#but mostly the meow

[meowww-ffxiv]

"Do you ever feel strange?" a Scion had asked Mordred once. He didn't remember her name and certainly not her face. She left them at some point when he was across the Ruby Sea fighting Garleans and he didn't blame her about it. But he remembered her question because...no idea. She elaborated too: "To be in the middle of that gaggle of visionaries and scholars of renown?"

"Who?" Mordred had asked, genuinely confused. And the Scion had rolled her eyes and left him sitting there alone, still confused and irritated now because he'd deigned an answer and she'd left him hanging. What's with the youths these days? (Never mind that Mordred was, at the time, twenty-seven.)

F'laminn, having overheard the conversation, clarified to him that she likely meant the Archons. "Some of our newer members are a little intimidated by them, considering the breadth of their knowledge and wisdom," F'laminn said. Then she chuckled into her hand. "And I'm sure S'vira thought you were just a helper. She was convinced the Warrior of Light is some dark-haired elezen who wields both flames and lance."

Ah, yes. The hideous amalgation of Theodore and Mordred a lot of people in Eorzea at large had cooked up about them. Must've been from when they fought Vishap. Their combination of dragoon might and black magic that would've gotten Mordred banned from Gridania must have been so impressive.

Mordred was so caught up being annoyed about that, that he almost forgot the main question. About whether he was, what was the word, "feel strange" around the Archons. Honestly, he forgot they were all that. He knew Thancred by the amount of annoyance he caused him. He knew Urianger and Y'shtola by the particularity they each had about their coffee, tea, and intensity or shade of the aether-charged (or regular) ink they used for their writings. By their tastes in books, their recommendations, the way they taught an underclassman -- Mordred himself, in a sense.

The question was posed to him between the mess of the Warriors of Darkness and things completely falling apart at Baelsar's Wall. Mordred didn't have the attention span to retain it. Not between A-Towa-Cant's soul stone heavy in his pockets, his extremely illegal and dangerous excavated tomes from Mhach thanks to Leofard, and Theodore's half-finished custom armor set.

It was only very much later that Mordred realized that knowing your acquaintances by their smallest, most personal preferences for things they ate, drank, and by the quality of their stationery betrayed a familiarity far surpassing "acquaintances". By then though, did it really matter? Mordred didn't mind the Scions. He'd seen them as people. Messy, imperfect, with their moments of pettiness and in Thancred's case, complete total dysfunction that he felt he had no choice but to bully his way through.

(Mordred could've said something to Thancred, admittedly. Out of everyone, the two of them shared the most similar background. Knew what it was like not to just lose people they loved, but that hollow wretched feeling of being left behind.

He should've said something but he didn't. Thancred vanished like a fart in a cavern after one debacle or another, resurfacing only long enough to communicate tersely and projecting his cry for help with his mouth closed. Never stayed long enough for even Theodore to needle. So they didn't talk at all.)

Actually, why should Mordred feel strange being around the Archons? And the girl said the "Archons" specifically. Which excluded Alphinaud, Alisaie, and Theodore. Tataru, too. Maybe she had a vendetta against smart people who didn't use contractions in their speech or laid the thee and thou on too thick. Huh.

Mordred mentioned this to Theodore once, who said, "It sounds to me like she was trying to find some camaraderie in someone she thought was of the same background as her."

"Why? What's about me she'd think that?" Mordred asked, miffed because she could've just said that.

"Someone rougher of speech and mannerisms. I believe I know who asked you that question. She was from Limsa Lominsa, and joined us after hearing about our heroisms." Theodore smiled at the end of the sentence, not out of pride but at the absurdity of the phrase he was parroting from the public. He and Mordred knew how soaked in blood and awash in tears their "heroism" was. How even then, there was a gravestone with a broken Fortemps shield leaned against it standing on a cliff overlooking Ishgard. Heroism. Yeah, that.

Mordred said, "Huh."

They spent a few minutes in companionable silence as Theodore continued reading and Mordred continued scribbling away at a diagram of Urianger's new deck of astromancy cards.

Eventually Theodore said, "Does it not bother you that someone assumed your intelligence to be lesser than that of our colleagues'? The Archons', in particular?"

Mordred looked him in the eye. "Find me an illiterate urchin in Limsa Lominsa who doesn't have more self-preservation than Alphi."

