#then I absolutely respect that stance and that makes a lot of sense
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Do you still hate me?
MDNI!!🔞
w/c: 2.7k
Pairing: Aged!Up!Neteyam x Fem!Omatikaya!Reader
Warnings: explicit smut, enemies to lovers, reference of rape, fist fighting, mean Neteyam, dominant Neteyam, cussing, some degrading/dirty talk, porn w plot, I think that’s it??
Summary: enemies to loverssss w Neteyam! Lo’ak is your best friend and it’s caused a rift between you and Neteyam. Hatefulness turns into desire.
A/n: Hey guys! Just wanna let everyone know that I’m only gonna be writing porn w plot lol. So all my character are aged up. I like to have a backstory that builds up the tension, I think it’s so much better but I’m sorry if you think it’s too long or it’s not your thing! Also PLEASE send me ALL your requests and I will do them but please note that I’m only gonna be doing pairings with Jake, Neteyam, and Lo’ak. Enjoy!! 😘
“Hey, wait up!” you call out to Lo’ak. You two were exploring the forest of Pandora, a pastime you’ve both always enjoyed since you were little kids.
“Keep up loser! Not waiting on your skxawng ass!” he yells, not looking back and continuing to run and leap along the terrain.
You and Lo’ak were best friends, platonic soulmates really. Y’all were known for your mischievous behavior and carefreeness, though it’s toned down a lot now at your ages, you being 20 and him being 21. He liked to tease you and call you a baby although he was only older by a few months. Typical Lo’ak behavior.
Growing up you could always count on him for a good time, he was always making you laugh and cutting up with you after your daily schooling and duties were done. The grown ups and your parents would tease you both that you would grow up to be mates. You both thought ‘ewwww’ to that and still do. You loved him very much but not in that way. You were never jealous over each other, you both could talk about your crushes and so forth. There was a sense of respect in your friendship, and being okay that you were just friends and y’all truly didn’t want to ruin that friendship with anything romantic.
Now huffing and puffing and hunching over to catch your breath, you finally caught up to him since y’all were at the edge of the cliff now, right beside a waterfall. It was beautiful.
You stepped to the edge and he playfully tapped you as if pretending to push you off. You get into a play stance and aim to grab his tail. “Skxawng!” you laugh.
“Coming from you?!” he counters. “Hey, mom said she was making teylu tonight, your favorite. Come eat?”
You consider it for a second. Your parents often complained you were at the Sully’s too much, especially when Lo’ak invited you for dinner. And there was also gonna be Neteyam over there… the grumpiest asshole who often tested your patience. But you thought of the mouth-watering teylu and forgot about everything else.
“I guess so. Not because you asked but because I want teylu.” you teased. He just rolled his eyes with a smile and you two headed back to the Sully’s hut.
…
Back at the hut, you and Lo’ak entered in. “Y/n! I’m glad to see you, will you help me finish dinner?” Neytiri asked. She’s always liked you. “Of course!” you smiled.
After you two finished making dinner, she called everyone to come gather to eat in a circle. You took your usual place next to Lo’ak. Then Neteyam walks into the room. He makes eye contact with you and instantly tenses up. He looks away and resumes his broodiness. He was always like this around you. You would catch him laughing and being carefree around others, but it seemed like he absolutely hated you. Like your presence just sickened him. You couldn’t understand why though, all you ever were was nice to him. So now you do hold a grudge against him as all your efforts to be nice have done nothing.
Everyone ate dinner and made small talk about their days. You avoided eye contact with Neteyam of course. “Thank you for dinner mom, it’s delicious.” Neteyam says. “Thank you son but y/n helped me with it, she deserves some appreciation too!” Neytiri chirps.
Neteyam slowed his chewing and looked over at you. “Thank you, y/n” he mumbles. The tension is palpable and the silence is awkward. Everyone knows Neteyam doesn’t take well to you, though they don’t understand why.
After dinner, everyone starts cleaning and doing their own thing as they get ready for bed and settle down. You were looking for Lo’ak and about to cut the corner as you heard him and Neteyam speaking. You freeze and listen closely.
“Why do you always bring her for dinner? You know it’s family time. And plus don’t you ever get tired of being with her all the time?” Neteyam spits.
“Bro, why do you hate her so much? She’s done nothing to you and she’s my friend. Get over yourself,” Lo’ak storms away and before you can move your hiding spot, he runs right into you. You were definitely caught listening and he sees your hurt face. He ushers you away where Neteyam can’t hear or see you and starts trying to calm you. It doesn’t work much and you decide to just head home since you feel so unwanted there. Lo’ak offers to walk you back but you decline and say you want to blow off some steam on your walk by yourself.
…
As you were walking, all these thoughts were going through your head. You were distracted and not paying attention to your surroundings. Then you hear chuckling and low voices. You turn around and see two guys who you recognize but don’t know their names.
“Hey pretty girl, what’re you doing out here so late and all alone?”
The other one approaches you and you try to back up but are backed into a tree. He slides his finger underneath the strap of your top and smiles menacingly at you. “It seems like she wants some attention, huh? Like she’s asking for it..” they chuckle.
Your eyes are wide with fear and adrenaline is coursing through your veins as the realization sets in that you are in serious danger. You regret not letting Lo’ak walk you home.
Then suddenly the one closest to you is stripped away and falls to the ground. It takes you a minute to recognize who it is now punching him ruthlessly and you see that it’s… Neteyam?
The other one tries to get Neteyam off his friend but then he gets sucker punched into the oblivion. You’re just gawking but then finally snap into reality. “Neteyam, stop!!”
He hears your plead and stops. He raised up slowly and is peering down at the guys with their faces bleeding now. “Stay the fuck away from her or next time I’ll kill you both.”
They scatter off and don’t say a word. You’re breathing heavy because a lot just happened. You glance at Neteyam and he holds your gaze as his chest heaves up and down. He turns and starts walking away. Where is he going after what just happened??
“Neteyam, wait!” You run up and grab his arm to turn him to you. His eyes bore into your soul. There’s just a moment of silence as you try to think of the words to say.
“T-thank you for saving me… from those guys” You look down at the ground because you can’t hold his intense eye contact.
He barely nods his head in response and backs away. “You shouldn’t be out here alone this late. Stupid girl. And maybe you should put some more clothes on, you leave nothing to the imagination” He scolds.
Stupid? This was his fault! And commenting on your lack of clothes?? Hell no. “Then next time don’t save me, mighty warrior.” You mocked. “I don’t need you and you don’t impress me like you do everyone else. And you’re not the boss of me”
He just chuckled. “No but if you were mine you would know who was boss.” He towered over you.
Huh? This is outrageous and the most you and Neteyam have ever talked and this is how it goes??
“You’re CRAZY” you shout and push him hard on his chest. “I hate you.” You push him again.
His ears fold back. He can’t hold back anymore.
He grabs both your forearms and pulls you all the way to him and bends down to your ear. “You know what, sevin? I hate you too.” He pulls back and his eyes lock on yours. “I hate how bad I’ve wanted you for so long and you would never even look my way. Too occupied with my brother. I bet you’ve already let him fuck you. I could almost kill him for the fact you’ve always chosen him and not me.” He’s near trembling from a mixture of anger, hurt, and desire.
The truth was he hated seeing you with Lo’ak so much because it was a constant reminder that you weren’t with him. It frustrated him that Lo’ak was the one who got to spend time with you and make you laugh. It should be him, not his baby brother.
His confession has you dizzy, confused and breathless. You couldn’t believe what he just said and questioned if you were in a dream for a second. But no, this was real. Your body was betraying you by being hot all over from his scent in your nose and his breath falling on your skin.
His eyes are searching yours for answer, for anything. You really are just speechless though. He sighs and let’s go of you, ashamed. He goes to walk away and you grab him again to swing him around toward you.
“I’m sorry…” you reach up to hold his cheek with a light touch. “I didn’t know…” your voice cracks a little. “You should’ve told me, you idiot.” You pause for a second, “Lo’ak has not had me. Nobody has.” You confess.
You feel like you’re having an out of body experience but it feels so right. Maybe you were too tired but you honestly felt that Neteyam was being genuine. This realization quickly turned into need.
You go up on your toes to surprise him with a kiss. It’s sweet and warm. You loved the taste of him. You wanted more.
“I’m so sorry, y/n. I have handled this wrong and I am an idiot.”
He swooped back down to press another kiss on you. You open your mouth a little to let his tongue swipe in. The feeling goes straight down to your core that’s gaining more and more slick.
He pulls back and takes a deep breath in. “I smell you, tiyawn. You smell like heaven.” You blush at the fact that your body can’t lie to him. You do want him, want him bad. Even after all his bullshit. But you decided to put your pride aside.
“I need you, Neteyam. Please” you beg. His eyes turn from gentle to dark. Not in the way you’re used to seeing, but dark in a way that was primal. Like a predator watching it’s prey.
“Are you sure?”
You nod yes. He wastes no time and swoops you up bridal style. You look at him with questioning eyes as to where you’re going. “What’s the matter, sevin? Thought I was gonna take you right here for everyone to hear and see?”
…
Once he finds a nice secluded spot with cushiony moss, he lays you down swiftly on it.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” he lowers himself on you and plants sloppy kisses on your neck and collar bone. Your breath quickens.
“You’ve no idea how long you’ve visited me in my dreams” he kisses lower, hand snaking up under your top to reveal your breasts.
“Fuck” he breathes. He squeezes his eyes shut and his head drops down. “I could almost cum at the sight of you”
He latched onto one nipple, gently nibbling on it with his teeth. He takes the other in his finger and starts pulling, pinching, rolling.
“Oh!” You cry out and arch back.
“That’s right, syulang. Gonna make you feel so fucking good”
He starts kissing down your stomach and around your hips as he unties your loincloth and slides it down.
“Fuckkk. You’re soaked, y/n. All for me?”
You nod frantically. He grins and gathers some slick from your aching cunt. It glistens on his fingers as he admires it. He sucks them clean.
“So sweet. So fucking sweet”
He lowers himself down to let his face hover over your sex, pulling your soft, plush thighs on top of his shoulders. He looks up at you through his eyebrows and starts feasting.
Electricity courses through your veins and you feel high. “Neteyammm” you whine pathetically. He continues lapping you up and the sounds are straight up sinful. You didn’t want it to ever end.
“Don’t stop!!” You cry. He just moans and groans on you, sending vibrations through you, hitting the spot.
You feel the high coming, it feels overwhelming and all consuming. You have no control over your body now, he has you completely.
“Gonna cum!! Neteyam!!” You pant and squirm, trying to get out of his hold.
He inserts a finger into your hole, “Cum on my face, pretty girl”. His low voice and words send you over the edge. You see stars and your eyes roll back to your head.
“HOLY FUCK!” You scream. He lets you ride out your orgasm on his fingers and face. He’s now covered in all your juices and licks up as much as he can.
“Shit, y/n. Wanna taste you forever” he groans.
You’re panting trying to catch your breath. Eyes half lidded and looking delirious. He raises up and you shift your gaze down to his tented bulge. “Show me” you point with a weak finger.
He flashes a big grin. “Being bossy are we? Who’d I tell you was the boss around here?”
You roll your eyes and softly chuckle. “Please Neteyam. Don’t tease me.” You wiggle towards him and open wide. You look up at him with siren eyes. The playfulness in him goes away and is replaced with hunger once again. He unties his loincloth and tossed it to the side. You bite your lip in anticipation.
He lines up his cock with your entrance and pushes in. The stretch was so good, as he brushed past all the right places. You looked at him and you both held eye contact, staring into each others souls. As he pushed and pushed you both shared looks of pain and pleasure, mouths agape and eyes fixated on the other. He finally bottomed out as far he could go, you couldn’t believe how full you were. Full of Neteyam, your worst enemy. Or so you had thought.
“Ready tìyawn?”
“Yes!! Go!!” You beg. He pulls out and slams back in.
“Oh, fuck!!” You yell. He starts a pace that has you losing your mind. He lowly groans and occasionally grunts.
“I wonder what your best friend Lo’ak would think about you under me, huh?”
You can only manage to moan in response. You can’t think about anything but your pleasure and Neteyam’s dick stuffed inside you.
He grabs your face and gets nose to nose. “Tell me, will Lo’ak ever get to see you so needy under him like this?” He never stops with his pace, skin steadily slapping and breaths and whines collecting in the air.
