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possamble · 2 months

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do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

#asks #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #marcille donato #manga panel analysis #this is probably riddled with typos sorry #readmore cut bc it got long lmao #i ended up babbling about it bc it's such an important character detail to me #bc like... wow. she's so normal about it. she's literally just chilling.#the only thing that really bothers her is the material reality of it and how people treat her #the stereotypes the stigma etc. etc.#otherwise it just..#literally doesn't factor into her criteria for self-worth at all #the basic truth is that marcille likes herself on a fundamental level #she's not plagued by a deep and festering self-loathing the way a lot of characters in her archetype are #she likes herself and is proud of her successes and accomplishments #its just that shes terrified of failure and can have *episodes* of self-loathing when she fucks up #but who doesn't yknow #i know its a very slight nuance that makes very little difference in how her 'overachiever' problems manifest but its there #the sword of abandonment issues that hangs over her head has nothing to do with her self-worth or self-esteem or meeting her own standards #it has to do with the fear of not living up to *other* people's expectations and not being useful enough to be worth keeping around #she's good enough for herself but she's always so so so scared that she's not good enough for other people #i wont say much about what ryoko kui is saying using this as an allegory for real world racial biases but #dungeon meshi's treatment of marcille's relationship with her being half-elf is so incredibly important to me because it gets it so right.#a trauma about inferiority or being a half-being isn't inherent to the experience of being 'of two worlds' at all #that's something that's unfairly drilled into people by their environment #the *inherent* anguish is the loneliness. the constant longing. the fact that you are always homesick no matter where you are #always just a little bit of an outsider and never fully at home #and dungeon meshi gets that.#edit: cleaned it up a little

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realbeefman · 7 months

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i know chase obviously wins the religious trauma competition but can we please talk about how foreman was not only raised by a deeply religious father, but was most likely raised BAPTIST. no wonder he’s so repressed. the baptist experience is like. you’re in church every sunday listening to a man scream about how love is something that should hurt. you believe in a good, loving god - but to believe, you have to accept that true love is painful. that to be a good person, you must suffer. to love is to endure it, to work mercilessly. you’re not worthy of the love of The Almighty, and you never will be, and that sense of unworthiness is fundamental to having faith. when you sin, you don’t just hurt Him, you hurt everyone around you. you make the world worse because you have dared commit the sin of existence — to be human is to be sinful. to be loved is to feel unworthy and pathetic and hopeless. like YEAH no wonder foreman self isolates and is emotionally closed off. he was taught from BIRTH that he is fundamentally unworthy of love, and that in accepting love, he is also accepting that he truly is worthless.

#also #i really cant stress enough to non-americans that foreman being black would seriously have had an impact on his relationship with religion #christian ideals are baked into the way racial justice is thought about in the blm movement of today #christianity is also by and large more significant to black americans than it is to white americans because of this #because race and religion are really intertwined #and idk its not. the MOST important aspect of foreman’s character or anything #but i think it’s a lot harder to Get him if u don’t have that cultural knowledge which most americans will inherently understand #also disclaimer im not black. never been to a black church so obviously i cant speak to that experience #however i did go to a baptist school growing up and they REALLY emphasized that i should be ashamed of being alive #obviously this is all me theorizing bc foreman could be some other flavor of protestantism #they’re all varying levels of traumatic tbh #if he was episcopal he probably was listening to people speaking tongues in church which just. yeah. that also really fucks u up #house md #eric foreman #house md hc #house md headcanon #dr foreman

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your--isgayrights · 1 year

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hi i'm stalking your orv posts and i saw u say that orv has colorism issues? can you expound on that because when i was reading the novel i think i missed that bit

Ah, so with the novel it's actually not much of a problem, but the thing is that the webtoon adaptation and official art has a tendency to make the protags whiter than paper and the webtoon in particular, when I was posting about this more, had so far like only given villains darker skin tones. This honestly happens all the time in east asian media, but the reason I'm particularly peeved about it with ORV is that I distinctly remembered Yoo Joonghyuk being described as both the most beautiful man in the world and also a man with tan skin and black eyes, which felt really important to me personally bc I grew up Asian American and had to unlearn those things being equated w/ ugliness/plainness by both colorism and racism lmao.

#race #i have had this argument with native koreans/1st gen korean-americans before tbh bc when i say colorism they think i mean its on the level #of American racism and are like oh no we just think dark skin is ugly or oh no we just associate dark skin with poor #THATS THE COLORISM BABE.#the reason its not racism is that is a label historically created by specific opressors and those people #would be equally racist against all asian people. vs colorism which specifically describes the way that skin color #is stigmatized #which is not on the level of racial stratification but is definitely a huge influence.#'white skin is just prettier' is one of the worst trends of EA media to me bc honestly a lot of it fuels stigma against SEA immigrants #in EA countries.#its also like something that has definitely affected people in my life #particularly my mom always told me she was glad i came out with lighter skin than her #which fucked me up as a kid a bit bc it had me trying to judge my looks by the asian vs white features #bc my mom was taught her whole life to hate how she looked and when she came over here that didnt stop #ask #anonymous #personal

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mermaidsirennikita · 8 months

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So I saw your tags about how the Ravenel series is a bit mid, and I don't disagree despite liking some of them a lot? Marrying Winterborne was my first intro to Kleypas, and it fucks real hard, I love it. I have a soft spot for Chasing Cassandra because I enjoyed Tom in previous showings, and I found their dynamic compelling.

But I didn't even finish Ethan's book because I couldn't be arsed, and I bought West's and wished I hadn't I was so incapable of getting into it. Anyway, this is all to say that you're not wrong, and are in fact generally right.

