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#i still can't believe they interacted in canon
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I am now at least far enough away from the incident that I can give some more articulately expressed opinions about Kriemhild and that part of Traum, and also my general bugbears when it comes to Higashide. To really elaborate on them, I want to make a point of comparison to show this isn't just like, bias getting in the way, and that's Caster.
Well Medea. Obviously.
Caster has a really big advantage going for her over characters such as Semiramis and Kriemhild. She has two gigantic and well-written visual novels backing her up. While the first thing you probably think of when it comes to Caster is her relationship to Kuzuki, you can probably think of a bunch of different things that you know Caster for. Caster's relationship to Kuzuki is a big part of her character, but it is not the only part of her character, and most importantly, it adds to her character. It is in and of itself a jumping off point for discussing her relationship with Jason, how that has affected her, and what Caster is looking at her future for.
Bu it's not her entire character. She still has a very complex relationship with Saber, and Hollow Ataraxia's character interactions with her and the rest of the cast are all interesting, not to mention her own interactions with Kojirou either. She exists as a character beyond that, and that is also very likely why Kuzuki is just not a factor in F/GO at all. She is a strongly written character that is recognizable without him.
When it comes to Semiramis and Amakusa, Apocrypha itself is written fine although I don't really believe in the two of them having real chemistry with each other, especially as time has gone on and more of Semiramis backstory has come out, Amakusa feels very written in but without the proper framing to me to make it work. But as time has gone up, unlike with Caster, Semiramis has had her entire character swallowed up by this relationship, even though canonically she shouldn't really remember it. This is obviously to some extent fanservice, but this is a problem, because it means that Semiramis stops existing as her own character. There are entire interludes about her history that are boiled down at the end to just being about Amakusa. If you want to know Semiramis like you would Caster, you can't.
A good relationship adds to the character, it does not BECOME the character. This is especially weird because Amakusa has had a lot of interesting screen time and character writing without Semiramis being present. It starts to feel like there's only really one important character in the mix. There's Amakusa, and Amakusa's girlfriend. That's weird.
Kriemhild is that on turbo, but the issues with her writing go even further. At least with Semiramis, while her relationship with Amakusa is strange, it's not necessarily contradictory. It's definitely odd, but not out of question. Kriemhild, especially for those who have summoned her and didn't go through Traum quickly, is in a contradictory boat. She clearly in her dialogues does not like Siegfried, even if she still loves him, and it's also clear he is directly responsible for a ton of hurt that she felt. This is consistent of what we know of Siegfried, it makes sense that he would do these things, we've already seen him do it in Apocrypha. Here, we are being asked to confront the human cost of that. In Apocrypha, he's not screwing over anyone we care about. But here, he's directly hurting people, and by extension, leading to their death.
Siegfried's actions are not portrayed particularly nobly, they're considered mistakes, at least in part chiefly by Siegfried who wants to live a life doing the right thing now. So it makes sense that Kriemhild would be extremely bitter and angry at him. He...abandoned her, and didn't even explain himself. That's extremely fucked up.
For almost the entire chapter in Traum, we're not given any indication that there is going be a flip-flop in character motivations. Kriemhild is portrayed, consistently, as being antagonistic to Siegfried. She wants her revenge on him, she calls him leftovers, she talks about destroying the world he keeps trying to save. Zhang Jue hides away Siegfried not because he believes that Kriemhild will turn on the realm for him, but because, as a Berserker, Kriemhild is likely to become extremely unstable upon seeing him.
Even later on, when Siegfried approaches Ritsuka and asks for a favor, the most likely conclusion to come to, knowing Siegfried, is that he wants to fulfill his wife's revenge. That makes sense from a character perspective. Siegfried's actions have consistently trended towards those that self-sacrifice to protect others.
The problem when it comes to Kriemhild is that it is both contradictory to what we've been communicated with in the story, and that the end result is that it destroys her character. It is both bad, and quite frankly, very cheap. It's a cheap use of the love conquers all trope. In the span of one to two sentences, Kriemhild implicitly forgives him for everyone that he's done, reverts to a lovey-dovey wife, and even reneges on everything that to this build are the foundation of her existence as a Servant.
It turns Kriemhild into nothing, into what is insanely flat, because all of her depth has been removed. What is left is a character that is entirely one-dimensional. Nothing exists for Kriemhild past her love of Siegfried anymore. There's no discussions about hurt or pain or the twenty years of vengeance beyond Kriemhild immediately turning a double face on it.
There's not a nicer way to put this, so let's just get it out of the way now. Siegfried will continue to be a character independent of Kriemhild. Unlike say, Sigurd, whose character is primarily defined on his relationship with Brynhildr, Siegfried's character is not defined really at all by his relationship to Kriemhild. Kriemhild has no path from here, and as we can glimpse in further events, her character is entirely defined by her relationship with Siegfried. What are her character motivations past this point? Well obviously its not ANY of the ones we took pain to previously establish.
This is classic, textbook, misogynistic writing. Kriemhild has been turned into a lamp.
Siegfried is a very popular character, and I imagine for a lot of people, there is incentive to ignore all of this. Siegfried is getting his happy ending, he's getting his wife back. But if you cared about what Kriemhild's character was, this sucks tremendously. Reconciliation is not off the table, but what happened is not reconciliation. It's not anything resembling that. Kriemhild essentially loses all of her agency, so dramatically she dies after this happens.
Like at least Urobuchi would have just killed her.
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dalekofchaos · 3 days
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William Afton is not a loving father and is not sympathetic in anyway
Might be a hot take. But I honestly feel like William Afton always being awful works.
William Afton being an unfeeling psychopath who kills because he gets some sick pleasure out of it and because he discovered remnant is better than William being a loving and caring father who turned mad because he lost CC and Elizabeth.
Some people are just evil. William Afton is just pure evil. Freddy Krueger nor Pennywise needed motivations on why they killed kids. Not knowing why Afton does what he does makes things better.
And its probably the most engaging thing about Afton. Also his always coming back thing is the only instance that I accept a character coming back from the dead. Like, I've never seen this trope work EVER except FNaF.
William Afton just being a garbage person just WORKS. He is so evil that his eternal hell is facing torture at the hands of his creations and the one vengeful child who wants him to suffer.
You know the meme
“Cool story, still murder”
For William it’s
“I’m just awful, it’s murder time children”
Also, William using his kids as an excuse to justify the murders does work, but only because he likes using his children and only wanting to bring his kids back in animatronic form can only work so they can do his bidding and collect more remnant so he can always come back. William being awful works.
Henry might've been neglectful of Charlie and Sammy, but William canonically abuses Elizabeth. He did nothing to help CC against Michael's cruel bullying and no, being the probable voice for psychic friend Fredbear is NOT a sign of good parenting. He used Michael to help him in his experiments and used him to clean up the mess HE MADE. William Afton is not a good father.
