#honestly she's probably just writing a man from the perspective of a woman in the 60's sooooo... Kinda makes sense actually

[bizarrocloudy]

Started reading The Left Hand of Darkness....

LeGuin: And they were stranded on a glacier alone together for 50 nights, sleeping in the same tent, and Estraven of course goes into kemmer!

Me: Ohhhhh yes, yyyeeessssss YES

LeGuin: And actually they did not fuck, and it's good that they didn't fuck, because now they're best friends :)

Me: FUCK YOU

[toto-the-cactus]

Primarchs + Daughters (3)

I wanna start by apologizing for taking this long in writing the last part of this train-wreck I decided to start because I came down with a bad case of the snots and didn't have the motivation to write until the vitamin c and antiflu-des kicked in. So far I'm good and just waiting for my vacations. The wonders of working now in the school system is that now u get vacations more often, yay!

Anyway, here ya go! The last one!

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Magnus The Red

Honestly, I like Magnus. He is the kind of tragic man that gets a woman swooning. Make him a girl dad and you’ll be knocking heads down. I’ll be going at this with the possibility that any child that this guy sires will pop out as a psyker (the possibility is high if those swimmers managed to get the reader knocked up, tbf) so here we go. Let’s see… despite all the past mistakes during the heresy, we are talking about a Primarch that, while still kinda inhuman in many aspects, was very welcoming and showed quite the approachable disposition to anyone that had a curious mind. With that in mind, this mf would encourage his little girl to always ask him anything to stimulate her hunger for knowledge. Have you been around a child that is in the stages of the ‘Why’s’? Magnus will make it worse by always asking his daughter if she wants to know about a certain topic, going in an endless cycle of ramblings because there’s nothing that will make this man happier than to feed his precious girl endless amounts of information. Even when he spoils his child like the rightful princess that she is, he’ll still be strict about her behavior and tuition; being well aware that, to the outside world, she’ll be expected to act and speak in a certain proper way. Now, the tricky part about him when it comes to teaching his little girl how to control her psyker abilities. We all know that, when still with good intentions, Magnus was too damn arrogant when dealing with the fuckery of the Warp with little to no caution when he had already been warned about it. It didn’t matter that much when it was only him and his Legion dealing with it, but his baby girl on the other hand… ho boy, the good ol’ saying “do as I say, not as I do” could easily fit here. The Primarch more than likely will hammer the strict rule to his daughter that no psyker power usage unless he’s there to supervise and help her. HE is a demigod, the son of the Mighty Emperor of Mankind; in his perspective, he knows how to ignore (at least he thinks so) the poisonous whispers of the aether. Unless his child becomes of-age and has a much better grip over her abilities, MAYBE he’ll allow her to do as she wishes. Of course, only when she is residing at Prospero and very away from some of her uncles.

Horus Lupercal

The favorite golden boy of the Emperor himself! With how charismatic this man is, one can get an idea that he’ll be an incredible dad… and you would be right, but there are also little aspects that make this guy a whole new spectrum of his own. Remember that I mentioned once that Fulgrim would try and raise his daughter in a manner that she'll follow the exact path he’ll set for her? It’s kind of the same thing here, but Horus does it in such a subtle and gentle way that it’s hard to even call it gaslight. He’s just too damn charming that his own baby girl does as he says without questioning him because, to this poor child, her papa can’t do any bad in her eyes… and this man eats it all up. They feed each other their mutual hunger for their admiration and it’s amazing nothing too bad comes out of it. Probably some unhealthy dependent behavior if the issue isn’t nipped properly when she gets older, but overall, Horus’ little princess would never wish for anything. Just as much as the Primarch asks for his daughter to do as he says, he isn’t too tyrannical to force her to undergo a harsh training and he’ll be more pressed for the girl to become more like a politician or anything that doesn’t put her in the line of danger because, after all is said and done, the demigod still loves and cherish his little girl. Her precious miracle. While many may think that Horus would try and manipulate his daughter to do as he says, yall need to be aware that (in this guy’s case) he doesn’t even realize that he’s using too much Nat20 Charisma over his little girl and genuinely thinks that it’s normal for children to blindly obey their fathers and that mostly comes from his warped perception of parenthood that he learned from Big E. Just like with the Legions of Sanguinius, Leman and Guilliman, the Luna Wolves Legion would adore the little lady to the point of being a bit overbearing. They see her as another extension of their Primarch, very different from how they are created as astartes, and that simply leaves them all both intrigued and amazed. I’ll be merciful with yall and avoid touching the landmine of angst that the Heresy would be because this one got a bit long and we gotta jump to the next mf. Next!

Lorgar Aurelian

Ho, fucking hell… So, first off, this is a walking drama. Period. I can defend Lorgar about certain aspects that were out of his complete control but at the end of the day, he is plenty of guilty from some of the actions that lead to the dry-fuck that the heresy was. But we’re here to judge this bastard by papa points and not his war crimes (if that were the case, I would never end this chuckle-fuck post), so let’s fucking go. Despite what we all imagine, Lorgar is quite decent at being a good father. He’ll still try to force his child into a religious path, but since he already worships his SO as a goddess, his little girl is nothing but his absolute treasure so I don’t see him being more forceful than necessary with her. Any little doodle and gibberish done by his precious girl will be hanged nearby to where Lorgar works to keep close and be constantly reminded of his family. Honestly, of all the Primarchs, this guy is the sappiest one and I can’t help but feel kinda bad when thinking about the heresy outcome. He genuinely loves hanging with his little girl, encouraging her in any craft that may make her happy. Their bonding time is spent with Lorgar reading small tales that his daughter messily writes, wishing to see if her father would approve of her writing but jokes on her because hell would freeze first before this man ever says anything that would upset his baby girl. Unless he’s at a long campaign, nothing would stop this guy to be the one to tuck and kiss goodnight to his princess, for he needs to make sure that she is safe and sound at their palace along with her mother. If anything, this man tetters in the thin line of being quite overbearing, but he sometimes manages to reel himself back by sheer miracle. Where most of his brother would try to keep their budding family away and hidden, Lorgar would show off his daughter to the high heavens and back because, to him, the birth of his little girl is nothing but a gift given by his father, the God-Emperor himself, so why should he keep her away from the light of her grandfather too? Like many others have proposed, I like the idea of the Emperor taking the daughter and SO of Lorgar during the burning of Monarchia, effectively driving my man to his last restrain. Like many of the traitor Primarchs, this girl has no happy ending. She’ll probably be shunned and sneered at for the actions of her father while she’s kept trapped in the golden walls of the Imperial Palace at Terra, unable to ever go home because her grandfather had decided that he actually wished to be a parental figure for her. Ironic how that sounded worse.

Vulkan

Ah man, this one is just self explanatory. This big guy is the magazine example of a dedicated father. He was already one of the few Primarchs that could and loved being around kids, even if his size made it quite hard to maneuver around them. Having a daughter only makes this man even more tender. If any of the Salamanders ask their Primarch how his SO and daughter are doing, no force in the universe will stop this man happily showing the new doodle his precious gem did for him or telling them how his princess managed to read a whole sentence that day without a stutter. This guy just sPILLS love whenever he thinks about the little girl that he helped to create. If it were for him, Vulkan would prefer for his precious gem to dedicate herself to anything that has NOTHING to do with the Imperium. He wants her to be happy and safe no matter what, but he’s well aware that his daughter is her own person and that she’ll eventually make her own decisions without his input. Just like Khan, Vulkan will be quite the loving father (the most expressive of them all) but he’ll not be shy about having to be harsh when needed. No spoiled brats will be raised by him. I love to imagine that this little girl has an entire chest full of the little trinkets that her ‘Big Bros’ and her father gifts her: jewelry, toys, decorations, etc. This precious child is probably the happiest in the universe. There’s a chance that, as she grows, she would ask her father to teach her how to work in the art of smithy not only because she admires the Primarch, but because the little girl genuinely grew interested in the arts of working the metal over the fire. Yall, this one is just too sweet I am dying!!

Corvus Corax

Now, this man is one of the many that are hard to read for me but I am a slave of the masses and I must fulfill my fate so here comes nothing. This fun fella is quite the contradiction when it comes to parenthood since his own doubtfulness and depressing disposition clash terribly with the love and protectiveness he suddenly feels when seeing his daughter for the first time. The one thing that doesn’t change at all is his ever present determination to do his best to fulfill his role as both Primarch and new father. It sounds so incredibly inspiring and nice when you put it at first like that, but Corvus is the kind of guy that would look at his child crying and, unable to understand what she wants, he carries her around until he finds his SO for help because he’s just so fucking LOST, clueless, of what entails properly caring for a baby. Of course that only happens during the first months of the little girl having been born, because Corvus, my good man, is anything but lazy and dumb. He’ll wish to be involved mostly to ease his SO responsibilities regarding their precious child and because he is genuinely curious about the sweet little thing he helped to create. To him, the whole thing of raising his baby girl is both fascinating and scary and to be fair, his reactions regarding fatherhood are probably the most humane in that regard. I eventually can see my man being quite good at calming his little princess down thanks to his capacity at reading her emotions like the palm of his hand. These two would rarely need words to communicate between each other, sometimes making their staring off quite unnerving to the outsiders eyes. With how sensible this guy is, it's easy for Corvus to convey (unorthodoxly) his love to his daughter and like most of his brothers would do, he usually spoils her to the best of his capacities but tries his best to not make a brat out of her too. Hide and Seek are their favorite game and a good way to train his little girl in the arts of slipping through the enemies with the help of the shadows, making their games a whole new level of skill which gets even more interesting when any astartes asks to participate. I feel it’s kind of sad that this precious girl was quite close to her father with how much he liked to be involved in her raising, so when he disappeared through the Warp she felt the loss of her father the same way one loses a limb.

