#ambiguous andromeda

[fullmoonfireball]

this came to mind specifically bc of smth u posted while I was thinking on my own fixation stuff so for that i present to you

Snurpmin

take good care of him

oghhhhghhh..... i will cherish him. thank you for this delightful creature

#other people's art #ambiguous andromeda #ask #this image has made me realize that louie would have an absolute field day in miitopia #literally all of the creatures are edible in some way or another

[onenicebugperday]

No id needed for the second and third, although i am mildly curious about the first since it's a species i see around a lot (but it's not needed if you don't have the time or anything, dw bout it)

Found this slug and a horsehair worm (i think) chillin near a puddle outside, and the mantis is from a while ago, I'd brought it inside for a day because it was very cold and wet outside and it hadn't been doing well but was later released on a nicer day acting perfectly fine!

for potential id reasons, location is in northern parts of texas! (not the panhandle tho)

I also saw a camel cricket a while back, but didn't take a picture because it was dark and my first concern was saving it from drowning in the waterbowl outside, after that by the time i came back with my phone it had fled lmao

I am imagining the camel cricket you rescued and it's very good. Also love these other dudes! Especially the horsehair worm since I don't get those submitted much.

Not positive on the slug but I'd lean towards a greenhouse slug, Milax gagates.

I'm glad the mantis was doing well once it was outside on a nicer day but I will say adult mantises don't live a particularly long time, and it may just have been slowing down as a natural result of the end of its lifespan and that's okay :)

#ambiguous-andromeda #bugs #submission #gastropods #slug #greenhouse slug #horsehair worm #worm #parasite #insects #praying mantis #mantid

[science-lings]

#ive seen all of these in art and I love them all #i think it's fun that his hair color is a little ambiguous and all the interpretations are cool to me #in an anime world where people are born with blue and purple and pink hair this isn't that crazy #blonde edgeworth is a little cursed but also kinda beautiful to think about #andromedas poll hell #ace attorney #miles edgeworth #pheonix wright

[feralpumpkincatgirl]

hey hey hey trick AND treat

HEY look at how pretty the sky was this morning! it's halloween colored!

#ambiguous-andromeda

[douglysium]

Is FGO's Andromeda Black?

I already talked about this on Twitter So I figured I would mention this here and it was originally a sort of response to people criticizing for someone assuming Andromeda was some sort of gyaru.

I appreciate that people are aware of Andromeda’s Aethiopian / African origins in FGO but tbh I think there’s something to be said about how FGO design usually approaches drawing black people / features. Sure I think Andromeda is black but if you where to grab a random non-fate fan before putting FGO’s Andromeda, Amakusa, Emiya Alter, and Suzuka Gozen (Summer) in front of them with no context and asked them “Which of these characters is black?” or "Which of these character an African figure?" I hesitate to say that they would be able to tell you consistently.

I’m not saying no character can ever be racially ambiguous or everything can fit cleanly into little boxes at all times but as tempting as it is to say someone not realizing Andromeda is black is merely the ignorance of an audience member I can’t help but think that Fate also primes such expectations with how they often approach black characters in general. I think parts of the internet do bend over backward trying to deny a character being black when it makes sense but I also ask when is the last time Fate has idk drawn really curly hair or dreads? Like seriously think about it.

(Lenora maybe isn't the best example because I think she plays into some stereotypes but the point here is to look at the hair texture)

So, I think as good as the conversation about Africa in Greek mythology is to have and how easy it is to blame it on the audience (which is not completely unjustified) I think we also have to question how Fate itself primes the audience or may handle things in such a way as to increase the chance of miscommunication. And this is not to say that it’s always Fate’s fault or that black people can never have straight hair and / or lightskin black people or what have you, but i find Myself having to debate whether a character is black or not in fate way more often than I have to debate if a character is black in other media. I think the weaknesses that Fate has with these kinds of designs is something I don’t see with Magic the Gathering or Pokemon or even Digimon. Outside of specific characters I don’t see people arguing Marvin Jackson from Digital-Police is a gyaru or Lenora isn’t black.

Like if you look at Sid Story’s Mansa Musa design for example I don’t think there’s really anyway for someone to misinterpret that she’s not black without looking like they are purposefully trying to troll others for engagement.

(Shout outs to illust_ringo (https://twitter.com/illust_ringo))

Like yeah, there is a lot of racism in some parts of the Fate fandom but Fate itself did also make a bunch of Detroit jokes with Emiya alter and clearly realized they made some sort of mistake with design since they’ve been walking back on some subtle stuff so I can only give FGO itself so much grace in that context. I love Fate but I think if we want to have a productive conversation we need to acknowledge the racism within Fate itself and how that can attract certain people or set up certain expectations (even with the censorship of characters like Emiya Alter).

I guess what I’m also trying to say is for some people if you give an inch they’ll take a mile. If you give even a little bit of a possibility that a character isn’t black, even if they’re supposed to be, some people are going to take it and I think that there’s some stuff Fate could be doing more often (even if not all the time) to help prevent misconceptions from occurring and prevent me from pulling out an essay or history lesson on why a character is or should be black almost every-time they release and African servant.

While I ended up talking about some of the ways I think Fate could do better I don’t think it’s always 100% their fault. Like I said if you give an inch some people will take a mile (and some people don’t want to ever count Egypt as part of Africa for some reason) but I also think there’s stuff they could be doing to help curb this. I also don’t think it helps that Fate barely touches any black figures around / outside of Egypt but that’s for another time (where’s Yasuke?! Im on my hands and knees begging).

Anyway, those are my thoughts because quite frankly one could go on all day with almost infinite ifs, ands, or buts and numerous exceptions and when the responsibility is more on the designer or more on the audience or how there are always exceptions, considering racially ambiguous people and designs, etc but this is from Twitter and my brain hurts so I'll spare you an entire chapter book's worth of thoughts. I figured this was also fitting to go over during Black History Month.