And if Midnight Motorist is about the Aftons, how is that not an abusive home? "leave him be, he had a long day" "I TOLD YOU not to lock the door" and then either it being CC or Michael, they broke the window to literally get away from the unhappy home.
And let's not forget he experiments on children in his fear experiments to recreate the events that lead to the death of his son.
William doesn't love his family. He sees them as objects he owns, and wants to force them to be perfect. And when they fail them, he replaces them.
There's a reason why Unbroken to me is the definitive Afton song.
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He's so goddamn happy that he committed murder because of the remnant it gives him and doesn't give a shit about anyone else. It's chilling to watch. And the last line is so goddamn evil that it's amazing: "If I can't have my perfect little family, well, now I'll have plenty of time, to make a better one."
People have to realize that William never meant anything good whenever he wanted to "put something back together". It's referencing combining souls into one thing. When he did this in the novels, he did it because he believed it would somehow help him achieve eternal life. When he scooped a collection of remnant that came from who knows where into the Funtimes, it was likely for the same reason. He didn't want to help the Crying Child. He wanted the Crying Child to willingly give himself to him.
So I think Unbroken really shows how he is. Break them and put them back together. Let their combined cries build immortality.
This is why I use Unbroken as the definitive song and basis for William's motivation and goals. An unfeeling psychopath who sees killing kids as a fair trade for immortality and if he can't have a perfect family, then he'll just build a better one.
William in all his iterations is never shown interacting with his children in a positive way. The closest we get to him is telling his daughter Elizabeth not to go near Circus Baby. And even though Sister Location is when voice acting began to take hold of the franchise, we never hear how William speaks to his daughter. In these moments, the only instance of him speaking about his children in the games is up for debate. But if you believe the orange man in Midnight Motorist is Afton, he speaks about the runaway child with disdain and frustration. "he will be sorry when he gets back" whether it's Mike or CC he made them sorry either by locking CC in the parts and services in FNAF 4 or made Mike sorry via Nightmare Animatronics. All throughout the FNAF 4 cutscenes, he neglects his children entirely. Even when he is AT THE PIZZERIA with them, he doesn't acknowledge them during his own child's birthday party whose death is meant to be the catalyst for his descent into madness that the fandom widely believes and as that child cries out in fear, he is nowhere to be found.
Moving on from the games. Nothing about the books paints William to be a warm person. He's depicted in the novels as not only neglectful to Elizabeth, but physically abusive to her as well, even after she's killed by the animatronic she idolized, William does not soften at the loss of her, we do not see him grieve and he treats Circus Baby just as poorly as in the games, only thing missing is a scene of controlled shocks. Circus Baby is just a vessel for remnant and a devoted follower who is helping him with his experiments.
Game Michael is tasked with potentially cleaning up after William, but definitely with putting Circus Baby back together just as his father asked and his reward is getting scooped, being injected with remnant and having his body filled with animatronic parts and when Ennard abandons his body. Mike is left confused, alone and slowly rotting, but never dying. Immortal and restless.
In the movie William treats Vanessa like a tool to be ordered and it's implied Vanessa helped William cover up the the murders or killed as she was tasked with killing Mike and she lives in fear of him. When Vanessa finally stands up to him, he doesn't hesitate to dispose of her.
Whether it's the games, books or movies. William treats his living children as tools at best and obstacles at worst. I believe there is more than enough evidence to say that William Afton is not motivated by a design or desire to reunite with his lost loved ones or recreate some beautiful family. I don't think he wants to play pretend the way Henry seems to do in the novels with Charlie. Afton never really appreciated a single thing he ever had, not when he had it and certainly when he lost it. In Afton's eyes he only sees what others have and views things and other people through the lens of what they can do for him. He needs to be in control of his environment and everything should be at his disposal.
What motivates William Afton? He became enthralled with Henry's creations, jealous even. Perhaps they made him feel inferior as they were better than anything Afton had ever been able to create, so he studied Henry. The resentment in the obsession growing inside him as they became partners and their business was a success, it wasn't enough. He wanted the animatronics to be his own. He deserved them, he built the business and he shouldn't have to share the success with Henry, but he knew he needed Henry and that was infuriating to him and seeing Henry having the perfect family William always wanted was what caused him to kill Charlie that night. He wanted to take something from Henry and William needed to feel in control and for Henry to be vulnerable just to prove it could be taken away from him if William really wanted to and he did. What William wasn't expecting was that the security Puppet assigned to Charlie's bracelet would do exactly as it was programmed to do, it found Charlie and as she died, her soul fused to it. Upon discovering this, it would set William on a new path. He needed to understand why this would happen and how. Not because he was desperate to see his son or daughter again. But because he needed to be able to harness this ability to control it. His son lying in a coma would be brought back by his hands and he'd have the power to do something Henry cnever could. However he came to the conclusion he decided he'd need to kill again and he did. Stuffing bodies into the animatronics to see if they too would become possessed. Besides, who was going to go looking for the missing children in the suits? From here he would learn about remnant and conducted a particular gruesome experiment. What if a person died inside a spring lock suit? The result was something more powerful, but it was less predictable and obident than the others had been, but he did learn a valuable lesson about spring locks. He created the Funtimes to keep collecting and experimenting with remnant and he used electric shocks to keep them obedient and when he was no longer able, he enlisted Michael to continue his work.
We don't have all the information, but from what we do have, these motivations track with of Afton. Far more than the idea of a grief stricken father. If something happened to William to make him an insecure jealous man whose morality was shaped only by his own selfish desire. It happened before the events of FNAF. I don't think that's unsatisfying, I think it's a reminder of what we become when we reject humanity when our insecurities turn to jealousy, when we refuse to accept that some things are out of our control and allow fear to become hatred. While we can point to Henry and Edwin's rage against their respective machines, we also see the other side of them, the love of their children. You never see this human or soft side of William and personally I believe that's because it isn't there. William Afton's choices were not the choices of a man acting out of love or grief and that is why he's not a sympathetic villain and that is why it works so well and how it gets under our skin. When his actions are explained by those emotions because he's never been shown expressing them. If Afton is trying to rebuild his children, he is doing so to create loyal and obedient versions of them to do his bidding to make sure his work can continue and that he can always come back.
"YOU WILL DO AS I SAY. YOU WILL BRING ME WHAT I WANT AND IF YOU FAIL ME, THEN YOU WILL, BOTH OF YOU WILL BURN"
I believe this is what the original Security Breach story was meant to be. Vanessa was meant to be Elizabeth reborn and Gregory CC reborn as robots and tasked with slowly replacing William's body with animatronic parts injected with remnant and it lines up with what we know from the books. But Sony fucked the game and the original plan fell through and they course corrected.
