#and they're even more infuriating

[beevean]

My third eye has opened.

[presiding]

formerly an essay in tags but - billie lurk. half-nameless, misremembered woman. her powers derived from the things taken from her, without any catharsis or empowerment. the rat charm, tied with deidre's hair, her lover's voice in the mouth of rats. her arm and eye, taken, given back only to cause her chronic pain, then lost again. foresight seems a cruel gift for a woman who botched the timing of her takeover of the whalers, and bet wrong when it came to delilah.

she never bore the outsider's blessing; his first visit to her was more like an assault. every other dishonored POV character gets the choice to be selfish, and for that selfishness to mean something, but billie's actions have no effect on the world at large, either, in a game without a chaos system.

some say that corvo is the ghost, but he can reach out and change things. billie's buried herself twice and come back and nothing she does seems to matter - she is less a protagonist, more a convenient full stop in the narrative.

try this: open doto, start a new game. sit in her cabin. notice how little of billie there is. even the woman she loved more than anyone has the face of another named character.

she sits amongst the assets of other games: empty canvases and a dressmaker's mannequin that wears nothing.

[aeolianblues]

I'm trying not to block people. But there's only so many times I can go 'give people the benefit of the doubt' and then click their blog and what's literally the third or fourth post on their blogs? They talk about middle eastern people like savages who can't control their violent urges. And of course, more than half of them are Americans. After posing for 20 years, the masks that temporarily went up when anti-war activists criticised the American war in the Middle East are slipping, some of you never really believed brown people to be your equals did you? Get the fuck off my blog.

[strrwbrrryjam]

for all my grievances with tangled the series, one thing i cannot criticize them for is their songs, i mean, sure, not all of them make sense in context (let me make you proud comes to mind), the songs are spectacular, from the vocals to the instrumental, all of them are a joy to listen to, whether they are just incredibly goofy, like the buddy song, to heartbreaking, like waiting in the wings, whether its a solo, a duet or a group, they are wonderful to listen to

[rogersstevie]

i figure they’ll drop it in a few eps like they have with everything else but it would be a little funny if after all the barchie vs varchie shit that they just made beronica endgame

[gaywatch]

OMG BRITTANY i'm not sure who else to yell abt this to but !! tonight i got to see jeff in hong kong and it was i'm pretty sure a religious experience. i was so close, and he's such a beautiful person (cameras do Not do him justice on any level). he's so charismatic and such an obviously lovely person. i miss him so much already </3 and ofc he still never misses any opportunity to mention kinnporsche, kim or to promote barcode <333 it's so clear he loves interacting with the audience and making us happy. i don't think i've ever seen an artist live who is so blatantly helplessly in love with what they do for a living. sorry for this dump but a lot of my friends would probably consider this cringe, and you're one of the only people i can think of who may understand this level of "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD" thank u for letting me rant and waffle about him here. no promises that this is the last jeff hk-d2 related msg 🥹🥹

AHHHHH, I'm so happy for you! Being hype over a great concert experience is the exact opposite of cringe, that joy is valid as fuck and don't let your friends tell you any different. Cringe only exists to people trying to feel cool by labeling other things as less than. A great concert can change a person, I hope you ride the wave for weeks. <333

[mimjandoodlesstuff]

April Fusions haha

They kept rotting my brain for a hot second so I started writing up concepts myself, but then this ask properly sprung me into action. @bluepeachstudios you've done it again with the hinting!

I suppose the only really interesting things about these takes are how I named them. I already have a fusion storyline planned for my own TMNT iteration, and the Turtles fuse with April in it so I combined their names there. I didn't want to do that again here, so instead I took a more unique approach. I named them after each of the Turtles' VAs' birthday months (because, you know, April). I mean, why not utilise canon/meta/out-of-universe facts for a project like this? I can't do this for my own characters. I did have two rules in place in case any of them overlapped, of which I was forced to use one.

May

May is probably my least favourite out of the bunch. There's really nothing about her that screams Leo besides like- a shell, blue eyes, injuries... It's probably therefore not surprising I drew her first, so I really didn't know what I wanted to emphasise and so on. I should probably have had her face the camera more to get a better sense of her jawline. Make sure to make it nice and boxy lol

The plastron pride flags are demigirl, aroace and lesbian. While I do in my heart of hearts believe Leo has a not insignificant crush on Captain Ryan, I still wanted our gal to be a flaming lesbian despite that lol.