Extra Thoughts

There are a couple of other points I would like to mention though. Some people have argued Andromeda is a win because they didn't depict her as white and I'm not sure I completely agree? Yes, it is a major win that they didn't do that thing where they only look at how white Europeans from the medieval century depicted her and used pale skin as a symbol of beauty but there are some fan translations of her profile and it says this " A tomboy princess who prides herself on her swimming ability. Ethiopia (Aethiopia) is said to mean "land of the sunburnt people"[1], however, it does not necessarily correspond to the nation of Ethiopia which exists today."

So yes, Aethiopia does not correspond perfectly to Ethopia but it still refers to parts of Africa and Africans. Quite frankly, this part of the profile reads like a summer servant and while it might be easy to say "Fate gave her dark skin so it's a win" I also worry that what happened is that they interpreted "land of the sunburnt people" as a tan and took the depictions of white Andromeda and interpreted it as a sort of tan. Which is a doubt I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish I didn't have and I can't stress this enough. I so desperately want to believe that they are saying Andromeda is at least black but like I said I think we have to be honest that Fate's depiction of black and African people adds a lot of room for doubt. I think her skin is naturally tan at least and while she does indeed have dark hair in some of her ascensions it ends up turning blonde. You could maybe argue this confirms that she actually isn't a gyaru since most stereotypical gyarus have blonde hair but even with that in mind I think the way Fate handles Andromeda and just black designs in general can often fall a bit flat or unclear and sometimes I think fans are doing a lot of heavy lifting with good faith readings (including me).

This is not me saying Andromeda is white this is me saying that Fate pretty consistently falls short with these designs which feeds into a room for doubt. Like I said, I just want Fate to be more willing to include some black features more often so I'm not constantly having to pull up a small dissertation on why a character is black. It would be nice if there were just a few more of their black characters that I could point to and have no doubts about and not need to debate anyone.

Also, Fate just has a SERIOUS whitewashing problem and a weird relationship with blonde hair quite frankly. It feels like sometimes it's an obsession. Like when they made it so blonde hair was a sign of divinity for most of the Babylonian gods. Something that has a lot of Eurocentric baggage with the history of associating often white / "aryan" traits with purity, beauty, goodness, divinity, etc.. Not to mention, that in my opinion, Fate seems like it is basically going out of its way to avoid black historical figures most of the time unless they have do Egypt. Yes, I know about Strange / Fake and Nzambi but they barely touched most of Africa and even outside of Egypt they haven't really even mentioned characters like Yasuke outside of some fan-submitted design in one of their gag mangas. Combine this with designs like Emiya Alter and the controversy around that and I can't help but be left wanting a bit more of a bare minimum somewhere even if there aren't a lot of black servants.

Greeks and Pigment

Since someone is inevitably going to bring this up. Yes the Greeks do technically depict Andromeda with light skin even way back when but I just happened to take an art history class so I know a bit about this.

Greeks did this weird thing where they sometimes depicted women with light skin and men with dark skin so if you really wanted to commit to that argument then someone like Perseus for example would have to be black or at least dark-skinned. To me it can hold about as much wait as arguing a man has blue skin and a girl has pink skin because people associate those colors with boys and girls.

For reference, here’s a pot depicting Perseus and Andromeda from 575-550 BCE on an amphora from Italy. If someone did want to argue Andromeda was white than they would need to argue Pereus is black or something which is to say Greek art and skin tones can be weird.

Andromeda wasn’t the only Greek mythological figure from Ethiopia (such as Memnon during the Trojan War) and the Greeks had settlements in African areas like Egypt and traded with Africans. Additionally, the myth of Helios explains why dark skin tones exist (so different skin tones are literally incorporated into their myths) so I think based on context even with art like this we can assume the Greek culture generally probably knew about black people. Also, Andromeda's profile clearly alludes to the idea that the designers and writers probably know Andromeda is from Africa too.

Ending

Idk, I try not to come off as a debbie downer or seem like the only enjoyment I get from Fate is when I bash it but I feel like some people are getting really caught up in praising the design or the individuals who are probably misreading Andromeda's race or ethnicity and not seeing the bigger picture itself. Something that limits the productivity of the conversation. I also think that where possible we should maybe push for more clearly black designs to prevent things like this from happening. I know that's usually not going to happen because FGO is a Japanese game for a mostly Japanese audience but you never know who's paying attention or who you might inspire. I also think that some of us maybe shouldn't be settling for scraps or half gestures as often.

Andromeda does do well with not just depicting her as Perseus white but at the same time I think everyone also just has REALLY low standards (including me) so even that little bit was a surprise. Which is depressing when you think about it. This isn't me saying you can't like Andromeda or that every character needs to have their race plastered on their forehead but it's very clear that Fate's design philosophy has some major pitfalls and weaknesses (especially with depicting black people) and I think it could be taking some simple steps to resolve them. It feels like every time FGO releases a black character the same cycle happens in the community and I'm not really sure it's going anywhere because people end up debating about what is basically a symptom showing up within the fanbase without addressing the actual source and elephant in the room itself, FGO and maybe even Fate in general.

There are also even people in Japan who at least kind of care enough to try to depict black people in a less ambiguous fashion that isn't racist or a stereotype (like Jinkei who has literally worked on FGO: https://x.com/jinkei_bunny/status/1759352092467364240?s=20).

BHM

Anyway, happy Black History Month. I urge you that while criticism is good and healthy positive reinforcement is also great and just as important. There's no point in ever only paying attention to the negative but never fostering the positive.

