#but there were incestuous straight characters I guess?

[alaynestone]

You don’t have to post this if you don’t want. I just wanted to say I was one of those curious, openminded fans willing to entertain the idea of samjohn (mostly bc deanjohn feels so congruent with canon + there’s so much interesting meta on it that managed to convert me + incestuous households usually affect all of it’s members) but just like you said I was immediately put off by the blatant character assassination that pervades everything from fics to edits to the propaganda in that incest poll lmao.

I guess that’s the major difference - deanjohn requires little to no stretching of imagination bc it already fits seamlessly into canon, whereas samjohn almost demands ooc shenanigans to work.

I also just found the way fans talk about it nauseating for some reason, though that’s likely more of a reflection of my own personal triggers. I love digesting incest narratives, but the fetishistic angle of that blog really makes my stomach turn. That’s not a moral judgement on anyone else’s enjoyment btw! Just another reason why this ship didn’t resonate with me.

thank you for sending me this. it's clear that a lot of people feel the same way.

when i first joined fandom, the few j/s fics were straightforward evil!john non-con. not my thing, but i understood why it was written that way. then came the inexplicably popular fandom creation of "sexkitten sam" which continues to pollute the entire sam/dean fandom and of course extends to other ships too. i'm not even gonna get started on why that's "problematic" because that's not the point, it's not remotely in character. even as an exaggeration sam is not the kind of person to attempt to find agency in outward submission or objectification. he's very vocally not compromising his identity to please his family and especially john. dean is more like that so when you have sam acting like a fetishized pinterest aesthetic moodboard version of dean and dean acting like an old man from wattpad i'm understandably left squinting at the screen. then it's genderswapping sam and using that as a personality eraser because women are automatically submissive and naive and trad?

who is being converted by all this when it has nothing to do with sam, john or even dean? where is dean in all this actually? a core aspect of their family is that dean is closest to both sam and john who rarely had much opportunity to bond without him. there was a distance between sam and john throughout sam's childhood and adolescence. most of his parental needs were being fulfilled by dean even if that was never enough. their situation with their father wasn't the average one where they were simply 2 kids fighting for his attention.

for the most part j/s appears to be about "envying" dean's position in the family. it's about diminishing or straight up erasing dean and more notably about feminizing sam. either directly or otherwise. people generally seem to have big issues with the fact that sam is a man and confidently so. most of the annoying tropes in wincest fandom have this at their core. and of course in order for sam to be "the woman" dean needs to genuinely and authentically be the most stereotypical of cishet men. it's very transparent because right from the start the show poked holes at dean's performance of masculinity. it was very much the point. dean's gender issues could fill a book yet any alternative interpretation of sam and gender seeks to cast dean as the oppressive bigot who would never get it? stopping here before i get off topic but to make myself clear: in theory i respect headcanons i don't understand, but not when they spitefully exist to deny dean's depth in every possible way.

to return to my point about dean's pseudo spouse and mother position being enviable, it misses the point of how harmful john's parenting was to both of them. it's no coincidence that they both view themselves as the unfavorite. dean believes he's taken for granted, only valued for what he can give, how well he can perform his roles, how successfully he could play at being an adult even before he hit double digits. dean can't just exist and be himself while sam is uncompromisingly himself. because of that he believes john doesn't like him, never liked him, rejected him, didn't have time for him, didn't trust him enough with the family secrets, even when those secrets directly concerned him. as of season 1 he still has contempt for dean for what he views as unquestioning obedience to john and letting himself be molded by john. dean had to fight for every scrap of approval and affection and sam refused to do the same if it meant sacrificing his own needs and identity. not everyone reacts to abuse the same way and both characters are very much shaped by their different reactions to their environment. and any j/s shipper argument that is built on the idea that sam was the one john loved more is not only gleefully mocking dean's parentification but ignoring that sam being comparatively sheltered and treated like a son is yet another reason why john would not cross such a line with him. dean "gets it", dean lost mary too, dean is his partner and his confidant, dean can handle adult responsibilities, dean is loving and supportive, dean isn't making him confront his parenting failures, dean can't say no to him. like you said, it doesn't at all stretch the imagination to make j/d fit into dean's backstory. "you are not a child" - "i never was".

as i have been saying, any remotely ic exploration of j/s would have to follow both j/d and s/d. i can't believe in a universe where j/s is the only incest that happens in the family. i think a theoretical plausible j/s fic would have to not only accept but embrace its adjacency to the 2 ships that are compliant with the canon. but whether sam knows for a fact about j/d or not, there's no way he isn't severely impacted by the proximity to that relationship in a number of ways and that's a very compelling dynamic in its own right.

tldr i agree with you anon. people can read and write whatever they want but there's a big difference between incest subtext that is believable and just saying things in a way that's meant to provoke.

[evrensadwrn]

Who is laci reacher? Searching Tumblr and Google gets me no results.

Re: the question, why people would want to read about unpleasant subjects...well, because those things are an unfortunate part of reality, and one of the functions of art is to explore unfortunate and unpleasant things in a safe way.

I think it's perfectly fine to not want to read about any unpleasant subject, whether war, violence, hate, bigotry, abuse, etc. But trying to tell other people they're dirty rotten sinners, or support those things in reality, for being willing to read about them in fiction is going too far...that way lies puritanism and censorship.

A story about a little boy being sexually abused, for example, might actually be written by a survivor of such abuse who is working through their traumatic emotions by sympathizing with a character going through the same thing. Or it might be written by a sheltered, privileged adolescent with no experience of abuse or hardship, just because it's angsty and dramatic. You can never know exactly why someone online might choose to write a certain thing. Either you're willing to read it, or you're not...either it works for you as fiction, or it doesn't...but try to keep an open mind and not support censorship or judge real people for imaginary stories.

Backstory time (but this time I’m a little more leaning towards a more ‘neutral’ side but still not really liking her since it’s generally been a while since someone’s asked about her)

ADDITIONAL NOTE READ IT: Do not send asks pertaining to Laci anymore cause tbh I wanna focus on my own stuff and not yap about another person alr😭🙏

// underage, rape mention

So Laci is an author, she’s pretty niche from what I know. She’s one of the few consistent Marquis de Gramont-centric authors on ao3 but she has consistently been show to write underage porn/rape fetish fics about him and her OC (I lowkey forgot most of the details but I do remember a lot)

Anyways so, my problem isn’t that but rather specific icky details about her works are untagged such as…. awfully incestuous descriptions between Gianna and Santino (canon siblings), aswell as sexual descriptions for an underage Vincent who is 33-34 in the canon lore. Additionally, the rape fantasies included in her works seem to float towards being viewed through romanticized lenses rather than being written as a warning or a sort of way to cope. Not to mention the fetishization when it comes to queer relationships and stuff like that

I used to like her writing, she’s good at writing I’ll give her that, but it just kept getting weirder and weirder. I liked her work at first since back when I read it, things were toned down and the more she wrote the more fetishized and heavily romanticized abuse and s/a was written (+added incestuous descriptions between canon siblings for some reason). As someone who has dealt/is dealing with sexual trauma/sex related mental issues, I’m pretty chill when it comes to works that depict it but only when they’re kept at a minimum or not as descriptive but when it comes to her, they’re awfully descriptive and write about how intensely ‘pleasurable’ the experience is for both parties in the scene so yyyeahhhhhh

Anyways for the last part yeah, going back to what I said, she untagged like several weird things but ehhh whatever there’s equally bad things on John Wick ao3 let’s all be real (lolicon, full on rape fantasies, straight up romanticized rape idfk what else tbh)

“But trying to tell other people they're dirty rotten sinners, or support those things in reality, for being willing to read about them in fiction is going too far” <- did not tell anyone that but I guess I should be used to anons taking things I say out of context/not fully grasping them sighhh

and also it just so happens that everytime i meet a marquis fan that worships they’re either a rape fetishizer or an awfully weird person but that seems more like a correlation more than causation tbh

[takaraphoenix]

20 Questions Game for Fic Writers

Tagged by @blairwaldcrf ! Thank you, dear! <3

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

As of right now, 1214 works! Damn, I've been busy :D"

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

Currently at 9,167,371 words, slowly inching toward the 10 million mark!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Oh gosh, the total list is so long at this point, with various one-off kind of deals, or fandoms I've moved on from.

I am currently considering myself an active writer in these fandoms though: Shadowhunters, Percy Jackson, Detective Conan/Magic Kaito, DC Comics.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Sorted by kudos, my top 5 fics are:

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful (Marvel, Loki/Tony), with 7,945

My College Boyfriend (PJO, Nico/Percy), with 6,353

The Lion's Pride (Voltron, Shiro/Keith/Lance), with 6,163

The Ghost King of Summers High (PJO, Nico/Percy), with 5,600

Percy Jackson, Ambassador of Hades (PJO, Nico/Percy), with 4,985

Which actually looked really fucked up because yeah sure there's four super popular multi-chapter fics of mine. And then there is My College Boyfriend, which isn't just a oneshot, it is a oneshot with under 3k words. What. What.