Alpharius/Omegon

This one feels more like a fever dream fueled by quetiapine because, to any little girl born from either twin, the WHOLE Alpha Legion are her papa. Just like the SO of those two lunatics, it would take time for their daughter to start understanding and pinpointing the differences between astartes, Alpharius and Omegon respectively. Just… jfc. Like, imagine this precious little thing walking and playing around and a group of Alpha Legion astartes pass by and she simply says “Hi, papa!” To. Each. One. Of. Them. Alpharius and Omegon take it as a funny little gag between them and an excellent way to ensure that their daughter never feels neglected but the SO isn’t amused about it.

There we go. Dump whatever fun facts yall wanna add too. I don't mind <333

[bookwormbynight]

Do you think either L or Light being a woman would change the story in anyway?

It definitely would. 100%.

Let's see... Taking away the context of the people writing the story, (Ohba and Obata very obviously fucking HATED women and did not try to hide it 😭) and attacking this only from an in-world perspective...

Let's start with L. What I've always taken is that he doesn't have a particular attachment to the idea of gender, gender roles, gender expression, etc - he doesn't pay any particular attention to his appearance and I'm fairly certain his neutral clothing is the way it is simply because he finds that the easiest and most comfortable. However, I think he's perfectly comfortable with being perceived as a man because he is cisgender, just kind of detached from it. (I would take an argument from others about apathetic nonbinary L tho.) This would probably translate if he'd been born female. I don't think, at her core, she would act any different at all, but she would likely be more aware of her sex thanks to the fact that everyone else would pay more attention to it. The fact that L was male automatically removed barriers that female L would have to face. It would probably take longer to get Watari to listen to her than it did in canon, she would probably allow people to assume she was the wrong gender and not correct them for ease's sake when she contacted people as L through the voice filter, and when she met the Task Force face-to-face, she might spend a hot second fielding weird awkward bullshit, because the Task Force knew and trusted her before, and this doesn't really change who she is, but it would definitely shift their perception at least a little and that dissonance likely wouldn't be handled tactfully. If she acts the exact same as canon L, though, which I imagine she would, whatever 'fears' would be generally dissuaded fairly quickly and she would have their respect due to the relationship they had already built, just like what happened when they saw canon L's appearance, although the Task Force would likely end up assuming she's a lesbian even though she isn't. (This would also probably mean that she's equally as subject to accusations of perversion as canon L.)

Light would be. SO FUCKING AWARE OF HER GENDER. Canon Light is 100% a very cisgender gay man with a good heap of lightly gay-flavored perfectly in-line gender expression, publicly adhering to gender roles as best he perceives them, and a disdain for the opposite gender. Female Light would have a double whammy of suspicion and dislike of the opposite gender (now men), and also internalized misogyny. How nice <3. She would likely go out of her way to be much more publicly sweet and demure, downplay her confidence much more than canon Light bothers to (so as to not be seen as a bitch), and have a good heaping of bitterness about her 'societal restraints' (that she's consenting to be stuck in because she'd be one of those 'play nice and eventually they'll respect you' motherfuckers). She'd probably honestly go for playing Kira even quicker than canon Light does, simply because her future prospects are not as bright as her male counterpart's and she would be very frustrated about that and this would be an outlet, and while canon Light was NOT afraid to murder a rapist on sight, female Light might end up even seeking them out when looking for 'the worst of the worst' (I doubt canon Light did), because she would now be a part of the population that lives under that fear, and those actions might skew her statistics. I think the face-to-face introduction of L into her life would fucking rock her world.

Moving to the topic of sexualities and romantic subtext, I think Light would be a gender-conforming femme closeted lesbian (I like to think she would have a particular weird thing about boobs and that would be the only thing that sticks out about her to her friends, because aversion to sex with men is not considered particularly notable in women in this patriarchal society - which fucking baffles me but whatever). If Misa's still a girl, I can't decide if she would decide that she's in love with this Light, or rationalize her devotion as more of a platonic thing, but since she would be part of the gender Light trusts and relates to more, even though she hates how vapid Misa appears (internalized misogyny + superiority complex!), their relationship might end developing to more closely resemble canon Light's relationship to Mikami. If Misa's a guy, their relationship would stay the exact same, just with the assumed gender roles swapped, and the imminent threat of Misa getting down on one knee and proposing to Light out of the blue at any time (and also maybe being more overtly sexually aggressive because society would have let him feel entitled to that). I personally think canon L is bisexual and as such female L's sexual bullshit would not have changed in the slightest.

The way Light is treated by the Task Force might start derailing the story when they begin to intertwine. Also I would not at all be surprised if male!Misa tries to babytrap Light by poking holes in the condoms and switching out her pills because he thinks she, a female with biological urges, will grow to appreciate what he did. (She will not.)

[frvnkcastles]

I feel shithouse for asking since I'm not a girlie, bur I was! Trans guy here but honestly a trauma ex girlie!

Can I request something with a reader (doesn't matter the pronouns if you feel more comfy writing she/her that's chill!) Where the reader is asked to come to Christmas with their family, and frank is a plus one bur you're worried as your family are alcoholics (starting drinking at like 10 til late) and the reader is trying to cut down but their family is really pushy and feels like they're gonna fall back into bad patterns and Frank pulls them away for an hour just talking and smoking a cigarette as the readers the only dart smoker in the family as they've all transitioned to vaping?

(Maybe just mother, brother, sister in law and reader +frank, and possibly the radio keeps turning on and off and the family calling out readers grandparents in the afterlife as the cause v much jokingly?)

YOU’RE THE ONLY PLACE THAT FEELS LIKE HOME ➵ F. CASTLE

Summary: When you have to deal with your alcoholic family, Frank is there to support you.

Warnings: Alcoholism, implied past abuse, mention of deceased grandparents, reader smokes, language, gender neutral reader

Word count: 1.7k

Author’s note: Anon, don’t feel bad at all!! This is a safe space for everyone no matter what and you’re 100% welcome here. I do wish more of my fics were gender neutral but often my ideas come from my own experiences as a mentally ill/traumatized woman and when I get requests, they usually mention she/her pronouns. That said, while I don’t really know how to write from the perspective of a man, I have no problem writing a gender neutral reader if it’s specified. Also, I am very sorry you had to wait such a long time for this, I hope you like it!! Sending you lots of love <3

When your family invited you to spend the holidays with them, you instinctively knew you were in for an uncomfortable time. Since you had moved out, you had tried to keep your distance and unlearn the bad habits that you had developed at home — like drinking. That was your first and foremost concern, having to witness their drunken behavior and how the situation would most likely escalate sooner or later, as it always did. You had done a great job of cutting down but you feared that being back in their company would force you to undo all your progress.

The one good thing about the whole thing was that they didn’t protest you bringing Frank along. He made most shitty situations better just by being present, and you instantly felt heard and comforted when he agreed to come with you. Frankly, he was opposed to the mere thought of letting you go alone, knowing all about your complicated family history and therefore determined to support you through every encounter.

”Y’know you’re allowed to decline, yeah? Don’t wanna see you puttin’ yourself through shit just ’cause they’re askin’”, he reminded as you were getting ready to leave for your mother’s house. Pulling on his jacket, he eyed you, looking for any hint of hesitation on your face, but you were doing a good job at putting up a brave front. You wanted to keep the peace, and admittedly, a little bit of you missed your family and ached to spend time with them, even if you knew it probably wouldn’t end well.

”Thanks, Frankie. It’s okay, I want to go. Just… need you by my side”, you sighed, and nodding, Frank stepped over to you to press a kiss on your temple, brief but full of emotion.

”You got me, darlin’. I ain’t goin’ anywhere”, he assured before taking your hand and steering you out the door.

He encouraged you to take deep breaths during the drive over, noticing with ease how anxiety was starting to manifest in your bouncing leg and chewed bottom lip. You tried to take Frank’s advice and keep yourself calm, but as soon as you arrived at the house, you came to the conclusion the night was already becoming more intense than you had anticipated.

There was a haze of drunken stupor in the air and loud chatter filled every room, tipping almost over to downright shouting. Bottles and cans littered the tables and the realization that everyone was already drunk unsettled you, making you swallow hard as you reached for Frank’s hand. He squeezed tight, unwavering as he stood next to you.

”Finally! Took you long enough”, your brother noticed you standing by the door, and he rushed to you, shoving a bottle of beer into your hands. You shook your head and handed it back over to him, which earned a scoff from me. ”What, you too good for us now?” he mocked, but he didn’t linger to hear your response, just stomped back to the dining room where your mother was setting up dinner.

You glanced at Frank, and he directed an affirming nod at you, giving you the strength and will to walk to the dining table with him right behind you. You exchanged greetings with your mother who was clearly tipsy at the very least, and your attempts to make conversation went unheard and unnoticed. You supposed it was a good thing — they weren’t actively picking fights with you, at least.

