#a really interesting read particularly because it points out the ways that someone who *knows* what to look for can still get tripped up

[mollyrealized]

How Michael Met Neil

original direct link [MP3]

(Neil, if you see this, please feel free to grab the transcript and store on your site; I had no easy way of contacting you.)

DAVID TENNANT: Tell me about @neil-gaiman then, because he's in that category [previously: “such a profound effect on my life”] as well.

MICHAEL SHEEN: So this is what has brought us together.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: To the new love story for the 21st century.

DAVID: Exactly.

MICHAEL: So when I went to drama school, there was a guy called Gary Turner in my year. And within the first few weeks, we were doing something, having a drink or whatever. And he said to me, “Do you read comic books?”

And I said, “No.”  I mean, this is … what … '88?  '88, '89.  So it was … now I know that it was a period of time that was a big change, transformation going through comic books.  Rather than it being thought of as just superheroes and Batman and Superman, there was this whole new era of a generation of writers like Grant Morrison.

DAVID: The kids who'd grown up reading comic books were now making comic books

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, and starting to address different kinds of subjects through the comic book medium. So it wasn't about just superheroes, it was all kinds of stuff going on – really fascinating stuff. And I was totally unaware of this.

And so this guy Gary said to me, "Do you read them?" And I said, "No."  And he went, "Right, okay, here's The Watchman [sic] by Alan Moore. Here's Swamp Thing. Here's Hellblazer. And here's Sandman.”

And Sandman was Neil Gaiman's big series that put his name on the map. And I read all those, and, just – I was blown away by all of them, but particularly the Sandman stories, because he was drawing on mythology, which was something I was really interested in, and fairy tales, folklore, and philosophy, and Shakespeare, and all kinds of stuff were being mixed up in this story.  And I absolutely loved it.

So I became a big fan of Neil's, and started reading everything by him. And then fairly shortly after that, within six months to a year, Good Omens the book came out, which Neil wrote with Terry Pratchett. And so I got the book – because I was obviously a big fan of Neil's by this point – read it, loved it, then started reading Terry Pratchett’s stuff as well, because I didn't know his stuff before then – and then spent years and years and years just being a huge fan of both of them.

And then eventually when – I'd done films like the Underworld films and doing Twilight films. And I think it was one of the Twilight films, there was a lot of very snooty interviews that happened where people who considered themselves well above talking about things like Twilight were having to interview me … and, weirdly, coming at it from the attitude of 'clearly this is below you as well' … weirdly thinking I'm gonna go, 'Yeah, fucking Twilight.”

And I just used to go, "You know what? Some of the greatest writing of the last 50-100 years has happened in science fiction or fantasy."  Philip K Dick is one of my favorite writers of all time. In fact, the production of Hamlet I did was mainly influenced by Philip K Dick.  Ursula K. Le Guin and Asimov, and all these amazing people. And I talked about Neil as well. And so I went off on a bit of a rant in this interview.

Anyway, the interview came out about six months later, maybe.  Knock on the door, open the door, delivery of a big box. That’s interesting. Open the box, there's a card at the top of the box. I open the card.

It says, From one fan to another, Neil Gaiman.  And inside the box are first editions of Neil's stuff, and all kinds of interesting things by Neil. And he just sent this stuff.

DAVID: You'd never met him?

MICHAEL: Never met him. He'd read the interview, or someone had let him know about this interview where I'd sung his praises and stood up for him and the people who work within that sort of genre as being like …

And he just got in touch. We met up for the first time when he came to – I was in Los Angeles at the time, and he came to LA.  And he said, "I'll take you for a meal."

I said, “All right.”

He said, "Do you want to go somewhere posh, or somewhere interesting?”

I said, "Let's go somewhere interesting."

He said, "Right, I'm going to take you to this restaurant called The Hump." And it's at Santa Monica Airport. And it's a sushi restaurant.

I was like, “Right, okay.” So I had a Mini at the time. And we get in my Mini and we drive off to Santa Monica Airport. And this restaurant was right on the tarmac, like, you could sit in the restaurant (there's nobody else there when we got there, we got there quite early) and you're watching the planes landing on Santa Monica Airport. It's extraordinary. 

And the chef comes out and Neil says, "Just bring us whatever you want. Chef's choice."

So, I'd never really eaten sushi before. So we sit there; we had this incredible meal where they keep bringing these dishes out and they say, “This is [blah, blah, blah]. Just use a little bit of soy sauce or whatever.”  You know, “This is eel.  This is [blah].”

And then there was this one dish where they brought out and they didn't say what it was. It was like “mystery dish”, we had it ... delicious. Anyway, a few more people started coming into the restaurant as time went on.

And we're sort of getting near the end, and I said, "Neil, I can't eat anymore. I'm gonna have to stop now. This is great, but I can't eat–"

"Right, okay. We'll ask for the bill in a minute."

And then the door opens and some very official people come in. And it was the Feds. And the Feds came in, and we knew they were because they had jackets on that said they were part of the Federal Bureau of Whatever. And about six of them come in. Two of them go … one goes behind the counter, two go into the kitchen, one goes to the back. They've all got like guns on and stuff.

And me and Neil are like, "What on Earth is going on?"

And then eventually one guy goes, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't ordered already, please leave. If you're still eating your meal, please finish up, pay your bill, leave."*

[* - delivered in a perfect American ‘serious law agent’ accent/impression]

And we were like, "Oh my God, are we poisoned? Is there some terrible thing that's happened?"  

We'd finished, so we pay our bill.  And then all the kitchen staff are brought out. And the head chef is there. The guy who's been bringing us this food. And he's in tears. And he says to Neil, "I'm so sorry." He apologizes to Neil.  And we leave. We have no idea what happened.

DAVID: But you're assuming it's the mystery dish.

MICHAEL: Well, we're assuming that we can't be going to – we can't be –  it can't be poisonous. You know what I mean? It can't be that there's terrible, terrible things.

So the next day was the Oscars, which is why Neil was in town. Because Coraline had been nominated for an Oscar. Best documentary that year was won by The Cove, which was by a team of people who had come across dolphins being killed, I think.

Turns out, what was happening at this restaurant was that they were having illegal endangered species flown in to the airport, and then being brought around the back of the restaurant into the kitchen.

We had eaten whale – endangered species whale. That was the mystery dish that they didn't say what it was.

And the team behind The Cove were behind this sting, and they took them down that night whilst we were there.

DAVID: That’s extraordinary.

MICHAEL: And we didn't find this out for months.  So for months, me and Neil were like, "Have you worked anything out yet? Have you heard anything?"

"No, I haven't heard anything."

And then we heard that it was something to do with The Cove, and then we eventually found out that that restaurant, they were all arrested. The restaurant was shut down. And it was because of that. And we'd eaten whale that night.

DAVID: And that was your first meeting with Neil Gaiman.

MICHAEL: That was my first meeting. And also in the drive home that night from that restaurant, he said, and we were in my Mini, he said, "Have you found the secret compartment?"

I said, "What are you talking about?" It's such a Neil Gaiman thing to say.

DAVID: Isn't it?

MICHAEL: The secret compartment? Yeah. Each Mini has got a secret compartment. I said, "I had no idea." It's secret. And he pressed a little button and a thing opened up. And it was a secret compartment in my own car that Neil Gaiman showed me.

DAVID: Was there anything inside it?

MICHAEL: Yeah, there was a little man. And he jumped out and went, "Hello!" No, there was nothing in there. There was afterwards because I started putting...

DAVID: Sure. That's a very Neil Gaiman story. All of that is such a Neil Gaiman story.

MICHAEL: That's how it began. Yeah.

DAVID: And then he came to offer you the part in Good Omens.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, we became friends and we would whenever he was in town, we would meet up and yeah, and then eventually he started, he said, "You know, I'm working on an adaptation of Good Omens." And I can remember at one point Terry Gilliam was going to maybe make a film of it. And I remember being there with Neil and Terry when they were talking about it. And...

DAVID: Were you involved at that point?

MICHAEL: No, no, I wasn't involved. I just happened to have met up with Neil that day.

DAVID: Right.

MICHAEL: And then Terry Gilliam came along and they were chatting, that was the day they were talking about that or whatever.

And then eventually he sent me one of the scripts for an early draft of like the first episode of Good Omens. And he said – and we started talking about me being involved in it, doing it – he said, “Would you be interested?” I was like, "Yeah, of course."  I went, "Oh my God." And he said, "Well, I'll send you the scripts when they come," and I would read them, and we'd talk about them a little bit. And so I was involved.

But it was always at that point with the idea, because he'd always said about playing Crowley in it. And so, as time went on, as I was reading the scripts, I was thinking, "I don't think I can play Crowley. I don't think I'm going to be able to do it." And I started to get a bit nervous because I thought, “I don't want to tell Neil that I don't think I can do this.”  But I just felt like I don't think I can play Crowley.

DAVID: Of course you can [play Crowley?].

MICHAEL: Well, I just on a sort of, on a gut level, sometimes you have it on a gut level.

DAVID: Sure, sure.

MICHAEL: I can do this.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Or I can't do this. And I just thought, “You know what, this is not the part for me. The other part is better for me, I think. I think I can do that, I don't think I could do that.”

But I was scared to tell Neil because I thought, "Well, he wants me to play Crowley" – and then it turned out he had been feeling the same way as well.  And he hadn't wanted to mention it to me, but he was like, "I think Michael should really play Aziraphale."

And neither of us would bring it up.  And then eventually we did. And it was one of those things where you go, "Oh, thank God you said that. I feel exactly the same way." And then I think within a fairly short space of time, he said, “I think we've got … David Tennant … for Crowley.” And we both got very excited about that.

And then all these extraordinary people started to join in. And then, and then off we went.

DAVID: That's the other thing about Neil, he collects people, doesn't he? So he'll just go, “Oh, yeah, I've phoned up Frances McDormand, she's up for it.” Yeah. You're, what?

MICHAEL: “I emailed Jon Hamm.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And yeah, and you realize how beloved he is and how beloved his work is. And I think we would both recognise that Good Omens is one of the most beloved of all of Neil's stuff.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: And had never been turned into anything.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And so the kind of responsibility of that, I mean, for me, for someone who has been a fan of him and a fan of the book for so long, I can empathize with all the fans out there who are like, “Oh, they better not fuck this up.”

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: “And this had better be good.” And I have that part of me. But then, of course, the other part of me is like, “But I'm the one who might be fucking it up.”

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So I feel that responsibility as well.

DAVID: But we have Neil on site.

MICHAEL: Yes. Well, Neil being the showrunner …

DAVID: Yeah. I think it takes the curse off.

MICHAEL: … I think it made a massive difference, didn't it? Yeah. You feel like you're in safe hands.

DAVID: Well, we think. Not that the world has seen it yet.

MICHAEL (grimly): No, I know.

DAVID: But it was a -- it's been a -- it's been a joy to work with you on it. I can't wait for the world to see it.

MICHAEL: Oh my God.  Oh, well, I mean, it's the only, I've done a few things where there are two people, it's a bit of a double act, like Frost-Nixon and The Queen, I suppose, in some ways. But, and I've done it, Amadeus or whatever.

This is the only thing I've done where I really don't think of it as “my character” or “my performance as that character”.  I think of it totally as us.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: The two of us.

DAVID: Yes.

MICHAEL: Like they, what I do is defined by what you do.

DAVID: Yeah.

MICHAEL: And that was such a joy to have that experience. And it made it so much easier in a way as well, I found, because you don't feel like you're on your own in it. Like it's totally us together doing this and the two characters totally complement each other. And the experience of doing it was just a real joy.

DAVID: Yeah.  Well, I hope the world is as excited to see it as we are to talk about it, frankly.

MICHAEL: You know, there's, having talked about T.S. Eliot earlier, there's another bit from The Wasteland where there's a line which goes, These fragments I have shored against my ruin.

And this is how I think about life now. There is so much in life, no matter what your circumstances, no matter what, where you've got, what you've done, how much money you got, all that. Life's hard.  I mean, you can, it can take you down at any point.

You have to find this stuff. You have to like find things that will, these fragments that you hold to yourself, they become like a liferaft, and especially as time goes on, I think, as I've got older, I've realized it is a thin line between surviving this life and going under.

And the things that keep you afloat are these fragments, these things that are meaningful to you and what's meaningful to you will be not-meaningful to someone else, you know. But whatever it is that matters to you, it doesn't matter what it was you were into when you were a teenager, a kid, it doesn't matter what it is. Go and find them, and find some way to hold them close to you. 

Make it, go and get it. Because those are the things that keep you afloat. They really are. Like doing that with him or whatever it is, these are the fragments that have shored against my ruin. Absolutely.

DAVID: That's lovely. Michael, thank you so much.

MICHAEL: Thank you.

DAVID: For talking today and for being here.

MICHAEL: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you.

