#The way her romance is at its core about learning what it means to be vulnerable

[nothingimportanttoseehere]

I'm not saying the other romance options are bad, I'm just saying there is no way they can match Lae'zel's.

[emblazons]

Saw this post and article (not for the first time, but for the first time related to Stranger Things) and started thinking.

Thinking about how M*leven's relationship (at least at the start) is the full embodiment of the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope in the way that even its existence is a play on the relational and sexual insecurity of nerdy and insecure young men.

Thinking about the way Mike kissing El when she has no idea what romance means is literally this trope watered down because they're younger...and you can't deny its rooted in insecurity either, because even the pitch of the show says that Mike has a lot of insecurities he thinks will be resolved by the presence of a girl.

Thinking about how a lot of people who struggle with social relationships and romantic endeavors for the same reason have projected the same fantasy of "Born Sexy Yesterday" onto Mike and Eleven's romance...even though The Duffers have repeatedly made clear their plan is to subvert the trope by giving El autonomy and independence...and showing us that they don't view women as a means to cure insecurity in men...even in science fiction.

Thinking about how the reason people don't want Mike to be queer or M*leven to break up is because Mike is the one who represents the "gets the girl in spite of his rampant lack of desirability" in science fiction, and Mike not getting the girl means that a show they've projected onto is throwing a mirror in their face and saying "this wasn't right when he did it, and its not right when you do."

Thinking about how the more Eleven gains autonomy--the more she hangs out with Max (which also leads to Mike feeling insecure)--the more their relationship crumbles, because El no longer needs the insecure boy to lead her, or to give her insight into the world....which is core to this relationship trope's survival.

Thinking about the way the only thing Mike says about El is that she's his "superhero," because he never learned to view her as a whole and autonomous person--the exact same way this trope does to its female love interests. About how we know this for a fact, because Mike coming to terms with the fact that the naive girl he tried to use to fill his insecurities no longer exists or needs him is what the entirety of his first digression monologue to Will is based on in the van...including the line that made this explicit, though its been moved to the subtext again in the show itself.

Thinking about media illiterate people who think the "trope subversion" in Stranger Things is El being the one with powers isn't a subversion at all, because science fiction has been doing that shit for half a century by making women entirely out of men's leagues their partners by making them naive to the world...which is why people expected the same from Mike and Eleven after Season 1.

Thinking about why people pointing out that S4 "showing the cards" meant of Mike and El's crumbling relationship, El's full fledged autonomy combined with her now losing (removing the superhero effect even more effectively than her losing her powers did) on top of Mike having feelings for another guy is so angering for people--

--because the characters they thought were filling their toxic trope fantasies were actually turning into something else: a girl with a full independent identity and autonomy...and a boy who learned how to view his partner as an equal...once he realized he was actually in love with another boy.

The only way to deny this is to either be entirely unaware its happening or deny the subtext of this trope being turned upside its head...which is also why they probably hate people talking about subtext, right before screaming "its not that deep."

But I mean. You didn't hear it from me. ☕️

[reviewcreature]

Around The World in 80 Days: Friendship

So. I have recently watched "Around The World in 80 Days" (2021), starring David Tennant, Leonie Benesch and Ibrahim Koma. And i have not stopped thinking about it since. But one thing that has really stuck with me is that, among other things, the show is a story of friendship. I love that the story is not a romance story, despite having romance aspects. We know that Fogg was or still is deeply in love with Estella and leaving her is his biggest regret. He even outrights says the words too. He tells her how much he loves her. But his motivation and character go way beyond that (which deserve its own seperate post)

We can also see that there is a deeper connection forming between Passepartout and Abigail. Yet, they never even kiss. Which is honestly quite unusual. Any other show would have made them kiss. I mean, a man and a woman with this much chemistry? Sure, they almost do before getting interrupted but that is it. They even share a very delicate and emotional slowdance together. And yet, throughout the show and at the end, they are great and honest friends. Even after slowdancing the night before, sharing this intimate moment, Abigail calls Passepartout her friend and talks about how much this friendship means to her. How she doesn't want to lose him as a friend.

We see all of their relationships with one another change and grow in the course of their 80 days of adventure. There is so much emotion between all of them. There is fear, anger, understanding, confusion, betrayal, trust. But at the end, most importantly, there is friendship. The bond they have formed has changed all of them. Has brought out the good in all of them. They learned so much from one another, understood each other and understood themselves. And THAT was the core essence of their relationship. The story was never solely about romance. Abigail (and Passepartout) even openly discuss this when Fogg leaves to meet with Estella. They are disappointed because that is not how their story should go, that is not how it should end. Abigail tries to make a love story out of it, but she know that this is not that kind of story. This is not a story of romance, of finding the love of your life, of rekindling with a love long lost. This IS however a story of love in the sense of friendship, companionship, of finding your passion and your place in life. It's a story of growth and of finding yourself. At least that's what it is for me. I was so grateful that they did not actually make Abigail and Passepartout a couple or have Fogg and Estella kiss or anything like it. The story, the characters, their journey- it was all still just as powerful

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

JIANG YANLI (MO DAO ZU SHI)

1.) (note about the name first, she's chinese so its jiang yanli, family name jiang) (also this is specifically about the novel, not any of its adaptations and specifically not the untamed. they all have their issues too but are a lot better)

she's the main character, wei wuxian's sister who he loves dearly, but is barely a presence in the story. at first she basically just exists to create drama between wei wuxian and her fiancé jin zixuan. then when she and jin zixuan get married and have a kid, she has seemingly become obsolete and just gets teleported to a battlefield she has no business being at to die tragically and create drama between wei wuxian and their brother, and later wei wuxian and her son. she's barely even around, she just gets talked about and fought over by all the actual important people (the men in her life). no attention is payed to her interiotity, she doesn't get to react to all the plot points even when they affect her just as much or more than other characters… overall she's treated as a plot device and not an actual character.

2.) She was a sister, wife, and mother. Then she died. Many characters loved her, and they only remember how caring and nice she was. Her fierce protectiveness is not mentioned after her death. She could also not fight for some reason (even though her mother was famous for her fighting skills??).

3.) After she has her kid- and her husband dies- she rushes into the middle of an active battle field and dies in the protagonist (her pseudo brother’s) arms. She tries to tell him one last thing but dies right then. He then goes on a rampage. Previously the biggest things we got to learn about her was she makes good soup, she had an arranged marriage (that was called off but was remended), and is kind. Despite being close w/ the protagonist (before her death) and one of the major side characters (and her being a Sect Leader’s daughter) there isn’t a lot of depth to her. Even if she’s only shown in flashbacks her character comes across as “she died to further the plot”

CORDELIA CHASE (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER/ANGEL THE SERIES) (CW: Pregnancy)

1.) (downs an entire bottle of vodka and slams it back on the table) SO. CORDY. Cordy started off as a supporting character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At the start she was your typical high school mean girl character, but as the show went on we got to see more depth to her character: her insecurities, her courage, her capacity for incredible acts of kindness. Then after the third season she moved into the show’s spin off, Angel, where from the beginning she was basically the show’s secondary protagonist. Her and Angel were the two mainstays of the show’s main cast, she gets the most episodes centered on her out of all the characters aside from Angel (and yes, I’ve checked), and we really got to see her grow from a very shallow and self-centered and kind of mean person to a true hero who was prepared to give up any chance at a normal life to fight the good fight while still never losing the basic core of her character. There were some… questionable moments like the episode where she gets mystically pregnant with demon babies and things got a bit iffy like halfway through season 3 where the writers seemed to run out of ideas for what to do with her outside of sticking her in this romance drama/love triangle situation with the main character but overall, pretty good stuff right? THEN SEASON 4 HAPPENED. In season 4 she gets stripped of literally all agency and spends pretty much the entire season possessed by an evil higher power, and while possessed she sleeps with Angel’s teenage son (who BY THE WAY she had helped raise as a baby before he got speed-grown-up into a teenager it was a whole thing don’t worry about it) and gets pregnant with like. the physical manifestation of the higher power that’s possessing her. it’s about as bad and stupid as it sounds and also is like the third time cordy’s got mystically pregnant in this show and like the fourth mystical pregnancy storyline overall (you will be hearing more on that note in other submissions I’m so sorry). after giving birth she goes into a coma, in which she remains for the rest of season 4 and the first half of season 5. SPEAKING OF WHICH DON’T THINK SEASON 5 IS GETTING OFF SCOT FREE HERE. yeah so in season 5 the show just FULLY starts trying to erase cordy’s existence. she gets mentioned ONCE in the first episode and then never again until halfway through the season where she wakes up, helps out Angel for a bit and encourages him in his fight against evil, and then goes quietly into that good night and dies so it can be all sad and tragic. I’d call it the worst fridging of all time but even THAT feels generous because the whole point of fridging is killing off a female character so a man can be sad, and after Cordy dies basically no one’s even sad about it because the show immediately goes back to pretending she never existed. she is not mentioned ONCE in the two episodes after she dies. in the whole stretch of time between her death and the end of the season she gets mentioned exactly four times. again, I counted. anyway the fun twist to all of this is that all of this happened because the actress who played cordy got pregnant before season 4 and joss whedon was so pissed off about this affecting his plans for the show that he decided to completely fuck over her character and then fire her and write her out of the show. so cordy’s a victim of both writing AND real life misogyny!! good times!!

