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qm-vox · 3 years

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So You Want To Play A Fairest

(Portrait of Erin Peters by cantankerousAquarius. The character originally appeared in Night Horrors: Grim Fears, published by White Wolf; catch my take on her in New Avalon)

Previous Articles: So You Want To Play A Beast, So You Want To Play A Wizened, So You Want To Play An Elemental, So You Want To Play An Ogre, & So You Want To Play A Darkling

You ever wonder, flipping through a Monster Manual for D&D, or a Bestiary for Pathfinder, why nymphs and hags are both always, always, women? It’s older than you know. Dig into the sordid history of tabletops and you’ll find sylphs that Gary Gygax wrote, Chaotic charmers who use mind control to reproduce with non-sylph men; you’ll find the legacy of the matriarchal drow, who follow a mad goddess, and you’ll find the medusae, whose sexual dimorphism is so complete that their men are beautiful and can turn stone into people.

Dredge deeper and you’ll find the tales that Gygax and his wretched ilk based such creatures off of.

You ever wonder why we assign such powerful Gender to creatures of beauty and horror?

Fairest don’t. They know, every time they wake up from a nightmare that is also a wet dream. They know, every time they get hit on at the bar and have to decide how they’re playing this. They know, every time they look in a mirror and see not their own face, but the ten thousand horrors that made it beautiful.

If you are very patient, and lucky, and kind, they might tell you why.

If you aren’t, they may show you.

This article draws primarily on Changeling: the Lost and Winter Masques, as well as Swords at Dawn and Night Horrors: Grim Fears. Other sources, when used, will be cited. It requires Content Warnings for sexual violence, sexual slavery, abuse, gaslighting, addiction, substance abuse, self-harm, self-image problems, mentions of fascists & fascist ideology, and just, so very much incel bullshit.

Bonus Material Part Two: The Seeming Part

The end of this article, just past the customary Sample Fairest, will include some additional material intended to help you select a Seeming for your character and otherwise build them up as one of the Lost, much as So You Want To Run A Spring Court included material for Courts as a topic.

Take Me To Wonderland - Fairest Overview

Fairest is the fourth Seeming presented in Changeling: the Lost and possibly the most confused about its own identity. Its sections in Winter Masques present depths and nuance that are completely absent in core, essentially making Winter Masques required reading for Fairest players in a way that no other book is - especially since Fairest keep getting written in a particular way alluded to in the Ogre article, which I will expand on later in this article. Fairest is numerically well-represented in canon and popular in the fanbase, home to many memorable character concepts, but its bones with folklore and tradition are weaker than it fronts as.

Ogres and Darklings claim an innate relationship to physical violence; so too do the Fairest claim a relationship to violence. The violence of Perception and its dark twin, Judgement; of Rumor and its mad dog, Prejudice, the violence of Lies and their merciless master, Truth. Fairest, alone among the Lost, have casual access to the resources of a society that refuses to service or acknowledge Changelings, and with access to that society comes both opportunity and temptation. To be Fairest is to wield power that many other Lost cannot, but the opportunity that power offers is a lie; a Fairest can smile until her face breaks like a mirror, but she’ll never be “sane” enough for the masses to see her as anything but a useful pet.

Life’s Lush Lips - Homecoming As A Fairest

Fairest can make the dubious claim of having the least clear memories of Arcadia amongst all the Lost, with Darklings and Beasts jockeying for second place. This isn’t to say that the experiences Fairest have are necessarily more intense or more inherently traumatic than that of other Lost, but rather that the abuse Fairest suffer is so emotional, so targeted at their perception of their selves and their situations and their self-image, that the memories which do form are inevitably colored by those emotions, coloring the dreams they have of Arcadia with both the emotional resonances they had at the time and with their later attempts to grapple with their own trauma and transformation. For many Fairest, who cannot trust even their strongest memory dreams, attempts to understand their own Durance must rely either on the word of their Keepers (and Faeries lie, oh, how they lie), or on reverse-engineering their own behavior to try and conceive of a trauma that could cause it.

Inevitably, however, some things are seared into their minds. For almost all Fairest, their Keeper is high on the list of things they remember with absolute clarity. Other facts, shattered and scattered, vary more widely. Erin Peters remembers stretched years kept in a cold, dark room lit only by her own hatred; every detail of her cell is scorched onto the back of her eyes, but the otherworldly balls her Keeper took her to blur together like food coloring in syrup. The slaves of the Candle Countess have terrible nightmares of the choices they were confronted with, the decision, offered over and over again, to become complicit in the Countess’s cruelty or to be victimized by it. Metallic Flowering from the Shining City struggle not to use drugs to mimic the rush of pleasure they’ve grown used to receiving for performing their jobs well; they also scream in terror if people touch them. A Draconic and a Shadowsoul both remember being used for the sexual pleasure of alien horrors; the one dreams of coiled scales and terrible teeth, the other a lifetime of lurking in an alien maze, tasked to perform the duties of a living trap for the “wicked” and “unwary” who had not yet shed the last vestiges of kindness.

There are no “wild” Fairest. For worse and worse still, to be Fairest is to have been defined by the inescapable and all-consuming attentions of your abuser, and it is this more than anything that other Lost so often fail to understand about the Fairest. Their Keepers heap them with reward and punishment, manipulating the Fairest with honeyed praise, godly wrath, gaslighting, neglect, withholding food, wondrous rewards, drugs from beyond the realms of earthly pleasure, and other hooks and crooks designed to make the Fairest dependent upon their abuser. It is hideously effective, and the first obstacle, maybe even the mightiest, that a Fairest faces to their escape is the simple horror and joy of being alone again. Their masters will try other tricks to keep them in place - tempting them with pleasures, horrific punishments, oh-so-sincere apologies - but before a Fairest can escape into the Hedge she must face, in her mind’s eye, the lonely flight back to the Iron Lands.

The memories that draw Fairest home often have parallels to their experiences in Arcadia. A slave in the Shining City bites into an otherworldly pastry and recalls her grandmother’s pie in its place; the bride of the Demon Lover, curled up under the sheets, thinks about the broken smile of the boyfriend she left behind at home. A Dancer remembers the roller rink where he fell in love with skating, while across the endless tides of the Fairest of Lands, a Shadowsoul holds on like grim death to years of work at haunted houses, scaring kids for fun and for Halloween. Fairest, so famous for their skill at words, struggle to articulate to other Lost why this should be so. Darklings assume it’s because these memories are less intense than Arcadia, and that the Fairest are fleeing to safety. Beasts get it a bit more right by thinking that these memories taste like home. The truth of the matter is that those memories have an intrinsic and nameless meaning; the highs and lows of Arcadia are divine, flawless, absolute, and therefore worthless. They are the proclamations of merciless gods. What draws the Fairest home, more than pain and pleasure they can have on their own terms, is the understanding that those gestures - for weal or for woe or for anything else besides - were made because someone cared about them, personally. Once they fully internalize that their abuser views them as disposable, the Fairest comes home to someone who won’t.

Three Kiths And Flowering Is One And A Half Of Them - Fairest Kiths

Yeah we’re about to be like that about it.

All Fairest can excel in the social arena; their Blessing can be used to flare almost every social roll in the game, and Fairest can never be caught off-guard in a social context (they suffer no untrained penalties to social rolls). With the sole exception of Empathy (usually rolled with Wits) and sometimes Streetwise, there’s no time a Fairest can’t fall back on their words and expect to win through or at least buy time. This is, as you might imagine, a godsend when it comes to attempts to pass in mortal society; Fairest can usually front, charm, bluff, or Manners(tm) their way through things like renting an apartment, nailing a job interview, asking their roommate to do the FUCKING DISHES, or getting stopped by a cop, but both the books and the fanbase miss something here. While Fairest are superb at active social events, they’re no better at keeping a lid on themselves (Composure-based rolls) than mortals are - and given both the nature of their trauma and the fact that they are, you know, Lost, Fairest have a lot more to keep a lid on day-to-day than the human society they’re trying to blend into. Thankfully, Fairest are pretty good at being able to politely leave a situation and go somewhere else to scream, shout, cry, or have a psychotic break, as appropriate.

Of course, Fairest can’t make something from nothing. As discussed in So You Want To Play An Ogre, you can’t win a social game someone else refuses to sit down to, and social rolls shouldn’t be mind control. All the Glamour in the world can’t make your roommate do the FUCKING DISHES if they’re deep in the throes of executive dysfunction, nor can it make the cashier at Walgreens fail to card you for wine when their computer literally won’t advance without an ID. People who are keyed up about honeyed words or whose own trauma came at the hands of manipulators and abusers might refuse to play that game on the terms the Fairest is setting, which makes it hard to, as it were, turn this problem into a nail. Lurking down this path as well is the specter of becoming like the masters who made you this way; if you get used to saying what will get people to listen to you, eventually you start seeing people as enrichment puzzles that dispense the things you want. Madness waits down that road, and it waits for Fairest with a giant spiked bat, thanks to their Seeming Curse.

There’s no pretty way to say this so I won’t: Fairest are always on the verge of losing their minds. Their curse hits them with a flat penalty to all rolls against losing Clarity, which means that Fairest lose Clarity faster than other Lost and they do so more consistently. This necessitates a balancing act with avoiding becoming heartless manipulators; Fairest must engage in control-seeking behavior in order to stay mentally well, must be able to trust and rely on people close to them, structure their lives, and anticipate important changes or they end up on the fast way down. Other Lost often don’t understand this need or the Fairest curse to begin with, and so Fairest end up in unofficial support groups for one another, similar to those run by Darklings except no one will admit it’s a support group even at gunpoint. Woe fucking betide the friend or life partner who gets between a Fairest and her “book club”, “girls’ night”, “D&D campaign”, or other excuse for this vital community support.

Fairest Kiths are...bad. They’re bad. This is the part of the article where I’m supposed to talk about thematics and symbolism and metaphor, and I cannot do that here, because they are bad. Fairest has three viable Kiths that are actual Fairest Kiths, one that’s a Beast Kith who got lost and wound up here by fucking mistake, and a pile of garbage bigger than my self-esteem problems. I’m almost tempted to only talk about those four Kiths and save myself the time but I suppose I should show the work like I’ve done for all the other Seemings, so here we fuckin’ go I guess.

Flowering - This is it. This is the Fairest Kith. If you want to roll any other kind of Fairest you must first pass the trial of justifying why you’re not playing Flowering. In theory, Flowering draws its mythic heritage from nymphs and dryads, charming flower sprites, Knights of Flowers, and the like, but in practice Flowering’s only mechanical effect is 9-again on Persuasion, Socialize, and Subterfuge with no qualification or requirement, which doesn’t just make you better at everything Fairest is good at, it makes you better when you spend Glamour to flare it too. Want to represent a biobahn sith’s hypnotic dance? Flowering works. Want to create a vampiric Fairest with a sultry voice? Here comes Flowering. The siren at the bar who smells like sea air and gunpowder? Flowering. Everything is Flowering. Even the things that aren’t Flowering are Flowering because all Fairest Kiths have a social focus, which is Flowering’s undisputed arena of mastery.

Bright One - In theory, Bright Ones represent beings of light in the vein of Victorian fey (which...ugh...Victorians), but their Goblin Illumination is, how you say, useless, only becoming vaguely useful for a total of 2 Glamour as a passive defense that took you 2 turns to set up. Anything you want to represent here can be found in Flowering and with Elements or Communion (Light).

Dancer - You know how Flowering gives you bonuses on all social rolls? Would you like those same bonuses but on 1 less skill and only on rolls that “involve physical grace”? No? Run Flowering here and give your character a Dance specialty in one or more skills.

Draconic - One of the game’s premier melee options and a Beast Kith who took a wrong turn and ended up getting a free makeover intended for someone else. Draconic in theory represents Fairest as dragons, monster girls, demons, and in general at their most physical, but that idea sorta...falls down a bit? Draconic’s bonuses are all about Brawl and all the sample Draconics are swordsmen, which might suggest to the discerning reader that someone in the office wasn’t reading their own fucking game. Draconic Fairest don’t make bad melee boys if you invest in Lethal Mien, but honestly this is Dual Kith bait; slap it on your Hunterheart or your Razorhand and go apeshit.

Muse - Close but no cigar. In theory Muses are, well, muses; figures of inspiration, mentorship, teaching, creative fire. Their Kith Blessing is strong but requires access to mortals, which is complicated and roundabout on the best of days. If you have an idea that you think is Muse-shaped, use Playmate instead.

Flamesiren - Behold, we enter the realm of Okay(tm). Flamesirens are what Bright Ones wanted to be, and their hypnotic aura is actually a pretty neat tool; with cunning you can make it a one-sided penalty, and even if you don’t it’s an interesting method of de-escalating a social or combat situation by subjecting everyone to the tar pit that is your presence. If your concept involves light and color and you’re resistant to Flowering, Flamesiren will do more than nothing.

Polychromatic - Polychromatics don’t have a lot of roots in mythology; their modern inspirations are, well, Manic Pixie Dream Girls. But they get a shout-out here for being the only Fairest Kith who can muster up decent emotional defenses; not only can they magically boost their Composure rolls (and non-Composure rolls to resist magical and mundane emotional attacks for that matter), but others get a flat penalty to Empathy rolls against them, which makes them talented dissemblers. You’re still probably better off with Flowering - in a world of passive Kith Blessings, Polychromatic’s is extra passive - but I can see this Kith passing muster, and even being worth the two dots to Dual Kith in-house.

Shadowsoul - This one’s insane. Ostensibly Fairest Does Darkling, Shadowsouls get their Wyrd to Intimidate rolls which could be the whole Kith on its own and still be worth the slot, but in addition to that they get 9-again on Subterfuge (matching Flowering and Darklings there) and access to Contracts of Darkness, one of the most powerful in the game line, as an Affinity Contract. Is your Fairest spooky? Would you like them to be spooky? Here’s your one-stop shop.

Telluric - This is a Kith made of ribbon bonuses. In theory related to stars and celestial light, Telluric’s bonuses to rolls “with precise timing” isn’t...really worth considering. Run ‘em as Flamesiren and move on.

Treasured - In theory also able to muster emotional defenses, Treasured are Fairest who are literally made into works of art. They’re Okay(tm) but in their niche are beaten out by Polychromatic with a better effect for less resources.

Playmate - The last Real Fairest Kith(tm), Playmate appears in Night Horrors: Grim Fears where White Wolf tries to sell it as Peter Pan, but its powerful team-oriented bonuses mean that Playmates are useful anywhere Muse is wanted and more places besides. The front woman of an indie rock band could be a Playmate; so too could be an idealized baseball captain, the director at your local theater, the middle manager of a sinister conspiracy, or the night shift lead at a research lab. Do people do a thing in teams? Playmate does that thing.

