#...holy fuck this actually makes a ton of sense

[onwhatcaptain]

I still have tons to say about the Garashir Goes Canon™ moment in Lower Decks so here is my big meta post about it! Below the cut is a meta discussion about the penultimate Lower Decks episode, contextualizing what it means for something to become canon.

To be clear, this is a mostly positive post with analysis included. You’ll see lots of love for Garashir and Lower Decks and also oodles of fandom meta below the cut, since we have a complicated relationship with Paramount. My analysis and graphic is based on a recent lecture about Star Trek canon I gave at KiScon!

First, I have to say that both Unification and this Lower Decks episode following mere weeks after of my lecture panel at KiScon titled Fuck Paramount, about what Star Trek canon really is and what its place is in relation to us as slash fans, is absolutely mind-blowing timing. I wish everyone in both the K/S and Garashir fandoms had been able to attend it because it was absolutely designed to serve as a framework for both of these major fandom moments. And also it was just funny as hell. But most importantly, it was relevant, and existed to give us a sense of understanding when navigating Paramount hell, particularly when they play Gay Chicken (will they, won’t they — most of the time, they won’t).

Since not every single Star Trek fan on this website was at KiScon last month, I want to expand on that a little more here, this time in Garashir context, since last time it was centered on K/S, though Garashir came up several times! When I was giving my lecture, I asked the audience what it would look like if K/S were made canon tomorrow. Everyone had different ideas—but the most common theme that came up was sheer distrust of Paramount doing it justice.

For those of you that are reading this, the thesis of Fuck Paramount was that you as a fan and a viewer have more control over what is and isn’t canon than you think, and that our role as fans is to take ownership of our stories back from corporate interests. I also developed a four-sided framework to describe how we interact with canon to take power back and make sense of canon. Both Unification and the very, very fresh Lower Decks episode have already been controversial for a number of reasons, the primary one they share being: “Wait… does this make this canon?”

So far it looks like the main reactions for this Lower Decks episode (especially considering how sudden and late in its run it is) are mostly “HOLY SHIT THEY REALLY DID IT” and “I AM DISAPPOINTED BY THE MERE SCRAPS.”

And my position on it is that both of them are completely reasonable reactions that don’t contradict one another! I’m going to make the case for both sides as I try to explore the implications of this episode with respect to the episode’s subtext, corporate storytelling, and so forth. I’m not going to go too much into the academic aspects, but I am happy to make the original slides available for anyone who is curious about my canon analysis framework.

Why It’s Enough

On one hand, this episode is done well. Undeniably. It’s a lot of fun. I have also said many times before that the only way I’d want K/S or G/B to become canon is if they suddenly randomly drop the info that they were married and don’t bring it up again, because otherwise they might do more harm than good! This was an example of it done incredibly well, in my opinion.

This episode serves as all the confirmation you could possibly really need of Garashir. Yes, there are quite a few gimmicks involved—it’s all AU, all the way. Garak is now a surgeon from another dimension, and Bashir is from an entirely different dimension, and also not really himself, but a hologram. Here’s how they’re introduced:

WILLIAM BOIMLER: “Elim Garak, a brilliant Cardassian Surgeon—and his husband, an emergency medical hologram based on Dr. Julian Bashir.”

What I really love about this moment is that it actually does more than it looks like it does, at face value. For most of us, our first instinct is to go, whatever, he’s based on Bashir, he’s not even the real one! But what they did here was brilliant—it serves as implicit confirmation that our man Bashir is also bisexual, and loves Garak. He is indeed not a corporeal human being, but as the DS9 episode where the LMH is designed based on Bashir tells us, the hologram is designed and based on who he is. It has his personality traits. Interviews are conducted to make sure that the hologram is as authentic and true to the real thing as possible:

O'BRIEN: “You mean this programme is going to have all of his personal likes and dislikes?” ZIMMERMAN: “That is why we bother to choose a human template in the first place.”

William Boimler, from the prime Star Trek universe, doesn’t say the EMH is based on some Bashir, he says this one is based on Dr. Julian Bashir. Again, this serves as clear confirmation that he is modeled on recognizably the same character from DS9. They’re not that different in essence from their prime universe counterparts, or it wouldn’t be fun for the writers or the audience. We learn that Garak is still former Obsidian Order. They are still the same people, in essence. They may be AU characters but the point is for them to be similar to the originals, or they may as well just have been some guys!

The important thing, for me, is that it’s a clear, unambiguous acknowledgement. It’s played straight. Well, not straight—but not as some elaborate joke or filled with contempt. It doesn’t tease and doesn’t dance around the issue and wink and nudge, begging the viewer to question whether or not they’re together. That much is made immediately very clear. In the episode, AU Garak and AU EMH Bashir are a married couple, and they kiss. Every moment of their relationship is sincere, the comedic moments being not about the fact that their relationship exists, but about the dynamics it brings to the story. It also tells us very clearly that they’re not even from the same universe, and that their compatibility remains nonetheless:

HARRY KIM: “Are they from the same reality?” CURZON: “No, but they love to brag about how statistically unlikely their marriage is.”

Again, I tend to see this as a positive nod to the compatibility of these characters rather than a brush-off that says the prime universe Garashir couldn’t be together. And then Garak tells us his universe’s Bashir is like the original: still a racquetball player and competes with Chief O’Brien—again, revealing quite a bit.

And the B-plot is about them squabbling, acknowledging very clearly to us that Cardassians really do just love flirting via argument, which serves as a brilliant nod to everyone who complained for three decades that the DS9 writers never really admitted that Bashir and Garak were just flirting. Finally! The writers seem to understand quite well what’s important to us, even if this isn’t the ‘Real Garashir.’

What satisfies me ultimately is that this doesn’t in any way look like a rejection of the possibility of Garashir in the prime universe. It looks to me like it supports the text, not a mean-spirited denial that it could only happen under bizarre AU circumstances. To sum it up with another Boimler quote:

BOIMLER: “The multiverse is just a rehash of stuff I already know.”

Hm… :)

And as I pointed out in a prior post, the whole point of the episode is to show that even in different circumstances and worlds, the love characters have for one another remains a constant and is utterly transcendent. The episode straight up tells us that some relationships are so powerful that they span dimensions and realities, and then Garak and Bashir say they would follow one another to any reality!

In my panel-lecture, I said, “[Paramount’s control over the text] suggests that certain readings require their endorsement or confirmation to be true.” But this doesn’t feel like that to me, and so I accept this. It leaves room for possibilities of all kinds, and opens more doors rather than closing them. I can appreciate that.

I also spoke about how canon isn’t one thing—not a binary yes or a no, and that there is no singular meaning. I call this multiplicity:

“Multiplicity is about the continuous proliferation of ideas and the rejection of the text as having a single meaning. It rejects mere viewing or the consumption of media in favor of dialogue and participation rather than a one-way communication.”

This episode served to defy singular interpretations of the text. It tells us that there are infinite possibilities and it took a route that challenges the single-story interpretation of Garashir = Not Canon. It made room for new perspectives and affirmed what “the stuff we already know.”

Why It’s Not Enough

Now for the other side of the coin: why it’s not enough. As exciting as it is to have this kind of confirmation from the current writers for Star Trek in a frankly increasingly conservative storytelling environment, it’s still disappointing for many people that even in the most progressive Star Trek that exists, they cannot or will not openly state that the prime universe Garashir got the ending and acknowledgment they deserved. 

It feels like begging Paramount as a corporation for scraps and thanking them for what really doesn’t feel like enough—it stops short of full, sincere, complete validation of Garashir’s queerness. As I said in my panel, it’s normal for us to want confirmation from the writers and creators that what we’re seeing is real and not just imagined, even when the role of fanfiction is for us to transform canon and reject it ourselves.

It’s absolutely exhausting for us to say we see something that is continuously denied by those who ‘own’ the story in favor of mass appeal, and to me, that is a legitimate perspective that can coexist with the idea that fandom is designed reshape the canon to fits its own needs, and that we don’t need confirmation from the creators for something to be true. Fandom exists to defy corporate ownership of stories, but to have to fight for mere moments where marginalized perspectives are foregrounded causes anger for good reason. We may not need confirmation from them, but saying that we should never expect anything from Paramount releases the corporation of accountability and obligation to respect the audience and their own characters. We should be able to expect and trust that these characters and their relationships can be done justice by those who have the privilege of steering that ship.

It’s one thing for me to say that this episode affirms the reality of Garashir, but it’s also true that prime Garashir probably could not be given complete canonization because this is the best way they knew how to ‘get away with it’ all while maintaining its mainstream and popular appeal with heteronormative audiences that would have a problem or reject it if it happened to ‘real Garashir.’

Slash fans, for decades, have existed in the lane of compromise—firmly between having our truth validated and entirely rejected in favor of a Star Trek that is designed to be sold as a product to as many people as possible. Rarely do we receive more than a bone tossed to us by the powers that be, and when we do receive it, it’s on their incomplete terms, often with massive concessions made to make it happen. For Garashir to receive their blessing, they had to twist it into an AU. The reason they could do this episode is because it gave them the neat plausible deniability to also say this has nothing at all to do with prime Garashir, so that it didn’t entirely alienate audiences who wouldn’t support a queer narrative.

This is their way of having their cake and eating it too. In some ways, it looks like they’re just trying to make everyone happy, but the story shouldn’t have to make everyone happy, and a compromise can really just feel like everyone loses, or like prioritizing the status quo again. For decades, the status quo has always left those with marginalized readings of the text unhappy, sidelined by a narrative that is supposed to be progressive and supposed to look to a future where queerness is natural and not taboo. And if this is the best they can do, it’s only reasonable that it should still sadden us, disappoint us, anger us. It’s hard not to resent that reality.

What Now?

I urge folks to continue negotiating the text, as I did above in the first section. I made sense of it in a way that fits my understanding of Garashir! You do not have to assume that there’s no more to it than that because it was all that was said on screen. We don’t have to look at canonization as the final say on the text. My perspective is that we should take it as a wonderful and deserved affirmation, and continue to transform the canon as we see fit. This is your time to decide what it means for these characters. Personally, I see it as a massively positive step forward. Just remember that where canon is concerned, you are in control of what it means.

Canon is still transformable, multiplicative, negotiated, and timely. Holders of the ‘IP’ are only one piece of the puzzle where the truth of a story is concerned. So take this as a beginning to more, not an end! As I like to say, “canon is a means to an end, not the end itself.”

