#and i'm honestly very happy about the majority of the line up

[sorrelchestnut]

I've seen a fair number of posts both here and on reddit that question why Tav (or the Dark Urge) would end up as a group leader for any other reason that "game mechanics say so." There's the requisite "okay, well if you play a high charisma character I guess it makes sense," or on the other end of the spectrum, "if you're playing Durge and murder someone right off the bat everyone would be too scared to tell you no." And I get where people are going with this! I really do. But it also fundamentally misunderstands a facet of human nature, which is that the vast majority of people do not actually want to be in charge, because that means being held responsible for the outcome. Accordingly, most people will dither when a group consensus is needed: have none of you ever tried to get a group of friends to agree where to go for dinner? Yeah, it's like that, but waaaay worse.

A lot of times "leadership" is just the willingness to say, "fuck it, y'all do what you want, but I'm doing this." I see it all the time in a corporate environment, where people will go back and forth on group meetings without anyone making a decision until finally one brave soul goes "in my opinion the clear answer is x" and then everyone gratefully goes along with it. Because now it's not their responsibility when something goes wrong! They're just following along with someone else's suggestion, and maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, but at the end of the day they don't have to worry about the consequences unless they're personally affected. In which case they might step up and argue back, and then they're stuck being a leader, too. Welcome to adulthood!

Lae'zel is the only one who ever even tries to exert some kind of control, when she tells you to follow her lead on the ship, or calls you her subordinate in the Grove. But, crucially, she doesn't ever make any serious attempt to take control: you can just tell her, "lol, no," and she sort of confusedly gives way, because she doesn't know how to handle this scenario. In her world there are commanders and subordinates, and everyone knows where they stand and falls in line. She's never actually had to take control of a situation and so at the first sign of resistance she falls back on the dynamic that's familiar to her, which is executing the commands of someone older and more experienced. She goes through a lot of growth over the game, to the point that she can take over as a resistance leader in her own right by the end, but at the beginning she's a wet-behind-her-ears private with some decent combat chops and it shows.

Otherwise, your party consists of:

Shadowheart, who's trained in infiltration and assassination and does NOT want a lot of attention brought to her or her mission for a variety of reasons;

Astarion, who has literally been a slave for two centuries and canonically takes a while to realize that he can exert an opinion beyond complaining about it;

Gale, whose only friend is his cat and couldn't project-manage his way out of a wet paper bag;

Wyll, who was probably trained for command at one point but has been doing the lone-hero thing for a decade and has a very large secret that he's trying to conceal; and,

Karlach, who's only ever been a bodyguard and a soldier and is genuinely just happy to be here.

Honestly, it would be more a surprise if Tav/Durge didn't end up as their unofficial leader, given the general power dynamics at play. The first time Tav/Durge says something like, "fuck it, we need to do something instead of stand around arguing about it, let's go check out those ruins over there," it's a done deal. They're The Captain Now! As long as they don't make decisions that fundamentally oppose something dear and important to the other group members, they're not even going to get any argument. Because at the end of the day, not one of these walking disasters has enough trust in themselves and their decision-making skills to feel any kind of certainty that they can choose the right path forward. If someone else is going to take that decision out of their hands? They're going to follow, no questions asked, right up until the moment they can't.

[velvetures]

Omg I love your stories so much especially the cod ones 😍😍😍 could you please write a ghost x reader oneshot where the reader maybe gets shot taking a bullet meant for him and maybe they are in an established relationship please with a happy ending

Ignoring Orders & Accepting Lead

A/N: I loved this req. and I hope you're okay with the direction I took this in. I'm trying to get the other asks I've been sent finished in a somewhat timely manner... haha! Honestly, I never thought anyone would enjoy my writing as much as all of you have. <3 Summary: Established relationships mean occasional arguments... You and Ghost have one before a mission. And the make-up conversation is a little less than standard for most couples. T/W: Canonical Violence, guns, knives, Blood, Death (non-major characters), severe injuries, tension, hurt/comfort, HAPPY ENDING, Ghost being a bit overprotective, Reader being a smartass, not proofread.

Arguments with Ghost happened a lot more frequently than anyone would ever suspect. While he liked to stay quiet when the opportunity arose, it was also know that if you could avoid a conflict, you would just to make sure the temperature of the situation didn’t rise too high. As a pair, it made you great operators, just for the skill-set you each had as well as the predisposition to get things done quickly, and quietly. As for being in a relationship, your character’s held zero influence on the way that you cared about each other of how that would display itself during moments of tension or disagreement. Especially in moments during missions where things weren’t going to plan, and your ideas severely countered Ghost’s.

One of those fights had occurred right before you’d been dropped into a very small town outside of Culiacán, Sinaloa. At HQ, Price was splitting everyone up for their distinct purposes, and you’d been immediately assigned with Ghost for an infil job. One requiring both of you to get in and get out of the well-known cartel stronghold without getting caught or being killed. Naturally you accepted the task without so much as flinching, whereas Ghost didn’t have such an easygoing attitude about it.

He was fucking furious.

First he tried threatening Price, demanding that you not be listed for that and go with Soap for the much less risky job of tracking down a small-time dealer who’d been listed as having information valuable to the task force. Price wasn’t stupid enough to not recognize where Ghost’s rage was coming from, and just simply said that if you wanted the job, there was nothing he could do about it since you’d already read the briefing and knew the entire plan just as well as anyone else. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear from the Captain, and that made things all the worse for you when you said you weren’t going to let him go in alone.

One of the worst fights you’d ever had with Ghost since your partnership became a fully-fledged romance happened right off the helipad being fueled-up for your departure. God it was miserable, and it hurt every ounce of you to have to defend yourself over the one thing that you were certain you could do. Your job. Understanding Ghost’s protective instinct was one thing, but there had to be a line drawn where him throwing his weight and rank around to limit your exposure to risk couldn’t be done anymore.

He’d been totally insensitive to your side of the story, and was obstinate that if you got on the helo, he’d not do a damn thing to keep you safe once you got to Culiacán. Merely to prove the bullshit point that you couldn’t to the job without him. That statement alone had you strapping into your flight harness quicker than Ghost could utter ‘jesus christ’ under his breath. Totally stonewalling you for the entire flight and practically acting like you didn’t even exist. Hell, he wouldn’t even go over the mission plan as was typical, leaving you fully to fend for yourself and follow his lead without even a hand signal to lead you through it.

Everything on entry went smoothly.

No guards were stationed in the underground sewer tunneling, leaving you very dry and unhindered on the half-mile walk from your drop-point to the access ladder leading up into the basement of a massive chapel-turned-base of operations. Whether or not you’d been keeping up or not didn’t appear to phase Ghost in the slightest, and he continued on and up into the basements without so much as glancing your way. You were quickly losing your patience, and getting than much more hurt with hoe easily he could turn off the affection and care that he always had for you. Sure, he wasn’t the coddling type, but you’d never wanted that from him; but this was a whole different level of coldness.

Inside the basement there were stockpiles of cocaine, pre-packed on shipping crates with a printed docket of everything contained on each. Just seeing that much shit all in one room made your head spin. It was one thing knowing it existed, and understanding that tons of it were being shipped all over the world, but actually being in a room surrounded by it from almost floor-to-ceiling was quite overwhelming. And Ghost’s own utterance of the sheer volume confirmed that it wasn’t just your own imagination leading you to think this was way too fucking much to handle. Bad part was, you couldn’t touch any of the shit or destroy it, and were solely on the objective of cloning their hard drives and bringing them back for examination.

Clearing stairwell after stairwell, and only needing to dispose of two guards -quick work with a sharp knife- you’d been able to access their massive data stores collected in what appeared to be nothing more than a personal server farm. Kept extremely cold for the benefit of the rows of towers, you’d been given the small cloning chip needed to transmit data back to HQ. But you needed a window of up to fifteen minutes to ensure everything was fully copied. You -and Ghost- both knew that fifteen minutes was far too long to just stand around with your thumbs up your asses and just hope that no one wondered why the two guards you’d shanked hadn’t checked in, or come to make a round inside the server room.

Ghost very instinctively covered the access door to the room, not even bothering to demand you give him the chip or take care of the data itself. A small reminder that he wasn’t totally untrusting of your skills, but still not large enough of a show that made you feel any less miserable about how your relationship was quite strained at the moment, all of something as small as a fifteen minute window of gathering information. By some miracle, you watched the progress on a small tablet linked to the chip and HQ’s data stores, watching it hit one-hundred percent in just under eight minutes. Perfect. It couldn’t go much smoother than that.

You were tapping Ghost on the shoulder, and giving a small thumbs-up just as the sounds of footsteps running up the stairwell outside began echoing. More than just one or two. It was actually a lot more than you even had the ammunition to handle, considering the job was deemed covert. Neither you or Ghost went without some protection… but you’d been packed out a lot lighter than normal. Right away he was stepping back from the door and checking his watch with a stern look in his eyes. One you recognized as realization that you’d have to fight your way out of this. Ugly, bloody, and violent.

Exactly what he didn’t want in the fuckin’ first place.

Ghost was inside of his own mind, trying to balance out the fear of you being in the middle of a cartel fire-fight and the rage he still felt when you just wouldn’t fucking listen to him right from the beginning. He knew what cartels did to women, and a pretty one like you wouldn’t have the mercy of just being killed. No. They’d fucking torture and toy with you until there wasn’t anything human left inside of you. That’s why he’d been so goddamn adamant that you stay behind for this one.

The data you’d copied over was bullshit compared to you living and breathing for another day. And Ghost couldn’t stand to think he’d walked you right into this place without at least trying to show you that he cared enough to see you live. Dying wasn’t a fear of his, but there was nothing he dreaded more than the mental image of you bleeding out in his arms all because of his own fucking mistakes.

Yet, here he stood. Having to make the decision on what to do or how to get you both out of here alive if he could even manage that in the first place. Part of him was already preparing to let them take him and give you enough time to slip away. You were fast enough. Small, so they’d have a far harder time picking you out in a crowd. But if he’s assumptions were correct, the tunnels would still be clear.

He gave you one last look, and grabbed hold of your vest to pull you behind him; Hearing the footsteps of more than six men filling into the large room outside of the server farm. Some barking orders to check down the hall, while others were meant to stay posted at the stairs to block off anyone flushed out. Ghost felt his own body starting to get cold. So desensitized to the violence he was already prepping himself to commit that if it wasn’t for you being there, he’d had already burst through the door and met them head on.

“Fuckin’. Listen,” He snapped as quietly as possible. Your ears perked up, happy to have just heard him speak, even if he sounded downright vicious. Your little hand tapping at his ribs as confirmation you were paying attention sent a shiver up his back.

“Don’t engage unless they’re right in your way. Take the tunnels out, I’ll be right behind you.” He barked out the orders under his breath.

Ghost couldn’t help but feel your hand fist into the material of his shirt. You didn’t like that one bit, and he didn’t need to see your face to know better. Because for whatever reason, you had it in your thick little head that he needed protecting as much as you did. Like it was your job to make sure he didn’t get hurt. Cute and a little bit amusing, Ghost hadn’t the slightest clue where you got the idea from or why it was such a massive trigger for him to challenge it. But right now, there was no fighting about it. He’d not take no for an answer, and when you didn’t give a confirmation right away, he growled in impatience.

Reluctantly, you gave it with a small tap rubbing your thumb over his hip bone.

One minute, Ghost was pushing open the door and spotting only three men within direct threat distance and seeing only one man standing at the top of the stairs. A split second of decision had him throwing two knives, and charging at the third to ensure that you’d only have to take care of the one remaining. He sunk a third knife in, feeling the man sink to his knees and drop to the floor, retrieving two of his blades before turning around right as the sound of a pistol registered. Ghost realized his fatal error in the squeeze of a trigger too late.

