#but it is so hard to care about these characters. and im unfortunately incredibly familiar with caesar so nothing is like. new

[lungthief]

i’m so sorry to those of you who enjoy this book but i am Struggling my way thru if we were villains

[space-city-traffic]

yet again im back on my bullshit so... (gazes with mixed feelings at the TV show Firefly) i could fix him.

my extremely long thoughts about my Own Personal Good Version of Firefly (with plenty of spoilers for the show and the movie) under the cut:

things that are getting axed first thing no question:

out with the whole “let’s add in a thin veneer of Chinese cultural aesthetics out of context for ~flavor~” deal. just no.

instead, let’s hire some actors from a bunch of different cultures and work with them to figure out how their characters would bring those cultures into space with them!! and also hopefully bring some experiences with immigration/alienation/travel into it, since the Whole Core of Firefly is about how humanity always brings our doomed and silly and stubborn and unique warmth with us even into the cold void where nothing is familiar or homey in the slightest.

let’s respect our sex worker character shall we?

i do appreciate that Inara’s work as a companion is described as legitimate and well respected in the show. however please stop having your captain and hero call her a wh*re every five seconds against her clearly expressed wishes and portraying this as just a totally acceptable thing

let’s be more respectful of our characters of color and also have some more diversity, shall we?

others have put it better than me but yeah, the way Zoe and Book are treated is very uncomfy, and the rest of the show is depressingly monochromatic. come on let’s do better.

stop the weird confederacy hat tips

again others have pointed these out with much more thoroughness than I could, but the names of some characters and locations, as well as some of the language used to describe the browncoats, has uncomfortably confederate vibes. instead i propose we very Clearly tip our hats to the Alliance equaling space capitalism instead! you can’t go wrong with space capitalism as a villain.

don’t! make! the! psychotic! character! violent!

listen i love River Tam with my whole heart. but you should absolutely not portray your only character with psychosis as violent because of that psychosis!!!!!!! and yeah, a huge part of her character is that her brain got fucked up by the alliance and so she hallucinates and is also a super ninja. but like. she doesn’t need to be a super ninja for her character to work, okay? the crew does not need to be scared of her for her character to work, okay??? more on this later bc it would take a lot of care and nuance to make her character work but i really think it can be done

things we are absolutely keeping:

found family tropes my fucking beloved

this should be self evident. this is why the show is as appealing as it is despite its flaws, at least in my eyes.

malcolm reynolds, the knight in dusty armor

there’s something so appealing to me about what Mal stands for. because at his core is this ridiculous, silly, stubborn, doomed devotion to what he thinks is important and right, a romantic idealism thinly covered by cynical cowboy platitudes that he thinks make his bleeding heart totally invisible. and he is so obvious and entirely incorrect. bless. this is a man who will do anything for his family, who charges into swordfights to defend his friend from a man who wants to turn her into an object despite having no clue how to hold a sword. at his worst, he starts brawls in bars just for the martyr’s thrill of being persecuted for supporting the right; at his best, he inspires downright religious belief from his crew because he represents a romantic and chivalrous and doomed dedication to the right thing over any practical concerns. and then he throws a “selfish” quip over it with 100% confidence that everyone fell for his clever distraction and believes him to be a dirtbag. he’s oblivious and ridiculous and god he makes me want to be a better person because he’s just so goddamned sincere. stupid, but sincere. 10/10 himbo. <3

Mal and Inara ultraslowburn friends to enemies to friends to lovers to enemies to friends to lovers to friends to...

there’s nothing i love more than a ship that’s just two people who know each other way too well, and they’re each the only one who knows the other well enough to call them out on their bullshit. the way Mal and Inara interact in the show sometimes makes me uncomfy but like. the core of their relationship has to stay.

space western aesthetic

i need the cows on a spaceship scene to stay like i need air okay

that sweet sweet religious shit

mal, who lost his faith in gd and a whole lot else during the war. who lost his faith in himself, and now feels he has to hide the part of him that still wants to be good, because he knows he can’t be anymore, and he feels like it’s embarrassing for a guy like him to want something so unattainable. who takes a preacher on board, and the preacher has lost something, too. the preacher has his own past, and his own questions. but not questions like the observant neurodivergent girl, the one who wants to interact with and understand this thing that’s so important to him, but it just doesn’t click with how her brain works and she feels like something needs to be fixed, either the Bible or herself. and Mal takes care of them all, and slowly, he begins to find gd again, not in a prayer but in humanity. humanity doesn’t need to be fixed, like the alliance thinks. the shining imperfect strawberry sweetness of it in his family’s smiles is something to be worshiped and served and devoted to. and he finds he has something to believe in again. (and his crew find that he’s given them someone to believe in, too. and maybe suddenly he’s a saint.)

and finally, my brilliant ideas as to what i would like to add:

TRANS WOMAN KAYLEE RIGHTS

listen her femininity is so important to me okay? it’s so thrilled about everything that’s pretty, from dresses to the spaceship’s electric innards, and it’s so non-traditional and grease stained until it’s not and it’s pink and ruffly and twirly, and she never sees any of it as a contradiction, because none of it contradicts, it’s all just her! her gender is warmth and love and prettiness, feeling pretty and appreciating the pretty and making her friends’ days pretty too.

i want us to find out she’s trans in that episode with the ball, and i want us to find out alongside Mal who just never asked or never realized. Kaylee gasps and squeals at the dress in the shop window and Mal makes an off handed, ill considered comment, and then... someone yanks him aside and hisses a few very significant words in his ear. and suddenly he remembers what the blue white and pink she painted all over the engine room means, and he knows he has something to make right. so he buys her that dress himself and lets her know just how pretty she looks, and when he walks into that ball with her displayed on his arm like something precious, he looks the proudest out of any man there. and she notices. for a few seconds, of course, until there’s chocolate, and ‘nara, and a chandelier—and some horrible girls, but she’s used to that, until—suddenly, she finds her people. a group of old men who light up when she jokes about compression coils and whack presumptuous boys who ask her to dance. they adopt her as a treasured granddaughter, and Mal is beaming at her like a proud dad, and she finds that one of her new elderly friends gazes a little too long at her bracelet, and so she gives it to xem and teaches xem a few new words, and... it’s a good day, huh? it’s a really good day. (of course, then the captain has to go and punch somebody in the face, but it was a real nice party up until then.)