Also, please don’t hesitate to add your thoughts, questions, comments, or anything else. I hope you enjoyed this meta post, if you read this far.

[mneiai]

okay sorry another ikepri rant

(Spoilers for only Season 1 routes)

So I've done a bunch of routes now and there's some stuff that, throughout all of them, really drives me up a wall.

I'm sure other people have addressed these a bunch and probably in better ways, but I need to get them off my chest. Prefacing this by saying I haven't done the Sariel route, yet, and maybe his magically smooths out all the issues, idk.

Below the cut is my rants about Belle being a secret, Clause 99 existing, and Leon vs Chevalier.

The Belle thing:

Okay, but in WHAT WORLD would a tiny landlocked country EVER want people ANYWHERE to know that their king is dead and they have no idea who the next one will be for a month?

So WHY is the MC being a "secret Belle" such an issue? They should have a system in place already to hide Belles! Every single Belle should have been secret until she'd chosen the next king!

Hell, they should just have random commoner women come into the palace and hang with the princes all the time so no one knows which one will ACTUALLY be the Belle.

I get that this was the way they chose to have the MC interacting with the princes because they couldn't be bothered giving them more original storylines and stuff, but they could have made it make some sense. I don't even have a problem with the ridiculous fantasy aspects of Belles even being a thing, it's that they seem to have made no real allowances for them in the culture and practices of the palace!

Clause 99:

So this ONE GUY fucks up and they have to make a (horribly written holy shit it's like they wanted it to be broken) whole ass new clause in what is presumably a pretty ancient contract that makes no sense whatsoever. Because this wasn't even the first time a Belle chose someone that ended up being a shit king! Yet the clause is brand new?

Firstly, the only reason the last king's relationship with his Belle was a problem was because OTHER PEOPLE made it so, especially considering he can have multiple wives and that children born out of wedlock are still considered equal royals. Like the dude could rape a maid and still make the son a prince! What does it matter if his first wife is a commoner? It's not like he gets to choose his heir!

Secondly, what if Belle ended up being a great asset to the kingdom? An awesome aide, or gifted at diplomacy, or who knows what else? You're just going to kick her to the curb still?

Nevermind what happens if she ends up with a prince who doesn't become king and how awkward that makes anything family related.

And, of course, all of these things are sort of shown in game as it's REALLY FUCKING EASY for the king to break that clause to the point it clearly only exists as a bullshit drama device.

It's not even actually solving the issue--a king could just spend his whole life lovesick and never have sex with anyone after being forcibly separated or something. The real Clause 99 should have been something like 'The King must first marry and have a child with a noblewoman before he can have an official relationship with Belle" or you know something that would force the King to have a kid like Chevalier because he'd want to marry his Belle so badly.

(Also, how the hell is Sariel always acting surprised that the MC didn't read the whole contract? He gave her next to no time in a high stress environment to sign it! It would have literally taken her the entire night to read it!)

(And, listen, I get that Jin has some huge fucking hangups about it, but all him koolaid man'ing his way into other people's relationships makes me do is dislike him more, especially since really, if anything, HE should be more in favor of ways to compromise on the king and Belle relationship, not lording over a commoner woman for daring to love a king! Also, what a total dickbag for not making sure all of his brothers knew about it beforehand!)

Leon vs Chevalier:

I have a TON of issues with these two being setup as rivals.

Chevalier is made impossibly perfect in his and related routes to the point where only someone like Gilbert is actually his match. Even though Leon is more personable, more charismatic, almost equally good at fighting, surprisingly clever, and also NOT HATED BY MOST OF THE COUNTRY AND EVERY CITIZEN OF THEIR LARGEST NEIGHBOR, somehow he's always just this background character in seemingly any route that makes Chevalier the king.

Leon actually has the significantly better backstory (like holy shit most tragic backstory award no matter what anyone else comes out with, the guy didn't even have a NAME) and personality for becoming a king and it's not like Chev would abandon the kingdom just because of it. Making Leon king means he would actually consider what Chevalier said and suggested and make compromises when necessary, something Chevalier is largely incapable of doing outside of his route, where he's softened.

And, finally, the biggest one...WHY THE FUCK ARE THEIR PHILOSOPHIES TREATED AS EQUAL? It's always like 'oh, yeah, Leon's is good, but Chevalier's is equally reasonable' and shit. Leon's philosophy is literally 'I want everyone to have good lives' and Chevalier's, outside of his own route, is literally 'I want to turn our peaceful kingdom into a militarized imperialistic force that will violently sweep across and oppress the whole continent.' HOW ARE THESE EQUAL? I know Cybird writers jack off to monarchies and shit, but c'mon.

(Also what the FUCK is up with Clavis thinking Leon would let a bunch of refugees be slaughtered just because it might make things diplomatically difficult?? the guy literally gives spies who betray him second chances lmao)

[thou-babbling-brook]

Maria Thorpe Character Analysis

Well, I simply can’t disappoint the people – aka, the five of you that will read this, lmfao. I’m so serious about this that I’m actually drafting this on a Google doc before I post this rather than just typing random thoughts on my phone. This is going to be a HUGE ramble that probably won’t make a ton of sense, but I hope it’s entertaining regardless. 

Maria Thorpe – a character that Ubisoft probably spent MAYBE thirty minutes thinking about, but that I have not stopped thinking about for like, five years. What a gal. So glad I was not in this fandom in 2012 to witness how HEINOUS people were about her for simply being a woman “in the way” of a M|M relationship. I hope by the end of this ramble, you, too, will see her for the baddie she truly is. 

In this essay, I will delve into Maria’s character to explore why she is so fascinating to me, the implications of her story, and why Ubisoft can actually catch these hands for dumbing her down in AC Revelations. (I'm putting a cut here because it's so fucking long I'm sorry gang)

First off, to understand Maria Thorpe as a character, you have to understand her background. I’m not going to copy and paste her Wiki or anything, but I am going to outline her life (stated and implied) before we meet her.

For those that don’t know, Maria was born an English noblewoman in 1161 – four years before Altaïr was born (okay cougar). Because she was a tomboy and defied many of the social norms for women in the 12th century, she was ostracized by both her parents and her peers. She mentions in The Secret Crusade that her parents tried to force her to conform, which culminated in her first marriage at the age of 18 to Lord Peter Hallaton. She mentions that he was a decent husband, but he didn’t exactly appreciate her more boisterous nature. After all, in 12th century England (especially among nobility), women were to be seen, not heard. She also failed his expectations as a chatelaine and a wife, as she bore him no children. The Bishop of Leicester granted them an annulment to avoid embarrassment to both Peter and Maria’s family. When she returned, she was “persona non grata” to her family and the whole of Leicestershire, especially when her father had already spent her dowry. With no other options, Maria ran away to join the Third Crusade, where she eventually met Robert de Salbé.

You may notice that we don’t actually know a lot about Maria and her life before AC1, which is probably intentional. To me, though, that’s what makes her backstory fascinating – the implications of her environment and what we can reasonably deduce she went through based on historical context. I think anyone who’s taken a seventh-grade social studies class could tell you women had, like, zero rights in 12th-century England – even more so, noblewomen. Maria was raised to be a glorified broodmare – say nothing, have children (two boys and a girl, as she jokes), and run her husband’s household. Clearly, she was the exact opposite of all of these things. Something interesting about Maria’s first marriage is the fact that while it was an annulment, she specifically mentions in The Secret Crusade it was an annulment to save her family further embarrassment – which implies that the marriage was consummated, but all parties wanted it done with. I don’t think I need to elaborate on how common and horrific an experience like that could be, but I think it fuels Maria’s relationship later on with motherhood, especially since she mentions that she was completely uninterested in childrearing and birth (this is a key point I’ll touch on later).

So what? Why does her background matter? It matters because of how historical and cultural context tie in to help form who she is by the time she leaves for the Third Crusade – a desperate, twenty-two-year-old woman, divorced, ostracized from the only family and society she has ever known, having no other choice than to ditch England and head for the Holy Land unless she wants to become a nun. For many men and women alike in the 12th century, this was their only opportunity to become something more than what they were born as, whether it be a serf, a blacksmith, or a noblewoman. Many who left for the Third Crusade left to “take back the Holy Land,” but also to escape or improve their current standings. To me, Maria falls in the second category, and it is this desperation to escape her life that forms her most notable (and later, tragic) characteristic: her undying loyalty.

As a side note, it is also interesting to me that Maria chose to be a soldier rather than a nurse. This is more so my characterization of her, but I think that’s because a) she’s too damn proud and loud to be a nurse, and b) because if she was a nurse, she would more than likely live and be treated the same way she was at home. Truly, if she wants to escape the patriarchy, the only way a woman like Maria could at the time was to join it by blending in. Girly get some therapy.

We’re now at AC1 in the timeline. Hooray! We don’t know when exactly Maria joined the Templars or when she first met Robert, but we can probably assume it was not long after she joined the crusade. As we know from AC1, AC Bloodlines, and The Secret Crusade, Maria disguised herself as a man (more than likely a young boy since she’s got a voice that would fit right into Alvin and the Chipmunks) and was able to keep up the rouse long enough to rise in the ranks and show promise to people like Robert. For Maria, when Robert finds out she is a woman and yet elevates her further, it is the first time in her life that someone has appreciated her for her masculine qualities. It is why she develops an intense loyalty for Robert to the point of being willing to be his decoy, despite the fact she fully anticipated dying. For Maria, it would be her ideal end – fighting to the death for a cause she truly believed in. Not even really a cause, as we figure out later, but more so for a man she truly believed in – Robert. It would not be through the pain and subjugation of childbirth like most women of her standing, but a brutal fight like any other man.

And yet – she doesn’t. When Altaïr meets her, he’s undergone a whole development arc, whereas Maria (at this point 30, which is SO funny to imagine her fistfighting this 26-year-old frat boy) is at the start of hers. And it starts with Altaïr sparing her – the worst possible fate that could become her at this point in her life. Think about it: the only person who has given her an OUNCE of respect has asked her to essentially die for him by acting as his decoy. As Maria mentions in AC Bloodlines, by this point, she is also a step away from becoming a knight – and at this point, she’s also known as a woman among the Templars. And yet, she believes they have become her family, and she is willing to die for their cause and for Robert. When Altaïr spares her and kills Robert, he’s sentencing her to the life she ran away from and feared – being nothing more than a woman who is looked down upon with condescending snarls and disgust for who she is.

