#LET THIS SHIP HAPPEN PLEASE

[aroaceleovaldez]

we should make Nico more fucked up, actually. enough woobifying him. that boy should be covered in blood and viscera

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[ingravinoveritas]

BAFTA short film appearances Checklist:

DT✅

GT✅

MS✅

MS’s Dog ✅

AL… AL??? Hello?

So, for those who haven't seen it, the full BAFTA opening monologue of David's with a Staged-inspired sketch is now online! You can watch the entire sketch on Youtube here.

I did, of course, absolutely have to make a clip of the moment with David and Michael at the end, in person at the theatre, because it is just...it is the most married thing I have seen in a very, very long time:

Like...this truly feels like boyfriend/husband/some sort of long-term couple bickering. And I'm not referring to the words (which I'm assuming were prewritten, since this was a bit?), but the energy between them. Even the way David and Michael feign annoyance with each other is so underpinned with affection that it fills your heart nearly to bursting. It's so completely domestic and soft and I really do wonder if the people in the audience (at least the non-UK industry folks) understood what the hell was happening and what we were witnessing here. Amazing.

Also, to your point about the members of the cast in the sketch, it is certainly strange (and noticeable) to see who was in the clip and who wasn't. AL's absence was made especially glaring by the fact that she was not seated next to Michael during the sketch, either (though from what I have been told, they were sitting next to each other for the remainder of the broadcast). So I'm not sure what was going on here, but the choices were definitely choice-ing.

In any case, I am beyond delighted that we not only got a Michael reference/appearance at the BAFTAs, but that it happened so early on, and that he was so prominent in the bit. I'd love to hear from my followers as well about your thoughts on the opening sketch, so please feel free to chime in in the comments!

[ilikebobcuts642]

“Trish isn’t as strong as the guys in her gang.”

Oh yeah? Then why is she able to carry the weight of a full grown man on her lap with ease?

Checkmate sleeper build Trish deniers

[glorfindel-of-imladris]

Erestor • Glorfindel • Ecthelion

[talkshowboyluvr]

fav thing abt the tanner and lamina beef is that both their biggest ships are with treech

guys we have the potential to do something really hilario—

[kozachenko]

Feeling rather contrarian today :)

DISCLAIMER THE POSES ARE HEAVILY REFERENCED OFF THE ORIGINAL MEME WHICH IS UNDER THE KEEP READING LINK

[baskandari]

Okay first of all:

English is not my first language. I apologize for everything.

Second, thats my first try, so let me know what you are thinking

-

Bucks POV

No, really.

He can't do that.

The Song changes. Something spanish, he can't tell.

He sees Eddie. He is… vibing. The Music continues. He can't look away. He can‘t.

“Vivir mi vida, la, la, la, la“, Eddie sings.

He raises his hand, he looks at him. Maybe.

Maybe he start seeing things. Things he want but can never hase.

He starts to think that this was a bad idea.

He came here to night to talk to him. To finally talk to him.

He can't do that.

Not to Eddie. Not when it can cost their friendship.

When he thinks about what that can do to Chris.

He already lost one parent.

And Buck is something like a parent for Chris.

He can‘t risk that Chris lost one parent more.

So he can just stand there. Watching Eddie dance. Watching Eddie be Happy.

And he can just be happy for what he have and not be sad for the things he can‘t have.

[more-profound-bond]

When you're looking for a VERY specific fanfic you created in your head and you realise the only way you can actually read it is if you write it yourself

[neraiutsuze]

i caved and went back to an old save right at the start of act ii, just so that in my head in one universe ryse and karlach could be together. broke up with lae'zel before she got serious about Us. all set for things to kick off.

