#favourite character thesis statement. or something

[dykealloy]

Trafalgar Law and Faith

Pre-emptive warning this is going to be another LONG metapost/analysis. There’s a lot I could talk about here but for the sake of structure I’m going to split this into three sections, i.e. the main ‘faith transitions’ that Law has gone through in the narrative thus far: 1. Flevance (catalyst for loss of religious faith), 2. Corasan (martyr that figuratively and literally saves law by giving him something to live for, introducing the will of D.), and 3. Luffy (cementing faith in this new belief system and regaining trust in the goodness of humanity through the living embodiment of everything Corasan believed in).

Before we get into all that though, let’s establish that Christianity is a thing in one piece. Speedrunning through some visual examples that come to mind; the Flevance church and nun (holding a celtic cross - censored in the anime version), a nun literally praying to God right before Marineford, Vinsmoke Sora’s grave marked with a cross (is op Christianity a northern thing?), Usopp and Chopper having crucifixes and holy water whenever ghostly stuff is brought up, Kuma and his trusty bible, the religious symbols on Kikoku’s hilt (could instead be more a reference to the Red Cross/symbol of humanitarian and medical aid as a doctor) and especially in whatever Mihawk’s got going on (though this could just be a Japanese cultural thing with Christianity being a minority religion or Oda just finding that some of the iconography, y’know. looks cool). There are also many other references to other religions e.g. hinduism, shintoism, buddhism, etc. Whether op forms of religion are the same as the real-world ones is debatable, and yes, Law being canonically raised as a devout catholic schoolboy with all the religious trauma associated with that is comical, but let’s take it all unironically for a hot minute. For fun. 

1. Flevance

Law’s birthplace (Flevance) is described as being, at one point, “a very wealthy country with an unearthly beauty about it, with pure white soil and plants, like some kind of snow kingdom in a fairy tale.” The country’s wealth came from the very bedrock it sits on — white lead, which could be used to make various high quality products like tableware, cosmetics, weapons etc. When the wider world heard about this everyone wanted a piece of Flevance (the World Government also getting involved with distribution), and very quickly white lead became a “bottomless well of money”. So, hooray. Law gets to grow up in a rich city in a big house with educated doctor parents and probably gets to go to private school on weekdays and festivals with his family on weekends. One problem. In their greed, the Government and royalty have been knowingly hiding the truth about this supposed goldmine from the beginning. White lead is a toxic poison. Mining it from the ground over the last century and putting it in so many everyday products has resulted in it accumulating in the citizens’ bodies and leading to amber lead sickness, shortening their life-span with each successive generation – with the children of Law’s generation fated to die out before they reach adulthood.

In the bible (especially in the old testament), God often inflicted these insanely disastrous events upon humanity, usually as some kind of punishment for their wrongdoings or as a test of their faith. Some events of which include (but are not limited to): famine, outbreaks of disease and natural disasters (e.g. hail, wildfire, earthquakes, floods). Historically, these stories played a key role in how humanity interpreted meaning from horrible disasters (e.g. assuming bubonic plague was sent as a punishment by god). Fire imagery is very common among these disasters as a representation for hell, which is clearly reflected in the destruction of Flevance.

Sometimes these disasters had sole survivors act as messengers for God. With that context, let’s put ourselves back in the shoes of a ten-year old Law. Raised religious, freshly traumatised from losing his home, his devout family, all the comforts of his life, and having the outside world completely abandon him, this kind of event is likely going to be processed as some form of divine punishment. Law stumbles through hell, finds all his dead classmates, and the last words of sister nun echo through to him here. Merciful and salvation are huge catholic buzzwords – promises of holy compassion, deliverance and hope – and all of it fire and smoke and riddled with bullet holes before him. A genocide funded, perpetuated and covered up by the same body Law was promised was there to save them. And the only reason Law hadn’t died with them was because he wanted to stay with his little sister Lami, who was on her deathbed, and his parents, who were themselves trying to help the afflicted citizens, Law’s own father (before he was shot and killed alongside his mother) begging for more doctors, fresh blood, anything the world can offer, and asking “Why doesn’t the government announce to everyone that white lead is not infectious?”

Oftentimes (and in the case of Law), when there’s a promise of heavenly intervention or some miracle that doesn’t follow through, it results in an ultimate feeling of betrayal and anger. Unfortunately a lot of Catholic teachings also use a lot of guilt, essentially teaching people that the bad things that happen to you are your fault and there needs to be some sort of penance (queue Law’s survivor’s guilt that carries on down the road). But also, if this was supposed to be some divine punishment, for what exactly? For the town being blinded by the incredible wealth they were sitting on? Being lied to? Continuing to extract their livelihood, ignorant of its dangers? Punishment for who? His parents? His innocent little sister? For ten year-old Law? These people who believed in God, who were good people? That’s fucking stupid. None of these people suffered and died for any reason at all — certainly not for a sacred one. God hadn’t saved a single one of them. Law had to crawl out of hell himself by sneaking over the border under a mound of corpses.

Given everything that happened here, Law has every reason to fall into nihilism, and you can see how his upbringing would’ve bred a lot of the feelings of guilt, anger and resentment that you still see in Law (which would suggest that though this is where he likely cuts ties with the religious/Catholic component of his faith, growing up with these teachings in his formative years would definitely influence underlying beliefs about how the world works, and how Law behaves and subconsciously processes information), but at the same time, there’s usually some form of redemption and changes to how these patterns of behaviour can be approached later down the line.

2. Corasan

Fresh off witnessing his whole world burning down around him, Law meets Corazon at the very bottom of this pit of self-destructive rage and unprocessed grief. Rosinante himself mentions to Sengoku that the hatred in Law at this time reminded him of his brother, but beyond the anger, harsh pessimism, vengefulness, I think you have to reach to find similarities between them. You can see some fragments of Doffy in Law down the line at times, with Law seeming to enjoy violence (especially against the navy, but given what they did to Flevance, it’s some well-deserved retribution for Law imo), but I’m not so sure it’s the cruelty so much as it is the high he gets off his own flavour of justice. Doctor’s Hippocratic oath maybe, but never once does Law like seeing others die (even at this point, he’s in tears next to a dead body, even though he’s the one holding the knife), and later on in Wano he makes it explicitly clear to Zoro that he’d rather see the mission fail than have any of them end up dead.  

Little Law wanted to destroy the world and everything in it, but thinking rationally, what other choice did this kid have? He had no remaining family, was doomed to die before he hit puberty due to a terminal illness, was perceived as an infectious subhuman that most doctors would’ve sooner tried to exterminate than help. To Law, the world had turned its back on him – considering him a monster for simply surviving. He has all this hatred and pain boiling away with him with no tangible target to direct it towards. And this is the first clear cut rejection of faith that we see in Law. Any concept of a merciful God had just died. What God would allow this? Why is Law alive (a question that he repeats to himself throughout his life), why are these scumbags alive, why is the world going on spinning as if nothing has happened when his whole world had gone up in flames, why does anyone at all get to be here when everything I loved is gone? And it’s far easier to fall into a despondent nihilistic stupor than it is to work through any of that, and what’s the point in trying to process and move on from it, when there’s no hope for a future for Law anyway? When the only thing waiting ahead is more pain? What was this, if not a punishment? He’s supposed to be some messenger for God? How about fuck God, or whatever entity that exists that made him suffer this. Law’s not going to be a messenger for shit, thanks, he’d rather be their monster, he’d rather watch the world burn.

Corazon survives Law’s stabbing and doesn’t rat the little shit out (to Law’s confusion). It’s business as usual for another two years, then, one day Rosinante overhears his true name - Trafalgar “D” Water Law, and everything changes. On the back of his own beliefs, Rosinante dedicates himself to making sure Law a) lives and b) doesn’t become his brother. Law’s relatively short six month stint with Corasan forms the basis of Law’s new creed going forward, and all it took was a bit of kindness, love and humanity when the rest of the world had abandoned him. In the end Rosinante doesn’t save Law for the will of D. and the storm he’s predicted to bring in the future (as Law suspects), but he certainly believes in it, and the strength of Corasan’s conviction transfers right over to Law when he forces the ope ope fruit down the kid’s throat to heal him, tells Law he loves him, then sacrifices himself to set Law free.

Law clings to that love he was given, he takes all these fundamental teachings and ways of thinking in regards to faith that were drilled into him during his youth, rejects the religion element and applies just about everything else to Corasan. He holds onto the last shreds of what Corasan leaves him with. Corasan becomes his “benefactor” (he gave my my heart), his saviour, his martyr. 

And the crazy thing is, Rosinante was never really this saint Law makes him out to be. Law hated the clutz when they first met (mostly on account of Corazon throwing him through a glass window down at least two stories and into a pile of scrap). Corazon initially showed nothing but contempt for his presence (to ward him and the other children away from the Donquixote family, but these are still extreme measures). And it wasn’t until after learning Law’s name that Rosinante dragged him kicking, crying and screaming from hospital to burning hospital (not very saintlike in of itself), even after Law begged him to stop. Rosinante became Law’s saviour partly because of his belief in the will of D., and probably due to some guilt being a Donquixote, but mostly because he has always had a bleeding heart and he pitied (and had very quickly come to love) this angry, sick, deeply lost little kid. All this to say that Law’s faith in Corasan – this saintlike figure Law upholds him as in the future and the lengths he’s willing to go to avenge him/fulfil Rosinante’s purpose reflects the strength of the absolute beliefs Law would’ve been raised with in regards to God.  

Whether it be out of survivor’s guilt (just one more body to heap on top of the Flevance pile), his love for Corasan, or for the sake of taking vengeance on the man that took away the one good thing he’d been able to regain in his miserable life, Law adopts Corasan’s will, the will of D. (which in of itself seems divine in nature), incorporates it into his new belief system, actively takes on the role of the divine punisher/justiciar and dedicates his life to bringing down Doflamingo.

3. Luffy

Catholicism dictates that the entirety of someone’s beliefs should be dedicated to one true cause (that cause being God) and expects people to ride on that, letting it carry them through life, give them hope, purpose, etc. But a lot of former Catholics choose instead to find that through something else. Corasan ignited the spark in Law’s faith around the will of D., but it’s not until he meets Luffy that this really becomes something that feels tangible and real for Law.

When Law saved Luffy in Marineford (putting the heart crew in danger for a stranger he met once), he said he did so “on a whim”, but that seems incredibly ooc for Law — this man that pretty much planned out how the rest of his life would go after the dust of Corasan’s death settled and he came to terms with the fact he wasn’t going to die at age thirteen like he’d originally thought. Circling back to the concept of Law being a sole survivor/messenger for God, it is interesting that Law is the one to seek out Luffy (given that Luffy is usually always the one either being abandoned by people or recruiting his crewmates), and Law is ultimately the catalyst for pulling him towards Dressrosa and Wano. There must be a REASON that led to Law deciding Luffy to be the most viable option out of the Worst Generation for an alliance (beyond blind trust in an unhinged captain that just so happens to also bear the initial D, and Luffy being one of the few captains crazy enough to go along with what Law was cooking up). 

Law undoubtedly would’ve kept a peripheral eye on Luffy for some time before officially meeting him due to him being a rising competitor pirate and another “D” (I imagine the news of his utterly insane exploits would’ve made good reading material, too). The first time Law lays eyes on Luffy in Sabaody though, he still blows all expectations out of the water — crashing headfirst into the crowd of a slave auction and immediately committing a felony against a member of the most powerful upper one percent.

The world nobles are at an “untouchable God” tier in terms of class standing and believe it’s only natural for them to be entitled to whatever and whoever they want in this world that’s beneath them – the same kind of self-aggrandizing false divinity that Law has a a lot of repressed rage towards and that the will of D. is fated to oppose, so this, understandably, is a highly compelling first encounter, but it’s really only an initiating factor for what ultimately draws Law to Luffy. From their very first meeting (and probably before then, in the news stories and rumours Law likely picked up on), it’s made abundantly clear that Luffy does what he wants without a second’s hesitation, no matter the consequences, simply because he feels it is the right thing to do. Some call this an iron will, Law would be more inclined to call it willful stupidity and trouble, but time after time Luffy somehow manages to pull off what Law would best describe as “miracles”. And Law believes the straw hats just might be the ones to drum up another one for him.