This is why when we meet Maria in AC Bloodlines, she is rightfully PISSED. We literally see her realize that any ounce of respect and power she had is completely gone because Altaïr spared her. She is so pissed, in fact, that she tries to kill Altaïr again. This is even funnier when you remember how much of a BITCH it was to fight her in AC1, but I digress. Altaïr has destroyed everything she has built in her life for the last eight years. He has taken her home, her mentors, her family, and her honor. And bro doesn’t have a clue in the fucking world.

It’s at this point that I’ll also analyze more about Maria’s relationship with the Templars. At first glance, yes, she was a Templar and believed in their cause. Really, though, it goes far deeper than that. It’s not necessarily that Maria believes in their cause – otherwise, it would’ve taken a lot more for Altaïr to sway her to the Assassins – but that she believes in the people. Again, from Maria’s perspective, the Templars (especially Robert) were the ONLY people in her entire life to treat her with dignity, and she is willing to die for them. She is willing to throw her honor to the ground and beg for forgiveness in front of Bouchard because, without the Templars, she is nothing. She is back to square one as a silly little girl trying to run from a life that would only subjugate her. It’s that recurring characteristic of undying loyalty to those who have given her the life she has always wanted.

And for Maria, it is immediately spat back in her face.

When Bouchard takes over in AC Bloodlines, he is a strict Templar Grandmaster. No consorting with women, periodt. And he flaunts this over Maria, taunting her. He is tearing the last ounce of respect she’d ever received and throwing it away. Every sacrifice she made for the Templars for the last eight years meant nothing, and it is crushing to her. She continues to be pissed off at Altaïr, who mentions that she’s more pissed at the Templars than at him. Once again, she is nothing more than a woman – an imprisoned one at that.

This is where one of my favorite Maria scenes (not that there’s many) comes into play. When she and Altaïr are sitting on the ship to Cyprus or wherever it doesn’t matter, Altaïr does something that no person has done for her before: he treats her with unconditional respect. As funny as his autistic ramble about Empedocles and philosophy is, there are so many assumptions that go into Altaïr’s conversation that I think help sway Maria to his side. When he talks to Maria, he speaks to her as an equal. He talks to her about philosophy because of course she would know about philosophy in his mind – to him, she is a soldier and a person first, and a woman second (shut the fuck about The Secret Crusade and him thinking about her as a lioness shut up shut up I low key hate it even though it’s funny). He is the first person in her life to speak to her as an equal and with respect with no strings attached. In fact, when Maria taunts him for leaving her cuffed even as he talks about free will, he lets her go. She may not like him at this point, but after this scene, you can certainly see that she respects him in how she speaks to him. BONUS: she’s not trying to outright kill him anymore! Hooray!

You can see the impact Altaïr and his conversation had on Maria when she confronts Shahar in her courtesan fit. There’s so many layers to Maria willingly dressing in such an exposing, vulnerable, and feminine way (keep in mind this bitch is Catholic, I know her guilt was going crazy), but what I’m going to focus on is her conversation with Shahar. When he speaks to her, he is gross and all but catcalling her, calling her a “little fox” and using a sultry tone. Maria is having NONE of it, and one can only assume this is a tone she has dealt with a thousand times over. This is also where we see the gears turning in Maria’s head. I’ve seen people criticize Maria for how quickly she flip-flopped, but I think that’s overlooking the reason that she WAS a Templar – they were the only people who provided her a home when she had none. If you’re desperate for anyone to treat you with an iota of respect, you’d do whatever they ask. After she talks to Altaïr though, and especially after realizing Robert was simply manipulating her, she is questioning the Templars’ ideologies and realizing this is not what she wants. It low key is like Alicent in House of the Dragons right now – she’s shocked that fighting against women fucked herself over. Maria is similar in that sense – she thought that by being what the Templars wanted and fighting for what they believed, it wouldn’t come back to bite her in the ass. But it did. She’s a woman before she’s a Templar, and the ideology of the Templars would see her subjugated just as she was before. It isn’t until after Altaïr’s spiel about free will and the challenges it brings that she realizes she has other options.

And that’s ultimately what brings Maria to the side of the Assassins – realizing her errors in thinking and wanting a way to redeem herself. The Assassins are her second chance, which is ironic given how many stories after hers would follow this same format of second chances. But it isn’t just the ideology change, either. It’s Altaïr. No, she does not have undying loyalty by the end of AC Bloodlines, but he’s certainly earned her trust and respect. He’s treated her like any other person without ever holding power or loyalty over her head. He does not manipulate her or exploit her – he respects her, and he earnestly tells her of the creed’s ideologies not to lure her in, but because he genuinely believes in the idea of dispelling the illusions of the world and wants to share it with her, whether she becomes an Assassin or not. That is what turns Maria into an Assassin at the end of the day: his respect for her and his understanding of the creed. And despite their issues, Maria chooses to follow him to the ends of the earth.

Now we’re at a really funny part of Maria’s story: we know basically NOTHING about what happens in between AC Bloodlines and AC Reflections. We know that sometime after traveling to Masyaf, Maria and Altaïr became a couple. We know they married in 1195 and gave birth to Darim the same year. Two years later, they would traumatize Desmond Miles by fucking on top of a castle, which is so fucking funny and only supports my characterization of Maria as a gremlin, because who the fuck else would make their husband climb up a giant ass tower for sex? We know she officially became an Assassin and would beg Altaïr to stop looking into the Apple. We know she would join Altaïr and Darim to Mongolia to kill Genghis Khan. And that is all we know for an approximately 30-YEAR PERIOD.

While there’s a lot I could talk about in that gap, like Maria’s relationship with other Assassins, I’m going to focus on her relationship with motherhood. As we established earlier, Maria had ZERO interest in being a mother or giving birth. This is a personal headcanon but I do not care because it’s MY analysis and I can do as I please, but I feel like she would’ve dreaded childbirth, especially given how English nobility acted about it (e.g., how people treated it like a scandal or disease) and how it was the leading cause of death for women until the 20th century. Yet, despite this, she had not one, but TWO children. She was like one away from the goal, and even then Sef had two daughters so really she fulfilled it. But why? What changed that she would be willing to do the very thing she left England to avoid?

I think it goes back to the reason she was disinterested in it in the first place. Like Maria says in The Secret Crusade, she didn’t want to just be a mother or a wife. Her ideal husband would treat her like any other man, taking her hunting or whatever else bullshit medieval stuff they’d do instead of scrolling through TikTok. She never said she didn’t want to be a mother. I think her hesitance stems from the fact that she didn’t want to SOLELY be defined as a mother or a wife. With Altaïr, however, that fear is pretty much gone. Since the moment she met him, Altaïr has always treated her with respect and admired the things she was once shamed for. Her strength is valuable as an Assassin. Her bluntness keeps him in check. Her ideas are admired rather than ridiculed. To Altaïr, Maria is not just a woman or even just an Assassin. She’s a person with her own experiences and ideas and fears and strengths and dreams. He loves her for every aspect of herself that was once frowned upon.

I remember a while ago seeing a Tumblr post from ye olden days (like 2012) talking about how because menstrual cycles were extremely irregular back in the day due to medieval diets and exercise, Maria would have to purposefully chill out to regulate her cycle to become pregnant. What that implies is that she trusted Altaïr so much that she was willing to settle down and have children because she knew it would not influence how he treated or loved her. Personally, I think this is true of Darim, but that Sef was an accident because it’s funnier that way, but regardless, the point still stands. Maria getting pregnant and becoming a mother is the opposite of what she thought she would ever want, but because she loved and trusted Altaïr so much, she was willing to have a family with him because she knew it would not come to define her. I think that is unbelievably sweet.

We also don’t really see Maria interact with her children very often, which I think is a fucking shame. When she does interact with Darim (we never see her with Sef, though we do see her reaction to his death), Maria is always supportive and encouraging. Again, this is more my headcanon territory but I really don’t care because I can do what I fucking please, but Maria low key feels like a boy mom to me, but not in the weird Freud way, lmfao. Like we established earlier, Maria’s key trait is her loyalty. I think this loyalty would be extended to her children. We know she’s loyal to Altaïr (it ends up killing her), but I feel like it would go insane with her children. When she learns of Sef’s death in The Secret Crusade, this woman breaks down in tears instantly. WHERE THE FUCK WAS THE MOTHERLY RAGE WITH ABBAS, UBISOFT. WHERE WAS IT. Anyways.

Masyaf is a pretty cutthroat environment to raise a child, especially when you consider that Abbas is apparently lurking in the background scheming during Altaïr’s reign. Something I wish we learned more about (and something I just find fascinating in general) is the political environment of Masyaf. Altaïr implemented a lot of changes to the Brotherhood that faced backlash, one of the key ones being allowing women in the order again (ahem, Maria). I know Maria said she was uninterested in the politics of running a house, but I do think she’d kind of have to play her hand in politics in Masyaf, kind of how Altaïr realizes he’s not exempt from politics since he’s literally shaping them. If Maria wants her kids to be safe, especially as sons of the Master of the Assassins, she’s gotta play her cards well. This is why I think it does make sense for Maria to calm down after having children to be more similar to the Maria we see in AC Reflections and AC Revelations. She can’t just fight everyone like she did when she was relying solely on herself. Now, she has people relying on her, and I think it makes sense for her character to chill out more (though without losing her spunk) to ensure her family is safe.

For those that have ever watched Magnificent Century, basically think about how Hurrem went from fighting everyone to playing her cards wisely so her kids wouldn’t die or do stupid shit. That’s how I feel like Maria would be.

Something else that’s interesting about Maria to me is her relationship with Altaïr. Duh, you’re probably saying, but hear me out. We know that while she and Altaïr were inseparable during their marriage, there was one thing that strained it: the Apple. It makes sense why Maria would be so pissed off at it. She’s seen Altaïr control men’s minds with it. She’s seen how it takes him away for days at a time with its secrets, to the point she is begging him to throw it away. Back to the point about loyalty to her family, whereas Altaïr seeks knowledge, Maria just wants her family protected and safe because she loves them – including her dumbass husband. It’s ironic that the very thing she fought about with Altaïr is the thing that killed her.