In the spirit of positivity and being the change you want to see in the world here are my Yasuke and Shaka Zulu fanservant designs

Demon Saber: Yasuke Full Profile- https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735141544541208576/mori-ranmaru-wikipedia

Grand Lancer Candidate: Shaka Zulu Full Profile- https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/721643569180557312/douglysium-douglysium-douglysium-grand

Steel Berserker: John Henry Unfinished Profile- https://www.tumblr.com/douglysium/735103259781578752/steel-berserker-john-henry-wip?source=share

#Fgo #Fate #Typemoon #Criticism #media criticism

[kikithedreamerwriter]

OC!Sayuri x Bayverse!Leo

🗣️: @akesdraws-blog @m1dnyt3-w0lf @tinkabelle19 @sharpwindow @pheradream-15 @fyreball66 @shinzowosasageyoooo @miss-andromeda @m1dnyt3-w0lf

⚠️: mentions of signs of anxiety and depression, suicide, injury, and typos

“Yes.”

It has been six months since Sayuri and Leo have met. After introducing Sayuri to his family, the blue-clad turtle found himself spending even more time with her. Hour-long conversations via phone, various exchanges of memes, recommendations, awkward selfies, hangouts at the Lair, and weekly movie viewings at Sayuri’s apartment. As time passed by, the two of them became inevitably closer and closer. Eventually, Leo felt the pressure of confessing… especially with an upcoming mission looming over his head. The turtles were recently tasked by the feds to deactivate a mysterious nuclear weapon somewhere in Eastern Europe. The specifics weren’t very clear yet. Since they were still technically under the NYPD, jurisdiction was already ambiguous as it is ever since the U.S. government found out about the four mutants who averted the Kraang invasion crisis. This was a high-stakes assignment and the people who were operating it were in even higher places.

Ever since the assignment, Leo spent many nights lying awake in the dark conceiving the perfect manner in which he would finally confirm to Sayuri… the girl of his dreams… his true intentions.

It was a Saturday when Leo came over for the usual movie date. Tonight, it was a viewing of Sayuri’s all-time favorite, Spirited Away. In the final scene, as Chihiro drove away with her parents from what seemed to be a strange land of dragons and olds witches and spirits bursting from bathhouses, (and with the teapot empty and the snack tray depleted) Sayuri and Leo sat comfortably on the couch, their thighs grazing beneath the quilt. Leo loved nights with her like this, especially when they talked. He adored that Sayuri saw the world so differently than he did. He was a realist. She was a dreamer. Their conversations were a tangent of different perceptions. Somewhere only they know.

“What do you think?” Sayuri turned to him.

“I think it’s… a little weird,” Leo remarked. “Magic is weird overall, but names having magic? Things are just what they are and people just name everything for the sake of differentiating them from other things. I think… Chihiro could have probably gotten out of there with her parents without going through all that.”

Sayuri smiled.

“When Chihiro’s parents were turned into pigs. Herself, her memories, her name, was all that she had left.”

Leo gazed at her intently.

“Yubaba wanted to take Chihiro’s name not just to have power over her, but to make her lose her sense of self and be spirited away forever… literally.”

Sayuri’s gaze met his.

“When I first knew your name, I thought of the painter and the scientist, Leonardo Da Vinci. But when I got know you, his name… his memory… didn’t mean so much to me anymore because the Leonardo I know…”

“Is a fearless…”

“Quoting Raph I see…” Leo muttered.

“Oh shut up and let me finish,” Sayuri rolled her eyes. “A fearless mutant turtle leader. Living with his three other brothers in the sewers of their beloved New York City. Whose heart may not be necessarily on his sleeve… but is true and good to anyone who knows it.”

A beat.

Leo faltered at the intensity of her beautiful stare, iridescent from the yellow glow of her living room lamp.

“Sayuri…” he called out her name breathlessly.

“Yes, Leo?” She replied quietly.

“I want you.”

Sayuri could have sworn her heart stopped mid-beat.

“I’ve been up so many nights thinking of the perfect way to say this,” Leo breathed. “But I want us to be together. I meant it when I said that you were beautiful to me from the first night I saw you and… you’ve become even more so every moment we spent together… I-I am hopelessly in love with you Mizuno Sayuri.”

“Leo—“

“You don’t have to answer right now,” Leo interrupted her, grasping her hands. “I’m gonna leave soon… and I couldn’t go without telling you. If whatever you say right might hurt me, I’d rather I take it the next time I see you and then… I’ll carry it for the rest of my life.”

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃

It had nearly been a month since that night and here Sayuri was… in Leo’s bedroom in his sheets and holding them to her. Ever since their departure Sayuri visited every night, even more so than April. She kept Master Splinter company, cooked for him, and helped keep the dojo clean. She would dust Donnie’s computers, feed Raph’s pet turtle, and even catalog Mikey’s games. But most of all, she would stow herself away in Leo’s room, caring for his bonsai, reading his books, burying herself in his sheets. That’s where April found her.

“Oh honey,” April sighed as she sat at the edge of the bed. “I’m sure they’re okay…”

“They were supposed to be back a week ago…” Sayuri whispered.

April gazed at Sayuri sadly, she had been so anxious and it had never been as bad as this week. The constant impulse to clean, the dark circles under her eyes, and her declining appetite… April was surprised that Sayuri could still keep up with her studies at all! Sighing, April tugged Sayuri gently into her arms.

“You love him, don’t you?” April whispered. Sayuri turned her, eyes glistening.

“Can I tell you something?” Sayuri asked her quietly. “Something… I haven’t even told Leo?”

April nodded.

“I think I’m cursed.” Sayuri said.

“Why do you think that?”

Sayuri swallowed.

“The people I love… they tend to leave me.” She fumbled with her fingers. “My father… was a renowned karate sensei. He was always so busy with karate that he never really had time for me and brother. My mother was the one who was always with us… God, I remember her smile so clearly… It made me feel like everything was okay. But when I grew up, I began to hate it… I didn’t know then that she was so… sad.” Sayuri laughed, shaking her head.

“My father was the love of her life you see, so when he left one morning and never returned… it broke her heart.”

“Oh Sayuri…”

“He chose his dreams over his own family. Mom was so heartbroken. So dead inside… that she decided it would be better if she was dead in the outside too…”

April stared at her with wide eyes.

