#but so far its very few and far between which is just such a fandom culture shock for me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

secretlythatsme · 2 months

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i really love dc x dp tbh but i hate how so many fics end up making the batfam dumb as shit. and i don't mean in a "loveable goof" kind of way but in a genuine "these people don't have the skills or intelligence to be heroes" kind of way. which is just antithetical to their entire thing

sometimes it's because the writer just genuinely doesn't know anything about the batfam or what they've been through so they come across as idiots. and other times it's because the writer is writing op ghost king danny or just generally op danny and they genuinely think he could outsmart or beat them. more often than not, it's a combination of the two.

it's just so sad. like not only is it disrespectul to the batfam, essentially getting rid of all the skills and experience they have just to prop up danny, but it also makes things a lot more boring imo. don't get me wrong, i don't mind the occasional "main character is super op" kind of story, but it's boring when like 70% of fics are like that and there's no real challenge or obstacle for him. part of why the show danny phantom was so fun was that it was exciting and chair gripping to see danny have to deal with his new ghost powers, figuring out how to deal with ghost attacks or vlad, and dealing with school and his parents on top of that.

but often, dc x dp fics just,, get rid of any challenge for him. sure batman is a skilled detective but danny will always be able to trick him! sure cass has been trained since birth to read people's body language but this random ghost teen knows how to conceal and control everything!! yeah damian has also been trained since birth to fight and kill but this random guy from the midwest who just started fighting in his teens is so much better!!! like, alright. it's fun every now and then but it sucks when so much of the dc x dp content is just people acting like the batfam are the worst vigilantes/detectives in the world.

and honestly i still feel this way even with the ghost king danny fics because how? he's never had to deal with people obsessively reading his body language or reading between the lines. he's had to deal with hiding stuff sure but his parents aren't the most observant people - their whole deal was being neglectful. even as a ghost king, why would he know how to outsmart, take advantage of, or beat the batfam in any capacity when he would still mostly deal with ghosts. it's a completely different skill set here - one that he likely wouldn't be prepared for. it'd be fine if they at least attempted to explain why danny would have those skills (like league danny aus) but most of them don't.

and i'm not saying danny couldn't do it at all, especially if it's a ghost king au, but i'm just tired of seeing the batfam constantly downplayed in these fics Just to make danny look better, smarter, stronger, etc. ik most people in the fandom are just danny fans but it really shows with how they treat, characterize, and shit on the dc characters just to prop danny up. it also serves to occasionally make danny look like an asshole when he intentionally messes with them and basically commits psychological torture for a goof.

#man...#i Do like this crossover but i completely understand why so many dc fans hate it #the oocness the fanon the constantly making these skilled trained characters fumble around and get outsmarted by Some Guy #ghost king danny isn't even canon to dp! which isnt a bad thing by any means ik the dp fandom goes crazy for fanon #and generally speaking the fanon Is a lot more fun and engaging than dp's canon #but as a dc fan its insane to watch #i want to engage more with dc x dp content so badly like this crossover is really interesting to me #but so much of it is just 'the bat.fam are actually fucking useless and my blorbo is so much better :)))'#it's almost like they dont even like the bat.fam!!! they keep saying they just dont know/understand them #but it fully feels like they straight up dont like the dc characters #it definitely comes across as 'hey this is a fun world to put danny in lets do that while also shitting on it and all of the characters'#'lol bruce is so stupid this random teen can outsmart him and he can lie to cass and he can beat dick in a physical fight lol'#there's a point where it stops feeling like indulgent op blorbo and more like insulting anyone who isn't danny #<thats actually exactly what it is and its insane to me like why even like crossovers if you dont want to engage with anyone but danny #how can you say you like them when you outright refuse to know them or respect them?#and obviously im using 'you' in a vague way im not specifically calling anyone out #ik there are people in the fandom who are genuinely fans of both and Do know and respect the dc characters #but so far its very few and far between which is just such a fandom culture shock for me #like in most fandoms im able to read a lot of fics and only occasionally think 'thats not right'#but with this one its the other way around - im constantly going 'they wouldnt say/do that at all why does the op think that?'#like 9 out of 10 fics im like 'oh yeah this person has never read a comic in their life'#i can immediately tell when someone has only read the webtoon its extremely obvious unfortunately #maybe i should make a dc masterlist for dp fans... like here you can write about them again After you do your homework ajdhgl

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aurora-starwars · 2 months

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When Something Gets Broken, It Can Be Fixed

Pairing: Clarisse La Rue x Hecate daughter!reader

Summary: When Clarisse breaks her spear, your there to fix it

Word Count: 1.4k

Warnings: Not proof read, not very good, oh well. Just fluff and very slight angst.

Request by @magicalengineerdonut:

I have a request for Clarisse. The reader could be a daughter of Hecate and it takes place during capture the flag and clarisse’s spear breaks and reader comforts her and the next day she comes back to clarisse with her spear that reader fixed and it ends with a cute moment between them

A/n: Thank you for requesting! I hope you like it! I am very excited to be getting into the PJO fandom. My friends have been raving about if for years! I am on the third book right now and I love the series so far. And I love Dior. Anyway, I would love to write more for this girl! So please request!

Masterlist

As the sun rose, it cast a soft, golden glow over Camp Half-Blood, signalling the start of another bustling day. The day of 'capture the flag' always stirred up excitement and anticipation among the campers, transforming the usually tranquil camp into a hive of activity.

It was a day that held great significance within the camp's traditions, and the palpable hustle and bustle was a testament to its importance. [Name] walked from her cabin to the training grounds in hopes to get a few more minutes to go over some defensive positions.

However, her contemplative silence was abruptly shattered by the commanding bark of instructions echoing from a voice she recognized all too well. The words were harsh, direct, and specific, as the head of the Ares cabin usually was. [Name] smiled at the sound of Clarisse La Rue’s pointed yelling, her direct and impersonal insults at the red team were a sign of her good mood.

If that was not enough of a sign, Clarisse looked over at [Name] when she finished speaking and smiled. It was a slight smile, [Name] will admit, but she saw it.

[Name] knew Clarisse very well. There was little that [Name] didn’t know about the girl at this point. And [Name] knew Clarisse had a plan.

“Where are you off to?” Clarisse asked, sauntering over as her hair, in a ponytail, swung behind her. [Name] always thought she was a sight to behold.

“Just on my way to the training grounds, care to join?” [Name] asked, already starting to make her way to the grounds, Clarisse falling into step beside her.

[Name] watched Clarisse face closely as they walked, hoping the girl might give up what she was thinking about. What she was planning.

When she didn’t say anything, [Name] took matters into her own hands.

“What are you planning?” [Name] smirked, her voice playful as watched Clarisse’s mouth twitch, the corners of her mouth turning upward ever so slightly. It looked like she was trying not to smile.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing, just planning on winning,” Clarisse smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. Something twinkled in them though, something like mischief…

“And this could have nothing to do with our new camper? The one kicked your ass in the washroom?” There was a careful teasing in [Name]’s voice, she was determined to get her point across but she was not willing to feel the force of Clarisse La Rue’s rage.

Clarisse only rolls her eyes. She scoffs and looks away. [Name] sniffles a giggle at vision of Clarisse, soaked in toilet water, running out of the washroom like a wet puppy. Clarisse abruptly stops and turns to [Name], bringing her thoughts from Clarisse to the reason she was there, the defensive positions. ”You know your job. I know you will do well,” Clarisse puts simply, her face remaining stoic, but her eyes betray her, conveying the fondness she tries so hard to hide.

[Name] nods as she walks away.

The game started as usual, the only difference was the direction Clarisse and some of her siblings ran, which [Name] thought was strange but knew not to question Clarisse about these things. The game moved quickly at the start, everyone running off into a different direction, [Name] doing the same. But after running a little further in the forest, she found her spot not far from the Red flag. There were only a few Ares kids protecting the Flag a few metres away but other than that, the forest was surprisingly empty. A stark contrast to a few minutes prior. There, [Name] took her stand, waiting for the blue team to come barreling in. The young Athena girl on the blue team had a brilliant plan for her to just run in with her invisibility cap and just take the flag. A plan she has used before, Clarisse was hoping that this time [Name]’s magic could somehow make it so the red team could actually see the young girl.

[Name] figured she could just make a small spell to not let magical items/gifts go past a barrier. It wasn’t strong and it would only work once, but it was better than nothing. Unfortunately, the spell could only protect the front of the flag, which left the back completely defenceless.

And, of course, Annabeth Chase would know that.

[Name] breaks out into a run after the floating red flag watching as the blue team breaks out into cheers as they see the flag floating quickly in their direction. [Name] slows down to a jog, knowing that if the Are’s kids couldn’t keep up with them, they had already won. And a well-deserved win at that. She could almost smile at the fact but as she comes up to the beach she hears the ear piercing scream of Clarisse. [Name] rushes in as Clarisse attempts to take the head off the new twelve year old. Grabbing her shoulders, [Name] pulls her away from the terrified boy. [Name]’s eyes lock on the broken spear on the floor as she walks Clarisse out and tries not to wince.

Her spear, her gift from her dad.

Turning Clarisse, [Name] gets a good look at her face. Clarisse’s face is rigid with anger, unmoving and unsurprisingly shocked, her eyes lock with [Name]’s. With her hands on Clarisse’s shoulders, she could feel the heavy breaths Clarisse was trying to take.

“Clarisse.”

“M-m…” She started quietly, her brows shifting from turned down to turned up and back again. Her eyes looking just past the daughter of Hecate in front of her, unfocused.

“Clarisse,” [Name] calls again.

“My… My spear,” Clarisse pants, her fists tightening around nothing.

“Clarisse!” [Name] calls louder, moving her hands from the Are’s girl’s shoulders to cup her face.

Clarisse finally snaps out of it, her eyes falling on the girl in front of her, her shoulders fall and she takes a deep breath.

“Oh Clarisse, I am so sorry,” [Name] brings her into a hug, one arm wrapped around the bigger girl and one holding her head, being careful of her curls.

She tucks her head into [Name]’s neck and takes a deep breath, when she lets it out her grip on the Hecate girl tightens, but her shoulders relax.

“Okay, love. Let’s get you back to your cabin,” [Name] whispers, gently caressing the strong girl’s face, finding that her hand comes back slightly damp, and [Name] knows its not from sweat.

The next afternoon, Clarisse was simmering moping on a bench by the training grounds when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Clarisse whipped around, standing up quickly, arms crossed, “What?! Oh, it’s just you.”

“Just me,” [Name] repeats, smile on her face.

Her smile causes Clarisse to drop her accusatory glare in favour of a curious head tilt.

“Where were you all day?”

[Name] shrugs, “Around, why? Missed me?”

Clarisse just pouts, brows furrowed, her face somewhere between annoyed and amused.

“Aww, was spending last night in my arms not enough for big, strong, Clarisse?” [Name] giggles, eyes watching the girl before her with fondness. Clarisse was always easy to read.

Clarisse remained silent, but her eyes screamed, ‘yes, it was not enough’.

“Well, don’t you worry. I am here now, and I brought a gift. Hopefully this makes you feel better,” [Name] pulls out Clarisse’s spear—completely fixed as if it hadn’t been broken to begin with— from behind her back, that she was somehow able to conceal.

Clarisse’s eyes blow wide, her arms dropping along with her jaw. She quickly takes the spear from [Name]’s hands, examining it. Feeling how the weight feels in her hands.

“How did you do this,” She questions, still looking at the spear with amazement.

[Name] shrugs, “I may not be a daughter of Hephaestus, but being the daughter of Goddess of witchcraft and sorcery has its benefits when it comes to magical artifacts.”

Clarisse puts the spear on the bench carefully before turning her attention to [Name], taking her face into her hands.

“You are the most beautiful, wonderful, talented, gorgeous,” she kisses [Name] passionately, pulling her closer, before parting again. “-adorable, skilled girl I have ever met.”

