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torchickentacos · 3 months

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DREW + 4, 12, and 23

OKAY. TUMBLR'S LETTING ME ANSWER THIS ONE NOW. hellsite. Long post. I joked about being normal and hinged on the other ask about him I answered and CONGRATS, you get unhinged and long-winded thoughts! Curse of being my friend, I'm comfortable being unwell around you and now you get a dissertation <3.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

I mean, here's the thing. Literally any answer is objectively going to be hilarious. He's absurd in whatever you throw him at. Off the top of my head. Skyrim. Any romcom ever. Red Dead Redemption. Zelda. Great British Bake-Off. Like. Literally anything is really funny to imagine kdjfhskjf. Real answer, though, I think he would THRIVE as a Stardew Valley townie. That seems genuinely up his alley. Little florist's shop with a greenhouse in the back, a small-town with plenty of wilderness around to explore, and damn it now I just want to make an SDV pokeani au.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Long section incoming. Lol. Sorry. I have.... thoughts. A couple of 'em, even. Not adding a read-more because at this rate tumblr's gonna auto-shorten this for me.

kdjfhdskjfhdsjfhdsj. okay. You, the one asking this, already know WAY TOO MANY OF MY HEADCANONS ABOUT HIM and you are complicit in all of them lmfao. Assuming the french-canadian thing doesn't count since it's arguably canon (?), here's a potentially ~controversial~ one that literally nobody is obligated to agree with, dw, but I can back it up (sort of) (as much as you can back up ANYTHING in AG): I do not think Drew stays in coordinating in the long-term. Here's the thing. Think about episodes where he's being annoying and high-strung (/affectionate). Now, think about episodes where he seems to actually have serotonin for once. In group one, high-strung, you're going to get a lot of contest (like, contests on stage, not shorthand for shipping)/competition themed episodes. I have my... OPINIONS (/derogatory) about the Absol scene in Thinning the Hoard!, but I can use that as an example of "Well. This can't be great for his emotional wellbeing." EVIDENTLY it stresses him the fuck out. He's never more moody and stressed than he is in grand festivals/contests. But, in group two where he's actually kinda chill (albeit still himself), we have episodes where he's out doing literally anything other than coordinating- Unbeatable Lightness, WWWWW (why is he more relaxed in the episode where he drowns than the episodes where he wins ribbons?), On Cloud Arcanine. Hell, even contest episodes where he's not the one competing! He seems genuinely happier outside of contests.

This isn't even getting into my thoughts on coordinating fame and canon's portrayal of it (which is actually interesting and consistent, if unelaborated on). Some people thrive in that attention. Others won't. I think Drew genuinely loves the ART of contests. The planning of it, the technical side, working out strategies and appeals. And he's good at it. But the other parts of coordinating are things he struggles with and is uneasy with (also seen briefly in Unbeatable Lightness, A Fan With A Plan, and Spontaneous Combusken, my beloved absolute dumpster fire of an episode).

Now, it's a real shame to headcanon him as someone driven out of a career he loves by the culture of it and to just leave it on that sour note, though- so, where does he go from there? I've spoken to friends about it and there's different schools of thought about this- the one I usually lean towards personally is a career change that still allows him to partake in the parts of coordinating that he loved without the parts he hated, like becoming a mentor of sorts for new coordinators. I can see him being, like, a coordinating professor of sorts. Something that still allows the artistic expression and self-challenge, but more contained and focused specifically on the parts he loves about it. I can see him finding more satisfaction through teaching and nurturing others' talents and watching THEM go off and win rather than putting himself through it.

And obviously, his entire canon character is about how he's good at coordinating! This is maybe a weird take that sort of takes canon and does a hard pivot, so absolutely no need to agree at all, and I LOOOOVE interpretations where he stays and thrives in it! Because honestly, on a selfish note, the less he does coordinating the less I have to worry about the rules of contest appeals and battles, so. Can't say I don't have a personal stake in this. Because dear god do not make me try to understand the gen 3 anime's contest point system or lack thereof, what the FUCK.

Anyways. Thoughts. I have them. Sometimes. On occasion.

23. Favorite picture of this character?

lmao. BUT also 1.) every single face he's ever made at Harley, and 2.) every single face he makes in Unbeatable Lightness, which I think this is the third time I've mentioned it here BUT IT'S A GOOD EPISODE AND I'M NOT TAKING ALTERNATE OPINIONS ON THAT! If the sunset scene rewired my brain chemistry as a kid for probably the worse, then that's everyone else's problem and not mine. insert Taylor Swift "Drew looks-" FUCK YEAH MAN HE SURE DOES!!!!!

#non pokeani mutuals . do not worry about this. we're all really normal here :)#taylor's tag #taylor talks #drew #THANK YOU TAYLOR. taylor^2

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thefisherqueen · 9 months

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All right, reading The Bruce-Partington Plans this evening! Two more stories after this and I've caught up with Letters from Watson :)

In the third week of November, in the year 1895, a dense yellow fog settled down upon London. From the Monday to the Thursday I doubt whether it was ever possible from our windows in Baker Street to see the loom of the opposite houses. It blows my mind how normal this kind of heavy, extremely unhealthy smog was in this time. Makes me wonder what in another 100 years people will have going like "You lived like that?!" (I hope it's parking lots and highways and office buildings)

But when, for the fourth time, after pushing back our chairs from breakfast we saw the greasy, heavy brown swirl still drifting past us and condensing in oily drops upon the window-panes, my comrade's impatient and active nature could endure this drab existence no longer. He paced restlessly about our sitting-room in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture, and chafing against inaction. Bored Sherlock Holmes, oddly cute

“Look out this window, Watson. See how the figures loom up, are dimly seen, and then blend once more into the cloud-bank. The thief or the murderer could roam London on such a day as the tiger does the jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evident only to his victim.” Oh my, Doyle was really in his tiger fangirl fase when writing these last few stories

Well, well! What next?” said he. “Brother Mycroft is coming round.” “Why not?” I asked. “Why not? It is as if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane. Mycroft has his rails and he runs on them. We'll get to meet Mycroft again! :) Also, quite a funny image, Mycroft running on rails

You told me that he had some small office under the British government.” Holmes chuckled. “I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You are right in thinking that he under the British government. You would also be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the British government.” And this was me thinking that the BBC series had sucked Mycroft being this whole goverment mastermind out of their thumb. So that's canon?:O

“Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself. Nice parallel between the brothers here!

“There has been an inquest,” said I, “and a good many fresh facts have come out. Looked at more closely, I should certainly say that it was a curious case.” “Judging by its effect upon my brother, I should think it must be a most extraordinary one.” He snuggled down in his armchair. “Now, Watson, let us have the facts.” I just love this interaction. Holmes being all excited and trusting Watson to tell the important things to him :)

So the case is about a dead clerk that was found - murdered, in all likelihood - carrying some seriously important papers. Which he himself had stolen. And some of which were again stolen of him. Intriguing.

I'm hoping for some fun investigations in tunnels and along train tracks (I hope our men are careful)

If the papers were guarded with the same 'super secure' protective measures as the secret papers we've seen so far, they couldn't have been hard to steal

The actual official guardian of the papers is the famous government expert, Sir James Walter, whose decorations and sub-titles fill two lines of a book of reference. He has grown gray in the service, is a gentleman, a favoured guest in the most exalted houses, and, above all, a man whose patriotism is beyond suspicion. I already don't trust him. At least it's not a colonel?

“Has the fact been verified?” “Yes; his brother, Colonel Valentine Walter, has testified to his departure from Woolwich, and Admiral Sinclair to his arrival in London; so Sir James is no longer a direct factor in the problem.” But his brother is! Very suspicious

“Well, well!” said Holmes, shrugging his shoulders. “Come, Watson! And you, Lestrade, could you favour us with your company for an hour or two? Off they go!

It was one of my friend's most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with less alert intelligences than his own. Savage, Watson

Watson, we have done all we can here. We need not trouble you any further, Mr. Lestrade. I think our investigations must now carry us to Woolwich.” No don't leave the creepy tunnels and train tracks yet :( I want more adventure

No theories yet. I can't figure out what Holmes means by points and curves and not wanting to investigate the train's carriages

“That should be helpful, Watson,” he remarked as we took our seats in the Woolwich train. “We certainly owe Brother Mycroft a debt for having introduced us to what promises to be a really very remarkable case.” It's 'we' and 'us'. They are so Together

“The end is dark to me also, but I have hold of one idea which may lead us far. The man met his death elsewhere, and his body was on the roof of a carriage.” That explains a lot: why there was a loud thud, why the clerk hadn't a ticket, and also why there was no blood on or near the tracks

The house of the famous official was a fine villa with green lawns stretching down to the Thames. As we reached it the fog was lifting, and a thin, watery sunshine was breaking through. A butler answered our ring. “Sir James, sir!” said he with solemn face. “Sir James died this morning.” Oh! There's a second murder victim?

“It was this horrible scandal,” said he. “My brother, Sir James, was a man of very sensitive honour, and he could not survive such an affair. It broke his heart." Ah, of course, no murder but the mysterious victorian Death by Sadness disease. If he really is dead. Btw, I don't trust the brother

I have a theory: mr. colonel learns of the top secret papers because likely his scientist brother can't keep his mouth shut, either convices his brother to take the papers home, or he steals his key and takes them himself. Anyway, Cadogan West catches them being all suspicious and impulsively (he was hot-headed) follows them to try to stop them. Which doesn't end well, he knows too much so he's murdered, and they place 7 of the papers upon his body so he can take the blame. Of course the brothers cover for each other

Arthur was the most single-minded, chivalrous, patriotic man upon earth. He would have cut his right hand off before he would sell a State secret confided to his keeping. It is absurd, impossible, preposterous to anyone who knew him.” Always trust the opinion of his fiancee. This young clerk was innocent

My friend's face grew graver still. “Anything else?” “He said that we were slack about such matters—that it would be easy for a traitor to get the plans.” Poor security. Why am I not surprised

“We were to go to the theatre. The fog was so thick that a cab was useless. We walked, and our way took us close to the office. Suddenly he darted away into the fog.” “Without a word?” “He gave an exclamation; that was all. Clearly no planned theft then.

“I'm afraid,” said Holmes, smiling, “that all the queen's horses and all the queen's men cannot avail in this matter.” He had spread out his big map of London and leaned eagerly over it. Holmes is a map nerd! Same, Holmes, same. Now the question: what clue did he find from the map?

All the long November evening I waited, filled with impatience for his return. At last, shortly after nine o'clock, there arrived a messenger with a note: Am dining at Goldini's Restaurant, Gloucester Road, Kensington. Please come at once and join me there. Bring with you a jemmy, a dark lantern, a chisel, and a revolver. Danger date! Love it. No clue what a dark lantern is

Try one of the proprietor's cigars. They are less poisonous than one would expect. That is not reassuring at all, Holmes

When I found that the leading international agent, who had just left London, lived in a row of houses which abutted upon the Underground, I was so pleased that you were a little astonished at my sudden frivolity.” So the colonel was innocent this time? Or did he still steal the papers, and then sell them to this agent?

We must bear in mind that Oberstein has gone to the Continent to dispose of his booty, but not with any idea of flight; for he had no reason to fear a warrant, and the idea of an amateur domiciliary visit would certainly never occur to him. Yet that is precisely what we are about to make.” “Could we not get a warrant and legalize it?” “Hardly on the evidence.” They are going to break in! Exciting!

He sprang up and shook me by the hand. “I knew you would not shrink at the last,” said he, and for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more. Awww :) Be gay, do crime, boys!