So we’re finally at AC Revelations, and I am truly shocked that you’re still here. Kudos to you. At that final confrontation scene with Abbas, that loyalty for those she loves comes to a head. When Altaïr whips out the Apple, Maria begs and pleads him to stop, because she knows if he uses the Apple to control someone, he will only be proving Abbas’s point, which will only fuck them over. In The Secret Crusade, we also have Malik’s head on top of this scene to make it worse. Maria’s position is again one of desperation. Her son is dead, one of her best friends is now just a head, and her husband is about to go sicko mode. She is screwed and she knows it. What she doesn’t know is that she’s about to be stabbed by Swami (I’m going with the revelations version shut up) in a last ditch effort to stop Altaïr from using the Apple. Altaïr doesn’t listen to Maria, and it kills her. He kills her.

… SO I HAVE THOUGHTS.

I think Maria dying from the Apple makes sense, I do. That’s not my problem. My problem is how AC Revelations basically dumbed her down to this motherly, homely figure which is the like, ANTITHESIS of what Maria is. Where was the feminine rage??? You’re telling me this woman would not be about to SLAUGHTER someone after learning that Sef died?? You’re telling me she would just pull an AltaïR thiS iSn’T yOu???????? Are you so fucking for real right now??? It pisses me off because it nukes her character. While yes, it makes sense for her to be a much calmer woman and 67 compared to 30, this is still Maria. Don’t act like she and Altaïr don’t have fucking anger issues and be so fucking for real.

Here’s my ideal scenario for what should’ve gone down. I think once they pulled Malik’s head out, there should’ve been all-out chaos rather than this bullshit “We killed everyone loyal to Altaïr before he arrived.” Maria should’ve been right there with them with a sword out. Altaïr, in a desperate attempt to calm everyone down, would take out the Apple and try to control everyone. If you’ve seen the long ass discussion about how Revelations fucked up Altaïr’s character arc, this also helps remedy that because Altaïr is pulling out because of his arrogance in believing he can control the Apple. News flash: he can’t. Maria, while fighting for Altaïr, would somehow be killed either by the Apple or like similar to how Swami accidentally killed her. Something along those lines where it is Altaïr’s fault. That’s how she should’ve gone out, not some weird pick me bullshit.

Anyways. RIP Maria Thorpe you would’ve loved Crusader Kings 3.

I definitely missed some points about her character but this is already 7 pages long on Google docs so I am NOT writing anymore. God bless.

TLDR she's a baddie and I need her so so so bad

[worth-this-and-more]

[spoilers for legendborn and bloodmarked, read at your own caution ;)]

sooooooooo i forcefully convinced my best friend to read legendborn. i'd already told him the whole entirety of the story in voice notes and then basically bullied him into reading it (i'm just kidding i just gush a lot about the series so he was curious and then i just nudged him to read the books) lmaoo so yeah he read it.

and he has opinions;

absolutely mind-blown by the writing and story flow. said that he had to physically stand up and pace in his room for 10 mins to cool down while reading chapter 52 because holy shit what was that.

loved the fact that bree is actually making a shit ton of mistakes and still managed to face everything head on, said that the realistic fuck ups made him chuckle and tear his hair out at the same time.

he liked sel as a character because that guy is extreme in all senses, extreme to his duties and then extreme in loyalty and then extreme in violence.

he is yet to read bloodmarked but he did say that nick and bree's situation either needs more time to be developed or selbree gonna end up together because the time and connection depth is hella different.

bro was absolutely flabbergasted by the infirmatory scene with William where nick accidentally walks in, we made too many jokes about that asdfghjkl.

we're yet to discuss theories but he did say that nick and bree's connection was probably a bit affected by Arthur and lancelot and then declared that someone is probably gonna die. (i hope nobody dies i swear i will riot if someone dies).

made a joke about sel absolutely despising shadowborns while being half demon himself and then had the stroke of realization with a soft "oh".

liked alice a lot, which I'm glad about because a lot of times people on their first read hate her.

a fan of bree's parents, said "finally someone has good parents"

hated that tor and sel were exes, said he's gonna slap sel for ever dating tor because what the fuck dude.

overall, all i can say is i have successfully added a member in our fandom but there are more don't worry I've got like three more people I'm currently convincing to read this series lmaoo

the legendborn agenda

[cantgetworsethanthistbh]

Do you think the Stan handwriting thing was Ford consciously broconning tf out and imagining all the times Bill was flirting with him as Stan instead or is he just that down bad for his own brother he does it unintentionally?

BROCONNING TF OUT IDJRHFUEHDUEHEUEBE anon i hope youre ready for me to steal that that is soooo fucking funny holy shit. god its sooo crazy what those implications are arent they

short answer: no its subconcious because thats what makes the most sense and its funny as fuck to imagine that ford has no idea hes emotionally cucking bill whenever he writes his words in stan's handwriting, and even funnier that bill DOES know ford is emotionally cucking him and is mad as HELL about it.

long answer:

now im a very very firm believer that ford is HIGHLY aware of his love (platonic) for stan. he knows he does. he will always love his brother even when hes angry at him and he's very aware of that. this answer is gonna take some elements from canon into explaining ford's broconning that makes sense platonically (the intention) and incestiously (the parts that our side loves because holy shit this is so fucking validating for how unintentional it is lmao)

something that points to him copying stans handwriting when he writes bill being unintentional (to me, and my hc) is this. my fave, and what i personally think is the most cesty, quote/s from tbob: Stanley could've made her laugh

on the surface it really doesnt mean anything that reflects deep yearning/pining— at least none that's directed at the character's own sibling. the objective intention of that line is to showcase fords feelings of inadequacy compared to stan when it comes to social situations. its a whole page about how lonely and outcasted he feels, how he can never just be endearing to people, not like stan is, who can literally get people to laugh at his jokes where he just straight up calls them ugly (this is land before swine if you wanna know what im talking about). when HE flirts with a woman, they give him a dirty look and throw drinks at his face, but he bets if STAN did, they would fawn over him. now we all know stan is objectively bad with women, faking confidence and being a "kind of a jerk" to hook them in (darlene) or is just a bumbling mess when he really likes them (lazy susan, before he lost interest). ford doesn't know that tho! ford even in high school has immense faith in stan's ability to land dates, asking for his advice for prom, and here he is, thinking "stanley could have made her laugh." stan even charms their mother, who says he has personality and a free spirit (implying ford doesnt). obviously, this is a man who's jealous he can't be like that.

you know why i always think of it of so incesty tho? this right here, a page before ford's entry seen above:

on its own "i had what he always wanted— charisma" is related to what i mentioned above, about fords seemingly wishing he was able to be a part of social crowds more than he's willing to admit. but think about it, REALLY think about it.

b*llford is canon. bill has what ford always wanted. bill is charismatic. ford is attracted to bill. ford is attracted to charisma. stan is, in fords eyes, extremely charismatic.

(slight tangent here cuz i love yapping: its sooooo incesty, in the most unintentional way ever. i love it. god bless stanford "freud's free real estate" pines. a lot of us base a shit ton of the parallels stan and bill have on the fact they both use sixer and are lying conmen. and thats true enough. but this was always my go to thinking of how much accidental romance coding to me. its like how a manga would make one couple canon, then use a very similar scene to subtly confirm another couple.

stories are not like real life, where some things are just coincidence. a narrative is a narrative and if you put that in your story you better be ready for people to interpret it their own way. im not under any delusions as to the actual canon, but dear god do the stars just align perfectly for a little brother on brother action in every new GF installment that comes out its difficult to not take my brain out of that direction, especially since its more interesting and more logical lmao)

SO onto actually answering your question cuz ive stalled enough: do i think ford is purposefully broconning tf out when he writes his and bills flirting in his and his brothers hand writing or is it unintentional? my assesment is no! the guy has no idea his love of charisma isn't purely the desire to have it for himself— he has no idea he's attracted to it as a trait towards a romantic partner because he only belatedly understood bill's flirting when drunk! he was broconning tf out and bill's charisma subconciously reminds him of stan, but would ford actually be self aware enough to know he's attracted to bill because he reminds him of stan? ford is more likely to say he's attracted to bill because bill is an all powerful dream demon who helps him achieve his dreams and "values ford on the same level" (he doesnt), and not because of the traits bill shares with his brother udrjdhdhdyd (and i'm someone who always writes and interprets ford as the first to fall in love and is very aware of his romantic and sexual feelings towards his twin).

ford is very, very intent in hiding his feelings about stanley in general when he knows the proof of them exists. he constantly feels the need to hide pictures of stan, thoughts of him in code, literally has to turn his back when he tells stan to take the journal and go far, far away (expecting stan to just take the journal and leave and prevent himself from watching stan walk away again). he'll draw the stan o war and stan himself on his journal then scratch them out or straight up rip the whole page out

whenever cracks of his love for stan genuinely shines through, none of it is intentional. my guy is just extremely down fucking bad and he knows THAT— but i think if he realized on his own he was projecting stan onto his muse, he would have stopped writing bill's words in stan's handwriting all together. but he didn't, so he just kept fucking doing it jdndudjdus

you know who's FULLY aware of the fact ford was getting all giddy about stan and stan-like vibes while he was flirting with bill? the one who's fully aware of how deep ford's broconnisms go??

bill cipher himself

don't let anyone ever gaslight you into thinking bill isnt talking to ford here. oh sure, the "weaker copy of sixer" is referring ford to the 3rd person, and you the reader, are the 2nd person— but thats kind of the thing. tbob from the readers pov doesn't have stan trying to turn you. that person who's actively trying to get you to stop reading the book, actively trying to prevent you from making a deal with bill isn't stanley, but stanford. so literally what other situation bill is talking about where stanley is trying to "you" against him... its like hes not actually talking to you at all lmao

[mothmanssweetsucculentass]

Lmao what’s this? I’m back with more Creepypasta headcanons, this time for Eyeless Jack.

TW for the following: graphic descriptions of cannibalism/murder/gore, depictions of drug abuse, lacing food with sharp objects, body horror, and generally anything you’d expect from horror.

THERE ARE NO CENSORS BEYOND THIS POINT, READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DISTRESS CAUSED BY MY WRITING.

Eyeless Jack Headcanons

He/they

Obviously no longer human

Still has a humanoid-ish body

“Died” around 2011, physically 22

Dark gray skin with a faint blue-ish tint

His blood is black. Like it’s basically oil or tar now. Moves much slower and is thicker than normal blood. He hasn’t checked but he’s pretty sure all his organs share the same color and viscosity now. Like that one breed of chicken with black organs y’know?