[mariii1]

♡YOUR NEXT HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP♡

(These piles are hella long, a lot came thru, this is open to everyone including ace/aro peeps 🤗 got this idea from FairySagMother on yt <3)

☆ Piles start from top left with pile 1 ☆

YALL messages came throughh, I made a good choice buying this new oracle deck. ALSO the theme card of this reading is the waterfall card because it was in FIVE of the six piles 😭. The oracke deck is Herbiary by Maia Toll if you wanna buy it 😜. I definitely won't be super active in the next 6 months tbh because I'm incredibly stressed out and a lot is happening especially with my physical health, just a heads up...ALSO THANK YOU FOR 777 FOLLOWERS 😘 FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

1. If you felt like people in the past were very selfish in relationships including your parents, this person is the opposite. They don't have you around just cause they want your attention, they genuinely care about your feelings and interests. You'll actually be able to connect with this person without feeling like things need to be transactional. If you feel you struggle with this concept especially if you have a low self esteem, working it out will bring this relationship in much faster. There's also no rush, no lovebombing and then ghosting, or trying to get you to commit quickly. This person seems very reassured within themselves and they expect you to not abruptly ghost/leave them without communicating why. I'm listening to Sociopathic Dance Queen and Feel Complete (by Pink Panthress); this person is the opposite of the antagonists in these songs. I hate being really woo woo but everything will happen as it should within this relationship. Your lives might be a mess but this relationship might be the only stable/secure thing when you get into it. I'm mostly getting romantic vibes but this could be platonic as well, although it will most likely start as a friendship and progress.

2. The cards were flying out so you either have a lot happening in your life rn and I'm getting for most of you, several healthy relationships will come in at the same time. If you're monogamous, you'll have several healthy options to choose from; if not, get ready to be to busy. You'll at least have a really good friend. I'm getting that with all of these people you are able to be vulnerable and specifically you're able to share interests especially if they're niche. Many or most of these relationships will last for a long time even if you do walk away from them at some point. If you're spiritual or religious your either going to meet someone who challenges your religious beliefs, particularly those that are restrictive or oppressive. They are not an atheist, they could actually be in the same religion as you but the are more self-assured and self-sufficient. If you're someone who often relies on the universe or a higher power to do things for you or to make them come your way, this person is going to force you out of that mindset. I'm specifically getting this will happen because you don't want to lose them and you'll see this mindset isn't actually working for you. They let you know it's ok to chase sometimes, especially when it comes to your own personal goals. This is specifically coming from that longterm friend I was getting at the beginning. I'm not really getting romance still, so love might be on the backburner for awhile.

3. I'm strongly getting this is a healthy s€xua1 relationship. It's not even a situationship tbh; you could be learning from a dominatrix or shibari master or maybe you pay to have that experience one day. I'm getting this might sound outlandish for some of you but a few of you are from pile 2 and this might come randomly or you might decide to do it on a whim. This person is very attractive and they take their job or interest seriously. They genuinely want you to feel comfortable and enjoy yourself. Especially if you are a s£x worker, this is someone you go out of your way to see orrr it's a new romantic partner. The emphasis may still be on s€x especially if you do OF, they'll probably help out, but they actually still have a personality and you can get along with them. I'm specifically getting a femme woman, or someone just who's afab but not super masculine. They are very sweet and attentive during play and have good aftercare. If this person does something you don't like, they'll listen to you without complaint. Even if this is a man, they are genuinely experienced and not weirdly misogynistic or abusive in any way. Boundaries are realllyy important to this person. They're just really good at creating a safe space.

4. Money, Money, Money by ABBA came up; this person will most definitely take care of you financially even if they are just a friend. I'm actually getting for some you, your get to get someone from a species that almost extinct: a man who treats you and is perfectly fine with just being friends NO S£X OR NUN in return🤯 this might make you attracted romantically to this person but I'm getting they could actually be married (they could be gay or queer in some way too) or they're just not interested in your romantically/sexually and just want to be besties. If you have anyyy health issues including paying medical bills they will help you out without a second thought. Some of you might unfortunately be in a situation where you get very hurt, like a car accident or sum, and this person is the first to visit you. They view as someone self-sufficient and extremely independent so they never get scared that you'll start to rely on them or leech off of them. Both of your goals and morals align especially if you have alternative politics (not conservative but extreme left, marxism, socialism, anarchism, etc.) and you'll be able to talk and debate without feeling like your friendship will fall apart. If this is someone that is romantically attracted to your gender, I really don't think they'll entertain the idea of dating you and even dating in general until much later in your friendship.

5. Right off the bat your most probably going tobget married if not, you'll be roommates for a very long time. This could honestly be a QPP for few of you, the rest I'll think you'll have a family with this person if you're interested. Even if you know for sure you don't want to get married, you will treat this person as if they are your spouse. You might've felt drained at the idea of a family or maybe yours and other ppl's was very chaotic to be in, but you'll genuinely feel like you can do it with this person without it being a risk for getting retraumatized. You might travel a lot with this person or live in a very nature filled area. I'm not getting much so I guess you don't really need to know more and I'm really getting this will be a surprise anyway, even at each stage of the relationship, you never expected to feel so emotionally secure with someone else constantly on your mind.

6. You might be connected to pile 4 or drawn to it. This is someone very new, as in you've never met anyone like them before. They either have a very unique appearance they put effort in or they really surpsie you with how deep they're personality and thoughts are. I'm getting for a lot of you, you might think this person is probably just annoying middle-aged person (😭) specifically man but then your talk and you're like woahh I was not expecting that. Their voice might not fit they're appearance either; they could have an extremely deep voice but be average height in whichever country they're from or their voices are quite animated even though their appearance might make them look gloomly or uninteresting (damn you guys are flaming this person during your first impression of them 😭😭) They point out a lot of things you don't notice or just know random facts that are helpful. They could even be a polyglot and travel a lot. However, this person is very stable in they're life, they feel ok at they're job or have a very specific idea of what they want to do with their career. If you end up working together, they are much more helpful than you anticipated. I'm getting for a lot you they aren't nice or super polite but they are very kind and generous. Like they don't smile much but ask them a question and you'll get a succinct answer. (Ughh this is my type 😩) They're very real and I love people like this cause they are genuine in wanting to help you and you don't have to constantly decipher they're words especially in a corporate context. There will definitely be an age gap and possible height gap. They could be almost 10 yrs older than you but you somehow have a lot in common although they are definitely not immature. I don't think they dated a lot or they had one really long relationship that they got out of when they met you.

[dododan]

Thoughts about Alastor after the episode "Hello, Rosie"

Perhaps first such a small summary for those who haven't read my previous posts about Alastor.

Alastor's deal with someone has worked out. Officially we don't know with whom, but my theory is that it is Lilith.

Alastor is obliged by the contract probably to help/protect Charlie. His intentions are not clear, and he harbours many secrets.

He is not fond of Lucifer. Theories are that he either sees him as a threat to Charlie's hotel and dreams, or he is redirecting negative emotions about his own father and how Lucifer treated Charlie onto him.

Alastor enjoys being in the company of women and probably likes/appreciates Charlie. Perhaps he sees himself as her mentor.

His help, although chaotic and initially incomprehensible seems to be having an effect and actually helping the hotel and Charlie.

Alastor has a weakness for jazz and alcohol, but we don't see him ever drinking alcohol in the series.

His enemy is Vox, but he is more annoyed by Lucifer (probably because he is stronger than him).

Alastor doesn't like to lose or be wrong.

Here you have a link to previous thoughts if you are curious.

Alastor’s true motivations? - Why is he helping Charlie?

Dad beat Dad - Alastor, what the hell are you doing?

Traditionally, there are loads of spoilers here!

From the outset, Alastor seems interested/intrigued by Charlie sitting in the room and spinning another plan. Clearly he saw an opportunity in. Charlie was alone, so he could talk to her in peace. A plan was already forming in his head.

On Instagram, one girl made a fair analysis of Alastor's facial expressions. What expression on his face signifies what emotion. Which proved to be very helpful in understanding him! Here you have ig: @/sasha_draws.bg She did a really great job! But back to Alastor.

When Alastor feels some negative emotion, lines/wrinkles appear under his eyes. Which is true when you pay attention to the previous episodes, but in this 'Hello, Rosie' it is particularly noticeable.

For most of the time in this episode, Alastor seemed concerned to me.

When Alastor was talking to Charlie I had the impression that he was provoking her. He made Charlie painfully aware of how badly her plans had failed, which seems cruel. Initially this could be understood as simply an opportunity to take advantage of Charlie and make a deal, but I think this is just an added benefit. Alastor is bound by his contract to the hotel and Charlie, so he can't leave her. But Alastor has besides made Charlie realise that she can't idly brood on the bed because she doesn't have that luxury. Her friends were waiting for a plan, they were waiting for Charlie.

Charlie gave up at that point, and Alastor made her realise that there was still a chance to make things right somehow. He exasperated her, and showed her that she couldn't give up - in a rather cruel way but still, it's not always kind words or words of support that help you up.

Sometimes the painful realisation of the truth is the best motivator to undertake change.

For a moment, Alastor seemed annoyed that Charlie thought she had him figured out because she smiles all the time. He made her realise that the opposite is true.

A smile can be a weapon on many fronts. You could say that he gave Charlie some cue about his own behaviour. His lecture about smiling shows a lot about him.

Alastor hides a lot - his emotions, motivations or goals. He revealed to Charlie that he himself puts on a mask. The smile gives Alastor a sense of control.

The question is, isn't Alastor also lying to himself in this way?

He is creating himself as a cruel overlord, a person without a conscience who inflicts suffering on others for fun. It makes me wonder if he hasn't started to believe himself in the character he wants to pretend to be?

Nevertheless, no matter how good Alastor's goals may be attributed to him, or that his actions have a good effect on the hotel and Charlie, he still made a deal with her. He was aware that Charlie would not give up her soul to him and would not do anything against herself. Their deal is that Charlie is to help him like friend to friend when he needs it without hurting anyone, and he will give her information. Quite a specific arrangement and very narrow. To me their deal is a bit of a lifeline for Alastor when he finds himself trapped by his own contract.

[As an aside, I've noticed that a lot of people think that the stitches appearing on Alastor's lips are a sign that he can't talk about his deal. I doubt this because of the design of his character. Alastor was shown at many points to be dealing with voodoo or somehow connected to it. This is indicated by the green symbols that appear when he uses his powers, and the stitching that appears on his mouth probably refers to the very design of the voodoo dolls, which also had their mouths stitched in this way. Ironically in my opinion, voodoo is generally good magic, focusing on healing or helping, which doesn't really fit Alastor. Unless one considers the distinction between white and black magic as it is known in New Orleans. But I also point out that I'm not an expert, but I'm just partly familiar with the subject of voodoo and just wanted to show a reference to Alastor's appearance here].

I think Alastor's worry or uncertainty is most evident when he leads Charlie to Rossie. You can see the look on his face and those wrinkles under his eyes. This could be interpreted as:

he's upset that the angels are about to exterminate in the hotel and the only person who can oppose it is preoccupied with his love problems rather than more important matters.

He is upset/worried that he realises he won't be able to help Charlie this time, so he leads her to the only person who is more knowledgeable about love than him: Rossie.

He is nervous because he sees that he might fail if the hotel is destroyed, and that this might somehow breach his contract.

Alastor and Rossie seem to have a very intimate relationship, which was implied in the episode " Scrambled Eggs" when they were at the Overlords meeting. Now we have confirmation that they are very close friends. Rossie can afford a lot in Alastor's company and he allows her to do so. It also seemed to me that when he met Rossie he relaxed a bit, as the wrinkles under his eyes disappeared for a few scenes.

All in all, I'm not surprised that Alastor and Rossie are friends.

Rossie is the opposite of Alastor in a way. She seems transparent in her feelings and genuinely cares about her cannibals. But she also has the strength and power to allow herself to do so. Alastor, on the other hand, plays and hides emotions all the time, and gains power through fear. Despite this, he gets along very well with Rossie, which may mean he's not quite what he makes himself out to be.

I also think that Rossie's words about it being actions that show true nature and feelings may apply to Alastor and his role in season two in the future. But we can already see this now, for example, in the fact that his duet with Lucifer, where Alastor sang that he wanted to replace Charlie's father, ultimately led to a reconciliation between daughter and father which Alastor seemed to be happy with.

We also have it made clear that Alastor is asexual.

Rossie commented that Alastor could learn manners from Charlie. It is possible that what is meant is that when someone annoys Alastor, he does not mince his words. He makes his opinion clear - Susan is a perfect example of this.

Alastor and Rossie really seem close to each other, such as when they look at each other when Charlie panics, or how they dance with each other or their negativity towards Susan. Additionally, Alastor must have had a close business relationship with Rossie since she had an assignment for him and when she said that he never let her down. I got the impression that this gave him considerable satisfaction. Plus it helped the image he wanted to create for Charlie - that he was reliable.

Alastor also seems to put his faith in Charlie after all. Rather than believing in her plan of salvation for sinners, he believes more in the girl's ability to draw crowds and motivate people to action other than through fear or deals. It is hard to say whether he admires this trait of Charlie's, but he certainly appreciates her for it.

Alastor supported Charlie during her song when she had to convince the cannibals to fight - either by giving her the microphone or showing her a thumbs up. I further related that he was slightly worried/nervous, but also pleased after seeing his actions bear fruit.

Alastor also made it clear to Rossie that he valued Charlie and expected nothing less from her than to thrill the crowds. But the important thing is that he referred to her as the Princess of Hell, not Charlie. Alastor has made it clear for the first time that he wants to fulfil Charlie's potential, this shows that despite the faith he has in her, he still only sees her as the Princess of Hell and not Charlie as someone who is more than just a princess.

A break for now, as it's quite late at my place, so expect the rest of the analysis tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the furthest.

[ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma]

wotw round 1

propaganda under the cut!

shen qingqiu:

Okay first a quick intro: Shen Qingqiu / Shen Yuan is the main character of SVSSS, and his deal is that he's a guy from the modern world who wakes up in the novel he read, in the body of one of the characters. Shen Yuan is his name in his original world, while Shen Qingqiu is the name of the character he became - that he uses for himself for most of the novel.

