#unrelated to that but i am very worried about what people will think of me and like i know i really shouldn't worry about that-

[todayisafridaynight]

i miss how they used to model teeth

[steakout-05]

eeuuaghh i would like everyone to know that i apologise if i have not responded to your reblogs/mentions/posts on tumblr, i have really terrible social anxiety and for some reason people talking to me makes my nervous system think i'm being hunted for sport by a resident evil boss. sorry if i havent responded i'm not being rude i'm just having a panic attack :P

additionally: social anxiety is actually the reason why a lot of my old posts from late 2022 had weird spacing and spelling mistakes. i was too anxious to type properly

[mythicmanuscripts]

So I’m imagining Aemond’s wife has to leave him for a few days or even weeks. (perhaps to return to her family’s home somewhere else in Westeros for some reason) Perhaps she flies on dragonback or rides by horse/carriage. Either way she’s gone for some time and the longer she’s away the more on edge Aemond gets. Like he behaves his regular cold and withdrawn self but otherwise normally for a few days. But then slowly his already hard edges seem to grow sharper and sharper as the days without his wife creep by. His attacks in the training yard seem more brutal and vicious than normal. He stalks down the halls in an almost predatory walk as nobles scramble to stay out of his way and not meet his eye. He snaps at his servants more and more. And then suddenly the weeks are over and his wife is home and those hard edges are sanded down once again. He practically melts into her arms the moment they’re behind closed doors. Face buried in her neck or chest. The next day his training is much more subdued. He does not snap at people or move so hostilely about the Keep. Most people put two and two together. Now every time Aemond’s wife leaves him for more than a few days the whole of Kings Landing holds its breath until she returns.

(Bonus points: a few days before her return, Helaena states completely out of the blue to Aemond that she’ll be home before the week is out and he need not worry about her. Aemond starts. How could she know that? Was his wife writing to her and sending her a raven with that information but not him?? He knows they’re close friends but he’s her husband!? So he asks Helaena if she’s had a raven. Helaena just stops her needlework and looks at him confused: “No.” And then resumes her needlework without explanation. He decides to think nothing of it. Until two days later his wife is walking back up the steps of the Red Keep and his heart is doing somersaults in his chest he’s just so thrilled to see her.)

**nsfw thots**

On an unrelated note to all that: imagine them the night before she leaves. Riding him gently, holding him close, pulling orgasm after orgasm from him til he’s over sensitive and completely spent. Making sure to give him as much attention as possible before she leaves. As he lays there in a daze she gently showers him with kisses. Kissing up and down his neck and jaw she whispers in his ear “Aemond, my darling? I want you to think of this night while I’m gone. I want you to think about the night we shall have when I return. I want you to touch yourself and think of me. But you’re not allowed to cum. Not without me.” Another gentle kiss to his temple over his sapphire eye. “Can you be a good boy and do that for me, my love?” He shifts slightly and moans a quiet yes in response. Of course he can do that. He’s a good boy. With more willpower and obedience than anyone. And he will be rewarded handsomely for it when she returns.

I.... Anon you are truly a visionary. I am in shock and awe these thoughts are INCREDIBLE. I love everything about this oh my god.

So instead of splitting up my answer like you did here, I'm gonna answer this as one long ask about before you leave for a few days, how he is while you're gone and then what happens when you return so the entire thing will be NSFW sub!aemond with varying degrees of explicit content. So yeah! Venture under the cut if you dare :))

When you first married Aemond, not much changed because he hardly knew you. But, very very quickly he started to get attached. He realises that you care for him, that you enjoy talking to him and that you mean it when you praise him. For a long time your relationship is almost... professional? Once a week he'll attempt for an heir with you laying flat on your back and then leave immediately and besides that, you'd only see him at dinners and events.

When you started to show Aemond affection and began to ask him questions and love him, he really just melts into you? He becomes so needy so quickly, like a switch is flipped and once he's allowed a little of his self restraint to falter, he's incapable of controlling himself around you anymore.

People are shocked at the change in Aemond. He's much mellower, much less likely to lash out and he hears people out much more. They also learn that they can go to you with any issues, and you will relay them to Aemond. This process always works much better because he's always much better when speaking to you.

(Side note: you know how kings used to have a servant whose only job was to read their letters aloud for them? When Aemond becomes king he immediately gets rid of that servant and has you read the letter aloud instead. It's much, much better to hear your voice and be able to discuss the content of the letters with you)

Maybe this is the first time you've gone away without Aemond? By this point he is attached to your side, and the entire castle is thankful for it. You both spend every night in your shared quarters, and he allows himself to be open in how much he loves you and how much he needs from you.

So when you tell him you need to leave for a few days, at first he doesn't even consider the possibility that you mean without him? His response to hearing this is to nod and say, "Where are we going? And for how long?" Maybe his lips even twitch upwards a little in a very small smile because he thinks the two of you will be travelling alone together. Even if you're going somewhere terribly political and boring, the journey itself is enough to get him in a good mood. Just you, him and Vhagar would be perfect (and your own dragon if you had one, but Vhagar loves you and is more than happy to carry both you and Aemond, in fact sometimes she won't fly with just Aemond because she can tell he's angry and might do something rash, so she'll refuse to take off until you join them so that you can stop Aemond from doing something stupid).

(Side note: Aemond buys a small house somewhere far away and only reachable by dragon and that becomes your little sanctuary, whenever he’s about to lose it he goes up there with you and Vhagar and Vhagar actually won’t fly him back to the keep until he’s doing better)

When you clarify that you need to go yourself, his smile falls? He understands why he can’t go with, but that doesn’t matter. He just… you’re going to be gone for over a week?? What’s he supposed to do??

I think he’d be insistent on you taking Vhagar if you don’t have your own dragon. Not only because she’s quicker than any horse but also because he knows she’d melt down entire kingdoms if someone dared to lay a hand on you and knowing you have that kind of protection is the only way they’ll be any chance of him getting any sleep while you’re away.

You don’t even bother trying to argue against this, because you know he’ll just follow you on Vhagar if you don’t take her yourself.

The night before you’re set to leave, you tell him to get dinner delivered to your chambers and to tell everyone that the two of you are not be disturbed. He knows what this means, he’s so thankful.

You ride him first, until he’s so desperate to cum that he can’t stop bucking his hips. And then you get off him and make him eat you out before he’s allowed to fuck you again. His thighs are shaking when you eventually lower yourself down on him again and he cums almost instantly.

That’s when the overstimulation starts. Your goal is to take him apart completely until he’s a mess, until he’s twitching and whining and mumbling in high Valeryon. It honestly doesn’t even take that long to do.

When you give him the rules, he can only nod and turn to cuddle into your neck. He’s so plaint and completely wrecked, not a single wall left between you. He’s so sweet then, nodding and trying to kiss your neck because he’s just floating on cloud nine.

You slip out of bed the next morning before he wakes up, because you know that will be the easiest for him. If he has to actually watch you leave, he will almost immediately become hostile and unhappy until you return. This way there’s a chance that he might not immediately start terrorising the servants.

When Aemond wakes and you’re not there, he understands why you chose to do that and deep down he knows it’s the best choice, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feel like a punch to the gut anyway. This is the first time in your entire marriage that he’s fallen asleep with you and woken up alone. You’ve always ensured to stay in bed until he wakes up and he does the same, so to roll over and find nothing but cold sheets actually makes him let out a sob out loud.

He pulls your pillow closer, hugging it tightly and curling himself around it. He knows he’s acting ridiculous and he does not care about it, not at all because his wife isn’t in his bed and he’s all alone.

He’s alright for the first three days, still very withdrawn but he wasn’t too bad. From the fourth day onwards he just got worse and worse. He was not used to going this long without you, without your attention and touches and voice. He’s so used to popping into places he knows you’ll be just to see you, bringing you food or wine or even just to ask your advice for something. Sometimes he’ll even come find you to invite you do dinner despite the fact that you eat dinner together every day.

So yeah he’s not doing very well. I also think he becomes even worse about touches? A servant accidentally brushes against him as they walk past carrying laundry and he flings himself against the opposite wall feeling like his skin is on fire where they touched.

Sparring with him is dangerous while you’re away, and if he loses he will just drop his sword and walk away. He would normally go to you and you’d kiss him gently and listen to him and give him advice. But now he just walks right out.

He also doesn’t make any big decisions? Irrelevant of whether he’s king, prince or prince regent, he always goes to you for advice and to hear your thoughts. You’re an extremely important part of his council and he won’t pledge to anything without discussing it first.

So the whole castle walks on eggshells for the next week or so until you eventually come back.

The moment one of the dragon keepers spots Vhagar, they immediately run to the keep and tell Aemond because they know how badly everyone needs you to be back with Aemond. The dragon keeper doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before Aemond is out the door and running for the dragon pits.

He’s there when you get off Vhagar.

The dragon keepers and servants know better than to try and get close to you before him. Normally, you hand the dragon riders your gear and the servants help take off the gloves and boots but no one moves this time because they all know that Aemond will kill them if they get in the way.

The moment you get odd Vhagar, Aemond is walking forward and before you can even say a thing he’s pulling you into a bone crushing hug. He clings to you as tight as he can, nuzzling his nose against your clavicle. You try pull away a little to give him a kiss and he refuses, his grip on you only tightens.

When he eventually pulls away, you take his hand in your hands and give him a soft kiss. He responds immediately and then hugs you tight again.

“You’re ever going for that long again,” he mumbles against your shoulder, “ever.”

You just rub his back and let him hold you for a moment because you know that there’s no point in trying to tell him you had to go. He’s too upset right now, and he just needs to be reassured to that you’re back.

Maybe you’re supposed to speak to the small council about something or give them a debrief of your trip but you end up only doing that the next day because Aemond refuses to share you with anyone. If anyone else tries to take your attention he may genuinely commit murder because it’s been far too long and he’s your husband, not them. He’s the one who gets your undivided attention.

He walks with you back to your shared quarters. On the way there, run into some of the ladies currently being hosted at the court and of course they all want to greet you and ask about your trip. Aemond is having absolutely none of it. He literally just says, "not now" and drags you away from them.

Normally if Aemond did something like that you would refuse to go with him and punish him later, but you know that this is different because of how long he's had to go without you and so you'll make some exceptions. Of course Aemond knows this, that's why he even did it in the first place. If he thought there was even the smallest chance of you being unhappy with him, he never would have done it.

Once you're alone in your chambers, he pulls you back into a hug, and pretty quickly you can feel his shoulders shaking.