Luffy’s also got a lot of passing resemblances to Corasan going for him, e.g. inherently kind, compassionate liberators with big dumb hearts and wide goofy smiles in spite of everything they’ve been through, treating Law as nakama and saving his life despite his protests etc. All of which I’m sure Law hasn’t been completely unaffected by despite the high walls he puts up. And the more Law learned about Luffy the more it probably became clear that he is the antithesis to Doflamingo, i.e. what makes Luffy so goddamn dangerous and terrifying beyond his physical power is his ability to make friends with a simple kind of unconditional love that gets reciprocated enough so that these friends are willing to die for him.

Luffy agrees to the alliance, they successfully blow up Caesar’s base, and head off to Dressrosa. Now’s the time I should bring up that it’s taught in Catholicism that self sacrifice is the ultimate heavenly deed, and here Law is undoubtedly prepared to be a martyr for his cause. Law sends away his crew to Zou before Punk Hazard with the expectations that he’d never see them. He cultivates a fierce emotional detachment against Luffy’s willingness to bring him into the fold of the straw hats, and is resolute in that when the time comes, he will handle this himself, he will carry out Corasan’s will, and if he has to die for it, he will die with Corazon’s name plastered on his back. (Note here that Christianity is contradictory in that Law being this ready to die here is a sin, because revenge and suicide are highly discouraged, so you could say that by avenging and dying for his saviour, Law would be committing both the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate sin).  

Things get very dicey for Law in Dressrosa, to put it lightly. Doflamingo reveals that he was a celestial dragon (linking back into the will of D. “enemy of the Gods” notion), puts Law on the backfoot and gives him a thorough beating before shooting Law with a couple dozen white lead bullets in front of Luffy (because even when he’s winning Doffy loves to be a cunt about it). By the time Doflamingo is cuffing Law to the heart seat, it’s all looking pretty grim, and it’s very apparent when Luffy shows up to save him, that he is ready to die. 

Law here has given up. He spent years planning his revenge for Corasan, but he lost, and he has very little left in the tank (physically, emotionally, spiritually). But Luffy doesn’t listen. Luffy who doesn’t think, doesn’t care, who trampled all over Law’s carefully laid out plan from the get-go and who is willing to take on Doflamingo single handedly for the simple slight that he dared to harm Luffy’s friend Law. Law will never find peace in his own demise because Luffy doesn’t do peaceful. He does loud and unashamed and open with no rhyme or reason other than the excruciatingly simply fact that he loves people and he thinks the people he loves deserve to have good lives. Luffy chucks Law over his shoulder and drags an injured Law across the city despite his protests (sound familiar?) and in the process inspires the fighting spirit in Law again.

When Law confronts Doflamingo again with Luffy in tow, Law’s faith in Luffy confounds him. The last Doflamingo remembers of Law is this beautifully moldable dark pit of grief and rage who’d given up on believing, period – who wanted the world destroyed. Not so long ago, Law had been a candidate for Doflamingo’s next protégé. Now?

THIS is the action (grinning, staring down the barrel of a gun, flipping Doffy off as he tells him in not so many words that he may kill Law but he will never beat Luffy), Law’s unshakeable faith in the face of his own death is what has Doflamingo realising he will never regain control of Law again – is what incites Doflamingo to go from breaking Law down so he can build him back up again, to conceding defeat and outright killing him. 

The trust that Luffy inspires in Law and the way he talks about Luffy (Luffy being this powerful, miracle-inducing liberator that Law can’t comprehend but follows anyway, Law laying down his hopes on him, weaponizing the will of D. to try and provoke fear from Doffy), is very reminiscent of the awe and faith talked about in scripture. Law discovers the feelings of comfort and hope that Catholicism was supposed to give him in Luffy, but Law’s belief in Luffy is a direct rejection of those teachings. Rejection by believing in a real life person as opposed to the divinity he was taught about. He’s also cementing his belief in the will of D., thus rejecting Doflamingo and all the people that embody the sort of “all powerful” divinity that he abhors (i.e. celestial dragons, Kaido, the Gorōsei/five elders) for the embodiment of hope and humanity. 

When Law survives (again), he expresses he’d rather see Luffy beat Doflamingo with his own eyes or die with Luffy if he loses than leave. Then he watches, after all this talk of miracles, looking up in reverence as Luffy delivers, bright as the sun, haloed by the bars of a cage that’s haunted him for over a decade, Corasan’s words echoing at the back of his mind. God had never saved or freed Law, but Corasan was there for him, the heart crew was there, Luffy was there. And this is Law’s biggest, clearest rejection of religion – this newfound faith in humanity. 

This faith in Luffy is put to the test again in Wano when Luffy is struck down by Kaido, but Law never truly stops believing that he’ll make a comeback. Even when the straw hats doubt whether he’s alive or not, something tells him Luffy’s not dead, and he holds onto that hope. 

We also have the whole nika/joyboy backstory which really only reinforces all of this imagery/god-fearing looks of awe from Law and this idea of Luffy who is this perfect juxtaposition of empathetic and kind to incredibly fearsome fire and brimstone fighter. And regardless of whether you’re into the ship or not this is the impetus of Law’s relationship with Luffy for me, because here’s Luffy who has every right to have a chip on his shoulder and be downtrodden about all the injustices against him, here’s this little guy who against all odds, in the darkest of places, embodies light and hope and kindness and proves to Law that there will be hard times but there IS a happy ending at the end of the tunnel, despite it all. And everytime Luffy rises to the insurmountable challenge and wins, it just further cements that the will of D. is alive, that Corasan was right, that there's something redeemable in Law, a reason why he was worth saving, even if Law doesn’t understand it quite yet. 

[jumpscaregoose]

tss is kind of a weird manga if you think about it. I've been doing that a lot

its main goal is to be a sequel to flowers, and in that a sequel to the original shaman king, but then you read it and that's. really just the tip of the iceberg. tss is already a confusing, messy story if you know what it's doing, but if you go into it only having read og shaman king and flowers (like I did the first time around) you are going to be so lost

takei has this habit of reusing characters and concepts in his work, he's been doing it literally since the beginning. if we're counting each one separately (including alumi), he's written five anna the itakos. the anna that shows up in butsu zone is almost identical to anna from the original oneshot. he does this reduce reuse recycle thing in shaman king too, most obviously with anna and gandhara. and of course this continues into the mainline sequels.

flowers is interesting in comparison to tss, because it is a shaman king sequel in the way you'd expect. it repeats many of the same characters and plot beats as the original (apathetic main character, itako no anna fiance, edgy rival with a goth older sister). hana even mentions a few times that he doesn't want to relive the same beats as his father. compared to tss, the prior work flowers draws on the most is shaman king. for a few chapters. because then we get yahabe.

yahabe is probably the cleanest copy paste into the shaman king universe, excluding butsu zone. it was a oneshot that wrapped itself up after clearly defining its premise while leaving room for the story to continue. except, instead of this continuation being a full yahabe serialization, we just get yosuke in shaman king. yahabe!yosuke and mankin!yosuke could exist on the same timeline, and with how the flowers anime reuses shots from the yahabe manga and ova, that feels like what's supposed to be canon. any deviations from the shaman king canon in yahabe itself can easily be explained away by yahabe being from yosuke's perspective as a non-shaman who doesn't know what the hell is going on. he integrates so cleanly into flowers I didn't even know he was from something else until earlier this year. the same thing applies to death zero, because I fully forgot that was a different thing while writing this.

so flowers has shaman king, and yahabe, and death zero, and it sets up the main plot. and then there's tss.

tss is completely incomprehensible if you haven't done at least 30 chapters of external reading.

or, it's comprehensible, but it's also bad. the reading experience is made so much worse if, for example, you haven't read ultimo and don't know how terrifying not-stan lee actually is. or how important the themes of ultimo are to tss itself. ultimo is a conversation on the objectivity of good and evil, in the same way tss is a battle of ideologies between gods. if you haven't read ultimo, the dong family comes out of absolute nowhere and make even less sense then they do with context.

and then there's senju. the page where senju, when asked what he's learned on his 40 (20 in real actual life) year journey, smiles and says he "can't save people after all" is probably my favourite moment in anything takei's ever written. the weight of that statement means nothing to the reader who's only come from shaman king, because the senju we see in shaman king is sati saigan's spirit ally and nothing else. "I can't save people after all" is an answer to the main thesis of butsu zone, an answer given decades after that manga was cancelled to a collection of readers who might not even know what that is. it's an impactful moment if you've read butsu zone, if you know how it was cut short before takei could take the story where he wanted, if you know the creator has been writing about the same things, about the state of the world and doing what's right and how there are no bad people who can see ghosts, for decades. it makes you think about the thing you're currently reading, the sequel to the one story that author told that made it, that got to say its piece.

because takei's work is kind of cursed. his manga are frequently cancelled, his oneshots never picked up for serialization. the magazines his sequels run in getting cancelled themselves, leaving his stories in limbo. even shaman king, his most successful work, only got its true ending years after it concluded. there is so much in takei's work that has gone unsaid.

when senju stands in front of daremoine and says he can't save people, it's satisfying. it may have been what takei set out to write in 1997, or maybe it was something he thought of in the years between, but either way. this is the ending of butsu zone. this is how its theme's conclude. in the sequel to the sequel of a manga from which its original protagonist was a side character, and underdeveloped plotline. and when you've read butsu zone, it feels good, it feels complete. it hits you like a ton of bricks

this is why I think flowers and super star lose people. because they aren't sequels to shaman king. they're sequels to everything takei has ever written.

to get the most out of super star, you need to have read not only shaman king and its spinoffs, not only flowers, but butsu zone and ultimo and yahabe. hell, to understand shaman king you need to have read mappa douji, or the entire ending falls flat on its face

if you lean into it, this creates an interconnectedness to takei's work, a sense that what you're reading right now is a part of something bigger. whatever is being contemplated currently ties into a much larger conversation about society and morality spanning one man's entire career.

if you don't, you get... a bunch of messy stories. tss makes no bloody sense half the time. ultimo is insane enough on its own, and you're supposed to keep track of that and all the little changes that fit it into this timeline? not to mention the flaws in takei's writing itself, how he tends to pace things weird and leave gaps in his stories, all of it makes tss specifically pretty inaccessible to the average reader.

what is there to take away from this?

I'm not sure, really. I love tss, a lot actually. I enjoy the sense of discovery that comes with engaging in this twisted knot of a story. I think that if you tried to read tss with only shaman king and were frustrated, you should check out yahabe and ultimo and especially butsu zone and try again. you might still think it's a mess, but I think it's worth it to see if that's what lost you

but I know that's also a big ask, that's over 80 chapters of manga to read just to have the backstory for the insane stuff in tss. not everyone's up for that, and that's fair

do I think tss would be more accessible if it only drew from shaman king? yes. do I think it would have been better?

no

[catboy-beckett]

One Internet Lady's Beef With Ray After Ending

Ray's route was by far my favourite route in Mystic Messenger and it's not even close. And then I paid 300 hourglasses for his After Ending, and... I had some problems with it. But I want to talk about one thing in particular that isn't necessarily an issue for everyone (and that not everyone will even agree is true) and explain why it gets under my skin. So here's my thesis statement/topic sentence/whatever you'd call it: I hate that the ending scene implies MC is dating Saeran and Saeyoung at the same time.

Now, I know this is some people's fantasy, and that's fine. I've seen enough MysMes discourse that basically boils down to "ewww why would anyone find this sexy/aspirational?" and while that's also a fine way to feel, including about stuff I like, it is not genuine criticism. There are plenty of aspects of the game that I'm not into and I just roll my eyes and ignore it. It's for someone else, not me, and that's fine. I didn't harp on this point to anyone before because I thought it might just be my personal preference. Maybe I was just disappointed that the ultimate ending for my favourite character and my favourite route didn't end up appealing to me.

But the more I think about it, the more I do think I have a genuine complaint, so come on this journey with me and decide for yourself whether I'm right or just biased~

Part 1: Am I interpreting this right?

I expect that not everyone will agree with me that the intended implication of this scene is MC dating both twins, so if you disagree there, that's fine. I still think a lot of my points line up regardless. But I do very much think they're supposed to all be dating (with room left for plausible deniability for people who don't like that premise).