She connects their lips again, this time softer, gentler, lovingly.

“You know that?” she questions, looking into [Name]’s eyes.

[Name] giggles, “So, you like it?”

“Yes, dummy,” she kisses her again, a big smile evident as she presses her lips to [Name].

“Now it is time to wave my hot girl and my awesome spear in that little twerps face.”

Master-list

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I love you! <3333 Feel free to request! Check out my request guidelines, it might make it easier! <333333

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silence-burns · 4 months

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The Death of Me //part 1

Fandom: Aquaman

Summary: (very small spoilers for the movie) Finding Orm on your doorstep was not something you expected. Having him move in was even worse. But the effect he still had on every part of your life would be the death of you.

The sun was blinding, but unfortunately, not enough to make the man standing before you disappear.

“You're in surprisingly good shape for a dead person,” you said.

“And you look terrible for someone supposedly alive,” said Orm.

You shrugged and immediately regretted it. The tight bandages keeping your shoulder in place worked as a poor reminder it was out of commission for the next few weeks.

“How I've missed that princely charm. Piss me off some more and, half-dead or not, I'm gonna kick your ass back into that desert I got it from. It might be the last thing I do, but if I become a ghost, I'll brag about it for eternity.”

Your mood soured further with every minute you remained conscious. Surprises and resurrections, you could deal with, but your ability to be polite left long ago. There were a lot of impolite and certainly unprincely words bubbling in your chest, but they all disappeared when the most magical, impossible, and straight-out-of-fairy-tales thing happened.

Orm, of his own volition, smiled.

The sun was still doing its best to blind your already red and swollen eyes—it failed yet again. You examined the strange occurrence, with the furrowed brows and all the small wrinkles and tiny folds in the skin that usually accompanied a person’s smile looking perfectly normal on his face. It was a genuine smile. You could only blink at him for a moment

“I thought scowling was the only expression you had. Like a factory setting, you know.”

“I'm glad to hear you are as sharp as ever, despite your current shortcomings.”

“Excuse you, I'm in great shape.”

The man in front of you politely didn't argue. It was rather clear from his expression that he had some serious doubts about not only the state of your body, but also about your mental capacity of acknowledging said state, but he made the wise choice of keeping these thoughts to himself.

Wise was your middle name; therefore, you allowed the silence to confirm your words. At the same time, you shifted more of your weight against the doorframe, hoping your grimace came across as menacing rather than painful. Your leg needed a bit of rest, nothing serious. It totally wasn’t almost crushed to pieces a few weeks ago.

The smile on Orm’s face, an expression you could get used to seeing, started to shift into a look of concern as he watched your eyes. You looked away, afraid of how much he could see. Before you could react, he picked you up and carried you inside the house.

It was a pretty house, very spacious, just like old rich men tended to enjoy—which might explain why Batman bought it a long time ago as a safehouse far from any prying eyes, and why he allowed you to occasionally use it as such.

Yet, despite all the initial spaciousness, it was rather easy to clutter if the person living inside had a few cracked bones, general lack of energy to move, and never invited anyone around to see the mess.

Orm raised an eyebrow when he noticed a sofa dragged into the kitchen area and the amount of empty, crushed packaging laying around it. You hated how much could be expressed without saying a word.

“Put me down.”

Your words came out weaker than intended. Orm held you in a bridal carry which put immense pressure on your cracked ribs and sent flashes of pain every time you inhaled. But he was so warm and close that your anger sizzled and faded.

With your head on his shoulder, you had the perfect view of his perfect profile and the perfect frown deepening the wrinkles between his brows.

“So, this is how you live now?” was all he said, in a controlled tone.

“I know you're not deaf and heard me the first time. Put me down. Preferably on my beautiful and completely normal kitchen bed, thank you.”

You sighed with relief once he finally listened. Even though the pressure of his arms around you disappeared, somehow you still felt his warmth, as if it seeped into your battered, bruised flesh. You felt your face getting hot and decided against following that train of thought.

Your heart, for a reason you also chose to ignore, skipped a beat when Orm turned on his heel and walked back to the front door. It took him comparatively less time than when you had to drag your ass to open it a few minutes ago.

But rather than walking outside and disappearing from your life again, Orm only closed the door. And then turned the lock too.

“I don’t like where this is going,” you said, in vain hope that all of this was just a bad dream you'd soon wake up from.

“What a shame,” Orm said with no shame whatsoever in his voice.

“Why are you here? I might be a little late with that question, but I'd still love to know the answer.”

Orm took measured steps to the kitchen table, assessing the seat with the least amount of trash surrounding it, and sat down. He sat upright, posture uncompromised in the face of a backless stool, and folded his hands on the table. How he looked royal surrounded by trash and cold leftovers was beyond you.

“As you have witnessed, thanks to Arthur, after that final battle I got a way out of my old life. I enjoyed it for the most part, and even wandered the surface world for a while. And then I heard about your accident and came to settle my debts.”

“You don't have a debt to me.”

“When I was awaiting sentencing for my crimes, you were the one that took care of me. And not so long ago, you helped Artur break me out of that prison. That alone guarantees my utmost respect.”

“Your debt is paid, you owe me nothing.”

“That's not how it works.”

“I don't need a nurse, especially one who isn’t wearing a sexy costume.”

“I'm afraid that part is not negotiable.”

“Wait.” You squinted, doing your best to focus your thoughts despite a rising migraine. “This cottage is in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest town a few hours on foot and only if you already know the way. And the only people that knew I got… a little roughed up, were those in the Justice League. Did Artur give you a ride here because he felt guilty he didn’t stop that building in Venice from falling on me?”

“Every day I am thankful that I don't know the inner workings of my brother’s mind.”

“So he did.”

You let your head fall back onto the makeshift kitchen-bed. It was too much for you.

You grabbed the pills from your secret under-the-pillow stash of meds and swallowed some painkillers.

“I'm going to kill your brother.”

“May you have more luck than I did. Now, do you even own any clean clothes?”

#orm marius x reader #orm x reader #aquaman orm x reader #orm x you #orm marius #aquaman imagine #aquaman orm #the death of me #aquaman the lost kingdom

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anthurak · 1 month

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Takeaways from the Volume 9 Epilogue:

One thing I really like about Oscar’s ‘If there was anything I wish I could borrow from you…’ monologue is that it laid out/confirmed something I’ve always felt was a major aspect of Oscar’s dynamic with Ruby that I nonetheless feel a lot of the fandom has missed: That Oscar very much sees Ruby as a mentor and an example to follow, and how their dynamic is specifically a foil to what we saw between Ruby and Ozpin. That Ruby acts as a mentor and example to Oscar in the same way Ozpin was to Ruby, and that Ruby is a far BETTER mentor and example to Oscar than Ozpin ever was to her. Which, as an aside, is a dynamic I can’t help but feel a lot of people have been misinterpreting as ‘ship-teasing’ and is one of the main reasons I’ve simply never been able to see Oscar as any kind of viable love-interest to Ruby. Frankly the dynamic of ‘Ruby is the mentor and example to Oscar that Ozpin couldn’t be for her’ is simply so much more INTERESTING than any kind of romance could ever hope to be.

Even in animatic form, Winter basically going overdrive on the maiden powers was a sight to behold. And her own monologue had all the self-deprecation we were expecting. Our girl is clearly holding on by a thread and it’s going to be REAL interesting seeing how she reacts and adjusts to her sister not actually being dead. As in, I can imagine a situation where Winter tries to throw herself into a heroic sacrifice with the belief that Weiss would make a better Maiden than her.

Also, Winter’s monologue giving major focus to how Penny is super-super-dead-dead-and-definitely-not-coming-back-for-really-realsies, as she is talking to the sister who she ALSO believes is DEFINITELY also dead? Specifically with the words that Penny is gone, when Penny’s last words to her were that she’d be ‘part of you’?

Yeah, there is no way in hell we’ve seen the last of Penny XD

The CROWN. Like it was only a few shots, but as someone who read the CFVY Books (which you totally should if you haven’t, they’re great), holy shit I was NOT expecting them to pop up here.

I mean, in hindsight it makes perfect sense that they’d be involved in Volume 10. They’re basically Vacuo’s equivalent to Vale’s criminal element and the White Fang splinter faction as Salem’s co-opted insurgency group, with Jax and Gillian joining Roman, Adam and Jacques as the latest of Salem’s unwitting patsies. It’s definitely going to be real interesting seeing the crew deal with them. Like it’s really fun to imagine Team RWBY in particular being kind of exasperated at seeing Jax’s probably doing a whole ‘With Salem’s help I shall be King!’ shtick after everything they’ve seen with Roman, Adam and Jacques.

Oh and if you don’t know, Jax has a mind-control semblance, so him trying to use that on Yang could actually lead to a sneaky callback to the Justice League crossover, ie; Yang doing a ‘Yeah, I’m not doing THAT shit again.’ XD

Qrow’s whole vibe through this is fascinating. Like his section may have been the one we already saw, but after seeing the abject depression and growing despair of all the other characters, Qrow actually being OPTIMISTIC hit so much harder.

Raven showing up at the end is… interesting.

I’ll admit that ever since we saw that specific clip a few months back, I’ve been rather conflicts about Raven showing up to deliver RWBY+J to Vacuo, particularly after Ruby’s tree vision. Like for one it felt a bit random and unnecessary. The tree already deposited the Ever After team outside of Vacuo so they didn’t exactly need help getting there. Not to mention that it kind of clotheslines the story-thread set up by Ruby’s vision; that she now has a reason to track Raven down to get the ANSWERS to what happened to Summer. Finally, it’s just kind of… random? Like where did Raven even come from to get the team?

But now having seen the clip with its intended context, I’m definitely more on board with it. Particularly hearing from Kerry and Eddy that the original ending for the penultimate episode had RWBY+J going through the portal to arrive at their memorial stone, and met by a ‘Mysterious Figure’, ie; Raven. Here it feels like were getting more set up to get answers later as to what Raven was doing at the memorial.

And really, now that I’ve thought about it more, this method kind of puts the thread of Ruby going to Raven for answers even MORE into focus. Like the story reintroduces Raven in the present right after Ruby got a vision basically saying ‘hey, Raven is important’. And now going into Volume 10, we’re pretty much perfectly positioned for Ruby to pull Raven aside for those all-important ‘Why were you fucking my mom? What happened to my mom?’ questions.

Finally… yeah that ending hit me a LOT harder than I was expecting. Like that ending was HOPE in its purest form and it was honestly beautiful to see. Particularly right now with the future of the show seeming so uncertain. I’ve personally been optimistic about RWBY’s future (in a manner not unlike Qrow’s vibes I suppose lol), but damn the hopefulness of that ending hit especially hard, and was something I’ll admit I needed. And I imagine the rest of us could use as well.

We'll be getting Volume 10. And 11, and 12, and however many more it takes to finish this story. At this point, I have no doubt of that.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 9 #rwby volume 9 epilogue #rwby ramblings #Team RWBY #Ruby Rose #Yang Xiao Long #Winter Schnee #ozpin #oscar pine #Raven Branwen #Qrow Branwen #rwby after the fall #rwby before the dawn #jax asturias #gillian asturias

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avelera · 9 months

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"Sometimes it's not that deep," aka, How to Write a Mystery (That's Actually There)

A good rule of thumb about predicting a well-written mystery is that other people are predicting the same things. Even better if a lot of other people, on their own, are analyzing the material closely and each, on their own, are reaching the same theories and conclusions! Yes, this can mean everyone's falling for the same red herring too, of course, but generally speaking, no writer is putting all that effort into writing a mystery only one person can solve.

The thing is, a good mystery should be predictable, but at varying speeds based on the attentiveness of the audience.