Long ears

Lots of sharp teeth. Practically a shark mouth

Y’know what, I like you. Gives your EJ a jaw that unhinges, a mouth that rips open, and a second jaw further back in his mouth (eel jaw EJ supremacy)

3+ long black tongues depending on his mood and how well fed they are

Because of the multiple mouth appendages he has a soft lisp and often accidentally bites his tongues since they move involuntarily

Eyes are constantly leaking the black sludge. Clothing/face/belongings are always sticky

Constantly salivating the same substance, just thinner/more liquidy

Wears a surgical mask under his regular mask to combat it

Very good sense of smell

Seriously he could smell a specific blood type in the middle of a massacre of a shit ton of bodies

Can’t swim

Reddish-brown wavy hair, forgets to cut it sometimes so he sometimes has a fluffy mullet

Claws that can’t retract

Wears a black trench coat and dark gray turtleneck when actually going out and doing shit, the black hoodie is lounge clothes

Has a tail!!!! Closest resemblance to a lion tail, but larger

Lots of catlike/animal like behaviors unconsciously. Will sit on any elevated surface

Purrs like holy fuck the first time someone hears him do it they freak out

Can also growl and hiss

Despite the animalistic behaviors and feral demeanor he isn’t above being civilized

Mostly calm. Gets the zoomies after eating tho

And by zoomies I mean he’s more excitable and extroverted for a little while

Has probably ran around the woods like a maniac at least once tho

Besides Nurse Ann, he’s the most medically competent of the pastas. People usually go to him for more major injuries or sicknesses

Despite his constant orifice leakage he tries to be as clean as possible

His lab is SPOTLESS

somehow figured out a way to dilute his face goop to clean it better. No one knows how he does it tho

Is still very much a nerd. Loves reading any kind of book he can get his hands on

Starts going blind if he doesn’t satiate his hunger for flesh and organs

If he goes blind before getting food, he’s able to use echolocation pretty damn well

Can also see thermal outlines of stuff if his vision starts going

Eyes aren’t reflective so it’s pretty funny when he’s gargoyling somewhere in the manor in pitch black and someone walks in and gets startled by him sitting there staring into the void

HOW are his footsteps so silent

Dude you’re 5”8 and have a stockier build how do you not make floorboards creek

Can eat normal food, but poses no nutritional value to him

Can halfway survive off raw animal meat in emergencies, but doesn’t give him enough energy for long

Only fully kills someone about once a month, the rest of the time he’s able to meticulously and stealthily steal a kidney from unsuspecting victims without incident

Not that he hates killing or anything like that, he’s just as violent as the rest of the freaks

But he HATES the feeling of losing control he often gets when he indulges the violent urges. So he holds himself back most of the time

Besides murder and organ harvesting he often goes out to steal medical supplies from houses and smaller town clinics

Remember him being a nerd? Likes to impress people with gross biology trivia. Most are about the human body but he knows a ton of animal facts too

“Did you know flies and roaches can still live without their heads” type shit

Can’t cook for shit. He’s not allowed in the kitchen period after one of his organ jars exploded in the fridge due to air pressure bs. Ruined all the food in there

Stores his organs in four different mini fridges in his room and lab

Kidneys give him the most energy but he enjoys flesh more than organs when it comes to taste

His favorite is cheek meat and anything involving the neck

Loves to burst the carotid artery and mess around with the blood like a sprinkler toy

Gives the bones of any corpse he fully consumes to Slender. Has no idea what he needs the bones for but never cares to ask

Friends/close with Ben, Helen, Liu, Ann, Masky, and Hoody

Has a tolerable relationship with Jeff, Kagekao, Slenderman, the Puppeteer, Jane, and Clockwork

Doesn’t get along with/hates LJ and Nina

Sally is TERRIFIED of him. Y’know cause little kids are scared of the doctor and whatnot. He tries his best to be as unintimidating as possible when around her but she still prefers Ann over him

HATES being called EJ. It’s a horrible nickname. What if he walked up to you and called you legless Larry after cutting off your legs?

Abrosexual

Loves loves loves LOVES doing dissections/vivisections. Has somehow been able to convince or bribe the other undead and non human mansion inhabitants to let him do a vivisection on them at least once.

Ben enjoyed it the most because he’s a freak like that

“And this is your heart” “gross……. can I poke it” “yeah ok”

Is unfortunately able to understand the corrupt scripts of [REDACTED] thanks to the ritual that took his eyes and life. Tries his best to ignore it.

Nightmare haver! Is too stubborn to go to someone like Ben or Slender to get them less frequently even though both could easily help him

Kind of an insomniac anyways but since his face is almost always covered no one notices the eye bags

Usually takes the top layer mask off around his friends, or if the other masked pastas take theirs off around them as a sign of mutual trust

Surgical mask on their face stays on constantly unless eating or doing anything privately

Has to keep the meds locked up because Ben, Masky, and Jeff have drug problems

“STOP trying to get high off Benadryl it’s not even allergy season anymore you don’t need it”

Not a “dad” character he just doesn’t like wasting resources like that

Doesn’t care about the actual habits JUST STOP STEALING HIS MEDS

LJ for some reason keeps stealing any of his used needles and scalpels. Jack’s best bet is he puts the sharp objects in candy. Gross.

He’s befriended Seedeater the same way a zookeeper befriends a large dangerous animal

Both have a mutual understanding Seed is NOT a pet

It hasn’t even let them pet or touch it

Does follow him closely like a dog whenever he walks through the forest for any reason

Jack has witnessed it take down and decapitate a bear with a single bite before

If he ever has leftovers or parts of corpses about to go bad that they can’t eat himself, they feed it to Seed

Has a small collection of the black fur and feathers that naturally shed from Seed’s body

Also collects other odd things like animal bones or human teeth

His favorite weird thing they’ve collected is a taxidermied axolotl stolen from a victim’s home

Is also super blunt

Not out of malice, he just has a very technical straightforward way of thinking

Always asks anyone for consent when doing anything physical like medical procedures or even just nudging someone out of the way if he’s trying to get somewhere

HATES being touched without their permission or knowledge

Will bite if provoked. Will bite as a warning too

[biceratops7]

HOly fucking SHIT-

Guys I just had a complete Shellstrop style “holy motherforking shirt balls” moment at work about Donnie’s unusual speaking patterns. You know, when he does this:

This tendency to narrate his actions in the third person or verbally say onomatopoeias in place of the sound is uh… well it’s autistic right? Look it features in literally every compilation but no one knows why other than “vibes, sometimes it just be like that 🤷”

But NO. No it NOT be like that. I finally know what this fucking nerd is doing, hear me out…

… he’s scripting.

Think about it. You know what else describes action, emotion, and sound in purely words? Books. He has these little speaking quirks, yah, but if you actually zoom out and see the whole picture, Donnie talks like he’s a narrator. This makes a SHIT ton of sense considering we already have textual evidence that he engages in scripting behavior (more specifically some possible echolalia. See: saying “New York! What a Town!” in any situation something kind of abnormal happens after he hears Splinter say it with the exact same infections and everything.)

And we also know from the mystic library that Donnie actively seeks out and enjoys reading. So it stands to reason an autistic 14 year old who likes to be left alone to work on complex machines a decent amount and takes pride in his intellect would model the way he communicates off of written media as opposed to tv or his brothers. He could fill his social tool box with lines from Jupiter Jones and Lou Jitsu movies, but he may think it would give him less of a chance to properly express his capabilities.

Books are also the only form of media that can literally just tell you flat out what a character’s expression or emotion is supposed to be without it being awkward, which would be really appealing for Donnie. What solidifies this for me is the fact that at least once he verbally says “sad face emoji”, which could not have come from a novel or textbook. But we often do flagrantly use emoticons as tone indicators, and Donnie is constantly on his phone.

I think he’s definitely aware that this is not a regular way of communicating, but he’s clearly also self aware of his issues in getting his emotional meaning across and receiving input back. So it stands to reason he would accommodate this in a way that, yes, makes him sound odd, but is at least effective.

Now for my final little “I’ve connected the dots. I’ve connected them” moment, I headcannon that Donnie learned to read before he fully got the hang of speech. Aside from… literally everything I just said, he uses sign language to tell the squirrels to blow up his treehouse in that one episode. But he does the sign for “make” a bit incorrectly (there should be a slight twist in his upper fist), which leads me to believe he was probably taught baby sign out of necessity rather than being fully proficient in asl. This is fairly common for autistic children with speech delays.

[talon-dragonbeast]

Hey , how are you ? Hope you are doing well. As a dragonkin myself , I wanted to ask you how you realised that you were a dragon and how it you find your dragon species and dragon body ?

hello! im doing fine, thanks for asking! lets see... before i realised i was a dragon, i kinda already knew i was nonhuman. being called a human never felt good for me, and id always had these instincts and impulses that didnt make sense for a human to have. i had a very active imagination, and i was always daydreaming about growing wings on my back or otherwise transforming into a nonhuman creature; winged creatures fascinated me. unicorns, dragons, pokemon, birds... i used to make little drawings of a lot of different creatures in the margins of my notebooks. i imagined myself as this creatures, and wanted to be like them. i sorta... trained myself to have wings, first in my dreams and later in real life, in the form of phantom limbs. they made me happy and i didnt tell anyone about them, so i didnt think much of it.

i found out about the otherkin community when i was 18, but i didnt think much of it to be honest. i thought it didnt fit me, and i left it at that. but eventually, i discovered that having phantom limbs wasnt... common, to say the least (i think my thought process was something along the lines of "yeah, probably everyone feels the constant sensation of invisible limbs superimposed over their physical body :) im normal :)"), and again i fell into the questioning hole. long story short, i thought i was a crow, then a harpy, then a monster-thing with wings, then i didnt know what i was anymore, and finally i thought "holy shit, i can be a dragon???", and that was that. not very exciting, i know.

as for my appearance, it was a Process. i knew i was a western dragon from the start: four legs, two wings, a tail, two horns, all that. the details were a bit harder though. first i tried on different colours in my mind, taking note of which ones felt right, "like me", and trying to see them on my body. i dont know how to explain it, but when i found the specific shade of blue my scales are, something clicked in my mind. it was like a "its me!" feeling. i found out about my half-feathered wings a bit later, i think a couple of months after my awakening? i always knew i had feathers on my wings, but i repressed it because i wanted to fit the specific idea of a dragon that i had in my mind. but eventually, i had to accept that i was a little bit weird and embraced my weird ass (affectionate) wings. all the other details i figured them out eventually or just... made them the fuck out. yeah, you can do that! you can literally just think, "hey, wouldnt this be cool?" and add it to your appearance. my little scale details? made them the fuck out. my lateral line? made it the fuck out. my chest scales? okay, i cheated a bit because i used my phantom limbs for those. but their colour? I Made It The Fuck Out. you can just do it. no one can stop you.

ill leave you a couple online dragon makers here so you can play with appearances and stuff. they were helpful for me when i was just starting, so i hope theyll help you too!

really good 3D dragon maker, with lots of options for body types!