“A fairly complete record, Watson! If we could only get at the man at the other end!” He sat lost in thought, tapping his fingers on the table. Finally he sprang to his feet. Colonel! I haven't given up on my theory yet

I think we might drive round to the offices of the Daily Telegraph, and so bring a good day's work to a conclusion.” I guess that Holmes wants to lure the other accomplice out by placing a new message

But some of these days you'll go too far, and you'll find yourself and your friend in trouble.” “For England, home and beauty—eh, Watson? Holmes you flirt

“By George!” cried Lestrade. “If he answers that we've got him!” “That was my idea when I put it in. I think if you could both make it convenient to come with us about eight o'clock to Caulfield Gardens we might possibly get a little nearer to a solution.” We're nearing the conclusion :)

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage. I remember that during the whole of that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus. For my own part I had none of this power of detachment, and the day, in consequence, appeared to be interminable. The great national importance of the issue, the suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we were trying—all combined to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our expedition. This is a wonderful bit of insight into their characters. Watson is anxiety-inclined. Holmes is able to switch that off to a perhaphs unsafe level - anxiety helps keeps you alive, after all, not good to not have it at all.

The man glared round him, staggered, and fell senseless upon the floor. With the shock, his broad-brimmed hat flew from his head, his cravat slipped sown from his lips, and there were the long light beard and the soft, handsome delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter. The colonel again. I fucking knew it. Careful, Watson, if you can find more words for his beauty you might faint yourself

I did not murder him! I'm innocent! I only did nothing to prevent it and then did not call for help and then helped get rid of the body!

Some weeks afterwards I learned incidentally that my friend spent a day at Windsor, whence be returned with a remarkably fine emerald tie-pin. When I asked him if he had bought it, he answered that it was a present from a certain gracious lady in whose interests he had once been fortunate enough to carry out a small commission. Cadogan West's fiancee gave Holmes a present? That is so sweet

Another fun read. I couldn't care too much about the fate of those papers, but it was a good case. The yellow smog and trains and tunnels added a lot of atmosphere. And Holmes and Watson interacted very cute in this story

#letters from watson #sherlock holmes #the bruce-partington plans

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e-adlirez · 1 year

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Your headcanons for the thea sisters is so fun and amusing! I was just wondering if you have more headcanons about them?

Oh DO I--

Once again I will clarify that my headcanons are very genfic-y, so uh, you're not gonna see any comments about the girls' sexual orientations or anything

So with that outa the way, headcanons :]

Canon context for most of these, Violet is canonically passive-aggressive as hell and is capable of dishing out some insane shade (for evidence, please consult every other time she's lightheartedly roasted the other girls, and the scene where the girls talk to Angus in Old Castle (the one where he attempts a pity party thing only for Violet to shut him down coldly); and also the non-English extras in the non-English books :D)

I will draw this at some point, but since Pam canonically believed that classical music is boring back in the day (like fall-asleep-to-the-sound-of-it boring), I like to think that passive-aggressive Violet and her cheeky ass slipped into her stereo key evidence that classical music is NOT boring, while Pam was slowly dozing off in her room or something. Feel free to make your selections of headcanon pieces from Liszt, Shostakovich, Ernst, Verdi, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and more :D maybe even slip in a Haydn if you want :DDD

Nicky is the memelord of the group, and Paulina is the interpreter who has to explain to literally everyone what a mood and a tbh creature is.

Violet has a distinct Hangzhou accent when she speaks Chinese because she's been around her grandfather enough that she picked it up. She's rather self-conscious about it, but fortunately no one has made an open note about it so far. Also she is self-conscious about it but she doesn't really know how to change it so it's less "Hangzhou". She also doesn't really want to change it, so there's that.

Ever since I learned that English teachers in China can only be native English speakers from certain first world countries (and South Africa for some reason), I now have the funni idea of Violet having an unexpected accent when she speaks English. Just imagine one of the girls having a brain crash over Vi having either an American (neutral American), British, Irish Canadian, New Zealand, Australian, or South African accent. If it's Australian, then feel free to have Nicky's brain crash and think Vi's a Chinese immigrant who lives in Australia.

Not a Thea Sister, but Vic is canonically a gremlin (in the comics anyway). Headcanon, one of his favorite pastimes is platonically flirting with Pam to get her all flustered. Everybody thinks Pam has a crush on Vic, but the reality is she has a complicated relationship with him, and she's just not used to having someone flirt with her.

Pam is painfully oblivious to Shen having a crush on her, because the way Colette in particular teases her about it makes it sound like Pam has a crush on Shen, which Pam doesn't. That plus the fact that Shen never confessed makes it off to be a stupid rumor (in Pam's mind at least).

Nicky swears a lot, and the only reason they don't appear in the books is because Thea is very aware of the fact that kids like reading her books.

Violet came up with the nickname Coco for Colette out of lighthearted spite for "Vivi" and "Princess", the two nicknames Colette gave her early on in canon (there're these extras in the non-English books, and Dragon's Code's one in particular has the girls writing to each other. Colette gave her the nickname "Princess" because she saw Violet as a "little miss perfect" type person). It was supposed to be a one-off joke that Vi told in front of the girls once, but Coco has stuck ever since.

Enjoy :D

#thea stilton #thea sisters #headcanon #most of them are related to Vi because she's my blorbo #I regret nothing

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tay6119 · 3 years

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Town of Salem Antics

This stream was a trip

This post is probably going to be so long I'm so sorry

- THE NAMES "Mile Memington" and "Cornelius" being some good contendors

- Catboy Corpse

- Their voice acting is.. it's something.. they tried?

- Everyone having nice skins and then Dream is just g r e e n

- Big Q and George immediately breaking character for their usual banter... it continues even more

- "that's not canon that's not canon"

- GEORGE FIRST TO DIE WE BEEN KNEW

- At least we don't have to deal with his ratchet rp for a while

- Tubbo saying "shocker" really sarcastically

- Big Q continuing to use his character's voice to trash on George "I'm glad he's dead"

I missed like 15 minutes so I may have missed sth funny

- Tubbo's speech

- "Want some yeezys?"

- "Wait where's George" KARL

- CORPSE CALLS TUBBO A LEGEND AND SAYS HES PROUD OF HIM

- Dream's hella quiet kinda sus.. George died first so he could look inno didn't he..

- IT WASNT QUACKITY OH NOOOOOO

- "it's much quieter" in reference to Quackity being gone ukgyftrgef

- Helga (Big Q) talking from the dead

- I miss Gog.. that has nothing to do with anything I'm just a simp

- Corpse trying to metagame I-

- Ponk coming for Dream's horrid OC naming in evidence against him

- Corpse not voting Dre, Jealous!George wya??

- DREAM BIG BRAINED AND I KNEW IT OFC HE KILLED GEORGE FACE AHHHH mans doesn't wanna be called a simp

- Lazar not knowing he was jester rhntigwo

Start of Second Round

- if george dies first again I'll cry

- Helga continues her tyranny

- I STILL CANT GET OVER DREAMS SKIN STICKING OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB

- Even G e o r g e got dressed up

- HELGA TRENDING ON TWITTER

- George and Quackity banter

- "ohhh Helga~ Helga you're in trouble now"

- G E L G A

- CRAB RAVE DREAM IS GONE

- I swear if it was George out of spite-

- George's fake british accent

- "They did it in front of me, I'm also blind"

- Corpse asking Helga to stay with him for the night

- "an orphan child is the most annoying thing.." ok Techno kinnie

- God I am in LOVE with Corpse being all protective of Tubbo and being all cute rp-wise with Dre when he was being sent to death

- Quackity trying to get George out as ALWAYS

- "They think I'm just getting revenge on Dream that's cute"

- Everytime Quackity goes back to his regular voice I have a seizure

- GEORGE STOP UR SO BAD AT RP AND UR VOICE I CAN'T

- We wanted George rp, but not like this, not like this

- "the only thing that will be choking him tonight"

- Tubbo and Corpse interactions supremacy

- Tubbo is sad boi :(

- Quackity saying he'll save BBH is he literally just says fuck and BBH proceeding to move into the cell

- "orphans go to hell" LAZAR NO

- TUBBO BIG BRAINED EVERYONE AND LITERALLY REVEALED HE WAS THE JESTER AND STILL WON

- Y'ALL KILLED OFF THE PERSON CARRYING THE STREAM rip Helga

- wait a T R I P L E kill

- OH THEY WON AND IT WASNT GOG

- Tubbo just wins money every time he does anything

In summary

watch it

it's good

Next one is more story focused!! Karl is going to try to do these weekly :)

#THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN #karl says later ones will be more lore based #so i'm kinda hype #but it was all fun and games with a sprinkle of rp I really liked it :)#liveblogging #mine #dream smp #tales from dream smp #karl jacobs #tubbo #Corpse #Georgenotfound #Dream #Quackity #mcyt

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good-omens-classic · 4 years

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Hi Good Omens fans, ever since making this blog, and trawling through the archives for old art, I have been thinking again about trends from before the TV-show, and the way people draw Aziraphale and Crowley. I wanted to make this post addressing it but this is not “discourse” or to start a fight, in fact I would be perfectly content if all I did was make people think critically about what I am about to say and not even interact with this post at all, but I feel like I need to say it.

Talking about any racist undertones to the way people draw our two favorite boys usually makes people dig their heels in pretty fast. This is not a callout post for any artist in particular, this is not me trying to be overly critical of artists especially since they have more talent and skill than I do, and I’m going to address some common counterpoints that I frankly find unsatisfactory. Let’s just take a moment to set aside our defensiveness and think objectively about these trends. It took me a while to unlearn my dismissive attitude about these concerns so maybe I can help others get over that hurdle a little faster. Now let’s begin.

I’ve been kicking around the Good Omens fandom since maybe 2015 and for art based in book canon, whether it was made before the TV show came out, or because the artist is consciously drawing different, original designs, I’m going to estimate that a decent 75% of all fanart looks like this

Aziraphale is white and blonde and blue-eyed while Crowley is the typical “racially ambiguous” brown skin tone it’s become so popular to draw podcast characters as nowadays.

And the question is why? With the obvious answer being “it’s racist,” but let’s delve a little deeper than that.

A common thing I hear is that people get appearance headcanons fixed in their mind because the coverart of the book pictures the characters a certain way. My first point is this only shifts the question to why the illustrators drew them that way, when there aren’t many physical descriptions in the book. My second point is that while there definitely are cover arts that picture Aziraphale as cherubic, blonde, and white and Crowley as swarthy, dark-skinned, and racially ambiguous...

(side note: why is Crowley’s hand so tiny? what the hell is going on in this cover?)

It’s much more common for the covers to simplified, stylized, and without any particular unambiguous skin tones

I don’t know about the UK but the most popular version in the United States is the dual black and white matching covers

And while you could make an argument that the shading on Crowley’s face could suggest a darker skintone, it seems obvious to me that lacking any color these are not supposed to suggest any particular race for either of these two, and the contrasting colors are a stylistic choice to emphasize how they are on opposite sides. If anything, to me it suggests they are both white.

In short I simply do not buy the argument that people are drawing Aziraphale and Crowley this way because that’s how they were represented on the cover art of the book. If you draw them the way they are on the cover then whatever, I don’t care, but I don’t believe that’s what’s driving this trend.