And She Had Huge Titties, I Mean Massive Badondadonks, Absolutely Enormous Bazoggahoggas - Lost’s Canon Fairest

Remember when I said we had to get back to this after So You Want To Play An Ogre? Now we’re getting back to this. I’m not gonna re-state my caveats from that article and I’m not really gonna go back over the bit about So White Wolf Was Run By Fucking Nazis because, in all honesty, I do not have the fucking time to restate all of that in new words. Give thanks that OPP got out alive and let’s get right down to it.

Fairest have a very consistent characterization in canon that is only really challenged in Winter Masques; the narrative put forth in Lost is that Fairest, being attractive, have an uncomplicated power which privileges their lives. Which is a rather bloodless way to describe how White Wolf kept writing and publishing Fairest as heartless abusers and manipulators getting their jollies and emotional needs met by casually destroying their fellow survivors, manipulating them through sex appeal, outright lies, cattiness, cruelty, and betrayal. Much as simply queering Ogre does not help Ogre in and of itself, queering Fairest only takes you from incel and Nazi propaganda about women into...incel and Nazi propaganda about twinks, femmes, & in general anyone with the temerity to be found attractive by straight white people.

I’m not bitter, you’re bitter.

So what do you do at your table, with your Fairest concept? Lemme open up by saying that like, Fairest qua Fairest is perfectly solid, and if it wasn’t there wouldn’t be an article here; Fairest has a lot to say for itself about feminized violence, about your personhood being reduced to a product for the consumption of others, about emotional abuse & neglect, gaslighting, and sexual assault, but the conclusion White Wolf arrives at (”Fairest have unalloyed power over mortal and Lost society and they abuse that power”) is super fucking obtuse and betrays a serious lack of concern for what the Fairest undergo. It ignores the way a Fairest’s ordeals will force her to confront her relationship to her own gender and alter her willingness and ability to be consumed, disconnect her from her former society while also isolating her from her new one, and these questions are important for you if you’re looking to play a ‘classic’ Fairest.

But that leaves some hanging questions. Male Fairest face the almost inescapable fate of “failing” maleness on patriarchal terms; even the most strapping, broad-chested, athletic Adonis of a Fairest has become a man of layered words and reflexive empathy, whose Manly Stoicism(tm) is a cracking facade at best and entirely abandoned in a more typical circumstance. Men who become Fairest thus face a second journey after their escape from Arcadia; confronting what being men means to them and building their gender identity back up from the rubble it’s become. The temptation to accept success on society’s terms is always going to be present, and it’s always going to be offered like it’s possible, but it’s a losing game for these Fairest; they simply cannot be the men that other men demand they become.

Now, the discerning and loyal reader is surely about to ask, hey Vox, where’s the butch Fairest I was promised back in the Ogre article, to which I respond WE’RE GETTING THERE but I gotta use this as a bridge to talk about something that cuts across Fairest of all genders, be they cis or trans. Lost 1e makes a lot of hay out of the idea that Fairest “are rarely conventionally attractive”, and core even provides some interesting written concepts for that...which make it into exactly none of the art. Every published Fairest is conventionally attractive for various definitions of conventional, be it as a supermodel or a waif, but that leaves the question of Fairest who genuinely are not - and, tragically, Fairest who were not, and were then made into someone more easily consumed by their Durance. You know what I’m about to say, and I know you know I’m about to say it, but I’m gonna say it anyway: all bodies are beautiful, but Fairest know well that beauty and attraction aren’t the same, and neither are beauty and happiness. All Fairest, from the roundest bear to the most wide-eyed waif, are the products of Keepers who valued their bodies in that state, and that idea is going to haunt them day in and day out for the rest of their extended lives. There is no such thing as a Fairest with an uncomplicated relationship to their body, and that White Wolf seems to think that an uncomplicated relationship is their default state is...disgusting, frankly.

Which brings us, at long last, to butch Fairest (also bear Fairest but I’m gonna stick with the one set of terms or I’m going to go mad and this will never be published), who have a complicated journey ahead of them. On the one hand, the assertion of control and ownership over their own bodies, their own identities, cannot be overstated. On the other hand, elements of those bodies are going to be completely out of their control; a nascent butch Fairest may well hit the gym to get swole only to discover that she literally, physically cannot, that she has been Assigned Dex Build At Durance. Hauling your corpse out of Arcadia with an extremely feminine appearance shaped by your Keeper might complicate attempts to present in a more masculine manner or even just to appear androgynous, and those complications can be discouraging. For those that stick to it, this journey will take them two places; one is the bared-teeth, bloody-knuckled assertion that this life is theirs and you can have it if you can fucking take it, and the other is into the ranks of the Freehold’s retained warriors, usually in Summer or Autumn, though a vibrant representation of Spring knights will make it seem as if Spring has more butch Fairest than it actually does. These Fairest are aware, or will become aware, of how much of their job involves de-escalating or pre-empting violence; a focus on Physical stats or skills is not necessarily common, but hyper-specialization therein likely is. A butch Fairest is a lot more likely to have, say, Brawl 4 (Multiple Opponents) and no other Physical skills than she is to have Brawl, Weaponry, Athletics, and Stealth, in part or in whole because her first weapon of choice is going to be an Intimidate roll.

At every turn you’re able to, challenge White Wolf’s narrative about Fairest by asking yourself what your Fairest wants, why they’re this way, what they’re frightened of, and how the way they behave relates back to these. They’re not products; they’re people, just as hurt and Lost as the rest of their peers.

Princesses And Pastries - Fairest In The Courts

Fairest have a complex relationship to the society of their fellow Lost. On the one hand, they have the same need for community, support, companionship, understanding, honesty, and material aid as all Lost; a Fairest is not magically proof against being homeless, against starving, against the dangers of existing in the modern world without things like a photo ID or car insurance, and Freeholds provide all of these things. On the other hand, the thing most Fairest fear most, even if they can’t articulate that fear, is their own power - social influence, emotional trust and betrayal, status, political power, and authority. Fairest are all too aware that being good at this game does not make them immune to it - after all, that’s the lesson they learned at the hands of their Keepers.

What follows from this is a complex dance of interactions that each Fairest in some ways has to feel like she’s managing on her own, even if she’s not (and she rarely is; those support groups exist for a reason). If you give a Fairest a doughnut in a social setting, she will lick that doughnut even if she doesn’t intend to eat it right away, solely to hear someone else say something along the lines of “well it’s yours now”. As Fairest filter into Freehold society and take up social roles at all levels of power - officers, messengers, ‘ambassadors’ to mortal society, secretaries, pledge-smiths, teachers, monarchs - their responsibilities and rewards become their doughnut. That Fairest make a big deal out of both their job and the benefits that come with it is rarely, as other Lost sometimes think, about aggrandizement or reveling in power for its own sake; it’s about the sheer relief and assurance of hearing someone say, to the Fairest’s face, that this is her doughnut and no one is going to take it from her.

Younger Fairest tend to flit between two or three Courts; their initial selection may be based entirely on friendships, Vibes, or a gut-check decision based on an initial pitch by that Court, and Fairest can go quite far even in a Court that doesn’t quite actually fit their needs. Eventually, though, those Fairest who survive their youth will gravitate towards a Court whose ideals speak to them, even if its current social order isn’t living up to those ideals. If they’re going to be condemned to live as exiles in the world of their birth, the Fairest can at least be the person she wants to be, god damn it. Fairest aren’t any more or less vulnerable to a toxic Court environment than other Lost, but they’re good at detecting it beforehand. Unfortunately they’re also good at telling themselves they can change it.

Spring - Though early Spring joiners are of course rare in general, Fairest are among those Lost who more commonly choose Spring as a first Court. Spring’s highly social focus and chaotic internal organization is almost tailor-made for the skill set of your average Fairest, but therein too lies a sense of threat; for many Fairest, Spring can remind them of their Durance, and their joining of the Court is as much motivated by fear of a powerful cultural body as it is by any genuine Desire, maybe even more so. Many such Fairest end up caught in Spring’s middle-road trap, spinning their wheels without recovering or worsening more or less until they finally die, but when Autumn can sniff out the fearful ones it puts a lot of work into cooperating with Spring to get them out and where they can be helped.

Summer - More Fairest dabble with Summer for dreams of glory, or because they want to believe in Summer’s apolitical sales pitch, than ultimately stick with Summer. Those that do stay often serve as officers, as the Sun’s Tongue or the Arrayer of Distant Thunder, and as Court sorcerers. Fairest skilled in Contracts of Separation can make for surprising Jaegers, hounding their prey down more like a private investigator or a serial killer than a traditional hunter, but while striking this is fairly rare. Fairest who stick with Summer are those who are looking for its high ideals and are often among those rare Summer Courtiers who can competently articulate both those ideals and their pitfalls without falling prey to cynicism and bitterness.

Autumn - For those Fairest who hurt others to feel safe, Autumn is waiting. The Leaden Mirror can be attractive to young Fairest because it’s easy to perceive Autumn as atomized, defined by personal relationships rather than webs of political influence, but when the Fairest discovers those webs the existence of Option Two: Resort To Violence as an acceptable tool to the Ashen Court is perversely reassuring rather than threatening. The image of the Fairest as a witch, tempting and threatening, clings to them in Autumn but it’s honestly not their most common role; Autumn employs its Fairest as rumor-mongers, the Other Woman who seems a little too familiar with your husband, therapists & counselors, oneiromancers, and ambassadors to Hedge communities. The work Autumn does is harsh on Clarity, and Fairest are especially vulnerable to that harshness, but if the Court invests the time in helping its Fairest members, the self-awareness and self-confidence it offers can be a godsend that no other Court can give them.

Winter - As the Court which is actually selling what Fairest think Autumn has - to wit, the ability to simply say “no” to all social interactions with no justification required - Winter has a strong undercurrent of Fairest membership at all tiers of its power. Fairest often end up directly involved in Winter’s money-making enterprises, and flourish as Squires and Armigers with their fingers on the pulse of the Court’s morale. Winter’s hands-off approach displays a tremendous amount of trust in its Fairest from their perspective, and the demeanor of the Coldest Court - Winter’s indifferent equality - has a potent, merciless appeal. The trap of drowning in Sorrow sucks more than a few Fairest under, but if their peers can be there for them there’s always a way back out.

This Is Not A Pipe - Fairest And Lost’s Themes

My many thanks to Izzie M for her extensive help on this section. I’m not sure I’d have been able to grapple it down, emotionally or intellectually, otherwise.

Fairest go through some intense shit, and the shit they go through can never fully be addressed, never fully be recovered from. It’s no mistake that Fairest, like Wizened, are among those Lost likely to never fully gain resolution with or from their Keeper, and this is because they embody the dark truth that no matter how much progress you make, how much you heal, your trauma has changed who you are as a person and you will be dealing with it until you die. But, as alluded to extensively above in the discussion of Fairest and gender, Fairest also embody the way in which society will attempt to stamp you, mold you, turn you into a product to be consumed or an archetype to be placed into its churning machine, and its attempts to reshape who and what you are and can be are, in themselves, a form of trauma and abuse.

Fairest deal a lot in expectations. They’re expected to be perfect victims, they’re expected to be happy (because they’re beautiful and attractive, because they can front as Doing Okay, because they have a form of access to ‘normal’ society), they’re expected to want romance and sex (since everyone else wants those things out of them), to perform emotional labor, to be available, intimate, understanding, to keep up appearances. Fairest escape the chains of their Keeper only to be clapped in the chains that extend into the eyes and minds of their peers, and they cannot move without hearing the clink of them.

Fairest are primed to represent victims of ongoing emotional abuse and neglect; sex slaves and victims of child abuse might find themselves in Fairest, as might husbands or wives of abusive partners (and boy, re-living my bullshit there was a bonus prize I didn’t want to receive for writing this article), children pushed to over-achieve (here overlapping with Elemental) until they break, pastor’s daughters and cult kids (here overlapping with Beast), and others. However, Fairest also hit their thematic stride when talking about trauma from a society that will not give you an exit. A trans person is first punished by society for “failing” to perform their assigned gender, then made to perform their new one to expectations that they cannot set, do not control, and do not consent to; such a person might easily be Fairest, as might a man breaking under the expectations of Maleness, a college student losing their mind in finals week with no one to help, or even more ‘ordinary’ sex workers expected to perform emotional and physical labor for a society that rewards their work with violence and dehumanization.

Fairest are people with complex internal worlds and they damn well know it, but the temptations to let others define them are numerous; society promises all manner of rewards for being who and what it wants you to be, for wanting the things it tells you to want, for being the kind of person who wants and does those things. To be Fairest is to know at any time you can start faking it and receive those rewards insofar as they’re actually on the table, but it is also to know, every second of every day that you’re performing that role, that it is fake. If you can’t find a community with which you can be genuine...well. You can always get more hurt, and in this way Fairest also bring another theme of Lost into focus: that the Lost owe compassion and understanding to their fellow victims, because failure to care can only hurt both them and everyone in their blast zone.

Feet Pics For Legos - Coping As A Fairest

Fairest are among those Lost who are most concerned with their day-to-day social interactions and safety rather than their immediate, very physical environmental safety. They are perhaps the Seeming most likely to live in a group setting (in an apartment with roommates or romantic partners, in a house shared between multiple households, splitting the bills in a condo, with their parents), and are definitely the Seeming most comfortable with the idea of living with mortals who aren’t ensorcelled. Indeed, Fairest don’t tend to do well living alone; even a Fairest who wants or needs a private place to be, choosing to keep a home in which others cannot lay a claim, will likely crash at friends’ places, sleep over at the Freehold commons on some pretext or another, stay the night with a lover, or otherwise have a place to flop down while surrounded by other people. Having other people - their greatest reality check - around the place helps keep the Fairest centered in the real reality, better able to pick apart the mortal from the Wyrd from their own unrelated hallucinations, and a Fairest who is isolated - or who is permitted to isolate herself - quickly begins to dissociate and may soon be incapable of caring for herself until someone can get her back into the present.

Those invited over as guests to a Fairest’s home may note a lot of concern for those she lives with. She likely schedules the event well in advance, is clear about the boundaries of those she lives with (”That’s Brenda’s room, the door stays shut.”) and in general treats her communal home with a lot of respect and love. Respecting these boundaries and in turn having her own respected is very validating for the Fairest and is vital to be able to feel safe and at ease in her own home, and impressing their importance on guests further reinforces that this is, as it were, her doughnut. While not dismissive of their own literal physical safety per se, a Fairest’s anxieties rarely center around her body being violently attacked by strangers. For those that do have such anxieties, they may choose to solve that problem by simple expedient of rooming or living with someone large and scary.