Now, what happened to him… The thing is, at the core of his woobification are his actual canon traits, but some fans really crank them up to the point where it becomes a disservice to the character. So you never know when someone saying "oh Shen Qingqiu is so oblivious" means "due to several intersecting factors Shen Qingqiu has some extremely specific blindspots regarding certain topics" (which is just true) or "haha Shen Qingqiu could get kissed by a man and still not realize that man has romantic feelings for him" (just one variation of the sentiment, but one i find particularly bewildering considering. in canon. a man kissing him was exactly what made Shen Qingqiu realize that man was actually in love with him. like my dudes the bar is low but its there!).

Stumbling into this second version in fic was funny a first few times, but now it's like… I genuinely can't tell whether any particular author is overplaying it for comedy, or genuinely believes the character is That dumb.

Also ppl often severely underestimate his power level. Like idk if that's because they compare him to the characters he often hangs out with, who are those genius top-of-the-world experts (despite him outpacing literally everyone else he ever fought against), or because of how he bungled his first-ever case (like, you know, two weeks after waking up in a whole NEW BODY, in a different world), or because he tends to downplay his own strength and also tries to avoid killing people… but like, this man took a technique that in the original was just "aesthetic and interesting" and developed it into something that could be super deadly within weeks, he's just not using it that way. And he also fixed og Shen Qingqiu's broken cultivation within the first few months of being in that body. So he's actually extremely talented and pretty strong, he just spends most of the book either nerfed by external factors (such as poison that disables his spiritual energy at random times) or surrounded by veritable powerhouses.

And this is for Shen Yuan-as-Shen Qingqiu. But the version that drives me completely up the wall is actually the portrayal of just Shen Yuan - in fanworks where he either never gets transported to the world of the novel, or wakes up as a different character. Because suddenly the traits that already get unduly amplified with Shen Qingqiu version become straight up caricature-like. He's not only oblivious to the extreme, he also gets painted as this completely naive soft babyboi (this is about a guy whose most well-known pre-transmigration canon trait is that he writes famously vitriolic rants about novels on the internet); plus, like, on the physical level, super frail and waifish which uh. wow. nice walking right back into the BL tropes the novel itself avoided?…… So yeah I'm super not keen on this portrayal. I know he doesn't appear as not-Shen Qingqiu version of himself in the novel, if we don't count the rant in the beginning, but like. please extrapolate from the character we actually have instead of writing this mega-woobie who shares nothing with the base version?

Terrible little bastard man who has a sad backstory but is actually genuinely a terrible person. Fans like to act like he is just a soft sad boi deep inside and make him lose all of his edge.

So the thing about Shen Jiu / og!Shen Qingqiu in canon is that we first learn of him as an unquestionably, almost cartoonishly villainous character. As in, he is literally a villain in the book our main character has been reading… before dying and waking up in the world of the book, as that very villain (hence the distinction of Shen Jiu being the "original" Shen Qingqiu, as our main character begins to use the name Shen Qingqiu for himself. Shen Jiu, however, is an old name that only the original has used). The original Shen Qingqiu that our main character knows is a serial child abuser in a teaching position, a murderer (killed his colleague, killed his old fiancee's entire family…), and a lecher (visited brothels and had designs on his female disciple).

Then, over the course of the novel, we learn more about Shen Jiu - in particular, that a number of things our MC "knew" about him were not true. He did not kill his colleague, but rather failed to save him, despite trying to; he killed his "fiancee"'s family because her older brother has abused him for years (and also, Shen Jiu was forced into agreeing to marry her), and also he only actually killed half of them (only men); he visited brothels because he only felt safe in the company of women, and he just went there to get a good night's sleep; and he only ever saw that female disciple he was accused of lusting after as a daughter. And in general, he had a horrible childhood, and was himself a victim of abuse.

However, not everything gets disproved. Shen Jiu still turned from a victim to perpetrator, abusing a child (coincidentally the protagonist of the og book) and trying to set him up to die/be killed several times. Canon is very clear on that point. The situation with Shen Jiu and the og book version of the protagonist is very much an illustration of cycles of abuse.

Also at a certain point, we meet the author of the in-world book, the one our MC was reading - who explains he scrapped Shen Jiu's tragic backstory because it would make him too controversial. Quoting from memory, something like: 'if you said he was a villain, he was also tragic; but if you said he was pitiful, he'd also done terrible things. All in all, a character like this was a hotbed for all kinds of fandom discourse.'

Prophetic fucking words.

Somehow, seeing all that, some 'fans' have decided to jump into a completely opposite direction: making Shen Jiu a poor little misunderstood meow meow who did nothing wrong ever and was a soft princess and totally was never mean to the protagonist ("the protagonist just has inflated sense of ego and misunderstood Shen Jiu's normal teaching as singling him out for abuse" was a take I had to see with my own two eyeballs. Theres btw an extra from Shen Jiu's pov where he laments that the fake manual he gave the kid has failed to horrifically kill him yet).

Which puts the rest of us in an awkward position of having to defend his canon assholery. Like, the whole point of this character is that he's complex! That he's both a villain and a victim! Reducing him to just one is doing him a disservice, and either extreme is equally incorrect! And this is something that happens with many similar characters, I know, but what boggles my mind about Shen Jiu's case in particular is that. it's spelled out. The whole deal with his character is spelled out in canon. And some people still go "oh so Shen Jiu was secretly the most morally pure and good character, got it". Like. how?????????????? ??? ?? ?????

noriaki kakyoin:

Uke-fied to the max so he can be shipped with jotaro lol

Ohmygod where do I even start. Kakyoin's the poster boy for twinkification and woobification of a canonically very capable, interesting (and not twinky at all) character who's so many things at once- a loyal friend, really smart, a bit of a weirdo, infodumping trivia at random times, quick-thinking in dangerous situations, reckless, polite and respectful, vengeful towards enemies but always kind to friends, depressed, determined and motivated in the face of mortal danger despite it all - even when he had the chance to leave the Stradust Crusaders and just come back to his normal life, he decided to stick with them. This decision eventually cost him his life since he got killed by Dio, the main villain. The fandom either calls him a cardboard with no personality (which is not true at ALL, where did that take even come from) or they downplay his canon badassery- Jotaro x Kakyoin shippers are often guilty of this along with twinkifying Kakyoin. The ship is fine, but they're way more interesting if you take into account their canon characterisation as huge weirdos who somehow work pretty well together- they're both different flavors of autistic that sometimes just so happen to align on the same wavelength.

[thegreenthepeacetheorange]

On Gale and patriarchy/toxic masculinity

I really want to do a reading and analysis of Gale's character as upholding patriarchal values and expectations of toxic masculinity because this stuck out to me as I listened to the CF audiobook before bed last night. From chapter 1 of CF:

I think of Gale, who is only really alive in the woods, with its fresh air and sunlight and clean, flowing water. I don't know how he stands it. Well ... yes, I do. He stands it because it's the way to feed his mother and two younger brothers and sister. And here I am with buckets of money, far more than enough to feed both our families now, and he won't take a single coin. It's even hard for him to let me bring in meat, although he'd surely have kept my mother and Prim supplied if I'd been killed in the Games. I tell him he's doing me a favor, that it drives me nuts to sit around all day. Even so, I never drop off the game while he's at home. Which is easy since he works twelve hours a day. 

Highlighted the part that really made my ears perk up. There's something to be said about Gale's stubbornness and his pride, which is very similar to Katniss's but he always takes it another step. Whereas Katniss learns to accept others' help, to forge these connections, Gale doesn't. It's giving "I'm the man and this is my job." For someone who wants nothing more than to help keep his family alive, it's weird that he refuses any help.

At first I thought maybe he doesn't want her money because it's from the Capitol and he despises it that much but she says it's hard for him to even have her bring meat in from hunting. Which points to his pride. He wants to be the provider. The one taking care of her. And it leaves Katniss in a kinda tricky place. It's like she's walking on eggshells around him here - purposely not dropping off game at his house when he's there.

Compare that with Peeta (which as a reader, like Katniss, you end up doing when either of these two guys come up) and it's so different. We know Peeta is strong and smart etc. He's not a hunter but he's also still a provider (of bread). And he has his own pride too. But going through the Games, Peeta and Katniss have a balanced push and pull. She helps him, he helps her. She takes care of him, he takes care of her. When he's hurt, he lets Katniss help him. He's not too proud to try and do it himself. Same with Katniss. She lets him take care of her when she needs it. And this is something they learn from the Games, particularly Katniss; how to accept help from others. And we see her development in this over the course of the trilogy.

Gale is interesting in that I really think he is one of the characters in the books who really doesn't grow as such. In my mind, he's rooted in place in many ways. From his ideals, to his thoughts, to his strategies, to his actions, he doesn't really develop much. He has moments - but a lot of those moments are tied to wanting to apologise to or be better for Katniss (and still he comes up short). I'm thinking of the moment where he makes her feel bad for defending her prep team in 13 and then later tries to smooth things over in the canteen by being kind. I believe that's something he did only for Katniss. She's his motivation to be different (but turns out that's not enough still.)

I'll maybe build on this another time but this passage made me think of what he says when he sees Katniss after Prim's death. "Does it matter? You'll always be thinking about it... That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family." Instead of apologising for helping to create such bombs, instead of asking for forgiveness, instead of crying with her, instead of expressing his sorrow and regret at what's happened, this is all he's able to say. Which is odd to me. To not even try to comfort your supposed closest friend at such a time. To say that's all you had going for you? It's this relationship of transaction. 'I take care of your family and hunt with you so you should end up marring me.' I really don't think that's far from what Gale expected.

I think there's even more to say about Gale as a patriarchal character but I've rambled on enough at this point. But his attitude and perspective throughout the book, while aligned with that of a traumatised young adult in the midst of oppression, also aligns heavily with patriarchal constructs. The way he thinks of war and people and human relationships, the way he thinks of fighting and death, and the way he thinks of doing whatever you have to do to achieve your end, no matter what happens or who gets hurt in pursuit of it. If anyone has any reading on Gale in these areas I'd be so interested in it!

[chawarin-panich]

Ray's mother, music and the barriers to his heart that Sand must overcome

TW: discussion of suicide This is building upon the shorter meta I wrote here about the Micro song that plays during Ray's suicide scene. The parallels between Ray's arc in falling for Sand and Mew are so overt that I was completely overlooking the person that Sand is really up against in Ray's wounded heart and who, I believe Mew is ultimately a proxy for - his dead mother. I go into a little bit about how Sand's affection for Ray can sometimes read as familial here and I think it's quite readily noticeable how Ray acts very childlike around Sand with his puppy dog eyes and constant wheedling. One thing I do want to note is that Ray doesn't particularly come off as childlike in any of his other interactions either with his friends or in his conversation with P'Yo except for perhaps that first night when he got drunk and told his friends how much he loved them and during the suicide scene when he cries wrapped up in Mew's arms, distraught by how his mother never loved him. I think Ray is the epitome of someone with a deeply wounded inner child and the only way he can ask for love is as a child, somewhat helplessly and appealing to people's caretaker/protective nature. The parent child relationship between Sand and Ray comes up a few times through the episodes. The earliest explicit acknowledgement as far as I can tell is here at the end of episode 2:

There's another explicit nod as to how their dynamic is set up within Sand performing acts of service for Ray in Ep 3:

Sand says he has been Ray's driver, drinking buddy, shrink and chef. Three of those things - driving him around, cooking for him and providing him emotional support are not just familial activities but activities you would normally do for a young child. Sand pointedly leaves out that they've had sex from this list of services. And yes, that's because Sand doesn't view sex as a service and if it was just this then it would be hard to make the point that I'm trying to make which is that Sand needs to fulfill that parental attachment need that Ray craves; give him that type of no strings, unselfish kind of love before he will ever be able to gain Ray's trust enough to be able to build a romantic relationship with him. So how is the show making this point? That Sand is replacing not just Mew but Ray's dead mother in his heart? Well, let's start with the two things that Ray's mother has left him with: 1) music and 2) her alcoholism. Ray's friends were all very surprised when Ray volunteers to arrange the music for the party. While that was more about Ray's lack of interest in taking responsibility (His now in restrospect gut wrenching 'I'm only good for spending money' line from Ep1 like ouch) but it also indicates that none of them really know or connect with Ray over his music. How can they?

Music is such a deeply personal part of him, that's where he keeps the love he holds for his mother; the love that is entirely grief - painful in its vastness, beautiful in its consistency. And the first thing Sand tells him to do is be grateful for it - her good taste in music. The second thing? Is to show him how to enjoy it:

The fact that he's taking his hand and Ray is half resisting it, the silliness of the gesture more than the touch itself but he's undeniably enjoying himself - It reads to me like the awkward, stilted movements of a childperson who doesn't know how to move their limbs when they're first being taught how to do something. And when you realize that the song that Ray plays for Sand in ep2 is the same one that is playing when he's taken the pills - the positive associations that Sand is making with Micro in Ray's life suddenly becomes monumental. This happens twice more in the show. Once, in the car when Sand ditches his date to drive them to Ray's house where they engage in a delightful flirtation around it, Ray singing badly while Sand eats it up complains about it

And again, at the night of the party when Ray tells Sand to play Micro for him and Sand like the simp that he is serenades him with it:

But their connection over music doesn't stop at teaching Ray to cherish and honor his past - and unknowingly the pains that are attached to it. No, Sand goes further to expand it, help Ray find a space for himself in music, carve a corner of it that isn't only pain, isn't only that moment of seeing his mother laid flat on that floor with a whiskey glass inches from her fingers.