And the, quite frankly frustrating, part here is that this oneshot only has 24 comments. Not even every 100th reader felt the need to leave a comment. That's just... so sad. Like. Genuinely, I think the kudos system broke commenting because the convenience of pressing a button beat actually expressing yourself genuinely through words and from the bottom of my heart, I find that depressing as fuck.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Always. Every single one of them. Because comments mean something. Someone took the time to tell you, with words, that they liked your work and maybe even what they liked about it.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ooof, multiple contestants from back in my day when I wrote German fics for the Beyblade fandom and wrote about... darker themes. Not all fics used to have happy endings. I wrote some fics that ended in a suicide, so I guess those.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Impossible to answer, because for as long as I've been active in English writing, all my fics have had happy endings. The guy gets the guy, the girl gets the girl, and they live happily ever after. The world is saved or the evil defeated, maybe there's even an epilogue of a next gen in there. That's my standard, it ends happily. So that makes it impossible to pick one that somehow ends happier than the rest. xD

8. Do you get hate on fics?

loool

Right. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Funnily enough, never on the things you would assume attract hatred - the incest, the explicitly non-con stuff.

Nah, I got death threats and words that were somehow worse than death threats on my Oliver/Felicity fics in the DC fandom... a... straight canon ship... but not the canon ship from the multiverse that these vile assholes liked, so, ya know. Threaten the fans who love a ship you hate.

Also over the years, lotta nasty general homophobia for Nico/Percy in the PJO fandom - I have been writing in this fandom since 2010, and yes, there were really a lot of people especially in the earlier years who just hated the idea of making either Percy or Nico gay.

And the dumbasses who declare Jace/Alec incest and thus hate and threaten this ships fans in the Shadowhunters fandom. But still, inexplicably, like Alec. Even though, in canon, he's the one who was in love with Jace. I don't know, but if you claim the nasty, nasty incest is The Bad Thing, I think you should hate the character with the nasty, nasty incestuous feelings, instead of the fans who write perfectly tagged and filterable fics. But that's just me, I guess.

So yeah, top three of hatred I got over the years - but if you wanna read a highlight reel of bullshit hate mail I got, feel free to go and check out my Dear Anonymous Shitheads tag!

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

All kinds of smut? I don't know how to answer this question, to be honest. xD

I've written oral, anal, vaginal, mlm, wlw, m/m/f, rare m/f ships but usually either she pegs or it's ABOverse and she's an alpha, I generally pepper in some flavors of BDSM into it, I've written dub-con and non-con before, bestiality, double penetrations. I have written a lot.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Oh, that is absolutely going to my first ever crossover. Because my usual crossovers are, ya know, that Big Four animated movie crossover verse (Tangled/Brave/HTTYD/RotG), or "I like these two fandoms, how would A's characters fit into B's world/how would B's characters fit into A's world?" for... essentially all my fandoms, and I wouldn't call any of these crazy - because the Big Four crossover is a beast of an own fandom so it's not really "original" or far out there to write for it, and in all my other crossovers, I do pride myself on making it work, like, not just throwing characters together but fitting their backstories and special powers into how the other world works.

So the craziest one is absolutely A Hundred Times Over, which is a oneshot sequel to my first-ever English-written fic and was written as a celebration because it was my 100th fic back then.

The original fic was already a crossover between Detective Conan and PJO, so for the celebration I thought "okay so what if I throw in my current obsession - Doctor Who - and my first ever ship - Shere Khan/Bagheera?". So, yeah, this crossover between Detective Conan, Percy Jackson, Doctor Who and Jungle Book has to be my craziest so far.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

So often. So, so, so, so often.

If you see my fics on watpad or any other platform that isn't AO3 or Fanfiction.net - and if you see them on those two but posted by an author that ISN'T Takara Phoenix - then please, let me know. Drop me a link wherever you can, I always greatly appreciate being told that my fics have been stolen so I can report that person and have it taken down.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No. All of the stealing of my fics has made me incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of my fics flowing around on other people's accounts or other websites, especially since the first like four or so stolen fics I had were translated.

Someone took my fics, translated them into Spanish and Russian, and posted them on other platforms, without ever asking my permission.

I don't want thieves to more easily slip through the cracks in between authorized repostings of my stories, so I have the blanket policy to not allow translations.

If you see my fics in other languages, tell me.

(There is one story that has been translated, but I'm not sure how far it counts, because I did the translating myself, and that's Lass Uns Etwas Dummes Tun/Looking For Something Dumb to Do. It is a PJO fic about Nico/Percy that I wrote in celebration for Germany legalizing gay marriage in 2017; I wrote it in German first, due to that, and then decided to translate it into English since I know my core-audience are English-speakers and not German-speakers.)

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeees!!! With my wonderful, amazing, lovely @kimmycup!!! ^-^

We've written a total of five fics together so far.

Three Shadowhunters fics: Hurting and Healing, a Magnus/Jace oneshot, Three Times the Boys Felt Left Out, a Jordan/Simon/Jace oneshot, A King By Any Other Name, a Alec/Jace oneshot.

A Vampire Academy oneshot about Mason/Christian: The Chance at a Happily Ever After.

And, our pride and joy, our 51k multichapter Shadowhunters/Vampire Academy crossover fic about Mason/Christian and Simon/Jace: Double Puppy Dare.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

That's such a hard question to answer for me as a multishipper.

But to be quite honest, I think I would have to go with Kaito/Shinichi from Detective Conan/Magic Kaito?

It's the ship I've been the most consistently been faithful to and that, whenever I see it, sparks joy. That has proven that even when the fandom's gone dormant for me for months or years, it can reignite into a wildfire, where other fandoms just fizzle out and disappear from my interests then.

These two get me, they've been getting me for one and a half decades now and I doubt they'll stop any time soon.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

All of my unfinished German fics over on Animexx. When the German Beyblade fandom started to die, I tried to cling on, but at one point... when all your favorite writers, all your friends, have moved on? And then I started reading fics in English and soon after, also writing them in English. I feel bad about it, but it's just been far too long now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Personally, I'd say world building. That's also my passion. I love creating elaborate worlds for my stories to take place in - I mean, damn, for the book series I'm writing, I developed my own language, religion and drew a map of the city it takes place in, among other things. A well-developed world is so important.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oh, fight scenes and action and other things that...

When a character is good at a thing that I am not good in or know a lot about?

Like, when a character is super quippy and funny, but I am not really a one-liners-person so now I have to come up with quippy one-liners to capture his personality?

Or fighting or science, when a character is an expert in a field that I know nothing about and would not understand jackshit about even if I tried because it's not my wheelhouse? Those things, I really struggle with.

Also, I hate action and fight scenes. Like. That's the parts when I check my phone usually to avoid that my eyes glaze over from boredom. So, naturally, writing these things? Not fun. Not good at it either, imo. But certain fics - or rather, certain characters too - require action and fight scenes.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Painful if you have to use Google Translate. If you know the language? Yeah, go for it! If you have to resort to Google Translate? Maybe just write it in italics and note that it's in x language. It spares both, the native speakers who will die from second hand embarrassment, and the non-speakers who... won't understand it anyway.

But in the cases that I use foreign languages (and usually when I do, it's just... pet-names. Things you can't really fuck up that much and things that people would say in another language even in English-main-dialogues), I always put the translation right behind the sentence, because it's a special brand of obnoxious when you have to scroll ALL the way to the end of a chapter or fic to see what tf you just read, and then scroll back up again.

Hate doing that, so I won't do that to my readers.

19. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Oh, that's Yu-Gi-Oh!, with a hurt/comfort Kaiba/Joey fic.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Can't answer that, it always depends on my current mood which of my babies I love the most ;P

Tagging @kimmycup and @justonemorechapternicercy and @fallenqueen2 for this fun! And anyone else who wants to do it! <3

[vivi-scera]

hey what's up! i wanted to drop in and say ur mellonear fanfic was AMAZING. easily one of the best works in the tag 💕. please please tell me ur going to write more for them. i just can't get over the amount of detail you put into it... if u don't mind talking about it... i just want to know how ur mind works pretty please 🤲

who— can you guys pls come off anon i'm begging and crying!!!

anyway THANKS SO MUCH. here i was bitching and moaning to my friends that that piece didn't turn out as well as i would've liked. can think of 2 or 3 fics off the top of my head that i love way more. but i'm so glad you liked it <333

and sad to say i am, in fact, not writing more for them <\3 i feel like i've said everything i can say about them? i mean they have like 10 lines total together how much more could i possibly extrapolate sdkjflhsf. i'm not a huge au writer tbh i pretty much only like working within canon. but you'll be happy to know i do plan on writing another death note fic (an au one though, surprisingly). just not for meronia. not telling which pairing but. near is in it trust. obvi it'll have meronia subtext.

and thank you thank you for the compliment about the details even though >.< i thought i didn't put in nearly enough. literally read that semi-canon side story in its entirety and only put in 2 things from it. and one of the things i straight up plagiarized <3 but we're gonna say i just referenced it.

i think i mostly just wanted to focus on how like childish yet mysterious they were. imagine you're kira, a functional god, and these 2 kids are running around without your knowledge trying to thwart you. you don't know what they look like, what they know about you, what they are to each other, what their names are, etc. etc. (they also represent the two halves of your would-be lover but we're not gonna go there). at the end of the day, they don't even care that much about YOU, a god (because they already had their own and well. you killed him)!! i guess i wanted to further emphasize that the stakes (for catching/stopping kira), for near & mello, weren't that high. at least,, not as high as beating each other (SO romantic). it was as if it were, as i referenced, just a game to them!! but a game sort of rigged against them, favoring the wammy industrial complex ofc. (the house always wins wink wink). but also,, it's all very tragic in the sense that they really have no other way to look at things. just child soldier things yknow.

idk there was some insane untapped story-telling potential there in the canon. the set-up sort of gave near & mello their own godhood statuses and stripped kira of his own. if i were to rewrite part 2 of death note i'd either keep it all strictly in light's pov or keep it all strictly in theirs. it did a disservice to the story/characters, imo, by attempting to keep the same dynamic/pov going from part 1. i'm not gonna lie and say the 2nd part was as good as the 1st sorryyy. because they were somewhat misutilized i never even considered the (incestuous) implications until someone ;) started posting about them ofc. then i thought about how much their dynamic reflected my personal favorite pairing of all time (knowers know) so i kind of took some preconceived notions and applied them. actually i was originally writing fic for afore-not-mentioned pairing and i'm pretty sure i just used lines from that to get started lmao.

anyway that's all i got atm. if i think of more i wanna talk about i'll write more <3 thx again for the ask!! feel free to ask more ofc ;3

[tamras-shieldmaiden]

Jinora and Ikki, for the character asks please! Oh, and Opal too! :D

Bob cut squad

1: sexuality headcanon 

Okay, so Jinora. I don’t have a defined sexuality headcanon for her but she strikes me as demisexual while I believe Ikki is ace. I think Opal is bi/pan but at the present she identifies as straight.