Last few paragraphs from this video
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But bottom line is, I don't believe William is this loving father with originally noble goals as the fandom likes to paint him because Scott writes William anything but than what the fandom portrays William to be and I think it's good that he's not a sympathetic villain. Sometimes some people are always awful and they don't have to have something bad happen to them. The masses have forgotten the simple pleasures of experiencing a nasty villain who delights in their crime and is the pettiest specimen one could ever design. William Afton to me is Scott pouring every negative/evil trait he could think up into the shape of a character and I just think it's good way to write William Afton.
There’s a reason the Afton Amalgamation is one giant Bunny made out of trash.
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mari-lair · 1 year
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was possessed by the urge to draw them
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yache-berries · 10 months
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Average Buddy Holly Enjoyers
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tbgkaru-woh · 3 months
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hi! i was just wondering what it is specifically that you dislike about wangxian? i'm kind of intrigued, because while i get how someone could find them boring, i've never really considered anything about their dynamic (and as you mentioned in response to a previous anon, their confession scene) particularly off putting. no pressure to answer this, and this is in no way hate towards you i'm just genuinely curious <3 (i love your art by the way it's gorgeous)
Thank you for the compliment! ♥ This is gonna get ranty so I will hide it below read more as not everyone has to deal with reading this, so proceed with caution :'D
Wangxian is the weakest WWX dynamic. On god, even if I'm not fond of Yanli, they have very loving relationship where they are protective of each other and gentle with each other in a harsh world. I don't ship WWX/JC but their story and complicated love of someone you grow up with and care for deeply but clash constantly with is more interesting than anything wangxian ever had. Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian clicked together so naturally, they are chaotic and are similiarly not too interested in being up to rules. Jin Zixuan and WWX had a potential of going from enemies to partners in crime, to become family and have each other's backs but JZX was cut short and WWX never really cared afterwards either. WWX with the wens took time to build up but his YLLZ farmer era was one of the best WWX's in the story. Damn, even Lan Xichen who's always amused with WWX's temperament and secretly has a drink with wwx and is altogether looser with the rules while still being lawful matches with him way more than LWJ where there's... nothing. They were smashed together for convenience and we were suppossed to just go with it cause they are the two main characters. LWJ feels like he was just made so WWX has a "hot stoic top" to fuck him and the rest of the characters are actually build with the story and therefore feel more natural
Wangxian don't feel like they are in love, not in the way the fans make them out to be into some romantic picture perfect angsty deserved lovestory. LWJ's personal space is constantly disrespected, he's punished constantly for WWX's mistakes, he constantly needs to be the one to adjust to how WWX is instead of the other way around and after all that, LWJ doesn't really /know/ WWX so his attraction feels very idealized. WWX is the bad boy that goes against the rules and LWJ wishes he could be that (or with that) but it's almost a childish infatuation from their Gusu days that never evolved into something more mature. And WWX? I can't see how he'd like LWJ as anything more than in a physical sense. Even their obnoxious "Back then I wanted to sleep with you" confession scene is purely physical. He doesn't really know LWJ or respects him, LWJ is just a familiar face in a world that is against WWX and he's a hot body that likes him. LWJ is an easy score in a way, he's a safe option. And it'd be SO interesting if they went into that, but instead it's played like the only true love (dont forget, they are meant to be as the ONLY gay pairing in MDZS which I find insane when everyone else has more chemistry and in the end gets shat on so wangxian can fuck in a bush. I mean, LWJ leaves LXC to be depressed and alone after everything LXC stands for and did? Fucking ridiculous.)
It tries to "subvert" tropes but ends up being more stereotypical than anything. WWX was almost meant as this jock-y rebellious hotshot but instead we got a quirky twink, early 2000s shonen protagonist and every yaoi's Uke I've been seeing since like 2008. Are they suppossed to be different because the "stoic white-coded" one is not the bottom? Is the bar this low? If anything, this ornament top is the most usual top, let's be real, LWJ barely has personality or growth or focus, he's there to fuck WWX.
This is a petty reason but MXTX's "wangxian is the only gay couple" everyone else being implied straight as if to highlight just how real their love is that they are gay in time period where it's frowned upon, even though Yi City and 3zun combinations had more chemistry than anyone is. Annoying. And so is the "Don't ship them with anyone else and don't switch their dynamics" that fuels some of the most obnoxious people in the fandom to go after fanwork creators that do/like things differently.
All in all Wangxian is THE face of danmei, they are the most known even outside of danmei circles and they are extremely mediocry written for that. I mean, fuck, you put straight couple in their place and I guarantee no one would like it, it has the depth of a high school hormone-riddled couple who have different classes and "only" get to see each other during breaks and make out during lunch with others at the table, idk it's so fucking annoying to me when I know there were better options, when WWX had so many interesting dynamics that got shat on in favor of bland ass ship and I'm tired of having to like it/tolerate it just because it's gay.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk, this was extremely healing 🤣
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if you have some, do you have any headcannons for barnaby?
honestly! not really! i don't have hcs for any of the neighbors!
#the way i interact w/ welcome home is uh... slightly differently than how i interact with more mainstream / company-produced media#like if you compare how i talk about the neighbors/wh to how i talk about characters on say... my dc blog#there's probably gonna be a notable Difference!#with mainstream/company stuff i go Hog Wild with hcs and aus and i form my own version of everything in my head#(while still understanding & respecting canon as the true source)#but wh is Different! i can't really do that!#it isnt some big production created by a team & mass released#where the actions of some fans just fuckin around and having fun won't directly affect anyone or even reach the ears of the creators#and where upon releasing it everyone Knows that its gonna be dissected & torn to shreds & played with like barbies#wh is more... personal? there is one main creator. these are His characters. its Their story.#i can't in good conscience make headcanons and honestly? id much rather stick to canon trivia & facts than create my own#theyre not my facts to create or believe in!!#sometimes ill make a post saying 'hey this would be cute / neat'#but as soon as i post im tossing that thought away. i dont let them stick or become hcs#(NOTE THAT I AM NOT BASHING ANYONE WHO MAKES HCS. THIS IS ALL MY PERSONAL OPINION!!! MY OWN PERSONAL INTERNAL RULES!!! FOR ME!)#rambles from the bog#like even with the lights out au im being careful with it. im trying to be faithful & respect the characters and the source#its an... exploration i think#ive never approached making an au this way bc usually im just flinging characters around and treating canon as a chew toy - scrap for parts#but i cant do that here! im Not Complaining At All im simply stating! i cant!#sorry you probs weren't expecting a lil mini rant in tags my b <3#this has just been in my head since i first discovered welcome home#i remember feeling myself start getting really attached & interested#and i recall telling myself 'ok. we cant approach this the way we would other things'#and i have done my best to Stick To That. ive relaxed a lil since then but im still standing by my one rule#Be A Little More Normal About This Than I Would If It Were Mainstream / A Company-Made Production
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randomnameless · 1 year
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not the other anon, but i read your lycaon posts and it kinds of make sense, even if it'd be kind of sad how rhea chooses to abandon humanity because her kid was killed
Oh, thanks, but it's just a headcanon!