When music is such an integral part of Ray's personality how else does one interpret this scene other than Sand telling Ray to move on, when Sand plays Selina and Sirinya for him because finding new music he likes is Sand's happiness how else do I interpret it as anything other than Sand teaching Ray how to be happy? What am I supposed to do but pull out my own hair when they're connecting over music, looking at each other like this:

And Sand will do it AGAIN - as the ep5 preview suggests - take Ray's hand and teach him how to enjoy contemporary music while Ray makes his awkward, adorable face where he's having fun in spite of himself. And the sheer amount of joy that Sand gets in seeing Ray like this is just - they're so insufferable:

But perhaps the most surprising (and delightful!) of all is this:

Ray taking his headphone off, interrupting this magical moment of being with Sand and the music, telling him he wants to be close to nature and drink beer - for the very first time Ray desires alcohol not as a means to destroy himself but as a vehicle of peace and of connection and I haven't been well since seeing it and understanding what it means. In many ways, Ray's mother is such a tragic character. I know nothing of this woman other than the three seconds I have seen of her dead and the frightful way she has driven her son to follow in her footsteps, to feel so unloved and unwanted. And yet she named him Ray Pakorn (pakorn meaning sun) - a ray of sunshine. Perhaps even, her ray of sunshine.

How can I truly believe that she never loved him?

I know Ray tells Mew that she never held him but he loves her so dearly, wants to be with her so desperately, she permeates every moment of his life so thoroughly that the loneliness she left behind isn't a gaping emptiness but the festering carcass of a love so profound and full to bursting that Ray keeps trying to give it away, keeps trying to love his friends, keeps trying to save them and aches in the way that he finds no recipient for it.

People wonder what Sand sees in Ray, why he would fall for him. But Ray is a creature made entirely of love, soft still in the way he lets it rule his life, innocent in the way that he asks for it, precious in the way that he gives it away - How can Sand be anything but desperately in love with him?

[hyperfixatedonthisnow]

You Belong to Me

*Not my GIF

This is the first thing I’ve written in years but Shadow and Bone (and particularly Nikolai Lantsov!) is my new hyperfixation and I had the urge to write something, so here we are. Based on the prompt: “Mine.” “Say it again.” which I got from tumblr forever ago.

Summary: Reader is in an established relationship with Nikolai and they get jealous seeing someone else flirting with him so they decide to remind him who he belongs to. Turns out the King finds jealous/possessive reader a turn on, who would have guessed?

Word count: 2K

Warnings: NSFW - 18+ only. A tiny hint of a plot but really it’s just smut, hand job, jealousy/possessiveness, slight praise kink if you squint, reader can be any gender you like, I’ve left it deliberately vague for your reading pleasure :)

The grand ballroom was so full that you could barely move an inch without bumping into a visiting noble, courtier or ambassador of some sort. Musicians were playing at one end of the room and waiters flitted about with trays of champagne.

You scanned the crowd in an effort to locate the King. Your eyes found him finally near of the centre of the room, surrounded by young ladies and you sighed, because of course he was. You had only left Nikolai’s side for a few minutes, but that was all it took for the vultures to descend. You supposed you couldn’t really blame them, he was gorgeous. Intelligent and charming too. Wherever he went, people were drawn to him like moths to the proverbial flame. Your relationship with the King had started many years before, when he was just a wayward second son with little hope of ever inheriting the throne and though his circumstances had now changed, your love for each other remained stronger than ever. Nikolai could be a bit of a flirt, but you trusted him implicitly. You knew without a doubt that anyone trying to tempt him would fail. He would be going home with you, still that didn’t stop the surge of jealousy that burned uncomfortably in your stomach as you made your way across the room to join the group. Nikolai’s eyes lit up as he saw you approach and he reached for you immediately, wrapping his arm around your waist without even the slightest hint of hesitation. You watched with a perverse sense of satisfaction as obvious disappointment flitted over the faces of his companions and several of the ladies politely excused themselves, quickly losing interest now they knew for certain that the King was taken. The last young lady however, was not so easily deterred. She looked you up and down with barely concealed distaste as Nikolai made the formal introductions and then finally she offered you a saccharine smile - entirely for his benefit you assumed, since it was obvious that it pained her to do so. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” you said, smiling brightly. You would be nice if it killed you. It would only cause problems for Nikolai if you went around being rude to his guests, regardless of wether they deserved it or not. The other woman made no response, already turning her attention back to the King as if you hadn’t even spoken. Apparently she didn’t share your concerns about rudeness. Nikolai cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence, “Miss Antonova was just telling me about her home in Kerch.” “Oh yes,” Miss Antonova exclaimed, twirling a lock of her dark hair around her finger, “As I was saying, you must come for a visit, your highness. I know my father would be honored to host you.” “What a generous offer,” Nikolai smiled, “perhaps we may take you up on it someday.” The young woman beamed at him, pleased with his response. “We could make it one of the stops on our honeymoon,” you suggested, just to watch her face fall. “Absolutely not. I should not consider our honeymoon a success if we are to be fit for company at any point,” Nikolai grinned impishly and you shook your head fondly, a blush spreading across your cheeks at the implication. You could feel Miss Antonova glaring daggers at you. “Well, perhaps you could make the trip to Kerch on your own instead, moi tsar,” she simpered, batting her eyelashes at him, “I would be happy to volunteer as your personal guide.” You resisted the urge to roll your eyes. "I bet you would,” you muttered quietly under your breath, though not quietly enough if Nikolai’s sudden coughing fit was any indicator. Miss Antinova moved closer to him, her face creased in concern, “Goodness, are you alright?” She asked, laying a hand on his arm. You glared at her, touching the King was in no way appropriate. Nikolai gave you a look, shaking his head minutely - a gesture you knew to mean leave it alone. So you bit your tongue even though you wanted to tell her off. “Yes, I’m quite well,” Nikolai assured her once he had recovered, “My apologies.” Despite his reassurance, and the heat of your still disapproving glare, she did not move away or remove her hand. Instead, she moved further into his personal space, close enough to be considered indecent in your opinion. Her delicate hand curled around his clothed bicep. You struggled to fix a polite smile on your face when in your head you were fantasizing about breaking her fingers one by one. “Oh my, you have very strong arms,” she gushed and this time you did roll your eyes. For Saints sake. Nikolai met your gaze over the top of her head and you saw amusement dancing in his eyes. “I work out from time to time,” he told her with a wink, “It’s important to keep my army training up to date.” Miss Antonova giggled girlishly, as if he had said something ridiculously funny, and you decided that was quite enough. “I’m sorry but you’ll have to excuse us,” you stated bluntly, “the King has an urgent, private matter to attend to immediately.” Rather than wait for a response, you turned and firmly grasping Nikolai’s hand, pulled him away and across the crowded room towards the door. Although he could easily have escaped your hold if he had wanted to, Nikolai followed you without complaint, allowing you to lead him out of the ballroom and through the Palace hallways as though he were a boy rather than the King. Entering his chambers you made sure to lock the door behind you and then you stalked towards him, forcing him backwards until his back hit the wall behind him. “Something wrong, my love?” He asked, an amused little smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. “The audacity of that woman,” you grumbled, “Mooning and flirting, and touching you! As if I wasn’t standing right there.” “Oh, I don’t know,” he mused, eyes sparkling with affectionate humor, “I thought she was just being friendly.” “Friendly? She was all over you!” you objected. “Maybe a little bit,” he conceded with a slight tilt of his head, his smirk widening. “But you know that I would never accept her advances, or anyone’s for that matter,” he insisted earnestly as he reached out to tuck a loose lock of hair behind your ear, “So what does it matter?” “I didn’t like it, Kolya,” you muttered irritably, yanking at the knot of his cravat in an effort to remove it and almost choking him in the process. “Really?” he chuckled, “I hadn’t noticed.” He batted your hands away so he could loosen the offending item himself, pulling it free of his collar and unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt as he went. You narrowed your eyes at him. “It’s not funny.” He hummed in agreement as he dipped his head to kiss you, slow and sweet, just a soft brush of his lips over yours, but your were in no mood for romance. You nipped at his bottom lip impatiently, licking hot and demanding into his mouth when he opened up to you. His hands found your waist, pulling you closer as you threaded your fingers through his hair, kissing him hungrily and sucking on his tongue before you surfaced for air. You kissed an open-mouthed line across his jaw and down his throat, pausing to nip and suck at his pulse point. “Ah. Not above the collar,” he reminded you gently. You huffed, pressing yourself tighter against him and wedging a knee between both of his so that your thigh was pressed against his crotch. He was already hard and knowing it was because of you - not her - tempered your jealousy a little. Nosing down into the collar of his shirt to reach the juncture of his shoulder, you sucked a stinging bruise into his skin. His hips bucked in response. You couldn’t help but smile as you admired your handiwork, a surge of possessiveness rolling through you. “Mine,” you murmured as you laved your tongue over the offending mark. Nikolai groaned low in his throat, rutting against you more insistently. “Say it again,” he gasped. His voice was rough with arousal and you lifted your head to regard him, surprised by his reaction. You felt a heady rush of power as you looked him over. His eyes were dark, his pupils dilated with lust. His lips were shiny and kiss–swollen and his face was flushed, a deep blush spreading from the tips of his ears all the way down to his chest. You had barely started and he was already wrecked. “You belong to me,” you purred in his ear, nuzzling at his throat as you reached a hand between you to stroke him through his pants. He made an involuntary keening sound, his eyes slipping closed as he pushed himself into your palm. “No one else gets to touch you like this, do they?” He shook his head frantically, hips straining towards you, desperately seeking more friction. You sighed, feigning disappointment. “I can’t hear you,” you chastised, “Use your words Kolya." “No,” he breathed, “only you.” “That’s right,” you agreed, smiling against his skin.

You rewarded him by freeing him from his pants and he moaned as you used the precum that had gathered at the head of his cock to slick your palm. He laid his forehead against yours, opening his eyes so that he could follow the movement of your hand as you jerked him in a firm, fast rhythm until he was panting. When you knew he was near his peak, you lifted your head to meet his eyes. “Mine,” you whispered possessively, a seductive smile on your lips. He shuddered, his head dropping to your shoulder and his hands tightening on your waist as he came with a soft cry, thick stands of cum covering your hand and the front of his shirt. He slumped against the wall, boneless in the aftermath of his orgasm. “Well,” he said breathlessly, “that was..,” “Intense? Incredible? Life changing?” you suggested helpfully, and he snorted a laugh. “I was going to say unexpected, but those work too.”

You brought your clean hand up to his throat, running your thumb over the dark bruises you had left just below the line of his collar. "I'm afraid I've made quite a mess," you said, "I'm sorry." And you were, now that the bitter sting of jealousy had faded and you had returned to your senses.

"Don't be. I don't know if you could tell but I rather liked it," Nikolai grinned, "and besides, I've made a mess of you too, so I'd say we're even."

"I suppose that's true," you agreed, bringing your hand up to your mouth. Your tongue snaked out to gently lap the remains of his release from your fingers and he groaned, scrubbing a shaky hand across his face. “You’re trying to kill me,” he accused and you laughed as you leaned in to kiss him. Nikolai pulled you in closer, deepening the kiss but keeping it sweet and unhurried.

"Give me a moment to recover and I'll repay the favour," he promised.

[lolli-popples]

Someone has probably already done this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. We're going to go over the average scores of players in the Life Series. BUT ALSO, we're going to go over the average score of players if you don't count their lowest placement in the series, and the average score when you don't count their highest placement to see how much that changes the order.

Quick note: I'm converting the scores in percentages so that way we can compare Last Life's scores to the other series accurately. The lower the percentage, the higher the placement. 100% is last place. (So that's Jimmy's score every time lmao) Also the percentages are rounded, as very few divided evenly. If they have decimals after, it's because there was another score close enough to theirs that it mattered.

Average Scores:

Pearl; 20% (averages 3rd place)

Martyn; 22% (3rd)

Scott; 28% (4th)

Grian; 41% (6th)

Impulse; 44% (6th)

Etho; 46% (6th)

Ren; 49.3% (7th)

Scar; 50% (7th)

Bdubs; 52% (7th)

BigB; 54% (8th)

Cleo; 57% (8th)

Joel; 63% (9th)

Tango; 72% (10th)

Lizzie; 76% (11th)

Skizz; 89% (12th)

Mumbo; 94% (13th)

Jimmy; 100% (14th)

It's pretty interesting to see the gap between 3rd and 4th place. Pearl, Martyn, and Scott all have really good scores.

Anyway, if you just wanted to see the average placements we're done now, but if you want to see how much this list is affected by players having 1 really good or really bad game, then keep reading under the cut.

Hello people who are still here, how are you?

So, let's see what happens when we don't count everyone's lowest score. To explain, Joel has placed 11th, 5th(but technically counted as 4th because last life is weird), 8th, and 12th. So here we would take the average WITHOUT the 12th place score, as it's the lowest. This helps us see whose placement is skewed the most by one particularly bad game.

Scott; 14% (2nd)

Martyn; 15% (2nd)

Pearl; 16% (2nd)

Grian; 30% (4th)

Impulse and Ren; 31% (4th) (Yes, they are perfectly tied)

Etho; 40% (6th)

Bdubs; 42% (6th)

Scar; 43.6% (6th)

Cleo; 44% (6th)

BigB; 46% (6th)

Joel; 55% (8th)

Tango; 64% (9th)

Lizzie; 76% (11th)

Skizz; 87% (12th)

Mumbo; 94% (13th)

Jimmy; 100% (14th)

Some cool facts about the data set! The average amount changed is 8%, 35% of scores were above this, and 65% were below this.