2: otp 

Jinora’s OTP is Kai. They look very cute together and I think they complement each other well. I don't have a romantic OTP for Ikki. For Opal, although I think her romance with Bolin is cute, I actually like the Korra/Opal pairing since their interactions while Korra was in Zaofu were brief but nice, but I’m not sure if it would be an OTP, so at the moment, her OTP is Bo.

3: brotp 

Jinora in canon has a great relationship with her aunt Kya and in a canon divergence AU, I believe she would strike an unexpected friendship with Kuvira because as I mentioned in my Kuvira headcanon, Kuvira enjoys the company of smart people and Jinora certainly fits the bill while Jinora is perceptive enough to see that underneath the aloof countenance, Kuvira has an awkward side to her that makes her relatable.

For Ikki, her brotp is her uncle Bumi. I think she would also get along well with Wei and Wing Beifong because they share the same carefree, energetic vibes.

Opal is Toph’s favorite grandkid and Toph makes absolutely no effort in hiding this fact, and it's fun to see cranky old Toph being protective and a softie for Opal. I think Opal would also get along very well with Asami. They have a lot in common if we think about it since they’re both rich girls from prominent families who have been underestimated.

4: notp 

Anything remotely incestuous is a big no-go for me for all three characters. I see those and I nope the hell away.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head 

Jiinora has been an avid reader since before she knew how to read well, and she would look at the pictures of the books fascinated. Once she learned how to read, which was earlier than most kids, she would spend hours in the library at Air Temple Island reading so much that she ended up memorizing the complete biographies of Yangchen and Aang. 

Ikki is the main Sky Bison caregiver, no doubt about it. She understands them so well that she can even predict which bison will bond with any Airbender.

Opal will eventually become master airbender and will earn her arrow tattoos before marrying Bolin, and she will eventually lead the new Air Nomads Temple in the Earth Kingdom. 

6: favorite line from this character 

Jinora: There haven't been this many airbenders in one place for a long time either. We have power together.

From Venom of the Red Lotus

What can I say? Jinora more than earned her Master tattoos here with her initiative and leadership.

Ikki: But, I guess the nice part about a family is they'll always be there for you. Even though Twinkle Starchild and Princess Rainbow fight, they still love each other. 

Book 2 Civil Wars part 2

Ikki, remembering what's most important

Opal: I'm glad you're okay, but it's a little late for "sorry". 

From Beyond the Wilds

Opal giving a piece of her mind to Bolin when he was trying to win her back never gets old. 😆

7: one way in which I relate to this character 

With Jinora is her love for books and learning. With Ikki I share the middle child syndrome, and what I can relate to with Opal is her strained relationship with a sibling.

8: thing that gives me secondhand embarrassment about this character 

Being related to Meelo 🤣

Opal: having to explain to everyone that her brother Baatar and Kuvira, who was raised as a "sister" were engaged. 😬

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

They’re all pure cinnamon rolls  😊

[tlbodine]

Gothic fiction has something of a modern reputation as a more high-brow, respectable type of horror. What people miss is that, despite the lush settings and well-bred genteel characters, Gothics are chock full of depravity. Taken in the context of their time, stripped of their flowery language and delivered bare-faced to a modern reader, they have significantly more in common with the contemporary extreme horror genre than you might think.

Don’t let the drafty castles and ghosts fool you. Gothic horror is built on a foundation of violence, rape, incest, and any other shock-inducing transgression you can imagine.

Some less-genre-savvy viewers of Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak were shocked and dismayed by the incestuous relationship at the story’s heart. But that film is a love letter to the Gothic, played straight and without ironic postmodern inversion — and incest is so inherent to the genre that it’s practically a requirement.

So what’s the deal? Why were the books of the late 1700s — and those inspired by them over the ensuing centuries — so obsessed with taboo familial relations?

Read more: https://tlbodine.substack.com/p/the-forbidden-family-love-in-gothic?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[brascu]

alright, since I’m 100% pro Sparrow Ben x Klaus, I’ll make my case

no one asked, but, hey, who cares?

First of all, it is stabilished in season one that these “siblings” did at times had romantic relationships with one another since they were raised as in some kind of institution, not as a family. If you’re gonna yell at me, call me names whatsoever, you shouldn’t be watching this show at all. 

Second, again about the “incest” thing, when they find out Lila is one of the october 1st children, they say “she’s one of them” and that they can be her family since the handler is a terrible person and would kill her. Is Diego and Lila’s relationship incestuous? nop :)

and Third, sparrow Ben, just like Lila (who is in a romantic relationsip with Diego), did NOT grow up with the main characters. He’s known them for what, a week? more or less, yeah. He does not see any of them as siblings.

And although most the umbrellas are like “nyaah I wanna look at your face cuz you look like our brother :3″, you know who is the only one who doesn’t do that after realising he is not the old Ben? YOU GUESSED RIGHT, KLAUS!

My Fourth point is that Klaus know his brother Ben is gone and says that with all it’s words in the second episode. “Ben is gone”, and that’s one of the main reasons he decides to look for his mother, because he never had a place for him, only by Ben’s side and now he is feeling alone. Klaus DOES NOT see Ben2 as his brother at all.

(I’m personally not into shiping Ben6 with Klaus, but I respect who is, as you can read why in my first point)

Now we have another thing from the show to back up my “there’s nothing wrong with shipping them”: After in season one Luther having a thing with Allison, who he grew up with, now he’ going out and GETTING MARRIED TO one Hargreeves. He’s literally marrying Ben’s sister and that’s not a big deal. It’s fast and kinda dumb? yeah, but it’s super in character and they both just hit it of so well.

Then why there are people in this fandom saying it’s wrong to ship Klaus and Ben2? Their relationship is the same as Luther ans Sloane’s!

I call it: H O M O P H O B I A

When straight people can do something but if gays do the same it’s wrong there’s NO OTHER NAME for it. And if you feel its sickening shiping Klaus and Ben2, you should feel sick about both of Luther’s romances ans just leave the fandom and the show behind lol

Now I’ll go back to defending my couple because that’s what I’m here for <3 (and if i can make you guys see how much of assholes you’ve been by shaming people’s ships, thats a bonus)

We all know that Ben is starved for recognition and being valuable and all that. And we also know he is some kind of Tsundere. But I need you to focus.

Been wants to be seen. And I’m sure he feels weird when these six people appear at his living room out of nowhere and look at him with loving eyes not even his own sibling have shown him. and when he understands he is the spitten image of someone they love, he gets pissed.

Those people want to look at him, not know him. They don’t really care about who he is as a person, they see him as a ghost. He’s there, but they’re not looking at him.

When he meets Klaus again, only at the wedding episode, Klaus doesn’t look at him as a pictureframe. Klaus finally tells him something about Ben6 and gives him support, for he is feeling lonely. And Klaus understands about lonely, that’s why he is a fucking supportive person to those around him. Just this season, he defends Lila from beeing left out, he tells Five he’s a good brother, he gives love and attention to Reginald, he looks after Stan ans listen to him. Klaus is this kind of person so we know that when he gives Ben attention, he’s not doing it because he looks like Ben6, he knows they aren’t the same person, he just wants to help.

Also, Klaus is also the only unbrella who only talks about Ben6 to Ben2 after he asks him, all the others throw comparrisons here and there.

And I believe this is the main reason they have a good time together at the wedding. Becausa Klaus treats Ben as his own person, not as Ben6′s ghost. He is not dancing with his dead brother, He’s dancing with this asshole who just showed him that he wants to be loved somehow.

You see how they’re friendly with each other, how Klaus is guiding him to be close to the others. Ben2 is not stupid, he can see that these idiots have so much love between them in a way he never could share with his powerfull “family”. We can see how he and Klaus are touchy, phisical.

Another point before I go on that I feel the NEED to point out is the fact that sparrow Ben is queer coded. The way he dresses, the way he speaks, the way he stands... He is like a “mean girl gay”. Like, the first thing he says to Klaus is a ironic compliment to his hat. And his last line in the show is “I’M OUT, BITCHES!” 

Ben2 is a queer man.

And after all that “arm in arm, Klaus laying on his lap” scene, the nex time we’ll see them after they left together is when they wake up. one on top of the other lol.

They’re not sleeping together? no, but look at the semiotics of this scene with me for a second: Ben wakes up laying on top of a pool table. He is shirtless and the first thing he looks for Klaus. Klaus is laying beneath the said table, on the floor, wearing a coat that is not his (that matches Ben’s pants) and his underwear, nothing else.