March

March was incredibly fun to draw, and not just because @bluecookiesabi is an absolute joy to hang out with (thank the heavens for Discord streams!). I just really like drawing more feminine characters. I had most likely already sketched both May and March before I found the ask so I didn't know March is agender, but I don't think that's a problem at all. Agender people are allowed to be feminine, after all. And I don't consider Donnie to be some pinnacle of masculinity to begin with.

I figured, since the fic tags state that Donnie's autistic here, I'd give March just fluffy socks and slippers to keep dust and dirt from their feet for sensory reasons. That is definitely not projection on my part.

They're kind of giving 2003 April vibes with their hair in a bun. That was a happy accident which I'm really glad I kept to.

January

January is just green April. Hers and Mikey's designs are already so incredibly similar in-canon I'm convinced she'd look pretty much exactly like him had she been mutated into a turtle. I didn't even feel the need to open January's eyes since they'd just be the same shade of blue more or less.

I don't have much to say about him other than she was fun to draw. Gymnastics poses are honestly kind of therapeutic to draw. But also, how are they able to make that pose? The answer is simple: January is just built different.

I also labelled xir as only aroace since I don't know what you have planned for Mikey.

September

I'm really happy with how he turned out. While sketching I couldn't get the pose really working but once I did she really came together. I'd say September is the only Fusion (besides maybe March) that actually looks like the people he's made up of merged. Raph's stocky build fits April surprisingly well. And the choice to give her April's kunoichi getup but tattered was a really good idea in my opinion, and I'd like to give @pechtothevoid the credit they are so deservedly owed for that idea.

While not fic accurate at all, I had such a difficult time coming up with a good weapon for September. Who knew combining sai with tessen would be difficult? So instead I gave her a boomerang, which reminded me of Sokka, so I just straight up gave him Sokka's boomerang. I like the idea of her, upon fusing, just snagging Sokka's boomerang from the Mae Whitman-verse and using it as a blunt force weapon. I wanted to in a similar vein give him the One Ring from the Sean Astin-verse, but I couldn't get that to look good no matter how I placed it.

I like the name rules I came up with. Basically, since I didn't know in which months any of their actors were born in I had to come up with a replacement idea for naming in case any of them happen to overlap. The first rule was that if Rob and Greg happened to share a month with anyone else, the Donnie and Mikey Fusions would automatically get assigned December and May respectively. If Seth or Sean were to have overlapped with anyone, Leo's and Raph's Fusions would get the/a month whose first letter is the closest to either character's first name. March and January checked out, but since Seth and Sean are both born in February, I was forced to assign Leo and Raph May and September each. Small price to pay, honestly.

Tcest DNI and NO REPOSTING. Both groups can go die UwU

[theultradork]

Thinking about the time DBS 84 premiered and it was FULL of K18 love and Krillin getting awesome moments again and then... the discourse being completely swallowed up by VegeBul stans gushing over the imagery behind the "Boogie Back" ending because it implies VegeBul by having Bulma and Vegeta in the same room for like, three frames. I'm not bitter about that at all. 🙃

[lloydfrontera]

lloyd canonly being an angry crier gives a lot of potential moments of both vulnerability and endless teasing, ngl 👀👀

god it really does, i know it's not very realistic but i keep hoping one day we'll get to see him get into a full blown fight with someone and that particular characteristic of him will pop out at a very inconvinient time hjashdka

also i'm so glad i finally have someone else confirm that trait i was kinda scared i had exagerated it ajkshdka

lloyd would probably get so frustrated, because he's not sad! he's not hurt! he's just so mad it feels like everything it's bursting at the seams and he can't even talk because there's a knot in his throat and if he blinks he knows he's gonna start tearing up and he! hates it!!

it's one thing when it't just javier bickering with him and cornering him to a point lloyd doesn't have a good comeback and it maybe a stung a little more than normal and he got a little bit angry and ok so he's tearing up but that doesn't prove anything! shut up javier!

javier starts carrying a hankerchief with him and offering it to lloyd with a smug smirk when he notices him tearing up which makes lloyd get soooo mad. sometimes he'll just stop their bickering by being like "i don't want to upset master lloyd to tears like last time :/" something lloyd also detests with his entire soul but he can't actually deny and he hateeees it

but it's another thing completely when he's actually angry and he actually wants to make a point and he wants to scream because he can feel his chest start getting tight and his vision is getting blurry and he hates how pathetic it must make him look, how easy it is to get under his skin, how vulnerable it makes him feel when he can't help but cry out of anger. it frustrates him to no end knowing the person he's arguing with probably thinks they already have the upper hand just because he can't help tearing up when he's enraged.