Lycaon I is even less relevant than Ferdie in AM lol
As for that "half-nabatean lycaon" verse...
It's a bit more complicated - by abandoning humanity you mean working on the rez sothis plan ? - than that in that AU, because both Rhea and Willy (but he doesn't count since he died) feel guilty for Lycaon's death since, in those AUs, they're convinced he died because he was half-nabatean and it's their fault because they were supposed to have ended the war and killed the people who hunted pointy ears - Fodlan was supposed to be a safe space where Nabateans could abandon hair dye and, well, it's not.
Like, imagine a post FE7 situation, where Eliwood and Ninian and their friends think coexistence is possible and there could be a time, in the future, where humans and dragons could live together, like they do in Arcadia, but not hidden anymore. Roy pops up, but when he is introduced to, idk, the other nobles from the world in some sort of get together, Roy reveals he's not totally human, and gets diced as a result -
I could see Eliwood moving on, with a lot of support from his friends, but needing a lot of time to proceed.
But Rhea? Post WoH Rhea? Who "just" lost her family to the red canyon because, as far as she knows, they had pointy ears, and who loses right now her son for the same reason??
It's keeping with the general trend of her needing a "strong reason" or "another traumatic event" to make her fall to Sothis's return, when, per the Hresvelg Covenant, there was one point where she thought humans could guide the land themselves. And given how canon-wise the end of the War of Heroes, the beginning of the Monastery thus the period where she leaves Adrestia all have the same origin - Lycaon's death, I tried to honeypot around it lol
Just like some people thought FE16 actually deconstructs FE4 with the Holy Blood and weapons being, uh, not holy at all, I thought about FE7's ending. Eliwood marries Ninian and their son will later on become a hero who will save the continent!
Save that, this time, Roy dies in chapter 6 because he is not human and his closest friends and other nobles (in the Lycaon AU it's his own half-siblings and nephews + nobles!) cannot accept his heritage.
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lucy-ghoul · 2 years
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I just realized what's wrong with the Targaryen wigs in HotD: they don't look like Targaryen hair, they look like they were stolen from the Malfoys. They all share one (1) or at best two wigs in toto and it makes them look like freaking Lucius Malfoy clones
#jokes aside episode 1 was quite good (yes i finally caved in and started watching the fire lizards show)#there were many nice touches that made me go 'mmmmh good stuff.'#1. the juxtaposition of aemma's horrific death in childbirth/the knights killing each other at the tournament#clearly reminiscent of that quote from one of brienne's chapters... heh now i can't fully remember it in english#2. THEY NAME-DROPPED THE SONG OF ICE AND FIRE (which was never even remotely referred to in got)#the whole thing about aegon and the prophecy has been a particularly favorite fan theory of mine for years and i'm happy it's canon#fake lizard monarchs haters gonna hate :))#tho it's VERY bittersweet considering the got finale... like the prince that was promised was *spins roulette*#a stark all along? like randomly? (and no obviously i'm not talking about jon. he *is* half targaryen after all)#and let's not forget about the true heir being put down like a mad bitch because d&d liked jon better (since he's a man)#and were like 'revolutionary who wants to help people/actually abolished slavery in another continent bad. let's enforce the status quo :)))#(also the double standards. war crimes are okay only if other nobles do it - especially the starks. if you have a dragon and are a woman#and dare to be slightly mortally grey and/or ambitious... in 2 days you're gonna burn children alive!! because ofc.)#..... *cough cough* okay salty rant is over. let's go on with val's hotd first impressions#2. i didn't hate matt smith as daemon and he's particularly good at looking upset and/or sad but i still think he was miscast#3*#like he CAN act and it shows. but it's as if he were making an effort to appear more believable for this role#idk maybe he'll grow on me in the next eps. also his interactions with rhaenyra were a++ but that's nothing new#can't wait for this girl to fuck her uncle ig (...... what did i become skskksks)#4. i also liked rhaenyra&alicent's interactions. this is gonna be another tragic former besties to worsties for me to cry on :(((#5. i mostly liked the costumes. i liked how this is all about the patriarchy (at least so far). i liked the slight but still noticeable#references to the main show (the music. rhaenyra being an obvious dany lookalike.#lord stark pledging his fealty to her while viserys' voice over is speaking about the threat in the north.#viserys telling her 'promise me rhaenyra. promise me' in what i believe is an echo of lyanna's last words to ned... i think?#like it can't be accidental)#god i missed being excited over this stupid and gorgeous series#obv it helps that i actually never read fire&blood (should i?) and i'm only familiar with the events/characters from twoiaf#house of the dragon#val speaks#txt
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youremyonlyhope · 2 years
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Observing the fandoms of shows I watch that have lots of fans that skew younger makes me kind of marvel at how different things are in online fandom even just 10 years after I was their age.
Like, I know I probably sounded like I was losing my mind every 5 seconds in posts I made as a teenager, but some things I see nowadays are actually concerning. I see people taking things waaaayyyyyy too seriously. It’s a TV show. It’s not obligated to go in the direction you want it to. It’s not the end of the world when it doesn’t. It’s not even the end of the TV show yet. Who’s to say it won’t go in that direction eventually, or even do something completely different that you’ll like even more than what you initially wanted? And outside the bubble of those younger fans on tumblr and twitter, no one really cares about the same issues that are being blown out of proportion here.