“N-no. We’re just friends” you whisper.
“Promise??”
“Yes!!! Please Neteyam!”
“Please what?”
“Make me cum!!”
He growls at your needy plea and fucked out appearance. He speeds up and buries his face in your neck. He’s losing it and feels his own release approaching.
“Shittttt, y/n. You feel so damn good. Please don’t let this be the last time I ever get to be in this pussy” he breathes on you.
You’re so fucked out you can barely form a complete thought but you understand his request. “It’s yours Neteyam! All yours!!”
He moans in appreciation. You feel the coil about to burst and hold onto him tight as he rocks into you ruthlessly.
“Neteyam!!”
“Mmmmmmm” he’s muffled from being in the crook of your neck.
You both cum at the same time, spasming on each other. He releases his load inside you and you take it in greedily while you come down from your climax. He stills and goes limp on you.
“Do you still hate me?” He jokes.
You roll your eyes and swat him playfully. “The bigger question is how are we gonna tell Lo’ak?”
“We’ll worry about that later. For now, sleep.” He kisses your head and you both fall asleep on each other peacefully surrounded by the forest.
#avatar#avatar fanfiction#avatarsmut#neteyam smut#neteyam#neteyam x reader#neteyam x y/n#neteyam x you#neteyam x na'vi!reader#neteyam x omaticaya!reader#neteyam x female reader smut#loak sully#atwow loak#atwow#avatar the way of water#enemies to lovers#smut
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why do people always have damian refer to talia as mother or talia?
now i’m gonna preface this by saying i don’t speak arabic nor am i arab but arab people feel beyond free to just tell me to stay in my lane.
that being said it makes zero sense to me that damian refers to talia as mother or her first name. this goes for both canon and fanon.
mother makes no sense to me because he wouldn’t have grown up saying mother, like you expect me to believe that in nanda parbat damian was referring to his mother in english absolutely not. and while i understand the idea that once he moves to gotham he tries to assimilate i don’t think he would do that my addressing talia as mother. like he might say my mother when referring to her in general. but when actually speaking to her or about her to her family that just feels very unnatural to me.
talia also makes no sense to me. like is to showcase their tumultuous relationship sure okay but i have never in my life seen or heard of a brown person or a poc in general directly refer to their parents as their first name. like when they’re not around sure but as a direct address never. i say this as a poc myself. like you expect me to just believe that talia would allow that. absolutely not. like no matter your stance on respectability politics i feel like addressing your elders with the appropriate respect is a pretty universal thing especially among poc. and you can still portray a tumultuous relationship between parents and children without having an element that’s so aberrative.
i think it especially pisses me off in fanon because people love to have damian refer to bruce or dick as baba as like evidence of their improving relationship but then have talia be called talia or mother. and if the reasoning is that damian and talia’s relationship is so bad that he’s doing this purposefully to put this space between them then that should be demonstrated in the narrative. that this is a recent change, an unnatural one, it isn’t instinctual, but it is purposeful. i mean there are also other issues with talia and damian having a horrible relationship but i find that most of that comes down to talias post 2001 characterisation so i wont go into it but i defo think writers should keep in mind. no media is ever created in a vacuum.
anyway from a little bit of research i’ve done i’ve found that yumma, ommah and omm are all very common ways to say mother. there are loads of different ways to say mother because arabic has so many different dialects. i’ve also found out that ommi el-habiba means my beloved mother which i could totally see damian saying really bitingly if he is fighting with talia.
once again arab people feel free to correct me or tell me to mind my business. but also i think about this a lot like even mama makes far more sense to me than mother or talia
#damian wayne#damian wayne al ghul#talia al ghul#dc batfam#batfamily#bruce wayne#dick grayson#robin#batman#batfamily headcanons#batman meta#batfam meta
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hi! i have a kinda strange question about the bonus chapter with az, bryce, and nesta (so pls ignore this ask if you haven’t read it yet and don’t want to be spoiled!!) there’s a conversation in the chapter where bryce explains what bombs and guns are, and at first azriel responds that such horrible weapons shouldn’t exist, then later nesta says something along the lines that it doesn’t matter if terrible weapons exist bc people will hurt each other regardless. (hopefully i didn’t switch azriel and nesta’s opinions, i lost the source that i read the bonus chapter from lol). do you think this was intended to be a commentary on gun control/gun laws or am i reading wayyy too deep into things? that’s how it came off to me and i had mixed feelings on which side sjm was trying to portray as right since she ends with nesta’s statement and doesn’t really bring up the issue any further. because yes, people will try to find ways to hurt each other, but it’s definitely a lot harder without easy access to guns. or maybe it was meant to show the different worldviews that nesta and azriel have, more about their characterization than a political commentary. idk i’d love to know your thoughts!
Okay this is such an interesting question because on the one hand I actually did think the same thing? It was just too similar to arguments people make irl about guns for me to ignore. But on the other hand... I sorta blinked, and then moved on.
It was Nesta, here is the quote (from my Walmart copy that showed up today woohoo):
"And people would still kill each other, even without those weapons," Nesta said gravely. "The wicked will always find a way to hurt and harm."
Honestly, I don't think we are reading too much into it because Crescent City as a series has already been posing these sorts of questions. sjm has had these characters make some very clear statements on politics and disadvantaged groups (e.g. humans) and terrorism and what are "appropriate" ways to rebel in this series.
It's really important not to confuse an author with their characters. Just because she writes a character who says X, doesn't mean that she as an individual also believes X. So imo, trying to attribute a character's political stance to her personal stance is very slippery. I say that because I don't think we could take Nesta's statement and say that sjm is pro gun rights or something, you know? SJM didn't make this statement, her character did. Writing fiction is not an implicit condoning of the actions within that work of fiction.
The philosophical stances that these characters take on the conflicts within this series is one of the things that turns me off from it. It's inconsistent given the context, what we know certain characters experience simply because of their identity, and... I think I've mentioned this before? But hosab really doubled down on the idea of respectability politics, to me. Respectability politics, for anyone who doesn't know, is the idea that if people just acted polite, asked nicely, and stopped being rude or mean, then they would be granted all the rights they ask for. Which is absolutely ridiculous and a tool for control. But the series really has me questioning whether sjm thinks it's a legit demand to make of people who are being disadvantaged, given how the narrative treats the human rebellion (and any other fae or angels or whoever who tries to rebel against the Asteri). Like if the human rebels just stopped blowing things up, maybe the Asteri and Vanir wouldn't oppress them so hard, jeez!!!
That's a fancy way of saying Bryce's stance on discrimination annoys the fuck out of me. Not just hers, but many of the characters' stances.
That is only somewhat related to your question, but I hope you understand why it came to mind haha. While I do hesitate to attribute any specific political leanings to an author because of what they have written, I do think that is makes more sense to wonder in CC than in her other series, given that politics, discrimination and stratification are major themes of the series.
If you have thoughts about what I said, I am curious to hear them!
#hofas#hofas spoilers#spoilers#Leslie reads hofas#the author is not their characters#but sometimes you gotta ask#why they keep writing a certain thing a certain way#ask#anon
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Tell me Dimitri lore. Now.
Who is he. What is he. What's his deal. What's his story. What is his place in the story you're telling yourself in your head. What's his stance on old hairy men.
HE-HE’S JUST- *grabs you by the shoulders, white-knuckled* he’s my everything. he’s my skrunkly. he’s my little punching bag. I love him so much.
putting this under a cut because I just made this very long but I am absolutely not ashamed, I hope you like reading 👍👍
Dimitri Kazriel is my first (and almost only, I have one other new character) dnd character, created for a campaign that I loved but was sadly cut short a while ago due to the DM being an absolute jackass that I could no longer respect. He’s a stereotypical little edgy tiefling who is officially a warlock but is essentially a rogue in every other aspect. He’s charming (or at least he thinks he is), snarky, a bit asshole-ish, untrusting, sneaky, and an absolute disaster. He look like dis :)
He lives in a Norse mythology-based world, and his warlock patron is none other than the god Loki, who he has happily served for like 10 years now.
His deal you ask? Well, teehee *twirls hair* well his deal is that he’s a widdle puppet of the gods who has no concept of how tiny he really is in their plans and how little his patron actually cares about him 🥰😍😍 he exists solely to be manipulated and used as a microscopic chess piece on a board of grander scale than he will ever comprehend!!! 😍😍😍
Not only is he Loki’s little puppet (which like, he’s kind of starting to become aware of but not fully) but in the timeline of the campaign, Odin himself has also taken an interest in him! And essentially gave him an offer to help Odin overthrow Loki and as a reward, Dimitri could literally ascend to godhood in Loki’s place! Sounds great right! Except ummm Loki sees and knows all and Dimitri knows that if Loki catches him plotting with Odin he’ll probably be horribly punished 🥰
So basically his whole deal (as of the time that the campaign ended) is that he’s a little puppet chess piece that two gods are fighting over, and he has no idea what they really want, has no concept of how insignificant he really is to them, and has literally no sense of independent identity outside of servitude! 😍
But the manipulation theme goes wayyy beyond just that because before he served Loki, he spent the majority of his teens as part of this sort of gang-like organization called the Weavers. (There’s like this whole city lore thing but yada yada basically they’re a sneaky force that controls a lot of shit). Specifically, he serves the leader of the Weavers, a man called the Broodfather. (Literally all of this city and Weavers lore was all made up by my DM btw, I’m not gonna claim ownership of that even if he is a shitbag. Most of Dimitri’s story and backstory was very much an ongoing collaborative project between us.)
And ohhh I could go on about what that was like but basically all you need to know is that the Broodfather is Not Nice and was extremely manipulative and made Dimitri sort of look up to him as a father-like figure for years, someone that Dimitri strove to make proud. (Also the Weavers basically “rescued” him from poverty on the streets so he feels like he owes the Broodfather a debt.) Eventually this all culminates in him tricking Dimitri into killing his best friend! 😍 Which finally makes Dimitri realize “oh shit I need to get the Hell Out Of Dodge” but long story short that plan fails, the Broodfather catches him in the act, punished him and completely breaks his spirit!!!!
Now THIS. This is where Loki swoops in. When Dimitri is at his absolute lowest point, Loki comes in and offers him freedom and power, and Dimitri takes it. He serves Loki for years - (he doesn’t like thinking of himself as a servant of course, he considers Loki more of a generous benefactor who he happens to share a lot of mischievous traits with) - and even when he does finally start to question his allegiance, Loki keeps him in his grasp by reminding him of who saved him, who it was who so kindly freed him from enslavement to the Weavers.
But. But. 🥰Teehee. My favorite part. My absolute favorite part of the lore. Is what Dimitri doesn’t know. Which is that Loki and the Broodfather are the same person. Loki killed the original Broodfather and, being a shapeshifter, took on his form to lead the Weavers for a few years for his own personal plans. Dimitri just happened to wander in to his web, a naive little boy waiting to be manipulated. So Loki molded him, shaped him into the perfect puppet, purposefully engineered his trauma to make him as weak and easily manipulated as possible, just in time for him to finish his plans with the Weavers (leaving the Broodfather’s dead body behind to explain his disappearance) and appear to Dimitri as his real godly self.
Dimitri only stays with Loki willingly because he believes him to be a savior, because he thinks he’s free. He thinks he escaped. But he never did.
anyways here’s a text exchange between me and my old DM that really fits here I think 🥰💖💖
(oh, also I think his stance on hairy old men would be somewhere between apathetic to positive. he has a little bit trauma-related unease around old men I would imagine, but there was also a really hot 60-70 something year old dilf NPC in game that I personally had a massive fucking crush on, so I had Dimitri flirt with him a lot lmao)
#oh yeah in that text convo I was talking about Dimitri potentially having an arc or moment in his backstory#in which he tries to commit suicide to escape the cycle of endless servitude :)) but Loki would probably stop him from even doing that#he has literally done nothing except get stepped on and manipulated his whole entire life and he doesn’t even really know it 🥰🥰🥰😍😍😍💖💖#also he invented waffles.#ask box#dimitri kazriel#sunny’s ocs#I’ve been DYING to explain this part of his lore but didn’t know how#so thank you so much for giving me an excuse to yap about my boy 😌☺️#this is now the Official Dimitri Lore Post#I love him so much <3#skrunkly scrimblo <3#he’s my little plinko horse#tw suicide mention
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I can probably guess, but how would those individuals getting the Death Note make things worse?