The second thing people will say is that Good Omens is a work of satire, and it’s based in Christian mythology which has this trend of depicting angels as white, and it is embodying the trope of a “white, cherubic angel” paired with a dark-skinned demon for the explicit purpose of subverting the trope of “white angel is good, dark demon is bad” since Aziraphale is not an unambiguous hero and Crowley is not a villain. “It’s not actually like that because Crowley isn’t a bad demon, and Aziraphale isn’t actually a perfect angel” is the argument. This has a certain logic to it and allows some nuance to the topic, but to this I say:

Uncritically reproducing a trope, even in the context of a satire novel, is not enough to subvert it. Good Omens is not criticising the racist history of the church, and while the book does have some pointed jabs at white British culture (such as Madam Tracy conning gullible Brits with an unbelievably ignorant stereotype of a Native American) it is not being critical of the conception of angels as white and blonde or the literal demonization of non-white people. That’s just not what the book is about. So making the angel white and the demon dark-skinned, playing directly into harmful tropes and stereotypes, is not somehow subversive or counter-cultural when doing so doesn’t say anything about anything.

Please consider fully the ramifications of the conception of white and blonde people as innocent and cherubic and dark-skinned people as infernal and mischievous, especially in modern contexts...

Black people are more likely to be viewed as violent, angry, and dangerous. Priming with a dark-skinned face makes people more likely to mistake a tool for a gun. Black people are viewed as experiencing pain less intensely by medical professionals. Black men are viewed as physically larger and more imposing than they actually are. The subconscious racial bias favoring light skin is so ingrained it’s measurable by objective scientific studies, on top of the anecdotal evidence of things like news stories choosing flattering, “cherubic” pictures of white and blond criminals while using unflattering mugshots for non-white offenders.

This is why I say that if you’re going to invoke the “whites are angelic” trope, you better have a damn good subversion of it to justify it, because this idea causes real harm to real people in the real world. And Aziraphale being a bit of a bastard despite being an angel, I just don’t see that as sufficient. I am especially cautious of when it’s my fellow white fans that make this argument, not because I believe they do this out of any sort of malice or hatred of people with dark skin, but because I know first-hand it stems from a dismissiveness rooted in not wanting to think about it for too long because it makes us uncomfortable. Non-white people do not have the luxury of not thinking about it, because it’s part of their life.

Now the strongest textual evidence people use, in the absence of much real descriptor, is this:

"Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Two of these were wrong; Heaven is not in England, whatever certain poets may have thought, and angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort"

This piece of art has circulated in the fandom for so long I don’t know the original artist and it’s been used for everything from fancovers to perfume. This is where I found it and it’s one of the first things that come up when you google this quote about Aziraphale.

Doesn’t it just feel like this is the man that’s describing, some blonde effeminate gay man? Well guess what, there’s the “blonde as innocence” trope rearing its ugly head again, because the stereotype of gay men and effeminacy as being a white and blonde thing is--ding ding ding you guessed it--racism. And why would intelligent suggest a white and blonde person, except if the stereotype of a dark-skinned person is less intelligent?

Now the point of “people assume Aziraphale is British” is another sticking point people will often use, claiming that the stereotype of a British person is white and blonde. I guess this has some merit, since the British empire was one of the biggest forces behind white colonial expansion, and it seems disingenuous to assign “British” as “nonwhite” as soon as we’re being satirical, in the same way I found it distasteful that the TV show made God female when so many of the criticisms of the church are about its misogyny and lose their teeth as soon as God is no longer male.

However consider that 1.4 million Indian people live in the UK. I heard a man say aloud once that the concept of a black person having a British accent was a little funny, as though Doctor Who doesn’t exist and have black people on it. And I’m not overly familiar with the social landscape of the UK, but I understand they’re experiencing a xenophobia boom and non-white Brits aren’t considered “really British.” The stereotype of non-white people not being British only exists because of reinforcement in media. If you really want to be subversive, drawing Aziraphale as Indian goes way further than drawing him as white IMO.

Now let’s talk about Crowley. He is almost always drawn with a darker skin tone than Aziraphale, even when they are both white, and while I’ve outlined above how this is problematic on terms of linking light skin with innocence, I think it does have an extra layer. I think it also has to do with the exotification and fetishization of brown skin and non-white people.

This artist’s tumblr is gone now but their art is still on dA and while it’s definitely beautiful and well-done, I think this is a very good example of what I’m talking about.

Crowley and Aziraphale necessarily contrast each other, so describing Aziraphale as “British” might suggest that Crowley is “foreign-looking.” I also know *ahem* that the fandom generally thirsts over Crowley to hell and back, so making him a swarthy, tall dark and handsome is not necessarily surprising.

An interesting thing happened when the TV show came out, and everyone started drawing Michael Sheen!Aziraphale and David Tennant!Crowley more and more often: It’s not ubiquitous, but it does happen that sometimes artists will draw David Tennant’s skin darker than it actually is. The subconscious urge to see Crowley with dark skin is for some reason that strong for many people. And I really encourage people doing this to think about why. Not naming any names but I’ve working with fanartists before for collabs who I had to ask to lighten “bad guy” demon’s skin tones because it looked like they were making the skin darker on purpose to make them look scarier. This person is a perfectly pleasant person who tries not to be racist! And we both still fell into it accidentally, and it took me a while to notice and point it out, because the ingrained stigmatization of darker skin is pervasive yet often goes unnoticed.

What is the solution? I don’t know, and as a white person I’m not really qualified to make that call. Do we draw them both with the exact same skin tone? Is it better to make them both white? Should we make both of them non-white? Should we only make Aziraphale non-white? I am consciously aware of the fact that the Good Omens fandom is mostly white people, so most of the art we make is being both made by and consumed by white people, so I don’t feel comfortable saying “draw these characters of color specifically” because that can also veer into fetishization territory very quickly. This is not specific to good omens but I think we should pay attention to what fans of color say in all fandom spaces and weigh our choices even if they seem insignificant. And it’s important to realize that fans of color will not be a monolith in their opinion either, and it’s our responsibility to recognize that everyone can be affected by racism and social issues differently, the same way all women are affected by misogyny differently so just because one woman says such as such is misogynistic and another says it’s not. I’m sure there are non-white fans who think it’s perfectly fine to draw Aziraphale as white and Crowley as ambiguously non-white. I’m not saying they’re wrong. And I’m not saying you can’t reblog this kind of art, or that people who make or made it should feel bad about themselves. But so often this sort of thing goes unaddressed just because people don’t like thinking about it, and well, avoiding hard questions never really goes well I think.

#?#voice of mod #?????

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neptunium134 · 4 years

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Send in the Clowns analysis (eh?) pt2

@midsomer4life, you wanted this, get redy for more of this maddness

After this scene, I am convinved Jamie was a Scout:

(We’ve used paraffin lamps in Scouts while I’ve been there, so if Jamie was a Scout he would undoubtedly have used paraffin lamps, or paraffin to light the Trangas). Basically, if I asked my non-Scout friends to idenity what smelled of paraffin, I doubt they could do it as it’s not common anymore, seeing as we have electricity and none of them were Scouts.

Jamie was a Scout or has a DofE under his belt, or both.

Jamie wearing wellies to the Gun Club:

I mean that’s just cute. John or Sarah probably bought them for him.

Jamie’s facial expressions in the abattoir:

I mean, same, mate.

John doesn’t look that uncomfortable, more focused on Mostyn, but Jamie looks like he wants to puke. This could just be down to age and experience- John has had more experience with going to weird places like abattoirs, and he’s seen a lot of gore in Midsomer, while Jamie is still relatively new to it.

Mostyn picking on Jamie, and asking John “You sure he can handle it”, and John looking at Jamie before going in (some of which I haven’t screencapped, but if you’ve seen the episode you’ll know the part I’m on about, if you haven’t seen it, it should still be on the ITV Hub):

And I just love this low-angle shot. Let me geek out about media for a moment, but this shot is amazing and I love it:

Notice how the audience are looking up at the characters, as if we’re the pigs almost? The camera was probably on some sort of ledge or dolley, but we are effectively the pigs in this scenario. The shot also makes Jamie look shorter, pushing our focus on the two important figures in the scene: Mostyn and John. Jamie is being pushed back and down so the audience’s attention is on the action in the scene.

Mostyn’s ‘red room’ is understandably and disgustingly creepy:

Ugh, that is so gross, it makes me wanna vomit just looking at it.

And this red herring:

Making the audience think it’s the rifle when it isn’t, well done, screenwriters.

Father and son sitting down at the same time:

(Not that good of a screencap, but oh well)

I just found it cute.

This line perfecly capuates every kid’s feelings to their parents not listening to them:

(Just to be clear, this line is being said by Harry, not Joe)

This should not happen:

That clown should not be able to outrun Jamie. We’ve seen Jamie sprint after suspects before- the first ones that pop into my head are Crime and Punishment (S19, E2) and The Lions of Causton (S20, E4)

TLOC was literally two episodes before this, Jamie could not have slowed in a few in-canon months, if anything he should be quicker.

I know it’s to build tension and conflict so we don’t find out the original issue of this episode before the plot is ready to advance in such a way, but Mostyn cannot outrun Jamie. It’s impossible, espically when Mostyn is wearing that stupid outfit and the oversized shoes.

Raoul outing every magician to have ever magicked:

Jamie once again proving the wonders of modern technology:

No, this is literally what my classes do when we haven’t got time to make notes in class.

Jamie is Gen Z confirmed.

The infamous oil scene:

Now, there’s a bit to unpack in this, so let’s try to break it down.

In my opinion, Jamie is focuing on his phone in order to impress John with what he found out. Me and @midsomer4life have a theory where Jamie was ignored by his parents, so he’s reaching out to the first parental figure who has shown impression with what he’s done. I feel like that’s what Jamie’s trying to communicate in the last photo. A sort of “don’t bring up my parents” kind of look.

But it does also fit into what we’ve seen of his personality- a little absent-minded and determined to please. In CaP, Kam describes him as “cocky” and “arrogant”, but aside from that episode and maybe a little bit in Curse of the Ninth (S19, E6), there’s not really any evidence for that.

To me, Jamie is just trying to impress John, and as the seasons go on, it seems less of a ‘trying to impress the boss to keep a job’ and more of a ‘trying to impress a parental figure’.

But that’s just my take.

Also, big steppy:

Fleur making John say “please” in front of his son:

She’s just trying to make sure John is raising his son to be polite.

John and Jamie finding Mostyn’s ‘red room’:

The only appropriate reaction.

This interaction:

Bommy Vommy Jamie.

Also, I love this running joke that John loves old movies- we had to look at a Hammer horror film poster for media, and I think it was from the 60s. If we’re using the actor’s ages for the characters, then Jamie, at this point, is roughly 33-ish (annoyingly, the UK airing date is almost two years after the US one, so I’m using 2018 as a benchmark). Hammer horror films reached their peak around the 1970s. Once again, if we use Neil’s age for John, then John would have been 20 around 1981. It’s likely he saw some Hammer films before he went to uni, which could be the reason why he likes old movies so much- they bring back good memories with his parents/ family.

I just love that it references a niche love of John’s and it gives John the chance to poke fun at Jamie for his younger age, like how Jamie did to John in TLOC.

This throw-away line that’s actually quite funny and incredibly British:

Priorities

This line:

Once again, this is showing Jamie’s younger age- he’s referencing a children’n storybook.

As much as I would love to think John has read this to Jamie as a bedtime story, it’s more likely Jamie’s read it to Betty if he’s ever babysat her (which would be amazing, ITV make it happen!)

The way Jamie moves in front of John when Mostyn points the rifle at them:

Let me protect you, father

The this shot which I just love:

Despite Jamie being in the foreground, he is in blurred-focus while John is in-focus. This once again allows the audience to focus on John as he is talking while keeping Jamie in their view. It’s not a POV shot from Mostyn, the positioning’s all wrong for that, so it’s obviously a narrative shot.

