#because it's a romance how dare!!!

[panlight]

Interesting comments in the "Was Rosalie mean?" poll, with many making distinctions between 'mean' and 'unfriendly,' 'cold', 'rude', 'unwelcoming.'

And I agree; when I think of 'mean' I think of someone going out of their way to be actively nasty to someone--to yell at them, to call them names, etc. Rosalie doesn't do that (maybe in her head but again, she's not saying it aloud, so we only 'hear' it in Midnight Sun), but Bella is picking up on those "doesn't like me/doesn't want me here" vibes and seems to interpret it as 'mean.'

There's always going to be this tension there because Bella is the Main Character and Twilight has a protagonist-centered morality problem. Without larger context, Rosalie having a problem with Edward putting the whole family at risk because he's obsessed with this random human isn't 'bad' or 'mean,' in fact you could argue Rosalie is looking out for the family and Edward is throwing them under the bus in favor of Bella. But because this is a romance and because Bella is the main character, not supporting her and not supporting her relationship is 'bad' in that context and Rosalie is perceived by the general audience as 'mean.'

[sulliedsorrow]

my very indulgent fifteen!soukoku thought is that as much as dazai likes to rile chuuya up and push his buttons he doesn’t actually do anything that would properly piss him off.

to me their arguments are a game. dazai says something dumb, chuuya reacts accordingly, dazai pokes fun at him, chuuya makes his own comeback, dazai waves it off. rinse and repeat. they yell at each other for the sake of it and because it’s familiar to them.

which means that there are some days that chuuya isn’t up for it. when nothing dazai says can even garner a reaction. so on those days dazai doesn’t even try, he just sits next to chuuya, sometimes quiet, sometimes bitching about some people that got on his nerves. he says anything and everything in those moments and he can’t even tell if chuuya’s listening or not, but he hasn’t been told to fuck off so it must be okay.

[floral-and-the-machine-blog]

I love how one of the defining characteristics of the Locked Tomb series is that it’s purportedly lesbian in nature, and yet the yuri is so toxic it’s barely edible

[armor-eater]

‘Dungeon Meshi isn’t focused on romance and you may be missing what it’s trying to say if you only focus on that aspect’ and ‘trying to shut down conversations about farcille completely is kinda lesbophonic when that energy isn’t directed towards any f/m or m/m ships’ are both true statements btw.

If you find yourself annoyed that shippers are focusing on farcille but don’t care about other shippers then maybe keep that to yourself. There is a conversion to be had about how fandoms hyper focus on ships but trying to say any f/f ship is responsible for that is kinda insane to me.

[inoreuct]

thinking about zoro being the crew's main protector.

it’s quite literally his role amongst the straw hats; luffy's captain, usopp's their sniper, sanji cooks, nami navigates, chopper's their doctor, franky's their shipwright, jinbei's their helmsman and brook's their musician but zoro? zoro's their swordsman. zoro’s their guardian. his job is to be the first line of defense and protect everybody else so they can focus on doing their own thing and sure, none of them really need protecting— but they don't have to worry about defending themselves, either, because whoever they can't or don't want to handle zoro will finish up (if he hasn't gotten to them first).

like imagine a bunch of idiots cornering one of the crew (bad idea.) and picking nami because she's the woman without a devil fruit, as opposed to robin (BAD idea.). they've got her surrounded in the dead end of an alleyway and have somehow neutralised her clima-tact and she’s not worried, she’s not.

but against twelve men and with her weapon essentially now just a regular staff, she might be panicking. just a little. she’s gotten a couple of them good enough that they’re down for the count before a chain wrapped around her ankle trips her. it pulls at enough memories, faded but never forgotten, to bring up a sickening wave of fear and anger— and nami decides that she’s had enough of the bullshit.

she takes a deep breath and screams. “ZORO!”

the silence afterwards is deafening. the wind shifts, gently lifting the pieces of hair stuck to her sweaty face, and the men laugh uneasily. one of them yanks hard on the chain and she spits at him, heels scrabbling against the dusty ground even as he starts reeling her in like a fish on a hook. “he can’t hear you, little missy,” he snickers, grin widening the longer nobody shows up.

it’s still on his face when his head slides right off his neck.

blood sprays right before his body crumples like a doll. it takes a second for the others to realise and then the screaming starts— none of them get any farther than three steps before zoro’s cutting them down, swift swings of his sword and almost surgically precise slices rendering them incapacitated if not plain dead.

“sorry i’m late, witch.” the swordsman’s breathing hard, gore dripping off his blades even as he arcs one down and snaps the chain off nami’s leg with a growl. “did they hurt you?”