....THIS TIME, WYLL FUCKIN JUMPED IN TO COCKBLOCK. APPARENTLY THIS MOTHERFUCKER WAS JUST SITTING THERE PINING THIS WHOLE TIME, AND ME BREAKING UP WITH LAE'ZEL WAS PRIME "SWEET DANCING MOMENT IN THE STARS" FOR MR BLADE OF FRONTIERS. I JOKED THAT SHADOWHEART WAS ALSO NURSING A SECRET CRUSH IN THIS LOVE TRIANGLE BUT NO!!!!! WYLL THIS WHOLE TIME!!!!! WAS THIS ENTIRE CAMP JUST WAITING FOR ME TO HOP OFF LAE'ZEL'S LAP FOR FIVE MINUTES SO THEY COULD SHOOT THEIR SHOT?????

and then i turned him down - of course, this was a Please Just Let Me Give Karlach The Sweet Fucking She Deserves save - and god, he looked so heartbroken and sad and - and - i didn't mean to reject you wyll i'm sorry i'm sORRY THIS WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN--

[artiemartietartie]

it’s very interesting how nearly all ekurei haters are just dimple haters. they just hate dimple and hate the idea of him being loved for some reason 😭 sorry if that’s a wild conclusion but from what i’ve seen that’s the shit i’ve gathered

i know at this point im just screaming at a wall but dear lord can people just sit down for at least 5 minutes and think about how dimple has grown as a person since season 1 and how his looks shouldn’t destroy all that development and personality he has?

If you can’t understand the complexity of his character I am absolutely BEGGING to the moon and back please censor dimple’s name it’s very. disheartening trying to look for dimple content and come face-to-face with people hating on him and belittling people who like him

anyways dear dimple and ekurei truthers reading this i totally believe that dimple is so much more than what most people take him for and that he’s just as much of a person like anyone else in the show and he totally deserves to be loved. he’s worthy of it and me personally I think both dimple and reigen are so inexperienced when it comes to love and don’t like themselves too much but slowly and surely they learn how to love themselves together. like the love the other.. if they’re loved by someone so amazing, then maybe they deserve it..? GRAGRGAGRBHF I WANT THEM TO LEARN HOW TO LOVE THEMSELVES EVEN WHEN THEYRE NOT WITH THE OTHER‼️ ITS ABOUT HELPING EACH OTHER GROW AS PEOPLE AND HAVING THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF RESPECT FOR EACH OTHER‼️‼️‼️‼️ GRAFBRBSHHRHFJF I LOVE THINKING ABOUT REIGEN AND DIMPLE SLOWLY TAKING THEIR TIME TO OPEN UP MORE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND THINGS LIKE PHYSICAL AFFECTION AND SAYING “ILY” ARE DONE IN THE SAFETY OF THEIR OWN PRIVACY BECAUSE THEY TRUST AND LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[paxerle]

Look at that ! You just woke uo in the body of Kato XD !

You now have the chance to change ANYTHING about Blue Exorcist (characters, arcs, ships, ect.)

What would wou change ? Or would you let everything stay the same ?

Oh boy that's a difficult question Σ(ﾟ口ﾟ;)//

--

First of all... Blue Exorcist is a bit different for me. When I started reading the manga and watching the anime I only cared for one certain character...

^ me.

I can say that changed a lot after entering the fandom. I see so many good art of all of the characters that I started to pay attention on everyone.

But I will always be an Arthur fan idk what could happen that would change my mind. So his plot and his panels always get the most attention from me. And the demon kings of course.

--

Things I would change... SEASON ONE OF THE ANIME.

Jesus Christ what a bullshit. (＃｀д´)ﾉ

People started hating Arthur because of that trash and they also represented him as a fucking joke on that fire engine. He is a Paladin! How ridiculous.

I also really don't like the art style. A lot of people hating season 3 style but in my opinion it's so much better. I want to forget season one tbh.

--

If I go deeper into the whole story and look at the plot I am always impressed how Kato managed all that. I have a huge respect for her creations. Everything happens out of a reason and I really like how the story and the characters evolve. It's well written and when I am sure what will happens next everything went completely different.