Some of the dialogue feels romantic (the "we love you"/"And I especially love you" comes up in response to choosing the "Eat well!" dialogue option) and I would argue that if Saeyoung isn't part of the relationship, he's being massively oblivious to how hard he's third-wheeling here, but honestly the dialogue isn't the part I'm side-eyeing in the first place. I can come up with a platonic explanation for why Saeyoung is asking me if I've "dreamed about this from the beginning" but I have a much harder time explaining why he's sitting with me instead of his brother, or why he's holding a bouquet (flower symbolism sure, but why are they in a bouquet??), and frankly I don't think if I showed this CG to someone who didn't know anything about the game that they'd be able to identify which character the girl in the middle is dating.

Part 2: Spoilers for 2020 Unknown Birthday DLC (and Secret Story, but I assume you would already be prepared for that.)

Before I ever got to Ray After Ending, I bought every minor holiday/event DLC that had him in it. THIS one however, embedded itself in my brain. It kind of even ruined the Secret Story ending for me. Let me explain.

In this DLC, it is implied that MC is dating Saeyoung, and they do not know who Unknown is but somehow know he and Saeyoung have the same birthday. MC is bringing some of Saeyoung's birthday cake to Unknown as a gift/peace offering, and it is further implied that Unknown has a crush on MC. (Prior to the screenshots seen here, Unknown is very hostile to the RFA and hesitant to accept their offerings to include him in the celebration, but quickly changes his mind when he hears that MC will be the one making the delivery.)

Now, Unknown/Saeran/Ray has been my favourite character since back in Casual Story when I didn't even know his other names. Seeing him pining fruitlessly always breaks my heart. But there was something newly bothersome about the implication that he has feelings for her even in Saeyoung's route. It made me look at the Secret Story ending CG in a new way.

Look at Saeran here. He looks shy, isolated from everyone else, and a little miserable. Once again, he's not sitting with Saeyoung, but he's not close to MC either. He sits facing away from everyone else, with no one looking at him. When I first saw this, it still felt positive for him--he's recovering, after all! He's just not the focus here because this is after all, Saeyoung's ending. But after I saw that birthday DLC, I began to look at this with the assumption that Saeran has feelings for the girl sitting next to him, the one with his brother's arm around her, and she will most likely never even know. What a bittersweet-at-best ending for Saeran.

And then, much later, I saw the CG for Ray's Good Ending.

...and I couldn't help but think: how dare you. How DARE Saeyoung get to be happy and close to MC in both endings, while Saeran only gets one? How dare Saeyoung not even be a little shy about butting in to his brother's relationship? Even if you take the "awkward third wheel" interpretation, why is he inserting himself into Saeran's moment with his girlfriend? Does Saeran not get one thing for himself?

If Secret Story had ended with a similar throuple situation, it would feel less pointed. I realize that there are metanarrative reasons behind them being different (Secret Story was released long before Ray AE, Ray AE is supposed to be one of the definitive endings and therefore needs to be a more "perfect" outcome, etc.), but this doesn't change the fact that we ended up with "you can date Saeyoung or you can date Saeran AND Saeyoung", which makes it seem like Saeran isn't good enough on his own.

And he's my fucking favourite.

[focusfixated]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

thank you for this! i think my favourite fics i've written are the ones that are basically like. my thesis statement. if you ask me about these characters, i will slide you one of these fics and say: here's my dissertation on the subject. everything you need to know about how i feel is in there.

can't get a life (if my heart's not in it)

libertines rpf | peter/carl | M | 20.9k

When Peter came to London, Carl was waiting for him under the hanging clock in the middle of Waterloo station. It had been romantic, in the way that Peter saw all their meetings as a little romantic – a song in the making, all Terry meets Julie and a sunset over the river. Or: the early days of Peter & Carl's love affair with London - and each other.

note: i wrote this one during my first year moving to london. inhabiting this story with these people and their music helped me settle there. this was also my way of taking every insanely romantic and toxic thing peter and carl did or felt about each other in those early years and weaving it into one point of reference.

on the wings of a nightingale

good omens | aziraphale/crowley | E | 11.1k

Aziraphale liked his body. He liked the shape of it, the way it moved and touched the world, a type of sensory feedback that made him understand the shape and extent of his corporation. Like he wasn’t just an ephemeral vessel. Like he was flesh. Or: Aziraphale gets a tattoo. Crowley is an accessory to this crime against good sense. Everyone’s kinks are very poorly disguised.

note: i think this is the one where i really got to grips with my authorial obsession with bodies, embodiment, sensation as existence. it's probably one of the most personal things i've written, too, in terms of its dissection of touch, and espousing thoughts on faith as tangible feeling vs abstract thought. this is the aziraphale that exists in everything else i've written in this fandom.

i hope i find my home

it chapter 2 | richie/eddie | E | 53k

The peak of summer is long gone, if it ever came, but the funk of stagnant air still hangs low over the suburban streets. Richie Tozier – sallow-skinned and puffy-eyed, wearing a too-small denim jacket that smells of sweat and mildew – hasn’t slept in several days, and he's trying to remember how he got here in the first place. Or: Coming back to Derry, Richie hadn't expected to live. Eddie hadn’t expected to die. In the aftermath of Neibolt, they’re both confronted by another shot at life.

note: possibly actually my favourite thing i've ever written out of all of these. features this ongoing obsession with bodies, though this is from a more confrontational perspective than the good omens one - there's an element of body horror, a sense of fear and discomfort about the body, and grapples with embodied repression. took me two years to write this one. it was a labour of love and hard work, and a proof of my commitment to getting this story about survival and recovery told.

le temps qu'il faut

disco elysium | harry/kim | T | 5k

Snow blows in from the east. It falls on Martinaise, thickening the frigid air like cornstarch, thick enough to chew on. Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi stands – quiet, watchful, an oddity placed at the centre of a racket – collar turned up against the weather. Or: winter is tough and so is Kim, but a lot can change in ten days.

note: a story where i feel like i got the closest to capturing the mood of the original media. it was such a fucking pleasure to write something that was almost pure atmosphere. felt right that the poetry came out of this cold and battered landscape, and really solidified my interest in capturing environments. (who needs plot when there are buildings and lakes covered in snow).

when we fight about love

our flag means death | multi | E | 41.2k

Bonnet took a dainty sip of rum, then put the mug down with a fussy finality. “Look, I’m not interested in deals and riches and who gets what from who. I want to find Ed, that’s it. You’ll come with us, and you’ll guide us to the Revenge, and when we’re done, you can have my other ship to do with what you like. Sell it, sail away, set it on fire, I don’t care. Do we have an accord?” Bonnet held out a hand. His nails were ragged, and there were blisters on his fingers. Somehow, he still smelled of lavender. With all the recalcitrance of reaching towards an open flame, Izzy shook it. (Or: after brokering an uneasy peace, Izzy Hands, Stede Bonnet and the rest of the Revenge’s depleted crew are thrown together for a mission: find Edward, snap him out of his terrible madness, and then – and then.)

note: this is the one. the story that sums it all up. "how do you feel about izzy? what do you think was going on with him? how would a coherent version of him, flaws and all, realistically interact with the people most important to him during this time?" well: like this. focuses on repression, again, a key theme for me. though the repression here is not just physical, but mental, too. this was an exercise in finding a way to present a dislikeable, misguided, unreliable narrator as a point of view character and still finding meaning and empathy in his perspective. one of the most satisfying things i've ever written.

[enlitment]

Just finished Voltaire's Candide! (shout-out to @chaotic-history for the... vicarious recommendation? Recommendation by proxy?)

It was overall a very fun read and it had a great message and the end!

The beginning especially was certainly much more... graphic than I would have expected, with all the corpses and guts everywhere and the stuff constantly happening to all the female characters and... if I took a shot every time Candide got beat up I'd be dead... Once it got to the travelling it got really exciting though!

The pacing especially was great, things were happening so fast that it was almost impossible to get bored at any point. Lots of parts were also just laugh-out-loud funny. Voltaire had no chill whatsoever and I was there for it!

Some of my favourite bits, in no particular order:

The footnotes!! My edition had a lot of things explained, but most of it was just an itemised list of people Voltaire seemed to have a beef with, explaining why and how he mocks them in Candide. Case in point:

2. Everyone constantly running into each other even though they've travelled all over the world was really funny imo. Also the supposedly dead characters appearing in weird places. It was so ridiculous! I loved it.

3. Candide stroking the sheep (my footnotes said that it was probably a llama!) was just so wholesome? After having been through so much, the idea of him just hanging out on a ship, stroking a llama is just... 🥺 I need a drawing of that, asap.

4. Martin! Have I mentioned how much I love Martin? Martin is the absolute best. God I love Martin.

He had them arrested on the spot and told his men to escort them to prison. "I'm more Manichean than ever," said Martin.

idk why but this may be my favourite line, it's so dry, I adore it. I kind of want to use the line next time something bad happens.

5. I'm not sure how exactly to interpret it but I think that by having his characters choosing not to stay in El Dorado (basically this perfect utopian paradise of place where they could live in perfect comfort forever if they wanted to), V. points out something interesting about human nature.

I'd totally believe that we as humans are inclined to be always striving for something greater and don't actually want to be perfectly content... idk how to explain it properly. But, with the ending aside, it was one of the most philosophically interesting parts of the book for me.

6. The ending! I was really worried that it's just not going to have a happy ending at all, which I guess would serve to further emphasise how misguided Candide's genuine attempt at & Pangloss' faux optimism is.

But in the end, I was really glad that things turned out reasonably well for my precious meow--- for the characters because I really did care about them by the end and wanted them to be happy.

And let's be honest - the above is a solid thesis statement. Even better that it's essentially coming from a philosopher.

Kind of aligns with my bc thesis as well, a bit? I've sort of came to the conclusion that too much introspection and reasoning for reasoning's sake is just simply not good for our well-being (at least according to my guy™).

TL;DR: be right back. Gotta work on my garden and enjoy some candied lemon peels!

Bonus- literally just a funny paragraph roasting critics & Pangloss

[gen-is-gone]

Just re-read Urban Fantasy Heartbreaker. I really like how the boys still fight, even when they're trying; it feels much more in character than having them instantly make up. And I like how you haven't made any one of them a perfect angel; they're all jerks and they're all at fault. Might be my favourite of the "ford doesn't go through the portal" fics I've read tbh. I'd be very excited to read another chapter someday if you feel up to it

;_; This ask is so lovely, thank you. I've been really considering turning anons off until the current spate of spammers dies down, but this is a good reason to keep them open. <3<3<3 Thank you so so so much!

I've really intended for UFH to be something of a characterization thesis statement/rumination, the conclusion of which is basically: all three of these fuckers have a lot of shit going on, a lot of trauma, and absolutely terrible coping mechanisms and negative communications skills. They all fuck up, to a greater or lesser degree, but they're all just desperately trying. Good intentions aren't always enough to stop things from breaking, but nor does that mean things aren't worth fixing.

I promise I am still very much working on it, as slow as progress might be. I'm almost done with chapter three, and my hope is that things will get a little easier afterward, though I can't guarantee I'll be able to put chapters out with the speed I did in December thru February, just because Life Stuff (vocational awe will kill you, folks, nobody should be as married to the job as I am) has been getting in the way, and will continue to. But I want to reassure you and anyone else following me for the fic that it's very much not abandoned, and it's planned out through the end, which should be about six more chapters. Thank you and everybody else for being so patient with me; I've been so blown away by all the responses to it.

[tartagliad]

Phases of Love

Summary: what are the phases and feelings that both of you went through together

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Character: Alhaitham

Genre: Romance + music reference

F reader! (Vahumana student)

Warnings: VERY LONG FROM WHAT I HAVE ANTICIPATED- HSHSHSHSVS, unedited.. I immediately post this-

(a/n: This song is so HEVEGEGWVVCA- this is my all-time favourite frrr! but after a while, I realised that.. it kinda sounds like what Alhaitham felt when he fell in love- idk but that's me- and the lyrics.. BRO- sgvbsvge.. so yeah- that came from this one SINGULAR song-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now playing: Something - The Beatles

First Meeting

"Something in the way she moves, Attracts me like no other lover"

You two met at the Akademiya, where you being younger than him

At the time, you two are still scholars. Him as a Haravatat student, and you as a Vahumana student

And how you two met? both of you were assigned as partners for a research project together

Truth to be told, Alhaitham wasn't a fan of working with others

Since he tends to be alone at times and the others don't even dare to come to him, you have no choice but to approach him

He will always be found at the library, burying himself in stacks of books

"Hey.." you greet him, slightly nervous.. putting down your books across him

"Hello." he answered simply, not peeling his eyes a bit from the book he read, you tried again, "so, about the project.. I was hoping you could help me with this.." you push the papers towards him and he glance at it

"well, it's fairly simple.." he starts to explain it to you, to your surprise.. Alhaitham helps you..