(In positive news tho, re: Marrying Winterborne, never gonna be over the scene where she agrees to fuck him and then after she's in the bath and he's like "I'm changing her agreement" before realizing "Oh shit, I've made this woman panic, fuck shit". Anyway, have a great day.)

"you are not wrong, and are in fact generally right" I sincerely love this lol, it sounds like something I would say to a friend of mine

Marrying Winterborne DOES fuck so hard, and I think that because of this, the series in general gets a strong rep than maybe it should...? Because in terms of popularity, I think Rhys is absolutely up there with some of Lisa's top heroes--people like me who prefer her older books love him, people who prefer the Ravenels adore him (generally). I don't think I've met a Kleypas fan who doesn't love that book, though I'm SURE some don't. And you do really need to read Cold-Hearted Rake for the background of MW (the first time I tried to read MW I did it without CHR and was like "this fuck is this"). I wonder if this is why CHR gets so much flack? Even though, and I will die on this hill, it's PROBABLY better than Devil in Spring and definitely better than Devil's Daughter and Hello Stranger? (I really need to give Chasing Cassandra another fair shot because I remember very little of it; I think the one-two punch of Hello Stranger and Devil's Daughter, two of my least favorite Kleypas books, made me very burned out when I read it.)

Ethan's book was very disappointing to me because I actually was very excited about Garrett as a heroine beforehand. And I do.... wonder if Kleypas changed plans, the way she famously did with Scandal in Spring. Because there's a scene in... MW I think? Where Garrett and Tom have like, an arm wrestling moment, that makes me wonder if the original plan was Garrett/Tom. Again, I need to reread Chasing Cassandra to really experience THAT pairing again--but I do think Garrett/Tom would've been more interesting than Garrett/Ethan.

I mean, HS was also fucked from the jump because it had that really racist "Ethan got his sexual education from an exotic Indian woman" thing, which shocked people into calling Kleypas out, and I think triggered the Great Kleypas Editing Hackjob. Which, by the way--it does speak to how much name and expectation matters, because while what Kleypas wrote into that book is absolutely awful and unacceptable, I feel like it's portrayed as this shameful anomaly when I can think of at least one smaller name (but still notable) author who wrote a historical with a MUCH worse depiction of India around the same time. Which doesn't excuse what Kleypas did, I just dislike the idea that Kleypas was the only one doing that in the 2010s, when that's faaar from true. Historicals still haven't figured that out, and sometimes I think the recaps of how the Hello Stranger issue was handled read very "look Patrick, we saved the city" because the biggest name got dogged into apologizing/editing. Either way, Hello Stranger is mid without that content and it's gross with it, so I usually put it at the bottom of my rankings. Either way, it ain't up to par and I can't judge it fairly in its edited form at this point.

Devil's Daughter is just Not Good. And I will take my lashings from everyone who loves that book, because everyone loves Kleypas soyboy West Ravenel, and I just have to say--do these people like THE BOOK? Do they like PHOEBE? Because everything I see is all about West West West and even if I was into West, which I Am Not, I feel like there has to be more to a book that's being upheld as one of her recent bests than "I love him". Sorry, the plot of DD is boring at best and lame at worst. Phoebe hates West because he was her dead husband's childhood bully, and I do mean childhood? And sorry to Phoebe's dead husband, but he's dead and fictional and I never met him and I don't care. And West is a less interesting Leo Hathaway. He stopped drinking and realized booze was giving him the dad bod, so he's hot now (my kingdom for a dad bod historical hero). And now he's boring because he's not a rake anymore and has responsibilities, but like? He just sounds like a fuckboy before his redemption lmao. Like a bit of a wastrel. Leo Hathaway was out there crying in a public sphere and giving great advice to Kev Merripen like "if you don't get with my sister, one day you're gonna wake up covered in tears and your own come and realize you have nothing but regrets" to which Kev goes ".... is that what.... you do...?" Leo Hathaway readily admitted to waking up on the regular covered in tears and semen. That's a true wreck.

And Leo is in itself the softer Kleypas hero type--other "redemption" heroes are like, Sebastian, who kidnapped his wife's best friend and threatened to rape her! Derek Craven, who was born in a drainpipe and fucked for money for years (not that this is anything to feel bad about, but he does) and owns a degenerate gambling hell lol. John McKenna, who comes to find his childhood sweetheart with the explicit intention of like, filling her belly with his fetid seed and siring a bastard on her so that she'll be humiliated forever I cannot. Why would I be impressed with West going "I was kind of a loser tbh" YOU ARE FINE. THIS IS BORING. GIVE ME ANOTHER THING TO CARE ABOUT.

But yes, I love that scene in MW so much. To me, a lot of MW's charm is that Rhys severely does not know how to talk to women, or romance them in a tender way (him fucking shit up with Helen with the flower situation is hilarious sorry). And he also does get legit douchey with Kathleen, lol. He very much gets a little threatening and is all "SO YOU WANTED A BIT O' ROUGH" and Devon has to do a mild Westcliff moment. Kleypas heroes: always mad when their best friends get sexually aggressive with their women, always ready to forgive after like a week.