Well,
While she probably should have the book over Light, Emilia is far more ambitious and dangerous that he could be even without the notebook. She's sort of this embodiment of a child's imagination/rebellion in that she's this rebellious firecracker that can do basically anything and has very little respect for grown-ups and very little tolerance for injustice, but she's also egotistical and stubborn and has very little breaks and a very stunted sense of morality, among many other flaws. She's not really that bad, she's a trickster with a big heart trying to make the best of a fiercely opinionated brain and a lease in life she was never supposed to have, she grows for the better but, she did think about cutting off an angel's wings just to see what happened (she later saved the angel by beating Popeye with food poisoning). She held the world hostage with a shrinking spell to try and force the U.S President into ending war forever. Her first appearence had her win a fight by carving out a scorpion's eyeballs with a barbecue spit. Again, she's not evil, but she tends to rejects concepts like "nuance", "social filter" and "not getting to do what she wants right now". She absolutely would have a list planned for the occasion, and there would be a lot of politicians and big shot important folks in there. I'm starting to reconsider my stance on whether she should have the book or not.
The Golden Amazon actually is just straight up evil though. In the first book, she destroys most of England and attempts to rule the world by replacing humanity with synthetic beings, by the second she's leading a secret society of superwomen from the Amazon, and in the following books, while she became an "anti-hero" in the loosest sense possible, that's more so because she succeeds in taking over things and so now has to defend her matriarchy from aliens and saboteurs (I think the books might have retconned some details as they went along but she seems to be either defending Earth so she can rule it or already being it's ruler). She is the Dominatrix of the Solar System, the greatest scientist who ever lived, a cruel, ice cold murder expert superhuman who pretty much doesn't need the Death Note in any way, she really really doesn't need any kind of help in killing/torturing people. The real danger here is her learning about the existence of the shinigami and the shinigami world and deciding she doesn't like death gods in on her territory (existence itself) and deciding to do something about it.
The Black Bat, I mean, Tony Quinn is kind of a piece of shit. He's a scarred and miserable District Attorney turned vigilante serial killer who brands the corpses of the criminals he kills, and unlike The Spider he's not exactly dealing with apocalyptic extreme circumstances to make this behavior less insane, he's just fighting mobsters. Passing the Death Note from the son of a cop, into the hands of a disgraced District Attorney who already decided to go out at night to murder crime with guns and has associates at hand to help him do it is just, well it's not exactly a step up from the threat Light Yagami posed.
El Sombra, look, Djego tried, he truly did. He did a lot of good. If you gave him the Death Note, he'd use it exclusively to kill Nazis and he'd mean it, because that's all he ever did, if you handed him the book during the events of El Sombra and Gods of Manhattan he could have done a lot of good with it. It's just, Pax Omega happened, and what became of him is absolutely not someone who you want to hand something like the Death Note to. He failed, and he failed where it mattered most, and his reward for failure was becoming version 2.0 of everything he hated most and nearly dooming the entire planet. Even if he could have used it to kill Hitler and every member of Untergang, there was no happy ending to the tale of El Sombra. He just failed too profoundly for that to be possible.
The Whisperer, see The Black Bat's deal but times ten, or really just read that editor note above introducing him. The Whisperer is "Wildcat" James Gordon, a handsome young dandy Police Commissioner who, once elected, turned out to be a total maniac asshole (famously burned down an illegal casino as Commissioner, didn't even put on a disguise to do it) and who fights crime by transforming himself into an unrecognizably older persona so he can murder people with impunity. I feel like I don't have to elaborate much here, what's wrong with this guy is fairly brutally self-evident.
The Blue Morpho, because, well how long you've got? Even if you've never watched The Venture Bros and don't know all the horrible things he's done personally, I feel like "cartoon supervillain moonlighting as a dark violent pulp hero in order to kill all the other supervillains in town standing in his way" is fairly self-explanatory. Mr Fitzcarraldo here offed his world's Legion of Doom in one blow pretty much by accident. He's not really out to kill for killing's sake, he just wants to get one guy really badly, but he doesn't really care who he has to get rid of to do that, or even just killing people to solve minor dumb inconveniences like avoiding paying taxi fare or being annoyed by a henchman. He might have the biggest on-screen body count in a show that has Brock Samson in it and only became deadlier as The Blue Morpho, that's no small feat.
Hugo Danner, because there is not a single aspect of Hugo Danner's life that didn't suck and that he didn't find a way to make worse. Hugo Danner was every bad/evil/stupid take on Superman published years before the genuine article. Hugo Danner is the Garth Ennis Superman pisstake that Garth Ennis loved the character too much to actually do. Hugo Danner enlisted in WW1 and only realized he could have ended it single-handedly after he'd already slaughtered thousands and thousands of poor infantrymen with his bare hands and the war ended, and promptly hated himself for being such a colossal idiot. He could not conceive of solutions that didn't envolve "squeezing continents into submission" and punishing all the people too stupid and scared to love him the way he thought he deserved. He hated himself too much to even kickstart plans to create a master race. He got himself killed by cursing the skies and being struck by a lightning bolt on the final page. There's not a lot that the Death Note could have done to save his life from being a shit show, but all he ever did was perpetrate that shit show on others so, yeah, good riddance Danner you stupid bastard.
#replies tag#pulp heroes#pulp fiction#golden amazon#boneca emilia#hugo danner#the whisperer#the black bat#blue morpho#venture bros
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Rating Alex Rider Villians on a scale of 1-10 on how supportive they'd be of me telling them I'm Agender:
[Just so we are clear, the concept for this came from a TikTok-er who does a good amount of Alex Rider content/analysis!)
Harod Sayle: 5/10 He's too focused on his own revenge plot against British school children to care and he wouldn't entirely understand it, but I get the vibe that he'd ask some follow-up questions about what I meant and then just be like "ok cool IG". He'd misgender me a lot, but it wouldn't be from a place of malice, it would just be because he forgot. He'd be quick to fix his mistake though. All in all, Harod Sayle's just too spiteful to have the energy to expend on being transphobic/enby-phobic/agender-phobic (I never know the right term to use, please send help!), so he simply wouldn't be. If I were British, however, he would be the most transphobic person on Earth to me!
Nadia Vole: 10/10 She'd ask for pronouns upon introduction and always make sure that she's using the right ones! If nothing else, Nadia Vole is a professional, and professionals use people's correct pronouns, names, and honorifics. I also get the vibe that she'd not put up with anyone's bullshit if they're intentionally going around not respecting other people's identities. She also just gives the energy that she's queer (especially in the graphic novel), but then again it might just be me projecting.
Mr. Grin: 5/10 Bro's literally just doing his job and couldn't give less of a fuck. He'd respect my pronouns and stuff, but it'd be out of total indifference to me. Just like, he doesn't have the energy to waste, so it wouldn't matter to him whatsoever.
Dr. Grief: -10/10 He's a racist/nazi/white supremacist/fascist jackass (probably a stronger word would be better suited for this, but I don't feel like putting it in), so going off of what we know already, I can make a very educated guess as to what his stance on me not fucking with gender would be...
Eva Stellenbosch: -10/10 Same with Dr. Grief. She'd also just straight-up hate crime me for fun, so there's that too.
Alexei Sarov: 8/10 He'd be a little confused/not know entirely what being agender meant, or even what it is for that matter, but after it was explained to him, he'd make an effort. He'd read up on the subject, he'd ask questions, he might mess up on pronouns and such pretty regularly, but there'd be an effort on his part and that's what matters!
Conrad: 1/10 He's a chaos gremlin of pure hatred and murder. He is alive solely out of bitterness and spite. He'd purposely misgender me/be actively transphobic just to feel something. Anything. Conrad just wants to watch the world burn and he's got the gasoline.
Damian Cray: 20/10 There was no heterosexual explanation for that man to begin with! I also can't see him being super big on gender in the first place. He'd be out there actively fighting transphobia and showing his support for all of the LGBTQIA+ community! He'd validate me and he'd be aggressively supportive as well!
Nikolai Drevin: 0/10 Y'all saw how he was to his son Paul Drevin. Paul has been head-cannoned/heavily implied to be gay and we all saw how THAT turned out... I just feel like Nikolai Drevin would not hesitate to force me to go to conversion therapy. That's it. Maybe he'd pretend to be supportive at first to lull me into a false sense of security so he could kidnap me for conversion therapy, but it'd be a complete and total act. Believe me, this man IS ABSOLUTELY NOT an ally!!! That being said, he wouldn't outright kill me/other type of hate crime me. Not that conversion therapy is ok or anything, but the bar is so low on this list at points and I'm forced to give credit where credit is due. He'd kill me because I beat him at something which is something he does with everyone else so it's an equal opportunity thing.
Desmond McCain: 3/10 He'd try and do an exorcism of me. not necessarily because of the whole agender thing (not that that would hurt his decision though), but just because of me as a person. I don't care if he's not that kind of religious, but that wouldn't matter to him. He'd become that type of religious. Desmond McCain would also try to talk me out of being agender (not that that's someone that can do) by telling me that "God didn't intend for you to reject your natural calling as a woman." which isn't something that I think that God would agree with because I just don't... Either way, he'd say that I was a sinful person and going to super-hell when I eventually and he'd mean it too even if he's just faking being a Christian.
Dominic Royce: 4/10 He'd be on the quiet side, but don't let that fool you! He'd actively be doing everything in his power to pass anti-trans laws even though legislating is not part of his job! He'd refuse to acknowledge my saying anything about being agender and say condescending shit like 'You're too young to know that!" or "It's just a phase!" and would be calling me "young lady" or "Ms./Miss" a lot which would just be super uncomfortable.
Owen Andrews: 2/10 Bro totally leaves Reddit comments about how being trans/non-binary/agender isn't real/is a mental illness or some bullshit like that in his free time for fun and probably believes it as well. That being said, however, I don't see him being super transphobic out loud to my face. He'd definitely misgender me every time and place he got, but I could probably beat him in a fight and he knows this.
Darcus Drake: 6/10 He'd use the right pronouns, he'd be respectful enough, but mostly he wouldn't be too bothered with any of it.
Dr. Raymond Feng: 5/10 He'd be skeptical about it, but he'd hear me out and just accept it. I get the sense that he'd be thinking 'oh is this internalized misogyny or childhood trauma or something?', but I stand by my statement saying that he'd ultimately be accepting and validating to me more or less. Not a strong ally, not a transphobe, just a man who presumably has a doctorate in psycology with no quams about imprisoning and interrogating a thoroghly traumatized child. And I for one think that's beautiful. (Not actually, I just wanted to put that last part down there.)
Dwain Garfield: 1/10 He's a Trump supporter. 'nuff said. Source? Trust me bro.
Vladimir Sharkovsky: -5/10 He'd hate crime me or, more accurately, have somebody else hate crime me for him.
Harry Bulman: 2/10 Bulman would've been out there writing transphobic AF articles LONG before meeting me. Harry Bulman would be writing articles about how being trans/non-binary/agender was the latest 'fad/trend', go out of his way to make fun of the trans experience, and spread misinformation about how "gender/women are under attack!". Now, I don't think that he'd actually believe what he's writing (except for the whole thing about it being a 'trend' or mental illness or whatever), he's just in it for the money/the clout. Not that this makes it any better, if anything that makes it worse. In any case, he'd laugh in my face when I say I use they/them pronouns and then tweet about it or whatever and call me a 'crazy, blue-haired liberal' or whatever despite me not having blue hair. In short, metaphorically (never literally) fuck Harry Bulman!
Colonel Aubrey Sykes: 1/10 He'd just call me a 'snowflake' and say that he identifies "as an attack helicopter" because like many transphobes, he hasn't evolved much since 2016-2017. Also, since I'm not a veteran or active service member of the military and an American, I just get the vibe that he'd already have had absolutely zero respect for me in the first place even if I was cis. Also, he just gives extremely misogynistic vibes too, so whether or not I was cis wouldn't change much.
[Probably going to do a separate list for SCORPIA members and the Nightshade board. The same goes for MI6/CIA/ASIS characters. It'll be fun maybe!]