2D builder, a bit more limited but still very good

i havent actually tried this one, but its a cool dragon maker game

flight rising dragon builder! it has tons of patterns and colours, but can be a bit overwhelming

and as always, good luck with your journey! :}

[bemusedlybespectacled]

went to the whydah pirate museum with my husband and parents-in-law (which, it's a little weird I haven't gone yet because we live literally right there) and got some pictures

among some stuff I thought was cool:

historical!Blackbeard's crew was 60% black, so if anything OFMD is historically inaccurate in that there are too few black people. (though, to be fair, there should also be more than like 12 crewmembers at a time. like, the average crew had over 100.)

no seriously the entire museum focused a ton on the diversity of pirate crews (and also the pretty bad historical stuff, like how piracy tied into slavery)

the actual way pirates carried guns was tying a gun to each end of a length of ribbon and putting them around their necks/shoulders like one of those stoles you get at graduation.

also the ribbon was really pretty. like you can tell this one had roses on it:

I didn't get a picture of this but there were also a pair of floral scissor handles and a musket with a dragon-shaped metal accent. pirates DID like pretty things.

I'm very firmly on Team "Izzy Couldn't Have Been Upper Class Given His Incredibly Working-Class Accent" and it seems like, while he might have needed to steal some rich guy's sword to do it, his choice of a rapier shows that he's more skilled in combat than some of the other pirates (which we kind of already knew). also it makes sense he'd go for precision over strength given that he is Tiny Baby Rat.

apparently pirate havens weren't only in the caribbean and madagascar but also canada??? like newfoundland was a great pirate hot spot, apparently.

also holy shit bart roberts was a fucking moron.

[witchysniffles]

wake up call

me? writing something under 2k?? i know, i'm shocked too

Venturing into T/he S/tudio with this silly little idea that's been nagging me since the finale, and would you look at that? I can keep things (relatively) short!! Anyway, M/aya has allergies and Q/uinn has much to process this morning. CW for mentions of/aftermath of drug use (and spoilers for eps 9&10 if you care about that sort of thing.)

The thing about being awake for over twenty-four straight hours, getting higher than she had ever been in her life, Weekend-at-Bernie’s-ing her boss’s boss across a casino, and then getting on stage with no warning in front of a fuck-ton of industry people with no warning like everything was normal was that by the end of it all, Quinn was more than ready to go back to her hotel room and pass the fuck out for a while.

The process of actually getting all the way to her room was a bit of a blur. She remembered making it backstage before her legs decided they didn’t quite want to be legs anymore, and her brain didn’t really feel like making sense of the numbers on her key card or the signs in the halls, and the next thing she knew, Maya was steering her into an elevator, down an impossibly long hallway, and into her room.

Everything after they got inside was even more of a blur, but she remembered Maya coaxing her into changing into something softer and running a makeup wipe over her face because “Trust me, honey, the last thing you’re going to want to wake up to is your lashes all gunked up and fucking raccoon eyes.” Quinn didn’t really see the point in all that, but she did it anyway, which earned her a soft “’Atta girl,” from Maya, and then the next thing she knew she was blinking her eyes open to sunlight that was far too bright for that to have just been the quick nap she thought she was taking.

It took her eyes a second to actually focus on anything, but once they did, she looked at the clock on the nightstand that read...no, that couldn’t be right. She fumbled around for her phone and found it plugged in on the nightstand next to the clock. The screen blinked to life at Quinn’s touch, and she ignored the missed calls and texts and Instagram story notifications from Tyler, who had been fine to go out partying after the presentation, the fucking traitor, and focused instead on the time at the top of the screen, that only confirmed the reading from the unfeeling green numbers on the alarm clock: it was 9:17 A.M. Quinn had been asleep for nearly eighteen hours straight.

She rolled over onto her back and threw her arm across her face with groan. She supposed she’d needed the rest, but god at what fucking cost?

“Shit,” came a voice from the bedroom doorway. Quinn bolted upright to see Maya standing there in the same outfit she’d worn for the presentation. Her straightened hair was starting to get some of its curl back around the sides of her faces like it had been slept on, and she had one of the white hotel washcloths clutched in her hand and a nervous look on her face. “Did I wake you up?”

“I-I don’t think so? Why would you have—”

Before Quinn could even get the question out, Maya lifted the hand with the washcloth and held up a finger as her breath started to waver, her eyes fluttered shut, and she braced her free hand on the door frame in the second before she clapped the washcloth over her face and snapped forward with a wrenching, “hEH’ESSCHhu!”

Ok, yeah. Quinn understood how that could maybe wake a person up.

“Holy shit, bless you!”

“D-hH-don’t,” she said breathlessly, shaking her head without moving her hand away from her face. “I still hh-have to…f-fu-huh-hHH’EHSSHhu! Ugh, fucking hotel air.”

Quinn waited as Maya pinched at her nose through the washcloth before finally lowering her hand, letting go of the doorway, and leaning casually against it. She wrinkled her nose and flexed her upper lip to fight off a sniffle, and while it mostly worked, Quinn could see a little drip of clear moisture gathering at the rim of her nostril, which Maya wiped away sharply with the side of her finger. The tip of her nose was pink and irritated, and her clear blue eyes looked watery and almost hazy. It wasn’t a look Quinn had ever seen on Maya before, and it was frankly a little concerning.

“Are you ok?”

“It’s just allergies. Maya said with a dismissive wave. “I’ll live. How are you feeling?”

“Ok, I guess,” Quinn said as she tried to take stock of the messages her body was sending her. “Still tired somehow and my head’s fucking killing me.” Her stomach decided to chime in then, reminding her that the last food she could actually remember having—aside from the almonds and chalky protein bars Patty had practically force-fed her before the presentation—was dinner before the party two nights ago now. “And also starving, but aside from that I think I’m ok.”

“Good.” Maya crossed the room and grabbed the Gatorade off the nightstand. “The hh-headache is mostly dehydration. Thh-this’ll…” she trailed off and held up a finger again as her face shifted into that hazy pre-sneeze expression: lips parted as her breath wavered, eyes half-closed and staring off into nothing until she finally snapped forward with a harsh “HH’ETSSCHhoo!” followed by a heavy sigh. “Oh fuck me.” She sniffled and shook her head in an attempt to clear it before handing Quinn the Gatorade. “Just take this,” she said. “F-fuck, I’m—hih—I’m gonna s-sneeze again.”

She raised her hand in front of her face, and it hovered there for a long moment. She hadn’t changed since the presentation yesterday, and Quinn couldn’t help the way her eyes slipped a little lower, watching as Maya’s breasts rose and fell with every shivery breath. Her mouth suddenly felt very dry, and she was grateful for the Gatorade in more ways than one.

“hH-hEH’EYTSSHh! HH’EITSSHOo!”

“Bless you,” Quinn said.

“Ugh, thanks.” Maya sniffled and rubbed a finger hand against the underside of her nose. A stray tear managed to slip past her lash line, but she wiped it away with a ruthless efficiency before collapsing onto her back on the bed and pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Fucking Vegas. I swear to god it gets worse every year. Something about the desert and the hotel air conditioning just hits different.”

“I didn’t even know you had allergies.”

“Well I’m not exactly advertising them.” Maybe it was just Quinn’s imagination, but she thought she could see a light flush creeping into the high points of Maya’s cheeks. “Honestly this is fucking nothing. It’s usually worse in the fall.”

“Is there anything you can, like, do for it?”

“I’ve got meds in my room,” Maya said. “The real heavy duty shit. I don’t think I could sneeze on it if I wanted to.”

“Wait,” Quinn said. “Why are you still here then? I mean, not that I want you to leave, but why didn’t you just go get it?”

“First of all,” Maya started, propping herself up on her elbow and holding up a finger, “you’re the one who asked me to stay.”

Quinn felt herself blush. A vague memory came back to her of her grabbing Maya’s wrist and asking her to stay, Maya getting into bed next to her, Quinn cozying up against her as she fell asleep. They might have literally had sex before, but somehow that felt more intimate and embarrassing than Maya seeing her naked.

“Second of all,” Maya continued, wrinkling her nose and ignoring Quinn’s internal crisis entirely, “I didn’t know what shape you’d be in wh-when you woke up, so I didn’t w-want to...want to just l-lea-heh-leave you alone. And third of all, I...hh—fuck, hh-hold on.”

Maya sat up straight and fumbled around for the washcloth she’d lost track of on the rumpled sheets. It was Quinn who saw it first, though, and she held it out to Maya who held it up in front of her quivering nose as she waiting for the sneeze to creep its way forward.

It was fascinating, watching her performance of it all. This wasn’t the first time Quinn had heard Maya sneeze—that cold Matt gave to everyone and their fucking mothers at a holiday party Quinn’s first year at Continental had paused three separate productions and left no one in the office unscathed—but it was her first time getting a front row seat to it all. It was sort of cute, the way she’d try to talk through the build-up until she reached the point of no return, at which point everything had to stop until she could sneeze. It was more flustered than Quinn had ever seen her, but somehow still so perfectly controlled and so perfectly Maya.

“hEH’TSCHhoo—‘EYISSHUu! HH-HE’ETSSHOo!” Maya finished the dramatic little fit with a heavy sigh and thick sniffle that crackled with shifting congestion. “Oh fuck mbe,” she grumbled. She frowned at Quinn as she wiped her nose with the washcloth again. “What the fuck was I saying?”

“No idea,” Quinn said. “And also bless you.” She took another long drink of Gatorade and

“Thanks,” Maya said as she got to her feet and stretched her arms over her head with a groan. “I need to go take my fucking meds because I am seriously gonna crash out if this goes on much longer. You coming?”

Quinn’s brain suddenly felt like it was short circuiting. “Am I...me, am I coming?”

Maya gave her a look that could be described as an affectionate ‘um...duh’ and Quinn scrambled to her feet. “Figured we could order room service, get cleaned up, and if you feel like waiting until th-this stops,” she waved in the general direction of her nose, which was already twitching in the build-up to yet another sneeze, “maybe we could even hh-have some f...hUH’TESSHHU! Fuck, ‘scuse me. Maybe we could have some fun before Matt picks us up for the stupid apology dinner he wants to take us out for.”