#romance novel blogging #anyway if you love the ravenels or any of the books i hate this is not a moral or intellectual judgment of you on the srs #i love so many books people hate #i enjoyed devil in disguise (and i also totally get why people dislike it lol)#i think what frustrates me is that the ravenels is often pinned as the Unproblematic Kleypas Series and like #... no first off that's not true it arguably had some of the most problematic content she's written on a racial level #which i personally find a lot harder to read than derek craven almost strangling a woman who threatened to like #SA and murder his wife #(altho i know there are several bigger implication issues to that whole thing that i think are much more problematic than character actions #but bc people think 'older historicals = bad books bad problematic'#they assume the ravenels is better #and i'm here to say the writing and plot content is a lot less interesting and a lot less daring

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karmaphone · 2 years

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can u imagine if they tried to make atla today. 'yeah here's my pitch about a child who has the weight of the balance of both the physical world and an ethereal spirit world on his shoulders on top of being the last survivor of a literal genocide. yeah he's spiritually enlightened already in a non Christian religion, and reincarnation happens to him and him alone. yeah no the show's major themes are about how war and imperialism are bad for everyone involved, including the world around us. no, there'll still be cool fight scenes but it will also fundamentally explain the difference between defending oneself from an oppressor vs using that power to oppress and how even children can grasp that- where are you going'

#not to mention the backlash I'm sure they would have gotten for the 'feminist agenda' like looking specifically at katara & how the northern #water tribe and even sokka learning to respect women juice I can HEAR the outcry of subverting male power for fake female empowerment #or what fucking ever #don't even get me started on the racial aspect I had to hear about that enough growing up #like 'hey here's my series about No White People whose main messages fly in the face of American culture'#I'm not like 'wau things were better then!!1!' I know it contributed to the normalization of feminist viewpoints and the idea that maybe you #don't actually want to be part of the war machine #im just saying considering the level of fan engagement and social media I can just imagine the backlash they would get for making it today #like? the hama episode????? I DOUBT they could have gotten that passed today #literally the entire episode where they explain zuko's scar I don't think they would have gotten away with such a direct portrayal of #physical child abuse without changing the rating of the whole show #in fact all of the child abuse presented. everything that zhao did to zuko. everything that general did to katara to get aang Triggered #the blind bandit fights I can see passing bc it's like wwe and not real violence but like child kidnapping?? at the direction of the parents #how did this show get approved for 10 year olds is all I'm asking I'm NOT complaining I'm genuinely exuberant it exists im jus stymied lmao

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britneyshakespeare · 2 years

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i truly forgot how bad of a song 7 rings was

#ari stans don't come at me. i dont give a shit.#the level of cultural appropriation hits different when you havent heard the song or watched the video in years #it's like OH MAN. now i remember why we were talking about it nonstop.#it wasn't just the hair line although that got a lot of it. understandably.#the hair line and the tanning were the tip of the iceberg on that one. i forgot.#also the song is just bad and she shouldn't rap. it doesn't suit her talents at all. even if you read it as 'ironic' which #irony 'im actually smarter than this' interpretation doesnt assist her in looking better w the... racial optics #tales from diana #i only checked it out bc i was thinking about how saturn has 7 main groups of rings. like. and i thought to myself 'haha 7 rings'#i think when that song was everywhere i was just numb to how bad it was. i didn't think it could be as bad as it was......#ariana was so unavoidable in early 2019. not like she's completely irrelevant now (far from it) but that era seems long gone #perhaps best for all of us (including her)#and that song is buried underneath the memories of that hole in time in which ariana was filling a rihanna-shaped void in ppl's hearts

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bunnyb34r · 27 days

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Just word spilling here to get this out of my head

I was thinking lately yknow how people always say stuff like "oh I hate rap" or "anything but country" when music tastes get brought up

I have a theory that the reason why is in how/where they're exposed to said genre initially/most frequently

Like people who hate rap, maybe it's that they don't seek it out on their own bc they typically only ever hear it coming from someone's loud speakers (car speakers bass blasted, on the bus, at school) and they then associate the genre with "loud sound 'intruding' on my personal space"

Or maybe they have racist parental figures and THEY always sneered at rap music when they were a kid so they grew into young adults/adults who hate rap bc of the racial bias they were influenced by as a kid

And country maybe the ONLY times they hear it/ the only kind they get exposed to typically is the post 9/11 patriotic shit and that makes them uncomfortable/they dont like that shit (understandable) so they think aaalll country is that kind

I mean it all boils down to them needing to examine their racial bias that underlines their hate (since rap is a predominantly black genre and country was started by black singers) AND explore the genres to find something they do like and find what they appreciate in the genre based on that

I think this also applies to other commonly "hated" genres (but for the majority it IS mostly an underlying racial bias)

Anyway idk I'm just throwing this into the void so my brain shuts up

#marquilla #i think another one is people who say they hate gospel bc their grandma dragged them to church as a kid so they hate that association and #just shut it out without examining the genre on a secular level and examining their underlying racial bias #this has been on my mind since that post ab why people say they hate certain genres and 'shockingly' (not) like all of them have black #roots/are apart of black culture and how people would rather just shut down and ignore whole genres bc they 'dont like them' without #once considering hey maybe mr #me hating all these genres IS racially motivated... maybe i should examine my biases and seek out subgenres of those genres to finc #something i do like instead of blankly writing it off as a whole #like it made me wonder if it was also related to how they were exposed to the genre like okay why do you like rock music? why do you like #indie music? where did you first hear it?#like i like pop bc i have fond memories of listening to it with my friends and family at a young age #similarly i didnt like most country growing up bc thats all my aunt would let us listen to in her car but once i #started choosing what subgenres and artists to listen to pf it i changed my mind

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utilitycaster · 5 months

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How would the wizards win, they are knocked out easily and fragile as fuck???