...

BUT THERE IS ONE THING THAT I WOULD ERASE FROM ALL THE MANGA AND THE PLOT AND FROM THE WHOLE WORLD. NO I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS-

Kato I hate you for this (no I love you but this was NOT necessary!) The chapter was uploaded on his birthday how could you?!

Also- Lund and Strom are some stupid NPCs... Not fair!

I will never understand it. I will also not try to understand it. I was so shocked when I red it I want to pretend this never happened. Kato... please take more care of the Paladins they are not a disposable item.

--

This woman will end me I am sure.

[hopefuladdictions]

Ohhhh my god don't piss me off. Most influential yaoi poll and you're telling me Mikayuu is winning? I know it's just people who hate sasunaru voting for mikayuu on principle but RAHHHHH

The only acceptable people for sasunaru to lose to is spirk !!! Everyone knew these bitches are gay! They are way to obsessed with eachother !

Anyways if you love me vote sasunaru

[thewhizzyhead]

the ACTUAL VERIFIED ABS-CBN ACCOUNT USED THE SHIPNAME HOLY SHIT WE ACTUALLY ARE IN QUEERBAITING TERRITORY HOLY SHIT CANON MAINSTREAM FILIPINO MEDIA QUEERBAITING

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

So I saw the clip and I want to scream about Armand/Daniel and devil's minion era thoughts/theories.

First, I loved Armand being able to pick up Daniel was thinking about Alice and brought it up. And then Louis jumping in to mess with him more. Loumand are going to be so fun to watch this season. The bitchiness will be off the charts.

Second we have confirmation Alice exists. There was that theory she didn't, but now we know.

And she gets pregnant in 1985. The year in the books that Armand makes Daniel a vampire.

So I'm thinking they took that part from QotD where Daniel left Night Island 'for good'. He was gone 6 months before Armand found him and made him a vampire bc he was dying. During that 6 months he meets Alice and knocks her up.

(There's a line in the book where Armand mentions Daniel running from Stockholm and Edinburgh and Paris.)

My guess is here, Daniel finds out Alice is pregnant while he's in Paris. But he's clearly not doing too well, given how he responds to Alice. Like that whole conversation he and Louis replayed made it seem like he was kind of a mess. But we also heard in season 1 that he proposed in Paris, after he got his shit together. That may not be the exact wording, but something similar.

So I think Armand finds Daniel in Paris here. Daniel tells him Alice is pregnant, or Armand reads it from his mind. Idk how it gets there, if it's Daniel’s choice or Armand’s, but Armand wipes Daniel’s memories of him and their time together.

Then, without the whole 'being in love with your toxic ex and also literally addicted to him', he got his shit together and proposed to Alice. Bc that's what you do when you knock someone up.

(It was the 80s, and Daniel was 32ish, so he probably grew up hearing that marrying a girl you got pregnant was the right thing to do)

(In the books, it's October that Armand finds him, though the show may change that, depending on how its going to play out QotD. My point is, if she was pregnant that late into 85, the baby was born sometime in 1986. Meaning that in 2022 when the 2nd interview is happening, his oldest daughter is in her mid 30s. Like 35/36 depending on her birthday.)

Armand remains out of his life, though he and Louis keep tabs on him. Until eventually they bring him back for the interview and whatever other reasons they may have.

[peachypizzicato]

The Five Of Cups: An Open Letter to Dorian

Hey everyone! Welcome back to my soapbox (or, if you see this and by some divine happenstance don’t know me: Hi! I’m Felix! Or Anemone. I go by many names.)

As you can tell by my Big Boy Letters, I’m comin’ to talk about kind of a serious subject. At least, it’s serious to me anyway. I wanted to talk a bit about the game The Arcana. You know the one. The definitely not at all divisive one. That Arcana. (/s)

(Warning: I will be touching on depictions of racism, misogyny, anti indigenity, antisemitism, and just general mistreatment of marginalized people!)