Frank, ever the gentleman, helped bring in all the food and the plates, with the same goal as you: keeping the peace. He wasn’t interested in befriending your family because of all the trauma they had bestowed upon you, but for your sake, he remained cordial and polite. That said, he was ready to defend you at the smallest thing.

As everyone sat down for dinner, your mother poured you a glass of liquour and you instantly felt opposed to the idea. ”Oh, I don’t really drink anymore”, you tried, and in an instant, your mother and brother exchanged looks that were judgmental as well as surprised.

”One drink won’t kill you”, your mother insisted, continuing to pour until the glass was filled to the brim. You licked your lips nervously, but unwilling to start a full-blown argument by refusing, you reached for the glass.

Frank stopped you, however. ”They don’t gotta drink anythin’ they don’t wanna”, he spoke firmly, his tone stern enough to warn everyone not to start with him. You smiled softly at him and he squeezed your thigh in response, keeping you close to him in the hopes that his warmth would ground you in the otherwise anxiety-inducing environment.

Your mother opened her mouth to retort something, but she was cut off by the radio crackling, quickly redirecting her attention. ”Must be your grandparents again”, she commented with a laugh, one you didn’t return. You shuffled uncomfortably in your seat and Frank gave your arm a comforting caress, his eyes darting between you and your family. He hated seeing you in these situations that only distressed you, and he wished there was more he could have done to help.

But he tried by gaining control of the conversation. It was a gesture you appreciated greatly, especially because you knew he was most definitely not the kind of man who participated in small-talk. He was used to sitting back and observing, but right now, you didn’t have the capacity to keep chatting and he didn’t mind taking the reins on your behalf. He kept your mother busy so that she wouldn’t have the chance to push you to drink, but your brother still jumped at the opportunity.

”You’re really not gonna drink that? God, you really have changed. Can’t even have a drink with your family anymore”, he rolled his eyes, trying his very best to guilt you into having a sip, and it almost worked. You were moments away from cracking under the pressure, but once again, Frank came to your rescue.

”We’re, uh, we’re gon’ get some fresh air. Excuse us”, Frank informed curtly, his words respectful but his tone cold, just like the look in his eyes. He wasn’t going to let you sit there as the target of their complaints anymore, and so, he helped you up from the seat and guided you outside into the refreshing air.

You exhaled heavily as you dug out a cigarette with shaky hands, and Frank ran his hand across his face in frustration. He was seething, feeling so much anger towards your family for being so pushy with you, and he was desperate to just carry you in the car and take you home right now.

”We ain’t gotta stay, baby. The way they treat you… makes me real upset for you. Just say the word and I’ll take you home, got that?” he swore, his eyes piercing yours as you inhaled the cigarette. You pondered on his offer, and you couldn’t deny that it sounded tempting — it wasn’t a good time so far, and you doubted it was getting any better with all the alcohol they were consuming nonstop.

”Yeah, I don’t really want to stay for long. Let’s just get through dinner and then we’ll go?” you suggested, and sucking in a breath, Frank bowed his head in an agreeing nod.

”Whatever you wanna do. But I ain’t lettin’ you drink when you’ve done so well without any”, he decided with a point of his finger, and with an appreciative smile curling your lips, you reached for his forearm and squeezed.

”Thank you, Frankie. This would suck a lot more without you”, you noted, and with a quiet chuckle, Frank shrugged.

”Yeah, well, I’d need a damn good reason not to be here for you. I don’t want you to deal with all this all by yourself, y’know?” he explained, stepping closer to you and winding an arm over your shoulders. He pulled you closer, and while making sure you wouldn’t get ash on him, you leaned into him and enjoyed the feeling of his firm body against yours.

”I know it sucks. It’s just… they’re my family. I’ve realized it’s not healthy for me to spend a lot of time with them but sometimes I miss them”, you admitted quietly, a little embarrassed to speak the truth, but Frank wouldn’t judge you.

He pressed a kiss into your hair, in fact. ”I hear ya. It ain’t easy to cut off the people you’ve grown up with. I’m proud of you, anyway. You’re doin’ so great, hear me?” he emphasized, wanting you to know that he admired your strength. You were the most amazing person he knew and he would never let you forget that.

”You’re so sweet”, you muttered, shy under his praise and deep stare, and he reacted with a snort.

”That’s the first time anyone’s ever said that ’bout me, sweetheart”, he declared, and it made you laugh — even if you strongly felt like he should hear it all the time.

Sighing, you put out your cigarette. ”I guess we should head back inside”, you gave in, but with a tut, Frank pulled you back from the door.

”I mean, they ain’t exactly lookin’ for us yet. We’re in no hurry, yeah? We can take a moment, just you and me”, he proposed instead, and you didn’t take much convincing, especially with his dark eyes looking so soft and caring as they bore into yours. There was a small, hopeful smile on his lips, and that was enough to reel you in.

”I’d like that”, you agreed before leaning in to kiss his cheek. ”Thanks for everything, Frank. This really means a lot”, you added, and caressing your hair, he shook his head.

”Ya gotta stop thankin’ me, darlin’. I’m just doin’ what I can to help. And treatin’ you the way you deserve, aight?” he countered, serious about being good to you. And so far, he had been successful in every way.

It was going to be a long night, but you felt encouraged with Frank by your side, and you knew you had a way out if you just told him you wanted to go. It didn’t erase all your problems with your family, but it was safe to say you had found a new one in Frank.

[plutorine]

So... I just finished Demons...

heavy spoilers below the cut!

Honestly, I have no idea as to how I’m supposed to structure this review, given that I have many thoughts (and feelings) about having just ended another novel that’s full to the brim with things to talk about. I’m just going to write this according to the flow of my thoughts.

I’ve been told months before starting Demons that the first part is a little boring to get through, but in retrospect, I don’t subscribe to that belief anymore. Setting up the backdrop with Stepan and Varvara’s relationship was essential in establishing the main themes of the story.

(a) Control. For a woman in that century, seizing the opportunity to have the upperhand over a man is the most viable and beneficial option for Varvara. Sure, she might be more financially well-off than Stepan, but in the eyes of the conservative society then, she’s still supposed to defer to him due to her sex. There’s a passage wherein (I think) Stepan contemplated marrying Varvara (after Vsevolod Stavrogin’s death), but he ultimately decided not to. Even if he did push through with it, I don’t think Varvara would have agreed, either, because that meant succumbing to someone who she obviously thought was below her (“...no doubt, Varvara very often did hate him…”), and of course, knowing her character, she would absolutely not do that. 

(b) Projection/idealization. Varvara quite literally had Stepan dress up like the Kukolnik portrait that she saw as a young girl. She saw Stepan as her “creation”, even; she defended him from everything and so whenever he acted in a way that betrayed her image of him, she’d grow resentful of him. Varvara, having invested a lot into Stepan — emotionally and financially — now expects him to slavishly obey and go along with her every whim. Here, one can also see the transactional element of the relationships in Demons, and we see this, along with the other aforementioned themes, become more fleshed out as the story progresses. 

We’re introduced to Nikolai Stavrogin next, who is Varvara’s only son. I’ve spoken a great deal about Nikolai here already (especially on Twitter… My mutuals are probably so sick of seeing Maxim Matveev’s Stavrogin’s face on my account XD), but this is yet another opportunity for me to talk about him again. Having the privilege to be able to see him from a larger perspective and know about his childhood, I honestly felt sorry for him, even until his death. I tweeted this about him three months ago:

I’m not going to go on a rant about nature vs nurture here, but I really do believe that those nights where Stepan would just trauma dump unto this kid unprovoked without providing any good opinion of the world afterwards was what began Nikolai’s self-contained view of the world. I doubt he was able to make a lot of friends his age, too; he was quite the shy kid and he often kept to himself, not to mention that Varvara wasn’t the best parent, either. She provided for Nikolai, yes, but she fell short in actually being his mother. Nikolai was more of a status symbol for her than a son she cherished, really, and when she felt that something really disturbing had taken root within him, it was too late to do anything to counteract it. I gush about him a lot (like a lot, and this is more true if you follow me on Twitter), but it’s Matveev who I like, honestly. Not Nikolai as a person. I feel sorry for that loser (lovingly... and pitifully), because he’s carrying a weight inside of him that he can’t even grasp, and everyone around him is busy projecting whatever onto him. He voices out his frustration over this after the duel with Artemy Pavlovich, and it’s one of those moments that show how Nikolai isn’t just some figure of mystery and intrigue. He’s still a person, and he’s so, so tired of it all.

I also had a phase where I really got into picking apart Pyotr Verkhovensky’s character. As a psych grad, it’s so fascinating to see the theories I’ve learned that touch on the effects of parental neglect come alive through Pyotr. This, coupled with that childhood fear of his, molded him into the master manipulator that he was. Everything he does is for the sake of harnessing control, even if it makes him look stupid in the eyes of others. Pyotr’s “deference” to Nikolai is not an actual display of submission — it’s only a front, because what he really aims to do is to gain control of the latter through such an act. He’s boot-licking since he needs the influence that Nikolai has, not because he truly respects or sees him as someone so great; at the end of the day, it’s all about control. It’s why Pyotr does a complete 180-degree turn and goes from calling Nikolai the “sun” to “scoundrel” when he heard about him leaving town. And I bet that that struck a really sensitive nerve in Pyotr, having been abandoned by his own father as a child. I’ve also noticed something about him — he has his way with using his words on others so they’d go along with what he wants to do, but whenever someone attacks him with facts (e.g. Yulia Mikhailovna calling him out on his behavior towards Andrei Antonovich; Fedka telling him that he’s but a yapping dog and that Nikolai sees it as “...a great honor just to spit on him from above”), he cannot, for the life of him, handle it at all. Like, he gets MAD mad when someone lays the truth on him.