Hi anon,

In the interest of verisimilitude I am running this combat play by play. Assumptions include:

Equipment is that of their last appearance (Echoes of the Solstice for the PCs but before Caleb gives his stone to Luc, and 2x141 for Essek) with the notable exception that no one has any potions

All magical items with charges are fully charged

The wizards have all necessary components for their spells

Caleb’s philosopher’s stone is on him and is set to constitution save proficiency, which is how Caleb usually has it set.

Caleb will not access spells that we have not seen him use previously

Essek gets the high level dunamancy spells though bc we left with him not accessing 9th levels and it seems reasonable he’d have these learned.

Characters are all level 20

The poll this is based on does not explicitly say to the death, so I am counting “at least one of the wizards survives and put Yasha somewhere she is not going to bother them” as a win condition for them.

For the purposes of this exercise I am going to make Essek a chronurgist but swap out the level 2 abilities (Chronal Shift and Temporal Awareness) for Adjust Density since we know he has the latter but “time is his speciality” as I don’t have his actual stat block.

Essek’s CON, WIS, CHA, and STR are unknown as are his HP. I have rolled for them, added his CHA bonus as a drow, and taken an ASI to one other stat. I have also just used the wizard default of 4 HP per level + con bonuses. I rolled (4d6 drop lowest): 16, 8, 14, and 11, which seems like a reasonable spread. I’m giving him 16 CHA (14+2 racial bonus), 16 CON, 8 STR, and 13 (11+2) WIS, which seems reasonable to me. His HP is therefore 6+4*19+3*20=142.

They all start at the corners of a square with sides 30 feet, as there is no 2D configuration of four equidistant points. Same teams are at diagonals from each other (ie, going clockwise, it goes Beau, Caleb, Yasha, Essek.)

In order to stave off any whining: if both wizards roll higher on the dice for initiative than both sentinel babes I will reroll. After that the dice shall tell their story.

Caleb is not allowed to cast Wish to simply win the fight even though that is the obvious answer and not prohibited per the rules of the poll because while that proves my point, actually running through the combat and demonstrating the general case of “wizards beat melee at L20 as a rule” is more fun for me.

Final and most important rule: I am a human person running through combat for four people. Will this be perfectly optimal in every way? No. If there is something egregiously wrong then mention it but if you simply had a different strategy then well, write it out yourself.

Combat below the jump:

Initiative: Caleb rolled 7 (modified to 9), Essek rolled 16 (modified to 19), Yasha rolled 15 (modified to 18), Beau rolled 3 on the d20 and 6 on the d8 from her boots of the vigilant (total of 14).

Round 1

Essek casts Hold Person on Yasha since he cannot cast it on both at once as they are 42.4 feet from each other. She fails with a natural 1. [L2 spell used - Essek]

Yasha rolls again at the end of her turn, and gets a 12, failing.

Beau runs to Essek and attacks him twice, using a ki point to stunning strike him on her first hit and attempting for all hits after until it succeeds. She rolls an 11 and a 14 to hit on the dice, which will hit. Essek rolls a natural 18 on his first con save, succeeding, but a 9 on his second, which fails, dropping his hold on Yasha. Beau just takes flurry of blows for her bonus action, with advantage, rolling a 17 and a 12 respectively at advantage. Total damage to Essek is 14+11+7+7=39 damage. (2 ki used) She can also extract aspects; he is a normal guy.

Caleb shapechanges into an ancient white dragon. He picks up Essek in a talon (object interaction) and flies 35 feet into the air.[L9 spell used - Caleb; concentration]

Round 2

Essek is stunned

Yasha summons her wings. She makes her Frightful Presence save with a natural 18 and flies almost into melee with Dragon!Caleb but that is her action. She rages as a bonus action.

Beau has no abilities nor items that extend more than 30 feet away. She may as well use Empty Body to become invisible and resistant to all damage though! (6 ki used total, 4 this round). She makes her frightful presence save with a 15 on the dice. Essek is no longer stunned.

Dragon!Caleb can get both Yasha and Beau in a cone of cold, DC 22. Yasha saves with a 17 on the dice and total of 27, Beau rolls a 3 and uses a ki point to reroll, getting a 9+10 which fails. This is a con save, so no evasion. I rolled extremely well (thanks google dice roller thing) and Beau takes 96 cold damage, halved to 48 from Empty Body. Yasha takes 48 cold damage as well, halved due to her saving throw. Caleb rolls a 6 on the d6; this ability recharges. He then flies 80 feet away from Yasha.

Round 3

Essek casts Ravenous Void 30 feet behind Yasha such that he and Caleb are outside of the spell’s 100 foot range. Beau is however also in range, though neither she nor Yasha are within range of the sphere, merely the 100 foot event horizon. [L9 spell used, Essek; concentration].

Yasha must make a strength save, which she makes with a 14 on the die, against Essek’s DC of 20. She moves 25 feet towards Caleb and Essek as she is in difficult terrain (yes, even in the air.) She uses her battle cry ability as a bonus action, granting Beau advantage on attacks and saves.

Beau makes a strength save as well, and makes it with a natural 18. She can activate her maelstrom gloves at this point I suppose, as her action. She also runs from the sphere, along the ground, at half speed (35 feet); she will use step of the wind to dash as a bonus action (70 feet). She is still within the range of the spell this turn.

Caleb can hit Yasha with the cold damage again. She makes her save with a 15 on the dice. I rolled much more poorly this time; she takes 32 damage. His breath weapon does NOT recharge this round as I rolled a 4.