If you’ve never read some BL comics in your live, lemme tell you this: many many times when men are fucking, specially in corean BL comics, the man who tops fucks the other while wearing only his pants. And usually when this happens, the bottom is wearing only his shirt or coat. Can you see where I’m getting at?

And when they wake up, they are really friendly with each other, even Ben is smiling and being sweet UNTIL, pay attention, until Klaus does the dick move of telling him he knew Ben2 had something of Ben6 in him. Ben2 gets pissed and leaves.

Later, when Luther is talking to Five, Five says “everyone was boning everyone last night”. What means more than a couple was fucking. Alright, the married couple, who else? Crazy Allison? Sad Viktor? Five, who has a childs body? Reginald? That guy from the lobby? none of those had a person to fuck and Luther knew that. “Ben hooked up with someone?” and that someone could only be Klaus. (I admit I forgot about Lila and Diego, sorry, but my point stands for the way Five said it, it was not just the usual amount of fucking. It was more)

When we see them together again, They’re sitting at the same chair/couch/wathever is the name of that thing. Klaus is leaning agains the middle part towards Ben and is in a confortable position we havent seen him doing close to Ben2. He tries to make eye contact some times, he shakes his legs in front of him. Ben is giving him the back. It’s still the lingering of the previous scene.

and that elevator scene? It’s short, but you can see the same “please forgive me, love” we’ve seen whyle Regiland is talking about the cave. It’s not that Ben dislikes Klaus, he is hurt. And for a second he is also hurt when he hears of Klaus’ death, but he’s just not built for feeling.

Then he has this argument with Sloane where we can see he is jealous of her finding a place where she belongs to. Ben and Klaus both long for belonging. (and in this episode both are not feeling it, they both don’t wanna do what they’re suposed to do and have one of the newlyweds fight them for it)

And when he learns dad killed Klaus he goes off. He is between his father and Klaus, who is HOLDING HIS FUCKING RIGHT HAND OVER HIS LEFT CHEST. It’s the final straw. 

And till the end of the series we are always shown their reactions: one’s after the other’s. Klaus wakes from the dead again, Ben get’s up. Klaus steps on the star, Ben is the next to do so.

Ben leaves as soon as Klaus leaves after Luther.

You can disagree about the romantic thing if you don’t ship them, but you must agree 1 Klaus is already dear to Ben2 and 2 It’s plausible and OK to ship them

(also, their ship number is 42 which means they’re the answer to the question)

[uptonobueno]

but also on the lack of queerness in the early/main characters in the tvd universe, how are they expecting us to realistically believe that these vampires, especially the ones that have been alive for multiple centuries, haven’t at least had queer sex? like first of all the mikealsons were across an entire ocean from the religions of the book, and had their viking belief system (which tbh i have not and will not do research on to see their views on gay people), somehow stayed straight for 1,000 years despite not having the religious beliefs that made homosexuality a sin? like they’re vampires, created by witches, and immortal, you’re telling me they haven’t at least had queer dalliances or relationships in the past? As if, at the very least, curiosity wouldn’t get the better of you after your fiftyleventh decade roaming the earth? like they honestly expect me to believe that rebecca NEVER had a relationship with a woman? an intense female friendship that ended up turning into more? c’monnnn, over all those years, rebecca who wanted nothing more than female comradery and community, never found a woman that said all the right things, touched all the right places, and who touching felt irresistible? please. i love her with marcel and all, but you can’t tell me she’s never had a female love and i would give an arm and a leg for a ff fanfic with rebeccaxoc in some random time period or maybe a royal court? idk something. i guess finn i can believe since he was daggered for mostly all of the time, but elijah would be a snappy theatre gay but like director or orchestra conductor or some very critical behind the scenes role that i don’t know about. kol is obviously a chaotic pansexual who usually tops but is clearly the one in control when he takes a more submissive role, like you cannot tell me that his near millenia of being close with witches left him a cis straight man, no ... my gay little heart cannot take it, like he has been pegged, he does enjoy it, he gives off the vibes that he fucks, he fucks well - you will finish, it will be fantastic, and no one is off limits. even as kaleb, kol as a character is chaotically bi or pan sexual and no one is safe. klaus is less likely to have had a significant romantic relationship with a man, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been fucked or fucked a man. you’re telling me that, by the sheer amount of time suffered bc of immortal life, the man with the worst daddy issues of all time never questioned everything he ever learned & when first presented with the option of a male lover didn’t jump at the chance? please. we only see scheming & defensive klaus really in the show, always in some sort of combat or fight or drama, but calm klaus? good time klaus? klaus hidden away from the world, unable to be reached, or vacation klaus? art world klaus? can’t tell me the art world ain’t always been full of us queers, he’s been presented plenty of opportunities and he has partaken i guarantee you, even if it was only once to satisfy curiosity.  like i’ve only been alive for ~26 years and i’m already bored by life a lot of the time. after centuries and centuries & especially not under the influence of christianity, how would one not have had gay lovers? you’re telling me that lucian&klaus’s and elijah&tristan’s relationships didn’t feel like simple platonic friendship vibes? i feel like something happened b/w at least elijah&tristan, but tristan’s love map is creepily incestual with is sister that ofc nothing could come of it, plus the power dynamic between them, elijah - the one in charge, the one who turned him, the one who demeans him, but tristan likes it. had this been an hbo show or anything other that a cable network, tristan would absolutely follow elijah’s every command, he’s such a sub, he just has to be in charge with his sister & he was elijah’s first sire, so he can’t be embarrassing and let him down so he leads the strix, but there was something more to their relationship, cw was just didn’t show us what it was.

[shepherds-of-haven]

If characters had a Game of Thrones style house banner and motto, what would they be?

Ooh, this is an interesting one!

House Bronwyn: "The Darkness Answers" or "Weapons in the Silent Night" - a silver wolf on a field of black, with a white blade piercing the background. Their house is known for operating as a kind of shadow military that influences and directs things from the shadows, and although the wolf has connotations of solitude and aloofness, they are actually extremely loyal "pack-animals" who form a tight-knit clan and unwaveringly answer the call of duty... no matter how bloody their hands may get from answering.

House Alder: "First in the Charge" or "Our Fury Shakes Them" - a gold lion roaring rampant on a field of red (so, yeah, Gryffindor I guess!). This one is fairly self-explanatory--the Alder house is known by others to produce some of the fiercest and most courageous warriors, though they also have a reputation for being brash and hot-headed. Alder soldiers are always sent in to "hold the line" and are infamous for never abandoning the field or retreating, even when it leads to certain death. "Our Fury Shakes Them" also refers to their propensity to use cannon-fire and gun blasts to destroy their enemies.

House Ironwood: "Our Roots Run Deep" or "The First, The Last, The Eternal" - a golden oak tree on a forest-green banner with a trim of autumn red. Their house is among the oldest and was once known as one of the most powerful military forces on the Continent, with a cadre of skilled Elven knights being produced by that house, but as time went on and the world changed, the house fell into semi-obscurity or became more known for its archival work and love of history, causing some to look down on it as a house of scholars. Whenever they try to invoke the promises and alliances of old, others roll their eyes at House Ironwood's unwillingness to change and adapt to the world around it. As a result, House Ironwood tends to isolate itself from other houses, swearing only to trust their own kind. Their current scion gets them into a lot of trouble for challenging an heir of a Norm house to a duel for slandering the name of House Ironwood, and then killing him in the ensuing standoff. This has led to military reprisals against House Ironwood, and they find themselves in a precarious position of being surrounded by enemies and having isolated former friends.

House Acquell: "Faith is a Shield and Love the Cure" or "Many Hearts Beating as One" - a Celtic-looking knot or a chain of hands interlocking around a heart. This house is looked down upon by more militaristic houses for being a generally trusting, pacifistic house. Its holdings are small and its lineage is quite new, but the house is beloved by its own people due to its scions working as healers, clerics, and devotees of charity, often seen among the streets of their city and passing out food and coin. House Acquell is an extremely religious house, and many of its heirs and heiresses join the Church to become priests and priestesses. The founder of the house was first canonized as a saint.

House Syndran: "Out of Cruelty, Justice" or "The Cunning Conquer" - a black crow or raven spreading its wings on a field of royal purple. This house was built on mercantile roots, but its influence now stretches far and wide, reaching into all matters of business, politics, intrigue, and even war. Its scions are famed for their ruthlessness and willingness to go completely scorched-earth on their enemies, and for their ability to lie and manipulate even nominal allies with completely straight faces. The house leader always bears a gold-capped walking cane. Although its military power is weak, it makes up for it with the host of allies under its economic control. You can always make out the Syndrans at a party by the cadre of serious-faced, dark-haired heirs staring at the proceedings like they're a play under watchful critique. Although not known for being friendly, House Syndran also prides itself on impeccable etiquette and manners.

House Trinaeste: "If I Am Not Free, Then I Am Dead" or "Many Skills, Many Virtues" - a black cat on a field of gold, with two crossed daggers in the background and a key lying at its feet. The "Many Skills, Many Virtues" motto is something of an in-joke, because this house is known for its willingness to train its heirs in even unsavory skills--such as thievery and seduction--in order to ensure their survival. Many heirs are sent to special training at a secret academy on an island south of Conte--though what they are taught there, no one but the Trinaestes knows for sure. As such, this house is shunned by many for its unorthodox values and behavior, and not much is known about the inner workings of the house itself. The heirs and heiresses all seem like empty-headed fops who love to chase skirts (or whatever article of clothing they so desire), so no one ever takes them seriously... but that's their mistake, because House Trinaeste actually has the greatest network of spymasters and intelligence operatives this world has ever seen. They apparently have a lot of bastard children or sometimes even unrelated orphans whom they happily accept into their house anyway, which is another reason why the other houses shun them. They also supposedly have some ties to seafarers and pirates as well as a fleet of ships at their disposal.