TLDR; The Arcana is full of harmful portrayals of marginalized people and the fandom at large ignores it at best and encourages it at worst. The best thing we as the community can do is make it abundantly clear to the company that this is not okay and should not continue.

To be completely upfront here, I’m not going to be going in-depth on every single problem with the devs or the distributors or anything. We’re all busy people and there’s not nearly enough time in the day. But what I am going to do is touch on a few things I’ve witnessed firsthand that I think are worth sharing with the wider community.

One of the behaviors I’ve noticed most often is what I can only think to call… Strange treatment of the love interests. Not by everyone, mind you, but on a startlingly normal basis. Now, what do I mean by “strange”? Well, it really depends on the character honestly.

With Asra, much of the portrayals feel significantly more sexualized than that of their peers. Drawn and portrayed as if their body exists to be ogled by someone else rather than lived in by themself, y’know what I mean? That, combined with blatant orientalist imagery baked into much of their designs, makes for a feeling of feast or famine when seeking out content. And this isn’t even to comment on the intense focus on them as defined by their relationships to others– namely Julian– and all of the mischaracterization that comes with that.

It’s not much different in regard to Nadia, if you can believe it. The image of “step-on-me-queen dominatrix” cultivated by the original writers persists in the community, with overwhelming focus put on her body and her sexuality over anything else. Anyone who’s known me since I discovered the game knows I actually really liked her at first, but it’s hard to have a genuine attachment to a character who seldom even gets to have a personality outside of basic traits and Having Tits.

Julian is, admittedly, a difficult one. I am not jewish myself, but I’ve heard testimony from jewish fans that his portrayal is less than ideal (to put it lightly). At the very base, his design itself is riddled with common antisemitic imagery and was based primarily on a real brown-skinned jewish man whose melanated skin they excluded, surely coincidentally (/s). but it goes even further than that (depicting a jewish man as a bloodsucking vampire, anyone?). I don’t claim to speak for any groups I do not belong to, but with the knowledge I do have it simply makes things uncomfortable to witness.

Muriel. Oh, Muriel. Again, if you’ve known me for any significant amount of time, you probably knew I was dreading this. But as much as I’d like to think nothing could ever be wrong when he’s around, there are definitely problems. Now, I could go into all the issues with the way the writers concocted his route, his story, his character as a whole (brown man with a ~foreign~ type of magic lives in solitude in the woods and is “in tune with nature” to the point of communication, very original /s), what I really want to touch on here is how this informed the way the community treats him. Listen, I’m not gonna sugarcoat this, a lot of Muriel fans are not subtle about their (most often white, but not always) savior complexes. More times than I care to remember I’ve seen him babied, treated like he’s incompetent, made at best into an animal to be tamed and at worst into an uncontrollable monster. I’ve seen pieces of fanfiction call him, a very blatantly indigenous-coded character, a real actual slur. Not to mention how watering down the trauma he faced has become something of commonplace. And this isn’t even an exhaustive list of ways he’s mistreated! For as much as it makes me angry, it’s also extremely saddening. The devs and writers made one of their most genuine kindhearted characters into a metaphorical punching bag, and the community has only continued swinging for years afterward.

But, I think I’ve made my point. Moving on.

Portia is a combination of problems I’ve already touched on. Conveniently, all of the stereotypical traits that Julian inherited happened to skip right over his little sister. What didn’t skip over, however, was the gene of being shamelessly and gratuitously oversexualizing of her. Take a look at any of her CGs; most if not all of them are centered on her chest or otherwise use color and design to draw the eye there. Every one of her sprite outfits are low cut to show varying levels of cleavage. And the few vocal fans she does have only serve to perpetuate this over and over again. To be completely clear, there’s nothing wrong with characters who embrace their sexuality. That goes without saying. However, for being the one “plus-size” love interest– which really in this case only means short and curvy– the emphasis on her body over anything else about her is startling and sad.