At the end of round 3: Caleb has 333 HP as a dragon and has used one 9th level spell on which he is concentrating. Essek has 103 HP as himself and has used one 2nd level spell and one 9th level spell, the latter on which he is concentrating. Beau has 144 HP and is invisible; she has used 8 of her 20 ki points. Yasha has 148 HP and is currently raging.

Round 4

Essek casts lightning bolt on Yasha at 5th level. She fails her dex save (16+3 = 19, his DC is 20), taking 10d6 lightning damage, or 26 points per my roll. (Yasha is at 122 HP).

Yasha makes a strength save at advantage against Ravenous Void, just making it with a 10, but Essek uses Convergent future to make her fail. Yasha is pulled into the Ravenous Void; Essek takes one level of exhaustion. Yasha takes 5d10 force damage (another 26 points) and is restrained. (Yasha is at 94 HP).

Beau rolls a 15, succeeding with a 21. She successfully runs out of the range of ravening void and stays there. HOWEVER she is now within Dragon!Caleb’s blindsight radius.

Caleb gets directly above Beau and attacks her with his multiattack. He rolls a 9, 17, and 15 on the dice and gets +14 on all three attacks, dealing 2d10+8, 2d8, 2d8+8, and 2d6+8 damage total, all of which will be halved. That added up was a 72 total, halved to 36 for Beau who is now at 108 HP. He rolls a 5 on the d6, recharging his breath weapon. All attacks are made at minimum 10 foot reach, putting him outside the range of Sentinel; he returns to 40 feet above Beau.

Round 5

Yasha is out of range, so, upon realizing what’s going on, Essek casts See Invisibility on himself and can now see Beau, but that is his action.

Yasha takes another 34 damage from the Ravenous Void and makes a strength save at advantage; she makes it and is no longer restrained. She can get 15 feet out of the sphere. (Yasha is at 60 HP)

Beau can I guess run 70 feet away from the wizards.

Caleb uses his breath weapon again on Beau. She rolls a 5 on the dice, which is a failure on the con save. She takes 39 (79 halved) damage. Beau is now at 69 HP (nice). The breath weapon does not recharge this round.

Round 6

Essek casts Gravity Sinkhole where Beau is. She rolls a 4 on the dice and fails her Con save, taking the full 5d10 force damage (27) which isn’t halved by Empty Body. Beau is now at 42 HP.

Yasha succeeds on her saving throw and is now 40 feet out of the sphere, 50 from the center. She needs to make her next two rounds of saves to get out of the range of the spell, but takes no damage this round. She heals herself up 20 points, to 80, as her action.

Beau runs another 70 feet away.

Caleb goes after Beau, who I assume is running at a tangent to the radius of Ravenous Void, and dashes, catching up but is not able to attack.

Round 7

Essek uses momentary stasis on Beau. She rolls a 9 on her Con save, failing with a total of 19; she is incapacitated and has a speed of zero.

Yasha rolls a 3 and a 4 on her next saving throw, failing her strength save, and is pulled back into the center of the sphere, taking 5d10 (33) damage. Yasha is at 47 HP.

Beau is incapacitated.

Caleb makes his multiattack, dealing 57 total, halved to 28. Beau is now at 14 HP. Caleb’s breath weapon does not return.

Round 8

Essek casts gravity sinkhole again at Beau. She rolls a 19, making her con save, but still takes 5d10 halved. I rolled a 28, halved to 14, precisely knocking her unconscious.

Yasha takes 25 force damage from the center of the sphere and makes her save, moving out from the center of the sphere. Yasha is at 22 HP.

Beau rolls a 2 on her first death save. This however does not matter, because...

Caleb lands and attacks Beau, taking her death saves and killing her. His breath weapon does not return.

Round 9

Essek hangs out in Caleb’s talons, chilling.

Yasha makes her strength save and moves out from the center of the sphere. She is again 50 feet from the center.

Caleb flies to the edge of the radius of Essek’s spell and lands.

Round 10

Essek gets out of Caleb’s talons and stands but is otherwise still chilling.

Yasha makes her strength save and dashes, reaching the wizards but is not able to attack them. She is no longer raging, having taken no damage nor attacked in a round, so she rages again.

Caleb drops Shapechange and casts Disintegrate. Yasha rolls an 11, for a dex save of 14, failing. She is reduced to 0 HP by Disintegrate, which turns her into dust and kills her because she is still dust even though she is raging.

Conclusion: I did to be fair roll like absolute shit for Beau but it was ultimately a game of dragon-and-monk anyway; once they're in the air and she's not and Yasha's unable to come to her aid, she's fucked. The second Beau fails to stunning strike one of the wizards, and Caleb gets a +9 assuming he has all his favorite magic rocks around him against Beau's 18 DC, so this is not out of the question, they can and will either turn into a dragon with a +14 to con saves and also who can fly, or cast "gravity hates you personally" at 9th level.

I would also note that Yasha's 101 damage in one hit in Echoes of the Solstice relies on several buffs from - you guessed it - magic users, as well as a crit. (fun fact! I rolled zero nat 20s during this, which is kind of weird although also I was mostly only rolling saves). Neither she nor Beau can one-shot one of the wizards on their own - even if they're teaming up only on one of them it's going to take 2-3 rounds, and meanwhile the other has, again, cast "fuck you" at 9th level in the meantime.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #cr tag

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ftmtftm · 4 months

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a friend of mine once said "whenever male privilege is brought up about trans men it's always about two points: being paid more and having our ideas listened to, bc those are the easiest things they can create an elaborate what-if scenario around and they can't make an argument for anything else". failproof, glad to see it holds strong

Your friend was so incredibly right and it's really funny because those are also the two most surface level social aspects of Male Privilege as a concept and it makes sense why those specific two come up.