Guess that's a false statement about him not wanting to help

Mid way of him explaining, something runs inside your head.. was he always this charismatic..?

Finally snapping out, you then focused on him.. to your enjoyment, he was actually fun to talk with

Fun as in, interesting, he also felt the same, he never talked this much to other people

You two kept going and talked about the project, until it's almost sunset

"Ah.. I have to leave now, thanks for your help" you gave him a smile and he nodded

Alhaitham can't help but freeze a little, your smile.. his chest swells up, making him overwhelmed a bit

Confused, you snapped your fingers in front of him, "uh.. Alhaitham, are you okay..?" you asked, he then got pulled out from his head

He gave you a quick nod, "I'm fine.. and no problem, anytime." he looks at you

You gave him a little wave before walking away

He stayed for a bit before he went back home, his thoughts were racing.. especially his heart..

".. What is this..? I.. want to know about it.."

Hangouts and Realisation

"Something in the way she woos me"

As time passed, not only meeting each other for projects, you two also met casually, like for lunch or have a talk

To his surprised, every minute that he spent with you is like a dream

Talking to people usually wastes his time and energy, but you're an exception

You two are there for each other, even when the two of you are in your thesis defense

It felt like he was completed, his world felt brighter after meeting you

Something about you makes him feel alive..

Your presence is what he's living for :)

As time passes, Alhaitham can't help but.. realised that he had fallen in love with you

He now tries to find ways for the two of you to meet more and more often. Just so he could see you

Even if it's just a small encounter at the hallways of the Akademiya or have lunch together

"Are you free tomorrow? If you are, wanna go to the park in the afternoon?"

Confession

"I don't want to leave her now. You know I believe and how"

One day, he decided to confessed to you

The feeling that swells in his chest is started to feel overwhelmed now

He plans out what he's gonna do, where and what to bring to you

Since you were fine with anything and okay with anything simple, he decided to confess while you two are out on a picnic on the hill near Sumeru City

Since you're free for today, he decided to do it today

When the time comes, he makes sure the scenery is beautiful and the atmosphere is perfect

When you arrived, he was already there waiting for you. Alhaitham had a warm smile on his face ((something he rarely does when seeing people))

The food was already on the blanket with some flowers and books to read.

You smiled at him, and he pat the space beside him, gesturing you to sat beside him, and you did

After having a small chat, he then finally confessed to you. "uhm.. I have something to tell you.." he said and you looked at him, curiosity filled your eyes.

"what is it, Haitham..?" you asked. He took a deep breath and look into your eyes, "..I like you.. really.. even.. it's.. more than that.." he said and she freezed in shock.

Although Alhaitham is prepared if you refused him, but he was caught off guard by your answer, "..I.. I feel the same.." you trailed off

That made him extremely happy, he then take your hand and kissed your palm gently. It made your heart leaped

You're now his girlfriend, and he's your boyfriend. Both of you blushed and spent the rest of the night and the rest of the days together with him

"I'm happy that you also feel the same.. I love you.."

Relationship & Escalation

"You're asking me will my love grow. I don't know, I don't know"

You two are living together now. Having a comfy home for only the two of you

Spending the time together in the midst of the two of you working at the Akademiya

Alhaitham really values his time with you, although you two are aware that you're loving together now

He loves to just hold you. The feel of you in his arms made him happy, and he felt replenished

Always loved it when you gave him small kisses. It makes his heart go fuzzy

That's for when he's your boyfriend, how about when he's now you're husband?? ;)

Ohoho, he became so affectionate after the day you two got married

Nothing much changed, other than he's more touchy and caring for you (in private, of course)

The reality that you're now his forever makes him happy

Time passes, and his love just keeps growing for you

Just seeing you doing your normal things can make him fall in love all over again

He can get dazed just by looking at her. You then looked back at him and he didn't hide the fact that he's staring at you in a loving way

You would chuckle and ask him why is he staring at you

He can't help but kissed your face and peck your lips

You really are the person that he wants to spend until both of you are up in the sky <3

"Nothing.. you're just so beautiful.. my love.."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(I'm back- I'm sorry for being gone for so long.. college hits hard and I always got writers block. I'm trying to write if I have the time.. :) Have a great day!)

[greetings-inferiors]

This is basically a thesis statement against the argument that Bridget being a girl goes against her character development. And is also something a lot of people struggle to comprehend. Yes, Bridget was forced to be a girl from birth. That sucks! But being a boy wasn't for her either. She wants to be a girl but in her own way, on her own terms. That's not "walking back character development", that is INCREDIBLE emotional maturity not found amongst most people.

A similar thing happens in persona 4. A LOT of people dislike Yukiko's social link for similarly "walking back" her character development. Her shadow reveals that she doesn't want the responsibility thrust upon her by her parents' inn, and so the early part of her social link is trying to break away from that responsibility. But that isn't right for her either. She DOES want to run the inn, but she wants to not by force, but because she has a choice to. And she wants to do it her way.

This is something I think a lot of people struggle to comprehend? But I see it a lot in my life. I'm trans myself, and while I don't have the same circumstances as Bridget, I have tried crossdressing and drag before, but it didn't feel right. I want to do femininity my way, and not as a performance, but as an actual woman. Yes I could just wear dresses and skirts and makeup as a boy. But that just doesn't work for me. Just like Bridget. I loved shakespeare and reading growing up, but couldn't stand studying Macbeth for my English GCSE. That doesn't mean I'm regressing as a person, it means I want to read it in my own time and enjoy it my way. Macbeth is literally my favourite shakespeare play!! And as a mathematician, I see so many people convinced that they hate mathematics due to it being forced upon them as a student wide eyed with wonder when I help them understand an interesting bit of mathematics. They would love maths if they got to do it their own way!

People love doing stuff, but they don't like being forced to do things. This is why freedom of choice is so important. Even if they would do the thing you were going to force them to do anyway. It just makes someone happier to do things on their own terms.

its so unbelievably important to me that this scene exists

[viscountessevie]

The ‘Whites’ Who Loved Me: Interracial Romance, Hollywood, and Bridgerton’s “Post-Racial” Fantasies

Written By Tré Ventour-Griffiths

Public Historian-Essayist | Poet | Speaker: race, whiteness, Black History, dyspraxia/autism and more

[Took me a couple days to write this up but we finally did it so enjoy reading yall!]

This article was sent to me and our group by Lav @sweetestviscount​ and it pretty much hits the nail on why POC fans - especially Black and Brown fans - of the show who came for the diversity and the respective seasons that repped their communities are so disappointed with the way these characters have been treated. I urge everyone to go read the whole article in full! It’s well-structured, very comprehensive with his sources cited and linked, drops a lot of great truth bombs in the most subtle yet blunt manner that had me gasping so many times because HE IS RIGHT!

Anyways click under the cut only once you’ve read the whole essay and enjoy these highlights and my fave parts of the article with me!

[Note: This became longer than I expected so you all may want to sit down and read this when you have the time!]

Right out of the gate, he explains the use of ‘whites’ in the title which I thought was employed perfectly but glad he gave an explanation still before anyone could get in a huff (and oh boy did people get huffy but more on that later)

To reiterate the last line: the article is purely opinion as is my commentary of the article, that being said doesn’t it say something that this article resonated so deeply with my WoC fandom friends?

I also had a little giggle when he said it’s not research (though he probably clarified this for legal/academic reasons) when he really did put a lot of thought and research into this like I said above, there’s a lot of related links that I will definitely be going through when I have the time!

The Main Thesis of the Essay which is found at the top/sub-header once you click the article is essentially this:

There is a wider dominant media culture and narrative that situates Black and Brown people in interracial relationships only as worthy of love when in proximity to a white person and white families.

And in this article, the author essentially unpacks how and why Bridgerton feeds into this culture and narrative. To me personally, it feels more insidious coming from Bridgerton’s production because their very first and main selling point from Day & Season 1 was that it’s a very diverse show especially with casting actors of different races! This will be explained more in depth by the author and I’ll share screenshots. However now as the seasons go by, and the show featuring more white people thus making it like every other Regency show/movie from the 2000s which,,, what’s new?

I have also spoken about this topic before especially in regards to Mindy Kaling and Shondaland’s works. However, it’s important for me to share this point of view as well. This article to me was also the embodiment of “Ohmygod he put it into words!” So it’s definitely more thorough and in-depth compared to what I’ve said before. Especially since I come from an Indian POV while Tré, the author, provides the POV of a Black person.

Now to my favourite bits and lines!!

That being said, Bridgerton is not an anomaly, but part of an American film and television complex in Hollywood where whiteness dictates who is worthy of love on screen. Such programmes include Master of None, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Girlfriends, Dear White People and Modern Family — which ‘legitimise’ the desire of Black and Brown people as only possible in proximity to a white person — accredited their ‘human status’ via affiliations with ‘white others’.

I AM LOVING THIS SONG! Honestly, if you boil this essay down to these sentences and it relates back to the main thesis statement above: “whiteness dictates who is worthy of love on screen. [Whiteness] ‘legitimise’ the desire of Black and Brown people as only possible in proximity to a white person — accredited their ‘human status’ via affiliations with ‘white others’.”

[God I could write a whole other essay on Aziz Ansari & Master of None. I would do anything to put him and Mindy in a room and write something completely insane chock full of internalised racism against our Indian community kjhdkjas.]

Okay but THIS WHOLE SECTION:

It speaks for itself and I have nothing to add, nor is it my place to do so!

[Also again yall please go give the actual article all the love because everything linked deserves a read too especially to give us a wider context and information of everything!]

THIS BIT HOWEVER:

Kate ends up married to Anthony, with Bridgerton reinforcing the Great White Hope of interracial relationships on mainstream television.

Mr. Tré I AM CACKLING!! ‘Great White Hope’ took me the fuck out because, he’s so so right. I love Anthony as much as the next person - yall know this. I am actually Show Anthony (with his book mortality issue and reckless with his life tendencies) but he is a whole clown and like Tré said, him and the rest of the other Bridgertons being white just fortifies the ‘Great White Hope’ narrative Hollywood has going on.

Okay so these two parts of the same para:

Every time people praise Bridgerton for its ‘diversity’, I am reminded how the ‘the diversity’ ended up being married into white families and thus ‘embodied property’ — as Aileen Moreton Robinson discusses in her 2015 book The White Possessive.

It’s the way THREE of the ‘prominent’ families of the Ton and show are all white - the titular Bridgertons, their foils Featheringtons and the villains, Cowpers. We couldn’t even get some adopted kiddos?? Complete blind casting like the Prince from Brandy’s Cinderella and his parents?

If Bridgerton aimed to do anything provocative, it would have been more useful to have been a Wakanda-esque regency fantasy world with a token white character (heck, Black Panther even has a token white man in Everett K. Ross played by Martin Freeman).

THIS would have been fun to see in Bridgerton. An example - other than Everett - that comes to mind is Nick in Wedding Season who was the token white character who was the butt of the jokes in the best way. He was also very endearing and respectful of his fiancee and their family but didn’t take focus away from the main characters!  All of whom were mostly Indian and Damian Thompson who played James, the main girl’s British boss which was brilliant! So refreshing to watch a story that was about my culture and it wasn’t centred on a white person and both of the leads were Indian!

Tré also calls out the show for never resolving Simon’s SA. Now there’s no reason to do so since Regé left and we saw how it was erased in S2 😭😭.

He then breaks down the roles each of the main Black characters played on the show in S1:

He goes on to compare the other media that’s been doing better especially in terms of showing Black love, namely Sandition with Georgiana Lamb and Otis Molyneux and showcasing the Black Tudors in love in The Spanish Princess. He also cites more sources and academic articles to back up his previous points. 

I really want to play THIS song for everyone though: 

if the Bridgerton showrunners wanted to depict Desi women, where are the Desi men? Bridgerton is a show that has used the popularity of D&I to garner record viewing numbers and it has worked par excellence, while at the same it is a white show pretending to be a diverse.

WHERE ARE THE DESI MEN?? 