#alex rider#vladimir sharkovsky#alexei sarov#dr. raymond feng#dwain garfield#dominic royce#conrad#damian cray#owen andrews#darcus drake#nikolai drevin#harod sayle#nadia vole#mr. grin#dr. grief#eva stellenbosch#agender#harry bulman#transphobia#colonel aubrey sykes
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A Reflection on Stelle and the Stellaron Hunters
This piece was long overdue, but since I started talking about Stelle and her ties to the Hunters, I figured I might as well go in depth on her thoughts on them now. I'll go in order of appearance: Kafka, Silver Wolf, Blade, Sam, and Elio.
The first, and probably most significant, relation is obviously with Kafka. I've seen a multitude of portrayals with respect to the dynamic between Kafka and Stelle, but I can very confidently say that my Stelle hates Kafka. She wants absolutely nothing to do with Kafka, and the truth is that Kafka terrifies her. Almost all of it stems from her deep-rooted fear of losing her autonomy, something that I've talked about here. She knows what Kafka is capable of, she's seen it with her own eyes multiple times, and the knowledge that Kafka has the full capacity to just erase (or at least block) her memories and has done so haunts her. She's so incredibly conflicted about that too, because on the one hand she likes who she is, she doesn't want to ever remember a time when she was affiliated with the Stellaron Hunters, but at the same time it kills her to know that a part of her has effectively been... robbed. It's a constant tug-of-war between her desire to know more about herself and her refusal to let Kafka have any sort of leverage over her -- something she questions regularly as Kafka seems to know each and every step she takes, thanks to Elio (more on them later). She wishes deeply that Kafka would stop acting so warmly toward her. Any and all friendliness towards her is met with very strong hostility, borderline aggression at that.
Silver Wolf, on the other hand, is someone she actually... is okay with. Someone she could almost call a friend. She doesn't know how to feel about that, but Silver Wolf has made her stance on things pretty clear: she just wants to have fun. Their shared love of gaming is something that Stelle can get behind, and I do imagine that Silver Wolf fully earned Stelle's respect during the Aetherium Wars. Is she curious about Silver Wolf's past? ...Yes, I'd say so. But she hesitates to ask, because the thought of such a topic turning to her own history with the Stellaron Hunters is a frightening one. She... can't deny that a lot of her curiosity about their dynamic stems from Silver Wolf constantly talking about the others. She wonders what her relationship with Silver Wolf was like, too. Were they gaming buddies in the past too? Is that why she's comfortable with Silver Wolf? ...The thought makes her a little sad sometimes.
When it comes to Blade, the real complications in her feelings hit full force. Blade is scary. Blade is dangerous, an unknown, a threat, a symbol of harm to her friends and family. ...Blade is safety. Blade is reliable. Blade trained her. She even takes more after him than Kafka in terms of personality. Stelle's agreement to help Kafka in her companion mission wasn't for Kafka, it was entirely borne from both her desire to find out more information to help Dan Heng and her want to ease his suffering, because nobody deserves torment like that -- even if she didn't fully understand why she felt such compassion for him at the time. The few times he spoke to her in private, and especially at the end of Kafka's companion mission, when he called her young one, she did feel young. She felt so horribly small. The sensation came with such agony, because that sense of security, no matter how fleeting, feels like a direct betrayal of Dan Heng every single time. Her guilt surrounding this tears her up inside every single time. I think... Blade is probably the one that Stelle could sit quietly with the most, and she does not know at all how to come to terms with this.
There's not much on Sam publicly (yet. wiggles my fingers at 2.0. i know what you are) but I think that Stelle doesn't remember Sam at all. It was VERY alarming to get that emoji spam from Blade's phone from Sam, but at the same time Stelle found it... cute. Charming in a way that Stelle doesn't entirely trust. At the present moment, she's very unsure what to think of Sam, but that'll be subject to change very soon! Currently, though, she places Sam in a similar sphere to Silver Wolf just based on preliminary vibes.
-rubs hands- Elio.
An enigma to her in everything but name, Elio is probably the person that Stelle is the second most scared of -- second to Kafka only because Kafka has had a real and direct impact on her life, while Elio remains this nebulous entity spoken of more like a myth than anything else. Would she be curious to meet Elio? ...She doesn't know. She doesn't think so. On the one hand, there's no doubt that they could easily answer any questions she has, but on the other, fate as a concept is something she so strongly stands again. There's no doubt in her mind that an encounter with Elio would leave her feeling worse than she did beforehand. But at the same time, there's an inherent desire to confront them, find out what they have in store for her, prove them wrong. I think she'd like to surprise Elio in that regard. There's definitely a sense of defiance accompanying her wariness about them. I believe even if an encounter with Elio were to go badly for Stelle, it'd fuel her determination to see things through, her way. I'm waiting on more info about Elio to say more!!
That's pretty much the thick and thin of it so far. I crave more Stellaron Hunter content aaaaaaaaa. More of her thoughts on Sam will be shared following Penacony's release! I'm looking forward to it \o/
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i read through a lot of your analyses and i still can't tell what some of your stances are, but i just wanted to know how much you agree with my own stances on edelgard and dimitri/3H.
3H is obviously not a well thought-out political treatise on the ramifications of war and different styles of political change. it just isn't. it ends far too quickly and is too simplistic to ever be anything similar.
what 3H is incredible at is character writing. this is why i simply don't understand why people "hate" edelgard OR dimitri. neither of these people are saints. they've both done horrific things. but they both portray trauma in such fascinating and complex ways that you rarely see in videogames. the parallels they have and the way they see the world are just so compelling to me that i actually avoid finishing CF/SS/AM because it always leaves me feeling so emotional afterward and sometimes i just want a nice comfort game.
that being said, i do take issue with the way dimitri's arc resolves. i think it's extremely unrealistic how he just "snapped out" of his intense mental problems. as someone who has also struggled with mental health, it's a very slow process and often it feels like one step forward, two steps back. i wish that they had left his recovery a lot more incomplete, or that the game had lasted longer so his recovery felt more organic.
this is why i prefer edelgard purely as a character because i think the way she represses her emotions completely and is slowly corrupted by her inability to trust or love herself is a story that makes a lot more sense to me.
I'm not sure in which respects my stances are unclear, but I'm always happy to clarify if you just ask! Keep in mind that this blog is like three years old at this point so if you go back far enough you'll probably find contradicting things, as my opinions have developed and changed over the years. So if that's the problem just assume the most recent stuff is the most accurate.
I will say that while 3H can have some very good character moments, I also think it's incredibly disappointing in a lot of ways. The plot, writing, and worldbuilding being so messy just doesn't give the characters a good foundation to stand on, so character moments often come across extremely hollow to me.
I could name countless examples but I think the most obvious one that everyone picks up on is Gronder Field. First, we're told that this is extremely sad and difficult for all of the characters involved, despite never or almost never seeing the students from different houses interact with each other at any point during the main story. If you don't recruit then it's entirely possible to go the entire Academy portion of the game without seeing a single cross-house interaction beyond the house leaders.
They all point to the feast they had after the battle of Eagle and Lion in the Academy part, but that happens entirely off screen. It's not even really described beyond "it was fun" and "we were all sitting together". Emblem Claude in Engage gives a better idea of what happened there than 3H ever does. A piece of DLC for a completely different game in the series describes what is supposed to be a key interaction better than the game it was actually from!
And then you actually get there and it's contrived AF. There's literally no reason for the BL and GD to be fighting each other at any point but they all kill each other anyway. There's no fog of war. Characters will even recognize each other before they fight and then continue fighting each other anyways despite having absolutely no reason to?
And then it just ends and we're all told to feel very sad about it, but why should we? It's not earned. These characters don't know each other or care about each other, most of them weren't even on opposite sides. It comes across as feeling dumb and unearned, which makes the characters reacting to it completely 100% straight as if it were this huge but unavoidable tragedy come off as confusing and overwrought.
Edelgard's writing as an entire other can of worms that I've gotten into too many times to count, so I'll try to keep this short.
I'll preface this by saying I don't have a problem with people liking or relating to Edelgard in any way. Also, just because something has problems doesn't mean you can't have found meaning in it. I can tell you really enjoy the character anon, and that's great! I wouldn't want to take that away from you.
Buuuuuut since I'm giving my opinion here... I don't agree with her being a well written depiction of trauma. I feel like, especially now, the fandom tends to engage with the Edelgard we all wanted instead of the one we actually got.
Again I'll use a specific example (well actually two) to illustrate my point.
It's hard to take her trauma seriously when it's immediately undercut by her doodling pictures of her crush, getting embarrassed about it, and getting teased. This happens twice. They do this twice! Once in the explore section immediately after Ladislava and Randolph literally die right in front of her, and once after you could have potentially killed Claude and she's talking about being locked in a fucking dungeon!
Like it blows my mind that more people don't talk about this, especially the latter example. You have just potentially killed someone. She's sitting there. Talking about being locked in a dungeon, tortured, and experimented on. And then your character's reaction is to tease her for doodling a picture of you. And they did this two times, so it's not like it was an accident!
So like how am I supposed to read this, exactly? Either the entire scene is bunk and you're not really meant to take the trauma portion seriously, it's all just a big joke, or... or you're supposed to find teasing someone going through a genuine trauma response endearing and enjoyable..? It's just. I've been looking at this scene and the numerous other Edelgard scenes like it and I just don't get there. I don't understand how to read this in a way that isn't incredibly belittling or sexist or SEVERELY undercutting what should be a serious character moment.
But people want it to be this serious, well-written character moment for her. I don't blame anyone for that, because that's what I would have wanted too! But it's just... it's so crazy disrespectful on every level, to treat a female character's trauma like it's a funny quirk or an opportunity to flirt/tease? I can damn well guarantee that no male character would be treated with that amount of disrespect, and we know that because Dimitri exists and at no point is his trauma ever played for a joke or undercut like this! It's not perfectly written, but it's written with respect to the subject and the character.
There's an absurd degree of sexism baked into the writing of 3H that just doesn't get addressed by the fandom at large, so I kind of find it frustrating.
And worse, sometimes when you try to engage with that and critique it you're shouted down or treated as if you are the problem, like I somehow spoke the sexism of the game into existence just by pointing it out.
I could go on but I'll cut myself off here
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Ep 7: Taissa
Hello! This is about up to Episode 7 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY episode 7 of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond the seventh episode, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me. Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please just fucking block the tag
If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.
Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open
She’s completely right about going down the mountain, and she does not fail to be any less right just because this section exists to stop people from saying, “why didn’t they try to walk out” but of course here, and I do love how they cast this issue even if I don’t know that’s what they were going for, as smart as Tai is, she has no idea how to traverse a mountain, how to escape one. I would be right here with Tai, but I would not fucking be going south, if you go south in the Albertan rockies you can potentially walk to fucking Colorado without leaving the mountains. This isn’t even just a rockies thing, there are a lot of mountain ranges that work just like that.
So, if it’s me, I’m going but I’m following water down, because THAT will find you a person quicker than anything short of setting off a personal beacon. I would do that over following a road! Though ideally I’d love a road that followed a river or creek. That for sur3e is heading tgo civilization. Motherfuckers love to live near rivers.
But what I really respect about Taissa is that she’s going to go ahead and do this whether or not it kills her, even though I imagine she knows she’s fome fucking New Jersey and knows nothing about surviving in the wilderness. And she asks it of no one else. No one else has to go. You do the thing that has to be done even if no one will do it with you. ANd even while In know that she is in a horror show (sort of) and so she absolutely is not right about everything having an explanation and it being fucking insane to say that the woods don’t want them to leave, I would tell you what, I am Tai here. I would be tearing my hair out if people were whining about some fucked up copper creek while I’m trying to get down the fucking mountain in the least amount of days possible. I support her when she tells everyone to go back, and I love it for her because Tai is unafraid to do things alone, and in some ways I think she prefers it that way, because alone there is no dead weight. Alone, it’s only her.
I talk about the reasons behind this a little bit more in the “Oh my God I am Choking on This Fucking Wolf Attack” post, but its so intersting to me that Van is putting so much into their foxhole relationship, while Taissa pretty clearly is not. Now, we do know that Taissa grows up to be professionally gay, but some people are only into situational homosexuality in a practical sense, and I really don’t have an issue with it. But Tai, I think it’s pretty clear, is not looking at the future prospects of this relationship. Van’s already talking about everyone finding out, and buying her a pretzel in fucking New York, and Tai’s over here going, “If we get out no one needs to know :)” I’m sure tai will feel guilty about that later, but it fits with her generally: This isn’t something she has space for in her life plan. Tai is ruthless, and driven, and I love that about her but we see it ruining her life NOW, and making her unable to allow for romantic developments in a serious way in the past.