The person whose score changed the least was Jimmy, as Mumbo and Lizzie's scores don't change because they only played in 1 series. The person whose score changed the second least was Skizz at 2%

The person whose score changed the most is Ren at 18%, followed by Scott (14%), Impulse(13%), and Grian(11%).

Okay now time for excluding the highest score. Using the Joel example again, this time we would not include his 5th place placement. This helps us see whose score is skewed the most by one particularly good game.

Pearl; 26.5% (4th)

Martyn; 27.3% (4th)

Scott; 35% (5th)

Etho; 50% (7th)

Grian; 52% (7th)

Impulse; 54% (8th)

Scar; 60% (8th)

Bdubs; 62% (9th)

BigB; 62.6% (9th)

Cleo; 66% (9th)

Ren; 68% (10th)

Joel; 74% (10th)

Lizzie; 76% (11th)

Tango; 76.3% (11th)

Skizz; 91% (13th)

Mumbo; 94% (13th)

Jimmy; 100% (14th)

Interesting things about this data set! It has the biggest drop off between 3rd and 4th. In the original it's a 13% difference, in the positive leaning ranking it's 14%, and in this ranking it's 15%.

The average percentage changed is 8%. 45% of scores were below this, and 55% of scores were above this. The person whose score changed the least was Jimmy, followed by Skizz(2%).

The person whose score changed the most was Ren at 19%, followed by Joel (11%), Grian (10.6%) and Scar (10.5%).

Overall, Jimmy's score changed the least, as it didn't change at all. Skizz's score changed the second least, with a range of only 3.5%.

Ren's score changed the most, with a range of 37%. Ren is followed by Impulse (22.6%).

So yeah. Now you know a ton of random statistics, and I can rest knowing that all the math I did is out in the world. If any of my math is off, feel free to point it out. I did a lot of it with unrounded numbers and than rounded them in this post, so it might seem off because of that, but I also did some of it with the numbers already rounded, so it might need to be corrected, either way, letting me know is good.

I might update the regular averages after a new season, but I am not updating the other ranked lists, that would be hell. Bye!

[nothorses]

I saw your tags on the post about trick or treaters not speaking and I am v interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the concept of “developmental delays”! I‘ve seen the idea that disability is a construct, but I’m not as familiar with the idea that development is also a construct. You have really great takes as an educator and someone who like, actually GETS how kids work, so I am interested in your thoughts!

I also know that posting on this subject might be poking the bear, so it is 1000% cool if you would rather not comment 💜 Tysm!

Oh I'm happy to talk about it! I love talking about this stuff, thank you for asking me to 💙

This isn't exactly new ground; there's been plenty of research into and writing on the subject, and deconstructing "development" as a static concept was, ironically, a huge part of my most recent development class.

The idea is that our understanding of "benchmarks" of development, which informs the larger concept of development as a whole, is heavily rooted in the assumption that Western culture is The Standard. We prioritize walking, talking, reading, and writing, which means we cultivate these skills in our children from a young age, which means they develop those skills more quickly than they do others.

To use one of my favorite examples from Rogoff, 2003, Orienting Concepts and Ways of Understanding the Cultural Nature of Human Development:

Although U.S. middle-class adults often do not trust children below about age 5 with knives, among the Efe of the Democratic Republic of Congo, infants routinely use machetes safely (Wilkie, personal communication, 1989). Likewise, Fore (New Guinea) infants handle knives and fire safely by the time they are able to walk (Sorenson, 1979). Aka parents of Central Africa teach 8- to 10-month-old infants how to throw small spears and use small pointed digging sticks and miniature axes with sharp metal blades: "Training for autonomy begins in infancy. Infants are allowed to crawl or walk to whatever they want in camp and allowed to use knives, machetes, digging sticks, and clay pots around camp. Only if an infant begins to crawl into a fire or hits another child do parents or others interfere with the infant’s activity. It was not unusual, for instance, to see an eight month old with a six-inch knife chopping the branch frame of its family’s house. By three or four years of age children can cook themselves a meal on the fire, and by ten years of age Aka children know enough subsistence skills to live in the forest alone if need be. (Hewlett, 1991, p. 34)" (pg. 5)

In the US we would view "letting an 8-month-old handle a knife" as a sign of severe neglect, but the emphasis here is placed on the fact that these children are taught to do these things safely. They don't learn out of necessity, or stumble into knives when nobody is watching; they learn with care, support, and safety in mind, just like children here learn. It makes me wonder if Aka parents would view our children's lack of basic survival skills with the same concern and disdain as USAmerican parents would view their children's inability to read.

Do we disallow our children from handling knives because it is objectively, fundamentally unsafe for a child of that age to do so- because even teaching them is developmentally impossible- or is that just a cultural assumption?

What other cultural assumptions do we have about child development?

Which ties in neatly with various social-based models of disability, particularly learning and, of course, developmental disabilities. If your culture doesn't value the things you are good at, and you happen to struggle with the things it does value, what kinds of assumptions is it likely to make about you? How will it pathologize you? What happens to that culture if it understands those values to be arbitrary, in order to accommodate your unique existence?

[wutheringmights]

I finished rereading The Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce a couple of days back. I already talked about the first book in a post that garnered more attention than it deserved. I guess we were all happily reminiscing about the menstruation scenes together, or Tortall fans are so starved for content they (we) will reblog anything.(Understandable. I too am starved for a thriving Tortall fandom.)

I'm too lazy to make separate posts about each book, so we're just going to do a mega post covering the second, third, and fourth book.

Unlike last time, I will be giving a little criticism to this series. I still love it endlessly, but there were a few things about the prose I thought was interesting that I want to talk about a bit.

So, without further ado~

In the Hand of the Goddess

I think this one is my favorite one, despite how rushed the plot it. It contains all of my favorite plot points, like awkward romances with George and Jon, attending knight lessons, and a little summer war. Fun stuff.

But it definitely feels rushed. I really wish someone told Pierce to make this a 12 book series, expanding on Alanna's years at the castle. It would have gone so far to better develop the romances and the friendships in these books.

I am fascinated by what Pierce chose to skim over. Characters would die or kiss for the first time off screen, with the prose resuming with Alanna reacting to it. It demonstrates an understanding of character work that I personally adore and try to emulate in my own writing-- the real bones of a story being in how characters respond to fantastic events as opposed to the fantastic events themselves.

Also, the whole veil spell Roger cast in objectively stupid, and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible. You're telling me that Roger used magic to make Alanna lose interest in doing anything about the obviously evil things he was doing? That's fucking hilarious. You know an editor came back to Pierce and asked her to come up with a reason why Alanna wasn't just going to spring into action at the first sign of Roger trying to kill her, only for Pierce to come up with this. It's so silly. I love it.

Woman Who Rides Like A Man

Did this book age poorly? Yes, but not as badly as I remembered. That's not a stirring defense, and it's really not meant to be.

The Bahzir are a mess of Orientalism, and Pierce definitely deserves criticism for not only the way she wrote them but for the ways in which she frames their cultural practices as something that needs to be fixed. Having Alanna want to force them to change their culture to suit her beliefs is not a great look for both the character and the writer. And that's not even getting into the whole assimilation plotline.

But I did enjoy Pierce's attempts to expand on the definition of womanhood, especially as a part of Alanna learning to embrace femininity. There is this running thread in these last two books of Alanna learning about all the different ways to be a woman and choosing for herself what her gender means to her. It's not done particularly well, and anyone looking for a revolutionary examination of gender roles and identity is going to be sorely disappointed. But there's an attempt here that I can't help but appreciate.

This book is also where Pierce starts to slow the plot down, which lends it to having the most reasonable pacing out of the bunch. That being said, it's also the book where the lack of development for a bunch of the side characters start to hurt. I really wish Gary or Raoul joined Alanna in the desert. Raoul gets his moment in the sun with the Protector of the Small books, but Gary remains largely forgettable. In fact, I spent this entire read-through convinced this man dies at the end of the last book, if only because I can't remember where he appears in any of the other books.

Lioness Rampant

This book somehow has the improved pacing of the third book while still feeling rushed. The quest for the Dominion Jewel really should have been it's own book, if only to give Thayet and Buri more room for development. Thayet in particular really needs her moment to shine, especially when she continues to be an important character in the other series.

But do you know who did get a lot of screen time? Liam.

Remembered shit about this guy before going into this book. I could only vaguely recalled disliking him as a kid, but not as much as I venomously hated Jon. (Speaking of which-- I love the way this man is realistically shitty. Him getting dumped by Alanna is always my favorite scene.) But Liam? Fuck that guy. Holy shit. I give full applause to Pierce for portraying the important milestones every girl goes through growing up, which includes having a situationship that is so shitty that it becomes essential character development.

Roger's return feels very... cheesy? I think Alex should have stepped up to be the final villain on the story. Unlike Roger, Alex was Alanna's friend. They have history. The betrayal would have imbued that final fight with so many more emotions than it ultimately had. I also would have liked Alanna to have at least meaningfully talked to Alex sometime before the climax.

Honestly, it's impressive how reactive Alanna is as a character in the last half of the book. She doesn't seek out how to stop Roger's plan, or fix Thom, or anything. Other characters make plans and she just... waits for something to go wrong.

That being said, by virtue of Alanna's relationships with George, Liam, and Jon all happening sometime in this plot, this book becomes a good place to look to get the full berth of how Pierce handles romances. Which, I love her approach. The romances are never over the top or, for lack of a better word, too romantic. It's very down to earth, with characters dating, marrying, or breaking up for realistic reasons.

Jon and Alanna were friends who broke up because they had different life plans. Liam and Alanna broke up for having fundamentally different values. As much as I bitch about how shitty Jon and Liam are, they're not cartoonishly evil. They're just a little shitty the way most of your exes will be. Jon and Liam are men could find love with someone else. They just aren't suited for Alanna.

Meanwhile, the most romantic things George does are wait for her and be supportive. He doesn't fight or get territorial. He makes his feelings clear, then waits for Alanna's cues. Alanna definitely loves him, but she ends up with him in the end because their lifestyles and core beliefs meld together. There's no grand romantic gesture or whirlwind affairs. They are just a good pair.

I have read stories with far heavier focuses on romance, and none of those couples feel as perfect as Alanna and George. Those stories prioritize all the gooey moments over showing why the main couple should get together. For how little romantic interactions they have, you believe these two could have a successful marriage. Perfect stuff.

---

Over all, I really enjoyed rereading these books. For all my griping, I still love the story. I love Alanna. She's a character who is fundamental to my soul. No matter where I am in life, I will always want to open these books and find her again, to walk back into Tortall and join her on her quest to be a lady knight.

My copies of the series come with forewards from a previous edition. In one of them, Pierce wrote that this series started off as an adult fantasy story that was much darker and edgier. I need to know what that story looks like, what happened in it. Pierce can claim as she wants that she hardly remembers what it looks like, but I refuse to believe that. Release the unedited first draft, Pierce. I am begging you.

[allyallyorange]

Round 2 of my Ateez Adventure Time AU is here!

Yunho and Jongho are from “Universe Z”, which has no magic and is basically just our world. They are cousins and have a 10 year age gap, in Jongho’s eyes, Yunho is the coolest person ever. In this world, Yunho had his own Mingi, who was his best friend until they were in their last year of high school and Mingi was a victim in a big car accident (also involving Jongho’s parents). Afterwards Yunho didn’t end up going to school and becomes a mechanic. Yunho has a hard time being around Jongho because the kid is so smart and Yunho's parents Love him. Jongho seems to be doing so well and Yunho knows that his parents think that he should also be moving on. Years later, when Yunho is 22 and taking his 12 year old cousin to the library for him to study and do homework, Yunho is reading through some old looking fantasy type book. Suddenly the book lights up and a portal opens up. A guy with pointy ears appears in the portal and Yunho is pulled through.

Jongho, who was 13 when his cousin disappeared, had a bad time. He became obsessed with trying to find him, and spent the next 10 years studying the book he disappeared through, as well as anything else that came up along the way. Over the years he finds that the relics that are talked about in the book are actually real, and then he works to become an antiquarian in order to further study the artifacts. Eventually, he manages to collect 9 gems needed to power the book Yunho had disappeared through, and he is able to travel to “Universe A”. Jongho is now 22, but only a year has passed within Universe A, making Yunho 23/24. When spawning in Universe A, Jongho is not automatically anywhere near Yunho, but he does eventually find a sketchy looking cave, which upon further inspection is the place where Mingi has been frozen in crystal for the past 600 years. Jongho accidentally frees Mingi from his prison, and they slowly become friends, Hongjoong joining them to become a little team (Seonghwa will also join this team at some point).

Wooyoung is a born wizard, about 900 years post-apocalypse era. He specializes in nature related magic. He grew up in a very safe but slightly boring town, practicing spells and fooling around. On a particularly boring day when he’s about 15 years old, Wooyoung decided to browse the forbidden section of the spell books and found a book on dark magic. Wooyoung, being an admittedly just ok wizard, figured he wouldn’t actually be able to successfully pull off any of the spells in the book, and decided to secretly borrow the book back home. He found an interesting spell on summoning a familiar, thinking maybe he’d at least get a cat or something if he did manage to succeed. Instead- for whatever reason- he summoned a full demon, not in the form of a cat or bird or toad or anything, named San.

(UPDATE: Wooyoung has a hobby of building things out of scrap metal, inventing little robots and such. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing most of the time but he sure does make things!)