#no spoilers but i'll tag just in case#st spoilers#stranger things spoilers#specifically this is about stranger things and umbrella academy but i also saw it in the julie and the phantoms fandom too#but i'm seeing people act like a certain ship not becoming canon is the end of everything#am i the only one who had the sense to realize that realistically it probably wouldn't be canon and at least not right now if ever#like can we not joke about coming after a teenage actor because they ship the ship that didn't become canon and gave people hope#the actor just wanted to interact with fans. nothing malicious. honestly it's not even misleading.#anyway it's 2am and i watched stranger things this morning and then rewatched episode 8 when my brother watched it#and i'm still like processing the whole season so i can't even allow myself to pay attention to these younger fans#i just see the posts and tweets and i'm like '...nope... really glad i'm not that age right now... not gonna even touch that issue...'#honestly. these kids need glee. that desensitized me from asking for stuff from my shows because then it'd happen#and then it'd blow up in some weird way or just get undone by the end of a season or just be stupid and not what i wanted#only rarely did things i REALLY want to happen happen on glee. the rest of the time i was just along for the ride.#and that's the mindset i have when watching tv shows to this day. so honestly. thank you glee.#quick someone find the gif of soos in gravity falls saying 'this better be exactly like my fanfiction or i will be VERY disappointed.'#also something being hinted at and foreshadowed doesn't make it predictable when it happens. it makes it planned.#i swear. people are getting too used to shock killings or plot twists out of nowhere that they're forgetting what foreshadowing is.#the finale has a 9.6 rating on IMDB right now. a site that is infamous for being incredibly skewed if even half a fandom hates something.#(believe me. doctor who's IMDB ratings are all over the place due to a loud group of Thirteen's haters)#so if even a good chunk of the fandom disliked the finale then the score would be much lower. but it's not.#maybe it will go down a bit as more people watch. but this is not game of thrones. but i see people treating it like it is.#and really only focusing on 2 or 3 maybe 4 specific issues and writing off everything else.#(not trying to swat a hornet's nest or start crazy discourse and my anon is turned off so just don't come at me. i don't care.)
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[ I gonna start working on things here in a bit and make an official promo but you guys are free to send asks in. Your Detectivsop CEO is finally here and now official ]
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infamous-if · 4 months
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Happy 1 year anniversary to this blog!
It was yesterday...though I do find it fitting that I've been focused on writing so much that I forgot lmao
When I first had the idea for Infamous, I didn't work on it right away. The concept was cool, yeah, but was it enough for interactive fiction? A medium I never even tried before?
I let it marinate in my head for a while wondering if it would be a good story or not. I listened to a lot of music, made a lot of idea boards and outlined routes but told myself I wasn't actually writing it. Just playing in a new literary sandbox with no strings! I was very close to not publishing my idea because it felt like it wasn't a story that I could handle. And it was daunting. I've published stories before, but they were completed novels that I could just forget about it and move on from once I was done. This was a commitment! I kept asking myself if I was even a good enough writer for the plans I had haha
But it didn't stop bothering me and I was getting irritable over my own brain creating this whole world without my permission. So I posted the intro post on a whim just to see what would happen! Turns out, I'm really happy I did!
One year later and there's been a whole community of people who have enriched the story and elevated it to a place that I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own. The amazing fanfics, the head canons, fan art and the suggestions, it's been really nice to work on this with the support and encouragement I've gotten. I think the best parts of the story so far have come from the collective, not me, and knowing that there are people who watched me serve my ideas on a platter like "here. take it pls." and accepted it is really nice. I'm grateful :)
thank you guys for reading the story and being kind to me and my ideas and having so many discussions over these characters that were once just in my mind, alone with me to tend to them. and to the if authors who have been here much longer, thank you for welcoming me with open arms. thank you to the group of if authors in particular who took me under their wing and gave me advice on how to handle things and how to move forward. you didn't have to come into my dm's and give me guidance or help me, but you did anyway and im eternally grateful!
I'm excited for 2024 to be the year that we really dive into the story. I still can't believe we're only 2 chapters in. it feels much longer, doesn't it? lololol
thanks!! <3
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insertdisc5 · 4 months
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✨ The In Stars and Time Spoiler Q&A ✨
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it's time. MASSIVE IN STARS AND TIME SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. IT'S GONNA BE SO LONG. LET'S GO
I hope you are aware of The Secret Final Boss because I'm also gonna spoil the crab out of that. If you haven't,
1. Did you know the events for interacting with your souvenirs are randomized for some of them, and also change depending on how far you are in the game.
2. Did you know there's a way to show souvenirs to a certain character.
3. Did you know you can go back to Dormont during the Epilogue.
Figure that out, and come back here! Or watch a let's play online. You can also do that.
I will also try to adopt a ~mysterious cool voice with no exclamation points~ for Effect. Come with me on this journey.
Now. Questions time!
✨ Will you ever make a sequel to ISAT, or make a game in the same universe?
Nah. This was always intended to be The Story. This is your turn to imagine things now.
✨ But so what happened to the Country? What was its name? What about the wishes? What about the colors? What did Siffrin say as an openphrase to open the door to the King's room? What about--
I will not answer those. It's your turn.
✨ BUT THE COUNTRY AND THE COLORS AND THE WISHES
Ok fine. Here are some facts that I alluded to in-game, that I am confirming now.
-The Country disappearing and the events that made colors go away are not related.
-The colors disappeared a loooong time ago, which is why knowing they even existed is a relatively new find.
-A wish made everyone forget the Country.
I will ALSO say that ISAT's map operates on Final Fantasy/General Fantasy rules (i.e. in-universe locations are based off of real ones when it comes to culture, but are not one to one parallels, especially for geography), so no, the Country isn't based on the UK oh my god please do not say that to me again or im deleting ISAT out of your computers and putting legos at the foot of your bed. It's based on another place. You can figure it out, I believe in you.
✨ But why won't you give more info on what happened :(
Can you imagine if I did answer. Wouldn't that be a bummer, whatever my answer was. Sometimes things need to stay a mystery. And also, I don't want to answer <3
✨ Does the world Loop came from still exist after they left? Or is this a get mystery'd situation?
There is only One Timeline and it's the timeline that goes from the prologue to ISAT. Every timeline that gets rewound does not exist anymore, and that includes the prologue's timeline.
✨ What's the deal with Siffrin's dream at the start?
It's Siffrin's dream, but that doesn't mean our Siffrin is the main star.
✨ Is [specific missable game moment] canon?
Every moment that you personally experience in the game is canon.
✨ Is there a reason Siffrin remembers their name but the King doesn't?
What makes you think Siffrin does?
✨ At the very very end of the game, if you look out the window behind the Head Housemaiden, Sif mentions seeing an island in the distance. Is that his country?
It is. It's always been there, for the whole game. You can see it in the distance, too.
✨ Who was the King, before?
He was just a guy!
✨ With the King left remembering in the end, does that in any way change the redaction effect for other people in the world going forward?
That's a fun idea. Maybe!
✨ One thing that never really clicked for me is: Is the sweet smell Time Craft or Wish Craft? Or is the sweet smell TIme Craft and specifically the burnt sugar smell is Wish Craft? Other way around? Does this question even matter since without Wish Craft you can't attain Time Craft in the first place? (To me, yes.)
Wish Craft smells sweet. Time Craft doesn't have a smell per se, but it does do something.
✨ Does Mirabelle retain her immunity to being frozen in time after the events of the game or does it go away after the Head Housemaiden is saved? Or does it persist for a while and eventually fade away?
