#and ON videos unrelated to that which pissed me off so much

[woolydemon]

when my post flops on twt: ok I DONT CARE I hate everybody here I DONT GIVE A SHIT ABT YOU

when my post flops on tumblr: g... guys 🥺? (never recovers)

[paper-mario-wiki]

i've noticed a specific species of youtube videos with animators posting short animations (no more than 40 seconds usually), and it's some small skit, but there's ALWAYS a physically effeminate character that's animated just a little bit too carefully in a specific kind of way, and then even if the skit is about some other unrelated character or event, the carefully animated one will be in the thumbnail. it's very obvious to everyone what it is, and that kind of thing isn't necessarily new, but for these specific type of videos in this specific format. it doesn't sit quite right with me. maybe it's the soulless feeling of it, like "this was meant to make someone horny how to algorithm".

and like, usually i can just ignore that kind of thing. the objectification of women has been a part of advertising for longer than ive been alive, so it's not like i havent already figured out how to roll my eyes and ignore it (which, at least in my experience, is a necessary function for being able to maintain a general tolerance for much of what society is). but theres just. SOMETHING about that specific type of video. that just pisses me off for some reason, and i dont know precisely why.

[ark-fork]

💌Love letters; 👨‍🌾content farm

Recently, a situation happened to my blogger friend that really pissed me off. It took me some time to put my thoughts in order and think about what I wanted to convey in this "podcast".

(Yes, this column is back because you, beloved and dear anons and not only, are constantly doing something crazy)

To begin with, let's start with something less complicated and scary but just unpleasant.

🔴Declarations of love to bloggers \ flirting with them.

Okay, I think this already sounds crazy, for the simple reason that you confess your love to a media personality in their inbox.

To begin with, this is not just strange - but also rude to some extent because a blogger does not always want such attention to themself. Many of them already have their soulmate in life, which is why most declarations of love or flirting are considered ignorance and an unpleasant event.

But still, the prevailing part of them may simply not be looking for a relationship here. Therefore, the best solution would be NOT to TRY to impose your feelings on them and not talk about it.

(Considering that some of you actually write something like: "Haha, I'm obviously going to regret this decision later, but I'll do it anyway because I want to").

If you like this blogger and personality, keep your flirting and declarations of love to yourself. You will spoil your relationship with them in this way. It's stupid and embarrassing for both of you if you still admit your feelings to him. Damn it, there may be a hundred, a hundred, or more of you who want to confess to them!

Ahem, I hope the general point can be grasped because I'm not so good at talking about anything and simply expressing my feelings about the situation as a whole and, for the most part, being hot on the head.

🟠Accusing someone of making low-grade content.

This particular situation infuriated me the most.

Now, I want to talk about what "content farm" is and what they are eaten with.

To begin with, the content farms are YouTube channels that strive for more views on this site and get to the recommendation pages for your kids. These are common unflattering animated videos with questionable context contained in them.

Their distinctive feature is repeated stock images of characters, stolen pictures, and designs, interweaving characters from completely unrelated works with the one based on which they make their videos.

Well, I hope this brief description of what content farms are is enough.

I don't understand people who see the obvious, admiration for the author of any show and create their content with care and soul, investing ideas and efforts, and accuse them of being one of these pathetic bastards from YouTube who absolutely don't give a fuck what they release on the platform, caring only about views and clickbait.

Before you write insults to the author in the anonymous mode in their inbox, think a little, damn it. Just think how much you insult a person who is burning with their art and ideas by saying such words to them while under the guise of anonymity, a fucking coward.

[on-stardust-wings]

So I've been unhappy about the lack of physical media these days (and, unrelated to Good Omens, mightily pissed off at streaming services), which made me decide if I want to have my favourite shows on my shelf, I will do it myself if I have to. And since Amazon still doesn't look like it plans to sell me a nice DVD or Bluray set for season two, I went and did it my bloody self. I own a DVD writer and a printer and nobody can stop me.

Had lots of fun playing around designing sleeves, labels and on-screen menus. Behold my beautiful creations!

I used some of the very cool official posters for the covers. I loved the one that became my front cover; there's so much to see on it. (Also has this super handy scroll bit at the bottom where one only had to remove some Amazon logos to have space for labeling!)

Splurged on a couple of sheets of glossy photo paper to print the sleeves on. You wouldn't believe how much of a difference good paper makes for printout quality. The photos don't do them justice. The black is really black, the colours have great depth. I sat here giggling gleefully when these came out of the printer.

Here's the spines, sitting next to my season one Bluray (which I was happy to buy, hey Amazon please sell me stuff, you love selling things, I will buy things if you sell me things!) and my other self-made fave-show-on-shelf-putting-project.

If I do something, I do it properly. Disc labels with pictures on them!

Designing them was a blast; printing them was a fucking nightmare. I had a few pages of premade disc labels (sticker paper with perforated circles of the right sizes, so no cutting, yay). Already printing the sleeves took a good amount of test prints and template tweaking; I don't know why printing exactly to scale is still so difficult in 2024. I think Crowley was involved in designing printers. The things are definitely haunted. Printing a rectangle to scale? Difficult, but okay. Printing two circles to scale, in the exact correct position? Oh god I cursed so much. But look at them, aren't they beautiful? Definitely worth all the sweat and tears.

Menu screens! (Had a video of the first disc menu, mostly to show that it plays the Good Omens theme, but Tumblr hated it. Please imagine that all discs have this menu and that you can hear the theme playing while on the menu, thanks.)

DVDs fit 120 minutes of video, and I was super chuffed that I could get two episodes squeezed on one disc. So I have three discs with episodes, and an additional one with bonus stuff. Deleted scenes and VFX breakdowns with Muriel and Making Ofs. You know, the kind of things that are fun and cool about a box set for a show you like. Which I now have on my shelf. You gotta do everything yourself these days.

[parasprite]

diet culture rant. tw for discussions of orthorexia

I HATEEE the phrase "processed foods" god damn it. i watched a video about something unrelated the other day where a woman mentioned that she "cut out processed foods" and just hearing that has totally killed my appetite this week

to me that genre of diet culture language is implicitly classist and ableist cause obviously the people who rely more on "processed" food are people who don't have as much time, money or energy to shop or cook. but these middle class work from home people can just be like "yeah i only put whole foods in my body and it makes me feel so much better" and it pisses me off SO FUCKING BAD‼️

cause like idk. the whole idea of there being a good food vs bad food dichotomy is incredibly triggering to me. even though i know it's all diet culture bullshit it still makes me start overthinking and losing my appetite. growing up my parents would have extremely overblown reactions if i ate the wrong thing (my mum especially likening certain foods to "poison") so. probably something to do with that. and this is not even anything to do with weight cause if anything i really wanna Gain weight which is why im so pissed off that shit like this nerfs my appetite. it doesn't help that "processed" is a meaningless term... literally everything is processed dipshit. smoothies are pureed fruit, that's processed. milk is pasteurised. grains are processed into flour. meat is butchered and mashed up. yogurt and cheese are fermented. herbs get dried and ground into little flakes. fruits and vegetables get processed into boxes and cans and bite size pieces, juiced and freeze dried and cooked into a sauce. everything gets washed.

anyways i feel like orthorexia is so incredibly common and insidious in our society these days and people fucking promote it at every turn. no restrictive eating is not healthy. keto is not healthy. whole food diet is not healthy. non gmo is not healthy. id say "unless your doctor recommends it it's not healthy" but doctors are fucking ableist and fatphobic so fuck that. you don't even need to eat a "balanced diet" cause plenty of folk with arfid eat the same thing every day and they turn out totally healthy. if your blood tests say you're deficient in something you can just take gummy supplements its fucking chill. people can eat whatever the fuck they want. cause when diet culture gets into peoples' heads and makes them start overthinking all their food choices, That's how you make folk starve themselves, shame themselves, and take away a hugely important piece of their agency and choice.

[bisluthq]

Matty is super insecure, that’s the thing. As someone who is a fan of him, it’s one of his definitive traits. Even his manager said it’s what makes him such a good frontman, having a huge ego but very low self esteem. It’s why he always has one sided beef with random male musicians like Harry or Alex Turner even though he’s perfectly successful himself. He gets threatened by men who he sees as cooler than him or who are more popular/successful. He’s always talked about how he was this super skinny gangly teen and I genuinely think it’s the kind of thing that imprinted on him bc he’s so defensive over his height and why he was so petty over Taylor taking up with Calvin Harris over him, like the specific choice in man that she made was triggering. There’s even a video of him joking (years later and unrelated to Taylor tbf) abt how Calvin Harris could probably kill his band mate George, who is also a producer and a pretty big guy. It’s probably why Taylor “got” him so well because I think she’s very much the same way, hence the Olivia R situation. Like the bit about “you saw me with someone who looked like he would’ve bullied you in school”, I’d 100% bet he told her something like that. And so she knows the kinds of digs to throw at him, poking at his height and size and being weak etc, hence even Denise who loves all his ex girlfriends getting pissed off lol.

this is a really good take on him tbh from what I know (most of which I learned unwillingly but here we are - I don’t know as much as you about him and the other boys but like I know too muchhhhh).

[venus-haze]

interesting to me that you’re into axl because i get the vibe you’d be more into izzy since he’s got that cool kinda aloof vampire type aesthetic yk?

I definitely get that, and I do love Izzy a lot🖤 I don't think he gets nearly enough credit for everything he did for GNR, and I admire him getting sober when he did and deciding to throw in the towel on the band when he did. That couldn't have been easy, and I know in Duff's autobiography he mentions that everyone could tell that after Izzy got sober, he'd leave the band because he wasn't happy with how things were going between how the crew was being treated and generally pissing off fans. Also unrelated, but Izzy Stradlin and the Juju Hounds are so fucking good.

I think Axl and Izzy are so similar, and not just because they grew up together. Even though Axl is more outspoken, Izzy has such a strong personality too, it's just under a lot of layers. The fact that they're the only members of the band who haven't written autobiographies is so interesting because I feel like their perspectives are the ones everyone wants to get: Axl being the controversial and temperamental lead singer vs Izzy being more reserved and "mysterious" and the first member to voluntarily leave the band. I understand why they kicked Steven out (and forgive me because the early 90s were a mess for GNR) but as far as I remember, Izzy was most outspokenly upset about it, even though he himself was sober or in the process of getting sober.