John refering to Mostyn’s ‘red room’ as his “chamber of horrors”:

Personally, I think this is referring to The Village That Rose from the Dead (S19, E1), where Jamie refers to the snake room as “the deadly room of serpents”, which John instantly shut down. A canonical year later, John is using similar wording to refer to Mostyn’s ‘red room’, suggesting that Jamie’s playfulness has rubbed off on him and he’s taken to using it in a similar way certain social groups use the same words of phrases to create or strengthen a bond.

Using these kinds of words in that order that directly references something Jamie said could be John’s way of trying to strengthen the bond between him and Jamie, in a similar way to how parents will try to understand the language and slang their kids use, in order to appeal to them so they can strengthen that bond.

This episode focuses heavily on families and familial bonds. It’s probably unintentional, and I’ve just picked up on it due to my English Language course, but if it was intentional, we could be looking at a much stronger familial bond being formed between John and Jamie in S22 and onwards.

Right, I’m gonna end this part here, the next one should be the last one since I’m running out of screencaps and they’re all from the end of the episode.

Once that part’s done, you won’t have to endure any more of this

#Midsomer Murders #Neptunium over-analysing everything as usual #John Barnaby #Jamie Winter #Fleur Perkins #Send in the Clowns analysis #Part 2

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florrickandassociates · 4 years

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TGF Thoughts: 3x08-- The One Where Kurt Saves Diane

I wrote this over the span of, like, a full year and it is not very interesting. I am posting it simply because I am committed to the idea of writing something about every episode of this series. I recommend that you go check out Evil instead of reading this.

I’m just not intrigued by the clips of news footage about some sort of “Unredacted Unspecified Report” that open this episode.

Diane doesn’t seem to be that interested either: she’s not watching and talks over it.

More interesting (but, tbh, not actually that interesting to me either, because I’m losing interest in this season) is that Diane gets a letter of warning from a ~mysterious source~.

Most interesting of all: Diane and Kurt have a normal morning together.

Kurt spots the letter first and opens it. STOP DIANE. THEY KNOW ABOUT THE HACK. So maybe it’s directed at Kurt. Or maybe it’s supposed to say, “Stop, Diane.”

I still haven’t warmed to Diane’s bedroom set, especially because it still feels like Diane lives in her bedroom and her home has no other rooms.

Joy, Felix Staples has returned. All I have to say about this case is that the day this ep aired, basically what’s happening in this case happened in real life, because… Kings.

Hello, it’s October now and I suddenly felt like returning to The Good Universe and writing. It’s been a while.

My memory of this episode/arc is that Diane and Liz just did something uncharacteristically dumb and illegal, and this is the episode where Kurt secretly puts an end to the shenanigans without Diane even knowing. I remember this episode being satisfying, if only because it got rid of the aforementioned dumb and illegal plot. Let’s see how good my memory is.

Wait why don’t I remember Roger Bart being on this show and why didn’t I note it earlier?! How could I let George The Killer Pharmacist go unmentioned?!

On that note, how did I not use the opening scene of the season (Diane saying “I’m happy” as an excuse to ramble about how weird it is to experience happiness on a personal level in today’s world?) (I was just watching 3x01.)

I’m actively not watching the case scenes so they don’t kill my drive to actually write this.

Oh God, I’m going to have to deal with Blum again at some point. I had blocked out his bloviating. I think this is the last of the Blum/Maia free eps?

The weird Lucca/British actor plot is still happening!!!! I didn’t miss it during all those months in which I wasn’t reminded of it.

The joke about how these TV lawyers aren’t like other TV lawyers, except they are, was funny the first time.

Always great to see how Lucca, who is the head of a department at this point, gets called into other cases frequently. Definitely how things work.

Is it bad that I’m more interested in making a mental list of all the times TGF/TGW have filmed in this little park than this Marissa/Alan Alda scene?

I can see why this is the episode that made me stop writing these for a bit. So far, this ep is all case and a subplot I don’t care for.

You know what else was funny the first time and has hit a point of diminishing returns? The thing where a main character’s love interest shows up in court and then they get thrown off their game and it’s CUTE FLIRTING!!! Find a new, unique way to signal interest, writers!

This gag now involves literal gagging. I’m overjoyed.

Lucca’s monologuing at a toilet about her crush. This plot is cute. It isn’t bad. It is watchable. BUT! I know it’s a novelty, so I’m just not that excited by it or invested in it. It’s not really deepening my understanding of Lucca.

Lucca picturing everyone in court in their underwear is just unnecessary and honestly not funny???

Kurt leaves the warning note out for Diane to see. He confronts her about it and she asks for a drink.

The credits are at 19 minutes in. I do love them. Have any of you watched Evil yet? I watched part of the first episode (I intend to go back to it, I’ve just been busy) and the credits resemble the TGF credits. (Update as of March 2020: I watched all of Evil and you should too.)

Diane tells Kurt about Book Club or #Resistance or whatever I was calling it. Even though Diane doesn’t tell him the full story (mostly for his own protection, and she makes it clear she’s omitting stuff), I do appreciate that Diane and Kurt don’t keep secrets from each other, and if/when they do, they talk about it openly and calmly. I love them.

(I have blocked out Kurt/Holly almost entirely. I know it’s canon, but I still don’t believe it was anything other than a plot device to motivate some unnecessary drama in the TGW finale. God, that finale was bad. Ghost Will? Kurt cheating? GENEVA and Peter? GHOST WILL? Even the slap, which is one of my favorite parts, is more powerful as a symbol than as an actual plot development, since (1) Alicia betraying Diane is something Pilot!Alicia would’ve done to any friend to protect her family and (2) it stems from the nonsense about Kurt cheating and Peter tampering with evidence. What a letdown of a finale. The Kings are lucky they got to redeem themselves with TGF.)

(As anyone who’s had a one-on-one convo with me about the TGW finale at any point in the last three years will tell you, I will NEVER tire of discussing it, even if it means rehashing the same points over and over and over.)

I forgot about the thing where it wouldn’t stop storming in season 3.

Don’t have much to say about Kurt devising a plan to help Diane get out of trouble, but I do find it very fun!

OOOOH this is the episode about censorship that got censored!!! If you haven’t already, do read Emily Nussbaum’s piece about the behind-the-scenes drama of this episode. I thought the “this content has been censored” screen where the short would have been was a joke… but it was actually censored. That may be the most interesting thing about this episode.

I want more character-driven plots. I want more Liz and Lucca. I have nothing to say.

Book Club still believes the con artist who brought them together is something other than a con artist. Book Club is not that smart for being a collection of very smart people.

“So the whole group is bullshit?” Liz asks when Diane loops her in. Yes. But also, like, this is what happens when you do illegal shit with a group formed by a literal con artist. Liz may have an excuse for trusting the group (Diane brought her in), but why does DIANE trust them?

“My life is simple, Diane. I have a son. I have a mortgage. I have my job. And I go from home to work and work to home. So this stuff is, this bullshit intrigue… I’m done. Too much drama,” Liz laments, about a week too late. Where was this last week when Liz was like YES LET’S DO CRIMES?

One of my problems with the whole Book Club arc is that it makes very little sense that Liz would get involved in the first place. I understand why she would be sympathetic to their cause and willing to look the other way on their methods… if she were watching a news report about them on TV. She’s too practical, and has too much to lose, to get involved with a group like this.

An NSA nerd is back!! He’s the one warning Diane!

Okay, picking this back up in March 2020 because *gestures at the world* I have time. Like, I have so much free time I’ve finished 9 books in the last 14 days AND finally made it to the episodes of The Sopranos with JMargs. I began watching The Sopranos in 2017.

As I write this, I have no idea if TGF is coming back on April 9th as planned or not. Unless there’s something in the works for season 4 that can’t possibly be left unfinished or air today, I think they should air whatever they have now. TGF is always timely, and while scenes set in an office are suddenly feeling weird and implausible, they’ll probably play better now than in six months. And we’d all forgive the writers if they had to wrap up the arcs through an animated recap song.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the TGF credits so I rewound to watch the credits. I went to 2 minutes into the episode, then remembered… they’re 20 minutes in.

Y’all. They blow up a purse with hand sanitizer in it. Did they predict this?!

I wrote that preamble and then stopped writing. But now we know that TGF is really coming back on April 9th, which means I have to stop watching The Sopranos and write these things!

Ah, Felix Staples. I haven’t missed you!

Case stuff happens. Really riveting episode, this one. (It is an interesting case, though.)

Kurt saving Diane is pretty fun. But I don’t have anything to say about it and to write about it would just to be to give a half-assed play by play… and why?

Oh WOW, Lucca and Downton Abbey guy is still happening?!

Getting to see Kurt be really competent and caring is the best thing, by far, about the Book Club arc.

Wait, I take that back, Liz’s speech about voter suppression is also pretty high up there-- as long as you ignore the context.

V excited (!!) to get back to Maia’s bullshit in the next few episodes, not because I want to watch it but because if there’s one thing I’m actually motivated to write about, it’s how the show has handled Maia Rindell. Also, they handle the next few episodes well for her.

Oh RIGHT Liz tells ChumHum about her dad’s sexual harassment issues! And Adrian and Liz are finally going to tell the press! It may mean losing Neil Gross, though.

Book Club is over! Wooooooooooooooooooooo! On to more interesting things!!!

Also gone? Downton Abbey guy, who gave an interview about something new and exciting in his life. Lucca thought he was talking about her, and he was talking about some...personality test that sounds like a cult from the way he describes it? AAAAAND I Googled it and yup. It is. What a goofy ending to this arc I didn’t care about. Reminds me of the way the Marilyn arc ended (with a cameo from a celebrity who she was supposedly sleeping with). Glad the actor was so game to poke fun at himself, but is this the best we can do for Lucca?

Diane thinks she took care of the hack and made it go away. Kurt lets her take the credit.

The end!

#the good fight #is coming back soon!!!!#tgfthoughts #yes i still check this thing

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e-one-seven · 5 years

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Warning: this post is long. If you are interested on my theories on DST lore you can click on “Keep reading” below. If you don’t you can skip it. This whole post is the ultimate evidence that studying Foreign Literature at university was a really bad idea as now I see hidden subtexts everywhere! And having had some years to work on this theory didn't help either... I will be happy to see it crushed by Klei guys themselves with the release of the actual lore in a few weeks, because they are up to something big and I'm ready to have my mind blown!

I think it's time for me to confess a little Don't Starve Together headcanon of mine I never really revealed to anyone until now: I seriously think that Wilson might be Charlie and Winona's younger brother, or at least a younger half-brother. I am not saying this just because their haircuts bear some similarities. There are some serious clues in game leading to that direction, and I found basically no counterarguments strong enough to deny the theory. I don’t know if these are funny coincidences or not, but they were enough to fill more than four Words pages and I am not one to believe in coincidences.

So the evidences I gathered could be summed up like this:

Charlie and Wilson act like they know each other in A New Reign Cinematic; she is the Night Monster, so of course they know each other! However, why did she choose to set him free revealing her true form despite her wanting to hide it and why did she let Wilson live to tell the tale?

It is confirmed that Charlie has one sister, but there might be other siblings or family members no one mentioned yet. And thanks to the information released by Klei it is possible to confirm that Wilson is young enough to possibly be Charlie and Winona's brother;

There are clues that Winona might be born into a rich family she estranged herself from because of her lifestyle (and possibly guilt for Charlie's supposed demise); the same applies to Wilson too, though the reasons of his estrangement are not clear;

We still have no way to know exactly where all these characters are from exactly, but it is implied that Winona traveled through all the USA and that Wilson at least completed his education in the USA.

It is confirmed that Wilson is a European immigrant; if we take Charlie’s Rose species name in account, her and Winona could possibly be of Anglo-Irish descent.

