#and part of me thinks that there's some underlying misunderstanding here

[inksandpensblog]

Still fascinated by how much hate Mitsi gets for the whole "dead fem-coded loved one backstory" thing and all the hangups surrounding that when Purple's mom is arguably a much more egregious instance of the thing everyone is upset about Mitsi for but she ultimately got a pass because...idk, she was The First?

[zeroiridium]

Underlying misogyny in the Mega Man X fandom

Maybe I'm coming across as "too woke" here or reading into things too much, but I'd like to talk about the misogyny surrounding the mmx fandom as I feel it's an overlooked issue .

My first example is the treatment Iris gets in the fandom.

Ignoring the blatant sexualisation she's gotten over the years, Iris is either forgotten (which I don't fully blame people for actually), treated decently or hated and bashed for.......kinda nothing honestly

You see, Iris suffers from this thing called "treating writing flaws like character flaws." A.K.A. hating characters for what is clearly an out-of-universe problem.

The most common example is that characters (usually female) are poorly written, and fans of the media hate the characters for it. It's made even worse when male characters suffer from the same writing mistakes and get little to no negativity.

You can probably see how this relates to mmx. Iris is very much not a well written character. She barely has a role other than "extra trauma for Zero boo hoo," but then again, X and Zero ALSO aren't well written. They just seem better because you see more of them, but truthfully, you only need a maximum of three words to describe any of these characters as they're all shallow.

Fandom misogyny also applies to other female characters, especially in the oversexualisation or complete ignorance department. Another great example of this would be Layer.

In-game Layer is a reserved, calm, collected woman who only really breaks out of that when Zero is around, in which she seems to get awkward, no doubt due to her hinted crush at the man. Even then, she doesn't act all that different. She almost has Garnet energy to her.

In a lot of fanon interpretations though, Layer seems to be sexualised and even demonised despite her barely contributing to the games. Granted colourisim also plays a part in that, not only in fanon content but in canon media as well. Layer is the only black character in the X series, and she is by far the most sexualised, which also contributes to her fanon depictions.

Another character I'll mention in relation to underlying misogyny in the fandom is one you might not expect.

It's X.

Yeah

X suffers from this thing in male characters especially, benevolance, a desire for peace a dislike of violence, or any indication of emotions really, are seen as weak, soft, or you guessed it, feminine traits.

These types of characters are then often infantilised, fetishised, and generally misrepresented in fan made media.

(It's at this point I would like to state there is nothing wrong with soft or weak or feminine male characters on their own.)

X very much suffers from this, as despite fighting several wars, people still portray him as a wimp. Even in the Zero games, which is honestly kinda absurd to me? Seriously, a man who ran an apocalyptic nation for a century would not act the way some people seem to think.

Speaking of the Zero games, this post is about mmx so I'll keep this brief, but there's also a lot of weird stuff when it comes to female characters in that fandom aswell, mostly sexualisation. For Fairy Leviathan, even though I don't like it and think it sucks, I can at least somewhat understand it. She does seem to have the maturity of a young adult and is almost flirtatious in her appearances. However, I can not say the same about certain depictions of Ciel, who is a confirmed CHILD. She's 14 in mmz 1, and she's 16 in mmz 4. No excuses.

Well we've come to the end of this rant where I'd like to say that there is nothing inherently wrong with OOC depictions of characters. People are allowed to have fun and play around with characters they enjoy. That's not at all my problem.

My problem is when fanon is treated like canon, to the point where fan made content is treated as official information, which ofc leads to a lot of confusion and misunderstandings, and it's honestly just plain annoying. Especially since a massive part of megaman series fans haven't actually run through the canon material

There's also problematic aspects like misogyny, racism and others, which I mentioned previously. To anyone with half a brain, it should be obvious why those are bad things.

Anyway I saulte for making it the end of this, thank you for listening to my ultimately not that clear way of presenting topics

[julietcpulet]

Hello! Sorry to barge into your asks. From your account, it seems you get a significant amount almost every day? Lol! I can see why though. Your analyses are good reads and I have some of them saved up in my computer in case I meet an anti in the wild 🤣

Anyway, I want to know your opinion on something. Do you think the reason they downplayed Maomao's depression/the pinky scene in the anime is the same reason why they downplay Jinshi's numerous SA experiences as well? I don't mean this in a racist way, I swear, but do you think it has something to do with the majority of Asians, specifically East Asians, glossing over mental health and feelings? I'm not saying they don't treat it seriously but I think they don't exactly talk about it that much (unless they absolutely have to), as opposed to people in the West.

I'm not well versed in Japanese or anime troupes, but I think this is common in their mediums? Of course it seems unusual to me, but I can't find any other explanation for it unfortunately.

No barging here at all 😂 I love getting asks from people and makes me glad to know you’ve liked my posts enough to save them! As for the pinky scene, I think there’s two possible reasons why it was downplayed, of course only speculation on my part since we don’t actually know but here are my theories:

The shojo genre - Apothecary Diaries is a narrative with many mature themes and sometimes scenes that are hard to watch, not even from an inappropriate standpoint but merely because of the topics covered like underage marriage and political scheming turned violent. However, the anime itself is labeled as shojo and this demographic is targeted towards young girls which, while it can range from mid-teens to I believe young adults, say 20s or so, it’s still meant to be relatively mild in tone. As such any scenes depicting something like what Jinshi experienced where someone attempted to assault him when he was young might not be shown, as it would be difficult to make something like that palatable or come across with the seriousness it needed to while not being frightening to a younger female audience. So instead it is easier to make gags out of women or even men being creepy towards him in a lighthearted way vs showing the reality of some of those interactions.

More than one woman had sneaked into his bedchamber, after all. He’d found himself pressed to their generous chests, moist red lips coming toward him. He’d been nauseated by the overpowering smell of incense. He remembered the guards dragging those people away by the hair as they screeched. He’d tried to ignore them, but he felt he knew womankind through and through.

The same goes for Maomao’s pinky moment. Where it appears in the light novel like it’s meant to have a decidedly darker feeling behind her actions, that depiction of self-harm being subconsciously intentional vs played as a quirky gag for laughs would probably not work in the shojo genre.

"She'd made several new wounds on her left arm to test some of them out, but she just couldn't quite get the outcome she wanted. She'd even tried rubbing some of her concoction onto the wound on her ear (why let it go to waste, after all?), but it didn't tell her much. After all these years, she seemed to have developed a pretty high tolerance for pain."

In a time where people are so sensitive to trigger warnings before shows and anything that hints at a character hurting themselves, I think they intentionally steer away from that direction because they don’t want to have to censor anything due to sensibilities, especially on a Western side. Even if that moment can be helpful to a character’s development, I get playing it off because audiences today can struggle to get the subtleties underlying the scene (like the frog moment) and so be incensed when in reality the complexities of it are what make the moment good in the first place. So instead better to make it a gag and keep to the targeted age range.

Misunderstanding the meaning - While I give the animators a lot of credit for capturing the depth of the characters while not being able to include all of Maomao’s internal dialogue and feelings, I wonder if sometimes there are scenes where they didn’t quite get the significance behind it. The whole pinky moment has impact because it relates back to Maomao’s mother and how she had severed her own finger and Maomao’s due to her emotional pain and despondency. So, for Maomao to do the same shows a parallel between them in that moment when she’s separated from what she’s known at the rear palace and distinctly, Jinshi.

"Got to cut deeper if I want to be sure. Maomao looked at her left hand, then tied some string firmly around her pinky. She stood and took a small knife from a cabinet. Here goes!"

It’s the cut off emotionally from relationships that bring her comfort to the cutting off literally of her finger that’s meant to draw us into understanding Maomao’s state at the time. How she’s numb, detached and isolated until Jinshi walks back into her life, getting her to immediately come back to herself and interact with him.

"Just as she was about to bring the knife down, a beautiful voice interrupted her: "What are you doing?" - "Done with all your work?" Maomao asked, undoing the string around her finger and putting the knife back in the cabinet."

Placing the moment solely in the realm of Maomao experimenting because she’s got a quirky affinity for medicine vs. her experimenting due to deep emotional pain to me says they either felt uncomfortable drawing the connection with her mother or may have not made that link at all, so funny was the safer route.

As for Jinshi, the significance of showing times where he was dragged into the bushes or had strange people attempt to hurt him would give greater depth to the idea that he’s not just a pretty face who uses his looks to charm people, or that he himself is predatory towards others, especially Maomao. Because if we understand how much predation he’s been subjected to due to his own looks and his disgust towards it, that allows the audience to see how he feels a true distaste for the way people see and act towards him even more than we already do.

"Gaoshun had looked away for an instant, and Jinshi had found himself dragged into the underbrush. - The man had wanted to make Jinshi his toy. Jinshi wasn't sure how it had started, but it had been clear he was in danger."

In this way I don’t know if the animators simply felt that they could convey Jinshi’s backstory adequately without these parts of his past or if they didn’t understand these kinds of moments add to the layers of his character and without them people may only believe the surface without having read the novels. Again, I understand why they maybe couldn’t have included them given the worry of potentially conveying something too dark in how they chose to animate it and genre restrictions. However, I also wonder if maybe they avoided it because they don’t feel it’s significant due to him being a male character and wanting to play up his “nymph-like” side for laughs vs getting the audience to understand how much of that Jinshi dislikes.

Overall I don’t think this is an Asian culture vs Western culture thing in relation to denying mental health or feelings. While the West tends to focus more on emotion, letting feelings be the driving force, sometimes to our detriment, Asian culture does less so and puts emphasis on rational thought and taking action which isn’t always a bad thing.

Often I’ve found the Western proclivity to over-emphasize the importance of feelings can lead to people not considering decisions and “going with their heart” which is likely to lead them astray if people don’t weigh consequences of their actions. On the Asian side people can be hyper-rational and only make decisions almost without emotion, leading to dysfunction based on not seeming like they’ve met any needs or wants but just practical necessities. In this way it’s best to find a balance of both, where feelings matter and have some say but are not the final determining factor in decisions or how a person behaves.

How this relates to anime culture and Apothecary Diaries is that I actually find anime in general a refreshing break from the Western ethic of “navel gazing” or focusing too much on the self and personal feelings. Much of Japanese anime appears to contrast this and promote focus on and selflessness towards others, taking action to protect and be there for other people even at the cost of something for yourself.

Hope this answers your questions, that was an interesting one to dive into thinking about the cultures. Thanks for the ask!

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

I can (and will!) talk at length about all the issues with Yasmine & Demetri as a romantic/sexual dynamic, but one of the biggest underlying problems is that it fundamentally misunderstands why women are attracted to intelligent men.

I'm putting this under a Read More so it doesn't eat peoples' dash, but I HIGHLY encourage all my followers to read it, even if y'all are just here for the funny memes and Gay Shit. As a woman, I think the show AND fandom's questionable treatment of Yasmine as a character and how it makes me and other irl women feel incredibly uncomfortable and objectified is important to talk about. Way, WAY too many people are okay with how the Yasmine-Demetri relationship was portrayed, and knowing people are that chill with a female character being turned into a man's accessory makes me feel, um. Unsafe at best. Read on if you love women and drink your Respect Women juice!

Anyways, I feel I have some room to speak on why women like Demetri-esque guys. Although I eventually realized I'm a lesbian, I identified as bisexual for a long time. Before that, in high school, I didn't even realize I liked girls at all. Ironically, I used to be into boys a lot like Demetri. I tended to pursue the smart, sarcastic, gangly nerd types, sometimes to my own detriment! I once liked a whole ass physics major who could easily solve equations that would send me into a stress coma on sight. I dated a premed in college, and for much of that relationship, I was wracked with insecurity that I would only ever be known as that person's girlfriend, with no significant renown or accomplishments to my own name. I pined after lots of guys I perceived as smarter than me, and constantly felt unworthy of them because I didn't think my own intellect measured up. Especially as someone who's never been attracted to "traditional" masculinity (so himbo types and muscles do nothing for me, lmao), I know the draw of sharp, witty guys who keep you on your toes and have interesting and often unique stuff going on in their brains.

From what I've observed, there's two main reasons why (non-lesbian) women crush on this kind of dude. The first is they make fun, engaging conversationalists, and can have complex and thought-provoking discussions with you. If you spend a lot of time in your head, pondering the world around you, it's nice to find someone who also thinks deeply about similar things and can explore those cognitive threads with you. It makes you feel seen and understood, and it's stimulating! Sometimes the other person can introduce you to new ideas that take you in new directions, too, so it's the dynamic that keeps on giving. This was always my own draw toward smart men, personally.

The other reason is more pragmatic. Smart men (especially coding CS/robotics type guys like Demetri) are more likely to get secure, 6-figure jobs. When you consider the widening wage gap between men and women as well as how difficult misogyny can make it for women to get into high-paying fields like technology, robotics, and other hard sciences, dating or marrying a guy making 100k can be a woman's ticket out of poverty. Or at the very least a financial improvement. With the wealth gap increasing in the USA and many other parts of the world, dating "up" to try and gain a bit more financial security is...well, I don't want to make ethics judgments on it (condemning gold-digging??? In THIS economy???), but it IS understandable.

All this to say that neither of these aspects apply to Yasmine and Demetri's relationship in the least.

Yasmine and Demetri don't have enough common interests to have ANY kind of stimulating conversation, and the ones we see certainly do not read that way for either, lmao. They have little shared ground aside from being kind of sassy and mean and having suffered wedgies at some point. There's a bit of banter in Season 3, but it's not particularly witty or deep. It's largely just...fairly surface-level meanness and easy digs. Yasmine makes a jab about not wanting to talk to Demetri regularly, and he makes a jab about her decreasing popularity and a poor taste sex joke. Yasmine tells him his cast smells and calls him a defective freak and a pain in her tits. Demetri calls her Cruella DeVil. It's amusing and maybe even a little endearing, but that's primarily because it has the potential to grow into something deeper and more fun as these two get to know each other better.