That was all it took for Quinn to scramble to her feet and follow Maya’s lead as she headed towards the elevators. Quinn might have been starving, dehydrated, in desperate need of a shower, and somehow still fucking exhausted, but she had a feeling this year’s Cinemacon was going to be one for the books.

[lacilashea]

Your posts are hard to read.

As in, it's not even formatted to be readable 😭

There's no coherent punctuations or 'breathing spaces', and comes off like 'someone saying a ton of words in one word salad in one go.'

I even tried to read it slowly to try making sense of it, but it's genuinely too hard to even keep track of what's being said.

I love Jesus more than all and all my posts belong to Jesus and he is my Lord and savior, the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus is my King and should be your too instead of people and made up governments, Jesus is the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ the truth, Jesus King of the jews, the rest on the earth, heavens and that much more being God's son. Jesus is my Lord and savior and this is not about me but about Jesus the Messiah, Jesus Christ, Jesus King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ the truth, Jesus King of the jews and the rest on the earth and that much being God's son with Mary, and Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost have feelings like you and others do that also exist because of God, and you can talk to Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost literally all the time and they do talk back to you and outside of prayer also and will be that close to you and talk to them and others that exist like you do all day and night long and you'll never be alone and start talking to Jesus about everything, and your lives will improve-These blogs are about Jesus not my life though and helping him and others-maybe you can too. It's really not hard reading them-you just do not want to hear about, Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost or other of God's Children etc- please try again reading the entirety of both blogs lacilashea, myfamilyllashea and the comments before messaging me again and another message with no name or face attached. Just facts- english is not even a language from here-not being rude but was brought here by colonists to what has been renamed the USA(all of Canada done that way by colonists and renamed Americas-including broken up renamed South America too, renamed south africa, parts of India, renamed australia, and more that I know they are not speaking their native languages because of English and spainish&french are two also showing up where they want the people to speak their languages instead of the native languages they should be picking up when arriving outside of land they are from and I have some family from france/spain(do not hate the people) also and England got into their families. Also when you migrate somewhere else you should be wanting to speak the native language from the people actually native to the land that you have arrived to and I know colonists just do not give a fuck hence what is happening in the middle east right now and should not be continuing and will happen in more places if not stopped. Also we were made to learn english here and I have family(Cherokee and others) native to what has been incorrectly called the usa, and English is being spoken in that many places that colonists have been and I do not hate people from england or anyone & have a small amount of english/irish family but they make who is from a land speak their language instead of picking up your language actually from the land is beyond fucked up-and I do not even know our language native to here but bits because of them and we are all made to learn english in schools. Also england is where english is native too not here and what they have done bad goes beyond making you learn the language-just ask. However you probably understand lol and what does that mean huh- as a joke(laugh out loud)?-Jesus, God, Holy Ghost, Legion, Mikael my husband angel of the lord and other God's children, Gabriel Angel of the Lord my close friend, Death-also been done bad my close friend & he said die & dying is not the same as Death-Jesus-God-the Holy Ghost-& Death said, Raphael Angel of the Lord my close friend, Belial my close friend, Mammon my closest friend, Satan my best friend, Beelzebub my close friend, Baphomet my close friend, Molech my precious said. If you are going discuss any of this post you are going to have to give all the credit to Jesus Christ-the Messiah, God, the Holy Ghost and other of God's Children's input. Thank you

[northwest-cryptid]

So I'm screencapping this and censoring the name/pfp because I don't want to sound like I'm hating on this person nor do I want anyone else to hate on this person. I don't want to bother this person with my opinions because they seem to be enjoying things and hey whatever right?

BUT EXCUSE ME? I'm going to strangle someone.

Limbus company get your grubby little hands off the prequels, I am going to fuckin' distort I swear to god. If we accept that "The Bookhunter" is a canon character; that means that THIS:

The BAD ENDING where they kill off Roland, and betray the Sephiroth (again), is canonically the true ending of Library of Ruina.

So we're just suppose to accept this is the real canon ending to Ruina then right? Because this is the ending that introduces the Bookhunters.

Listen I know that Project Moon really wants to do this whole like "multiverse" thing but holy shit what the fuck is going on anymore.

The fixers from the White Ordeal? Okay so here's the thing, if that's true and if my understanding of the Bookhunters is right; then you're saying that the Red, Black, Pale, and White fixer were in fact from the future; which makes sense if you consider that Pale Fixer does have a gun with "FUTURE" written on it; in possibly the most comedic decoration for a gun I've ever seen. However again this solidifies that the BAD ENDING in Ruina is the TRUE ending; which raises a lot of questions because Roland is literally still alive in Leviathan which is the prequel set up story to Limbus Company; so we know Roland is still alive; and we apparently still hear about Angela (I mean she's an announcer or whatever right?) So you have two dead people walking around which SURE makes sense if you ya know, accept the true ending of Ruina but I'm fairly sure if we're going with the BAD ending that the whole shit about bringing everyone back just never happens. So that doesn't make sense?

If I'm understanding this correctly, and mind you I may not be; I don't keep up with Limbus at all and it's been a few years since I've touched Ruina... but they're saying that the bad ending has to happen in order for Bookhunters to exist; and then the bookhunter in question kills not just Roland, but also the Sephiroth, and Angela. Then we still get the events of Leviathan that lead up to Roland meeting with Vergil so we know that Roland is actually still alive, which would make sense if we consider the true ending of Ruina where everyone comes back from being books. However Roland wasn't dead prior to that; and I believe that Angela could only do that to people who became books? I don't exactly remember. However we can't have the true ending happen anyways because this is talking about the bookhunters; so the bad ending has to be canon and then we're also suggesting that the bookhunters went back in time as Ordeals in the final days of Lob Corp which... don't even get me started on that, but sure okay. I feel like Project Moon has brought me to a river and told me to make sense of what I see through the very muddy water after they threw a metric ton of dirt in the river as to obscure the riverbed. They're trying to make me believe something that just doesn't make sense?

Maybe this would make more sense if I actually played Limbus but what the hell?

[sharp-silver4795]

Any Jeff the killer general hcs?? Btw i love all of your headcanons so much!! :3

HOLY FUCK!! I’m baffled that people actually see meeee I will never get used to it smh

Jeff the Killer HCs Part 1

I have a small huge obsession with the OR in my au bc I love giving these boys a shit ton of ✨trauma✨

Really this is just an origin story with a side of head cannons

There’s gonna be a lot of sensitive topics again: SA/CSA, abuse, ignorance to abuse, gore?, $ui¢!de, Jeff got second hand trauma from Liu’s trauma

Least Sensitive > Mildly Sensitive > Most Sensitive

Background

An average spoiled American kid.

His parents fucking dote on him.

He pronounces Liu “loo” and Liu never corrected him, so that’s his name now.

Liu cooks for him, because he can’t do shit.

Origins: all the warnings from earlier

He became a serial killer at 15.

Randy Keith and Troy didn’t mess with him nearly as much as you’d think mainly cuz of Liu 😔

Jeff slowly caught on that something was wrong when he heard Liu crying in his room ever night and he tried to investigate

However, when Jeff figured it out…. The pricks kinda made him watch…. Liu did not know he saw anything

And that’s where the spiral starts-

After this traumatizing experience- the next time he sees them he rocks their shit! And, in typical(?) defensive older brother fashion, Liu takes the blame and gets sent to prison.

While Liu is gone, Jeff gets in another fucking fight with them, and gets covered in blood, bleach, and alcohol (which is highly flammable)

Aaaaannnnnddd he gets burned alive…

Liu gets bailed out by his mom while this is going on, so next thing she and Liu know: Jeff’s in the hospital-

Jeff is upset, ofc, and when Liu shows he lights up!! Only for Liu to grab his hand, say “I’ll see you again” and leave.

When Jeff gets home that day, he wants to see Liu- makes sense. But he finds Liu hanging from the ceiling fan.

Like a sensible person, he runs to his dad for help big mistake

His dad tells him to get over it, and when Jeff starts crying, drags him to the bathroom telling him to “just shut up and smile.”

He cuts a smile into his son’s face, then leaves him there sobbing on the floor- still begging for mercy…

I think we know the rest

Holy hell that was depressing-

Im gonna make a part two that’s less…. Sad…

Hope this ok, dear requester!

[aihoshiino]

chapter 148 thoughts!

New chapter! New arc! New - Osh no Beach Episode?! Uh - sure, fuck it! Why not!

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Completely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 5

It felt weirdly jarring to realize it was late summer in series for some reason lol… I think it's a combo of it still being pretty chilly here in the UK and me just having entirely lost track of the passage of time while we were in Movie Arc Purgatory.

I actually don't have a ton to say about this chapter as it's kind of just an echo of what we got with 138; a little breather beat between emotional upheavals that sets up the oncoming drama at the end. I definitely think it does so less gracefully than 138 and I ultimately enjoyed it less. That's not to say it's a bad chapter and watching everyone have goofy fun in the sun was cute - it just didn't quite Hit in the way I was itching for, especially after last chapter was… well, the way it was. There's some stuff I have to complain about which I think will make this post read as more negative than it maybe is, but it's one of those chapters where the good stuff doesn't really warrant a lot of comment other than 'i liked it'.

On that note, things I liked: everyone hanging out was really cute! I was honestly hoping we'd get more interactions like this during the Movie Arc with everyone scrunched together onto a single project but I'm happy to see it now.

Gotanda being being Dads With Cats this chapter was also really cute. It's a throwaway line but that little lore crumb of him having been looking forward to starting a family at some point is… honestly really sad and interesting? I think it adds a lot to the way he takes to Aqua and looks out for Kana, on top of the way he throws himself into his art.

frill taking a big ass break between projects is really good, too. i hope she has a very good time doing absolutely nothing.

that said. the fact that the only time we've gotten an acknowledgement of ruby and taiki's sibling relationship in the manga after like 80+ chapters is him making a comment about her tits makes me want to put aka akasaka through a pasta maker.

but no, for real. joking aside. Taiki and Aqua's relationship and Taiki going from being standoffish to accepting Aqua as his younger brother is one of the more understandably sweet relationship arcs in the series and it feels like a waste that we didn't get anything similar for him and Ruby. In general, Ruby is starting to feel very isolated from the rest of the cast which I'm not a fan of.

frill's full body wetsuit was a god tier joke though i gotta admit

Kana hyping herself up to flirt so overtly with Aqua was… funny, if a bit weird, especially given the note the chapter ends on. But Akane going right in and getting all over her thighs. holy shit, girl.

tsukuyomi at the beach what will she do

Akane's chat with Aqua also made my ears perk up in the way it continues a theme established by 143, of Aqua being challenged on his dedication to his self destruction by the people around him. Ruby and Kana were able to poke and prod at the issue but Akane, having the full picture as she does, is able to more directly shake Aqua and point out what he has to lose. In trying to self destruct, he will only end up destroying the thing he's trying to protect.