I don't want to be like "oh Axl's my uwu baby who's never done anything wrong." A lot of people don't like him, which is their prerogative. I'm not going to argue people into liking Axl the way I do. Maybe I'm willing to give him more leeway which may be undeserved, but that's just how I've felt about him for a long time. I relate a lot to his struggles with mental health and his negative experiences with fundamentalist Christianity. It seems like he's doing a lot better now, and I'm so happy for that! Not to mention, his voice has held up a lot better than some of his peers. I mean, I'd still see GNR in concert if Axl couldn't carry a tune, but from videos I've seen, he's done a good job of keeping up his voice and adjusting songs for his present register.

Don't get me wrong, I love Izzy so much and I'm hoping he (and Steven) will be at my GNR show in August! I don't think he's a bad person for not getting in on the reunion, whatever his reasons may be. It's his life.

🦇 Battie

[fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy]

Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

[satanicchristiancult]

So, Boku No Hero Academia World Heroes' Mission is finally on my country’s cinemas, and now that I’ve finally watched it, it’s time for my thoughts.

(Spoilers ahead!)

Let’s start off with the fact that I’m rewatching the movie, but this time it’s someone’s recording of it. Finding it might have taken me a while, but I am the master at finding pirated content.

My thoughts:

Izuku’s new suit man, I love it.

That intro tho, now that’s perfection.

Rody’s English dub. I never watch the dubs of anything, but I found a recording of the English dub so I’m rewatching this while I write. The point is, I already love his dub.

The fact that Izuku couldn’t catch up to Rody for a while is ridiculous.

Bones is trying to do way too cool scenes, to just realize that they don’t have enough budget to make them look good, but they don’t care so we end up with this, some scenes that look crappy to be done by animation studios, but wonderful if they were fanmade.

May I propose Midoriya Izuku as the best Spider-Man? My man caught his Gwen Stacy/MJ on his first try! /ref

Todoroki is seriously like “Break your phone and run away. I don’t care if you actually killed someone. Just run”. Or at least that’s how I’ll always interpret it since I saw a post about that.

Izuku seriously just went all Light Yagami there by sending that secret message.

“Cafetería Callejón” huh. So this actually does take place in Spain? I thought that article I saw was a joke or an exaggeration, granted, I didn’t read it, but still! (Later in the post I’ll talk about where the movie actually takes place).

Rody. My guy. Best big brother ever.

That scene in the cave was the moment in which I realized, “god. I’m gay. I’m way too gay. I’m too gay for this two.”.

All of that thing about how Rody doesn’t like heroes because they never go to the place in which he lives, therefore he believes that all of them do it for the fame pissed me off. Not because I don’t agree, because he’s entirely right, but because I’ve been writing a fanfiction for a while about that idea, and now I’ll no longer make the fanfic that makes the reader go “damn, I never thought of it that way”, because canon now said so as well :/. I mean. I’m glad that they said it, but dude!

While doing the rewatch, I found out that what the dub and the sub say are different things. Sure, that’s to be expected but one stood out to me. While Izuku introduces himself, in both he says some variation of the same thing: “but my hero name is Deku”, Rody answers and says essentially the same in both the (oficial) Spanish sub, and on the English dub: “Deku. That’s easy to remember”. And while in the Spanish sub he says “yeah, that’s how I like it” (or something along the lines of that. The point is that he says that that’s the point), in the English dub he says “yeah, it’s growing on me”. So are my suspicions about Izuku not actually liking being called “Deku”, and slowly getting used to it true? GO ME! YOU FIGURED IT OUT!

I remember how much I loved whatever Rody wrote on that piece of paper he left to whoever he got the van from, but on this video version I’m watching it’s unreadable, so I can’t quite comment on in.

English dub’s “first person to break her heart gets KO’d (yes, I did have to google that word)” is the second best thing I’ve ever heard in a BNHA dub, and probably in any other dub.

(If you are curious, my favorite thing that I’ve ever heard in a dub is the dub for Latin America of the movie BNHA Two Heroes, in which Bakugou tells Todoroki, and I quote, “¡A un lado, copia de Zuko!”, which essentially translates into “Out of the way, copy of Zuko!”. I still can’t believe this is canon.)

Unrelated to it all, but I absolutely hate how they pronounce “Izuku Midoriya”.

Oh, right, this isn’t a romance movie about two guys running away from the country to live together in the middle of nowhere, I forgot that this was an action movie /hj. But in all seriousness, this isn’t your average BNHA movie, it’s too different from the other two. Not complaining tho!

Rody, why are you so much like one of the characters in my WIP fanfic? You are ruining all my hard work love! /nm. No but really, he is so much like that character. Older brother, “I have to work even though it makes me miserable”, “anything for my siblings” kind of vibe. Oh no. No I must include Rody in said fic. How do I even do that-

My girl just kamikazed herself. Jeez. (“Kamikazed appears not to be a word, but that ain’t gonna stop me!)

There’s just no reason for Iida and Aizawa not to be fighting. Honestly, there’s no reason for Mina, Aoyama, Koda, Hagakure, Aizawa, and Iida not to be out there, but even if I love them all, the fact that most of them aren’t out there makes sense. Those last two still make no sense tho!! Mirio gets a pass on this.

Godzillo!! You are back my beloved friend!!!

Toshinori, they also did you dirty man. Let this man have his protagonism! (Oh come on! How is it that the same language that made “thingies”, “ko’d”, and “defenestration” a word doesn’t have a word for “protagonismo”?! Even the Spanish language has it for god’s sake!)

Tetsutetsu’s hero name is “Real Steel”. His costume says “FE”, as in the element’s atomic symbol. Oh come on.

Salaam. I have no words to describe him so you’ll get the fandom’s wiki: “Salaam is a brown-skinned man with a two dimensional appearance, similar to human representations in ancient Egyptian art.”. A two dimensional appearance. I still haven’t gotten over this.

Those frames of the bad guy on top of all those dead heroes is so cool. When I find a better version of it, I’ll stitch all the frames together and make a wallpaper.

I’ll never stop finding it ridiculous that suddenly everyone wants a quirkless world. I get it, it isn’t everyone, but still. I find it so unlikely that so many people agreed and joined Humarise. Another thing I also find ridiculous is how 20% of people are quirkless, dude we know three quirkless people by name.

After comparing it with a map, I’ve found out that neither Otheon or Klayd are located in actually existing places of the world.

Unrelated once again, but I can’t get over the fact that Burnin’s hair is still. When I was reading the manga, I pictured it as a constantly moving fire in her head. Imagine how disappointed I was when I watched the anime.

Ah yes, battle scenes. Which means that now my brain will stop paying attention. Can’t I just focus on what I’m watching? Nop! You’re gonna be thinking about Encanto songs in its Español Latino dub.

All throughout Bakugou’s battle, the only think I could think about was “just use your arm grenade things”. Also, I did not care about that battle enough for it to be shown that much.

And on the other hand, I truly wanted to see Todoroki’s battle more. Yeah sure, I’m not a super Todoroki fan like others, but I like him and that underwater battle was something I’d like to see.

I still don’t quite get Mister Bad Guy’s (the villain, aka Flect Turn) quirk.

Rody catching Izuku right before he falls. Oh I love this bastard.

English dub Rody has the amazing ability to somehow make me laugh on serious moments. I don’t remember what either versions of him said, but English dub version called Mister Bad Guy something like “Blue guy” and I find that hilarious.

Izuku, my child, you didn’t realize that Eddie Soul was Rody’s father?

Aaaaand my son Rody got himself shot. FU-

Can I just point out that I’ve been doing this since before 8pm and it’s currently 11:01pm.

In both my rewatch and in my first time watching I spaced out during battles, to the point in which I still don’t know how Bakugou got a bloodshot eye.

Why is it that in every BNHA big fight someone will always end up shirtless?

Todoroki, how haven’t you drowned? Tell me your secret. Also, you can’t fight fire with fire, just make a chunk of ice and make the heat from the fire melt it into water, I have a feeling that that’ll do something useful.

And Izuku turned Super Saiyan Blue again.

United States World Smash is too overpowered.

Those last like 53 seconds lasted around 6 minutes and 12 seconds.

Recovery Girl kissing Bakugou is such a mood.

“Although if I had died stopping those bombs, I would have become a total legend!” “That’s a morbid thing to say”. God do I love this two.

Pino crying while Rody tells Izuku about how it would be better for everyone if he just stayed home. THIS. TWO.

Pino’s celebration dance.

Iida running to Uraraka and Izuku. Oh I love this trio.

UA’s Big Three get their own image. Good for them! Don’t they all just look lovely?

New chaotic trio, Cementoss, Present Mic, and Eraserhead.

I need an HD version of that handshake between Toshinori and Izuku.

Oh the Soul siblings. They have no reason to be that cute. Also, even though the version that I’m watching while rewatching the movie cuts before it is shown, that drawing of Izuku, Todoroki, and Bakugou (was Bakugou actually in it? I’d guess that he is, but I only remember the first two) is also wonderful.

To finally end all of this, Izuku and Rody are gay, that Todoroki scene in which he comes out and fights against the guys with the helicopter (the part with the crazy camera angles) looks fanmade, Rody’s English dub is wonderful, Rody has destroyed all of my WIP fanfiction as he is way too similar to the protagonist but this just makes me want to add him into the story, Aoyama should have been sent to fight in France like come on-, having timers in movies always ends up making a mess (especially since when I first watched the trailer, I thought that those 2 hours would be real life hours as the movie was most likely gonna last 2 hours and a bit more), the whole idea of Humarise is ridiculous and now I want to read quirkless Midoriya Izuku fanfiction with it, I forgot multiple times that this was an action movie, I have the attention span of a newborn puppy, Todoroki is an undrownable being and therefore, a god, and at this point I’ll create as many words as I please.

I give this movie an 8 out of 10.

I spent like 4 and a half hours on this.

-Mori

[fluffyferalkacchan]

Kacchan & Deku: Win to Save and Save to Win - A circular path of parallels (part 2.1)

I mentioned it in part 1, but Bakugou and Midoriya's character development relies heavily on them working on their basics flaws but also on removing their own internal shackles. Only after doing so, would they be able to properly become the hero they thrived to be.

In addition to the Win to Save and Save to Win transition they need to go through.

Midoriya must also work on mastering his quirk so that he could use it without hurting himself, and he must get rid of his shackles that is his admiration and idolization of All Might.

Bakugou on the other hand must also work on not acting on his own, in other words cooperating with people, and he must get rid of his shackles which is the huge Deku-complex he's got.

This post is going to showcase how Midoriya's and Bakugou's progress were nearly always mirrored and paralleled throughout the different big arcs.

Actually this post got way longer than I expected and I reached the 10 pictures/video/gifs per posts limit pretty quickly, so this part will only go until the Stain arc.