also she and Simon are both transhet t4t im correct and you know it

time for a better River Tam

the first thing we’ve established is that this version of her is not unpredictably violent and the crew is not scared of her!!!! it makes no sense to take a kid who’s primarily brilliant, experiment on her brain, give her telepathic powers....... and tack on the fact that she also has super strength and speed and dexterity and what not, AND say that they programmed her to be super violent. no! no. not only is that extremely harmful rep, that’s also just stupid.

instead!! my version of River is in fact not terrifying to the crew, but is actually the one they feel safest around. River has always been totally blunt, she was one of those kids you could tell realllllly early was autistic, and she doesn’t like being disengenous at all. so you can always trust her to tell the truth and not play weird passive aggressive games or have any hidden agenda, which makes her just a really chill person to be around. also, one of her longtime special interests is music and dance, so whether or not she’s nonverbal on a given day, there will always be some sort of beautiful sound when she’s around. she does have the singing voice of a dying crow unfortunately but that’s ok bc Simon’s is even worse and they’re both incredibly competitive so you’ll at least get free entertainment out of the affair.

my version of River does have psychosis and hallucinations because of the trauma of the experiments, and they are really troubling to her. she and Simon work together to find ways to cope and meds that help, and it’s a process, but there are some things that help.

the only thing she gained from the academy was the ability to hear people’s thoughts and sense the future a little bit. and yeah, that led to her picking up a few spooky secrets at the beginning, which, yikes. and for a while, it was hard to figure out which voices were real and which were hallucinations. but around her friends, she always feels safe to ask “did you just think about triple cheese burritos or was that just a me thing?”, and they’ll always tell her the truth no matter how embarrassing their thoughts are, bc it’s important to all of them to respect her and help her sort accurately through what’s reality and what’s not. and bit by bit, she gets better and better at figuring out what kinds of things tend to be telepathy and what kinds of things tend to be psychosis, and that each one feels a little different. and because of the trust and respect and support of her found family she’s able to do that in a safe environment!!!

trans man Simon rights

listen i wanted to keep him as just a side note on Kaylee’s list but he is my son and he’s important to my heart so here goes

out on the outer rim where Kaylee’s from, gender ain’t much of a big deal, there’s an individualistic quality to life out there, and so if the trail you blaze is the trail of a woman or a man or neither or both, that’s respected even in the rare cases where it’s not outright encouraged. but in the inner planets, where competition and connections and public faces and family names are everything, you have to be what’s expected of you to survive. you can’t change your brand, you can’t be anything other than what your family planned for you since before you were born, it’s incredibly hard to survive in such a hyper competitive environment, and so your very identity becomes just a tool in how to market yourself for better success.

needless to say Simon (just as autistic as his little sister and also very trans) fuckin hated it there. but he was very good at it. correction: he was very good at his very specific field of STEM, good enough to where people stopped talking about how cute he looked in bows and started talking about how impressive his work was from a very young age. and his work had no gender. he could be whatever he wanted to in equations. so that was where he could express himself, and gd, he got so much praise for it, he never wanted to stop.

not until he discovered that his sister needed him, and ran away, and needed a disguise, and realized... suddenly, every stifling rule and prying eye was a million miles away. he was freefloating, freefalling, with none of the charted paths he’d been following all his life... so you know what? fuck it. he’s always enjoyed the name Simon. and since it’s not on any legal records, it’ll make him just that much more untraceable.

and on Serenity, starting over with new people who never knew him before his transition feels like an unbelievable blessing that just dropped right into his lap. he has to keep up the secrecy, he has to make sure they never find out who he used to be, because gd, it’s so nice when they look at him and say his name right, and he doesn’t know if he can handle losing that, not when it’s so new and so important to the person he’s finally becoming. but then one day, the unthinkable happens, the wanted posters for his arrest have an old name on them, they’re looking for the Tam sisters, and... nothing changes. the crew of Serenity could not give even a tenth of a percent of a fuck, and it doesn’t seem like they even know they’re supposed to. huh. that’s new. Simon could get used to that, he thinks.

i’m sure there’s more i could add, but it’s 4:30 in the morning now, so if more occurs to me, ill simply add it in a reblog tomorrow. if you’ve read down this far, i am in love with you. please let me know your Better Firefly ideas, too, bc im always down to yell about this show!!!

[disasterghaster-moved]

JUMPS in on this screw anon; while my memory is eh on details, I do know that you and I have rp'ed on and off for ?? likely almost a decade now. I think I just, came across the hinabn and stuck around with the group early on, and when I got this rendition of enya going. many a thing happened, but I know some of the quieter threads we had were instrumental in helping me really develop enya better. I was younger, throwing out whatever came to mind without much care for the details. but when I came up against you, the care you put into your threads and words, however small; I know I was nervous early on. lot of "man I wish I could write like that" thoughts! I dont think I managed to ever match you, but you always seemed to care about every thread it really encouraged me to keep trying, even when I felt like I wasnt good enough - I could try and learn from reading your half.

I will admit that, after one of my earlier gaps, I shied away from re-interacting - not because of you specifically, more so I didnt want to fall back into old habits in general, thinking that avoiding old rp groups might help.

I remember a bit later on, I refollowed without saying anything, then unfollowed again. my reasoning was I couldnt think a way to interact, and because you rp with such a solid group that has such an incredibly well-developed setting and rapport, I didnt think I would even be worth the time (and a hint of "I followed u why wont u interact with me" assumption, twas a dumb thought but there nonetheless). but you have always been one of those folk that I know I can still find you down the road; bit of a "oh yeh, I remember interacting with her, I wonder how she's doing" and the writing has always brought me back in. which is also why Im a bit greedy in getting a lil thread going whenever you offer it ehehe <3

and I cant say it enough, your writing is fantastic, even the smaller threads. the way you can capture emotion in words and your use of language in general has always been inspiring to me. its definitely pushed me to do better and to really think about the emotion a character would be feeling and how to get it out without your usual "he was sad" deal. having a character for decades helps, but the way you make something as small as talking about pizza feel real is the big Why for my following.