“no. no, i’m fine,” nami breathes, her smile quivering just a little— not because she’s shaken, no. because she’s pissed.

zoro’s voice is gruff as always, but his hands are careful if not outright gentle as he kneels to inspect her ankle before pulling her to her feet. “stay close,” he mutters, making sure that she’s nodded before cutting them a path through the fray. they bump into chopper next, and the doctor’s out cold over zoro’s shoulder in his regular form by the time sanji joins them to guard their flank. nami’s taken to just using her clima-tact as a bat for now, and it’s admittedly efficient.

she knew zoro would come. he always does. for all that they bicker and snip at each other, zoro has always protected his crew— even when said crew was just three people on what could barely be called a boat. he’d fought for her at arlong park and he fights for her now, his sword slicing over her head at an enemy she can’t see as she ducks low to jam her staff into another’s stomach.

they’ve moved closer to their ship when they find jinbei, then robin, then usopp, then brook and franky, and then zoro’s yelling luff, time to go! and their captain’s launching them all back onto the Sunny with a gleeful cackle that makes nami wheeze a laugh as they land in a mildly painful pile of limbs. somebody’s elbow digs into her ribs and she’s pretty sure that’s sanji’s bony kneecap pressed into her lower back. the swordsman swears as he sets about trying to pry them all apart and luffy seems to be actively fighting him, based on how his cursing’s getting more and more colourful.

behind them, their enemies burn, sliced to pieces. they debrief in the galley and zoro refuses to come away from the door until nami drags him by the ear and sanji threatens to personally shove dessert down his throat. they both know it’s because zoro’s still guarding them from a threat that doesn’t exist anymore.

they know he pretends not to care as much as he does. they know he keeps his words blunt and his swords sharp, but zoro lets luffy hang off him, unfazed, and makes a marginal effort to stick to nami’s budget even when he’s getting booze, and he eats his dessert. every last bit. he lets usopp fire moving targets to slice through so they can both practice. he keeps collateral damage when sparring with sanji to a minimum. he stitches whoever needs it up himself when chopper’s a little too tired.

and when his crew calls, he answers.

(now with a part from nami’s pov!)

[disastergenius]

maybe this is a hot take but i do wonder if the initial gnarlrock incident, following argument, and (imo) anticlimactic and almost complete brushing off of that conflict occurring between Imogen and Laudna had actually led to a real conversation about Delilah/her influence and Imogen and Laudna's relationship in general (pre-established romance) would have made discussing Delilah later in the campaign easier

[malenjoyer]

Hi! First of all i love your art it brings me so much joy <3 thank you so much for it

I wanted to ask a silly question: I've never read any superhero comic in my life. I'm planning on starting to read dick grayson/nightwing comics soon. The problem is that I know a lot of what happens in his 1996 – 2009 series bc I started interacting with the fandom for around a month before deciding to start reading his comics. I wasn't worried before bc well there must be hundreds other comics where he shows up and there's also cartoons and movies and tv shows. But now I'm wondering if I kind of ruined my own experience with this series by knowing too much before getting into it myself 😭 I was so excited but now I'm feeling sad about it

I started with a similar scenario where a lot of the things were mentioned by people I followed and a lot was technically spoiled for me. I got into Batman media before I got into Robin and Nightwing related stuff. It didn’t ruin anything for me personally knowing how stuff goes because I still appreciated the context around things.

However, as a guy who drew nightwing an abnormal amount of times within one year, I have to say spoilers is not what you should be worried about.

Because the most worrying thing is reading nightwing solo runs 100+ issues in is that most of the stories are bad.

Yes, I’ll say it… I think most of it is bad. There’s cute moments but so many story endings are not satisfactory and the pacing is weird. This is not to discourage you or make you feel sad before going into comics but… as someone who was in a similar situation, stick to reading lists in the beginning. Because after 5-7 mid runs, you start to think, man what am I doing…

How I feel after reading 100+ solo issues and most of them weren’t good:

[heretherebedork]

I will genuinely be very sad if it turns out that Vee isn't the reincarnated Wad. I can't even deny it. The show is setting up so much to show that this about stagnation versus change and about fate and destiny and choice and how they intertwine and about the red thread of destiny connecting them and the green choice that brought them together and now has to come back and on top of that is showing us that there are people trying to keep them apart and the entire show started with San tying his soul to Wad's and what was Vee's speech about wanting people to move on after death and loss if not speaking into existence what Wad would have wanted for San? It's about a second chance, yes, and that's the joy of fated soulmates but they also have to be soulmates to fulfill that trope. Please. Please just let this be. Don't make this a Big Twist where Vee can't save San because San's promise to the goddess was specific or for all of that to not matter. This is about learning to change and grow and moving past the past but it's also about fate and soulmates and destiny and what it means when you mix the two, when you see that change is the opposite of stagnation but that tradition can still lead you to the right choice in the end if you let yourself grow.