Another detail of note which is touched on in Winter Masques is that Fairest tend to seek out life’s little pleasures. Though they are not necessarily wealthier than other Lost, how a Fairest chooses to spend her money tends to follow particular patterns. Rare is the Fairest who doesn’t have clothing they like, a phone that works, a wallet or purse that can actually hold all of their stuff, and in this regard most Fairest without a special interest in fashion as a hobby in and of itself will have an aesthetic that is self-expressive but serviceable and hard-wearing, but any place the Fairest haunts, frequents, or lives in will get little touches everywhere. Fairest spend the little bits of extra money for good toilet paper, soft soaps that won’t hurt the skin, good shower supplies, high-quality razors, boots that won’t wear through - and they spend their serious money on their hobbies and preferences. A Fairest with a passion for cooking scrimps and saves to get a fully-stocked kitchen; a Fairest who likes building and connecting invests in Legos or Hot Wheels and creates elaborate environments for them. A gamer Fairest has headphones that can vibrate your constipation away and a fiber optic connection to ensure that lag will not stand between her and your doom. The reasons for this are manifold, and Lost’s canon writing suggests that Fairest seek pleasure to alleviate a desire to return to Arcadia. This is, to put it mildly, a stupid assertion; rather, the Fairest provides her own pleasures in part because it is one of the most emotionally clear ways to lick the doughnut, and in part because it reminds her that she can be happy under her own power, can seek pleasure, stimulation, engagement, without placing herself at another’s mercy - ironically making it easier to go out every day and do exactly that as a member of her various societies.

As a Fairest settles in she tends to look for “her” people, and quite often they’re good at compartmentalizing this, wearing different hats and having different feelings about those hats without feeling fake or distressed about the bare fact of that. She’ll have her personal friends and family, like her housemates, her girlfriend, maybe her mortal family, her neighbors, and then folks like her Motley (which are like her personal friends and family, but In The Know), her fellow Fairest and the Freehold broadly, her work friends and fellow hobbyists. A Fairest who does, say, sex work, thinks of herself as a Sex Worker and understands herself in the context of that broader social group. It can be a lot! Many Lost barely have a handle on being a member of both the Freehold and a Court, and the way Fairest flit to and fro between many communities, slipping seamlessly from one role to another, can be exhausting to watch - but by doing so the Fairest also builds bonds between those communities, highlights their common needs and interests, draws them together over their similarities and strengths. Darklings and Wizened get a lot of the work on the ground done, but it’s often a Fairest in the role of whistleblower, figurehead, and champion all at once.

After all, this, too, is her doughnut.

Example Fairest - Clara Belltower, Spring Playmate

Clara Belltower is a mime.

Well, no, not exactly. Clara Belltower is a self-employed porn actress, erotic script writer, and director, whose primary thing is mimes, clowns, and more broadly circuses and performance venues. She came back from Arcadia eight years back fleeing life as her Keeper’s Stepford Wife, and ran face-first into the money issues that haunt the Lost in general. What started out as a practical choice in new career - and an attempt to find and express an identity not created for her by her abuser - became a creative passion that has stayed strong with Clara and propelled her to status in the Spring Court, which retains her keen eye for decoration, direction, and theatricality in service to its high rituals and revels. Clara’s livestreams and online presence are also a convenient avenue for the Freehold to launder its less legal revenue streams, which has endeared Spring’s “silent siren” to the Winter Court and cemented her as a mover and shaker.

Clara’s ambitions reach beyond erotic miming, as talented as she is at both creating and purveying such. She has her eyes on four different strip clubs in Freehold territory alone whose owners and operators need to fucking go, and she wants Winter’s help making it happen; further, she wants the Freehold to take over operation of those establishments for the benefit of the workers. Clara’s vision is popular in Spring and has its supporters in Summer too, but the Declining Seasons have been cool on the concept, citing a need to maintain subtlety and avoid entanglements with the mortal world that might invite the eye of, say, the IRS - or mire the Freehold in a protracted war with local police departments. Clara’s passion burns with a righteous simplicity, envisioning a Freehold that is active in improving the city around it - if the cops want to throw down, bring it on! Her influence over Winter means the Coldest Court cannot simply dismiss her desires, but neither is it willing to go to war. Something is going to have to give, soon.

This concludes the Fairest portion of the article. Some additional thoughts on Seeming follow.

Bombing Your Own Position - Choosing Your Seeming

So it’s been six articles and I’ve talked about the ways various Seemings can represent responses to the things which traumatize us; neurodivergences for which society abuses us, the machinery of capitalism, violence, prison, and more. But how do you go about choosing your character’s Seeming? The obvious choice is to make a character that puts a lot of yourself at the table; to seek out a Seeming that reflects your own traumas, your own issues, your own anxieties and struggles, and then grapple with them in this fictional context. But RPGs can be an emotionally challenging medium, and you may well not want to deal with your own bullshit during your magic trauma fairy game. That’s valid!

Now, the second obvious piece of advice is to think about your proposed character’s themes and traumas and then select a Seeming from there, but this can get complicated. Many Lost players feel as if they need two Seemings, and to those players I say: no the fuck you do not. But it is true that people are messy and do not fully resolve, that the broad spectrum of the world of sorrow and loss is not easy to fit into 6 discrete categories whose creation was often managed by, not to keep repeating this point, fucking Nazis. I have found in my experience that it can be helpful, when you’re torn between two Seemings or you have a character you’re sure is this Seeming even though they look like or could be that one, to ask yourself why the character is not the other option. Why is this alluring and sensual Darkling not a Fairest, what makes this brutal and violent Wizened not an Ogre? This question naturally leads to others about their abuse and their reaction to it, and can start your momentum for writing your concept out.

As an addition, while I’ve spoken of various Seemings as being well-equipped to represent specific traumas, they don’t own those traumas. Elementals are metaphorically autistic, but there’s nothing stopping you from running an autistic Fairest or an autistic Beast instead. Rather, those Seemings outlined as being “for” or “about” certain traumas are those whose selection will make those traumas thematically central, cause you to return to them as a topic over and over by virtue of being who and what they are. Real people have complicated problems which intersect with one another, spawning new problems that are more strange than the sum of their parts, and it’s both valid and interesting to write your Lost that way - just keep in mind that it’ll still be complicated at the table too.

Van Helsing Hate Crimes - Seeming Politics

White Wolf spent a lot of time waffling back and forth on whether or not Seemings represent distinct cultural and political identities in a given Freehold, drifting towards ‘yes’ when the writers thought about the way Blessings and Curses create consistent, measurable differences between Lost of various Seemings, and towards ‘no’ generally whenever they were asked to actually outline a Lost society such as a sample Freehold or Entitlement. Some Entitlements are locked to specific Seemings, often times with little thought as to why, while other times Seeming-based power blocs are alluded to as worldbuilding elements (such as in Lords of Summer) without much in the way of supporting detail. Why should these things happen, when, how, what does the buildup of this violent fracture in a Freehold society look like?

On the whole, I have taken the stance in these articles and in my own worldbuilding that some amount of fantastical prejudice exists amongst the Lost, but that the systems of oppression have not taken root. Maybe it’s idealistic of me to view the Lost as unwilling or unable to produce internally racist power structures that create an underclass for the benefit of an appointed elite, but in general I feel as if Freeholds are too small, each individual member too precious by simple dint of being a living being in a physical body, for this kind of evil to flourish. That said, you may have also noticed that I identified two Seemings - Darklings and Fairest - as explicitly self-uniting and in some senses self-governing on the basis of common traumas that they often cannot fully explain to outsiders, and indeed community with people that understand your bullshit without you having to say it aloud - that is, those who share a Seeming with you - can be invaluable to all Lost. Ultimately, however, I want to advise against looking at Seemings the way that, say, Vampire: the Requiem looks at Clans, and instead to treat them as reactions to trauma rather than a kind of alternate racial identity.

Next up: So You Need To Write A Fetch

#Changeling: The Lost #rpg #fairest #trauma #abuse #seemings #violence

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im-frickin-trying-okay · 3 years

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Random BNHA Headcanons

(This is my first time doing this 😭)

Summary: A bunch of random BNHA headcanons. So, basically the title. The only reason I’m adding a read more is because I want it to be easier to navigate my page, lol

Bakugo is oddly nice when he first wakes up, but he's not exactly a morning person. He's less "I hate the world, why am I awake???" And more like "I'm extremely comfortable and the only thing that can ruin my mood is becoming less comfortable." He likes hovering between awake and asleep, y'know? Which is why if he's sleepy, his guard drops. When leaving the dorms, if he hasn't fully woken up, he goes from "outta my way, shitty-hair," to "mornin' Eijirou," and by the time he's actually aware of what he said, Kiri's already freaking out. If he's in bed all day for any reason other than being sick, he's probably soft for at least a few hours.

Kaminari's the type to wake up at 2 AM with an idea, go to jot it down, and then realize that he wrote a ten chapter book and now he's late for class. He'll probably put it into a google doc or something, so he can continue to add onto it throughout the day. I also feel like he probably will also randomly get a question and then spend hours researching it and any surrounding topics, before rambling to Kiri about "bro, if I went to the beach, I could make a bunch of glass! Probably! Maybe!" And then have to try and convince his friends that he can just make windows if anyone needs them.

Sero had added moves to his skill set, and practiced particular actions, with the sole intention of mimicking Spiderman. When Kirishima questions him on it, he compares Spiderman to Crimson Riot. They have a conversation that's essentially fanboying, both of them saying "we are not bringing All Might into this," and then more fanboying.

Jirou has an extremely eclectic music taste. If you can name a song, she probably knows it. She can memorize full melodies and all the lyrics within two or three listens, because she's just that good. Some people call her the human Shazam, because if you play the first five seconds of a song she likes, she'll immediately know what it is. She's also called out artists if they made a clear rip-off of a much better song. Her music taste is all over the place, which therefore makes it superior. However. This does not stop her from listening to the same six songs on repeat for a week. The six change a lot, though.

Koda has trouble with bugs, especially big ones. They scare him. But he has pretty much no issues with tigers, lions, horses, or even wolves. He loves animals, he really does. If you just showed up at his doorstep and shoved a bear cub in his arms, he wouldn't really question it, because he'd be happy to have a cute animal to play with.

Todoroki believes himself to be the opposite of moody. His definition of moody is switching emotions for no reason. He, personally, doesn't feel any emotion until something happens that day, be it a thought or an event, and his emotions stay fixed like that until something else happens. He could be having a great day, and then suddenly, it's a horrible day, and he can't figure out how people just "get over it." He does, however, find that unless something REALLY bad or REALLY good happens, his brain does a little emotional reset when he goes to sleep. Like, go to sleep feeling down, wake up feeling kinda meh.

Kirishima has considered re-dying his hair. Come on, hot pink is so manly! How could he not consider it? But he eventually resigns himself, because red just is his color now. Also, I feel like once, before dorms, he was really out of it, so he went to class with his hair down, and this was the first time anyone had seen him like that, and everyone was just confused as hell. Especially Bakugo. "Your hair's less shitty today. What the fuck."

Uraraka takes part in stupid bets all the time. Partially for the fun, and partially for the profit. She once floated Bakugo to the ceiling for 26 minutes before she had to put him down, because Kiri said that if she survived, he'd give her a dollar per minute. She ended up having to go to the recovery girl's office, but at least she got her money.

Mina is one of the few people who can understand and keep up with Deku's mumbling. This is not because she specifically tries to, (like Uraraka) or because she's known him long enough, (like Bakugo.) She's just used to gossipping with Hagakure at 4 AM, and therefore can understand high-speed low-volume speech. She's called him out on things before, but only when she's interested. She completely tunes out things about All Might and heroes and whatnot, but if he ever has anything to say about his classmates, specifically about Uraraka, Todoroki, and Bakugo, (because she, Hagakure, and Denki placed bets,) she hears every word.

Iida secretly loves to break the rules. He acts strict in front of anyone who he respects, or wants respect from, but after he thinks everyone's asleep, he relaxes, doing things that he considers rule-breaking without any remorse. Denki heard someone walking around outside while on one of his late-night internet searches. After finally willing himself to break away from an article about pandas, he popped his head out of the door to find Iida sneaking around. After some silent observation, Denki realized that not only did Iida just get back from breaking curfew, but he casually stole Hot Cheetos from Bakugo's room on the way back to his dorm. He said nothing the next day, at least not directly, but he sorta shoved Sero and Iida in the same room so that they could be bad influences on each other.

Despite it being a major part of her quirk, Hagakure almost never feels invisible. She has a lot of friends to talk to, she can wear cool outfits to stand out, and she is always talking. The only time she's not talking is during stealth training, and when she's using said stealth training to spy on people.

Tsu's little "ribbit" thing is actually just for fun. It feels right to do it, so she does it. Nothing wrong with that. However, pretty much everyone else assumed it was a part of her quirk. It took an insane amount of convincing to get that idea out of their heads. Deku was proud to be one of the few who never actually associated it with her quirk. He could prove it if he wanted to, actually, but that would require showing someone his notebook, which would open a whole other can of worms.

Oh yeah, speaking of Deku's notebook, he has multiple. Six to be exact. One is on his fellow classmates, one is on most pros, one is on the LOV, one is specifically on All Might, one is on his own quirk development, and the last one is a narrative of what's happening in his life, which is why he's constantly thinking as if he's telling a story. He mentally narrates everything that happens in his life, although he sometimes wonders if he's dramatizing things because of that. His internal monologue is constantly running its mouth, and sometimes he ends up speaking over it.

Tokoyami really likes plague doctors. He just does. He wants a plague doctor mask so he can walk around with less judgement, or maybe more, who knows? He just loved the concept. He claims that they're just really cool, which most people agree with, but he's never told any of them that he likes them because he saw a plague doctor mask for the first time at the age of six, and immediately thought bird man.

Sato likes baking, but he can't cook normally to save his life. Well, he can, but he can't. He hasn't burned water, and he knows how to do the very basics, but he can't function without a recipe, not to mention the fact that he's googled how to saute mushrooms three times and still doesn't get it. Baking comes pretty naturally. Exact measurements, precise times and temperatures. Cooking does not. Eyeballing ingredient amounts, guessing if the flame is high enough, trying to figure out how often 'stir occasionally' is. He actually once asked Bakugo if he had advice, to which he responded, "Why the hell are you asking me?!"

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trans-cuchulainn · 3 years

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What are the major details that confused you about the Hound blurb? The major one that stood put to me was the "way of the farmer opposed to the sword" thing which felt very...un-Cú Chulainn. Also, if you don't mind expanding further, which details didn't you question/be confused by?

and also for anon:

okay so it is like. 2am so there are not going to be any sources here but i can't sleep so here goes!! i will go through this blurb line by line and give youse my thoughts

In 50 BCE,

reasonable. this is roughly the right time period for when the ulster cycle is set. maybe marginally earlier than i'd place cú chulainn, but i'm talking a few years, nothing to get worked up about.