I imagine the immunity slowly faded away. But no one's left to do Time Craft, so it's a moot point anyway.
✨ How was Odile able to stop Siffrin from looping back during the fight against Siffrin?
In the Discord channel I stated that it's because "she's just that cool", but really, she does have access to some skills that heighten the efficacity of Rock/Paper/Scissors attacks, so it's not too much of a stretch to imagine she could lower the efficacity of Time Craft as well. In this last loop, while listening to Loop and observing, she could figure out Siffrin was looping way earlier than she could in even the Sus Quest, so she made plans. She is Very Smart <3
✨ Will you ever share everyone's full names?
That's artbook content <3
✨ In the ending, what happened to Siffrin's hat?
Flew away. It's gone now.
✨ Looking back at the original comics, and seeing how comic!sif has both eyes at the start of their loops, but in ending sequences is shown with his eye patch...did you ever consider making that concept of sif losing their eye a part of the main loop in either of your games? and if so, was there any reason why you decided against it?
Early on, I did think about making that whole event an event that happens during the loops, but quickly let that go since 1. it would be a pain to write and code (two different sets of Siffrin portraits!) and 2. if it happened, the player might want to look for a way to NOT make that happen and so 3. it would be a pain to write and code
✨ How was Siffrin's homelife before?
Pretty good!
✨ How old were Nille and Bonnie when they ran away? How old was Sif when their home got zapped?
Both were teens.
✨ How old IS everyone?
Siffrin is mid-late 20s. Mirabelle and Isabeau are early-mid 20s, with Isabeau being slightly older. Bonnie is a preteen. Odile is Too Old For This. Petronille, Bonnie's sister, is late teens-early 20s. You can ignore whatever I said in the prologue's artbook, whoever wrote this was Wrong!!!!!!!!!!
✨ Regarding the book that talks about someone who crafted a copy of themself using wish craft: is that meant to imply someone we know is the author (and/or the copy), or is it not directly related to any of em? or is it a "who knows ;)" situation where we can just speculate and theorize either way?
Please check the book again during Act 5! This applies to most items/map events by the way, like the pendant. You can check those during Act 5 and 6 for some fun new dialogue!
✨ Why are Siffrin's clothes so warm looking?
The Country got cold at night.
✨ What's up with Siffrin's pins?
They're made out of a special material. And also, they make Siffrin look cool <3
✨ I want to know the story behind Loop’s different eye shades!
They're blind in one eye. Also, fun foreshadowing <3
✨ What determines whether someone is paper/rock/scissors craft? Is it assigned naturally at birth or something else (and how do you find out)? Does it make you more inclined to use that specific craft or is anyone generally free to use whatever craft they want?
Astrology rules, It Just Is A Thing. Being Rock Type means it is way easier for you to do Rock Craft, but that doesn't mean you can't learn other types of craft, although it's way harder. Doing Craft of your type is instinct, doing Craft of another type would take some time and resarch.
✨What crimes has Odile committed before. I need to know.
Odile just smiles.
✨ Why did the King specifically target the House of Dormont?
I had a reason in mind, but adding it to the game would've added a layer of Explanation that really didn't need to be there. It's just a nice House.
✨ Who was Odile's hatecrush...
Dunno. It's your turn.
✨ What is loop's body situation. like is the surface of their "skin" solid? they did poke siffrin that one time, and we know they aren't cold, but...
I have some idea. But it's your turn!
✨ Would Sif still have looped if they hadn't made the wish he made in the beginning? As in, would Vaugarde's combined wish have made him loop until managing to beat the King?
No. But without time powers, you can imagine what would've happened next.
✨ During the Loop Hangout, how did the rest of the team make it all the way to The King? What about during Act 5?
During the Loop Hangout: with difficulty. During Act 5: Loop was there to guide them.
✨ Is Loop: 1. Actually comfortable with both he and they, but only gave the one pronoun to emphasize the distance? 2. Only using they/them because a large life event led to a shift in identity/ how they'd like to be perceived? or 3. time lops stole he from they they :(
Mostly that first one. But all three of those reasons have a bit of truth to them.
✨ Who cooked crab in the House of Change???
This is a very funny question! I've never thought about it. It's your turn.
✨ What are the Orbs that open the gate? Did the King create the Gate or was it there before?
(did not think about the orbs or the gate beyond "plot that proves there was a journey before") Stop Asking Questions,,,, It's your turn,,,,,,
✨ Bonnie's dialogue is *extremely* accurate to how overexcited kids talk, which is really rare to see. Was that something that took a lot of effort to achieve, or did it come naturally to you?
Thank you <3 I'm just that good. Really, Bonnie is an adult with no filter, and less general knowledge. I'm very glad I managed to write Bonnie well, especially since. I haven't talked to a kid. Since I was one myself
✨ The Spoilery Concept Art. Blease
oh yeah. here have it all. this is what I gave Mimi to do the animated trailer!
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✨ So. What's everyone's favorite shade.
FINALLY the question. Plus I can say shade names now. White = darkless, Black = lightless. Light and Dark is like light grey/ dark grey. Oh my god I'm checking my notes and I wrote a small event I never used about hair dye colors like "midnight dark", "tomato grey", "snow light" past me that's so fucking funny
Anyway, Siffrin loves darkless, Mirabelle is more of a light shade lover, Isabeau loves that lightless (BECAUSE ITS FASHIONABLE OK), Odile likes darker shades, and Bonnie also loves that lightless (BECAUSE ITS AS DARK AS MY SOUL OK)
✨ Are there any bugs you found during developments that you've made into features?
Two! The first one was the ability to ask Loop to just silently hang out during Act 4. I messed up the code and the game softlocked there, with Siffrin and Loop sitting there silently. I thought it was very sweet. They deserve a little quiet time.
The second was in Act 5 - the House map had a lot of issues with the Act 5 map bringing you back to the normal House map. So one of the testers got brought to the normal House map and didn't notice, and interacted with the Mirror on Floor 3, and it gave them the normal interaction with everyone seeing the mirror and taking a picture, and when they went to look at the picture in their inventory, it gave them the actual Act 5 picture. A little bit after they realized the game bugged out, and told me about it, and begged me to keep that in because they were very unsettled by it. So here it is! Beforehand, it was just Siffrin silently taking a picture, so I'm glad I changed it.
✨ Did you ever have emotional difficulty writing the more sensitive parts of the script, like Siffrin’s intrusive/negative thoughts, for one reason or another? Moreover, did you worry the script may be darker than your initial vision for it anticipated?