Papa Sharma my beloved!! Lord Sheffield could have easily been an Indian man with a different last time, we could have just left the name Sheffields unmarred and in the old books. 

So not only did Mary’s classist parents and her marriage become a class issue, but it has an extra touch of xenophobia all because Papa Sharma was from India! The man was literally a ROYAL PERSONAL secretary to the King and was closer in proximity to a royal than Lord Sheffield himself ever will be AND THEY STILL had a problem with him? 

We could have also given Mary a hot brother or something, give the Sharmas girls a cool fun uncle to help them navigate the London season or something! 

And of course this is what we’ve all been saying for a while now: 

[Bridgerton] used the popularity of D&I [Diversity & Inclusion] to garner record viewing numbers and it has worked par excellence, while at the same it is a white show pretending to be a diverse.

That’s it. That’s the sentence, it speaks for itself. 

However, in a 2015 article, Kavita Bhanot writes that “The concept of diversity only exists if there is an assumed neutral point from which ‘others’ are ‘diverse’.” That default point is white.

Ms Kavita Bhanot is R i g h t! Unfortunately, the default IS white that's why that demographic always needs to centre themselves in conversations like these (more on that later - maybe a separate post on how this article was received on Tré's Twitter) and the majority always yell online about how "everything is woke nowadays" when talking about racial (and queer) diversity in media.

Why is the default white though? It's not as if people of colour just randomly materialised out of thin air in the 70s. If we put all of us together we certainly outnumber white people, so why is that not represented in mainstream media?

For the first paragraph, let me be very clear, it’s not that we didn’t know or want Polin AT ALL. We knew from the start - especially those who had read the books before and after S1 - that Polin will be endgame and canon in S4. 

What we didn’t expect was for them to be the leads a season earlier than expected and to be heavily promoted across every season, take up space in Kathony’s season and already being centred in their own love story. It’s the unfair favouritism and treatment they are getting over Jimone and Kathony. Them being S3′s leads also completely sidelines a show fan favourite Benedict and the chance for us to see another WOC lead in Sophie being loved up by this incredibly charming Bridgerton that GA has fallen in love with! Because after Sophie, there wouldn’t be a WoC romantic lead til Lucy if we ever get to S8. 

We just thought we’d get one more season of ‘the most diverse’ Regency show before they turned it 70% white. [Also Bridgerton has officially lost that title when Mr. Malcolm’s List is right there but I digress, that’s a review post for another day!] 

It does not help that a big part of the extreme side of that sub fandom gloats every time something goes in their favour and are completely oblivious as to how awful they sound. You are literally gleefully celebrating in the fact that the cast of colour is being ignored and overlooked for your white faves. As if that doesn’t happen every fucking day of our real lives. 

Also let’s talk about this bit: 

[Black-ish] still feels like a series tailored to the delicate sensibilities of the white people who do not have any Black friends!

I can’t comment directly on Black-ish (I just couldn’t get into the show’s humour - Mix-ish was more my speed!) as I didn’t watch past the pilot and Tré knows best so I’m taking his word for it! 

I brought up this part because that’s exactly how I have been feeling about this show lately. Yes, I’m sure many fans of colour like myself signed up for the show to see ourselves represented in a world where we could be the leads when we couldn’t be before. But now the racial diversity rep feels so incredibly superficial and there just to fill a quota. I LOVE the Mondrichs, don’t get me wrong but why are they still there? They were very heavily tied to Simon. However what I was hoping for in S2, is that they could have made them friends with Kathony with the Simon-Anthony connection. Maybe Anthony visiting the boxing ring again to let off some steam but nope Will is gonna start a bar! Where Colin can commit a microaggression against him YAY /s. 

Because of this superficiality and most fans of colour leaving the fandom and no longer tuning in for S3, it feels like the majority of people left behind (note; I don’t mean ALL just a big portion) feel like those kind of people who only appreciate the racial diversity so that they can pat themselves on the back for watching something that has a diverse cast in it. It’s very much giving “I can’t be racist because I have POC friends!” While they turn around and either ignore microaggressions/racially charged attacks other people in the fandom commit.  Or worse: commit microaggressions themselves, don’t see ANYTHING wrong with what they did, get defensive and never learn when called out for it. It’s just exhausting to see these type of people on my dash and tags across social media. 

The next few sections of the article goes back to the thesis statement of the article and then Tre makes really great comparisons to If Beale Street Could Talk and Moonlight (both by Barry Jenkins) and how they are “so important — when leading white characters are absent from the story.” It’s really great how he breaks it all down! 

I want to bring light to this part since this has been a point of heated discussion in our fandom. Especially before they announced who S3 was actually going to be about and everyone was speculating once again who Sophie could be: 

Simon didn’t come back cos of Regé’s departure (no one’s fault really) and they didn’t recast him (which as much as I wouldn’t have minded and I even have some fan casts in mind, it wouldn’t have flown with the GA) and now we know the Sharmas aren’t coming back with Chari doing her romcom and Shelley doing The Boys spin off - though they severely under-utilised Shelley as Mary anyways so I’m glad she just took the check and bounced.

So NaniCoolJ is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. It IS a rotation of people of colour as if we are just interchangeable. 

With the Sophie casting speculation and fan cast, it felt like everyone was fighting for their lives to be represented in Sophie and as someone on here pointed out, it was starting to feel like the show and fans were trying do a racial Pokemon Catch It All with all the Bridgerton spouses (except Pen and Philip who have already been cast) and trying to fit as many different ethnicities as we can with the limited spots we have. Honestly it’s only 4 of them left - Sophie, John and Michael (though I imagine they won’t be adopted cousins) and Lucy.

[SPOILER FOR SHOW FANS]

If we ever get to see them, Gareth and his family are Black since Lady Danbury is. 

Do you see how incredibly fucked up it is, that out of ALL the three main families, we fans of colour are only represented as MAIN leads/characters by 7/9 of the spouses (including John)? That’s only 7 (potential) POC leads vs the current 18 white leads. As it stands, it’s only 2 against 18 are currently in the show - Regé as Simon and Simone as Kate. If we count Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte, that’s 4 but still a HUGE disparity in numbers. I focused on Simon and Kate since they are the romance leads as this is a romance show even if production forgets that most times.  

Just some numbers to think about, next time yall wanna yell that the show is super diverse. Don’t even get me started on how some Polins use Nic/Pen’s weight as a ‘body diversity’ bargaining chip to completely invalidate what fans of colour are saying and using it to be against racially diverse casting. It just makes their body positivity activist come across as performative when you have to put down one form of diversity to uplift the other. This is more uncomfortable when you realise that Nicola herself has said multiple times that she doesn’t want people commenting on her body - positively or negatively and she DOES NOT want to be a body diversity activist. But more on that in another post since this is getting long enough!

And now the racists are back, louder than ever, sigh. It was bad enough they were slut shaming and throwing racial slurs at Marina and whoever defended her post-S1 and I was even privy to some of it still happening during pre and post-S2. Not to mention how Simone and Charithra were treated in different ways after their castings were announced. Now with their favourites being front and centre, they have become more insufferable and horrible to the rest of the fandom thinking they are above consequences. It’s really vile the things people will say behind the shield of anonymity. 

Tré then goes on to reference the The Blindian Project which sounds super cool and established to build solitary with Black and Brown communities which is such a vibe. 

Honestly I feel like most of us on here do get along well and band together against the racists so that’s been a great support system for all of us. Just to say once again, I am always here for you guys. I know all of this is so frustrating to experience and now we have this author outside of the fandom validating our experience. It kinda takes the load off, for me at least. And any time yall need to vent about how its all going in the fandom, my asks and DMs are always open.

Tré goes on to say this, which becomes even more relevant with all the white ladies arguing with him that “fAt ReP iS juSt aS iMpoRtAnT.” Which to be clear I’m not discounting that having fat rep is important. It IS important. However, this is not the conversation happening in the article. As I said above, it feels EXTREMELY performative of them to centre the conversation on a fat white woman when the conversation is about race and how Black and Brown characters are being sidelined and we don’t even have other ethnicities represented at all (not in a leading role at least). 

whiteness must be discussed always, even in the politics of love on and off screen. With the breadth of romance on screen still necessitating white people, there is a problem that in a dominant culture of white supremacy it says: ‘Black and Brown people are incapable of love, unless when a white person is present, or if this text is a ‘race show’ or ‘race film’.

These ladies in his replies really read that paragraph (or maybe they didn’t wouldn’t put it past them to just read the title and argue with him for the sake of it.) and specifically the line “whiteness must be discussed always, even in the politics of love on and off screen“ and decided to go “Ah yes, I’m going to discuss my whiteness now.” 

Also to Elora, Julia and Tanya (idc I’m naming names): to hijack a necessary conversation on race in Bridgerton by discussing fat representation denies the very real history of racism in the television/film industry and is quite frankly a disgusting case of whataboutism. This isn’t about you and as my friend Triv said (who also helped me phrase this paragraph), “Remember, it wasn't the fat woman who got sat at a segregated table at the Oscars even as she won the award; it was the Black woman.”

It’s so incredibly insensitive of them to diminish what Tré and the fandom is saying by throwing weight in our faces. I bet you, these women wouldn’t blink an eye if a fat WoC was cast on the show, they would probably still overlook her for their favourite girlboss. 

And for the finale:

Took us a while but we made it! Much like most of his article, this conclusion speaks for itself and so I shall leave it be. 

I have mostly said what I had to say in this commentary. Honestly, it got so long because it’s multiple conversations we’ve had all over the last few months all contained and condensed into one post. These concerns have also been a long time coming, it’s so good to let it out and try to move on now. Thank you once again to Tré for writing piece and vocalising a lot of the POC fans and our friends have been thinking for a while now. 

Thank you to everyone who read the article and this post all the way through, hope you enjoyed reading it and feel validated in other people sharing the same sentiments as you. Please know none of you who feel this way are alone and we’re all here for you and as I said earlier, asks and DMs are always open!

[pocketfulofrecs]

It's Friday and we're here with another Author Spotlight!

It’s impossible for you to be in this corner of fandom and never have heard of Vir_Abelasan. She has written some of the most interesting Wangxian fics we have read, a shade darker than usual, but so engrossing. When we want to read something a little savory, we go back to this author.

She has written 49k words in 5 fics, and we can’t wait to see what else she will come up with.

Her fics:

It’s we that you are for - [explicit | 2.5k | LWJ/WWX/LXC pwp]

to be wielded by your hands (our post) - [mature | 3k | competence kink]

Visitations - [mature | 18k | wip | modern au - corporate espionage]

Like stones on an unseen board - [not rated | 11k | dark lan wangji]

Symmetry (our post) - [mature | 13k | dark sizhui]

Dee’s favourite: I love Symmetry but my favorite happens to be Like stones on an unseen board. I have a special fondness for dark LWJ who is just as devoted to WWX as canon LWJ is. This fic has the potential age difference and teacher-student relationship but they don’t really get together in it. I like that, I like how LWJ recognizes how Jiangs are dimming WWX’s light and does things to get WWX away from them, even if it involves manipulation and subtly widening the divide between the Jiangs and WWX. Dark in a way that eventually benefits WWX.

Ju’s favourite: Ohhh I loved Symmetry. I loved to see JC getting his just deserves by Sizhui. The fic is very dark, and in many moments I was completely blown away and so angry. I love when reading makes me feel things, and I felt a lot of things reading this one. But as dark as it gets in some points, it makes sense in the story. And then we get a happy ending that is so good and perfect. Made me cry.

The Interview:

Q. When did you start writing fics? Did you have fandoms before this one?

A. Somewhere around the early 2000s with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom, and BtVS was very prolific with crossover, which just led to more fandoms, mostly Western TV series. I wrote a lot of the Dragon Age trilogy afterwards, and a lot of Pacific Rim before finding MDZS.

Q. What made you start writing for MDZS?

A. Honestly at first I was here for the porn, because the Wangxian porn is bountiful and tender and exquisite. But then I read the novel and was enamored with how much more nuanced everything was, especially the many recurring themes and motifs related to social classes and personal vs familial/communal responsibilities, which as an Asian person you don't often get to dig into in the oftentimes Western-leaning fandom spheres.