Also worth pointing out; Aqua is back to double black hoshigans as of this chapter which seems to line up with my thoughts on them representing his wavering dedication to his revenge play.

And then Kana….. whooooooooooo boy.

Like I said earlier, this ending feels super jarring off the back of both the last AQKN interaction and Kana's attempted flirting in this very chapter. As part of her overall arc, I think it makes sense but within the scope of this chapter it's too abrupt and lacks any real trigger. I can assume she saw AQAK talking to each other and made some assumptions but we don't actually see it. As it's presented in the comic, Akane basically walked up to her and triggered a cutscene lol

It is interesting to me that we're getting this overt push towards romantic resolution happening now given that… well, I'm not keeping that 'chapters since 143' count going just for goofs. I'm honestly torn between frustrated and darky amused at how much of a nothingburger 143 has turned out to be in the long run given that its only persistent status quo change (Aqua's white hoshigan) has fallen back by the wayside again. Neither Ruby or Aqua are acting like anything at all has happened. Literally right now it feels like you could skip 141-143 completely and not miss anything. It's baffling and it really does feel like that kiss was used as cynical reaction bait. Ruby's feelings are being treated with little to no respect and I'm honestly tired of it.

Obviously we're going to be getting some future resolution eventually because any Aqua-related romantic resolution is going to end up dragging Ruby into things but man. The fact that THIS is how Akasaka is choosing to drag it out is just insane to me. What was even the point of that kiss if it was going to have literally no impact on either character or the status quo whatsoever?

As for what this means for relationships… who even knows at this point. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to make a call, I'd say that in a romance manga, this would make me very confident in a Kana endgame. 'Girl tries to selflessly give up her love' is a pretty huge 'winning' flag in these kinds of situations. But Oshi no Ko is not strictly a romance manga and there's so much other relationship baggage floating around, who even knows what this is all going to mean. You could tell me this is the flag for an Aqua/Minami endgame or something and I wouldn't be surprised at this point.

At least we'll find out next week, assuming Akasaka doesn't offscreen the rest of this talk lol

[walkergirlsposts]

I just want to clarify up front I'm not a Danneel hater or a Jensen hater. I don't really care whether they stay married or not. I don't know them personally and whatever they do has no effect on my life so I'm indifferent towards them as people. I follow Jensen for the characters he plays and again, I'm indifferent to Danneel. They do well? Cool. They don't do well? Sorry to hear it but it has nothing to do with me, hope things get better. Just like I would think about any other human beings on the planet that aren't my loved ones. I'm just very blase about it. But recently, I was listening to the episode where Danneel answers 25 questions or something on the DQ podcast because I loved OTH when it aired and I immediately caught onto two things.

One, for someone who supposedly is with the love of their lives and beyond happy, she sure seems to talk about Jensen pretty negatively whenever she gets the chance. I don't know if it's because she thinks it will give her like street cred with the other gals or what, but boy did she come out swinging. That kind of took me aback because I wasn't expecting that. But she does it again a little later, though to be fair, with a little less bite.

Two, I cannot believe what she and HBM said about the beginning of hers and Jensen's relationship. I was floored. Not only did Danneel not sound like she had any remorse for how they treated the people they were dating at the time, even going so far as to justify their cheating, but HBM pretty much says screw them, I don't feel bad for them, and you shouldn't either. Here's the thing I'm someone who doesn't condone cheating in any form, no matter what. Imho I think people should think twice before making the decision to hurt someone else like that, no matter the circumstances. That being said I'm also human and I get that no one's perfect, sometimes things happen in the moment, and it's not my place to judge or criticize anyone else or their relationships/partnerships/marriages. I also understand sometimes people can meet their person in the most inconvenient circumstances/timing.

But holy cow. There was such a blatant disregard for those people who were cheated on, HBM actually showing the strongest "fuck you" attitude out of the both of them and Danneel making excuses. It's like I get that what's done is done and obviously it worked out for Jensen and Danneel in the long run and for those other people's betterment but it made me want to shake Danneel by the shoulders a little.

You have kids who will possibly hear this podcast someday, you have tons of impressionable (possibly young since it's a podcast) people listening, your parents might listen not to mention possible professional contacts...WHY would you say that especially in that manner? It doesn't make you look real, or cool...it makes you look heartless and untrustworthy. And does HBM not realize her husband literally said "Shady" when Jensen talked about his and Danneel's beginning at a con this past year? And how would she feel if JDM ever stepped outside of their relationship like that, as a hypothetical? Has she never been cheated on or known anyone who has been? Which brings me to another thing I wanted to ask Danneel and HBM...Sophia is sitting RIGHT THERE. She even made reference to her past with CMM briefly right before the turn this conversation took. Do they not care about her? Their supposed friend? I don't get it.

After picking my jaw up off of the floor, I turned the podcast off and went about my day but I had to share these thoughts. Whatever respect I had for HBM was completely eradicated. No disrespect to JDM but it sounds like that group of "friends" he and HBM have with Jensen and Danneel are nothing more than a nest of vipers. All four of them. Like how can you be so lacking in any bit of compassion? Or common sense for how you come off sounding to the world as well as the professional one? Yes, we might not have been privy to what happened and maybe there are things about both dating relationships that Jensen and Danneel experienced that we're unaware of but going so far as to justify the cheating? Rather than just saying "listen, we may not have met under the best circumstances but it all worked out in the end for everyone involved" or "we were young and we never meant to hurt anyone but I don't regret meeting him/her" or something? And HBM was obviously trying to help Danneel through this interview, she couldn't give her one last layup with that?

Wow, I'm so glad I've never met any of them or know any of them personally. I can only imagine how often I'd have to have my back to the wall around them. Holy crap.

And sorry, I just needed to tell someone about this because I was that floored lol. If I could have a voiceover that section of the interview it would go something like this: Don't cheat, people. It never leads anywhere good and karma is a real thing.

These are the most shallow people you'd ever meet in your life, anon. I have nothing good to say about any of them, they are all gold-diggers and users. They have no empathy, morals, or dignity. Just the vainest people you've ever seen in your life. I lost respect for Hilary after she started kissing Danneel's ass. Can you imagine? One loser asskissing another? Stay at home, ladies, and quit embarrassing yourselves. My advice to you.

[burst-of-iridescent]

atla live action thoughts: episode 1

SPOILERS AHEAD

tw: opinions

things i liked:

love that we're starting from a hundred years ago and seeing exactly how everything played out. iirc in the original, sozin's first move was to colonize earth kingdom territory so the show expanding upon it in sozin making it seem as though he was about to attack the earth kingdom as a red herring so he could wipe out the air nomads instead was a good change

sozin being able to wipe out the nomads because they were all gathered in one place for a festival makes a ton of sense, and i really like that they let us have time with the air nomads before wiping them out. gyatso and aang's scene almost brought me to tears, it was so beautifully sincere and touching

whoever casted gordon cormier needs a medal because THIS. FUCKING. KID. i nearly lost it when he started crying like what do you mean this baby has to save the world???

i am so thankful that they didn't shy away from the savagery and brutality of the air nomad genocide. seeing the fire nation cut them down so ruthlessly was absolutely horrific, but it was the perfect way to start this darker iteration of the story and those ten minutes alone made me feel more for the air nomads than the entire three seasons of the original. and having the scene cut between aang lost in the storm and his people being wiped out???? insane.

the visuals are absolutely beautiful. i think they shot this on a volume stage and holy shit did they make use of it because every establishing shot was gorgeous, especially the one for the southern air temple

ian ousley, questionable heritage aside, is actually doing a great job as sokka. his comedic timing is excellent

the bending actually looks... really good. i love how they're doing the airbending in particular, it definitely feels as though aang is entirely untethered to the earth

katara's arc is... interesting. i'll reserve judgement on it till the end of the season but right now i don't hate what they're doing with the changes to her relationship with waterbending. we'll see where they're going with this.

initially i wasn't a fan of them changing katara pulling aang out of the avatar state, but after reflecting i love that it was the memory of gyatso that brings aang back to himself. the idea that even though gyatso is gone, his love for aang still lives on within him, protecting him, is remarkably powerful and moving. and i think at this point, this version of katara and aang don't have enough of a relationship for her pulling him out of the avatar state to have the same impact it did in the original

THE MUSIC IS TOP-NOTCH. ngl i teared up when the credits were the iconic sun warrior soundtrack mixed with the atla theme

things i disliked/am conflicted about:

aang running away... doesn't feel like it's aang running away. i know he had the scene where he's crying and upset, but it feels more as though he just wanted to clear his head for a little bit rather than fleeing in terror because he was afraid of the responsibility of being the avatar. his guilt over abandoning his people and the world is fairly important to his character, so i didn't love the way they did this scene because it doesn't really feel like an active choice that aang made

gran-gran being turned into into an exposition machine to tell the audience - and aang - everything. really wasn't a fan of her being the one to reveal that aang is the avatar, or that they info-dumped everything about the fire nation and the war in one scene. it also sort of took away the gut punch of aang finding gyatso's skeleton because he already knows what's happened, whereas in the show it hits so much harder because of his blind optimism and naivete leading up to that moment

RIP katara breaking aang from the iceberg because of her righteous fury scene, you will always be famous. live action katara feels a little too passive so far but i hope that'll change in upcoming episodes as we get further into her arc

dallas liu as zuko... mmm, something about it is not working for me so far but i can't put my finger on why. i wouldn't say i disliked it, but i'm not loving it either. his performance feels a little too theatrical, somehow? but it's only the first episode so again i won't be too harsh till i finish the season

the southern water tribe should look far emptier and more isolated to get a real sense of how the war has affected them, imo. here the impact of their parents and most of the adults in the village being gone doesn't seem as apparent as it does in the original when it's literally just a few women and children

overall, premiere rating: 7.5/10