And then it stops completely. No more banter whatsoever after Season 3. Every interaction Demetri and Yasmine have in Season 4 and Season 6 is just Yasmine being a sickly sweet, giggly, horny cheerleader for Demetri, revolving her entire person around his likes and interests while making no mention of her own. For fuck's sake, the only times she gets upset with him is when, *gasp*, he's not believing in himself enough! Or when he cheated, obviously, but even that was easily resolved by gift-bombing her with Stereotypical Woman Things until she was back to being inexplicably insane with lust.

Also worth a mention that the show makes a point about how Demetri is a lot academically smarter than Yasmine, so Yas likely wouldn't be capable of having a conversation he considered stimulating or interesting anyways. I don't care how much Demetri lies his ass off about how Totally Into Conventionally Hot Girls he is--he mostly doesn't seem to give a fuck about them except when not responding to their interest in him would make him look weird to his peers.

I also do not believe for a second that Demetri would ever actually want a partner not on his level of (traditional academic) intelligence. We see him act snide and condescending toward people he views as dumber than him--Chris when he first joins Miyagi Do, and Johnny on a few occasions throughout the show. He consistently treats his closest friends (namely Eli, Miguel, and Sam) as intellectual equals, but I don't think he really sees Yasmine that way. Ironically, he treats Moon, the crystal healing chakra granola girl, with more respect and dignity than his own girlfriend!

Unsurprisingly, the only person Demetri seems to view as truly on his level of intelligence is Eli. We learned all the way back in Season 2 that they won a coding competition together, showing they're both very smart and capable in a conventional and easy-to-recognize way (which seems to be the type of intelligence Demetri values above all other types). He doesn't think twice about them going to MIT together because he assumes they'll both get in. They make a fucking karate fight VR together and then squabble about the technical details in a way Demetri physically couldn't squabble (or even TALK) like that with anyone else. Demetri praises Eli's design abilities and gloats about how the physics "checks out" on his sparring deck. Demetri rambles to Eli about his Terry Silver internet deep dive, and Eli nods along like he actually follows what Demetri is saying. And Demetri, presumably, volunteers it in the first place and doesn't mince tech jargon because he also assumes Eli will understand. When Demetri chews Eli out for not applying to MIT, he angrily accuses him of "turning into a moron"--a thing that, from Demetri's POV, seems just about the worst possible thing someone can be.

Nothing we see of S1-S3 Yasmine indicates she has any reason whatsoever to find the things Demetri talks about, or his CS and robotics interests, appealing. Yasmine either actively doesn't care for academics or she struggles with them, viewing them with dismissive contempt because they make her feel inadequate.

Recall how back in S1, she reacts with scorn and disgust when Sam and Aisha are making chemistry jokes. But there's more than just disdain for the uncool "nerds" there--Yasmine also looks uncomfortable and embarrassed. In a sense, the sodium chloride thing IS an "in joke" between the book smart Sam and Aisha. Yasmine feels excluded, outed as someone not "in the know" because she doesn't quite get the reference. It puts up a barrier (dare I say...a gate, even? That Sam and Aisha can keep? Lol) between Yasmine and her peers, one of whom is her friend, and makes it harder for her to relate to and interact with them. No coincidence, imo, that Yasmine gets more malicious in her bullying toward Aisha after this, i.e. more direct fat jokes and the "cheeto pig" thing. It's jealousy and insecurity that Sam and Aisha have this commonality and more "sophisticated" interest that Yasmine can't be included in.

And then there's Season 3, where Yasmine is pleasantly surprised that with Demetri's assistance, her parents "won't have to pay for her A this time." We can gather from this that either a) Yasmine sees herself as "above" the banality of schoolwork, and finds it easier just to make doe eyes at her parents until they bribe her teachers or b) Yasmine genuinely struggles with academics but doesn't deem it "worthy" of putting in the work to actually get better, so she takes the easy way out with money. She might have some insecurity around not being great in school, as shown by the S1 sodium chloride scene and her genuine disappointment when her and Demetri's science project is ruined. Maybe she was planning on using Demetri's success to show off to her parents that "look! I CAN do my own work without your help!" Maybe she enjoys being seen as a competent student, and worries losing her fake good grades would make her look stupid and inept. This could knock her even lower down the social food chain, further isolating her and opening her up to ostracization from her peers. All things being equal, though, we don't have much reason to believe Yasmine cares much about school in of itself. It's a means to an end for her--just one more thing that affects her reputation, and where school performance can improve or detract from it.

In any case, it's clear Yasmine does not VALUE academics, hard work, and dedication the same way Demetri does. Demetri makes a BIG deal about how much he busted his ass to get into MIT and "earned his spot," while Yasmine only enjoys the image of academic success and having As and the way it makes her look good, while not giving a shit about what it actually represents.

Cut to S4 and S6, where Yasmine is now, completely out of left field, highly invested in and enthusiastic about Demetri's interests. Between snubbing him in the hallway last time we saw her to maybe a couple months later at max, she has become seemingly enraptured with all things Demetri. She loves when he talks nerdy! She is incredibly stoked about supporting him at his karate tournaments, and even chews him out when he doesn't have enough faith in himself! She ditched her dad's wedding halfway around the world because he's more important! She makes her junior prom dress a nerdy movie reference to Jessica Rabbit! All the while making, of course, naught a peep about her own interests, goals, passions, etc. At first glance, it looks like Demetri's been exceptionally lucky to find a hot girl who is somehow equally as gung ho about all the same things as him, and it coincidentally only came out after she started dating a nerd that she happens to share all his passions. Except...Yasmine does not have any discernible reason to like any of Demetri's interests.

"But tumblr user demetriandelibinaryboyfriends!" you say. "A few weeks have passed in TV show time! Is it not possible that Yasmine engaged with and grew invested in Demetri's nerd shit and karate offscreen?" Theoretically possible, yes, but due to all the S1 and S3 actual onscreen canon scenes we get of Yasmine, it's incredibly illogical and unlikely. I'd be more forgiving of this ship if Yasmine was in any way set up as a closet nerd, or secretly intrigued by the karate she loved scorning in S1 (and flat out ignoring in S3, and basically S5, too).

As established in the S1 pre-halloween dance cafeteria scene I mentioned, Yasmine has no love for academic nerdiness. References to school shit she doesn't understand appear to make her feel uncomfortable and alienated. In S3, Yasmine only enjoys Demetri's nerdiness insofar as it can help her get a good grade. We're given no reason to believe she would like his smarts beyond that. Hell, even when we see them first making out, it's after we've seen them bond over their experience as bullying victims, not because Demetri suddenly changed Yasmine's mind about how interesting math and coding and dinosaurs are! Yasmine isn't shown to be into pop culture type nerdiness, either, with not a single "geeky" reference to her name. (Besides Jessica Rabbit, I guess, but even that might well have been a thing she was doing FOR Demetri rather than herself. Hell, she's never shown ANY particular interest in movies, and reads much more like a music girlie, if the pop music playing when she crashed her car, the little boombox we see in her bedroom, and the S1 concert she goes to with Moon are anything to go by.) Her sense of humor is more dry and dark, too, like the S1 snide remarks she makes about her and the girls being "chained up in that meth-head's basement" if she hadn't driven away from Johnny. Or her blase scheme to "torture" Anthony.

As for karate, Yasmine actively sticks her nose up at it in S1. She essentially straight up tells Aisha that she and her "karate gang" will always be freak outcasts. In S3 and S5, Yasmine makes no mention of karate that I can recall, and doesn't even have much of a reaction when the fight breaks out at the waterpark. If anything, she seems apathetic, bored, and kind of annoyed, because karate just keeps getting in the way of her Hot Girl Summer XD She never asks Sam much about karate, either, even when Moon does. Hell, even in S4, Yasmine makes one (1) comment about being bummed she won't be there to root for Demetri, before...proceeding to fly back for the prom and not stay for the AVT. Yasmine only manages to muster up any interest in karate when directly interacting with Demetri, and ceases to care about it whenever he's gone. So, clearly, it's not something she finds interesting outside of its relation to her boyfriend.

Which brings me to my next point: When you look closely, the way Yasmine hypes up Demetri's interests and passions does not suggest any deeper care or understanding. The things she says relating to how much she "loves" all things Demetri are...exceptionally non-committal and surface level. "I love it when you talk nerdy!" or "You're more important than my dad's wedding!" or "you have no idea how much I like you!" are all easy things to say, but the underlying why--as well as any details that back up or flesh out these statements--is always missing. We have no reason to believe Yasmine sincerely means what she's saying. She reads like she's going through the motions, almost placating Demetri by telling him what she thinks he wants to hear and nothing more. Yasmine has decided that it's in her best interest and the best thing for her reputation to go out with a fairly popular, well-liked athlete--likely to get back some of the popularity she lost after The Wedgie Incident™️. So she says what she believes she needs to and acts accordingly in order to keep Demetri around. But her supposed zeal for all things geeky, all things karate, and Demetri himself vanishes as soon as he's not around, with Yasmine not making a peep about any of these in S5. Even her pep talk in S6 is ultimately Yasmine trying to convince Demetri to put off their date--perhaps she's looking for an excuse to not have to see him more than she absolutely has to?

And make no mistake--this complete and utter disinterest in their partner's brain and personality goes both ways. Yasmine is, contrary to what the jabs CK makes about her being "book dumb" would have you believe, NOT unintelligent. She has a significant amount of cunning and people smarts, seeing as there's no possible way for her to have EVER been the school queen bee without them. She has good intuition about people who might be dangerous, like Johnny (with his yelling and aggressively slamming on the car door) and Lynn (with her demanding money and a very unconvincing "I ain't gonna hurt ya!"). Yasmine comes up with a convincing cover story about why her Range Rover is totaled. Hell, even her scheme about how to use Anthony's attraction to her to fuck with his head shows she knows how to be manipulative, and is the type of detailed "longcon" that she simply wouldn't have the capacity to plan and pull off if she was truly nothing but a ditz. The issue is that Yasmine is not a type of intelligent that Demetri really cares about or values.

In S1, he DOES seem to respect Yasmine's power and influence, and basically says "I don't think I'm cool enough to be talking to you" the one time they do interact. By S3, though, Yasmine has mostly lost her power and influence--and Demetri directly says as much! Now, his interest in Yasmine seems to be all about her looks. Less because Demetri particularly cares how hot a girl is--I don't think he's attracted to women at all, as I've said in many of my posts--but because of the social capital he gains simply by having a conventionally attractive blonde white girl as his arm candy. And (ironically much like Yasmine!) Demetri goes through the motions and does what he needs to keep his Coolness Trophy and Proof of His Normality and Straightness around.

Demetri takes it a step further, though. While Yasmine seems to have a general idea of his personality (geeky shit, karate, insecurity), Demetri does not bother to differentiate Yasmine from any other girl. Every "nice thing" he does for her is either base-level common courtesy (i.e. not actively saying mean things to her or verbally berating her or whatever), or things like jewelry, flower, and candy gifts, which Yasmine has never shown ANY kind of particular affinity for (and fucking trust me--I have watched every Yasmine scene DOZENS of times). Demetri does less than the bare minimum, treating his girlfriend like The Generic Woman™️ and giving 0 indication he knows anything about what she likes as an individual. Hell, the ONE time I gave him credit--remembering that she likes bleunamis--I realized...Yasmine never confirms she actually likes bleunamis? Or wants one? In fact, she immediately follows up with "maybe you should train longer so we don't have to go on this date"!!! It truly does not seem Demetri cares in the slightest about Yasmine's actual personality, or unique traits. The only reason his half-assed "romantic gestures" even work is because Yasmine likes the optics of being with him.

So, going by all this, I think it's fair to say Yasmine and Demetri don't give a shit about exploring or embracing one another's interests and passions. They've had plenty of time to learn about each other, and neither cares to. They both stick to superficial platitudes that will appease the other person (and perhaps their observing peers) just enough to keep the relationship going, with no indication they have anything but a skin-deep read on who the other is as a person. Yasmine boils Demetri down to Insecure Karate Nerd, so as long as she appeals to one of those traits, she's good to go. Demetri boils Yasmine down to Girly Aesthetic, so as long as he buys her stereotypical girly stuff, he's good to go. Additionally, Demetri and Yasmine broadly do not share values, or how they define a competent, successful person. Demetri values putting in work to get what he wants, while Yasmine is far more concerned with the end result benefiting her than whatever she has to do to get there.

I don't think just because she is hyperfeminine, Yasmine can't be a deep thinker who spends a lot of time in her head, contemplating things she likes. Assuming someone concerned with her appearance who happens to like a girlier presentation doesn't have a rich and complex interior world and an active mind is...well, obviously really misogynistic. But ultimately, it doesn't matter how "loud" Yasmine's mind is or how intricate her inner monologue is. If she and Demetri don't ever go down the same cognitive rabbitholes, then it won't matter a fig they're both deep thinkers. And, naturally, we arrive back at the question people have been asking since these two started dating in S3: What the fuck do they talk about?

Demetri probably wants to talk at length about coding, tech, robotics, his favorite sci-fi and fantasy media, science in general, etc. With Yasmine, we don't know her passions for sure, but I'll extrapolate she's knowledgeable about things like fashion trends, social media, health spas, her favorite pop stars, French culture, the best ways to do a home manicure, etc. Maybe she loves learning even more about these things and telling people about them! But if Demetri and Yasmine were either to ramble to the other about all the thoughts they've been having about That Cool Thing They Like, they'd put their partner straight to sleep. Their partner's eyes would glaze over and they'd just mutely nod along while playing Charlie Brown trumpet noises and letting their mind wander somewhere completely different. There's just no sustainable common ground where they can bond for the long term. So TL;DR, to wrap all this up: Demetri and Yasmine's basic disconnect on values and lack of shared hobbies means that neither would be able to regularly engage the other to any significant degree. This means conversations that are stimulating and fun for both is not really possible in the long term.