Theodore sighed. He'd admittedly walked into that one. "People assume I am on the same level as our Archon colleagues because I happen to have a cultured way of talking--"

Mordred's mouth twisted in skepticism. Theodore scowled at him. "It comes from being raised in a retainer family to one of the four High Houses. I am not saying it makes me better or more distinguished. It just makes me look like I fit better with our more well-spoken friends."

"It really be those thee's and thou's scarin' the common folk," Mordred muttered into his knuckles.

"No," Theodore said. He sighed again. "Maybe you aren't affected because you are immune to shame. But many feel intimidated and sometimes very uncomfortable when their present company speak or act in a way that suggest they are from a different, perceivably more prestigious social background than them."

"That's hell of a lot o' words to just say she was insecure and asked me to confirm," Mordred said.

"And what a waste of her time it was, too, to ask you of all people if you felt insecure about anything."

Well, Mordred was insecure about a lot of things. And Mordred had in fact felt that same category of insecurity -- about his crassness, the shallow depths of his knowledge and experience -- in someone else's company. But it wasn't the Archons who made him feel that. Not the Scions who were Archons.

It had been G'raha. Who, despite his much less formal mannerisms than Urianger or Y'shtola and simple, pure excitement for discovery, had inarguably be from one of those "more prestigious backgrounds". He had liked Mordred all the same, thank the Twelve. But there were days where Mordred spoke more carefully, and kept his volume the same as G'raha's, and stayed up late reading information from tomestones so he could keep up with G'raha's passionate tangents.

It was just that Mordred's insecurity about seeming less smart or knowledgeable didn't stem from being threatened.

He'd only felt that way when he wanted to reach for someone he liked who seemed above his level. He wanted to meet those people where they were and that was when doubt bit down. And it was all so dumb because in the end G'raha pulled both of them up, past limits beyond their imagination, didn't he? Fate was stranger than fiction.

This he never told Theodore. Not out of embarrassment, because Theodore of all people should not have the gall to tease Mordred about wanting a stranger to like him. But Theodore would definitely say something like, "I suppose cats do mirror the behavior of those they love" in that infuriating mild tone of his. And then Mordred would be forced to...do something.

#mon writing #meowdred surana #theodore pentaghast #but mostly the meow

[ritz-regrezzez]

☀️yellow agere moodboard

#THESE ARE SO FUN #send me requests !!! please !!!! #im not sure what the crediting etiquette is with moodboards (i mostly make stimboarss) but if anyone knows lmk!! #meow meow meow YAYYYYYYYYY #this makes me so happy YAHOOO YAYY #moodboard #yellow #plush #agere #age regression #food #cozy #animal #i tried to add alt text? but i dont super know howw #i tried my best though!!! #mine

[blakbonnet]

Fic Recs For Getting Over Writers' Block:

To me, the only way to get over the writing horrors™️ is to read some good fucking prose. Even if the summary of these fics doesn't appeal to you, I'd suggest reading them purely for their tactile prose that somehow gets the brain working again.

General Block Breakers:

Magpie by yellowmustard

Skirts and Barbells by @petrichorca

Malleability by jazzxdaffy

The Nest That Hope Builds by @red-sky-in-mourning

Grounded by @forpiratereasons

So Long Seabird by @adamarks

Find Your Stede Voice:

Adventures of a Leggy Blonde by @palavapeite

Find Your Ed Voice:

You Belong in that Home by and by by @alchemistc

Stealing Romance by skrifores

#actually this list is mostly for myself ngl #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd fic rec #maybe I should add this to my master rec list but also I'm lazy today #meow speaks #I'd also recommend making a list like this for yourself :)) especially if you're writing a longer fic #I have very few under ofmd because for fics I kinda only hangout in the sandman and hobbit side of ao3 #there's only one for Stede cause it's foolproof to me

[oceanwithouthermoon]

the entire cast of saiki k hearing kusuo laugh for the first time and immediately falling in love

#even when he does laugh hes trying to cover it so he has his hand over his mouth and u can just barely hear him snorting #so theyre mostly seeing him laugh more than hearing him. and its perfect. #saiki k #tdlosk #the disastrous life of saiki k. #saiki kusuo #meows post #this was supposed to be a kubosai post btw and then i was like.. they would all do this tbh #sorry saiki k is a harem anime prove me wrong