I know a bit on how you feel, but Ive always had a feeling thats a part of the tumblr experience; people are shy and timid, more so with well-established blogs. I know I follow a few blogs that I dont/cant see a good way for enya to interact with but just love to see their character and read their threads. possibly putting out a "like this to discuss thread ideas" mayhaps might bring some of the quieter followers out, or directly message some that you have a loose concept about. unfortunately, even if we're all a bunch of shy nerds who love writing our characters, we're afraid of rejection. its hard, but sometimes reaching out to them is the only way to break that worry

however, I do think you have such a solid circle that, while it may get difficult finding things to write, its a good base of people that love and support you and will continue to do so however much longer we got in this place <3

this got long and wordy and I apologize!! sdfgh

Ssssso much information and worrrrrddddssss, ya neeRRRRRRRD.

But all points and nice things taken.

I do have to think about how to do 'outreach' a bit more. I've always struggled with just popping into conversations with people I'm not familiar with. Some of that, too, is difficulty with 'small talk' a lot of the time and the social stamina thing--not making excuses so much as explaining why I have a big deficit in that department. I know that could be worked on and maybe there's some work arounds.

Like how I've been trying to post more ask memes and starter memes and stuff.

[riftimagines]

hello 💓 if you're accepting requests (feel free to ignore), I'd really appreciate it if you wrote something about sett. for a few weeks, his girlfriend avoids him because someone tells her that she is too much trouble for him after finding out she's hiding an eating disorder and self-harm from sett. she believes this person and decides it's realy the best if she just disappears from his life. sett finds out and immediately goes to find her? fluff and soft boi sett? 🥺❤ thank u ❤

I had actually did headcanons for this but it just got too long so I turned it into a  one shot! I hope you don't mind that and you still like this!

Sett x Self-harming!Eating Disorder!Reader

Warnings: Trigger Warning, Attempted Suicide, Self Harm, Minor Character Death, Minor Blood, Minor Swearing.

Catching the eye of the infamous Ionian pit fighting ring boss seemed impossible but lo and behold one trip to the pits with some adventurous friends and now you hardly ever leave his side. Ever loving and charming in his own gruff way. He always made you feel normal and happy even on days where you didn’t feel right. When you felt empty and not enough food could fill it or even the thought of food made you want to throw up and never eat again he was there to make all the badness go away. Everything for once felt decently right and you could just live as best as you could with someone that actually loved you for you. Too bad that didn’t sit well with some of the more envious eyes.

A green monster’s eyes stare into the back of your head with bitterness. Why would their tough, strong, handsome boss care for such a weak, pathetic nobody like you? You weren’t even a fighter for deities sakes! So what made little worthless you so much better then them? They were stronger, better looking, and didn’t have weird eating problems. They just needed you to leave him since Sett seemed so adamant on staying with you. Unfortunately for you the opportunity for them to strike arose rather quickly when Sett turns to you.

“Hey, babe I need to check in with my bookies for the nights payouts, you keep my seat warm alright?” You nod happily and he grins and gives you a quick peck on the cheek before walking off to the bookies office. As you sit there you can’t help but feel a looming presences behind you. Turning around you spot one of Setts underling fighters looking at you. They take your look as an invitation to saunter up to you and glare down at you in Setts seat. You can feel the bubble of anxiety building up in your abdomen as they stare you down. They pick up a fruit from the table next to the seat your in and they lean in close as they bite down on the fruit hard enough that you could feel the juice from it land on your cheek. You cringe at the sight and your are not sure if your want to eat a fruit or throw up at the thought of eating it. They chew for a moment before before speaking to you.

“So your the boss’s new arm candy? Must be for charity or something.” Your brows fur in confusion and you glare up at them. They snort loudly and eat more of the fruit.

“I mean why would such a man like Sett like a little broken thing like you? So feeble, useless really, I heard you can’t even eat right. Here, have a fruit.” They toss one of the same fruits they were eating at you. You catch it and stare at the fruit like its a foreign object. It looked edible but then could you stop eating or would it just make you gag? As you contemplate the fruit your harasser just laughed.

“See, you can’t even decide if you want to do a basic human function. Even babies know what they want. I feel kinda bad for the boss. He has to put up with you and whatever the hell is wrong with you. Such a pain in the ass if you ask me. He probably just stays with you so he looks nice to better people. You know attract the better normal people.” You look down in shame. Sett wouldn’t do that to you, would he? No, he wouldn’t, but then again he didn’t know the broken side of you. The days of eating mindlessly or not eating at all for a couple days or the days where  you did eat but just threw it all up. He didn’t know that you would physically beat yourself up about it. The scars that criss crossed across your arms, a daily reminder of the darkness in your mind. As your mind wondered the underling observed you and realized what you were thinking.

“ Oh, he doesn’t know does he? Now your a lier as well as a broken waste of space. You know, if you really supposedly love him wouldn’t you want him to be happy with someone who’s probably better for him in the long run. I’m sure you know as soon as he finds out about your little eating problem he’ll want you leave you for something better. Might as well save yourself some pain and let him go first don’t you think?” You felt a horrible familiar pain in your heart. It would be better for Sett if you weren’t around being a ball and chain. He could most defiantly do better then you. He deserved someone better then you. The fighters eyes brightened as the seeds of doubt were now planted in your head. It would only be a matter of time before your out of the picture.

“You just think about that, huh? If you can’t be good for him let him have someone who is good for him. Don’t let him suffer your problems. He doesn’t deserve your problems, no one does.” They say that last part with bitterness and a sharp in your face glare then made their leave back to the corner where they came from. So many things running through you head. Sett loves you right? Yeah he does, of course he does and you love him, but he didn’t know about your problems. He didn’t know that you had trouble with eating or how much you hated your self because of it. He doesn’t know that your a dirty lier that hasn’t been honest with him about all your faults. The fighter was right, you needed to leave Sett, he needed someone so much more then you. A perfect, honest, wonderful person for a wonderful, handsome man like him. You were lost in thought for who knows how long until a large shadow overcast you. Sett looks down with you with his lovely sharp toothed grin and dipped down to kiss you.