San is an ice demon created by The Demon King about 800 years post-apocalypse era, who had been hearing about his younger brother’s little fire friend above, and wanted to make his own element creature. Thus San was born (made already physically aged about 14 years old because why would the king want an actual baby). San was a bit of a disappointment for The Demon King, because for whatever reason San was incapable of being evil, so he ended up being basically scrapped for about 100 years. Being a low ranking demon, and also a rather disposable one, when someone above suddenly summoned for a familiar, the demons pretty randomly chose to send San. This exchange also bound Wooyoung to dark magic, allowing him to cast permanent curses. San and Wooyoung end up getting along great, and decide they want to explore beyond Wooyoung’s home town (both around 15 years old physically). They live outdoors, camping in the wild and going on adventures while stopping to help anybody on their way (getting lots of rewards!). After about a year they find an abandoned treehouse which they decide to move into, and they become the local heroes! (Discovering Wooyoung’s ability to curse things was wild. They accidentally cursed some guy to be a tree for all of eternity. No take backs)

8 years later, San starts having visions full of fire and seeing a man with white hair possibly being able to help (his visions are very confusing so he’s not sure). Woosan begin a new mission to try and understand what San’s visions mean, and eventually Wooyoung will figure out how to build a portal that will allow them access to the cosmic dimension, where they will be able to ask for one wish. San goes, and is asks to find the guy with blonde hair who can help stop the fire in his visions. Because wish making is tricky business and San wasn’t clear on the description of this blonde guy, he is given Yunho, who is not the guy in San’s visions (it’s Seonghwa). Wooyoung and San don’t know how to send Yunho back so he ends up having to stay with them. Luckily they all get along and they become a little team. At some point Yeosang will also join this team after being separated from Seonghwa.

Ok that’s it for now! I’m gonna draw more though still because I have so many ideas man

[johannestevans]

Finding Your Style, Part I: Shape & Silhouette

A deep dive into deciding on your own personal fashion and tailoring your clothes to fit.

Also on Patreon / / Also on Medium / / Leave a tip.

Introduction

Before I start with the actual meat of this piece, I want to establish what this series of guides is not going to be. These guides are going to be about building and cultivating your wardrobe and accessories for you and your preferences.

I have no interest in and will not be going into how to look good (or revoltingly, how to look “slimmer” or similar), how to be fashionable or trendy, or alternatively, how to look unique or dress differently to everybody you know.

I often get frustrated when pieces about cultivating one’s personal style stumble across my dashboards and they advise the reader to pay attention to the latest trends, to make a moodboard, cultivate a capsule wardrobe, and leave it at that — a moodboard can be helpful if you’re a visual thinker, and there’s nothing wrong with a capsule wardrobe as a tool, however.

I have a particular style of dress, I like to play around with a lot of colours and fabrics, a lot of patterns, and a lot of the people around me tell me I dress well and that they enjoy my style: I have never read a style guide that is envisioning a man who dresses like me, or even a man who dresses even close to the way I dress.

When I think of someone’s personal style, I’m talking about aspects of their appearance and the mode in which they clothe and carry themselves that are distinctive to them.

Firstly, this doesn’t mean that they dress uniquely, and like no other person around them.

I know guys who basically dress themselves to match mannequins in particular stores, and they look good for it — when I see them around, even if I haven’t seen those mannequins and don’t shop in the stores they shop from, what makes them distinctive is particular colour palettes, brands, and also a clean-cut, neat style that works really well on a shop mannequin. What they’re wearing obviously isn’t unique, but it is distinctive, and it is a particular visual I associate with them when I see them.

Secondly, when we think of distinctive qualities, I might associate them with a specific style that isn’t inspired by a high street store or particular fashionable brand — people who dress in vintage clothes and are always kind of ’90s or ’70s, or people who dress in lolita or goth or emo or cottagecore or identify with another subculture that has a particular visual signature.

Apart from fashion subcultures, there might be other aspects — yes, specific high street brands, but there are all kinds of other visual signatures like particular patterns (someone who always wears stripes, for example), other brands or media (e.g. someone who wears a lot of stuff printed with anime characters), particular places or hobbies, et cetera. I’m currently fleshing out my wardrobe and trying to find a lot more pieces that are nautical or sailing themed, so there are a lot of anchors, compasses, helm’s wheels, and ships incorporated into my wardrobe.

And thirdly — this is one thing I want to impress very firmly, because far too many pieces that focus on fashion don’t take this into account at all — one of the most distinctive qualities is how much I might recognise a friend’s specific needs for comfort in their style of dress.

I, for example, have a lot of cardigans, jumpers, woollen vests and waistcoats, etc, and in winter will often appear in multiple layers of wool underneath another layer of leather because I get cold so easily; even in summer, I’m often wearing a t-shirt under a collared shirt, sporting a cardigan, or even wearing three-piece suits. I know other people who basically from spring through to late autumn will only ever be wearing one layer, particularly just a t-shirt or long-sleeved shirt, because they overheat so easily.

This is going to be a series of pieces, and I want to focus on a handful of specific points to focus on in cultivating your wardrobe and accessories:

Part I: Shape and Silhouette

Part II: Fabrics and Materials

Part III: Colours and Patterns

Part IV: Garments and their Construction

Part V: Accessories and Details

Part VI: Eras & Epochs, Subcultures & Alternative Looks

Part VII: Thematic Cohesion

Part VIII: Editing and Adding to your Wardrobe

A lot of style guides are written with people in mind who are trying to look good at work, especially at office jobs, and subsequently they assume a certain level of conformity with business casual or other “acceptable” styles in mind, where standing out to any degree is considered in poor taste, but more importantly, where things like personal comfort aren’t taken into account.

Your personal comfort in the clothes you wear, whether that’s to do with your resting temperature, if you feel most comfortable in any specific fabrics or textures, if you feel comfortable under multiple layers or only one, how many pockets you have and how accessible those pockets are, how exposed or free certain parts of your body are, etc, is far more important than virtually any other aspect in selecting your wardrobe.

There are absolutely garments or styles where you might either enjoy the discomfort or think it’s worth withstanding for the visual effect, but that’s really up to you to decide, and anyone who says that you should be uncomfortable on your day-to-day, or that it’s normal and therefore desirable to feel uncomfortable in your own clothes, is a prick.

As a species, we wear clothes to keep our bodies warm and safe from harm, and while we might enjoy looking good or projecting a particular image, our comfort, safety, and our feeling of security in the clothes we’re wearing is no less vital.

Especially if you’re used to dressing in uncomfortable clothes, it can be hard to figure out what you actually do feel comfortable in, and that’s okay, that’s a process.

A lot of us have basically had it embedded into us, after years of conditioning, that there is only one way to dress, one way to exist, and that this is in-keeping with what’s Appropriate or what’s Pretty or in line with any other expectation, and unlearning that is hard, but it’s a process, and it’s possible to work through it.

Shapes & Silhouette

The first thing we often talk about when it comes to fashion, and the first thing a lot of clothes designers sketch out and visualise, is silhouette — if you find that hard to envisage, imagine yourself in whatever outfit is a favourite of yours, that you’re behind a canvas, and you’re being backlit from behind.

Your silhouette is the shadow cast by the shape of your body and your clothes — when someone first enters into a room, when we take in their outfit, we take in the broad strokes of it and the silhouette it casts, the shape of their body.

You might want to cast an initial impression that emphasises particular bodily qualities you’re proudest of, makes you seem taller or shorter than you are, slimmer or fatter, curvier or squarer, softer or more angular.

The problem with a lot of silhouette discussion is that many clothing designers abhor and loathe clothing anyone who isn’t a white, thin cisgender woman: imagining silhouette becomes about imagining a base body that serves as a mannequin and clothes that are draped on her, rather than about imagining a range of body types and different silhouettes that might go with them, complementing or contrasting the base body on which they’re built.

Subsequently, when people talk about clothing for fat people, particularly for fat women, a great deal of emphasis is placed on a silhouette that attempts to disguise or hide the body’s natural shape, whether that means making them seem nebulously slimmer by increasing their perceived height or by some other method, or increasing or decreasing their curviness.

The problem with that, apart from the fact that it relies on a vociferous hatred of fat people, of fat people’s bodies, of body fat in general, an odious bigotry in itself, is that a lot of the time, it doesn’t fucking work.

It’s instead people writing pages upon pages of advice on how to make yourself appear smaller and lesser, capitalising on people’s taught and conditioned self-loathing, and a lot of it is just clickbait. I’m by no means saying it would be ethical or correct if a lot of this advice did work, but the fact is that it doesn’t.

Someone might take your outfit with lots of layers and rounded shapes to it and assume you’re fatter than you in fact are, because multiple layers make you look larger — it could also be that simply wearing those soft fabrics make people think that you’re rounder, which they associate with fatness. In contrast, someone might take an outfit with lots of angles to mean that you’re bigger than you are because when we drape our body with angular clothes, they often work by sticking out from our body and creating corners where they don’t exist — but, people might associate that angularity with a lack of body fat, either with bones or with muscle, and therefore think you are bigger, but less fat.

We live in a fatphobic society where people make a lot of judgements based on how fat they perceive you as being. Because of the aforementioned fatphobic society, we also live in a society where people might associate you with fatness (or some other physical trait they consider negative) because they dislike you.

If you speak loudly or “a lot”, people might perceive you as being fatter than you are — if you barely speak, they might perceive you as being thinner, because you take up less apparent space, no matter what you wear or what shape you present.

There is no way to win, is my point.

You cannot win against bigotry in a fundamentally bigoted society by trying to change subtle perceptions of angle or size or light or shadow, and the people who say that you can are lying. The point of those lies is firstly to sell newspapers and screentime, but the second of them is to make the reader think that a bigoted society’s attitude toward them is their fault, because they weren’t employing enough tricks to deter the bigotry.

When I talk about the varieties of silhouette you might want to attain or aim for in your clothing choices, or how well-fitting or loose a garment might be for you, it should be in line with your preferences and your desires, whether that’s about aesthetic, comfort, or something else.

Photo by cottonbro studio via Pexels, with guide lines added by me.

When envisioning your silhouette, the key points of your body might be:

your head

your shoulders

your waist and hips

your feet

This depends on your body shape and also on the sorts of outfits you’re wearing — it might change for you depending on the clothes you’re wearing on a given day, or you might cut a drastically different silhouette in boymode versus girlmode, or in summer versus winter, etc. 

Think of these as anchor points on which your clothing or accessories are draped over or mounted from, almost like you might envision armour slots in a videogame. When you envision your silhouette, it’s how your body immediately appears when lit from behind — your legs and arms aren’t irrelevant here, and the shape of sleeves, trousers, and skirts will absolutely contribute to your silhouette, but depending on your body in motion or how you stand, these won’t always be immediately distinctive, whereas your head and torso will be.

As well as being the place where your clothes drape from, these might be the points where your most important accessories might be placed — headbands or hats, shoulder clasps or shawls or collar pins and such, belt buckles or suspender clips, and your shoes or boots. These points become the focus to which the eye is drawn because they’ll be the most static parts of the body, whereas other parts in between might jiggle or flow. 

These points aren’t part of some sort of rule you have to follow — it’s more of a handy shorthand to help train your eye into seeing the particular shapes each part of someone’s body cuts, and what the overall effect is, and how much you like or dislike the effect. 

You might feel that some of these anchor points, when emphasised or de-emphasised, add or take away from your dysphoria or your general self-esteem, make you feel more feminine or masculine, just look really fucking cool or really hot, etc. Think about those when you start sketching out your shapes in your head and what you like best. 

When you really want to imagine a silhouette, do what I did with the first three images — there’s the outfit itself, I’ve drawn the anchors at the top of the head, the top of the shoulders, the waist, and then the feet. Contrast that silhouette with this image:

Photo by Becerra Govea Photo via Pexels, with guidelines added by me.

This person has a different hair style, but see how with the shape of the dress, the waistline is drawn in compared to their shoulders, and would be even if they weren’t posed with their elbows outward? See how their waist appears to be smaller in contrast with the wide sweep of the thickly layered, loose skirts?

A useful exercise when thinking about a silhouette you like is to draw these anchor points and then either draw in lines following the outside of the body’s / clothing’s shape, or you can separate into each section and think about the simplest shape that silhouette can be boiled down to: a circle, a square, a triangle, a straight line.

In the two images I’ve indicated, I’ve focused on the waist as an anchor point because it’s the base of the suit jacket and then where this dress is drawn in — on your body, you might find that somewhere else on your pelvis is better for you to draw the line.

Have a look at this TikTok and look at all these bodies in motion, the clothes they’re wearing, how much skin is or isn’t being revealed, how loose or fixed each piece of clothing is, how much contrast is or isn’t present in the different shapes on show. Think about each different silhouette and how different or similar they are to one another.

(A TikTok of an NYFW fashion show in September from Remi Jo on TikTok.)

Look for the motion in these garments and in these people’s bodies — the parts that jiggle, that flow, that have free motion — and contrast them with the bits of their garments or bodies that remain more static. Many of these garments bare skin or flesh, and many of them cover a lot up, depending on the garment’s design — look at shoulder pieces, busts, waists, skirts, hemlines, sleeves. If a garment stands out to you as pleasing, cut it up in your mind and look at each piece of it individually before you consider the whole again, see what stands out most to you.

Generally, for modern men’s tailoring, the focus is often on the lower-slung hips rather than on the higher waist. If you’ve got a squarer body, your waist and hips might be the same or almost the same width, to the point you have no big distinguishing angle between the two points — you might want to think of your anchor point as at the base of your hips, in line with your backside; you might want to think of it as at the absolute high point of your waist if you tend to very high-waisted trousers or skirts. 

