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God, I'm so tired. Sam is doing some wonderful work examining how Veth's small isolated rural village upbringing and alloheteronormativity based on family being sort of essential for physical and social survival have shaped how she thinks the world works-- https://twitter.com/mangothey/status/1281498779162570752

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-- with the confidence of someone educated in simple dogma rather than diversity and complexity. As much as her world has grown so much bigger than she's ever imagined, she's also been sometimes slow to grow with it.

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Like, I would bet money all the humans or all the halflings in Felderwin did know each other through family networks and it took her a long time to fathom it wasn't like that outside.

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Same with black & white thinking & the belief in punitive carceral systems of punishment rather than restitution. She grew up believing bad things needed to happen to bad people. That's fighting against the reformations and penance she's seen in her friends.

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Not clearly grew up being told that finding a good man & settling down quickly to have kids while you're still young is the peak of happiness & a good stable life, & it was a huge social relief that Yeza came along because she was taught to fear dying alone.

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Nott married the 1st man to ever show interest in her, & is only now realizing the opportunities she's missed out on & regrets it a bit. So she's torn between love for her family & the 1st time she's had a crush on anyone else & been loved back in any way.

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Nott knows the joy that brought her & wants her friend who dreams of romance to have it with whoever her heart desires. Jester herself only expressed interest in Fjord, though she reconsidered she might be projecting & needed to figure out how her feelings.

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But Fjord & Jester did reestablish that relationship on firmer ground & have some real fondness for each other I suspect neither really know what to do with. Jester is so unsure of what she wants or who she wants. Maybe she's bi & hasn't figured that out.

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Jester hasn't expressed overt interest in Beau, though she has a deep closeness that could be an unrecognized or unadmitted crush on Beau. Jester is caught up in a lot of alloheteronormative ideas, mostly from books. I think Matt said Marion saw all genders.

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Nott was totally supportive of Beau's crush on Jester and offered to matchmake them, but Beau explicitly asked her not to and that she didn't really want Jester to know, which Nott has respected.

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And Caleb similarly has bottled his feelings up as unobtainable and unworthy and wants no one to know about them and values their platonic friendship too much to want to jeopardize it.

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Yasha hasn't been back long and seems to have eyes for Beau. Caduceus seems really not interested in sex or romance either from being asexual or religious vows, which Nott is respecting. Which honestly does just leave Fjord.

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Fjord also seems to have his own baggage and hesitation about relationships in general (he's only slept with two people, neither of whom he was in love with). So this is also another way for Nott to goad Fjord.

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Matchmaking is almost certainly a strong tradition in her village that older woman do to help younger woman have their ideal of a good life and avoid the fear of becoming a spinster with no family to care for you as you age.

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So Nott matchmaking Fjord and Jester is her way of helping Jester discover what she wants by trying the options, with the only option that hasn't told her not to. It's an affection with deep characterization roots. Which Jester has never told her to stop.

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But if someone else came forward with their feelings for Jester and Jester expressed she was curious or interested, including the other ladies, I fully believe Nott would be doing the exact same thing for them.

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So many people seem committed to the idea that if Sam jokes about something he's mocking or dismissing it, or repeating bad behavior in character means he condones that behaviour and is just looking for his chance to get away with it.

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When the reality is Sam jokes about a lot of serious things to make them easier to talk about openly without being scared or armoring his own vulnerabilities against being exposed and hurt.

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Sam is fascinated by messy peopleand drawn to them, but other than some allo brain worms, he's actually pretty boring and straight edge.

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Sam's absolute favorite joke is "Wouldn't it be awful if I was the kind of person who believes this? What a trash fire I'd be! Glad I actually don't & my friends know it." Which goes way over most people's heads & they think he is actually that trash fire.

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And I absolutely think he can have bad judgement and take jokes too far and cross the line. I think he's interested in knowing where that line is and testing it, while trying to just barely stay within it.

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But frankly we can't even have meaningful discussions about that because too many people just write him off entirely without understanding what he's doing or fall into the Fight Club fallacy of seeing deconstructions of bad behaviour as aspirational models.

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People just end up defending what they want him to be saying with his portrayals and not what he is, which is why people are blindsided every time he shows depth and sincerity without the mask of comedy.

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But watch All Work No Play: Unplugged and you'll see the vulnerable, sincere, thoughtful parts are his true self, and the jokes are mostly the mask to protect his heart from fear and unpleasantness.

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So take your entitled shipping feuds that vilify anything standing between your dolls being mashed together and shove them up your asses until you're ready to engage with the actual text and subtext like a mature adult.

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Also, polyamory is a thing, you useless gits. They may be up for trying it this time. They have a string board of potential relationships going without wanting to change core group cohesion.

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Hell, Pike and Scanlan had a romantic and sexual relationship, but they also had a sort of queerplatonic partnership with Grog going on.