I'm sitting over here of course going, "and since she's 17, I think that's correct" but me agreeing with Taissa again, groundbreaking, I know.
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Ranking Taliesins relationships with my Skyrim characters (dragonborn and not)
Aenerion: Do u think they explored eachothers bodies? No but seriously. Both Ex-Thalmor, both used to have younger family members in their life that they care about and miss (tho Aenerions are both adopted), both trying to right the wrongs made during their Thalmor service and both have varying levels of snark (epically towards said Thalmor). Probably the best relationship either of them have had in years, friendly or otherwise. 10/10
Helena: She's an Imperial who hates the war, so she's noooooot the biggest fan of Tally when they first meet. However, she lost her son to the great war and Taliesin doesn't exactly look old,,,,plus if she can let Aenerion into her home then she can help another Thalmor in need. They butt heads often regarding stance on the war and Talos, but despite being so much younger than Taliesin, Helena has some empty nest syndrome and insists on mothering him, which includes making sure he's well fed, buying him water breathing potions 'just in case' after learning he can't swim, and using her blacksmithing expertise to ensure he's well defended (don't worry, she won't touch Berwhale). Overall I give them a 6.5/10, not entirely netural but not the best nor healthy relationship.
Shorbz: Aenerions adopted (stolen) child. He's a devotee of Mara and functions almost like a Paladin archetype. He's not the biggest fan of the Thalmor but tries to love and accept all as Mara would. Taliesin is sometimes annoyed by just how accepting and blindly trusting he is,,, 5/5 they tolerate eachother and in a world where Shorbz isn't the db then they meet, Tally gets saved and and they go their separate ways.
Zhan'Ari: Doesn't know how to feel about him,,,,he's a vampire but, not by choice. Although he also doesn't actively seek to cure it? And also leader of the Thieves Guild but despite that, has a weirdly strong sense of honour? Tally feels a bit bad after hearing how all this came to be but still doesn't personally agree with a lot of it,,,6/10, doesn't hate him but finds it hard to relax and be trusting around a bloodstarved vampire theif.
Eimtru Lichen-Shoal: Aah, a fellow mer! Though he's a Bosmer rather than Altmer. Eimtru grew up in the Imperial City so he's quite intimately familiar with the Thalmor, as well as their relationship to the Empire. He's not the biggest fan but if nobody bothers him then he'll do the same. Helps Talisein because duh, he's not a monster. I hc Tally likes to wear perfumes but it absolutely MESSES with poor Eimtru's werewolf senses. He also doesn't quite feel safe in Jorvaskr with him given the Companions past with elves,,,, overall they get along though. They share tragic backstory anecdotes and goof off sometimes, and on more than one occasion Tally has been convinced to mount Werewolf Eimtru when travelling because 'its just so much faster than walking'. 7/10, not besties but they're pretty close and have a mutual respect for one another, even if they don't care for a lot of the others allegiances.
Nirenor: A Snelf??? In this era?? Even though Nirenor is quite shy and reserved, Taliesin stays with him if for no reason other than curiosity. Being the other 1/2 of Aenerions adoptive family, Nirenor is quite kind hearted and does his best to help people where he can, even the Nords who tell tales of Ysgramors conquest. Later on Tally learns that he's actually feral as fuck underneath all that shyness and he can and will stab someone that pisses him off once he comes out of his shell. Is not a fan of the whole dragonborn thing given its history,,,but sees this as a chance to help the Nords unlearn a lot of their prejudices. Also he's fucking terrified of Elenwen and totally doesn't have a heartwarming moment post-embassy with Tally where he's reminded of his worth but also that Taliesin will nOT let the Thalmor capture him and that is a goddamn promise. 9/10, they start off pretty netural but by the end of the Embassy quest they'd probably die for eacbother.
Tretchus: Horrible, evil mer. Yes he has a tragic backstory, no that does not excuse trying to have Molag Bal AND Mannimarco literally destroy all life on Nirn. The only reason Taliesin would stay with this fucker is if he developed an 'I can fix him' mentality. 1/10 they were probably cute at the start but Tretchus' descent isn't stoppable and Tally needs to either get out, or go down with him.
Eira: She's a Nord, ew. She's descended from Ysgramor, double ew. She obviously keeps that second part secret for as long as humanly possible given Taliesins previous job, but eventually it gets out and I imagine he feels so, so betrayed. But they'd already built up a strong bond before that, both being righteous individuals (though Tally is a bit more feral) who believe in doing good and preserving life, no matter the cost. Their relationship becomes a bit rocky after the reveal but Tally gets over it eventually and supports her in the Dragonborn journey. Also thinks its quite funny for someone with Atmoran blood to be the DB so once he's over the initial shock, he flaunts it to everyone they have dealings with. 'Yeah She's got Ysgramor blood, yeah she's like, totally meant to be the Dragonborn it's like coming full circle.' Tally goes from 'I never want to see you again' to 'If anyone gives you shit I will stab them'. 7.5/10, quite the odd relationship but overall quite healthy.
I've a few more skyrim chars but they're in the works, these are just the more fleshed out.
Taliesin belongs to @dynamite124 , lmk if I wrote him ooc in this, I tried but obviously he's your creation and I'm also not all that far thru the main quest yet djegsksgsk.
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with all due respect there is another layer on *why* human pet guy, a known racist and open fascist, enjoys “older fashion.” He explicitly stated he wants to keep slaves and emulates fashion from the Jim Crow era because he idolizes Traditionalism.
Also, not everyone - especially poc - are going to think that kind of styling is cute and quirky while knowing the context. It’s the same thing when some people get uncomfortable around rockabilly/50s aesthetics because their parents literally didn’t have voting rights back then, and they don’t want to be around people who look at that time period, even if it’s just fashion, with rose-colored-lenses.
People are making analogies about how he looks like a slave owner because he has also stated he wants to own slaves. People are making analogies about how he looks like a railroad baron because he is a fascist. The ideology aligns with the fashion statement, which is why people are drawing those parallels.
If you’re not a racist or fascist, don’t feel bad when someone says human pet guys style is giving colonization. I’m sure you are rocking that not-mutton-chop (I forget what you called it) in a amazing, stylish way he never will because you don’t have morally bankrupt political stances.
thank you for taking the time to write this! yeah I fully agree with you, especially wrt how he likely chose that look specifically because of the fascism-trad connection and his desire to bring back that era's bigotry.
the issue I have with the post isn't with that, it's that that wasn't really what anybody was saying. last I checked, there wasn't much of anything about his motivations (which again, important to talk about)--it was mostly "of course he looks like that" with a smattering of comments about how anybody criticizing the way people were reacting must want to fuck him or must want to defend his actions and beliefs.
the immediate assumption of sexual interest especially rubs me the wrong way. a common fatphobic viewpoint is that the only reason a fat person would ever be seen as good-looking, stylish, or attractive by others is because they have a fat fetish/are sexually interested in them. in this case, it isn't specifically about human pet guy, but rather about the furthering of a very pervasive line of thinking that hurts all fat people and those who love them.
again, totally agree w what you've said. and yes, people absolutely have a right to be wary when a strong interest in historical fashion is combined w other red flags, especially when they're interested in an era usually associated with heavy bigotry.
ig my main point is this: criticizing someone's motivations for their fashion choices, which are important to be aware of, is different than just calling them fat or ugly or a loser. you can do one without doing the other, and it's important to be precise when someone's appearance is being discussed. there are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be made of cybersmith--literally anything he's ever said or done--but they can be said without reducing criticism to his physical appearance alone or spreading ideas that harm others.
thank you again for sending this ask and opening up a dialogue, I really appreciate hearing your perspective, and you've given me a lot to think about. I hope this response made sense, lmk if I should clarify anything :)
#.#ask#anon#also thank you! i dont have it i tend to skew more 40s bc i collect vintage ties but i wish i dix#its called the franz josef :)
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Definitely kicking a hornet's nest with this one,
but it's a chance to vent so here we go.
I wish people would keep DNI's to their own pages, rather than putting them on every single selfship post.
I hate when I see an imagine that I would otherwise reblog, but it has a big DNI at the bottom.
My blog doesn't have a DNI, and I don't want to endorse the DNI's of other people or make any of my followers feel unwelcome because someone else's DNI is on my blog, so I just don't reblog those kinds of posts.
(I mean on some level I don't think DNI's are even that effective in the first place. I kinda just wish people would block blogs they don't like or agree with rather than calling for a public harassment campaign against them. I suppose on some level this technically makes me "proship" in the literal sense that I oppose harassment over shipping, but I also don't actively ship the kinds of things proshippers are supposedly known for, and I understand why they might make people uncomfortable, so I guess I'm neutral? I just wish people would use the block button instead of creating this atmosphere of exclusion. We all just want to imagine our F/O's; we shouldn't have to agree on everything to reblog an imagine.)
This is all a very fair point to make, anon! I also recognize the hornets nest *I'm* kicking by answering this ask.
I have an opinion that...well, a lot of users won't like, probably. But I'll be the first to say it if not the only one. (And let me preface this, because some of you will take this as an opportunity to harass me. I'm not on either side, neutral, or adjacent at all. I do not associate myself with discourse, this is known!)
DNI's to me, are extremely performative (Especially DNI banners, what's the point?). And yet, everyone has a general DNI. I do! But I do recognize how performative it is at it's core, I have one to try and attempt to what everyone else does, keep the bad eggs out. But, we cannot control people, we can't ever know who anyone is truly through a screen. Using your own judgement to weed people out is and will remain the best solution for personal curation of your own space. I can't trust a good chunk of this community because I know I'd get taken advantage of in one way shape or form, it's happened to me multiple times already. I will also say that not having a DNI might inherently outcast you from the general community due to everyone's fear of somehow supporting a bad person, or alternatively attracting people you might not want to interact with you, so a lot of people have DNI's, but don't like having them (Myself included).
I don't usually answer asks that blatantly claim their stance, or blatantly oppose a stance. This blog is entirely discourse free, and I want to respect absolutely everyone who is worthy of my respect(IE, people who aren't causing harm, people who aren't assholes for no good reason). I also cannot control who does and doesn't interact with my blog, unless I catch them by chance (I see too many accounts fly by in my inbox to keep track, ya dig?) If i see someone I don't agree with interacting with me, say someone who I genuinely believe to be abhorrent with their behavior, I block them. It's not my job or responsibility as a community self-shipping blog to build people's spaces for them. That's their job. This is why call-out/block-lists posts are not my gig, nor will they ever be. They're also performative, and spread a type of negativity that I just simply wont ever promote in a place of comfort and safety.
This might be the only time I ever mention this blatantly, but perhaps the future has something else in store. I'm unsure! I just know that a lot of my opinions are rooted from having a perspective and lens in every single playing field to now not even inhabiting any side whatsoever. I'm very articulate with how I manage my morals, I might be a radicalist in some aspects, and grey in other areas. Life doesn't have lines for the less abhorrent tidings. DNI's are one of many human responses of trying not to look like a bad person out of fear, and perhaps even being unsure of themselves and relying on others to speak for them. But that's another topic I won't get into!
Sorry this got so long! I do enjoy talking about this subject, but it's just interesting to see how everyone feels. I want to promote listening and civil discussion, emotional intelligence and discussion on community dynamics. Once again, controversial takes are welcome! Let's discuss stuff about our community!
#Marnie answers ✦#I'm unsure if you all will think of me differently#but I don't need to explain myself further really#I'm not on any side of this coin. baby im not even here im a hallucination#i just have opinions and thoughts and feelings. crazy right?
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A 'DO I SHIP IT?' template made by XStephTheHedgehogX on DeviantArt.
Before I get immortalised as that one Liladrien person who writes a lot of stories about them and seems to genuinely ship them: yes, I do ship them. I think they're both interesting and aesthetic people, underutilised by the plot with a lot of dynamite potential together.
BUT, I also do not think Lila and Adrien should not end up together in the permanent, romantic sense because their psyche just cannot aligned. Even in a future where Lila is redeemed and a morally good person, their outlook on life and general stance regarding hobbies and careers are simply too mismatching. I can see the two of them dating, having fun and respecting each other, but settling down for the long term? Adrien is the 'white picket fence' and 'two-and-a-half children' person. Lila is the 'growing old elegantly in a private mansion surrounded by fourteen cats' kind of gal.