[lesbiangiratina]

The skulls also squash and stretch. Btw

#not nearly as much as the hat. they mostly just open their mouths sometimes. and rattle. classic skull stuff #this is just a really good frame. overall. #the kat goes meow #gg

[mychlapci]

*holds you tightly by the shoulders until you're bleeding* haha funny joke about pharma's chainsaw hands. but you understand that pharma is actually a really tragic character? you understand that he did not work with the DJD willingly and was forced to harvest organs for them under the threat of the entire delphi outpost getting destroyed if he didnt? you understand that while his "crazy doctor DJD" reputation in the fandom can be funny he actually suffered a lot and it only makes sense he ended up cracking under the pressure and the venomous scrutiny from the people he once called his comrades? you understand that his life was literally just a horrible mess of incredibly unlucky coincidences made worse by his bad decisions, which he was making out of fear and self-preservation instinct? you understand how deeply fucked up ratchet stealing his hands and adaptus possessing his body really was and how extremely damaged he must have been? can anyone hear me? are you going to let me out of here now? i swear i wont lick the electrical outlets again.

#transformers #maccadam #whenever i think about pharma for more than 2 minutes i end up kneeling on the floor with my head in my hands #i always have to defend the underdog dont i. its gotta be my main role in every damn fandom im in #yes he did bad things. yes he did cut ambulon in half hotdog style. but he never chose to go crazy. #he's a blorbo from my dreams. poor little meow meow shaped #transformers pharma #this is mostly just my romantic polemizing i actually like crazy doctor pharma #i just. man. i just think he’s neat

[deltapelagicpetrel]

i was listening to the dark river audiobook and he sounded a bit too texan, so now all i think is this little texan cat

#warrior cats #brackenfur #wc #wc designs #and yes i do imagine him sounding like the engineer from tf2 #idc that they’re all supposed to be British he’ll always be texan in my heart #little meow meow #warrior cats fanart #i promise im working on more tf2 stuff im just mostly art blocked rn!!!!! #deltapelagicpetrel

[solarockk]

they are at cocolia's funeral

#my meow meows #this is based mostly on my team bc i have serval as a dps and bronya as supports #what an happy family #honkai star rail #hsr #serval landau #bronya rand #servalia if you squint #they are so exes coded #digital art #sol art #artist on tumblr #fanart #krita

[whilomm]

hey does tumblr know about the controversy surrounding the trend of aircraft pilots meowing.

#buzzy #assigned catgirl on guard #uhhh the controversy isnt super long its mostly that it clogs up the frequencies and is annoying apparentlt #but if u say 'hey stop that' they just meow more #which sounds funny but also like its on emergency frequencies and shit #(bc emergency frequencies are rarely used so it ends up being a lotta nonsense) #or st like that #still its funny to hear a chinese navy ATC (?) meow at a very stern sounding american airforce pilot #anyway. just know theyre meowing up in the skies #or were idk if its still a thing #airplanes #aviation #meowviation

[livelaughlaios]

As for Shuro/Toshiro... lemme see if I can put this coherently. The long and short of it is, this is Ryoko Kui doing the thing she does in which she uses the dungeon as a neutral background in which characters with different ideas can clash and come to terms with each other. We're not supposed to side with Toshiro, but we are not supposed to side with Laios, really, mostly because there is no "right" and "wrong" here.

A character who is heavily coded as autistic and comes from a northern europe coded culture (low-context - information is supposed to be conveyed in the most straightforward and clear way possible, even when said way is considered rude) meets another character who is extremely shy and comes from a japan coded culture (high context - info is supposed to be inferred by a mix of behaviour and conversational allusion, maintaining peaceful interpersonal relationships takes precedent over efficiency).

Neither of them are inherently wrong in the way they approach the other. Yes, Toshiro shouldve said something, but he doesn't know how. He was not taught how to handle someone like Laios. Conversely, Laios was not taught how to read between the lines and understand what a person is trying to convey if they are not speaking directly.

Since Laios is the main protagonist and we see most of the story from his POV, and also since most people on this website are American (low context culture), its easy for people to assume we are supposed to side with him. But I don't think that's the author's intention at all. Remember - Kui is Japanese writing for a primarily Japanese audience. From THEIR POV Toshiro's behaviour is perfectly understandable. It's also worth noting that there is a lot of extra material that gives further context to the Toshiro/Laios relationship.