Not really. The Mirabelle and Odile hangout scenes were the hardest scenes by far because I really wanted to get them right, but everything else was about the same amount of difficulty. And actually, I wanted to go a little bit darker for the script, but I was worried it was going to be too dark... When it comes to the dagger event, I had a whole tangent about Siffrin thinking about the best way to strike, so to speak, but I deleted it because it was getting A Little Too Detailed. T rating come back to me
✨ For the questions you WON'T answer, did you have your own answers while making the game? Or were they left blank?
Some of them I do, some of them I don't!
✨ I loved this game and I want to replay it but I don't want Siffrin to go through everything again!
Here's a little fun fact I decided: if you hit the credits, you helped a Siffrin escape. If you start a new game, you are creating a new Siffrin that you can emotionally tortu-IIIIIIII MEAN, a new Siffrin that you can help. Do not worry about your Siffrins they are fine
✨ A lot of those answers ended up being "It's your turn", huh.
Yea <3 The answers to some of those questions ARE there if you look. Some just aren't. But you can imagine whatever you want. It's your turn! I finished the game! I'm done working! It's your turn!!!
✨ I loved ISAT and it made me feel so many feelings!
Thank you so much. I'm sorry if you sent a message or ask and I didn't answer it. I read every single one and cherish it! Thank you for playing and thank you for writing me a message!!!!! When I get a little down I look at all of those and I feel better. Thank you. I'm sorry I can't answer them all.
✨ What will you work on next?
I have a project I'm currently in the preproduction stages of. I don't want to talk about it until I feel like I have some stuff to show. Plus I still have to make the ISAT artbook and some other stuff, so it won't be for a while. Nonetheless, I hope you will enjoy it!!!
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kasarasun · 3 months
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what if I made a thing or it already was that while Airplane wrote the world, Peerless Cucumber illustrated it (only the animals. And Binghe, fighting the animals.) And then then then
He'd totally do it on an alt account, right?? Peerless Cucumber can't be seen making fanart!! (And he's good at it. Like, wiki is using his art in the monsters and beasts pages (that Peerless Cucumber volleyed for. He also separated it from the plant section.) Because 1 its good 2 the artstyle is consistent 3 there isn't a lot of monster official art, other than that one with the black moon rhinoceros python and those other ones and 4 it's really that good)
Haha incomprehensible parenthesis nesting aside, Airplane is watching the forums, right? Not sure about other stuff in canon but he looks at the forums and the fanart and the fiction and most of it is probably corn and binghe and just a little bit of mobei-jun and also the wives tm but!! There's also that guy!!! The monsters guy!! (People would probably suspect 'Drawing the Beast's Ire'- or some other sex euphemism I'm not good at making those- of being Peerless Cucumber because 1 the writing style is the same 2 Peerless Cucumber is the number 1 contributor to the PIDW wiki and a lot of it is the monsters and beasts section and it makes sense, yes??) Anyway, Airplane shooting towards the sky suspects but not too seriously suspects Mr ire of being cucumber's fanart alt but uh uh that ends pre-transmigration section
So, Shen Yuan starts running about, right? Things seem really... familiar, maybe thats the word?- for some reason. This is because every animal and plant he's ever drawn, sketched- maybe even thought about but that's a stretch?- is his design. The firefly parallels hold their forelimbs like butterflies. That is how far down it goes. Maybe it doesn't come up until later, but beasts and monsters from fanfiction get involved, oc species, too... anyway,
Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky transmigrates 30 years (iirc) before Peerless Cucumber. He was an avid enough follower of Drawing the Beast's Ire to recognize that these are their designs! Here's where it gets really crazy. Xiao-Mobei comes along, and while he's still pretty young, Airplane can tell that this is Drawing Ire's design! Some aspect, maybe his ears or teeth, (this isn't a well built theoretical tangent) of Mobei isnt canon. Its Drawing Ire's. From that one Northern Kingdom collection. Whatever stretched his world building into coherence, completion, didn't just pull from fanwork, official art, whatever it could find, it went for Drawing the Beast's Ire's designs specifically. Damn that's crazy Airplane ahahaha moving on,
This is getting really long so I'll be a bit more concise, (want to know more? Talk to me. Please talk to me. I want to interact with the fandom. Ask me questions. Poke your fingers into my cage.) This all comes to head at the Immortal alliance conference. The monsters and beasts really start pouring in! And Shen Qingqiu/Yuan remembers his creations. However, he assumes that this is because like 1 other person maybe was Drawing ghost head spiders.
Hey, Peerless Cucumber really liked the monsters, right? The deadlier, crazier, more intricate, the design the better! So maybe, when he was drawing, he... added some things, really believable, logical additions, really just small creative decisions...
Anyway, the monsters that Drawing the Beast's Ire made were where it came to a head.
Lets have another Canon divergence. Maybe, during or after Binghe gets pushed in, out of the rifts comes a species that Drawing Ire created. It's beautiful, poisonous, beloved, and really quite deadly. Shen Yuan/Qingqiu, Peerless Cucumber, Drawing the Beast's Ire... realizes, quite like airplane before him, that he's illustrated, practically sculpted with his own hands, monsters from the Endless Abyss with claws and teeth and poisons as deadly as Peerless Cucumber thought that the really cool monsters could deserve. It feels like he's the one cutting, biting, poisoning his sweet little sheep. It feels like he's digging out the marrow from his little white lotus disciple's bones.
Ok it is shut up time 👍
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Canonicals Tournament FINAL
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The final is between Luo Binghe from The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System (shizun: Shen Qingqiu) and Mo Ran from The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (shizun: Chu Wanning)
Propaganda under the cut! (Warning: Propaganda may include spoilers about the characters and their media)
Luo Binghe:
Luo Binghe's shizun Shen Qingqiu caused his sexual awakening and they lived together with Luo Binghe acting similar to a housewife.
Even after being betayed, stabbed, and pushed into the Endless Abyss, Luo Binghe still loved Shen Qingqiu and wanted answers instead of revenge. Instead he had to repeatedly suffer his shizun dying in his arms and assumed abandonment. Which makes him absolutely lose it, made even worse by his evil sword Xin Mo which worsens all of his negative emotions and destroys its hosts, along with additional trauma over the course of the story.
He reused the sword that his shizun sacrificed himself to free him from, cuddles the corpse every night for five years to preserve it, he creates dreams of their happy years together but never made a Shen Qingqiu that would speak to him, he kidnapped and destroyed cultivators' cores so he could feed xin mo and preserve sqq's corpse, he rebuilds their house in his demonic palace, he spent years fixing sqq's destroyed cultivation and trying to revive him, he forces Shen Qingqiu live in that new house, he rescues and repeatedly puts himself in harms way to protect sqq, he tries to destroy the world so Shen Qingqiu can only love him (due to being driven mad by Xin Mo and his believed abandonment by sqq). He tries to kill himself after Shen Qingqiu dies for him again. He would do absolutely ANYTHING for Shen Qingqiu! He's increadibly jealous of everyone Shen Qingqiu gives attention to, including stairsweeps he smiles at. Luo Binghe has sooo much wrong with him and it makes him so lovable. He's so incredibly traumatized, driven by love and desperation for a majority of the story. He loves Shen Qingqiu so much and can't bear to live without him.