House Antiqua: "The Road Not Taken" or "The World to Roam" - a golden globe on a field of deep scarlet/maroon/magenta, though from certain angles, the globe can also like the sun or moon (or all three). House Antiqua is composed of just straight up scholars. Sometimes a second son or a third daughter goes into military service or serves in a great battle and makes a distinction of themselves, but it's never on the level of an Alder, Bronwyn, Aescar, or Stormbreaker. By and large, they're known as a house of oddly-attractive, well-born nerds, more fodder for marriages and families rather than candidates that could bring about great change. They don't really get much of a say in anything among the greater houses, but that suits them just fine. They're like the classic Jane Austen-style families where they just hang out and read books and entertain visitors sometimes LMAO. They are neither very rich nor destitute; neither isolated nor up in everyone's business. They are on friendly terms with most houses, but no one takes them all that seriously when it comes to important matters like war or politics. They are known to serve as advisors and consultants in times of need, however. Many of their heirs leave the house and travel across the world using secret identities when they reach a certain age; it's something of a cliché among their inner circle. They eventually develop strong ties to House Syndran after one son casually beats the Syndran heir in chess during a party.

House Aescar: "The Wind is With Us" or "It Is Us Who Fly" - a tan flying eagle with a serpent-like staff clutched in its talons, soaring on a field of light blue. House Aescar is known for its terrifying use of theatrics in order to instill fear into the hearts of their enemies on the battlefield. They utilize war paint, war chants and screams, and unsettling war horns in order to rev up their soldiers before battle. Like House Alder, they have a reputation for not having a head for politics; they'd prefer you to just point them at the enemy and let them do their thing, and they have little patience for the trappings of politics and diplomacy. If the Continent were divided up into wards where certain houses were in charge of defending the borders from invasion, House Aescar would be the guardians of the West; House Prince, House Ironwood, and House Bronwyn would the guardians of the North; House Stormbreaker, House Trinaeste, and House Syndran would be the guardians of the South; and House Alder, House Antiqua, and House Naveen would be the guardians of the East. The fact that House Aescar is tasked with guarding the West alone is a point of pride for its heirs and scions. The youth of the house tends to be charged with going on a pilgrimage throughout their lands to observe how the common folk live. They are expected to return with worthwhile thoughts or findings about how to improve the house or its holdings, and if their opinions are interesting and well-thought-out, they are allowed a voice in the house's governing council.

House Prince: "Keepers of the North" or "Righteous in Wrath" or "Darkness Flees Our Light" - a white spear with a white shield behind it, radiating rays of light on a field of black. Not much is known about House Prince, except that its current heirs are a set of twin boys. Its military force is known for being utterly loyal, almost to the point of fanaticism, and the house has close ties to House Bronwyn due to their proximity to each other. House Prince is known among the other houses for being insistent on keeping its bloodlines pure and marrying its heirs to the Hunter scions of other close-knit families or even distant cousins, leading some to joke surreptitiously that the house is "incestuous." At one point in time, the older twin heir of the current generation disappeared for a year or two, forcing his brother to assume the guise of both twins to prevent the house from looking weaker to its outside enemies. Certain heirs of the Prince House are said to be cursed with a mysterious affliction that causes them to fall into fits of madness and rage, especially at the sight of blood, and for these reasons, many of them live in reclusive isolation in their castle, rarely seen by the outside world.

House Stormbreaker: "Thunder and Lightning" or "The Storm Stands Vigilant" or "From the Stars We Came, To the Stars We Rise" - a golden, starry ship sailing on a teal sea as lightning splits the banner in half and a dragon swims underneath the ship. House Stormbreaker is among the most sought-after houses for its explosive military prowess and strength, affording it a lot of political and negotiating power. Its heirs and scions are known to be gifted with extraordinary strength and a strange knack for avoiding almost certain death, serving with distinction as battlemasters, generals, and occasionally as knights and champions. A legendary sword is said to be passed from leader to leader, with no one but those of pure Stormbreaker blood being able to even pick the sword up. They are also known as a clan of sailors and are able to deploy their own naval fleet to defend the coastline as needed. Although they have a ferocious, proud, and hot-tempered reputation, heirs of the Stormbreaker house are sometimes not taken seriously in matters of court due to their strange pink hair. Despite this, scions of House Stormbreaker are among the most sought-after candidates for marriage, as people desire their mysterious superstrength and magic to be incorporated into their own houses. However, for reasons unknown, the House Stormbreaker is extremely strict with such marriages, and arrangements are often made three or more generations ahead of time in a careful curation of the bloodline.

House Naveen: "Gold in Peace, Steel in War" or "Not Without Thorns" - a scarlet rose on a field of lavender with two crossed rapiers in the background. House Naveen is the most powerful and influential of all of the Houses when it comes to sheer political power, rivalled only by House Syndran. Its military strength is only better than average, but its holdings, wealth, and political connections are vast and storied. Its current heiress is infamous for refusing suitors and continually denying her father's attempts to secure a marriage, focusing instead on joining chivalric orders and continually maneuvering situations in House Naveen's favor. House Naveen holds the honor of being among the last houses to continue ancient traditions such as jousting and knightly tournaments, but it's their celebrations and social occasions that the house is truly known for. The Naveens are said to employ a spy in the servants of every house aside from House Bronwyn, Prince, and Ironwood. What they do with that information, however, no one knows. On the surface, the Naveen house seems to be largely magnanimous and benign... Interestingly, they have offered an extension of aid to House Ironwood to get out of its dueling problem, but so far, House Ironwood has not given a reply.

House Naveen has also been largely matriarchal in the past, something that still informs its power structure to this day. This makes it a target of scorn by other powerful and male-led noble houses (such as House Eddon, Auberon's house), but it's something that the Naveens flaunt proudly with the rose as their insignia!

[mindibindi]

In place of my usual post-ep shitposting I want to give to the writers of “Ted Lasso” a huge and very sincere:

because what a BRILLIANT way to ruin an episode/season/series in 3 fucking seconds. I can't even go into all the things I LOVED about this episode because I am so disappointed in this show. At some point, I will probably get around to reblogging gifs of Rebecca Welton because I love her so much but right now I wish I didn't. I especially wish I didn't have to watch Hannah trying to cheerfully sell this ridiculous turn of events.

And no, please don't remind me about the dark forest blahblahblah. Because there is a very big difference between an Act II that develops on Act I, creating believable obstacles for beloved characters and....whatever the FUCK this is. Just because you give an in-universe warning doesn't mean you have carte blanche to do whatever the hell you want.

NB: if you ship a QUEEN and a baby, this post is not for you

Let me be clear here: “Ted Lasso” is one big found family trope. There are two basic tiers. The parents: Ted, Rebecca, Higgins, Beard and Sharon. And the children: Nate, Will and the Players. (Roy and Keeley kind of float between as the cool aunt and uncle). Canonically, according to this trope, Rebecca is Sam's mum. Literally, she is old enough to be his mum. Her teen-aged god-daughter crushes on this young man who is almost too pure for his own good. Even implying there might be something romantic, or even worse, sexual between these two strikes me as straight-up incestuous. So. I guess they really are replicating the beats of “The Empire Strikes Back” (that's the one where Leia kisses Luke, right?)

It is true that Sam had some lovely moments with his boss in season 1. But putting two characters in a scene together does not automatically establish a romantic connection. Keeley has been supportive of Nate who thinks she is “s'wonderful” but I assume we aren't going to find out next week that they've been having an affair behind Roy’s back because Nate wants to get back at him for taking up space on the coaches bench and Keeley kinda likes having a sweet, soft man around. It’s worth noting that Keeley was also supportive of Sam withdrawing from the DubaiAir campaign. There was no perceivable difference in her and Rebecca’s reactions in this moment. Both reacted with professional understanding and absolutely nothing more.  

Most people will cite the scene in s1 where Sam asks his boss to attend the team exorcism as proof that they were set up as a potential romantic pairing. But here's the thing: when Rebecca thinks he's asking her out, he quickly assures her he isn't without wounding her fragile ego post-divorce. You know that saying: when someone tells you who they are, believe them? Well, when Rebecca expressed hesitation at being approached by this child who she employs, who is still finding his feet in a foreign country, I believed her. I believed she knew right from wrong. I believed she wasn't keen on following in the footsteps of her slimy ex-husband. And when Sam sensitively assured her that he was not going to be yet another man to act inappropriately towards her, especially in her place of work, especially when she was still attempting to establish herself there and especially when he barely knew her, I believed him. I believe that those assurances of who they were as ethical individuals was what allowed the charming conversation that followed to transpire. I believe that it was Sam's genuine concern for the team and not some ulterior motive in either of them, that inspired him to speak with her and her to join the team that night. (Not to mention all the work Ted had done to soften her up before Sam even dared to darken her door).