Only you saw what was coming, and Ghost watched you crumple to the floor between the shooter and himself; Stopping the man from shooting him in the back, but catching you somewhere of your front that residual splatter from the rained over his mask and tac vest. Everything around Ghost slowed, nearing an entire halt to the earth as you fell limply to the ground. Not even moving to try and cover your wound or catch yourself from the fall to the marble floor. Nightmares couldn’t compare to the sight of you crumpled in a heap of gear and bulky material after watching you purposefully allow your life to be traded for his.

The shooter wasn’t lucky enough to squeeze the trigger again for the knife that embedded itself in his forehead. Retribution. Quick but not as instantaneous as it would’ve been with a gun of his own. He was forced to see his own death approach with the snapped rotation of a throwing knife Ghost had sharpened days ago. He wanted to it last longer… make the bastard pay for it. Torture him for as long as his body could take, then give him just enough time to recover and start all over again.

But you needed him… Fuck. He needed you.

On the ground, you knew you’d taken a shot. But the adrenaline and immediate blow of it had you frozen on the floor. You couldn’t really tell where you’d been shot, or how bad the damage was. Truthfully you’d never experience it, and while many of the stories you heard over the years of your service, nothing they ever did to explain it was touching the utter fire radiating through your body. What you did know was that you were bleeding, and the shot had missed your tac vest; A small stream of blood was rolling through the grout lines in the floor, staining the white marble a sickening color.

Seeing Ghost on a knee in front of you, eyes wide and searching over your face was the next hazy image you recognized. His mask was shifting with the motion of him talking, but your ears were ringing. A pitchy and high whine blocked any other sound, even Ghost’s voice which you’d always been so very keen on paying close attention to. You felt awful. Putting him through this after you’d literally just had the fight about you getting hurt. Guilt flooded your limited emotional capacity, and as Ghost readjusted to pick you up, you felt tears rolling down your face.

You’d not had a single second to react to the fourth man in the room, him having the jump on visualizing Ghost facing the other three. It made him a vulnerable target. And in the split second you had to do something, you’d jumped in the way. Laying out totally flat to use your entire body to shield his. Hoping to god luck was on your side. At this point, hanging over Ghost’s shoulder limply as he rushed down the stairs on his way towards the basement, you weren’t sure if luck was on your side or not.

Thankfully, your hearing was slowly coming back in certain frequencies.

Sounds of gunfire and sirens blaring from the street level let you know that everyone within a few miles of the cathedral would be on the lookout for intruders. With all of the people who’d seen you, killed, no descriptions could be sent out or blared to citizens under control of the cartel. It didn’t help that Ghost was the largest man in the city who just happened to have on a skull mask and carrying a woman leaving behind noticeable drips of blood as a gruesome kind of trail to follow.

“C’mon baby, answer me!” Ghost panting yell finally registered, and you were able to manage a weak pat on his lower back. You felt his hand squeeze the back of your thigh for a moment before his pace slowed from a quick run to almost a crawl.

“We got company…”

There hadn’t been any men in the tunnel. But now that Ghost was less than fifty yards from their extraction point with a “medical” heli waiting for their return; three men were posted at the gated slope leading up to the hillside entry. The Lieutenant could feel your blood soaking into his shirt, wetting his shoulder. A bad reminder that you needed to get the fuck out of here right now. But he couldn’t get rid of those fuckers unless he put you down.

He squeezed at your thigh again to get your attention.

“I need - need to -fuck- set you down…” Saying those words utterly destroyed Ghost. You were the only thing he cared about right now, but the longer he put this off, the risk of you dying loomed closer.

“Need ya t’stay right here… okay? Don’t come out…”

Carefully you felt him settle you behind a large sewage drain pipe connecting from the street into the small walkway. Easing your back against the curved brick wall and once again taking a very hard look at you. This time, he could see where the bullet had just missed the edge of your tac vest, entering through the ripped hole in your shirt just below your collarbone. Every hopeful fiber in Ghost wanted to believe it wouldn’t be non-lethal. But if it shattered your collarbone, the bullet fractured and clipped a vein or small artery, there was plenty to be concerned about.

He would’ve packed the would just to stave off the blood flow. But he didn’t have the luxury of time. And whether or not Ghost would ever admit it to himself, repeatedly shoving his finger into your wound would render him down to a shell of a man. He couldn’t hurt you. Fuck, he couldn’t hurt you.

“Stay here… I’ll be right back.” He whispered against your forehead, pressing his masked mouth to your forehead.

You leaned into him, hearing his words and consciously noticing just how difficult it was to understand the words after hearing them. Almost like you couldn’t natively speak english and the meanings just weren’t instinctual anymore. God it took everything to comprehend that he was planning to clear the rest of the way, leaving you here. Eyes trailing after him sluggishly, you fought with your own arms to try and scoot back just a little further to peek between the large pipe you were leaning against to see if you could spot Ghost or the targets.

Being told to stay was always a difficult order for you. Even if you weren’t shot and struggling to manage simple bodily functions. Surprisingly, you were able to see the shadowed figured standing guard right at the gates you’d come through, holding rifles and totally unaware of Ghost lurking within such easy range. You wondered why he didn’t just shoot them, and get this over with.

Why he needed stealth when the entire city was looking for you didn’t make a lot of sense in your mind. Until you saw five more men walk down to join the others. With one cut of your eyes to look at Ghost, you realized he had anticipated more and planned of making quick work. It’d been a long time since you watched him work alone. Nearly two years. Attempting to shift your shoulder it rocked your entire system. Biting your jaw to keep from making noise, you tried focusing through the tears in your eyes as the only man who held the key to not only your life, but your heart in his fist.

Ghost kept reevaluating his odds with each step closer. Feeling distracted in the worst way with the guilt of leaving you unprotected, and in no position to defend yourself in the case that he wasn’t able to take all of these men alone. Those odds -either realistic or narcissistic confidence- didn’t phase the Lieutenant in the slightest. He was fueled with rage. And while these bastards hadn’t done anything, just being in his path was a death sentence.

The fight started smoothy and efficiently, taking out the largest of the men and using his half-dead form as enough of a shield to eliminate the threat of three 12.7x99mm wielders, too surprised to shoot off five rounds. Another three surrounded him with nothing more than machetes swiping through the air with near misses. One smooth draw of his own pistol dropped two men, and when Ghost turned around to face the third the butt of a shotgun smacked across his vision, dropping him to his knees and hearing his pistol slide across the floor out of reach.

He hauled himself to a knee, watching the man throw the empty shotgun away and approach with a knife, glinting in the sunlight just on the outside of the tunnel. Ghost could actually hear the rotor blades of the helicopter cranking up, set into motion by the small tracker in his belt giving the pilot a comm-less tip off. He’d have to fight this hand-to-hand, and while he didn’t feel the least bit tired, Ghost knew a long fight only risked you further. And fuck if making you wait didn’t make his hair stand up on edge. Even in your state, he knew better than to think you wouldn’t start getting worried in the next couple of minutes.

His opponent took the first blow and used the hilt of his large blade to connect fully with Ghost’s jaw. A heavy crack sounded, but the Lieutenant merely flinched; Throwing his own weight on the weight-matched man, and there ensued a grappling match that risked deadly knife wounds being grazed against straining forearms and a battle of wills that totally opposed one another on every basis… Save for being the last man standing. For the second time in a single mission, Ghost found himself at the razor’s edge of a knife pressing against his throat and no really foolproof tactic of getting out of it.

“Seré el que te mate, fantasma..” The man breathed hotly against Ghost’s ear, jerking the knife closer and fighting the sheer strength in the Lieutenant’s arm. “Colgaré tu cabeza en mi pared, bastardo.”

Ghost fumbled with his other hand under the pressure on his throat began taking away the normal dexterity he functioned with; Trying to find a knife on his belt, or any kind of weapon at this point. Only all of them had been embedded in the dead bodies scattered around them. It had been a bad decision to listen to Price when he said to pack lightly. It would be the end of him.

Simon Riley didn’t show himself often during missions. Always locked away in the recesses of Ghost’s mind, quietly biding his time until there was the few-and-far-between moment for him to appear for a few moments. Typically in the darkness of your shared bedroom with your face pressed between his shoulder blades and your little arm wrapped around his waist.

Simon loved feeling your hand against his belly, twitching your fingers in your sleep and reminding him just how soft and loving you were; Happy to hold his hand tightly in the middle of unconsciousness just like you did when awake. Ghost did everything he could to protect Simon from anyone and anything that could hurt the other half of himself. But hearing another pistol register loudly in the tunnel, echoing back and forth for almost a whole minute; Ghost found himself losing control to Simon.

He felt the man above him slump in dead weight against his back. Muscles slack and the knife held to his throat clanged to the concrete. Looking in the direction of the shot, whatever protective grasp Ghost had on himself utterly dissolved. You’d managed to lay yourself out on the floor, hardly propped up on one elbow with your smoking pistol shaking in your hands. Tears spilled over your cheeks and with each second that passed, he could visualize the pain you felt from such a rough kickback in how you abruptly dropped the pistol in front of you and collapsed flat on the floor with a low groan.

He couldn’t have moved to your side faster.

Immediately picking you up again and making the very short but tense run back to the heli; all the while the pilot was looking between his instruments and the sight of Ghost holding you close to his chest in the floor.

“No one… threatens… to kill you… but me…” You mutter pained, bearing a muddled smile up at Ghost.

Unbelievable… Ghost hardened his stare, putting pressure to your wound and watching in quiet grief that he needed to cause you pain.

“Good shot… did good baby…,” He whispered back weakly, burying his face in your neck and squeezing you against him. Desperate to get you home and safe.

“Gonna ignore how you refused to follow a superior’s orders three times…” He added stiffly, feeling you twitch when a spasm in your shoulder seized. You just bit out another pained noise, coughing a bit with the dust being kicked up from the helicopter lifting off.

The look you gave him couldn’t be seen as anything other than pure, innocent, and unflinching devotion. It nearly ripped Ghost out of the body you clung to, leaving Simon bracing you against his chest as the pilot at the front started giving information to the rest of the squad about fifty miles away at a safe house. Much too long for the Lieutenant’s liking. But close enough that he could get you to his squad and they could ensure you didn’t leave him.

He couldn’t stand losing you, and they’d make sure you didn’t.

“Simon,” Sweet and weak, your hand cups his cheek as you bring him out of an initial trigger. “M’not leaving you anytime soon. Love you too much.” Your eyes close as your head leans agains him trustingly.

His chest crumbled in on itself. “Love you too, baby… I love you too.”

Reblogs & Comments are Appreciated! <3

[littlemissayu]

TWST Boys as ✨ PARENTS✨(Part 2)

ft: Octavinelle, Scarabia | pt.1; ft.Heartsabyul & Savanaclaw | pt.3; ft.Pomefiore, Ignhihyde | pt. 4; ft.Diasomnia

TW: kids, pregnancy, reader is depicted as female, domestic, fluff

Azul Ashengrotto-

4 very well behaved children. For the majority of the time they are really good kids, listening, getting good grades,and respectful. Until you make one of them angry, bc they will hold that grudge and with find a way to pull a fast on you; yet will they admit they're mad if you simply ask? No. They DO know how to forgive and they do to the people they love. Honestly Azul would be a very gentle parent because he has a soft heart and doesn't think his kids could do anything wrong, definitely the parent who will find some excuse for his kid.Don't get me wrong he knows where ti draw the line like if their kicking someone's chair on an airplane. 2 boys and 2 girls, and he would never have it any other way(even if originally he was sort of scared of messing them up).

Jade Leech-

2 kids, two adorable little girls. His daughters were super calm children. When you two first brought your first home you were gald yet worried because she rarely cried throughout the night. All you could think is 'This is so jade's daughter'. Both of your kids are absolutely brilliant and catch on fast. Your 2nd daughter was very into photography and would snap pictures of family and her dad's mushroom garden.One father's day she gave her dad a photo album filled with pictures of him with his family (and his mushrooms & terrariums); he almost cried tears of joy. Jade loves to spoil his little girls, he tries to say no to them but they give him those sad, sad eyes and he just gives in. Very protective of your and your girls, you guys are the most important people in his life.