2.) OH SO MANY THINGS they menaced by giving her terrible hair cuts, making her seem like she’d get together with the guy she loves (and who loves her back) but instead she was killed and when she was brought back, she got possessed by an evil entity who used her body to give birth to itself. afterwards she was in a long coma and died. her character was so throughoutly assassinated

3.) She got demonically pregnant TWICE - there was this real sense of a womb/ability to get pregnant as like, a place for evil to get in. She got positioned as femme fatale and evil mother. The actress basically got fired for being pregnant, and when she agreed to come back for a single final episode she specifically said they could do anything but kill off the character. Guess what happened

[bodycountgame]

The way I, and i think lots of others, would devour your Hozier essay like please spare us some crumbs i beg (also Vinh my beloved......when I say that song choice has ruined me.. your mind thank you)

hahaha okay this been so hotly requested but i am incapable of coherent thoughts so please enjoy these rambling thoughts that i jotted down in the notes app while on the bus!

i feel like there is more to be said but also bus journeys are finite so i'm just doing what i can with the time i have lol. what are your thoughts??? please share with the class i Know you have opinions and i wanna hear em!

adegoke: movement

so adegoke's character playlist actually has a different hozier song on it (from eden) which i always imagined to be more from MC's perspective. 

for adegoke, i love the idea of romance like the push and pull of the ocean currents, waves meeting and breaking, a rhythm. and movement just gives me that, i guess! adegoke is also a deeply creative person and movement really gives the vibe of the lover as an inspiration, a muse, which i think would be something that he would totally relate to. as a writer, love is at the core of his work - even when it isn't the subject it is what he finds grounding. 

adegoke also loves to dance (and is an excellent dancer) so that particular expression feels so appropriate. 

arthur: angel of small death and the codeine scene 

this one is quite literal, i guess - arthur is a mean little weasel and it can be a challenge to find the sweetness in him. i think arthur defaults to an "i can make them worse" approach to romance which i think this sort of speaks to.

also his family are terrible and he often feels like a bit of a stray, i think. 

atticus: NFWMB

this one has been pulled straight from his character playlist because its just So ???????? musically it just reminds me of him but i know nothing about music so i have no idea how to articulate it - the sort of unassuming and almost casual vibe contrasted with the utter devotion in the lyrics. the emotional intensity comes from the lack of fanfare, you know?

also like. atticus loves a hair pull, sort of sexy possessive vibes and a rhetorical question so the "ain't you my baby" really hits on that level as well lmaooo 

avery: it will come back

this is another one that is already on avery's character playlist hahaha what can i say i'm a hozier bitch!

this choice is really about avery's complicated relationship with softness and intimacy, especially in a romance with MC which is Forbidden when she places such an emphasis on her professionalism. the way that she partitions different parts of her life is something of a defense for her after her difficult experiences in medicine - she's learned the hard way, she knows better, and yet she just can't help herself. i always think of avery's romance as being like a dam bursting; there's nothing for a long time until a little crack forms and then the dam breaks and everything falls apart. once she has a taste she can't be satiated, which i think this song speaks to. 

charlie - sunlight

he just can't keep away, even knowing how totally disastrous it will probably be for him, but he continues on gladly because he thinks that being that close to the sun will feel worth it even after it's burned him. he's 'death trap clad happily'. 

ellis - almost (sweet music) 

i did a deep dive into ellis' who playlist on patreon way back when and (surprise surprise) this was one of the songs that features on their playlist. this was actually one that i didn't say too much about because its just a bop, you know??? there's the lyrics about their foolish heart, but otherwise this song just screams ellis at me and i never really know why its just a warm fuzzy good vibe and that's them all over. 

florrie - take me to church 

a song thats an endictment of catholicism And fucking???? all the ingredients to make up a solid florrie song. there are a few lines that give me big florrie energy (she's the giggle at the funeral / knows everybody's disapproval / my lover's the sunlight / get something shiny) but in general i imagine florrie would fare well being worshipped, i think that's a great dynamic for her, so this is reflective of that. 

griffin - someone new 

i don't think this one really needs much explanation - griffin falls fast and hard and often. he's my romeo, and every bit as naive.

beyond that, i do think that griff is someone who doesn't believe there's a Right Way to go about things and he's quite happy to muddle through life and always seems to land on his feet - a great person to help someone really uptight unwind hahaha 

imogen - my love will never die 

of all the characters, imogen is the one who is most likely to get on her knees and beg someone to love her. 

also she loves flowers 💐 

nyra - to be alone 

this one is also pretty literal lmao i am many things but i am Not a deep thinker. she doesn't love crowds, and i think the thing that nyra would value most in a partner is having someone that she can be alone with, if that makes sense? one of those special people that you can hang out with and still have the regenerative effect of alone time. 

when we meet nyra in body count she's in the midst of a really hard time in her life - we're at a real low point for her. she doesn't really feel like a person, she feels like a zombie dragging herself from one day to the next. she needs to work through that on her own (falling in love doesn't Magically Fix People), but i think that her relationship with MC would give her a few little sparking reminders to help guide her on her way. 

rowan - jackie and wilson 

again soz this is on her character playlist hahaha! this is an absolute rowan anthem for me - she is my roman candle of the wild. i mean obviously this song is so fun and that is Very Rowan, but the "better yet, she wouldn't care" particularly speaks to me. rowan is very much someone who can meet people where they're at with grace and understanding and help to build them up. 

syd - work song 

syd was the hardest person to match a song with, weirdly, but it was the second verse that really cinched it (and I was burnin' up a fever / i didn't care much how long i lived / but i swear i thought i dreamed her / she never asked me once about the wrong i did). syd is a hard person to Date because they are a fuck up! they don't always get things right or know the right things to say or make the right gesture. that said, if someone can work through the initial challenges with them, they would be rewarded with endless devotion (albeit expressed in their own funny little way). 

vinh - in a week 

lying down and dying together in a field to be eaten by animals is peak romance to vinh lmao. in general, i think once they find Their Person it will be someone that they can feel at home and happy with regardless of the situation, and there isn't much that they wouldn't be willing to endure as long as they had that. 

[ming-sik]

ascendance of a bookworm adjacent recommendations

manga-specific unfortunately but here are some series i think have the same appeal as AOB, formatted the same as my villainess manga rec list. this list is a little shorter.

the obvious ones: dungeon meshi is a fantasy manga with very dense worldbuilding from the perspective of an autistic person who conceptualizes everything through the lens of their special interest. witch hat atelier is a densely worldbuilded story about magic with actually disabled characters and an interesting take on the idea of a "magic school". these are extremely popular and if you've read AOB you probably already know if they're for you.

i want a lightly informative isekai about a protagonist with one specific interest that has mostly correct information about the protagonist's specialty and a comedy-action tone: you want 화타가 된 외과의사/I Reincarnated As A Legendary Surgeon! jisoo han is a general surgeon who was reincarnated as hua tuo during the romance of the three kingdoms. can he use his medical knowledge to fulfill his duty as a doctor and heal the sick without meeting the same fate as hua tuo? now legendary surgeon is lightly informative, like rozemyne, jisoo gets a couple cheats that allow him to perform cancer surgery during the warring kingdoms, but it is very fun and its emotional core being hwabu's relationship with his patients means it feels like a story that has to be about a doctor to work, and at several points it has some really touching stuff about the power of medicine and the duty doctors have to their patients.

i want a fantasy with extremely dense worldbuilding that explores the questions its premise poses and subverts the tropes it invokes: you want ヘテロゲニア リンギスティコ ～異種族言語学入門～/Heterogenia Linguistico: An Introduction to Interspecies Linguistics! linguistics student hakaba is sent by his professor to research the world of monsters, guided by the professor's half-werewolf daughter susuki, and tasked with learning and studying the various cultures of different species. now you may be concerned that this is going to be a lazy allegory for minority languages, but it's actually an extremely involved exploration of the way linguists interact with languages and cultures they see as foreign. hakaba himself joined the field of linguistics due to his experiences as the grandson of the last known speaker of a minority language, and the story is about him learning to understand the languages of the species who coexist in the world of monsters in their cultural context. he's a complicated and heavily flawed protagonist, carrying his biases from being raised as a native speaker of the majority language back in his home region and the human perception of the people labeled as monsters. however don't let this make you think the story isn't interested in how different species communicate, because HL is VERY interested in what "language" means for a creature like a slime, or how a lizardman and a minotaur would talk to each other when their mouths have different shapes.

i want to see a scheming weirdo with a tragic backstory explaining why they're like that totally wreck a bunch of NPC bad guys with their super genius brain and awesome magic but can ferdinand also be a girl?: you want 悪役令嬢の中の人/The One Within The Villainess! we have a repeat appearance from my villainess rec list, but i stand by what i said. remilia is a villainess: the original villainess, before heroine emi reincarnated into her body and lived the plot of a normal villainess manga, unaware that remilia was conscious inside her, slowly growing to idolize emi as a saint, before the original heroine also reincarnates and forces the story back into its original form, driving emi to the depths of despair and forcing remilia to come back to the surface in order to get revenge on the heroine and capture targets who betrayed her and build a world beautiful enough for emi to come back to. also describing remilia like that is a little mean she's more like if detlinde was awesome. remilia is a very interesting protagonist and her massive idolization of emi while viewing herself as an irredeemable villainess despite being a severely abused teenage girl and the specific dynamic of emi previously being remilia meaning that she has to mask as emi in order to preserve emi's reputation plus the driving force that remilia is desperately trying to make the world perfect for emi to return to with no thought as to whether she's going to get to live in that world makes her fun to chew on. it also has a lot of absolutely gorgeous art. its story outside of that is pretty paint by numbers and its misogyny is about on par with AOB's, but if you can get past that there's some good stuff here.

[apparentlybychance]

Sold Out for Their Love Story: How I let go of my need for a Happily Ever After for Louis and Harry

(I need to give a bit of backstory before we jump into the ooey gooey sappy love story part. Please bear with me.)

In October 2021 I saw a picture of Harry Styles hand in hand with a woman I didn't recognize (like at all). He looked like he'd rather eat dirt than be near her. That was was the day I fell down the rabbit hole harder than when Harry fell on stage after fighting with the mic wire.

About me: I'm a PR and Social Media Marketing Director. Recognizing a carefully crafted marketing campaign is easy for me and that's exactly what this was. So I did some research because I wanted to prove myself right about it being a PR stunt. What I didn't realize was that I was about to discover one of the greatest love stories of our generation.

I'm Gen X and not Gen Z so I did my research about this awkward coupling on Google and not TikTok (shade not intended, I think). From there, the Larrie gods led me to YouTube and I found the Cosmic Leeds videos. (Side note: pour one out for their 2022 video when you think of them, because Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they have a job ahead of them!)