The most laser-focused readers (or viewers), the true Holmesian mystery-solving mystery readers with encyclopedic knowledge and a fine-toothed comb to go through the material, should be ahead of the characters trying to solve the mystery, but not so far ahead that the story becomes boring, ideally. Your mystery shouldn't be so predictable that it can be figured out on page one but, if a truly clever sleuth does figure out your mystery on page one, your story should also be good enough that it is still an enjoyable tale even if the audience know how it ends.

The attentive reader should figure out the mystery at about the same time as the main character. They should have the "Aha!" moment about two seconds before the character solves it for that little thrill of feeling very clever, which to authors is very funny, because if we're doing our job right, we didn't just set the clues for you to solve the mystery, we agonized over the timing of each clue's introduction just to make sure you got that little thrill of self-satisfaction at the moment we wanted you to.

The casual reader should figure out the mystery when the characters figure it out. They should get the enjoyment of seeing the mystery solved, and in retrospect be able to see the clues, but in the meantime have enjoyed their time nonetheless. It should be a good story on its own.

Now, this is relevant to fandom theory mongering because clues are not accidental. And there are usually a lot of them, if the author is doing their job. Yes, you should be able to analyze the costume colors to see that there are parallels between the green dress or whatever that the lead is wearing in this episode and how it's a call back to another episode and that means blahblahblah is going to happen, but, that sort of deep-cut, freeze-frame sleuthing is usually only in support of more overt clues intended for general audiences.

(Not to pick on any one fandom, but Ted Lasso S3 for example had a lot of Tedbecca shippers looking for hidden clues in the cinematography as their hopes faded for a canon confirmation of their ship. Alas, those didn't bear out, because they were not accompanied by textual evidence in addition to the subtextual evidence of how any moment now, these characters are going to stop dating and pursuing completely different people and actually hook up with or even verbally express confirmed interest in each other.)

Of course, a mystery can be tough to solve and be satisfying! It is sometimes even possible to solve those truly out there or even not yet fully supported mysteries that eventually turn out to be true (say, predicting a later book in the series before all the clues are even there from installments in the meantime). It can be really satisfying to correctly extrapolate from incomplete data before the author even intended you to see it or had figured it out themselves!

However, more often than not, the clues are deliberate and to assume you're the only one seeing them is probably a sign that they're not actually there.

A good mystery, a well-written one, should provide all the clues for the audience to solve the mystery on their own, within the text, even if the last few pages are ripped out. A good mystery is not a "gotcha". And a sign of a good mystery is that more than one person can pick up on all the clues because those clues are placed deliberately and yes, that requires a certain amount of sign-posting as well and in fact, one of the most fiendishly difficult things to do as a writer is strike the proper balance between sign posting your clues at just the right time to reward your attentive audience with enough data to solve the mystery just before the characters do, but not so early that they lose interest.

So, why is this important for fandoms? Because it's entirely possible to go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and convince yourself of stuff that's not there and then get really bummed when it doesn't happen. We're all guilty of this, myself very much included, especially in the largely subtextual world of slash shipping.

There's also real world exceptions and extenuating circumstances to my statement that a good mystery will actually provide the clues: like studio changes, dropped threads due to contractual complications, or a crowded writers room where not every idea gets pursued.

Plus, we've got the whole goddamn JJ Abrams-inspired mystery box bullshit run of television making creators think it's cool to pull one over on the audience and deny the clues they set up just to make a "twist" that no one predicted because it wasn't there, thus betraying the principles of a good mystery, and that also muddies the waters about how good mysteries should be written. (If you can't tell, I absolutely despise writers who pull this bullshit with the intent to trick their audience and they do not deserve any praise for being "clever" to just surprise people with an outcome that's not supported by previous text ala "rocks fall, everyone dies", ugh.)

But besides the damned mystery box crud, there are some good rules of thumb for determining if the clues you're picking up are real or not:

Is the subtext supported by text? Not "is her green dress backed up by a micro-expression glance you can barely see if you freeze-frame the show" but actually in the text. Does someone say, in dialogue, "Hey, we should go on a date," when you're reading subtext between two characters and can you be certain that the writers intended that text to be read the way you read it? One way to tell is if this sort of thing happens more than once, if there are more clues. Of course, there's also red herrings, etc, and hey, that's half the fun of a mystery, not all clues are Clues. But generally speaking, there's more than one clue for important stuff.

Is there evidence against your theory and have you considered it? This is basic Logical Thinking 101, of course, but only looking for evidence that confirms your theory and ignoring everything that doesn't will definitely convince you of some pretty wild stuff in a hurry!

Have you considered the genre of the work and whether it even has mysteries? Or is it, for example, a comedy which might address those "clues", most likely comedically, but might just as easily not even realize they were seen as clues?

But mostly importantly: do other people have this theory? Did they arrive to it on their own, based on the same text? If you are the only person with a theory and cannot use textual evidence to convince more than one person who is not of the same background as you (ie, convince your less-progressive dad that these two guys definitely want to boink based on the way they look at each other) there is a very likely chance you are stringing together disparate data points to match your desires, not the evidence. Bonus points if, seriously, you can convince someone who is of the same demographic as the content creators (writers, directors, etc.) that these clues are intentional. Most likely, your less-than-progressive dad has more in common with the thought process that went into creating the vast majority of content than your average Tumblr user does. (OFMD is the exception that proves the rule.)

As a final note, one thing it's very dangerous to do as a writer is introduce the idea of clues and a mystery without making your mystery air tight. Mysteries invite the reader to put their brain on high alert. It means they're looking for clues everywhere and even seemingly innocuous throw-away descriptions or the camera lingering on a random prop for too long can be misinterpreted and end up pissing off the audience who thinks it's a Clue.

You have to be so deliberate with a mystery, because it's not about just controlling the clues you release, but controlling the perception of the audience so they know what isn't a clue (unless it's a red herring, of course). That's part of why scifi author David Brin said all aspiring writers should have their first novel be a mystery, because it teaches you volumes on how to control your narrative and make everything intentional.

#maggie rambles #writing #writing advice #definitely not in response to some absolutely wild theories I've seen going about

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maple-the-awesome · 4 months

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Happy New Year! ||

Pairing: {Any} Link x Reader

Words: 923

Overview: It's New Years in Hyrule and you plan on finally living out one of the most famous holiday traditions. Here's a very last minute New Years piece that I decided to write within the last hour because I've done it for other characters before, so why can't it be Link's turn? Happy New Years everyone 🥳

Zelda Masterlist 🎉 Fandom Masterlist

You’re certain even the inhabitants of Death Mountain can hear the current celebrations taking place in Castle Town right now. If not, then the gorons of this kingdom must’ve invested in some pretty efficient earmuffs.

How anyone actually enjoys parties like this is beyond you. You can barely hear yourself think over the obnoxious shouting of the crowd, let alone enjoy the music being played by a band Hylia knows where.

Is this street lined with cobble? Going off of what you remember from when you first arrived this morning, you think it is, but there’s no point in trying to confirm it now. It’s been forever since you’ve seen so many people in one spot, packed together like sardines that wear colorful hats and clothing, but you definitely don’t miss being tossed this way then that way by such obvious mobs.

At least the night will be ending soon. Although you doubt that will put an end to this overwhelming party, it will give you the freedom to return to your comfortable room at the local inn which you PRAY is soundproof or else you’ll really be cranky tomorrow, but for now, you must blink away the sleep and continue on your path since there are far more important matters at hand than a good night’s sleep.

“Where are we going?” The question might as well be whispered during a storm. You don’t hear a word of it, your only hint towards its existence being the way Link’s lips move in the corner of your eyes. They’re turned upward in slight amusement as he follows after your swift pace. The only thing that’s keeping you from being separated into a wave of sweaty bodies is your tightly interlocked hands.

Around another corner, shoving past a drunk trio and into the first breath of fresh air you’ve had in the last four hours. It’s not necessarily ‘quiet’ with the festival only a few feet behind, but you suppose it will have to do.

“What’s with that sour look?” Link pokes the corner of your lips, earning himself a swat and a misdirected glare; a consequence of your disappointed pout.

“...This isn’t what I had in mind.”

“And what is it that you had in mind?” He raises an eyebrow teasingly, his grin growing naturally when you cross your arms while tapping your foot like a frustrated rabbit.

“I-I don’t know. A garden filled with roses. A lone fountain sprouting glittering, moonlit water - Something more romantic than this!” You gesture ahead to the narrow alley which is filled with only discarded boxes and untouched by any moonlight due to its position between two tall buildings.

“At least it doesn’t smell,” Link points out, but your scrunch up nose tells him that his optimism isn’t helping much, so he wraps his arm around your waist, tugging you against his side where you stubbornly stand with mocked annoyance written all over your face.

“...I suppose it will have to do,” You eventually sigh, leaning your head against him yet keeping your arms crossed as emphasis that you don’t really care for this ‘compromise’. You just don’t want to venture back into that crowd nor do you have the time for it, “...A garden would’ve been much better, though.”

“Agreed.”

“You must be wondering why I’ve dragged you here.”

“To escape further social interaction?”

“No - Well yes, but that was only an added benefit; a type of ‘kill two birds with one stone’ situation. What I really brought you here for is tradition,” You pivot your body so that you can stand in front of him.

Almost automatically, he fixes both of his arms around you, keeping them low against your hips as he watches you straighten his tunic, “Tradition? What kind?”

You hum and take your time in answering him, “...It’s tradition in my world to share a kiss at the stroke of midnight during the New Year. Supposedly it brings good luck or something like that. I’ve never done it with anyone before, but you seem like a decent fellow; I’ll take any good excuse to kiss you.”

“That so?” Link chuckles, gently lifting your chin to look up at him.

You merely nod. Out on the street, you can hear the crowd’s voices begin to fall in sync until they form one joyful rhythm and familiar countdown. Leaning closer, you let your breath fan Link’s lips, your flirtatious smirks a mirror of each other’s, “One kiss for a year of good luck. A worthwhile trade, wouldn’t you say?”

Moments ago, you were forced to walk through a town of drunk people who had forgotten how to behave in public, so it’s surprising how well they all suddenly know how to count: 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…

“Fool. You know I don’t need any reason to kiss you,” Link whispers, meeting his lips to yours which acts as the perfect distraction that pulls you away from the eruption of shouts and crackling fireworks that shake Castle Town to its core. What was once so difficult to drown out is officially mute against your ears as you wrap your arms over Link’s shoulders and allow him to dip you into the kiss that molds both of your smiles together.

"Does that make up for the lack of romantic settling?" He pulls away only enough to ask his question, each movement of his lips brushing yours.

"Very much so," With that, you pull him back in for another kiss, after all, who said you'd have to stop after midnight?

#legend of zelda x reader #legend of zelda #link x reader #linked universe #linked universe x reader #lu time x reader #lu four x reader #lu hyrule x reader #lu legend x reader #lu sky x reader #lu twilight x reader #lu wild x reader #lu warrior x reader #lu wind x reader #x reader #reader insert

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nova-streyart · 7 months

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The Thing about Belos Nobody Mentions

There's an aspect of Belos I haven't seen anyone talk about yet: him potentially being on the schizophrenia spectrum, or schizospec for short, and everything that means. Before you say anything, I am a schizoaffective person. This is my interpretation. This is based off my own experiences with this disorder, and my own research.

Analysis and rant under the cut:

=ANALYSIS=

So this all started when I learned that one of the color design pieces had Caleb and the grimwalkers labelled "Golden Guard Illusion". Artists credited in the image itself.

It's weird to me that they're labeled as illusions and not hallucinations, because the latter is what the ghosts actually are. Illusions are images your brain distorts based off something that's there, while hallucinations are images your brain creates from nothing. The fact that these ghosts are actually hallucinations of Belos and not real ghosts doesn't say a whole lot about Belos on its own, because anyone can hallucinate if they experience intense enough negative emotions. But you'll see why I think there's something more to this.