One of the main points, for example, is how Laios gets Toshiro's name wrong. When they first met, Toshiro is immediately an object of curiosity to Laios BECAUSE he is a foreigner from a faraway land. Laios immediately invites himself to become his friend and starts asking question after question. When he finally remembers he's supposed to ask for Toshiro's name, he misunderstands it as Shuro, and Toshiro is too shy to correct him. "Renaming" the foreign side character for the benefit of the Western main character is an extremely loaded symbolic choice from Robinson Crusoe's Friday onward. I am not aware of the particular history of this trope in Japanese literature, but other elements of Toshiro's story suggest that renaming in his culture is something that is often done to slaves. Ryoko Kui is generally very deliberate about details like these. I highly doubt this is a random choice.

Of course Laios does not do it on purpose and Toshiro understands this and decides to let it slide, but its still something hurtful that Laios does to another person without even realising that hes doing it. This is a type of mistake he does often and he will do again across the story.

Again. Not saying Toshiro is perfectly right either, but there is a reason why they finish the meeting on relatively decent terms - because they BOTH recognise how they went wrong.

Toshiro realises that he needs to be more direct and determined about what he wants, but this is a reality check for Laios as well. He has been able to coast by so far in the dungeon without giving much thought to other people's wants and needs, thanks to the help of friends who care for him and are willing to follow him, but the story is changing pace and scale. Soon he might have to make some difficult decisions that involve the life and death of others. He needs to learn to listen.

This is why the Toshiro confrontation happens in the same span where we see Chimera!Falin going on a rampage, and Kabru trying to establish a friendship with Laios to assess what kind of person he is. Several narrative threads are coming to a head - the conflict with Toshiro is the tangible result of the tensions we saw around Laios' uncaring attitude from the beginning.

#shuro/toshiro #laios #meta #those are mostly confused notes sorry if they dont make much sense #meowing to myself

[aurosoul]

Figmin XR is now a top-selling app on the Quest store and my favorite part about it finally blowing up is seeing Random Tech Dudes who just do NOT get it all:

"oh no, a whimsical environment full of rainbows, unicorns, fairies, and other stereotypically feminine and/or childish imagery. DISGUSTING. better compare this to the Vapid Youths and their Myspace pages"

like sorry you hate fun I guess??? (the person this guy was talking to responded with "this is appealing to children, who also use technology", which is the correct answer, btw)

#incessant meowing #i'm so glad no one uses tumblr so i have at least one place to talk shit lmao #i've spent the better part of this month just casually seeing strangers publicly discuss my art which has been wild #most people love it and i am grateful 🙏 but it's still mostly just anxiety central to be honest #this is the kind of thing you dream of as an artist but now that's it's actually happening it's like OH FUCK!! #i am being Perceived #anyways i have to go back to making MORE FUNLOVING WHIMSICAL VIDEOS #i haven't been here much but i hope everyone is having a good october and looking forward to halloween

[autoresponderdaily]

hal'd be a better parent than dirk

ok tbh. tbh. i agree. anyways take ur cursed bro-hal drawing

#lil hal #dave strider #bro strider #<- but not really. mostly just for blocklists i suppose. #homestuck #ask #silly submitted hal headcanons #also im drawing all of these sorry guys this was an excuse to draw stuff i havent thought of yet. lol #ive been teaching myself how to draw muscles bc of bro i guess its fitting i drew this #aka i made a bro transparent and was like wow i wish i could draw like that. so cool. #anywyas neough tag ramblign meow meow #actually no not done #i read a fic kinda abt this. not linking but ull probs know it. anyways yes hal would be a better parent than dirk. i mean not by- #all that much but considering hes yknow. connected 2 the internet. #yuh. anyways #im actually done now

[blakbonnet]

You know just a "yeah I lied, I panicked... just a bit" followed by "I lied too... your fish was great" would heal me

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #it mostly won't happen but I can dream absjdjdjd #meow speaks

[oceanwithouthermoon]

kuboyasu the butch lesbian and saiki the androgynous/femme leaning lesbian my beloveds.