“Hey babe, I’m back everything’s good to go. You ok there hun? You look a little sad. Did someone hurt you? Just tell me babe I’ll make sure they’ll never hurt you again.” He cracks his knuckles and neck and looks around for any potential culprits.

“No love, I’m just tired its getting late thats all.” You tell him. More lies. Another fault and reason why Sett should be free from you. He looks a bit skeptical but he doesn’t push and instead settles down in his seat next to you and holds you close to him. He was so warm and comforting. So much more then you deserved. Starting tomorrow Sett will be free, no matter how much it would wound your heart.

The following weeks were so incredibly hard. You had been avoiding Sett like a plague and it was waring on your very soul. Every time he wanted to see you you would leave or make an excuse. Any dates he wanted to make you’d say no. He’d be so confused and sad but you’d take off before he could say anything. Everyday now you would cry. Everyday controlling how you ate was more of a task then it had ever been before. The small blade you had to defend your self now became the thing of your self destruction hardly ever leaving your hand and in those hands left a trail of blood and shame in its wake. In the sanguine pools around your limbs your life drained from you. It hurt so bad but good at the same time. The pain of your skin being split open by a sharp blade hurt for a short while but there was also and inexplicable relief in this pain. Though in the end your end will not come. Only a new mark will stay on your tapestry of sorrow that was your skin. This tapestry had become your life recently. The constant waves of agony that washed through you were only soothed this way. You try to convince yourself that Sett could never have loved this. This was all for the best, all for your dear love, Sett. It had to be.

Unknown to you Sett was getting rather fed up with all this running away and avoiding him. He loves you dammit and he knows you love him too! So why the hell were you being so distant lately? He was grumbling to himself and putting everyone in the pit on edge. Bookie and fighter a like knew what happens when you test the Boss when he’s in a bad mood. Nothing good they’ll tell you what. While everyone was generally avoiding Sett while he was irritated one particular fighter saw this as a chance. You were gone, you had to be to put him in this kind of mood. Time to test the waters. They made their way over to the beast man, who paid them no mind in the slightest. They frowned then coughed loud enough for the boss’s ears to twitch. Sett quickly and aggressively rounded on them and growled.

“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m not in the mood right now? Buzz off!” They were taken a little aback by his sheer aggressiveness. Now they knew he’d be a little upset but to be this upset over a broken thing like you was a bit ridiculous. It almost seems that he actually liked you but that couldn’t be it because no one in their right mind could like you. Well if he was going to be rude then they could be rude right back.

“No need to be so rude Boss. Im sorry if your little fling flaked out on you but they were certainly nothing to be upset about losing.” Before they could say anything else Sett moved with such speed they had no time to react. Their head hit the wall so hard the world started to blur and spin. Sett was snarling as he lifted up this dead weight bastard by the throat and slammed his head against the wall again. No one talked about you like that in front of him NO ONE.

“And just what the hell would you know about them?!” They yelped in pain as Sett punched them hard in the gut hard enough for some blood to dribble out of their mouth. A dark grin appeared on their blood stained face making Sett glare and tighten his grip on their throat. Ah, they had truly underestimated how much he didn’t know about you. It was likely Sett wouldn’t let them live but at least they could go out knowing Sett’s love would waver when he hears the truth about you and maybe just maybe you had already left this world and they could rub it in your face in the afterlife.

“More then you apparently. Little flake was broken anyway. It would be so much better for you if you just let the little defect go. I mean a guy like you shouldn’t have to deal with a creature that can’t decide if they want to eat a lot or nothing then just throw it all up or just spit up acid. Then on top of that have to deal with their “accidents” that they give themselves because they can’t handle their own mind. Honestly a waste of life that no one should put up with. You should just let them go. That is if they haven’t left this world already.” Sett blinks as he takes in all that information. You had eating problems? You HURT yourself? You want to avoid him so you could break yourself more because you were afraid of he would leave you? None of that set well with the beast man. You didn’t need to hide that from him. He loved you so much and if you had problems he’d want to be there for you. He NEEDED to be there for you, but first he needed to take out the trash. With a deep growl Sett channeled some of his Vastayan power into his arm and quickly crushed their throat. Blood sputtered out of their mouth for a moment before they fell completely limp. Sett dropped them like a sack of potatoes and turned to face some of the other fighters who silently watched the scene unfold and nodded for them to get rid of the body. Two of them moved quickly to dispose of the corpse and the others stood there in fear of their boss.

“Alright fellas I’m gonna head out for a bit. I’ll be back later with my babe and if anyone has any crap to say to them you’ll end up like that horrible bastard thats being taken out the door, got it?” Everyone in the room collectively agrees and Sett promptly leaves the terrified room behind. He needed to get to you now. If anything that A-hole said was true then you were probably not ok and if you weren’t ok he wasn’t ok. He kept you in mind as he started to run as fast as he could towards your home, hopefully he wasn’t too late.

In your seemingly dark and cold abode you sat on the floor in front of you bed. Sullen, in pain, and defeated there seemed to be no end to this sadness today. The only thoughts that ran through your mind were of your imperfections and your love who needed to be free from the blemishes of your life. You held the blade in your hand precariously. You were so used to the blade grazing the skin as of late that it didn’t bring anymore of that reliving pain. Perhaps you needed to go deeper. Yes, you needed to go deeper the pain was deeper so you just have to push it in closer to the core of your misery. You looked at the thing that had become a part of you arm its sharpness could go in so far it could be so easy for it to just pierce the core of your being. If it did everything would end. All the pain, the doubt, the indecision, gone. Thats what you want. Everything to be gone. You bring your end closer to you and in the process catch the sight of your arms tattered in red lines and blood splatter of today. Sett would be so sad to see that. He never liked to see you in pain, always wanting to fight away all your problems, such a sweetheart. A small smile actually appeared on your face as you recalled the memory of the day Sett told you he’d kick the ever-loving ass out of anyone that would even try hurt you. Such nice thoughts. Hopefully Sett’s next love will appreciate such protectiveness. The sliver of a smile you had fades and the knife in your hand and the wounds on your arms become more real. The pain rolling back into your chest double time after the happy memory. No he didn’t need this. You were a horrible mess that needed to be disposed of and you had the way to be disposed of in your hand. You feel nauseated as your mind races. Everything hurts. Everything hurts please make it stop! You gasp and begin to cry. You didn’t want to die, you wanted to live happily with Sett, but that could never be. You didn’t want to be that much of a burden to him. This is how it has to be. You hesitantly bring the blade up to your chest and start to hyperventilate. No, yes, no, yes, don’t do it you deserve to be happy with someone that loves you and he’s out there waiting for you. Lies, he probably doesn’t even notice your gone just end it and lets be free from all this pain. Your so lost in thought you don’t hear the pounding on the door or the sound of it breaking.