Following this lead, I rewatched the scene where Papa Titan talks to Luz in the In-Between realm in the series finale. After Luz asks him whether her motivation to save her friends and family makes her just as bad as Belos, she tells her:

"Well, you assume Belos' goal comes from a genuine place. But that man doesn't care about anything but his need to be the hero in his own delusion."

Let me give you a short lesson about delusions in the context of schizospec disorders: Delusions are firmly held beliefs that the person experiencing can't be convinced aren't true. This can be extremely serious and life-threatening, such as as believing all your food's been poisoned. But it can also be harmless; it really depends on the delusion. The type of delusion referenced here would be a delusion of grandeur, which is a real thing in schizospec disorders. Such delusions can be serious, like believing you're the second coming of god, or more harmless, like believing you're better than others.

Taking both the hallucinations and the delusion into mind, it's very possible that Belos has some kind of schizospec disorder.

=RANT=

Let's talk about that scene where Belos goes to the grimwalker cave. Notice how the hallucinations are played for laughs? That's problematic. Hallucinations are not something you can just tell to "shut up" and they'll go away. Hallucinations are not things you can interact with. There's already other media with this problem, such as A Beautiful Mind, but the fact that it's in a show that's supposed to be celebrating neurodivergence is hypocritical.

Let's briefly go back to that Papa Titan quote. See how he used the word "delusion" to describe Belos' motivation?Yeah, that's really problematic in the schizospec community. As mentioned before, delusions can be life threatening, so tossing that word around like it's nothing is really frustrating and insulting. The show should have used a word like "fantasy" to get its point across more effectively if it was implying that Belos has a hero complex.

Continuing this train of thought, it gets worse when you consider how Papa Titan- and in essence the narrative- is essentially ridiculing Belos for experiencing a very intense delusion. Delusions are not something a schizospec person can control. I've already seen the fandom mocking Belos for this quality. It was one of those awful memes with the caption "schizophrenia," and had audio of markiplier doing a bit where he was bantering with an "inner voice". Such memes are awful because they're not real experiences schizospec people go through. They're assumptions about our experiences non-schizospec people make about us.

That would be the worst of it, but no, it gets far worse when you consider a few things:

Belos is the main antagonist. That would be annoying enough, considering the plethora of mentally ill villains in media, but nope. The narrative also treats him as this purely evil being who is incapable of any good whatsoever. Which, OK. It's possible for a schizospec person to be a monster. But the fact that the only schizospec representation we have is either of us as helpless victims, or as irredeemable monsters, is infuriating.

Belos is clearly meant to be a foil to Luz. Which, congrats to the show for having a neurodivergent lead, but let me tell you about some of the hardships schizospec people face: In real life, schizospec people are cast out of mental health advocacy groups. Schizospec people are treated as subhuman by doctors and psychiatrists. Schizospec people are demonized and vilified by society. Schizospec people are denied jobs and housing. With all this in mind the fact the narrative chooses to glorify a character with the "right," the "acceptable," kind of neurodivergence while berating a character with the "scary," the "monstrous," kind of neurodivergence is absolutely disgusting.

=CONCLUSION=

I feel like it has to be said that I am not condoning Belos' actions, or trying to woobify him. Belos, as a person, was terrible. No amount of mental illness tacked onto him will excuse any of his actions.

I'm also not trying to imply that schizospec characters can't be evil. I'm just saying that it's extremely tiresome that the only representation we get is either us as victims or as villains.

To conclude all of this, please, do your research before adding something like this into your story.

#long post #rant post #toh critical #toh criticism #belos #toh belos #emperor belos #philip wittebane #toh philip wittebane

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salted-caramel-tea · 9 months

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honestly i love mcc i love competitive minecraft but the game just isn’t fun for anyone anymore. lots of players have dropped out are talking of dropping out or go on stream saying things like ‘this is the first mcc i’ve actually enjoyed in a while’ . like. thats not the sign that an event is successful . and i don’t really think that’s scott’s or the developers faults but it’s more so the culture around mcc that has changed drastically in the past year or so.

when i first started watching it, mcc was about cc’s learning to work together and competing in a fun event where there was no real stakes except the winners got a fun little token. mccs rise in popularity has snowballed a little to develop this culture of expectancy . as with all fanbases, some fans become a little too engrossed in the content and become a little overbearing about it creating this toxic culture of criticism under the guise of analysis . this isn’t to say that all mcc analysts are toxic or that the concept of vod reviewing and analysing a players performance is bad- but the attitude that a lot of the more vocal fans have been taking towards this has been .mm . not the best .

forcing players into rigid boxes based on their performance records and dogpiling them if they undeperform or over glorifying a players for performing above their average etc, it creates a competitive culture amongst fans trying to prove who suppprts the better player . very much ‘my dad is stronger than your dad’ kind of vibe.

this whole attitude also makes it less enjoyable for the players who may now feel a lot of pressure to conform to the expectations of their fans- of course everyone tries their best every event but if someone’s having a bad performance they’re more likely to experience genuine discomfort and self confidence issues continuing in the event because they know what people are expecting of them . even for lower ranking players it can affect self confidence because nobody expects anything of them .

its marketed deeply throughout the fandom as a for fun event with people who are naturally competitive being shunned for their competitive attitude but logging online and seeing people hating some people winning, hating on other teams for knocking their team out of top 2, refusing to congratulate the winners, even complaining over and over again that some aspects of the event like pvp and parkour are unfair to their streamer because their streamer ain’t good at them to the point where pvp and parkour games had their coin distribution rules changed . that doesn’t scream for fun behaviour .

that’s another thing . random changes to games that don’t necessarily need to be changed . the buildmart changes were good it make it easier to navigate and allowed people to move between sections faster and featured some new builds, the sky battle coin distribution prioritising the amount of time you survive over kills actually undermines the point of the game as a pvp heavy event . instead of fighting people you can get away with playing more defensively . we already have survival games for survivability . same goes for remixes i don’t think they typically go down well . some might but majority don’t tend to have a good reception .

even within the players themselves, there’s because quite a cliquey kind of dynamic where if the team with the most support doesn’t win, the winners are not congratulated. take last night for example . ponk and gumi scored their first wins, ponk being the first black person and as far as i can remember gumi being the second woc and first asian woman to win an mcc . let’s not even get into the diversity of mcc right now but only two people came into the voice call which lasted a while after the event to congratulate the team, only sylvee and scott and a few replies on twitter . ‘oh but the captain’ idc . i love him too but he didn’t win and it was a big day for the team that did with 50% of the team getting their first win and they played really well together. looking again at fan behaviour towards creators some players have felt unwelcome by the pressure of the competitive dynamic called bad sports for being upset with their own underperforming and alienated by the community for having multiple wins or because they just don’t want them in the event . that doesn’t scream for fun . and that in itself is really bad sportsmanship .

i think overall what started to kill mcc was it’s pandering really. i’ve fully done research on how scott puts together teams before but i still believe a lot of what goes into a team is how well it will be received. it doesn’t really force creators to get to know each other and work with each other it just takes groups of people who already know each other have relationships with each other and have relationships that are recognisable to the fanbase . this doesn’t allow people to meet and find new creators they might enjoy to watch and it prioritises some teams as the Ones To Watch because of certain dynamics pres t which undermines any smaller creators trying to make their way into the event . the insistence on changing games based on viewer complaints as opposed to suggestions from players themselves on how things can be improved is just odd to me too .

idk man mcc just isn’t what it used to be and a lot of people are becoming way too entitled over what they want to see there

#mcc

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suffarustuffaru · 3 months

Note

Hello!

A bit of a weird ask, so sorry in advance.

What methods/sites would you recommend using for reading Arcs 5-8 of Re:Zero?

I’ve almost finished season 2 of the anime, and I’m pretty sure this has become one of my new favourite anime/works of media in general.

And considering I keep spoiling myself anyway when I look at Re: Zero tumblr blogs, I figured I should just find a way to catch up with the rest of the series.

You seem smart, and have clearly read Arcs 5-8, so I was hoping that you would be able to provide some advice.

Thanks!

hi there!! :D no worries for the ask, its cool to have another rezero fan join in the fandom especially on tumblr (which is a very small, curated circle of a bunch of us trading posts around a campfire HAH) and i hope youve really been enjoying the anime and your stay here so far!! :o this is absolutely one of my favorite media as well (if. if you couldnt tell by the blog pfft) and thanks for the compliments haah i am glad to seem smart.

but yes i gotchu on where to read!! ill be giving you a pretty detailed explanation/guide. (this explanation also goes mainly for english speakers / people who wanna experience rezero in english.) (and of course if any other seasoned fans are seeing this feel free to add on if i miss anything or correct me if needed)

Main Route Stuff:

witchculttranslations is where you can find the translations for the entire main route (which is arcs 1-8). this page is where youll find the main table of contents for each arc and you can find arcs 5-8 there!

note that arc 8, at the time of me writing this ask, is still a work-in-progress and the team of translators in this fandom are always hard at work to translate each chapter. also note that arcs 7-8 are "conjoined arcs" - think of it like arc 7 is part 1 and arc 8 is part 2. so if you happen to get caught up to where rezero is currently at, the rezero subreddit regularly updates chat + update threads whenever new rezero novel content comes out in general. youll find updates on translations or summaries for new chapters there.

there's also distinction between web novel and light novel - web novel are the chapters that tappei releases online, light novel are the official finished versions of the chapters that are released for sale. sometimes there's changes between the web novel and the light novel, but for the most part it's either minor changes to improve on the web novel - sometimes it's major, but for arcs 5-8 iirc there isnt any major changes that you need to worry about.

just note that in the wn translations, all/almost all dialogue is written in script-style. let me show a small excerpt from arc 5 chapter 1:

???: “Good job, Subaru, I suppose.” A small silhouette enters Subaru’s view from above. A loveable girl with long, cream hair and an extravagant outfit—Beatrice. Her fluttering dress looks out of place in the meadow as she presents Subaru with a towel. He accepts it and vigorously towels his head dry. Subaru: “Ah, thanks. Was looking to cool down so this’s perfect.”

so yeah the wn will be formatted like this by the way, just in case you didnt know this yet!! i hope thats not much of a turnoff or anything, but dont worry you get used to it - and the story is still pretty great anyway!!

also dont bother with arcs 1-3 wn. its not so important (and you already know all the major info because youve seen the anime) and also arcs 1-3 wn doesnt have the Best writing. tappei himself had to make extremely major changes for the light novel and the light novel (along with the anime and manga) is the finished and polished result.

and of course the light novel comes with illustrations for each arc. the web novel sometimes includes images as well at the beginning of each chapter, but if youd like to see finished and official illustrations for various scenes throughout arc 5-8 its easy to find them if you search them up online!!

the anime also has a few bits of Important cut content from arcs 3-4 - unfortunately i dont have any resources on hand for this ;-;;; but you can look this up on rezero reddit or online in general since a lot of people have made summaries about this. from what i remember in arc 3 (which is the royal selection/white whale/petelgeuse half of season 1!), the main thing is just the reveal that al has some sort of connection to ram (and rem by extension), some sort of connection to satella possibly, and he is ALSO someone that was isekaied into rezero's fantasy world.

as for arc 4 (which is season 2 of course), the anime got down almost all of the general important info you need to know, but there's a lot of important information in the last parts of arc 4 that the anime didnt include. the anime may include this information (and the al stuff from arc 3) later, but you'll need to know it for arcs 5-8. you can find the witchcultranslations guide for arc 4 here - scroll down and youll find the chapter called Appendix: Advent!! you'll need the info in that chapter for later.

if you want, you can also read the chapters after that - theyre sorted under One Day II and are the official arc 4 interludes that take place before arc 5. i do recommend reading through them, but theyre mainly characterization stuff, character dynamics post-arc 4, everyone trying to recover after arc 4, etc etc. the most important info in there is leadup for arc 5 (all the post-arc 4 aftermath stuff) and also some info/introduction on clind and annerose (who are characters that are briefly shown in the anime for like two seconds). these two do play minor roles in arc 4/beginning of 5, but theyre hinted to be important for later. if youre in a hurry to get to arc 5, totally fine to just skim through it, get basic info on clind and annerose then continue into arc 5 or something. or you can look at their wiki pages - totally cool to enjoy rezero however you wish. it's a LOT of reading dont get me wrong HAH.

as for the manga - this is not required reading or anything, the manga has only done arcs 1-4 atm so it's not really super relevant to you since youre almost done with arc 4 already via the anime!! but of course if you havent done so youre welcome to check it out if youd like, the manga artists are pretty great imo. im just gonna show some art from the manga artists here:

isnt it pretty? :O very nice stuff.

anyway thats it for main route content!! now i gotta explain side content.