and i think javier wouldn't be able to handle this actually, if he saw that lloyd was getting genuinely upset with him to the point where he was full on crying, even if he knows it's more likely out of anger, he wouldn't be able to help worrying that there is actual hurt underneath and he'd start trying to defuse the situation. or at the very least it would shook him enough for his own anger to slow down.

and if he saw another person pushing lloyd to that point, they probably wouldn't live for very long lmao

[bhaalstemple]

bro this new interview with l*rian writers pissed me off so fucking bad wtf lmaooooo

[hwiyoungies]

if you're going to move out of your country literally the least you could do is try to adapt to your new country rules and traditions, and if you don't like it sucks for you gringo weón

[firendgold]

If you're still doing the choose violence ask game: 2 (👀), 9, 10, 22 ?

I got such a rush from finally answering the first ask that I'm doing this for as long as people send me questions. So here we go again!

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

anon, I'm at work. I'm seeing this at work. :'D

Okay, serious face. Albus Dumbledore is probably my fave if I have to choose between him and Harry on this blog. I just have to figure out why he would never...

Bottom. Albus would never, I'm sorry. He won't. He can't. Like, maybe when he was having his whirlwind summer romance with Gellert, he bottomed every single time they fucked because he was so in love and this was his equal and his partner and so what if he was a little rough and distant sometimes in the bedroom, and always wanted to top and tug his hair and hiss out orders? This was The Man The Universe Had Crafted For Him, and he would absolutely bottom for him every time... and then the summer of 1899 ends. And Ariana dies. And Aberforth breaks Albus' nose. And Gellert fucks off to go be a fascist.

And Albus, alone and heartbroken, resolves to never trust someone that completely again, never love someone that same way, and never let anyone get into a position of power over him where they might be able to use his knowledge and talents for ill. That means physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically... carnally. So he has sex with plenty of other people, and even falls in love with a few of them, but he is in control at all times. He never bottoms again.

That's all I've got for that one.

9. worst part of canon

So the first answer that came to mind is posted here, but for fairness' sake I'll try to come up with another worst thing. (That's not related to ships, because I'm trying really hard not to be THAT violent on the violence ask game.)

I think... that if That Woman was going to introduce international schools, students and characters in the middle book of the series, she should have done more with them than having them vanish after Goblet of Fire, only to come back for either fake romantic tension and one line of exposition about the Hitler allegory Dark Lord of the Before-Times (Krum, Deathly Hallows) or to be married off to a Weasley for an aesop of It's Not About His Looks Now That They're Jacked Up (Fleur, Half-Blood Prince). I'm not saying Fleur and Viktor HAD to be best buddies forever with Harry, but it is weird that they have this unique bond that no other young students have had with each other in hundreds of years, they even lost one of their fellow champions, Dumbledore gives this very moving speech about remaining connected and not letting darkness and prejudice sever new ties, and then... nothing. No side adventures in France or wherever Durmstrang is, no communication from either side, nothing.

Feels like a huge letdown in hindsight.

10. worst part of fanon

Oh, no. That's not fair. There's just so many.

If I had to consolidate what I currently don't like about the HP fandom/fanon into a few lines, I think I would say that I hate the pureblood/Dark side apologism. I do believe in nuance in characters. I do believe redemption and/or walking different paths is an important theme in Harry Potter, and I think it's fascinating to explore that with any and every character you can think of, even characters I may not personally like. But I really, really hate the way the fandom has taken that and twisted it into this idea that we were sold a lie at the start: that the British magical government was fine the way it was, and so was the society around it; that Dark magic Isn't All That Bad, Really, and there are actually Good and non-prejudiced things about a few rich bitches passing down their knowledge and secrets and slurs for generations within the Family, and keeping the Family "Pure" is cool actually, and none of this has any relation to real life ideas about miscegenation and classism and racism and eugenics, what are you talking about?

It's just so worrying. As a minority, when I see people on tumblr/twitter/AO3 gleefully agreeing that we need to eat the rich and fix society and eradicate all the horrid -isms and -archys ruining all our lives, then watch them turn around and write a 200k epic where Dumbledore was the evil one for locking the Horcrux books away and championing marginalized members of society, Hermione is just uppity for wanting to make necessary changes to the darker parts of magical society that That Woman was literally pointing out for a reason, and Tom Riddle is only bad because he took the good segregationist pureblood ideas and added murder to them... and when that fic gets thousands of comments agreeing with them full stop with no examination of any of that... it makes me anxious, at a minimum. The same thing is happening now with Grindelwald now that he's actually a figure on the screen and not just some dude mentioned a few times in the book series: same apologism, same justification of atrocities, same good-guy-blame-games, same blorbofication even.