Morrigan, the goddess of war,

fine. normally i'm wary of pantheonising impulses with regard to irish characters (almost none of them can be identified as a god of anything in particular, it doesn't work like that) but tbh the morrigan is like, the most plausible exception to that, so whatever. normally her name has the definite article attached to it because it's kind of a species term as well but whatevs.

has become restless as a long-lasting peace settles over Ireland.

dubious. closest i can think of to peace being reference in any texts is togail bruidne da derga talking about conaire mor's reign being like, prosperous and peaceful and whatever, and even there you've got díberg (plundering/reaving) which is what eventually fucks him over and starts the otherworldly hell spiral situation. that's roughly the right period here but conaire's doom proves you don't have to do much to nudge peace into war, and connacht and ulster are at each other's throats for years before cú chulainn comes on the scene anyway

Deciding the time of peace must end, she chooses Setanta, the nephew of the king of the north, to become her ward.

hmm. i mean. like, this isn't the WEIRDEST choice they could have made. it's still completely made-up, don't get me wrong -- cú chulainn has a lot of different foster parents in different texts and they don't agree with each other but none of them ever mentions the morrígan. but like, they do have a connection of some sort, as evidenced by their conversations. and there's that one moment in the r1 boyhood deeds where little cú chulainn is out on the battlefield and hears her (not sure which name is used here) calling out to him and it like. motivates him to do some deeds or whatever, and i guess you could extrapolate that into some kind of teaching capacity.

so like. could be weirder. if you're gonna pick anyone, you could do worse. still seems weird to me! but not on its own a major issue, i could get past this and consider it a Fun But Unorthodox Creative Decision

(the fact that she tries to seduce him in the táin probably wouldn't get in the way of this considering sleeping with his teachers/foster-mothers is far from unheard of where cú chulainn is concerned)

After a young Setanta slays the demon-hound of Cullan, he becomes known as Cú Cullan—The Hound of Cullan.

weird spelling choices, they could have at least bothered to use the genitive properly. also the hound isn't a demon, it's a ferocious watchdog -- making it sound all Otherworldly and Hellish like this kinda confuses the issue of why he would need to take its place. he needs to take its place because the cattle and people still need protecting because it is a watchdog!! but whatevs, again, it's a brief summary so they can't exactly give us all the details and this is not actively objectionable

As Cú Cullan grows older, it is apparent that an extraordinary power lies within him … and a great darkness.

ugh boring. this makes it sound like he's going to be ~tortured~ and angsty about it. give me an unapologetic murder teen please. is the ríastrad dark? sure i guess, if you're going to be boring about it. it's more like, grotesque neon in my head

When he chooses the quiet life of a farmer over the sword,

this would fucking never happen on like five different levels. obviously like anyone who has ever read anything about cú chulainn can see that this is not in his nature. he is never going to choose a quiet life. this is the kid who tricked his way into taking arms before everyone thought he was ready. also juxtaposed with the "darkness" comment makes it sound like he would Angst his way into this quiet life which. again. have you seen this kid. he is an unapologetic murder teen

the only thing i can think of that might make him temporarily want to walk away is connla's death which... depends where you position that in the timeline really, he does seem a bit fucked up by it and maybe he'd want a holiday although i can see that lasting precisely 5 minutes before someone pissed him off enough for him to murder them. but if he's being raised by the morrígan i can't see him going to train with scáthach so then he'd never meet aífe and therefore connla would never be born so that wouldn't happen. so like. whatever.

but also like. he would not become a farmer. he just wouldn't! it doesn't work! the ireland of the stories is super hierarchical, right? and this blurb has already fucking told us that he's the king's nephew (canon) so we can tell that being a farmer is Not His Place. when we see upper class figures becoming menial labourers in texts, like in cath maige tuired, it's because Things Are Fucked, Shit's Gone Wrong. people don't just decide to change their entire social class on a whim lmfao

if cú chulainn really wanted to turn his back on being a warrior he could probably make recourse to certain other Suitable Professions ... his grandad's a druid so he might have a route into that, though his dad's not so that might fuck things up a bit bc it's one of those things that's usually inherited. he does give "wisdom" in at least one text though and we also know he can write (he carves riddles in ogham in the táin) and he composes verses on various occasions so idk, maybe something in a poetic direction, though again, usually requires two generations of inheritance to be a real poet and not just a lower-class bard. warrior's kinda the main thing he's got open to him tbh. but farming? i'm not a legal expert but as far as i'm aware based on what i have read, that would fuck shit up

more likely an upset cú chulainn would just go off in search of an adventure somewhere conveniently far away until he'd calmed down (alba, or the tyrrhenian sea, or -- if we're going to get early modern about it -- somewhere like india, which frequently gets thrown into the texts with absolutely no cultural context and it's always hilarious)

Morrigan, angry at the betrayal,

of the entire social order, yes,

instigates an invasion of his homeland

i mean. if they intend this to be the táin then.... táin bó regamna does kinda make the morrígan responsible for it? not in the sense of triggering the pillow talk argument that it's in the book of leinster -- it's her getting up to her usual cow-nicking behaviours for shits and giggles. [note to readers: it is probably for more than shits and giggles but did i mention it's 2am]

but all in all, not particularly out of character that she would be at least some way responsible for this so i can vibe with this. echtra nerai also supports the TBR explanation with her fucking around with otherworldly cows and pissing people off so, yeah, whatever. the morrígan engineered this. sure.

and Cú Cullan must challenge fate itself

this is probably a controversial stance but fate feels like a difficult concept to apply to medieval irish texts. like are people sometimes Doomed? yes. there are prophecies, there are gessi, there's all manner of otherworldly fuckery that can trip you up. is that the same thing as fate? no idea. considering cú chulainn comes out alive from the táin though and his doom prophecies don't catch up to him for like, at least another decade, maybe 16 years depending on who you listen to, hard to see how that would apply here

to keep the goddess at bay.

again like she IS causing fuckery in the táin but also it's like... one time. really not the main character. but she or maybe just some crows, hard to say, do get implicated in the death tale so maybe they're doing what people often do and conflating the two? even though there's like 10-16 years in between them?

anyway as you can see i don’t think it’s wholly terrible / i’m not completely thinkshaming it. like, having cú chulainn raised by the morrígan is unorthodox but it could be a fun and creative direction so i don't object to it. making cú chulainn get sad about murder and choose to be a farmer is just fucking laughable tho, and makes me doubt their characterisations in general. so that's offputting and would probably make me think twice about buying it, if that had ever been on the cards.*

and of course sure, their cú chulainn can be a Sad Boy Who Likes Sheep, but that means he's not the cú chulainn of medieval irish lit / irish myth, because that cú chulainn is a feral murder teen who keeps killing his friends and also is way too high social status to ever be a farmer, and whose only relationship to livestock is as the watchdog who kills anyone trying to harm them (which is an important role on a farm! but like. not the same thing as Being A Farmer. mostly because it involves more murder and is essentially just an extension of his role as a warrior. or rather the other way around. he promises to protect mag muirthemne as a watchdog and this like. gets extended into him becoming its sole defender)

this has been my analysis of this blurb i hope you enjoyed it

it's now 2.30am i should try and sleep now that i've exorcised a few thoughts from my head

*as i mentioned in the tags of my other post, i don't tend to read graphic novels due to disability stuff. they're much harder for me to understand and follow than prose, to the point where some are incomprehensible, so i don't really enjoy them. there are a few i've read, but they tend to be short ones, and i'm usually not reading them in order, just admiring the art separately from the text. so it's unlikely i would read a graphic novel of this size anyway.

#cu chulainn #hound #hound graphic novel #answered #oddnub-eye #anonymous #irish mythology #medieval irish #tain bo cuailnge

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chronicbatfictioner · 3 years

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Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 17

Jason was having the time of his life.

Dick was sure of it. He might grump and sulk a lot more than before, but Dick was sure that he was having fun. Sure, guarding Damian might be a little more than tasking, after a while - especially since Damian was so certain that he could face Bane alone if it comes down to it, conveniently ignoring the fact that: a. he's ten and practically one-tenth of Bane's size; b. the Waynes most likely would detest having to clear intestines off the marble floor if Damian were to be let near a katana and/or Bane, and c. Alfred definitely would detest cleaning intestines or parts of Damian off the floor or walls.

And d. Bruce Wayne seemed to actually enjoy having Damian around and has no qualm in talking to Damian as if he was twice his age. Bruce's age, that is. Not Damian's. Dick suspected that Bruce has spent a lot of time talking to 60-year-olds.

But there were numerous forms of excitement that were offered by the Wayne Manor. First and foremost were the cars. Dick has never learned to drive - being a Talon kind of impeded the learning process of 'common human things'. Jason, however, was an excellent driver. He had mentioned something about being a getaway driver in warzones, and Dick couldn't be sure if he was telling the truth or joking. Either way, he rather enjoyed it whenever he and Jason had to take Damian somewhere in town.

Except for today, as somebody seemed to have tampered with the car.

It wouldn't brake, and they were cruising really, really fast.

Hence Dick's belief that Jason was having fun. He did not look perturbed at the slightest as he controlled the car, swerving crazily over the backroads, making sharp u-turns instead of going into the city roads and went back where they came from. Within a mile from the Drake House's gate, Jason finally managed to cut down the speed to the point where the car's engines died and it rolled to a stop. On the Drake House's gate.

"Seriously, people," Tim remarked dryly as they walked in - leaving the car at the gate and settling their respective adrenaline back down. "I've heard of visiting the neighbors, but must you be like, dying and/or damaging people's property before you come here to say hi?"

"The car was tampered with," Damian reported. "Must be the brute. And I shall replace your gate, Drake."

"I think I'm down to like, eight lives. No-- seven." Dick admitted, "my heart's still beating a hundred miles per minute. Good thing, though, at least that way I know I'm quite alive."

"Dick, you're a bird. Not a cat." Tim deadpanned. His eyes never leaving Jason, who had lit up a cigarette as he walked through the house. "Since when do you smoke?"

"Since I was eleven," Jason replied. "And since I walked into a house that has laser triggers that were set up by a lunatic. Smoke worked to reveal them all."

"I'm... partially scowling because smoking kills. But I suppose laser triggers would kill faster..." Tim replied.

"The lasers are used to trigger booby traps just about Damian's height. If he were to be a common kid and run around the house, he'd be decapitated within the first few days." Jason continued bitterly. "What the fuck is wrong with that giant lump of steroids, anyway? He was ready to kill a child!"

"The nutshell version is that the child would prevent his usurping the Waynes' wealth." Tim pointed out. "The long version is that I don't think he's really the child of Dr Wayne, the Waynes know of it, and they're literally being held hostage in their own home. Also, you people are being watched, too, by drones. I've asked Harper to kill those drones for entering my property."

Tim then explained Bruce's visit and the USB. "Oracle has contacted him and told him we... the Birds, that is - are investigating the evidence."

"How long until we can punch the asshole out of the house for good?" Jason demanded, accepting a bottle of water Tim handed him. Slowly and gently. Making sure his fingers brushed Tim's. And Dick had to swallow a grin.

"That, unfortunately, would be up to the GCPD. Did you guys saw the news? Vicky Vale's article on Damian?" Tim... preened a little, waving his hair as he walked away from Jason. Dick's lips itched, he wondered if Barbara or the other girls -- if Selina or Dinah have noticed this. The two were definitely flirting.

"I have seen it. It had good pictures of my mother and grandfather, and quite... adequate descriptions of both of them." Damian replied. "Evidently father has made a comment to the writer about me looking like him when he was my age."

"Well, you kind of do look like him, except for the green eyes." Dick pointed out. Bruce's eyes were blue - like both his parents. But from the photos of little Brucie around the house, Dick could see a little of Martha Wayne in Damian's still-round face. "When did Bruce make the comment?"

"Oh, Vale called him." Tim snickered. "She still has his personal number, and she commented something about hearing a - quote: 'constipated buffalo sounds in the background' - unquote. She was also wondering if Bruce was in a bullfighting ring somewhere."

"Seriously?" Dick laughed.

"Seriously. Even Barbara couldn't stop laughing hearing that." Tim assured him. Jason rolled his eyes but looking amused, anyway.

"Sooo... a possible off-road accident for the apparent heir is in the books?" Jason suggested.

"I won't put it past Bane. Damian...?" Tim started. But Damian already nodded in acknowledgment.

"I shan't eat anything that is not presented by Todd or Grayson, nor will I frolic the manor on my own. This shall be more to bear witness to your insinuation of my 'child-like' behavior than to take care of me, Drake, as I am quite capable of sustaining my own life." Damian scoffed.

Tim paused visibly for a good two seconds, before nodding, "of course. Furthermore, I can assure you that Alfred is safe, mainly because as a butler, his focal interest would be the actual Waynes. That's in his training - unless an offspring is publicly announced, they are not to be cared for by the Butler. In Wayne Manor, the proverbial child would solely be Bruce - for obvious reasons, and Damian, whom Bruce has publicly acknowledged." Tim explained.

"He was in MI6," Jason remarked. "Alfred, that is. Not Bane. It would be safe to say he's loyal. He told me of the booby traps and that Bane has a daily dose of injection of the steroid-like substance. But I-- we shall prepare you emergency rations - just in case, anyway."

"You guys can always drop by here. And don't think that Damian would be Bane's only target." Tim reminded. "If I was him, I'd take out the big guns - that is you two - first; and then Bruce, because he'll want to be protective of his son; and then Dr and Mrs Wayne last."

"Then I'm afraid you are forgetting one of the members of the household that is most dangerous, Master Tim," a voice spoke; Jason pulled out his gun, Damian automatically hid behind him while pulling out a small dagger.

Dick wanted to lunge right toward the source of the voice until he realized that it was Alfred Pennyworth, both hands raised up to show that he was unarmed.

"How...?" Jason growled, "I didn't hear the front door open."

"Apologies, gentlemen. I should have informed you that there is an underground passageway between the two houses that were once used frequently, but now has all been forgotten." Alfred explained. "You were right that I was in MI6, Jason; as you were right that my focus will and forever shall remain the true Wayne blood, Master Tim. Not ones who claimed as such and refused to provide irrefutable evidence."

"Does Bane know of this passageway?" Tim asked.

"It is located in the staff's wing, and as he is not permitted to be there, I sincerely doubt it," Alfred replied. "I have my own... booby traps and surveillance that should tell me if anyone has been there." he smiled. "I am aware that both of you have prowled the entire house at one point or the other in the past few weeks." he nodded toward Jason and Dick. "You were stealthy, indeed."

"But not stealthy enough?" Dick quipped. "I gotta go back to training... Anyway, why are you here?"

"I saw your vehicle's mishap and its stop here. If anything, Bane is not... stealthy enough." Alfred pulled out a small memory card. "To get to the garage, one must pass the servants' hall. And the garage is my province."