(more under the cut)

USJ

The USJ arc is where we see Midoriya and Bakugou taking their very first step from their respective starting lines (albeit a very small and almost accidental one).

In the first part of the USJ attack, Midoriya and Bakugou are thrown into a situation where they are outnumbered and surrounded by enemies.

Midoriya quickly comes to the conclusion that if they wanted to go and save the others, they'd have no choice but to fight and win. What is interesting to note is that Midoriya thought that in order to win this he needed to act like Bakugou, which of course led to the goldmine moment where he was leaping from the side of the ship yelling "DIE" to the villains.

This is also the first time we see Midoriya actively trying not to hurt himself with the "egg in the microwave" image, instead of just trying to minimize the damage to one small area like he did during the quirk assessment test. Well he didn't really succeed there but at least he's trying.

Bakugou on the other hands is seen working with Kirishima in order to defeat the villains. There were no real teamwork or cooperating moves worth speaking of there, as they were basically both doing their own thing independently. But what I think is worth noting is that moment where we saw them fighting back to back. I don't think at that point in time Bakugou truly trusted Kirishima completely with his back, it's a little too soon for that. But it was more probably something along the lines of "I acknowledge that if you got into UA then it must be for a reason, so better not mess up".

This is also the first time we see that Bakugou isn't just blindly trying to fight people who pissed him off, but he also have quite a rational and strategic mind.

As an aside, I think it is very telling that Midoriya's next move plan was to go help Aizawa, while Bakugou's was to go fight Kurogiri. It was two very diametral mentality and strategy that nevertheless led both of them to the very same place. (Story of their lives amiright?)

Speaking of them being in the same place... What we witness next is their first success...even if it's an accidental one.

Accidental quirk use success | Accidental saving success.

He had intended to smash Shigaraki and his punch just happened to be intercepted by a Nomu with a shock absorption quirk, so it was purely accidental. But this was still the very first time Midoriya used his quirk against someone else and didn't break his bones or hurt himself in anyway.

On the other hand, we've got Bakugou who blasted in and neutralized Kurogiri and he 'just so happened' to save Midoriya who had been recklessly rushing toward the villain. It might not have been completely intentional (though that's debatable) but this is the very first time we see Bakugou intercepting an attack for someone else.

Sports Festival

The sports festival arc is touch and go in term of characters growth for both Midoriya and Bakugou. But, what I think is really interesting with this arc (which is one of my favorite btw) is that the narrative - directly or indirectly - rewards/punishes them for their growth/regression.

Successful use of his quirk against Todoroki | Successful Cooperation against Monoma

This is the very first time Midoriya is purposely using his quirk against another human being, in a friendly-fighting/training context and he doesn't break his bones in the process. This successful use of OfA allowed him to one up Todoroki and to steal his headband (reward).

But as Midoriya himself noted "It hurts, but it's not broken", because using the quirk this way still hurts him in some way, it cannot be considered a full success. Plus, Midoriya wasn't really fully trying to control his quirk since "It's not going to touch [Todoroki] either way". And so Midoriya fails to get the headband he was truly aiming for (punishment).

On the other hand, we see Bakugou fully cooperating with his teammates for the very first time. It's not some half-assed attempt or anything but a fully thought-of quirk combo that allows him to literally blast his way through Monoma's defenses and get his and several other headbands (reward).

But, Bakugou only started to truly cooperate with his teammates at the very end. The rest of the times, he was seen jumping and attacking without really warning his own teammates. And so, Bakugou fails to get the first place position he was aiming for (punishment).

Successful hit against Todoroki | Successfully staying rational against Uraraka

So I mentioned above that Midoriya's use of OfA against Todoroki during the cavalry battle wasn't 100% successful because since he had no intention of touching/hitting Todoroki he didn't really bother to fully control his quirk. This is not the case here. In the Midoriya vs. Todoroki we see him truly hitting someone else. This is the first time his "egg in the microwave" imagery worked. And I guess that if Midoriya had not been recklessly breaking every single fingers of his, it might even not have hurt his arm. But well since he's a self-sacrificing dumbass who tried to punch someone with broken fingers *shrug*

As for Bakugou... I mentioned before that he has this huge, huge, Deku-complex. (It's this weird mixture of superiority and inferiority complex which atomically burst out whenever anything Deku-related is in proximity... so yeah. Deku-complex).

And here comes Uraraka, who was part of the Deku-Uravity combo winning against him in the training battle, who is Deku's friend, whose fighting strategy could be quite similar to Deku's at times. And as a reminder Bakugou went against her fully expecting that Deku might have given her some kind of secret strategy against him, so he went in fully expecting a Deku-proxy. (Which by the way is totally untrue 'cause Uraraka is a badass strategy queen who needs no Deku to think her battle for her thank you very much)

But regardless of all the deku-factor, Bakugou fought against Uraraka without underestimated her and being super focused from the beginning to the end. And more importantly he was 100% rational and had full control on his temper.

Midoriya vs. Todoroki | Bakugou vs. Todoroki

Okay so we can all agree that breaking and double-breaking one own fingers (and arm) in order to prove a point isn't really the epitome of self-care. So I don't think I need to comment on Midoriya's failure to control OfA here.

About Bakugou though... So of course Bakugou is pissed because he didn't manage to get the indisputable win he wanted, but raging and getting handsy at unconscious opponent like this? It's the first (and I think only time?) we see him so irrational and out of control with rage at someone who isn't Deku. But is it really unrelated to Deku though?

Bakugou was already pissed that at the beginning of the Sports Festival that Todoroki would recognize Deku as a threat and not Bakugou. Then the fact that Todoroki willingly used his fire against Deku despite his previous resolve not to use it, translated into Bakugou's mind as Todoroki recognizing Deku's strength. (Which as we know isn't really what it was about, but that's how Bakugou is interpreting it.) Bakugou even explicitly asked something along the lines of " Am I not strong enough to make you use it?" at Todoroki during the fight.

So his train of thought was probably something like this:

Half-and-half refused to use his fire quirk > Deku somehow managed to make the bastard use it > Deku is strong enough to force him to use it > the bastard won't use it against me > I am not strong enough to make him do it > Deku managed to do something I couldn't > I lost against Deku again

And well... is that really so surprising that his Deku-complex exploded after that? So yeah huge failure to control himself and deal appropriately with his complex Deku-related emotions here.

One of the reasons I absolutely love the Sports festival arc is the way the Bakugou-Todoroki and Midoriya-Todoroki dynamics really reflect the Win to Save and Save to Win situation.

Midoriya went into that fight fully intending on making Todoroki use his fire side in order to save him from his clearly traumatic issues (and if he managed to win the fight while doing so, it would be an amazing bonus).

On the other hand, Bakugou went into that fight fully intending on making Todoroki use is fire side in order to win against him (and if it somehow managed to save the half-and-half from his issues, well who the fuck cares).

They had the same task in mind, but they tried to solve it from two diametrically different directions of the spectrum. Why is why their results were diametrically different too.

Midoriya managed to reach and "save" Todoroki but he failed to win the fight, while Bakugou managed to win the fight but failed to "save" Todoroki and by extension failed to get his undisputed win.

Internship

During the internship/Stain arc, both Midoriya and Bakugou are confronted with a mentor figure who points out their flaws.

Gran Torino: You're stiff! And there's discord within your mind. [...] The way you used One For All in the cavalry battle and the tournament... You should already have realized it. But your admiration for All Might and your sense of duty are like shackles. You're thinking One For All is more special than it is.

Best Jeanist: I watched you at the sports festival. You were able to freely manipulate a Quirk with high potential, and had a good grasp of application as well. [...] However, you have a fatal flaw. You believe yourself to be the strongest, and you try to put in into practice not caring how that looks... you have a ferocious nature.

Here, their shackles are textually - and almost textually in Bakugou's case - laid out to them. (Best Jeanist has no way of knowing about the whole Deku thing so he went to address a tangential problem: Bakugou's "ferocious nature").

By the way, I think it's very interesting that Gran Torino chose to make his point by beating the shit out of/fighting Midoriya, while Best Jeanist chose to restrain and lecture Bakugou on "hero nature and moral". It really emphasizes on what they think their "mentees" currently lack.

And so thanks to Gran Torino nudging him into the right direction (and Midoriya's obsession with everything Kacchan), Midoriya manages to come up with Full Cowling, which is like one of his first major breakthrough in term of quirk mastery and fighting style. His All Might-shaped shackles is still very much there and he is still at a stage where he is imitating other's (Kacchan's, the incarnation of flexibility and versatility as far as he is concerned) rather than truly having his own yet, but it's a very huge progress in the right direction.

And it shows Bakugou had listened to BJ's previous words... Even if he was missing the point by a whole a mile, seeing as what BJ meant by 'deal with them properly' was to calm the kids down but well, at least Bakugou is trying. *shrug*u did manage to internalize some things that Best Jeanist tried to teach him.

"Your hero name is supposed to inspire hope. You do not yet see the world in that context. Once you return to my agency next year, I will hear your name out."

This is what Best Jeanist told Bakugou in a flashback (chapter 293) and I think this is when Bakugou started to seriously think about what a hero -and by extension the hero name - should mean to the public and civilians. Bakugou took Best Jeanist to heart which is why he wanted BJ to be the first one to know about his Hero Name once he found it.

Another sign of Bakugou listening, was a anime only scene in S2E19, where BJ told him that patrolling was important because it gave "the public peace of mind" and it built "a sense of trust between those who protect and those who are being protected". And right after that Bakugou is called out by three kids.

Kid A: Oh, I've seen him on TV before!

Bakugou, exasperatedly thinking: Is this going to be about the sports festival again?

Kid A: He was caught by a villain and looked like he was about to cry, right?

Bakugou, yelling: What did you just say?!!!

Cue kids crying.

BJ: Did you already forget what I taught you? Deal with them properly.

Bakugou, to the kids: Listen here, I wasn't caught by the villain back then, I was thinking about how to defeat him. It wasn't that I lost. I'm the man who'll become the number one hero! There's no reason for kids like you to worry about me --

*Kids crying harder*

Okay so, on the surface layer it seems as if Bakugou has not learned anything at all and is unable or unwilling to change. And true, he didn't manage to calm down the kids and even made the situation worse, but he was trying in his own way.

According to what the kids were saying, Bakugou was remembered and depicted as a "victim", someone in "need of protection" which is the opposite image of what he is trying to instill: a "hero", someone "protecting others". (And let's not forget that for Bakugou, the very essence of a hero is someone who always wins.)