“She slit her wrists in her own bathroom… t-there was so much b-blood…” Sayuri inhaled. “And then she was gone…“

“I’m so sorry Sayuri…” April held Sayuri closely. “I’m so sorry you had to see all that. But you’re not cursed. Hiro-“

“Hiro’s in California n-now.” Sayuri breathed shakily. “I know that someday I will come home, but will he? And what of Leo? What if doesn’t come back to me?”

They stayed silent for a little while.

“I don’t know why bad things happen,” April whispered. “I don’t think anybody does… But I know that more often than not, they happen to good people. You’re a good person Sayuri. I see it in you, and I think… it’s one of the reasons Leo loves you too…”

Sayuri turned away.

“He asked me to be his the night before he left…”

April gasped quietly.

“I didn’t even have the courage to say ‘y-yes...’ What if he never hears me say it?” Sayuri cried. Tears were now streaming down April’s face… happy ones.

“Oh honey,” April laughed. “Now I know he’s surely coming home! Don’t you see? He has you! And you’re so wonderful, Sayuri…”

“Thank you, April…” Sayuri sighed into her shoulder.

Just then, Casey opened the door. He caught April’s wet eyes and chuckled. Casey quietly stepped aside, and in his place stood Leonardo, his brilliant blue eyes only for Sayuri’s slumped figure. The upper left quadrant of his shell was plastered and bandaged. A small scar or two marked his right cheek. April smiled widely before weaning Sayuri from her shoulder and turning her cheek towards the door. Sayuri stilled in her arms as she beheld his intense gaze. Leo grinned, limping into his room and April quickly exiting.

Sayuri stood abruptly as if time had pressed ‘play’ again and leapt into her terrapin’s arms. For one moment, they regarded one another intently in the warmth of their intertwined embrace. Sayuri raised her shaking hand to cup his green cheek.

“Sayuri-“

Before he could say another word, Sayuri pressed her lips against his. Leo could see the tears that hung from her eyelashes then saw nothing else as he closed his eyes and buried his hand into her hair, deepening the kiss. He could feel her all around him, like a delving into an oasis after a long walk in the desert. Sayuri moaned as the their lips moved in unison. This felt real. This felt right. It reminded her of the first time they met all over again... Being cast into the darkness and then falling from the sky among all the lights in his arms.

In his mind, Leo conceived of so many ways in which their first kiss would happen. On a date, in the rain, on her couch… but never quite like this and it was oh so perfect. Who would have known? That a mutant like him, could ever be kissed — be loved by someone like her?

They leaned their foreheads together, taking deep breathes. Sayuri was looking at him the same way he was looking at her.

“Yes,” Sayuri exhaled.

“Yes?” Leo replied in disbelief.

“Yes,” Sayuri nodded vigorously, tears racing down her cheek. Leo wiped them with the pad of his thumb as he leaned once more to capture her lips.

At the entryway, Master Splinter, Casey, April, and his brothers stood quietly, peeking through the creak in the door.

“He’s whipped,” Raph smirked.

“I’ll say,” Donnie remarked, amused.

“They’re really going at it,” Mikey giggled.

“Alright, alright,” April whispered. “Let’s give them some space.”

Master Splinter stood alone at the threshold smiling at the pair of them before closing the door as quietly as he could. Sayuri was seated in her lover’s lap, head laying against his plastron as he delicately stroked her hair from her face.

“I know what you mean now,” Leo breathed. “About names being magic. There was a time I was bleeding out—“

Sayuri was about to perform a full assessment of the bandages on his shell when Leo swiftly took ahold of her fingers.

“I’m okay,” he assured her as he noticed her eyes glistening again. “We were ambushed. I… I thought I was going to d-die… and when I started to forget your face… all I could remember was your name…”

“Oh Leo…” Sayuri sighed.

“And before I even knew it, we were going home… you kept me alive and I was so nervous that if you actually said ‘no…’ I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of how to move on… so thank you, thank you for saying ‘yes,’ thank you for being mine…”

“Why do you always have to say everything, first?” Sayuri huffed with a laugh as she began to wipe away the tears that had slipped from her eyes. Leo chuckled as he leaned his forehead against hers.

“Hey, I wanted to kiss you first.” Leo defended.

“I’m not the slow one,” Sayuri teased.

“Are you seriously saying that because I’m a turtle?”

Sayuri giggled.

“Glad you caught on.”

A playful growl reverberated in Leo’s throat as he attacked her neck speedily with kisses. Sayuri squealed, hands pushing at his plastron in a futile attempt to evade her mutant lover as they fell into his sheets.

#tmnt #tmnt leonardo #tmnt bayverse #tmnt fandom #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2016 #tmnt 2014 #tmnt leo #tmnt donatello #tmnt donnie #tmnt oc #tmnt mikey #tmnt michelangelo #tmnt raph fanart #tmnt raph bayverse

[dhr-ao3]

An Incomprehensible Inconvenience

An Incomprehensible Inconvenience https://ift.tt/jyic9Yd by pixydustworld Malfoy stirred beneath her, his hand curving around the edges of her wrist, a tight grip. Hermione glanced down through the blood and the snow to find that he was already looking up at her. An open gaze, liquid and warm. Unguarded on the threshold of death. “Hermione.” His voice was a broken thing, soft, only for the two of them to hear. “I know.” She soothed. Words: 3981, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 5 of slowly at first, and then all at once Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: F/M Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, Andromeda Black Tonks, Dean Thomas Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy Additional Tags: Explicit Sexual Content, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Wartime, Death Eater Draco Malfoy, Semi-Public Sex, Possessive Sex, astronomically down bad behavior, Praise Kink, Dirty Talk, Draco Malfoy Has a Large Cock, erotically codependent, Squirting if you squint, Creampie, the tink special aka "let me fuck it deeper", Yearning, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Horcrux Hunting, harry and ron are probably still searching for the blood replenishing potion via AO3 works tagged 'Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy' https://ift.tt/xlWmFUb February 09, 2024 at 12:48AM