No matter what they do from here, that lovely scene and the few other moments they have shared prior to this ep have now been marred, used for the wrong narrative purpose. You know the platonic m/f friendship that all the antis were screaming about being represented? That was it. There it was. And there it goes. A young man and an older woman from different countries with very different lives, neither with much of a support system outside of the club, who came together under the banner of TEAM, of FAMILY. They had the appropriate amount of warmth, the appropriate amount of professional respect and, most importantly, healthy boundaries when it came to their different roles within the club. The only scenario I can possibly conceive of to rescue this stupid plot twist is that Sam is parent trapping Ted and Rebecca (BECAUSE THEY’RE HIS PARENTS). Even that would be a major boundary violation but less so than the idea of something actually occurring between two people with such a huge age gap and power imbalance.

Look, this is not my first rodeo. I've been through “The X-Files”, “SVU” and “Game of Thrones” to name but a few of my biggest shippy disasters. I have done HARD shipper time. But when this show came along some small remnants of hope tentatively ignited, despite my intellect attempting to overrule them. When this show told me who it was, I believed it -- or at least I wanted to. “Ted Lasso” came along and said: Howdy folks, we ain't like other shows. We’re a comedy that cares. We're a drama that heals. We're gonna break some rules, mess around with some tropes and shake things up a bit. But we're not gonna create unnecessary drama. We’re not gonna draw out unhealthy relationships, no sir, not here. We’re not gonna emotionally stunt our characters or prevent ‘em from growin’ in the right direction. We're gonna love and pay attention to our characters cos we know you do too. We know you’re not fools. So we’re not gonna just subvert expectations for the heck of it. We ain’t out for shock value, for twists and turns you don't see coming. We’re not gonna pull the ole bait and switch on y’all. We're going to be consistent. We're going to be kind. We're going to be ethical in our storytelling. You can count on us, folks. You’re in safe hands with us.

Well, guess what? We just got Led Tassoed.

. 

gif by @tedllasso

[scrawnytreedemon]

Shit I’ve Been Winding Up For A Long Time Now But Am Very Aware Will Probably Hold No Relevance Should I Actually Go Into This More--

This is about Bhunivelze.

I.

You know, when I was chilling out, on my bed, that evening on that half term in early June, deciding to check up on ClementJ64′s FF retrospective because-- Hey! It’s been awhile, I wonder if he’s got around to doing the final bit of the FFXIII saga --You know, I was there, chilling, just for a laff. Just a laff.

The rest of that week was spent spiralling into a hyperfixation I absolutely did not anticipate in any way, shape, or form, because the way they introduced that character was “wwhdhfjjhHJDFJKHKJHW H A T??”

That retrospective and a good amount of wiki-scrounging is all I have as a basis for this. This is not a coherent character analysis-- Though I might tag it as that for ease of access. This is not, by any means, the thoughts of someone deeply familiar with FFXIII on the whole beyond plot synopses and overarching themes.

I don’t think I’m brave enough for that.

Reading the vast yet surface-deep lore on those wiki pages on my birthday while in a delirious state of mind was enough to make me somewhat nauseous.

Do you think I’m going to go through all of that in real time?

(Someday, someday.)

Ugh, I don’t know how to begin, but let us, I guess. I’d recommend you read this church-mime-demiurge’s FF Wiki page if you want the same level of base-knowledge I had, and maybe the aformentioned retrospective if you want the experience, because I don’t think I have the wherewithal to get into all of that from the bottom-up.

I am also, so, so fucking sorry for any remaining FFXIII fans in advance. There is like, a good chance I may be butchering the characterisation completely, so bear with me here.

With that... we begin?

Where do we even start with this guy?

How on earth to you begin to explain the absolute monolith you’ve constructed from crumbs of a Guy, some material no doubt spliced in from the Pale King, Sephiroth, y o u r  o w n  G o d  O C and other characters, and the mountains of religious trauma you carry around at all times that is probably the only reason you’ve been able to latch on as hard as you did?

I’m going to try.

What gets me, in summary, about Bhunivelze is how he’s a prime example of how love and concern can become deadly forces if in the wrong hands. His first acquainting with human emotion was by deceiving and possessing Hope, reverting his body to a teenage state, and planning to live among humanity through him. He sees human sorrow and suffering, and decides that, to End This(because it must be ended, you see) he’s going to destroy all the souls of the deceased that make up the Chaos that’s been eating this world for the past five-hundred years so they all forget and Are Happy. :).

Capital G God here hasn’t been present for the vast part of human history because he’s hidden himself away from Everything due to paranoia from killing his own mother and throwing her body into the Cosmic Basement, THEN creating the beings that would come to create humanity and OTHER beings because he didn’t have the keys to the cosmic basement. And also he believes death is a thing because she’d’ve somehow cursed all things to pass(including him) out of Spite.

Which explains why he’s so fucking averse to it and anything to do with it.

Bhunivelze, to put it lightly, is Shit at stepping into others’ shoes and Getting their experiences-- All the FalCie in FFXIII are, but him especially. It’s clear(again, in the f u c k i n g JP--) that he makes attempts to sympathise with them and does what he can to help, but it’s with such a loftiness and a complete inability to Understand why anyone would want grief, The Worst Fucking Experience In Existence, and even less why they’d be willing to Go Up Against Him And HisThe New Perfect World just for it-- And what would it matter, anyway, forgetting their loved ones. It’s not like you can grieve lost memories, right?

Right.

It reminds me of when at the end of the story of Job in the Bible, where, after putting this man through hell on earth, God rewards Job by giving him ten new children to make up for the ones that he lost. I. And that’s fucked! Nothing can replace the sheer uniqueness of each individual person you loved so dearly! But if you were a nigh-omnipotent deity high and mighty, with a cursory, almost mechanical knowledge on the functionings of the human psyche, that would seem adequete; enough.

Bhunivelze is doing that on a cosmic level.

I now want to get onto the romance: that being, his affections for Lightning. I don’t know how much I’m going to say, but it’ll probably be alot. It’s something that hits very close to home.

There is this... thing, within certain branches of Christianity, perhaps even in those of various Abrahamic faiths, where God’s love is posited to be the love-- The ultimate, most-fulfilling, all-encompassing love you could ever imagine --Because, well, he is love, so the story goes, and so often the best way to convey that is through the imagery of...

Marriage.

Giving up yourself so completely, to serve, to be the Bride; to be bound by him for all eternity; and for there to be no higher bliss than this.

This angle is pushed on young girls and women the most; from the mere parallels to the woman’s role in marriage, all the way down to downright-horrifying ultra-Evangelical purity pacts. With men, God is your dad, your best bud and confidant, your boss, your king, your this, your that, and the ‘marriage‘ as it were is relegated to a sort of half-thought; a metaphor.

For me, God was an attempt at all that, and my arranged groom.

(It was almost incestuous; was incestuous, that my own Divine Father would reach for my hand in marriage.)

Bhunivelze experiences Emotions™ for the first time through Hope, experiences Hope’s sheer overwhelming admiration for Lighting(whether there were any baby-crush feelings mixed in, I can’t say), and promptly falls into a nigh-romantic obsession with Lightning, deciding that she will be Etro(his all-but daughter)’s replacement, will be his Goddess of Death to-be-- He even calls her as such, before the final boss-battle--

...In the JP.

What happened in localisation, probably due to a number of factors, all the way back in early 2014, was that everything emotionally challenging about Bhunivelze was scraped off, like it was extra fat, and tossed aside, leaving us with the bland, clichéd shell of a foe-god we’ve seen time and time again. And I mean everything. I mean his very love for humanity; the fact his ploy was, in his eyes, to save them. Because if they’d left that all on, then it would raise the question of even if there was such a seemingly pure, all-knowing, loving being hell-bent on setting things “straight,“ would they truly be unquestionable? Would we have the right to fight for our humanity in the face of the Creator of the Universe?

To reject a love so personal?

That’s what gets me about FFXIII’s tackling of God, no matter how hackneyed and poorly-executed. It’s personal.

It’s from a feminine experience.

I know that terming is... vague, and problematic, but the way Christianity and much of the video game industry handle femininity itself is weird and problematic, so as it stands, I’ll have to simplify it. Apologies.

What sets FFXIII’s Let’s Kill God™ plot aside from most JRPG Let’s Kill God™ plots is that with our protagonist being a woman, and one who is very in touch with her femininity alongside her sheer strength; often, in these stories, God is reduced to Yet Another Foe, expected or unexpected, and you are tasked with taking him down unquestioningly for the Good of Mankind-- You will fight God, because you are right to, and you will go man-to-man-to-however-many-men you decide to bring along for the bloodbath.

And that just, doesn’t speak to me.

Even as an Extian.

Especially as an Extian. And an AFAB one with a deeply complicated experience with my gender, at that.

Leaving Christianity was painful. Questioning God was painful. Coming to terms with the fact that I had been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually traumatised under the guise of All-Encompassing Love was so, so fucking painful. I had been taught since I was five years old to devote myself to him, spent my life desperate to feel something, anything, to stay connected because I just, I never could Feel It on a deeper level, never could Give Up Myself, all I was, couldn’t Die A Spiritual Death And Be Reborn As His Eager Vessel, thus deeming myself to be worthless and a broken vessel for years and years on end... And for all that to have been... Nothing.

Lightning is hollowed out, the shards of her dead sister ripped from her in-stasis, leaving her emotionally numb for the majority of the game, Bhunivelze sweeps it under the rug, pretends he’ll perform a miracle and return Serah to life in exchange for her compliance, then sends her on her way to do his work, all the while knowing he’s going to pull said-rug from under her and elevate her such dizzying heights in the aftermath--

That he’ll deny her humanity.

Sand down all the rough edges that make her her, and polish her up afterwards, gild her as he is gilded, make her a Goddess.

And he’ll do it all because he loves her.