Side Content:

you can find witchculttranslations' side story table of contents here, which very neatly shows you Every Single Side Story and is updated regularly every time tappei comes out with new side content. and trust me, tappei makes A Lot of side content. i guarantee you a lot of rezero fans havent read every side story (and i still have a lot of side stories to catch up on myself), so theres absolutely no need to read every single side story!! honestly just read the ones you find interesting + the ones that are required reading! im not sure how much of the side content youve heard about, but ill give you a rundown:

this extremely helpful google spreadsheet here (thats also regularly updated) tells you how important each side story is and where you can find it so you dont have to go on a wild goose chase wondering which ones you need to read for the main story. rezero side stories are on a sliding scale of just silly stuff tappei wrote for fun to this is VERY crucial for the main story. that google spreadsheet should help you out with that - both the spreadsheet and witchculttranslations have links to almost every side story available.

(the spreadsheet also tells you important details and who it's centered around + when each side story is safe to read free of spoilers after a certain point - so it's easy to decide when you wanna read the side stories and WHICH side stories you'd like to read!)

also i guarantee you that if you have a favorite character in rezero that character Probably has a ton of side content theyre featured in - so i recommend just hunting down all their side content and devouring it whole because im sure youll have a fun time with that. a lot of side content also fleshes out a ton of side characters as well in general - people who Looked shallow in the anime ARENT shallow at all, i promise. many people have hidden depths, which is one of the fun parts of rezero!

witchculttranslations and the google spreadsheet also tell you what order you might wanna read in terms of when each one takes place. i recommend following that order for the most part if youd like, but if you wanna binge read side content or something later you can also do that after reading arc 6.

that's how i experienced the side stories myself (i started reading them after finishing up with the arcs 5-6 plot) and in a way, i would say that might just be the easiest way to do it given a lot of the side stories take place during arcs 1-6 or before the events of arcs 1-6. itll make you go "ohhh thats what was happening with these background characters during *insert event here that was focused on in the main story*" or "ohhh thats why These Guys are like this" a lot pfft. so its easier to just get out the most important ones / the ones thatre most interesting to you all in a row after finishing up with arc 6 👍

The Ex Novels:

these are THE MOST IMPORTANT side stories. :o theyll be extremely important for arcs 7-8 especially!! also because these are light novels the dialogue is written in normal narrative format so hooray for that!!

anyway theres five ex novels. i recommend reading these after arc 6 so you got them fresh on the brain for arcs 7-8.

however if you happen to be a crusch camp fan, you can read ex novels 1-3 at any time youd like!! these flesh out characters like crusch, felix, wilhelm, and theresia (some of the wilhelm and theresia content was shown a bit in season 1 of the anime!) so youd probably enjoy these even more if youre a fan of any of them. ex novel four also features felix, julius, and reinhard too, if that interests you! (as a knight fan ex novel 4 was my favorite akdndn and i loved ex 1!!). but yeah in general though read the ex novels in order (from 1 to 5 of course) so you dont spoil yourself for other ex novels, but as i said - you can read 1-3 at any time, and in general its best to read the rest of the ex novels after arc 6.

the ex novels in general mainly focus on important historical events in the rezero world and stuff that happens before arc 1. the ex novels are also our first introduction to the nation and empire of vollachia—this is also the country that priscilla is from (and al also came from there)!! you get introduced to vollachia's whole deal in these novels. youll need this info for later!

anyway witchculttranslations and the google sheet dont have links to them because theyre published + officially translated light novels that are easiest to access by buying them, so harder to get a free pdf of them. however i got you (and your wallet) covered because i got pdfs for all of them right here (if these links dont work let me know!):

ex novel 1 - crusch and felix-centric

ex novel 2 - wilhelm and theresia-centric

ex novel 3 - wilhelm and theresia-centric

ex novel 4 - felix, julius, and reinhard-centric

ex novel 5 - priscilla and al-centric

anyway thats the ex novels in a nutshell!! and of course if you want a physical copy of these books (or any of the rezero light novels in general) in english you can buy these online (sites like amazon has them) or at a bookstore. if you live in the US like i do, barnes and noble has them irl as well. or if you happen to live near a kinokuniya store, they also sell rezero irl. kinokuniya is also specifically for japanese media so i highly recommend giving it a try if you happen to be near one (i got a rezero keychain from there also hah, rezero merch is a little hard to get a hold of sometimes).

rezero light novels are also translated in a few other languages (iirc spanish and polish are some of the other languages its translated in) so if youd like that too you can look into it and buy some!!

The If Routes:

if youre not familiar with these by now, theyre basically "what if"/ alternate universe stories where subaru makes a different and Very Major choice at different points of the main route. theyre not necessarily required reading, but some do have some important lore regarding several of the characters and in general most of them are extremely important AUs for rezero that emphasize all the themes of the story. they also show the Insane butterfly effect of subaru’s decisions.

and if youve gotten this far with the anime already im gonna assume you probably like subaru at least a little bit? :o yeah his character gets fleshed out in Very Interesting ways in these routes. other characters also get changed in various ways due to his decisions!

new ifs are also released typically every year on subaru's birthday - april 1. so with every april 1 the entire fandom plays russian roulette because either the if will be a super silly one or a Very Important one LMAO.

also these ifs tend to be mentioned a lot in fandom bc theyre very beloved and interesting side stories, so i highly recommend choosing which ones you find interesting and just have fun reading them!! you can find them on the spreadsheet, if you want to read them in a more chronological order, or you can find them on the main witchculttranslations website as tabs on the side underneath Re:Zero If Stories. (but ill provide the links to each separate one in this post also.)

all current if routes at the moment take place somewhere in the arcs 1-6 range, so you can look at them either after arc 6, like i said, or in order as you read along with the main route. ill give a quick breakdown of each if just in case!!

Pride If - diverges from arc 1; subaru doesnt call for help when fighting the three thugs in the alleyway. slight spoilers for one part of arc 5 in like One Scene of pride if.

Wrath If - diverges from arc 2; subaru accepts beatrice’s offer to help in the loop where rem dies + subaru tries to run away from the mansion. very minor spoilers for ex novels/arc 7-8 (characters who appear in those arcs appear in wrath if).

Sloth If - diverges from arc 3; subaru gives up and runs away with rem instead of dealing with the arc 3 conflict. very minor spoilers (a character who later appears in arc 8 appears here).

Aganau If - diverges from arc 3; in the loop where rem dies in the cave and subaru carries her back to the mansion, he decides to go down another route away from the mansion instead. years later, he’s now older and still alive after almost everyone else has died. this if is one of the routes in the now discontinued lost in memories mobile game (and this is The Most Important route out of the whole bunch anyway). you can find a playthrough + english translation of it here.

Greed If - diverges from arc 4; subaru accepts echidna’s contract. major spoilers for arc 4 of course. minor spoilers for arc 5+ (small plot beats are mentioned iirc). a bit of important lore for characters like echidna and clind. the first edition of it can be found here - make sure to read this first. this is because this if was also given a longer and polished light novel version of it (it was a special that came with some of the season 2 blueray dvd packages?) and you can find an english translation for the extended + final version under the Blueray Novels and Databooks section of witchculttranslations' side content page.

Gluttony If - diverges from arc 6. major spoilers for arcs 5-6.

Mimigau If - this is just a genderbend au that tappei made that starts from arc 1!! almost nothing is changed besides the characters’ genders, biological sex, names, etc. i sadly dont have a link to this one, but iirc this hasnt been fully translated yet? and it's also very much not that important of an if lore-wise so you're not missing out on much. the genderbent character names are really fun though!

Lust If - this is, supposedly, an if that tappei wrote in one sitting and then decided to delete off of the official rezero wn site. this if is just an april fools joke where subaru gets a harem of various rezero girls. and imo its not Particularly Good, but it was meant to be a joke and tappei just wrote it for no reason so ig the quality makes sense haah. and also sadly that harem includes petra iirc which. yeah. not what id call great.

Vainglory If / School If - basically a canon high school au for all of rezero! not a necessary read at all but it's super silly and fun. and if you like anastasia and/or priscilla they have a lot of Fun Interactions in this one. im not sure if all of this if is english translated yet, but you can find chapter one here.

Other Various Ifs from Lost In Memories - i dont have the links to all of these, but lost in memories has a lot of other more minor aus as well, aganau if is just the most important + the darkest one. the other ifs are more lighthearted and just extra stuff for funsies. other big examples include a julius if (subaru calls for help in arc 1 and julius is the one who comes to help), a reinhard if of sorts (takes place around arcs 1-2, it's a sillier story where reinhard just keeps appearing out of nowhere to help subaru every time he needs help), and also an otto if (arc 1 divergence; subaru gets involved with otto and the two of them decide to start a mayonnaise business).

A Side Note About Rezero Video Games:

ok i know your ask is mainly about how to READ rezero but i figured i might as well explain this really quick just in case!!

there are a bunch of rezero video games and none of them are really Necessary, so dont worry about it. theyre either like - silly alternate universe stuff or theyre a bit more of the serious au variety (like aganau if, as mentioned earlier. i dont know every single rezero video game out there (and i think theres still new ones in the works at the time of me writing this??) and also almost none of them are english translated so its hard to experience them if you dont understand japanese.

the two most important ones (aka the ones with more story in them) are gonna be prophecy of the throne and lost in memories (which i mentioned earlier!). and again, these games are not necessary content - theyre mostly just side content that you can look at/watch/play through for fun and if you just wanna see more of your faves. you can check them out at any time since they dont have any major arc 5-8 spoilers.

Prophecy of the Throne - this is visual novel + a divergence of arc 3 where a new and sixth royal candidate emerges and it looks like emilia is the fake royal candidate here.... so yeah the plot is just. it's like a game of among us. but it's a fun story with a lot of different character interactions (so if you really like the entire cast of rezero youre in luck!!) and features a tiny bit of lore about some powerful groups in the fantasy world. a few of subarus failed loops in this one are also Particularly Brutal. you can watch gameplay of it on youtube or play through it yourself (i know that the game IS on steam too) since it's fully english translated (and all the jp vas and english vas reprised their roles as well).

Lost In Memories - as mentioned earlier, this is a now discontinued mobile game. iirc it was a gacha game? a sort of fighting game? and also it's narrative driven with a bunch of different routes. you can find the wiki for it here - it summarizes a lot of the main story beats. theres no official english translations for this game, but theres a lot of fan translations that you can find on stuff like youtube if youre ever interested in any part of the game. also it has a really fun opening song and animated sequence. nonoc's rezero music is great <3

A Side Note About Rezero Youtube:

theres a lot of summary videos for both main content chapters and side stories on youtube. im not sure how accurate these videos are, but i know that at the very least they can give you a brief rundown on the main points for certain chapters/side stories if thats something youd like to have!

theres also an entire team of people making a fan-run audiobook for arc 5. ive given some of their episodes a listen, and i can confirm that theyre absolutely great. you can find their readings of chapter 1-47 on spotify, and on their youtube channel theyre up to chapter 62. i think theyve also expressed their interest in branching out into other rezero content as well? :o so if thats also something youre interested in you can check them out there!