#IFTTT #Dramione #Draco x Hermione

[greenerteacups]

I hope I'm not repeating an already answered question with this: what are Narcissa's genuine views on Muggles and Muggleborns? And what is her condition a consequence of? (Both of these come from the revelation of her working with Dumbledore)

i have to be delicate answering questions like this because i think it flattens the text to have the author just state an answer to questions that are otherwise be open to a reader's personal interpretation; i deliberately wrote narcissa in an ambiguous way! i suppose a different way of putting that is that i don't think her views on muggle-borns *are* reducible to one thing or another. as draco points out, she's a woman who comes from a family of vitriolic blood purists, plus she married into another (and took a husband who, as draco points out, actively tried to kill muggle-borns). she still, up to this point in the books, has never said sirius or andromeda's names. she doesn't "want them dead," or so she claims in the Room of Requirement; but that's one of those lines i always felt said more because of how much she isn't saying than what she is. she doesn't want them dead... but that's the only thing she can say about them. anything else, she doesn't have a problem with. and that doesn't mean she'll lift a finger trying to save them, either.

but she's also a woman who's lost everything, and she's terrified of losing more. she's very plain with draco about her motivations in contracting with dumbledore: she wants to protect her son, and save him from the maneuvering of powerful men (whatever side of the war they're on). she doesn't actually care about the ideological conflict that dumbledore picks up; narcissa is a realpolitik kind of person, not a "big ideas" woman. she does what she needs to get what she wants, and whatever principles or rules stand in her way are treated as obstacles to be overcome or ignored. (she is like both bellatrix and andromeda, in this respect.) i think if asked, she'd say that dumbledore could have believed literally anything he wanted about muggle-borns, so long as he agreed to take that vow, and remained the kind of man who could keep it.

draco doesn't see how narcissa interacts with people when she's not being His Mother, so he doesn't really know her in a lot of respects, especially how she conducts herself with people she views as peers. this is strongly hinted during the christmas scenes in book two, as well as narcissa's prologue in book four, when she adopts an almost wholly different persona to the one she takes up around draco. and of course, her condition is a complicating factor to the whole situation that nobody in the book quite fully yet understands.

#greenteacup asks #lionheart spoilers

[broomsticks]

@lumosatnight OMG LANIIII not enough thank yous in the world for setting up this fantastic femslash community ❤️❤️❤️ it’s been so great for this really-shouldn’t-be-as-niche-as-it-is, but-ah-well corner of fandom to just, have a home, yk? and you’ve truly done so much for it. <3

actually NO LITERALLY is there anything at all you haven’t done yet in fandom? these podfics are so lovely and gosh, these reclists.

the CHAOS. Scalene • 11k, M. the pansy/luna/ginny was absolutely stellar, but there’s so much else to love in this postwar co-living slice of life fun times.

oh what GENIUS. Sirius Rising • 5k, M, it’s wolfstar and it’s jeddy and just how did you pull off this ambiguity??? the brilliance, i’ve read this so many times and i’m still in awe.

let the lesbians have some vore and cannibalism! Maraschino Red • 1k, E • hermione/luna. yk, as a treat

twincest! disinterment! necromancy! necrophilia! ritual human sacrifice! Death and Undeath • 3k, E, George digs up Fred's body because he just can't let him go. thank you for writing!! and for Showing your Research, lmfao

such a special fic written by/for such special people!! Rosmerta’s Special Brew • 6k, T. rosmerta as hogwarts’ queer crisis counselor!! such a travesty that this is still the only rosmerta/andromeda tonks fanwork on ao3.

gave me a toothache it was so so so adorable. You Lucky Cat • 6k, M • ginny/pansy and the usual suspects, and so much chinatown magic and fooood.

the fic that made me fall in love with genderbending: Wicked Hearts and Calculating Minds • 5k, T • fem!riddledore. ZANIEST thing i’ve EVER read. robyn scrimingeur, amanda dippet, colleen creevey, daenerys malfoy -- oh, laughing forever at this one.

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for an explanation of why i just wrote you a whole ~thing~, check out this post & the ‘mutuals march’ tag below!

#hp femslash #hp rare pairs #hp fics #my fic recs #mutuals march #lani tag

[askamiitopia]

Greetings!

Hello! This blog is an ask blog, focused particularly on my personal portrayal and interpretation of Miitopia, specifically that of the main team, plus a few other notable figures! The timeframe here takes place 2 years after the events of the game!

You can send in asks directed towards the listed characters, and it'll get responded to via drawn replies of... varying effort. Hey, this is a for-fun thing, cut me a bit of slack here~!

Under the cut is a set of basic rules, as well as mobile-friendly links to the list of available characters and the tags for searching around!

Have fun~!

RULES;

For the love of all, keep things reasonably sfw here-- Dirty-humored jokes and less than pleasant topics are fine, and likely to pop up on their own at times, but don't go too far, and do keep in mind some of the characters here are children still. -

As previously stated, this is a for-fun blog. Which means I'm not going to overwork or overstress myself about it. It's up to me alone how quick I respond to something, with how much effort into it, and all that, and this can and probably will vary, especially seeing as I have a life(Kind of lmao) outside of tumblr, and other interests as well. -

Continuing on with the above, and as also stated previously, this blog is based on my personal interpretation of things. While primarily canon-compliant, I do have my own plethora of headcanons and worldbuilding, as well as post-game story that may be hinted at. With all that said, I ask you respect this and do not cause a fuss just because the way I handle things may be different than how you would do it. -

Don't be a bigot. Or an asshole. Or anything like that. Anything hateful that isn't just some dumb thing directed at the characters for interaction's sake will be deleted, and depending on severity can also result in a block. We have fun and be nice to people here.

[Characters Page] --- [Tag Nav]

Blog ran by @ambiguous-andromeda Be sure to also check my art blog @andromedoodles !