That led me to Twitter (don't judge - social media marketer here, remember?) and I was legit skerred. (Translation: skerred is southern for scared.) The Twarries are a rare and passionate breed, but it was all me, really. I honestly couldn't keep up! From there I found my way to Tumblr and settled into several months of quiet lurking. It wasn't until a bomb shell that I considered H-U-G-E in the fandom happened. I won't mention names, but a "big" TikTok-er was unlarrying.) *GASP*

I'm not ashamed to admit that my fetus Larrie heart was SHOOK. TO. ITS. CORE. I panicked. Were these two beautiful boys who I had been watching fall in goofy, sloppy, sappy love in hundreds of videos and interviews, possibly not together anymore? I couldn't even imagine such a travesty. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. I had to do something.

I did the only thing I could think of. I took a deep breath and tentatively messaged a blogger here on Tumblr. I had followed her for months and trusted her for her level-headed responses. As I hit SEND on the message, I panicked. Would she ignore me completely? Or worse, just brush me off with a "get-a-life newbie", remark? Who was I but just a newborn Larrie? I was even newer than the pandemic Larries. Yikes! Imagine the shame I felt.

She responded almost immediately and she couldn't have been more welcoming and kind. She didn't treat me like a know-nothing newbie, but listened to my question with patience. She walked me through my first Larrie breakdown. (I've since learned that breaking down is a rite of passage in the fandom.) I now consider her a friend. Always in my heart @twopoppies. Yours sincerely, @Apparentlybychance.

<Insert one of may fav Harry and Louis pics to make sure you're still paying attention>:

Now onto the good stuff: the romance of it all.

(One more tidbit: I'm also a novelist. No, I don't write fan fiction. I leave that to the professionals, but my day job does allow me to indulge in my passion which is writing stories. This is where our sweet boys had me.)

Do I blame Louis and Harry for the fact that I've devoted more time to them than cleaning my house the last few months?

Yes. Yes I do. I mean just LOOK at how stinkin' adorable they are. My god.

As a fiction writer, I see a story in everything and everywhere. When I found Harry and Louis' story and watched with my own two eyes the genuine love they had for each other, I jumped in feet first and landed too hard. I saw the heart eyes and infatuation of the baby boyfriends and was hopelessly lost in their story.

Harry...sugar, wow. Just wow. You were a mess falling all over yourself to impress and attract your golden, bright as the sun, idol. And Louis sweetie, bless your little heart. You spent at least a full year trying to convince yourself this beautiful creature with the soft curls and the potent pheromones that you called "his smell" was real.

We get it. We really do. You both were (are) so smitten. And that feral need to touch each other every waking moment developed into a settled, hard fought, partnership between two committed lovers by 2015. It was breathtaking to watch.

What's not to love about their love story?

That's where I went off the rails. Maybe you see yourself in this, too? Let's discuss.

Story is ingrained in our very beings as humans. Our ancestors verbally told stories to pass down traditions and legends from one generation to the next. This wasn't only because they hadn't invented the alphabet yet, but because they knew that story was the best way to get to the heart of a person. To captivate them.

Harry and Louis' captivated me because it has all the elements of a good story:

No. 1: Captivating protagonists. Exhibit A, Your Honor: Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles. Have you ever seen more gorgeous, sweeter, more talented, more adorable protagonists? No, me neither.

No. 2: Vitriol inducing villain(s): Simon Cowell/Modest Management/Syco. Do I have to say anything else? Here we have our villain, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The evil entity who want to keep the lovers apart, cancel their love, and crush their sweet spirits because of greed and the strong possibility that Simon isn't getting any in his own life. (Bless.)

No. 3: Magic and glamour: This is the part where story reigns supreme. (Genuinely sorry if that word was triggering.) Here we have two members of a global popstar boy band that had a meteoric rise to fame. They are rich, gorgeous, uber talented and travel to places they can't even pronounce. Not to mention, they look amazing in every article of clothing that has the privilege to grace their bodies. Will they be able to defeat the villain and finally express their love for the whole world to see? Their story is swoon-worthy. No exaggeration.

With all the makings of a good story, we are mesmerized by our star-crossed lovers, raise our swords and vow to see them through to the end. Standing behind us, they will be rescued from the nasty villain and finally be free to ride off into the sunset together to make beautiful music and raise curly-haired, ocean-blue eyed, chubby babies together. And then the famous last words cross the final page of the book: And they lived happily ever after.

Let's all just bask in that moment for a second. Our boys are free to be whoever they want to be. TOGETHER. Isn't that the pinnacle? The climax?

Am I the only one who didn't find themselves right here in this story? I definitely did when I joined the fandom. I assumed that Harry and Louis' total goal was to free from their shackles and ride off into the sunset. Surely, it was imminent. Right?

A year later, I understood why I that was immature of me. I realized that this is no fairy tale and Louis and Harry are real people. They have ambitions and goals and passions and talent and yes, immense, mature love for their partner of over 12 years.

They've been generous to share their love with us and give us signs about when they were happy and signs when they were in distress and needed support. They are still so grateful for our love and support. But I think I have to realize that they aren't ready to ride off into the sunset with their little cherubs just yet. They still have stuff to do. Goals to achieve. Talent to use. And they've chosen to pursue it the ways we are watching. With (nausea inducing) stunts that help them create a story that sells to a wider audience. It's hard for me to watch them make decisions in their lives and careers that I don't agree with or even condone. But, hey, my teenagers do it all the time so why am I surprised?

What I personally need to do for my sanity as a forever Larrie is to learn to trust them. I need to learn to let them tell their own story in the way they want. And if they don't like how their new teams are trying to get them to sell themselves, I have to believe they are strong enough together to do what they need to do to change it - though it may take time. And I need to stop looking for the Happily Ever After just around the corner. I'm really working on this part because if I was writing this damn story, they would have lit a match, set fire to the industry and watched it burn a long time ago. But I digress...

These are some things I'm doing now to release my need for the Happily Ever After and still make me feel like I'm supporting them:

I'm taking their contagious affection, care, attentiveness, hot af sex life, and sappy love declarations and bringing that same energy to my personal relationship. So far, I'm getting a good response. (wink, wink)

Despite facing incredible industry adversity, Harry and Louis are both driven to create art that is as authentic to themselves as possible while realizing that they also have to create something that other people want to buy. I've started applying that philosophy to my own art (my writing) and am releasing the fear of not being good enough. It's made for some interesting stories!

I've reached out to a local organization in my area that supports LGBTQI+ teenagers to support them in a volunteer capacity. I'm not queer myself, but I'm a good listener and I have some skills I can share to help the organization tell their story and build support. Maybe I can't take on a multi-billion dollar industry like the f-ing music industry, but by putting my time into supporting queer teens in my area, I can do something in the name of closeted queer artists all over the world.

I think it goes without saying that I'm also still on Tumblr reading all the posts from all my favorite bloggers enjoying "everything Louis and Harry" both together and individually. Maybe someday I'll get that Happily Ever After. ❤

[not-available-for-comment]

Sleep deprived and rambling about yuri today apparently

Keepers:

The Two of Them Are Pretty Much Like This by Takashi Ikeda - Gentle slice of life about two semi-closeted women in the anime industry: a young up-and-coming voice actor and a slightly older writer. (Early 20s and right around 30, respectively.) Established relationship, any conflict is minor and of the typical "learning to live together" sort. Occasional, usually post-coital, nudity.

A White Rose in Bloom by Asumiko Nakamura - Vaguely gothic English boarding school romantic entanglement between a pretty and emotionally frank underclassman (underclasswoman?) and the icily reserved but secretly kind Balkan refugee upperclass…woman. Nothing racier than kissing so far, fucking gorgeous art, seems to be improving as it goes on.

SHWD by sono.N - Absolutely bonkers horror/yuri crossover in which a trio of women built like bodybuilders fight big gloopy psyche-destroying monsters, lounge around naked in the baths after, and occasionally engage in homoerotically charged sparring matches. Plenty of nudity, no sex yet (have only read volume 1, which is the only one released in hardcopy).

Doughnuts Under A Crescent Moon by Shio Usui - I avoided this one for a while because it *does* have a treacly name, and it's turned out to have a very lesbi-ace approach, which I can't imagine will help its reputation much (yes I've seen the tumblr post). But it's also a really beautifully written examination of the process of coming out to yourself as an adult (albeit a young one), and both the core relationship and the secondary characters are very well-written. I think I'm only missing the last volume, and I'm looking forward to completing the story.

To Try:

Asumi-chan is Interested in Lesbian Brothels! by Kuro Itsuki - A girl hears her first crush is working at a local brothel and resolves to visit them all until she finds her. Sounds like sudsy fun and I’m interested to see what the erotic sensibility will be since my other encounter with lesbian sex workers in Japan is in My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness. Which on the one hand has one of the most profound meditations on sex I’ve read and on the other hand has a ~very different sensibility~.

Our Teachers Are Dating! by Pikachi Ohi - I mean, to be honest I'm always going to at least consider a series that's about adults. But this one has good reviews for the main couple's chemistry, and apparently they are loved and supported by their community, which I enjoy in any romance but especially in a queer one. Plus apparently it gets spicy! 👀

My Androgynous Boyfriend by Tamekou - A beautiful kept boyfriend and his hardworking girlfriend. I like my men pretty and my het/het-passing relationships nontraditional. Will definitely at least try the first volume.

On The Fence:

Love Me For Who I Am by Kata Konayama - Lonely nonbinary teen finds community and maybe love at a nontraditional maid cafe. Honestly the blurb sounds like something I'd adore, but considering the main character is in tears on the cover of volume 2 I'm afraid of it turning out to be melodrama farming rather than a good story.

Goodbye, My Rose Garden by Pepperco - Reading between the lines of the blurb, a Japanese novelist ends up broke in Victorian England and takes a job as a maid, only for her new [probably lesbian] mistress to ask her to kill her. Instead, they kindle a relationship. I mean... sounds lugubrious. But reviews are actually good. I'll think about it.