Q. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

A. In the MDZS fandom it's Symmetry, because it's literally the fic I wanted to read upon completing MDZS but was not able to find. One of the saddest thing in canon for me is the lack of consequences for any of the gentry cultivators' actions in the past, and while it's realistic to the world building, I just really want an alternative where someone could go around an inherently broken system and make it so perpetrators actually pay for their crimes and less people in general becomes collateral.

Q. What’s your favourite type of fics to read?

A. Smut, because I'm just really bad at writing it. And oh, how the MDZS fandom delivers - Pure smut, sad smut, painstakingly tender smut, existential smut, it has everything! But Wangxian smut in particular is almost always a treat because there's just always that undercurrent of trust and having a person who's just for you in every sense of the word despite everything else happening. It's such a good, affirming feeling.

Q. What’s your favourite comment? Or type of comment?

A. Any comment is always a delight! From just incoherent screaming to details of which lines spoke to them the most, every comment is a reaction and stories are out there to create conversation in the first place.

Q. What motivates you to write?

A. Writing has always felt like problem solving to me, and fanfics in general has always been really interesting to write because there's the inherent conflict and problems written into canon, but also the matter of the fandom's perception of the source material to play with and solve.

Q. Who’s your favorite author?

A. There's so many fanfic authors throughout the years who are just amazing and hit a lot of very profound places a lot of published works didn't go to, so it's really hard to choose just a few. But thank you, every single fan author out there, you've really made a lot of people's days (and lives) better with your writing.

Q. What is your favorite trope to read and/or write?

A. I'm particularly fond of the trope of characters who are normally amicable or accommodating just going apeshit, both literally or figuratively. Because both in fandom and in real life, kindness and compromise in someone are often mistaken as a free pass for others around them to be terrible.

Q. Do you have any advice for new authors?

A. Write what you feel strongly about, I guess? And it's sometimes helpful to have an objective to the whole thing, for the times when it seems the story is going nowhere or you get stuck in a particular aspect of it. Sort of like a thesis statement, so whenever you fumble you have something to refocus on.

Q. What do you think is the most important element in writing? Plot, characterization, relationship?

A. Characterization carries you a long way since they're the vehicle to bringing the readers to where you intend them to be, but I also feel like structure helps a lot with stories too. Just the way you scaffold a narrative, like laying down the kind of path you want your readers to follow and experience along the way to the end.

~

Check out their stories on ao3 and remember…

Comments and kudos feed the author’s soul.

[himbodiaz]

not anon buuuuuuuut: what's your favorite eddie scene? or maybe even just a line?

oh this is a hard one. i think my favourite lines are both ones he said to chim! the first one is "if you love her, tell her" because it's so true, and eddie's coming from a place of knowing what it's like never being able to tell someone how you feel about them. it's something he doesn't want for chim, and i also just think it really is good advice.

the other one is "that's what the 118 is, the family we choose" because it's the thesis statement of the whole show. every character has found their way to the 118 on their own, and together, they've all built something that they can rely on to love and be loved, care for and be cared for, understand and be understood. and each member brings something that is so important, and while they still have their own families, too, the 118 means so much to all of them. each member came to the 118 when they were feeling lost, or unsure, or alone, or a combination of all three. but coming to the 118 they were able to find themselves, and find their people, too. so, i just adore that line.

i think my favourite eddie scenes in general are always the ones where he's showing just how much he cares about the people he loves. like, the conversation he has about chris and the skateboard and his disability is a big one for me. or during buck's begins arc, every time eddie is just exceedingly understanding of everything buck is going through and all he's feeling, anger and sadness and betrayal. like, not once does eddie balk, or tell buck to suck it up and get over it. he's just there to listen, and offer advice, and support buck in whatever way he needs.

honesty hour

[mallowstep]

What are your opinions on forbidden relationships in Warriors? I've seen people label it as a "trope" because of how common this is. Some find the forbidden romance aspect intriguing, though others find it extremely repetitive and old

I'd like to know your thoughts!

hm. well, it is a trope. i mean, there's an average of one major one a series, right? greysilver, leafcrow (and others, but that's the big one), heatherlion (and implied others), tigerdove, idk i don't remember anything from avos but violetshine luv her but there's probably something, bristleroot. dotc doesn't count bc well it's dotc.

anyway.

definitely a trope.

but that's not a bad thing.

what i think people don't give warriors enough credit for is that these are not all the same forbidden romance. most of them are handled in different ways and bring up different conflicts. i understand why people are tired of them, but let's not discredit one of the only good things in warriors romance: that they make forbidden relationships different.

like, with grey and silver, it's about loyalty and responsibility. leafcrow is just bad idea central, both heatherlion and tigerdove are about responsibilities and young cats, and they have two different answers, and bristleroot is challenging the whole idea from the start.

so like. give credit where credit is due: we're not doing the same (forbidden) relationships again and again. i don't see enough people talk about that.

okay so it turns out i have um. a lot of thoughts about this. idk i just kept writing and now it's over 2k words. so you know. under the cut: matthew does half-baked media analysis to talk about why the code and cats' relationships to it are misunderstood. while actually staying on topic.

anyway from here on i'm just going to say relationship/romance, and understand that i'm generally talking about the forbidden kind. also i'm talking exclusively within the realm of warriors romance, which is, on average, bad. so when i say "X is good," i don't mean "X is good in general," i mean "given what we have, X is good." just to be clear.

right! basically, this is a tool. it creates tension and drama, and that's fine. warriors is a soap opera, remember. soap operas use secrets and relationships and all sorts of plot devices over and over again. warriors is not Serious. it can be dark. it has serious moments. but it is not a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids. it is a soap opera for Future Theatre Kids. yeah?

from that perspective, i'm a-ok with forbidden romance. (also, as a mini-aside, it creates some much-needed genetic diversity when kits are involved.) and again: all of the major relationships are different, so i think that's better than a lot of people give it credit for.

yeah, heatherlion and greysilver and tigerdove are all about the same general idea (loyalty and responsibility), but they all have different circumstances and different resolutions.

so like? yeah. sure. why not?

plus, like, who's reading warriors for the romance? i separate the concept of "romance" from a "relationship" here: i like the relationships in warriors (ivy and dove tension my beloved), but i'm not here to read about tigerheart wooing dovewing. (yes, i do love the tigerdove scenes in oots. no, that's not because i think they're very good at being romantic.)

but i digress.

if warriors was a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids, i'd have a different take here. having been in an IRL forbidden relationship, i have the Personal Insight and Experience to say they're this weird mash of "very much how it feels" and "not at all how it feels."

tigerdove is probably my favourite bc it's the closest to my circumstances, and i think dovewing is a good pov. i like how she breaks up with him because it's a bad idea, but that's not the same thing as not feeling for him.

(heh. twelve-year-old me reading oots like "this will never apply to my life" what did you know)

but to the point, if warriors was serious, i'd point out that the consequences always seem to be internal. we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions. and so on.

but warriors is a soap opera.

and here's my actual thesis: we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions, because "forbidden relationships" are a normal and expected part of clan society.

like no, fandom-at-large, you're kind of missing the point. okay, you know how like. people complain about. idk. ivypool and fernsong being distantly related?

(third aside/very long ivyfern rant, i put a nice big "rant over" after it if you want to skip past it: they're third cousins. they share, max, 2.2% of their genetics. they are fine. do you know your third cousins? do you? yeah. and like. they live in a closed society. there is no one new.

i've never seen someone complain about forbidden romance and ivyfern at the same time, and i do generally agree we should have more mystery fathers, altho for a different reason, but like. idk. this bothers me.

their last shared relative was nutmeg. that's so far back. god. i get it, there was a prophecy saying they're related, but if you remember my rant about how dovewing shouldn't be a part of the prophecy because of how distantly related to firestar is, you know how i feel about that already.

complaining they're related and that's a problem is. deep breath here. it requires demonstrating that warriors has kept track of kinship all the way back to firestar's mother. and even if you wave that requirement, you still have to convince me they would care about that. this isn't a "they're cats, harold" situation, this is a "you would not know your third cousin even if you lived in the same town" situation.

i mean maybe you would. some people do. but my hometown has generations of people who married within its borders. you get as far as "cousin," maybe "second cousin" if you're feeling fancy. i'm not trying to make an always true statement, i just. every time i see someone complain about ivyfern being related, it strikes me as not understanding how extended families work?

i know third cousins isn't technically classified as a distant relative, but you have, on average, 190 third cousins. i feel so strongly about this i looked it up.

like i'm not. okay if you say, "I don't ship ivyfern because they are third cousins and that makes me uncomfortable" you are Valid. in general, you are all valid. i do not think you have to, on a personal level, be okay with ivyfern. you are free to do as you wish.

but. if you want to argue "ivyfern is a Bad Ship because they are third cousins" you have a hell of a burden of proof. simply saying "they share a great-great-grandmother" does not meet that, because like. yeah. we're all pretty damn related.)

(ivyfern rant over)

IVYFERN RANT OVER

right so. anyway. if you remove forbidden romance? you're forcing a lot more of those situations.

i've been messing around with modelling some small-scale fan clan-adjacent stuff to double-check the ratios for wbcd, and it's. it quickly becomes a necessity, is what i'm saying.

but i got distracted like. researching how related third cousins are. my point is not about that, that's like. a different topic. that i crammed into here because i have no self-control.

no, no, what i was trying to get to is: oakheart straight up tells us that cats have half-clan kits all the time, it's not a problem, no one talks about it. and that? that is exactly what we see modelled by warriors.

the only reason greystripe and silverstream have a problem is that silverstream dies and greystripe claims the kits. i feel very strongly that if she had lived, the kits would have been born and raised riverclan kits, that might, maybe, one day, guess who their father is.

we haven't had any half clan kits in a while, which yes! i think is a problem, but like. the fact that the three are medicine cat kits seems to be a bigger issue. which feels right.

and i'm not trying to argue what i think should be, i legitimately believe the text of warriors defends this, even in newer books which throw out a lot of the older world building in favour of more human-like conflict.

as readers, we are naturally following protagonists. we are following the interesting story. but imagine you're just a background riverclan cat. minnowtail, if you will. do you think, do you honestly think, anyone cares about minnowtail?

not in a bad way, just. if she's meeting up with mousewhisker at night, do you think anyone cares? of course not! no one cares. she's not a Protagonist. her kits aren't going to be prophesized about.

heck, finleap switches clans! and it's barely a big deal. it feels like one, but when's the last time anyone bothered dealing with it? that's what i thought.

(also i forgot like all of avos so that very last point might be a bad one if it is my argument stands i just literally do not remember anything in avos but violetshine. none. zero.)

but it's easy to get caught up with characters like hollyleaf and bristlefrost and forget that like. not everyone cares about the code. most of our protagonists do, because it's become mostly equivalent with being moral. and i have an essay draft titled "the code as religion vs the code as law" where i want to expand on this more, but i think like. that idea, that we as readers should use the code as a way of evaluating cats' behaviour, is flawed.

like, i'm not talking about being inconsistent with how that is applied. if you want to say, "the trial leafpool goes through for having half-clan kits is legitimate because of the code," i still think your approach is flawed.

because the cats themselves don't seem to think that way.

the code doesn't, to me, feel like the ten commandments. it does not feel like "you must do this to be a good cat."

rather, it feels like aesop's parables. "here are mistakes cats made and what we do instead of that."

i don't think the cats know the code the way we do. i do not think they memorize a list of rules as kits. i think they know what is and is not part of it, but i imagine they know the stories far more than the rules.