In Conclusion

anyway, that should be all you need to know - thats a summary of basically all important rezero content from here on out!! i know this is like. Super detailed. so i hope that this was helpful and didnt scare you away or anything hah. and i hope you have fun reading through rezero :o !! you got a lot of content to choose from thats for sure!!

but yeah ty for the ask, i hope i explained everything clearly enough :o !! and if you need any clarification feel free to ask!!

#rezero #re:zero #ask #save for later #<< bc this is my most detailed post on 'how to read rezero' aljsdlf so i might just put this in my pinned post for this blog later #also even if ur a seasoned fan and u havent heard of the arc 5 fan podcast yet pls give them a listen. they work so hard on it and i love #their performances there <3

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autistic-katara · 10 months

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ok i might get blocked by a couple ppl for saying this but the Jackson’s Diary fandom is seriously making me wanna become a proshipper out of spite (read the post before blocking me or whatever please)

like idk if u guys have checked the fandom tag on ao3 recently but theres been a bit of drama surrounding the fact that someone posted a smut-fic of Exer (an 18yo) and David (an almost 18yo, who was aged up A FEW MONTHS for the fic) and they were harassed into taking it down and making a fucking apology post ON AO3, THE PROBLEMATIC FANWORKS WEBSITE.

and this fic was tagged 100% correctly like it was very explicitly tagged as smut n stuff yet there were still a bunch of comments being like “uhm what did i just read 🤨” and when i made a comment defending the authors right to yk, not be harassed for making not even rlly problematic content someone who clearly would suffer withdrawal symptoms if they turned twitter off for too long started arguing with me abt how “erm ackhtually we should be allowed to comment harassment under ppls harmless and explicitly tagged fics cause theres no smut in this fandom and it shocked us” and u could just rlly tell they felt they were more righteous than God in their opinions and yeah so cut to tonight when i’m scrolling through the tag and i see a post titled “i’m so sorry” in which the author made a post basically being like “i’m so sorry for posting that ik it was disgusting it has been permanently deleted” which in the comments a few ppl were telling them that what happened sucked n stuff (myself included // judging by their reply they only did this to stop the harassment which yk, completely fair) and i went back to scrolling since i wanted an actual fic not fandom drama but like 2 posts down there was another post titled “please stop” or smthn like that where someone else made a post basically being like “guyssss can we please not write smut of these characters this fandom is so wholesome i dont wanna ruin it 🥺 anyways sorry this isnt a fic this just needed to be said lol” and like dude, my guy, WHAT THE FUCK?!

this is AO3, this is a fanwork archive that as far as i know was created (at least partially) due to the fact that ppl kept getting their “problematic” works taken down from other sites and the creators wanted to yk archive all fanworks. this is NOT a social media site where u can make callout posts abt how what someone else posted disturbed ur pure wholesome chaste scrolling by daring to uploaded something with *gasp* consensual sex between 2 consenting adults?! (or canonically 1 consenting adult and 1 consenting gonna-be-an-adult-in-a-few-months-but-isnt-much-younger-than-the-first-guy but u get the idea)

like guys, ao3 is not twitter. it is not tiktok, it is not tumblr, its not youtube, its not even wattpad. it is not a social media platform, it is a fanwork archive, specifically one that lets u post whatever kinda content u want (yes, even smthn depicting 2 consenting adult/almost adult participates that are in no way related having sex, ik its crazy what they allow online these days).

and look honestly the callout post wouldn’tve annoyed me this much if it was posted on yk an actual social media. like if it was posted on twitter or tiktok or on youtube as a video essay or even on here, like sure if i saw it id be annoyed that this fandom cant handle the tiniest bit of non-puritanicalism and fuck, maybe if it was on here id even drag myself into a pointless days-long argument that causes me suicidal levels of stress but on archive of our fucking own itself?! for the millionth time, IT IS NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA! u dont make posts like that that u want the rest of the fandom to read or whatever on there because its not that kinda website!

anyways yeah i hope i explained the situation ok, u might be able to check it out urself if u feel like it and yeah idk this whole thing just kinda felt like a wake-up call for me like yes i find incest and pedophilia disgusting OBVIOUSLY and i dont like ppl romanticising it in fiction but idk i’ve seen ppl talk abt toxic antis before and show screenshots of conversations where theyve acted super shitty but idk seeing this all unfold in person and having to argue with these hardcore antis just- i dont wanna be associated with these ppl, if these are what alotta antis r like i dont want anyone to assume i agree with them like at all, whether its other antis, proshippers, or ppl like me who have a super complicated opinion on it. like they harassed a person into taking down their smut and made call-out posts on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN abt how they dont want their wholesome pure fandom corrupted by gross dirty irredeemable sex. and just yeah hope no mutuals i seriously care abt unmoot or even block me over this since ik a few of u r antis but yeah srry for this i just kinda seriously hate this fandom right now :)

also incase anyone is typing out a “kill yourself pedo” reply/rb rn; i turn 15 on Friday, i am 2+ years younger than ur innocent bb minor boy David and his definitely not already a legal adult boyfriend Exer so yk

#jackson’s diary #jacksons diary #ao3 #proshipping #dexer #fandom discourse #will probably regret making this post by tmrw morning but yk thats future me’s problem #again hopefully i explained this ok i’m pretty sure it was quite rambly

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princeloww · 8 months

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Hi takin over the asylum fandom

I finished this show a few days ago and have been rapidly consuming everything I could fandom-wise. During this, I read most of the TOTA fanfiction I could find on AO3, and noticed a common pattern.

Writers, non-Scottish, tend to use "Aye", like the characters in the show, yet I've never seen a writer use "Nae". Maybe this is because they aren't too sure of it or how to spell it/correctly use, so I thought I'd explain it a bit if anybody is confused!

Disclaimer - I am not Scottish, but I am from Ireland, so I have a vague idea of some IRISH slang, which isn't too far from some Scottish slang. Feel free to correct me!

"Aye" means yes.

Everyone seems to get this one.

"Aye, but" = "Yes, but"

Simple as that. It doesn't necessarily always work with "yes" subbed in, but it's just an affirmative phrase, really.

It is from Gaelic. Gaelic is a Celtic language that dates back years and years ago. There are different branches (Irish and Scottish Gaelic, for example) that were caused by language spreading through things like trade between countries. Although Gaelic is not typically spoken, it still very much exists and is used in slang in both Scotland and Ireland.

On the opposite side, there is "nae", which means no. It is commonly used attached to can, "cannae", which is the equivalent of "cannot", and is very simple. It just goes in place of cannot.

"You cannae do that", for example, is the same as "You cannot do that", or "You can't do that".

If you want to make sure you're extra familiar with the slang before using it in fanfiction, out of fear of getting it wrong, just listen to examples of how it's used in the show (and its very often) until you're comfortable.

There are a lot more interesting slang terms to learn about, if you're interested in learning more about Scottish culture. (Ex. Dinnae - meaning don't, coming from "dae" meaning do.)

This is just for if you want to accurately copy the way the characters speak! I've seen a lot of writers disclaim that they might be out of character, as they themselves are not Scottish. You of course don't have to use the right slang for your fanfiction, it's still just as good without it, but some people prefer accuracy.

Hope this was semi-helpful! Please get writing fanfiction, I crave more content. Again, feel free to correct me - I don't mean to upset anybody, this post is mostly just for fun.

I've added some links below if you're interested on reading some more!

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sleepingdeath-light · 6 months

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poly relationship hcs ; ember & wade

requested by ; anonymous (23/09/23)

fandom(s) ; elemental

fandom masterlist(s) ; here

character(s) ; ember lumen, wade ripple

outline ; “OMG YES ELEMENTAL! do you have any hcs for poly ember x reader x wade?”

warning(s) ; none, just fluff!

first things first: this relationship is going to be built on a shockingly strong foundation of fun, mutual support and adoration, and trust — with the three of you acting as each other’s biggest cheerleaders and always showing up to support each other in everything you do

wade is, of course, very emotional but he’s also the biggest supporter of you and ember — cheering you on with everything he’s got and making sure that you both have the means to pursue every hobby and whim and dream because he just loves seeing you both be happy and succeed

every table and shelf of your home together is adorned with ember’s artwork: your fanciest glass crockery was made by her, the stylised vase on your dining room table (filled with flowers gifted by wade’s mother) was her first formal project at the company, you still have her model vivisterium flower as a paperweight in the office, there are dozens of ornate sculptures of the three of you around the house (including a very adorable image of the three of you hugging that ember gifted to you and wade for your fifth anniversary), and so on — and every time a guest asks about them, you and wade are quick to jump in and brag about your girlfriend’s artistic genius (which embarrasses and endears ember in equal measure as she still prefers to take the humble approach to her talent)

you also have a few of wade’s uncle’s watercolours scattered around your walls, especially in the front room, which always leads to a lot of (happy) tears from that side of the family whenever they stop by to visit

as far as your new home outside of element city goes, relationships between multiple elements are still extremely rare to come by and the three of you tend to get a lot of distinct looks when you’re together — which your fiery girlfriend is always happy to rebuke (her temper has cooled a bit over the years, but it’s still definitely there and at its most apparent when someone tries to be rude or cruel to you or wade — she’s just very protective, that’s all)

whenever you and ember share a kiss, wade will cry because it’s just ‘so beautiful’ to see the people he loves loving each other — and, of course, he also gets a bit teary-eyed whenever either of you kiss him (which ember usually gives an endeared chuckle at because she just loves you both so much)

wade and ember are both very affectionate people and both have very different preferences when it comes to cuddling depending on who is involved: if its just you and wade, then he prefers to lay on his back with you resting on top of him so that he can wrap his arms around you and mess about with his watery body in order to make you laugh; wade and ember on their own prefer to spoon, with wade being the ‘big spoon’ most of the time as it’s much comfier for him and carries less of a risk of him being accidentally evaporated by ember when she drifts off to sleep; with you alone, ember quite enjoys cuddling on her side whilst facing you, with you either laying on your back or side whilst facing her, this also tends to be accompanied by hand holding and whispered pillow talk as the two of you chat about your days; the three of you together tend to rotate roles in this same position, with one of you being in the middle laying on your back (usually wade who is naturally a bit of a back sleeper and is the comfiest to lay your heads on) and the other two on either side cuddled up to them (ember has a preference towards the right side of the bed, closest to the window, but she’s really not that picky) — if you were able to, you’d always have wade in the centre, but for the sake of not accidentally evaporating your boyfriend (again) the three of you are forced to alternate positions

ember leaves early for her internship at the glass company, but she always makes sure to kiss you both goodbye — and all of her kisses, no matter how brief, are practically sizzling with passion, intensity, and love (the type that leave you breathless and leaning forwards after her once she pulls away)

wade, meanwhile, tends to lean into kisses that are sweeter, briefer, chaster and that leave you giggling and smiling so widely that your cheeks hurt — practically attacking your face with kisses all over (forehead, temples, eyelids, nose, cheeks, chin, and finally your lips before doing it all over again)

movie nights are your go-to whenever the three of you can’t seem to arrange time to have a proper date as a trio, and you alternate who chooses the film each time — wade is a sucker for romantic comedies (and always manages to find the ones that make you all cry), whilst ember prefers action films (which get all of you riled up and practically yelling at the television by the time the film reaches its climax)

though the three of you don’t always go out on dates as a trio — ember and wade go out to have fun together when you’re busy, you and wade have been known to go out and explore the city when ember is busy, and you and ember always go out to explore the local food places whenever wade is busy (there’s this one fire run place that sells authentic food from fire land that ember loves but its a bit too much for your poor boyfriend to handle so she only really goes with you or her parents when they visit)

if you’re not a fire elemental then ember is happy to teach both you and wade some useful (and fun) phrases in fireish to use amongst yourselves and with her family (which always earns you some bonus points with her father)

#sleepingdeath #fluff #fluff hcs #disney fluff #disney x reader #elemental fluff #elemental x reader #ember lumen fluff #ember lumen x reader #wade ripple fluff #wade ripple x reader #ember x reader x wade

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zarvasace · 1 year

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Another Point in Favor of Vidow

By this point, many of us in the Four Swords manga fandom are aware of the relationship that is (or maybe isn't) implied between Vio and Shadow. I agree that it is up for some debate, but also my opinion is that the relationship is as clear as it can get, operating within the bounds of its context—that is, early-2000s Japan, kids' manga, the bias against gay couples.