"It's alright," you whisper to him, keeping your voice soft and gentle, "I'm back, it's just us here, it's alright." He nods, but he keeps himself firmly against your shoulder, crying softly.

When he stops crying, you tell him to boil some water and get a bath ready. Ordinarily you would call a servant in to do that, but you can see how unsettled Aemond is, how overwhelmed he is. He's clearly happy you're back, but he's also kind of unsure what to do with himself and clearly is just feeling a little too many things. So you give him a task to do, because that always settles him and he relaxes knowing that he's pleasing you.

You watch as he readies the water and then pours it into the bath with some cold water to make the perfect temperature.

Since you flew back on dragon back, you're in need of a bath before bed and so you tell Aemond to join you and let him wash you. It's one of Aemond's favourite tasks, one that he can't believe he is privileged enough to get to do.

He takes his time washing you, being so so gentle and ensuring he does is properly. Multiple times he pauses and looks to you, waiting for your approval before he continues. You can see him start to relax as he does it, can see the tension start to leave his shoulders.

You'd love to wash him in return, but you know it's not the best idea right then. Aemond is relaxed and at ease because he's served you and he knows he's being good. You know that if you turn the attention back on him and wash him, you run the risk of him getting overwhelmed and shy. So instead you just tell him to wash himself once he's done with you and you make sure to watch him as he does so. He absolutely loves having your eyes on him.

You let him dry you afterwards as well, and when you see his eyes trailing your body, you tell him that he can kiss you too. Immediately he does, kissing your skin after he swipes the towel over it.

He's turned by this point, of course, but he doesn't even think about touching himself. He knows the rules, and he knows you will look after him.

Originally you were going to ride him and edge him a few times, but when you see how vulnerable he is, you change your mind. He's missed you so much, and you can see how he's keeping his hands on you for as long as possible each time he kisses you, like he's afraid you're going to disappear. You don't need to wreck him, he's already wrecked.

Instead, you let him sit between your legs, his back to your front and give him a nice, soft handjob. He's shaking and whining in your arms, nuzzling against your neck and mumbling in high valeryon. He's so beautiful when he cums, crying out as his back arches away from you. He collapses once it's over, curling up between your legs and bringing your hand to his mouth to lick it clean.

You let him shuffle down the bed then and eat you out to his heart's content. He's so so happy, groaning against you because he's having as much fun as you are.

Even once you've came, he stays there and just rests his head against your thigh. He falls asleep like that soon after.

[maochira]

hii Mao! could do Nagi, Ryusei, Bachira and the Itoshi brothers with a reader who is short like less than 1.60 (6'3 sorry i don't understand American measurements) 🥹 (I'm brazilian and kisses from Brazil!) 🥰🥰❤️‍🩹

Don't worry I don't get American measurements either SLHLSHCLS I'm from Germany soo,,, according to google 1,60m = 5"3' ALSO FUNFACT I AM VERY TINY... I'm 1,55m (barely 5"1') Oh and I added Barou because I love writing him sm!!

Characters: Barou, Nagi, Shidou, Bachira, Rin, Sae

Requests open! - masterlist

Tags: gn!reader, reader is tiny (like me fr), this can be seen as platonic or romantic it's your choice

Barou thinks it's funny how small you are, and he likes to tease you about it. But he also thinks it's cute and it gives him some sort of urge to protect you. Whenever you need something you can't reach, he grabs it and puts it in your hand. Well, that's the way it started. By now, he actually lifts you up and lets you grab it by yourself because he thinks it's cuter.

Nagi thinks you being so small is cute. But every now and then he complains about how exhausting it is to lower his head whenever he talks to you. If it bothers him too much, he just lifts you up and makes you stand on the next best surface that can get you to a similar eye level as him.

Shidou NEVER stops pointing out how small you are and he loves to tease you about it, even in unrelated situations. Really, whenever you fail something his instant response is "Maybe you would have done better if you were taller" and you're like "I failed my Maths test HOW IS THIS RELATED TO MY HEIGHT" then Shidou just laughs at you with "Hehe tiny person angry."

Bachira adores how small you are! Similarly to Shidou, he never shuts up about it. He loves to point it out and because to him, all the little traits you have simply because you're small are adorable. The way you stand on the tip of your toes to reach something and so much more - Bachira simply thinks it's adorable.

Rin never talks about it, but he thinks you're so cute. Every so often he fights the urge to pick you up and spin you around, but he feels like it'd be an odd thing for him to do. But one day, he just decides to do it to see your reaction. And seeing you laugh and giggle about it makes him adore you even more, he immediately does it again.

Sae never paid much attention to your height until one time, you were in a store and you couldn't reach for the drink you wanted, so you asked him to grab it for you. Then he said "Huh, I never did that before" and you were confused what he meant and asked about it. His answer was "helping tiny people."

[shapelytimber]

A Taste of Faith

[PRINT] - [COMMISSIONS]

Ok so the concept for this piece was : historical gay nuns, and 70s lesbian vampire movies meets tes (don't ask me why- I just had a vision at 3 am)

Because I think Serana should have been meaner<3 I love women's wrongs and when vampires do the suck <3

Btw of you want to see more gay Serana art, go check out @gay-of-waterdeep, their art is wonderful, and I can't say this was not a bit inspired by what they do :))

Process (and me rambling about some of my favorite 70s lesbian vampire movies (because I have a problem)) below vvv

Additional details about this drawing ! 1) I used the same Mara design than the one from my tarot deck :)) and 2) the other woman is one of the priestess in the temple in Riften lglggigkglgl her name is *check wiki* Dinya Balu

And now......... Some movies I enjoy because my house my rules, you came this far so why not hear about niche european movies :))))))

Disclaimer for a majority of the films in this genre : the male gaze is very fucking obvious in these movies... they were made by men for men, and the message is often "lesbianism is a dangerous temptation for women". It's a glairing flaw nearly all of them share and that sucks (and frankly it's a flaw Serana's writting kinda has in my opinion, minus the lesbianism part, but let's not dwell on that)- so if you can't get past it, it's completly understandable, be on your way and have a nice day <3

- Daughters of Darkness ! A toxic man is returning to london with his newly wed wife, but they get stuck in Belgium and are forced to stay in a luxurious hotel. Don't worry about the 10/10 smokeshow countess seducing his wife :). Completely unrelated, this movie has, in my opinion, the most beautiful lesbian kiss I've ever seen- but I might not be very objective because Delphine Seyrig is there lglglflflllglm The best one in the list ! So if you want to whatch one, whatch this one <3

- The blood spattered bride ! This is more of... an aquired taste let's say- but I really like it ! A quite effective horror movie, with goofy ass scenes (shoutout to the vampire lady buried in the sand naked with only a diving mask that is not the screenshot because tits), and emasculation being a recuring theme <3 (but if you want to watch it, please check the content warnings beforehand, it has a lot of very shocking and frontal scenes, and it's the 70s so it's not done very tactfully. Also pretty intense flashing lights)

- The vampire lovers ! Ok so this one is a lot less fun compared to the other two because it's made by the Hammer BUT... 1) Ingrid Pitt hello and 2) it's such a intriging thing to see a very christian/conservative studio make a film like that. I know a lot of people don't like the Hammer movies from the 70s, because the studio had a lot less money, and were making wild decisions. But I love them, because they tend to be much more fun bloody and sexy ! I'm a simple woman mjllkklhkhlhlho case in point with the vampire lovers (although if you want a fun vampire hammer movie from the 70s, Dracula ad 1972 is way better). And Peter Cushing is there (i love this man so much-) !

And now I shall resume my quest to find Vampire Lesbos by Jésus Franco and have a probably mid experience watching it xoxo

[mysterious-moonstruck-musings]

Closed Position: Deconstructing Dieter Bravo

Closed Position Masterlist ||| Main Masterlist I did a Deconstructing Dieter Bravo series for Destiny & Deliverance, so I thought it might be fun to continue that tradition with Closed Position since this Dieter does have some interesting things going on that we can delve deeper into.

I had several people comment/dm me about two things after the first chapter that I think would be fun to discuss further. Those were of course, Dieter’s plant hobby and the fluffy menace hanging around his house.

To most, these two things may seem very random and unrelated. However, they really aren’t. They do serve a bigger purpose to the story…because of course they do. When do I ever not have deeper meaning behind something, right? 😏

Plant Dad Dieter

First, I have included some more Dieter aesthetic pictures above that I had saved. It's a whole ✨vibe✨. Second, I must thank @readingiskeepingmegoing for coming up with the new #PlantDadDieter hashtag… because it’s so on point. I’m totally going with it! 💜

On to the good stuff...what have we learned about Dieter after the first installment? I think we can safely identify three things: he spends a lot of time alone, he feels misunderstood, and he doesn’t appear to have any deep or meaningful relationships. This will be a theme that comes up a lot with him, especially starting in Week 2 when we open with him having a chat with his therapist.

How does this relate to plants, you ask? Let’s start with Dieter’s history…the man has never had a real relationship. He’s never connected with anyone, whether that be friend or significant other. He was a party boy that indulged in the physical pleasures of life while avoiding any real intimacy. Most of his relationships were based on sex and favors. We will worry about why he is this way later, but for now, just know that’s where he's at emotionally.

Dieter has never really had a bond with anyone or anything. Now that he is sober and realizing how alone he is, he’s seeking that connection any way he can and doesn’t even really realize it (yet).

Sure, being a plantsman does have perks as it is relaxing and can have a positive impact on one’s mental health. However, it’s causing Dieter to learn how to care about something - how to be selfless and nurturing with his time. He has to put in a lot of effort to keep everything alive and healthy and he quickly realizes that putting in that time and energy makes him happy. Also, the plants don't judge him or his past.

Now, for some fun stuff because some of you asked…

Does Dieter talk to his plants? He 100% talks to the plants. He doesn’t know if it actually does anything, but he figures it can’t hurt to try. It also helps him feel less alone as he does see them as living things. They do breathe, eat, and drink after all.

Does Dieter name his plants? I’m inclined to say that he names his favorites. All the others just have random nicknames that change based on their appearance. Like...the "thirsty dramatic bitch" that gets weepy and needs to be watered and turned in the sunlight daily.

Dieter’s Furry Squatter

And let the collective aww's be heard! 🤭

So, I pulled a few pics from Pinterest of what I envision Dieter's furry little visitor looks like. I see it as an adorably fluffy young Maine Coon kitty.