“Babe? Babe?!” The loud, sudden yelling in the room draws you from your thoughts and a blur rushes to you and wrenches the knife from your hand and throws it across the room. Your in shock as two large, warm, strong arms wrap themselves around you and pulls you in to the large man their attached to. You look up and see red fluffy hair and a dark purple fluffy vest collar in your face. Sett, he came for you. Tears bubble up and begin to rain down on Sett’s shoulder. He coos you softly and sits down fully on the floor and pulls you into his lap. His head presses softly against yours and he begins to kiss your tears away. A calloused hand cups the side of your face and makes you look up at him. He looks so concerned and slightly frightened. He was scared of losing you and you almost let your life slip away. So stupid, your so stupid, he really did need someone better.

“No I don’t! The only person I need is you. I was so worried about you. You started avoiding me and I didn’t know why. I was so confused, I didn’t understand what was happening. I still don’t to be completely honest but I want to know. I want to understand so you don’t have to feel like you have to do this. So you don’t have to hide from me and almost leave me.” His voice trembled at the end. You look upon his face and see his eyes shimmering like tears that wanted to fall but didn’t. He missed you so much and it felt so nice to have you in his arms, a little beat up but alive.

“But there’s so much wrong with me. You don’t have to deal with it, you shouldn’t have to. You don’t have to deal with me not being able to control my eating habits or this.” You gesture to the scars on your arms and your tear stained face.

“I’m a mess. A horrible mistake upon you and the world.” You were silenced by a deep loving kiss that held you both quiet until neither of you could breathe. The kiss ended with both of you gasping for air but Sett recovered faster and filled the quiet with his voice.

“Don’t be saying that crap. I know you feel bad, but your definitely not those things. I was told the same thing growing up. That I was a horrible mistake and nothing but a pain in the ass for my mama. She didn’t care about that though and whenever I felt bad she’d tell me that as long as one person in the world was happy with you then your life is worth living. I’m that one person. I love you so much and I don’t care if it takes me my whole life to understand or maybe I’ll never understand but the point is, I’m here for you and as long as I’m here for you, you don’t need to feel alone or ashamed. We can take all the time you need babe. I’ll be right here.” Your eyes filled with tears once again not from sadness but with joy. He truly loved you so much and was so patient with you. Perhaps, this can work. It would take a lot of time but maybe you could get better. As long as Sett was by your side it felt like you could just make it through and see some light at the end of your previously dark tunnel. You smile at him happily and cuddle into him. He lets out a small laugh.

“See, it’ll be ok, hun. Now lets get you cleaned up a bit your starting to look tougher then me!” He chuckled and kissed the scars on your arms as he picks you up easily. You can feel a better mood creeping in and jest with him.

“I am tougher then you.” He smiles and starts to kiss at your neck making you giggle and you swat at him playfully.

“Hmm, you might be right there, babe. You might have to protect me every now and then.” You nod and he snuggles into your nape. The light is even brighter now and for the first time in a long time you feel something you haven’t felt in a long time, Hope.

[caps-clever-girl]

thoughts on endgame.

fair warning, i am not going to be kind. i enjoyed watching this movie, for the most part. it was funny; it had many good jokes and good, pure and well done interactions between multiple characters. but i didnt like it, and here are the reasons why.

unfortunately, this isnt a ‘nitpicky’ post. my main problems are with a lot of the bigger points points of the film, and had quite a few. this is a LONG post.

• “marvels first gay character!!!!!!!!!!!!” shut up. you joined the ‘fad’ late for brownie points and it was a cameo character who got about 3 lines. there are plenty of canon queer and gay characters who could have been introduced, either as cameos or in earlier films. dont even get me started on the fact that tony has more canon bi material than most others and marvel could have taken the time or even the slightest bit of effort to make this. while i enjoyed the jokes about steve being Incredibly Hot and his ass being Gods Gift To America (which honestly??? correct!) that could have been expanded on. several characters made comments about how nice steve’s ass is, and could have been used as actual material for a queer character, instead of sticking a random chharacter in there. i get the whole ‘gay people could be anyone! its normal!’ thing by giving the ‘role’ to a regular person, but you would also prove that by making any one of your 30+ main cast actually queer instead of making gay jokes and hints that could be retconned and explained away by humour.

• slapping someone out of a panic attack, and treating the panic attack like a joke. yeah, i get it, they didnt have a lot of time. still, come on. did iron man 3 teach you nothing? apparently not since tonys ptsd was pretty much never brought up again.

• speaking of thor. now, i am not an expert, but when a person gains weight, they do not keep their abs. certainly not after five entire years - not even asgardians. i also found it odd that thor became the way he did. i understand gaining weight and comfort eating after all the trauma thor went through losing his home and brother and people, i really do, but 1.) do it properly, at least, and 2.) thor is the leader of his people. does he want the task? not particularly. he hasnt wanted to be king since the first thor movie, but hes been forced into the role. even depressed i dont think thor would shy away from it, not completely. hes always wanted to do right by his people and i think that hed stuck to it, especially after The Snap backing him into a corner, if that makes sense. to clarify, i dont have a problem with chubby/fat thor. (IF done right instead of with weird, shitty cgi, that is.) i have a problem with the fact that thor, even though he doesnt want to be king, would abandon the last remanents displaced people to build a new home all on their own and become a hermit gamer boy. ESPECIALLY with valkyrie around. she’s been through a derpressive, alcohol fuelled time in her life and thor pulled her out of it. (mostly anyway, asgardians are party animals and im p sure she still gets trolleyed on the reg) i have bo doubt that after years of wallowing she would do her damned best to try and kick his ass out of it, even if it were just because his people need a leader, instead of letting him drop everything on her and just let him stew while new asgard gets on with it. i also didnt like the fact that all of thors emotional moments were treated as jokes and made to be funny when hes genuinely Fucked Up about eveything thats happening and made his image into a whiny crybaby.