Wilson and Shadow Charlie share a similar haircut (and so does Winona to a lesser extend); Winona and Charlie's face structure is similar and it looks totally different from Wilson's, but there is an example in game that blood relatives could not look like each other at all (Maxwell and Wendy).

Wilson's new darkness quote is very similar to one of Maxwell's quotes about Abigail.

Wilson seems to have personality traits and interests in common with both Charlie and Winona;

We were told that Winona went to the Constant to save someone: despite their relationships being known, Charlie and Robert Wagstaff might not be the person she was looking for, at least according to her original character quotes.

The explanations and the results of some researches I made to confirm or deny my theory are better expressed below divided in four parts.

1) A New Reign Cinematic

This less than two minutes cinematic is mute like almost every Don't Starve related animation, but it's so full of emotion it's simply beautiful. And it is the only time we can see Charlie being herself before becoming the Shadow Queen, so I watched it again and again, even slowed down so I could fully enjoy every seconds of it (and a lot of DST fellow fans out there probably did too).

I have to admit that I always had the impression that Charlie booped Wilson's nose before setting him free, and that was for sure a factor in developing this theory as you boop your boyfriend or your little brother's nose, not a unknown person you just met. But Wilson being Charlie's brother would explain why she chose to set him free in the first place: before Wilson there was Maxwell, and despite all the powers he gained by being the Shadow King him being trapped on the Throne was still a torture. Wilson did not want to become the new King and so he was desperately fighting against Them and their corruption. Charlie hates to be seen, yet she chose to reveal herself to Wilson and she became the new Queen to prevent him to become like herself and Maxwell and this is a thing that every good big sister would do for their little brother. Furthermore, Charlie had to muster some serious self-control before doing that stunt because I am seriously convinced that any other character in Wilson's place would have died there and then. Charlie was smiling at the beginning of the cinematic, but her eyebrows betrayed her being extremely worried too. When Wilson is not in the Throne Room anymore she is much more relaxed, because she did what she came for and Wilson survived: it doesn't matter what will become of her from then on, and maybe that factor made the fusion with her Shadow self possible.

And about Maxwell, I think that dragging her theoretical little brother in that hellish world where Charlie herself could be the cause of his death would be a more than valid reason for Charlie to hate Maxwell's guts even more than she did before. That could be the reason why Maxwell’s death caused by Darkness is listed as "Charlie" instead. I checked it, despite Winona is canonically able to recognize Charlie as the Darkness like Maxwell, her death cause is still listed as "Darkness". But it is impossible to tell if it is a developers' oversight.

2) What we know about their backgrounds

Digging into the William Carter Puzzles Charlie's ad requisition caught my curiosity. It says "should have a curious demeanor and a keen interest in the mysteries of the universe." This description could fit Wilson too. We know next to nothing about who Charlie used to be before she became the Night Monster, aside that she was William Carter's assistant and she cared a lot about him. In her letters Charlie mentions only one sister, Winona, because she frequently visited her (or, more likely, they lived together when she was not working with Maxwell). But frequent visits to her sister don't exclude the possibility of other relatives or siblings existing somewhere else. This happened in 1905 and Charlie disappeared the following year, exactly fifteen years before the events of Don't Starve in 1921. Charlie and Winona were young adults and they probably moved away from their family. According to Charlie's last letter her family owned a cabin used as holiday house in BC, implying that Charlie and Winona's birth family was been rich enough to afford a holiday house in the first place.

BC commonly stands for "British Columbia" in Canada, a popular place for a family to have a holiday cabin nowadays. But it can also stand for Bay City, Michigan. Bay City is located near Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron, so it could be a possible place to locate a holiday cabin for the family. For some bonus points, Bay City merged with West Bay City in 1905; West Bay City was created in 1877 from the union of the villages of Banks, Salzburgh and Wenona. Wenona is an alternative spelling of the name "Winona": if the Bay City theory is correct she might have been born during a time where the old name of the area could have been still used by population and her parents might have liked it enough to name their first daughter like the old village. I wanted to see if BC could have another meaning and that was the result. But it might be just a funny coincidence.

Back to the job question, Charlie actually replied for an application that actually has not a great paycheck (during that time most performers were barely able to sustain themselves and Maxwell himself got some debts during his first years) and that required a cultured person who knew how to appear in front of an audience: during that time having an education was still a luxury for wealthy families and same goes with clothes dapper enough to look good by Maxwell's side. Her Shadow Queen's form fancy dress seems to confirm this theory. So the only real reason she could need to work is her living really far away from her family and that required her to look for any kind of job to be able to survive for the long run.

What do we know about Wilson? As he is in his 30s in 1921, he was a likely teenager in 1906, and as Klei recently said, "maybe a European USA Immigrant? We never really picked a home land for him." Thinking about this last statement, we can say that during that time that description could fit basically most of the American population back in the 1920s. They actually said nothing. BUT, in 2014, a fan posted on Tumblr another message from Klei that gives us some interesting information: these are the evidences that despite it all it might be legit:

I checked on DS and DST credits, there really is a Jan Hatchings.

The first thing Jan says is that Klei prefers to be the fan finding out about the past of the characters exploring the game: a nice way to say they are not allowed to spill too many beans. (I want the character updates and the new characters! I want to know what they are hiding!)

He confirmed some information we already knew (Wilson being in his 30s, the game being set in early 1920s) adding that he was living in New England at the time of the trailer: New England is the Northeastern area of the United States, it is bordered with Canada, three of the most important colleges of the United States are there (Yale, Harvard and the MIT) and there are a lot of woods. The perfect area for a lonesome scientist to live in.

He mentions his family not wanting to talk to him;

Jan invites the person who originally shared the message to join the official forum.

So Wilson most likely completed his instruction in the United States or he sought affiliation with American colleges, and that would be weird for a person who grew up in the United Kingdom, as he would be already close to some of the most prestigious and oldest colleges and academic associations in the world. That's why I think the "immigration" part might mean that he was born into a British family immigrated in the US and he actually grew up in the United States (and maybe not even Klei knows if Wilson's family moved in before or after he was born). As he had a nanny as a kid and, as already pointed out, college education was something that only wealthy families could afford back then, we can assume Wilson was born into a rich family that for some reason moved to America.

Like BC, New England area is pretty popular for its holiday cabins so it makes sense for Wilson to have lived into one of them. He was isolated, yet possibly close to a scientific center of interest like a university. Even if he bought the house or someone else did it for him, for sure Wilson needed some money to live in there and being a Gentleman Scientist is a risky profession for a safe paycheck. Quoting Wikipedia:

"An independent scientist (modern gender-neutral term historically also known as gentleman scientist) is a financially independent scientist who pursues scientific study without direct affiliation to a public institution such as a university or government-run research and development body. [...] Most independent scientists have at some point in their career been affiliated with some academic institution, such as Charles Darwin, who was affiliated with the Geological Society of London. [...] Self-funding has the disadvantage that funds may be more restricted; [...] It also permits the scientist to have greater control over research directions, as funding bodies direct grants towards interests that may not coincide with that of the scientist. [...] Scientists may choose to work on unusual projects with high risk of failure also when the grant system does not fund them. A scientist could be attributed the status of independent scientist if they work on such projects during a gap between two academic positions, for example."

So Wilson being a Gentleman Scientist means that he was the one and only person who worked on his own projects with no external funds from government and scientific institutions. If his research failed he could have ended in some serious economic trouble. He might have had some help from universities, but that could have not be enough. But it makes sense for Wilson being a Gentleman Scientist if his parents died and he inherited their money or a part of it. That would make him economically independent enough to perform his experiments with no considerable help.

But then, if his parents are presumably dead, who is the family who doesn't want to speak to him? It would be easy to say that his extended family thinks him to be a mad scientist and decided they don't want to have nothing to do with him. But this doesn't deny the theory "Wilson is Charlie's brother": if we take this theory in account, his only currently known immediate family members are Charlie and Winona. Charlie was presumed dead in 1906, while Winona probably got estranged from her parents because of her lifestyle and maybe even accused to have caused her sister's death. Even if their parents are dead, why Winona should think that her brother would be different? To her he is just a spoiled child who attended a fancy university and that probably spends all the day talking nonsense with other eggheads. Also her constant moving through the country will make keep contacts really difficult, so she simply didn't. Sadly a lot of people do it for even pettier reasons.

And, for some bonus point, Wickerbottom recognizes Charlie's Rose as a "Rosa Macdub", or a "Dublin Bay climbing rose". A rich Irish family immigrating from a country where uprisings were a Tuesday for at least one century would make sense. And it would not even directly conflict with the theory as the richest families residing in Ireland were of English descent and all Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom until 1919. So despite Wilson being a perfect "British gentleman" kind of character, the possibility of Charlie and Winona being Irish or Anglo-Irish descent doesn't deny the theory. But I don't know if this could count as a clue about Charlie's family origin as the Dublin Bay climbing rose was actually bred for the first time in 1975 in New Zealand, with peculiar characteristics and resistance that make me think that they might be the reason for it to be chosen as Charlie’s symbol despite its anachronism. And just because of this the thing that concerns me more about this rose is not the possible reference to Charlie's birthplace, but an explanation of how Wickerbottom is able to recognize a flower from 1975 without knowing what is a license plate!

3) The similarities between the characters in game

One of the things most evident in the cinematic was that Wilson and Charlie shared a similar haircut and hairline. Haircuts are not hereditary, but unmodified hairlines and hair textures are. Winona looks a lot like Charlie, but she doesn't resemble Wilson at all except their being two light skinned people with dark hair and solid black eyes in game. Also, Winona seems to have a different hairline than Wilson and Charlie when uncovered (except in the Gorge's vignette where she sports a small widow's peak), but the hairstyle is still similar to theirs, with only one "point" out of three. However, there are even deeper similarities between these characters: Charlie is the "bookworm" sister, interested in the "mysteries of the universe"; Winona hates books and prefers to work on her mechanical creations with a trial-and-error approach. And then there is Wilson, who sits perfectly in between these mindsets. That was one of the reasons why at first I was shocked by Winona when she was released: when I already suspected that Wilson and Charlie might be related it is revealed that Charlie's sister is a work-alcoholic engineer with a weird haircut and basically a female Wilson with a tape and the ability to dodge. (Piccolo approves.) Their similarities could be attributed to lazy developers, but what if that was actually a clue of them being actually related? Also, it is implied that Winona was grown up in a estranged wealthy family and it is confirmed that she dislikes fancy things and formalities: the same could be said about Wilson! Seriously, there are too many coincidences to be a random chance. (And that, ladies and gentlemen was the point where the theory became a full fledged headcanon. But I am not related to Klei in any way, so this is still the theory of a deluded fan that loves to make theories and Klei will destroy it in a few days with the new lore.)

And what about avoiding Charlie? Well, this could have a pretty simple explanation, reflected by their body shapes: Winona spent the last fifteen years of her life enduring all the kinds of manual jobs, so she actually gained some muscle mass and speed movement that she uses in game to avoid the attacks of her beloved sister. Not to mention that she seems to be closer to Charlie's age than Wilson is, so probably they spent some time playing together as kids (and probably back then Winona was the one winning the fight game). Wilson is more of a couch potato and according to the official timeline he is some years younger than Charlie and Winona. In case we take the theory "Wilson is Charlie's brother" in account, it means Wilson could not play with his older sisters like they used to do when they were younger and this causes him to be unable to dodge Charlie's attacks even if now he knows who is attacking him.

Another interesting possible clue is the new sentence Wilson says in DST when he is attacked by Charlie: "That presence... it's familiar! Hello?". Sure, he finally met her so he can recognize her presence... but the choice of words bears some uncanny resemblance to another quote from another character: "Hm? What a familiar presence." But maybe it's just another coincidence that this is almost the inversion of the words order of the sentence of a certain uncle recognizing the flower of his dead niece. Or I'm so into this theory that I'm seeing clues everywhere.