How can they "trust" Bakugou to protect them if they still see him as someone who needs to be rescued? So in his own way Bakugou was trying to reassure those kids and reaffirmed his identity as a future "hero", so that they'll be able to trust him to protect them properly.

And it shows Bakugou had listenned to BJ's previous words... Even if he was missing the point by a whole a mile, seeing as what BJ meant by 'deal with them properly' was to calm the kids down but well, at least Bakugou is trying. *shrug*

The "coming back to normal hair when angry" thing is 100% a comical effect... but like 85% of Bakugou's seemingly comical behavior shows a more emotional and vulnerable aspect of him if analyzed seriously, so I'm taking the "comical effect" with a grain of salt.

Anyway what is interesting is that Bakugou's hair got stuck that way even if he'd tried washing it after the internship and the only way for it to go back to normal is for Bakugou to be super pissed off. But if it changed back, then it stayed that way. So we can deduce from that, that whenever it exploded back to "normal", BJ would have needed to tame it back again.

And I don't know how many times BJ needed to do that, but if I had to bet, I'd say not as many as we might imagine. Because Bakugou said that his hair "got used to it" which meant he spent more time with his hair "tamed" than spiky. Which meant that apart from the kid scenes from ep19, Bakugou probably didn't have a lot of "ferocious moments" and mostly tried to hold his temper like BJ instructed him to.

Anyway....

Like I said above, i'm going to stop here, because I reached the pictures per post limit. OTL

So yeah tldr: Midoriya externalizes while Bakugou internalizes, both of them are showing growth and development but they still have a long way to go.

Part 2.2 will be about how their progresses are faring while directly confronted with their respective shackles (spoiler alert: not well) during the final exam and then it will (hopefully) go until the Deku vs Kacchan 2 where they'll finally manage to remove their shackles.

[pl-panda]

The vines that bind us - Chapter 7

Chapter 1 || Previous || Next

-----------

After double-checking with security, it turned out that Tim Drake did not show to work. She sighed. Looks like more work for her… Just like Nathalie said.

She started by greeting the two plants in Mr. Drake’s office. Both were incredibly satisfied with themselves that they earned bigger pots. They were also even happier to see her. Next, she took care of her new plants. The two on her desk she quickly took a liking to. They were cute. Only the large plant that now stood in the corner next to the vent was snarky and dared to make an inappropriate comment about one of the office plants. The hole in that leaf was caused by a bullet thank you very much. Mari quickly and clearly explained where it made mistakes. 

With that done, she got to the paperwork that was left on her desk. There were many things to be done before the lunch break.

----------

Chloe was giddy the whole day. She got a green light to deal with the Liar in any way she wished. So many plans. So many possible revenge options. So many lawsuits to be filled. But as she was walking to the cafeteria, a new, even more devious, plan formed in her head. She would need the help of a certain stuck-up brat, but if she got him to help, it would not only destroy Lila but utterly ruin her. She already had several ideas from her other schemes that could be adjusted. Oh, this would be glorious if only she found… there!

Damian Wayne was not having a good day. He was in fact having a really, really bad day. His father had forbidden him from bringing another sword to work until his previous one is returned. Given how efficient the GCPD is, he would be lucky to get it before thirty. He was the only one of his brothers to arrive at WE before lunch, which led to more irritation. He definitely hated the corporate gossip about one Marinette Dupain-Cheng. How she was awesome, how she was a 'bamf' (whatever that meant), or how much they adored her kind-but-still-no-nonsense attitude. She took his sword!

“Wayne.” An irritating voice came from behind. Damian was of course aware that someone was behind him but dismissed it as an employee doing something unrelated to him. 

“Bourgeoise. What the heck do you want from me?” He spat

“To show you something.” She pulled her phone from the pocket of her jacket. He quietly admired how she found female clothing with pockets that deep. At the same time, he kept frowning at her.

“I swear, if it’s…” He didn’t finish, because she pressed ‘play’ and the video started. The whole thing laster about seven minutes. With each passing moment, his frown deepened and by the end, Chloe wondered how can he see anything when his eyes narrowed to two tiny slits. 

“I. want. her. dead.” He seethed through the clenched teeth.

“Good. But we can’t kill her. Mari forbid it and I know your father isn’t exactly fond of killing.”

“Tt. What. do. you. want?” He pronounced each word clearly.

“Simple. Destroy her with her own words.” She pointed to the group where she was clutching to Adrien’s arm for her dear life. “Mari-bear is too moral to play with her lies like that. Us? We play to win.”

“Fine. But I want my sword back.”

“Clever boy. I knew you could break into an evidence room.” Chloe smiled. “They returned it cleaned of blood the same afternoon. Guess you were too late.” 

“Tt.”

“Fine. I will get your precious sword. But if you try to mess with Mari…”

“I got enough of it from my father.” He scowled.

“Good. Now, onto the plan.”

---------

Mari didn’t come to eat lunch with Chloe. She was perfectly aware that the girl would start one of their plans and wanted to have an alibi. Instead, she dived into the paperwork that had to be done as soon as possible. It was going on good and if she dealt with it before the day’s ended, she would have time to try searching for her mother in the evening. She even inquired with the City Hall about the ownership of their old apartment and the answer should be coming any moment now. 

She was broken out of her concentration by a scream of rage and frustration.

--------

A few moments earlier

Damian stalked toward the group of teens that were relaxing from their intern duties. He could clearly see the Liar clutching to Agreste boy like a leech. Perfect for their plan. 

The boy had to agree that what Blonde concocted was both deviously brilliant and brilliantly devious. A perfect opening play. He made sure that he looked flawless before suddenly ‘appearing’ behind Lila and Adrien. 

“How could you?” He asked in an emotionless voice. His face was showing only traces of sadness. Just like he would look if it was for real.

“Who are you?” She asked dismissively.

“Really Lila?” He asked, allowing a small amount of water to appear in his eyes. It was not like him to cry at all, but his mother taught him all useful ways of emotional manipulations and tears were all the way on top of that list. “After all these years, our relationship meant so little to you? I specifically got this trip so we could reunite and you are just… hanging off of some french model?” 

“Listen here you…” She was interrupted when Chloe stormed, her heels clicking loudly around the cafeteria. Conveniently, everyone removed themselves when they saw Damian stalking toward intern-bitch. Speaking to police two days in a row is not a pleasant experience.

“Wayne. What’s the mess here.”

“Tt. You were right. She is a harlot.”

“Wayne?” Alya asked with wide eyes.

“Yes. You have the questionable experience of meeting a pissed Damian Wayne. My poor cake…” She moaned.

“Would you let that go, woman!?” He asked. This time he had no need to play his emotions. Bourgeoise never forgave him and Drake that Cake incident and it grated on his nerves. He paid her back.

“It was my birthday!” She raised her hands up. “And you are all idiots. Lila kept telling you how great her relationship with Damian was. And yet she is hanging off of Adrien, sinking her claws into his arm. I think the English expression was… I swear I read a book about it. Something with red A…” She pressed a finger to her lips, acting like she was trying to remember. “Ah! Scarlet Woman.” She grinned. “That’s what you are, Lie-la. A scarlet woman using men to get what you want.” That was vicious even for Chloe. Adrien took the opportunity to push the fuming girl away and get back. He could admire the chaos that was about to happen very soon. 

To their surprise, Lila calmed herself and giggled. 

“ah! Silly Dami-boo! I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I thought we were always just friends. It must’ve been one big misunderstanding” 

The people around started to nod their heads, accepting what she said as plausible. Damian Wayne wouldn’t be the first to get the wrong idea. At least until their phones buzzed. Chloe was smirking.

“Misunderstanding? This declarations of love say something different though. I seem to remember there was even some talk about a ring.”

Lila checked her phone and her eyes went wide. There were messages that looked like from her. That witch even replicated her speech pattern. It was much better forgery than what she did with Maribrat.

“Lila?” Nino stared at her in disbelief.

“I’m disappointed. After all this time together.” Damian shook his head. He pulled a small bracelet off and tossed it at her. “Consider this a break-up.”

Chloe smiled. “So you are free now.” She asked him. Damian saw the predatory grin and felt a sudden need to run. But he knew that the witch was not yet destroyed. 

“Yes…” 

“What say I concede that the cake incident was entirely Drake’s fault. If you take me for a coffee after work?”

Damian gave a distraught Lila a look of hatred. Then, he turned back to Chloe. 

“I would like that. Does 4:30 pm works for you?”

“I should be free by then.” She smiled. “It’s a date.”

With that, she left with Damian toward the elevator. Lila had enough of it and stormed to the bathroom. Soon after that, a shriek of frustration filled the building. Since it sounded like the bratty intern, nobody cared enough. The class was not allowed to leave their posts, not that too many of them wanted to be near Lila at the moment. They had many things to think about.

Damian and Chloe sat in the Law department, both having a satisfied grin. It was totally worth it.

“Just to be clear. I still hate you.” He said to her. 

“Same here.”

“To the Liar’s fall.” They raised a cookie each and bit in. Most people that saw them had to check again because the Ice Prince was actually hanging around someone his age. 

--------

Mari managed to record the shriek and now used it as Lila’s ringtone. It was a nice mid-day surprise that brightened her day. It lasted all beautiful hour until Marleen White, the head of PR, started knocking on the elevator, demanding to see her. Given her state and that she didn’t even call, it was something urgent. Mari quickly let her in.

“We have a huge problem.” She tossed a folder full of pictures on her desk. There were prints of chat screens with various dates. The content was most troubling. 

“I assume someone leaked it to the press?” She shrugged. 

“How can you be calm? It’s a disaster!” 

“They are fake.” Mari shrugged again.

“Fake?”

“A. That’s not Lila’s number on any of her four mobile phones. B. I have no idea who made it, but they have no idea how Damian Wayne acts. It’s straight up the same bullshit she will be facing a lawsuit for once the Law Department gets through the tons of paperwork. And C. This is an American number. Lila had no way of getting it three years ago. Plus the timing is too perfect. She gets punishment from the company and then the scandal with her dating youngest Wayne gets out. Whoever made it settled on fast, not precise.” Mari circled things on the prints.

“So it’s all fake?”

“I suspect she wanted revenge on the company for the extra work I had her be assigned.” Mari grinned at the memory of the shriek. “Or, someone’s doing it in her name.” For a moment her thoughts wandered to Chloe. She would have to speak to her soon.

“We will deny it and post all of the details you highlighted. The tabloids might still latch on it.”