I want to take a moment and talk about the women in the story, too. I tweeted about the theme of the women being the men’s scapegoats for their wrongdoings. We see this with Yulia Mikhailovna, whose “idiotic behavior” was used to cover up Pyotr’s machinations behind the chaos that ruined the fête; I don’t intend to rid her of her influence in what happened, because she did have a hand in it, too; but it’s reductive and irresponsible to say that it was simply her who caused everything to go to shit. After all, Pyotr was the one who was living off of the influence she had, and he was using her as a pawn in his game, as well. Another example is Liza’s death. She’s killed by the townspeople because she was Nikolai’s mistress, and they believed her to be the reason why the Lebyadkins were killed, thus leading to the devastating fire that razed Zarechye. I can get behind that, but where’s the violence that is to be directed towards Nikolai himself? It takes two to tango, so why is he not getting the same kind of heat? There’s also Pyotr, who had orchestrated everything to lead her to Skvoreshniki. Again, I’m not saying Liza’s without agency (because she did choose to go there herself), but it was still a man who guided her down that path to destruction. 

One thing that sat at the back of my head and really weighed me down during my read was the scarcity of love in the story. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s entirely loveless, because there were moments where love was present (e.g. Mavriky’s acceptance of Liza even after everything that has happened, Kirillov’s support while Marie was on the brink of childbirth; and Shatov seeing a new beginning for his family after the birth of the baby), but the chaos and despair just greatly outweighed it. I didn’t expect it to feel light, anyway (like of course it wouldn’t be that way, this is a Dostoevsky novel, duh), but the experience was just really bleak. 

There are little genuine relationships in this novel, too. Everyone is constantly trying to one-up everyone else, and this post will not end if I decide to cite them all and analyze them. They're all constantly grappling for power over another person, and the lengths that they'd go to are even self-sabotaging. Like, "never mind if I look like a fool, hurt myself or others in the process; what matters is that I come on top of everyone." And of course, as I've discussed in an older post, you can't expect love to come out of a relationship that's borne out of the struggle for control and dominance.

I knew that everything was going to go to shit at the end of the novel, but the awareness of such did not dull the pain at all. Watching it actually go down as I was reading so horribly was still hard for me. I think what really killed me about Nikolai’s fate was Kirillov’s words about him: “...if Stavrogin believes, he doesn’t believe that he believes; but if he doesn’t believe, then he doesn’t believe that he doesn’t believe.” Nikolai’s not entirely convinced of his own faithlessness, much less comfortable with his nihilism. Up until the end he was looking for something to believe in, but as fate would have it, he’s unable to find what he was looking for. Like Tikhon said, Nikolai doesn’t want to be just lukewarm. He’d settle to either be warm or cold, even, but he can’t, because he doesn’t know how to escape the prison of the existential emptiness that he’s got inside of him. 

This leads me back to Kirillov, too. When Pyotr came to him to make sure that he would follow through with their agreement, I could feel Kirillov hesitating to kill himself. I don’t think I breathed when I was reading that part. I felt like he, too, was looking for a way out of this bargain with Pyotr, but alas, he couldn’t find it. 

And Shatov. God. His death happened so fast (as in the way it was narrated). It absolutely broke me how a few moments ago he was so happy, so excited to have Marie back and become a father to their baby (well, I know it isn’t his, but that’s Shatov’s baby. Period.) And then… It was all gone. Just like that. I had to take a moment after that chapter to debrief myself because it was just so sudden. I have no other words for this bit, honestly.

I want to say more, but I fear I’d be rambling too much already. I might put out separate posts according to a specific theme or element that I wanna discuss, but so far, this is all I have to say about Demons. Jesus Christ. 10/10, would probably read again, but not in the near future because it was just too much. Right now I’m just excited to integrate everything I’ve learned into my fanfiction since I’ve got a more confident grasp on the enigma that is Nikolai Stavrogin. God, I wanna make him suffer all over again. See you all in my next post about this damn novel. 

[theromanticscrooge]

How Alejandro Cracked my Transmasc Egg!

It’s pride month. I’m a transmasc person. I feel like yapping about how a cartoon character was part of what cracked my trans egg and some of my experiences as a transperson in general.

Total Drama World Tour premiered in 2010 and the minute Alejandro walked on screen...Well, I didn’t have some kind of magic epiphany, but he sparked my interest and definitely had a pull to him I couldn’t properly describe at the time. I honestly thought I just found the character attractive, had a crush on him, or was stupidly invested in Aleheather as a ship. I have a few one-off ship my cartoon persona illustrations with Alejandro, but the bulk of my fanart was easily just Alejandro or Aleheather.

It started with a fun, dumb fanart of Alejandro ripping his shirt off, accompanied by sparkles and bright light. Then I wrote my first ever Aleheather fic “The Amazon” which was pretty much Alejandro and Heather getting stuck together trying to survive in the Amazon, confessing catching feelings, and then making out. After getting a feel for trying to write from Alejandro’s perspective, something clicked.

I wanted to try writing something beefier and more in-depth from first person rather than third person omniscient. The result was Captivated, a fic that started as an Aleheather-focused high school AU but quickly became a soap opera with the race for student council, petty cheating, scheming older brother Jose, and other bullshit. While I have very mixed feelings on that particular fic now, I remember how much I enjoyed writing for Alejandro. He was a pretty boy that oozed with impeccable fashion sense. He was smart, viewed himself as a 4th dimensional chess schemer, a jack of all trades with almost full mastery in all, very muscly in a way that fit both aesthetics and practical needs for endurance or strength. He was mean, petty, and cruel with a silver tongue.

In high school, I was a meek, quiet, dormouse of a person with horribly low self-esteem and crazy hair that hid in baggy T-shirts or behind books. It felt like I was either an easy target or someone people pitied. Other kids didn’t talk to me. Guys weren’t interested in my grungy self unless they were flirting with me on a dare or thought I’d be easy to break and manipulate.

Of course the world isn’t black and white. There were several kids that were actually friendly and kind to me and I’m hoping they’re all doing well now as the lonely, neurodivergent kid that didn’t quite know how to human. That said, I still didn’t like being this short, weird girl that would never get taken seriously, was laughed at or teased when I tried to speak up and got angry, or only felt validated when I leaned into being the eccentric class clown. I used to dream about being a big, burly, ugly dude. A brick wall that people were intimidated by and left alone or that I’d be able to beat up people just because I was bigger and stronger.

Writing for Alejandro was an escapist fantasy. I was writing for a character that was scary and intimidating in a subtle way and probably could win a fist fight if he had to. But he was also very desirable, sought after, and beloved by someone no matter what he did because he was a handsome young man with pretty privilege. Most of my approach to writing him was playing at or trying to convincingly portray this character but every time he became lovesick or pined after Heather, that was absolutely my hopeless romantic coming through.

I didn’t immediately clock my attachment to this character as wanting to be a pretty boy like him. There’s plenty of cishet, bisexual, and lesbian women artists that relate to, create, and write for masculine characters. I remember a book group I was part of getting to talk to one of the authors behind some bad boy/shy girl romance novel we’d read. The author was an older cishet woman that said she related more to the bad boy character and had an easier time writing from his perspective and coming up with his dialogue. That seems to be the case for and motivation behind why a lot of women write slash fanfics too.

That’s an entire rabbit hole in and of itself. I wanted to mention it more because Alejandro was just one small part of my transmasc journey overall.

I did have a real life experience with conflicting feelings over “I don’t know if I want to date this person or be him.” Granted, I didn’t know that’s what I was agonizing over until years later. The picture was: I still thought I was a cishet woman. When I met this guy for the first time, I felt drawn towards and intrigued by him. It really felt like a crush. I wanted to be around this person, enjoyed his company, admired how nice he looked wandering around in either turtleneck sweaters or a labcoat attempt at a casual Okabe Rintaro cosplay. He was a fun, eccentric anime enthusiast a year or so older than me known for sporting cat ears.

Why I’m skeptic about whether I actually had a crush on him is I remember getting the opportunity to be alone with this dude at a nature reserve. I spent the entire time anxious, wishing the third person that’d been invited would show up, feeling like horrible, awkward company. I know feelings like that can and do pop up in actual first date situations. It’s more that I could never comfortably imagine what it’d be like to just hang out with this person in a laidback setting or situation one on one.

These feelings were dramatically different from another guy I had a temporary relationship with and my current partner. In both of these relationships, I felt very attracted to the other person, highly anticipated alone time, and the feelings were enough to steamroll or work past the nervousness and anxiety. Granted, I also knew I had a green light and that the feelings were mutual.

I guess what cemented how I felt was looking back on it is that now, I’d love to look half as good as this real life Rintaro. I wanted to be as confident and openly weird as him. It was gender envy. Even if I ever had a snowball’s chance in hell with this guy, it would have been a horrible, awkward mess because I wasn’t interested in the actual person. I had an idea in my head or a loose sketch of who he was and spent far more time fantasizing about that image vs getting to know the three dimensional, real being standing in front of me. I’m glad nothing happened and that in what handful of romantic situations I’ve been in, it’s been a case of wanting this separate, distinct person.