You can’t fight God like you can everything else. To fight It is the fight Existence Itself; FFXIII even conveys that by making Bhunivelze’s model part of the arena; it’s baked into the fabric of the game, no matter how minute.

While Lightning Returns is far from perfect in its execution of this concept, and that in itself makes me wince, not even taking into account the horribly botched excuse for a localisation Bhunivelze endured, it speaks to me more than anything else I’ve seen so far.

And it’s helped uncover some things within me. Helped me untangle them, just a little more.

So, yeah. I have alot of Thoughts on Bhunivelze, I want to share them, and I’m kinda really sad I have no one but my currently-absent friend Vee to share them with. I could get into alot more, like his very Fucked relationship with familial bonds, and how Lightning’s role as saviour so deeply parallels the overwhelming panic and never-ending guilt of Evangelical proselytisation, but I think I’ll leave those for another time.

In short, Bhunivelze is the epitome of Divine Love gone deeply wrong; on all fronts.

And if all of that isn’t enough to intrigue you, then, in Vee’s words, Lightning and Velze are literally canon endgame Sefikura lmaOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--

[charnine]

Antis just love playing spin the wheel of randomness on why Reylo is "problematic". So far Reylo is:

Homophobic: Because it's a straight ship. That's it. That's literally the only reason. Meanwhile other ETL ships that are gay/lesbian are touted as awesome.

Misogynistic: Again, because it's straight.

Racist: Because it's white. That's it.

Pedophilic: Because there's a 10 year difference between Rey and Ben. You're the ones infantilizing a grown woman, but Reylos are the pedophiles. Right. I'd also like to know how this logic applies to Han/Leia and Finn/Poe, I'm guess ants make an exception for those, because only Reylo is gross of course.

Incestual: Because of some dead theory about Palpatine being Anakin's "father". I've also seen this gem "Reylos support incest because they shipped this Rey/Kylo when most of the fandom thought they were related." The goddamn idiocy. Some people supported a theory that turned out to be false, but it's still incest because of that theory.

Abusive: I don't have time to explain why enemies on opposite side of a war can't abuse each other because they're not in a fucking relationship. Yes, they will try to hurt and even kill each other at first. There's a thing called character development that some of you don't seem to understand.

Seriously, y'all cant address actual problems in media so you pick on a popular ship like that's going to make you the saviour of fandom. Oh, and the people mad about being called "antis", we call you antis to be polite, what we really mean is something much ruder.

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

With more articulation, I'm ready to talk about why the push for Lokius simply bothers me, and this can be said for other m/m or w/w ships that fans push to be canon so hard just because they ship it.

It's the framing. The framing that if Marvel doesn't do it (or whatever the brand is), it's because homophobia, and if other fans don't like it/ship it, it's because homophobia (even if they ship other queer ships and are queer themselves.) And the biggest problem with that is that it overshadows the REAL issue of lack of queer representation on screen in mainstream nerd media, especially from big things under the Disney umbrella (Marvel and Lucasfilm/Star Wars, especially.)

It makes it bad that your ship isn't canon instead of bad that there haven't been any queer romances on screen in the MCU.

And like, as a writer myself, I find myself dissecting the stories of other media all the time. I can watch an MCU movie or series and pretty much assess what direction the story is going in by the narrative points they're hitting. I knew Sylki was basically gonna happen (even if just a kiss) because narratively, that's what the show was doing as soon as they had that "what is love" conversation on Lamentis-1. It didn't mean I liked it. But I knew it was happening.

Similarly, there's no romantic undertones to Loki and Mobius. None. For Marvel to make them a couple, it would mean they'd be doing it simply because the two present as men and it would make stans happy. And while there's something to be said for fan service, it would be annoying to watch them cram two guys together who aren't romantic in the slightest. I'd much rather see Loki meet some guy and have the same type of undertones they were giving to Sylvie and form a real bond to where the kiss feels earned and warranted. Not just put him with the nearest man because "he gay lol."

And how you guys are claiming it's being queer that makes you want this is beyond me. It's not being queer that makes you want this. I don't want queer characters that fuck everyone of whatever gender(s) they're attracted to even when it doesn't make sense for them to. I want real love stories. I mean, yeah, sometimes we can have a slut character, because that's fun, too, but that's not even what y'all think Lokius is. You seem to want them to be in love. But why? Because he's the first friend Loki made that isn't through Thor?

I hate that, too, because I hate this idea that queer people cannot have friends of their same gender without wanting to fuck them. IDK how y'all are, maybe y'all are like that, but I almost never have wanted to fuck any of my friends. The only few exceptions have been when I tried to befriend someone I had a crush on (in which case, usually the friendship can't work, really, because I have a crush on them.) I also think it's okay if you can have casual sex with friends, or if you have a friendship that develops into romance, but Jesus, do you people not have friends that you don't want to fuck? I am bi, maybe more pan (gender kind of doesn't matter to me, I guess) and I'm friends with people of all kinds of gender identities and like... I love them as people, which is why they're my friends, but I DO NOT want to fuck them. Especially my closest friend. I talked about her, before, here, but she's like my sister. The thought of fucking her is gross, to me. Not because she's gross, but because it feels incestuous.

Loki shouldn't want to fuck Mobius just because they developed a friendship. And that's very much how it's written on the series. They almost dislike each other (or Mobius is at least indifferent to Loki) and then they become friends.

That's not to mention the power dynamic that exists, there. And I know some of y'all are subs, but yeah, it's a bit gross to imply a sexual relationship with Loki's captor.

But on to Sylki. It sucks that I feel like most of y'all hate Sylki because Sylvie is a girl, and not just because it's bad in other ways. Like, the reasons Sylki is bad have less to do with "it should have been Mobius" and more to do with it being a lazy 1980s action movie plot that should have never happened. I'm not as creeped out by the selfcest (as many of you wouldn't have been if she was a he, I'm almost positive), but what's bad about it is that they couldn't have a strong female lead character without her being the love interest of the main guy. She didn't need to be, especially because she was a Loki variant, anyway. There was no need for it to have romantic undertones, and there was no need for them to kiss. It was sexist more than it was homophobic (and I can't help feeling like y'all are kind of being biphobic in this case. Maybe I'll talk about that, later, but yeah.) It was sexist bullshit. And there's valid criticism that Sylvie is underdeveloped. She's just angry and something for Loki to project affection onto.

I was also hoping they'd do a "found family" type of thing with Sylvie and Loki and let her be like the sister he never knew he needed, but no, they had to go trope and make her the love interest. It was lazy and bad and basically went "If Loki girl, main Loki want bone!"

Basically, having the main character fall for a character just because of their proximity and gender is bad and I hate it (and it would have been bad with Mobius, too, but yeah.)

Both the Mobius and the Sylvie thing also feel kind of racist, to me, because the show has prominent Black women who aren't even presented as desirable to Loki. And y'all, of course, ship him with anyone but the Women of Color. Y'all can pull true love with Mobius out of your ass, but he couldn't possibly fall for the Black women. lol.

Anyway. Not every show needs ships, and this show shouldn't have had any. I hate it. It's bad.

I guess on the biphobia front, I have heard some takes that it's not biphobic because Loki being queer in the MCU which hasn't shown any queer relationships, and Loki being the first openly queer character means they shouldn't have shown him with a woman presenting character. Which, I guess I get where you're coming from... but I have also been in fandoms for a long time and I see mostly girls saying this shit, which is what leads me to feel like it's simply jealousy. It happens all the time when a long-beloved single male character/celebrity suddenly starts dating a woman. Everyone hates it. And like, we haven't seen Loki be with ANYONE in the MCU, because mostly he's been doing villainy and his dating life hasn't been relevant. If the demigod says he's bi, he can kiss a woman. Especially a woman version of himself. Like I said, I hate it for other reasons, but pretending it's because he should have kissed Mobius is utterly delusional. He probably shouldn't have kissed anyone. Not in this series. There was no reason for any canon romance, especially because the show has a season 2 and we'll have time to see Loki develop earned, deserved romance with someone.

I'd much rather see them create a character just to be his boyfriend than have y'all push Marvel into making Lokius canon, which is a nonsense ship that only happened because Mobius is the only prominent male-presenting character before we meet the other Lokis.

My sincere wish is for people to remember that their ships are just ships and to enjoy them without getting all self-righteous about it. I TOLD y'all that Lokius wasn't gonna be canon like 4 episodes back, and here y'all are acting shocked and like Marvel took something from you. NOBODY expected y'all to ship Lokius. It's not even queerbait.

You can make clear arguments as to why Sambucky was queerbait. It's there in undertones in the actual series.

You cannot watch Loki and tell me you thought it was queerbait, unless you think men can't have conversations or hug goodbye without being romantically involved. Which means, in my opinion, that you need to learn about healthy masculinity.

Again, this is not a defense of Marvel. They DO need to let characters be queer, for real, and not just by saying " A bit of both". Like, let Loki be queer. Let Deadpool be queer. Let these queer characters be queer on screen. Yes.

But please stop making it about your ship. I'd rather see a flashback of Loki dating a guy and see him kiss someone he loved back on Asgard than watch y'all force Lokius. Because my queer rep is not about your crackship. It really isn't. And the fact that y'all keep calling us homophobic for not liking your ship REALLY needs to be addressed.

Like, when will y'all stop? I got on Stucky shippers about this shit in the past. All of us gay as hell, too, we just don't like YOUR ship. A lot of us like other queer ships. A lot of us like queer ships in other fandoms, too, and even have queer OCs. YOUR ship just ain't it. Stop forcing it. Literally, most of the ship wars between MCU fans have been queer ship vs queer ship, not really queer ship vs straight ship. Like, the number one Stucky rival ship was Stony. Not Steggy. People are not homophobic for not wanting your ship.