As for the second reason women seek intelligent men, well. I don't feel I need to convince y'all too much that Rich Girl Yasmine being a gold-digger isn't the case. But nonetheless, I'm covering all my bases.

Yasmine is absolutely richer than Demetri will ever be by means of old money alone. In fact, Yasmine's wealth is the first qualifier we are told about her. Demetri says to Miguel "don't even bother thinking we can associate with those girls; they're rich. We're worth less than the dirt they walk on." Demetri views this clique as superior and untouchable because of their money. Even when he talks later about how he needs to do well on the PSAT so he can eventually get a good, stable job, he never really frames it like "I want to have as much money as Yasmine someday." He wants a more realistic, achievable picture of middle class success and stability: A decent, well-paying job that is good enough, and a hot trophy girl to show for his hard work. Having money on Yasmine's level seems to be beyond Demetri's wildest dreams.

Keep in mind that Demetri knows he's smart and good at tech--he and Eli won a coding competition pretty recently! Still, having a marketable skill with the potential to make you lots of money is much different than having easy access to generational wealth, like Yasmine is implied to. Her parents fly her to places like France and Australia and buy her new cars without batting an eye--the girl is loaded. She essentially has the money to do whatever she likes (and Annalisa said as much in an interview a while back!). There's no real reason why Yasmine would seek out money in a partner.

You could argue "maybe she wants to be even richer," but investing time and effort into having a relationship with someone who might one day be wealthy (and even then--maybe never as wealthy as Yas already was!) doesn't fit with how we know Yasmine approaches her life. She likes tangible, immediate results and instant gratification, and she doesn't mind cutting corners to get what she wants quicker and with less work. Dating a guy she finds quite boring for years and years and years and banking (no pun intended) on his tech someday making him a millionaire is not a risk I see Yasmine taking. Far less trouble just to mooch mommy and daddy's money and play nice with them so she makes sure she gets that inheritance someday! That, and "oh no, someday I'm gonna be expected to marry a rich, respectable guy so my family won't cut me off :(" isn't a concern I see High School Yasmine losing much sleep over. Girl is using her teenage years to fuck around and have fun, and she'll worry about those pesky adult concerns when she's actually an adult.

So, between no possibility of engaging conversations and Yasmine not standing to gain any money from Demetri that isn't dwarfed by what she already has, there's no logical reason why she would be attracted to this math brainiac in any way that would last.

So why is Yasmine and Demetri being this deeply incompatible a genuine problem? They certainly aren't the first sloppily unconvincing forced romance in TV. The trope of dorky nerd boy x popular girl is even considered banally common to the point that a lot of the initial criticism of this pairing came from it being "cliche." In a lot of cases, badly-done canon ships just make me roll my eyes and move on, either ignoring the dynamic or writing a better fanon alternative. The Yasmine-Demetri dynamic, I'd argue, is a lot more harmful than it first appears. So much so that I can't just turn away and push them off my radar.

The ship sends this really weird message of how dumb girls (or at least girls society perceives that way due to them not performing super well academically or being a bit slow on the uptake) go for intelligent guys because...they like feeling like brainless arm candy? They enjoy feeling like nothing except a hot body next to their well-spoken and probably much more broadly-respected boyfriend, who is actually taken seriously by the people around them? It's just so painfully illogical because no woman would choose that life, especially if the dude is not, like, an insane stud.

What does Demetri do for her that would make her so fixated??? We don't have reason to believe she actually understands his "nerdspeak", and she doesn't need to be his girlfriend to have him get her good grades--she could always string him along just enough for him to keep tutoring her or whatever. Even outside his vibes of being an absolute flaming homosexual, he's canonically a virgin when they get together (at least as far as women go...), so he can't be THAT good at sexual stuff--or at least not compared to some more experienced jock boy. And if she wanted to use him for his body, she could just...do that. She could go to him for a quick, easy lay without them being in a relationship. This is high school, and you can fuck and run, and it's fine! Maybe the idea is that he doesn't care about her enough to get possessive and he's always down for a quick makeout sesh when she's feeling the urge, but like. There are plenty of guys at that school who I'm sure would be delighted to be casual with Yasmine, and wouldn't give a fuck if they weren't exclusive.

I think the implication is that Yasmine really is so stupid that she doesn't know any better. It doesn't compute that she gets nothing out of this relationship, and she's inexplicably insatiably turned on by this guy's smarts. Which is obviously problematic and all but it's just so overtly a dumb male fantasy--every (straight) weird nerd dude wants a super hot conventionally attractive popular girl to become obsessed with him to the point she forgets her own personality, but doesn't want to have to do anything to appeal to who she actually is as a person and what she does and doesn't like. Demetri just conveniently has everything Yasmine's ever wanted in a guy, and doesn't have to put in any effort whatsoever to maintain the relationship beyond doing a 5-second google search of "what to do when your girlfriend is mad at you."

Say you're sorry a bunch of times! Get her flowers! Get her candy! Get her jewelry! And all of this miraculously works because it's every guy's dream to have a hot, endlessly horny girlfriend who can be appeased by The Most Typical Woman Things on the rare occasion she gets cranky. Because women love their frivolous girly plants and their sweets and their materialistic displays of wealth, and must not have any needs or desires beyond that. Just dump enough roses into the sex vending machine, and she'll be back to tonguing you and slapping your ass in public in no time!

All in all, not only is yas/metri prettily-packaged misogyny, it's an aggressively illogical breed of it that holds no water even outside its ickier implications. It's a ship that inherently belittles and demeans the woman (who in of herself is a rather mean-spirited representation of feminine girls), but in a way where the logic falls apart upon any scrutiny whatsoever.

This is the kind of mlw ship dynamic that feels sexist in such an over-the-top, ham-fisted way that it's almost satirical. The het tropes used here are just so incredibly uninteresting that it feels almost intentional--a parody of the type of dynamic it tries to play straight.

Usually I'd just laugh at yas/metri and write it off as a catastrophic failure. And, back in 2022, me and the entire fandom more or less did. It's going for a sweet nerdy dork x hot rich socialite type of thing, and it absolutely did not stick the landing. All we're left with is two characters I don't buy would be romantically/sexually involved for any length of time, and what appears to be some old white men dealing with the fact their high school crushes didn't find them interesting and vicariously living through a teenage boy character about it. Yas/metri was as nonsensical as it was filled to the brim with concerningly misogynistic implications, and so I could take solace in the fact that no one was taking it that seriously.

Except now people are. Now, more and more, a lot of what I see in the character tags for Yasmine and Demetri indicate people see no issue with this dynamic, or how it actively does a disservice to both characters by sticking them with a partner who I believe will never, ever be able to share in or care about the things they love and value. People are praising the "cuteness" of Yasmine's little Demetri cheerleading routine and giggling over her horniness, while there's largely radio silence about how deeply fucked it is that the story objectifies and dehumanizes a female character for the sake of propping up a male character and showing off his "coolness" in getting a hot girlfriend.

It's concerning, and it's saddening. As a woman--particularly one who has been catcalled a LOT and rarely feels safe around straight men these days--it's disheartening to see people enthusiastically condone the use of my gender as pretty props, especially in an online space I've always thought of as a sanctuary.

Fiction does not exist in a vacuum, and it DOES affect reality. When you praise and back couples like Yasmine and Demetri, you send a message to many women that you are not someone they can trust.

[lurkingshan]

We Need to Talk about Love in Translation

I caught up on Love in Translation this week at @bengiyo’s behest, as he’s been talking about how good it is. It’s a Thai bl on iQIYI, and in this current deluge of shows, it’s flying mostly under the radar. But this week’s episode convinced me this is a show we should be prioritizing even with so much to keep up with, and I wanted to talk a little bit about why. 

Ben already covered some of the basics about the show, and I agree with all of that, but what is really blowing me away is the confidence of the writing and the control the writers have on the pacing of this story. Because this show? Moves, and it moves fast. The relationships are evolving rapidly, and our leads are moving closer every week, and yet nothing ever feels rushed or unearned. They start out adversaries, but it’s all based on a misunderstanding, and once that gets cleared up and they get to know each other, they come to like each other rather quickly. The narrative gives us good reasons for their rapidly shifting perspectives, and crucially, this is a story that is fundamentally about kind people with emotional intelligence, so their openness to changing their minds about each other tracks.

So in episode four, we begin with a classic drama set up: Phumjai, our inexperienced but enthusiastic protagonist, is finally going on a date with his crush, Tammy, and he asks his new friend and business partner, Yang, to go on a practice date with him. Yang is, of course, already half in love with Phumjai and this set up is torture for him. And so the “fake” date commences, and of course the two of them have a fantastic time, forgetting Tammy exists for long stretches before Phumjai inevitably brings her up again and Yang’s face falls. Before the date ends, they end up lounging alone under a tree, Phumjai asks Yang about what kind of lover he would want, and Yang takes the opportunity to make his feelings clear. 

Their almost kiss is interrupted, but here’s the important part: Phumjai is extremely aware of what almost just happened, and what it means. He knows Yang was about to kiss him, and he was going to let him. And he knows the implications of that, unlike the typical trope where a character like him would remain confused about Yang’s intentions or his own feelings. Phumjai is inexperienced, but he’s not ignorant. Still, he has committed to a date with Tammy, and so he goes. And the whole time he’s with her, he can feel that it’s not right. He’s not feeling the same things with her that he was with Yang, and his mind wanders back to Yang continuously throughout his time with Tammy. He is not doing the typical drama thing of sublimating or ignoring his feelings. He notices what is going on with his heart and what it means. 

And here is where the show wows me again: Phumjai does something about it immediately. He ends his date with Tammy without kissing her despite a clear invitation to do so and runs straight to Yang to talk to him about what he’s feeling. He tells him with total honesty that he’s been thinking about him all day, and that he didn’t feel the way he thought he would with Tammy, and that he wants to understand what is going on between them. Yang listens to him patiently as he works it out, and once he’s given an opening, he doesn’t hesitate to lean in and finish the kiss he started earlier in the episode.

Let me just emphasize again: all of this happened in one episode. This show deftly covered the emotional groundwork and character development that most dramas would take several weeks if not half a season to unpack, and it all felt organic and authentic to who these characters are. I sat up and stared at my screen in awe several times throughout this episode because I was so delighted by what was happening and how confident the underlying writing was. We are now halfway through the show, and we have ample time to work through the fallout of Phumjai’s realizations and see him and Yang actually figure out being in a relationship together (my favorite thing in any romance drama). This is a new screenwriting team (it’s literally their first credit) and they certainly have my attention. I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the second half of this story.

[songsofbloodandwater]

So... I was checking out this "Astro-Herbalism mini-course". And I have thoughts. But not because of astrology, or it's intersection with herbalism. Because of the need that some people have on interpreting every single cultural framework as one singular all-encompassing thing. It's nonsense. And it bothers me because It turns your interpretation of literally anything into nonsense.

I think it's something people unconsciously learn to expect when interacting with religion or spirituality first because of cultural christianity, in the west. Particularly through the way most people are exposed to the bible. Uncritical. Most people take for unshakeable truth that the bible is one sacred text, passed down to humanity by God himself, and that it is perfect. No corrections, no biases, no nothing. It's one system, one perfect system. And that's plain wrong. There's multiple authors to the different texts of the bible that come from entirely different sociohistorical contexts, with entirely different rhetorical goals to their writing, and thus the interpretation of the text requires understanding that past sociohistorical context as best as is possible for us in the present. Which is why bible scholars exist. It's not one unified voice throughout and it is not one system. It's man-made literature, part of human culture, and it's subject to human flaws. If you don't take that into account when you're reading the bible, your interpretation of the texts isn't so much a reading of the text as it is an imposition of your own modern ideas into a text that never had anything to do with any of them in the first place.

Then, when they approach other cultures, other kinds of cultural knowledge, separate and different from christianity, they approach it with the same underlying culturally christian idea as their foundation of how to interpret other sacred texts. "This is sacred knowledge gifted to us by God (or the Gods) and it must be perfect, and unified in it's interpretation." And that, again, is bullshit. There is no reason under the vast Heavens why the cultural interpretations and systems of "East and West" or "North and South" must both be part of some "universal plan of God/s" bigger than humans' own minds and thoughts. That's cultural christianity. And even imperialistic thought. Must consume, must absorbe anything different into our own system type of imperialistic.

Trying to bring two systems together to complement each other, practicing them side by side, because you may find they give different answers to your different needs, I understand. But that is very different to what's happening here.

Saying that "jing, qi and shen" equals or corresponds to the "fixed, mutable and cardinal" modes of astrology? That's just doing both systems a disservice. If you interpret the western modes of astrology, or any concept from western astrology, through taoism, you're misunderstanding them. If you interpret any taoist concept through western astrological terms, you're misunderstanding them. You're imposing western ideas into a taoist concept and viceversa. In the end, you did not manage to convey to your audience what the astrological modes are, nor what the three treasures of taoism are, because both were grossly misrepresented in an attempt to force-unify them under one single system.

It's not all the same. And it doesn't have to be. Let cultural practices have differences, historically they have always had them, and they should continue to have them if we want to represent them faithfully and respectfully. Let people find medicine in their own ways, let them see the wide diversity of practices, beliefs and traditions, and choose what heals them based on their own particular needs and history. Diversity of practices and ideas is a good thing. Differences are a good thing. You don't need a single overarching theory, in fact, you can't have a single "theory of everything" for cultural phenomena without disrespecting the source cultural material.

[kbookblurbs]

The Stone Sky - N.K. Jemisin (Broken Earth #3)

4.5/5 - at times too cerebral for my tastes; very fitting pyhrric victory; the mother-daughter relationship in this book makes me SICK. I'm obsessed.