If you’re fatter and have a significant overhang to your belly, depending on whether you like to wear your waistband underneath the overhang and have your belly rest on top / over it, or if you wear looser clothes or generally keep your belly within the waistband, for example under your dress or your skirt, this might change how you think about your silhouette too. 

You might still be looking from the tops of your shoulders, but then the end of that “shape” might be in line with your backside or your upper thigh instead because that’s where you can see the lowest part of your belly in your trousers or leggings, or in a maxi dress, it might be a straight (or mostly straight) line from your shoulder down to your feet. Alternatively, rather than focusing on your hips or specifically where your waist is, you might like to make sure your middle point is at the widest point of your belly — if you’re wearing a belt, you might like the belt buckle to rest in the middle point there, or have the waistband of your skirt there so that you have the maximum flow to the skirt. 

And remember, as I said about how the most key points might be different depending on what sort of outfit you’re wearing or what the occasion is, consider how much you’re going to be sitting down or from what angle you’re going to be viewed by others. 

If you’re generally going to be sitting down while wearing a particular outfit, your midpoints at the waist might be less important to you than your shoulders and your feet — and if you’re going to be viewed significantly from above or below (for example, if you’re on stage or performing in a theatre), or from a further distance, this might make a difference to what key points you want to focus on. 

If you use a wheelchair, depending on how big your wheelchair is compared to you in terms of its back and shape, you might like to take its angles and colours in complement to your outfit — if you use a cane or crutches, or if you wear a prosthetic limb for some events but not others, you might want to consider the asymmetry or the squarer shapes cut by your mobility aids. 

Similarly, if you’re in costume and you’re wearing or using a really important prop like a stave or wand, some sort of weapon in the hand or slung on the belt or worn in some sort of other holster, you might want to employ similar complementary or perpendicular angles. 

For example, if you’re wearing something that’s really angular and is going to make one shoulder, side of your head, or side of your waist/belly seem much higher than the other side, you might want to match that angular shift to the side you don’t have a limb or use a cane or have a prop to continue that exaggerated angle — you might want to make it go to the opposite way to offset the imbalance. 

--

I’ve talked a lot above about how to observe and identify shapes and silhouettes in outfits you’re observing, but only a little bit about how to actually construct and cast them. 

For a lot of people, the shadow cast by your head is going to be the same every day depending on your haircut or hairstyle: if you have shorter hair, you’re unlikely to change it much on the day to day in a way that will be noticeable at a glance.

If you do have longer hair or you change your style regularly, you can think about the shape that your head is casting in contrast to your outfit — if you alternate, for example, between having a big ‘fro and braids or twists that are much tighter to the head or are gathered at the back of your neck, those will be pretty dramatic differences to your silhouette; ditto if you go between different ponytails or braids and different up-dos, whether that’s a bun or gathered braid or similar. 

If you wear hats and/or wear headscarves, those will make a big difference too — a beanie casts a very different shadow to a Panama hat, different again to a boater, a baseball cap, or a bandana. 

A more structured hat or other garment for the head — a tiara or crown, for example, or more structured hair styles that come out from the head such as bantu knots or structured wigs and up-dos, will be more static; looser hats, scarves, and loose-worn hair will have more flow and wave when you move, and will stay in motion as you walk or even as you turn your head. 

How visible do you want your neck to be? The lines of your jaw, your chin, your ears (and earrings), your brow, the nape of your neck? Do you enjoy the sensation of fabric or your own longer hair touching the tops of your shoulders, or being a weight on your back? Do you need the shade from your bangs or longer fringe, or that a structured hat will give you?

From your head we can jump to the broader part of your actual outfit or the garment that covers most of your body. 

Your shoulders and your hips / waist / the widest point of your belly are where the garments you wear are going to rest — shirts, jackets, vests, coats, all of these are going to sit on your shoulders and either cling closely to your body or hang over it; loose fitting trousers and any sort of kilt or skirt are going to hang off your hips or the widest point of your middle. 

Depending on your outfit and how your legs are clad, your feet might not actually be particularly noticeable — if you’re wearing shorts or anything with a shorter skirt, more attention is going to be drawn to the feet in contrast to your legs, ditto any sort of skinny trouser, legging, or tights. This goes especially for bigger boots, trainers/sneakers, and various heels.

MSCHF’s newest crowd pleaser, the Big Red Boot, is distinctive because the Big Red Boots are extremely shaped like boots, but not particularly like feet.

And after this point, you might have different points entirely that you construct away from your body — big earrings can be a point of interest; the hem of a shorter skirt, for example, might stop at your mid-thigh or knee, and that might be at an angle with your shoes; if you wear flared trousers like I tend to, you might create another point of contrast at your knee or at the mid calf.

Some points to consider are: 

Which parts of your body or your shape do you enjoy most, want to most emphasise, or want to draw most attention to? Are there any parts of your body or your shape you feel less comfortable showing or emphasising, and would like to draw attention from?

Are there any silhouettes, for any gender, that you feel most drawn to and interested in? For example, do you particularly like the shape cut by certain styles of suits, robes, dresses, or other garments? What points do you like most, are most drawn to? What points are the same from outfit to outfit? 

Think of cartoons and other animated series you like or have enjoyed, which normally have distinct styles and place emphasis on certain body parts or shapes for each characters. Do any particularly appeal to you? Do any characters look especially fun or cool compared to others, because of the style they’re drawn in or what garments or armour they’re drawn in? Cartoons will show an extreme, but they might help you visualise something you’re particularly drawn to because the extremity makes it so visible.

Apart from the shoulders, middle, head, and feet, do you want to create any further points of interest? Draw attention to your elbow or knees, dangling earrings, shift the silhouette of your feet by elevating your heel or sole?

Do you want your garments to hang from your body and be loose, or do you want them to be more tightly tailored? A garment that “hangs” will generally rest on your shoulders or around your middle and then be looser or boxier — a more fitted garment will hug tighter to the lines and curves of your body, and the extent to which will depend on the fabric weight and the construction of the garment. 

How much is your silhouette different in motion, standing, seated, or otherwise? How much does it change with different mobility aids, or in different seats, while doing different activities? 

And that’s it for that piece!

I am going to go through the other parts of this bit by bit — originally I was going to do this as one huge deep dive, but it just became untenable in terms of length. Let me know what you think, which bits are most helpful, and please feel free to mention anything you’d particularly want me to cover in the other pieces as I go through them. 

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for not noticing I hurt my friend's feelings?

I (24F) had a somewhat close friend (24F) whom I've known since highschool but only got closer to recently. I've had a friend crush on her forever and apparently she did too. We share a lot of interests and we're both neurodivergent (I'm diagnosed with adhd, and we're almost certain she has autism). We also sort of bonded over a shared trauma -- basically we got two-timed several years ago by a really abusive asshole.

Anyway something happened a couple of months ago and I feel our friendship has gone downhill since then. It was multiple occasions really: what would happen is that I would say something impulsively, and she would misinterpret it and get sensitive about it, we talk it out, I apologize, and we move on. But one time it was a bit too much that i burst into tears while texting her because I felt I really hurt her and I felt that all my friendships will go downhill because whenever I get comfortable with someone I just completely lose my filter and end up hurting them. What happened that day was that we were hanging out and a guy apparently told her something sexist but I didn't hear him. She came to me to complain and I sort of brushed it off because from the way she said it happened it just seemed he was vaguely pointing out something but I later understood that I was just wrong. Then her dress had a tiny hole which I pointed out to her in front of my boyfriend rather impulsively and she got really upset about that. Later on I was telling her about a book I'd read that had great autism representation that didn't have the character just be -- and here I did the dinosaur arms thing (no offense whatsoever to people who do that; I know full well it's a common thing, I was just saying the character had more to him than just that). The problem is that she didn't hear the part where I was talking about a book character because we were changing tables in a crowded cafe and I was just talking non-stop because that's what I do and she thought I just did the dinosaur arms out of nowhere and got offended but didn't say so except over text later and just looked unwell for the rest of the next half hour before she suddenly excused herself and left. That day she texted me about all of these things and we talked it out and I pretended that I was not literally having a meltdown all while apologizing (but not before I tried to plead my case a bit). This all happened on the same day, but before that there were other occasions too. One time she would be talking about something, then I change the subject, then she'd say I know you didn't mean to but I wanted you to give a reply to what I just said. Another time we had a particularly bad exam which I did okay on, but she was telling about how she botched it. I couldn't tell from her face how serious it was and I gave her what i thought was a sympathetic smile (which she later told me was a weird smile) because I really didn't know what to say and then turned away to look for my boyfriend to check on him as well. She told me that day that she felt that I brushed her off when she was having a difficult time and didn't console her enough.

It's just multiple things that made me feel that I need to be more on guard around her for her sake. She moved to another city recently and even before that we were texting less and less. I even asked her if she was upset about the cafe day and she said no since I apologized and we talked it out, but I could feel something in our relationship changed. It just felt like such a shame because I felt a great connection between us and I have massive difficulties when it comes to making friends. She was sort of my last friend that I felt close to aside from my boyfriend, and now I can't help thinking that the problem has always been me.

Sorry if the post was too long and sorry for the sob story lol

[statementlou]

why do you talk about Louis using blue and green signalling as if it isn't about Harry, that what the blue and green are- do you not believe in larrie?

short answer for the reading challenged trolls to cut down on asks yes I am a larrie, not that anything is wrong with not being one. But longer (much more interesting imo) answer: We know H and L were together, but no one really knows if they are still or again- I personally mostly believe that they are, but I get why people don't think so and can't see any reason to get pressed about it. But you make a solid point- blue and green and certainly things like Louis wearing the H shirt don't potentially signify anything other than larry right? Well that's what makes it so interesting to me- I kind of don't think Louis IS using those things that way! As my recent anon pointed out (and I agree) he wants people to think he is Freddie's dad, he is not presently trying to be perceived as gay in the face of people trying to force him in the closet- he is in charge of his image and is choosing to publicly put forward that he is a guy who got someone pregnant and dates women. And I do think him and H are together, but I don't think he particularly wants to talk to us about that, if that makes sense? But I believe he does want to connect with his beloved fans on a more personal level, to revel in the acceptance and love and shared wink, I know you know I know, me and you until the end, our eyes meet, together we're the greatest- and I think he uses the larry imagery to do that, rather than to talk about his relationship. I could do this for days he gives us SO MANY examples to choose from but just to pick one: the all blue and green lighting for All This Time. Think about it- if he actually had images of a rainbow flag on the screens at his shows or waved one or something, it would make the articles and press and be a whole thing and revive every rumor ever about him in every tabloid! But if he makes the entire lighting and screens for a song blue and green (or wears a shirt with a giant H on it or any of the other one million coded things he does), well so what? No journalist would think a thing of it, nothing to see here- but the larrie majority of his fanbase hears him saying "you were right about everything and yes I am gay and I love you for seeing it" and go completely bananas! It's fucking ingenious tbh, SBB at his finest! And the fact that the song he chose for his current unhinged bluegreener fest was All This Time was for me the thing that really cemented this theory for me; I know some people disagree, but to me that song reads as being about him being closeted and his public life and the fans and choosing this lighting for that rather than for like We Made It or something really feeds my conviction that he is bluegreening on main as a way to tell us that he is gay rather than to tell us anything about his personal relationship. TLDR yeah I DO think he is signaling, a lot, but I don't think it tells us anything about the status of his relationship with Harry or anyone else and the reasons I think they are together don't have anything to do with Louis' stage lighting choices, but also that means I don't think it makes sense to say he's not signaling anything ever because you don't think they're together; both can coexist and I think it's just weird to act like he's not making pretty clear choices

[therealcocoshady]

Recovery - Chapter 3

Eminem x Reader (Y/N) fanfiction

Summary : Marshall and Y/N decide to celebrate a sobriety milestone but bad news get in the way.

Tag : -

A few weeks went by and you slowly started to adapt to what you could call your new normal. You were getting used to living with your friends and started working on your doctoral dissertation again, while going to meetings and making it to therapy. Every so often, you’d be invited to hang out in the studio with Talia and the boys and spend a couple of hours with them. However, most of your time was devoted to uni work so you didn’t hang out with them too much. In fact, today would be the first day you’d see them in a couple of weeks. If you were honest, you were particularly excited to see Marshall. The two of you had crossed path a number of times since you went on that drive and you always had a good time when you were with him. At that point, it was safe to say you had developed a harmless crush on him. Nothing major, but you did particularly enjoy looking at him and you were always happy to hug him hello and goodbye. You knew he would never be interested in you, so you simply decided to enjoy the sensation of feeling good in his presence.

The night after the two of you went on a drive, Talia had been grilling you with questions, but there was not much to say. The two of you had not talked about it but you were pretty sure she knew about your crush. She knew you too well anyway. Whatever, it was harmless, although she did make sure to always have you sit next to Marshall whenever she had the chance.

That day, you were happy for three reasons : first, it was Friday, which meant you would enjoy the weekend and some much needed rest from uni. Secondly, you were celebrating two months being sober. It hadn’t been without its trials, but you had made it so far and were extremely proud. Finally, you got to see Marshall. You were all smiles when you pushed the door to the studio and greeted everyone.

- Y/N, we have been waiting for you like you have no idea ! Jamal said.

- Oh really ? You asked in disbelief. Is that because you produce your best work whenever I’m around ? You asked with a smirk.