This isn't a fully formed thought, so bear with me for a moment but, it makes sense total sense that trans people who - as a class - are usually economically disadvantaged and left unlistened to, see a demographic (trans men) transition towards a social role that they have been taught from birth is economically safe and provides a platform and they just assume that the economic security and platform must be granted by virtue of identifying with that role.

That isn't the case though because oppressive systems don't give a shit about your personal identity, they care about the labels they place onto you and those labels often misalign with your actual character and identity.

It's people explicitly buying into and believing that the patriarchal ideal of manhood is actually attainable for marginalized men when it's not. It's a cotton ceiling. It's literally radfem "gender and sex is universal and economic status, race, sexuality, and any other marginalizations don't matter because we're talking about gender" type politics that completely fall apart even farther because we are explicitly talking about a marginalized gender minority when we talk about trans men.

Like - there's a lot of reasons why those arguments don't hold up but even just on a base level it misunderands Male Privilege as like... A boon, rather than the horrific workings of centuries of Colonialist, White Supremacist gender hierarchies in practice.

If Male Privilege is treated as though it was a trait inherently afforded to men inherently by virtue of their personal identity, without acknowledging the fact that Patriarchy is a gendered tool of subjugation empowered by White Supremacy - people don't have to confront the racialized, colonialist nature of the gender binary. They don't have to confront the reality that Black Feminists have been arguing in favor of for decades that the liberation of women, especially marginalized women, cannot come without the liberation of the men in their communities because gendered liberation is racial liberation is disability liberation is economic liberation etc. etc. etc.

If it can be asserted that trans men have systemic male privilege then uncomfortable realities about the nature of the system itself don't actually have to be confronted and that's convenient for a lot of people who aren't actually genuinely interested in liberation and are only working in their own self interest.

#asks #anon #i know i said i would probably be done with this but i'm having so many thoughts and need an outlet for them 💀#i've said it before and i'll say it again but i should just write a book at this point #male privilege #transandrophobia #ftm #intersectional feminism #intersectional theory #feminist theory

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communistkenobi · 1 month

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in that post abt the gender unicorn graphic, in the comments the idea of the “split attraction model” is brought up and you say you dont want to litigate that. however, im really curious what your opinion is bc i have some ideas abt it too. i feel like its sort of an incomplete analysis? like, people feel different ways about others and that cant really be flattened into like two modes of attraction. but i personally would call myself aromantic and bisexual so obviously i have some level of investment of the idea. anyways i just ask because in general i find your analysis and opinions compelling

thank you! re: this graphic

My issue with splitting “physical attraction” and “emotional attraction” is that it does the same naturalising trick that the chromosomes-as-the-symbol-of-sex does - by splitting the emotional from the physical, this implies that physical attraction is natural, without emotion, and by the same token that emotion can exist completely detached from the physical body of the person you emotionally desire. Like I just don’t think this is true! For example, the idea of “casual sex,” ie sex that is devoid of emotion/emotional investment, is a social construction, it is a sexual act that is being contrasted against societal norms of “serious sex” or “invested sex” or whatever you want to call it - sex that is being done in the context of a monogamous, married relationship, or an otherwise exclusive long-term one. the base social unit of much of western society is the nuclear family, and the nuclear family is “ideally” produced by monogamous, cis-heterosexual, racially homogeneous reproductive sex. That is the norm by which all other sexual behaviour and activity is judged by.

and to be clear I’m not using “emotional” in an idealistic or moral sense, I am not using it as a shorthand for romantic feelings, I am purposefully using the language the graphic is using - I mean any emotion. Like just to be super clear, I’m not suggesting that people who have casual sex all secretly love the people they fuck, or that sex has to always be a serious emotional endeavour, or that people who do not feel sexual attraction to the people they have romantic feelings for are secretly lying, but that I don’t think sex is something that can be devoid of emotionality entirely. Like I think we are engaging in this Cartesian body/mind dualism where the physical acts we perform are somehow wholly separate from our emotional states. Pleasure has an emotional component to it, I don’t know how to articulate my experiences with pleasure that do not involve some level of emotionality, and emotionality has a physical character to it. Like in fact I think this graphic is treating emotions as ideal states - it reminds me of like old misogynistic psychological theory that described rationality as an absence of emotion, that to engage in rationality is to move away from emotion. It treats rationality as “out there,” objective, natural, detached from social influence, and emotion as “in here,” in our hearts, ruled by the social. And this distinction is made on the idea that the social world is detached from the physical world, which is pure idealism.

this is not a dismissal or denial of anyone who feels a disconnect between their sexual and romantic desires, such as asexual or aromantic people - while I am neither of those things, I have experienced intense physical desire for the person I’m fucking while actively dissociating during sex as a result of dysphoria/heteronormativity/etc etc. by the same token I have also felt emotionally compelled to be physically attracted to someone without actually feeling physical desire. These are both emotional states that were in conflict with my physical desires, or rather my physical desires as I understood them at the time. our ability to interpret and understand our desires is itself social! otherwise heteronormativity wouldn’t be a thing. We don’t have unmediated, unemotional access to physical desire, which I think this graphic is arguing, intentionally or not.

so having complicated, contradictory, disconnected, or otherwise ‘non-normative’ relationships to our emotional states vis a vis physical desire is obviously very real, and the reason they are real is because physical desire is also socially mediated and constructed. What and who we find attractive, why types of bodies, physical and character traits, etc are attractive to us are all part of (joker voice) society.