After everything? He lets Shen Qingqiu go, wanting him to be happy even if it means sqq won't stay with him. But sqq wanted to stay together! He gets his man! There is in world porn written about them, they have weird kinky sex inspired by the porn, they get married! Luo Binghe cries regularly for sqq, so sqq can dote on him despite his thin face. Luo Binghe is shameless and adores sqq. Lbh got so nervous that he fell flat on his face when proposing! Lbh loves sqq so much and wants him to be happy more than anything else!
More on disciple era:
Luo Binghe's sexual awakening was his shizun tied up and shirtless. He fell in love after Shen Qingqiu got poisoned protecting him. He moved into his shizun's house and handled all of the cooking and cleaning, would regularly fake fall into Shen Qingqiu during training to get hugs. He got a boner from being forcibly cuddled to heal his injuries. And ran to jump into a lake after being spanked for struggling too much during the forced cuddling. Sqq still never noticed lbh's affections.
--
It took him like 3(three) interactions with nice shizun (transmigrator who replaced his old one) to fall irrevocably in love. baby boy was ready he had mommy issues daddy issues and honestly by that time shizun issues too... luckily his new shizun can fill all those roles and more!
#lbh is THE shizunfucker
#binghe calling him shizun is a kink at some point its definitely him
#vote binghe!!#he wanted to fuck shizun so much that shizun died twice for him
#... i mean. luo binghe is a satire of the shizun fuckers character trope. hes an exageration of it so hes Very It
#luo binghe#again its basically a kink for him as well that puts it on another level
#cmon man#binghe is THE shizun fucker#activily has to be told to not call his husband shizun during sex
#binghe is THE shizunfucker supreme. no competition.
Mo Ran:
*gestures helplessly at the whole damn book*
#Mo 'I died and went into the past after the teacher I hated died in my arms and I dream of him every night' Ran???#of course its him
#vote for Mo ran I’m sorry but he is the emperor shizunfucker of all the shizunfuckers#he is the man the myth the legend#he’s the one you think of immediately when someone says shizunfucker
Extra Propaganda here. There are 3 versions of Mo Ran throughout Erha and every single one of them either wants to or did fuck their Shizun. Even in the darkest timeline when he thought he hated CWN more than anyone he fucked him. This boy is obsessed.
#mo ran 100%#he truly has the shizunfucker mentality
#mo ran#HAS TO WIN#he wants to fuck his Shizun so bad
#but it's gotta be mo ran#the all-time shizunfucker in this world that world and beyond
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tigressaofkanjis · 4 months
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My biggest pet peeve in Transformers media and fanfiction sometimes is that Transformers aren't treated as aliens. They are referred to as aliens, they obviously are aliens, but they never feel like they are aliens because they are always written or seen as having all human mannerisms or features usually. Human posture, human noses, human mannerisms, humanoids...
What about TFA's cat noses or TFP's helm noses? One of the reasons I think those two shows have peak designs is because they have this lack of uncanniness to humans design wise. I'm not looking at a human being as a robot, I'm looking at an alien robot, ones that have claws, ones that have different body types that blend with their vehicle modes, ones with horrific mutilations and designs impossible by human standards. I love seeing that type of stuff in Transformers because to me, it makes them feel alien without completely changing the premises of similarities to where we can't compare their culture or likeness to humans. The films (mostly 1 and 2) showed off this as well.
Another thing I really would like to see in Transformers media is non-human interactive qualities. What do I mean by that? One thing I've noticed is aside from techno-organic species, regular Cybertronians do have a few qualities found in animals. Engine humming I believe was once used as a form of purring in the films and in some of the cartoons. Humans can't purr; cats can, and that small detail is always interesting to come across because it's like "wow, they have this feature that shows off a trait found in Cybertronians. That is so cool." You have them with multiple voice boxes for mechanical, natural, and human-like tones which is also an animal trait. Bumblebee is self-explanatory in most universes being able to still make sounds yet not talk. They have sensors across their body that don't act like the basic human receptors. Most animals can do more than just feel through certain points of their bodies. They can taste, smell, or even hear a hundred times better than a human being throughout various body parts, and Transformers have been hinted to have this ability too, especially through their servos. It's stuff like this that expands upon their existence as aliens.
They have extreme durability, their body morphs to extremes and can also double as a moving weapon (most obvious of course), some of them can make ungodly roars and creature-like noises to warn or show their threatening demeanor (Megatron's dinosaur-like growling), some can have two rows of teeth (a flat base in front and fangs hidden behind), and some of them have mimicking animal-like features (Starscream's bird-shaped feet with visible expansion the same as organic foot padding with similar distributive weight physics in a few universes) despite having no beast mode. There's probably more I can't think of on the top of my head in canon, but all those things are not heavily used as they should be to make them feel alien. They can still hold some relation to the humans they interact with, but I think a lot of Transformers are more than just metal "humans", you know?
Depending on the universe in fanfiction and who you encounter who writes it or not, you have several things that are always cool to see. They have to sparkbond (merging of hearts) above everything else to create a sparkling's life force with interface as just the extra for physical coding features. I've seen people use the non-canon heat cycles which are, of course, our fandom way of making a type of breeding euphemism akin to an animal's cycle. You have the common phrasing of nuzzling, heightened senses, armor and certain parts of the helm acting like fur or ears where it raises and flattens per their mood, and some Transformers have limb dissonance where if necessary, they can convert between bipedal and quadrupedal stances (best example is Bulkhead and Lugnut from TFA who have long arms but short legs and they have the bulky structure where they could possibly run like an animal briefly and the physics of it would work).
So, you have all these different things a common Cybertron most likely would be able to do or have but a human couldn't, and it's never utilized to their full potential. I would like to see people address the nature of Cybertronians as alien and not be afraid to make them alien. I think that's the biggest flaw in our franchise is that everyone is scared of making the Transformers not the humanoid "norm" and getting ridiculed for it. Like, they're aliens, you can make them act however animal-like or completely batshit insane as you want them. You can give them powers, animal-based senses, and behaviors hidden among a human thought process. And technically, you wouldn't be wrong to what they could be as a living creature in the universe by doing so. They aren't humans; they look humanoid, but they aren't us. Why should they have to be in every regard?
Thank you for reading my TED Talk.
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