Tim accepted the memory card, plugged it into his cellphone; and then projected its content to a wall. "Huh... this should be enough evidence of tampering..." Tim commented. The memory card showed a clear date stamp - that morning, a few hours before Bane and the Waynes left the house. It also showed Bane himself, jacking the car that was now resting with a dented bumper at Tim's gate, while holding a plier.

"Anyone watching our car now?" Dick commented. "Won't be cool to have it suddenly fixed, will it?"

"Harper should be. Plus, y'all are on my property. If he trespasses, I'll have his ass arrested." Tim huffed. "So... if anyone has ideas--" Jason and Damian's eyes lit up; Tim glared at them and continued "--that do not include sharp and/or exploding objects of how to remove Bane from the Manor..."

"I'm fresh out," Jason replied mournfully. "No sharp objects, no exploding objects... what do you expect me to do? Poison him?"

"But Todd, did my mother not teach you the arts of food as medicine?" Damian piped up.

The sudden silence as all eyes landed on Alfred was quite ominous.

"I will not conduct a crime, young masters," Alfred remarked dryly.

"Oh nooo... not a crime," Jason grinned mischievously. "It's just... you know that Damian was born in the Middle East, yeah?"

"I may have quite a culinary skill, but I fear that my Middle Eastern cuisine knowledge is rather limited," Alfred said demurely.

"Well, mine isn't." Jason grinned. "Besides, what else should one do to celebrate one's entrance into such a distinguished family; but hold a family dinner?"

"You're going to poison him." Dick groaned.

"Not to death!" Jason protested. Dick gave him an unimpressed glare. "Just... to the point where he would realize that he and I have opposing objectives."

"Do let me know of the ingredients you require, Jason." Alfred intoned. "Or perhaps you prefer to shop on your own? I shall fetch a new, un-tampered-with vehicle."

"Oh, please do, Alfred. I doubt we can make a single trip. But they will be fun." Jason replied, grinning.

Dick knew that the sense of foreboding was not in him only. Tim looked like he was contemplating moving away to Alaska.

"For the records, I don't know anything about cooking," Dick said defensively.

"I'm... truly and fully reconsidering my life choices," Tim admitted.

"Oh, don't worry, Drake. Todd was trained by the best," Damian grinned mischievously. "I pity the fools who think him as a brute. I pity the brute who think that small equals weak."

#Batless!AU #JayTim #Dick Grayson #Tim Drake #Jason Todd #Damian Wayne #Alfred Pennyworth #stray!tim #RedGhost!Jason #Talon!Dick

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feeling--pink · 4 years

Photo

My Sweet Ride is an amazing episode of Phineas and Ferb and the only thing bad about it I that I wish we could have seen more people in full out 1950s clothes!! So I did that!! (Also including some MML kids because I love them and don’t draw them enough!)

Anyways!! If y’all want to see me rant about 1950s stuff for a very long time because I had a blast doing research for this project you should click the keep reading!! :D

Okay a quick prelude!! Not only am I going to talk about outfits I designed, but while doing research I was blown away about the attention to detail the original designers had for these outfits and characters so I’m going to talk about their outfits too! :D

Here are my sources if you want to look into this btw!! :D

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-teenager-fashions-girls-fashion-trends-and-clothing-styles/

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-teen-boys-clothing/

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-hairstyles/

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-dress-styles/

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-womens-hats-by-style/

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-womens-shoes-style/

Candace

Okay I’m going to start out by saying I just adore this outfit

That has nothing to do with anything I just really love it!!

I’m thinking I might make one of my own for Halloween but that’s off-topic

Okay- 1950s clothing!!

Candace is wearing a blouse (?) with a cardigan over the top, and a pleated swing skirt.

This is a classic 1950s girl’s style

More specifically its also a classic “preppy good kid” look

Which Candace absolutely is!!

Y’all should notice that all the skirts are past knee-length, which was standard of the time.

Candace also has a neck scarf, a common accessory, and a headband.

Ribbon headbands were still a thing in the 50s but the hard plastic headband was also coming into style in the later 1950s.

She’s wearing a pair of saddle shoes which were one of the popular options of the time among boys and girls

Her hair is long with curls at the end, another classic teenager look in the 50s!

While short hair was more popular among adult women, teenage girls often kept theirs long with slight curls on the end!

Bangs were also standard, but usually shorter than how I drew them

Sorry that bit’s inaccurate through all of them, it’s just easier for me to draw long!

Finally, in case you had any doubt about Candace’s outfit being time period, here’s an advertisement from the article I read:

Vanessa

To start off we have a blouse and pencil shirt for Vanessa

Pencil and swing skirts were the two most common skirts of the time

She’s also wearing a belt, which I modified slightly to look like-

The wide contour belt on the bottom right!

She’s also wearing a pillbox hat, one of the popular hats of the time!

Hats were generally not worn by teenagers because they were seen as “mature”

But that fits pretty well with Vanessa’s character

It’s the same story with the pumps, which I also changed lightly to match time period ones a bit more

Now what made me make my original post about the outfits in My Sweet Ride was actually the hair

Specifically, Vanessa’s hair is modeled after the Bettie Page style

This hair wasn’t actually that popular with the masses because it was seen as too simple, not classy, etc.

BUT it was popular among rebel girls in the USA

And like!!!!!! Y’all the designers did SUCH a good job to get down into details like that!!!!!!!!

But yeah her outfit’s great!! Next one!

Stacy

For Stacy, I decided to change things up slightly and give her a dress!

Specifically, it’s a shirtwaist dress, which I modeled after the reference below

Why the shirtwaist dress you may ask? Idk I think they’re neat

I thought it fit the vibe I was going for so I did that one I don’t know what to tell you jkdshsf-

Okay so generally, the belt wouldn’t have been a different color but I wanted to tie the green I used in a little more

Btw sorry I changed her color scheme a bit

I honestly haven’t fully figured out her original color scheme so I modified it a bit so it would look nice for this!

Pastels were very popular in the summer after all

I tried to stick to everyone else’s original color scheme though!

Stacy also has a headband tied up into a bow, which was standard

And to change things up I put her in a ponytail (with the end curled) which was popular with the teens!

Sklsdjhdkj I sound very “how do you do fellow teens“ while writing this that’s unintentional sorry

Shoes are penny loafers, another popular shoe at the time

I liked the little bows on the ends of some of the ones I saw and thought it was very Stacy!

That’s about it for her!

Phineas

This has nothing to do with anything but I love drawing Phineas

He’s just a funky little triangle!! I love him!

I’ll admit here that I didn’t look into men’s hairstyles, so you won’t hear about that from me sorry!

Phineas is wearing a black button-up, standard.

Black and white matched everything so they were the most common undershirt colors

Over that, he has a jacket that looks to be varsity jacket inspired, which was seen as super cool!

Full jeans were coming into popularity in the 50s but only with the younger generations

Finally, he also has saddle shoes like Candace does

So yeah it’s a solid 1950s outfit!!

Ferb

Ferb’s a greaser, need I say more?

No, really he has everything

The white t-shirt and jeans combo is exactly the greaser look, so much so that most teenagers avoided it to not fall into stereotypes

Tighter fit jeans were coming into style in the later 50s, so that’s also accurate

The leather jacket just amplifies the greaser look

The one thing is that for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what shoes he was wearing

So I gave him a pair of sho-loks and called it a day!

More about sho-loks in Milo’s portion!

Isabella

Isabella makes an appearance with the first (and only) poodle skirt of the group!!

Poodle skirts, while definitely what most people think about when you say the 50s, actually weren’t that popular among teenagers

The embroidered designs were seen as childish, so children and preteens wore them the most

But here’s a fun tidbit you may not have caught from the show, Isabella is, in fact, a child

(I don’t know why I built that up so much sorry ldksjfhkds)

Anyways I decided if I was going to give anyone a classic poodle skirt it might as well be Isabella!

I modeled it after this poodle skirt:

She’s also wearing a blouse with a peter pan collar, the most popular collar of the time

Another headband tied into a bow because it’s Isabella I had to give her a bow

Standard belt (nothing really to say about that)

And another pair of penny loafers with little bows because they’re cute gosh darn it!

Milo

Okay, I’ve been writing for a while but honestly a lot of the rest of these I just drew directly from reference so…

I did say I would talk about shu-loks here though and I will!!!

Now we know Milo is shoelace-adverse

And while there are plenty of slip-on options I found the shu-lok to be fascinating!!

As you can see above, the tongue snaps down to keep the shoe on your foot!! Isn’t that cool? :D

So yeah I gave Milo those!!

Zack

We know Zack plays football so I gave him your standard sporty outfit

Sorry I just find girls outfits infinitely more interesting so I kinda focused on those skjhgfdss

Oh! I do have something to say here!!

Converse were your typical sports shoe for the 50s so he has those!! Almost forgot that tidbit!!

Yeah, thick soles with wrinkles and stuff were seen as cool among teens so they got popular!

Melissa

Finally, we have some patterned pants!!

Yeah- checkers, plaid, stripes, polka dots, etc. were all very popular!!

I just didn’t want to draw them a lot ‘cause it’s hard sksfjdhgs-

But I gave Melissa checkers because it would get the black and white of her color scheme and I liked the way the checkered pants looked!!

Girls did wear pants at the time by the way!!

During summer and weekends mostly since they weren’t allowed to wear them to school

Short-sleeved turtle necks were also a thing and I thought that combo would look neat!!

Also, converse because it went with the outfit and that’s kinda what she’s wearing in the show!

Hair in a ponytail and side part bangs, both popular!

Yeah okay, that’s about it for Melissa!

Amanda

By this point, y’all are hopefully getting the gist of 50s fashion so we’re going fast now

Blouse, swing skirt, penny loafers (different style but still penny loafers), headband

(here’s what I modeled the whole thing after:)

I do want to mention the pullover sweater because I thought I should include one and I really like the flower embroidery on them

Then finally we come to her hair!! I already mentioned the headband but I was specifically modeling her hair in the pageboy style which looks like this:

Obviously, it looks a little stylized but what can you do?

And that’s it!! I had so much fun doing research and designing this and I think they all turned out pretty good!! I’m going to do more go this in the futures so if there's someone in particular you’d like to see let me know!! I’m planning on doing Cavendish, Dakota, and Sara at least in the next batch!!

#I had too much fun with this hope yall can tell #phineas and ferb #milo murphy's law #candace flynn #vanessa doofenshmirtz #stacy hirano #phineas flynn #ferb fletcher #isabella garcia shapiro #milo murphy #zack underwood #melissa chase #my art stuff #my sweet ride

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thelovelyghostwriter · 3 years

Note

How many responses have you gotten so far, if I may ask?

Hello, thank you for your question. I open the Q&A if you guys want updates on the survey or any problems I'm facing.

Currently, there's 380 responses in total. [It was actually 362 last night, don’t know where I got the boost overnight, perhaps that Kurapika post]

tThere's actually 84 questions in total, but I coded it in such a way that certain questions don't appear when you indicated an option. For example, if you indicated that you are not up to date with the manga (indicating that you have read the post-Election arc AND read till Chapter 390), the questions regarding the Succession arc theories and predictions will not appear. This is why the manga readers' survey is actually longer.

Currently, 149 respondents indicated that they had read up to date, and therefore, they indicated

Another example is the shippings part. For example, if you indicated you don't ship anything, you won't see the list of ships. If you only indicated that you ship, let's say, het ships, you will only see the het ships. This is to make it easier for people to do the survey. The key is for others to not answer unnecessary questions.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to talk about certain issues/explanations that I need to address.

The reason why I'm always emphasising the goal of 385 responses and above (400 is a good number) because based on calculations. I checked on MAL and that there are over 1.2 million who have watched HxH. The "population" in this case is the total number of people who have watched/read the series. Since some people do not have MAL, the actual population number is higher (currently, we do not know what is this exact number).

At 5% margin of error and 95% confidence level*, the ideal sample size is 385 in populations above 100K, and it doesn't change after 100K.

*I do not really know how to explain this, but don't worry too much about it.

Alright, so I'm at 380, do I still need more than 5 people?

Yes, I need more people. Why? I have three concerns:

1) I said this before, but I need more men/boys to do the survey.

As mentioned, I did not put demographic questions because my country is strict with asking people for personal data. While this survey is casual, I do not want to encounter future complications. However, I can roughly guess the gender composition of respondents because of certain questions and the way the survey was distributed.

Firstly, this survey blew up mostly on Tumblr and there’s a lot of mixed statistics. This says that 47% are female in 2021 and this other article says 72% of women use Tumblr in 2014. Anyway, most of my online (majority from Tumblr) are women and they had actively helped me sent it out to other women who likes the show as well. This same thing happened to my friends in real life.

Actually, this is one of the biggest limitations of this survey - convenient sampling, which is giving the survey to only people that we know. Our friends who may have similar views/interest will get to do the survey, but people that we are not friends with who may have a different view/interest does not get to do the survey. Their thoughts/opinions are not recorded.

Secondly, there are certain questions that makes it easy to guess for me if the respondent is a woman/man.

For example, the “which character do you simp for” question.

“nil” means they don’t simp for anyone by the way. Also, note that this is just the word cloud diagram. I will chart them manually in bar charts later on.

Usually, when someone indicates a lot of male characters, they are normally women/girls. The ones who indicated Killua Zoldyck and Gon are usually young girls. Of course, I’m not saying men won’t indicate they simp for a male character or something, but yea know, common sense a bit here. The likelihood of someone placing Chrollo being a woman/girl is higher than the respondent being a man. That also same goes for the shipping questions.

The survey is posted on Reddit that consisted of 83.1% males in the HxH area, according to the 1K survey that they had. This helped me boost more people (and possibly guys who do survey). However, I think only about 20 to 30 people did it (based on the boost I got after the Reddit thread was posted). I also had help from a large hxh IG account that had slightly more guy followers to give me a shoutout. I also went to reach out to some accounts whom I know the admin are guys.

I still need a bit more help though, because currently the survey results... I’m sensing that there are more women/girls who did it from the way the results are turning out.

Why is this important?

It’s simple. I cannot just release the results that had an uneven ratio of the gender of the respondents and claim that this is the hxh fandom. It won’t be representative of the hxh fandom population as a whole when there are many cis-men who actually had watched/read the show, and absolutely loved it. I think it’s important to hear people’s opinions, be it men, women, young, old.

Currently, I’m trying to attract more men to do the survey by designing my hxh analyses posts from Tumblr and transporting them to IG, because I realise they like these kind of posts and they get to see my bio profile (with the survey link) + post about the hxh survey. I also get to befriend some of them in the process (and also because I have long been wanting to post my hxh analyses on IG, but it’s just a hassle to make it into pretty poster designs). So win-win.