This is just another pin on the conspiracy board of red lines!

The moon is present in three main places during the Vio/Shadow arc—very first (and most damning) when the two meet one-on-one, once in a panel showing the Fire Temple that the two are hanging out in, and once behind the two as they ride on the dragon to cause chaos. (Many thanks to @hauntinghyrule for helping me find those!)

There is a common belief in Japan that the author Natsume Souseki once told a student that their translation was wrong. They'd translated "I love you" as "kimi o aisu," and he thought it was far too blunt. He was a product of the Meiji era, and preferred the idea that the Japanese language should be more poetic and subtle. He then proposed the idea that instead of "ware kimi wo aisu," one should say "tsuki ga kirei desu ne" instead, which translates to English more as "the moon is beautiful, isn't it?" (You can read more about that, and why the guy might not have actually said it, here!)

You can see where I'm going with this.

Whether or not Souseki actually said it, the phrase is widely understood to be a sideways way of saying "I love you." The moon has a lot of meanings in Japanese culture and language, and I won't say that this is the interpretation, or if our lovely authors meant this at all, but they might have. They seem fond of hinting at it. ("We feel blessed that the characters' feelings came across so clearly.")

If we can read into the presence of the moon as presence of romantic possibility, what happens then? Well. A lot.

When Shadow first approaches Vio, he's seen hanging out on top of a pine tree with the moon bright and full behind him.

This isn't the actual manga panel, I don't have that right now, but this art was based on that specific scene, and you may recognize it. There are a few other panels this scene that Vidow shippers like to call out—Vio's apparent blush when Shadow casually moves his sword away (a power move regardless of intent that made me fall in love with him), or the way Shadow hangs on Vio when persuading him to turn to the dark side. If we can read the moon's presence as a hint towards romance, then it's pretty clear what's being implied here—there's an element of seduction.

The second place we see the moon is just after Vio and Shadow's heart-to-heart on the balcony, one of the only canon interactions between them during this period without a lot of plot happening. Here's the panel I mean:

Like hauntinghyrule pointed out, if the moon is visible here, it was likely present during that conversation. That feels like reaching, but I think it's pretty significant that we can see the moon in this panel, too. It's here for that bonding moment. It's part of establishing the tone and setting. If the moon is inherently romantic, then so is this scene.

And then the third panel that the moon is seen in is this one, Vio and Shadow flying on a dragon to bring chaos and fire:

If the moon means romance, then this is a date. They've had their moment, they're in love, all is going well.

It might not mean that much. I could be veering into atla-levels of overanalyzation, for sure! However, this feels like something that could definitely be intentional. "月が綺麗ですね" is understood to sort-of kind-of mean "I love you," turning the moon into a symbol of implied love.

And...it's very thematic, even if it isn't intended. Come on. The moon, hinting toward unspoken romance in some of the scenes where Vio and Shadow's dynamic is at its most stable? Dramatic. Amazing.

...You could read even more into it, and say that Vio is Shadow's moon—reflected light of the Hero or the Princess, guiding him to see the good, a desirable light in the darkness that Shadow insists he has to stay in. There's something lovely about that interpretation, too. :)

#four swords #vidow #um. anyway #my friend likes the ship and got a degree in asian studies #which is where i became aware of this #i think its fun #i speak from the coffin #discourse #???#metatextual wankery #i guess

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utilitycaster · 7 months

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I've seen you talk about found family dynamics a few times and how its often abused in fandom and I know Bells Hells in no way fits this trope but I was wondering about your thoughts on Vox Machina and Mighty Nein within the dynamic or if it doesn't fit those groups either.

Hey anon,

So here's the thing: I actually think the bigger issue is that most people make a lot of incorrect assumptions that a found family is automatically functional and healthy and loving and ignore that simply because it is a family born of choice rather than birth. D&D parties are often found families, but they are also often a bunch of deeply traumatized weirdos who met by chance in a tavern, which is not precisely a recipe for the most well-adjusted dynamic. People can make terrible choices of family just as easily as they can be born into a dysfunctional or abusive family.

A lot of people also equate found family with "they need to stay together forever in the equivalent of the avengers' mansion" which is similarly not true. What is a family? It is an (often) lifelong bond; but the people within the family still also have their own lives outside of it, and might live apart while still loving each other very much. They also often forget or try to disparage the idea that characters can belong to a found family while still also having families by marriage or blood outside of it and might need to make compromises to balance the two, even though this is again a very true thing of families in the real world.

The cast of Critical Role generally gets this; the fans don't always. Quoting from episode 1x85 for the second time in like 12 hours but as Keyleth said, "I think Percy's right. We're worse than friends, we're family. And family leaves." I can't entirely define a found family - it is ultimately a vibe, and it is ultimately subjective - but I actually think Vox Machina and the Mighty Nein are both found families.

What's always been very revealing to me is that no one ever really disputes Vox Machina is a family, even though from the end of Campaign 1 until the TCSR was published over four years later, in early 2022, it was assumed that they were all living separately or in couples - Percy and Vex in Whitestone; Keyleth in Zephrah; Scanlan and Pike in Westruun; Tary in Wildemount; and Grog traveling the world but often finding himself in either Vasselheim or Westruun. Indeed, even with the TCSR and the fact that everyone has residences in Whitestone, Keyleth does usually live in Zephrah (though she can easily travel); Vex must spend time away from both the others of Vox Machina and her actual family by marriage and blood given her duties in Emon; and Scanlan splits his time between Whitestone and Ank'Harel. Perhaps it's that there were already familial bonds between the twins and between Pike and Grog, and that only Tary dated outside the party and the people who make this claim often forget him anyway.

People do frequently argue the Mighty Nein are not a family for parting ways at the end, despite this being no different than Vox Machina, and also actually being far more able to reunite quickly than Vox Machina can. I think it's in part because several party members (Veth, Jester, Caduceus) all did still very much value their biological families and a lot of found family people really do not like that, but also...look. Most Campaign 2 hate is a front for either being mad that Molly wasn't resurrected or being mad about one or more of the ships. I've never seen anyone whose only complaint was "I felt like it was a found family but then they parted ways"; it's always thrown in on top of being far more angry about several other things.

For what it's worth: I don't think Bells Hells are quite as bonded, but I do think they're on their way, especially if travel and communication remains messy and they're forced to spend more time on watch and sharing rooms (again: I think Matt's vision for this campaign is, in retrospect, actually pretty great, but it should have probably been communicated a bit better to the cast and more investment have been put in the character development to compensate for the challenges of this unique structure). My issue specific to the fandom response to Bells Hells as a found family isn't that I think they're not going to be a found family; it's that people who insisted they actually had the best and most honest found family dynamic and everyone who disagreed were just being haters suddenly turned on the proverbial dime when a character not in their good graces was the one who actually voiced it.

In summary: I think people in fandom, generally, place a disproportionate weight on found family as like...an end all and be all and forget that much like a family of blood/marriage/adoption, a found family can also take on many different configurations and have various levels of functionality and honestly and healthy behaviors; and in doing so forget to actually say "is this dynamic of closely bonded people fun to watch and interesting? then who cares what the fuck we call it." But I do think it's hard for a D&D party in a longform campaign of very close friends not to take on some familial traits.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag

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lemonhemlock · 7 months

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I think one of the most frustrating things about both the ASOIAF/HOTD fandom is the inability for people to discuss these characters or books without projecting their own personal/modern sensibilities. I've noticed this a lot with TB so targ nation in general, but they fundamentally hate the world building and lore of a feudal medieval monarchy. They hate tradition, they hate religion, they hate the concepts of honor and duty which is why they can't or won't understand Criston's character if their lives depended on it, they hate anything that can be deemed in anyway conservative, religious, traditional lol, they hate the inheritance laws preferring males, they hate that women have to stay chaste before marriage, they hate arranged marriages, they hate the fact that people care so much about bastards and that bastards cannot inherit, etc. I could go on. Yes, from a modern perspective a lot of these things are now deemed obsolete and uncool, but there were very good reasons for these things AT THE TIME. These people just hate the entire lore that this world is based on and instead of good faith engagement with the lore, they just call anyone who uses the world/lore to logically analyze the text a sexist, misogynist, tradcath, conservative, or whatever. It boggles my mind. Why interact with media, and not just interact with it, but have entire social media accounts dedicated to their hyper fixation and borderline parasocial relationship with these characters/books if they fundamentally hate the world and hate seeing their faves lose as a result of the rules in place. I'm begging these people to go read one of the thousands of fantasy books that isn't set in a rigid feudal monarchy.

This is such a spot-on, insightful comment into how a lot of people interact within this fandom. 👏👏👏 This typology of the late stage social justice internet warrior that fundamentally refuses to engage with the historicity of the story's spatio-temporal setting, i.e. a feudal medieval monarchy of European inspiration, that predates centralization and thus absolutism. Even though Westeros is so very obviously decentralized, many fans do not realize this for some reason and pretend it's an absolute monarchy a la Louis XIV.

Many people, like GRRM, who is a prolific science-fiction writer (!), are attracted to this setting regardless, because of the pageantry (look how obsessed he is with creating house sigils and mottos), the romantic flair + the fact that it's literally the setting of fairy-tales, which inspires in the reader a world of magical possibilities. Of course, the world of ASOIAF is an attempt to shore up the 'realism' of this imagological construct, but medieval fantasy is a genre in and of itself, like there are certain flavours of societal layering and organization that are inescapable, like the rigid social structures, the political rule as the purview of the elites, the importance of religion in everyday life etc.

This is not to say that those aspects are in any way aspirational for a modern person or that we should yearn to go back to those times, only that they are merely characteristics that developed hand-in-hand with the technological advancements and the economic progress of the period. If you have a civilisation whose economy is centered on land ownership as the main source of wealth acquisition, its society is going to look a certain way. Certainly, in Westeros there are some craftsmen and merchants, but there seem to only be a handful of towns throughout the entire continent and, off the top of my head, the mention of guilds and the middle classes are few and far between in the books, so there is no concrete way of determining how consolidated the bourgeoisie is. At the same time, this is absolutely just a story and not a 1:1 recreation of those times, so these gaps are completely understandable, as there only is so much worldbuilding one man can do.

Anyway, I often see analysis or commentary being circulated, which are obviously a projection of modern sensibilities, like how there should be no king at all or the Iron Throne is evil or how Westeros should revert to being separate kingdoms because somehow the concept of unifying regions with a common cultural and religious background is automatically bad, always and with no exception. To me these are rather perplexing, but they are so wide-spread that it's not even worth it to try and open up that particular can of worms. Some of these takes don't even make sense if you expand them to their natural implications. Someone has to be the king in a medieval society; it doesn't work like some people envision this - no one chooses to rule and that's that, problem solved? How is society going to be organized then? It's doubtful that the conclusion of the last book will be anarcho-socialism. The Iron Throne consistently cuts kings who are unworthy to sit on it - it's not a symbol that the author intended to be construed as malevolent. Sure, death of the author and all that, but it's not described as mystically quasi-sentient for nothing either. Fragmenting Westeros back into individual kingdoms while maintaining the feudal structure retains the inherent unfairness and inequality of said hierarchy; it's amazing to me how it could be considered progress etc.