#[ pinned ]

[balioc]

The Gender Trinary: Hero, Maiden, Monster

I've talked about this before, but maybe it's worth doing so in a more comprehensive fashion.

----------

I should start by saying: this is not any kind of commentary on how the world really works.

It is an exploration of a symbolic paradigm that is meaningful to me, personally.  (A paradigm that was, to be sure, more meaningful to me when I was younger and angstier and less-well-integrated into my life.  But still meaningful.)  It tells you far more about my own neuroses than it does about any external reality.

I have found it noteworthy, in fact, how poorly the gender trinary paradigm ends up mapping onto the reality of my experience.  Feminism has made a hash of the Maiden role and its broader social salience, to no one’s surprise, but it’s the Hero role that really fails to sync up with the world around me.  It’s rooted in a vision of normative masculinity that just...doesn’t line up with what men actually do, or how men actually feel about themselves, at least within my field of vision.  Maybe that’s an artifact of my living in a rarefied nerd-bubble where no one really cares about the conventional masculine ideal.  Maybe it’s an artifact of modern society being different from earlier stages of society.  Maybe it was just an illusion to begin with, fostered by consuming too much genre media.  I dunno.  

In any event -- the point is that this concept-suite will probably break if you put any weight on it.  If you find yourself inclined to poke around at it with questions, I’m probably happy to field them, but don’t be surprised if they end up being grounded in “I found these ideas powerful when I was an alienated bookish teenager, and the resonance of it has never really gone away, as the resonances of such things generally don’t.”  

OK then.  Moving on.

What is the basic idea of the gender trinary?

There are three “genders” -- hero, maiden, and monster.  These correspond to the roles in a primordial, mythic passion-play narrative.  

As it is written:

The Monster, who is transgressive, lays a claim on the Maiden, who is desirable and pure.  The Hero contests this claim, defeats the Monster, and saves the Maiden.

Rama / Sita / Ravana is probably the best example of the pure, uncomplicated version of that story from “authentic” mythology.  Many gender-trinary-tangent myths either have a monster who isn’t remotely personlike in any way (Perseus / Andromeda / Cetus) or complicate the interaction to the point of near-unrecognizability (Gilgamesh / Shamhat / Enkidu).

Modern culture has provided us with a lot of very pure, very recognizable gender trinary instantiations.  Mario / Peach / Bowser and Link / Zelda / Ganon are absolutely textbook.  Modern culture has also provided us with a lot of trope deconstructions (Braid, Dr. Horrible).

Versions of this story with a focus on the Monster form the core of the gothic-romance trope suite.  Beauty and the Beast and The Phantom of the Opera are foundational texts.  

Are those roles really “genders,” though?

Well, to some extent.

The trinary paradigm is definitely an overlay on the male/female gender binary, not a replacement for it.  In particular, while the Hero role is undeniably masculine in its construction, and the Maiden role is similarly feminine -- even if you allow for female Heroes (which I do, absolutely) and male Maidens (which I do, kinda) -- the Monster role doesn’t really have its own parallel suite of gender tropes.  A Monster can embody either extreme masculinity or extreme femininity, in ways that work within those concept-suites rather than subverting them.  There are classic extremely-monster-y monsters who code as hyper-men (King Kong, Beast) and ones who code as hyper-women (vampy succubi etc.). Monsters can also certainly be androgynous, or display traits that are off-the-gender-spectrum entirely...but that tends to come across as ambiguously gendered or un-gendered rather than distinctively third-gendered.  This is particularly relevant when discussing romantic and sexual attraction, which tends to be plugged into a very low-level set of physical and behavioral cues in a way that isn’t amenable to being warped through high-level narrative abstraction.  Saying, e.g., that Adam is “bisexual” because he is attracted to both Lilith (Monster) and Eve (Maiden) feels pretty dumb.  

But genders come with gender roles.  And, to a large extent, the point of the trinary is to create (or make explicit) a set of three different gender roles that are all legible to each other, that all have their own distinct boundaries, and that all cohere internally.  There are important ways in which a hulking manly brute monster and a slinky witchy siren monster and a totally inhuman bug monster all expect to play the same role in the broader context of society, and all expect to engage with Heroes and with Maidens in basically similar ways.  Certainly, if you use social narrative as a guide, there are important ways in which all of those Monsters can expect to have similar standards of success and to be perceiving their own identities in similar ways. (Or so I posit.)  And once you’ve gotten that far, well, “gender” doesn’t seem like an inappropriate term.

Your mileage may vary. 

Aesthetics

This is basically a place for me to point out that there isn’t a single iconic image for any of these roles.

Heroes, in the full flower of their Heroic physicality, can run the gamut from lithe twinky bishounen to jacked Spartan hoplites with huge beards.  “Wispy pink-and-purple fairy princess” and “voluptuously sensual earth goddess” are both overwhelmingly Maiden looks.  

Monsters, as suggested earlier, get even more of a range than that.  Their appearance can exaggeratedly emphasize physical power (ogres) or exaggeratedly de-emphasize it (Jabba the Hutt).  They can possess extreme masculine beauty (Dracula), extreme masculine ugliness (Lord Voldemort), extreme feminine beauty (succubi), or extreme feminine ugliness (night hags).  The only real commonality to a “Monster look” is that it should be somehow wrong.  Ugliness is wrong by default; inhumanity is obviously wrong by default; beauty must be cast as somehow sickly or unwholesome.  You can have Monsters who don’t look particularly wrong (Dr. Horrible), but this makes them “less monstrous” in the way that physical traits can make someone “less masculine” or “less feminine.” 

Associated Concepts

Or: “What do these words mean, anyway?”  The part for which you’re all here.

Perhaps it is easiest to start by saying: the “point” of the Monster role (in some sense) is that it is unsocialized and transgressive, and what it gets for those costs is self-expression and freedom.  