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!!

In an effort to keep this a bit more concise and to the point than my review for The Obelisk Gate, I'm structuring this review into three main sections:

Worldbuilding

Pacing & The Ending

Essun, Nassun, & their relationship

Worldbuilding

I deeply love that Jemisin devotes so much time to making sure that the worldbuilding here reflects on a (sub)textual level the point she's trying to convey regarding race, oppression, and the consequences of othering people. It's rich and allows for a really nuanced exploration into what it means to consider people subhuman, what that does to their psyche, and what that exposes about that society. The section about the "Briar Patch" is ... particularly horrifying. A match to the scene in The Fifth Season with the node maintainer in terms of sheer banal evil.

I do feel, however, that sometimes the commitment to this description and this worldbuilding on every page interfered with getting to know some of the characters. Obviously Essun, Nassun, Schaffa, etc. are very well-developed, but characters like Tonkee, Ykka, and Lerna felt very one-note at times. Since our main characters are in their own heads so much, it doesn't really feel like we really get to know anyone else - though that could be a narrative technique given Essun's tendency to misunderstand or underestimate her relationships with others. Either way, I personally wanted to see a little bit more interaction between everyone.

Pacing & The Ending

At times, the book dragged for me. I think this may be because I felt some scenes with Schaffa and Nassun were somewhat repetitive, but I understand the need to keep them in. They each show something different and unique and horrifying, to be perfectly honest, about their relationship and Nassun's underlying traumas.

The ending, however, was everything I could ask for. It's felt all along like Essun wouldn't survive this, but through books one and two, I had imagined more of a go-down-swinging type of exit. This one was, frankly, all the more heartbreaking. She loved her daughter more than she loved humanity, more than she loved herself.

And what a blow for Nassun. To be orphaned twice over, basically, and to have a hand in the death of each of your parental figures makes my heart ache for her. She's so young to have experienced the world like this. It's especially tragic and fitting, as far as endings go, that she loses her orogeny at the end of the series. It's not a stretch to say that Nassun literally lost everyone who ever loved her and a part of herself she loved (and an arm!). What ultimately brought her the most happiness was also the seeds of her own personal tragedy.

Essun, Nassun, & their relationship

Few things have made me more sick, angry, and deeply conflicted than the twisted ties between Nassun, Essun, & Schaffa. How tragic to be so traumatized by even the attempt to live a normal life that you inflict the same pain upon your child. That your abuser can recognize your actions as wrong. That there's no way you could have known any different!

That said, Essun being afraid of her daughter and understanding that she is afraid of Nassun because Nassun is just like her was, again, deeply sad and frustrating on my part. It was understandable, because even as Essun has attempted to accept the whole of her life, who she is, and what she's done, good and bad, she hasn't really forgiven herself for it. She hasn't forgiven herself for being born powerful and stubborn and ambitious and seeing those traits reflected back in her daughter made her frightened!

From Nassun's point of view, for her to know, but not quite understand, that Schaffa had a hand in making Essun who she was and is, made me as the reader miserable. Schaffa is treating her better than many of the adult figures in her life. But he's also grooming her into a weird, toxic, codependent relationship that only serves to confirm Nassun's impression of her mother as someone who doesn't (or can't) love her when Schaffa is literally the reason that Essun acts and parents the way that she does. It goes round in circles and makes me sick and ill and I will be thinking about this for the foreseeable future I fear.

Overall - an excellent book and an excellent series that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a dense high fantasy or science fiction story. It packs a punch!

[angelinthefire]

Solitudes: director's commentary

So this is a thing I do now, post commentary on my fics. I've been sitting on this fic for a long time and I'm excited to finally talk about it!

Read the fic here

Chapter 1

The title of this fic is a reference to “Two Solitudes”, a novel which I’ve never read, but which is a point of reference for Canadian political science, about the fundamental division between Quebec and English Canada, and the two never being able to connect or understand the experience of the other.  And that’s one of the inspirations for this fic, exploring the degree to which Dean and Cas understand each other and misunderstand each other, and their attempts to communicate what they want from their relationship.  I do believe that Dean and Cas understand each other and connect and relate to each other to a large extent, and far better than some fans give them credit for. Sometimes I see the “Don’t go/Ask me to stay” dynamic exaggerated to an extent that I believe no longer makes sense, given their friendship.  At the same time, there is an underlying tension and disconnect between them. They don’t have a perfect understanding of each other. And that still matters quite a lot. 

The other source of inspiration for this is that I haven’t written anything where Dean is the one with a handle on his feelings and wants to initiate something, since like 2013. And that I’ve never written anything set in season 12, despite that season having the perfect setup for Dean and Cas getting together.  And I was thinking, how do I push things further than what happened on the show? I usually like my fic to feel very situated in canon, and since Dean and Cas didn’t actually get together in s12, something else would have to happen, something to push Dean over the edge. Something that would also push Cas to make a realization.  So that’s how I ended up with the idea to lock Dean and Cas in a room together, with Dean thinking that Cas is dead, and Cas unable to do anything but watch. In my head, the alternate title for this story is “The Pear Jiggler fic”. Just stick them in a box and fuck with them. We also often talk about how Cas never gets to see how Dean reacts when he dies, so that was a fun thing to do as well.  And I just love a good bottle episode. Something that’s just all character-driven. 

In terms of characterization, one thing that’s very important to me is that Cas knows that Dean cares about him. He’s not some poor soul who thinks he’s on thin ice all the time, or thinks that he has to be useful to be loved. He understands that Dean cares, but the misunderstanding is the degree to which Dean needs him in his life.  Cas does have a drive to be useful, to solve problems, but it’s internally motivated. He has to prove that he’s useful for himself, not for Dean. Even when Dean gets pissed at him, Cas doesn’t take it too, too personally, because he does still know that he’s important to Dean.

For Dean, the emphasis is really on the way he retreats when threatened, emotionally. When he behaves badly, it’s partially because he’s worried, but also as a defence mechanism. He only puts words to his feelings when he has nothing left to lose. 

It’s been a while since I’ve written a version of Cas that wasn’t fully tuned in to his feelings for Dean. One of the more fun things about this angsty fic was having Cas thinking about Dean wistfully, and not imagining that Dean might be in love with him, or that his feelings are anything other than friendship.  I guess the other option was to write mutual pining, Dean and Cas both being aware of their feelings but neither realizing the other feels the same way. But for me, the realization that what they feel is love is a really fun part of the story, so I wanted that moment for at least one of them.  Of course, Dean isn’t fully there yet either. Like he knows, but he’s not 100% there. But it’s just caution that’s holding him back. A lot of the time in fic, when it’s Dean’s POV and he knows he’s in love with Cas, there’s a whole big self esteem thing that holds him back. And I never really buy that. Plus it’s unnecessary.

I’ve noticed that in a lot of my fics, I get Dean out of the driver’s seat of the Impala, or out of the Impala entirely. It is about getting him into a new situation, making him feel off-kilter in some way. Switching up the status-quo. 

I’ve been playing the Sims quite a bit, mostly building homes, and therefore looking at a lot of fancy real estate postings for inspiration. I find brutalist architecture quite compelling in its own right. I wanted a setting that feels foreboding, but still like a place where someone might actually have lived. A room with very little in it that could provide distraction. And a space where light plays an important role, which it does in brutalist buildings, I think. I do find it unlikely that a desk and chair would have survived, but Dean needed something to smash up, so. And the fountain wall is there to create a sense that the building is being taken over by something, it has something growing in it. 

The monster itself isn’t consciously based on anything. It’s what it needs to be for the story. Whatever lore I made up only exists to support its function in the story. Even the way Sam kills it, just serves to underline that it’s unique and powerful, and therefore able to keep Cas contained.

Chapter 2

I didn’t have the idea to do the split-screen until I was well into planning the fic. To emphasize the division between Dean and Cas, their mismatched perspectives. For a second I considered just having two unbroken columns, so that the reader would have to decide when/if to go back and forth, but that would have been kind of confusing. And ultimately, Cas is reacting to Dean, so you need to keep going back to Dean to understand Cas.  I wrote Dean’s side first, as the independent variable. Deciding where to break, and switch to Cas was a bit of a back-and-forth process, because it had to work both in terms of story and in terms of rhythm.  One thing I liked about this is that I didn’t have to decide whose POV to write in. Unless a story is strictly one character’s POV I usually plan out scenes from both of their perspectives and then decide which one is better to take for the story, and sometimes that can be kind of tough. 

Of course, the entire conceit of this scenario is that it’s a metaphor for their relationship. Or it takes the tension in their relationship and brings it to the next level. They’re together, but there’s something preventing them from fully connecting. They understand each other, but they misunderstand each other at the same time. And it’s by making that disconnect physical that they start to kind of be able to deal with it. Because it gives Cas a perspective on Dean that he didn’t have before. They don’t fully resolve their problems by the end, and to be honest I wouldn’t want them to. But they make some progress. 

I had fun with the imagery for this. Dean and Cas sharing the same space, being separated by light, and by illusion.

Dean’s alcoholism figures very heavily in this. But it is not addressed as a problem for him to overcome. I neither feel equipped to write a story about alcoholism per se, nor do I want to. A running theme throughout a few of my fics is that Dean and Cas do not fix each other. They keep being the same fucked up guys. And I think getting Dean to a place where he wants to deal with his substance abuse problems would require a lot more story behind it. 

The withdrawal is there to make things that much more horrible for Dean, not to actually deal with alcoholism as an issue.. And it adds an extra sense of threat. I didn’t do a ton of research on what happens when someone goes through withdrawal, I just looked up a timeline for symptoms (it can start after just six hours! I didn’t know that before). And I confirmed that someone could die from withdrawal. 

For Dean, chapter 2 is about making him sit with his misery. Unlike every other time he’s lost Cas on the show, there’s nothing to distract him here. And that’s one of the things that pushes him to vocalize his thoughts and feelings..  As well, anger, guilt, fear and love are all very much intertwined for Dean. And that’s accentuated by the situation. So he says “I hate you” before he says “I love you.” But then, as his motivation to survive kind of drains away, his defensive instincts do as well. 

For Cas, it was about forcing him to accept that things are outside of his control. There’s no more desperate moves, he can’t throw himself on his sword. Like Dean, there’s nothing to distract him, he’s forced to stop and reflect on what’s happening. He has to face what he means to Dean.  When Cas says “I’m not worth it” - that’s something that came up when I was freewriting dialogue and it just felt right. But I spend zero time unpacking it. Again, it’s one of those things - Dean and Cas are both fucked up, they both have their problems, and this experience doesn’t change that. In fact, it probably makes him worse. Another aspect of Cas’ powerlessness is how he relates to his human body. Not having it, or not being able to use it, makes him more possessive over it. 

Still on the topic of Dean and Cas not being able to fix each other, you see that when Dean says he’s in love with Cas, and it finally clicks for Cas. It doesn’t solve anything.  I did really want to make the point that the two of them being in love doesn’t change anything in terms of their plans or obligations. And it doesn’t really change much about how they relate to each other either. I’ve said before that their friendship and their romance are indistinguishable imo. And the other side of that is that Dean and Cas are both more than their relationship, and the pressures and stresses they face mostly come from outside their relationship (which is a fact that fans lose sight of sometimes). Whether they’re officially In Love or not, they want to be together, but there’s other forces, both internal and external, keeping them apart. 

I hope Dean lying down with Cas’ dead body works. It’s super melodramatic, but it’s also kind of gruesome and I like that. I also love the idea of Cas being jealous of the illusion of his dead body. 

Chapter 3

A dynamic that I really like in storytelling is when The Big Event in the story is not the thing that pushes the characters towards the resolution, but it primes them for the next little thing tipping them over. I do that here, and I kind of do that in Life Skills too. It feels more real to me, and it creates more space to explore the ending imo. So Dean tries to go back to normal!

The fight in the parking lot was probably the scene that was the most fun to write. Like it’s still frustrating and angsty, but it’s kind of funny too. 

And yeah, Cas still feels trapped. The repetition of the gray and green imagery reflects that. He still feels powerless, and it just takes one more shove to get him to open up about it.

Dean has a bit of an impulse to be controlling here. First of all, because I do think it’s in character, but also because I think it’s fun. Like I don’t like to go super-toxic with Dean and Cas, but there’s a measure of toxicity. Again, they keep being fucked up. For Dean, I just touch on it briefly, but I think one aspect of his upbringing is that love has to be proven. Like, he loved his father, so he did what was asked of him. If Cas loved Dean, then he would do what Dean asked of him - this is the main concept that underlies my read of Dean’s reaction to Cas collaborating with Crowley in s7.  For Cas’ part, he doesn’t really register that there’s anything wrong with Dean’s behaviour, or he reads in the best intentions. Which is a fun idea to me. 

I really grappled with whether or not to have a sex scene as part of the resolution. It felt formulaic to do so. There wasn’t a story that I wanted to tell with their sex. But on the other hand, I know there would have been a time when I would have been disappointed to read something like this and not get a sex scene out of it. They go through such intense emotions, it only seems fair to the reader. Ultimately it came down to the fact that there wasn’t anything else that I wanted to say about Dean and Cas. 

I kind of grappled with the end in general. Usually, I write fic with a particular ending in mind. For this one, the journey was the focus more than the ending. But I think the ambiguity works. Nothing is fixed, but they’re trying.

And that’s what listening to the tape at the end is about. The tape is Dean’s way of trying to communicate with Cas. But Cas didn’t really get it before. Now Dean is trying to help him to understand. I considered including lyrics at the end. But the scene isn’t about the lyrics, the lyrics could be anything, it’s about the fact of them listening together.

[rookfang]

how does laika get her equipment for mixtures? Like i know we've talked about her being a mad science type, can you elaborate on that? Also can u tell the class about her time in the fade prison and what happens to her after that? Ok love u bye bye.