Floyd Leech-

6-10 kids, two words ; baby machine. He loves seeing you pregnant so he does it over and over again. The most chaotic dad to ever have, wanna egg the neighbors house? He'll help. Wanna troll local Walmart employees? You guys will get kicked out together. Wanna rustle with a good ol' dad in the mud? Let's do it!! To others he may seem like a horrible parent but his kids know he always means best and they love him. He hates parent-teacher conference, bc now he has to listen to some strange rant about his kid for 25 minutes; but the upside is if his kids do really well they get to treat them for whatever they want. He'll also get to be super proud!! He has at least 2-3 sets of twins only one of them is boy-girl, other(s) is boy-boy.

Kalim Al Asim-

9- whenever you tell him you don't want anymore kids!! This man wants a huge family like he had growing up. Most of his kids seem to be super happy go lucky like their dad. He has more self-control by the time he has kids so thankfully he isn't throwing parties everyday, but if his kids want to have one ; go all out!! (Just don't do anything illegal). All his kids are given unlimited cards by the age of 13, he wanted to do 7 but you said it was too young so he agreed on 13. His kids are the life of every party, you either really love 'em or really hate 'em. These kids are 100% either home-schooled or in a prestigious private school and have bodyguards for the obvious reasons being they are Asim kids they have constant threat someone will assassinate/kidnap them. But Kalim is a great dad and his kids love him!! I'm not gonna list all his kids but his first is a little girl <3

Jamil Viper-

2 kids, very strict. He is the first Viper in years to break the long line of servitude to the Asim family. It's hard to break out of certain habits but, although it made his kids super sneaky, it also made them work really hard to not have dad be disappointed. His kids are super smart and always on top of their class. Like their dad they are very talented, his daughter takes up painting and martial arts, and his son takes up spelldrive and culinary. Jamil may be strict but he is also a very proud parent, as his kids seem to always do amazing things. He does tell them when he's proud and tells them how great they're doing and how much he loves them. Lucky for them they also inherited his gorgeous hair.

Octavinelle Masterlist

Scarabia Masterlist

TWST Masterlist

[haliteatiger]

Happy Werewolf Wednesday, ya'll! We're serving up a big pot of tea tonight so get those cups ready!

Special thanks to Blackbackedjackal and King for their help in putting this together, editing, and especially to Jackal for being so supportive and encouraging. I'm very much not normally the type to do call-out posts, but people need to be aware of Dogblud, as she has hurt, not only myself, but quite a few others as well, and seems to have somehow gotten away with behaving like this for 20-odd years. I'm of the mind she shouldn't be allowed to do so any more, hence this post.

TL;DR - Beware of Dogblud, aka Ashryn, aka DogofBlud, aka ThatDogMagic. Very, very long post under the cut.

With everything happening with DogBlud and Blackbackedjackal's studio, I felt emboldened to come forward with my own experiences with her. This is something I've been carrying around since it happened roughly 2 years ago. It was one of the main reasons that put me off drawing werewolves, my own characters, or engaging any more in the fandom. I've hinted at it a few times but I've never had the energy to come forward and deal with the fall out. I wanted to move on with the rest of my life because IRL was more important than online drama. And I knew her behavior would come back to bite her sooner or later, regardless of what I did. 

It's been very validating to see that I was right.

It was around the time that Blud and I became friends that I was feeling a bit burnt out on werewolves. I'd been trying to pull together my own werewolf-related project for something close to 12 years. The past 4 years had also been pretty draining on me creatively and socially, as it had for a lot of artists with regards to the pandemic. I also had some IRL things I was dealing with: mainly with my marriage and transitioning between medications to manage my anxiety + bipolar.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to screenshot everything at the time. I do have logs from back when we roleplayed together. There are several conversations in them but because they were saved as text documents, they're pretty dubious in terms of solid evidence. 

It would have been better if I had taken screenshots as it was happening, rather than just saving the logs. With what I *do* have, however, I feel as though it may be enough to make the point that I'm trying to make, and to exhibit how horrible things got.

I'll provide some context.

I had talked with Blud on and off over the years, and we had always gotten along. We had a lot in common and after we had started talking more, our friendship eventually grew into a collaborative project. We were going to combine our stories and write a comic based on it. We had a lot of discussions on how Blud was reticent to do this in the beginning and how she wanted a contract to be made up so that in the event that something *did* happen, we could both walk away feeling like it was handled fairly.

Honestly, I should have listened to the first alarm that went off in my brain, when, in an act of ominous foreboding she said something along the lines of don't be so sure, it could happen. It was in response to me being like "we're getting along so well and share so much of a bond right now. I can't fathom that being a problem!" 

The contract never materialized. It was something we had decided to do *after* we had put together something of a prototype project to see how well we worked together. It made complete sense to me at the time as we were both eager to focus on the fun parts of writing and drawing together.

It was decided that I would be the lead artist (doing coloring and final lines) while Blud would do everything else (which was inking, layouts, and the majority of the writing). The both of us felt that she had more experience in those areas. I also believed that she had a better knack for it as well. I had felt that she had a better understanding of story structure than myself. And I thought that Blud had felt the same way about my art. That I had the experience to take point on that. 

Since I had collaborated with other artists and writers before, I attempted to approach the project with the same sort of professionalism I always do. Especially the projects that I genuinely thought stood a chance of being published in the future. We had started out trying to get a feel for each other's flows and rhythms. I had expected Blud to try and meet me in the middle of where our processes would potentially differ from one another, so that we could develop a fairly smooth workflow.

I had also expected, according to our discussions on the matter, that we would value each other's opinions on things and take them into consideration. We had such good synchronicity already.

In the beginning, there wasn't any unusual behavior that caught my attention. Blud was a bit uncomfortable with trying out new things but I did my best to accommodate her so that our project could move forward without too much turbulence. She had also mentioned to me before that she was autistic, and since my husband is also autistic, I knew how difficult it could be when it came to adapting to new routines. But when it was time for her to deliver the first set of layouts, it wasn't at all what I expected.

What I had expected was something with margins, clearly marked boxes, and figures that I could do rough lines over. I also expected notes that confirmed what we had discussed earlier about the project; that way I knew what she wanted or if there would be any changes. She took offense to this, feeling like I was violating our agreement. Though Blud did try to give me space with regards to the actual art, and while she would offer criticisms here and there, I trusted her opinion as an artist and as a friend. But apparently that didn't go both ways. In fact, Blud seemed to be offended that I expected more from her.

Blud agreed to concede. She suddenly seemed fine with the changes that I had asked for after seeing the layouts. I guess she was feeling overstimulated by the change and I might have been applying too much of a critical tone to her responses to begin with. I have had to deal with rejection sensitivity throughout my life and it's certainly prompted me to approach what people say to me online with a bit of scrutiny (sometimes too much).

And while I was mildly annoyed, although admittedly I was more concerned with Blud's overall reaction to my asking for clarification about several things in the layouts, I let it go. But it seemed like there was a problem. The majority of my ideas were either rejected or outright overridden with Blud convincing me that my faulty memory had made me unable to remember what we had agreed upon. Or that I might have been misremembering in my own favor.

There was one time where we were discussing a monster's design. Blud had already decided to settle on one design that she had come up with, even as I continued to offer other suggestions. The story was to take place in my setting, so I was under the impression that I got to decide what kind of creatures should populate it. The conversation ended somewhat ambiguously. I had assumed that we'd come to a solid conclusion later. 

I came back the next day and it turned out that we were using her design because that was what we had decided on. "Don't you remember? You really need to do something about that faulty memory of yours, Tek. I can't be doing this for you all the time."

At which point, Blud would go back and meticulously scour the conversation until she managed to find a set of lines that would make it seem as though I had 100% agreed. Even when I tried to explain that I had meant something else, she took it as an affront on her inability to understand nuances due to her autism.

I admit that my memory isn't that greatest at times, but I've never had anyone complain about it before. And none of my friends have ever minded providing reminders to me if I did misremember something incorrectly. We all forget stuff at times, right? It's *still* something that I'm self-conscious about because (like a lot of people with ADHD) my memory seems selective at times. This was, apparently, a problem that I needed to manage. 

And even as I'm remembering these incidents to the best of my ability, I've already spent so much time recounting all of this to friends. I feel confident in my recollection. There are some details that may overlap or become entwined with other things, but it all basically tells the same story. Especially in conjunction with what's been said by others. You're free to take it as hearsay since I do not have screenshots to back this up.

I will mention (since I've been told it's something that Blud has taken particular interest in) that at one point, I did have a crush on her. I was having some problems IRL, and it was nice to have someone whom I felt actually understood me. I also felt like I saw a lot of myself in her. I think that, at one point, I did describe her as the kind of "girlfriend" I would want. Blud seemed to indicate the feeling was mutual.

Between our collaborative partnership and all of the details we shared about our lives, it did feel like an intimate relationship at times. I had no intentions of pursuing it. We were not compatible in our romantic and sexual identities, and I had no intention of leaving my current partner for her.

I had begun to notice red flags, even if I wasn't ready to accept them yet.

I've had experience with abusive relationships in the past but they were in person, and not online. I knew what to look out for and yet I was being willfully ignorant about our friendship. I wanted to give Blud the benefit of the doubt. I wanted the project to work *so* badly that I was willing to work with her increasing demands as the months went by.

I had no idea that those demands would change into, quite literal, temper tantrums. It would then trigger my fawning response which was due to an abusive family situation that I had dealt with before I moved to Canada. The tactic was this: concede to someone until there was a time that they either understood reason or I had the chance to use it against them if necessary.

I started to take screenshots. I wish that I had taken a lot more of them so that everyone could get a better idea of what was happening. I did go back and manage to record the majority of the first outburst. It was the first inkling I had that Blud wasn't playing with a full deck of cards. I knew that that would be one of the first conversations that she would promptly delete. And consequently, I was right.

This assortment of screenshots will exhibit the first serious confrontation that Blud had with me. I am absolutely *not* proud of how I handled this. I was literally panicking at the time and doing whatever I could to get her to calm down. Because I have a temper that can look similar to this in person, I knew that I had to wait until the post-tantrum clarity would hit Blud. I tried my best to not lose my own temper in turn but looking back, I feel that I came off as sounding too timid.

I didn't want to ruin this project.

I wanted to make a comic with an individual that I admired and respected as a fellow artist. And, with me not knowing how to respond, my main priority was to not make things any worse than they already were.

Below is the conversation in its entirety:

I had taken this screenshot on my phone after I had stepped away to compose myself. Blud had handled the confrontation and criticism with a reasonable amount of apprehension. But what had not occurred to me was that I could have said something that would remind her of past experiences with a roleplaying group.

It was something that had evidently scarred Blud for life.

I took away the wrong things from what she had told me, choosing to focus on the aspects of the "betrayal" that had appeared to bother her the most. And in hindsight, I did not see the correlation. I was genuinely apologetic that I had hurt her feelings.

But I *will* critique Blud for her poor handling of the situation. Whether or not I had hurt her feelings, no one is entitled to act like this or claim that this is what attempting to resolve a problem should look like.

I wasn't sure on how to initially respond to Blud. It had been ages since I'd had to deal with someone flying off the handle like that.

The following screenshots are where the conversation picked up, after she had already deleted the above message:

We had weathered the "storm" and after Blud calmed down, she was ready to communicate. There was a part of me that was genuinely sincere when I apologized to her. I did mean it when I said that I had no intentions of hurting her and that I hadn't considered how my statement would sound to her.

I had hoped that this had been a stress response due to factors outside of our collaboration. And especially when I took into account how she had interacted with me in the past. I knew that Blud had a lot going on IRL, and that she had already put a considerable amount of energy into this project.

I had taken her meltdown more personally than she could perceive that I would, because this was something that was acceptable to her. She had a "condition" that would absolve her of these abhorrent meltdowns and I needed to get used to them if we were going to continue working on that project together.

I was shaking the entire time we were typing in the chat.