NOTP: So, although Lila and Adrien is my favourite Miraculous pairing, it's purely because they're my favourite Miraculous characters. I want to see them in a relationship together, but I don't think they'll work out quite so well in the long-term.
I SHIP IT: One hundred percent. I feel like Adrien and Lila's arc went tremendously unexplored. I wonder how their meeting would've gone if Marinette never interrupted them in Volpina, if Adrien and Lila could've formed an actual friendship, and how Adrien would've reacted to Lila's lies from there. I feel like Adrien needs someone like Lila in his life, someone like Félix, whose appears to care about him but is also willing to feed him the facts bluntly.
underrated/why not?: Again, stemming from the points above, there is so much potential for how a relationship between Lila and Adrien could've went. I really don't like how in Season 5, Adrien started standing up to/exposing Lila for Marinette. I felt like he could've done it for a more independent reason.
would read a fic about it/reads fics about it: Absolutely! In fact, I take it one step further and writes fics about it.
the sexiest pair: I should mention at this point that when I write about Lila and Adrien, they're either late teenagers or early adults. I'm not fond of writing about adolescents getting it on. From an aesthetic standpoint, Adrien and Lila mesh together perfectly. Old money and high luxury, glittery baddie and designer purses. Think about yacht parties and mansion photoshoot scenes, red carpet dates and clandestine late-night rendezvous. I made a post way earlier about what Adrien and Lila's aesthetic would be, and you can see what I'm envisioning, right?
i'm curious, can i know more?: We don't know anything about Lila. In fact, we don't even know her real name. Is she Cerise? Or some other vixen in the hiding? I'm not entirely sold on this Lila/Cerise/Iris mash-up yet, because it seems to come out of nowhere to me. Lila already has a massive 'plot-twist' in that she's actually a liar and a huge arc of Miraculous had been devoted to her exposé and the class' subsequent reaction. The next step in the narrative would be how Lila moves on/takes revenge. Instead, we, the audience, learn that Lila has another trick up her sleeve, she forged her whole identity! I'm very excited to watch Season 6, because, new powers, new outfits, and new Butterfly villain aside, I also really want to find out what's up with Lila.
Fun fact: It was pretty hard to find sources on this, but did you know that some ship names develop based on who the dominant partner is? I couldn't find who originally coined the term Liladrien, but if they're not making a perfect combination of both of their names, then they believe that in a romantic relationship between Lila and Adrien, Lila would be topping. Sounds about right.
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god that post made me mad. "humans just CAN'T be persistence hunters, because persistence hunting doesn't make any sense to me personally! no i'm not going to cite any sources, just trust me, i read about it in school!"
okay, mmhm, sure...except it does work. it does work, and we know it does because it was still in practice by modern humans in the central Kalahari until AT LEAST 1990. some of those people have even explained some of the challenges and nuances of the practice as well as the knowledge they use to make it easier. it's not the only method of hunting humans have used over the years, but it is definitely one of the methods in our repertoire.
"humans can't run for multiple days without food and water (which is how i assume persistence hunting works, for some reason)! and they're not fast enough to chase an antelope without losing it! and tracking is a stupid concept that doesn't work, and i'm going to scoff and ignore it!"
you don't have to run for days. you don't have to be super fast. you just have to be fast enough to not let your quarry rest long enough to recover, and you do have to be able to track-- which is absolutely a real thing that people can and do learn how to do.
(i suspect the OP ignored tracking as a possibility for the same reason they tried to discredit any information about the indigenous peoples of the Kalahari as basically being (1) all noble savage bullshit from the 60s or (2) irrelevant because it's not what their forefathers were doing-- their anthropology course probably taught them about the challenges these bands are facing with colonialism, and probably also taught about the rampant misinformation about them, but it did not teach any actual respect for their cultures or knowledge. or for them as, you know, people. whose grandparents remember the way their grandparents hunted, and can talk about it, even if they are no longer able to continue the practice.)
(knowing the noble savage stereotype is bad doesn't make it less racist when you still talk about people from a stance of "but my modern ways are better than their hungry primitive ways and i'm going to talk as if they're already extinct and have no expertise worth discussing.")
"there's no POINT to it! we have tools! and weapons!" the point is not getting gored and kicked to death by a wounded animal four times your size that didn't die when you hit it the first time. the point is that an exhausted kill is an easy kill where you don't die. it's a decent point. it's fucking reasonable. also, afaik there's decent odds we learned hunting before we learned tools.
and yeah, i get that the OP was just upset and yelling in the initial post. i do understand that. and I understand their frustration at hearing a theory misrepresented as fact. but their subsequent reblogs and responses are equally thoughtless pseudointellectual posturing, and i'm sorry, it's garbage. someone pointed out modern pursuit hunters exist, and they basically went "mmmmyeah, all of that is just outdated, cherry-picked misinformation and you're very stupid and i'm very smart, look at me i know lots of tribe names and i'm going to link some articles about why these people no longer matter, isn't that sad and TOTALLY relevant to this conversation." someone else mentioned tracking, and they ONCE AGAIN basically said if you lose your line of sight, that's it, you're done, you've lost your quarry. tracking isn't real, don't even bring it up. hoofprints in wet ground in the rainy season? those are fake. doesn't happen. broken brush where a panicking animal has run? lol, that's not real. you can invent tools, but learning to follow an animal? bullshit. total malarkey. it's all just guesswork. you can GUESS where the antelope went but that's the best you can do.
🙄
anyway, i don't know enough about human evolution to guess why we're shaped the way we are, and i'm not going to speculate on it today. but what i DO know is that i am willing to believe the G/wi and the !Xo when they say, hey, if you drink a lot of water and then chase a large ungulate through the hottest part of the day in the fucking Kalahari at a steady jog, it will probably overheat and collapse before you will. because one, i kinda figure they know what they're talking about, and two, it does actually make sense when you stop and think for thirty fucking seconds. sure, you need to be physically conditioned to run distances in extreme heat, and you need to be able to find your quarry again if you lose sight of it. but conditioning and tracking are both things you can learn, no matter how badly certain clowns wish it wasn't because it doesn't support their bias. 🙃
#persistence hunting#is not the only kind of hunting in our evolutionary history#but it does work#and has BEEN working for humans for a LONG FUCKING TIME#like i am super fucking sorry but you are not presenting me with anything even RESEMBLING a coherent argument!#is persistence hunting the reason we're shaped this way? i don't fucking know!#but i do know it works as a technique! jackass!#god. i'll probably turn off reblogs in the morning but I'm still too angry at the absolute goddamned stupidity#and the way people in the notes were like Oh this makes so much sense! This is my favorite informed rant on tumblr!#BITCH W H E R E#i have not read nearly as much on this as i'd like to but jesus#just from the holes in what they're saying#JUST from the holes#what they're saying is a steaming crock of shit#and! are they right about the gaping holes in the persistence hunting theory? i dunno! maybe!#but i can't trust anything they say! obviously!#ooooo you're not gonna run carrying an ostrich egg full of water ooo#no of course you aren't! you're going to drink the water first! and then run! because that's what you've been conditioned to do#BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THIS WORKS ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh#feel free to reblog for now at least#god#dal is a scream#i got to their shit about tracking being a totally ludicrous proposal and lost my damn mind
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Adventure/02 (and Kizuna) timeline and lore contradictions (and things are not actually contradictions)
Pretty much every kids’ anime like Digimon is written and often rewritten as the series goes along, but Adventure and 02 do happen to be particularly obvious cases where a good chunk of the plot doesn’t seem to have been planned from the very beginning, and a lot of things are rather blatantly retroactively rewritten to account for it. They actually admitted this, too -- they weren’t entirely certain the series would go for one year at first, so they basically winged it with a “loose mindset”, and then by the time they got to 02 they didn’t confirm there wouldn’t be a third series until very late, resulting in a bid to get everything out of their system before 02 ended so they could leave with no regrets.
That said, considering how incredibly complicated the Adventure/02 timeline is and how sprawling its lore is, there is a remarkable amount of consistency between everything to the point where it’s pretty clear some very diligent notes were being kept back there (which is also supported by the fact that background materials released over the last decade have generally tracked with each other to some pretty terrifyingly impressive degrees). Moreover, a lot of things commonly considered to be contradictions have actually been addressed, even if only briefly -- whether the explanation seems a bit belated or forced is up to subjective opinion, but nevertheless it respected the audience enough to offer an explanation. Still, some things did unfortunately happen to slip through the cracks, so which ones are those (and which ones aren’t)?
Note that I’ve already covered most of these topics in other longer meta, so this is just a post made to organize everything in one place and link to the relevant ones. Also note that this post is mainly for informational and reference purposes -- I absolutely do not subscribe to the theory that plot contradictions are necessarily what make something bad, so I’m writing this from the perspective of useful things to keep in mind for fanfic or other similar things.
(Kizuna-related things are deliberately clustered at the bottom of the post in case you want to skip that.)
Other than one famous point from Tag Tamers (see the Media Mix section below), the WonderSwan games and tri./the stage play are not included in here mainly because both series have so many unaddressed contradictions all the way down to premise that they’d basically eat up the entire post. Both of them are still treated as part of official canon, but unfortunately official doesn’t seem to have any indication of wanting to resolve the contradictions anytime soon, so it seems like the job of how to handle this may have to be best left to the individual fanfic writer...?
Also, a reminder that no matter how many contradictions something has, the official stance is that everything is canon no matter what, so none of this should be taken to discredit any of the below involved works. Official does not expect you to cut anything out wholesale, it just simply won’t help you figure out how to make sense of it.
Media mix-induced contradictions
Digimon is what’s known as a “media mix”, which is basically a subset of a multimedia franchise in that there’s an emphasis on releasing tie-in materials for a series simultaneously (which means things like anime, manga, and games will all be produced and released together). Unfortunately, this creates a problem where it’s often hard for the simultaneously-working teams to swap notes or keep things consistent with each other. Anime director Kakudou Hiroyuki has been very clear about the fact that anything he wasn’t involved on has a very high chance of going against the background lore he’s created in some way (mainly the video games, Our War Game!, Hurricane Touchdown, and Kizuna), and this is a recurring problem with pretty much any series made like this, not just Adventure (as an example, it’s why Tamers has similar problems fitting Ryou within timeline, why the second Tamers movie contradicts other post-finale Tamers materials, and why the Frontier and Savers movies don’t seem to quite fit in their respective series timelines).
This is the most consistent source of contradictions or overly convenient/forced explanations, and the fact maintaining this was an increasingly difficult task for the anime staff is a major reason the 02 staff decided not to make a third Adventure series. Note that the fact the staff even tried to do this is remarkably rare for Toei series -- usually all of the contradictions are just dumped on the audience, and they’re forced to figure it out themselves.
When did Ken adventure with Ryou in the Digital World and get hit with the Dark Seed?: The WonderSwan games and Tag Tamers basically disregard the anime in almost every aspect (as said earlier, I don’t intend to cover all of it because we’d be here too long, it’s just this one is too plot-relevant to 02). I’ve tried very desperately to make sense of it from the anime prioritization perspective, but the truth is that it’s impossible, and it’s likely the anime staff themselves weren’t sure what to make of it either. The anime itself seems to imply there were two Digital World visits, the first in August 2000, but Tag Tamers wants to suggest Ken actually was taken to the Digital World right after the Diablomon incident in March 2000. Pick your favorite.
Sora’s birthday: This is a relatively obscure one, but interestingly, Kakudou seems to have doubled down pretty hard on the fact this wouldn’t have happened if he could have prevented it, due to an internal policy of not giving any character besides Miyako a clear horoscope sign (which setting Sora’s birthday in late February or early March would go against). This is probably the reason why official 02 profiles cite her as 14 during 02, which shouldn’t be possible if her birthday were indeed in February or March (02 takes place between April and December).
Wallace being a Chosen Child before 1995: The revelation that the concept of “Chosen Children” was created in 1995 (from Adventure episode 45) and the hidden lore revelation that the number of total Chosen Children doubled every year since then seems to be pretty serious business for people who keep track of lore documentation on the Japanese fanbase side of things, so this is actually the main reason Hurricane Touchdown’s canonicity has been disputed among Japanese fans. Wallace says in the movie that Chocomon disappeared in 1995, which would imply he met him before then, when in fact the concept of a Chosen Child shouldn’t even exist before then. There are a few patches you can make (for instance, “being a Chosen with a Digivice” is what was invented in 1995, not the sheer idea of meeting a Digimon, so maybe Wallace didn’t get an actual Digivice until later, or maybe Wallace both met and lost Chocomon in 1995, although this is unlikely) -- but official has never helped you with this one.