“To be honest, I think it will be better than being dragged through the mud for the deaths. Especially since there was no story attached. Personally, I can’t care less about celebrity romance.” She dismissed the concern. It pained her a bit to speak about the dead in such a dismissive manner, but through the day she slowly absorbed that it was not her fault. She couldn’t blame herself. That’s what Marinette would do. Marinette was left in Paris by the irritating classmates and had her luggage (full of Adrien’s cheese-stinking socks) sent to India or somewhere. 

“That’s… quite a good idea. I assume you will want this forwarded to the Law department to add to the lawsuit.” 

“No point. It’s fake and we have no proof who leaked it. I’m plenty certain we have nothing or that person would already be sitting in HR.”

“The IT is looking into it, but they have little hopes. It went through an external server that we can’t get access to legally. Whoever leaked it was smart enough to avoid easy detection.”

“Good. By the way, what about that statement?”

“I sent it to your email.”

“I see it. I will read it and send you eventual suggestions.” 

“Sure. It’s nice to have someone competent in place.”

“I thought Mr. Drake was quite a good CEO. He got this company from the hole back to the top?” She tried to remember what she knew about Wayne Enterprises and Wayne Tech

“Yeah, but he is… eccentric. And can disappear at weird times for hours only to then work through three days without sleep”

“Oh. And Sarah was unhelpful?” Mari winced, remembering her own runs when the deadlines approached and she realized she spent the whole week constantly fighting Akumas. 

“She was good with people, but…” 

“I get it.” Mari smiled. “Luckily, I have experience with babysitting.”

Both women cackled at that.

------------

Once Marleen was gone, Mari quickly called Chloe’s phone. The girl picked up almost immediately. She was speaking to someone. 

“I hope I’m not interrupting your work?”

“Don’t worry Mari-bear. I was just speaking with my newest side-kick.”

“Tt. I’m not a sidekick!” A voice came from next to her. Mari tried to resist the urge to facepalm. Chloe tilted the phone to show a pouting Damian Wayne. 

“Shut up Sidekick. I’m the mastermind behind our plans.”

“And I pay for them with my image and sanity.” He replied. 

“Hush you! I will let you know that some people would kill for the opportunity.” 

“Tt. Right now I want to kill someone.” 

“Har har. So funny, are you?”

“As much as I enjoy watching you two flirt… Get a room.” Marigold joked, watching both of them blush red. Before either had a chance to attack her for implying anything, she continued. “Chloe. Did you per any chance fabricated and published texts between Damian and the Liar?”

“Wait! That bitch actually published it?”

Mari facepalmed. She could feel the headache coming. In the hindsight, maybe it would’ve been better to just fire Lila’s sorry ass, together with the rest of the bunch. She could easily have Adrien and Chloe hired on some less permanent deal. They could both do without school for a while.

“Tt. Now I will really need my blade. Please tell me that nobody believed it?” Damian asked, frowning. 

“You’re in luck. Madame White caught the wind of it quick enough. She will be making a swift statement that this is an attack on your person and the image of Waynes as a whole. Plus publishing a detailed analysis of why it couldn’t have been you.” Bluenette reassured him that his precious reputation would not take any great hits. Or not too great of a hit at least.

“Good. Jon wouldn’t let me live it down.” He sighed in relief.

“Now, Chlo. You know I love and support your deviousness, but please try and limit the civilian casualties of your future plans.”

“Fine. I can’t promise Lila’s retaliation to follow the same rules.” She huffed.

“Good. You’ve got any plans for the afternoon?”

“She is already otherwise occupied.” Damian quickly interceeded. He might not like the blonde much, but his honor demanded that if he actually invited her for a date, he did his best.

“I will leave you to your scheming then. Or whatever else you are doing” Mari quickly hanged up on the couple before they could scream at her. She saw a bit of blush enter both of their faces so she counted it as a win. 

---------

The rest of the day passed relatively quickly. Tim Drake did not show for work, so she had to handle the paperwork herself. She never imagined how much work went into organizing one press conference. Sarah did absolutely nothing about it before she quit. Her biggest problem was that she needed to have it happen outside of WE since several journalists expressed their concerns about security. Now she was being hard-pressed to find a separate convention center. Except that things were expensive and Finances were definitely not being helpful. She posted the task to one of their employees. He would send her the offers before the day was up, but there was a slight delay and she would have to wait until four. Mari decided that she can wait and have it done that day. 

She informed Chloe and their teacher that she had to stay in the office after hours and get it done so they wouldn’t worry. Then, she dived into making what felt like dozens of phone calls. Out of four serious offers, three would actually pass the standards set by Mr. Drake in the email he oh so graciously sent her in response to a question about the situation. It was six when she actually got done with the negotiations, but the satisfaction was immense. The final price was ten percent lower than what she initially aimed for, so she had more funds for other things. The guest list was also reviewed in the meantime and already sent back, so that was one more thing crossed out of the list. 

After being done, she bid farewell to the receptionist near the entrance and went to the Taxi she called before leaving. It was already waiting, which was a nice boon for the end of the day. Her next stop was not the hotel though. She gave the address in the seedier part of town. Her old address to be precise.

----------

“Are you sure Ma’am?” The taxi driver asked unconvinced. “I mean it’s not the safest part of town.”

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. Besides, my mother used to live here.” She gave him a bright smile. 

“If you say so…” He shrugged and stopped before a rundown building. Moss and ivy had already overgrown this place a long time ago, but the plants seemed… unhealthy. Like they were left to fend on their own for too long. It was not a good sign.

Hesitating for a moment, Mari entered the building. She was hesitant, even though technically her mother was the owner. The ground floor was empty if one ignored several dozen wild plants in various states of growth. Some were dried and dead, while some others were lush and domineering. It used to be well-kept and ordered inside the garden that she and her mother tended to. She would fix that after she found her mother. 

The second floor was not much better. The dust everywhere was indication enough that Pamela Isley moved out long ago. Probably even years. Mari walked around, reminiscing about her childhood. It was not what one would call ordinary, but she would never settle for it anyway. She loved learning about plants with her mother. The martial arts lessons with uncle Wilson when he had time. Science with uncle Victor or her mother. Even the math with uncle Floyd. And Allegra and Claude were there to keep her company. 

Slowly, she trailed to her mother’s room. She hoped to find something useful there. She definitely did not expect to have to block a giant mallet with blue and red stripes. Ducking under it, she delivered a quick kick before running to the stairs. Mari dashed downstairs and burst onto the street. The Taxi driver actually waited for her. He was a godsend at this moment. She quickly jumped inside and ordered him to go.

“So? Unwelcome guests?” he asked a bit more cheeky than she would’ve liked. 

“Yes. But apparently my mom didn’t live there is some time.” Mari answered in a bitter tone. 

“Shame. Hope you have better luck, next time lass.” They rode in silence for a moment. “Name’s Chas by the way. Chas Chandler.”

“Marinette.” She smiled at the man. “Thank you for waiting. I would’ve probably been in a worse situation if not for you.” Mari did not add that the worse situation was ordering the wild plants to defend her. She worked with the wild plants maybe twice before and they didn’t listen that well to orders. 

“Where to now?”

Mari gave him the name of the hotel. When they arrived, she paid him and gave him a rather generous tip for the work. It was already dark, but apparently Chloe was not yet here. The class was supposed to be visiting some local museum or whatever. It’s not like she cared. 

When Marigold entered her room, there was a large book sitting on her bed. Tikki immediately zoomed out of her pocket and toward it. she hovered over for a moment before she huffed. 

“Of course he would do that. He is an idiot though. I would be a much better teacher.”

“Who are you talking about?” Mari asked the small goddess.

“No one!” Kwami said quickly and in a bit higher tone. The bluenette could’ve sworn she saw Tikki get even redder than before. 

“Okay… And what’s that? Nothing dangerous I hope?”

“It’s… it’s a spellbook.” Tikki said after hesitating a bit.

“Like magic?”

“Yeah.”

“Who would leave me a spellbook without as much as a note?” Mari asked. She could see Tikki was conflicted.

“I can’t say.” She finally let go of air. “I made a promise that I would keep the secret.”

“Fine. You’re sure it’s safe?”

“Yeah, but Magic is dangerous. You should only do it with some supervision.” Tikki warned her.

“Good thing I have you then.” Marigold grinned. 

“Mari! You know I can’t exactly just…” Tikki paused. “You know what, it’s actually not a bad idea. I can teach you some simple stuff for the starters.” 

“Huh? I actually expected you to be against it.”

“I trust you to act responsibly. And as a Guardian, you probably should start learning magic anyway.”

“Let’s get started then. Please tell me I can curse Lie-la!”

-------

NEXT

[that-house]

Viego Rant (villainy and character design and tragedy and all that jazz)

Introduction The more I think about Viego, League of Legends’ newest character, the more enamored I am with him as a villain (unrelated to his general sexiness, though that does tie in with what makes him such a good villain).

I’ve seen a lot of complaints about his design. The Ruined King, one of the greatest threats in Runeterra, the progenitor of the Shadow Isles, the lord of the undead, is finally released as a playable champion and he looks like this:

People were expecting another Mordekaiser (who is similarly an undead king with a ghost army), a lich-tyrant clad in iron, decayed flesh peeling from an aged face. What we got was an angsty anime prettyboy, and it was infinitely better than the alternatives. 

Lore Viego isn’t a conquering king. While his combat abilities are indeed badass, his personality is far from it. He’s a whiny brat and that’s incredible. He isn’t bent on world domination. His character arc revolves around just how human, how fallible he really is. For those unfamiliar with his lore, I’ll paraphrase it here:

Viego was the second son of a great king. Overshadowed by his brother and with no expectations upon him and near-limitless wealth, he wandered around being an idiot fuckboy for the vast majority of his formative years. Disaster struck when his brother died in an accident, and Viego took the throne with no training, no experience, and no desire to be king. He was a shitty king. The worst king. Just all-around apathetic. Gave zero shits. Can you blame him? It’s a lot of responsibility to be thrust upon someone who isn’t much more than a child, and with no preparation. He didn’t care about anything, that is, until he met Isolde. She was a poor seamstress, but he fell in love with her upon their first meeting. Together they ruled the country but it was really just them staring longingly into each others’ eyes. His allies were kinda fucking pissed about that, and one day an assassin came from Viego. The assassin fucked up and stabbed Isolde instead, and the poison on the blade made her fall gravely ill. As she lay in her bed, slowly dying, Viego went mad seeking a cure. He ravaged the land seeking any knowledge that might help, pouring all of his money into finding an antidote. He failed. As a last resort, he brought Isolde’s body to the Blessed Isles, a place rumored to be able to resurrect the dead. It worked, to an extent. Isolde’s wraith, confused, afraid, and angry at being ripped from the peace of death, unthinkingly stabbed Viego in the chest with his own magic sword, creating basically a magic nuke that turned the Blessed Isles into the domain of the undead. Viego resurrected as the king of the Shadow Isles some time later, having totally forgotten that Isolde killed him. He controls a big-ass ghost army, could probably beat up any living thing in a fight, and has evil ghost magic. Now this stupid simp wants his wife back and if he has to kill every living thing on Runeterra, well, anything for his queen. He’s even a tier 3 sub to her Twitch.