• professor hulk. more of a personal one, this, simply because i just didnt like it. fair enough if y’all disagree on this one, im not going to fight it. i just never saw him wanting to combine himself with the hulk. ever. when he apleared on the screen i was completely blindsided, and his explanation, and the way he interacted with the kids????? i just want to know where all of this confidence suddenly came from. i use the term ‘suddenly’ loosely, since its been five years, but bruce has never been the guy to care about strength or looks or fame. hes always been shy and nerdy. not afraid to stand his ground or make his opinion known. hes bot a catchphrase, posing and flexing ‘hell yeah lets take a selfie’ guy. i get that thats maybe the result of the hulk and bruces combined personality but it just felt WEIRD to me, like, there wasnt a time in the film where i felt comfortable with the character. this was the final avengers film, with all of the original six avengers in it. but it didnt feel like that, it didnt feel like bruce or the hulk was in the film, even though there was a lot of funny and good moments with orofessor hulk, it felt like a stranger with some familiar characteristics. it ruined any feelings of nostalgia for me. i like bruce, and i like the hulk. i like the way their differences add to the story and the way they interact with eachother, and the slow change in their relationship. sorry if its petty but i prefer them seperate, theres just so much more to them for me.

• clint and natasha’s journey for the soul stone. both times, in infinity war and endgame, a male character and a female character went to get the soul stone. both times the male came back and the female died, and we lost possibly two most developed and main-line female characters in the entire mcu. now i understand the reasoning for both, and out of the characters that went there, i agree with the choice. thanos and gamora; it was thanos who was aware of the sacrifice and who chose to make it. gamora didnt get a choice and was unaware until it was too late. thanos was never going to die there. he knew there would be a sacrifice and chose to take gamora, because she would be the most likely sacrifice to actualky sucsesfully yield the soul stone because she was the most loved by him. i get it, but we lost gamora and i dont like it. clint and natasha; looking at it completely objectively, clint has a family, a wife and three children, that he wants to get back. natasha does not have any children, nor any (blood) family. if i had to choose, based on facts like that, id choose her too. but i still hate it, because there goes the only female member of the avengers. also, nebula (and i think maybe rocket?) KNEW that a sacrifice would be made and either accidentaly or deliverately left out the terms of aquiring the soul stone. it would have been easy to tell, if not easy to solve. but nothinb was said, and two best friends had to make a fucking awful and horrible choice when they might not have had to.

• on the ‘feminism’ tangent; the random congragation of women in the end scene??????? i dont????? okay so i am marking myself as a hypocrite here because i did love this scene!!! it made my lil gay heart go boom to see so many good and strong women all in one place - ESPECIALLY rescue - and it also made me realise how many women there actually are across the mcu??? which was really nice?? but it just felt... so forced? the way they ALL suddenly apleared and stood together even though they were all mixed in around the battlefield. it was a wonderful thought and i did enjoy it, but it seemed too Off and Odd to seem as much more than a bid for Feminism Brownie Points.

• captain marvel. i dont know about you, but i was actually looking forward to her being in the film. for a character so hyped to be the saviour of the avengers and the end of thanos, she was barely in the film. ‘i have other planets to save, the earth isnt the only one affected by thanos’ yeah but earth is the only plannet actively attacked by him. its where the people who are rallying to fight him and reverse what he did are. dont you want to stick around and help them? surely it would be a hell of a lot easier with your help, and faster too. yes, she blasted theough the ship at the end, but she did fuck all to help defeat thanos himself, and the help she did give with the ship came at the end. i genuinely think they kept her out of the movie because she was too powerful, and would have made fighting thanos etc too easy to get all the suffering and noble sacrifices in. if she had been a side character i dont think id be as mad, but she got a whole MOVIE in which she is clearly the start of the entire avengers initiative; she is their HISTORY!!!! she is so powerful!!!! and yet she has 5 mins of screen time!! it pisses me off that she was So Strongly implied to be the character the avengers NEEDED, the one that without whom it would be IMPOSSIBLE to defeat thanos; the woman that really tipped the scales in there favour, and yet she did fuck all. (and lets not even get started on the carol/rhodey and carol+tony bromance we COMPLETELY missed out on.)

• (speaking of bonding what the fuck happened to tony and nebula????? after they were rescued it was like they never met)

• the whole entire concept of time what the fuck!!! ‘dont change anything’ okay well for the most part you did okay, and the PLAN and CONCEPT was actually really easy to grasp, at least to me, which is hard when working with paradoxes and wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey stuff. but that went out the water when past!thanos and his army were brought into the future and disintergrated. does this mean they’re dead in the past - since they would have just. Left and not come back and therefore ceased to exist from that point???? or did tonys Snap simply send them back to their point in time, with no memory of what had occured? idk because it aint explained.

