, Peps goes on a brutal killing spree, boiling Potable Wizard into steam, zapping Dimension Wizard into another plane of existence, smashing Berdzerd, and—perhaps most graphically—excerebrates (had to look that word up!) Brain Wiz. On Twitter, @sometipsygnostalgic​ argued that while, yes, the scene is startling, it does wonders to transmute “a poor Summer Camp Island knockoff [into] Adventure Time chaos.” The more I think about it, the more I think that’s a fair point; after all, this is hardly the first dark thing that has happened in Adventure Time. But the part that I cannot really stomach is the fact that Spader was murdered for no real reason, and the special ends without anyone really expressing their horror at the situation. Sure, Spader was a schoolyard bully, but he was also a child. And killing a child—either for the drama or the lulz—feels decidedly out of place in an Adventure Time episode. It’s hard to express, but it just felt unnecessarily nihilistic and mean-spirited.

All things considered, I think this was a fun episode, but it was somewhat underwhelming for a ‘finale.’ Much of this is because it had to air after the perfection that was the back-to-back “Obsidian”/”Together Again” wombo combo. But I can’t help but feel like this special just felt a little... off. A little too meanspirited, and it leaned a bit too much on standard tropes. Still, it was a fun spin, and I know that I’ll rewatch it.

Mushroom War Evidence: As Peps rides the bus to school, he passes a bunch of abandoned houses, some of which are buried in the ground. There is an unexploded bomb above the fossilized elephant in the school. Cadebra has a dream that takes place in the ruins of a city.

Final Grade: B+