now, idk how you easily communicate this in graphic format. perhaps these things are unsuited to the medium of easily digestible graphics, or perhaps I’m limited in my imagination. either way I don’t think bifurcating emotional-desire-as-social and physical-desire-as-natural is particularly helpful

#asks #disabling reblogs because um. well you know what tumblr is like #this is not ‘ace discourse’ or whatever the fuck I’m not doing that shit and if you start on here I’m gonna block you #even old new york was once new amsterdam

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blueiight · 3 months

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can i ask your thoughts on the fandom’s heavy focus on louis as an object of desire? it sometimes feels to me like people are more interested in other characters reacting to louis than they are in louis himself. i know the “helen of troy” stuff is a joke but it genuinely seems like he’s often rendered oddly passive in his desirability, like we’re looking at him through the eyes of the other characters even though it’s his story (to be clear: in the fandom, not the actual show). or am i being uncharitable? either way, you always have interesting things to say about fandom reception.

i think the focus of louis as an object of desire arose largely in response to a lot of racially-charged nonsense about show louis, namely, where a loud minority of fans tried to deny the abuse and horror of season 1 and frame louis as the primary antagonist/abuser of his own story. which in of itself had the potential to go somewhere, especially considering the feminized role louis occupies in parts of season 1. unfortunately its spiraled off into its own dead end at this point to where now people, a year and a half removed from the release of s1, can box louis's character arc into this tale of getting all the hot boys to look her way. when this is a horror and tragedy series. romance is part of that, but is a piece of the full picture. classic romance is very much horror tbh but thats just me

if we're discussing the show strictly, majority of louis's relationships are antagonistic. even with his lovers, they love him as much as they seek to control him. 'his love is a small box that he keeps you in', trailer louis saying 'i knew who i was without those pieces [of myself?]' . so on and so forth. the first three episodes of season 1 are about louis's struggle to maintain a link with his mortal community, in the midst of increasing racist tensions against the city leaders, all as he struggles to come to terms with his existence as a vampire and how his relationship to lestat fits in relation to all these pieces of himself. doubly so, there is also the nature of the second interview in present time, and the sort of antagonism between daniel + louis as louis eventually pushes daniel into burning the old tape. the latter half of season 1, episodes 4-7 is squarely about the triad of lestat, louis, and claudia, how lestat increasingly tightens his hold over them both, claudia breaking them free of it, and louis's response to such. doubly so, daniel becomes more hostile the less he knows, and the more louis's composed 'master of his instincts' personage collapses to show the broken man thats underneath. armand comes in at the end bc the interview has reached a breaking point once more [as it did in the 1970s]. i know, im looking too hard into the meme, but so much of where louis errs, where his memory falters, where history is completely revised, has to do with the question of claudia. even book interview foundationally was about this grief, though not nearly with the level of depth+ gravity the show has added to the story.

where focusing on louis as an 'object of desire' most impedes analysis has to do with claudia as well, bc if u see louis as that solely, then what is claudia to u if not a 'child interfering in [louis's] romantic affairs'? why are people already seeking to write claudia off as a wayward child unduly 'taking out her anger on louis', when it was louis at the end of season 1 who strangled her against the wall and refused to let her burn lestat? when its louis in the trailer thats throwing claudia's words from season 1 back at her, evading her questions in the cafe? when claudia is having to dress as a baby doll and advertise with a sandwich board for a theater + a coven-master that all want her dead?

i think this is by nature of the fact that iwtv is canonly gay and isnt afraid of showing that, and modern fandom is mainly interested in romance. claudia's relationship to louis is secondary, if not tertiary, to all 'camps' of this tiny tiny fandom bc she is clearly established in s1 as not being a viable romantic option for louis, despite claudia's perspective and her story taking up the second half of the first season, and will continue to be important in the second season. the 'helen of troy' fixation on his desirability in relation to romantically viable vampires [or even men] seems to be another means by which fans can ignore this part of the story, just as the mutual abuse nonsense about louis being clarence thomas the third self hating black man who stole lestat's lunchables and is 'just as bad as the rest' drowned out and continues to drown out any other conversation for the past year and a half. it is very difficult to have conversations on this character precisely bc of this state of fandom, where many people seek to crack the whip over a fictional character for not being mother teresa and having a complex response to trauma, then instead of discussing that, some seek to fixate on the fact that mother teresa can be sexy, actually. when thats not the point. why is modern louis so full of grief and all but suicidal in dubai, if not for the fact that claudia is permanently dead, he still lives, he regrets something, and wants to find the truth under it all? the jokes are cute and all, but lets put our thinking caps on.

#yn.#yn answers #is this even worth being in the main tags?#idk.

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spacelazarwolf · 11 months

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It’s really not okay to appropriate transfem language if you’re not transfem. There’s plenty of modern language you can use, you don’t have to steal terms that aren’t yours

see this tells me you know nothing abt the term femminiello bc it’s not “transfem language.” it’s a word used to describe a third gender role in neapolitan culture, a culture i have direct familial ties to. it does not fall directly under the umbrella of trans, though there is definitely overlap. it can be used to describe feminine gay men, trans women and trans feminine people, or nonbinary and/or gnc people. and wouldn’t ya know it, i’m the first and third things! and like i said, ppl who were afab don’t have a lot of historical language available to us, so if we find a term that describes our experience well and the only thing off is our birth assignment, then who the fuck cares??

and like. this is why i have complex feelings about terms like femminiello or the 6 sexes in the talmud becoming more common knowledge, bc people who don’t actually understand the cultural context of them, usually racially and culturally white people, are now starting to police the people from these cultures who use them in the actual cultural context, bc of their own eurocentric surface level understanding of them.

so yeah perhaps if you don’t actually understand the history and culture behind a term, you shouldn’t be chiding those who do.