How Seraphimon and Holydramon were able to appear when Patamon and Tailmon shouldn’t have been able to evolve to Perfect, let alone Ultimate, at the time: This is the Western fandom’s biggest point of dispute about Hurricane Touchdown being in canonicity (for some reason, the Japanese fanbase doesn’t seem to worry about this part as much, maybe because the rest of the scene itself has a lot of other things to ask questions about). Yeah, this one I’ve really got nothing on.
How Jogress and Perfect/Ultimate evolutions were possible in Diablomon Strikes Back (and afterwards): By the time of the end of 02, Agumon and Palmon should have been the only ones able to still access Perfect/Ultimate due to the loss of Qinglongmon’s DigiCore power in 02 episode 39, and in 02 episode 50 Tailmon’s Holy Ring was returned to her on the grounds it was powering Jogress and “Jogress isn’t needed anymore” (implying giving it back to her would remove anyone’s ability to Jogress). But MetalGarurumon appears in Diablomon Strikes Back, as does Imperialdramon. This apparent contradiction is a fairly easy one to resolve -- it’s not like “power sources” like Qinglongmon’s DigiCore are particularly lacking in the Adventure universe, so just imagine something cool happened to restore their evolutionary abilities sometime between December 2002 and March 2003. There, easily done.
Contradictions within the series itself
A lot of things often perceived to be contradictions in Adventure and 02 are not actually contradictions (see below), but there are still a few remaining loose ends:
Why Agumon couldn’t evolve in Adventure episode 3 despite having plenty of food and rest: Still no explanation. (Of course, the meta reason is that it was Gabumon’s episode to get an evolution, so it was obviously to prevent Agumon from stealing his thunder.)
The treatment of clothes changing: Obviously, the clothes changing in the Digital World is actually a mechanic to ease animator load so they can default to the same character designs (and on a lighter note, to explain Ken’s Kaiser outfit), but it is funny how it only seems to apply to a few kids and not everyone. A dominant Japanese theory as to why it only seems to apply to the 02 kids in the specific way it did is that it only applies to D-3 holders (further theories have even gone as far as to suggest it “locks” in the outfits they’re in when they receive their D-3 unless something drastic happens), but nothing’s been officially confirmed.
How much energy it takes for Digimon to be in the real world: In short, it is consistently shown that being in the real world is somewhat draining on Digimon, but the actual extent tends to vary. The rule naturally seems to be enforced more strictly on V-mon, Hawkmon, and Armadimon, and not strictly enforced on the Adventure Digimon, but for some reason Wormmon seems to also not have it very tightly enforced (although he does claim to still feel the exhaustion in 02 episode 33). Of course, the practical production reason is that the 02 kids bring their Digimon into the real world far more often, so having them in smaller forms that are easy to hide is easier to devise scenarios around, especially since Patamon and Tailmon are small enough to not need to worry about it as much as, say, Agumon.
The missing bunk bed: Ken and Osamu were supposed to be sleeping on a bunk bed, which is directly stated in words in Spring 2003 and setting documents, and you can somewhat infer it from the fact Ken himself sleeps on a modified one. But when we see flashbacks with Osamu in 02 episode 23, in what seems to be possible animator error, the mythical bunk bed in question never appears...
Whether the international Chosen’s Digimon were in the real world or in the Digital World: It’s implied the international Chosen were in the same boat as the original Adventure kids in that they couldn’t open gates -- hence why the 02 kids had to go around the world to open it for them -- but, strangely, their partners are with them in the real world during 02 episodes 40-42, despite this being known to be a very bad idea if you don’t have consistent Digital World access. By the time of the finale in 02 episodes 49-50, they’re all back in the Digital World...?
Adventure mini dramas and Armor Evolution to the Unknown: ...Look, I don’t know either. There is so much to unpack with that one that I don’t know where to even start. On the other hand, the drama CD is blatantly tongue-in-cheek and basically canon crack material, so it’s probably best to not think about it too hard.
Things that aren’t actually contradictions
A lot of the below are commonly brought up in fan discussions as being contradictions, but in fact aren’t -- albeit they’re usually addressed in obvious retroactive lore patches or single one-off explanations, so it’s understandable people wouldn’t easily remember they were actually explained already, but nevertheless, they were!
How Gennai doesn’t seem to know about Homeostasis or Digital World history even though he really should: You might notice that in 02, Gennai is actually incredibly efficient about information-giving and perfectly helpful. The novel basically confirms what this implies: Gennai was not in good physical or mental condition at all during the time of Adventure, and that incredibly aged appearance was not just for show. It is far more than likely the black ball inserted into him may have outright damaged his memory and internal processes.
How everyone just conveniently forgot the events of the first movie: Of course, the in-series explanation is that they all repressed the childhood memories because it was passed off as a terrorist bombing incident, but even so, it’s an awfully clean amount of memory erasure for a whole seven kids to have, isn’t it? Actually, they did explain it a bit more than that -- it’s quite literally divine intervention (apparently beyond even Homeostasis’s control). Yes, it is the literal deus ex machina. This is also apparently the reason why everyone conveniently moved to the same tiny island of Odaiba years after that. (In more practical real-life terms, the answer is more that the movie wasn’t coordinated with the TV series staff, so a forced explanation had to be conjured up to find a way to keep the first movie canon in a TV series that was a bit too obviously not made with that movie in mind.)
How Yamato’s dad Hiroaki knew about Gabumon without being told: A single line of Gabumon gasping at how Hiroaki somehow knew about him beforehand has led to years of speculation about Hiroaki somehow being a past Chosen or something, and...it’s a dub mistranslation. Specifically, Hiroaki said “Gabumon, right?” in the sense that it’s implied Yamato just explained it to him offscreen, and Gabumon answers a bit flustered because he’s not used to Hiroaki addressing him, but the American English dubbing staff seemed to have misinterpreted it as a sign Hiroaki knew something he shouldn’t have. But no, in the original Japanese version, it was just an ordinary, friendly conversation (and Koushirou clearly had to explain Digimon to him in Adventure episode 36, so no, he has no prior knowledge).
If Homeostasis could do all that, why did they go out of their way to summon a bunch of otherworldly kids and make them do all the work?: This question is behind the general sentiment of “Homeostasis is a selfish jerk” interpretations, but the thing is that they’re being completely honest when they say this is literally all they can do (if you doubt their words, the novel confirms that it actually has barely any jurisdiction over anything at all besides being a “mere” security system). They directly tell the kids in said episode that 1) they’re not a god or anything of the sort, and 2) their abilities basically extend to asking the Agents to do things on their behalf, and creating a repair system to help reverse damage. That’s it -- expecting any more out of them would be like asking the security alarm system repair technician to do something about a fire about to burn down the entire building. Getting the Chosen Children into this was an act of desperation. That’s presumably why they’re named “Homeostasis” -- homeostasis maintains regular functional balance within a system, but it can’t do much when something really drastic happens.
How would a team of Chosen existing before Taichi’s group even be possible? And if they did exist, why didn’t they come help during Adventure?: The facts of “a team of Chosen existed before Taichi and his friends” and “there are no Chosen before 1995″ initially seem like a contradiction, because we’re told that the first sealing of Apocalymon seems to have been some many years ago from the Digital World’s perspective. The thing is that even the small space between 1995 and 1999, or even 1998 and 1999, is enough to be millennia in the Digital World, going by the calculations provided in the series -- and Two-and-a-Half Break locks down on the number of Chosen doubling every year since 1995 (although Koushirou seems to have accidentally halved his calculation), so it seems you were supposed to come to this conclusion. This also explains why they didn’t just recruit the older Chosen Children to help with the Apocalymon incident the second time -- they’re not much older than the Adventure kids themselves, and going by the novels explaining that the older Chosen team’s partners became the Holy Beasts, they were probably a bit busy being sealed and all that to really help in Adventure’s events.
How well-recognized are the Digimon by 02?: The treatment of Digimon by the public in 02 does seem awfully well-understood for something that’s supposed to be kept a secret from the public...and that’s because it wasn’t a secret, actually. Everyone saw the Digital World in the sky during Adventure -- there was no way they’d ever be able to cover up anything after that! 02 episode 39 has Gennai say that they deleted scientific and military research on the Digimon, presumably because unethical experimentation and military weaponry development would absolutely be a dangerous thing to let the public have so quickly, but it seems like journalistic (Natsuko, 02 episode 38, novels) and humanities (Haruhiko, 02 episode 33) research were fair game -- especially since people like Natsuko, Hiroaki, and Haruhiko started becoming effective emissaries to explain Digimon to the public by 2003. Well, considering that it was obvious the public would learn about the Digimon whether anyone wanted them to or not -- especially given the events of Adventure, Our War Game!, 02 episodes 38-50, and Diablomon Strikes Back -- the kids’ efforts to keep things on the downlow were more on the lines of preventing mass panic and allowing the public to learn about Digimon in a safer way, but nobody seemed to have the illusion the public had no idea about Digimon at all.
Hurricane Touchdown’s timeline placement: Often submitted as proof of Hurricane Touchdown’s supposed lack of canonicity is that it’s difficult to fit in timeline, particularly due to Ken’s conspicuous absence and irrelevance, but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible. The advertising for the movie suggests that it should take place during summer 2002 (with very few exceptions, most 02 works take place around the time of year they released in), which basically could mean pretty much anywhere between episodes 14 and 18 (when summer starts but before the Kaiser base expedition) or between episodes 21 and 22 (when the Kaiser has been defeated but the autumn season hasn’t started yet). Personally I prefer the latter, because it does a lot to explain why Ken isn’t remotely on anyone’s mind at the time, and makes sense regarding Daisuke’s experience with the Digimental of Miracles.
Oikawa and Hiroki meeting a Digimon in the 80′s: Likewise, the fact there can’t be Chosen before 1995 might suggest Oikawa and Hiroki meeting Pipimon and other Digimon all the way back in the 80's shouldn’t be possible, but note that the only thing we learned about the 1995 thing is that “humans specifically partnered to Digimon to help them evolve spontaneously” (Homeostasis said in Adventure episode 45 that “spontaneously evolving” with the help of a human was what they learned from the Hikarigaoka incident). Simply “making contact” with Digimon is not out of the range of possibility, and 02 episode 33 and Two-and-a-Half Year Break implies this had already been happening throughout all of human history.
How Taichi got into the Digital World in the first episode of 02: Taichi and friends were cut off from their partners at the end of Adventure, but more in the sense they no longer had a reliable way to get in touch with them whenever they felt like it. In terms of just “sheer making contact”, that happened three times during the mini dramas (yes, they’re canon), plus the incident mentioned in 02 episode 26, and also the 15th anniversary drama CD...and, basically, they actually had quite a few opportunities to meet during those times, so that’s presumably why Taichi doesn’t even act like he’d been seeing Agumon for the first time in three years or something. The gate was opening, just not often, and 02 episode 22 even implies that the Digital World has a sort of will that opens the gates up proportionally to however much it needs help at the moment. So, presumably, Taichi just went in because the gate was open.
Daisuke and Iori’s ages: In official profiles, Daisuke and Iori are 11 and 9 respectively at the start of 02, but setting materials reveal they were 7 and 5 at the time of Adventure. This is possible if both of their birthdays are after August 3 (note that 33/50 episodes of 02 take place after then). Keep in mind that official profiles also say Miyako is 12 in 02, but her birthday is in May-June after the series starts, so this isn’t an unreasonable interpretation at all.
Osamu’s age: This one’s more “borderline” than anything, but depending on the material you consult, Osamu is either three years or two years older than Ken. This is actually possible to resolve if you take a very broad look at the fact they’d be two years apart at a given time of the year and three years apart at others (which honestly kind of drives home the fact that maybe they’re a little too realistically accurate about citing things like these).