I was sincere in my responses. I really did want to work things out with Blud and give her the benefit of the doubt. I could have been taking the things that she said too personally or maybe I had been reading too much into the situation. Was there a chance that I could have been misreading her outburst? I tried my best to keep an open mind though I was still somewhat baffled by the fact that she would have meltdowns as often as she did.

I confided in my husband and some other friends about the situation. They were also bewildered by Blud's actions.

By this point, I was struggling with the reality that this collaboration was most likely *not* going to work out but I still wanted to try. I still cared about Blud. We would still hang out together and talk about things like music, our characters, or our stories.

While I did have the foresight to go back and screenshot this section, I wasn't fast enough to get screenshots of everything else that I will be going over. Blud *did* admit to going back and deleting certain exchanges due to a mixture of shame; not wanting to look at them when she would scroll through our conversations. 

In retrospect, it was very telling.

And even after that meltdown, I still enjoyed the friendship that I had with her. I kept my guard up but I was willing to make compromises on her behalf if it resulted in better communication between the two of us. Blud made me promise to immediately tell her if I had a problem with something. I also agreed to keep notes of our conversations.

It worked for the most part.

In the end though, it became apparent that Blud wasn't willing to do the same for me (even after we had an extended conversation about it). I then realized that I had been tasked with basically *managing* her autism for her. I was already busy with my supposedly "bad memory" at the time; and Blud was more than ready to scroll back up through our conversations to cherry-pick a line or two of text to remind me of what was said earlier.

Because, for her, circumstances couldn't ever change. If they did, it would mean that Blud had lost control of the situation and that she was in the wrong. She could *not* be in the wrong. 

And if she was in the wrong? It would take solid evidence, three witnesses, and a court of law to prove it.

She had two other major meltdowns after this. I managed to step away from communicating with her through one of them and I don't remember the other meltdown lasting very long. She immediately deleted the texts of both of those instances before I could take screenshots of them.

It seemed like I could do nothing right when it came to Blud, no matter the lengths I would go to accommodate her. I knew that it was a common tactic used by abusers. I finally accepted that our partnership wasn't going to work out and I began thinking about an exit strategy. The final straw was when she began to expect me to be at her beck and call.

I had promised that I would be there for her, within reason, and I was willing to offer reassurances whenever she would ask me for them. The promise had been made back when we had first started to talk to one another with more frequency, before Blud had shown me her true colors. I would end up completely underestimating just how badly she would need reassurance.

To be frank, I underestimated a lot about Blud in the beginning.

I would end up mentioning that I enjoyed my space in several different conversations with her. That there was a chance that I might be offline for several days so I could take care of things IRL and recharge my social batteries. I'm somewhat of a recluse. And an adult who enjoys things that aren't online.

She said that it was fine.

I became incredibly anxious when I would talk to Blud, especially after her somewhat abrupt change in personality.

I then attempted to put my foot down about boundaries and this is what she had to say:

I decided to walk away for a bit and I came back after I had had some time to think things over. This wasn't healthy for either of us. I wrote a couple of sentences to say goodbye to Blud before I blocked her. I knew that my actions would probably infuriate her. She had told me in the past that she *hated* not being able to have the final word... which she was able to do through email:

“And I'm not letting you pretend you have control over the situation, or the high ground. You distinctly have neither. But since you're determined to stick to your 'principles' on this, I've decided to make it easier for you.”

She thought that she was absolved of all sins just because I had said that I would stand by her at her worst. And at the time that I said that, I had no idea that her worst would be her trying everything possible to protect her boundaries while stomping all over mine. It didn't matter what she said or how often she would apologize when I would confront her. She kept doing it.

I admit that I wasn't perfect in this situation either.

There were times when I was condescending, critical, or downright mean when I talked to Blud because that was the way I had felt when she was talking to me. I soon realized that it didn't matter either way. I could have been using the friendliest tone imaginable and she still would have perceived it as either mocking or dismissive on my end. There were even a few times where I would preface my explanations with an advisory “please know that I am not attacking you and try to read this in an understanding tone,”etc. I would then post an explanation I had spent hours picking at to ensure that there was no way she could misinterpret the intent. Even so, she still read the majority of what I said as criticism and would take it to heart.

I never expected Blud to do something that made her uncomfortable; nor did I expect her to overextend herself when it came to our project. I would go out of my way to make sure everything was fine when we would talk about it. I only expected mutual respect in return.

When we would get into discussions (arguments), she would never attempt to understand my point of view or let me explain myself. It would have made it about me when it should have been about Blud and her needs. She sometimes would agree to come to a compromise about something, but only if I would admit that I was in the wrong.

I know that if Blud was to look at these screenshots, she'd be incredulous that I'm trying to distract from the horrible things that *I* did. And those horrible things that I did? I tried my best to work with her.

It wasn't just her poor teamwork that bothered me. It was her attitude and the lack of respect that she showed me. She would never ask me to clarify something that I said; always assuming that it was a criticism against her. I can only speculate that Blud did not want to hear about how any of this was her fault, like in the email she sent me.

I don't know if I was actually her friend at any point. Friends make efforts to understand one another. Ideally, they’d want their friendships to continue, and they would want everyone to be getting along and having fun. She seemed to actively defy that.

I would argue that things like this don't just happen in a vacuum. There's almost always a reason for such things, but it's honestly a mystery to me as to where this vitriol comes from. I don't know why Blud sees monsters in every word, especially if they come from a  "friend". 

I've seen her viscously mock herself during meltdowns; it seems like she hates herself and expects everyone else to hate her too. I think that she wants it to be the truth, so that it validates the feelings she has about herself. The behavior patterns that I'd been exposed to are consistent with the idea that Blud is seeking confirmation about the personal assumptions she has about herself. It's what makes her so volatile to those around her. Yet, she refuses to break the cycle.

I hope that she can make that choice in the future but at this point, I'm not holding my breath.

[pinkiealexie]

𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇.𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 ♡ 𝘓𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘰 𝘏𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘰

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❥ REQUESTED: Anonymous

❥ REQUEST:

"Hello ‼️ I liked you raph hcs and I was wondering if you can do Leo hcs?"

❥ WARNINGS: None!

[ HELLO ‼️ Also sure thing, and I'm so glad that so many people enjoyed my Raph headcanons! I have like 11 more requests to do after this 💀 ]

════════════════════════

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♡ Leo is very teasing plus flirtatious to his love, a reaction is what he is looking for from you. Give him that exact reaction that he is looking for and it'll only encourage his behavior even further

♡ Very bad pick up lines, and I mean very bad, but I personally find them funny.

♡ "Are you from Tennessee? Because you're the only ten I see."

♡ Omg Leo- but like I said. Anyways pick up lines aren't his only treat as he loves to tell you all of his jokes and one liners no matter how stupid they are. All that he is looking for is a laugh because he loves seeing you crack up at his jokes!

♡ He actually very clingy and needy towards you as he feels like he can't spend a day without seeing you at least once! Anytime you have to leave to take off somewhere else he gets all dramatic as if you're going off to war or something. Basically acting like he is going to die without you here.

♡ Just a very big drama queen honestly. You're slightly hurt? He cries like it's your final days of breath. Jokingly say something mean? Clutches his heart with his hand and does an exaggerated gasp. Flirt back with him? Giggles girlishly while fanning himself with his hand.

♡ Not very overprotective because he trusts you a lot actually! Only times he does get protective is when things start to get physical in a very bad way. Other than that everything is a-okay with you!

♡ He can get a bit jealous at times though

♡ You know how he can make portals? It very neat actually; for example, if both of you or just yourself are late to attend something? Nothing a little portal magic can't do as Leo says

♡ Shows himself off you to anytime he can. You need help picking up multiple boxes? Leo is already picking up 7 at a time while flexing about how strong he is to you. You happen to walk but while he's training? Shows off his super cool skills to you while his brothers are there confused because before you came Leo already said he was apparently "Strong enough", "Didn't feel like training", or "Doesn't need the extra training"

♡ A sucker for nicknames

♡ He'll show you off to anyone he knows or encounters

♡ "Have you ever met my amazing, caring, sweet, and loving (Y/n)?"

♡ LOVES physical touch no matter where you are, so PDA is a big green check mark on the list as long as you're okay with it of course! Leo just loves to swing his arm around your shoulder or waist, just to show that you're in fact in a very happy and loving relationship with none other than himself, Neon Leon.

♡ The legendary Neon Leon loves when you kiss him anywhere on his face, especially on his two red stripe markings. Bro will literally melt into a puddle because of this

♡ Compliment him at anything and he'll have a major boost in his already massive ego. His family tells you to not make it any bigger than it already is but will you listen?

♡ Is most likely the type to take embarrassing photos of you when you're not looking and teases you for it. Leo finds it adorable you're begging him to delete that photo while he extends his arm away from you, the phone way out of your reach

♡ 11/10 overall giggles, not sure he would give you his last pizza slice though

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[the-eeveekins]

Why The Witch From Mercury is Important to Me

This will be a long, somewhat rambling and mostly personal thread. It's not about the show's quality or any issues I had about it (and YES, the show is flawed and has issues), but about why G-Witch's characters and themes were important to me and I think many others. Most of this I've already shared to a degree, but I wanted to expand my original thoughts, and put them all into one post.

I've been a Gundam fan for over 20 years, I got into the series with Wing on Toonami and have watched the vast majority of the animated series. As a woman, I longed for the day Gundam would have a female main character in the spotlight of a major show, but honestly at some point I'd given up on it. I just thought that if they hadn't done it by now, they never would.

Then, last March, they released this short 30 second trailer revealing The Witch From Mercury, and showing off Suletta and Aerial, and I was ecstatic! Finally, a female MC in a Gundam series, I was so excited for a new Gundam series for the first time since 00! I watched that short clip countless times over the months in anticipation of the series airing, I even grew addicted to the little song that plays during it.

Over time, the characters and key art were revealed and I saw some people float the idea that maybe Suletta and Miorine would be love interests. I didn't pay it any mind at the time. I was sure they'd milk their relationship for bait along the way, but there was no way they'd commit to Gundam's first female MC being gay. Even after the first episode aired I was still skeptical: There was the bait I was expecting, they're not seriously going to go through with it though.

And here we are, almost 10 months after G-Witch started airing, and Suletta & Miorine are married. It not only wasn't bait, but they committed to it in a way I never would have imagined coming from a franchise I loved like Gundam. It was done with care and respect for the characters, it didn't feel like it was exploitative or added just for fanservice, but was a very real relationship.

I'll admit, I was initially among those disappointed we didn't see a kiss or the wedding at the end, but my greatest fear was the ending would be as ambiguous as possible, or even worse, walk back what we'd seen, so as not to offend people. Instead we got the sister-in-law line, the matching wedding rings, how close they were and they way they looked at each other with love and talking about going home together. We didn't see them kiss or see the wedding, but we got to see them married, and I think that's incredible.

As a gay woman, and a Gundam fan of over 20 years, Suletta is an immensely important character to me. Suletta and Miorine's relationship, and it being a central focus of the story, is immensely important to me. They're things I dreamed of having in Gundam, but never really thought would ever happen. I've been so happy about them for a long time now, but these last two days I've been so unbelievably happy that I was given their story. I love them so much and I'm never going to forget these two.

And this ties into why I think G-Witch has been important to so many people, regardless of how they feel about it's quality, because of it's representation and themes. Suletta, the main character of the show, is a queer, neurodivergent, disabled woman of color. She was well written, and she got to have a happy ending married to the woman she loves, where she's thriving and happy despite her mobility. She's not treated with pity or remorse, and she's still pursuing her dreams of making a school.

And not just Suletta, there were so many characters belonging to different minority groups that got strong representation and happy, satisfying endings. If you're a woman, if you're queer, if you're a POC, if you're any sort of ND, if you're disabled, The Witch From Mercury not only gave you good representation, but also said you're deserving of love, empathy and happiness.