Weirdly enough, I didn’t realize this was real life gender envy until I watched through O.K. K.O. again, looked at Professor Venomous, and had a very similar experience with what I did with Alejandro as a teenager. He’s a twink with shoulder length hair and slight stubble that wears eyeliner. He’s the older, purple, and cartoon supervillain aesthetic version of what I liked about Alejandro. I’m hoping that I reach a point where I’m confident enough to try cosplaying him. I’d be a shorter, barrel shaped version, but it’d be so fun. I might actually work up the nerve to appear on camera again if I could pull off looking good in a turtleneck and a lab coat. So far, my track record is that I’m more likely to write really long, in-depth fan fics about characters that I feel gender envy towards or very roughly fit what my ideal pretty boy image looks like. I don’t know. I guess I really want to be a snake man.

[kemonododo]

So, in my general boredom, I was browsing through the internet and was reminded of Saya no Uta, a visual novel I had heard about during my VN hyperfixation near the end of 2017 but was a bit too much of a pussy to actually read. Now, as an adult and with time to spare, I decided to finally play it.

It was… something. I feel like writing down my thoughts so read if you wish. Spoilers obviously.

The basic summary is that a young man named Fuminori had surgery after some brain damage that has completely affected his mental state, now hallucinating the world as a hellscape of blood and organs and his fellow humans as mounds of meat and tentacles. That is except for Saya, a strange person he met in the hospital who he sees as a beautiful young girl, and she is the only thing keeping him from going completely insane. The twist, of course, is that she herself is some eldritch monster and the surgery has caused his mind to switch the horrible and beautiful. It’s a very Lovecraftian scenario, and honestly one of the best premises for cosmic horror I’ve ever seen. The VN then is about his slowly unraveling mental state and the atrocities he commits as well as the people determined to stop him and Saya.

The novel opens with a prompt asking if you want the gore blurred out, which is an effective start I must say. I decided as a big strong adult that I’d choose to keep the viscera in full detail, which I immediately regretted because it really did affect me. I was feeling pretty queasy at times, but slowly I got accustomed to it and even felt a little disappointment when the novel would reuse art instead of giving me new writhing flesh to admire, which is pretty amazingly tied to how the main character feels.

Saya is definitely the main draw, I like that the story keeps you on your toes when it comes to her. Is she a complete monster, a siren only keeping up the cute and loving act as a façade? Or is this the real her, and she’s just as dependent on Fuminori as he is on her?

At the start it seems like it’s pretty obvious that it’s the former, after she kills Omi (a friend of Fuminori’s) you feel like you’ve got the gist of the story, but she does slowly eat away at you with her charm. The fact that she tried to learn to cook real food for Fuminori is a pretty adorable image. She makes the neighbor go insane and kill his family so you go “oh yeah she’s evil” but then he rapes her and she’s cast as vulnerable and in pain and she reveals that she only did it because she wanted to cure Fuminori and you’re suddenly on her side again… kind of.

That’s where you get the first choice for an ending, which has her fix him and the two become star-crossed lovers as she slinks off into the darkness, not wanting him to see her true form and to stay the beautiful girl he remembers her as. It’s probably the best ending morally but it’s also the least satisfying, though maybe that’s just because it was the last one I saw.

The obvious choice is to keep the plot rolling and have him choose to stay in wonderland with her, which causes everything to go a bit off the rails. I’d say after this point the perspective of the novel starts to shift away from Fuminori, and we get more time with Koji (his old friend) and Ryoko (his surgeon who knows more than she lets on) as they uncover the secrets of what Saya is and devise a plan to stop her. I actually got really invested in these two, getting pretty animated when it felt like they starting getting the upper hand. This is fitting because once Fuminori decides the only way to live in peace is to kill his old friends it becomes hard to root for him.

Especially Tsukuba Yoh, which may honestly hold the world record for most objectified a woman has ever been in any horror media. Like, holy shit, this character only exists to suffer in every imaginable way and the fact that you’re meant to jack off to her pain is genuinely pretty sickening. Rape as a narrative tool can be used well, but something about this being sold as an eroge with the express purpose to get people excited about the big-boobed chick who always wears super tight shirts getting turned into a sex slave in constant pain kind of ruins the story for me.

I’m not really trying to be a prude here, but the game ends with one or two possible conclusions. One involves Koji and Ryoko teaming up to take the murderous couple out, in a big Hollywood ending they kill them in a dramatic moment of gunfire and blood, and it all ends with poor Koji being forever burdened with the madness of the realities of the world, haunted by the ghosts of his friends. A true Lovecraft ending in every way, with only the barest sympathies for the monsters. This was the ending I got first, and I was satisfied. The evil was defeated and the suffering mitigated, even if the scars will never fully heal.

The other ending, and I assume the most iconic and beloved one given all the fan art, has Fuminori and Saya survive their encounter, allowing Saya to bloom into her final form as an angelic being and transform everyone on earth into creatures like her. The reveal through exposition by old research notes being that she’s an alien organism that takes over planets like a virus, but that Saya, in her natural instinct to learn as much about the host species as possible, became too human and so began to feel the loneliness and longing for companionship that unites all people. She was the perfect vision of how Ishiro Honda views monsters, tragic beings that are not evil by choice, but by how they are born. Beautiful stuff.

Well, except that she is just straight up evil. Like, she kills people and she has fun doing it. She ate a baby. She turned Yoh into a sex slave and giggled about it, even her loving cannibal boyfriend gets put off by her sadism at times. I get that this is a horror story about slipping into madness and the VN does a good job letting us slowly sink into that world along with Fuminori, endearing us to Saya and makes us want to see her happy, but like I said before the extreme violence that Fuminori and Saya put Yoh through just dashes any sympathy I have left for them. By the end, when the world is truly turned into the fleshy hell that Fuminori had seen it as and the couple get their happily ever after, I just kind of want to see her skull get bashed in with a lead pipe like in the other ending.

So… yeah. It was great, I can see why people love it, and I’m glad I played it. It’s just hampered by the fairly common problem in movies and media of treating rape too frivolously, and for not fully balancing the horrors and the sympathy that a story like this needed. Then again that’s just me, and I think other people are valid in viewing it differently and finding the angel ending as the better of the two.

Except in that ending you don’t get to see Ryoko use her final breath to maniacally laugh as she shoots Saya with a sawed off shotgun in possibly the sexiest moment in the whole eroge, so ha, actually I win!

[voicesunified]

@musehiideaway I  am  so  close  to  giving  up.

ㅤ"And if you do the entirety of Hyrule will have to give up with you." It's cold, perhaps even a bit heartless in the way she so callously delivers it. However, it's also a fact. One that the Princess was just as aware of as Impa herself. For the Princess to give up is the same as her dooming Hyrule to a fate of suffering and death. More than it has already faced in the world of darkness cast by the Evil King. After all, in order for Link to win, for Ganondorf to be sealed, for their suffering to have meant something—they need the Triforce of Wisdom and the power of Princess Zelda.

ㅤNo one had said it would be easy. Magic is not an easy thing to learn. For the first few years Sheik had that harp? Impa had honestly thought they were fighting a pointless endeavor. After all, how was a child who wielded shadow magic supposed to make an instrument of pure light bend to his will? And yet, somehow someway he had managed to make it work. Against all odds, against everything that Impa had thought him capable of, he had managed to make it work. Used that harp like it was actually destined for him and mastered the songs in less time than she had actually expected it to take.

ㅤHe did that on his own, everything else Impa had taught him.

ㅤMagic is a much easier task to learn actually than what they expected Sheik to be capable of before he went to serve Ganondorf. Impa isn't saying at this point Zelda should have mastered the Triforce of Wisdom. Of course not. She is saying that the young Princess needed to put some more perspective on their situation and choose her words more carefully. Something she'll have to learn for the future too, who and what she can say certain things to. Especially with that royal title forever trapped against her.

ㅤ"You're fifteen. Four years have passed since we've been down here, and you're nowhere near mastering that power of yours." Impa paused in her writing and lifted the quill from the scroll, raising her gaze finally to the frustrated young woman across from her. "Do you miss the surface? The sunlight? Grass? Land? Do you feel like you're losing your mind down here?" Why wouldn't she? Every single day it was the same. The same four walls, the same rows of books and scrolls, the same haunting sounds in the hallways and Impa's presence. Four years of waking up, eating the same food, listening to the same sounds, doing the same lessons.

ㅤTo be honest?

ㅤImpa thought she'd break sooner.

ㅤ"If your father had listened and allowed me to train you sooner, we'd have made more progress than we have. However, Hyrule isn't a kind place to women and it especially hates women in power and women of status. To them, they have a very firm idea of how we're meant to be. The same future your father expected from you. A delicate flower meant to sit and listen, take orders and stand beside her husband. Say yes when expected to and smile like a doll. That was your future. To be married off and give your husband power."

ㅤThe life or royalty was not a life any women who was capable of free thought wanted to be stuck in. Impa had to fight tooth and nail to get to the point she was in, and that was never an option for Princess Zelda. Had King Daphnes had his way, his daughter would have been married off at fifteen to whichever suitor he thought would give Hyrule the best chance for an ideal King to replace him. Probably one he could manipulate.