👉 Fun Fact: "The name 'Maine Coon' was adopted after the state of the breed's origin, Maine, and after the early belief that the cat was in fact the result of crossing between domestic breeds and raccoons." (from VioVet)

Funny story, I did not know that fact before choosing this breed. It looks like it was meant-to-be for our loveable trash panda. 😂

Now, I am sure you're asking; how does the cat relate to the plants? The cat serves the same purpose when we think about Dieter's relationships...or lack thereof.

Again, Dieter is craving companionship. He is still reluctant, but this little nugget will eventually become a loving companion for him. It's another avenue for him to create an emotional connection with something. He will learn how to care for the kitty and build a bond. Though the little menace can be a bit sassy, like the plants, it also doesn't judge Dieter by his past. What do you think Dieter should name it? I'm taking suggestions in the comments. 😉

In an odd way, the plants and cat do help Dieter grow as a person. It's baby steps in his personal growth journey. Honestly, as Katrina gets to know Dieter on a more personal level, these are two things that she absolutely loves about him, mostly because it's two things that are unexpected and show what a sweetheart he really is. She sees the good in him even if he can't see it himself.

That's it for your little extra bit of insight...until next time.

💜Mysty

Series Summary: Dieter Bravo, now sober, was looking to change his bad boy image after hitting rock bottom. His team hoped that having him join the nationally televised family friendly dance competition would be a good first step, if they can keep him out of trouble.

Katarina Stamos expected her last season as a professional dancer on Dancing with the Stars to go the same as it had for the past thirteen seasons. That all changed when she was partnered with the infamous Dieter Bravo.

Dieter and Katarina are reluctantly thrown into their partnership and must learn to work together to succeed in the competition. In the process they form a deeper connection beyond the dance floor that neither anticipated.

👉 Warnings: Themes dealing with intimate partner violence, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse. There will be fluff, tears, spicy language, and smut. This will be a slow burn. Read at your own risk. Dieter Bravo comes with his own warnings.

Closed Position Taglist: @secretelephanttattoo @titlee78 @maggiemayhemnj @legendary-pink-dot @morallyinept @survivingandenduring  @wannab-urs @harriedandharassed @hisandsnakes @misstokyo7love @readingiskeepingmegoing @runningmom94 @sin-djarin @cakipy-blog @missladym1981 @guelyury @weho2kcmo @alokaerza @girlofchaos @trulybetty @rhoorl @bitchwitch1981 @madnessofadaydreamer @darkheartgatita @jazzloveslatte @timpletance @musings-of-a-rose @samiamproductions @myloveistoolittle @for-a-longlongtime  @copperhalfcent @auteurdelabre @drewharrisonwriter @burntheedges @stevie75 @bunniboo0015 @quicax3 @jackie923 @sherala007 @pastelnap

*If your blog name is marked out, it would not let me tag you. You will need to change your visibility settings for that to work going forward.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

this has been bothering me as of late (aka since it happened, really) and i'm kinda worried that the main person in this story will recognize it but

aita for not sharing things about myself to others?

over the summer, i talked to someone in a former mutual server for a few weeks. i think it was about a month? this started after i left the server because of an upsetting conversation with someone unrelated to the situation. this person had shared things about themselves, including that they had a lot of anxiety. this person was just that kind of person. i know a lot of people like that, so it wasn't all too strange to me. the thing is that i am not that kind of person. personal boundaries is something i struggle with (realized this a few days before sending this eyyyy) and i never really know where the line of "too much" is, so i tend to undershare. at the time, i was also very stressed with my classes, fandom drama, starting a server because of said fandom drama, and getting stressed about that as well. it was also hot as hell because it was like. august, and i am incredibly heat sensitive. so, because of several factors, and the fact that i am just generally bad at talking about myself, i never shared a lot about me.

well, this person didn't really like that. at all. one day, he confronted me about that and i kinda panicked. i didn't know what to say to that at all, and the stress had kinda been compounding. this person gave me an ultimatum, we stopped talking, and haven't spoken since. i was always worried about boundaries with him, because i was an adult and he was a minor, and we hadn't really talked a lot before this. we DEFINITELY hadn't spoken in private, only in the server.

i have some other friends who have said that they value when their friends share about themselves with them, including some close ones, but they've never reacted the same way. instead, they've been more understanding, and let me share what i want to share when i want to share it. mostly these are friends i've known for years, so i'm infinitely more comfortable sharing with them.

so, aita?

What are these acronyms?

[horizon-verizon]

I'm still on my self-imposed Tumblr writing break but I had to share this comedy gold mine where Condal tells us all about "impostor syndrome" before I'm overtaken by the urge to write an essay on it instead. I have no time to cook. Fortunately, we've been served a meal on a silver platter.

https://bigthink.com/high-culture/house-of-the-dragon-ryan-condal/

House of the Dragon, which premiered in 2022, might have continued that [Game of Thrones] trend. Instead, the show proved a return to form, offering the same Shakespearean dialogue and political intrigue that made people fall in love with Martin’s fictional universe back in 2011. The second season is just as good, if not better.

I can see that this is going to be a very fair assessment of Condal and his work.

“Every day,” Condal confesses when asked if he suffers from imposter syndrome. “For me, though, it was less the scale and scope of House of the Dragon and more its visibility that intimidated me."

😭😭😭 It's okay! He wasn't worried about whether he'd do a good job! He was just worried about how visible his ingenious work would be.

Appointed for his encyclopedic knowledge of Martin’s oeuvre, Condal has — in his own words — “played with fire” without getting burned. In the following interview, he demonstrates his mastery of Westerosi lore and explains why all history – real or imagined – ultimately amounts to propaganda.

The business major is about to tell us about historiography. The question is, does he understand historiography? Or does he think he's inventing a new concept?

Condal is a relative newcomer to television. In his previous life, he graduated from Villanova University with an accounting degree and spent eight years working in pharmaceutical advertising — quite different from working as a Hollywood showrunner, but not entirely unrelated.

Yes, we know. It's actually very related. Especially the way Condal does it. I'll also point out here that his university was a private Catholic institution. I don't feel the need to connect those dots right now.

"I also learned to compromise, adapting your writing to clients who aren’t always going to love your brilliant, avant-garde choices. That’s the talent-studio relationship, right there."

I... this tells us two things about the writing process and attitude behind it. Two things we already knew. But... it's sure telling.

"I was able to navigate challenges that some of my colleagues with filmmaking and art history degrees maybe weren’t prepped for."

In theory, nothing wrong with this^ statement. But in context...

While some criticism is valuable, too much can lead to creative paralysis. “I tend more towards the negative than the positive, so I made a conscious decision to stay away from social media when I got this job,” Condal says. If anything, he believes the healthy distance he maintains between himself and his audience has improved the show: “Audiences think they know what they want, but sometimes, they have to be given what they need instead."

I repeat my prior sentiment.

Ultimately, Condal’s own passion for Martin’s writing outweighed any doubt he had about his own. “I’m trying to make the type of show I would enjoy as a fan, which I am. And while I realize my ideal fan show will be different from someone else’s, I still think that it’s a good true north heading on my compass. Actually, I think that’s why HBO hired me in the first place.”

Oh, we know.

“It was hugely intimidating, moving to a new country [the U.K.] and working with a new but also hugely talented crew that I had to — not tell them what to do, exactly, but lead them; collaborate with them. I definitely had to earn my place, but think that — because I came in with a clear vision of what I wanted for the show — those relationships were easy to establish.”

Make it stop.

The most important part of making a successful fantasy show isn’t the sets, costumes, or special effects, but lore. Fictional places like Westeros have their own unique cultures, customs, and social institutions, all of which help create the illusion that this fantasy world is as real and complex as our own. To transfer that illusion from page to screen, the writers must know Martin’s work as thoroughly as Martin himself. “It’s not just me,” Condal says. “We are all deeply entrenched fans of George. One of our writers has worked with him for many years. If I’m a graduate in Westeros studies, she’s an archmaester,” referring to the order of academics sworn to advise and educate Westeros’ nobility.

Well that explains why they're worse than Gyldayn.

Condal: “Textual references are best done in light touches to remind people that this is a fully realized society with hundreds of years of mapped-out history to it. And you don’t need an entire scene to do that. Instead of writing, you can communicate details environmentally through props like heraldry. For the fans, these little touches tell them they are in good hands. Better yet, they know the details are there just for them, the hardcore fans. For everyone else, the casual viewers, this stuff is flying by 100 miles an hour, and they probably won’t notice it. But it’s there.”

Again, there's nothing wrong with this^ in theory. In. Theory.

“I’m definitely an architect,” says Condal, “and I think I have to be as a screenwriter, because our life is so deadline-driven. The literal definition of a playwright, W-R-I-G-H-T, is ‘one who builds plays.’ A dramatic writer is almost by necessity a structuralist, and I very much fall into that camp.”

Now wait for it... wait for it... Keep in mind these are Brinkhof's (article author) words. But wait for it.

Martin, by contrast, identifies as a gardener. While this writing style — with its many unexpected twists, turns, and deaths — helps explain what made Game of Thrones so successful, it may also have been responsible for the show’s eventual downfall. Sticking to Martin’s analogy, “gardening stories” grow like trees, their narratives branching out in an exponential number of paths, making them difficult to finish. As of today, Martin has spent more than 14 years on the next installment in the Song of Ice and Fire series, his prolonged bout of writer’s block forcing Weiss and Benioff to come up with their own ending.

No words. Now back to Condal.

“The advantage we have over them is that we’re dealing with a finished text, where they were working with an unfinished, living work,” Condal says. “Where the Game of Thrones team had to trim down 5,000 pages into a few dozen scripts, we’re challenged in the opposite direction, turning around 100 pages into a multi-season arc of television, and that requires a lot of invention.”

Oh? So... you do know where it's going. Which means your "inventions" should... probably lead there?

Condal treats Fire & Blood like a real-world historian might treat a manuscript from the Middle Ages. “These three writers all had personal agendas which, to me, seem to reflect one of the main themes of our show: powerful women living in an unbreakable patriarchy. The writers, particularly the priest, appear to blame the war on the squabbling between Rhaenyra and Alicent.”

No comment for now. No... comment...

House of the Dragon pretends to show the real history that Fire & Blood recorded and distorted. Some events happen the way the one of the three authors describe it, while others contain elements of all three conflicting accounts. Others still indicate that none of them got it right. As a rule, every character in the show is far more complex than the jester, maester, and priest made them out to be.

I... I... I... I... I...