With regard to it's themes, I absolutely love how G-Witch stressed love, empathy, compassion, acceptance and forgiveness over hate, vengeance, punishment and karma. Suletta and Miorine made many mistakes during their journey that they could never take back, but they accepted each other, including their mistakes, and resolved to move on together and makes amends for them if possible. Suletta never got mad at Miorine, Prospera or Eri for the things they did to her and she never blamed them, all she did was understand and accept why they did the things they did, and move forward with her love for them. She accepts the people she loves, mistakes and all, because of her unrelenting love and compassion for them.

Even Prospera, the main antagonist, ultimately rejected revenge for the sake of saving her daughter. She was a less than stellar parent to Suletta, and her actions lead to a heavy death toll, but ultimately Suletta accepted her and her actions to save Eri. And rather than go for an easy karmic death, she was allowed to have a happy ending: Eri was saved, and she's living a peaceful life with her family. A life that was robbed from her 24 years prior.

And ultimately, those themes are why we had an ending where literally no one died, and nearly every character got to have a happy ending. Gundam has always said that violence is bad, but The Witch From Mercury was the first to say "Alright, then we'll solve the problem without violence." We got a big magic spell that was a Gundam Pride Parade in space, and combined with Miorine's actions, events were resolved peacefully.

That's why G-Witch is important to me. It gave me and many others representation in ways you almost never get from a major franchise like Gundam, and without feeling like it was doing it to just check boxes off on some executive's diversity list. It stressed themes of love, empathy and acceptance and rejected hate, revenge, karma and even death. And I think that's incredibly important in this day and age. Representation Matters. Love Matters.

I've been very emotional over this show the last two days because I've been loving it for a while now, and while I'm sad to see it end, I'm so grateful that it happened, flaws and all. I've been crying on and off since the last episode ended and I've had trouble sleeping, but I've been so unbelievably happy over what this one show did and how much it's meant to me. The characters may not be real, but the happiness Suletta & Miorine have brought me is very much real.

For me; Suletta, Miorine, and The Witch From Mercury were truly a blessing.

[ftmtftm]

I’m sorry but until xenogenders and neopronouns can understand that I don’t want to “share my pronouns”, that I want to go through life as a normal, binary man, that I want assumptions to be made, that t isn’t some fun thing but a medical necessity for the rest of my life, that being trans isn’t a celebration but a condition for me and that I never want to be in a pride parade or even really open about it, until y’all can respect that, every single one of you, at least the fucking majority of you, then i can’t take anything seriously. I have been outed, assaulted, misgendered, and a whole bunch of other shit by “Tucutes” who walked all fucking over me as a binary trans person, I’ve been forced to be okay with they/them pronouns and been forced to be called the t-slur by a fake trans person because it was “affirming” for them to use on “other trans people”, I’ve been forced to wait years for t because the lines weee clogged up because people wanted to microdose it because they didn’t actually want the effects but they wanted to feel special, I’ve been outed as trans by fake trans people who want everyone to know what a cool catch I am, I’ve been told how gross t made me, I’ve been pushed out of every space that makes an effort to include as many people as possible because they start using rhetoric that sounds like the same rhetoric my transphobic father uses.

I cannot ever find joy in being trans, there is nothing to find joy in for me. Ever. I’m sick of people acting like it’s fun and silly and goofy. I’m sick of people appropriating a medical condition. I will always be sick of it. I am truly sorry that you had someone assault you and that they happened to be part of a community that I am also, but all transmeds want is some fucking respect for not doing this for whatever “euphoria” or political reason but because we fucking have to. All we want is respect and to not have our medical condition turned into playing make believe that you’re a “catgender” or an alien or whatever the fuck, do that on your own terms I don’t care, but the association with dysphoria and the fact that you will spit in the fucking faces of dysphoric binary trans people? That’s why transmeds exist

.

Bullet points because genuinely, my patience is beginning to run very thin for you anon. My ask box and the new post button have two separate functions and I think there is one you should be using instead of the other.

This is just attention seeking behavior at this point, and I'll give it to you and I'll be compassionate but I won't let your shit slide.

I'm sorry, but this is genuinely like looking in a mirror at my 15-20 year old self and it sucks and I honestly feel very sorry for you. Your pain and upset is very real. Your feelings do matter. And? You need to talk to a mental health professional. Serious advice. You need a therapist or some kind of support group if you do not have one already. That is a lot of baggage that deserves to be explored with someone who can genuinely help you in a controlled environment - not the askbox of random trans people you take issue with because they remind you of traumatic events in your life. Your triggers and people who remind you of people who have hurt you are your responsibility to deal with. It's not the business of people who are literally just living their lives in ways that make them happy. The world doesn't need to change around you for your own comfort, you need to change yourself to make yourself comfortable.

It's honestly okay if being trans makes you upset. It's okay to lament and even grieve a life you wish you had but can't have because you are not cis. Again though, that is not an issue that people who aren't like you are causing though. It's genuinely your business to deal with those emotions - not theirs.

You are not a doctor. You are not a medical professional. You are not the one giving care and other people's medical needs, decisions, and histories are none of your g'ddamn business. It is absolutely ridiculous that wait times are what they are and that access to care is not what it should be - but that is a failure of the system not the people. You legitimately sound like working class folks who complain about people on food stamps "taking up all the government resources" and people who complain that "immigrants are taking all our jobs" right now. You are putting the burden of the system onto the individual when it legitimately isn't their fault. Ultimately you are actively being failed by the medical system you are attempting to covet, not by your fellow trans people.

I've also been told I'm disgusting for being on T. I've also been told I'm disgusting for wanting facial and body hair, for feeling comfortable in my masculinity, for loving being a man in all of its complexities. Even by other trans people. You are not alone in that experience. The solution to working through those emotions isn't to throw conservative complaining about food stamps and immigrants level tantrums about it like you are doing now though.

Being trans can be fun. Being trans can be silly and goofy. Again, it might not be that way for you and it sounds like you've been in an environment where you're not allowed to love yourself for any reason, let alone for being trans, so it's probably very hard for you to conceptualize experiences outside of your own - but you sound... very young. I promise it gets better with time and distance. Please leave the environments you are in when you are able, they don't sound healthy for you.

Point of order: My ex was not a transmedicalist, by any means. I was assaulted by them and felt disgusting and dysphoric because of it and found transmedicalism on my own afterwards to try to validate my sense of self. I was hurt by someone else and then turned my hurt into a weapon. It sounds like you've been hurt and are also turning that hurt into a weapon. I hope some day you're able to put it down.

[that-ari-blogger]

What Do I Want?

Wicked has a thing with dreams.

The land of Oz is a land of fantasy. I mean this in the sense that it isn't exactly non-fiction, but its also a place where dreams come true. This is a place and a story in which if you wish really hard, good things can happen.

But Oz was never what it seemed, and where the original The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz used smoke and mirrors for a big reveal towards the end of the story. Wicked leans much further into deceit and scheming to lean into its theming, and that is set up in The Wizard And I.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

A key part of storytelling is making the lead character empathetic or understandable. It isn't essential (Watch Deathnote for a good counter example), but it is a strategy for getting the audience invested. In musicals, where most important plot beats are sung, this often takes the form of an "I want" song that establishes quickly and efficiently the goals of the protagonist. Think Part Of Your World from The Little Mermaid for an example.

The Wizard and I is Elphaba's "I want" song, and that honestly made this post rather difficult to write. Because I don't think that's an unobvious take and I wanted to do something out of the ordinary. But I think Elphaba's song is fascinating because of how it subverts the premise.

Wicked is a satire, and the key to writing good satire is to understand the core text and tropes and to take them both in a wildly different direction. Most notably, Elphaba is on the verge of getting what she wants. This isn't an "I wish I could", it's a "this is what I'm going to get", and because this is a story about dreams colliding with reality, which sets up that theme rather neatly.

The plot of Wicked centres around the falling apart of Elphaba, and the breaking down of her ambitions. But it is a story about hope throughout, and I think it is important to set up how relentlessly hopeful she is.

Although, Elphaba's hopefulness is in direct contrast with the rest of her demeanour. Once again, the theme of deception is on display, this time through her false face. She has to please everyone, especially her father, so she puts on an incredibly restrained and abrasive personality. But what she wants truly is to be "unlimited".

Don't get me wrong, Elphaba is abrasive, and that's not a flaw, she's just not that social. What I'm saying is that there is a difference between being awkward and actively pushing people away. Elphaba does the latter to disguise from her true self.

"Unlimited

My future is unlimited."

I have extremely limited musical knowledge here, so bear with me. There is a key change here, to sell the importance of this line, because it keeps coming up. I will point it out when it comes to it. But the change from A Flat Major (should I use the flat symbol here? I have no idea) to G Flat Major emphasises that this is the point of the song. If I've got those keys wrong, please tell me.

Everything else is superficial. When boiled down to it's barest principles, Elphaba wants to be free. To be free from prejudice and expectation, and she spends the rest of the show achieving this. She defies gravity, free from the laws that keep her down; she defies death and lives her own happy ending; and she defies the wizard to pursue her own path.

I watched Wicked live in Sydney, and I am using the official video from that show of this song as images. What is interesting there is how Sheridan Adams, who played Elphaba in that show, chose to act out that character.

She became slowly more expressive throughout the course of the song, starting very closed in and spotlit against a background that couldn't help but contrast with her appearance. But she got more relaxed and more open with the audience as she sang, realising she was finally getting what she wanted.

And as she sang, the world changed, with the sky going from the sunrise of the opportunity to the bright day of a new world, to a green tint to match Elphaba, letting her still stand out. But now she isn't a sore thumb, she belongs in the world and is free to do whatever she wants. As she gets freer, the world becomes hers to explore.

It's also notable that as Elphaba imagines more, and as she continues to hope, the set opens up. No longer is she boxed in by the school, now the world is her oyster.

But that isn't the only recurring theme set up by this song.

These notes form a motif that comes back in Dancing Through Life. Specifically, from Galinda, when she is falling in love with Fiyero after decieving Boq into dancing with Nessarose, and again when she and Nessa retrospect about those relationships. The flourishes are different, but the core pattern is the same.

"Help me meet the wizard"

"We deserve each other."

Neither of those two relationships work out, by the way, because everyone involved was deceived in some way. They all thought the relationships would work out in different, contradicting ways.

I'm not going to go into too much detail on that song here, as this is a post about The Wizard and I, but it's interesting that a motif with themes of deception, false beliefs and and misguided aspirations, gets used for Elphaba's most achievable goal. She wants to meet the wizard, why is that misguided?

Well, because the wizard isn't what he says he is. He cannot do any of the things Elphaba hopes he can be. The plot twist of the original story becomes central to this one in a much more psychological way. Elphaba has pinned all of her hopes on something, and the music is telling you from the start that this isn't going to work out.

The song also tells you through the lyrics.

"If you work as you should

You'll be making good"

First up, conditional acceptance. Not what Elphaba is after, but she's at such a low point in terms of belonging that this is enough to sway her. This is a fault that she gets over. She doesn't want the bare minimum; she wants what everyone else has. To be unlimited.

There's also the fact that the opening of the musical, No One Mourns the Wicked, went out of its way to break down the concepts of good and evil in this world. The story reenforces this with Wonderful later, but here it comes up and Elphaba accepts it uncritically.

But whose definition of "good" is Morrible using here. Good for whom?

So, here is where my reading of the story as a whole comes in. I will elaborate further when we get to it later on in the musical. But, in my opinion, this is a fundamentally queer coded story.

Elphaba is born different, outside of the norm of her society. All she wants is to be unlimited, for people to not see her and have their minds filled with prejudice.

I brought up Part Of Your World earlier, because the queer theming there is all but explicit, but The Wizard and I has this coding in spades. Obviously, being green is something that others her, and something she wants "cured", only to find that people like her for it, or like her for other reasons and the greenness is just who she is. She can't and shouldn't change it.

But, an angry mob is an angry mob, and people are small minded. People see something they don't understand and cast it as a villain for their own narratives.

Alternatively, she gets told that she can be accepted despite being green, if she contributes to society in the way that the leadership wants her to. Her personhood is contingent on her usefulness, rather than being assumed like everyone else.