• speaking of; loki. again - his past changed; he managed to escape, with the tessarect. this is not explained nor expanded upon. assuming the events of thor 2 came about - which were impossible if he escaped - then his timeline would carry on as normal, and would PERHAPS explain the tessarects wacky timeline. (i dont know for certain, because i cant work it out anyway). but loki disspearing means he wouldnt have gone to trial on asgard, nor would he wouldnt have been in thor 2 - also by extention meaning that frigga is still alive. technically if he went back to get odin off the throne anyway, everything else after thor 2 involving loki/asgard would still come to pass. either way, we dont know. it was a nice way for endgame to give fans what we wanted; the posibility of loki coming back. but it doesnt make a lick of sense, and we have no idea if hes still alive/escaped or not, and why. personally i have no fucking idea and im pretty sure it was a cop out so they could give us what we wanted. which brings to my other point:

• giving the audience what we wanted. we got loki interaction. we got loki ‘escaping’ and ‘surviving’ (????) we FINALLY got rescue, who many fans have been asking for since i think iron man 2, and even more so since The Badass That Was Pepper Potts in im3. we got morgan stark and tony and pepper married, we got jokes about steves ass, and more jokes about male characters admiring how hot other male characters are. and, most importantly, we got tony having the nice relaxing life he wanted out in his cabin in the woods with his wife and kids (even if it was a horrific way of getting there). i dont quite know how to explain it, but to me it seemed like they were shoving as many ‘fan-requests’ into the film as possible - so that when they killed off 2 of the original 6, and removed another by ageing him out of use, they could lessen the backlash and justify the changes by going ‘but you got so mych that you wanted beforehand!!’. a tactic they drenhed us with because one of those 2 was a fan favourite that people were BEGGING not to be killed off because they felt that he hadnt recieved anywhere near the peace or happiness he deserved so far - and now never will. which brings me to:

• tony’s death.

there are two parts to this.

one, i was incredibly pissed off because strange’s Big Plan, the ONLY reason he saved tony in infinity war, was so tony could use the gauntlet and kill himself anyway later. anyone in that film could have used that gauntlet - and many wouldnt have suffered fatal injuries; captain marvel, steve, t’challa, peter quill to name a few possibilities - basically, anyone who is in anyway enhanced would have had a better chance of surviving and would have therefore been the better choice; aka, half the mcu. i think it was a proximity thing; tony was closest. he had the oppertunity and the others didnt. but tony didnt know about the option of using it until strange looked at him and gave him ‘the signal.’ the signal to sacrifice himself. and of course, this is tony stark. when is he ever going to refuse that.

but reason two, and this is the one that stings the most; tony started the mcu.

in my opinion, he is the character who has put the most in during the whole ten years. he, of ALL the characters, deserves his happy ending of marrying the love of his life and having a kid, without constantly fearing that hes foing to have them ripped away from him, that hes going to have to fight to the death to keep them safe.

one of my friends, when i complained about tony dying, said; “it was his time. plus, he had a legacy! with pepper and morgan, and the iron man name. how can you be upset?”

i can be upset because tony got the happiness he wanted after losing exactly 50% of what he held dearest. i can be upset because hawkeye got his family back, but tony only got five years with his wife and less with his kid, instead of getting the oppertunity to grow old with his wife and watch his kid go to collage like clint will. i can be upset because the character that has gone through the most trauma, both physically and mentally, who spent the last ten years trying to better the world and everything in it and protect it, who got the most shit for every decision he made and who ended EVERY SINGLE FILM with a broken limb or his face littered with bruises and cuts while every other film centric character ended the film usually scrape free, didnt get his happy fucking ending. sure, he has a legacy. but i dont give a shit, because that legacy - of iron man, of morgan and pepper and stark industries - would have been there whether tony was alive to see it flourish or not. but he wont be.

this goes beyond being a ‘tony stan’ or tony being my favourite character. out of every single character, from start to finish, anthony edward stark fucking deserved a happy ending and by god he deserved it the most. i will argue that until my end of days.

i watched tony stark on screen for ten years, and i watched him get progressively more scarred and fucked up. his parents. the ten rings. losing yinsen. obie. vanko and hammer. the palladium poisoning. new york; the nuke and the wormhole. the ptsd, the panic attacks. the iron legion and retirement attempt. killian and extremis and the end of that returement attempt. wanda’s vision. jarvis being destroyed. the accords and subsequent civil war. finding out about the winter soldier and his hand in his parents death. finding out that steve knew. siberia. struggling to balence iron man and the accords. losing peter. being stranded on titan, in space for weeks.

tony in that wheelchair, shaking and rail thin and unable to stand for more than a few moments will haunt me forever.

i watched him suffer for ten years - longer, even, in-universe - clawing for his quiet, happy ending while fighting for the happy ending he thought the rest of the world deserved, and instead of getting rewarded he just got beaten down and beaten down. after ten fucking hears of watching the backbone of the entire franchise get nothing but shit piled on him until he struggled to breathe for it, excuse me for thinking he woukd finally get the chance to crawl out from under it and be happy. no strungs attatched, no awful, sacrificial price to be payed, just for a man who had given so. fucking. much. to finally get something for once, and be allowed to keep it.

well i was wrong. and i feel so incredibly fucking stupid for even hoping otherwise.

and thats what i didnt like about avengers endgame.

[theskyexists]

series 10 finale

can i just say- that thing, that they do in series ten, that thing where

the universe rhymes and if you really listen, you can hear its music?

that’s some good shit

‘what does he call you? companions? pets? SH-nacks?’ god michelle gomez is just! so! good!

‘time lords are friends with each other dear, everything else is cradle-snatching’ pfftjlkdjsfkalkds she’s got perhaps...a point? (not really, but)

‘these are my disposables, exposition and comic relief’ FULJSDFJSDFJ MOFFAT YOU he really went there. HE REALLY WENT THERE HALJSDKD

‘we’re not functions’ ‘darling those are genders’

ok????? hahahahahaha

wow, doctor who meta dslafldk and then a dab

‘is this the emotion that you humans call...spanking?’

‘are you human’ ‘oh don’t be a bitch’ ljsdldsajlfjlkdf (moffat got so surprisingly woke that he knows exactly what he can have her say, damn. and michelle’s delivery what the hell so good hahaha)

oh no. no no no no. this is the moment she gets shot huh? what. no i. why do the Doctor’s companions in moffat’s era always die of being bravely stupid? (well..clara) like, not stupidly brave, but bravely stupid? i don’t like that narrative

why did Bill say that???? like i don’t get it.

jump in front of her??????? why. does he not stand in front of the damn gun?? why does he walk past it? why? dude?? now i understand why Thirteen keeps saying ‘STAY BEHIND ME, BEHIND ME’ always catching bombs to the face and shit.

those were some great flashbacks peppered in. ‘she scares me’ yeah well the Doctor was the one who fucked up here. he wasn’t fast enough. he didn’t reach hard enough for the right card in the pack.....but there was another time lord there - maybe she reached harder.