And for some more bonus point, look at Maxwell and Wendy in game: unless you know Don't Starve lore all you could say about them after looking at their designs and reading their quotes is "are these two guys in the same Shakespeare emo fanclub?" Their quotes have a similar dramatic tone, but there is almost nothing that suggests an actual family relationship between them. They don't even look anything alike!

4) The identity of the person Winona was trying to save

We were told from the beginning that Winona went into the Constant on her own because she wanted to save someone. We were also informed that she is Charlie's sister and she used to work for the Voxola Radio Company, so Charlie and Robert Wagstaff seem to be the only possible options as the person she was trying to save. Or aren't they?

As for Charlie, she disappeared in 1906 during a huge disaster that caused a lot of victims (the event overlaps with San Francisco's earthquake in 1906), and Winona came into the Constant fifteen years later. Probably on Earth Charlie was presumed dead and Winona went with it, as her quote of the Tragedy Marble Statue suggests ("We thought she was gone"). She grieved her but then she went on with her life. In 1919 she started to work for Wagstaff's Voxola until it burned down. However, unusually for a character who is supposed to be canonically playable only in the multiplayer version of the game, Winona has Adventure Mode related quotes that even got modified at some point. According to her original Adventure Mode quotes we can understand that she was actually shocked to find out that Maxwell's plots were behind Voxola's fire and Wagstaff's disappearance. Then Robert Wagstaff might not be the person Winona was looking for. Two years or more pass by and Winona joins the fun in the Constant, yet she never mentions her looking for someone, meaning that she already found the one person she was looking for. If this person is not Charlie or Wagstaff, who could they be? Wilson not only could be a valid answer, but if she knew where he lived and she found the Maxwell's Door inside his house she even had the mean to reach the Constant with no help at all!

But if they are estranged how did she know Wilson went missing? Well, some newspapers or radio transmissions might have announced his sudden disappearance, or the police went look for Winona because she might be the only family he has left. And the news did not leave her indifferent, so she went to his place looking for clues and found out about the Maxwell's Door. And for some bonus points, if Wilson left some notes behind (and he probably did as he used the typewriter when he was creating the portal during the cinematic!) she might have recognized something Charlie could have told her about fifteen years before that convinced her that Wilson was in trouble. So she activated the door. We know how it went.

#dont starve #dont starve wilson #dont starve charlie #dont starve winona #lore #headcanon #i need help #i need lore #why in heck did i check everything i could think of to confirm or deny this #because i need another hobby #I don't even know if it is intelligible #this is not canon #but includes real canon information

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trb-reacts · 6 years

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The Raven Boys, Chapter 1 - 2

So, I have heard lots of raves (ha!) about The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater because people who is into The Foxhole Court & Captive Prince are inevitably also into this series, so I thought I would finally join in. Started this blog because I enjoyed Nicki Reads The Foxhole Court and a blog seems like a cool idea to just dump down my thoughts as I read.

I am going to break these down by chapters, but just for this one, the distribution might be a bit off because I read the first few chapters before deciding to make a blog, so I am just skimming through it real quick to point out stuff.

“Blue never grew tired of feeling particularly needed, but sometimes she wished needed felt less like a synonym for useful.”

What a lovely phrase and very very intriguing. The Human Battery is not an uncommon trope, but I like how it explicitly explores her feeling like she’s being used.

"There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve, Blue. Either you’re his true love," Neeve said, "or you killed him."

I’m very amused by this because we are told that Blue is destined to kill her One True Love when she kiss him, so chances are the spirit (Gansey) that she saw is her One True Love that She Kissed and Liked It and It Tasted Like His Incoming Doom. Or if not (because I think I know for sure that there’s some lovely gay romance destined to happen between someones (or else tumblr is just very fervent about non-canon ships, which is also definitely a possibility)), then Blue’s death count just definitively went up by one.

his roommate Ronan Lynch replied, "You missed World Hist. I thought you were dead in a ditch."

He asked, "Did you get notes for me?" "No," Ronan replied. "I thought you were dead in a ditch."

I’m just... so amused by this exchange. So amused.

Next to an EpiPen, there was a stick of beef jerky, but the jerky had expired two years ago. Possibly it had been there when he’d bought the car.

Maybe I’m interpreting this wrong, but why does it sound like Gansey bought a second-handed car. It just clash so horribly with the image of him being this rich boy, who had this very fake and haughty version of a camping trip.

His heart hurt with the wanting of it, the hurt no less painful for being difficult to explain.

I have no idea what’s going on here, but I love lines like this? I’m curious by what exactly does he want though.

Ronan hefted a gas can from the trunk, making little effort to keep the greasy container from contacting his clothing. Like Gansey, he wore the Aglionby uniform, but, as always, he managed to make it look as disreputable as possible. His tie was knotted with a method best described as contempt and his shirt-tails were ragged beneath the bottom of his sweater. His smile was thin and sharp. If his BMW was shark-like, it had learned how from him.

What can I say besides I’m liking Ronan more and more. Tie knotted with contempt, his car learning to be shark-like from him. What a description, what a character!

"My dick brother wants us to meet him at Nino’s tonight. With Ashley[...] We’re meant to look pretty for her." Gansey resented having to play nicely with Ronan’s older brother, a senior at Aglionby, but he understood why they had to. Freedom in the Lynch family was a complicated thing, and at the moment, Declan held the keys to it.

"He wants to do it tonight because he knows I have class."

I’m admittedly baffled by this exchange, or maybe I can’t just fully parse out the subtleties. Why does Ronan’s brother Declan want to show off Ronan’s friends to his girlfriend which he switches every three days, but without Ronan’s presence? Is that a thing? Also, like I know I’m nitpicking, but if Declan does this all the time, then why would Ronan say ‘us’, including himself in the equation, especially when it sounds like the hate has been kinda mutual on all sides for a while now??

Yeah, I don’t get it. Complicated, indeed. Gansey also seems to not like Declan, which I find funny because he seems like the nice guy who likes everyone so far to me. Also what’s a Nino?

Ronan didn’t sound very interested, but that was part of the Ronan Lynch brand. It was impossible to tell how deep his disinterest truly was. Did I mention that I’m liking Ronan more and more?

"Gansey," it said. ...It was still strange to hear himself on the recording, with no memory of saying the words. Then, as if from very far away, a female voice, the words hard to make out: "Is that all?"

Whelp, I think the possibility of One True Love just increased exponentially. Also I forgot to mention, but Gansey is destined to die within a year. Which is just... tragic, especially for his band of friends.

And a very old British professor had said, The world turns out its pockets for you, boy. The key, Gansey found, was that you had to believe that they existed; you had to realize they were part of something bigger. Some secrets only gave themselves up to those who’d proven themselves worthy

I love the entire concept. Just, I’m always a little fascinated by the power of belief (e.g. gods are powerful because people believe and when they stop, they die)

This last part was directed at Adam as he climbed out of the BMW with Ronan’s phone still in hand. He offered it to Ronan, who shook his head disdainfully. Ronan despised all phones, including his own.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the Raven Boys and their quirks, but like... there’s something such as too much sometimes? Complicated relationship with his brother, freedom to be gained, disdain for all, despises phones, and I’m sure much more is going to pop up. How am I going to ever keep track of all this and not mix one boy’s eccentricity for the other’s?

There’s so much depth for each of them that with each detail, my image of them is just getting murkier.

"Am I invited?" Adam could be peculiarly polite. When he was uncertain about something, his Southern accent always made an appearance, and it was in evidence now. Adam never needed an invitation. He and Ronan must’ve fought. Unsurprising. If it had a social security number, Ronan had fought with it

I like this because Adam sounded so comfortable and belonging in the group thus far. Then, Am I invited and you can feel the distance stretching endlessly between them again. Don’t want to get burned by assuming, purposely distancing or a stab at Ronan? Why am I so sure it’s the first?

Also, detail number 50 about Ronon. If it had a social security number, Ronan had fought with it. Once again, love the phrasing, a little too much detail to keep track of and a little... too telling? I coulda waited until a little later to be shown that Ronan fights with everyone.

Gansey said, "Tell me there’s no sauce on this burger." Dropping the strap from his teeth, Ronan scoffed. "Please." "No pickle, either," Adam said,

I’m offended you’d ever consider that I would forget how you like your burger, is what they’re saying. Sweet, though Gansey, no sauce? Sauce is life for me.

He’d not only brought two small containers of fuel additive, but also a rag to place between the gas can and his khakis; he made the entire process look commonplace. Adam tried so hard to hide his roots, but they came out in the smallest of gestures.

A thoughtful sweet cinnamon that needs protecting. The commoner trying to hide his roots and fit in, except he gives himself away a little each time he shows how much he cares through his attention to detail, since rich bastards never have to impeccably keep their clothes clean ‘cause they can’t afford to replace it. I feel for Adam.

[Adam’s] letters always looked like they were running from something.

So much double meaning and hints and no answers anywhere in sight. Sigh.

#The raven boys #maggie stiefvater #reaction #chapter 1 & 2 #trb #trc #the raven cycle

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cimness · 7 years

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Dipping an oar in familiar fandom waters...

Last weekend we watched, or I should say, got around to watching, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, a BBC America show from last year which we were reluctant to check out at first under the mistaken impression that it would be another US copy of a UK property in the vein of Coupling, Skins, Being Human, etc. But after it came out we saw from other people's reactions that actually everyone seemed to love it, and when we finally did watch it we loved it too, so I've been poking around for things to reblog on and off for a week now.

It feels funny in several ways to be fannish about a show with Elijah Wood in it again...

Nostalgic. Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001! @waxjism and I MET because of Elijah Wood, really, when she sought me out because of a Frodo/Sam and then a Sean/Elijah fic. The whole time we were long-distance dating, she was talking about The Faculty and something about Elijah Wood being chained in Chester Bennington's basement, for some reason (I'm not sure I ever really understood that one, though, to be fair). And it's been a long time! Neither of us has been actually interested in either of those fandoms since before 2005, a few rereads and recs and the like notwithstanding.

SURREAL. The inescapable association of Elijah Wood + fandom... the tangential connection to the dangerous con artist and noted fandom cult leader formerly known as Victoria Bitter, who, as chronicled in the well-known fandom memoir When a Fan Hits the Shit, later briefly posed online as Elijah Wood for... some unknown reason... (I think for a brief time before he told people that he was channeling the 'soul' of the real Elijah Wood even though Elijah Wood was still alive and therefore physically growing a cock?)... and for some reason @waxjism and I, old acquaintances who were close to one of his primary online friend/dupes, were chosen to be guinea pigs for this pose and for like... a week?? we thought he possibly actually was Elijah Wood with a side dose of what the hell is going on, and during this time he... for some reason... sent me a care package of cough drops because I had a cold, I guess to prove realness?? He also like ordered pizzas delivered to the residences of some of the other people he was long-distance trying to Be Elijah Wood on, if I'm remembering right? Anyway... wow... that was an insane time! Like, our dangerous??? but also laughably minor??? brush with fandom history.

Embarrassed: because of having believed him, or maybe like 80% believed him for a while there. But as @waxjism succinctly put it, "Then again, he is a con artist. But AUGH." Also embarrassed because if I think about my previous fannish engagement hard enough, I'll remember how I wrote when I was 19 years old, which is also kind of embarrassing from the perspective of my current taste (though, like, I stand by it as perfectly ok for 19-year-old me). Like, for example, when my dad asked my permission to give his best friend, who is gay, the link to my LOTR fanfic, and I said sure, and then his best friend attempted to delicately and tactfully make sure that I knew that "that's not really how gay sex works" after reading one of my Legolas/Gimli fics, and I had to be like "YES YES LUBE WE KNOW NO TMI PLEASE".