Let's, talk about me for a second. I am a queer individual. I am neither heterosexual nor cisgender, and I can definitely empathise with Elphaba here. I have felt that same antipathy towards me for something I could not control, and I have wished that I could be "normal". I have definitely been given that "contribute to society" ultimatum.

But as I have matured, I have learned to respect myself enough to understand that these are parts of who I am, and that I am deserving of respect and dignity just as much as anyone else.

All people are deserving respect, queer or otherwise, and those that take issue with that are the problem, not us. I hope that one day, all of us can feel free to be who we are.

One day, we will be "unlimited".

Final Thoughts

The Wizard and I is my second favourite song in the musical, and I will reveal my favourite later on. But its fascinating how much setup this song does for the worldbuilding of Oz.

The audience gets told just how powerful everyone thinks the wizard is, and even if you know the plot twist, you empathise with Elphaba after the betrayal because you have seen how much of her heart gets put into this.

This is part two of a series on Wicked, with part three coming next week, centring around What Is This Feeling and continuing with the queer analysis of this very queer musical. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[apatheticlexicographer]

i'm about to get mauled ALIVE for saying this but here goes:

i think m'leven's relationship should be based on a mutually requited crush. both the implications it would have on their personal development as characters and the message it would send to the audience would be substantially more impactful, healthy, and progressive than if they only dated out of obligation. in fact, the thematic message of their relationship SIMPLY DOESN'T MAKE SENSE without a foundation of genuine romantic attraction.

still with me??? okay, good.

when shows deal with romance they tend to fall into the categories of either having pretty much every character shipped with every other character at some point, or of having the endgame ships be the most obviously pushed from the start. byler has definitely been built up from the start, but the majority of the show's audience didn't consider it as an option for canon until s4, when they started making it blatant. hell, a lot of people didn't even realize WILL was queer until s3 (again, when the show started to place heavy emphasis on it), and even then a lot of people thought he might be ace rather than gay.

mike and el, on the other hand, were practically the show's flagship couple for the first 2 seasons at least. it wasn't until s3 that their popularity started to dip and their relationship began to receive a lot more criticism. which makes sense, considering they hadn't actually been IN said relationship in the previous seasons. they had a couple of romantic interactions, sure, but we didn't see how they would interact *as a couple*. people obviously couldn't predict how their dynamic would actually pan out!!! that isn't to say that the negative aspects of their relationship were a bait-and switch, though: red flags were visible since at least s2, but they were far from being the focal point and a lot of shippers interpreted them as being cute (like el's jealousy over max).

having a show acknowledge the fact that the first person you get a crush on (because correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure they're canonically each other's first crush???) isn't necessarily your ~soulmate~ is a great thing. even better when they go a step further, and play with the concept!!! the text of stranger things doesn't actually push m'leven as a paragon of romantic love. if you listen to what the other characters say about their (romantic) relationship, their opinions are entirely neutral/negative???

lucas teases mike about his crush in s1, but calls him hopeless in s3. hopper is out of line with how agressively he acts about their relationship, but the resolution of that character arc for him is about him acknowledging that he's been overbearing and accepting that he needs to let el grow up, and NOT some hammy realization that "what they have is true love, i was wrong to interfere!!!" max thinks their clinginess is sweet at first in s3, but she isn't very close with either of them. once she and el start to bond AND SHE LEARNS THAT EL HAS NO EXPERIENCE WITH ROMANTIC ATTRACTION OUTSIDE OF MIKE she encourages el to assert her own self-worth and dump him. [which... actually mirrors the progression of opinions in a lot of audience members??? 🤔🤔]

and those are just a few examples!!! i won't go on an exhaustive list, because honestly we'd be here all day.

furthermore, m'leven's steady downward trajectory is not the only instance of the show basically dunking on the trite expectation that a character's first love interest is automatically their happily-ever-after, AND the recurring motif that any relationships a character explores before their endgame ship are wrong because the alternate love interest is Bad.

dustin has his first crush (onscreen, anyway) on max in s2, but ends the season happy despite his sadness over rejection and later gets together with a girl who's basically his perfect match. in s3, robin confides to steve about how she was so far gone for tammy that she would cry into her pillow. in s4 she's able to laugh over just how bad her singing is without denying it, and is tentatively flirting with vickie. joyce was genuinely really happy with bob, but after having time to heal from the tragedy of what happened to him she's ready to move on with hopper.

again, not an exhaustive list. why??? because outside of m'leven, the only relationships where the characters ARE each other's first love interest are: lumax, whose entire arc together is about growing up as a couple (you know, the exact arc m'leven shippers pin on mike and el, as if it would make sense for 2 couples to have the same format and message...); stancy, which is only one prong of Love Triangle Hell and the controversy around it speaks for itself; and TED AND KAREN. WHO ARE POINTED OUT EXPLICITLY BY THE TEXT OF THE SHOW IN S1 NO LESS, TO BE AN EXAMPLE OF A WORST TIMELINE FUTURE THAT CHARACTERS DO NOT WANT TO REPEAT.

but if you're reading this, you already know all of that.

the point i'm trying to make is that stranger things shows a consistent palette of themes across all the relationships it portrays. i've obviously been going over the romantic ones, but this applies at least as much to the plationic bonds as well. those themes are of GROWING AND MATURING, of SHIFTING DYNAMICS, and of BECOMING SECURE IN YOUR PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE.

i'm sorry but to present a pair of characters with apparent mutual feelings; to elaborate on how dysfunctional their relationship is; and to ultimately reveal to the audience that actually they were both just confused, they never had feelings for one another in the first place and that's why their relationship didn't work out; sends an extremely mediocre message, to put it nicely. all the characters learn from that lived experience is "don't date people you don't have feelings for, and if you were unsure about how real those feelings were... get good???" meanwhile, all the audience learns from that VIEWED experience is "if the relationship doesn't work, it's because the people involved don't like each other enough." if byler goes on to be canon and is immediately much healthier, that only enforces that shitty message. in that situation the only reason THEIR relationship works while mike and el's didn't is that they actually have feelings for one another!!!

from a show which has explored complex arcs and messages with *LITERALLY EVERY OTHER RELATIONSHIP* they touch on, this would be beyond disappointing. particularly as the central message for the arc of 2 of the mainest main characters in the whole show!!!

on the other hand, to present a pair of young characters at the start of the show and flag them as having an obvious mutual crush; to allow them to explore that crush as a serious prospect; to have them realize that their relationship is dysfunctional; and to have them move on as friends; sends???

a great???

fucking???

message???

they both get to progress and move on as more enriched people than they would have been without their time in a relationship, and that is fucking wonderful.

el has a deeper understanding of romantic interactions based on actual lived experience and not just TV shows. she's able to develop into her fledgeling sense of identity more securely with the knowledge that relationships can change, and that's okay. not everything has to be forever.

mike understands how to process and manage his own feelings much better, and is equipped with a firsthand understanding of how a relationship can become emotionally dysfunctional without proper communication, making him ready to enter a new, healthier relationship. he has displayed the same overprotective behaviours towards will as he has to el, but he's begun to learn how to manage them so that he doesn't stifle his partner. after previously failing to communicate his feelings to both el and will in s3 when he fought with them, he's been making a deliberate point of doing so in s4. this didn't work with el when he tried to open up about his own experience with bullying, but it DID work with will when he admitted to his failings in balancing relationships.

are either of them finished in their personal arcs??? no, of course not!!! they're not even fifteen!!! but they have both grown as people, not in spite of their romantic relationship, but BECAUSE of it. you don't change as you grow up, so much as you start to understand yourself better. but self-discovery and subsequent self-acceptance CANNOT come without self-explaration.

it's okay to try things out, and it's okay if they don't end up being right for you.

meanwhile, the broader message about relationships that this imparts on the audience is an extremely important one. one which gets overlooked continually by storytellers in every industry. one which the show itself has brushed on, but not explored in depth.

one which fandom, in particular, likes to ignore.

ATTRACTION ≠ COMPATIBILITY

(...and that's okay!!!)

[remusmoonbaby]

hiii! it's me again! how u doing? tbh i had this idea, sirius outlining and drawing on remus' scars to 'make them look really pretty' so that remus doesn't find them ugly oh and maybe remus trying to do the same for sirius if he has any scars from his birth parents when they practically abused him and in my head remus is terrible at art but he tries his best and it makes sirius so happy this made me all mushy and sad and happy inside like help me please ⎯🐝

HI~! I’m doing good love how are you? 🥰

OMG— give me a sec I just got really soft reading this and im about to cry cause this is so cute—!!! But i got you 🐝 anon ! 🩷

It was a nice, sunny afternoon where you could find majority of the students of Hogwarts outside enjoying the much needed sun.

But not Sirius and Remus...

Remus wanted to go back to his house common room to catch up on some of the studying he had left to do.

Sirius? He of course followed behind Remus because well...it's Sirius and he loves Remus, so much so that he's willing to ditch James and his request to fly their brooms together. James is crying in the corner to Lily about that.

"Sirius, didn't James ask you if you wanted to fly your broom with him?" Remus asked his boyfriend without looking away from what he was reading.

"Yes."

"And, why aren't you outside with him?"

"Wanted to watch you study instead." Sirius said in the most obvious tone that there was, that he was honestly surprised that Remus was even asking him such a silly question.

Remus sighs and shakes his head slightly with a quiet chuckle. "I'm not surprised, but you now James will whine to you about this later."

"He'll live." Sirius said as he stretched himself against the chair he was sitting on.

Comfortable silence fell between the two of them as Remus started to write down notes of what he just read on.

Sirius found himself zoning out while looking at Remus's side profile. He couldn't help it, I mean Remus is a very handsome young man, though he doesn't seem to accept that he is, Sirius couldn't help but just admire. The way Remus's sandy brown hair fell down over his eyes, which reminds Sirius that he needs to trim his hair, to the way his lips pout slightly as he's in deep thought of what he's doing. The scars...Sirius loves admiring Remus’s scars.

Of course Sirius understood Remus’s outlook on his scars, he out of everyone understood. But that didn’t change Sirius’s mind on how he finds them absolutely fascinating on Remus. Just the way they adorn his features and skin…it’s just beautiful.

Without much thought, Sirius took hold of Remus’s quill that laid between the notebook he’s using for his quick notes. Sirius took hold of Remus’ free hand and started to lightly trace the scars that were on the back of his hand.

“What are you doing?” Remus asks as he looks down towards Sirius, curious as to what he’s trying to do.

“Shh, don’t worry about it. Just continue reading.” Sirius muttered as he started to concentrate on the fine lines he’s creating around the scars.

Not wanting to move much, Remus sets the book he’s reading down onto the table and placed his head on his free hand, and watched Sirius detail the scars on the back of his hand.

Sirius has always been good in the art department. So even the simplest thing, such as creating fine lines, in Remus eyes it was absolute perfection.

The moment Sirius finished with the hand, Remus automatically gave him the other hand for him to create the lines on the scars littered around his hand.

Once done with both of the hands, Sirius pulls away and examines the work he did. A satisfied smile dances across his face as he looked down at Remus' hands. "Perfect. You look so much prettier now...if that was even possible." Sirius mumbled before looking at Remus with the happy expression on his face.

Remus knew he had heart eyes when he looked at Sirius, and saw how happy he was for just simple line art.

To be honest, Remus doesn't know why he does it knowing that art isn't his best subject like...at all. But he gently takes hold of both his quill and Sirius hand where he knew holds the most scars.

Not wanting to say anything so Remus wouldn't get flustered and basically "run away." Sirius just admires the way Remus tries to hold his breath to calm his shaky hand as he lightly, and shakingly starts to draw, trying to draw, the same fine lines Sirius did on him.

As Remus finished, he felt his face heat up as he fully took in the sight of the jagged lines he drew on Sirius's hand. "Sorry...m'not the best." He said sheepishly.

Sirius looks down at the jagged lines that Remus created on the scars he's gotten in his younger years, and couldn't help but smile widely at Remus who looks at him with such an intense blush and shy smile, that it just made Sirius all that much more happier.