CURIOUS NOT-SO-ANONS . ACCEPTING .

I've decided to poke at this one out of character, for as much fun as trying to describe it all in character would be, I'm slowly losing all braincells.

MAD-ISH SCIENTIST:

Yes, I have occasionally described Laika has a ' mad scientist ' but it is more accurate to describe her as a pre-to-peri Victorian chemist. The era of science I'm picturing is that of John Dalton - an understanding of some of the underlying principles, but not all of them. There is a foundation of knowledge to pull from, but it is patchy, and very untested. Laika knows that something in the structure of saltpeter ( potassium nitrate ) causes it to amplify other ignitions, but doesn't know that ( on a fundamental level ) it's the amount of protons, and its reactivity is caused by the amount of free electrons in the valence ring. Because how the fuck could she?

I've said it once, I'll say it again: Laika is nerfed by not having access to an electron microscope.

Laika's equipment and supplies are taken from universities in Tevinter. I say ' taken ' but, usually, they are pieces that are already being thrown out; microscopes that need new lenses, or are too damaged for the professors to bother to repair, but for Laika, that's fair game. Otherwise, she gets supplies from wholesalers, or repatriated from the cabinets of Magisters. There are some things she has to collect herself, but for the most part, there's enough of an Alchemist's Guild within Tevinter that she can just write a letter and get stuff delivered. Exchange money for goods and service. That said, she does know how to forage for certain things as needed ( nightshade, poppies, etc. ) when traveling on the road.

THE FADE PRISON / FADE-TOUCHED

Now this is an idea that is... not quite canon, yet, because I'm still toying and chewing on it. However, I'll indulge you and myself here.

The Fade Prison was an experience for Laika. The Veilguard come to mean so much to her, that one of them choosing sacrifice - achieving what Laika has been trying to choose for herself... Actually, let me talk about that, first:

This is all actually built from — I suppose, my misunderstanding of the game's cues. I very much thought that Rook had BIG red death flags, all over the place. "And now, I die?" I mean, come on. So I built Laika into a character that is defined by a need for a good death. Death in service of a better tomorrow. That, then, someone else sacrifices themself, is enough to seal her in the prison.

Her escape happens much the same as canon; she untangles lies from truth, and makes room for acceptance. As much as she felt she had a responsibility to protect her friends, they are still people. If they make a choice, and she cannot claim it, she cannot say it was her fault. To do so would deny them their personhoods.

In accepting that not everything is hers to control, and all she can do is mourn and move on as they would want — the Fade.... bends to Laika. Bends around her, in the same breath that she makes space for her own mourning ( of the lost companions, of Varric ) the Fade cups around her heart.

When first out of the Fade, Laika is still not quite convinced of the reality she's in. I assume the party helps her, in this regard though we do not see this in game—— But, there's simply too much going on for her to notice that the Veil is... weird. Around her.

I have yet to consider how the magic manifests, though I think at some point during the ascent to battle Elger'nan is likely a good, emotional place for it. Because this power is transferred to her within the Fade, it bears a great deal of resemblence to Rift Magic, as the Veil takes to her.

It's not.... great. For Laika. She's a little frightened by it. Tapped into a world that was never hers, after spending months dealing with an unreality tainted by blood magic... It is hard to accept that it's real, at first? Much like mourning, it takes time.

[ilreleonewikiart]

TDIOBCB ship challenge:

As the ones who follow me on Twitter know, after two months drawing canon stuffs, for this March I decided to use these prompts to make some fanarts of my fic.

This means that next month my art will be again internally about TDIOBCB and nothing else.

However, before starting posting about this new challenge, I think, considering the fact that not everybody who follows me had read my fic and the characters that will be drawn, to provide some specifics to avoid misunderstandings.

As you've understood, this new March 'challenge,' unlike the previous one, has nothing to do with Canon (either from the book or the TV series) and instead is completely centred on the pairs present in my AU fic 'TDIOBCB.'

This Fanfiction is in turn inspired by another fanfic, also AU Divergence: if you're curious about what these two stories are about, you can search for them on AO3. This means that many (if not all) of the couples that will be illustrated will have no logic to exist in the canonical world, in any possible way, yet in this completely nonsensical universe, they do.

Many of the characters and their partners may have undergone significant modifications from their canonical counterparts: for example, in this universe, Viserys and Larra are a real ship, which would be aberrant if they were the same characters from the books, but in this context, it's acceptable, given that the methods and premises of their union are 99% different from Canon.

The same goes for the ship Baela and Aemond, which makes no sense to exist neither here nor there, but here it has been done, albeit nonsensically, to give it a completed sense. There will also be many ships made entirely of my OCs, and others made from pre-existing characters and OCs.

Additionally, all these illustrations will be explicitly inspired by paintings, famous and not, with a strong use of tracing. I won't copy Line by Line these paintings, but I'll use them as models for compositions and poses, and all paintings used as references will be posted below.

I wanted to specify this because recently there has been 'a debate' within the artistic community of this fandom about tracing, so I wanted to clarify my intentions from the outset. I know that many disagree with this practice, especially if those who use it then pretend not to use it, but I have never hidden my use of reference images and, indeed, I have always published with great transparency every time-lapse of the works, never cutting any steps. I don't believe that tracing is evil or a cardinal sin, especially if it's used to assimilate and improve one's skills, but one shouldn't abuse it, and pretending not to know about it is tremendously dishonest. All my art teachers since high school have encouraged us to copy from classical paintings because they believed it would help us remember and memorize proportions, composition, and anatomy more effectively, but the underlying idea of this technique is that once everything is assimilated, one should stop and start drawing without it and not continue indefinitely. Furthermore, this becomes fraudulent if the illustrations you copy part by part are then sold. I haven't yet received commissions of this kind, and all the other illustrations where I've used tracing for poses or objects were all illustrations I did without receiving a penny and that I did for pure pleasure, but I assure you that if anyone ever offered to pay me to do an illustration, I would never dare to use tracing.

That said, the 'challenge' in question is something I want to do for myself, so I don't see anything horrible in getting help with some images that help me set up the composition, and in any case, I would post the entire process. Again, sorry for this immensely long and monstrously boring screed, but on Twitter, it's better to protect oneself in advance

[akiraak4]

Champange, Cocaïne, Gasoline

A/N: This is the second part of Champange, Cocaïne, Gasoline. It is inspired by Don't Threaten Me with a Good Time by Panic! at the Disco. I do not own the character Cú Chulainn, yada, yada, yada, English is not my first language and all.

CW: self-destructive behaviour,(slight) addiction, misuse of drugs and alcohol, drunk driving, self-harming behaviour, depression

Wordcount: 1400

Underlying Cú Chulainn x Reader

PART 1|PART 2

It took you a long while to calm down, but as you became more and more silent your eyes started to settle on his figure. You bluntly stared at him with so many questions in your eyes he really didn't want to answer as he headed home with you - well, the direction where home is on a long road ahead of him. His crimson eyes were tucked on the street, blankly staring at the asphalt. 

You crumbled right in front of your servant. Your sobs and whaling filled the night as he pushed the cart. You were halfway wrapped up in the crimson coat, stopping the trembling cold from getting under your skin. But now you trembled for a whole other reason - the reason being him. He said nothing after this and let you weep in silence. Pushing the cart through the empty, dimly lit streets. The only sounds were your soft whimpers and the rattling of the wheels of the cart. 

You muttered, not really clearly, so he needed to listen closely to understand your words, as your eyes slowly started to drift off into the emptiness of the city. You fumbled a little with the coat, throwing off these ugly hot pink heels, so you could fully submerge in his coat. It smelled like iron - probably because of the blood it was soaked in.

"Unlike your usual class, you had materialized as a Berserker.

Some factor has caused your equipment to change, and your personality to be altered as well.

Your expression is cruel, your crimson spear has been mixed with black, and is overflowing with an ominous aura."

"That was the description they gave me after I summoned you. I thought to myself 'Great, another asshole that does what he wants'. But I think they gave me the wrong description."

He said nothing to your rambling, probably because he knew this would have been true with every other master. Because for every other master he had, he was like this. But even with you, he was not very friendly, but you probably had no comparison. You were not even lucky enough to get another version of him - which would have made his job a lot easier because they would have taken care of her, instead of him.  

But it was only him. 

And you. 

Your words just floated out of your mouth - without you thinking much about what you said. Your head slightly bobbed down, as your eyes shut close, before jolting up again and blinking hastily. Your fingers slipped from under the cloak up to reach for the hand of your servant. You could not see his reaction as he hesitantly placed his hand over yours, still pushing the cart in silence. 

"You are the best servant I could ever ask for"

Cú stopped his movement for a short period of time before he started moving again, still going in the same direction. He never thought he would hear such words from any master he ever had, but here he was - still in disbelief as his eyes moved every so often towards you. You, who was mumbling to yourself, eyes fluttering shut and jolting up, grasping his hand a bit harder and shyly softening your grip again. It was really strange, how the tables turned in the span of mere hours.

"If it wasn't for you, I would have ended this shit a long time ago. But you are my strongest spear. You are the pillar I've built my life upon. Crazy to think about it"

Your muttering was not unheard by your servant, who carefully watched you. He knew he was your strongest active servant (Jeanne d'Arc Alter * was benched after she reached a certain level due to some misunderstandings between the two of you), who would protect you as long as you didn't turn on him. But could he even protect you from the things you fear? What you feared most was probably your mind. It scared you with its thought of a senseless life, a senseless death, a hell of nothingness, never having accomplished anything - after all, you were just someone. Someone who is able to summon powerful heroic spirits to battle the evils of the world. But, at the end of the day - there were more of your kind. You were not special. You never will be special. Because all you do is summon the personifications of destruction and disaster - selfishness and misery. They've all chosen you as their master. And after every fight, they've got themselves into, the field of battle was a huge mass of destruction, never to be rebuilt again. 

Your grip tightened around his hand and did not soften while your eyes were just unfocused into the void - as if you were to sunken into your mind, trapped in your thoughts, so he lightly squeezed your hand to awaken you from your trance. Your eyes wandered towards him, still in a haze, clouded from everything that happened tonight and it pains him to see the tears that formed in the corners of your eyes. Wait - why did it pains him to see you like this? 

Confusion took over his mind as he looked at you - his sobbing master. He wanted to comfort you - even though he did not know how. How could he? He was the shadow and not the light - he does not have the inherent kindness of his other selves. He could only watch you, as you crumbled jet again before his very eyes.

And he pitied you for your misery. 

Because he could not help you escape it.

"I'm a fucking failure, Cú. Why do I even exist? It would not matter if I just kill myself- "

"It would matter, Master, because you're not a failure. You've never failed in anything you've tried to accomplish. I have never seen you falter and you will not do it right now. Because you have a life to live and you will not just throw it away, just because. And I will not allow you to get killed, because I will always protect you. Whatever it will be.

I am your servant.

You are my master.

We are bound to be together, whatever will come our way."

Your world came crumbling down, but still, there was one pillar in your life that still stood, was still steady. You looked him into his crimson eyes as you looked at him - his rage, his frustration and the slight sadness. A sadness that lies so deep beneath the surface that you've only realised it right there and then. You only now realised it - that your thought process saddened him, that your state pains him and your words anguished him. You were selfish to think, the only things that mattered were your feelings and your thoughts. Your fingers, still intertwined with his, tried to detangle themself as you tried to free yourself from the huge coat. He had stopped somewhere in his tracks - probably while you were drifting off into negativity. You tried to wiggle off the coat - which took you a while due to your problematic hand-eye coordination. 

After a short while, you aligned yourself, standing as straight as you could in the cart, smudged mascara under your eyes and on your cheeks, your hair was a literal mess, your tight-fitting dress (that still smelled horribly like gasoline) was ruffled up and you were still barefoot. 

And you smiled at your servant. 

An honest and loving smile, which bewildered your servant to his core, it seems. Your movements were stagnating and you nearly fell as you - quite literally - stumbled into Cú Chulainn's arms. He looked even more puzzled as you crawled into his arm.

He was befuddled by your sudden change of behaviour, but he silently accepted it. Now having to carry you he threw his coat over himself again as he slowly started walking again. It seems like you've made yourself comfortable on his arm. He hadn't heard a noise from you and as he looked down, you were sound asleep. He started to jog at a steady pace to reach his destination -your home. 

Eventually, the rest would be resolved.

_____________________________________________________________

* Jeanne d'Arc Alter has the highest max attack with 13244 

Cú Chulainn Alter has 12805 ATK

Jeanne is first on the list and Cú is fourth (between them are Kama(Avenger) and Kingprotea)

Everything is according to the Game Fate/Grand Order

[giritina]

your post really felt so much crueler than it needed to be, to me and the "little girl" who lives in my heart and many others who came out as trans later in life.

some people aren't born knowing, some people aren't born feeling wrong, and I think that is a really cold sweeping statement to make. it really felt like you were trying to say that trans men could not experience womenhood because they were never women...isn't that the whole point of being "transgender" that we are all in transition? that's like saying trans women never had experiences as men that never affected them or made them feel uncomfortable.

I really enjoy your work, and I really do sincerely enjoy hearing your opinions, but that post made me lose a bit of respect for you. really just throwing a lot of nuance out of the window with that one.

I was neither born knowing nor born feeling wrong. As I say in the post, I felt what I thought was a connection to womanhood. It's in hindsight that I reanalyze that experience as not equivalent to a woman's personal understanding of womanhood. Trans women broadly have experiences as men that make them uncomfortable expressly due to their transness, I believe the same applies to trans men.