#ask avishai

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creatingblackcharacters · 1 month

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So I have a question. I'm mixed and trans masc, and I'm working on a character who is black, intersex and nonbinary. I haven't got any issues in writing a nonbinary or mixed character bc of my own experiences, but I'm a little worried that my only intersex character being black might play into some negative stereotypes about black people's genders, e.g. some people have this racist belief about black women being more masculine than others, and I want to avoid that. My character can look femme or masc depending on how they feel, but I'm not sure how to go about mixing gendered features (like facial hair, for example) without unintentionally playing into those racist ideas. I have another black character I'm also working on, and some supporting black characters too, but it's kind of just in the back of my mind whenever I work on this particular character. Do you have any advice?

Well first, I appreciate your trust in asking me about this, as I am not trans nor intersex so i don't want to give the implication that I'm heavily well read or super knowledgeable on that front. That being said, I do understand your concerns.

Lmao I'm working on part one of my lesson that will address the particular worry you're having, bc I've had this sort of question a few times. But the reality is that people like this exist! There are Black trans and nonbinary people who have those features! So the issue isnt avoiding the depiction- you're not wrong in writing your particular character that way, it's who they are and thats okay. Just write.

I think your best bet would be further understanding as to WHY gender is so racialized, to recognize when you're toeing over the line, rather than wondering "is this particular thing a stereotype". Knowing why will help you notice when you're about to write something that comes from a place of bias. Do research or follow blogs that discuss that specific intersectional identity, and see what they themselves have to say are their struggles and solutions.

And understand that you can write an amazingly feminine Black woman. You can write the greatest, most depth filled, deeply motivated Black, intersex, nonbinary character ever, and some readers are STILL gonna be racist about them. They're gonna project those stereotypes and gender expectations onto them bc that's the world we live in; you or your characters don't have to "do anything wrong" to experience it.

If it were me writing, I'd include the sorts of things that that character has experienced in their internal monologue or character motivations. Obv not "I'm the vampire Lestat with blonde hair" level self explanation lmao, but If they're used to people acting a certain way about the way they dress and identify, they move accordingly. That's me, though.

#creatingblackcharacters

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mamawasatesttube · 7 months

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tumblr (dot) com/ dcconfessions/ 728850200658100224/honestly-i-feel-like-the-headcanon-that-tim-drake

can't send this as a proper link but this reminded me of the discussion on your blog a few days ago re: asian tim hcs. don't mean to reopen discourse!! just thought you might like seeing it

oh for sure!! fandoms looove to infantilize east asian men :')

which is NOT to say asian tim hcs are inherently bad or anything tho, i have to slap this disclaimer here bc i AM an asian tim enjoyer. (my fav hc is actually quarter chinese tim whose mom was half but never taught him much of anything abt what of her culture she learned from her chinese parent bc she wanted him to assimilate better than she was able to. adds flavor to his relationship with janet and also to his need to be jack's classic all-american son. and also fodder to tim's general self-invalidation and identity issues. love to give this guy identity issues <3)

but yeah no the way fandom often interacts with a lot of race headcanons is to just slap some surface-level racial stereotypes down and be like "yaaay i got the diversity brownie points!" which can be exhausting to say the least. it's nice to see it acknowledged and talked about though!!

#answers #just-about-nothing #tim

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makwandis · 9 months

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Mmmmm my take on drawing/portraying America or Canada as racialized people is that well its all in good fun but like if you poke a little deeper at . That idea. It can be quite sinister. Like to speak from my own Lane™️ the idea of some ...native person representing Canada or America it's just like... talk about a fuckin apple. Lol. I understand why people do it especially other poc and especially other natives but like at the same time it does seem to me that it'd just be coming from a place that shows ya don't know much abt what's going on in the front lines and how many of our people reject that Canadian and American identity outright and have very little to do w it. I know people who's kids were born in land occupied by Canada who refuse to register them with birth certificates and stuff because they're so against being Canadian. I know a lot of people myself included who take offense to that word Canadian we aren't none of that we been around much longer than even the countries the people who created Canada come from.

I think a native Canada (n I speak on that bc that's more my experience than with usa but ik it's similar lol) would be a level of fuckin...white washing appleness that would just be bizarre. . Like how would this native Canada person just not go "Hey Mr prime minister go fuck yourself". How would this native Canada person call themselves that when Canada barely exists and couldn't exist without treaty. Like. It is weeeeeird. I get we want representation but how about scrap America scrap Canada they are lame anyways and just make amazing ocs.... or you can change the whole story snd that Matthew Williams fella could be native still and maybe the Canadians think he's Canada but he knows he isn't and is doing stuff to like....fuck over the country. Idk man.

Have fun but also don't tell me it's something well thought out bc I don't think it really is most of the time... I like seeing some good fan art but I rlly dl think a native so called "canada" or "america" would need one hell of a backstory for it to make...sense and not just be some weird shit ya know.

But yeah hetalia is white af the source material is all about these dumb white boys. I think we should just step away from it and make ocs ngl.

Don't take this harshly tho.... i don't mean to hate on anyone especially other natives end of the day I get it it's a comfort thing fuck it we aren't actually harming our people . Maybe we are letting non natives think the wrong stuff but they do that anyways lol . But the conversation is interesting

#hetalia discourse #that is my two cents #id like to talk to other natives abt it tho bc i do have more thoughts but like i dont think non native audience would get it at all haha

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