Of course, anyone is welcomed to do the survey. I just need help with “balancing” it out, so please help me by sending it to your bros, guy friends, boyfriends, fathers etc. Or if you know any social media platforms where most guys dominate, then yeah please send them. Or if you’re a guy, then yea go ahead and try the survey.

2) While the responses are 380 in total, the number of people who have read up to date is 149.

Okay, I’m not saying I need to get people who had read up to date to be 385 as well. Realistically, not sure if I can do it. However, most of the questions pertaining the Succession arc are the most interesting ones and it takes a large chunk of them.

So yes, it will be great to have more people to do the survey especially if they had read the manga so that we can have more respondents in those questions.

3) The 385 response calculation is only assuming 5% confidence level and 5% margin of error.

I don’t exactly know how to explain this, but I will try to quote for the margin of error:

“Company X surveys customers and finds that 50 percent of the respondents say its customer service is “very good.” The confidence level is cited as 95 percent plus or minus 3 percent margin of error. This information means that if the survey were conducted 100 times, the percentage who say service is “very good” will range between 47 and 53 percent most (95 percent) of the time.”

So if you put it in HxH context, with 95% confidence level, and 5% margin of error, it goes like this:

50% of respondents indicated that Bisky is their favourite HxH girl (this one is only one option). If this survey was conducted 100 times, the % of people who indicated Bisky as their favourite girl would be from 45% to 55%.

But if I actually key in 3% margin of error, the sample size goes up to 1056.

I’m willing to open the survey for 1.5 more weeks. Three reasons:

A) I will wait for more responses of course!

B) I am currently busy with my part-time student research assistant job during summer break till this week, and they are rushing to finish up the research paper. Therefore, it’ll be nice to just wait while I do my work.

C) I am planning to write up the theories that I had included in the survey. This means having a lot of time finding the links/threads to the theories and reading them, making sense of it. I plan to post it and also merge that in my report.

I’m closing the survey in 1.5 weeks because I need time to do up the charts and report by mid-August because I’m afraid I might be busy once the semester starts and I won’t have anytime to do this mini fun project.

Another thing I want to address:

Most of the time, certain options I created is based on technical reasons. The other reason is by mistake.

For mistakes, I went to fix them if someone highlights a mistake.

Now, for the technical reason. I did not appreciate this response in the NOTP section that says:

The reason why I listed out almost all ships in Hunterpedia, including the ones with a large age gap and the incest ones is simple - because it helps me chart easier when I put them into options. It also decreases the chances of nonsense answers like this one. It also places less fatigue on people doing the survey. Text boxes are only meant if the options aren’t clear or “others, please state” so that I can include people’s opinons.

The reason why I didn’t do that for the NOTP section is that I was unable to do a certain specific coding. That’s why it ended up as a text box. It’s also based on the assumption that if something is really your NOTP, you’d know and remember it.

Why do people online goes straight to trying to prove they are morally superior and whatnot, assuming that I listed the options because of my morality. You do not know me personally. It is based solely on technical reasons.

This is why I used this disclaimer:

Which part of this is not clear. You can leave, just like what I said in the beginning. Another thing is not following instructions and being rude about it.

I had also instructed clearly to list out the NOTP combinations. I even noted it clearly. Some people put “any incest/pedo ships”, which happened more than five times. What’s more, one response contained “don’t tell me what to do”.

Yes, I get it, you don’t like these type. But what you’re doing is making me guess everything, which is unproductive. If you don’t like certain ships that are common but a “taboo” like “HisoGon”, “Killumi”, then say that. If you say it generally, I’m just going to assume the ones on the Hunterpedia list.

Another thing is the “any toxic ships”. This is very vague. Often, some so-called “wholesome” common ships in hxh are toxic. Mind you, Killugon is also a toxic ship (let’s not be blind to the CA arc please, this pairing is unbalanced), yet almost everyone perceives it as wholesome. Most characters in hxh are toxic in their own ways, and for sure their canon dynamics if they are in a relationship are likely more toxic than what is often portrayed in the headcanon way. I am wondering what to do with this, I might put it as invalid or “no”.

This is why my instructions are to list them. I had already edited the question twice to make it even clearer yet there’s people who defy them. I’m not just doing the instructions out of fun or make people’s life harder. Those are instructions.

I do not understand why certain people have to feel offended/be rude at an anonymous survey.

I can understand if people don’t follow instructions because you might missed it out and I can help to chart it for you. It’s totally okay, everyone makes mistakes, but I do not appreciate the extra unsolicited comments about me because it implies that you have read them, you just chose not to follow it.

If you think there’s a better way to do it, then DM me. I will explain to you why I had done it so, or I might even change it based on your suggestion. For example, someone actually told me to add certain options and I did it. Another person suggested to add the non-romantic dynamics and I love that, though I think it’s a little too late to add that. Maybe in the next survey.

If you do not like the instructions, kindly exit the survey. Nobody is forcing you to do it. It won’t record your response if the survey is incomplete for one hour.

#hxh #hunterxhunter #gon freecss #kurapika #leorio #killua #killua zoldyck #kurapika kurta #leorio paladiknight

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mittensmorgul · 3 years

Note

Can’t everyone use tumblr how they want?

YES!

This site is exactly what people make of it for themselves. That was the exact point of that post. The fact that people reacted negatively to it at all proves my point. Seriously.

I have a number of other anons that are clearly from people who don't actually follow me, and are only here in a reactionary fashion having seen it on someone else's reblog, or else heard about it in passing and decided the best reaction to an ultimately harmless and rather bumbling post was to take personal offense and bring anonymous hate to a stranger on the internet. (and at least one not-anonymous "go kill yourself" type comment on the post itself)

THAT was the point of making that post.

For people who might be new to this fandom or new to tumblr in general (or even for people who have been here for years), your experience here is exactly what you make of it. I haven't seen that sort of vitriolic kneejerk reaction to anything I've written or posted in years. That post touched nerves. So it was a bit of an experiment, and I'm sorry to everyone who experienced any of that negativity second-hand. NOBODY should be made to feel like shit when engaging with something that is supposed to be fun. But I've learned over the years that that's exactly what some people consider fun.

There are new people to this fandom since the absolute free for all of the weeks after November 5th. We all reveled in those weeks before the show collapsed in on itself two weeks later. It was like 15 years worth of Hiatus Blogging followed by... well... some of the worst genuine hurt and disillusionment I've ever experienced or witnessed inflicted on a fandom by a piece of media.

There have to be at least a few people who floated into this fandom during that emotional roller coaster who want to make sense of it all, who were at least curious enough about how a show could've brought the characters to that emotional moment in 15.18 before effectively ignoring it all and burning the entire 15 year narrative to nothing just two episodes later.

Some folks stuck around to dig through the ashes of fandom in search of carrion, and that's fine. Some have zero desire to ever engage with the show or the fandom beyond mocking it for ever having existed at all, and that is also fine! But some folks? They might be wondering why anyone ever saw anything in this narrative to begin with, and they might be interested in knowing that there is this vast collection of information available to them (funny that none of my self-righteous anons even mentioned those, outside of one pointing out that my phrasing introducing that section of links was easily interpreted as condescending... which... yeah... again that was the point, and no I will not edit that language. none of us are free from sin).

Tumblr hasn't "changed." It was always this way. This site is not a monolith. Fandom is not a monolith. Even smaller groups within fandom aren't monoliths. Things that are considered "tumblr standard etiquette" do not exist across this entire website. And even within the supernatural fandom, and even within the tumblr-destiel-portion of the fandom there aren't "rules" dictating how you interact with anyone. Well, the one specific rule we should all be able to agree on is that you don't bring hate to real actual human beings, and yet...

There has ALWAYS been the option to engage with fandom here on whatever level an individual chooses. And that hasn't really changed since the finale aired. Anyone who thinks that Tumblr or the fandom has "evolved" or "changed" has likely just fallen in with a different fandom bubble then they'd existed within before. None of the bubbles have actually popped or disappeared. But which one you experience is entirely your own choice. You curate your experience here.

That was the point, illustrated by the vast array of comments I actually got on that post, structured with a little bit of everything including "tumblr mom from 2014." Everything pisses some people off, you know? Even the perception that some stranger on the internet might dare to lay down an arbitrary "rule" that zero people actually have to follow. See what I mean?

Because if any of the people who kneejerked at it actually followed me, or knew me at all, they wouldn't have kneejerked. They would've seen the point.

So your experience is what you make of it here. There are resources for people actually interested in engaging with the narrative or the fandom or the history of it. People mock "tumblr moms" or "fandom moms" all the time, but there wouldn't ~be~ a fandom without the people who actually build those resources. I.e. adults with the time, money, and personal investment in actually sustaining the fandom, instead of running around with torches trying to burn it down at every new whiff of perceived ~drama~ to latch on to.

For example, all of the scripts we've been acquiring and sharing with the entire fandom free of charge. I know that the fandom bubbles who seize on those scripts like hungry vultures to cough back up out of context "gotcha" posts postulating whatever theory of the differences between script and screen will dredge up the most drama or outrage in their fandom bubble... they haven't even considered how those scripts were acquired and made available to them. To them, they are "leaks." They are gifts that fell out of the sky and landed in their laps. There isn't even the barest curiosity about their origins or relevance beyond whatever social nourishment they derive by making up stuff and spouting it out with unearned authority. It's sad. But if that's how they enjoy the fandom, it's nice to remind them that none of the fandom they cannibalize would exist without the rest of us, too.

Yes, even the people you disagree with. Even the people who ship the things you find disgusting or repulsive. Even people who have an entirely different experience to your own. Even the people who are only here for those gotcha posts.

Fandom is not by nature a nihilistic shitshow, or no fandom would survive the amount of drama the 1% try to bring to it. Here have a fanlore article about this phenomenon. Right now, in Supernatural fandom, it feels like more than 1%, but I promise it really is only 1%. They're just really loud. There's actually other avenues to participatory fandom available to anyone who chooses to find them. Parts of this vast fandom that aren't focused on that 1% of reactionary leg-chewing at every turn. None of them are (as the linked article confirms) truly 100% free of unnecessary drama or bad behavior (including ME, I mean I MADE THAT POST!), but on tumblr you can curate your own experience. Fandom actually can be fun without burning down the thing you claim to be a fan of, or attacking other real human people for having the audacity to exist on the internet in a way you might believe is out of touch or pathetic. Seriously, nobody deserves to experience that from anyone over a fucking television show. Like seriously, take a step back and examine your life and your choices at that point.

Tumblr was exactly the same as a fandom community when I joined as it is now. Throughout my entire time here, I've curated my own personal experience to exactly what I derive the most personal satisfaction from. During that time I have had numerous friends and mutuals lament that their personal experience had become so toxic, but they were afraid to trim those blogs from their dash for fear of having no content left to engage with at all. For years there have been follow lists and blog recs and people desperate to find a more "peaceful and fun" fandom experience. People grow exhausted and embittered when their entire experience of fandom is an emotionally draining drama train. It's like pandemic doom scrolling, but for the thing that should be a respite from that sort of mindset, something that's supposed to be entertainment. The show did enough to us all, we don't have to turn around and re-inflict it on each other day in and day out on tumblr dot com.

So if even one person saw my post and thought well shit maybe I actually want to engage with a wider swath of fandom and see what's there, after seven months of post-finale drama, this whole other region of fandom is still here, still being the curators of the archives, the creators of stories and art and meta and gifs and videos and actually caring about it all that will keep this fandom going long after the current round of exhausting drama inevitably plays itself out.

The amount of in-group language in the negative replies I got was unsurprising. It's like folks are living in an alternate universe that doesn't mesh at all with what I experience on this exact same hellsite. Almost like we exist in entirely different bubbles of fandom, with entirely different purposes for existing at all. Everyone on this hellsite gets to pick which bubble (or bubbles) to take up residence in. Some people simply forget that their personal bubble isn't the universal defining experience of this site. Unfortunately, I doubt my little disruption to their bubbles will actually make any of them see that, but you anon... I think you did.

You are highly encouraged to engage with fandom EXACTLY THE WAY YOU CHOOSE. You have the ultimate power in controlling your entire experience here. Tumblr and Supernatural Fandom on tumblr is not Just One Thing that everyone who wants to participate in must conform to one specific code of ethics or behavior to be part of. And that NOBODY has the right to tell anyone else they're doing it wrong (including ME! I am 100% including myself in this!).

It's not MY job to dictate how anyone else experiences this fandom, as much as it was not the job of the people who reblogged my post (which I did not personally shove into their eyeballs with a demand for compliance... how did any of those people even *find* my post?) solely to tell me how *I* need to change how I experience the fandom, you see? Don'tcha love hypocrisy!

But the point was made for those who care, and a lot of people got to update their block lists (I still don't block anyone, as I said I curated my fandom space here and generally don't follow folks that don't personally make me happy and enrich my life by engaging with their content. However other people choose to engage with *my* content (any of it, going back nearly 50k posts over the last decade) is their business entirely. Sometimes I just feel the need to draw out people who are all too eager to expose their own whole asses in public. Mission accomplished.

#fandom problems #and again i'm sorry that anyone i know was exposed to ugliness because of this #but everyone i know also knows that i'm probably the least easily upset person in this corner of the fandom #if even one person achieved a modicum of self-awareness that their experience is not universal #that there IS no universal experience even #then i guess the point was made

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gaycey-sketchit · 3 years

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(Gary anon) Yup, there's a glitch where can duplicate items. Rare candies was a popular one; cause let's face it, though the roster is waaay smaller, leveling up to 100 was a chore. The one with Mew was fun too, blew my mind back then. (Hopefully the egg-lings will have good homes) Reminds when he fell down to his knees in Indigo when he lost; while it would have helped to see the battle, it was at least understandable. Since it also woke Ash up and both changes perspectives as a result.

(Part 2) Here with DP, he felt like fodder that didn't add or subtract anything to the arc. Not even after that scene. (I think they just needed someone to witness what happened to Hunter J, but Galactic was right there) I'm still wondering where Blastoise was, it was there in the Shieldon episode. (Project Mew, so far, feels like there will be more legendary encounters. Barring Mew, if he's in one again, I want to see something top Moltres'. Maybe give Goh another lesson)

Missingno, right? Some years ago I got really fascinated by all the weird glitches that have been in Pokemon games over the years and read like, every Bulbapedia article about them. The Mew glitch is a wild one too, it sounds like one of those schoolyard rumors but it's real.

Hopefully! I bred them from my Magmortar who's a very solid team member of mine now, so they'd probably make good team members too--or at least help somebody with the Pokedex.

Yeah, that one hurt too--I think it's something I've rambled about before, how his loss at the Indigo Plateau resembles his battle at the Viridian gym (with his Nidoking against a Golem) and how maybe he's not just taking a loss hard but being reminded of an incident that's implied to be traumatic, and it's salt in a wound that's barely had time to begin to heal.