Basically, the key misunderstanding here is i do not believe "being trans from birth" is equivalent at all to "knowing from birth." The reality is that even if the word transgender did not exist, the underlying reality of transness would. That is why we can say trans people existed long before modernity, and why we can see transness across culture. Therefore, "transness" is an experience that transcends a person's present identity and objectively defines their experience as unique. Ie you are not "socialized as a woman" but rather "socialized as a trans man", and being raised as a woman is part of that... but it is still a unique experience compared to a person who is, for their entire life and to their core, a woman.

I can say that transness is innate from birth because it is scientifically true. Nothing in your environment converts you to transness, the same way nothing converts you to being gay. Rather, you are coerced and converted to womanhood in a way unique to trans men. That womanhood is not equivalent to the sincere and personal identity of women. That is why I don't posit the question of misogyny, but of "understanding/speaking as an authority on womanhood"

[fanaticsnail]

Hi, just a rando who saw the blacklisting tags post and just wanted to share smth neat about myself: I don't like fics that are shipping content at all? :0 I'm not a very romantic person, so, that genre just isn't interesting to me. Because of this I unfortunately have avoided all fanfic due to lack of um.. understanding if there even is a tag/system of terms that would mean no shipping? from how I understand fic, that's kinda how you find the fics at all in the first place via the shipping tag? (i know no shipping fanfics exist though, and even tried to encourage myself to write some years ago but genuinely felt like there's such a minority of people who would care, I never bothered) I just found it interesting that your question to Moon about what fic she enjoys seemed to translate exclusively (to me) to asking what shipping content she likes. While I could be misunderstanding the meaning on that one, I just wanted to let you know that there's all kinds of reasons why x reader wouldn't be someone's cup of tea, and in my case it's that I don't read fanfic at all due to avoiding romantic content in general! have a great day, and if there IS a tag for no shipping in fics I'd love to actually learn what it is

My Dear, my Darling; I completely understand.

On Ao3, there's the "/" option to tag as platonic (at least I think that's the way you're meant to use it). If the romance is between OP character and the reader, it is tagged "x reader". For example: if the fic describes the romantic relationship between Sanji and a reader: "Sanji x reader" is tagged. If there is an underlying rapport relationship that the reader character has with Luffy: their bond should be tagged as "Luffy / Reader".

I am yet to see the tag used here, and I have no idea if I should start tagging "/ reader" or not for the majority of my fics. I also would like to add, if romance is not your flavour of fic: that is absolutely fine! Reading romance is not everyone's yum.

To quietly add: I have desired to write concepts I have had vivid nightmarish and dark dreams about: sci-fi, adventure horror, thriller and gore are the main elements of those ones. All original works, characters and concepts - but I know it is not something everyone will enjoy reading. It's not fandom, and I have built this page around the One-Piece fandom. I am a Snail; I write romance, comradery and rapport here. The only thoughts I write that are an outlet for non-romance and friendship are interacting within the plot with background OCs and characters.

In saying all that; if there is a request you'd desire to be made for character x character rapport and interaction, or reader x character that you would like to read - your asks are welcome here! If you request this type of fic, I think if you request "Character x Platonic!Reader" would be a way to do it?

I adore writing shenanigans. It is one of the main reasons I play D&D - specifically for shenanigan content (I am in fact playing tonight, and I can't wait for @since-im-already-here and I to obliterate the stupid mind-flayer!)

In regards to the "people not caring" aspect: We watch One-Piece. None of those characters are together romantically! I adore them all and love watching the angst, fluff and relationships between them. That's what brought us all here in the first place!

Thank you for sharing that part of yourself with me, anon. I am so glad you felt able to reach out and educate me, truly. I mean it with the biggest heart that ever did belong to a such a Snail.

[untangling-thoughts]

book no. 16 | part 1

'Hannibal'

Thomas Harris

About first 5 Parts ('Washington, D.C.', 'Florence', 'To the New World', 'Notable Occasions on the Calendar of Dread', 'A Pound of Flesh')

On the moment when I finished 80% of the story, I had a formed opinion on 'Hannibal'. Overall, the book was moderately enjoyable. It held a good ground on the level of 'Red Dragon' and 'The Silence of the Lambs'. There were some questionable parts that caused irritation, yet they didn't ruin the book for me. 'Hannibal' had lesser amount of detective elements. Understandable: our main focus here wasn't the investigation, but characters. Hannibal, Clarice. Their past and future. Because of it the story might seem a little underwhelming. Still solig though. Yet my mostly positive evaluation was ruined by the last Part. I'd prefer to focus on my initial thoughts and leave 'A Long Spoon' for later.

Clarice as a strong female character

Clarice Starling is fascinating. She's not perfect. But determined, hard working, and has a brain. Let's be real, her life was kind of shitty. Starling kept being undermined, discriminated, ridiculed. All because she stayed true to herself and didn't want to bend for others. She was an honest worker who wouldn't cheat her way up the career ladder, and a woman, which only added complications.

Still, she stood strong. Found ways to secure her importance, so she hasn't been discarded to something less. She kept fighting for herself, even when all the efforts were futile. Clarice resembles true strength. She kept on surviving horrible attitude and shitty work life.

The misunderstandings

An underlying theme you can notice in both 'The Silence of the Lambs' and 'Hannibal' is bias. Or misunderstanding. Characters assume things countless times, and their wild suggestions appeared realistic, though remained false.

I thought it was actually a very cool writing decision. In real life, people are constantly perceived in the wrong way, so seeing the same thing reflected in a book was wonderful.

Clarice was constantly mischaracterised by others. She was anything you could think of. An arrogant worker who's all up her own butt. A cheap girl from the farm. A ruthless FBI killing machine. Crawford's lover. A lesbian. A woman in love with Hannibal Lecter. The latter is probably the most notable one. And I found joy in reading about what people deemed her to be and who she truly was.

Hannibal also fell victim of others' assumptions. Because of his interest in Clarice it was said that he had feelings for her. Thankfully people were more insightful when it came to Lecter. As one of the conversations in Verger's mansion went:

- Does he want to sleep with her, eat her or kill her? - Maybe all three. The order is unknown though.

I liked how Mason, Cordell, Krendler and Barny kind of argued about it. Because it showed: they don't know Lecter. They can assume things, but never know for sure. Barny did quote Hannibal's opinion on Starling, yet it was taken with a lot of skepticism.

The nonexistent romance

Following on the topic of misunderstandings, we have to dive into the relationship between Clarice and Hannibal. While I am no expert, I did draw some conclusions from the story.

Lecter wasn't romantically attracted to Starling. I believe that he told Barny the truth: Hannibal found her entertaining. As he said, Clarice was a small, kind of naive kitty who was fighting other kitties. And growing to be a graceful adult cat. She was smart and somewhat idealistic, which probably stirred Lecter's curiosity. He helped Clarice in 'The Silence of the Lambs' because her past was painful and interesting enough to satisfy Lecter. In 'Hannibal', he wrote her a letter after 7 years of silence to try and patronize her and push her to reply.

Yes, there are moments that show Hannibal's strange appreciation of Clarice. We get to read about him playing on a piano while looking at her photo from a newspaper, to see him draw Starling in a strange way. We learn that Lecter stalked Clarice after retuning to USA. He watched her running in a park. Came into her car to breathe in her smell or lick the wheel. It became close to an obsessive behaviour at that point. But I didn't catch any of romantic coloring in it.

It's a sick interest. Twisted adoration. He liked to watch her as some wonderful creature. When Hannibal spectated Starling as she went for a run, he later on replayed that moment in his head. Taking into the consideration author's love to throw in extra vulgarity, it was fully absent here. Lecter wasn't drawn to Clarice's body or face. He was not imagining himself doing anything to her (ranged from a hug to whatever extreme you can imagine) and simply found comfort in watching Clarice for afar.

Clarice had no feelings towards Hannibal. In 'The Silence of the Lambs' she visited him several times. Yet it was mostly clinical. Clarice respected Lecter as a person but took no effort to appeal to him. She did her job. Told him about her life just as quid pro quo. Nothing overly emotional. Of course, she remembered Hannibal. People like these are quire unusual and she had a one-in-a-lifetime experience. So there is nothing strange.

You can tell that she had no desire to entertain Lecter or get closer to him. We learn that Clarice never replied to his letters, and whenever she received any, they got handed over to FBI. Starling remained sober-thinking. She repeatedly announced her opinion, which I believe was correct. To Hannibal, Starling was probably the most amusing person to spectate. Unlike others, she didn't try to take power from him, made no attempts on getting into his head. Lecter clearly liked to play with her, maybe respected a bit, but nothing more.

And I genuinely liked that both of them got misinterpreted by others. It was a great piece of fiction. That is, until I read 'A Long Spoon' Part.

[kidnap-the-series]

EP 5 - Realised (Part 2)

Q, my boy.... Put your curious soul aside for a while plssss. 

Stupid me was thinking he can't go in anyways and then I realised he had the damn keycard.

But also I see Q similar to his dad here. They don't try to run away from situations even if they know it's dangerous for them.

Baby, you look so out of place here. Get out of there rn. 

Sigh...

Honestly I loved both of their acting here. Like their faces show so much emotion I love it. The look of betrayal in Q's face and my interpretation of Min's expression is 'Don't misunderstand me! I can explain.'

Q!!! I told you to get out of there.

I saw a lot of people saying Q walks straight into danger. I agree but you all need to realise that trauma changes the way a person thinks. Q has adapted an almost reckless behaviour because he thinks no one would even care if anything happens to him. So, he doesn't really care that much for his life and safety. Thinking about this situation in a normal person's perspective will definetly differ from Q's perspective. It might seem stupid from our perspective but it is different when you see it from his point of view. It might seem like i'm defending Q but this is just my opinion.

Q is willing to go as far as making a deal with the enemy just to ensure that his dad is safe.

But we can't really trust Yada tho. There is no conformation that she wouldn't try to kill both Q and his dad just so that she wouldn't have any problems in the future as well.

Q!! Why would you mention Min?!?

👀.

Come on Q! You need to get out of here!

MinQ, I trust you both so so much in terms of communication. Pls don't disappoint me. 

Q could have easily walked away here. He didn't have to listen to Min's explanation. But he stands there and listens to Min. I think his heart wants to believe that Min is not the bad guy. 

I understand Min tho. He has taken so many risks just to ensure that Q is safe when he quite literally could have killed him. It must hurt to see the person you're willing to risk so much for to not even trust you. 

Like I already said before, Q just does not understand why someone would risk or sacrifice anything for him. He does not love himself enough to see himself worthy for sacrifice.

Min is hurt. Q is hurt. Now I'm hurt. 😢 

Ohhh he actually got hurt pretty bad.

Mhen is never wrong.

That's obviously not how you actually feel. 

I just have to screenshot this uk. Ohm's got insane proportions like how does he do it?? 

Mhen, c'mon let's fix your brother's relationship issues.

See I feel like Q is hoping that Min is as good as he seems. I think he has underlying feelings but hasn't yet confirmed it to himself like 'Yes! I actually like him'.

Facts! Min is the kind of person who would not hesitate to sacrifice himself for the person he loves.

I fucking knew this was gonna happen.

Hello???? Double agent!!! omg Suea I love this. 

I think Suea might have been in the mafia world before but maybe some situation that changed him and he's decided to work with the police. I'm saying this considering that Yada trusts him so much, meaning he must have been with her for a considerably long time.

[happyfeetfuryroad]

Love, love, LOVE this analysis. I'm probably going to re-read it several times because I need to drink it all in properly. I agree with pretty much everything you said.

I would just like to add a few points, especially to add a sex favorable aspec point of view:

I wouldn't personally use an appeal to the majority argument when talking about allosexuality being a part of the human existence. I completely understand what you were trying to say, but it can breach into allonormative territory even if it wasn't your intent. The way I (hi, I'm demisexual, I have a horse in each side of this race) would phrase it, is that sexuality is one of many ways that humanity can express itself.

I would compare it to the recreational consumption of alcohol: it is a very human thing, it can have as much or as little emotional/social significance as you want to read into it, and it is, ultimately, entirely optional. I think the common knee-jerk reaction is to equate "optional" with "unimportant", but that's not true at all! If anything, it makes it deliberate rather than normative, which I would argue adds significance to it, rather than subtracting from it.

The second point is, sexual desire and sexual behavior are not synonyms for being allosexual any more than being attracted to a different gender is synonymous with being heterosexual. This is the point that frustrates me the most whenever a character is caught in the crossfires between people who want them to have sex and people who want them to be a sex repulsed or sex uninterested ace (cue TMA war flashbacks): there's this underlying assumption, held by both sides, that if you're asexual, then you don't want to have sex, and if you do want to have sex, then you're not asexual. But the error is kind of obvious when I lay it out like that, isn't it? Most people are aware that sex favorable aces exist, that aces who have a libido exist, that grey-aces and demis exist. What's missing is, people often don't carry this knowledge over to real-life practice. Much like people forget that a person in a het-passing relationship could be bi or pan, despite knowing in theory that bi and pan people exist.

Now, here's why I am very firmly in "Aziraphale and Crowley are demi" territory.

Firstly, the obvious. I'm demisexual. I seek representation for myself wherever I can find it, in an admittedly very selfish way. Aziraphale and Crowley express their (subtextual) sexuality in a way that resonates strongly with my own lived experience, so I'm going to read them as being like me until the evidence proves me wrong.

Secondly, I think many people (including many aces and especially many allos) misunderstand what demisexuality is. The most classic malicious and openly aphobic argument is that "well that's just how normal people are expected to act", or "that's just normative monogamy". What this boils down to is the idea that being demi means "only being sexually attracted to someone you're romantically involved with", or something along those lines. And sure, maybe for some demis it really is like that. But for me, that's a caricature of my lived experience, and a frustratingly inaccurate one at that.