“Alicent can be the stereotypical evil stepmother at times,” says Condal, “just as King Viserys, played by Paddy Considine in season 1, can come across at weak. However, the thing that in-universe historians don’t get about Viserys is that he was carrying the burden of a prophecy passed down through generations and couldn’t tell anybody about it. A lot of his supposedly weak decision-making was actually in service of this secret prophecy. We were trying to show that there was more to him, that multiple things about him could be true at the same time.”

Must... Resist... Urge... To... Write... Essay...

“We have to arrive at the same endpoint as the book,” he reminds himself. “Whoever George said becomes king must become king at the end of the war. Hopefully, though, we have a bit of latitude leading up to that, to show how history has been interpreted differently at different times by different historians. I realize I’m playing with fire, but it does excite and fascinate me — to be able to comment on how history is made, not just this fictional history, but all history. It’s all propaganda to some degree.”

😭 The clownery.

Historiographers weep.

@rhaenin-time, you must be stopped. Ryan should be , too, but you have decided to bring me in close proximity to this nonsense. I am sitting here, eating chewy ChipsAhoy, and you came in here like a wrecking ball with this news....I hate you. [read, this is a joke]

I don't think I'll be able to address every thing I want to address in this. I want to be done with this show, I have been tired since the 6th epi of the last season.

Condal is a relative newcomer to television. In his previous life, he graduated from Villanova University with an accounting degree and spent eight years working in pharmaceutical advertising — quite different from working as a Hollywood showrunner, but not entirely unrelated. [...]

I also learned to compromise, adapting your writing to clients who aren’t always going to love your brilliant, avant-garde choices. That’s the talent-studio relationship, right there. [...] Audiences think they know what they want, but sometimes, they have to be given what they need instead."

Who tf does this man think he is?!!! Yes, I needed mother-son coochie eating. I needed to have a brown girl erased for a rapist to become a family man with a sick child. I needed Cole fucking Alicent at least 3 times instead of a brown haired Targ make instrumental alliances with more people to add to his stepfather's armies in the Riverlands. I needed to see nonexistent and sterile parallels. I needed to see a black woman be burned alive when she actually died at least surrounded by family, her ignored by her husband so his later marriage to a white girl be that much more special. I needed to see a disabled man jerk it over a queen's bare feet like she's in OnlyFans and doesn't know where her next meal is. I needed to see a pretten prince jerk it over a window and barely even tell what his brother was doing later with Vhagar instead of another preteen girl bond with the most powerful dragon of the then living ones. I needed to see a woman so much more hypocritical than her book counterpart be framed as one of the wisest women to exist while she praises Jaehaerys I of all people for having a peaceful reign as if his decision to have that council have no bearing on the burgeouning war coming up right now.

He can't even properly write character ACRTION as opposed to REACTION (Seth Abramson's article on substack):

Appointed for his encyclopedic knowledge of Martin’s oeuvre, Condal has — in his own words — “played with fire” without getting burned. In the following interview, he demonstrates his mastery of Westerosi lore and explains why all history – real or imagined – ultimately amounts to propaganda.

And yet Daemon dislikes his daughter or grow impatient with her bec she doesn't have a dragon....while he only claimed one at 16 or a bit younger with Caraxes AND Targs don't actually bond with dragons in the cradle that often, actually usually doing it in preteens to teens AND Aegon I definitely had to bond later in life as well. And said that Aegon I lived/was alive when Old Valyria still existed. Allowed Criston Cole to be called Dornish both by Alicent and the fans without giving us any explanation or exploration of that identity esp when canonically he came from the Stormlander part of the Dornish Marches. "Encyclopedic" my nonexistent ballsack! He has no authority to claim that F&B is so unreliable that he can't tell truth form agenda-motivated fiction and then claim himself intelligent or "brilliant" at the same time!

"avant-garde"...yes bc it's so revoluntionary and creative to have a man lick his former home from his own mother in a "vision". As if making a woman her son's character tool wasn't something HBO already did with its female characters and perform male gaze....okay...As if he's special and different from other male writers and it not just keeping with ASoIaF adaptation tradition. It added so much to the story other than the sick eroticism of something already cleared up last season.

I definitely had to earn my place, but think that — because I came in with a clear vision of what I wanted for the show

No you didn't. If you did, you wouldn't have had a such a problem with the pacing, the numerous inconsistencies, plotholes, the [if true] possible merge of Rhaena and Nettles and many episodes would't contradict each other as if one writer disagreed and vetoed another. And you'd see why/how show!Rhaena's purpose must be kept more or less the exact same as her in the bk for the post-Dance environment. We'd have Maelor. We'd have Daeron mentioned and described much earlier, not as some sort of random ass surprise that is bound to thrown so many locals off when he does appear.

If I’m a graduate in Westeros studies, she’s an archmaester,” referring to the order of academics sworn to advise and educate Westeros’ nobility.

....what the fuck does this even mean?! There are no fucking graduates of anything in Westeros and there are no archmaesters of real life bc the set ups in education of EU medieval history vs Westeros are so different it's not even funny. there are no universities for one to even imagine there are Westerosi "graduates", and there is no way you can tell if a graduate would be more or less educated than a grandmaester, bc we don't have rules of "graduation" or gradations of maestership. the modern school system can never be properly equalized in structure or depth or habits to Westerosi maestership, the instituton.

Therefore trying to create some sort of analogy as if grads exist in Westeros by immediately using "grandmaester" for another you're aligning yourself with is just so stupid. worst part is, I know exactly what he's trying to say, but his use of this device is so wrong, that I'm mad and ure people will just take this at face value instead of see how inept this man is with literature analysis and thus creative writing. Reminds me, ironically, of his saying he's inspired by PARADISE LOST in writing S2...if you don't sit yourself down to hell, sir!

Martin, by contrast, identifies as a gardener. While this writing style — with its many unexpected twists, turns, and deaths — helps explain what made Game of Thrones so successful, it may also have been responsible for the show’s eventual downfall.

And there it is, Ryan is prepping to use the ole fan excuse of "not much story left" excuse people had for D&D, and it makes sense how he would considering how F&B is considered to unreliable to adapt even the clearest events and characterizations as they are given....

[itsaspectrumcomic]

hello, first I'd like to say that I love your comics :) they make me feel less alone.

Secondly, do you have any tips for dealing with an... innapropriate, I guess.. interest? I have recently developed either a new special interest or a new hyperfixation (either way, I am very passionate about it) on Russia, but because of the war between Russia and Ukraine I feel really uncomfortable talking about Russia as I don't want people to think I agree with Putin at all.

Thank you for reading this

Just because you're interested in something, it doesn't necessarily mean you agree with it. Consider World War 2 historians - most of them will agree it was a tragic event on a global scale, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't study it. In fact I think it's very important to study events like that to help us understand why they happened and how to prevent them in the future.

(Not to mention, a lot of people in Russia don't like what Putin is doing either.)

If you're worried, you can tell people outright what you think of what's happening in Ukraine. Consider what you could do to help the Ukrainian people, through donations or raising awareness. But if you don't feel safe or able to in certain situations it might be best to avoid mentioning it or just sticking to other unrelated aspects of Russia you're interested in.

Of course there will always be people who misinterpret or make assumptions without asking, but since that's out of your control, try not to let it dictate your actions.

[jackwhiteprophetic]

okayokayokay you asked for asks so i'm asking (i'm hoping these aren't things you've already answered, and for like a dissertation back because i love reading all your thoughts)

i think s7 really suffered from inconsistent writing (and a plot that wasn't cohesive at all, esp because it's an ensemble cast) do you think s8 will do better? i'm really hoping it does.

i miss shenanigans. like s7 definitely had some but i think the season was so short and a little all over the place, i feel like we deserve some hijinks (esp because of gerrard being back)

if you had like an ideal disaster arc that led to buddie getting together (i'm thinking shooting 2.0) what would it be?

also i love carlo's song

I LOVE ALL OF THIS AND THANK YOU SO MUCH. Unrelated but I'm currently feeling SO pissed off because I tried to long onto my childhood email account for nostalgia fun and THEY DELETED ALL MY OLD EMAILS.

I love to hear that people like to hear me talk, especially about 9-1-1, so THANK YOU ALSO!!! I really love your questions, and never worry about if I've answered them before because I will always answer again AND I actually have no memory of anything I say ever, so I will probably think it's a new thing every time.

Yesss so I think with S7 the writing was rushed and the filming was rushed due to strikes and stuff, and the new network, like it was all fresh and new and chaotic. They knew the things they had to hit (cruise ship, Madney wedding) and they hit those well. But in between it didn't flow very well, because they shifted things around. I think the issue started with the Bachelor (not party) crossover in 704. They had to swap over different storylines to make room, they ended up deleting an entire scene they had films and that we had stills for (which I think was someone up high somewhere which COULD HAVE BEEN A VERTIGO REFERENCE???). So yeah. Things went downhill a bit because while individual storylines were interesting, people were kept fairly separate and there weren't even really any team scenes where they all discussed things (because they weren't sure which order they'd do, they can't have Buck and Eddie slightly annoyed at each other in the background of a Hen and Chim scene bc they might swap the storylines between episodes the week before the episode airs).

And to make up for the lack of fluidity, they had the medal ceremony. Which just didn't really hit, maybe because we'd seen so many stills that we didn't get scenes of, and because yeah, it wasn't very fluid so bigger scenes felt kind of off? It must be so fucking hard for the actors to be making decisions for scenes when they don't know which order it's going to have been in.

I also think they slowed down after they found out about season 8, and they've already started writing, and I think the fact they have more time to film and more actual episodes will mean it's more fluid.

I do find it so interesting though how the fact that they only had 10 episodes and essentially still tried to fit 18 episodes of plot into that, tied with them knowing there may be new viewers and having to reintroduce characters and dynamics, they reduced relationships right down to what they are prioritising that the viewers see. So we have Bathena and Bobby grappling with his past, so the audience knows Bobby's past, and we have Hen and Chim and how their families are linked and their own family dynamics, we have Maddie's past and the Madney and Henren families, and we have Buck and Eddie, so massively and messily interlinked this season.

We barely saw Buck with Maddie, HIS OWN SISTER, this season, and their only scene just the two of them was not really about Maddie at all, it was about Buck and his life and also his relationship with Eddie. So yeah, they really really focused on highlighting the key dynamics they wanted us to see this season. Which is very interesting. I just wish they had done it more fluidly, but oh well.