Music His musical theme isn’t some heavy metal anthem or intense cinematic piece (unlike the Pentakill song named after his sword, Blade of the Ruined King). It’s mostly sad and slow, almost sinister, with a piano and a music box. It has its loud moments featuring violins and choral bits like any villainous music, but the song is mostly subtle. It is a banger though.

In the comments section of this video, someone pointed out that the music reflects his story from beginning to end:

Everything about this champion is so well done. Riot Games really outdid themselves on this one. Bravo, encore please.

Motivation While the Mordekaiser circlejerkers on r/LeagueofLegends won’t shut the fuck up about how powerful Mordekaiser is, Viego is the better villain. Mordekaiser may be a bigger threat to all life on Runeterra, but Viego is a better character. (There’s a guy on my League discord server who won’t shut up about Mordekaiser so forgive me for being pissed at Morde stans).

Mordekaiser is motivated by a desire for control, to rule the world. Viego is motivated by obsession and misplaced love. There aren’t a lot of Mordekaisers on Earth. Supervillains are rare in real life. But Viego’s motivations are a lot closer to home. People in positions of power that they don’t deserve can do a lot of harm (for example: Trump).

He’s a grieving husband who was never prepared to deal with anything more difficult than choosing what wine to drink with dinner, who is trying to get his wife back because the world had always complied to his every whim. He’s a funky mix between a truly hopeless romantic and a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum.

Obsession is scary. It’s a real-world emotional state that’s been the cause of a lot of murders over mankind’s history. In contrast, Mordekaiser’s cartoonish Genghis Khan XXL schtick isn’t something that we encounter often. Of course a superpowered ultradictator would be worse for the world, but if you give ultimate power to a random person, you’re more likely to get someone like Tighten from Megamind. Or, more relevantly, Viego.

Design His design is sexy and stupid, just like him. He wears an open shirt into battle and wields his sword like an idiot (I’ve seen all the rants about how that’s not how that sword is meant to be used) because he was never really a warrior. Even at his most violent, right before the end of his mortal life, he didn’t do much combat himself, leaving his military endeavors to his underlings. Even now that he’s essentially a god, he still has a colossal wraith army that causes far more devastation than he ever could personally.

Despite his slim build (by League of Legends standards), he easily wields his colossal sword because of the strength of his state of undeath. Like his political power when he was alive, his posthumous magical and physical powers were never something he sought out, they were just given to him by circumstance.

The big cool-ass triangle hole in his chest where Isolde stabbed him is the source of the Black Mist, which is evil ghost mist that ebbs and flows from the Shadow Isles, bringing with it hordes of the undead. The sadder Viego is, the more Mist he creates. Poetically, his invasion of the world is inspired by his sorrow at his wife’s death and enabled by his wife’s reluctance to return to him. His story is perfectly reflected by his design.

Isolde Isolde’s spirit took up residence inside a young Senna (who’s another League champion, not particularly important here). This led to some Black Mist-related shenanigans and at least for the time being, Senna uses Isolde’s power to fight off the servants of Viego which threaten all life on Runeterra.

It seems pretty clear that whatever love Isolde felt for Viego is gone by now. Whether or not she ever loved him or was just unable to say no to the king is up for debate, but I’d like to believe there was something there. In my opinion, Viego’s story hits harder if they really were a great couple at first, torn apart by circumstance and obsession.

Much like the Maiden of the Woods in that one comic that circulates around here, to whom the knight gave his heart and she was like “yo what the fuck i literally never asked you to do this,” Viego went a little too far in trying to save her. They may have once been happy, but the Ruined King ruined his own life, too.

Unless Isolde is a lot less morally decent than we’ve been led to believe, I doubt she can forgive all the massacring that her husband’s been doing lately. In the recent cinematic, she was shown to be pretty anti-Viego. Maybe she’ll get a bastardization arc, but it certainly seems unlikely.

All of Season 2021 is based around Viego, Isolde, and the Shadow Isles, so we’ll just have to see what comes next. It’s possible that we’ll get Isolde as a playable champion, which should clear a lot of things up.

Final Thoughts Unlike so many villains, he’s not fueled by rage or hatred, but rather by sorrow. He’s stuck in his past, unable to move on. He regrets the actions of his life but is set on his course now. The sunk-cost fallacy comes into play here; he’s put so much time and effort and blood into bringing back Isolde, that turning away from it would feel to him like an insult, not only to her but to the innocent lives he’s taken in her name.

His tale is a tragedy, a love story gone horrifically wrong. Viego has suffered throughout his thousand-year life. Despite this, he’s undoubtedly the villain. His permanent death would be a net positive for the world. In has rage and grief he’s destroyed multiple civilizations, and will burn down the world to get Isolde back.

His heart may be in the wrong place, but it’s in a very human place. I don’t think he’ll get the ending he’s looking for, but I hope he finds some closure in the end.

[amispnrewatch]

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.

[themusicsweetly]

Hi! Could you do a top 10 these goobers love each other moments divided in a top 5 Cait moments and top 5 Sam moments? I woke up today missing their cute moments...

Hello there, Anon! Thanks for the ask!

Seriously, I love this ask so much. I was telling my GC that it’s asks like these that make me not regret keeping my inbox open, so thanks for that 😄

But also. This was a difficult question LOL. There are just so many little moments that I love and that I think show their Goobery Love™ so it’s hard to pinpoint just 5 for each. But hopefully you enjoy these moments I did pick and that it satisfies your cute moments craving! I know it certainly did mine 😊

5 Caitriona Moments (numbered, but not ranked)

1) The Look of Adoration. I’ve said before that this Fresno Bee vid is one of the very first ones I watched of them and it’s also the one that gave me pause because of the heart eyes Caitriona Mary Balfe is throwing at Sam Roland Heughan. Just look at that. She always listens to him so intently and with so much clear adoration and even after 6 years together and many of the same things said over and over again she’s still as invested in what he says as she has been from the beginning. 

2) The Origin Story. Whenever Caitriona talks about their chemistry test, she always emphasizes how good Sam made her feel and how instantaneously comfortable she felt with him. That connection and bond is so very evident when you watch the test video. This SAG interview always was very telling to me and has stuck in my mind for years since:

“I walked in and Sam was just this calm center in the room and there was zero posturing and zero ego. And I remember we just immediately started chatting about Scotland and I had friends who lived there. It was just like an old friend… I think we have a similar approach to life and we have a similar approach to acting. It just works… Sometimes you just get lucky. Sometimes the stars align.”

3) The Look of Pride. ECCC 2017 was a GEM. There were so many absolutely fantastic moments and it was just so much fun for everyone, both attending and at home watching. Honestly, I think it might be one of the best Cons they’ve done. But the one moment that makes this list is when Sam was asked about MPC and he began describing what the program has accomplished thus far. She looked so incredibly proud of all of it and so ridiculously proud of that man, just as the President and Founder of the SRH Fan Club always is.

4) Cheer Squad. This is one of my favorite SamCait photos and moments of all time. The fact that Caitriona just sat outside with a homemade sign around her neck waiting for Sam to pass by during his LA Marathon run makes me emo, y’all. And I think it’s even more telling that she later tried to brush it off as her just rolling out of bed and going outside to greet him. The only part of that story I believe is the croissant LOL xD I’ll throw every single one my pennies to the person who can get me a pic of her sign that day!

5) The Good One. “He’s a good man.” “He’s perfect.” “I admire Sam’s big heart.” For as much teasing as she does (they both do, really) there’s endless amounts of praise and compliments she has about this man. There is no one who has more confidence, more faith, or more support for him than she does. But of course, gotta take the piss outta him to keep him grounded 😂💜

5 Sam Moments (numbered, but not ranked)

1) “To dress Caitriona is not difficult, she looks great in virtually everything.” I love the fact that he said this, but I love even more the proof of his believe in this statement even more! We see this all the time, from BAFTA last year to the Season 1 premiere to this Golden Globe moments, which is another favorite SamCait pic for me. To make an internationally successful, highly sought after model look as if this is the first person to every pay her a compliment? HEART. EYES.

2) FvF’s Freelance Marketer. Who needs a PR department when you have Sam plugging FvF basically any chance he can get?? Not just all the likes and RTs, and comments, but the fact that he took the opportunity to talk about FvF when he was asked unrelated questions about himself. His pride in that woman shines through every single time.

3) Best Dressed. If Caitriona’s chemistry test story always features her “calm center” impression, then Sam’s always features Caitriona’s dress. What an impression she must have made on him walking in and blowing them all away if he remembers the plaid dress she was wearing that day! Magic, literally right from the very first second.

4) Home Away From Home. I just found this comment so sincere and sweet. Caitriona has often talked about being like a vagabond, mostly living out of her suitcase when she was modelling and then when she first started Outlander with very little notice. So to come to this point after all these years where they both feel like she’s found a home in Scotland is just so beautiful. Bonus points for the hand pat + squeeze!!

5) Laughter is the Best Medicine. If ECCC was their best Con, then this FB Q+A might be their best interview ever 😂😂😂 I only meant to watch this one part so I could make this GIF, but ended up watching all 15 minutes instead LOL. Anyway. This moment has always been on of my favorite parts of the entire Q+A. Not only is Caitriona ADORABLE here, but Sam being so concerned over something so small is just touching to see! He basically checks with her 4 times to make sure she’s alright. But at the same time, he obviously is doing what he loves doing best: making sure she stays laughing! The fact that he loves seeing her smile, hearing her laugh, and making sure she’s doing both as often as he can is my favorite thing about him. Periodt. 

Thanks again for the ask, Anon! This was fun 💜💜💜

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Ariadne and why the Mycenaeans can fuck right off

Warning: Includes brief mentions of r*pe, cultural destruction, ancient patriarchy reminding us why no woman would ever time-travel more than 5 years into the past if that and a great deal of spite for male historians/public education history/mythology classes. 

Possible side effects may include a sudden intense rage for an ancient society equivalent to the innate rage one has for the Romans burning the library of Alexandria, a distinct hatred for ancient men not being able to let anyone have nice things, and a sudden fascination for Minoa. 