To me, being demi simply means you don't find someone sexually attractive unless you also find them "emotionally attractive", for lack of a better word. There doesn't have to be mutual, meaningful personal relationship going on. Physical attraction could be triggered by something as simple as a platonic crush, or even just the euphoria of finding someone who is on your same wavelength on that one specific topic that you can't really agree on with anyone else. Maybe just finding someone intellectually or spiritually inspiring, too. It can be lasting and meaningful, or skin-deep and fleeting.

It doesn't even have to lead to you wanting to have sex with that person. Conversely, it doesn't automatically make a person monogamous, or unwilling to have casual sex. It's simply a kind of attraction that is distinctly indifferent to the more superficial elements that usually contribute to someone's sex appeal (in fact, one of the ways I realized that I was demi was by how indifferent I was to men that my allo friends found incredibly hot, and conversely having them raising an eyebrow at me for feeling intense desire for a number of supposedly ugly or unattractive guys). This isn't to say that allos can't feel that kind of attraction, but that for me, as a demi, that's the only kind of attraction I ever feel.

Now, do I have proof that Aziraphale and Crowley are demi? Admittedly, no. But what I do have is evidence that they operate on their own wavelength. They dance to their own beat, which is in harmony with the human beat, but not necessarily synchronous with it. And that's a beat that is deliciously familiar to me. It's subtle, but it means a lot to me. And although I don't blame anyone for disagreeing or finding an alternate reading, there's nothing short of conflicting canon evidence that will ever be able to take this from me.

Some thoughts on why and how I believe Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship would incorporate sex/why I do not read them as wholly asexual:

This is something I've seen the most discourse about in this fandom, and I've had a few thoughts of my own that I really wanted to expand upon in a full meta/character analysis post. I do understand that this can be a contentious topic, so first, let me clarify a few things:

First of all, this is going to be long. Tbh it probably won't be that organized either. I ramble and I'm not very good at editing, so just... you know. Be warned. (*Hi, it's me from 2 days after writing this; I'm really not kidding, it's LONG)

These are all my own thoughts. They might not be hot takes, because recently I've seen more than a few people come to the same conclusions on a lot of these points as I have. But I've also had these notes in my drafts for about a week and a half now, and have been continuously adding to it as things have occurred to me. This post is essentially just somewhere for me to collect the separate but related meta I've been kicking around in my head.

I fully respect anyone who does see and prefer an asexual reading of this relationship. These are my own thoughts and interpretations as someone who is not asexual. I am in the LGBT+ community, so while I do know a few things about the asexuality spectrum, I am by no means an expert.

This is NOT something I expect, need, or even necessarily want the show (or, God forbid, Neil's tumblr ask box) to address. Tonally, it's just not that kind of show. Newt and Anathema's sex scene was very much played for laughs, and it worked for that reason. If the show found a way to address it in a way that was both appropriate for the tone of the show and ultimately satisfying, then great! But there is so much more to this relationship than sex, and I didn't need a kiss to confirm their love, so I certainly don't need a sex scene. As immortal beings (as I assume they'll stay) there is so much of the rest of their lives we'll never get to see. You can headcanon them as asexual and potentially be right. I can headcanon them as not and be equally potentially right. Again, these are just a collection of my own thoughts, because I think the question of sexuality (or lack thereof) is just as interesting a facet of these characters as any other.

Note: Tbh I've been second-guessing this whole post and debated deleting the whole thing several times for being silly or unnecessary, bc I don't want anyone to think that this is the only thing I care about when it comes to this story/characters. But if nothing else, it's inspired me to write in a way that nothing has in a very long time, so I've decided it's worth continuing, if for no other reason than that.

This is going to be a mixed bag of textual reading, subtextual reading, and a full-on reach or two. It's been a while since I've been in an English class, but if my teachers expected me to find a deeper meaning behind blue curtains, you can expect me to read too deeply into the symbolism of a loaded rifle or an ox rib. (This is probably not what my professors had in mind when grading my literary analysis papers but oh well) My point is, if it feels like a reach, I'm as aware of it as you are. I am in no way saying that all (or even any) of my points made were deliberate on the part of Neil or the actors or the writers or the directors. I am no longer the delulu Apple Tree Yard child of my youth, I promise.

If anything said here is in any way offensive or hurtful to anyone in the asexual community, please do not hesitate to message me or comment and let me know exactly what it was. I promise you it is not my intention to do so, and am happy to clarify or outright edit anything that reads that way.

With all that being said, let's talk about why I think Crowley and Aziraphale would absolutely fuck nasty incorporate sex into their relationship.

Note: I am out of practice with essay writing, so I think I'll just go down the bullet points of notes I have been making, and expand on each as best I can

Food

Where better to start than with Aziraphale's introduction to Pleasures Of The Flesh? (Just a heads up, this entire post may feel very Aziraphale-heavy, and with good reason).

This might be the least hot take here. We've all seen the Job minisode. We've all seen That Scene.

Whether this was intentional or not, the symbolism here is off the charts. Eve was tempted by an apple. So why not go a similar route and tempt Aziraphale with another fruit, or cheese, or bread, or literally anything else for his first experience with food? Instead, we go with a huge, glistening slab of fresh meat that he proceeds to absolutely go feral upon, moaning and gasping into his meal while Crowley watches with what definitely doesn't look to be disgust or even satisfaction with a good temptation. There's surprise at the ferocity of Aziraphale's appetite, certainly. But ultimately he looks to be intensely fascinated by it, while the thunder crashes, the music crescendos, and the earth literally shakes around them.

(It's also interesting to note how very little it takes for Crowley to tempt him with the ox rib. One murmured suggestion, a bit of unwavering eye contact, and vavoom Aziraphale immediately meets him in the middle.)

Cut to Aziraphale devouring the rest of the meat with Crowley splayed back on a makeshift bed, drinking wine and continuing to watch him indulge through half-lidded eyes. Outside a thunderstorm rages while they're learning secrets about each other in warm flickering firelight. It's cosy, it's intimate, and if they'd thrown in a bearskin throw blanket, it might as well be a post-coital scene straight out of Game of Thrones.

The next time (chronologically) we see them discuss food is when Aziraphale "tempts" Crowley with oysters in Rome. So Crowley first tempts Aziraphale with meat and then Aziraphale tempts Crowley with what is widely regarded to be an aphrodisiac. Interesting.

And then chronologically after that, the Arrangement begins to form, which has always reeked of a friends with benefits situation. Just to throw that in there.

It's What Humans Do

In the very first episode, we're shown Gabriel's obvious disgust and bewilderment towards Aziraphale eating sushi, calling it "gross matter" and being proud of the fact that he does not sully his body with it. Aziraphale initially tries to defend his own enjoyment in it, before passing it off as something that humans do, as something he simply has to do in order to blend in (which we know very well is not the case).

He does this again in season 2, passing off Nina and Maggie being in love as "something humans do". But it isn't, is it? Angels are beings of love, and can sense it, and understand very well what it is... up to a point. Even romantic love is obviously within their wheelhouse, given what we now know happened between Gabriel and Beelzebub (we'll come back to them).

What the "humans do" that angels wouldn't understand is messy, physical forms of love.

But here's the thing: Aziraphale and Crowley love doing what the humans do. They love drinking, they (or at least Aziraphale) love eating. They love music. Crowley loves driving and sleeping and watching rom-coms and sitcoms. Aziraphale loves reading and doing magic and earning little licenses and certificates for achievement in his various hobbies. They love to playact at being human so much that they've stopped playacting and started building a genuinely human lifestyle for themselves and with each other.

Once together in an unambiguously romantic sense, why do we think they wouldn't also want to explore one of the most prominent, intimate, powerful human expressions of love and desire with each other?

Angels, Demons, & Asexuality

Here's where I really want to clarify that in no way do I mean that sex is necessary for a healthy, fulfilling, and loving romantic relationship, or that the lack of desire for sex makes you any less human. Asexuality is a sexuality as valid and human as any. What I would say is that it is definitely in the human minority compared to allosexuality.

Angels and demons, on the other hand, are predominately asexual. Sexless/genderless unless Making An Effort. (Which, btw, is a concept introduced as early as the original book; why even bring it up as a possibility? Why not keep angels/demons being sexless/asexual as a hard and fast rule, if not to open up the potential for later use? Chekhov's Effort, if you will. And isn't that something that Aziraphale in particular is shown to do time and time again? He makes an effort in French and driving and magic, doesn't he?)

And this is why I don't believe Aziraphale and Crowley necessarily need to be asexual, narratively. There is already a huge amount of ace rep within the angels and demons (and no, not just the horrible ones. Muriel also doesn't "drink the tea" and has no reason or desire thus far to Make An Effort, and there are certainly other angels and demons who aren't horrible like the archangels seem to be who likely wouldn't Make An Effort either).

The central conflict for Aziraphale and Crowley is that they are on their own side, the ones who went native, the ones who are so different in so many ways from their respective hives. It would make sense for them to also break away from traditional angel/demon asexuality.

I say "traditional angel/demon asexuality", because I would also like to note that I would absolutely not rule out demisexuality for either of them. This post is being written to as a response to people who specifically believe that they (like the rest of the angels/demons seem to be) would be sex-averse in a relationship, and that it wouldn't be a factor in their relationship. I could easily read them as demisexual, but I do think there would be no real way of verifying this, because they've never been able to form as close an emotional relationship with anyone else but each other. Certainly not in heaven, and I can't imagine they would be able to form that kind of attachment with any of the humans, who they love and emulate but ultimately regard as the separate species they are. So yes, they could either be allosexual or demisexual, in my opinion.

Then again, now that I think about it, Making An Effort itself could be a great metaphor for demisexuality, since they would be entirely sexless/asexual until they have enough of an emotional connection with someone to consciously manifest otherwise. Since the other angels and demons don't generally form those types of emotional connections with anyone, there hasn't been a precedent for it.

Except...

Brielzebub

We do have a precedent for it now, don't we? Gabriel and Beelzebub fell in love. They are a direct foil for Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship, speedrunning right through their courtship and finding their happily ever after on the other side of things.

For being such a 1 to 1 comparison, it feels deliberate that they did not kiss. They held hands, they were gooey with each other, but they did not kiss. That feels like such a deliberate thing to omit when you know what's to come at the end of the episode between Crowley and Aziraphale.

And going back to the food = sex metaphor for a moment, let's notice how even as they fell in love over the years, even when pints and crisps were there on the table in front of them, they never felt the desire to reach out for them. They didn't need to. It's a date (love story) even if you aren't eating dinner (sleeping together).

Yes, I know Jim liked hot chocolate. No, I am not counting it because I don't consider Jim and Gabriel to be the same person with the same proclivities, and Jim was highly suggestible at the time anyway.

Gabriel and Brielzebub's big happily ever after moment (as of now) was one between two asexual supernatural beings. They did not need to kiss to drive the point home. They showed what Crowley and Aziraphale could have, if they would only acknowledge it.

Crowley & Aziraphale's Dissatisfaction

But they do have that already, don't they? If you really think about it, what do Gabriel and Beelzebub do with each other that Crowley and Aziraphale don't already? They hold hands, they spend time together, they create little rituals, they give gifts, they're visibly and verbally affectionate with each other, etc. They are more or less already in a romantic asexual marriage relationship with each other, aren't they?

And it doesn't seem to be enough for either of them.

At the beginning of the season, Crowley is immediately shown to be unsatisfied with the way things are. Obviously part of it comes from living in his car, but it seems to be more than that (especially since Aziraphale makes it clear that the bookshop is just as much Crowley's as his, implying that he could have been living there the whole time and is choosing not to, for some reason?). You could argue he's feeling unmoored without Hell telling him what to do, but isn't that what he wanted? Isn't that what he still wants, by the end of the season? All season long, he's never indicated the desire for a new job, or a new project. He stopped the apocalypse because he wanted the freedom to openly spend time with Aziraphale, to spend his time on Earth however he sees fit. Until Gabriel arrives, he has exactly that (minus a flat).

So where does the dissatisfaction come from? And if it represents anything to do with his relationship, what does he want out of it that he isn't getting already?

I think Crowley only really comes to the realisation of what he's missing when Nina names it for him, not only putting them in the category of romantic, but physical (outright asking if they are sleeping together). These two posts [1], [2] go into more detail about what I mean, but I think it really pushes him into acknowledging that their relationship is more human than either of them have stopped to consider, and what that might mean as far as everything a human relationship can entail.

After all, Nina and Maggie only advised that he should talk to Aziraphale, make clear his feelings. The decision to kiss him, to tip them over the edge from nonphysical to physical, that was all him. And no, kissing isn't sex, but I wonder how taboo even that might be in the kind of all-encompassing asexuality most angels seem to identify with. (If they're disgusted by food and drink, I can only imagine what they think of snogging, much less sex.)

Aziraphale doesn't have this moment of someone observing their relationship from the outside. He loves Crowley, and as of 1941 probably even knows he's in love with him in a way that Crowley doesn't understand yet. Which makes sense, since love is technically his job, he'd be more likely to recognise it for what it is.

However, Aziraphale's reference for romance and relationships is Jane Austen. It's chaste. It's dancing and dinner and doing sweet things for each other and roses and candles and handholding. He contextualises his love for Crowley in that soft fantasy sort of way, where it's there, it's obviously there, but it's neat and easy and unspoken. Not to quote Glee in this, the year of our lord 2023, but it's all very "the touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets".

Someone should tell that to Aziraphale's face, then.

I'm not going to pretend I know what Michael Sheen's script notes were, but there were definitely some Choices™ made. Because yes, there were plenty of moments in both seasons with Aziraphale looking at Crowley in a sweet, loving, smitten way. And then there were moments that were yearning.