I am really hopeful for next season and the writing, and I am also FUCKING STRESSED EVER SINCE TIM MINEAR SAID HE DOESN'T LIKE TO PLAN THINGS... WE CARE ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS A LOT... PLEASE PLAN THINGS!!!!!

But yeah, they never had time for filler episodes this season, the episodes where little happened (one could argue 705, 707, 709ish) weren't really filler episodes, they were more episodes that were having to tie up loose ends from the last and establish the next episode. If that makes sense? I also think they just decided this season that they didn't really have much time for firefighting? Which idk, it's disappointing, but yeah, they actually did not have much time and people remember the personal things more????

ANYWAY I AM SO HOPEFUL FOR NEXT SEASON AND I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE? but also I really enjoyed writing it anyway!!! FEEL FREE TO SEND ME ASKS ALWAYS!!! THEY BRING ME MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF JOY!!!! And yes Carlos song is fucking incredible I am so excited I am going back to the place I first heard it next week!!!!!

Have a beautiful day if possible, and I love you all and I think you are doing amazing!!!!!! REMEMBER TO EAT AND DRINK AND SLEEP AND SUCH!! and also do something fun, like if you have nice food then just eat it, you don't have to justify it to yourself I'm literally telling you to! Trust your instincts especially if they're positive ones!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just rambling now, my phone is on 5% we shall see how long it lasts!!

[piracytheorist]

Episode 31 reactions!

Okay, first off, mind. blown. There's some VERY good action in this one!

Yor's coworkers are at the "Well, we're still better off!" jealousy stage. It's a small thing but something I can definitely see people like them do. Sharon seems to be the most passive-aggressive one, so it was a bit revealing that she was the first one to go like "Hey I got beer and sausage, I'm not jealous at all!" Our truest selves come out in the hardest times...

A very beautiful shot of the ship!

By the way, if Yor's coworkers knew what she was going through, they'd definitely stop being jealous.

Yor appears a little too nervous, if you ask me. Granted, we only saw her once before working, and when she was imagining what she'd tell Anya she sounded quite secure in her abilities. But now that she's been living in a family, her way of work has indeed changed, if anything else because she's worried they may find out the truth about her.

At first I thought McMahon had kicked her in the shin, but upon rewatching I realized he kicked the leg of the chair. I'm sure if it were the Shopkeeper he'd probably kick her leg, if not stomp down on her foot just to get her to focus.

Gram was sneezing again? Should I pay attention to this or is it just a baby being a baby?

Yor is smart to try and think how the enemy would think in order to be prepared for their plan, but she doesn't take into account the fact that some of the assassins are actual psychopaths who don't care about taking innocent people's lives in their effort to do their job. That's what being too kind of an assassin will do to you XD

And it's driven to the point even more with Yor being cute like that - and probably remembering the times she played with Yuri when he was little - and Olka saying she doesn't look like a criminal. She really doesn't. Sweetest assassin ever <3

The "mmm" Yor made at the end was the exact same "mmm" Anya made while stuffing up her face with food XD

Loid is not impressed, and this is only the beginning.

It's so fun having the actual, physical copy of the manga in front of me as I watch the episode! I notice here that when Anya talked about Yor missing, she also told Loid "You miss dinner all the time", but the anime omitted that. STOP DENYING US THINGS!

Anyway, Anya calls him out for catching feelings, and Loid is quick to drop his voice a couple octaves to show how secure he is.

I AM NOT LONELY I AM NOT.

Sure buddy, sure.

The office guys are on the opposite side of relaxing and actually enjoying themselves on this trip, going out and drinking a little too much, while the "Greys", Yor and McMahon are walking on eggshells.

The anime team obviously had enough time available for this chapter, as they have a couple of added lines from the office guys, so I doubt they omitted Anya's line about Loid missing dinner due to time issues. I wonder what might be the reason - it's not like they're trying to make us think he doesn't miss dinner? We know the guy's schedule is tight as a drum.

Anyway. Assassin-ing time and holy shit.

I'm pretty sure I gasped at this.

And the rest of the scene, of course!

Obligatory mention that it's been proven time and again that torture is not an effective means of interrogation. People can and do lie while being tortured for information, so the things they say may or may not be accurate. Torture may make them speak, but whether they speak the truth or not is another issue, unrelated to torture itself. So while there can be various goals of torturing someone (illegitimate, of course, like punishment, making an example out of a "traitor", or in very few real-life cases, gratification), obtaining information has proven to not be a feasible one. I understand the point of the scene was to show McMahon's abilities and to establish that there are multiple people on board after Olka, I just needed to say that.

I've been certain they'd go the "dumping bodies into the ocean" route. A cruise is a great setting for that!

The knock on the door was intense! Especially since it's put right after the scene of McMahon and Furseal walking back to the room, but just those few seconds of slowed down tension make you think "Oh no. It's not them. It's them".

I expected the "Oh, it's just room service!" and of course, I expected the "I didn't order any" reply.

Great animation of the attack and Yor protecting Olka and Gram though I'm begging the animators to look a bit into trigger discipline, at this point whenever I see a gun my eyes go immediately on the trigger and I go D: whenever there's a finger on it that shouldn't be

But oh, McMahon is good, and resourceful!

The assassin points his gun at them, Furseal freaks out while McMahon marches on.

We also finally see one (1) eye under the reflection of his glasses. I get that the reflection makes it easier in animation and such, but still I appreciate this detail, especially in such a moment.

And more action! Yor being a badass and at the same time caring for the baby!

"I can excuse murder in self-defense but I draw the line at scaring a baby"

THE GUY WAS STILL WIGGLING. WHILE HE HAD A DAGGER THROUGH HIS SKULL.

(probably last uncontrollable movements from his dying nervous system but still. it was fucking chilling and I love it)

Also, I can understand Yor being strong enough to break the door. But I think it takes a different kind of strength to throw an object, even a sharp one, and make the object break through the door, a human skull, and then latch onto a wall. Absolute unit.

Seeing the body was freaky, too! If I'm correct, I think this is the very first time we see a person being murdered on screen in the story.

Ah no wait we do see a guy in the second episode getting a dagger to the back and falling down. But it was much more palatable than seeing a dagger go through someone's skull and practically nailing him to the wall.

I'm gonna think about this for a long time, lmao. It was brutal!

I just noticed this on my rewatch! McMahon is wearing a ring in the shape and place of a wedding ring! He then goes on to tell the ship's services that the "mister and missus had a fight" though in the manga he says "me and my wife" so is his cover that he's on board with his wife?

And here's the same thing that shows Yor's side. She sees assassins as people doing their job and "cleaning out trash" especially in her case, not people who do this job just because they have no issue killing.

I mean, I don't want turtleneck guy to defeat Yor, but he's got my respect for now.

He also says there are other members from the gangster family on board? Just how many people did manage to get on this ship XD

The eavesdropping guy tells turtleneck guy that he sells his information equally and practically tells him good luck getting ahead, so now I'm thinking, there's another eavesdropping guy, or is he selling all his intel to other assassins that weren't there in that scene?

Also, good luck getting them to work together without getting greedy and/or paranoid, lol

Furseal was actually blushing while wearing the mask XD and the plague doctor mask on the baby!

The poison guy thinks he's some dude. He has no idea who he's dealing with.

This arc will be perfect for creepy shots of Yor, won't it XD

Furseal asks for his button back and dude! Priorities much? This button saved all your lives XD

Blonde mask guy tries to go for Olka right in the middle of the crowd like wtf and the moment Yor grabbed his hands I went like "BREAK THEM. BREAK HIS FINGERS." And then she did <3 We stan <3

That's it. That's their dynamic in one shot.

While Anya is having an overdramatic tantrum, we see how even when Twilight is trying to not be on the lookout - he even says he just has to stay away from suspicious people - his skills are so fine that they kinda work subconsciously. He spots the listening devices (I mean, there are a ton of them) and notices all the suspicious people even if he doesn't make a conscious list of all of them.

Then Twilight has a fucking breakdown over one (1) silly keychain. I mean it is a skeleton keychain so his mind immediately went "IT'S EITHER THAT OR MY OWN DEATH" is anyone even surprised

Anya is still learning how easily Twilight overreacts. And like the scene with the sandbox in the hospital, she realizes she caused him a little too much anxiety and tries to take some burden off.

This entire tension is going on and Twilight is still stuck on whether he should buy a stupid keychain. This man is incapable of relaxing, you tell him to relax and he goes like "Okay spy mode on standby, parent with anxiety mode is on".

I love how this reads a bit like "Papa considers hating frogs as much of a dealbreaker as being an assassin!"

It's so weird - though fitting - to think that Anya believes she can keep this up indefinitely. She has no idea how easily they could discover each other's identities and believes she can stop that from eventually happening. It makes sense for her age, though.

It's also a bit sad, how quick she is to think that she would be abandoned if they found out about each other. It's probably what makes her go "I have to keep this up as long as possible". Her young mind can't comprehend an alternative.

And oop! Taking part of the next chapter too, I see!

I might have lost it during these shots.

"You go around having battles" is definitely something Anya would come up with. It's why she's so hard to write and why Endo should receive an applause for how accurate to her age and experience he writes her.

Next, Twilight's biggest foe; the unreadable expression of a five six year old who is trying to take responsibility for her actions.

I love how when Twilight is facing actual danger and difficult missions he's all cool and collected. Meeting Desmond? Piece of cake. Taking down entire groups of people aiming guns at him? No problem. Anya acting unpredictable? THE WORLD IS ENDING.

However funny the scene is, it slowly drifts into a sadder territory. Twilight actually worries over Anya's mental state, and though he has no idea Anya is having the time of her life, there must be a part of his understanding of her trauma that is true. Now why he undermines completely his own trauma... It's projecting, isn't it?

Anyway, he concludes that the Handler knew from the beginning that Anya needs some vacation in order to recover from her trauma, and for some reason, instead of going like "Yo give her a break" she conjured up this entire idea for a vacation... But in reality, the Handler was only saying that in order to justify his time off in paper.

Like, the man can be so off sometimes that I want to shake him and then hug him because god I cannot imagine going your entire life like this and not even comprehending the idea of actual time off.

Anya: Have fun! Twilight: Cannot compute!

Like yeah it's funny but how am I supposed to not feel just a little bit sad with how he's completely unfamiliar with the concept of relaxing and having fun 😭😭

This is going to be a disaster XD

Anya prepares to run for it, realizes he can change and wear everything within seconds, and freezes... But then Overanalyzing TwilightTM takes control and he starts spending long minutes in front of the mirror freaking out about how his weird ensemble will manage to fix Anya's mood.