I think the main reason the writers put Gary there was because of how the lake guardians' capture plays out in the games, with the player, Barry, and Professor Rowan's young assistant all being sent to different lakes to try and protect the lake guardians from Team Galactic, only to fail anyway because of arriving too late or being defeated. I'd say the anime just had all the lake guardians in that one spot to simplify things/save time (since that's a time consuming bit of the games), and just put Gary in the thick of it because in the animeverse he's Professor Rowan's young assistant and a more significant character than Barry (and since they'd already gotten to establish he'd be heading there at the end of Gliscor's evolution episode).

Yeah, why he didn't have Blastoise with him--and seemingly just had Umbreon and Electivire as his sole line of defense--is a mystery. He maybe wasn't really expecting that whole situation (IIRC he was just going to Lake Valor for normal researcher stuff), they just managed to get the jump on him and took advantage of that. Surprising they didn't fight any dirtier than that, considering we've seen plenty of villains in Pokemon who were willing to go way further for less (heck, Giovanni was implied to have inflicted psychic damage from friggin' Mewtwo on the kid, and that was just disproportionate retribution for insulting him).

But anyway! Yeah, it definitely feels like there will be more legendaries making appearances. And I'll be thrilled whenever we get more of Gary interacting with Ash and Goh, their interactions were so good in his return episode. I'll never recover from Ash casually resting his hand on Gary's shoulder, it's such a small thing that shows without a word how close and comfortable they are with each other.

#oh boy did I end up rambling here #get me analyzing Pokemon stuff and so many words will fall out of me #Andrew answers #Gary anon

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laltradimensione · 3 years

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hey :) i saw your pinned post and you mentioned translating being good linguistic exercise, do you have any other language learning tips or advice?? i’ve been trying to learn italian for a very very very long time and i want to keep learning and practicing n stuff

Hi~

Thanks for the ask, I’ll be answering it below (and if anyone has some other tips/advice, feel free to share)

I guess I’ll begin by saying that as someone who speaks four languages and is working on learning a fifth one, I agree with Montaigne when he wrote that the most throughout way to learn a language is to be emerged in it

Now, I understand that not everyone can just go and live in their target language’s country/area and doing that can be a bit absurd given that we hold places in our society that we can’t just give up for the sake of learning a language

So where am I going with all this?

My first tip would be to keep being exposed to your target language as much and as often as you can. Not to sound like the Duolingo owl, but consistency is key and even 5 minuets a day of practice is enough; it could be something small like reading a paragraph, listening to a song or just reviewing a grammar point, just remember to switch it up so you can work on developing all of these language skills equally

My other tip would be to not think of it as a chore. Outside of your language course, or if you’re learning it by yourself, you are in control of how you wanna progress. Imo you can learn better if you’re having fun doing it; in my case, while I did take some english classes, I almost entirely learned it by playing online games and watching YouTube. So yeah, you can pick a newspaper in your target language and start by just glancing at the headlines every day and maybe progress towards reading whole articles, find a musician and learn the lyrics to their songs, podcasts, series/films and YouTube videos are always a good choice and so on

Then again, it also depends on what level of fluidity you are aiming for; I mentioned translating being a way for me to improve - that’s mostly true because I have to do French-English and French-Italian translations for uni. But it is also a great way to gain knowledge on the more subtle differences between languages (especially if the languages you are comparing are from different families)

Anyhow, what’s most important it to not break the contact with your target language, even if it’s just a couple minutes of exposure a day, it counts as progress.

*I guess that another thing that comes to mind (and I’m talking here solely from personal experience) is that while one tends to relate new words and their meaning in their target language to their equivalent in their mother tongue (or any other language they already speak), I would suggest that once you feel you’re on a good enough level, to cut the relation between these two languages and start reasoning only in your target language while learning it. I say that because even if some languages may seem similar, they have their own logic structure that is best understood if you don’t compare it with others

Hopefully this answers your question at last a little bit. I wish you luck with learning Italian, for it can be a bit of a tough one to learn since it varies a lot regionally. But in the end learning a language is never just studying it’s grammar and memorising all the vocabulary, the fun part is you get to learn about the culture and history of the people who speak it.

#I feel like I’m babbling #but like I got home from work exhausted #and before I even got to the kitchen to make myself sth to eat #I passed out at my table #and when I woke up an hour later I went on tumblr to wake myself up some more #and so I saw your ask and my brain got all these thoughts #and I was like ‘quick I gotta write ALL of that down!’#so here ya go #ask #slightlysapphicyearning

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eggfucker-1 · 4 years

Text

Ai yah, I really have to respond to this post again, huh?

Well, for starters, I apologize for a mistake I made in my original post. In the OP, I insinuated that the Princess Zeldas we see in the series could have possibly had a role in the atrocities committed by the royal family. This is incorrect, and it was poor wording on my part. I should have clarified my intentions when writing that particular passage; however, I felt it was unimportant, given that the point wasn’t solely about Princess Zelda, but how the addition of the Goddess Hylia and the Demon King Demise not only invalidates Ganondorf’s character up to that point, but adds much greater weight to the terrible actions committed by the royal family, especially towards the Sheikah.

Given that tumblr user lorelylantana is the third person to make a reply by discussing the reincarnation cycle, rather than the actual point of my post, perhaps I should have proofread and double checked my post before sending it out into the world to cause problems on purpose.

With that said, after I read lorelylantana’s response, I felt it necessary to make a proper reply of my own. It’s going to be a rather lengthy reply, as I have many things to say and many images to post.

However, I’m going to do all that I can to avoid discussing fanon or fan theories. I don’t mind them, but adding fanon wasn’t the point of my original post, and it shouldn’t have been the focus of the responses I received. I want to stay as close to the canon Nintendo laid out as possible. Thusly, my sources will strictly be drawn from the games, game manuals, Creating a Champion, Hyrule Historia, and Hyrule Encyclopedia. Despite the latter two being dubiously canon, they were approved by Nintendo, so they’re worth mentioning.

So, without further delay, let us begin.

- “The original post seems to be based on the idea that Zelda and the royal family of Hyrule are synonymous, which is questionable for reasons I’ll get into later.”

For all intents and purposes, yes. Zelda and the royal family are synonymous, as she is the face of the royal family in almost every Zelda game featuring her. Even if she isn’t the ruler of Hyrule in that particular moment, she is our figurehead for the monarchy, by all means.

- “The games don’t hand wave the actions of Hyrule’s royal family, they just don’t go out of their way to hold a young girl personally responsible for the actions of kings […]”

While the actions of the royal family are briefly acknowledged, as is the case with the Shadow Temple and the Arbiter’s Grounds, the monarchy has never had to answer for their actions. Even in the case of the Sheikah’s massive exile 10,000 years ago, the royal family never answers for this, nor are they ever portrayed being in the wrong. In fact, the event in question is only mentioned by a single member of the Sheikah in Breath of the Wild, Cado.

Image credit goes to YouTube user Macintyre.

The royal family’s actions are never directly described as “these were horrible things that happened.” Instead, it’s simply, “yeah, it happened.” There is no acknowledgement that the Yiga was created by the royal family’s own hands, nor is there any emphasis placed on the impact any of these acts have.

For example, the exile of the Sheikah wasn’t even the first instance of the royal family of Hyrule mass-exiling a group of people and displacing them from their original homes.

After the events of Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf is captured and executed for his crimes leading up to the events of the game and presumably the events of the Adult Timeline, given Young Link’s testimony. (I’ll get into why the King of Hyrule believes Link over Zelda later.) After Ganondorf was executed, the Gerudo were forced out of Gerudo Valley and banished from the Haunted Wasteland. Even during the events of Twilight Princess, the Gerudo Desert is completely abandoned. Once again, there is no discussion concerning the royal family’s actions, with the narrative instead being that the Gerudo, some of whom were actively against Ganondorf’s actions and many of whom were hypnotized during the events of OoT, are entirely at fault and have to atone for their sin of… having Ganondorf for a leader, I suppose.

Source: Creating a Champion, p. 405

Source: Hyrule Encyclopedia, p. 46

The royal family gets to punish an entire people for the actions of one man. Rather than the act being portrayed as negative or even discussed, it’s hardly even mentioned.

While I’m aware Encyclopedia’s canonicity is dubious at best, its material was still approved for publication by Nintendo. Thusly, I feel it worthy to discuss.

To summate, the royal family did bad things, and very select few acknowledge it.

Next point.

- “I think that the Zelda/Hylia = good Ganon = bad situation serves a narrative purpose that justifies the black and white nature of the games because it highlights the shades of gray in between installments…”

The Legend of Zelda is almost thirty-five years old. This series should have long evolved beyond the black-and-white-morality narrative, especially when the side we’re supposed to sympathize with literally used the Sheikah to commit war crimes. You don’t have to have stark white and pitch black in order to see shades of gray.

- “… And trying to assign Zelda a dark side is kind of missing the point, especially when no one seems to question Link’s morality even though he’s constantly stealing people’s stuff.”

Examples of Consequences to Link Stealing People’s Stuff

1. In Twilight Princess, stealing from Trill will result in the bird branding you a thief and pecking you every time you come near him, which will only cease when you finally pay up.

2. In Link’s Awakening, stealing from the old man’s shop will result in instant death the next time you enter his shop. If you steal, your name is changed to THIEF for the rest of the game.

Furthermore, Link is controlled by the player; thusly, his actions have no consequence to the story or Link’s character. Zelda, on the other hand, is an active participant in the story, whose actions and whose family’s actions weigh heavily on the games. That’s not to say Zelda is ever evil. However, as much as she is a victim of her own family’s history, she still has just as much power to change it.

- “If the games wanted to gloss over the sins committed by the royal family[,] they wouldn’t have designed entire dungeons around them.”

I reiterate: the sins of the royal family were mentioned once, and then immediately dropped shortly thereafter. It’s not there for you to dwell upon, merely window dressing as if to say, “Yeah, that happened.”

- “I believe The Legend of Zelda series is a critique of the Divine Right of Kings”

Until the events of Skyward Sword, the Hylian Royal Family wasn’t a divine lineage. A thirty-five-year-old series can’t be a critique of a concept that it barely even acknowledges. The only emphasis placed on the “goddess blood” part of the royal family is in Breath of the Wild, in relation to Zelda having to unlock her sealing powers. Despite the massive repercussions the revelation of the royal family’s lineage tying back to divinity should have, it’s barely even mentioned,let alone discussed.

As a side note, the divine right of kings specifically denotes that the monarch is chosen by God to rule. In contrast, the Hylian Royal Family continues to rule by, presumably, claiming lineage to the Goddess Hylia, which is closer to traditional practice in feudal Japan.

- “If the Divine Right of Queens is indeed present, does that justify a hereditary monarchy? As far as the Legend of Zelda is concerned[,] the answer is no.”

The Legend of Zelda series never questions the validity of the royal family’s rule.

- “Isn’t it funny that the Kingdom of Hyrule seems to be perpetually stuck in the dark ages?”

Ocarina of Time has neon lights, jukeboxes, and canned goods. The lakeside doctor’s chemistry is advanced enough that he is able to synthesize eyedrops. Given the newspaper articles strewn about shops, Hyrule also has pictoboxes in OoT.

By Wind Waker, pictoboxes have evolved to print in color. In Phantom Hourglass, Linebeck’s ship is steam-powered.

In Twilight Princess, pictoboxes now print higher quality images. In addition, with the introduction of Malo Mart’s Castle Town branch, TP is confirmed to have fully functional electrical lighting in some places. Cannons are so safe, you can get launched out of one for fun. Pyrotechnics have grown advanced enough that explosives can function underwater, and Death Mountain has become a functioning, refined mining facility stable enough for Hylians to safely walk in. Also, Auru has a bazooka.

SPIRIT TRACKS HAS TRAINS. THEIR AESTHETIC DIRECTLY REFLECTS THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Hyrule is hardly stuck in the dark ages. It’s high fantasy.

Next point.

“For starters, I want to establish that I don’t agree with the assumption that what the Hyrulean Royal Family does = Zelda/Hylia would do. I don’t think it’s a mistake that almost every text in the OP explicitly mentions that it was a King that committed those acts, not Zelda herself.”

Once again, that was an error on my part. It wasn’t my intention to imply Zelda had any part in such actions. However, Zelda learns how to rule from her father, or her mother, or whomever holds the throne in that particular moment. These acts are never questioned in canon beyond “Yeah, that happened,” and the most conflict we have is the issues between Zelda and her father in Breath of the Wild boiling down to how to confront the Calamity—science vs. sealing magic— rather than anything else.

It’s a personal issue, and Rhoam treats Zelda terribly, essentially alienating himself from his own daughter and treating her as little more than a pawn. I agree that it’s absolutely terrible. However, that’s merely a personal issue. She’s complicit in how Rhoam addresses the Sheikah, possibly even fully aware of the anti-aging rune Purah was developing to force retired soldiers into battle against the Calamity, and from what we’ve seen in Age of Calamity, she doesn’t have an understanding of the Yiga Clan other than the snide remark Urbosa gives:

Image credit goes to YouTube user BeardBear.

It’s up to Zelda to develop a deeper understanding of her country’s history; not to take personal responsibility, but to understand where those who are suffering are coming from.

That said, acting with the Hylians’ best interests at heart is exactly something Hylia would do.

In the prologue to Skyward Sword, the Demon King and his army attack the Hylians, slaying many and throwing the world into despair. Thus, the Goddess Hylia saves the Hylians by sending a chunk of land up into the heavens, sparing them from the war to follow while she gathers every other race to fight alongside her.

So… How come Hylia only saved the Hylians?

I understand many were wiped out by demons, but if Hylia was fully prepared to spare people from violence, why not also send small numbers of every other race? Why only save the Hylians, her chosen people, while essentially dragging everyone else into battle with her? Furthermore, when Hylia’s immortal body suffered grave injuries, she opted to take advantage of this by choosing to be reborn as a person. Not only is it explicitly stated that Hylia reincarnated in order to utilize the Triforce’s power, as she could not do so as divinity, but she knowingly chose to be reborn as someone who would become close with her chosen hero, in order to influence him to follow her plan without hesitation.

Hylia used Link.

That much is certain, and it’s laid out clearly by Zelda shortly before she takes Hyrule’s longest beauty nap.

It must be noted that while Zelda states she is Hylia reborn, and has regained Hylia’s memories by this point, she still sees herself as a separate entity from Hylia. While she herself is immensely guilty and apologizing over and over for what she’d done in her previous life, we have no way of knowing if Hylia herself would react the same way.