(i'm working on my lore stories to replace code of the clans.)

and even if that's my thoughts, i do think this is supported by the text. no one ever teaches the warrior code, cats just learn it in pieces. "don't waste food because we don't have enough to spare" is taught, not "there's a rule about food and starclan on the code."

that's why the whole arc of the broken code even works: the reason the imposter is able to manipulate things is because cats don't treat the code as a rigid set of rules and commandments, but guiding principles.

the parts of the code that we tend to focus on the most are relationships, apprentices, and battle. or that's my perception. i didn't do a poll to obtain that. there's also the leader's word, but readers don't usually think of that as a good rule, so i'm not including it.

but the parts the cats focus on most are food, territory, and the leader's word. which makes sense: those are basic needs: food, security, and...i don't want to say authority so much as some kind of social system. explaining it would be a whole thing. just trust with me, if you don't mind.

i don't think we have any real reason to believe cats care about half-clan relationships half as much as we do. yes, apprentices are chastized about it, but that's not really the same thing as being punished.

and it's hard to tell, because apprentices being punished has really fallen off, and that's kind of the problem with any argument i try to make about warriors, but.

wow.

i'm actually still on topic? i'm 2k words in and i'm still on topic? a day i never thought would come.

let's wrap this up. cats seem to care about half clan relationships in that: a) they lead to conflicted loyalties, b) they mess with borders and prey, and c) they are in the code as bad. in that order.

and again, if the code was some high and holy religious doctrine, we couldn't have the broken code as an arc. it does not work if the cats are already following it to a t, and know it word for word, because it's signfiicantly harder to manipulate people if they do.

not to the level the imposter does, at the speed he does.

and yes, you could argue that it's more bad writing, but. i think that discredits warriors. yeah, it sure has its fair share of bad writing, but i don't think that's in the way the imposter works. instead, he seizes on a big important doctrine that's nebulous, and uses that to control people.

and that? that feels much more interesting.

so with that in mind, i don't think the cats would care about your typical, non-protagonist forbidden relationship, and i don't think we should, either.

as far as a plot device, i think we're okay with what we have. don't get me wrong, i understand why people are tired of it, but i think we also should remember that warriors is not repeating itself. having multiple forbidden relationships is not repetitive. now, if medicine cats were having half-clan kits every series, i'd make a different argument.

but all of the major forbidden relationships have different outcomes, lessons, and circumstances, and for me, i think that's signficantly interesting.

i didn't really check sources and quotes for this, so like, if you spotted something wrong, feel free to correct me. my overall point stands, but there's a lot of warriors and i have a bad memory, so i could have missed somthing major.

[sparxwrites]

I absolutely love your writing so much, I genuinely could spend hours just reading your posts where talk/analyze about the different dynamics and relationships in lastL and 3rdL! What was your favorite thing to write for the Hermitcraft/last life fandom?

Again I just love everything you do! Thank you for dedicating your time to writing about block men and sharing it with us<3

oh gosh!! thank you so much, you’re very welcome, i’m so so flattered and delighted - the fact people like my meta and the director’s commentaries just continues to amaze me tbh.

hmm... favourite thing i’ve written is uhh. possibly actually something that’s not published yet, because it’s only first draft, but i wrote it like i was possessed and the vibes are just. immaculate. if i am allowed to say that about my own work. (also, i described the concept to someone and they cried about it. which is always a good sign.)

favourite thing i’ve written that yall have actually seen is really hard, because i’ve written so many different things and i love them all for different reasons. i’m actually really pleased with like, everything that i’ve written for hc/3l/ll, which after a long time of writing feeling like pulling teeth is really nice. so i’m gonna cheat and pick a couple: “heaven help” is still my absolute favourite, just because... i love it, your honour, and i do not care if it sounds very conceited to be in love with your own fic; i love it, and it’s held up surprisingly well in light of me seeing more of both their characters, and it just gives me this very warm, soft, steady feeling to re-read it (which is, admittedly, odd for a fic that is neither warm nor soft nor steady). honourable mention goes to “yours were the arms”, for unexpectedly making me fall very very in love with a ship i had no idea i needed, and for letting me do my favourite “very tiny gestures between very old friends/lovers as a whole language of intimacy” bullshit. and last but not least “taken”, for being more of a thesis statement than a fanfic, and for just being such undiluted, pretentious, world-build-y fun to write.

[s-aint-elmo]

YURI TIME >:)))))

i've been training since i was a child in the ways of yuri (pretend we have a debbie ryan hairtuck emoji) but also i'm something of an insatiable reader so i tend to blaze through. literally anything there is to read. and i tend to just pick a tag sometimes and go throgh the whole catalogue to discover good things once i've exhausted the aggregate website's top picks

liar satsuki and aizawa-san are so good abt building connections you're SO right!! i really loved satsuki's progression from recklessly going at it alone to the scorn of all her peers to having a team of people with their own strengths backing her up, believing in her, and coming in clutch to save her. (shiina, predictably is my favourite. perfect character to deliver the thesis statement of nobody has the right to choose who deserves to live or die. what w her death counter.) same with michi who never formed deep connections before (or so she thinks.......) finding people who share her interests and are willin to take the time to understand her. i heart friendship.

felt the same way about i love amy!!!! genuinely picked it up bc the cover art was so cute and solid and the premise of "yandere switches targets" set me up for some fun violent comedy only to slam me eight tons of childhood trauma and the ways in which adults fail children in their care and how the children internalize it in fun and fucked up ways. the cookie jar arc had me punching the floor. oh my god it was so good. the first time bibi's unmoving smile shifted sent me through the roof. i love how it uses every bit of space to tell its story, with the cookie jar icon filling up at every chapter's beginning and the credits card of bibi's school things shifting to exclude peter and focus on amy. absolutely masterful.

the brides of iberis >:)))) it's SO sad but it's so loving at the same time. the love was there but it grew someplace it couldn't stay. but the love was there.

OOO thank you for the reccs as well, i'm on page 438 of mangadex's girl's love tag (um. don't ask. heart emoji) and besides the modern yuri foremother the couple of the white room (1971) it's been a while since i've struck gold.

the funniest thing is that i was actually going to rec doughnuts to you too but it's been too long since i read it that i couldn't trust myself to pitch it w justice. that author also did trying out marriage w my female friend and i LOVE how both romances veer into queerplatonic, it's just not something manga tends to cover. i should reread it, i really love these kinds of slowly unfolding love stories that take their time w ambiguous not-quite-friendship feelings.

and i passed by momoka the other day but didn't check it out bc the premise didn't hook me. knowing the author now, i might give it a second shot.

one of my mutuals posts abt surviving romance occasionally n this might be the push for me to read it! several of my friends also read tiger, tiger

muted and nevermore my sister has read! she tells me abt her webtoons semi-regularly and i remember being charmed by the setting of nevermore

special thanks to the reincarnation manwha recs since i DEFINITELY had the problem of finding an interesting premise and finding the execution to be too paint by the numbers and "ephemeral" to really grip me. like we're just gently drifting from scene to scene w no real hook to anchor us. i've started mentally crossing "long strip" off my list--i tend to prefer how punchy and well laid-out manga panels are

i'm starting on sea of june rn, but i'll def check these out when the fancy strikes me!

*twirling my hair* do you have some good yuri manga recs?

(lying on my stomach and kicking my feet) i'm SO glad you asked!

to preface this i'll be excluding better-known yuri or yuri that's recently gotten its flowers (whether thru virality or adaptations) (e.g. in love with the villainess, love bullet, bloom into you, etc. etc.) and will instead be recc'ing works i don't often encounter in the wild. some will be more well-known than others, but all of these i've enjoyed and would encourage others to check out! under the cut because. this got. so long. i heart yuri <3

multi-chapter

the princess of sylph (ongoing; self-publishing): plot-heavy fantasy yuri between a bereaved princess with the aura of a thousand sad hamsters and a persistent nun whose silliness conceals a deep well of trauma. gushed about it plenty here. i recommend starting with the serialized version, the proceeding to the twitter version + extras. cw: blood, violence, dismemberment (nothing too graphic, more standard monster-fighting fare).

i love amy (completed): school loner strikes an unlikely friendship with the girl known (and feared) for her violent tendencies and single-minded obsession with the school prince. cute but striking and skilled art with a surprisingly nuanced handling of trauma and neurodivergence. cw: attempted child murder, animal death (non-graphic). there are also depictions of standard yandere fare (kidnapping, torture basements) but they're always presented comedically.

i see you, aizawa-san! (ongoing): girl who steadfastly pretends not to see ghosts meets one she just can't seem to ignore: a deceased classmate and former j-pop idol, who has taken to haunting their classroom. ft. art that harkens back to classic shoujo and a supernatural mystery centred on the relationship between the two leads--that one of them can't seem to remember. cw: blood, body horror.

school zone girls (on hiatus): slice of life yuri comedy ft. a massive interconnected web of girls spanning at least three schools. it juggles gut-busting comedy with genuine heartfelt moments of character growth and connection and expresses it all through a solid, dynamic art style. the sprawling cast also makes for incredible outsider pov moments that lets us really appreciate how far some characters have gotten. this genuinely motivated me to revamp how i approached ensemble casts for my ocs.

brides of iberis (completed): wedding planner unenthusiastic about her engagement falls in love with a bride she's taken as a client. bittersweet but deeply loving; and so compassionate to each and every character, even the men the female leads have relationships with. cw: infidelity.

destroy it all and love me in hell! (ongoing): model student finds her miserable, tightly controlled life unraveling after being blackmailed by the class truant into indulging her ugliest impulses. toxic yuri extravaganza eleganza between two girls desperate for escape and the catharsis of fucking! shit! up!!! also hits that sweet sweet "love triangle as a conflict of ideals" beat. cw: blackmail, coercion, bullying, violence, emotional abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, adult/minor relationship.

yuri is forbidden for the yuri otaku (completed): passionate himejoshi enrolls in an all-girls private school to observe class s yuri in action, but never to engage in it herself--at least, until a misunderstanding wins her the resident gyaru's heart. a surprisingly poignant exploration of being queer in a repressive society and experiencing your queerness through the safety of unobtainable fantasy.

the superstar idol crushes on me today too (ongoing): failed idol-slash-middling radio personality finds an unwanted superfan in the country's biggest superstar. explores the merit of pursuing your artistic passions in the face of repeated failure, and what makes an emotional anchor in the fraught seas of showbiz. they are also just so so funny. what if i emphatically declare you my rival in show business but you've been in love with me since you saw me in a cooking show as a child actor and you take any excuse to spend time with me and have my attention with blinding enthusiasm

normality and monsters (ongoing): outcast weirdo witnesses the class idol devour their homeroom teacher in one bite and begs to be trained in the art of appearing normal. the art is snappy and charismatic, the monster design is properly grotesque, and the friendship of convenience between the two leads teeters between overcoming the monster's nature and just being a prelude to the monster acquiring a new meatsuit. cw: blood, gore, death, body horror.

a monster wants to eat me (ongoing): suicidal girl meets carnivore mermaid who promises to eat her if she develops a desire to live. it's been a while since i read this one, but the monster designs are once again sick as fuck and the drama of being cared for by a creature that finds you tantalizing is sooo juicy. cw: suicidal ideation, blood, gore, violence, body horror.

liar satsuki can see death (completed): high schooler who can see corpses before the death occurs strives to save as many lives as possible despite being branded a liar by the entire student body. this and ryouko's other manga, a walk to death, are pretty banging declarations on the value of living ironically (or maybe aptly) wrapped in so much death. blanket cw for blood, gore and death bc i tell you every mini-arc somebody dies in a fun new way and we'd be here all day if we listed them out.

anthology:

i'm the villainess but i'm being captured by the heroine?!: an anthology featuring heroines of otome games swerving hard and sweeping the villainess off her feet. i am such a sucker for villainess yuri. mean women forever. my favourite chapters are vol. 1 ch.1 and vol. 2 chs. 1 and 4.

honourable mentions:

my idol sits the next desk over! (completed): loner idol otaku ends up deskmates with her oshi and between jealous sabotage from a rival stan and the herculean task of acting normal around your fave, lands herself in the first and closest friend group of her life. one girl does explicitly have romantic feelings for another girl, but i bumped it down here because it isn't explored to the extent it could have been. it felt like it was setting up a slow burn only to end abruptly. do not recommend if you want a love story, do recommend if you want lonely people forging deep and enduring bonds of friendship.

the one within the villainess (ongoing): the villainess of an otome game reawakens for her condemnation and sets off on a path of vengeance for the sake of the beloved transmigrator who's occupied her body for years. it's ostensibly het, but to hear the way that the villainess speaks of her transmigrator, the first person to love her wholeheartedly and wish for her happiness and so inadvertently prevent her from becoming the hollow bitter woman she originally grew into...... like. that is yuri. like what if i knew your life in its entirety and loved you for it and i found myself in the position to give you the happiness i always wished for you to have. what if we wrote fix-it fic for each other on the fabric of the universe. what if we never even had a conversation but we knew each other the best and loved each other most. and we were both girls. do you understand why i'm insane about them

[retirementhomecollab]

☾ the witching hour

☾ decision: balcony

☾ warnings: f!reader, swearing, sfw shirtlessness

☾ word count: 1.6k

You push the glass door to the side, into the almost winter night. The chilly air that nips at your cheeks seems closer to the frigidity of December than the tailends of fall. Behind you, the buzz of the party burns, like a smattering of fireflies in an autumnal glass globe, protected from the frost. Leaving October behind you, you choose the night.