This truly is his most difficult mission. Anya is the perfect age to teach him about how sometimes he cannot control how people will react to his manipulations... and then there's the mind-reading, too.

Anyway. I love how Anya goes like "That's not how I expected to win some time but it works" and just steps back into the corridor XD

OH MY GOD

I love me a good fight choreography! Here Yor pushed Olka down from the shoulders, and at the same time pushed Furseal's knees to the front so they'd bend and he'd go down just enough to miss the sickle. Awesome!

The guy just starts a fight right in the middle of the crowd. And Yor has no choice but to stop him, Anya has to hide and also keep Loid from coming out of the store...

That IS a very interesting cliffhanger! I nearly screamed when it ended there, lol. It even ends in the middle of the page! I had to cover it with my hand to avoid spoilers XD The things I go through in this crazy experience XD

Overall, awesome episode! Though I felt that the Twilight panicking scene dragged on a bit. I don't know why. Maybe it's just that I'm an angst ho and I wanted a bit more angsty vibes from that scene. It's not bad, but maybe I still haven't realized just how much on comedy the show belongs in. It has a peculiar but for some reason very efficient balance on everything.

[thefloatingstone]

It's interesting how people have different reactions to Liara. I never even once considered her to be anything else besides Shepard's ride or die and borderline adopted sister.

I remember Liara as the person who saved Shepard's life between ME1 and ME2, I remember her as the person who basically pushed her desk out of the way to hug Shepard after not seeing her for 2 years. and most importantly, I remember her as the person who would more than once come to Shepard's cabin for something unrelated, see Shepard was in a bad place, and put everything aside to take time and ask "Are you ok?"

VERY few characters do the "Are you ok?" moment with Shepard because most of them just take it for granted that she is. Garrus does it more than once because he's an awkward nerd who worries. Joker does it because he's Joker and he's awesome (and because he has EDI monitoring Shepard's sress levels because he's worried about her but has no social skills to try and speak to her until those bottled up feelings finally burst). But Liara is the one I remember coming to the cabin and spending LONG moments with Shepard, in her own space, talking her through a lot of her stress and sadness.

My point is, I am NEVER the person to point and go "No! Your experiences are WRONG actually!". Because like ????? uhm ????? HOW??? 'I experienced something." "lol no you didn't"

Yeah I don't play that way.

I just find it very interesting how some people see Liara as uncaring and having no empathy for Shepard, whereas I remember her most impactful moments are spending time with Shepard in the most intimate ways without romancing her.

It's just interesting to me what sticks with different people. I think it's a sign of good writing. Because it's one thing to write a character everybody likes because they were written to be likeable. And it's another thing to have a character with a fleshed out personality that is SO well written that some people dislike her because they'd dislike her if she was a real person too, and some people REALLY like her because they'd get along with her if she was a real person.

And I think that's actually pretty neat.

[kerubimcrepin]

Live-Read: The Remington Comic [PART 2]

TOME 11

We go, we steal, we leave… I don't want any trouble, Remington, got it? Wohaa, as if… I'm telling you, we steal Beating Heart and that's it.

The way Luis is drawn in this comic is so cute, sorry...

Very intrigued by the books standing on top of a flowerpot standing on top of a stool, the random kettle on the floor, a blanket half-covering an unidentified fucking object, more books, and what seems to be a bell, or a bottle, standing on the floor.

Kerubim and Atcham seem to have been away for A While. And Joris doesn't like to clean.

Make less noise when you walk. If we wake the guy up, meow to make him think a cat got into the home. Uh uh.

This idea is so stupid for so many reasons, both ones Remington and Grany should know, and ones known only to us... It's kind of admirable.

Also I still can't get over how fucking messy Joris is. Either it's his depression, his ADHD, or Kerubim's Upbringing that made him that way. Man...

Anyway,

Do you remember where it was stored? Don't worry. Here it is!

THE RANDOM ELEPHANT FIGURES?? I bet they're Keke's... Also, once again, many, many books left everywhere. He's insane.

Come here, you. What was that? No idea… You must have moved something that fell.

While I wish it was Luis, it's actually an unrelated monster under Bonta that will be a big problem in the next issue of the comic.

Come on… let's go! Yes… that was indeed the talking bow meow… who was transformed by a certain Ush.

The way he's talking about them here is so science-y. As if whether they would come or not was like an experiment to him. It's so funny.

Also, Pupuce!!!!! My beloved Pupuce. <3

My instincts tell me to go hang out in the slums for a while. If only he could stay there...

LMAOOO.

Once again, I am grateful that Ush's weird and creepy relationship with cats (albeit... sentient cats, at least) was retconned into a more positive one in season 4 of Wakfu. I still think it's fucking weird, but it certainly makes him funnier as a character.

Ush hates Bump, and it's really like... "my noble sentient catfucking (while i myself shapeshift into a cat) vs. your creepy and barbarous panty collecting."

Hello, you may call me Joris, I would like to meet the noble Ush in order to ask him a few questions about a rogue and a bow meow that... Master does not accept visitors. ??

THIS IS SO FUNNY. THE WAY HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF?? The way this guy closed the door. God...

Also, his cunty little hand on chest thing.... I CAN'T.

Mhh, very well… Let's see. Mhm... If anyone knows where the beating heart is, then that person is here. YYAAAAHH!

LITTLE GUY!!!!!!!!!!?? YOU SWAG TOO HARD. I CAN'T DO THIS AYMORE. His pure and beautiful whimsy... He's so happy to be running... Like a gazelle.

YAAH AH AH!! Anyone? And who're you? We're prisoners… Get us out of here, I beg you. D'you know a rogue and his bow meow brother?

Y'know, this page does haunt me a little. Because he's so, so informal here — and kind of insane too. HE BRINGS OVER A STOOL TO TALK TO TWO PEOPLE ACTIVELY BLEEDING OUT, JUST TO TALK TO THEM WHILE MAKING EYE CONTACT. After that, no vous/vous for them, and when they ask for help, he's like "yeah no, first tell me — do you know that guy who wronged me?"

I'm obsessed with him.

Do I know them? Of course, I know them. You could even say I'm here because of them. They talked about Ush, that's why I came. You get us out of here, and we'll help you find them. Oki-doki... cross my heart! But you'll have to find the key to open it. A key? To close things it might be necessary, yes, but not to open. You're small but mighty, I say!

While I think Joris is a good person and would have helped them even if they knew nothing, I do think that asking about Remington before he freed them was a way of subtly suggesting they help him in return.

Love the way he says "oki-doki"... this 600yo man and his multitudes...

Also, Joris can bend metal. Now imagine him chained up and just... casually breaking the chains, once he's done pretending to be trapped. No wonder Ush needed dragon slobber to restrain him.

He's a bit shaken up, but he should be fine… Stop that… I'm going to puke.

Beautiful.

This reaction Ush has to this huge-ass thing goes out to the Ush fans among my readers.

[nkjemisin]

Things in my ask box

Hi folks. Every so often I get questions from folks that are good, but which I worry might catch them some flak from my other readers or whoever. Sometimes I answer those people privately, but in general I prefer not to do private replies to asks; for one thing, other people might want to know the answer, and for another, I've had a few awkward situations result from doing so (basically just people going parasocial on me), and I think that sort of thing is less likely when it's clear I'm talking to everyone. So, I'm going to handle these awkward asks by just treating them as Q&A questions -- without showing that person's username and where necessary, altering the question in order to protect their identity. I've got a few of these stored up, but just gonna do two this time for length and time reasons. I'll get to the rest later.

Are you a proshipper?

Yep. Feel free to alter your decision re following me on social media now that you've read that answer. But I believe in "don't like, don't read," and that fiction doesn't indicate what an author really believes (because it's fiction), and that there's no subject matter too immoral to explore on its face (everything depends on the execution), so... yep.

2. I love the Broken Earth trilogy, but I have to say, the middle book really didn't go anywhere, literally. Essun stayed in Castrima and Nassun moved around a little more but mostly stayed in the same place too. It killed a lot of the story momentum for me. Why did you decide to do this?

[spoilers for Broken Earth books, though I'll try to minimize them and will put a "read more" before I get there]

Because I felt like it. I'm not saying that defensively, I'm just noting that the answer to pretty much any question you might ask a writer about why they do a particular thing is... because they felt like it. Period full stop. Sorry that wasn't what you wanted to read! It was, however, the story I wanted to tell.

To elaborate... different people have different expectations of trilogies. That's because there are a lot of different ways to handle them, narratively speaking. Sometimes a trilogy is really a group of shared-universe stories taking place in the same world but not necessarily featuring the same characters, and with unrelated plots. Some are telling a single story, but through different POVs and smaller plot arcs that each have their own terminuses; that's what I did with the Inheritance Trilogy, for example. And sometimes, as I did with the Broken Earth books, the author is just telling one big story broken up into three parts. (There are more ways to do a trilogy than this, but let's keep this brief, lol.)

Now, there are a lot of ways to handle this kind of story, but a pattern that most of us are used to is:

Book One: Introduction to the world and important characters and the apparent stakes;

Book Two: Deep dive into the important characters and world, thus giving the audience a reason to care more; and

Book Three: Now we really know the stakes and shit just got real! Now we care what happens to the characters when EVERYTHING! BLOWS!! UP!!!

(I am feeling very silly today, sorry.)

We're familiar with this pattern because we see it all the time, especially in American media. It's a variation on the three-act structure seen in plays and other narratives. It's the basis of our most popular longform stories! The original Star Wars trilogy did it. The Mass Effect trilogy did it. (Andromeda was a separate story, probably meant to be the start of a new trilogy.) The Lord of the Rings did it, prequeled by the Hobbit and mirrored by the Silmarillion. I mentioned those examples because the middle stories of each all exhibit the same traits: a drastic change of pace or location for the protagonists, putting the protagonists through personal character growth arcs, and poking at minutia or seemingly unimportant aspects of the world (which usually end up pretty important before all is said and done).

Now let's answer your question. Spoiler warning again:

In the Broken Earth, we got introduced to the Stillness and Essun in Book One. There was a lot of physical movement in that book as Essun was on the road for most of it (as were other characters), but the plot itself was relatively simple: A bad thing happened to this person and she needs to go somewhere and find someone, to fix it! And then pretty much the entirety of that book's narrative was "Who is this person, why does the bad thing matter, and how close does she get to finding her missing person?" Then in Book Two, we learned a little more about this person, a lot more about her impact on other characters including the one she's been trying to find, and we spent a while learning about orogeny, the Obelisk Gate, and what the stone eaters have been up to. I cheated a little on this; there wasn't room to do a deep dive into the backstory of one pivotal character, but I did finally reveal that this character is the "secret" narrator of the whole trilogy, and made his agenda clearer. I ended up putting his "deep dive" into Book Three instead, where it was particularly relevant to the STUFF! BLOWING!! UP!!!