Ditch:

Days of Love At Seagull Villa by Kodama Naoko - I want to like Kodama's writing (I've also read her one-shot, I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up!) because her premises are often engaging. But her pacing is usually incoherent and she tends to over-rely on boob jokes and under-develop her emotional arcs. It's probably unfair to tap out of a series for being under-developed at Volume 1, but I just don't see improvement from the one-shot and there are better ways to spend my money.

[itspileofgoodthings]

maria i don't watch ted lasso but i need you to tell me everything it's doing wrong, i trust you

Chelsea!!! You sent this so long ago and I’ve just been mulling it over in my head ever since. First of all, thank you for your trust, I am honored lol.

But also, I probably don’t have a great answer as I am out of practice speaking coherently on something’s issues! But I’ll try.

I mean, I think it gets a lot wrong. if I had to break it down! I think there’s two main things wrong. The first one is that there’s a core of rot behind its core principles. And that always leeches through eventually in a tv show, and in this one I think the specific way it does that is its refusal to question any of its moral principles or even just engage with them honestly. And this makes for really boring television. In a certain sense, you always know exactly where a storyline is going to go or the thesis statement that a set-up is going to land on before it goes there. It never surprises you. Too many examples to name but one of their basic moral principles is that a one-night stand/casual sex is not only fine but good and healthy. So every time that happens on the show you know that the characters are going to be praised/reassured for it and/or if any complications do arise it’s made VERY clear that it’s not the casual sex’s fault. And it’s not like I’m going to agree with most shows about this (it’s so evil!!!!!! It destroys people!!!!!!! It is damaging and devastating the romantic landscape!!!!!!!!!!!!!) but there are ways of engaging with it as a storyline that are so much more honest than anything Ted Lasso will ever dare to do. (Friday night lights, which is the show’s antithesis in every way, frequently has casual sex and without preaching and probably even without meaning to honestly traces the consequences of it in exciting and real ways.) and basically that’s the problem with the show over and over. It professes to want to say something profound about morals and culture and life but you know beforehand exactly what you will see and learn. You can see the moral “punchline” so to speak coming from the second they open their mouths. And there are better and worse ways that that can play out. The show’s belief that taking care of your mental health/talking about it and the importance of men specifically sharing their emotions is a) valid and b) can play out in some cute and funny ways. But even then the show is still not going to surprise you. Ted will call up the diamond dogs, they’ll talk about what’s wrong, there will be some quips and they’ll end on one of them saying some therapist-speak (mostly) truth and everything will be resolved. So even when I enjoy it (and I do! I like pretty much all of the mental health conversations) it is never as brave as it thinks it’s being.

The second thing is that the show just hates romance! Or, the problem is that the show is so committed to surprising its audience (derogatory) when it comes to the romantic relationships that it will torpedo perfectly good ones and give you no resolution or closure. And tv couples are NOT the place to put your “surprises.” Like. They broke up Roy and Keeley. Which. Why? Put it back! This is so dumb! And they’re clearly not going to let Ted and Rebecca get together because they want to avoid doing that. Which is okay! But it’s like—then give us something else instead. Give us some kind of resolution/satisfaction. Just? It’s so tired and again not nearly as exciting or unpredictable as it thinks it is. They’re not actually interested in the romances themselves, just what they can say about them to the audience. Which seems to just be a vague lecturing about wanting the leads to get together romantically. It’s annoying!

There are some things I like. A lot actually! I love the cast pretty much entirely. Jaimie is so fun and funny. The team dynamics are so fun and sweet. Rebecca is wonderful. (The show’s best storyline was the first season—her trying to sabotage her husband’s team and then realizing she’s sort of accidentally found a family instead.) And there are some good friendship dynamics—particularly Rebecca and Keeley and Roy and Jaimie (sp?). But even those dynamics are held back by the show’s repetitive storytelling. They will never have a conversation (specifically the girls) where they’re not saying some girlboss mantra you could read on Twitter. But anyway back to the positives. It can be funny and have some great one-liners. I love Ted’s similes and references and metaphors. The team is great and they’re fun to watch. I actually really like how they handle the sports side of it and the balance of wins and losses and how that isn’t really the point. (They should focus on it more.) And Ted and Dr. Sharon are a really wonderful pairing where a lot is unpacked. But they drop it and don’t take it as far as they could. So the whole affect is just meandering? Even when it’s fun.

TLDR: I think it’s more surface-level than it thinks it is (something I hate) and it hates romance and clear storytelling and will mess with both for no clear discernible reason. It also has an agenda. Which, good or bad, is not a substitute for complexity and honesty and they often try to use it as one!

[originalwinnercheesecake]

Gus Porter Appreciation Post

I have been wanting to do gull analysis of the important characters in The Owl house since like 2/3rds of the way through season 2. Now that the first season 3 special is right around the corner It feels like a good time to make posts and get views again.

Gus is a character I find particularly interesting. In season 1 and for part of season 2 Gus is there, but he is secondary comic relief, very token, and almost never seems to move or affect the plot. He slowly grows as a character with and develops arc’s though, and whats interesting to me is that unlike with characters like Luz/Eda/Willow I cannot really say when his character hit the turning point. I mean I know when his character had shifts, or started to focus more visibly on certain aspects of his character, a lot of the big moments his character goes through and core aspects that come to spotlight in episodes like “Through The Looking Glass” and “Labyrinth Runners” on re-watch actually start more subtle in the back ground of season 1 episodes.

Warning very long post underneath

Things with Gus that could have been done better

Okay first lets address some of the weakness’s of Gus’s character. I want to get those out of the way so that I can spend more time speaking his praises. Up top I call him 3 things “Secondary comic relief” “token” and “unimportant plot wise”. I stand by all three being true (at least for a lot of the series) and all three can be problems with his character. For the “secondary comic relief” one... King is out main source of comic relief. King is voiced by Alex Hirsch, who many fan’s recognize as the creator and voice actor for many Gravity Falls characters. He is a very funny man. King himself is also a funny character, because he sees himself as big and ferocious, has a large personality, and all of this is wrapped up into a like 2.5 ft tall fluffy little dog body. Gus’s first ever job in the show was to come assist Luz on adventures and mishaps where she would be away from Eda and King. Unlike King though Gus does not have a large personality, and with his a main trait being “Self-proclaimed “Human Expert”, when actually everything he says is wrong” he just never seemed as funny. Also King despite being mostly comic relief had lore and backstory from the beginning, taught Luz about demons and life with Eda, and was able to come up with clever ways to help defeat foe’s. Gus... shares his food, and can do basic distracting.

I called him “token”. that is a word that I know gets thrown around a lot, and there is some argument as to when it is appropriate and what it means. So let me give the definition I learned for “token”: One or a few characters that are different from the main cast in a noticeable way, and are added in mainly to give the illusion of this show/book/game being inclusive.” You know how in 90′s and early 2000′s shows about super hero’s/crime fighting a team will have that one (or maybe two if its a big team) female character because otherwise the show writers can be accused being sexist “don’t you think girls can be hero’s too”? Plus without her they will have more trouble doing cliche romance tropes. Or how about in Christmas specials you always have at least one who is briefly stated or shown to be Jewish, because of course the show runners know that Christianity isn’t the only religion, and Christmas is not the only holiday. Gus would qualify as a token character for two reasons. One is that he is one of the only few boys at Hexside who is learning magic, and is also important enough to have a name. The score for that I believe is Girls 11, Boys 5. Of those 5 Jerbo and Barkus were intended to be one off characters and while we saw them again they got no focus and virtually no development (Barkus is in a hexsis holdum club, Jerbo flew for that jerk professors flyer derby team that one time). Edric only shows up spuraticaly and rarely is shown at school. Mattholomule also rarely shows up, and when he does it is to be a parallel foil to Gus (more on him and that later). So Gus is our only frequently occurring boy to actively bee seen trying to become a witch.

Secondly he can count as a token Black character. The Owl house has prioritized  including 3D characters of different sexuality, and learning types. Its disability representation has also gained positive notice and appreciation by its audiance as well. But is does have some problems and struggles in race. I will start by saying that I am white, and as such I do not notice as many things as a POC would when it comes to racial inclusion, and my word should always come second to a POC’s when talking about this. But even I can notice that Amity’s character seemed completely thought out and written with fluid direction when Dana and the crew were still throwing Mabel, Webby, Star, Anne, every other off-beat, family carton, female protagonist of the last 10 years, and multiple popular teen cliche’s all against the wall to see what stuck as character for Luz. Even I can note the racism on giving Luz a new White Mom when she already had a Latina Mom. Then treating White Mom as her main/better/more fun mom, because Latino Mom tells tries to change Luz (get her to tone down her more destructive behavior while at school) but White Mom lets Luz do whatever she wants, up to and including praising her for crime. And even I can notice how Gus got way way less screen time and focus than characters who had lighter skin than him. Now here I want the opinion of POC fans: in season 2 Dana and the crew added 3 more POC characters (Raine, Darwin, and Darius), brought back 2 existing characters (Katya and Mattholomule) and, admittedly more towards the end of the season 2, gave Gus and Skara more focus. Did this feel to you like Dana and the Crew noticing and correcting an issue, or did it feel more like the damage control?

Gus’s plot relevance in episodes is kinda self explanatory. In 1B he does not even participate in shenanigans and mishaps that Luz,Willow, and Amity do. He is the group cheerleader. Which would be fine if they let him do all the cool tricks, acrobatics, and full on routines cheerleaders do. Combining his illusion powers with all of that would have been really awesome. But instead of doing any of that they just gave him two small flags that he waved back in fourth from the stands. That was his whole cheer routine, and most of his 1B character... Okay now I am finally done with writing out the flaws/problems with his character, remember I do love this character, and can move on with praises.

Gus’s magic abilities

Gus’s learning trope is that he the “stressed out gifted kid”. He is a protege magician when it comes to Illusion magic, and have even skipped 2 grades. Okay We do not know that much about how different grades work at Hexisde (it’s an all grade school) since Luz our main character see’s the school for the first time at 14. Given that Luz enrolls during a Summer semester I am guessing that Hexisde is a year round school (how do grade levels work at those? I do not know) that does like 4 three week breaks during each season. But I am going to guess that Elementary level kids learn about the different coven tracks and opportunity’s in them, middle school kids pick their track and learn the basics/early lessons, then High school kids perfect their magic and take more advanced lessons. We have never heard Lilith or Raine or any of the Blights mention Colleges, so maybe its not a thing on the isles and kids only leave when coven recruiters come and take them away...