ㅤ"But," Impa said slowly, pushing her chair back and standing from the desk. "You do have a chance to change that." Stepping to the side she grabbed the back of her chair and pushed it in against the desk, reaching behind it to pull her naginata down off of the wall. Holding it in her hand she took the rapier down and turned toward the Princess, throwing the sword over the desk toward her.

ㅤ"Currently my son is on the surface, fighting physically and mentally to serve the man who butchered your father and is seeking your head. The boy from the forest is trapped in the spirit realm fighting to learn how to save Hyrule in whatever way the Goddesses deem appropriate. Both of them are attempting to protect you in their own way." Sheik's role, Link's role, her role? They all served a purpose. That purposes being to watch Ganondorf, save Hyrule and keep his eyes off of where Impa had managed to stash the Princess. She won't pretend it's not maddening to be stuck down here endlessly, but it all serves a point. As she was, should Ganondorf find them? They might as well lay down and give up. Not that Impa would, but the Princess could hardly protect herself let alone the rest of Hyrule.

ㅤ"Do you want to rely on others for the rest of your life? Do you want to stand there, smile at some man's side and let him make all the choices for you?"

ㅤNo.

ㅤShe doesn't.

ㅤImpa sees in her the same thing she saw in herself. That fierce desire to be more than what people saw her as. To prove herself but not to others, to herself.

ㅤShe was not weak, and she would not be seen as weak.

ㅤWhich meant; not giving up.

ㅤTightening her hand around her naginata, Impa nodded her head toward the young women. "Then, Princess, learn and don't give up. The only thing that limits you is yourself." A lesson Impa learned as well. "Pick your sword up, we'll work out some of your frustrations."

[jinksyweirdo]

I dislike romance. (Please, this is just my opinion and perspective of this genre)

[Long ranting below 👇]

I HATE WHAT THIS GENRE DOES TO ME. Like, say I was trying to read a book and someone recommended that I should read this romantic book or watch this romantic series.

It'll either be a cliche plot where this man/woman go on this adventure and meets this person on the way and boom. They fall in love AFTER EITHER 50 CHAPTERS/EPISODES OR THREE BOOKS/SEASONS, (I am not a patient person when it comes to slow burn...) Or when the whole plot is so predictable that you have to stop reading/watching.

I have read some romance books that,

1) I cried at the ending

2) yelled at the Love interest because they either sacrificed themselves or did something that wrecked their relationship

3) Sometimes my predictions for the next chapter/episode came true (like, how the love interest of the book was actually a player)

I'm not normally a person who loves Romance genres in movies and books but honestly for me, it depends on how the author/producers write the plot and characters. Also, because I know how much I would be upset with the plot and the characters in the book. (And would probably not recover for a month). Speaking of which. When I say 'depends on how the producers/authors write the plot and characters', I mean when it's the whole stereotypical dynamic of a 'Weak person x Alpha strong person'. I would always close a book/stop watching a series/movie whenever a female protagonist is badly written and stereotypically a weakling and needs a man. That goes to the same with gay male protagonist!! It pisses me so much when a gay protagonist acts so 'UwU gacha femboy', because of what Social media displays how gay people act and sound like.

But I also hate it when they make this badass woman only to downgrade her SO BADLY when she gets into a romantic relationship with someone. Like, are you kidding me? You're telling me that you've had this badass protagonist only to downgrade their entire character development because they got into a relationship? Be so for real.

(honestly, I noticed this happening to female characters from books whenever it transitions into a movie in general. Like Bella Swan.)

Anyways, to whoever reads this random ranting, this is my opinion and how I see Romance in general. And also wondering what your thoughts are on my ranting.

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Ive made through chapters 4-7 today and good god, I feel like i had basically nothing to say about acotar as I was reading it but with this book theres so much to talk about for some reason, its wild. Truly, I did not realize how much I liked Feyre in the first book until I was under threat of losing her

Now, I will say that Feyre seems in-character so far, shes still the same woman but traumatized, but I am worried for her. Tamlin is a whole different story though, SJM might as well shoot him dead right in front of me for how thoroughly hes being character assassinated. Like, if Tamlin actually cares about Feyre as a person and not just in a douchy, possessive alphahole way, which he should because Tamlin was not that kind of guy previously, then he would force Feyre to train so she can defend herself if necessary, not forbid her from it. Even if he didnt want her to use her magical powers, surely he would make her practice with her knife or with a sword or even with her bow just to be safe, because hes not always gonna be there

I think his actions do continue to make sense if you look at them from his perspective, but I also maintain that he's doing a really bad job at responding to Feyre. But also, its so laughably obvious what sjm is doing by having Tamlin say shit like "you were stolen from me", shes trying to paint him as some objectifying asshole. Even Lucien calling her "Tamlin's bride" feels like its part of all this, and I know Ianthe is gonna turn out to be a traitor and a rapist at some point, so it really comes across as an attempt to villify the entire spring court for its association with Tamlin

Speaking of Lucien, I genuinely think part of the reason Feylin is doing so badly in this book is that his dynamic with Tamlin is completely different now. For some reason hes all like "oh, my High Lord" instead of "my good friend Tamlin", he suddenly cant say a word against him when he was talking to shit to him just a few months ago in-uinverse. Like, if their dynamic was the same as it was in acotar, Lucien wouldve probably been like "hey man, I know youre stressed and I get it, I know what its like to watch the love of my life get brutally murdered I dont know what its like to have her magically ressurected again but thats neither here nor there, but Feyre is clearly not happy being inside all day and you need a break, go take her out on a date in the woods, I'll stay here and take care of everything, dont even worry about it" or gotten him to comprise with Feyre or chill tf out or SOMETHING but because theres suddenly this rigid hierarchy in the spring court in order to make the night court look better

Speaking of the night court, Ive heard some stuff about it feeling very orientalist but it still managed to completely blindsight me with its badness. Feyre got fucking harem pants to wear, really? And a short-sleeved croptop, and no fucking shoes, probably because Rhys didnt want Feyre throwing shoes at him again. That was the one moment in this book that brought me genuine joy btw, I would read a thousand fanfics about her just throwing shit at him

Anyway, speaking of my guy (derogatory) Rhysand Nolastname, hes so incredibly annoying I dont even have any coherent thoughts about him right now, like, if I were to write down what I think of him I would just write "he fuckinh pisses me off" over and over again. Im actually a really big fan of edgy shadow bois, but only if theyre like, sad and angry and closed off, if theyre like Rhysand and theyre all flirty and teasing and cocky and shit, theyre just annoying and nothing else. And the romance has barely even started yet, I cant imagine how much worse the flirting is gonna get later. Not to mention all these desperate and obvious attempts by sjm to make him sympathetic and morally good now, its honestly pretty pathetic

Now Im gonna be real with you, I didnt get a lot of sleep yesterday and I can feel myself and the things Im writing getting less and less coherent, so Im just gonna hit you with the very last of my thoughts bullet point style

The fact that Amarantha apparently didnt actually go rogue and it was all part of Hybern's plan feels misogynistic ngl

Ianthe's entire character already feels so misogynistic and slutshame-y and she hasnt even assaulted anyone yet

Something about Mor bothers me, I cant quite put my finger on it but its there. I think I do like her for annoying Rhys though

God, Im gonna have so much to say about the Illyrians but for now, its awfully bold of Rhysand to be like "they wasted no time throwing themselves before her feet" when THATS WHAT HE DID

Thats it for now

[fanby-fckry]

I have decided that Niffty is a Gemini.

I’m not all that interested in astrology irl – at least not star signs – but it’s a fun way to assign birthdays, and I need one for an upcoming fic.

I originally tried taking this test from her perspective, but it didn’t give me results that matched up with my portrayal of her.

Wound up just googling the signs and manually assigning her one.

Used one site (allure) because I’m not doing a deep dive on Zodiacs for what is essentially a throwaway reference. Here are some choice quotes, and how they relate to my version of Niffty:

Content Warning: animal death/cruelty in the form of Niffty-typical pest control

Have you ever been so busy that you wished you could clone yourself just to get everything done? That's the Gemini experience in a nutshell. Spontaneous, playful, and adorably erratic, Gemini is driven by its insatiable curiosity.

I think that one’s pretty self-explanatory. If I had to pick two words to describe Niffty, “adorably erratic,” sums her up pretty well.

Because of Geminis' intrinsic duality, they're often falsely misrepresented as two-faced. In reality, however, Gemini rarely has a hidden agenda.

I write mostly pilot!Niffty, mixed with headcanons and some series canon. So, 50’s housewife who genuinely takes pride in her role, practices manners, considers herself to be ladylike, throws herself into cooking, cleaning, and mending, has an idealized and black and white version of romance and womanhood and very much holds herself – though not necessarily others – to that very high standard.

And also the woman who takes immense pleasure in stabbing pests, writes smutty RPF fanfic for people she personally knows, keeps collections of people’s hair/fluff, and summoned a demon using animal sacrifices on multiple occasions.

She’s not intentionally two-faced, but she does very much have two conflicting sides to her personality, which she holds in equal measure.

These hyperactive air signs have short attention spans and are most satisfied when they can move fluidly from one idea to the next.

I’ve seen Niffty described as “OCD” before, but I’m not sure if there’s anything to that besides the armchair psych, ‘cleaning = OCD’ thing.