The reason a lot of readers complain about "Middle Book Syndrome," I suspect, is because of this pattern -- and because of their expectations. A lot of people come at a middle book expecting Book One Redux. That's what you often get in shared-universe trilogies -- Book One over and over again, roughly the same balance of characters vs events each time, in a familiar setting. We're conditioned to want that, I think, from other episodic works. Comic books, for example: When I was working on FAR SECTOR, my editor at the time explained that I needed to try and have a fight or action scene in most of the issues. I hate fight scenes -- sorry! -- so that was hard for me. TV shows -- the ones that aren't themselves telling a single big story over time -- do this, too. I think of it as the "If You Liked X, Then Try... X!" structure. Absolutely nothing wrong with this structure, by the way. I'm just describing it, not throwing shade. I'm a big fan of stories like this myself.

But even for audience members who were expecting the Three-Act Trilogy structure instead, that middle book is going to be jarring. It's supposed to be jarring. The refugees have survived the first book but stopped to dress their wounds and regroup; the adventurers on a quest have reached an impasse and need to find allies and grind to build up their strength; the stalwart hero has just suffered a massive setback and needs to overcome their own doubt or character flaws. A good way to handle this is to take the characters out of their familiar space, and put them somewhere new, or give them a very different kind of challenge. [Mass Effect and LOTR spoilers] Oh, no, Shepard died and their team broke up! What now? Oh, no, Frodo and Sam are on their own trying to get to Mordor! They're just these little guys! How are they gonna make it? If you got overly attached to Shepard team from ME1, or the Fellowship, you're in for a rough ride in these followups. But the jarring nature of this kind of followup is absolutely necessary. An author who does this knows they're going to lose some readers, when they do it. Clearly I almost lost you! But I stand by that choice, because I think it made the whole trilogy better.

Sidebar: I'm old enough to remember the controversy back when "The Empire Strikes Back" came out. Critics haaaaaated that movie! It was too dark, they said; wasted too much time on unimportant stuff. Too much character work, not enough space battles. Then it became clear that audiences loved the second movie even more than the first, precisely because it was darker and because Luke spent so much time futzing around with Yoda and because there were all these girl cooties romantic moments between Leia and Han. A lot of the critics backpedaled at that point, with some of them even acknowledged that they'd been hoping for Star Wars All Over Again and not What Happens Next That Is Not Star Wars. They'd simply brought the wrong expectations to the story.

This is not to say that you have the wrong expectations, Ask-er. Maybe you were expecting exactly that structure, and you just don't like the way I handled it, or you think I did a poor job. Every reader's experience of a story is different, and not everybody's gonna want to pick up everything I throw down. But you asked why did everyone stay in one place, and this is why: to do a deep dive into the character of the Stillness itself. In a story where the setting was as much a "character" as the people in it, I felt it necessary to show enough of that setting for readers to care about it. Would you care, for example, if the town of Brevard (Damaya and Schaffa spend one night there in Book One) got blown off the map in Book Three? Probably not, because I spent no time on any of its citizens or issues. A lot of people cared about Castrima, though, by the end of Book Two.

Whoo, this got long! Hope it answers your question, Ask-er.

[tigreblvnc]

BLUE LOCK MATCHUP EXCHANGE — @waffledforbreakfast

Your match is...

— Charles Chevalier

✦ I'll be honest, there was someone else on my mind, but since your love languages are NOT AT ALL compatible, I quickly dismissed them.

✦ That said, I'll get back to that at the end of your matchup.

✦ SO.

✦ I didn’t hesitate for long, and Charles' face quickly came to mind.

✦ Our little French imp :)

✦ (It always makes me happy to assign characters from my country to people.)

✦ Your relationship in three words: partners-in-crime.

✦ One of my favorite tropes.

✦ So not a love interest. At least, not directly. I see the relationship more like a younger brother and older sister. Like best friends who end up doing all sorts of crazy stuff together because chaos is your definition of fun.

✦ You know Shidou? Well, Charles is like him but smaller, younger, and very French.

✦ (The anecdote about French arrogance is real)

✦ (Sorry, I won’t uphold our alleged elegance any longer)

✦ The main reason I chose him is that when I read your bio, I thought you needed someone who could keep up with your pace, or even be the one to set the pace, while maintaining your interest and knowing how to introduce new things.

✦ And at the same time… it couldn’t be a people pleaser, you know? I think there’s nothing worse for people who need intellectual stimulation. On the contrary, such people tend to seek out original partners who can stand up to them.

✦ So I was looking for a character with enough bite, and who could be more capricious than Charles when it comes to deciding what to do.

✦ Whether he’ll do it or not.

✦ So we have an ENTP x ENFP duo, which is a very interesting combination because these are among the two most introverted extroverted MBTI types. That is, they can easily be mistaken for INTP and INFP, as their cognitive functions drive them to a need for solitude that can be unusual for an extroverted profile.

✦ A quick MBTI note since I don’t often get ENTPs requesting matchups: ENTPs have a fascinating ability to generate a large number of ideas at an insanely fast pace, making them exceptional brainstormers. They excel at challenging ideas, spotting flaws in arguments, and taking an interest in a wide variety of topics that might seem unrelated. By nature, an ENTP is curious, drawn to intellectual challenges, and unafraid to express their opinions, no matter how caustic. You're also independent, often the jokers who enjoy countering others' arguments, sometimes just for the sake of debate.

✦ On the flip side, all these qualities can be hampered by one of your biggest weaknesses: commitment. By definition, an ENTP cherishes their freedom above all else and particularly dislikes feeling confined by contracts or rules. This often leads you to start a million projects but rarely finish them; once a subject loses its novelty, it also loses its appeal. Like many P-type MBTI profiles, you’ve likely considered dozens of different careers, and your resume is filled with varied experiences that seem to have no connection to each other.

✦ The main difference between an ENTP and an ENFP lies in their auxiliary cognitive function, their second: Introverted Thinking (Ti) for the ENTP, and Introverted Feeling (Fi) for the ENFP. For the ENTP, this means they make decisions by asking themselves, "Is it true? Is it rational?" while the ENFP makes decisions by asking, "Do I like this? Does it align with my values?" This is what sets these two seemingly similar types apart, as they function very differently.

✦ And this will also translate into your relationship with Charles! Because, to get back to the point, you will be together for this matchup.

✦ Clown to clown, basically.

✦ "Relatives tell me I’m 'mature for your age' (which I am aware sounds cringe—bear with me here) or that I worry too much for my future." I think that’s the opposite of Charles, who is very focused on the present and enjoys making the most of what’s happening in the moment. I don’t see him as someone who likes to dwell on the past or think about the future. This might sound like a disadvantage between you two, but it’s actually what makes me think that with him, you’d find it easier to focus 100% on the present. "I like to put myself in/create an environment where I can be a bit more impulsive/reckless without having to worry about large-scale/long-term consequences." Overall, it’s with Charles that these opportunities would arise the most easily.

✦ "I’m well aware that I may hurt some by valuing reason over their emotions or thoughts, but that’s not something I intend to change." And that’s great because I don’t think Charles is the type to like a big people pleaser. On the contrary, he matches better with those whose intentions align with their values, even if it’s at the expense of others. This is very evident in his partnership with Shidou, which works incredibly well on the field.

✦ "But enjoying someone’s company is very much a plus, so as long as they don’t get too close, I’m more than happy to keep them around." As I said earlier when explaining how the ENTP works, I sense a fear of commitment because you don’t want to lose your independence or waste your time. You want to keep your options open, to be free to do what you want at any moment—something you think you’d lose by committing significantly to someone.

✦ To me, Charles is a bit of a free electron… until he finds someone he really clicks with; then he can become super clingy, wanting to be with you all the time to do stuff, have fun, pass the time. I don’t see him liking being alone for long, or if he does, he needs to be deeply engrossed in something. He’s kind of the representation of the arrogant little brother—endearing yet stubborn. A miniature version of you, and I think your independence could serve as a model for him to follow. To put it simply, he imitates you in being free.

✦ Well, he doesn’t listen much to Loki either, who’s supposed to be his coach.

✦ But maybe he’ll listen to you.

✦ Maybe.

✦ "Although I think I’m capable of being a good person, I suppose it depends on how happy I am in the relationship… I’m still figuring things out :’)." I wonder if this phrase is also related to your dislike of committing to a relationship: you’re afraid of giving too much and the other person not giving as much in return, being less invested. I don’t think that would be much of an issue with Charles. Honestly, I see him being able to reciprocate everything you mentioned in the actions you take to maintain your relationships, and I’m especially thinking about sending silly memes at 3 a.m., sharing IG reels, TikTok videos of people dancing in their bathrooms, and that sort of thing. Typically, when you see something dumb on social media, you send it to each other.

✦ "OMG I was just about to send you the same thing!!!!"

✦ Honestly, I think Charles is a big SMS spammer, even at the most ungodly hours of the night.

✦ 30-minute voice messages that make no sense :)

✦ Stickers and gifs.

✦ He’s the first to suggest a night out. In fact, I think staying cooped up at home deeply bores him, you know? He’s the kind who needs to be kept busy 24/7, or else he makes you pay for it a thousand times over.

✦ A gremlin, basically.

✦ "His hobby is surprising anyone or saying something weird just to see the reaction to it ('Doesn't matter if you hate me!')." It speaks for itself.

✦ "I do like straightforwardness." Can we please remember this panel and the fact that Charles bluntly says to Loki, "I’m bored, let me out of here." There’s nothing more direct than Charles. In fact, from the moment he’s bored, it’s like he loses all his skills.

✦ He needs structure, but not just any structure.

✦ Charles is still young, so he needs a figure who can serve as a role model and mentor, someone who has enough interest in his eyes to push him to give his best, which he tends not to do even under the supervision of Loki, who is a world-class player. I don’t think it’s a matter of skill but rather of mentality. Charles doesn’t thrive under constraint but under freedom.

✦ Considering this meme, which I (love) see applying to the two of you, Charles is clearly a pocket-sized kitten capable of scratching at any moment.