Both the Hero and the Maiden are, essentially and necessarily, socialized roles.  To be a [successful] Hero or Maiden, you must be embedded in some kind of society; you must be bound to the ideals of that society; and the success of your gender performance is, in the end, a reflection of how well you can embody those ideals.  

(“Society” can mean a lot of different things here, and it doesn’t have to be particularly big or expansive or civilization-y.  In particular, when you’re talking about Heroes, a little mutually-reinforcing “band of brothers” is very definitely enough of a society to qualify.)  

The Hero role is obviously very related to the “male gender role,” although it’s not identical.  At its absolute most basic core, it is about having the competence to fight in defense of your society and your Maiden.  This radiates out to “competence,” in most senses of the term -- especially most pragmatic senses -- being a Hero power concept.  Heroes do useful things for others.  They fix the car, pay the bills, save lives on the operating table, etc.  

(Domestic labor isn’t particularly Hero-coded, because [for mostly dumb reasons] it doesn’t have tight narrative associations with competence.  Cooking and cleaning are not things that you do because you’re stepping up when others can’t.  But domestic labor also isn’t particularly Maiden-coded in this schema.  It’s not really anything-coded.)  

Competition is also very close to the heart of the Hero role.  Heroes compete with each other, with Monsters, and with the obstacles presented by the uncaring universe.  I assume this is a direct outgrowth of the competence thing; you continually test, and continually show off, your power by pitting it against forces that will resist.  

The Maiden role is, to be honest, the least-fleshed-out in abstract terms.  (Probably because I was never in any particular danger of being seen as, or of seeing myself as, a Maiden.)  It has a lot to do with love and sex, unsurprisingly -- in a standard Feminism 101 “Women are the Sex Class” kind of way, physical and emotional intimacy are part of the Maiden concept-sphere.  It has a lot to do with emotional and social power, with the ability to change what people are thinking and feeling by interacting with them.  

It has a lot to do with inherent legitimacy.  Maidens in good standing are always valid.  (Heroes must prove their validity, at least once, probably over and over; Monsters are always invalid.)  This gets tied up with a certain, uh, avatar-of-the-society’s-ideals-ness.  

One ramification of all this is that leadership is a Maiden thing.  Most forms of political and institutional leadership, at least, and also probably household leadership as well.  Maidens are the ones who contain the highest values of the society within themselves, and therefore the ones who are properly helming the ship of state, telling others what to do; they’re the ones who are good enough with people to wield command.  Often they act through Hero subordinates or champions.   

A Hero being in charge, in this schema, means that something is somehow off -- he’s probably dominated by his own ego and love of victory, rather than having the best interests of the society at heart.  

(Exceptions apply for fully Heroic sub-institutions like the military.  But those are “supposed” to be subject to some kind of higher Maiden-controlled authority.)  

Both the Hero role and the Maiden role come with a strong baked-in requirement of desirability.  Heroes and Maidens are supposed to be beautiful, outwardly and inwardly.  Occupying either role means that you are obliged to be appealing to members of the other role in a romantic/sexual sense, and to be appealing to the society-at-large in terms of embodying its ideals and meeting its needs.  Failing to appeal is...well, a failure. 

Monsters are driven by their own internal, asocial urges.  They act contrary to the ideals and the needs of their societies.  They are freed from the requirement to be desirable by being automatically anathemized.  

Needless to say, of course, it is possible for Monsters to appeal -- romantically/sexually (as in gothic romances) or even on a broader cultural level (if a Monster is faddishly fetishized, for example).  This is never [in the theoretical conceptual perfect-spherical-gender sense] because the Monster has fit itself into a template of desirability; it is because some other party has perceived the Monster’s idiosyncratic self-constructed identity, hidden or overt, and found it lovable.  It is [in theory] always sui generis and always the fruit of a unique, un-ritualized interaction.  

“Doesn’t fit into society” covers a lot of conceptual ground -- a lot more ground than “does fit into society.”  Monster-hood manifests in many very-divergent forms, because there are so many ways to be different and taboo.  

Alienation is pretty central to the role concept.  Normatively monster attitudes range from “grumpy and desirous of being left alone” to “omnicidally angry.”  

The role-syntonic (positive) Monster ways of being in love involve pedestalization, possessiveness, and focused obsession.  It is important to distinguish the loved one from everyone else.

The Monster role is neither particularly active nor particularly passive.  “Has a scheme to remake all reality and will stop at nothing to achieve it” is a very Monster deal.  So is “sits in a cave, contemplating its own strange thoughts, and will never interact with any part of the world unless disturbed.”  

The archetypical Monster is an egomaniacal monad, but for narrative purposes it’s possible for a Monster instead to be a foreigner -- to be beholden to the ideals and structures of a society, so long as it’s an alien one.

Gender Interactions in the Trinary Paradigm

It’s worth remembering that the quintessential gender trinary story is a struggle.  In a high conceptual sense, it’s a struggle in which all three roles are thrown together to find out which two of them will pair off.  

(In theory, I’m sure, you could end up with a balanced triad.  But I don’t think we have good stories about how that would work or what it would look like.  The dyadic nature of human reproduction has a lot of concept influence.)  

The most common pairing, of course, is Hero/Maiden.  The Monster is defeated -- we assume that its influence was generally a bad one, even if somewhere along the way it might have had some appeal -- and the pro-social lovers unite, bonded by their shared ideal. 

Maiden/Monster is an essentially psychological pairing in most cases, driven by deep interpersonal communication that supersedes social expectations.

Hero/Monster is the least common pairing.  Which is no surprise, because (as mentioned) Maiden is the role that’s associated with love and sex; the Hero and the Monster are fighting over the Maiden, in theory, and something weird has to happen to change that.  But there are a few well-established narratives here.  The often-bromantic-rather-than-romantic Gilgamesh/Enkidu story is one.  There’s also the version in which the Monster is made very feminine and the Hero shifts to the center of the love triangle.  This gets you a sort of gender-reversal of the Maiden/Monster pairing; the Maiden ends up being portrayed as shallow or bland, and the Monster provides a truer / spicier / more genuinely personal sort of love. 