Damn, I feel old. Because a lot of time has passed and people like Elijah Wood that are the age of me are now firmly grown ups. Just like I am.

Anyway, back to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency... I highly recommend the show, which is delightful and probably a bit more Adamsishly madcap than the previous British series that starred Stephen Mangan (which I also loved however). The plotting particularly is A+, not because the other aspects of the show like dialogue and casting are not as outstanding - they are, actually; the main cast is half female and there's an okay distribution of racial and gender diversity, the dialogue is fun and clever, the special effects are not to be sneezed at, there are cute animals etc - but because the plotting is the aspect of a derivative work based on Douglas Adams that would be the most challenging to manage (just as it is for Terry Pratchett or PG Wodehouse fanfic, where that is the most common tough point, evidently, for would-be fanfic writers), and yet they manage it beautifully. It's not at all derivative or unnecessarily repetitive of canon Douglas works, while dazzlingly recreating the feel and scope and all that good stuff.

They've already filmed the second series, too, and they just released a trailer for it a little while ago, so it's probably going to air soonish. Which makes this a good time to try it out.

this post on dreamwidth

#tv #fannish life #meta #fannish nostalgia #dirk gently #the victoria bitter affair #fandom wank greatest hits #lotr and lotrips #also tinhats #remember the tinhats???#and if you DO remember the tinhats isn't that post where sam barnett warns elijah away from shipping because it's rude HILARIOUS?

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kittymonks-fanfiction · 5 years

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Genderswapped Nations Review - Chapter 3

Welcome back to Genderswapped Nations, the fanfic where kids can trip over couches, phase through locked doors, and get brainwashed by the British flag when they’re kidnapped and held hostage by a German extremist looking to get his ass kicked by his friends. Last time, we found out that the American girls who were kidnapped are going to be let loose into Europe if their ‘gender bends’ don’t come to Germany within a day to pick them up. Prussia, the kidnapper, still seems not to have a plan besides pissing everyone off and making himself less bored. Let’s see if we learn anything new about that plan in this chapter!

Chapter 3: Prudence and Planes

This chapter title is almost alright, but ‘Prudence’ is the name of a character we’ll be meeting later and isn’t in reference to the trait of prudence…which isn’t good, because this fic could use some more prudence. Seriously, what must’ve been going through twelve-year-old me’s head when I put all of those sexual assault jokes in the last chapter??

“You’re kidding!” Francisca claimed.

Oh yeah, the last chapter ended off with the countries showing up at Germany’s doorstep to get the girls. I wonder how long the gap in-between these chapters being uploaded was. I think it would be funny if Francisca, here replying to something Ariana said at the last chapter, took like a month to answer her. They just sat there for a month before Francisca gasped and cried, “You’re kidding!”

“I’m not kidding, they’re really here!” Ariana said. “If you don’t believe me, come see for yourselves!” All of the gender swaps followed Ariana into Francisca’s room, and let them look out the window.

They…let themselves look out the window?

“They really are here!” Felicity exclaimed.

“But they’re so much older than us,” Kierra said.

Just in case you forgot that these gender bends of adult nations are, in fact, human children for some reason.

“Right,” Allison said. “But they look exactly like us, besides that!”

Just then, another gender swap walked into Francisca’s room. The gender swap had a hat covering their hair, and was wearing sunglasses. “Who are you?” Kierra asked the new gender swap.

“I’m Prudence,” the new gender swap introduced.

Oh great, this is just what we needed; another character to add to the mix. The other girls have barely been developed yet! All we know is that Felicity, Allison, and Francisca are stupid, Alexis is shy, Iscah is weird, Louella is bossy, and Ariana’s a Mary-Sue. Every other trait the characters may have is just ‘implied’ because they’re gender bends of characters that should be well known to the intended audience of this fanfic.

Whose human name starts with ‘Pru’, though? Hm, I wonder…

“I don’t see your gender swap out there,” Louella said. “Maybe they didn’t care.”

Whoa shit!! That’s a crazy rude thing to say! What if Germany wasn’t there, Louella? Then what? What if that’s actually Prudence’s swap and not yours?

And apparently Louella can read the narration that called Prudence a gender bend because otherwise she’d have no reason to assume that Prudence is a gender bend.

“I actually have something to tell you about the men out there,” Prudence said.

“Hm?” Ariana asked.

“They aren’t the real nations. They’re different people dressed up as the countries.” Prudence said.

“You mean like Santa Claus?” Felicity asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Prudence responded.

And they just…buy this? These guys look exactly like the girls, but older and male. It would be different if the girls looked more like their canonical Nyotalia appearances, but like I keep saying, they just look like their counterparts with boobs and (occasionally) longer hair! What are the chances that there could be any other troupe of people that look exactly like them?

“That can’t be true!” Louella shouted. “They look exactly like they’re supposed to! They can’t be fake!” tears developed in her eyes. “They can’t be…”

“But they are,” Prudence said.

“No they aren’t! China even has a panda!” Yiesha stated.

That’s a terrible verb to use. It would have been more apt to use ‘objected’, ‘argued’, or even ‘exclaimed’ if you want to stretch it a bit (though admittedly that verb was used for something Felicity said earlier). ‘Stated’ makes it sound like she’s calmly giving Prudence this info, which she isn’t. It’s an observation in the form of an exclamation, not really a statement.

“Fake panda.” Prudence said.

“But who would do that? Bringing up the feelings of a little girl looking for her counterpart just for laughs… That’s cruel!” Francisca cried.

“I know.” Prudence said. “I suggest running away.”

“How would that solve anything?” Kierra asked.

“Yeah, and Prussia would come looking for us anyway.” Allison said.

“Believe me, he won’t.” Prudence said.

And responses like these just make it obvious that Prudence is a jerk who shouldn’t be trusted. Because yeah, if it wasn’t obvious, this girl is an antagonist…and a pretty crappy one at that.

“I agree with Prudence,” Alexis said. The other gender swaps, excluding Prudence, looked at her as if she was invisible until now.

She probably was, but that’s beside the point. Why does Alexis agree with what Prudence is saying? Prudence is saying that the guys down there are imposters, so they should break out as soon as possible—why that wasn’t the swaps’ plan from the start, I don’t know—and leave. That was Prussia’s plan! All evidence points to him wanting these girls to be let out into the wild to fend for themselves so he can dick with everyone and Alexis is the only one who knows this, so why is she so apt to go along with what Prudence is saying? If anything, the others should be agreeing to leave and Alexis should be the speaker of the Cassandra Truth she never told everyone—that being that Prussia wants them to leave and this wears-sunglasses-inside-and-wears-a-cap-to-cover-their-hair weirdo is probably on his side if she’s pursuing the same outcome!

“If the real countries didn’t want to come see us themselves, then they must not care very much. And I know how that feels far too well. And anyway, I bet our gender swaps are only interested in us so they can make us into their slaves.”

In that aspect I can see what she means—she doesn’t want to get taken by a bunch of random men after being kidnapped because they could be child traffickers—but what does claiming the countries are fakes have to do with that? You can have Alexis say that they should escape on the grounds that these strange men could be dangerous, but don’t word it like “We shouldn’t go with them because they didn’t care enough to come themselves which means that we won’t be happy with them”. That’s what’s written there and that doesn’t make sense. It would have been much easier to claim that the men were dangerous…but as you’ll see later, there’s a reason why that explanation wasn’t used.

The girls looked at Alexis, astonished, until Louella spoke up. “Yes, Canadia’s right.

Do I need a counter specifically counting all of the times that Canada has been mistakenly called ‘Canadia’? It’s happened at least once a chapter now and it’s quickly getting old.

-ALEXIS ABUSE +1

If they didn’t care enough to get us in person, than we can just leave. They’ll have to deal with it, for not coming in person.”

This becomes comical later when we find out what their next plan after escaping is. Just wait, it’s really great.

Some of the gender swaps started saying negative things about the plan, before Louella said, “It’s decided! We’re doing it. We still have fifteen minutes for conversation, and during conversation, the doors are unlocked.”

Well Jesus Christ, now Louella is kidnapping a bunch of girls against their will!

“We could leave using the window in my room,” Allison suggested. “It’s at the very back of the house, so those fakes wouldn’t see us!”

“Sounds like a plan,” Kierra said. “And I like it.”

“So, let’s go!” Allison exclaimed. “I’ll tie together all of our bedsheets, and we’ll climb down!”

But…I guess apparently Allison and Kierra are pretty submissive? Either that or, somehow, the possible smartest person in the group thought this was a good idea from the start (Kierra, I mean). I can see Allison wanting to bust open a window and run off without thinking much about a plan, but not Kierra.

Ariana looked to Prudence. “Prudence, are you coming?” she asked.

“No,” Prudence said. “My gender swap called me personally and told me he’d meet me here in person.”

“Who is your gender swap?” Francisca asked.

“That’s not important, plus you’ve only got ten minutes now!” Prudence said, grabbing Francisca’s bedsheet and tossing it to Allison. “So gather the other bedsheets and get moving!”

And…Nobody finds this suspicious? Shouldn’t they be questioning where Prudence got a phone from if she was kidnapped as well? Not to mention how eager she is to brush her counterpart’s identity under the rug! Seriously, has no one caught on to this shitty hat-and-glasses disguise yet?

The other gender swaps nodded, and they all got their bedsheets and gathered in Allison’s room, where Allison tied together the bedsheets and rolled the makeshift rope out of the window after tying one end to her bedpost. “Let’s go,” Allison said. With that, the gender swaps one by one climbed out the window, with a firm grasp on the bedsheet rope. Prudence stood in Allison’s room and watched the other gender swaps go. She smirked.

Oh big shocker, Prudence was evil the whole time. But I really question why they didn’t do this in the first place if it was an option. If they had just done this and went to the police before being brainwashed, all of the upcoming nonsense could easily have been avoided.

The nations, who were in fact real,

I find it hilarious beyond words that past me felt the need to remind the reader unless they, too, were convinced by Prudence’s masterful ability to lie.

stood at Prussia’s door until the red-eyed nation opened the door. “Hello,” Prussia greeted.

“Where are our gender swaps?” Germany immediately questioned.

“Patience, patience. I’ll get them.” Prussia said, closing the door.

“Wow I need to grab some Adderall off of the shelf for you West, you clearly need a chill pill”

“I hope we came soon enough,” France said.

“Yeah. I can only imagine a girl me getting caught by another country,” America said.

Well yeah, no shit, you can only imagine that because you don’t have any idea what this girl looks like or if she even exists. This line just annoys me.

Prussia opened the door again, and the nations were surprised to see he didn’t have anyone with him. “They aren’t here anymore.” He said.

Germany questioned, “What did you do to them?”

“Me? I didn’t do a thing to those girls.” Prussia said, trying to sound innocent.

“We know you’re lying, dude,” America said.

But…why would Prussia try to make himself sound suspicious if he didn’t actually do anything to them? He could just say ‘Oh shit they escaped!!!’ and cause the same response minus the ‘everyone wants to punch him now’ side effect.

“I’m serious! Come look,” Prussia said, opening the door so the countries could come in. Prussia led the countries to the living room that the girls used, and showed them each room was empty. But the nations couldn’t make out where all the bedsheets had gone, until Germany found them tied together and hanging out Allison’s window.

“See, I told you so,” Prussia said. “They left on their own.”

You didn’t tell them shit dude, you just said ‘they aren’t here anymore’ and then acted needlessly shifty just to piss them off.

“Well, then, we have to find them!” England said.