To wrap this up, yes, I agree, some people would be much better served if they simply found other fantasy media based on a different time frame. Because it doesn't make sense to become so entrenched in this specific one if you hate the medieval period so much. Again, this is not to say that the Middle Ages cannot be criticised because that's just the way it was back then, they absolutely can, but a lot of criticism shared around is just done in bad faith and with no real desire to understand the historical phenomena at play.

For example, a few days ago, someone commented on one my bastardposts that "just because it was illegal doesn't make it fair", with the implied solution to that conundrum that Rhaenyra should simply be allowed by society to do whatever she pleased. No reflection on why that law/rule was in place to begin with, no consideration of how it would impact the wider community, no proposal as to how one could advance to a society in which all children are considered equal, regardless of their parents' marital status etc. The thought doesn't go beyond "feminism in its modern definition can magically crystallize in any historical period because it is completely divorced from the material conditions of a society".

#ask #anon #anti hotd fandom #bastardposting

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bloomeng · 9 months

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“Genshin character designs are bad.”

You really can’t navigate through the Genshin fandom without hearing this take. It’s stale at this point, but it’s…. also true. Except that’s usually not what people are actually saying. The true question up for debate: Are Genshin character designs ugly?

It irks me because there is validity to the original statement, and yet the conversation immediately moves into the territory of strictly opinion, leaving the true discussion never to be had.

So I’m having it… with myself…. in the form of a long post, because actually I find Genshin an interesting character design case study.

Before I really get into it I must address the elephant in the room; are Genshin’s character designs colorist?

Yes. Moving on.

Okay, okay, I’ll address it a little, Genshin has a problem with colorism. It’s a fiercely debated topic and honestly it’s one of the only real valid discussions I see around Genshin’s designs. That being said, I have nothing new to add to the conversation. If you don’t know why, sorry I’m not qualified to answer that, but you’re in luck because tons of qualified people have explained it across all platforms.

What I am partially equipped to talk about is character design. I’m no expert but I have taken a few formal classes on the subject, so I do have some insight to share. Character design at its core is usually quantified by how much of a character’s personality can be clearly determined from sight alone and how recognizable their silhouette is (though I’m not gonna touch on that today). Now there’s a lot of factors that go into both, but the fundamental thing that contributes to both is something known as shape language.

Shape has meaning. What that meaning is often depends on culture factors that determine your associations, but the Western simplification of shape is that circles are good-natured, rectangles/ squares are reliable, and triangles are energized. (these are my own personal words for them, there are countless ways to go about describing these associations) Shapes are then combined with each other to create more complex associations, and so on and so forth. It’s impossible to create a character without evoking some form of shape language, because art at its core is just shapes. The classic example are the round shapes seen in Mickey Mouse, though often times it’s far more subtle, like how Barbie has soft, round lines in her hair and face, but her hourglass figure is comprised of triangles to tell you she’s sexy, but the soft curves say she’s sweet not sexual— and it quickly gets very complicated. Basically character designs are rarely comprised of one shape alone, and when combined the “vibes” they evoke become complex.

So what does this have to do with Genshin? Genshin has poor shape language. The most obvious example of this are the faces. Genshin has same face syndrome, which I partially contribute to budget constraints with the models seeing as they reuse them over and over. Though it also has a lot to do with Genshin’s need for their characters to be conventionally attractive. Everyone must be beautiful and, as the current trend in anime artstyles dictates, not look a day over 12. The only thing that changes is the eye shape, but even then, it really doesn’t. There’s diversity between the male and female models, but calling it diversity seems generous, because they are practically the same. All the viewer has to go on to differentiate between faces are the expressions (and color but we’ll get there), which are also limited by the models.

The poor quality of the shape language continues into the bodies, seeing as the only thing that really changes is the height, not a lot of room for show casing contrast. (Also body diversity is just a good thing to have for the sake of having body diversity.) Visual contrast is one of the key things good shape language should deliver. It’s within this contrast that the viewer will have the opportunity to compare and thus make these associations. One character design may tell you things based on previous knowledge but it’s like an experiment without a control group.

Then we get to the character’s outfits and hairstyles. While it’s true there is a fair amount of diversity in clothing, the shape language continues to falter. Genshin characters have so much going on constantly in their designs that it seems like that should provide plenty of opportunities to showcase personality. Unfortunately what ultimately happens is that the details compete amongst themselves so much that they overshadow any sort of unified message they might have had about who this character is. Basically there’s too many different shapes. They don’t create a pattern and therefore don’t form any strong associations. You can have a good design with a lot of details but they should communicate a pattern together. A design is not good simply because it has a lot of detail. I will say there are definitely times where the clothing and hair do actually come through to tell me stuff about the character, but overall this over designing tends to be a detriment.

Genshin’s hair while in different styles usually relies on the same type of pointy strands and blunt edges.

(these characters were randomly selected to prove my point that you can quite literally pick any character in genshin and they will have at least one of these two components)

On their own pointy strands might tell us something, but considering every character has them, the pattern within a single character is rendered moot. “If everyone’s super, no one is.” Of course how they choose to wear their hair does speak to the character but its effect is limited when the structure of the hair is fundamentally the same. And then when you consider that the styling of many of these hairstyles doesn’t actually say a whole lot, it becomes obvious that Genshin is more concerned with creating hair that stands out. The problem is that details, asymmetry for example, normally tell us about the character, but considering so many hairstyles utilize asymmetry, it looses its meaning. Overall I will say I think Genshin is more of a 50/50 toss up on whether or not the hair suits the character.

I want to take a moment to point out a couple hair style designs in Genshin I think are really lovely and work very well.

And now I would like to do the same with some outfits.

(honorable mention to Bennett for being over accessorized in a way that actually tells you about his personality (goggles, a scar, bandaids, work gloves, utility belt), to Barbara for somehow mashing the concept of a nun and an idol together, to Klee for her childish whimsy and finally to Scaramoche for the sheer amount of subtle character growth motifs fit into all three of his outfits (the cultural stuff is really cool too))

Genshin I will say does a great job of creating and repeatedly using the elemental imagery as well as Khaneira’ah’s star. I also appreciate that every Archon has that ombre hair shift that glows during their burst. Makes them feel unique.

I think Genshin shines the brightest when they successfully incorporate cultural elements into their designs however, the only nation that does this with any sort of consistency is Inazuma. Inazuma’s aesthetic is so instantly recognizable. No one dresses exactly the same, but there are common through lines in the shoes, the style of the armor, and patterns in the clothes. (The design aesthetic is so strong that even after Scara got a Sumeru makeover he managed to keep elements that were clearly identifiable as Inazuman) Every other nation falls short in this department. I will give credit to the knights as there is some level of consistency in their designs, mostly in the metallic detailing; not quite a uniform but there is some commonality. Liyue does have cultural influence that definitely shows but it suffers from an overall lack of consistency in aesthetic, and doesn’t lean into its Chinese inspiration the same way Inazuma does. Mondstadt on the other hand is just vaguely European, but also half the time not even.

And then there’s Sumeru. I distinctly remember looking at the full Sumeru cast the first time and thinking that none of the them looked like they came from the same place. (It’s almost as if Sumeru is based on a bunch of separate countries that are culturally very different.) Pretty much no character has any real ties to any any real culture, but instead they just sorta grab vague elements. And at its worse just leans into orientalism (Nilou and Dori). I think personality wise the designs do a fairly stable job of saying at least something about their characters (Dehya and Kaveh). The designs do well individually but between the vague references and inconsistencies they falter. (I will say Cyno’s whole design being a reference to Yu-Gi-Oh is both hilarious, charming, and also mildly appropriative.)

On the topic of appropriation I think it’s important to note that Inazuma suffers from this too. While I absolutely love the way a lot of Japanese elements were integrated, outfits like Yae Miko’s shrine maiden garb bring forth this sexualization of cultural dress that I’m not particularly fond of. But then again you can also critique Rosaria’s sexy nun design for the same thing.

I also want to touch on something briefly because it’s important to note, but it’s a separate, much bigger conversation; Genshin, like anime, falls into a trap of catering their style to lolicon and shotacon enjoyers. It’s the reason all the characters look so young, why all the age discourse exists, why they refuse to confirm ages, and why all the children with the toddler model have some weird age work around. I don’t like it. It’s gross.

Another brief mention because it’s its own conversation; the female characters in Genshin are often over sexualized. Their clothes are skin tight, they almost always have weird random cut-outs, their skirts and dresses are designed to show off their breasts and asses, and all of their designs are high fem regardless of their personality. Give a female character baggy pants Genshin I dare you. Dori doesn’t count, she’s a toddler model in just a bra. I don’t have a problem with a female character being hot, but when that’s the only requirement…. it’s tiring. The classic female character design video game debate…. yah.

I think my overarching issue with Genshin’s clothing design is it says nothing about whose these people are. What jobs do they do? What do these accessories say about them personally? Take Yanfei. She’s a lawyer, yet nothing about her outfit speaks to that in the slightest. I remember the first time I sat down and looked at all the playable characters with a friend of mine. I didn’t play at the time and we thought it would be fun to see if I could guess their personalities. As you can imagine I did pretty poorly, and that’s because these designs just don’t suggest a whole lot.

And then we get to color.

Color is probably the most complicated part of art let alone character design. I feel as though we all have some familiarity with the concept of color coding in character design. The classic red/blue character foils. Color often suggests specific traits similar to the way shape language does, except unlike shape language color coding doesn’t always apply. You can’t just assign a character a color and call it coding, the character has to physically have that color on them in some significant manner. For example Naruto is clearly an orange coded character. He appears in the color throughout the series, but I couldn’t classify Eren Yeager as a green coded character even if it suited his personality (which it doesn’t) because it’s a uniform everyone wears. Attack on Titan does not evoke color coding the way Naruto does, so it’s not applicable.

With Genshin color is complicated. Genshin does have an established color pattern for all the elements, but not every character wears the color of their element. Now normally I would say just having a color pattern for the elements wouldn’t be enough to justify character color coding (since it would fall back into the uniform category), but in Genshin their visions connect to their personalities, so therefore the color of the elements is connected to them. For some the color coding is very obvious (Kaeya & Diluc) and for others it’s practically nonexistent (Yun Jin & Heizou). In all honestly I don’t know what to make of this other than Genshin is inconsistent in their elemental color coding but always consistent in their high saturation. Because color is complicated and a weaker area of mine it is equally likely that I’m missing something or that Genshin isn’t coding anything and it’s all pure aesthetics.

Which brings me to my final point; aesthetics. Hoyo as a company cares that you spend money. That is the number one goal at the end of the day. That’s why all their characters are conventionally attractive, why their art style is the way it is, why their shape language suffers, and why their outfits are overly detailed. It’s all about aesthetics. As a brand Genshin cares less about their story and more about how pretty their characters look, because if their characters are pretty then you’ll spend money. It’s not like Hoyo designed characters with bad shape language because they were ignorant. They knew exactly what they were doing when they sculpted every last visually pleasing strand of pointy hair.

Which brings me back to the real question that people were actually arguing over in the first place; are Genshin characters ugly?

I can’t answer that question. I mean they weren’t designed to be ugly, but if they don’t appeal to your taste, then to you they are ugly. But it’s more important to understand that “bad” and “ugly” are not the same. Genshin character designs are bad by professional standards but that doesn’t mean you can’t like them. Genshin designs can be both bad and likable, bad and pretty, bad and cute. Those are two vastly different things. It’s the same way people adore cult classic movies. They’re not good in the eyes of a critic, otherwise they wouldn’t be niche. They’re cult classics because people like them. Personal taste is just that. Personal.

But the most important question of all; do I like the Genshin Impact character designs?

I didn’t use to but I gotta say, they’ve grown on me.

#genshin #genshin impact #long post #it’s an essay #i wrote an essay #character design #tagging the characters i look at specifically #in a positive light #yoimiya #venti #ayaka #zhongli #itto #yun jin #xin yan #tighnari #sorry about any potential typos #i have no beta reader #so it’s just me and my notoriously bad reputation for not spotting mistakes

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