"It's perfect. Thank you Moony." Sirius said as he gave Remus a quick little kiss on the cheek.

"Now we both look even more prettier together." He whispered into Remus's ear causing the werewolf wizard to flush a deeper red and stutter on his words.

BONUS CONTENT:

"Lily...Sirius left me for Remus." James pouted to his red head girlfriend about his best friend abandoning, really flaking on his plans with James for Remus.

Lily sighs as she pats James messy head. "You know Sirius just wants alone time with Remus."

"But he was supposed to go flying with me!" James whined.

"You're acting like he's your boyfriend, hon."

"It feels like he broke up with me."

"Oh Merlin's beard."

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Here's MY thoughts on the love island the game's seasons, for no reason other than I want to:

Also because the majority of the people following me are here for OM! & I want to drag more people down into the litg hell with me :)

Season 1: why is everyone so bitchy for no reason????? Talia & Jake are okay but other than that it's meh... don't really like the art style either

Season 2: Immaculate. Chef's kiss. They hit a high they never reached again. Somehow managed to balance the drama & the found family aspect and created a dynamic where you can actually believe everyone is friends and having fun even if sometimes they try to kill each other. Characters are flawed but generally decent people who are allowed to grow throughout the season. You get the option to make MC a bi gym-bro who can devour an entire cake in one sitting and bench press her partner. There's a reason this got two sequels.

Season 3: It's fine ig. Short and kind of boring. Nothing much happens. AJ is so cute though she almost makes up for it.

Season 4: Honestly a close 2nd favourite. We get a lot of character backstory and like s2 it touches on some serious issues. The season with some of the funniest moments/lines of dialogue - multiple moments where I just laughed out loud. I'm still only half way through it but the "villain" is just straight up mean for no reason and doesn't get any character development like the characters in S2 but makes up for it by having some of the funniest interactions with other characters and I was so sad to see her go. Also the season where I desperately wish MC was allowed to be in an open relationship till the very end and finish off the season in a polycule with every other islander who was in the love "triangle"s of the the season because this was the hardest season to pick a LI - Najuma is just all around amazing, Bruno is sweet & funny, Tom is so pathetic* MC & Thabi's friendship is also the best thing? It's great seeing a platonic relationship that is as loving (if not more so) than the romantic relationships. It's literally:

Season 5: Psychological horror. The producers said 'hey wouldn't it be funny if we torture this woman on national tv' and then committed to the bit. My memories are hazy because even though I only played it earlier this year it upset me so much I did my best to block most of it out but also I'm 100% sure there was actual galighting happening. Don't know why MC stuck around till the end because all she's gonna be able to use the money for is to pay for her therapy. Anyway I think MC should have been allowed to brutally murder everyone, she deserved it <3

Season 6: I liked the concept but I think they should have utilised it more. I'm still right at the very beginning (around ep 9) and I KNOW the general consensus from everyone who has reached the last eps seems to be that Amelia sucks MAJOR ass. But look, this is the first time a game has given me a MC with a canon family member who is also part of the game so in my opinion Amelia could commit war crimes and she's still be the most precious little uwu ever because I'm activating MC's insanely overprotective oblivious to all faults ""big"" sister mode

Edit:

*I just played more of S4 and holy shit someone needs to get this man away from his parents and also maybe get him some therapy jfc

Edit 2:

** youcef, mc & valentina helping tom figure out he likes flowers and pink and tie-dye clothes and makeup and being complimented and called pretty and getting hugs is getting to me okay his parents better watch the show and see their adult son finally discovering himself and what he likes instead of what they think he should like and finally being able to let loose and have fun without worrying about what others think of him and finally being happy and they better get some sense knocked into them OR he should go to therapy and realise that no matter how much he loves his parents their love and regard being so conditional to the point that he's hidden his entire personality and is now so extremely self-conscious of it whenever it does manage to peak out, that he nearly cries on national tv after a practical stranger compliments those hidden bits is not good. Also the man has some of the most insane repressed queer vibes???? What do you mean he sees a canon nonbinary person wearing a floppy hat and is reminded of the floppy hat he loved as a child that his father threw away and replaced with a baseball cap and then when he "lost" the baseball cap his father bought him the exact same one again

Edit 3:

*** i was 100% sure i was going to get mc to stick with najuma (dorky mischevious goth who is so so bad at flirting hello!!!?) but i got caught by "sad & shy with serious self-worth issues hidden badly behind an overconfident exterior (who blushes & gets flustered easily because he so rarely receives genuine praise/compliments) experiences postive regard for the first time and loses his shit" for the third fucking time

Edit 4:

Okay but why does Dylan get (rightfully) called out by everyone in S4 for all the bullshit he does to MC from blatantly lying to her to not listening when she says "No" But in S5 when Suresh (admittedly, more subtly) pulls off the same shit no one says anything, even MC's "friends" don't believe her.

In S2 when Luke/Henrik gets a little too forceful after MC says no, he gets called out by MC's partner and immediately apologises

In S4 when Dylan does the whole "stop pretending you don't want me" routine after MC rejects him multiple times, the rest of the islanders band together and basically chase him off the island

In S5 when Suresh pulls literally the same thing from the very first episode itself but none of the other islanders believe MC, and Suresh keeps getting to do this until almost the very end while also managing to constantly play hot & cold with MC and chase away all of MCs other romantic interests

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

Dungeon Meshi and endings. Spoilers under the cut.

I'm not replying to op directly because I think it's a perfectly valid opinion and they don't need to be bothered to engage in debate about it, but I just saw a post where someone said Dungeon Meshi's ending was too rushed, and it got me thinking, because this is one of the ONLY completed series I've read where I didn't feel that way. The ending is one of my least favorite parts of most stories, because even if it's good it so often feels too fast, and it was specifically one of the things that I really liked about DM. The action climax happens in CHAPTER 91. It takes SIX CHAPTERS (decently long ones, too) to go around and revisit all the main and secondary characters that need wrapping up. I felt like, for once in my life, I was actually able to go around and say goodbye to the characters I cared about at my own pace.

I wonder if it's different if you read it as it released rather than over the course of a few days? Still, though, I've read stuff as it released where I feel like six chapters of wrap-up would be welcome (cough cough noragami cough cough. although I know there was stuff going on with the author so I'm not mad about that one). Or maybe it's because Falin doesn't get brought back until the very last chapter. I suppose I could see how that would feel rushed. I really wish we'd gotten more than little glimpses of her in the main story because she's delightful and charming. However, I think the amount of screentime she got made sense for her role in the story, and now that I'm trying to unpack why I was happy with the ending, I think it's because the amount of time she got there was proportional to the amount of time we got to spend with her up to that point.

I've been thinking about what I need in a satisfying ending, and no matter how good the content is, I think I need it to take a certain amount of time/words/pages. I need to take some time to let it sink in that the story is over. I hate feeling like I've been unceremoniously booted from the simulation right as it was getting good. I want to see every character with any sort of character arc get it wrapped up in a satisfying way, if it hasn't been done already. I also need to know what the characters will be doing afterwards. Being able to see that in a scene is nice, but I'm also happy if enough information is provided to draw reasonable conclusions.

Yet Dungeon Meshi goes even further than that and keeps on tying in the main themes in the ending chapters. I feel like I could make a whole post about desire in Dungeon Meshi, but long story short, there's a clear line drawn between desire (which is very instinctual and primal) and the things the characters actually want. The ending reinforces this theme with the chapter where Izutsumi goes around to the main party members. I love that chapter because it simultaneously drives home a major theme and gives us a chance to see the characters honestly and earnestly talk about their aspirations.

I'm gonna stop there, but long story short, Dungeon Meshi good. Everything comes back in the ending. Hope wins. Love wins. Conflict on earth doesn't get fixed in an instant but we can all be better. We can all keep living.

[sirfrogsworth]

Just got back from the movie. The theater was in the middle of this hipster village type deal. Trendy shops and a wine bar.

I walked into the Alamo Drafthouse and the people at the front just kinda looked at me as I walked by. I had my ticket ready on my phone, but no one scanned it or looked at it. I don't know if it is always like that, but maybe next time I should try not buying a ticket and see what happens.

The large format fancy theater was as far away from the entrance as possible. I should have brought my cane. But I made it okay. It was indeed large and fancy. The seats were very comfortable and had electric reclining. There was also a button to summon a waiter which felt very high tech. And he would duck down super low as he walked in front of everyone. He looked like a penguin scurrying along. I ordered a pizza and it showed up just in time for the movie. It was pretty tasty.

The video quality was fine. I honestly didn't see a huge difference with the 4K laser projector, but the large screen was nice. I might be spoiled by my fancy HDR, 2000 nit TV. Projection just can't do that.

The front audio was much better than the last theater. Very clear voices. But the bass was a little boomy. Unfortunately I think they calibrate the audio for when there are more people there. 100+ humans in a space add a lot of absorption and diffusion. But there were maybe 8 people total and there wasn't anything to suck up the bass.

The Atmos was not even noticeable except in one or two scenes. That was disappointing. Atmos was one of the main reasons I chose that theater. I don't know if they skipped getting a Dolby calibrator or something. The side speakers were audible, but the ceiling speakers never made themselves known. Not even in the thunderstorm scene.

The ceilings were extremely high, so I'm wondering if the speakers were just too far away. Inverse square law would dictate they would need a lot of power and volume to cover that distance. This is probably why Dolby officially certifies theaters and this wasn't one of them.

This is what a front speaker in a theater looks like. There are usually at least 3 of them. Bigger spaces might do an array of 6--all behind the screen.

That is 7 feet tall, 200 pounds, and takes 3000 watts of power.

And you'll usually have 3 of these dual 18" subwoofers.

These beasts require 4000 watts of power and are also 200 pounds.

A typical theater Atmos speaker is like this.

About 30 inches tall and handles 350 watts.

All of those speakers have to cover about the same distance. Meaning the ceiling speakers were at a major size and power disadvantage.

So I think the theater was too big and too tall for Atmos to work effectively. You probably have to trade off a big screen or good sound. I'm going to try an official Dolby theater next time to see the difference.

The movie itself was okay. Maybe a 6 out of 10. A few good laughs, some fun action, but the humor was very hit and miss.

Now, I'm not just saying this because they are a creep, but Ezra is just... a lot. They do their funny jokey thing and it gets old very fast. It was okay when they were a side character, but when they are leading a movie, it fizzles. And then there is a second Ezra in the movie and they do the funny jokey thing turned up to 11.

Way too much Ezra.

But then Michael Keaton enters and he's just fantastic. I got such a rush of nostalgia from the 1989 Batman. That was probably my favorite movie for a good 3 years. 8 year old me was so happy to see my first Batman again. They even forced him to do some super cringe fanservice lines--and he nailed them.

He was like, "I'm going to take this bullshit line and make it awesome. Because I'm the goddamn Batman."

And Sasha Calle as Supergirl was also excellent. Though she was very underutilized. But if they can keep her, I think she could be a fan favorite.

The big complaint about The Flash has been the CGI. And I would say 75% of the CGI was great. There was a reveal of the Batwing that looked stunning. Supergirl flying was great. The vehicles were great. All of the invisible effects like backgrounds and set extensions were flawless. There was a big car chase that looked decent. There were plenty of top notch VFX in this movie. And I think the artists should be proud of those.

The stuff that didn't work was mostly just because the situations were unrealistic or the art direction was poorly done or they just didn't spend enough time polishing the effect.

When they animated Micheal Keaton doing jumpy flippy ninja moves, it didn't sell perfectly. And the speed and power of the Kryptonions was not nearly as well done as in Man of Steel.

But I know why people said the CGI was terrible. Though I don't actually think it was the CGI that was bad. I'm pretty sure they just made a poor aesthetic choice. Flash goes into the Speedforce and they cleary wanted to make it trippy and otherworldly. I don't think they were going for photorealism. I think they intentionally wanted everything to be in the uncanny valley. Unfortunately the style they chose looked more like a video game.

They were trying to do a Dr. Strange type effect and it just didn't work. It ended up being more... Lawnmower Man.