In fact, according to a fan-translation by ZeldaUniverse user Yamikawa, Demise goes as far as to describe Hylia as “brave and so-prideful,” hinting that even a being who loved her chosen people so much to save them still saw them as beneath her, if being reborn as human is seen as such a drastic extreme contradictory to her supposed character. Now, this is merely reflection on the inner workings of the Demon King, so his word can’t be taken as gospel. But, like all things, I find it interesting.

From what I can gather, however, Hylia certainly cared more about the Hylians than any other being in the land of Hylia, not dissimilarly to the royal family.

- “I also don’t think that every princess Zelda is a Princess of Destiny or Representative of Hylia, I think that she reincarnates just about as often as Link and Ganon(dorf) do, because the logistics don’t really work out otherwise. This leaves hundreds, if not thousands of years where Zelda/Hylia isn’t on the throne.”

This is merely speculation. Moving on.

- “There’s a notable trend of the King of Hyrule getting in the way of Zelda’s attempts to save the kingdom. First[,] he doesn’t take Zelda seriously [in] Ocarina of Time, forcing her to rely on Link […] I don’t know why the King of Hyrule was willing to listen to a random boy claiming to have been from the future over his own daughter but whatever I guess.”

The King of Hyrule believed Young Link because he came back to the Child Timeline with the Triforce of Courage. Up to that point, the whole Triforce was supposed to be safely locked away in the Sacred Realm, which was supposed to be completely inaccessible without the spiritual stones and the ocarina of time, neither of which Link had. I’d listen to the kid’s story too if he came back with a God Dorito on the back of his hand.

- “And then again in Breath of the Wild when Rhoam bans Zelda from ancient tech research despite the fact that he has absolutely no reason to believe his pray the incompetence away method is the right one.”

The tapestry showcasing the events from 10,000 years ago depicts a princess possessing the blood of the goddess using her sealing magic in order to seal away Calamity Ganon. Link can swing the Master Sword at Ganon or whack him with ancient arrows or light arrows all he wants. Without the ability to seal away the darkness, as shown at the end of Ocarina of Time, all of this preparation and planning would have been for naught. That is why Rhoam is so harsh on Zelda. That’s why so much emphasis is placed on unlocking her power. Without it, defeating Ganon would be impossible.

On that note, Rhoam also had no idea what he was doing. Zelda’s mother was the one with the sealing magic, not him. She was supposed to be the one to train Zelda, but she passed away before she got the chance to even start. He puts so much emphasis on prayer rather than ancient technology because he genuinely doesn’t know what else to do.

I can’t believe this post forced me to defend Rhoam of all people I’m gonna have a stroke—

- “Also, this is purely speculation, but [I’m] pretty sure there’s an implication that King Daphnes Nohansen caused the flooding of Hyrule in Wind Waker […] This sounds like a wish on the Triforce that backfired[,] but I digress.”

Daphnes couldn’t have made a wish on the Triforce before Wind Waker because, when the Hero of Time left the Adult Timeline, that timeline’s Triforce of Courage shattered into eight pieces and scattered throughout the land—er, ocean. Even if he had Wisdom on him, Ganondorf still possessed the Triforce of Power when he was sealed away, and he wasn’t going to let go of it when he broke free.

Besides, if Daphnes did wish on the whole Triforce, it would have disappeared. There would have been no Wind Waker.

- “When she saves Hyrule in spite of interference…”

I’m not even going to finish the quote because the entire paragraph is too much for me to unpack. I’m assuming they’re saying that Zelda is never the one truly in power, and the royal family takes advantage of one Zelda’s good deeds to get brownie points.

However, concerning the first line…

In Ocarina of Time, Zelda going behind her dad’s back to try to “save Hyrule” leads Ganondorf straight to the Sacred Realm. Even though a time paradox leads to everything turning out okay in the end, the bleak future was created because Zelda wanted to play hero and pulled Link along with her. Even if Ganondorf managed to wrench the spiritual stones away from the Zora and Gorons, he wouldn’t have been able to access the Sacred Realm if Zelda didn’t send Link there to pull out the Master Sword, which Ganondorf would have never been able to touch. By all means, Ocarina of Timehappened because a little girl was in over her head and tried to take matters into her own hands when her dad didn’t believe her.

Aside from Breath of the Wild, there’s no other “interference” from the royal family that Zelda has to face.

- “Zelda is the representation of a deity, so it makes sense that people would worship her to some extent, and having a goddess on the throne [probably] blesses the land. So[,] while the kings of Hyrule have a tendency to screw things over, [it makes sense] for Hyrule to be a monarchy because Zelda’s power as the goddess incarnate is needed to defend against Ganon and other threats, [r]ight?”

I acknowledge the author is attempting to portray the royal family’s possible justification for their rule. However, until I reached the succeeding passage, I believed it was the author making this justification, given how the entire paragraph preceding this was pure speculation. Once again, this passage is speculative, as nobody in Hyrule has ever explicitly given any notable opinion concerning the royal family. Why try to justify your rule when nobody’s criticizing it?

Since the author brings up Zelda being a representation of Hylia, however, it does bring to mind a particular problem I have with the royal family suddenly being goddess-blood.

It completely recontextualizes the relationship between the royal family and the Sheikah.

According to Creating a Champion, the Sheikah have a deep devotion to the Goddess Hylia. Since the royal family is descended from the goddess reborn, the Sheikah thusly are deeply devoted to the goddess Hylia.

Source: Creating a Champion, p. 372

Now, the royal government using a minority group of people to do your dirty work is already scummy enough when you’re just a normal royal. In this case, however, the Sheikah are so devoted to their goddess that they will do anything for you. Whether it’s because certain monarchs are a “representation of a deity” remains to be seen, but the point is that they’ll do anything for you.

And the royal family takes complete advantage of a group of people unconditionally loyal to them, bidding them to do unspeakable things in the name of their religion, which for all intents and purposes is the royal family.

That’s absolutely deplorable, and it’s a wonder nobody’s brought attention to it yet, whether in-canon or in-fandom. What’s more, given how Impa is always Zelda’s attendant, this relationship is never questioned or criticized, whether it be by the Sheikah or Zelda herself.

And that’s terrifying.

- “The reason Ganon is always an antagonist is because he’s the vessel for the curse of Demise.”

Demise was introduced in Skyward Sword. Demise is the root of all evil, the creator of monsters and conjuror of demons. He is pure evil in every sense from the word, the Zelda series’ version of Satan. Naturally, he’s as simple as you can get in terms of character. Barebones characterization, providing only just enough to tell the player exactly what they need to know:

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Ganondorf existed before Demise. Ganon had over twenty years of development before Demise brought his progress to a permanent flatline.

Who was Ganon before Demise?

Allow me to remind you.

In The Legend of Zelda, first released on February 21st, 1986, Ganon is simply described as “the Prince of Darkness,” and steals the Triforce of Power when he invades Hyrule. After the Triforce of Wisdom is shattered, he kidnaps Zelda.

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Although Ganon doesn’t physically appear in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, released in 1987, his presence is still felt as his minions pursue Link in order to revive the Prince of Darkness. In fact, the game over screen is the successful revival of Ganon.

Now, given that these are the first two games in the series, it’s perfectly alright for Ganon to be as barebones as he was. After all, many villains at the time were the same way, with the most notable of Ganon’s counterparts being Bowser from the Super Mario Bros. franchise.

However, with innovation of technology comes innovation of narrative, and it’s with the release of A Link to the Past in 1993 on the SNES that we begin to see Ganon develop as a character. In the prologue to ALttP, Ganon is revealed to have once been human; he is given the name Mandrag Ganon—or Ganondorf Dragmire, as we now know him—and he was once the leader of a band of thieves who sieged the Sacred Realm and took control of the Triforce after murdering his own followers.

Source: A Link to the Past SNES game manual

Ganon is still irrevocably evil, but in this case, we begin to learn more about him. We begin to see a character starting to form. One who isn’t just mindlessly evil, but who has the charm and wit to infiltrate Hyrule Castle and earn the King of Hyrule’s trust in the guise of Agahnim. Ganon was also a very capable leader, having successfully led his band of thieves straight to the Triforce. Even after wishing upon the Triforce and corrupting the Sacred Realm, Ganon’s power attracted followers in the form of greedy, power-seeking people. He’s powerful not by brute force alone, but through his cunning use of intellect.

Ocarina of Time served to further develop Ganon in little ways. For example, this is the first game wherein, for the majority of the game, Ganon is seen and referred to by his human form: Ganondorf. Ganondorf is shown to be powerful enough and stealthy enough to infiltrate the homes of the Zora, the Gorons, and the Kokiri, and send dangerous hazards their way in an effort to seize the Spiritual Stones. At the same time, he is first seen at an audience with the King of Hyrule, as if there for diplomatic reasons.

Although Zelda sees Ganondorf as evil because of her prophetic dream, the King of Hyrule doesn’t believe her. Because of this, we can infer that Ganondorf has enough charm and charisma to, if not win over the King of Hyrule, not be seen as suspicious despite the horrible acts he’d committed, not just in the past, but at that very moment. He’s also shown to be highly cultured, shown at the end of Link’s ascent up Ganon’s Tower. Not only is Ganondorf playing his own theme, but he’s doing so on the pipe organ, which is notoriously one of, if not the most difficult musical instrument to master.

Once Ganondorf seizes the Triforce of Power, the kingdom of Hyrule is subjected to seven long years of his rule. During this time, normal people such as Ingo succumb to their greed and follow Ganondorf’s influence in pursuit of power and riches. Although Malon is naïve enough to believe Ingo was somehow under Ganondorf’s control, it’s clear to players that he was completely in control of his actions, and that Ganondorf’s rule brings out the worst in seemingly average people.

Image credit goes to YouTube user ZorZelda.

Even a Hylian knight can fall under this influence, with it highly inferred that the knight who once guarded a room of pots for Link to smash is now a twisted poe collector, the man even stating that he likes it better this way.

In Wind Waker, we finally see a more introspective side to Ganondorf. While he’s just as ruthless and fully ready to murder a child in the name of accomplishing his goal, he reveals the reason that started him on his path of darkness:

His people were suffering, and he wanted for his people what Hyrule had. He believed that taking Hyrule and taking the Triforce meant that his people could finally live freely, away from the harsh desert.

Now, I’ve seen this challenged time and time again. Was Ganondorf lying to distract or manipulate Link? Was he telling the truth? Is this what Ganondorf has convinced himself to believe, after so much time sealed away and in isolation? We will never know, and that’s part of what makes the game so interesting. Ganondorf’s portrayal is a large part of why so many people love Wind Waker, and it’s not hard to see why.

Perhaps the darkest the Zelda series has ever gone in terms of the Triforce’s power was in Twilight Princess. After freeing Lanayru, the Light Spirit warns Link of the dark power he seeks, the Fused Shadow. In order to do this, she explains the history of the Triforce, and the bloodshed brought by its allure to the darkness in the hearts of men. Before the construction of the Temple of Time, many battles were fought, and one of them was the “Interloper War” that inevitably resulted in the creation of, not only the Light Spirits, but the Twili and the Twilight Realm.

It’s important to note that Lanayru’s cautionary tale highlights that Link, the hero of the story, could succumb to the allure of the Triforce and dark magic just as easily as any other person. In this particular case, anyone could have fallen down the same path as Ganondorf. If anything, this tale is one of the most important bits of lore to take into consideration when discussing the series.

Anyone could have been in Ganondorf’s shoes. It could have happened to anyone.

Then, in one fell swoop, Skyward Sword ruined it.

In a single game, every bit of progress on Ganondorf is lost. Once again, we’re dragged down to the baseline characterization from the original game.

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Suddenly, everything the previous games had built up no longer matters. There’s no longer a need to question whether what Ganondorf did was solely out of greed, but also out of what he felt was necessity. There’s no need to wonder if Ganondorf was once a rational man, who succumbed to the irresistible pull of the Triforce like so many before him.

Ganondorf is, purely and simply, the reincarnation of Satan, so there’s no need to go any deeper than that.

And that’s why I hate this “vessel of Demise” thing. It completely undermines everything Ganondorf once was and reduces him to a single, cardboard cutout of a villain.

Moving on, before I get sad.

- “This curse is specifically tied to Hylia’s bloodline and the Link’s soul, which is pretty specific…”

Demise’s curse is essentially dooming the earth with a never-ending rebirth of his hatred; his malice, if you would. The wording of his curse is specifically “people like you,” which could mean that it isn’t Link and Zelda’s exact souls that are tied to his hatred. Rather, people possessing the blood of the goddess and a heroic, courageous soul are doomed to deal with this curse.

However, my thoughts on this matter are pure speculation.

Also, Demise specifically targets his curse at people like Link and Zelda because they were the ones to kill him in the first place. That much is obvious.

- “… [So] why do the clashes with Ganon always throw the fate of Hyrule into disarray? Because Zelda’s bloodline runs the country.”

Ganon would attack Hyrule even without Zelda’s family in charge. His pursuit of power and domination of the Triforce/Hyrule is therefore closely tied with the fate of Hyrule. Goddess blood on the throne has nothing to do with it.

- “If Zelda came from a small town the curse would probably manifest in peril for that one region which isn’t great but it’s better than an apocalypse.”

Firstly, this is a run-on sentence. Secondly, I reiterate: Ganon would attack Hyrule as a whole, regardless if Zelda’s bloodline was on the throne. It wouldn’t matter if Zelda’s whole family suddenly moved to the countryside. When Ganon inevitably comes back, he’s still gonna go straight for the Triforce or to conquer all of Hyrule. Goddess blood isn’t even part of the equation for Ganon. And if goddess blood isn’t there to stop him, then that’s even better.

Alright, so I’m not even going to bother gratifying the last two paragraphs of the response with an answer, because it’s all rambling that has nothing to do with the original argument. Relinquishing the throne would do nothing to right any wrongs dealt to the many people who were hurt, and evil doesn’t care about a single princess with goddess blood or a boy with a pointy stick.

In conclusion, the addition of Hylia made it so that the royal family’s power dynamic with the Sheikah is even more critically imbalanced than it originally was, making the exile of the Sheikah 10,000 years ago even more heinous than it originally was. Yet, because Hylia is portrayed as wholly good and incapable of doing wrong, despite in-game evidence to the contrary, the royal family, and Zelda by extension, will never be criticized for any wrongdoing. In fact, doing so may well be heresy, if the responses to my original post are anything to go by.

By comparison, the addition of Demise diminishes Ganondorf’s character, rendering him down from the makings of a complex, human character—where anyone could have easily been in his place and had the same greed and ambition for power—into simply the reincarnation of the literal devil, where of course he’s evil, and you don’t have to do any digging beneath the surface. Ganondorf is the reincarnation of Demise, or his hate, or his vessel, so he’s pure evil and nothing more.

And that’s the greatest disservice Nintendo has ever dealt to The Legend of Zelda.

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