#on that transfem lesbian kubosai agenda once again lets go #explodes cutely #<33 #im ngl i view them as lesbians like. half the time i think abt them #mostly cuz im a lesbian and just rlly like thinking abt girlz #saiki k #tdlosk #the disastrous life of saiki k. #saiki kusuo #kuboyasu aren #kubosai #meows post

[lesbiangiratina]

One of a chain autistic & one key note in the symphony autistic best friends forever

#seeing them together makes me smiiiile. #*they mostly just get on her nerves but they are saying things she needs to hear and i think she can realize that. and be best friends #forever. #okay but its sooooo funny that aba’s theme leaked and i was like hehe this pairs so nicely with testament’s theme. #and then. someone was like oh i know who her arcade companion is. and i said. dm me. and they said ‘ITS YOUR GEAR’ #and i said KYAAAAA #and i got parallels!!! not the ones i was expecting but kind of a deeper cut!!! and its fun. i love to have fun. #god her arcade mode is good sorry i just finished getting her script in a txt file. jts kind of awesome. #aba’s moment but hehe testament. hehehehe testament i love you :) hehehehehehe #the kat goes meow #gg #testament tag

[thelordofgifs]

In Defence of the Sons of Fëanor

Wait, again? Yes, always. But not anything really bad! Kinslaying, I hope we can agree, is pretty indefensible. But an accusation I often see levelled against the younger sons - that they failed to rescue Maedhros from Angband out of cowardice/stupidity - is bugging me. So! Before I get a fandom reputation as "the Gil-galad poster", I thought I might write something about a character I actually care about - Maglor! Also his younger brothers, but Maglor is the one I’m particularly invested in defending.

In fic (particularly a lot of Russingon fic) the views I tend to see expressed by characters, and backed up by the narrative, go something like "The Fëanorions heartlessly refused Morgoth's offer to release Maedhros and left their brother to torture for thirty years! Dangling from a cliff in full view of their camp! But then heroic Fingon showed up and immediately rescued him with nothing more than a bow and a harp - he barely even stopped to eat first!"

Firstly, I obviously understand that views expressed by the characters are not that of the author. It is absolutely valid for Fingon to accuse the Fëanorions of cowardice, and completely in-character for Maglor to feel incredibly guilty about not rescuing Maedhros (and in fact a pretty essential part of their dynamic, in my opinion). My issue is with fics that very much imply that this view is the Only Correct One. There are a lot of things Maglor does wrong over the course of the Silm. This is not one of them.

Beginning with the refusal to surrender to Morgoth in exchange for Maedhros’ release - I hope nobody seriously considers this a bad decision? A crushing one, certainly. You can write really sad fic about this (I plan to). But the Noldor had just received an excellent lesson in why trusting Morgoth to parley was a bad idea. They had no reason to believe that Morgoth would actually release Maedhros if they surrendered - which is correct. He wouldn’t have. The published Silm adds, “and they were constrained also by their oath” - incidentally, a fairly compelling point of evidence in favour of the oath being binding in nature to some extent, but not the point here. The point here is that they couldn’t have surrendered to Morgoth, and shouldn’t have anyway.

So, with that out of the way, we can accept that what Maglor et al are being accused of is not refusing to parley with Morgoth, but failing to mount an independent rescue mission.

(Incidentally, it’s generally assumed that Maglor, the second-eldest brother, was the one in charge during Maedhros’ captivity. I usually subscribe to this myself, but I would also like to note that Maglor is not once named during the description of these events. It’s always “the sons of Fëanor”, as a unit. You could make a pretty strong case that they were deciding things together, or even that one of his younger brothers had usurped him somewhat - C&C have form in that area…)

Actually before I move on from Morgoth’s proposed deal, an important question: did Maedhros’ brothers know that he was alive? According to (I think) the Grey Annals, Maedhros was captured in YT 1497, and suspended from Thangorodrim in YT 1498 - presumably after his brothers had refused Morgoth’s offer. That’s potentially around 10 years in which they heard nothing, before Morgoth makes them the offer! Perhaps they reasoned that Morgoth wouldn’t have put such a valuable prisoner to death; perhaps not. It’s doubtful they were offered actual proof that Maedhros was alive, at any rate.