Usually, I stick to writing imagines and being happy with that. It’s fun! I love it! But every now and again, in an attempt to escape the crushing forces known as reality and responsibilities I’ll put on a few cutscenes from games I’m: A) Too lazy to play B) Too broke to play C) Too unskilled to play D) All of the above

because cutscenes are free and why torture yourself with impossible levels when its free on Youtube?* *In all seriousness please support video games and video game creators, but no shame to those of us who prefer cutscenes to gameplay.  A few weeks ago I added the game Hades made by Supergiant to the list because the cutscenes were bomb and the characters are so much fun! Intricate as all hell! Hella cute too but that’s unrelated! Now my pretty little simp patootie is especially a big fan of Dionysus and his gorgeous design so the cutscenes with him are my favorite.

I’m re-watching his cutscenes a few nights ago for fun as background when he has a certain line about Theseus. Don’t quote me on this since my memory is foggy at best but roughly it was: Dionysus: Good job with Theseus. Never cared much for him- what he did to that girl was just horrible.*

*I know that’s not his exact line but this is clearly a rant post fueled by spite and ADD-hyper-focused obsessions with ancient civilizations so let’s not worry too too much about the semantics here. 

Now, I like mythology! Personally, I prefer the Norse mythology due to the general lack of very very gross dynamics that several other ancient mythologies seem to include, but I’m decently familiar with Greek mythos. Enough to go - “Why does the God of Wine give a single fuck about the frat bro of Greek heroes being a dick to a woman? Grossness is embedded into the very DNA of all distant relatives of Zeus, a woman being harassed by Zeus or his bastard army is a typical Tuesday in ancient Greece.” 

Wikipedia confirms that Ariadne is the only woman in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I kinda knew already so unless Theseus did some f’ed up shit to some other princess of Minos, Dionysus could only be referring to her. Disregarding what I know about Wikipedia and how it can suck you down the rabbit hole of rabbit holes through sheer fury I stupidly clicked the link to Ariadne’s article. 

By the time we get to the end of this shitstorm, I will have two separate plotlines for two separate stories based of Ariadne, 2k+ notes (and going) on an ancient civilization prior to a week ago I didn’t know existed and within me there will be a rage towards a different ancient civilization I vaguely recall learning about in high school. 

Here’s how this shit went down. 

First of all, apparently after Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island to die (yep! He did that! To the one person who is the only reason he defeated the minotaur! Fuck this guy.) there are multiple storylines where Dionysus takes a single look at Ariadne and falls in love. 

“A god falls in love?” you say, aware of how most love stories in Greek mythos can be summed up with Unfortunately, Zeus got horny and Hera is a firm believer in victim blaming. “This poor woman is about to go through hell!” I thought so too! And in one variation of the story, Dionysus does his daddy proud by being an absolute tool to Ariadne. In the majority though? He woos the fuck out of her, and ultimately marries her by consent!

Her consent!

In ancient Greece!

The party dude of the Greek pantheon knows more about consent then his father and modern day frat brothers!

Okay! That’s interesting, so I keep reading. 

Ariadne getting hitched to Dionysus is a big deal in Olympus, to the point of getting a crown made of the Aurora Borealis from Aphrodite who is bro-fisting Dionysus, beyond glad she didn’t have to give him the talk about consent. The rest of the gods are pissy especially Hera who doesn’t like Dionysus much since he is the son of Zeus and Semele but they don’t do much. Ariadne ascends to godhood, becomes the goddess of Labyrinths with the snake and bull as her symbol and that’s that on that. 

Colorin, colorado, este cuento se acabado.  And they lived happily ever after. That’s the end of the post right?

NO! Because curiosity has made me their bitch and there’s more to this calling me. 

Also, I was pissed! Still am! Why the fuck-a-doodle-do did I have to learn about the time Poseidon r*ped a priestess instead of the arguably healthiest relationship in the entirety of the pantheon? Why is Persephone and Hades’ story (which has improved since it was first written and I like more modern versions of it, no hate) the only healthy-ish Greek love story I had to learn when Dionysus and Ariadne were right there? The rage of having endured several grade levels of “Zeus got horny and Hera found out” stories in the nightmare of public education led me to keep looking into this. 

There’s this wonderful Youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions that I highly recommend that delves a lot into mythology, and I have seen their bombass video about Dionysus and how his godhood has changed since he was potentially first written in a language we comprehend. 

Did ya’ll know this man is the heir apparent to Zeus? ‘Cause I didn’t know that!

YEA! Dionysus, man of parties, king of hangovers and inducer of madness, is set to inherit the throne of Olympus! Ariadne didn’t husband up the God of Wine, she husbanded up the Prince of Olympus and heir apparent to the throne! Holy shit! No wonder some of the gods were against her marriage to Dionysus - can you imagine the drama of an ex-mortal woman sitting on the Queen’s throne of Olympus? Hera must have been pissed.

BUT WAIT.

There’s more.

The reason we know Dionysus is a very important god and is possibly even more important than we think is because of a handy-dandy language known as Linear B, otherwise known as the language of the Mycenaeans!

For those of you fortunate enough to have normal hobbies and interests, the Mycenaeans were the beta version of the Greeks. Their written language of Linear B is one of, if not the first recorded instance of a written Indo-European language. This language, having been translated, gives us an interesting look at what the Greek gods were like back in their beta-stages before they fixed the coding and released the pantheon. 

Interesting side facts of the Mycenaean Greek gods include:

Poseidon being the head god with an emphasis on his Earthquake aspect, and being much more of a cthonic god in general. 

Take that Zeus, for being so gross. 

The gods in general being more cthonic, as Mycenaeans were obsessed with cthonic gods (probably due to all the earthquakes and natural disasters in Greece and Crete at that time)

Several of the gods and goddesses that we know being listed, alongside some that we don’t consider as important (Dione)

The first mention of Kore, later Persephone, but no Hades because since a lot of gods were cthonic, there would be no need for one, specific cthonic god to represent the majority of death-related rituals.

That’s not what we’re focusing on though! What we’re focusing on is a specific translated portion of Linear B that we have. One of the translated portions of Linear B that for the life of me I can’t find (someone please help me find it and send the link so I can edit this post) says an interesting phrase. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

One more time. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

Mistress of Labyrinths. 

Now wait a gosh darn minute. Isn’t there a goddess of labyrinths in the Greek mythos? Why yes! Yes there is! Ariadne!

Here’s a question for you. If Ariadne is but a minor god in the pantheon, a wife to a more predominant god, why is it that while all the other gods and goddesses are bunched together in a sentence of praise, the so-called ex-mortal gets a whole-ass sentence to herself singing praises?

And thus, we have arrived to Minoa!

What is Minoa, you ask? Minoa is to Rome what Rome is to us. An old-ass civilization either older than or younger by a hundred years to ancient Egypt. Egypt, that started in 3200 B.C-ish depending on who you ask. That’s old. Old as balls. They were contemporaries to their trading partner, Egypt until 1450 BC-ish. A 2000 year old civilization.

Minoa was founded on the island of Crete, and was by what artifacts we have found a merchant civilization with its central economy centered on the cultivation of saffron and the development of bronze/iron statues of bulls. Most of what we know about them comes from artifacts and frescoes found on Crete that managed to survive everything else I will mention later, but what matters is that we know a few things about them. 

Obsessed with marine life for some time, given their pottery. 

Had the first palaces in all of Europe, some of them ridiculously big. 

Wrote in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs, both still untranslated languages. 

Had a ritual involving jumping over a bull, for some reason. 

Firm believers in “Suns out, Tits out.”

You’d think I’m kidding on the last one but no! No no no! All the women apparently rocked the tits-out look in Minoa!

^^^^One of many, many Minoan works featuring women giving their titties fresh air. ^^^^

“Wait a second Pinks! What does this have to do with Ariadne being the Mistress of labyrinths?”

Well you see dear wonderful darling, while we know very little about Minoan religion because Mycenaeans (we will get to those bastards in a second), we do know this:

All the religious figures appear to be exclusively women.

The most important figures of their religion seem to be goddesses as there are few artifacts featuring male gods.

Because of the religion, the culture may have been an equal society or even a matriarchy! Historians who are male aren’t sure. 

A frankly ridiculous amount of their temples, including the ones in caves in the middle of fuck-all feature labyrinths. A lot of labyrinths!

Their head god is a goddess! Whose temples have labyrinths and whose main symbols are snakes and bulls. Who do we know is a) the mistress of labyrinths and b) is symbolized a lot by snakes and bulls?

ARI-fucking-ADNE THAT’S WHO!

Ariadne didn’t upgrade by marrying the prince of Olympus! Dionysus wifed up possibly the most important goddess in all of Crete and becoming her boy-toy! 

I’m not even kidding, most Minoan depictions of the goddess’ consort features a boy/man who cycles through the stages of death. Dionysus himself in several myths goes through the same cycle - life, being crushed, death, rebirth, repeat.  Cycles the consort goes through in Minoan legend depictions too!

Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with the Mycenaeans? Why do you want to single-handedly go back in time and strangle the beta-Greeks with the nearest belt?

Everything I just said about Ariadne being a Minoan goddess, the Mistress of Labyrinths being hella important on Minoa, is all theoretical. The Mycenaeans are partially to blame for making it theoretical. 

Minoa thrived for 2000 years but it had a lot of issues, mostly caused by natural disasters. Towards the end of their civilization (1500 BC-ish), the nearby island of Thera, today known as Santorini, decided to blow up. The island was a hella-active volcano that when erupted, destroyed a lot. 

How big was the eruption? Well when Pompeii was wasted by Mt. Vesuvius, the blast was heard from roughly 120 miles away, 200 km. 

The blast on Thera was heard from 3000 miles away. 4800 km away.

Fuck me, the environmental effects of the explosion were felt in imperialistic CHINA.

Holy shit that would waste anybody! And it did! Minoa went from being a powerhouse in the Mediterranean to scrambling to recover from losing 40,000 citizens and who knows how many cities. Tsunamis may have followed the blast, further destroying ports which for a navy-powerhouse of an island nation is a bad thing and the theorized temperature drops caused by a cloud of ash lingering for a while would have destroyed crops for the year.

Minoa was fucked. 

The Mycenaeans and all their bullshit made it worse.

Up until a few hundred years prior to Thera’s explosion, Minoan artifacts don’t depict much in terms of military power. Why would it? Crete is a natural defense post. Sheer cliffs, high mountains and a few semi-fortified areas would make it pointless to invade. It’s only when the Mycenaeans in all their bullshit decided to attack/compete that Minoa really needed any army to speak of.

Guess who decided to invade while Minoa was reeling from an incredibly shitty year? Mycenaea!