I just want this to be soulmates. I want to see the powerful message of the story about change versus stagnation, about conservative versus progressive, about destiny versus choice in a story about chosen soulmates and how that turns itself into fate and how fate has to be chosen again and again in order for it to be fate but that still needs Vee to be Wad, it truly does, because otherwise it's not intertwining fate and choice.

The red and the green lose so much meaning if they're not being brought forward by the very concepts of destiny and choice. Just... let this be. Please. No big twist, no rug pull, just... a good story and good commentary and soulmates. Please.

[oflgtfol]

i think the whole discourse around whether or not cishet aro men are queer stems specifically from the idea of allo aros being hypersexual - and so the idea of an allo aro, specifically a straight aro man, draws to mind the idea of like, fuckboys, or sexist men who only view women as sex objects, etc. And that is likely why the idea of cishet aro men leaves such a bad taste in apparently so many peoples mouths

now, i’ve spoken before about how attraction =/= libido. i’ve mostly spoken about this in the context of being ace, where asexuals can still have a libido despite not experiencing sexual attraction. the confusion and conflation between attraction and behavior has been a huge source of frustration for me with regards to the popular idea of asexuality and how it has confused me on my path to figuring out my own sexual identity over the years

BUT. the idea holds true not only for aces who have high libidos - but also for allosexuals who have low libidos. the idea that to be allo aro is to immediately be some hypersexual fuckboy is just, so warped? just because you experience sexual attraction but not romantic attraction does not mean you immediately become some sexist pig who always needs your dick wet. like idk it’s just beyond fucking frustrating to see the way that people sexualize alloaros when they’re just - they’re just people. you would not assume what another person’s sex life or libido is if they were otherwise alloromantic allosexual, because your orientation describes the way you experience attraction, not your behavior and sex life, nor your libido. in the same way, being alloaro has literally nothing to do with what your actual libido is. so why are allo aros the exception? to try to divide the community and exclude them based on your assumption of their sex lives is just so fucked

[fitzrove]

Started watching a "problem with greek myth retellings" video and it began with a blurb montage like "Condemned by the misogynist guys of history, this is the true girlboss feminist story of [A WOMAN]" and like. brb writing one of those about crown prince rudolf. It's ok he's like a misunderstood girlboss to me<3

[ineffably-splendid]

"No inkling of a love story before this episode" (ep. 2.06)

I'm sorry, but did we watch the same tv show? I genuinely don't understand people who watched series 1 and where like "yeah, this is a totally conservative, good christian show. There's nothing queer at all in any of this."

All the insanity of the whole plot/premise is totally acceptable, but omg how DARE they love each other.

[ambulancevsambulance]

Everytime I see a press picture of My Chemical Romance with one of their Drummers I feel like I'm being jumpscared

[depresseddepot]

trying to determine which parts of my relationship with sex are asexuality, which are trauma, and which are autism is like trying to have a conversation with three people talking loudly and all at once

[baladric]

having silent illogical beef w a published author is a wild ride, no this had nothing to do w the nine-month writers block, i am normal and in no way debilitatingly competitive in ways i did not notice until the damage was already done ahsjdkkr

[littlestarprincess]

I find it really fascinating how pro-censorship AI is.

[crmsnmth]

Mannequins

This room is filled with mannequins Some dressed up as people from my past There's the girl with the ocean blue eyes Who I still love even after all this time Dressed in sunshine and forgotten dance steps

There's the violent codependent abusive With red blood painted on it's pale plastic skin I stare at it, daring it to make a move because this time I won't let them in

There's the gay man who sold me drugs sometimes for money, sometimes for love Where I learned I have no limits for depravity and that I never really knew my own sexuality

Here's the girl from California who I think of daily my best friend when I had no friends the one who listened to me cry on late and lonely nights And I'm reminded of how much I miss her

Leaning haphazardly against the wall is kid a tragic romance if there ever was one five years of each other's life we wasted before we realized we just didn't work

With missing limbs is my junkie angel And her last words to me play like a scratched vinyl "You need to get clean or your going to die" And a month later she swallowed her tongue and i skipped out on the funeral

I walk through this room of memories The most important people in my stories And I am overwhelmed with nostalgia and sadness I miss you all so much, so so much.

I see my best friend growing up we stopped talking ten years ago because he said he didn't want to watch me burn And I can't say I'd ever blame him

I love you all. I'm sorry.