Gus again skipped two grades and “Labyrinth Runners” implies he does it pretty young, he looks like 9 or 10 in his flashback of his first week in advanced classes. If Willow’s powers came late, could Gus have developed Illusion powers early? We also see that he wasn’t then and still is not now in complete control of his powers. My guess is that when Perry and Bump saw what Gus was capable of they moved him up those grades because they believed the best thing for Gus was to get help from an experienced illusion professor who could help him learn more control and mastery of his powers. We can see how great the Illusion professor is in “Labyrinth Runners”, and how much she cares about Gus.

In season 1 Gus mostly sticks to what seems like advanced basics. He could sentences in the air, and make copies of himself, and he was amazing at it. He was not doing one letter at a time, or even one word at a time, he could magic whole sentences into the air at once with great theatrics. His can make multiple copies at once. His copies still remain fully functional when he is away from them, and they can all talk. For clones made by a child, they are very advanced copies. In “Looking Glass Ruins“ Gus makes an illusion large enough to cover a small grave yard, and then In “Labyrinth Runners” his school. In that episode he also pockets a powerful magnifier glass that lets him peer into foes heads and call fourth bad memories. This gives Gus a way to cause actual damage to Belos in “King’s Tide”.... But Gus may have been hit some recoil on that.

This brings me to another part of Gus’s character that I love: He gets progressively stronger through out the show, but he never reaches the ceiling of his potential. He can give his copies more advanced mobility and speaking skills, But when he does they are less likely to do what he wants. See the that only pretended to take notes for him when he skipped, and the one that he made when he wanted to interview himself who promptly told him “I would rather die than reveal my secrets”. He is not able to make large illusions in season 1, and in season 2 they tire him and he still loses control if they go over a certain size. He learns to use the magnifier glass quickly, but he can only us it on an already subdued opponent and using it may pose danger to him in the process. Gus has all the potential to become a mater illusionist, and the dreams and ambition to become even more. But all of this will be one day in the future. For now he is a kid who needs to keep studying and practicing so he can get better, smarter, and wiser.  This brings me to my next point about Gus

Relatable Fears

First off let’s look at the pressure Gus puts on himself. He loves to brag about getting to skip two grades. He can be a show off with his magic, and when mentioning that his dad wants him to become a master illusionist he laughs says “That’s easy”, and declares that he will become this powerful and new figure in relational politics and end a long standing feud between the boiling Isle residents and the Giraffe’s.

When tries to help Willow deal with a pixie infestation with an illusion and it doesn’t help at all, and she gets hurt anyway, He goes through a huge existential crisis and starts wondering openly questioning if the illusion track is even worth studying. Some bullies trick him into helping them clear a way to the graveyard for them, before revealing they do not want to be his friends and do not care about his feeling’s or opinions. Gus blames himself for all of this. Who was he kidding thinking Bria actually cared? Well it’s not his fault. HE thought Bria cared because she did a really good job of putting on a show of acting like she cared. Its pretty high key hinted that he does this all the time at Glandis and that’s how she keeps her three “friends” and probably others under her thumb. Heck its low key hinted that she got Mattholomule in so much trouble that his parents took him out of Glandis at least in part to get him away from her and the members of their group. Gus isn’t stupid, Bria is just a skilled manipulator.

After Bria Gus and the cast, unfortunately meet, Adrian Graye Venworth. Gus see’s through his first illusion and saves Edric and the other kids from being tricked into getting sigiled. But Later Gray and a member of the Emperor’s Coven trick Gus into almost going with them by casting an illusion to make the Coven Scout look like Willow. Hunter See’s through the Illusion and grabs Gus yelling that it is a trick. Gus is devastated that he could not tell the difference between his best friend and an illusion and concludes that he must be stupid and have something seriously wrong with him. A few things that I will point out here (and I am so glad Hunter points out to Gus in the episode). Gus is not at fault at all. The coven guard pretending to be Willow fooling him? They showed up when Gus was in danger, scared, and desperate to find help so of course he feels a wave of relief at Willow. Hunter saw through it because he has rained himself to never drop his guard (he has had to) But Gus has no reason to distrust Willow. Even if he was fooled it was never a fair fight. Gus is a gifted kid, but he is still only a 12 year old kid, and is still learning. The Emperor’s coven is made up of all the most ambitious students and highest scores AFTER they graduated school, past tons of vigorous recruitment tests, and devoted their lives to nothing but improving their magic and serving the Emperor. Adrian is a Coven head, a.k.a the top ranking Illusionist on The Titian. Him and all he guards are older and have both more training and experience than Gus. They were able to fool Bump and the Hexside teachers too, and none of them are fools. Gus’s only problem is the pressure he puts on himself.

To go a bit deeper into Gus’s fears, we see him began to work through his fears in season 2 but I think his arc with fear and overcoming it actually starts in season 1′s ‘Enchanting Grom Fight”. Remember at the end of it when Willow and Gus are helping with the clean up and that peace of Grom morphs into their fears. We see that Willow is afraid of ladybugs (???) and that Gus is afraid of clowns. Now Clowns are a pretty common, it would be enough to assume Gus is scared of their big red grins, yellow teeth, or giant stomping feet. But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” through that Illusions are not able to help solve his friend’s issues like Gus hopped he loses faith in them and himself. Then h starts calling Illusions “party tricks” and himself a “clown”. Which descends to “Stupid”, “Fool”, and “Kidding himself” in “Labyrinth Runners”. You add all this together and it equals Gus not being scared of clowns because of creepy make-up, oversized cloths, or how in-your-face some clowns are. We only see the clown image Grom used on Gus from the back but I am gonna gus its front looked kinda similar to Gus himself. “Clown” is the bad name Gus calls himself when he gets angry/scared/or frustrated at his own mistakes. Gus is scared that maybe he is destined to be a clown. Maybe his dad, teachers, friends, and himself are all fooling themselves when they call him someone special, and maybe everything he is good at is just stupid, unimportant, party tricks.

THAT IS NOT TRUE. Gus’s is a great friend and his support has done a lot for Willow, Luz, King, Mattholomule, and Hunter. He has been a real light and the dark for them all. While his illusions have limits, he starts finding knew things he can do with them throughout the season as he improves (and we thankfully say god bye to the Gus the uninspiring cheerleader and the two tiny flags that all he does is flick back and forth). Gus’s own magic feets even hit Heroic status on at least three occasions “Through the Looking Glass Ruins”, “Labyrinth Runners”, and “Kings Tide” where if not for him things would have gone much worse and potentially innocent lives could have been ruined or lost. Gus can, is, and will be great witch. He just needs to take some time, and come into it in his own way.

Gus’s development into a more empathetic friend and his growth and maturity through out the show.

Just a small heads up most of this will be about Gus’s relationships with other males. I know, I know Willow and Luz are his best friends. I am not trying to undervalue his relationships with them, they are great friends and very important to him. The reason I am not talking much about them is that his friendships with them start from their first meeting and remain really consent throughout the show. There is never really any change. They are all friends, Willow and Luz know he is younger by a couple years but they do not treat him any different for it. Gus loves this and is super protective of both of them, trying to jump on or “Gus chomp” any big kid who calls one of the Trio “losers’ or tries to give them a hard time.

Let’s start with the first time we see Gus in his element. Gus’s time as the President of the Human Appreciation Society (a school based club he started). This was Gus at his absolute worst, most jerkish, and it got him nothing. Gus says in the episode that he created the club because being the youngest kid in his grade he was always overlooked and wanted to create a place where that would not happen to anyone. When he says that it is the only time that he is either kidding himself or just being stupid. Because Gus is a tyrannical leader that and overlooks every other person there. No really he is. Gus calls himself “The President” but also made himself a crown, like he’s the king. He has a huge list of rules that he made himself and that no one else is allowed even comment on. He is the only person allowed to touch the objects, He is the only one allowed to make decisions (he legit see’s the group wanting to vote as anarchy), and judging by his reaction to Matty dumping out his backpack Gus may even be the only one who is usually allowed to bring in artifacts. Gus made himself a place where he would get to be in charge of kids older than him and they would have to listen to what he says. Well later in the show we see that Bigger Kids used to take advantage of Gus’s trust and trick him into doing their work for him. These are his worst memories.So seeing that I can see why Gus would want a place like the H.A.S., but that is an explanation for his behavior and not a excuses. He is acting like his old bullies and it is getting him nowhere. The bigger kids in his club must stay because they are interested in learning more about human culture, because they do not seem to care for or like Gus. When Mattholomule challenges him for leadership two kids support him and one just proclaims himself “an undecided voter”; none of them back Gus. When Bump kicks Gus out of the club none of the kids care or ever speak to him again.

Losing the club was painful for Gus in the short term because it was a club he cared about (and it led to 1b Gus and his boring obsession with two tiny flags. They really could not have also given him a horn, some lights, or put the flags on a baton), but after the way he had acted I cannot say he did not deserve to lose it, and he did grow from this. His relationship with King is the first one to show his growth. In “Really Small problems” Luz gets the day off from school and decides to take King to the carnival. While there she runs into Willow and Gus and asks King if they can join them. Gus is really condescending to King here, but King agrees to let them join for Luz. Willow and Gus do not listen to what King wants to do, gradually take more of Luz’s attention, and eventually fully exclude King. This drives King so crazy that he buys a potion to make Gus and Willow temporarily disappear. Which of course he bought from a con artist, its actually a scam that gets everybody in trouble, and King has to apologize and explain his loneliness to the other kids. He tried to make peace with Gus and Willow by offering them both pieces of broken friendship necklaces which they both take. Gus thanks King saying that he has always wanted “A jagged piece of cheap metal”. Willow gets on to Gus, I guess believing he is still being condescending, but I do think Gus was checking himself. Two episodes later when everyone is getting excited about Grom Gus gets to be the announcer and he goes to King to ask if he would like to be his assistant. When King gets stage fright Gus finds him and helps him through it in a much more tactful and friendly way. Gus is 3-4 years older than King, so to King Gus is a big kid. When King confessed the way Willow and Gus made him feel, I think this was the first time Gus was able to see his former bullies in his own actions. He did not like it and he makes steps in later episodes to be more friendly to King and treat him like one of the group.