#the gender trinary

[fullmoonfireball]

o shit we trickin an treatin? what about trick and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

make sure your MP doesn't run too low while you're out there!

#ask meme #ambiguous andromeda #ask

[ashesandhackles]

👍 👀 and 💘 please!

👍 the last fic I bookmarked is yours! Enchanter's Nightshade - the way you wrote merope and the breakdown of the enchantment of Tom Riddle Snr is ... ❤️

👀 the fic I love a normal amount is The Dog and The Deer Detective Agency by @artemisia-black. Sirius and happy toddler Harry is my catnip. I actively seek out their scenes from this fic on bad days.

💘 I Awaken with Your Name by @decemberistafic morally ambiguous Andromeda, immaculate Tedromeda and writing style that keeps you reading.

#asks #fic recs

[pastille-pain]

SECOND OC BATCH!

not exactly batch? It's only two characters-

ANYWAY

Hope you enjoy!!

Disma knight | @den-of-the-blue-dragon

Palx(?) | @ambiguous-andromeda / AndromedaDoodles

#kirby #kirby nintendo #ocs #kirby oc #drawing requests #others ocs

[thebig4comeback]

I had an epiphany.

If you ever played Genshin Impact and read their in-game books, you may be familiar with Vera's Melancholy. If not, well you might want to read about it here. But if not, I think you'll be able to follow through regardless.

Now listen. Yes, this post is going to be about ROTBTD. Just let me cook.

Vera's Melancholy has 4 main characters in its story:

Vera - the girl who desperately wants to leave her hometown Delphi, the story revolves around her and her relationship with the other three, she loves to read it seems and she's all about adventure and seeing new things, she also cooks

Sachi - Vera's childhood friend who secretly has feelings for her, and he's kind of a coward, but quite hard working and capable if he puts his heart into it, also he does stand up for himself and fight for Vera, later in the story he loses an eye

Ike - a thousand-year old galactic sage who is incredibly powerful and seems to be famous with the ladies but the type who never cheated, he teleported to a cupboard in Delphi, and Vera fell for him at first sight, but the actual NPCs in the Genshin universe ship Ike and Sachi (hahahaha), however Ike is well aware that Sachi has feelings for Vera and has no intentions to "steal" her from him but instead make her as his assistant

Princess - second rightful heir to the Andromeda Empire, a very strong warrior too, went after Ike to marry him, she intended to marry him to secure her safety once her elder sister takes the throne, but spoiler alert... she has some kind of thing going on with Sachi so it's quite ambiguous who she really likes, and she treats Vera like a sister, quite a feisty character

Now tell me that this is not ROTBTD coded. Tell. me. otherwise. These four characters resemble Rapunzel, Hiccup, Jack, and Merida in that order. Not perfectly but you can see them in these characters.

And my god I spent like 2 years with this book living in my head rent-free, feeling weirdly familiar of these characters. How come it never crossed my mind!?

This whole post may be a stretch, but please read through Vera's Melancholy, and try inserting the big four to those roles. It kinda makes sense. That's... that's them. Holy shit.

#fun fact: i call myself “sachi” online so #haha #this book was really entertaining #rotbtd #rise of the brave tangled dragons #hiccup #jack frost #merida #rapunzel

[pkmn-spira]

So what makes the Deoxys of Spira different from other Deoxys seen elsewhere?

There are several key differences on what makes the Deoxys located in Spira different:

Ancient Spirans actually worship them so much, that they are revered as The Starchildren. Even in modern day Spira, they are still referred to as such. So whenever anyone speaks of the 'Starchild', 'Starchildren', and so on, its always referring to the Spira native Deoxys. They aren't just anomalies from space, at least in the Spirans's concern. In Spira, they are treated with high, esteemed regard, that they may well as be treated the same as one would toward gods. Hence, the Starchildren, and The Wishweaver (Jirachi), are also referred to as 'The Wish Trio', or 'The Meteoric Trio' in Spiran soil.

Both the First and Second Starchild can resonate with the wishes of those it bonds with, and such, would become the 'action' that would ensure those wishes will come true. This is observable only towards the Deoxys that preside in Spira. When Stella bonded with the Second Starchild via the Starlink Phenomenon, it resonated with her wish of not wanting to die yet, as well as to protect everyone from Team Andromeda's machinations two years ago. Sure, the Starlink Phenomenon also ended up with Stella getting infected by Deoxys' virulent DNA, but their bond is symbiotic at best.

However, the First Starchild bonding with Noah Schneider resonated with his desperation, and wish for change, thus it resonating with his wishes became warped, turning the wish for change into something more extreme and absolute, and that is of transcendence. A complete, radical change that should not be. As much as the First Starchild influenced Noah, Noah also influenced it. You can treat it like its a Starlink Phenomenon as well, but there are certain ambiguities as to say that it probably isn't, but something similar. Is Noah in control? Is the First Starchild in control? Or have their mindsets meshed into one twisted conglomerate? Only time can tell.

3. Both Starchildren are able to exhibit Mega Evolution. Sure, The Second Starchild is able to exhibit that via the Starlink Phenomenon with Stella. However, that has yet to be seen with the First Starchild, so the notion of both of them able to exhibit such is a conjecture. Another theory is that neither of the Starchildren's Mega Evolutions are the same, so the First Starchild may have a different Mega Evolved state and abilities compared to the Second Starchild and vice versa.

4. Both Starchildren are either recorded or shown to have displayed a better grip on their already innate natural abilities, being able to shift Forms more frequently on the fly, manifest multiple copies of themselves in a similar fashion to RNA cloning (which can be often mistaken as them using Double Team), and advanced bodily regeneration, which can also be further enhanced by them already knowing Recover.

#;worldbuilding