However, as someone with ADHD, I can definitely see some aspects of hyperactivity and attention deficit in her. Specifically, the fact that she seems to become hyperfocused on tasks like cleaning, but is easily distracted in other contexts.

She basically narrates her train of thought on the pilot: *polite and enthusiastic introduction* (manners first) -> It’s been a while since I made new friends -> -> *notices everyone but Alastor is fem-presenting and thinks they’re all women* -> Why are you all women? -> (I like men best) Aren’t there any men here? -> *physically lifts Charlie in search of men* -> *remembers manners* -> I’m sorry, that was rude -> *gets distracted by mess* -> Oh man, this place is filthy! It could really use a lady’s touch -> *remembers that she has (mistakenly) identified all of the hotel’s occupants as women* -> Which is weird because you’re all ladies offense (manners) -> *remembers mess* -> *hyperfixates on cleaning*

Honestly, the Niffty ADHD headcanon should probably be its own post. Moving on!

Gemini expresses emotions externally

Communication is paramount for them, and they require fluent streams of transmission.

*gestures to aforementioned inner-turned-outer monologue*

She’s a lot quieter in the series, but she does still butt into conversations she wasn’t previously a part of with usually irrelevant commentary.

In fact, the act of expression is often even more important to loquacious Gemini than what is actually being said

Just… everything she says in the series.

Another incredible Gemini quality, however, is that these natural chameleons can quickly recover from even the most shameful foot-in-mouth moments. Gemini moves too fast to care about embarrassing missteps: They simply move on.

A quick apology or a “no offense” is all it takes Niffty to move past most social faux pas, and most criticism seem to just bounce off of her.

So yeah. Gemini!Niffty.

[therealslimshakespeare]

I loved the little blurb you did about all the pre sex intimacy between Rosie and Ida!

I think the vignette about Rosie and Ida during the holidays has the chance to be so great. I can’t decide if I want it from her perspective being grossed out by her brother but like also kind of jealous of him. Or do I want Rosie’s panic while trying to stay rational because they really shouldn’t but holy shit his very pretty wife just climbed him like a tree. Maybe both?

Either way, I just wanted to say I love the two of them and can’t wait to see what else you write!!

AAAAAAAHHHH! -what if I told you I stayed up until three am last “night” writing a phone conversation between Ida and Rosie taking place the night of Johnny’s wedding when they’re both in the same state but worlds apart and it’s the first few weeks of peacetime stateside normalcy and well -they’re bereft without each other but damned if she’s gonna admit that.

So: imagine how happy I am to have more to scream about in my inbox. They’ve possessed my brain recently, we have no other choice but to go with it.

Honestly I love imperfect romantic scenes, ones that have the screwy presence (or even instigation? don’t call Freud on me) of family, the way someone like Rosie would try so hard to be good and measured about things and yet, as you’ve said: the woman he loves has climbed him like a tree and he is but a man.

But still, it doenst work that night despite it all. And I’m not sure which POV would be best, hehe.

Which leaves us with a humorous ending where Ida is in a bit of a huff and he’s good naturedly petting her hair and they’re both commenting on when the hell the activities upstairs are gonna wrap up. They’re about ready to grab a broom handle and start whacking the ceiling to get a message across.

But then, see, there’s a baby competition in the 100th and Croz already has a lead and god knows Cleven and Maureen are probably in the running so, damned if the Brady’s don’t win that shit. So these two hold their peace and snicker about the good ole days when newlywed Johnny’s bed breaking bouts lasted all of fifteen seconds.

[brw]

What current X-men comics are you going to continue reading? I’m definitely dropping NYX but I have mixed feelings about everything else

I'm definitely keeping up with Exceptional X-Men and the Abjectiveless X-Men series! I'm pretty here for both writers, and I'm excited to see MacKay continuing developing this team dynamic. I know people aren't sold on the art, but I honestly don't mind it. The colouring isn't my favourite, but the art feels reminiscent of early digital comic art, which I find kind of charming. I'm a fan of the issues functioning as single stories, as opposed to large multi issue arcs, but that's purely a personal thing in how I prefer to read.

Exceptional X-Men I've been really excited by, I especially love the character Bronze and can't wait to see her develop. It feels unfair to compare it to Uncanny X-Men at this juncture, because we're only on issue 2 of Exceptional, but I like this group of kids more, they feel more grounded and like kids I could meet and get to know more. And I'm definitely excited to see how Eve L. Ewing will write Emma and Kitty as a black woman, I think that's a perspective that's really needed on both characters, so I'm really looking forward to this series! It's probably my favourite of the lot currently.

Uncanny X-Men just isn't for me, and that's fine. I'm not much of a Gail Simone truther (she's like Dan Slott to me where I just think deleting Twitter off her phone for even a month would do a lot of good) and none of those characters are really ones I particularly want to keep up with so it isn't something I'm keeping up with, but that isn't because it's bad, I'm just not the target demographic.

I think I'm probably gonna stop reading X-Force after this issue, that's how upset I actually am at the treatment of Nuklo. It feels incredibly ill-considered, which is shocking in a 2024 comic. Comics published in the 80s, while often difficult to read, at least have that excuse that information and tact around these things wasn't quite there, but having a bunch of heroes beat up a high support needs autistic man is genuinely really upsetting to me. We can do better. We deserve better. I know they're X-Force, and aren't meant to be standard heroes, but there wasn't even an acknowledgement that Nuklo is a high support needs autistic. And given the very real world experience of some autistic people getting attacked and sometimes killed by police in the middle of meltdowns, because of the complete lack of empathy towards us (which goes double for black autistic people), I find it really distasteful and upsetting that this was written, to be honest, and I feel really let down by Geoffrey Thorne by how poorly handled this was. I might give it one more issue to see if there's any acknowledgement of this, but I'm feeling pretty negative towards this series right now, and I feel let down by how few people seem to be bringing up Nuklo's autism. There was a chance here to do better than the past and try and be more empathetic to high support needs autistic adults, which is so often lacking, and that was ignored in favour of having a big adversity our heroes could hurt.

NYX I'll honestly keep reading out of morbid fascination, it feels so egregious it feels like it has to be leading up to some dismantlement and critique of Sophie's behaviour, but considering who the writers are, I won't hold my tongue for that either. Definitely on a "never buying a copy of" pile (although I can really only afford buying two of these consistently)

Not reading any of the 1000 Wolverine books ❤️ I don't care ❤️❤️

I wouldn't say I've been enjoying X-Factor but the reaction against it has been so over the top from certain people I'm honestly reading it out of spite. I'm gonna let them cook, I'm a little interested to see how things pan out. Hope Warren comes back but I like seeing Frenzy and I find that suicidal Grandmother really funny as a character concept, tbh.

Oh man, what else is there. Don't really care about Phoenix, it honestly just feels like various power feats than any actual character introspection work and I really don't care. I liked seeing Cosair but I'm not charmed enough by this take on Jean to bother reading on, to be honest. Dazzler was honestly disappointing, but in a boring way where I don't really have any larger complaints to make. Just kind of mid. I haven't read Sentinels yet but I've really liked the work of the writer on the current X-Men Infinity Comic so I'll probably read the first issue and decide if I want to keep going. I liked Storm. People kicking up a fuss about the Orchis shirt is honestly so silly to me, like Storm in this current iteration is not the character to be expecting bloody violence and revenge from. Read Wolverine instead chief. It's only the first issue, but I had fun!

I think that's about everything! A mixed bag, but there's so much that I think there's something here for everyone, which is the one positive of how bloated this lineup is, but I guess after how many damn X-Men titles we had during Krakoa it makes sense to keep the numbers high if they're selling.

[pebblysand]

hi pal, how r ye? weird ask ik but thoughts on bisexual!harry?

hello! not weird at all - a very valid question.

that said, i always feel a bit odd when people ask me for opinions about characters/canon events though, because i feel like there's always this expectation that i have a Strong Headcanon about these things, which honestly i mostly don't. i'm pretty neutral on most characters - like: yes, i have my view of them, but if someone has a different view, i'm not going to fight them, you know? i tend to bow out of conversations every time people start drilling into metas and text interpretations, because i find that everyone just seems to have much stronger thoughts than me about most things. i think there's a million ways to interpret canon, and i don't think my way is the only valid interpretation. i really don't feel that strongly about anything 🤣.

that said, from a writing/fic perspective: i guess i feel... neutral about it? i've said this before but i'll say it again: i think really good writing can sell me anything. it could sell me harry as a pirate, harry as a serial killer, harry as a god, if it wanted to, so i don't have any strong objections to anything. i'll read slash fics or fics with harry being bisexual if they're well-written. i suppose the one ship i really don't see is tomharry/harrymort - that seems very far-fetched to me, but again, i think a really good fic could potentially even sell that to me, if the characterisation work was done well.

having said that, i personally wouldn't write bisexual!harry because personally, in my own view of the text, i just don't see it, so it would be hard for me to sell it to other people. i know a lot of people will point to him calling men "handsome" all the time and label that as "basically canon", and if that's your boat, then by all means float it, but i personally think this is just JKR being a straight woman and describing people the way she sees them. also, calling someone of the same sex "handsome" doesn't make you bisexual/gay - i find women pretty all the time, but i identify as (mostly) straight, so. i think if you put a gun to my head and asked me: is "bisexual!harry canon?" i would say "no," because JKR clearly meant him as straight, and interpreting the text any differently is reaching. I appreciate that a lot of people are very #deathoftheauthor with JKR, but i am not.