“Go ahead,” Prussia said. The nations climbed down the bedsheets one by one, and couldn’t see their gender swaps anywhere.

The situation is so dire that the nations couldn’t possibly go downstairs and use the front door like normal people!!

“Come on, they could’ve gotten far by now!” Germany said. The nations followed him as he ran away.

And it’s just…really funny seeing the opposite of ‘they couldn’t have gotten far’ used here. “WATCH OUT MEN, THEY’RE LITTLE GIRLS. GOD KNOWS HOW FAR THEY’VE GOTTEN ON THEIR LITTLE GIRL LEGS.”

Prudence walked up behind Prussia as they left. “How’d I do?” Prudence asked, taking her hat and sunglasses off to reveal long white hair and red eyes.

“Better than I thought you’d do.” Prussia said.

That reveal is completely pointless considering how obvious it is that Prudence is Prussia’s gender swap. She was the only person in the building besides him that wanted the girls to wander off into the wilderness, she hid her appearance from the start, and she was acting suspicious when it would have been easy not to be. And it already included her smirking after they left! With that reveal, it’s just redundant to reveal again that she’s a bad guy.

And now that I can finally mention it, how come Prudence’s name comes from Prussia’s country name rather than his human name? The only other person to suffer from a name that doesn’t make sense in this context is Alexis, but even then hers is just supposed to be similar to Allison. Her name should be Gillian or something, a name that could actually come from Gilbert.

Meanwhile, the gender swaps had already made it to the airport the nations had gotten there from.

I guess I did say that it was relatively close, but I’m sure that grown men who know the terrain would be able to catch up to a bunch of lost teenage girls way before they’d be able to, oh, I don’t know, get on a plane to America and escape home or something.

“How much money does everyone have?” Louella asked. Ariana whipped out ten dollars, Allison pulled out two, claiming ‘I used the rest of it’,

I thought that joke was a big ‘TAKE THAT’ back in the day because the U.S. is in debt, but so are a bunch of other countries so ehh. It’s a big one, sure, but that’s not even a good way to tell that joke. It would be a lot more topical if Allison had money but Yiesha demanded to have it since she loaned Allison ten bucks to buy food earlier.

all of the other gender swaps brought out fives and tens, but Iscah pulled out fifty dollars. After no one wanted to question how Iscah had gotten fifty dollars,

That had better damn well not be a joke about prostitution. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was. I mean, it could have always been obtained by means of larceny or extortion (from Allison?) but it wasn’t said so I can’t label it as innocent right away.

they pooled their money together and found they had just enough money to send each of them to their respective countries

Not only does this prove that they’re GOING TO THEIR COUNTERPARTS’ COUNTRIES OF ORIGIN in order to avoid them, it’s also stupid because they have, what, $100 USD between them and they’re able to afford nine plane tickets in Germany? This has to take place in the past because that’s impossible.

(Except Alexis, who had to ride with Allison and take a bus to Canada)

Oh great, you just had to add that extra potshot.

-ALEXIS ABUSE +1

Ariana walked to her plane, the remaining countries who’s planes were not yet departing (Louella, Felicity, and Kierra) waving to her.

Where is Louella flying? Is she just going to board a plane in Berlin…in order to fly to Berlin again and back to the building she just escaped from??

“Bye,” Ariana said was she boarded the plane. She sat in a seat,

As opposed to…a geometric cube?

and nobody was sitting beside her. She looked out a window to see Germany and the other nations not far from the airport. “Those fakes probably just want to take us back so they don’t get in trouble,” Ariana thought, as the plane took off.

Yeah, they want to take us back, so instead, we’ll take ourselves back! Take that?

The nations finally made it to the airport, and Louella, Kierra, and Felicity were already gone.

“They’re gone!” Italy said.

“They probably assumed we wouldn’t be coming, and just flew to our countries to see us.” Germany said.

Is this some kind of Twilight Zone story? In what universe would that be the first assumption that everyone jumps to??

“The gender swaps should have waited a little longer, and then they’d be able to meet us,” France said.

“I bet it was America’s gender swap. She probably said, ‘If they aren’t coming to us, we’ll go to them!'” England said.

“No, it must have been yours, England! She must have said, ‘If those bloody countries won’t come to see us, then we’ll go see them!'” America said.

Orrrr they just left because they were kidnapped children and wanted to go home??

Then all of the countries were blaming each other’s gender swaps for coming up with the idea to leave, until Germany said, “What about Prussia’s? Maybe she tricked them into thinking we wouldn’t come!”

“Yeah, it was probably Prussia’s gender swap!” America said.

But who said that he has one?? You didn’t see one there and you assume that Prussia would mention something like that, so why does Germany magically know exactly what’s going on?

“Well, if they’re already on planes, then we need to buy tickets now!” China said.

“Agreed,” Japan said. So each of the countries bought tickets and got in planes to their separate countries.

They’re going to kill the ozone layer with all of these plane rides. They’re just lucky that, in the minutes after the that planes all left coincidentally at the same time to go exactly where all of the swaps (minus Alexis) needed to go had already taken off, there were more planes lying in wait for them.

Well, there’s another chapter of Genderswapped Nations out of the way. Next time you can come back to expect Ice Town times nine, the emergence of Plastic Man’s gender swap, and some of the worst terroristic threats you’ve ever heard in your life.

(CANADA/ALEXIS ABUSE COUNTER=5)

#hetalia #hetalia axis powers #fanfiction #fanfiction review #kittymonk's fanfiction reviews #fanfic review #writing review #genderswapped nations #genderswapped nations review #my old writing

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ghoultyrant · 7 years

Text

FoZ Notes 5

Aaand here's an owl delivering a letter. HARRY POTTER. [Future note: Eventually the Harry Potter-isms fade away. It... takes a while, and I don’t think it actually improves the story, given what we shift toward instead]

Louise has reddish-brown eyes.

She is hyper-incompetent at social stealth, though I have trouble taking it as a serious trait given the context. [Reader note: Louise is supposed to be pretending to be a commoner. She is failing, and it’s being played for laughs]

Saito is homophobic, too. Yaaaay.

I'm still not clear what Louise's "mission" is. Something about "gathering intelligence"?... [Reader note: Eventually I worked out that Louise is supposed to be listening to commoners to use the gossip network to gauge public opinion on Henrietta. The story is pretty terrible about explaining this, or at least the translation is]

Where the fuck was she keeping the writ? [Reader note: The piece of paper that says she answers directly to Henrietta]

The Practical Doctrine, a book by Protestants. Protestants are a movement of the common people to take power back from the Church. [Future note: Even though we keep hearing -I haven’t been making notes, but it’s constantly cropping up- about how commoners hate nobles/people in charge in general, this particular book and Protestants in general aren’t relevant past this volume]

... and here's Guiche indicating Tabitha and Kirche WEREN'T friends in the first year. Consistency! [Future note: It gets worse]

Kirche fled Germania to avoid marrying someone "old". (Japan: not necessarily old) So where does she get her money from?... [Future note: Never answered, and if I recall correctly the story outright forgets she’s on the outs with her family]

Suen, Iyer, Seger. Three "saints" that apparently provide the names for the school's House system equivalent. [Future note: This Harry Potter-ism never crops up ever again. And yes I know Harry Potter is just doing a British school thing with the Houses, but I’m pretty sure FoZ is fanboying Harry Potter]

Tabitha refused to provide a family name, and so the rumor was she was a bastard.

Flight and Levitate are two different spells?? Both basic to wind. [Reader note: Oh, right, we do get Levitate established as a wind spell. I stand by my prior assertion that ‘Louise casting common spells’ stops being a thing]

Sparring: dueling, without trying to kill people. Stealing their wand is considered the best way to win. [Future note: This distinction and bit of culture fails to return when scenes that ought to involve it occur later]

The story seems to consider ice to fall under Wind.

Blah blah naked Kirche and people trying to make Kirche and Tabitha hate each other. [Reader note: I think this was in a flashback to their first year? It’s been a while]

Kirche has received "considerable" military training to make her chant faster. Supposedly. [Future note: One more detail that never crops up again, both in regards to Kirche in specific and in regards to ‘military chant training’ in general]

Through means not at all specified, Kirche and Tabitha are able to identify the strength of the mage casting a spell through the impact of the spell. Suuurre...

Due to the repeated failings of the Magic Guard, including Wardes' betrayal, being butchered by Zombie Wales, etc, Henrietta established the Musketeer Corps, an all-female non-noble/magical bodyguard force. We're told Henrietta doesn't trust mages anymore, which... um?... [Future note: The mistrust for mages thing gets played up for this volume and, if I recall correctly, the next one, and then goes away entirely. It’s an idiotic plotpoint so I don’t miss it, but it’s still yet another thing the story can’t keep straight]

Agnes is the head of the Musketeer Corps, and was made a Chevalier and given a family name because of cultural norms that would've made such a prestigious position unnatural to have a commoner in. [Thought: Chevalier is supposed to be given as a reward for tremendous valiance. This means Henrietta is breaking one social more in an attempt to get people to shut up about a different one. If this were a different story, I’d credit the author with clever and subtle evidence that Henrietta is kind of shit at this ‘queen’ thing. Since this is FoZ, I’m just going to note it down as an interesting thought]

Henrietta is afraid of rain, in spite of being a Water affinity... aaafter the thing with Wales. [Future note: Say it with me, children. That’s right, this never crops up again]

Henrietta hiding/pretending to be kidnapped in an attempt to draw out an Albion spy. Her Musketeers are in on it, no one else is.

Richmond is a traitor, and some kind of royal lawguy. He also has got the actors of a local play to be mage soldiers somehow? How do you successfully hide having nobles/ex-nobles working as actors?...

I mean, it's cool that the Musketeer Corps gets used to turn the trap on Richmond, but. Really? [Reader note: The Musketeer Corps makes up the women in the audience, surprise! Because Japan is all about improbable double-predictions like this]

Oh, and Richmond gets away because for no imaginable reason the Musketeers don't do shit to stop him from moving after he's pulled a fucking knife. Oh, and of course he's fantasizing about raping and murdering Henrietta. Japan. Why?

Pre-prepared spells can be "released"?

Agnes is the survivor of a village butchered through Richmond being paid by Romalia to kill Protestants. [Reader note: She kills Richmond here, since that’s not the intuitive thing to guess from my notes] She's also sufficiently comfortable with her hetero woman Bro-ness to pretend to be a man kissing a woman and even bring it up in public as something funny. [Future note: Agnes is great here. It doesn’t last]

End volume 5.

--------

Louise listening in to the common people, culminating in Henrietta's plot dealing with an Albion spy. That's about it. Also Louise sending the info to Henrietta via an owl off-screen, because Harry Potter. [Reader note: Yeah, I didn’t bother to note that down. You can tell the story is starting to lose me, and these notes are primarily for the purposes of writing divergent fanfic anyway, so I don’t care overly much about events that are unlikely to recur anyway. People familiar with FoZ canon might notice I don’t even talk about Scarron, his stupid inn, and his daughter, even though 70% of the volume is spent under his inn’s roof. Why? Because it’s extremely difficult to imagine a fanfic having any actual reason to touch upon them, and the whole thing is offensive and stupid. Of course it later turns out Scarron is a relative of Siesta, so I was wrong as it happens, but whatever. Just for completeness’ sake: Scarron wears a magic bustier for reasons of family tradition I don’t remember or care about, and acts very effeminate/gay in a stereotypical-by-western-standards way, while his daughter Jessica has... no particular personality I recall. She probably has some, but I mostly remember her being used as ‘women hitting on Saito’ and ‘people telling Louis Saito is hot and being baffled as to why she isn’t hitting that’]

#Familiar of Zero #Notes

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