Now Let’s go to Mattholomule. Gus was a jerk to the other members of his club, but when Mattholomule does his whole “scared and lonely new kid who just wants friends act (which I know was not completely an act)” Gus believes it and really does seem genuine in wanting to be Mattholomule’s friend afterwards. When Mattholomule turn on them and sends Luz to the detention pit, Gus goes to save her, and Mattholomule gets literally dragged along in the crossfire. Gus could have left Mattholomule to rot down there. There is a few options as to maybe why. Maybe Gus feels responsible since he kinda started this whole mess. Maybe since Mattholomule has the most experience with dentition pits Gus and Luz thought they could need him in the escape. What ever reason Gus shows genuine kindness in recusing Mattholomule as well as Luz. That is not an act that Gus gets repaid back to him right away. As soon as they get out and Bump see’s what they did to the pit, he tries to blame Luz. Gus takes all the blame, part of which should got to Matty, but Matty only speaks up when he see’s that he still has the opportunity to steal Gus’s club. Just to be clear on Mattholomule as H.A.S.P: He is a jerk, he will be just as tyrannical as Gus was, and like Gus the club made him no friends, no more popular, and any power he thinks the title gives him is in his head. Gus has to leave and become better.

But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” we get more back story on Mattholomule. We meet his old crew (whom his brother does not seem to like him hanging out with anymore) and see that they are all better than him at magic and hear how his lack of polished skill led to other kids making Glandis very difficult for him. Mattholomule essentially dealt with the same issues as Gus but on the opposite end. Mattholomule tries his best to keep Gus away from the other kids, and Gus thinks this is just him being mean. Only to find out to late that these other kids are just using them both. Because Gus was once kind to Matholomule, something that try as he might Matty has apparently not been able to stop thinking about or being grateful for, Matty goes back to help him. After watching Gus defend the graveyard from his old crew Matty finally makes the right choice for the right reason (reasons other than power or dept) and offers to help fix it up. Then, at hearing the illusion history may have to be hidden away, Matty suggests that he and Gus can build it a stronger defense system. Gus has a new friend now (who may one day also become more than a friend, they do share interests and passions) and has renewed faith in both that illusion magic matters, and that people aren’t all bad, and are capable of changing for the better.

These lessons all come to play during Gus’s relationship with Hunter. Gus does not really like Hunter when they first meet. Hunter or “Caleb Jasper BloodWilliams” is a strange, rude mouthed, big kid, who Gus has not seen before, but getting Willow’s flyer derby team approved suddenly depends on him... It turns out “Caleb” is really Hunter, a.k.a the Golden Guard, and he is here to trick them into the roughest coven of them all. Yes Hunter regrets it and goes back to save them (actually he may have done it more for their palisman than them, but he still helped them). He did the right thing, only after lying to them, scamming them, and putting all of them in danger. Gus is not obligated to forgive Hunter or try and be his friend the next time meet. When they meet again Gus half expects Hunter to try and pull the same crap, until he learns that Hunter is on the run. Then he offers him help and a listening ear. Gus did this because he knows that Hunter is not 100% bad, feels empathy for how alone/confused/scared Hunter is, and he knows people can change for the better. Gus has come along way from the bratty, vindictive, kid he sometimes acted like in season 1a. To him these basic acts of kindness do not seem like much, but to Hunter, who is going through so much, they mean the world. It’s because of Gus’s influence that Hunter finds the courage to come out of hiding and publicly supports the rebel side. This indirectly helps lead to all 6 kids (I included King) being together on the day of Unity and able to help each other against Belos.

Gus Porter All and All

Gus is a really great, well thought out character. He is in the background more than some others, and I wish the show had brought him to the forefront more (I do believe that if the show had run longer we would have gotten more of him and Matty protecting the graveyard, Matty introducing him to his favorite book series, and Gus meeting Steve. Grrr). But even when Gus is stuck in the background he still has some really interesting arc’s going on and you miss out if you just dismiss him. I also appropriate Gus getting to do important things and be a hero from the background, he reminds me of Codename: Kids next Door’s numbah 5 in that respect. She mostly stayed out of the spotlight by choice, but was indisputably the backbone of her team. Gus’s journey through school and the insecurities that he deals with remind me a lot of myself when I was younger as well as friends I had back then. I am willing to bet a lot of kids in school can relate to Gus and I like how so much of his feelings and situation are shown to us instead of told. Its nice that kids can see him, and have him to help learn to not doubt or be so hard on them selves, You are special, the right people will see you as such. IF the voices in your head call you names, then tell them to shut up because they do not know.

[secondhandsorrows]

Is Your Story High or Low Concept?

All stories are developed from an idea. In one way or another, they’re shaped from anything you draw inspiration from, from snippets of interesting conversation you’ve heard while sitting in a café, or a particular piece of art that captures your attention, or a character you’ve come up with that you just adore so much you just want a story with them in it. You may have a few general concepts in mind, but perhaps it’s not a story quite yet. In fact, you may not even have a premise. 

So how do you know whether your story idea is low concept or high concept?

First, let’s go over the two different types more in-depth…

Low-Concepts:

Low concepts are simple at first glance and tend to be broad and vague. They are mainly character-driven, usually centered around self-discovery, coming-of-age, or a relationship. They tell us of what the story is at its core — what it’s generally about and what to expect from it. It can be anything, from a widow learning to love again, or a girl beginning her first day of school, a detective solving a mystery. Because of its generic-ness, they can be easily identifiable and familiar to an audience. 

However, this doesn’t give us the exact story — just the basic essence of one in the simplest of terms. There’s no conflict or antagonist, yet, nor a definable goal. Rather, there’s no plot. In fact, this kind of concept isn’t easily explainable, as it could take on so many directions in many different ways. 

This doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting or that you shouldn’t write one. The main qualm with a low-concept is that they’re generally harder to pitch to agents or readers. 

Here’s a few examples that are low-concept.

- Jane Eyre

- Pride and Prejudice (in fact, most romance novels are low-concept)

- Lady Bird

Low concepts are usually fine on their own — you don’t need a grand hook or plot-heavy events to make make the story you want to tell. But what if you want to make it more compelling? What if you have a concept with a unique twist, goal, or setting? This is where high-concepts come in... 

High-Concepts:

On the other end, high concepts convey fresh, intriguing, or original ideas in just a few words or sentences. They can even put twists on original ideas, offering something completely revamped or unexpected (such as Titanic, taking a Romeo-and-Juliet love story onboard the famous ship). 

High-concepts deliver a prime situation, conflict, and a character arc, all luring its audience in with a hook. There’s a differentiating factor that acts as an attention-grabber that makes it high-concept, allowing the audience to have an idea in their heads of what the genre is and how the story might go, while also leaving room for bigger questions to string them along and leave them wanting more. 

Here’s some examples considered high-concept. 

- Lord of the Rings 

- The Maze Runner

- Mortal Engines

The main takeaway here is that the former is more focused on plot and a unique hook, and the latter has less of an emphasis on external events and more on character and emotion.

High-concepts can even be built off of low-concepts... or even work together in tandem. No matter which one you choose, both sides need at least some balance between internal and external — character and plot, I mean. Significant external events need to happen in a character-driven low-concept, and engaging characters with emotional changes and arcs are needed to experience the story through in a high-concept. (Whew, that’s kinda tough to explain. I’ve included a helpful link on this topic below, for clarity sake.)

Which one is right for you? 

At the end of the day, what matters most is the kind of story you want to write. Are you more interested in stories with high-stakes, a realized villain/antagonist, and immersive settings, driven by a sequence of events? Or, are you more interested in cozy reads focused more on character and growth; something less action-packed or plot-heavy?

Don't let one kind of concept turn you off from the other. Both are valid ways of creating the foundation or heart of your story. Try looking at the stories you love, and try to identify which ones might be considered high concept or low concept. What is it about them that draws you in?

Happy writing!

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I'm interested in Jane Eyre (cool gifsets help, ngl) but what I know of the plot keeps putting me off. I'm not looking for fiction to be some version of moral superiority and I don't mind plots where Bad And Terrible Things Happen. I think the bits I know of this book maybe just hit the squicky spot for me? But, like, everyone's read it and if it's worth pushing through with, I guess...I'd like to know what you think makes it worth reading.

Hi, anon, and sorry for the delay.

I think Jane Eyre is a fascinating book.

It is, of all the Brontë sisters books I have read (with Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) the most fantastic and sweeping one*. That's why I usually call it "pulpy": it indulges in the emotions, its prose is beautiful, the plot goes from Dickensian misery to stern didactics to silliness to bonkers drama to psychological horror and a mystical reunion and happily ever after. And the most fascinating part is that, while Charlotte Brontë was known for her careful almost obsessive care in her choice of words, and some of the contrasts and foils are evident, a lot of the time I'm not sure all that one can read in the text is intentional. I'm half persuaded that a lot of its silliness was written in deep serious earnest. Intentionally or not, there's a lot to be read into the text, from several different angles, because the point of view from which it is written is very strong.

Another reason to read it is because it has inspired and keeps inspiring so much of what is written in romance and romance fanfic (I joke that about 70% of all P&P fanfic is some vague variation on Jane Eyre), and yet the tropes and characterizations derived from it are heavily distorted (the principled heroine becomes the stubborn stupid heroine, the conflicted idiot hero is turned into an asshole with a sad backstory, love not being enough to fix the hero becomes the hero is fixed by the love of the heroine... the list goes on).

Not knowing what your specific squicks are, it's difficult to tell how much worth the effort it is or not to you. In any case, it is a book in the public domain so you can get it in places like Project Gutenberg or Wikisource for free, give it a try, and see how far you can go.