You’re not alone in wanting a little cold from the chitter chatter. His figure is dimly lit, but you’d recognize the jersey-clad back and soft black hair anywhere. You’d spent many classes last semester daydreaming of this view from behind, his broad back a total eclipse of any other light in your universe.

You begin to call to him, but he turns around first. And you choke.

What the fuck is he wearing.

“What the fuck are you wearing?”

“Oh, hey.” He holds up a hand, unsure of whether to put down the red solo cup he’s holding in the other.

“Why…” You struggle to find the words. “Why are you like that?”

“Like what?” He looks at you blankly.

You gape at him. Does he not know what he’s wearing? Sometimes, he’s a bit absent in class but he’s never this much of an airhead.

“Kageyama,” you enunciate every syllable, “you are shirtless.”

This most blatantly conspicuous statement hangs between the two of you. You stand there, not entirely sure of what else you could say.

Red blooms across Kageyama’s face like the midnight frost. At the same time, almost impossibly, he pales. If you weren’t in such a situation, you would tease him. But you are in such a situation, so you use the social skills in your arsenal — which always bleeds dry in front of this man — and try to salvage the situation.

“I mean, you’re wearing a jersey.” That’s definitely the wrong way to go about this. Neither of you need a double-spaced, Times New Roman twelve-point font, MLA formatted report on his current state of undress. But then again, in the battle between brain and tongue in these situations, your mouth usually runs you straight into trouble. “But, like, you know — I mean I’m sure you know — it’s quite unzipped, you’re rather naked— sorry, I meant undressed — underneath it, and I can see your very successful abs.”

Very successful abs. What the fuck.

Your brain smothers your mouth at that.

To your partial credit, a switch finally flicks on inside Kageyama’s head after your ending thesis statement. He slams the cup down onto the balcony ledge and scrambles to pull the zipper up.

As your mind’s eye watches your audacity in horror, your eyes are enjoying their newfound independence from your rational. They follow the zipper in disappointed fascination as it hooks into the lowest teeth, clicking in slow motion until it hits the highest, tippiest-toppest teeth. Your eyes damn your mind for even mentioning anything about his state of undress, and your mind damns your eyes for being correct.

Meanwhile, in Kageyama’s own head, he runs through the two-and-a-half excuses he can come up with to explain how he could even forget that his jersey was unzipped in this weather. But the most blatant truth is that his one brain cell had been too focused on how good you look in your costume. And right now, that brain cell is so absorbed in thinking up ways to salvage the situation in his own manner that he doesn’t notice your expression changing from an unabashedly appreciative stare to an embarrassed effort to meet his eyes.

“Sorry,” is what he settles for, gaze truly apologetic. “The senpai thought it would be great for us to match.”

��‘Us’? As...what…?” You frown.

“The Karasuno first years.” Oh, right, his high school buddies. “As some stupid characters from some stupid swimming show.”

You look at him, eyes widening by the second, mouth hitting the ground for the umpteenth time in the past five minutes.

“So you mean you’re…?”

Kageyama nods reluctantly.

“And Hinata is…?”

He hangs his head low.

“And Tsukishima…?”

He smirks a little at this.

“That makes Yamaguchi the cute, friendly softie.”

Kageyama’s eyes narrow a little but he nods.

You stare at him, needing a long moment to process this.

Kageyama looks like he wants to throttle someone. Namely his former vice-captain for suggesting it.

And then the stupider two of this party’s hosts for supporting it.

And then his second former vice-captain for hyping it up.

And then his third captain (aka the ‘cute, friendly softie’ you seem pretty friendly with) and his third captain’s girlfriend slash former second manager for accepting this stupid proposal on all of their behalves.

But when you burst into belated laughter at the absurdity of it all, Kageyama’s face hesitantly moves on from the pinched, murderous look he had on and compromises for a nice bewildered confusion.

“Kageyama,” you catch your breath as you lean a hand on his arm for support, “you have to help me find them later.” He nods questioningly but it’s not like he can say no, not when you have a warm hand pressed against his chilled arms, eyes crinkling in the exact way that had Hinata constantly making fun of him for staring at during group projects.

You grin at him as you explain, “I want pictures next to my new favourite cosplayers. Especially Yamaguchi.”

Man, this really is the devil’s hour.

“Do you like Yamaguchi’s type?” He blurts out before he can stop it.

“Huh?”

Leaning against the railing, he looks back at the apartment filled with friends conversing and couples generating warmth. By the couch, Yamaguchi has his arm around Yachi, laughing at something an upperclassmen friend of Bokuto said.

“The cute, friendly softies.”

You laugh casually, looking out at the expanse of the city before you, not quite understanding the weight of his question.

“Sure, why not? Warm personality, cute face. Nothing to not like about them.”

Or maybe you do understand, since for you, the qualities that make a “cute, friendly softie” most definitely applies to your love interest, who is standing out here in the freezing cold with you, dressed in nothing but swim trunks and a sports jersey.

But Kageyama stays silent.

Feeling that you might have said something wrong, you look at him haltingly. Kageyama continues to look into the apartment for a while, and you think that maybe, with the faraway night sky blue of his irises, he’s not really looking at the apartment. And then you catch your own reflections and his sharp blues staring straight at you through the reflections, and your maybe is now a certainty.

It’s so warm.

“Yeah.” He finally turns to you, the real you. On this cold, frigid night, Kageyama takes your honest, heartfelt words positively, a spark of hope on this Hallows Eve. “I like them, too.”

You wait for the magic to finish casting.

“They’re easy to be around. They’re comfy,” he elaborates, face softening. “They’re really warm.”

With a small, beaming smile, you cling onto that magic. Kageyama returns your smile with an equally bright one of his own. You turn to face the city lights again as he shifts his gaze back to the glow of the apartment. He might’ve moved closer — or was that you? — but you two stay in silence, simply there.

You could get used to this, his warmth besides yours in the chilly night. The fireflies fade straight into the background with the heat and comfort that Kageyama generates. For you, this is enough magic for now.

A delicious buzz runs through you, comfortable against the cold night.

You grin to yourself when you feel him flinch beside you as well.

But when he shivers again, practicality hits you.

“Oh shit, Kageyama!” You whip around to look at him. “Aren’t you freezing in that?”

He looks at you, eyes wide and blue in the night.

You make a move to untie your cloak.

His face starts to glow red once again.

“I’m fine!” He protests as you hold the cloak out to him. “I’m really warm!”

A chuckle erupts from you as you roll your eyes.

“Yeah, you are,” you grin, a teasing glint in your tone. “I was a bit chilly coming out here, but you’re pretty warm, Kageyama.”

The blush that engulfs him has Kageyama believing that you truly are a witch — and not just on this devil’s night.

He knows next to nothing about this stupid swimming show, but he, as Kageyama Tobio, cannot be outdone by a mere witch.

“I guess I am a bit cold,” Kageyama admits with a lopsided smile.

You huff out a satisfactory grin, passing him your cloak, victory in hand. Kageyama throws it around his shoulders, and you watch with barely-concealed admiration as his form dwarfs the cloak.

As you stand there, beaming up at him as if you could successfully ignore the cold, he barks out a short laugh.

Grinning at you slightly, Kageyama opens up his borrowed cloak.

“You look a bit cold.” His eyes hold all the impish blue magic of the hour. “I have a borrowed cloak from a cute friendly softie that we can share.”

You almost choke on the chilly air as it’s now your turn to flush red. He laughs, quite embarrassed at his spurt of gusto, and pulls you close, enveloping you in both the cloak and his body heat. As your city and friends come together for the last of October, you’re here to take on the wintery night, embraced in the magic of December’s warmth.

Pick a different room: > Go to the closed bedroom. > Go to the open bedroom. > Go to the kitchen. > Go to the hallway. > Go to the bathroom. > Go to the living room.

[hq--fics]

Kiss prompt #8 or #6 with bokuto please?? I looked for rules because I dont know if you only write for certain people from haikyuu but hopefully you write for him 😊👍🏼 thank u

A/N:  I definitely write for Bokuto haha. I’m hoping to have a rules and masterlist made soon but I’m willing to write any character suggested to me. Thank you for requesting this, hope you like it :)

Prompt list: here or feel free to request your own scenarios **Requests are open**

“Hiding/hoping not to be caught kissing” w/Bokuto

Words:  939

Warnings:  suggestive themes

Masterlist

He knew that he should stay away. Deep down he knew that he could be patient if he really, really tried. The question really was did he want to try? No, definitely not, not if it meant seeing you sooner. He’d already endured a week away from you and then on the journey home he saw you’d posted that selfie of you wearing that dress he loved and a comment that you were preparing for another long night at the library. Bokuto just wanted to pull you into his arms and make up for the time you’d both lost together. As he pulled up outside large university building Bokuto felt his hands tremble and itch in anticipation.

Bokuto had walked the floors of this building only when it was to pick you up from a long night of studying and preparing thesis work or to bring you something you’d forgotten. He knew your favourite place to work and sure enough there you were across the room and sat in your chair with a pile of books encircling your notebook and laptop claiming the entirety of the desk as yours. His heart swelled to see your beautiful face illuminated by the screen, your expression one of intense focus.

His golden eyes darkened as he saw you were wearing your reading glasses and you had your hair clipped back. As you read over your work you absently pulled your bottom lip between your teeth and your slender fingers played with the lock of your hair that had slipped free from the clip holding the rest in place. Even when you weren’t aware he was near you drove him crazy so easily. Unable to take it anymore he approached you quietly. With a short huff you closed the laptop with a frustrated slap of your hand. By the time he stood behind you, you were slumped over your notebook muttering to yourself. Looks like he came at just the right time.

You jumped when you felt the large pair of hands settle on your shoulders and you were about to turn and scream when you felt those familiar calloused fingers work into the knots already formed from your many late nights and mounting stress. With a contented sigh as you melted into the warmth of his practiced touch you leaned back in your seat and tilted your head back to smirk up at your boyfriend. “I wasn’t expecting you back until tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t stay away from you any longer.” He told you with a sly grin growing when your eyes lit up at his words. “Especially when I saw you were wearing that dress, thanks for the amazing view.” You playfully hit his arm, your face flushing as your caught his golden eyes darken with hunger as he continued to stare down at your chest. Knowing you weren’t going to get any more work done tonight you slowly rose from your seat. Your hands moved to the closest textbook only for Bokuto’s hands to cover yours as he stood behind you, his warmth radiating into your body as goosebumps flared against your neck as his lips ghosted over your skin. “I don’t think I can wait until we’re home.”

Your body trembled at his words and the smug grin you felt against your neck told you he felt that. There was definitely no way you were getting out of this, not when you desired his touch as much as he wanted yours but you were not doing anything out in the open like this. Not in a public place. Even in the dead of night there were still students and staff about. To prove your point you heard someone climbing the stairs to the floor you were both on. Practicality winning you lightly pushed your boyfriend’s muscular form off of yours and stepped out of his intoxicating proximity. “I’ll be quick. Promise.” You whispered moving around the table to pick up some books you needed to return to their proper shelves.

However Bokuto was faster and caught you around the waist before your fingers could so much as skim along the cover. With ease he led you away from the tables and towards one of the private study rooms. When the door closed behind you both he wasted no time in lifting you to sit on the edge of the table in the middle of the darkened room, his lips moving against yours in a searing kiss. Any moan that climbed up your throat was devoured by him before it could escape into the room. Breathless you broke away and your hands clung desperately to the back of his neck and threaded into his hair. “Ko, we can’t…” you tried to insist feebly, feeling that out of the two of you one needed to at least try to be the voice of reason but already your resolve was crumbling. “We’re in public. People could catch us.” You whined out as your body pressed closer against his when his hands drifted up your thighs and his lips moved against your neck. “If we get caught that depends on you…” you heard his voice whisper gruffly in your ear just before he placed a kiss against your jaw. “Want me to stop?”

Even in the dark you could tell that he was being serious. Despite his earlier statement he’d never force you into something you didn’t want. “Don’t you dare.” You purred tightening your grip on his hair as you pulled him into another kiss all the while hoping he had at least remembered to lock the door when you both came in.