How international Chosen can exist without D-3s, or at all: None of the international Chosen seen in 02 have D-3s, so it seems they were at the mercy of gate openings and closings, and you’d think, why do they even have Digivices? You can’t be implying they had some of their own adventures in the Digital World a la Taichi’s in Adventure, right? Well...yes, actually. They do actually imply this. The Digital World is revealed in Adventure episode 15 to be, in a sense, something you could superimpose on the real Earth, which means it’s just about as big as Earth itself, and the Tokyo Chosen Children we know have probably only seen a very tiny fraction of it (the fact 02′s D-3s allow for some degree of teleportation makes it harder to notice this fact, but Qinglongmon only governs the “Eastern” part of the Digital World, after all...). So yes, the equivalent of Digimon Adventure isekai may well have happened to a bunch of kids all over the world. Also worth noting is that Gennai and the Holy Beasts aren’t as all-powerful as their character archetypes would suggest -- Gennai himself apparently isn’t able to keep track of what every Chosen Child is doing on his own. The existence of Chosen Children is something Homeostasis and the Agents helped facilitate, but the phenomenon does seem to be somewhat beyond them as well.
Kizuna (both contradictions and non-contradictions)
Despite the premise initially looking like a massive contradiction against 02 and its epilogue, if you investigate further, Kizuna actually is fairly compliant with Adventure and 02 even down to the details, as long as you’re willing to think about it hard:
Jou’s age: Jou is 11 in Adventure as of August 3, 1999 (Adventure episode 35). 02 profiles list him as 14, which is somewhat plausible if his birthday is between August and December (again, 33/50 of 02′s episodes take place after August 3, so this isn’t unreasonable). The problem is that Kizuna profiles list his age as 23, which is mathematically impossible because it takes place in July 2010. The only way to really resolve this contradiction is if you interpret that “23″ very loosely, as in “Jou is 23 at some point in the year Kizuna takes place, after the actual movie events”.
The 02 epilogue taking place in 2028: This figure was given in a lot of Kizuna advertising material, and initially sounds strange because the 02 epilogue is allegedly “25 years” after 02′s finale, but as it turns out, evidence points to 2028 having always been the correct year from the very beginning.
The doubling-every-year principle: If a handful of Digimon partners start disappearing based on their human partners having an existential crisis, you’d think that’d start really messing with the math leading to everyone having a partner in the epilogue, but Kizuna is otherwise fully compliant with the original doubling-every-year principle in background Adventure and 02 lore. The movie is deliberately ambiguous about whether partners that have disappeared really have disappeared, or whether they just simply aren’t visible or manifested, so it’s easy to rationalize this by concluding that even partners who have ostensibly “disappeared” count towards the total.
Morphomon identified as Menoa’s partner in 2002: The blurb in the newspaper article identifies Morphomon as Menoa’s partner, but the article is from 2002, which is awfully early for them to know what a Digimon partner is. However, while it’s a stretch, it’s not impossible -- again, the Digimon weren’t actually a public secret by the time of 02, and judging by Menoa’s photos, she seemed to have been quite open about Morphomon’s existence to her parents. Menoa seemed to live in a very sleepy village in Colorado, so it’s completely possible she trusted the locals around her with knowledge of Morphomon’s existence, and they might have been quicker on the uptake for the concept of Digimon than others.
Menoa as a Digimon researcher: Organized Digimon scientific research wasn’t possible until 2002 because Gennai and his colleagues deleted any data relevant to it (02 episode 39), but Menoa is admitted to Liberica in 2002 under the presumable premise of wanting to do Digimon research. But not only did we get no information on how tightly the data deletion held after��2002, Menoa would also be someone the Agents would want to be able to do Digimon research, since as a Chosen herself, she could advocate for the Digimon ethically. It’s also possible this was why she became a Chosen in the first place (since she makes no reference to going on any combat adventures).
Digimon appearing in camera photos: Digimon in the real world normally shouldn’t be able to show up in camera photos or videos (Adventure episode 39, 02 episode 33, others), but we see multiple photos of Morphomon as part of Kizuna’s plot. Thing is...they’re all film photos, and it makes sense Digimon wouldn’t interfere with that. Digimon show up regularly on cameras in Kizuna’s present timeline in 2010, but given Kizuna’s world is one that’s had eight years since 02 to account for the fact Digimon exist, it’s likely they figured out how to make their cameras capture images of Digimon well.
Whether the movie connects to the 02 epilogue: Given the way the movie ends, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that it just veered off the track of the 02 epilogue...? But no, every single press release and interview that has touched on the subject has doubled down and redoubled on the fact the 02 epilogue is still canon and follows from this movie. There was no room for ambiguity left there. If you want a personal interpretation on how the movie and the 02 epilogue connect together, you can read a longer post here, but even regardless of personal theorization, given the movie’s themes of overturning things that seem impossible to do and having belief that they’ll meet again, the answer really is obvious: “they figured it out.”
How Tailmon and Hawkmon can Jogress outside Hikari and Miyako range in the penultimate memorial short: I’ve just been personally rationalizing this with the idea that Hikari and Miyako were there, just not focused on with the camera. But that one (and the next one, especially the next one) is fairly tongue-in-cheek, so maybe just don’t worry about it too much.
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rolsod!
A+ HUGE FAN!!
Rolsod (Roland and Yesod from library of ruina) is one of the pairings I like thinking about a lot!
They have a fun dynamic but a lot of what I like about the pairing is how their interactions change over time - which means that a lot of what I like about them includes some spoilers for later conversations in the game! I'll keep them under a read more!
Here are some general non-spoilery short points about why I started thinking about them!
-They are kind of foils with some of their core feelings and how they -act on them.
-Yesod has a smile sprite but he Only ever uses it when talking to Roland in the game.
-I think they are both pretty cool - that's all you need sometimes to start overanalyzing haha
I like them as a pairing in the sense that they don't shy away from communicating honestly with each other. When there's a problem they argue over it or figure it out. But the later dialogues with them they are less in debate mode and more in mutual respect. They also say they both enjoy spending time with the other and smile around each other! And that's very important! If they're going to be in a close relationship they need good feelings and comfort too!
OK WE ARE IN THE SPOILER ZONE!!
(This is going to have spoilers up to the end of the game so please be careful!!)
CW - fictional self harm (talking about yesod past)
Ok so i can get into some more small details down here about how they mesh as foils.
-They both share a core belief that the city is wrong and they want to change it.
They both care about other people a lot - despite what they might say otherwise. Their actions point to them caring about the wellbeing of other people in the city.
Roland either saw too many people suffer trying to change the city or tried himself and failed but he absolutely believes it cannot be changed - despite what he wants.
Yesod wants to change the city so badly he bet his life on it. Instead of giving up like Roland did he gave up everything he knew in a rare stable situation in the city to go fuck around with like minded strangers in an illegal lab.
I think its interesting they fight over this and its the core of their early interactions (which if I'm understanding right last for months). First Roland just thinks he's a nerdy snob and then he starts really arguing when it gets to close to something he actually cares a lot about. And for a little extra flavor! Roland has a very pessimistic stance that Yesod yells at him for - but he's kind of right in one aspect.
It's not possible for someone to change the city, they will die trying.
Yesod and everyone else at the lab figured out too much and when they were visible enough to be a threat the head took action and killed them all. There is no way a few normal people can solve the issue - which I think is partially a potential reason anything sapient was forced out of the city (but this is a whole side rant i wont go off on now).
They reach a point in discussion, when Roland dissolves the argument by accepting/realizing Yesod's stubborn mindset and drive is necessary for what they both ultimately want. By logical extension it means he recognizes his 'that's that and this is this' mindset is in opposition to achieving that goal (positive interpretation).
But also - Roland is really good at putting his head down and ignoring a lot of logical jumps when they could make him vulnerable, so I also think its pretty likely he just wants Yesod to shut up and does it in a way he knows will work (negative interpretation). I personally think its a bit of both!
Either way, I think its kind of interesting Yesod gets to take on a role to criticize Roland in the early third of the game.
That doesn't really happen with the other librarians as much until the middle floors.
We learn a little less about Yesod then about some other librarians but we get the essentials about how he's improved a lot of his behaviors since LC and how he is happier now which is really A+ good shit.
They're arguing a lot but its about things the care about - and they're not really in opposition, they are just dealing with their struggles in different ways. I think the 'resolution' of their arguments kind of shows they use that common ground to see the other. They get to use it as a way to understand and know each other a little more.
And once that argument gets to a point Yesod stops thinking of Roland as pretty frustrating he admits he actually likes spending time with him - which is a lot for him given how he repressed wanting to hang out with his team more in LC. So yay more healthy development! After that the game only uses Yesod's smile sprite when talking to Roland. Happy for him - he's expressing positive feelings too what a legend.
We don't get a lot of interpersonal dialogue for the head librarians without Roland being there. I think Yesod can get a lot of feedback and can grow with them as well - but I think he has a lot of baggage with them that might make that process a little messy.
Roland is a fresh dude to hash it out with with nothing either of them are bringing to the table about the other and I think that's pretty helpful for Yesod in those arguments. But that's an assumption!
-They both dealt with intense emotional pressure and both turned to anger and self-loathing (but in very different ways)
Another comparison between them is how they suppress and handled their anger and self-loathing. I'm making an assumption on Roland's part given some of his flashback dialogue about how he can't stand the sight of his own face meaning that he can't stand himself. Yesod in LC explains his first death as Gabriel fairly clearly. He was suppressing his frustration and anger and how skin scratching was actually the thing that killed him.
They both had to deal with a lot of anger but they handled it in entirely different ways.
When Roland lost Angelica he let his anger control his decisions and ended up killing a Lot of people. He isolated himself by ignoring the warnings of his friends and colleagues and ignored any help they might have offered. He just kind of took his anger out on anyone he could possibly think was tangentially to blame.
Yesod lost Malkuth pre-LC and his anger and fear from that event he directed inward, taking more responsibility himself. He also isolated himself becoming a menace about precautions and details almost as if he believes he could have saved her if he simply tried harder or was better. Physically he did not vent any of those feelings out on anyone other than himself.
This one doesn't get talked about in detail as much in their dialogue - but the concept of self-assigning too much responsibility one can't function vs becoming so distant from a difficult goal one begins to work against it is the key of their conflict. That is Juicy for me I love that kind of argument.
I also really like this critical argument between them in comparison to how Roland and Angelica interacted.
Roland and Angelica were a very good loving relationship from what I gather! I don't mean that in a 'AAA rolsod good rolgelica bad!' sort of way! I think Roland just needs some growth so he can move into hating himself less again.
More leaps on the small bits of dialogue we got from their relationship.
Angelica is incredibly important in Roland's life and he was very pretty dependent on her. Neither of them was in a good place (the city sucks lol) and imo they developed the 'fuck you I got mine' attitude to survive their environment. I think Angelica helped Roland a lot with that sort of mindset and also likely herself. We don't know what went down at the lab she was from but a lot of things that hurt her were probably out of her control. Saying 'i shouldn't worry about things i can't actually change' is a very valid line of thought. It's helpful in certain situations but you can't take it too far that it would make you stop helping others who need it when you really could improve their situation.
I think in a new chapter of his life with a different support group (none to start rip) and a very different set of personal circumstances - it makes sense that Roland needs to reconsider how much he uses that mindset. One of Roland's weaknesses in Ruina is how good at lying to himself he has become. It hurts him a lot in the end. I think he needs more people in his life who will point out when he's slipping back into that!
They have the tools to understand each other and empathize but they are start too focused on their differences.
Which is why thinking about them is fun! They reach a place where they both get comfy knowing they both want the same thing. Roland shows support for Yesod in the post game when writing his book answering his questions in a friendly enthusiastic way. Yesod shows support for his book and his changes in the end and is smiling in the end cg of the librarians because he's happy for them both.
The art book has I think like 2 or 3 more bits of them interacting in it and they were very cute! I think one of the things i was missing with them is how playful Roland enjoys being vs how stiff Yesod is. They get a little more lighthearted interactions in the book notes iirc. I'm glad they will continue to be close as they work towards the wonderful goal of fucking up the city power structure.
I eat up that phase 1 emo arguing and also get phase 2 honesty, support, and comfort?? A++++
I could go on about Yesod's weakness to betrayal and how Roland plays right into it - or how Roland could be torn between validation and protective concern learning about Yesod's past and his own way of handling things - but I'll be in here writing like forever!
They're fun to think about!
I'm probably going to want to edit this and scream more but I will probably just talk about them in the future in general posts hkdjghadg
#rolsod#kickguyreply#sorry for my crazy rambling#i am bad at organizing thoughts#current pairing fixation and probably will float around in the bg if i find another one in the future
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