- Kind of, he answered jokingly. But it’s mostly because Marshall has been in a bad mood all day, which usually doesn’t happen when you’re around. So whatever it is, please work your magic and make our life bearable again, I beg of you, he added as he fell to his knees for good measure, in a very dramatic and theatrical way.

- Speaking of the devil, where is he ?

No one had time to answer your question, as Marshall came in the room, looking unnerved and slamming the door behind him. You looked at Talia, whose look confirmed that he was indeed in a bad mood. Everyone was silent.

- Now can we please give it a couple more tries and get that right ? Marshall asked exasperated.

- We’ve been working on that song for hours and nothing good came out, someone pointed out. How about we circle back to that later ?

- No, Marshall said coldly. We can get that thing to sound right and we will.

- Stubborn much ? Jamal asked jokingly before Marshall shot him a death glare.

You didn’t know if Marshall had seen you there or not but you weren’t sure as to whether or not greeting him was a good idea. You just sat next to Talia and stared at your phone as you were trying to finish reading a paper. You didn’t pay much attention to your surroundings before you heard Marshall slamming his head against the mixing desk.

- Fuck. He said. We’re already behind on schedule. This album is going to be my last, I swear. If it ever even gets done.

- You already said that for the last one, Paul pointed out jokingly.

- Yeah well you know what ? I’m soon to turn fifty-two. I’m too old for that shit anyways, Marshall replied.

- Come on, dude. We have our good luck charm here today, Jamal said pointing at you.

You smiled shyly at Marshall, who seemed to ease a little.

- Hey there, he said before getting up to properly greet you. Sorry I didn’t say hi before. That was rude.

- It’s ok, you said as you hugged him. So… last album before you become an accountant ? You know, you could ask my dad for pointers, you said jokingly.

Marshall laughed and kissed your cheek.

- Ok, maybe I was being a bit dramatic and maybe it won’t be the last one, he said with a laugh.

Jamal looked at the two of you in disbelief, yet smiling.

- So he’s been an ass all day, and now that Y/N has been here for ten minutes, he’s laughing ?

Everyone laughed and Marshall raised his middle finger.

- Now that you’re in a better mood, can we PLEASE take a cigarette break ? Someone asked.

- Fine, Marshall said rolling his eyes, as most people left the room and he went back to his seat, scribbling in this notebook.

After a moment of silence, you decided to talk.

- I have News, you said.

- Good or bad ? He asked without looking up.

- Well, you tell me, you said with a smile, proudly showing your newly-earned sobriety chip.

He greeted you with a smile and pulled you in for a hug.

- I’m proud of you, he said before kissing you on the forehead, making you blush. We should celebrate.

- Really ? How so ?

- Dinner ? He offered.

- That sounds good, you said. How about you come tomorrow night ? I’ll cook !

- I’m intrigued, he said. So you’re beautiful, smart AND you can cook ?

- I would also showcase my dancing abilities, but you’d be too jealous, you joked, trying to distract yourself from the fact that he called you beautiful.

The two of you shared a laugh but were interrupted by people coming back from their break. They resumed the work and, thankfully for everyone, Marshall ended up being pleased by one of the versions they recorded.

The next day, you decided to go shopping for your celebration dinner. You decided to cook some French recipe. « Whatever you want, unless it’s frogs or snails » Talia had told you. A while ago, you may or may not have tried to get your friends to taste snails, which ended up in a complete disaster. You were excited to cook and were in a good mood when you arrived to the store. You quickly grabbed the items you needed but the joy left your body when you reached the register and saw Simon - your Simon - kissing a beautiful woman as they were grabbing a few items. He seemed happy as ever. You could not help but stare at them and wonder for how long they’d been together. Something about their demeanour made it feel like they’d been a couple for ages. As you lowered your gaze, in hope they wouldn’t notice you, Simon called your name.

- Y/N ?

- Simon. Hi, you said.

- You look… well, he pointed out.

- I am, thank you, you replied. How are you ?

- Good. Kind of busy.

- I figured, you couldn’t help but say, quickly staring at the beautiful lady he was with.

- I meant with work.

- Oh. Right. Well I’d love to chat but I have to go. Have a good one.

You paid and quickly left the store. For some reason, you felt humiliated, even though Simon had every right to date whoever he liked. After all, you hadn’t been together for nearly three months. Plus, Simon was the very définition of perfection : handsome, polite, successful. Looking back, it was kind of obvious he wouldn’t have trouble finding someone else. And it wasn’t exactly like he made a promise to wait for you either.

Even though you tried your best not to cry on the way home, you sniffled as you walked through the door.

- Baby, are you alright ? Talia asked.

- I saw Simon, today. Kissing someone.

As soon as the words left your lips, tears started to stream down your cheeks.

- Oh, Y/N, I’m so sorry ! She said before giving you a much needed hug.

- I know it’s silly but some part of me thought that… I’d get better and we’d get back together and… and…

- I know. I thought you guys were endgame too, she said sheepishly.

She held you for a while as you sobbed.

- Let’s focus on the positive, honey ! Let’s celebrate those two months of you getting better. I’ll help you cook, she offered.

- Do you mind if we reschedule ? You asked. I don’t feel like celebrating. Or cooking. Or eating, for that matter.

- Are you sure, baby ? Marshall should be here soon. I promise we’ll have a good night, just the four of us, she tried.

- Yeah… can you call him and tell him I’m sorry ? I think I should go to my room and rest for a bit.

You apologised once again and left the items on the kitchen counter before going to your room. You changed into some sweatpants and a tank top and laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It dawned on you that Simon and you were truly over. Even though you tried thinking of something else, you couldn’t help but seeing him with that girl. She was truly beautiful. Probably more deserving of him, too. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing from your eyes. It felt like a fountain. Deep down, you knew it was your fault. You were the one who screwed up. He was the perfect match for you, you screwed up and now, you’d probably end up alone.

You heard a knock on the door.

- I’m fine, Talia, you said while wiping away your tears.

- It’s not Talia, you heard Marshall’s voice say. Can I come in ?

Marshall ? What was he doing here ? You quickly got up and opened the door.

- Hey, you said. I’m sorry, I told Talia to cancel for tonight. I’m feeling a bit under the weather…

- She told me about your ex, he said. But she thought we should do something to get your mind off things. Come here.

He pulled you in for a hug. He grabbed your face in his hands and wiped your tears with his thumbs.

- I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone’s face so swollen after crying, he said with a smile.

- I know, I’m an ugly cryer, you replied.

- Everyone’s ugly when they cry, he pointed out.

- No, that’s not true. Some people manage to stay hot even when they cry.

- Well I’ve never seen that, he said as he shook his head.

- I’m sure Ms. Perfection over there is still beautiful when she cries, you mumbled.

- Who ? Marshall asked, looking confused.

- The girl Simon was kissing. You should have seen her, Marshall. So beautiful. Tall. And blonde. And skinny. And perfect for him in every way. The opposite of me.

You rolled your eyes at the thought of her.

- As beautiful as she may be, I’m sure she can’t compete with you, Marshall said.

- You haven’t seen her, you pointed out.

- I don’t need to, he shrugged.

He was just being nice and you knew it full well. Still, the compliments made you feel a bit better.

- Why don’t you join Talia and Jamal ? Let me just put on something other than sweats and I’ll start cooking.

- I thought you wanted to cancel dinner ? He asked, looking confused.

- Yeah, but Talia still made you come all this way, so I might as well feed you.

- That’s awfully nice of you, he said with a grin.

- Nice of you to come, you said with a shy smile.

- Anything for you, Y/N, he replied with a serious tone. You can call me and I’ll be there.

- Good thing I don’t have your number, you said with a smile. You’d never live in peace otherwise.

- Let’s correct that, shall we ?

He grabbed your phone and entered his number in it.

- Now you can call me, he said. Anytime.

- Thanks, Marshall.

You gave him a shy smile and immediately rang him so he’d have your number too.

- I can help you cooking if you want, he offered. But I should warn you : I’m not too good at it.

- You’re a grown man and you can’t cook ? You asked in disbelief.

- Well I guess I can prepare food. I even worked as a short-order cook, a long time ago. I wouldn’t call that cooking though. Neither would my kids, he said with a grin.

- I’ll teach you a thing or two, then. Let me just get dressed.

- Why ? He asked. We’re staying in. You don’t have to make an effort for me.

You shrugged and headed to the kitchen with him. Truth was, you didn’t want Marshall to think of you as sloppy. Even though he did not really seem to care.

When you entered the kitchen, you found Jamal and Talia hugging and kissing like teenagers.

- You guys are too cute. I can’t handle that right now, you said.

- Yeah, please don’t rub your happiness in our single faces, Marshall pleaded.

- Sorry guys, I’m too in love with this gorgeous lady, Jamal said.

Both you and Marshall pretended to puke. The four of you laughed and started cooking together while listening to music. You tried teaching them how to prepare some traditional French chicken dish. It was a simple one but you hadn’t exactly been given the most attentive students. Marshall was desperately trying to cut the vegetables correctly (nearly destroying them in the process), while Talia and Jamal kept on making out like teenagers. You ended up preparing the dish by yourself. It wasn’t perfect but the group deemed it to be good enough.

- Don’t worry Y/N. If you keep cooking like that, we’ll find you a husband soon enough, Jamal complimented.

- JAMAL ! Talia shouted.

- Sorry. Wrong timing, he apologised. You know what I mean.

You couldn’t help but burst out laughing. Jamal was really sweet and you knew he meant well.

- it’s good to hear you laugh, Talia said as she grabbed your hand.

- Thanks for being here, guys, you replied. My day sucked but you make it better.

- Anytime, Marshall said.

The four of you kept the conversation going but were soon disturbed by the door buzzing. Talia went to answer.

- Hey Talia. Is Y/N here ? I’d like to speak to her, you heard an all too familiar voice say.

- Simon ? You asked as your heart started racing. What are you doing here ?

[marley-manson]

Could you expand on your dislike for the Raphael!Crowley headcanon? I'm fairly certain I know why but your meta posts are always so thoughtful and articulate and I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic

Thank you, I really appreciate it! And fwiw I always enjoy reading your thoughts as well!

And yeah I'm happy to! I mean first I should say that I don't actually like, hate-hate it in fanfic, it's not like an instant back-button for me if it comes up, and I feel like I've seen one or two fics after season 1 where I thought it was fine and it didn't take me out of the story.

But yeah in general I just don't like Crowley being special lol. I like the book vibe where Crowley and Aziraphale are just two... not quite nobodies, given their roles in Eden and the spy allegory of the present day, but certainly not particularly powerful or impressive demon/angels. Crowley and Aziraphale's "superpowers," such as they are, are just their adaptability thanks to living on Earth so long. That's what defines them compared to the rest of Hell and Heaven and sets them apart as uniquely capable of giving a fuck and doing something about the apocalypse. Eg Hastur and Ligur are explicitly more powerful than Crowley, but Crowley escapes them by the skin of his teeth because he's able to break convention by weaponizing holy water, and he's familiar with technology, and more capable of thinking on his feet in general.

I like that all their uniqueness comes from living on Earth with humanity. It resonates with the thematic core of the story, it's fun, and it's interesting. Crowley now being able to perform super impressive miracles and casually resurrect people (something presumably not every angel can do since Aziraphale can't resurrect Edinburgh girl) and read heaven's secret files and potentially stop time in season 1 because he's a former archangel diminishes that vibe to me.

Another con of Raphael!Crowley as a headcanon is that a lot of the time, ime, it feels similar to lost scion of royalty headcanons in other fandoms in an unpleasant way - the way that kind of leans into the idea of someone being inherently superior and worth more by birth (or creation I guess in an angel's case lol). I don't think this is necessarily inherent to the headcanon, or an aspect I think Gaiman will definitely emphasize, but there is that worry lol, especially considering how gary stu-ish Crowley felt to me this season.

Like, why is him being a former archangel meaningful or significant at all? Why does the headcanon exist? What makes Raphael!Crowley different enough from Random Angel #2398!Crowley that it's even brought up as a character detail or plot point that excites people? And I'm not implying that there are no valid reasons (eg exploring why a high ranking angel specifically would fall, or to add some drama for Aziraphale if he finds out and it matters to him, or to add drama between Crowley and the other archangels, etc), but quite often the vibe I get from this headcanon is that Crowley's just inherently more interesting and cool if he used to be a high ranking angel instead of some rando, which is a vibe that puts me off.

Ultimately I just tend to prefer mundane origins to surprise significant origins, and stories about average people (at least in their own context, as angels or w/e) moulded by life who make interesting plot-driving choices rather than inherently unique and special people. And Crowley being Raphael doesn't necessarily make him special, but it does lean in that direction, especially if it's treated as a surprise significant reveal and yk, a source of superpowers.

And to be fair I actually have been thinking about directions this concept could go in season 3 that wouldn't annoy me, and one is to emphasize that archangels aren't inherently special at all and it's an arbitrary designation, and Crowley doesn't give a shit and anyone who does (like other archangels or w/e) is going to be painted as naive and silly and too into hierarchies.

And/or, yk, emphasize that "Anthony Crowley" is emphatically NOT Raphael, regardless of who God created him as. Choose your own destiny. All that jazz. Especially if the Metatron is offering him angelhood again I could see former identity and status being brought into play and held up as extra significant by the antagonists and treated as something to be shut down and dismissed by the narrative, which I would enjoy.

So yeah, at the end of the day I just prefer Crowley as just some guy who happened to get the Earth Agent assignment, rather than the mysterious only fallen archangel.