rue is, i think, in love with the idea聽of love.
they set a wager. the lords of the wing will find true love in this romantic, ephemeral bloom, if they only seek it. they can win it, as though it鈥檚 a game.
they long to abolish the courts. their own court has never held any love for them - why would any other court be different? a court stifles, a court smothers, a court suffocates love. the courts must be abolished, so that love can bloom. true love, love that is unfettered by politics, or station, or duty.
they are the architect of the bloom. the hunt, the heart. the dance. the potions. they will pour love into a cup and the guests will drink their fill. fae from across the realms will fall in beautiful, perfect love at rue鈥檚 hand.聽
they have become the arbiter of love. when an engagement between a cruel prince and a wild goblin is set, what else can they do but judge it unfit? it was not love, it was not true.聽
they share a moment in a forest with a venerated captain. he is tall, as they are. he is clawed, as they are. he is a聽beast, as they are, and so beautiful for it. they fall fast, and hard, and heavy. and perhaps it is only the nature of queerness, of a life lived behind a mask, yearning for the faintest spark, that causes them to love so fast.聽
or perhaps they did not truly fall in love with hob at all. for they did not see聽him.聽
they fell in love with a reflection of themself.
except, of course, that hob is not a reflection of rue. hob is his own person, and like any real person, he cannot live up to an idea. and while rue is on a wonderful journey of revelation and self acceptance, it is baffling to them that someone else鈥檚 love does not always mirror their own.
rue, in an act of bravery and vulnerability and hope, removed their mask. and they long so very much to remove hob鈥檚 - but he has never worn a mask. he has always been exactly as he is - a soldier, devoted and dutiful. an outsider, used and abused by his court. rue鈥檚 true form was hidden by their court, while hob鈥檚 otherness has always been mercilessly exposed.
rue loves hob for the idea of who he could be, if he could simply unmask as they did. but hob needs, just as rue does, to be loved for who he is.
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I feel it in my soul that contrary to popular belief, mean and evil-looking Hua Cheng drinks the sweetest coffee with milk, whipped cream and 47 creamers and toppings
And sweet darling Xie Lian drinks coffee as black as the inside of the Mount Tonglu during moonless nights
And nobody believes this to be true even if they see it with their own eyes
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Headcanon Height Chart
Here's my head canon line up for the characters along with my reasoning. I'd love to hear how other people picture them!
Actual Data
"The average orc stands six and a half feet tall." (Lore Tablet 1)
"Female orcs are stronger than males." (Lore Tablet 1)
"Elves are taller than humans, standing an average of just over six feet fall." (Lore Tablet 1)
"[Humans are] smaller than orcs and shorter than elves." (Lore Tablet 1)
Assumptions
In the real word, the average person is about 5'4" (5'2' for assigned female at birth, 5'6" for assigned male at birth). I picked 5'6" as the average human height across sexes for conceptual symmetry (about 6 inches between the average height for each race).
In the real world, males tend to be taller than females. I am applying this to humans and elves, but not to orcs, as orc females tend to be stronger (which I'm somewhat spuriously correlating with height).
For the chart itself, it's a general art rule to have a person's crotch/wrists at about half of their height. That put the 'floor' for everyone's full body sprites at about 2 feet. I did not stretch or squish anyone. It looks kind of whack to me, but I have no solution for that.
Character Specific Lines
"You bump into a tall man [Mal] heading out of the village!" (Book 1, Chapter 1) Mal is taller than the average human man.
"An exceptionally bulky cocoon thrashes and bursts apart. Prince Baldur tumbles out." (Book 1, Chapter 9) Baldur is unusually large.
"[Nia] You were puny and insignificant before." and "Leave me alone, tiny man [Mal]." (Book 2, Chapter 12) Valax may just be trying to insult everyone, but I'm taking this as she's taller than both of them.
"The bed's too small." (Book 2, Chapter 17) This could be Imtura just wanting an excuse to go at it on the desk, but I'm choosing to believe she's taller than her mother. I cannot imagine Queen Ventra putting up with a suboptimal bed for herself.
Just Vibes
Nia just gives me short girl energy.
I could have sworn that somewhere Aerin is described as the smaller prince, but I couldn't find it. We know Baldur is stronger than Aerin, so I guess I just assumed he's also taller?
I picture Aerin as shorter than average, contributing to his whole *gestures vaguely at him* complex.
For Mal, I feel like it's easier to do rogue-ing if you're not super tall.
I just think it's neat if Valax is big.
Bonus Imtura next to Aerin to drive home how terrifying I imagine her 'lifting him off his feet by the scruff of his shirt' would be-
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Ok its taking way too long to read catchup so I'm just going to ask: in Superior Spider-Man when he does his flashback to the Octogoblin breakup, and it's explicitly stated that Gobby gave Otto's ex AIDS just to be fucked up and Otto spent years doing AIDS research alone when the government was still invested in ignoring it, was that ACTUALLY canon or semi-canon to any older comics (I'm counting it if they didn't say AIDS but it was a mystery wasting disease) or was it just a weird retcon that never got followed up on or mentioned again??
It feels like that would be like. HUGELY impactful to Otto's character if it was "real", not just for the given character motive reasons but positioning him that way in society in that cultural environment. Like we talk about queer coding villains but if he was fighting AIDS back in the 80s he'd be family even if he was straight as an arrow. There'd be like notable discourse between people affected by his villainy and people who respect him and believe in him because he was there fighting the fight.
Sorry if I've asked this before and forgor thank you
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I asked him to take them for one last walk., to the Mall, then to to the men鈥檚 room - find a urinal , then look for spilled piss on the floor.. 馃檲馃槅 So that it for me was a Taste of TOTALLY RANDOM MAN PISS 馃槀 Haha..!
https://x.com/rainwearfaggot/status/1719132725288788330?s=46&t=Hsoju7yF9lEe8Y2tMeAwyw
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