Finally, we find Lucio. Our one ethnically white male love interest. You may be wondering how a character like that could possibly receive “strange treatment”. Or maybe you’re not. I will elaborate anyway. The biggest problem with Lucio, with the fans and absolutely with the teams behind the game, is and has been for the longest time the complete and utter lack of awareness of his role in the world and the consistent retroactive rewriting of his character. What I mean by that is this: Lucio, originally and in every route but his own, is blatantly written to be an unforgivably cruel and immoral man. He seeks the best treatment he can get while cityfolk all but die in his streets, he takes advantage of the kindness and generosity of others and punishes their trust. There are many assumptions that can be made but we are shown explicitly that he can know Asra, a child (as an adult himself), and make sexual advances on them in adulthood with absolutely no guilt. He blackmailed Muriel into being and staying his slave and in turn forced him to perform brutal public massacres for an indeterminate amount of time: all we know is that it was long enough for a colloquial name to become well known and for his appearance to grow unkempt and haggard. All this plus more things that I don’t even have the time to list. And yet, he is arguably one of the most popular characters. Take two steps into the fandom at large and you’ll see countless postings about how his childhood was so tragic and how he’s so very sorry, he’s just a little oopsie whoopsie uwu soft boy! The few times I personally have seen his horrible actions even addressed by his fans was to underplay them, to insinuate that he has it worse than anyone he hurt. In spite of, or maybe even because of his extensive list of broadly observable crimes, he thrives in the community. The people love him. I don’t think I really have to explain why this in particular is so extremely chilling to me.

So, with all of these things laid out… What now? We’ve acknowledged the problems, there’s pages upon pages of other posts outlining ones I didn’t even cover here, so now what do we do? What’s the solution?

The answer to this isn’t quite cut and dry. There’s no simple solution to murky waters that run as deep as these do. But, for what it’s worth, I have a few suggestions I’d like to propose.

First off, I understand that all of the routes are finished. They had all completed well before the Dorian acquisition, I’m fully aware of that fact. However, in regard to said acquisition, I feel as though Dorian dropped the ball when transferring the property to their own app (and I’m not even talking about the writing of the tales, which is its own can of worms). Rather than simply copy-pasting the routes from the existing app, things could’ve been redone, remade better. Problems could have been solved now that the game had gained new life. This was much of the inspiration behind my own reworking of the concept, to address the problems and fix them. I don’t even believe that it’s too late for them yet; routes have only just begun being uploaded to the Dorian app, in theory there’s still room to reconsider things.

But that’s the problem. I don’t believe that the crew behind Dorian really cares. I don’t believe the original development team or Nix Hydra crew really cared. If the people involved really cared about these problems, there was ample time within the last nearly five years to fix things. They did nothing. They continue to do nothing. People like me shout endlessly into the void, hoping someone will hear and actually listen to the issues happening within their game. But they don’t care. They continue to make money, they continue to draw in players, why should they? If racism and misogyny and every other form of bigotry under the sun doesn’t hurt their bottom line, why change anything? Why care, why change if the community at large not only ignores it but actively encourages and supports it? Why listen to criticism if you can just block it and soak up praise from your unconditional fans? Why?

As I said, I don’t have a simple solution for any of this. But I’ve made personal choices in my own life to give less of my time and money to the company. If I want merchandise, I seek out independent artists. If I want to see or read something again, I can find screencaps. As much as I miss certain things, I don’t play the game anymore. I can’t help being attached to characters who have been important to me for as long as I’ve known them, but what I can do is make purposeful choices in response to the affection I feel. Maybe my singular actions won’t mean anything to them, but specifically and purposefully refusing to support the profits of a fundamentally flawed game that doesn’t even have the self awareness to be ashamed of itself means everything to me.

Thanks for listening. I hope anyone who happened to make it to this point can take something good from my impassioned ramblings.