✦ "Festive holidays! Seeing all the Halloween / Christmas / Valentine’s /etc. decorations makes me happy :3." It’s still too early on my blog to post Halloween and Christmas headcanons, but Charles is typically someone who prefers to have fun rather than work, you know? A day spent without having fun is a wasted day for him. I also think his taste in decorations can be questionable at times, but that’s what makes decorating together so much fun. Even if people tell him, "Those colors don’t go together at all!!" he doesn’t care—he likes it, so he does it anyway. And it makes him laugh even more if you approve of his particular tastes.

✦ "Heavy on Acts of Service (both giving and receiving). Like receiving physical affection too." Now we get to the part where I eliminated the first contender that came to mind :D To me, the ultimate love language of someone is the opposite of how they present themselves to others. So someone like Charles, who does whatever he wants and hates following orders from others… would do the opposite with someone he really loves.

✦ That is, he’d be the one wanting to do things with and for you. He doesn’t ask because it’s embarrassing, but he has a great memory when it comes to things that really interest him. And because there’s this need to be validated by the person he holds in high esteem (somehow), he always wants to succeed in his goals to show off in front of you, to show you he’s got what it takes and that he’s just as strong as you.

✦ Beneath the sibling rivalry airs, there’s a mutual desire to prove your worth to each other, and that’s also how you show each other your respect. It’s never very direct, but your actions speak louder than your words.

✦ And because words aren’t Charles’ thing at all, he much prefers to show you what he thinks of you with surprise hugs, shoulder taps, and innocent, childish pranks. He’s still just a kid, and there’s nothing more sincere than them when it comes to showing affection.

✦ Typically, he climbs on you to get your attention and blocks your view of the TV because "PLAY WITH ME, EGG!!!!"

✦ So yes, physical contact 100,000%. And Charles loves head scratches in his blond, well-coiffed hair. He doesn’t let others touch him because others are boring, you know? But you’re not boring. On the contrary, you’re actually really awesome to him. And when others try to convince him otherwise, he either jumps at their throat or throws rotten tomatoes at them. France loves you guys.

✦ But there are also other things on which you are particularly compatible.

✦ "Cancer" I have good news! Charles is a Pisces. This is a combination that works like magic, as it often does with signs from the same element. To put it simply, your way of functioning is similar—there's a deep sensitivity behind your insolent and carefree exterior. In fact, you've both developed a shell of indifference to only grant your trust and favor to a very select few. Since Charles is still young, he isn’t fully aware of this yet, and it’s funny how his growth reminds you of your own.

✦ I’m not quoting the more personal parts of your bio because the blog is public, but I like to imagine that Charles' family situation isn't necessarily stable, like maybe his parents are pretty lax or don't realize their son's potential, you know? His relationship with Shidou makes me think he needs an older brother or sister figure around him to offer that chemistry, that joy in playing that his parents can’t quite inspire in him. It even seems like football bores Charles a bit, as long as there isn’t someone on the field who pushes him to blossom because they understand his way of playing, his way of being. Charles is a character who needs a partner.

✦ So… Yes, clingy, but that's because without it, he has no motivation to grow. To improve and become a better person.

✦ We all know that children evolve differently depending on their surroundings: the fact that your presence has a major impact on his growth, both morally and psychologically, gives you a responsibility that you might not like. You might even outright deny it, judging by some parts of your bio, and at the same time… Well, it's the same for you: if someone hands you a significant project that requires investment, as an ENTP, your nature might push you to decline the offer because you value your freedom too much to commit. But by breaking this well-oiled defense mechanism, you too can experience exponential growth. It's by stepping out of your comfort zone that you create something massive and impactful.

✦ "I see no problem in arguing with my parents (not the scream yelling stuff, the 'ur wrong' stuff)." And I think there's little that amuses Charles more than watching your verbal sparring with your folks. Like… He's hidden behind the couch, giggling into his hand, you know? And once you're done fighting, he jumps on you, laughing and saying, "Nooo way, you didn't!!!" But yes. You did.

✦ Actually, I think you two have known each other since childhood, and that you're the older sibling Charles has always dreamed of.

✦ Football probably came into his life naturally to fill the boredom, the emptiness, the school he never liked.

✦ And you arrived in his life like magic, and it clicked right away because he quickly realized you wouldn’t put up with his arrogance and the fact that he never listens to anyone.

✦ Charles listens to rebels.

✦ The people who are said to be bad.

✦ Naturally, he started following you, wanting to replicate your habits. Dressing a bit like you, adopting the same tastes... And then completly denied it because it was cringe. But the fact that everything you did was cool: so he wanted to do it too.

✦ What motivates him to play? Knowing you’re in the stands watching him.

✦ He acts like he doesn’t care or like he hasn’t noticed, but his eye regularly glances at the stands to see if you’re watching.

✦ And when you disappear, even just for two minutes to get something to eat, all his motivation evaporates, and he switches to "I’m bored" mode.

✦ Then he lights up again when you reappear.

✦ Actually, Charles clearly has two modes of functioning: when you’re there, and when you’re not.

✦ He’s skipped far too many classes to be with you.

✦ Pretty much all subjects bore him at school; in fact, there isn't a single teacher who can make him want to learn. That said, I like to think that because it’s you, he listens more often. He looks at you. He shows some interest, even if it fades too quickly. But the fact that he tries a bit harder when you’re around is already proof of growth.

✦ He tries.

✦ He tries sometimes.

✦ Typically, when he doesn’t get something in class, he asks you first.

✦ Which can lead to certain issues, like relying too much on you and no longer trying to understand things on his own because it doesn’t interest him enough.

✦ I imagine at that point you might brush him off, and he gives you those puppy eyes to convince you to do things for him.

✦ You bounce the ball back and forth to each other.

✦ "I don’t get it." "I don’t want to." "How about we go play instead?"

✦ There’s also something particular about Charles, and that’s the fact that he likes his unpredictability. He’s not someone who seeks to be understood or to have others empathize with him. On the contrary, it’s the fact that no one can predict his movements and thought patterns that makes him so good at football. I think it’s a quality in him that he loves and that you can nurture.

✦ It’s something that Loki tries to do…

✦ … but, well.

✦ Rebel without a cause, as they say.

✦ "Can I copy your homework?"

✦ Deep down, he’s still just as insufferable.

✦ Okay, I'm going to write Halloween headcanons anyway.

"Chaaaaarles!"

"What, Egg?"

"Don’t call me that!"

"It’s your name, EGG!"

"Charles? Halloween is coming up. Do you want to carve a pumpkin with me?"

"Huuuh? Why?"

"We’re going to put them in front of the house and around."

"Why not inside?"

"We’ll put some inside too, but I’ve got other things planned."

"Like what?"

"A cauldron with skulls."

"Cooool. I’ll watch you do it."

"We’re going to do it together, Charles."

"Egg?"

"What?"

"Are pumpkin cakes good?"

"I don’t know, I’ve never had any."

"I want to make them. Make me some food."

"Charles?"

"What?"

"What are you doing to your pumpkin?"

"A smile! It’s a cat, but in a pumpkin. Isn’t it cute?"

"It looks like you."

"EGG!!!"

"WHAT???"

"LOOK!!!!!! They’re selling waffles over there!! I want some, I WANT SOME!!!"

"What are you getting on top?"

"With chocolate, lots of chocolate, and whipped cream, and strawberries."

"Not bad."

"Yeah. It looks like you."

A word about your match: The first contender was Nagi, and you probably know as well as I do that act of services isn’t really part of his love language. That said, the fact that he’s lazy makes him capable of clinging to the first person who comes along; you could say it’s a way of showing physical contact. But clearly, I didn’t see him as capable of providing enough stimulation, even though Nagi is the least people-pleasing character in the entire series. I think Charles offers more twists, complicity, and challenge for you.

© TIGREBLVNC 2024 | INTERESTED IN A MATCHUP EXCHANGE? CHECK THIS.

[andavs]

I finally gave in to the massive peer pressure (half a dozen people posting about it in my dash and in no way directed at me) and watched 9-1-1. You’re the person on my dash who’s been posting about it the longest, and they’d sort of started feeling like blorbos-in-law.

So I knew going in that I was going to be more of an Eddie girl than a Buck girl. And I knew that all the characters were kind of sucky in season 1, and that Buck had the whole Buck 1.0 thing. But like. When am I actually going to start liking him?

I’m in the law suit arc now, and all I want to do is slap him upside the head. I feel like I was finally just starting to like him too, with the tsunami and everything, and now he’s back to driving me crazy. And when I go to ao3 and look for law suit and post law suit era fics, all I see is poor little meow meow Buck. Old subreddits all seemed to be filled with people being mad that Eddie called him exhausting.

Am I crazy? He’s an idiot here, right? I feel like I want to call him things a lot worse than exhausting. Maybe insufferable, that seems applicable. Sorry, I do have faith that he’s going to get better, and I’m think I’m pretty much aware of all the major events that are coming up since I’ve been experiencing them vicariously for years. I guess I’m just confounded that he seems to be the fan favorite even when he sucks the most.

Are there tags for fanworks that don’t think Buck is owed some kind of apology from everyone including Eddie? I feel like there’s got to be something out there.

I was fully peer pressuring you specifically! Everyone should directly experience and love Eddie because he’s the best little guy! He has so many things wrong with him and I love him so much.

But yeah, I admit I’ve gone through several periods where I just did not fucking like Buck, and the lawsuit is definitely one of them. I understand why he did it, but I do not agree with his perspective on the whole thing and it was all very stupidly done even though I did enjoy the emotional beats of the arc.

But then he gets better! And then he gets worse. And then better! And then more annoying. And then better again. 

I think I get why he's the favorite? He's cute, and he’s super relatable and expressive so you know exactly what he’s feeling, and his core fears are ones pretty much everyone is familiar with. Like nobody wants to feel unwanted or left behind, and everyone has at some point worried about being replaced by their friends or being the problem in a situation, which makes Buck super easy to connect with.

And super easy to woobify when you ignore all of the messy parts those fears bring to his character. So that also contributes to my annoyance towards him.

The lawsuit fics are notoriously bad about it, and even now in totally unrelated fics, you’ll get random mentions of the “you’re exhausting” comment like Buck’s been holding onto that for the last four years. Even though he apologized to Eddie and admitted he was acting like a self-centered ass.

Anyway, if there is a tag to avoid all that but still explore the lawsuit, I would love to know what it is, because again, I liked the emotional beats of the lawsuit arc! Just not the details or how people have latched onto poor angel baby Buck who’s done nothing wrong ever in his life.