I have two tips that might help: while romance is very important in this novel, it is by its own definition, an autobiography. It is the life journey of Jane Eyre and what she learns in the way as she grows and interacts with other people. I believe it is at its core message a story about breaking cycles of abuse through mercy and forgiveness, about the cruelty of mankind and the love of Divine Providence that writes straight on crooked lines. That's usually my problem with the "but, girl, he had a wife in the attic!!" brand of criticism. We know. It's a major plot point in the novel. It's a very significant thing that happens and all that is misguided and bad in it has serious consequences. "But in real life...!" this is a novel where the resolution hinges on two people having a ¿telepatic communication? ¿mystical selective amplification? while being many many miles apart. I don't think "realism" is much the thing with it. And in any case, "go away from the guy that lied to you until you become rich and he's smitten by God and you hear his telepatic call in the wind" is not the kind of example or advice that could do harm in real life (I'm half joking, I know what they mean. Still. It's fantastical).

*this does not mean it is the best one; just that the other two are far far more grounded stories, with less of the fairytale and the fantastic in them.

[remidyal]

Remidyal's Fic Masterpost

A full list of my current fics, assuming I remember to update this post and pin it!

I love people doing derivative works and give blanket permission for any non-commercial art, podfic, etc SO LONG AS you do not use an AI or machine learning tool. Also, please link it to me because I wanna see.

Dimension 20 stuff:

Long fics:

Lunacy is my longest fic (at the time of writing this, about 180k words), an in-progress Adaine (and, particularly later, Aelwyn) focused fic in which Adaine fails her con save and becomes a werewolf. Similar overall in tone to the original, Lunacy strives pretty hard to be largely canon compliant from that divergence point, other than things that just are mostly changed for narrative needs. A heavy focus on Adaine (and again, later, Aelwyn) finding a family. There's two other works in the series; one is a short fic that was a draft oneshot of the core idea, the other is some supplemental material and missing scenes.

This thing is my baby and if you make art or recursive fic of it I will love it and you.

Missing is another in-progress long form fic, this one with Aelwyn as the main character and Adaine in the secondary role. This one is much less canon-compliant than Lunacy; the Abernant parents start on physical abuse sooner than they do in canon, and Aelwyn is a little bit braver and runs away, taking Adaine with her. Generally will have shorter chapters than Lunacy and definitely won't be going 250k words the way Lunacy probably will by the end.

Oneshots and short series:

Most of these are in the 1k-2k word range.

Fantasy High:

Poison and its sequel Bane focus on a very toxic relationship between Penelope Everpetal and Aelwyn Abernant. They're pretty angsty, but I actually really like them. It's not a sincere romance by any means - for starters, Aelwyn in almost all of my works is Aromantic Pansexual (and Adaine is aroace) - and it's definitely Penelope driving it. I may do a third part of this one sometime.

Dreams is much longer than most of these oneshots, just short of 10k words, and is centered around Riz and Kalina, though all of the Bad Kids appear and Fig and Adaine are the most important characters besides those two. This is a class swap AU, with Riz as a Cleric of the 'Sleeping God', and Kalina (and the Sleeping God) as a much more ambiguous figure than the Nightmare King and Kalina of canon. I DEEPLY love the class swaps here, particularly Cleric Riz, Warlock Kristen, and Wild Magic Sorcerer Adaine.

Flames of Passion is the only one of these that's under a thousand words, coming in right around 900. It's also maybe the only one of these truly focused on a romantic ship (Poison and Bane are definitely not ROMANTIC). The pairing is Kalvaxus/Gilear. Make of it what you will.

Dig Out is another one that's likely to get a followup someday. This one seems more angsty than it really is, because I think it ends in kind of a happy way? But it's marked with major character death, because Adaine's a zombie in this one. Give it a read anyway? I genuinely have grown to really love this one.

The Ghost of Me is another one where Adaine dies, but this one's almost triumphant. This is a fic imagining her following through on the threats she makes to Kir and Angwyn if the Elvish government executes her.

Minutes from the July Mordred Manor Wizard's Council Meeting is almost a purely comedic fluff piece, centered around the Mordred Manor Wizard's Council of Adaine O'Shaughnessey, Aelwyn Abernant, Ayda Aguefort, and Zayn Darkshadow.

Waiting is a purely comedic piece about the Bad Kids, plus Aelwyn and Ayda, getting a summer job at a thinly veiled Waffle House expy.

Runaway was a theoretical pilot (the same way Lunacy had) for a series in which Aelwyn stuck Adaine in a palimpsest in their fight and then fled the country with that crystal.

Non-Fantasy High:

Sisters is a post-canon by several years A Crown of Candy fic following Ruby looking into possible disloyalty among the new Candian nobility.

Gallivant's End is a post-canon Starstruck fic following Riva on their journey home, worrying about the changes they have gone through.

Unending Summer is a post-canon (I'm sensing a trend...) Unsleeping City fic focused on Iga's kids, who I had to create tags for to publish this fic even though they are awesome. Y'all should write more Iga's Kids fic, collectively.

Non-Dimension 20 Works

These have both been on hold for a few months, but I do plan to complete both.

To See the End is a Tales of Berseria canon-divergent AU fic, splitting off at the point where Magilou makes her last stand against Melchior; in this, the party is slower and Melchior pushes her to the point of brain hemorrhaging, killing Magilou and leaving her spirit to reincarnate (as a powerful magic user) on the spot as a Malak.

People Who Lies To Themselves is a full Naruto AU where Orochimaru ends up as the fourth Hokage and the village is just generally harsher and crappier, but at least more open about it. It follows a Sakura who gets peer pressured in VERY different ways.

[happypopcornprincess]

The Heartbreak Prince - Chapter Three

Warnings: Major Spoilers for Top Gun (1986) and Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Word count - 2.1K

A/N - Amelia saving Bradley's love life, Physics, Bradley being the lovable chaotic millennial we all adore, a lot of MCR and Star Wars references (I'm sorry but prequels were damn good don't fight me), and an easter egg to another one of my story set in the same universe.

Italics are thoughts and/or emphasized words Taglist is open and feels free to request headcanons or drabbles on this series

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Next Day, Monday

“Ask her out.”

Bradley side-eyed Amelia sitting in the passenger seat, driving towards her High School. She’s been hanging on his neck ever since she annoyed him into telling her about Nisha. 

“Is she engaged? Married? In a relationship?” she asks, scrolling through her phone. “No. I don’t think so,” he says, trying not to think about the clear absence of a ring from her hand as he tried to focus on the road ahead. Truth be told, he too wanted to know what happened, and he was dying to meet her again.

They had so much to talk about, and years to catch up.

“Her Instagram says she isn't”

She shoved her phone in his face. It was opened on her profile:

NishiiiBagchi Professor at UC San Diego Getting better with age, In physics, that means you get cooler and smarter

He smiled looking at her profile picture, it was Ronnie. He must have been gone by now. That cat spent 4 years of its life hating Bradley to the core. Yet he curled up beside him when he slept over at Nisha’s house for the last time. Almost like it knew Bradey wouldn't return.

“How can you say she’s single?” “She has a cat on her profile pic, she’s single.” Amelia deadpanned.

He huffed out a breath and looked back at the road.

“Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to make an Instagram account. And send requests to everyone you know on the base-” “-Why would I ever-” "-You must do that or else she will learn that you made your account for her when it shows zero followers and no following. When you have at least 5 followers from when your friends follow you, then send her a request and ask her out.” “I will do no such thing.” “Well, then you’re kicking your fate in the ass after it literally led you to the love of your life.” “she’s not-” "You're not getting any younger, Bradshaw. Take the chance, don't be Pete. Plus, I really don't want to be your maid of honor when I'm in a wheelchair." "You sound like a grandma." "I will be one when you finally realize Nisha is it for you!" "Amelie!" “You don’t stammer when you talk to her? Does time stop when she smiles? smiles? And you never thought about what would happen if you were together. Never?”

He was rendered speechless by how goddamn accurate Amelia was. He stares at her, trying to seem calm, “You, miss, have watched way too many rom-coms and you’re trying to make my life one.” Bradley stops the jeep in front of the High School entrance.

Amelia glares back, “Brad-Brad, what I’m about to say is maybe the last time I’ll be saying these words to you so you better listen carefully.”

She grabs her bag and turns to him, “You’re an insanely attractive man. Men and women, young and old, long to be with you. And despite being an elite Aviator and somehow making a porn stache look cool, you are a softie who would sacrifice to lengths for someone you love. I bet if I were Nisha, I would have been pining for you despite your lack of abs in High School. Now stop being the frustratingly clueless bastard in every romance movie and fucking talk to that woman.”

She opens the door, jumps out, dabs, and disappears into the crowd of teenagers.

Bradley keeps staring at the opened door of his Bronco trying to process what the hell just happened. He closes the door in a trance, thinking about the MCR song that got famous recently.

Teenagers do scare the shit out of me.

He looks at the clock on his dashboard, realizing he was running late for the base. And still, here he was 10 minutes later, sitting in the parking lot of his base and making a profile.

There's a chance Amelia Benjamin shook him to his senses, and he'll learn if that's the case real soon.

—/—/—

"- so how about we pull the jet in reverse and call it a day.” Sinopa, the only person in the class with the balls to oppose Nisha was back at it again.

Nisha appreciated the questions from her students more than anything. It means they were studying the subject in depth and were attentive. She never shamed someone for asking questions, unlike her own teachers. No matter how basic or lame they are, she would answer them. Sinopa was one of the students who took her field seriously and never failed to impress her.

“It is possible, but the g-forces applied to the body of the pilot will be dangerously high. We’re talking about 1200 km/s. Almost the speed of a bullet train.” she addresses everyone, nodding to the young woman for her observation. 

Case studies in physics were her favorite. They had a story, something you can easily apply in real life, and questions that toy with your brain. As frustrating as some could get, Nisha loved a challenge.

The bell rang, and the two-hour lecture was finally over.