“Sure,” you might say, “but they definitely knew he was alive once they could see him suspended from Thangorodrim!” I can’t actually express how strongly I disagree with this common headcanon. The Fëanorions couldn’t see Maedhros on the cliff! Where did people get this idea from? I presume it’s because of Legolas’ various physics-defying feats of eyesight in LoTR. I would like to make the argument here that there’s no reason to assume Noldor accustomed to the light of the Trees could see as well in the starlight as a Silvan Elf of shadowed Mirkwood, but that’s not really necessary. There’s much stronger evidence pointing clearly to the fact that Maedhros wasn’t visible: Fingolfin’s host marches right up to the gates of Angband and nobody notices him. He even yells for help, and they don’t hear him! There is no way that anyone knew he was there (and the Sun had risen by this stage, too. If he was visible, they’d have seen him.) I’m allergic to geography, so don’t take my word on this, but my understanding is that Thangorodrim is a whole little mountain range or something, not like a single cliff. As additional support for this, Fingon gets lost on his eventual rescue mission (in which he’s trying to break into Angband itself, because that’s where he thinks Maedhros is) and only finds Maedhros when he hears him singing. The Fëanorions were absolutely not spending thirty years going “ooh look clear day today! Give Nelyo a wave!”

The next thing to tackle is the odd implication that rescuing Maedhros was really easy, actually, and his brothers were cowards for not even attempting it. Not only do I think this untrue, I don’t see why you’d want it to be true? Fingon’s rescue of Maedhros is one of the best parts of the silm. It’s moving because Fingon is so so brave, and he’s brave because what he attempted was impossible. There is seriously NO reason why that should have worked, and that’s what’s wonderful about it. Suggesting that Maedhros’ brothers held back from attempting a rescue because of cowardice or not caring about him, and not because it couldn’t be done, imo really devalues the magnitude of Fingon’s act of grace.

On a more practical level, nothing about the description of the rescue mission suggests it was easy and anyone could have done it? I genuinely hate to make this joke but… one does not simply walk into Angband. Fingon is specifically described as “aided by the very darkness that Morgoth had made” - a darkness which, you recall, he had made in response to the light of the new Sun. If you’d tried to walk up to Thangorodrim before Morgoth had made his smog, you’d have been caught! There were orcs there! And probably all manner of other fell beasties! Maedhros absolutely couldn’t have been rescued before the rising of the Sun, and specifically Morgoth’s response to it.

A final point - the somewhat common claim that Fingon immediately, the instant he learned what had befallen Maedhros, set out to rescue him, and didn’t even stop to like, brush his teeth first. This is a nice image! The Russingon feels are unparalleled! Unfortunately, I don’t think the text backs it up. The published silm states that Fingon went to Angband “resolved to heal the feud that divided the Noldor”. This rather strongly implies that Fingon only left on his mission some time after he arrived at Mithrim, since there was clearly time for tensions to arise between the two hosts. One of the Annals (Grey or of Beleriand? I get them mixed up - at any rate, the timeline on Tolkien Gateway) puts this in even starker terms, stating that Fingolfin’s host arrived at Mithrim in Year 2 of the Sun, and Fingon rescued Maedhros in Year 5. That’s three years of waiting around before he set out! Now, you could headcanon that maybe Maglor et al told Fingon that Maedhros was dead, and he only later learned that they meant “captured and we never found a body” - but it’s also possible that he knew Maedhros was a captive the entire time, and still didn’t do anything. Three years is obviously not the same as thirty, but I find this detail interesting even so. It rather muddies the dichotomy of “Maedhros’ brothers didn’t care enough to rescue him, Fingon immediately saved him” that I often see.

tl;dr the Fëanorions weren’t cowards who didn’t love their brother, they were sensible and it’s tragic.

Right I hope that was a fairly measured and reasonable post (it was supposed to be at any rate) so now I can very quickly say how DARE you imply that Maglor didn’t love Maedhros consider how close he settles to Himring consider how he’s the only one Maedhros brings with him to the Mereth Aderthad consider their last debate ie the most heartbreaking dialogue in the entire book consider how he’s right and yet he still follows Maedhros in stealing the Silmarils consider how he only finally breaks after Maedhros’ death you can pry that tender loving codependent relationship from my COLD DEAD HANDS ok I’m normal now :)

#silmarillion #meta #my meta #maglor #maedhros #fingon #the line of miriel #accuse my poor little meow meow of crimes! #but accuse him of the right crimes at least #this is mostly directed at an imaginary person who claimed all these things #since they’re most commonly arguments I see separately #but I decided to rebut them all together