But yearning for what, exactly? All of those sappy Jane Austen tropes already apply to the two of them. So why are there moments where Aziraphale is looking Crowley up and down like the last eclair in the window and licking his lips and visibly exhaling like he's trying to get in control of himself (see: Bastille scene + Crowley telling Muriel to ask him if they have any other questions about love)? Why is Aziraphale not only unconcerned when Crowley shoves him bodily up against a wall in s1, but staring at his lips and a beat too late in noticing Sister Mary's arrival? Why are some of his lines so suggestive? I'm sorry, but the car ride after the church explosion might as well have been the beginning of a Pizza Man porn with a really weird Blitz theme. If even my mother picked up on that vibe, I can't imagine it wasn't intentional on part of both the dialogue and the delivery.

(This section may feel like more of a reach/joke, but I'm really only 20% joking. These are writers and actors who are EXTREMELY good at their jobs; they know what they were doing here.)

More importantly, I don't think Aziraphale is even aware that there is more to what he wants. He lives in the Jane Austen fantasy and it never even occurs to him that he might be interested in anything further. It never even occurs to him that, as an angel, there is anything further to be interested in in the first place. Until Crowley forces it to occur to him. Just like I believe Nina forced Crowley to confront the idea that romantic love is what he's been feeling all along, I believe Crowley forced Aziraphale to confront the idea that physical intimacy is something he's been wanting, without even realising.

Aziraphale's Hedonism

Expanding on Aziraphale for a moment. We talked about his relationship with food, but we all know that Aziraphale is defined by his love of things that Feel Good.

It isn't just that he and Crowley love human things. Aziraphale loves the best of the best, or at least his version of it. He doesn't just love food, he loves going to fancy restaurants. He doesn't just love clothes, he loves soft, cosy, warm, plush clothes, or shiny, flashy, bougie fashion. He loves the warmth of tea and cocoa, loves getting drunk, and sitting in a comfy chair in the sunlight. He doesn't just experience, he indulges.

Given the emphasis put on things that Aziraphale loves just because they Feel Good, it feels narratively strange to assume that he wouldn't enjoy the feeling of being touched, or that he wouldn't be willing to try it, at least once, with someone he cared very deeply for. And just like the ox rib, I think that once he gets the first taste of things, he would absolutely tip over into complete and utter self-indulgence.

Dancing

I also think that dancing could be construed as a huge metaphor here. After all, we're told flat-out that angels don't Dance. Except one.

I would argue that Aziraphale, in fact, Made An Effort to learn how to Dance. He threw himself into the gavotte with delight (at a Victorian gay club; noted) and worked hard to be good at it. He's chomping at the bit to Dance with Crowley, working up the nerve to ask him with undeniably romantic intent and eagerness. So, angels don't Dance... unless they Make An Effort to do so.

We are told that demons, on the other hand, do Dance, but not well. Makes sense, since they're the ones who would want to encourage a deadly sin like lust, but have as little understanding of human love and physical intimacy as the angels. Crowley, however, is shown to be an excellent dancer at the ball, especially in his compatibility with Aziraphale.

(But Aziraphale WandaVisioned the ball so everyone knew how to dance! Yes, he did. However, the rest of the brainwashing doesn't seem to affect Crowley in any way, and they did actually live through the time period where this sort of dancing was a social norm; I'd be surprised if he never needed to learn. After all, the demons can't spell either, and Crowley is at least functionally literate, as far as we know.)

As of today, it's also been confirmed that when Aziraphale asked Crowley to dance, Crowley replied with "you don't dance." Not "WE don't dance". So going along with the metaphor, Crowley is just now discovering that Dancing is something Aziraphale is interested in at all, much less with him, and not denying that he himself is interested in Dancing. In his defense, I believe he was asleep for a few years while Aziraphale was learning the gavotte, so he wasn't exactly aware of Aziraphale's hot girl summer.

Love Languages

I want to expand on that; Crowley and Aziraphale's compatibility. Specifically in regards to their individual love languages.

We all know Crowley's love language is Acts of Service. I don't think there's any debate there. He loves it, Aziraphale loves it, they're both aware of it, we're all aware of it, God and Satan are aware of it, no surprise there.

You may disagree with me, but I believe Aziraphale's love language is Physical Touch, for a number of reasons. One of which being his aforementioned hedonism. Aziraphale likes things that Feel Good, remember? He likes soft clothes, and well-worn books. Neil himself has said that they like holding hands. And any time he is taken by surprise (Brielzebub getting together, the wave of love in Tadfield, etc.) what is the first thing he does? Reaches out for Crowley. He stops him with a hand to the chest in the pub. He leads him by the hand to the dance floor. He guides him by the waist in the graveyard. He reaches out during the entire Brielzebub scene, whether he can reach Crowley or not. Despite his own turmoil, he grasps at Crowley's back during the kiss.

The one time Crowley reaches out for him (not counting the kiss yet; we'll get there), he is aggressively pushed against a wall (by someone he loves and trusts) with a complete and utter lack of concern (and perhaps some interest, depending on how you read it).

And when he isn't reaching out for anyone, or there isn't anyone to reach out to? Well, he's wringing his own hands together, squeezing his own fingers, as if to find that physical comfort in himself.

So. With that theory in mind, we have Aziraphale (Physical Touch) + Crowley (Acts of Service). Throw in 6000+ years of deep love, cherished companionship, and forcibly repressed longing, and there is a very real potential of this combination resulting in fierce sexual compatibility. Where Aziraphale would want to touch and be touched, to indulge in physical pleasure with someone he adores, in the same the way he indulges in every other fine thing in his life. And where Crowley would want to indulge him in return, to give him everything he wants, and to take pleasure in Aziraphale's pleasure, in the same way he enjoys watching him take joy in food everything else.

So Aziraphale is an angel who is insecure about his own less-than-holy desires, who would want to treat Crowley like a luxury to be touched and cherished and adored. And Crowley is a demon who has, over the millennia, been unhappy about how they've been forced to deny even their friendship with each other, who would want Aziraphale to feel comfortable and safe and encouraged to indulge in earthly delights. That sounds like a stunning recipe for sexual compatibility to me.

"You said 'trust me'" / "And you did"

Just like the Job minisode, the Blitz is RIFE with symbolism (intentional or otherwise). This one will be quick, but I did want to touch on it because I thought it was interesting. Maybe I'm reaching at this point, but I'm assuming you read the tin.

First of all, Crowley not wanting to admit to never firing a gun before; comes off as someone who very much does not want to admit to their crush that they're a virgin ("You must have done this lots of times!" / "Umm.... yyyyyeah.")

(You could make the argument that Aziraphale having a firearms license and a Derringer in a hollowed-out book is symbolic of him not being a virgin while Crowley is. I disagree, for reasons I'll go into later, but it's a valid reading. However, I see it more like keeping a condom in your wallet; it's there in case you need it, but the opportunity has not yet risen no pun intended.)

More importantly, the theme of this entire minisode is trust. We already know they trust each other with their lives against the rest of Heaven, Hell, and the world. But specifically, this is about the importance of having complete trust in your partner in a charged, physically vulnerable, intimate moment, where the only danger is between the two of you.

Aziraphale needs to believe Crowley would never hurt him if he can help it. Crowley needs to trust Aziraphale's unwavering blind faith in him. Frankly, it all feels very symbolic of two people deeply in love losing their respective virginities with each other.

The trick is a success, and they share an intimate candlelit dinner in which they reaffirm their faith in each other. Aziraphale also begins to voice his agreement with Crowley, that maybe Heaven's rules shouldn't have to be as black and white as they are, and that there are benefits to... blurring the lines, shades of grey, wink wink (at which point even my mom was like, whoa guys, this is a family show).

Btw also: Can we all agree how much it looked like Crowley was getting ready to get a lapdance in that one scene? You know the one.

Also also: "Aim for my mouth"? Come on.

The Birds & The Bees

Now that I think of it, there's also something to be said for the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale are both obviously familiar with where babies come from (how they're made and how they're born) while the other angels aren't.

Something something Aziraphale and Crowley fundamentally understand sex and reproduction in a way the other angels (and probably demons) very much do not, nor have any desire to.

Probably not important. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

The Kiss™ & Religious Trauma

The Kiss. Where to even begin?

This has definitely been the hardest one to start, because there is so much going on here that I definitely won't be able to cover it all, and will certainly miss a few things here and there.

Aziraphale's reaction to the kiss afterwards is the most interesting to me. And I don't mean directly after, I don't mean the "I forgive you" part. I mean the way he touches his lips when Crowley is no longer in the room and he no longer needs to save face, when he is completely alone. Had it been directly after the kiss, it would have been rightfully read as horror, or disgust, a shield to discourage further action.

It's not. It isn't just a touch, it's a press. As desperate and angry and unexpected and imperfect as the kiss had been, Aziraphale is pressing it into himself, recreating the feeling as best he can. Beneath all the poor timing and shock and hurt from their fight and fallout, I think it's fair to say that it was something he enjoyed. Something he doesn't think he should enjoy, something that Feels Good that he only allows himself to indulge in when completely alone.

Remember, Aziraphale's idea of love is Jane Austen and gentleness and courtship and fantasy. If he'd ever even considered kissing an option, it might have been gentle pecks, cheek kisses, forehead kiss, hand kisses. Soft, safe, chaste affection.

Crowley's kiss turns all of that on its head. He introduces physical intimacy in a very real, very messy, very human way that I don't think Aziraphale ever even considered could apply to them. Considering what other angels are like and what they look down on, even Aziraphale's Jane Austen fantasies probably would have been considered taboo.

So for their first kiss to be rough and desperate and passionate in the way it was, of course he was confused and in shock. It was deeply physical, and as overwhelming and awful as it was in the moment, it Felt Good. Enough that he grasped at Crowley and kissed back, if only just for a moment, before stopping himself. Enough that he actively pressed it into his lips afterwards, in private, to remember.

I adore how Neil has decided to evolve these characters past the first book/season. More so in this season, Aziraphale and Crowley have both become such interesting allegories for queer people on either side of the spectrum of toxic religion. Aziraphale in particular obviously, because he is the side that so desperately wants to believe, to make a difference, and to unlearn all of the propaganda he's been fed over such a long time. Just like so much of organised religion, there is so much that he is told, time and time again, that he should not want, that he is silly or stupid or outright wrong for wanting. It reminds me so much of the severe Catholic guilt one might feel for wanting/engaging in sex for the first time, and the stigma of being queer layered on top of that.

What is so critical to Aziraphale's character is that he goes on wanting, and more than that, actively pursues. He was convinced to go up against Heaven and Hell and stop all of Armageddon because he wanted to go on listening to music and eating lunch and reading books and enjoying the simple company of the person he cares most deeply for, even if that person is supposed to be the enemy.

All this to say that if angels are as generally asexual/sex-averse as I believe them to be, narratively speaking, it would make sense for Aziraphale to be singular in that regard as well. Mirroring his first experience with food, it would make sense for Crowley to be the one to first introduce this new messy, physical, human dynamic between them, for Aziraphale to hesitate (obviously we are at the Hesitation phase at the moment), and then (eventually) for him to dive in wholeheartedly, to absolutely glut himself on this new thing that Feels Good. It would make sense for his character development to show him overcoming his metaphorical Catholic guilt and pursuing the sexual intimacy most (if not all) of the other angels would scorn.

(I can't help but remember that plot idea Neil described from the unwritten sequel, with Aziraphale in a hotel room trying to watch a full porno by way of the free 2-minute teaser clips so he wasn't technically sinning by paying for it. I so hope this is used in season 3, because gosh, I wonder why Aziraphale would suddenly be so interested in observing human physical intimacy after 6,000 years. Lonely and doing a little surreptitious research there, angel?)

Crowley, on the other hand, is the queer person who has broken free from his toxic religion. He prides himself on being his own person, on their his own side. He doesn't have the hang-ups Aziraphale does. He doesn't worry that he's going to be judged or cast aside for wanting things he's not supposed to. So it only makes sense for him to be the first one to suggest/initiate physical intimacy. It makes sense for him to be the one who "goes too fast" (another fantastic example of this dynamic beginning as early as s1; what is that conversation in the car meant to represent, if not Aziraphale being overwhelmed by the intensity of their relationship, and his fear of succumbing to it when he believes he shouldn't? It's also interesting that this is the first conversation to take place in Soho, just after watching Aziraphale realise he's caught feelings for a demon, with the red glow of lust serving as the backdrop).

Do I think the kiss in and of itself was sexual? No. I think it was a passionate and devastating last-ditch effort on Crowley's part to convey the way he feels for Aziraphale. Not just that he loves him, but that he loves him in the most human way possible. But I do think that the kiss represents how they can move forward from here, and what they might want to explore with each other once they feel free enough to do so.

In Conclusion

I am sure, deep in my bones (unless we are explicitly told otherwise), that this was both of their first kisses no, I'm not counting the gavotte, and that neither of them have ever thought to do anything else physical with the humans while they have been on Earth. Like I said before, they adore the human race and lifestyle in general, but ultimately view them as a separate species altogether, and they seem mostly happy to keep to themselves and each other, unless otherwise necessary. I just can't see either of them being drawn enough to a human to pursue anything close to sex. If Crowley in particular has had anything to do with sex in the context of temptations, I'm positive he would be inciting lust amongst the humans themselves, not involving himself directly. At least not that directly.

So, like every other human experience they've had on Earth, sex is something new that they could explore together, just the two of them, on their own side. A deeply intimate, tangible declaration of their love and everything they've gone through to earn it. A visceral finger to give both Heaven and Hell. A renewed appreciation for their corporations and for each other's. A enjoyable method for immortal beings to simply pass the time in each other's company. A new and exciting way to Feel Good, and all the variations that come with it.

You might agree with this post, or you might not. Whether this is something that is ever addressed or not, it doesn't matter to me. This is a brilliant love story either way, and I genuinely feel so privileged to witness it.

But I just can't find it in myself to imagine, given everything we know about these two characters, that sex isn't an experience they would both consume with wholehearted enthusiasm, curiosity, and profound, ineffable adoration.

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Bonus feature: the very silly notes I made to myself that inspired this post