"Your thesis submission deadline might be a month away, but I expect submissions by the next week. And please, as much as I love Star Wars, no Pop Culture references." There was an uproar of laughter, and her students started to shuffle through the seats, heading out to their next class.

“Dr. Bagchi, please tell me you finally caught up with the MCU. I have so much to discuss.” Sinopa walked towards the table. “I want to talk about everything wrong that happened there. The quantum realm-” “-Quantum Realm?” “Gosh, I’m sorry I don’t want to spoil anything but the theory they presented was insane, you have to watch it.”

"Of course, I will!" she grins at her and looks at her Star Wars t-shirt before walking out of the classroom.

Although she never mentioned it, she felt quite happy when young minds like Sinopa looked up to her, and talked to her about their interests and ideas. This made her realize all the sleepless nights and studying for ungodly hours paid off.

Her office was larger than her LA one, and there was still a lot of space to be filled in the future. She settles down on her chair and mournfully looks at the mountain of papers from the first-year students waiting on her desk. She can only delay it, but not get out of it.

As she was about to pick up the first one, her phone buzzed. Her attention was drawn to the newest notification that had just appeared.

BradshawBradley84 has requested to follow you

She raised her eyebrows at the screen as she read his bio.

BradshawBradley84 Flying is the best way to gain freedom Aviator | Proud Gryffindor

Then she noticed he had sent her a message too. She opened it, and could not stop laughing as she read his text

BradshawBradley84 Deeply saddened by the fact that you let go of your Ravenclaw heritage so easily when I clearly remember you saying, “I can and will be the finest fucking Ravenclaw this world has ever seen”

She replied

NishiiiBagchi Not a way it is to address a Jedi, Bradshaw

BradshawBradley84 And here I was thinking you were a stormtrooper

NishiiiBagchi I was undercover, dammit.

BradshawBradley84 I can bet on the fact you were swooning over Anakin Skywalker when the prequels came out.

NishiiiBagchi Shut. Up.

BradshawBradley84 Oh wait, I was right.

He sends Nisha a pic from her own profile, which was her sitting in her dorm room bed. The wall behind her was filled with posters, including one of Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman from Attack Of The Clones.

BradshawBradley84 Are you free tonight?

Nisha thought about it, a part of her desperate to hang out with him, and the other urging her to act reasonably. She was only recently hired at the university and had only been teaching for weeks. Although she thinks everyone is cool with her, taking a break will be frowned upon by someone.

NishiiiBagchi I got some papers to grade ☹

BradshawBradley84 Well, shit.

Oh, fuck it

NishiiiBagchi I’m heading to the beach on Wednesday. You in?

BradshawBradley84 Yeah, sure! I’ll bring snacks 😊

NishiiiBagchi Cool!

Her heart was filled with warmth. It had been a while since she felt it.

She’s got a date. With Bradley Bradshaw And she was totally cool with it.

Right?

---/---/---

“You’re a Gryffindor? I’m Hufflepuff!” Bob gleefully admitted to Bradley, unaware of the fact he was having a stroke reading the text from her, thinking about what to send next.

“Huh?” he asked Bob.

“I’m a Hufflepuff man!” he says, smiling at him

“Um, no offense Bob but I guess everyone guessed that.” Mickey's voice followed.

He laughed as Fanboy and Payback, Mickey and Reuben, joined him, the latter saying, “Really want to meet the person who convinced you to join social media dude, even Hangan couldn’t do it”

“That’s because he wasn’t being nice about it.” He scoffs.

"I have a really cool idea about your first post. Look!" Mickey didn't give him any time as he snatched his phone and took a candid selfie with all four of them. He then proceeded to post it on Bradley's profile with the caption.

A fun day with my fellow aviators. Missing you @ Tasha24 <3

He tagged Natasha, who had to return to her home for a family emergency. She was getting stationed in Arizona, and she swore she would only leave after meeting everyone. Hangman seemed to be chill about it, but that didn't stop the boys from teasing him once in a while.

“Anyways,” Reuben interrupted, “Hard Deck is opening this Sunday and we’re heading there to welcome Penny back. And you have to be there no matter what." “Sure.” He smiled as Reuben and Bob talked about the flight plans for the week.

"Where are you stationed next?” Mickey asked “I have zero idea. Cyclone seemed impressed by the flight plans we've been following so I really hope I get a break before another mission."

"I have a mission with Hangman and Payback. We have a few months before we start, middle of the Pacific." he grinned, but Bradley could clearly sense it was forced.

"What happened? is he bothering you?" he fisked Mickey away to a corner, already forming a speech in his head about what he should say to Hangman.

"No, it's just," he looked around and then said, "I need your advice on something."

"Okay," Bradley says, eager to help his friend.

"So, you know I'm dating this girl. It's only been a few months but I really think she is it for me."

"Yeah, you mentioned her once. Y/N, right?" he remembered a pool game with Payback, Bob, and Mickey after the uranium mission, where they talked about their partners and Mickey told them about Y/N, who was an art student and boy was he floored for her.

"Yeah, Y/N Sersin."

Oh.

Oh!

A memory flashed before his eyes, watching a picture on Jake's locker from his High School days. He was holding a little girl on his shoulders while dressed in full football gear. Forget me not big bro, good luck! - Y/N Scribbled under it in neat handwriting.

"Holy shit," Bradley said the only acceptable words that came into his brain at the moment. "Yeah." Mickey grimaced. "Jake will annihilate you. I'm not even kidding." "Don't you think I know that!" he whispered to Bradley. "Why would you voluntarily do something like this?" "I had no idea she was his sister!" He resisted the urge to shake Mickey out of it, "Well, now you do!" "I'm not breaking up with her." "Don't even think about it. Get Y/N and tell him together before he finds out, simple and clear. And please do it in public so someone stops him from committing manslaughter." Mickey looks hopeful. "That's it," he says. "Yeah," Bradley replies

He huffs out a frustrated breath, "There is no way I'm finding a loophole in this, am I?" "Nope." Bradley deadpanned.

Wanna know what happened when Hangman found out that Mickey and his sister are together? Read it here!

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A/N - Thank you everyone for sticking with me till the end of this fic! if you liked it please let me know through the asks and the comments. Any and all requests, headcanons, and drabble requests about this AU is mostly welcome. Love y'all, Take Care!

Requests are open! Feel free to request anything.

Tag List:

@tuiccim @parkjammys @akinrawsx @asteph22 @ijustwantavacation @perpetuelledaydreaming @iamthebeth @thefandomqueenuno @onlyhereforthefics @yikesdameron @savedfanfics1992 @amigaytho @hoeensficrecs @samwilson-mylove @xbuchananbarnes-deactivated @jenniweaslee @anna-phora @fluffyprettykitty @ladiesluver

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

To be fair I don't know how gender fluid work, so I am fine if loki is one gender. But I furious that they said that while Sylvie is a loki, she different and had her own right as herself 😑😑😑.

I am sorry , did they just basically saying that she not loki at all and at same time basically saying that she's a female loki and being female is make her special?

Okey that definitely sexists. And worst of all her file saying 'laufeyson ', and not 'laufeydottir' . Wow speaking of not consistency and I have right to disappointed because mcu had images being detail and consistent things and them being not consistent in loki series is bad thing and ruined their images.

Just waiting mcu be worse

Sylvie is the Schrodinger Loki: When she does something wrong/evil it's because she is a Loki, but when she does something right/heroic it's because she's Sylvie and completely different to a Loki. When they speak of the so-called "self-love" in the series they claim she is a Loki just like him, but when it comes to discussing their romance she's not a Loki at all and she's her own person. If they talk about the murder of HWR, the chaos in the multiverse is Loki's doing but the free will of the people is thanks to Sylvie (see? the positive outcome is hers, the bad one is his).

The issue with Loki being genderfluid is that they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They wanted the clout of news headlines praising them, critics mentioning their 'progressive agenda' and people on social media kissing their ass, but when it comes to customers and money they backpedalled so damn quickly because at the end of the day they only care about subscriptions, and Disney at its core is extremely traditional.

This is what we mean when we say that if this is the kind of "representation" we're going to get, we'd rather get none at all. It was nice hearing Loki confirm he's bisexual but the way they handled it? I'd rather he kept it to himself, to be honest.

They did change the Laufeyson in the series though, when Loki is going through the reports in ep2 her file says Laufeydottir. So hey, at least they learned something...

[accept-n-destroy]

I read I Dreamt Of You, and what were you thinking when you paired Neytiri with Trudy? I think that pairing came out of nowhere. Neytiri making that tsaheylu with Trudy looked more like out of impulse than genuine affection, and she clearly feels ashamed about it, but a couple chapters later, they're happily bonded. I'm sorry if I came off as too offensive, but I've gotta know. (Reply please!)

No offense taken :) I wanted Neytiri and Trudy to be a sort of false foil for Jake and Tsu’tey. Jake and Tsu’tey always knew each other, always loved each other, they didn’t get a clumsy meet->like->love romance. Neytiri liked Trudy, she thought she was interesting and funny, but not much else. She didn’t intend to bond with Trudy, she never meant for it to be a long term thing, at least not at first. There’s a bit of a time skip between chapter 23 and 24, so its weeks that she’s visiting Trudy. On the night she accidentally forms the bond, she panics and leaves, because that wasn’t her intention. She’s not ashamed. Remember a tsaheylu links two people together, so not only is Neytiri panicking over this permanent bond she formed by accident, but also parsing out what it meant at same time. She went from just getting to know Trudy to suddenly knowing her body, mind, and soul through their bond, even if just for a moment.

In the original version of IDOY, I had Trudy declare to Mo’at and Eytkuan that she loved Neytiri. In the revised/current version, I changed it to say she cares for Neytiri and wants to stay and figure out how to make this relationship work. They’re not in love, in a mature, fully-formed sense, but there was already affection and the beginnings of feelings forming before the bond.

In the way that Jake and Tsu’tey didn’t truly get a choice, Neytiri and Trudy don’t really get one either, even though they tend to treat it as if they did. IDOY, at its core, is about choosing to actively love someone and learning to live with what that means.

Hope this helps!