On the one hand... fiction doesn't always directly reflect or affect reality. On the other... this unironic pro-pureblood meta is a pervasive concept that has popped up in thousands of fics written by thousands of fanfic writers. It's happened for years, and it keeps happening, and I see very few fans speaking out against it or even acknowledging it as a problem. So that makes me ask myself, who actually is willing and able to examine the injustices of our society and build a better imaginary society through the lens of HP fanfiction, and who's okay with the prejudice in the HP world as long as it's coming from the faves they're attracted to?

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Happily, this is a harder question to answer because I've been finding so many like minds in the past 5 years who go feral over the same 20 HP scenes as I do. ^^ But give me a sec, I'll think of something.

...

Okay. Got it.

In order to answer this question, I have to go back to the first time I, young teenager, avid reader, recent reader of the HP series once book 5 was out, realized that Harry and Dumbledore had a much deeper relationship than just headmaster and student. The thing that made me latch on to them and project like crazy, basically.

It's the scene in Goblet of Fire chapter 36 where Harry has been rescued from Fake Moody and he's in Dumbledore's office with Dumbledore and Sirius. Dumbledore asks Harry to relay everything that happened to him once he touched the Portkey in the maze—and immediately Sirius tries to protect Harry from having to relive it now, so soon after it's happened. And then this scene happens.

Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Harry, behind his desk. He was looking at Harry, who avoided his eyes. Dumbledore was going to question him. He was going to make Harry relive everything. “I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry,” said Dumbledore. “We can leave that till morning, can’t we, Dumbledore?” said Sirius harshly. He had put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Let him have a sleep. Let him rest.” Harry felt a rush of gratitude toward Sirius, but Dumbledore took no notice of Sirius’s words. He leaned forward toward Harry. Very unwillingly, Harry raised his head and looked into those blue eyes. “If I thought I could help you,” Dumbledore said gently, “by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened.” The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note. It shivered in the air, and Harry felt as though a drop of hot liquid had slipped down his throat into his stomach, warming him, and strengthening him. He took a deep breath and began to tell them. As he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed to rise before his eyes; he saw the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; he saw the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; he saw Cedric’s body, lying on the ground beside the cup. Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, his hand still tight on Harry’s shoulder, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, and Harry was glad of this, because it was easier to keep going now he had started. It was even a relief; he felt almost as though something poisonous were being extracted from him. It was costing him every bit of determination he had to keep talking, yet he sensed that once he had finished, he would feel better.

This is one of the best scenes in the entire book, the entire series. It completely refutes the fanon Dumbledore who is often cold, cruel, inflexible and unrelenting in his quest for whatever the author wants him to be inflexible and cruel about at the time. It shows that Dumbledore, the real Albus Dumbledore, is one of the few people who understands what Harry needs and is able to provide it to him, even when others who also care for Harry would rather protect him or shield him from what he needs.

Kid me was particularly taken by how gentle Dumbledore is with Harry here. It made me look back and see how in some ways this scene, this closeness, is the culmination of all the times they've met and spoken before.

(You can imagine how painful it was reading Order of the Phoenix right after this.)

But yeah, that's probably one of my favorite scenes that other people ignore or haven't talked about/drawn/written about much. Which is ironic, because the scene right after that where Harry talks about Voldemort taking his blood and Dumbledore's eyes do the triumphant "lol Voldemort just fucked up" gleam is probably one of THE most talked-about scenes in the fandom (even though to this fucking day in 2023 people still don't realize what the gleam meant, when even That Woman has clarified what it meant in INTERVIEWS).

...And for me, safely at the end of the questions, that's all she wrote.

[bearinabandana]

rewatching deep breath and I really really don't see the appeal in the pasternoster gang, they're just so annoying to me

[dootznbootz]

There's something so specifically infuriating when someone uses one of your experiences or your demographic in an argument, especially if said argument is about spreading hatred or is just so wrong. They "speak on behalf of the ___" to say such fucked shit.

"You're not thinking of the ___!"

"I literally am ___. You saying that adds nothing as you do not speak for me or for other ___. Shut up."

[gayspock]

my bus on the morning is reliable usually but today it didn't show up + im too fucking autistic for this bc my entire week needs to be rearranged. my delicate fucking balances....

[deadtime-stories]