that said, if you asked me: is is canon-compliant? sure, you can make a lot of things canon-compliant if you want to. you just have to build more on top of canon. there is nothing in canon that says: harry will never be attracted to a man ever, and as such, you can for sure make bisexuality canon-compliant. you just have to work on it and sell it. and, if you want to tell me that's your canon, then fine, why not? it's your interpretation and it's just as valid as mine or JKR's.

i think the way i view these things is more like: how big of a writing hurdle is it to make me believe them? so, for instance, if you were to write a hinny fic, my tolerance for mediocre writing is higher, because i already believe in that relationship. if you were to write a dramione, harmony, drarry or harry/ron fic, your writing hurdle might be a little bit higher, but i do generally think all of these relationships are within the realm of possibilities, and therefore i'll buy it if it's decently written. if you were to write harrymort or snarry, i'm like: mate, that's a Hard Sell, but sure look it, if you think you can pull it off, be my guest.

that's as far as shipping harry with canon male characters goes, though. if we're talking in the abstract, could harry be with another man? i think ... yeah. like, why not? i genuinely don't believe anyone is 100% gay or straight, i think we all sort of float somewhere on that spectrum, so maybe he could potentially meet someone he likes. again, it's probably not what JKR intended, but you can make it canon-compliant. i think it's unlikely, because i think he's probably like 90% straight, but that 10% is open. there's just other canon characters who i think are more likely to be bisexual than he is.

i also think that it's important to acknowledge that it's understandable and important that people write harry as bisexual. like, i totally understand why someone would do that. it's representativity, and openness, etc. but i also don't think changing the canon sexual orientation of canon characters (as in: giving them a different sexual orientation than the one JKR intended) is the only way that can be achieved. HP obviously lacks representativity in that area (esp in light of today's standards) but i tend to focus my diversity writing on OCs, and that's just my way to do it.

additionally, if i want to do something with canon characters, i tend to focus on the sexual orientation of characters who are a bit secondary, whose head you're not in, and for whom, thus, sexual orientation is a bit more of an open question. i think you can easily do that with ginny (in fact one of my favourite fics i've read in recent years in ginny/luna) or with people like seamus or dean, who are in the background enough that you just don't know what they think/who they're attracted to.

but again, i'm a canon-compliant writer. i'm a canon-compliant reader. if you're writing this wild AU where you're totally disregarding the canon characters and settings and just writing whatever you please, then obviously that's a different question.

[justatesfan]

So hear me out, like captain zero is the divorced jealous ex in almost the fandom portrayal of him. And it's honestly hilarious.

But on the other hand now captain zero's ex wife is single! So, Bring out the chocolates and hearts fellas cause I'm about to score a date!

I mean she is probably a total babe compared to captain zero who I head cannon as being on the less attractive side. Considered the least eligible bachelor

"You were married to captain zero of zero marine? Why?"

"Yeah mate, i mean is, have you seen that guys huge Schnoz?"

"I didn't even know captain zero liked women! Let alone con some poor dame to merry him!"

"Why would anyone wanna sleep with that loser?"

"What was his ex wife gonna do if she's got not nothing to work with down to there?!"

Hahahahahahahah

Ah, Captain Zeros wife/ex-wife. I head-canon her as someone who married for love, then slowly realised her precious husband had become entangled with crime, and worst of all was lying to her about it!

I feel a little bad for her. I’ve written her in such a mean way in some (currently unseen) WIPs, but that’s because I write from the Z-Stack’s perspective, and she hates both her (ex-)husband and any of his 'work associates'. So it’s only really half her story.

She’s someone who is very proud, very conscious of appearances. It’s one of the reasons she doesn’t leave Captain Zero when she should, and also why she is so perturbed by his criminal antics. This pride would, however, make her very happy to hear that someone wanted her again. She would certainly appreciate the chocolates!

I also have thoughts about how she’d respond if you asked about him…

 “Why did I marry Captain Zero? Well he wasn’t a ‘captain’ back then… wasn’t a common crook either. We were simply both young and foolish. He wasn’t like this at all at first, or maybe he was just better at hiding it…”

 “Yes, he’s not much to look at now, you would never have thought that he’d been handsome back in the day, would you? After the number of nights he’d return with a battered face and broken nose his appearance did suffer. His lies became ridiculous after a while though, how many bar fights can one man be in before it becomes suspicious?”

“You didn’t think he liked women? Believe me, with the way he was in bed I’m starting to wonder the same thing. As for why I slept with him: I wanted to build a family with him… then I learnt it was best to get my needs met elsewhere.”

 “I’m glad to be rid of him, I’m slowly taking my life back, Lord knows how many years I wasted with him. There’s not many people who are willing to give a divorced woman a chance, but then there were not many that cared about the woes of a criminal’s wife…”

[bohemian-nights]

Is this a safe space to say that I don't care about Polin in S3? Colin is such a boring 1 dimensional character that easily gets overshadowed by Anthony and especially Benedict, and Penelope is just a whiny brat who just wants male validation and is jealous of Eloise. Also to act like she never said anything about the Brdgertons is a lie cause she had no problem talking about Daphne, had it not have been for her crush on Colin she would've gone on a jealous rant about his entire family. I know Polin is attractive to some people because of the representation of larger body types and the childhood friends to lovers trope but it's just boring. I can't name 1 intreseting thing about Colin other than he took a vacation and had psychedelic tea and Pen is not as progressive as she thinks she is she's just jealous and bitter. Also how is it that she's such an amazing writer that can communicate in so much detail but can't even communicate to Eloise when Eloise doesn't understand her perspective? She's quick to lash out at her as if Eloise is doing it on purpose, Eloise is not dumb and she has respect it's not like she insults women who want/desire love so there was no reason for Penelope to play victim.

This is totally a safe space because while I don't hate them I don’t particularly care for Polin either.

In the books it’s a bit better because Penelope isn’t as much of a snake), but she isn’t my fave by a long shot.

Penelope on the show is straight-up awful. She started pretty sympathetic, but then the Marina situation happened and that turned me completely off of her character. So by the time she had her falling out with Eloise(who did nothing wrong and has every right to be angry with her), I was already checked out.

Yes, she’s not very popular with the ton.* Yes not being seen sucks. Yes her mother is kind of mean to her and forces her to wear the most hideous outfits which is probably a turn-off for most men. Yes she wants Collin and he doesn’t want her and that sucks, but that’s no excuse for her actions.

Honestly, Penelope is half a step away from being a whole stalker and yet we are supposed to see ourselves in her or at least sympathize with her🫠

(I’m not going to get into her being bullied by Cressida since she’s nasty to everyone).

It’s kind of obvious though that Shonda sees herself in her which is why Penelope is promoted so much and given the angle she has been, but she’s a weirdo with insecurity issues.

To be honest, I thought she should’ve gotten a redemption arc before her season(she’s not unredeemable, she just needs to clean up her act), but it is what it is.

Now Collin both in the show and the books is incredibly dull to me. Yes, he has his traveling(and spoilers, his writing about his travels), but he’s just kind of there. He is just the third Bridgerton bro and while Luke Newton is attractive I feel nothing when I look at him playing Colin.

That cheesy promo they had the other day did nothing for me(well I did laugh, but I don’t think that’s the intended reaction). I don’t know what to say other than he’s just meh. To me, he’s not leading man material and I’m not seeing the chemistry with Penelope/her actress, but again it is what it is.

As far as representation goes, I’m not a plus-sized woman, but I know that it is important to see yourself and to want to see yourself represented on screen.

I think that’s the essence of Bridgerton/what it is trying to accomplish because let’s be honest period dramas are not very diverse. I think that Bridgerton has kind of changed that to a degree.

I don’t want to hype up the show too much cause it’s not perfect, but without this shows success I don’t think that films and shows like Tom Jones, Interview With the Vampire, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, Mr. Malcom’s List, The Buccaneers, and now The Davenports (which I’m excited for) would’ve been nesscary green-lit or the plot would’ve been changed to make it more diverse if not for Bridgerton.

I hate bringing this up, but I don’t even know if the dumbass showrunners of HOTD would’ve made the Velaryons Black if not for them looking at how successful Bridgerton is without understanding that the reason why it's successful is that they don't treat their Black characters like they leftovers. It’s about respect not just having people there to pat yourselves on the back and say look how progressive we are, but I digress.

I mean representation in terms of body type is not comparable to representation in terms of race, but it feels good when characters who look like you aren't shown in the worst light, when they are the main character, or when they have been given actual characterization and aren't made into a joke.

So I get why people love Penelope and Polin and understand why they are looking forward to their season, but personally, they just aren't my cup of tea.

That all being said, I’m still going to watch the season cause I love Bridgerton, I’m kind of hoping we’ll see Sophie this season

(Praying that she's Masali Baduza or just any Black actress 🙏🏽I’m not picky, as long as Sophie's actress is Black, you won’t see me complaining).

I’ll end this by saying that I’m a Benophie girl and while I’ve made peace with the fact that Polin got the lead instead(and I’m actually low-key glad they did), I don’t think this is going to blow my socks off, but I hope it gives the people who have been waiting for it everything they want.