The only truly terrible effects were CG renders of people they couldn't get to do proper cameos because they were fired or were dead. Usually you need a 3D scan to do a CG double and it's hard to do that on dead people. The best was Admiral Tarkin in Rogue One, but they spent months and months on that.

CG Henry Cavill was probably the worst effect in the entire film and I'm guessing that really pissed people off.

The Flash running also looked bad, but that was 100% because Ezra Miller runs like a goof.

I have no idea why they run like that, but it looks so dumb and ruins the speed effect. Like, if you took them out and put someone running normally into the effect, it would have looked super neat.

And the only other VFX that didn't quite work was these slow motion falling babies. They looked photorealistic, but something about animating a falling baby in slow motion did not look right. Again, I don't think this was bad CGI. I think it was just a visual that was impossible to make realistic.

I know that sounds like a lot of bad effects, but that was every bad effect out of 2000+ total. Maybe 15 shots out of those 2000 were memorably bad. But the bad shots are always the most memorable and I guess that is why you don't hear folks talking about all of the flawless ones.

If you do see this movie and you haven't heard Kevin Smith's Superman story, you definitely should watch that first. Because the best gag in the movie will go over your head otherwise.

Sooooo, yeah... that was my night at the movies. On the drive there I got to see the Arch and downtown and it was beautiful. And on the drive home, Google decided to take me through every spooky ass neighborhood in St. Louis at midnight.

FUN!

[missjoolee]

if you could only see

*read tags for fun facts. mostly written while half asleep. not edited.

"Oh," she says, the corners of her mouth drooping into that familiar frown that accompanied the majority of his high school career. She sets her mug down on the coffee table.

Oh? A similar frown is quick to replace the elated grin his face had adorned when he arrived. "'Oh' is what people say when they get socks on their birthday, Mom. Not when their son tells them that he's engaged!"

"It's just..." she hesitates, as if looking for the correct words. "...you're still so young."

"I'm almost 22. I--"

"Exactly! Only 22!" Emily interrupts. "How can you be sure?!"

"What?! Mom! This is Julie we are talking about!" Luke can't sit still and stands up from the couch. Resentment builds within him. Why can't she ever be supportive from the get go?

"Well.. You've only ever had the one relationship. You can't know what you want really, never having experienced other relationships."

His mouth drops open in disbelief. She cant honestly be suggesting what he thinks she might be.

"I thought you liked Julie!" His hand flies up with the statement, emphasizing his frustrations.

Emily stands, no longer able to remain seated as the conversations heats up.

"Luke, Julie is lovely. And lord knows she's done you a world of good, but you could really benefit from dating around a little!"

Oh, so she is saying what he thought she was saying.

He let's out a humorless huff of a laugh. "Are you insane? You think I should give up the best thing in my life, a sure thing, on the chance I might find someone that can make me just as happy somewhere down the line? Yeah, that math doesn't check out."

She is getting visibly agitated now as she takes a step closer to him.

"Julie will always be your teenage girlfriend. Your relationship will never be more than that of children!"

"God. Do you hear yourself?! Julie's not in her teens anymore. Our relationship has grown with us. We have supported each other through personal growth, and continue to challenge each other to be the best we can be! We've already been there through hardship together." Luke leans into Emily's  personal space, not wanting to back down. It's a familiar dance at this point, these arguments with his mom.  That thought gives him pause but he never drops eye contact.

His mom claims that Julie would prevent him from flourishing as an adult, but in this moment,  with Emily, he feels the most like he's a kid again in the worst way possible. Suddenly, he feels very tired. He takes a step back with a sigh.

"You're unbelievable." His normal volume voice sounds quiet after the heightened pitches from a moment before. He turns and heads for the front door. There is no point in staying.

"Luke? Luke! Get back here!" Emily follows after him. "Most marriages at your age end in divorce! I'm just trying to help you not make a mistake that will ruin your future!"

Luke's at the door but he spins suddenly to face Emily one last time. "It's not a mistake, mom! If you could just see all the ways she loves me, maybe you would understand why I feel this way. How I know this is the right thing to do."

"But Luke--"

This time he interrupts her, not caring to hear anymore of what she's likely to say. "I mean, if you could see how bright her eyes get when she says she loves me. I just.. " Julie's smile, eyes full of mirth flashes in his mind, replacing a lot of the angerfilled responses he wants to shout at his mom. "There's no way being with her could ever be a mistake."

He opens the door and steps outside. "If you can't be happy for us, don't bother joining in on the celebrations."

He closes the door behind him. His mom might have tried to say more but he honestly couldn't care less anymore. It's time to head home. Back to the welcoming arms of the woman he loves and can't wait to marry. She makes him a better writer, and a better man. She supports him and his dreams more than his mom ever has. This exchange has proven that all his mom will ever be good for is giving him great song ideas. But the one starting to ruminate in his brain this time promises to be a lot happier than Unsaid Emily.

[ssaseaprince]

I swear anyone who says Hannibal and Will aren't canon just didn't watch the show. It's not implied, it's not hinted, it's not subtext. It's incredibly romantic and is explicitly said so. The moment and embrace they shared at the end of season 3 was so powerful to me. Just because they didn't kiss or say "hehe want to be my boyfriend?" like they're in some teen romcom doesn't mean they aren't a canonical pairing. They got together at the END of the show after it being stated several times that they love each other and can't live without each other and want each other more than anyone. Lines like wanting to run away together and hungering for each other and "is Hannibal in love with me" are, apparently, completely platonic in some people's eyes or just wishful thinking or, christ, queerbaiting (a point I hope no one has made because it's ridiculously stupid). I'm quite happy with the end of season 3, but I'd hope for a 4th season if only, so they can be a couple on screen and people can stop being dumb about the canon of their relationship

I am so sorry that I have taken forever to reply to this, I lowkey forgot that my inbox was a thing 😅

You are completely right. I want to call it a lack of media literacy, but I'm not sure that's the best phrase. As an autistic person, I completely understand struggling with subtext and needing to have things presented in a straightforward, blunt way. However, with Hannigram, you don't even need to rely solely on subtext. Like you pointed out, Will flat out says, "Is Hannibal in love with me?" And then you've got the entire cast, the showrunner, writer, producers, etc, all saying that they are canonically in love.

And because of that, I really struggle to give people the benefit of the doubt when they say that Hannigram isn't canon or that their relationship is "open to interpretation." Because if you were solely confused due to issues with understanding subtext, then you wouldn't get all up in arms about people pointing out that Hannigram IS CANON.

This honestly leads me to believe that the very vast majority of people who will fight tooth and nail to convince everyone that Hannibal and Will aren't in love is because of homophobia.

We are not used to seeing queer relationships in media. There is maybe a handful of movies and TV shows that revolve around queer relationships. So it is people's knee-jerk reaction to assume that every character is straight and that only heterosexual relationships are canon, and it's because of this bias that they will fight against all queer representation and only accept it when the characters are physically affectionate, and even then they will find reasons to claim it's not valid.

Cishet people are a lot like white people, and men, and basically every other majority, in the way that they feel the need to relate to every single main character, otherwise they can't enjoy the show/book/movie etc. Hannibal and Will have been confirmed as canon, in and out of the show. But these people will fight against it because, whether consciously or unconsciously, the second that their characters are confirmed as queer, they immediately can't relate to them and therefore can't enjoy the show.

They see queer people and queer relationships as so *other* that queer representation literally ruins it for them. Maybe this is an extreme analogy, but it's like watching a movie about humans, and then halfway through finding out that they're robots, and all of a sudden, these aren't people that you're familiar with, they are something other. The knowledge that a character is queer is genuinely so incomprehensible to them that they will do anything to deny it.

And I think that kind of thinking is the biggest problem. It's not always done with bad intention, and it's not always conscious, but it's there. You can see actors and actresses who do the same thing. They have such a visceral reaction to the idea that their character might be queer, that they immediately shut it down. Because if the character is queer, the character isn't relatable, and if the character isn't relatable somehow, the show isn't enjoyable.

By relatable, I don't just mean, "They're straight, and I'm straight." I mean that they genuinely see queer people as completely other from them, and they just cannot grasp the existence of queer relationships as actual relationships and not just vague ideas. Yes, they know that queer relationships are real, but they genuinely can not look at a queer relationship or a queer person and actually have any level of deeper empathy and understanding. They see queer relationships are something completely different then cishet relationship, so the second that a queer relationship becomes the focus, they disengage.

This all relates back to people refusing to acknowledge any kind of queer relationship as canon unless physical affection is apparent.

Obviously, not all straight people do this, but it's an issue that's a lot more prominent than what most people think. As soon as you start looking for it, you see it everywhere. I'm not saying these people hate queer people or don't want queer representation, but this kind of homophobia is just so widely accepted and normalized that it's a knee-jerk reaction, and unfortunately, it's so normalized that people don't even realize they have these biases that they need to get rid of.

Sorry this reply is so long and late coming! I appreciate the ask and love hearing your opinions ❤️

[dragontamerno3]

DS9 S2 E21 - The Maquis (Part 2)

Before I destroy this episode, I also enjoyed this one. I'm very dissatisfied with the ending but it was overall a very good episode and there were some fantastic moments. Also I want a Dukat/Sisko team up show where two enemies have to work together to deal with various issues and they still hate each other by the end of the show but it's fun to watch them also be buddies. Frenemies if you will.

On to the recap though.

I'm kinda pissed Hudson got to live. I really wanted Dukat to reach across the console and just fire on the fucker. Hudson is so far gone that only death is going to stop him.

I'm also kinda pissed the Sisko didn't tell the Admiral about Hudson when she showed up.

I'm also also pissed at the Admiral thinking that ANY terrorist group would just stand down after being talked to.

I 100% agree with everything Sisko said in his Earth is a Paradise speech that he spewed to poor unsuspecting Kira. He hit the nail on the head about how those who are living within any issues just assume that other places live the same way or can change super quickly to do so. None of the folks living on Earth (in the far far future) understand a second of hardship at least not to the extent that half of the species we come across do. They're living in pure Heaven while a majority of the universe is still fighting to live. And in some ways their ignorance is deserved, no one SHOULD have to go through war, have to starve, have endless crime, or other horrible things. But that doesn't mean that the Admiral isn't blind to it.

When the Cardassian Command showed up I knew they were throwing Dukat under the bus because that was the easiest thing to do. They wanted to blame him and let him die so that they could continue their attacks but I'm super happy that Sisko saw right through that. I was afraid he was going to be too optimistic about the whole deal and take them for their word.

The fact that Dukat can resist a mind meld was fascinating to me but honestly should have been expected. The Cardassians are known for their torture methods so of course he'd be able to block his mind.

Dukats discomfort after realizing that his superiors left him to die was fun. Especially since he had just given a whole speech about how Cardassians don't make mistakes and how trails are decided before they begin, so if he had one he'd be on the losing side. What I liked most about this scene, though, was when Sisko left and said that Dukat would have save Sisko if the situations were reversed. In that moment Sisko chuckles because its such a bizarre thing to say but Sisko actually believes it and then the camera pans to Dukat doing the same. I think Dukat, in that moment, realized that he probably would have. Not for sentimentality but rather to hold it over his head, but he'd still do it.

Another thing I liked was the scene where they're trying to find the ship that might be smuggling weapons in for proof and Dukat has to intimidate the Captain into letting them search the ship. In that moment Sisko is pulling ever diplomatic Federation line he can and then Dukat stands up and essentially outs the aliens crimes. During this specific conversation Sisko ends up slowly smirking. The thing that got me though was Kira's admiration. It was so clear that she was uncomfortable every second of it but a part of her was having an internal conflict of how badass Dukat was in that moment. She'd never say the words out loud but they were there lol

And Quark, out logicing the Vulcan? It was a beautiful thing to see. He might have help start all of this and he is certainly not the brightest of bulbs but its rare to see someone change a Vulcans mind, even just a little.

8/10 - this probably would have been a 9 for me if they actually killed Hudson lol