‘assumption!’ ‘deduction!’ ‘hope!’ ‘faith!’ ‘idiot!’ ‘always!’

this is the thing. like, the Doctor just lets her get shot and lets her get taken away - it’s barely believable.

yeah the crew went down, time dilation, they procreated, somehow they grew some shitty cybermen. (why does human society keep producing them?). YUP i called it.

365000 days, a hundred thousand years. yoikes. but if they have such fast lifts why is it a problem? and why go up to get the humans (yeah cybermen always wanna make more) i think knowing moffat we won’t really get an answer to these essential plot-driving questions

ohhh that’s chilling huh. makes you think they got some more anaesthetic but they’re still pressing the button - it just doesn’t make any noise any more.

but it’s hard to hear such pain.

and SUDDENLY, the theatre broadens - it seemed like just a part of the ship - narrow - but then we see the whole colony ship populated and a dystopia, this hospital just a building in a landscape. very cool.

How does the Doctor not realise that he hasn’t got TIME for explanations??? Bill is either dead or DYING RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HE’S WASTING TIME.

i do love this concept always have and it is executed well here - but look. the Doctor is written as very dumb to make it so.

‘how many more years’ YEARS????? oh my god. why does she close the window? interesting

fuckin bullshit. they never returned because time went slow for them. he KNOWS this, so why does he think it’s because the people were ‘weak’? he knows she came from command, that it’s possible to go up, because they took her! the conversion is only controlling her. so does she buy it? (I do like this guy, but he’s probably evil)

how has Bill remained SANE? years of this. years of this??? what an exceptionally resilient person.

yeah we’re not getting an explanation for why these people uh managed to go up and take her down huh? except ‘evil villain lied to everybody’ i think. oh well that can be satisfactory

wait. is he the master? is he the MASTER??? i mean i was considering it but.

he spent like 10 years living with Bill and it didn’t make a dent in his psychopathy hmmm. so the explanation is that the Master has taken over and wanted to fuck over the Doctor just for laughs. lol

why scarecrow them??? xD sometimes these aesthetics make zero sense in real life. do love how they went back to : look how these settlers went up to the solar farm! living a lovely life except they’re being attacked by cybermen.

so what im learning from moffat’s writing is - push your concept first thing you can - something incongruous - and something familiar to those familiar with the work.

woah that gloating wasn’t quite long enough for teh Doctor to have a win. i thought the Masters were having him on. (fascinating though, that he attributes the emergence of cybermen not to the Master’s presence but simply to the humans - and the Master’s responses prove him right. do feel like he messed with it all though...)

‘there’s only ever been one way to stop that many cybermen. me’ hmmmm hmmm, i always dislike the Doctor boasting like this. just pride. though i would welcome it for thirteen, just a couple of times.

‘i’m in two minds - fortunately the other one’s unconscious.’ hah

we gotta cut away from this because we don’t know how this unwieldy Bill cyberman got the Doctor into the ship.

The Master constantly veers between almost killing the Doctor and then kinda deciding not to because they’re having so much fun or caring about their complex relationship a bit too stupidly much. lotta storytelling packed into this ep, bit unwieldy.

great switch, making Bill look human again as we switch to her pov

where the FUCK did the Doctor get jelly babies

this is a beautiful scene, but also, goddamn, they made her into a cyberman and now she can’t be angry any more?? i mean that’s not very woke

they didn’t allow bill the opportunity to hit the Master?? AGAIN?? Bill should have been able to hit the Doctor AND the Master this season for the cruelty they showed her!!

I do think the Master is THE character for Moffat because all of the plot bullshit can be explained as: the Master is just that dramatic. like, why wait with Bill’s conversion until the pain part was developed and the Doctor would be coming down? could have converted her right there. and he only kept her around to rub it in the Doctor’s face. like all of that - somehow explained by what a particular person they are.

redirection, the cryptic, it’s one of the Doctor’s main tools for hope. the beyond, the in-between, that which we cannot yet know, may never know - that’s flux babey, that’s hope.

but ya can’t un-call the lifts? what. they won’t have ‘thousands’ of years if you run straight at the TARDIS.

so im not sure why they had time to build a weapon’s grade cyberman but not uh time to send lots and lots of them up?

AND NOW THEY’RE JUST GOING TO BURST THROUGH??? THE FUCKIN SHIP? xD ahahahaha why???

i do love how you SEE the Master use make-up while male. fuck gender roles! I do love the Masters’ dynamics hahaha

the Doctor always makes time for fuckin - explanations. the cybermen are coming up but WHATEVER!

that Master on Master kill was honestly hella tender and i loved it.

‘can’t find the words’

Bill was glad that her space granddad knew she was a lesbian- ha. somehow that....how did Moffat write that? seems uniquely gay but maybe he’s just drawing on - yeah gotta make sure that this time it is NOT read as romance.

NOOOOOO!!!!!! NO!!!!! MISSY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so...are they just not evacuating teh adults? like was it so hard to get them adult actors in the shot a few times too??? like wtf these kids aren’t like: MY PARENTS!!! before they blow it up? before the blow up a WHOLE countryside?

he didn’t get blown to pieces? fuckin bullshit lol

but BILL survived? enough to walk. I KNOW it’s for drama but it’s just lol

ok but Heather is SO CUTE HOLY FUCKIN SHIT. i don;t understand how this freak of sentient oil puddle got to create an immortal ethereal being - but WHAT EVS. (I can pilot anything, even you.  what a come on lol)

where there’s tears, there’s hope, yes but you also gave him a tear huh, as a puddle-being, so you can track him hmmm

all the flashbacks to modern companions!!! i loved that!

i actually think the christmas special kind of ruins this real good finale!

i am gonna miss Missy, Michell Gomez did something truly incredible there. but i also liked the return of Simm!Master, and i loved their chemistry.

anyway i genuinely think this was a good finale. very complex, and very moffat. but mostly his strong writing, very little of his shitty tics.

GOOD STUFF!!

meanwhile cybermen are still coming up the colony ship converting people on every deck though, so that’s unfortunate.