Guess who won?

Also Mycenaea!

Nobody knows how this shit went down though because wouldn’t you know it, the Mycenaeans in all their superiority-complex glory decided to destroy most written accounts about Minoa, a good junk of the temples and culturally eliminated most of Minoan beliefs. 

Minoa isn’t even the real name of the civilization! It’s just the name Arthur Evans, the guy who re-motivate interest in Minoan archaeology, gave to the civilization because the writings that would have included the name of the civilization were destroyed.

“That sucks!” Fuck yes that sucks! “What does that have to do with Ariadne though?”

Oh ho ho. Strap in because you’re about to be pissed. 

Those of us unfortunate enough to be aware of all the bullshit the Christians pulled on the European pagan belief system are familiar with the concept of cultural, religious destruction. There’s a special name for it I don’t know but if I did I would curse it to be absorbed by the horrendous will of fungi. 

An example: Christianity was not the most popular of religions amongst the Vikings. A monotheistic religion that is heavily controlled did not strongly appeal to anyone with a pantheon as rad as the Norse one. 

In order to appeal to the Vikings, what monks would do is they would write down traditionally Viking stories which up until that point were orally passed down. Beowulf, the story of the most Viking Viking to have every Vikinged, was one of these first stories. 

However! Did these monks write Beowulf as closely to the original oral transcript as possible? Of course not! They took liberties! While Norse features such as trolls and dragons and all sorts of Norse magic occur, there is a lot of Christian features added in. 

This happened across all Pagan religions that Christianity came into contact with in Europe. Stories would be altered when written down to be more Christian (this happened to the Greek Pantheon too btw), holidays that were Pagan magically lined up with ones the Vatican just happened to suddenly have. Even names of mythological figures were taken and added onto Christian figure names. Consequently, a lot of pagan religions they did this to got erased over time, with many of their traditions and details being lost forever, and the details we do know being tinted by Christianity.

The Mycenaeans were likely no different. 

Minoa and Mycenaea were as culturally opposite as can be. Minoa is theorized to be a matriarchal or equal society*. Mycenaea and most of early Greece absolutely was not. In fact, during early stages of their religion where they believed in reincarnation, the Mycenaeans believed the worst thing to come back as was a woman. 

Did you get that? With your options ranging from man to ever single animal on Earth, a woman was ranked as beneath literal animals in Mycenaean society.

Fuck the Mycenaeans.

* This is not to say Minoa was without fault, as a society that is matriarchal or equal can still have rampant issues such as privilege, classism, racism, sexism and more, but when history has a shortage of civilizations that didn’t treat women like shit, you find yourself rooting for them more. 

 What do you do then, when you take over a society that is very much the opposite of a nightmare of a patriarchy? You fold their beliefs into your own to bait them into yours. Going back to the Linear B line about “Mistress of Labyrinths” that line would/could have been an early tactic of incorporating Minoan belief into Mycenaean belief. Other goddesses and gods were made into aspects of Mycenaean gods. Bristomartis, the Minoan goddess of the hunt, would become Artmeis. Velchanos, a god of the sky, would become Zeus. 

With more time, the religion shifted more into Mycenaean and eventually into ancient Greece as we know it. Through trade other gods and goddesses would continue to shift and change, some being straight up imported (Aphrodite for example). Dionysus himself changed a lot too, going from a God representing freedom and attracting slaves, women and those with limited power into his cult, to a God of parties for the wealthy. 

Theseus and the Minotaur was a myth likely based on a Mycenaean myth based on a Minoan myth that changes Ariadne from an important, possibly the important goddess of an ancient religion and relegates her to a side character in a pantheon so vast that she would be lost within it. 

All of this brings us to today. Today, where as soon as work ended I spent most of the day, as well as the past two days, looking up everything I can on Minoan civilization and added it to my notes. Spite is fueling me to write two possible different stories for two different fandoms where Minoa dunks of Mycenaea and it is giving me life. Expect an update within the next two weeks folks as I lose control of my writing life once more. 

In summary: Ariadne deserves more respect, fuck the public education system for skipping over the good parts of Greek mythology instead of the r*pey as shit parts, the Mycenaeans can eat my shorts, and a world were Minoa became the predominant power instead of Greece would be an amazing world to live in.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Pink out. 

[dearcupidcandy]

♡Yandere Ushijima x Mute Reader ♡

─⊹⊱☆⊰⊹─**Enjoy a mute reader who has caught the eyes of Ushijima and he thinks your adorable. But doesn’t realize how intimidating he can be** ─⊹⊱☆⊰⊹─

Also Stalker’s Tango is great for this ❤️

Warning: NSFW, yandere tendencies,etc

✧ He never thought you would ever even come close enough to him without shaking.

✧ Well you did. But you weren’t shaking. Since you weren’t aware of him besides the thousand of Fangirl’s wanting to date him.

✧As you tapped his shoulder. He turned around to you holding his water bottle. Tendou was goofing off and knocked it over. He had forgotten about it. But you didn’t know that. As he got up from the bench in the gym. You tapped him and handed him the water bottle.

✧Did you know what you where doing to his heart? He heard a faint d o k i ~ come from his heart as he made eye contact with you. You where forced in the volley club ball by Kiyoko. Giving Ushijima his water bottle was the most entertainment you where going to get

✧He stalked you for a while after that. Not even realizing he was. As his fangirls screamed “k y aaaaa~.” Every time he walked through the halls. All you did was put on earbuds and walk awkwardly. Not realizing he was following you until his fan club stopped him. Though he didn’t care about them. He wanted you to be his fan girl too. What expression would you make if he made a move on you? He didn’t really care. As long as you became his.

✧Kiyoko let you listen to music while Karasuno went against Shiratorizawa. After the game. Which he obviously won because he wanted to impress you. He surprised you as he loomed over. Mouthing your name. “Y/n.” He spoke. You looked at him wide eyed. He just sat with you on the bench. Wiping the sweat from forehead. **que confused y/n** “What are you listening to?” He said as he went a little closer. You didn’t see the point in refusing. You showed him your favorite song before offering him an earbud. His eyes went into shock before his face turned red. Which it never did. He loved how kind you are to him. He’s never once seen your (e/c) turn sorrow as others talked to you. He would make sure you never showed it to anyone else again.

-ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-A FEW MONTHS INTO YOUR RELATIONSHIP -ˋˏ ༻❁༺ ˎˊ-

✧ Ushijima used how scared you where of him to show you his ‘love’. Ushijima wasn’t only extremely tall. He was also packing. This didn’t change the fact that you never spoke. He loved hearing you silently moan.

✧ When he was in the mood. He made it clear. “Y/n....come here.” He says in a voice lower than his usual. You reluctantly come forward before he glares at you. He placed you in his lap. Gently stroking your body, and making you shiver in pleasure. As soon as he saw you shake in pleasure when his fingertips where on your back. He loomed over you in his lap. Making it clear what was rubbing up against you.

✧You where lucky if you even walked tomorrow

✧Pants and moans where heard from both your mouths. His a little more aggressive as he rubbed his tip in front of you. Looking at your exposed body on his legs . “Mine....mine forever...” He gasped between moans. He was scary. As soon as tears started to come out of your eyes. That’s when he went feral.

✧After one round. He would randomly push you against a wall and whisper sweet nothings in your ear as he rubbed against you. Trying not to be too harsh of course. But as soon as your moans turned into squeaks. That pace didn’t last long. And soon your body was filled with so much pleasure than you fell to the floor as he panted above you. His thing even harder than before.

✧One day. You woke up with bite marks all over your neck. The pain was too much. You woke up in the middle of the night. Ushijima still fast asleep. You went downstairs for some ointment from the closet. When you turned back around. You saw Ushijima. With a more pissed off expression than usual. “What do you think your doing princess?” He knew you couldn’t talk. All you did was shake with the ointment in your hands.

✧He loomed over you. Gripping your hands tighter. Realizing why you came downstairs. “Oh.. you should have told me...” He sighed. Picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder. “Your fine for tonight.” So don’t go downstairs again.” He firmly noted. He could feel you nodding and pushed you back onto the bed. You where fully exposed after a few minutes. Panting in fear as he sat above you. He zipped down his pants and began to jerk off to you. If only you could talk. You would warn him that it wasn’t going to fit. But as you struggled to speak. It only turned him on more. A loud grunt was heard as he placed it on your entrance. His eyes of his once neutral expression left and was replaced by lust.

✧”Your so.... cute... Y/n.” He said stroking his fingers through your (h/c) hair. He went faster and soon you where just as wet as he was. Something in you broke. You where scared of it entering you once more. You needed this man to know. Whether or not you got punished for it or not. “I-I-I-I’m sc-scare-scared Toshi.” You said through quivered lips. He froze. He stopped and looked down at you. Instead of anger. He slammed against you. Making you shake. He looked at you happily. “You spoke Y/n!” He said. Almost proud. “Don’t be worried. I love you.” You blushed at his words. His speed went faster until you where covered. “Don’t ever show this side to anyone else... understand?” You flinched. Unable to open your eyes. But you could tell he was serious. His eyes never leaving yours. He used your fear to his advantage. You thought this was love. But your fear for this man was unrelenting. “Ugggh- Y/n.... your all mine~ f o r e v e r.” He said. Eyes rolling back. His moans roared through the whole house as you tried to squirm away. His grip pulling you back in even tighter. On one of the few days you did escape mid way. He always grabbed you back and went even harder than before. Trying to get you to scream his name. “Now... now.. Y/n....” He said through soft moans. “Where not done yet... stay a little longer...” You felt dizzy as he went for your neck. Falling asleep as he collapsed next to you. “Good...” He kissed your cheek. Wanting to see your (e/c) orbs. “Goodnight...” The man wasn’t good at expressing feelings. But he was damn sure to be when you weren’t trying to escape him.

✧ The next morning. You woke up in a room. It was new. But only had a bed and a desk. Along with some video games and other stuff you liked. You tried to open the door but it was locked. “Don’t bother y/n.” I made that room for you.” You frantically tried to open the door. Unable to speak you slammed on it. “This way....you can stay with me...I’ll take good care of you.” He said on the other side. “Entertain yourself until then... and also...” He opened the door and slowly made his way towards you. Cornering you to the wall. “I broke your phone.” He said in his original neutral manner. “You only need me...” He said strictly.

He smiled and embraced you in a hug. Which you could only quietly endure. “I’ll be back later, and you’ll be here......just for me.” He leaned back up to his original height and everything rebellious in you faded in an instant. He smiled and pat you on the head. “So don’t try to run away... okay?”