Sometimes it's because they ship something else.

And sometimes, like me, it's because they want something to make sense narratively and not happen for the sake of it happening. It's always better writing to have a character meetcute a new love interest than to magically turn a platonic friendship into a romantic relationship. Like, even when the characters are straight. Like, when Moesha dated Hakeem. It was just weird, even if he was kind of a great boyfriend. He was just supposed to be her friend, and people didn't really like it because it didn't fit narratively.

And that's why ships for the most part should be left to fanfiction, with the exception of a few where fans are right to call out the writers for not making it canon because it's clearly bait (like what happened to Destiel shippers. To see Lokius shippers compare themselves to THAT was so ridiculous. Destiel shippers had a decade of evidence only to be let down by a criminally unfair ending. Lokius shippers saw two men have a deep conversation once and lost their minds.)

Anyway, I'm not saying don't ship Lokius. I don't even hate it, really. I just think it obviously shouldn't be canon, and fans pretending like they were robbed of it is ridiculous. Literally, Ao3 exists for this reason. I will never see Steve fuck Sam Wilson, so I wrote it into my fanfic. I am not mad that they didn't actually date in the main MCU storyline.

[yashimolala]

⎡ where are you now? ⎦fushiguro t. & m.

★ part two of ⎡ can you hear me now? ⎦ ☆  

❀ pairing: fushiguro megumi & fushiguro toji (familial)

❀ word count: 1,494 words

❀ genre: fluff/angst 

❀ author’s notes: this is not incestuous in any manner. 

❀ tags: character study, fushiguro toji-centric, introspection, purple prose, somewhat canon-compliant (?) 

❀ description: the moments that were left at the back of the father and son’s minds, and the places where they could’ve been.

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

Sunflowers.

Megumi’s eyes flutter to the sight of a delightful scar.

He knows this is a dream, but it was a real memory flashing in his eyes, one that he’s never been able to recall before.

The scar was graceful, stretching to its’ full beauty on a smile. It was straight,  adorning the left side of the person’s mouth.

Slightly-chapped lips, rosy hues on glowing cheeks, and large, rough hands reaching out for him. And his safety in a delicate body is entrusted to their palms as he’s wrapped in strong, built arms.

He could not see the upper half of their face. It was a rather blurry vision he had.

But he could tell… they were joyous. Delighted. Glad. Genuinely happy. They smiled like it was the most beautiful moment of their life. Like his very existence was a miracle.

Tenderly cradling his small, fragile body; gently rocking him to a soft tune. He doesn’t know the song itself, but he loves the comfort it brings. The small humming is imprinted in his memory, a precious memento to cross at his heart.

Megumi then closes his eyes, drifting to a deep slumber, all the while listening to the serene sound.

He lets the darkness wash him over to a new dream.

Interlude.

Your smile rivals the vibrance of a sunflower, Ever brilliant and happy, Blooming with a vivid yellow power, That I can never exude.

Shining brighter than the glaring star in a summer night. Fiery blooms of beauty captivating me in its splendor, Always facing the direction of its Creator Like a lost sailor in search for a ray of light.

- Yashi

Aloë.

Megumi remembers getting ice cream in the mall when he was a child.

He was observing the strange tubs of bizarre flavors illustrated in posters; he seemed like he wanted to try them out.

His father was watching him from afar, hands shoved into his pants’ pockets. The man then sighs, “Stay in the bench over there.”

Megumi nods, sitting himself on the vacant furniture, unknowing of what he was planning.

The older male disappears from Megumi’s sight into the flood of crowds, not even uttering another word before leaving.

Minutes of swinging his legs back and forth were spent as he waited. Person after person passed by him, never sparing a glance but he felt like the eyes lurking from the shadows are on him, but at the same time, he feels like he’s within a void of empty crowds.

Just as he was to hop off and set out to search for his father, the man was right before him, handing down a triangular-looking biscuit with a building swirl of soft white.

The child looked astonished, wrapping his small hands around the cone, green eyes sparkling with the smooth, glistening frozen treat.

Toji just sits beside him, seemingly uninterested with legs spread wide, in comparison to the kid’s knees that were almost closed in a timid manner.

Megumi blinks once, before glancing down the ice cream, bringing the pointed tip of coldness to his lips, taking a small bite.

Chilled velvety mush melted into sweetness as he savors the flavor.

It’s a classic vanilla that his father could only afford.

The father glances to his side at once, watching a small smile stretch on the kid’s usually stoic expression.

“Is it good?”

“Anything that father gets me is the best.”

Toji then closes his eyes with a contented smile, clearing out the chatter of the crowds in the mall and etched Megumi’s smiling face into the back of his head.

Aster.

Toji sees the color of the skies on Megumi.

He could never forget the beady gaze of his child, often glimmering with curiosity that he could never unravel.

They glow with a glint of excitement and interest, with every thing it explores, may it be the old bookstore down the street, the trashed alleyways in their neighborhood, or the stray puppy that he saw in the park.

Toji sees the only blessing in his life.

Toji sees Megumi making his own blessings out of the world.

A small smile pulls on his lips as the child’s hand holds onto his larger one for reassurance, relishing in the sound of his laughter.

Megumi has his mother’s eyes, but he also has his own soul in those pair of sapphires. It was somewhat funny because everyday when Toji looked into the mirror, all he can see are soulless orbs of dread.

But now that he can see the life in his blessing’s eyes, he’s more than satisfied.

Azalea.

The first time Toji went out with Megumi’s mother, they eloped to the beach, where the color of their eyes can be found, symbolic of their persona as well.

When he takes the boy to the ocean, his eyes gleamed with excitement as he starts talking about the sea creatures he’s read about, like the starfish, the crabs, the seahorse and more.

His blue gaze was a living memory of his mother, reminding him of the calm ocean waves that came crashing on the grains of gold and the clear skies that rolled across the earth.

He notices his mussed hair that was disheveled by the salt water that soaked into their skin and takes a photo of the footsteps they’ve left on the shore before it’s washed away by the sweep of shallow water.  

When he feels delicate fingers graze on his knuckles, his chest surges with euphoria upon seeing Megumi who held onto his hand with his small digits, lips stretching with a smile and wet lashes framing his face.

He wants to wake up every day to this shade of blue, the voice of his son filling his ears, to live in a moment that will last until the end of his time.

Interlude.

‘You look just like your mother.’

The man remarks as he glances at the shape of his hair — same black, same spike, same curl that framed over his features that was a tad softer than Toji’s.

‘I guess I do carry her tenderness well.’ Megumi brings up a hand to the expanse of his neck, averting his focus away, refusing to make eye contact with his father.

This does not go unnoticed by Toji, as his emerald gaze catches on Megumi’s ocean ones. They were a deep shade of blue, drowning in the abysmal depths of the sea, accompanied by the shadows.

He speaks again. You both have the same eyes.

‘Cause we are both exhausted.’ The younger male responds almost immediately, but it never came out in an exasperated manner. It escaped his lips as a gentle sigh.

Toji’s eyes travel down to explore more what he shared with his mother, halting by the slim phalanges that he wore.

‘And the hands.’ He adds.

‘We share the same wilting fingers.’ Megumi wearily says, demonstrating by shifting his digits into a hand gesture that he does not recognize, only familiar with the lines and curves that shaped his wrist.

‘But that rage, your mother doesn’t wear that anger.’

‘You’re right.’ His expression that was once serene contorts into one of madness, bathed in blood and the laughter that cascades from his lips is almost maniacal. ‘This rage is the one thing I get from my father.’

Sweet Pea.

Fushiguro Toji was not expecting to have the latter half of his plans ruined by the Gojo kid who went berserk after rising from death.

All he felt was unease, unease, utter unease.

Just when he thought he had thrown his feelings away, it all comes back to him with an excruciating ache to his chest, tugging painfully on his heartstrings.

All he remembers is clinging onto his wife’s back like a helpless beast, the joy he had when Megumi was born, raising him up until he was five and fuck, he wishes he could have seen him grow up more — deal with his teenage phase, watch him graduate, have a peaceful story of his own.

He longs for a life where he could hear about Megumi’s dreams, where they talk about what happens in his everyday life over dinner, where they could live as a small and happy family with Tsumiki.

But he can’t go back to that life, can’t return to where he left off, can’t have what he want anymore so what’s the point?

He looks into the long path that was stretched out on the other way, disappearing into forever. He’s afraid to say this is the end he’s reached, but deep inside, he knows that he’s already lost, deep in the restraint of his own pride, in the choice of path that he chose and in this battle.

So when he chooses his last words, he tells them to the white-haired teen in hopes that his child will at least be able to live a better life than he did.

He just hopes that his only blessing is okay.

。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆　　 。·:*:·ﾟ★,。·:*:·ﾟ☆

The language of flowers: 

❀ Sunflower = “The sunshine in your smile”/Radiance ❀ Aloe = Affection and grief ❀ Aster = Love and daintiness/Remembrance ❀ Azalea = Family ❀ Sweet Pea = Goodbye

Oh and please do keep in mind that, in the second interlude, the dialogues that are in italics belong to Rupi Kaur’s ‘Milk and Honey’.

additional notes: i said i’d write more of this so i did. 

[imsorryjughead]

Chapter 1: Where a Teacher has Sex with a Student

Ok so, I knew about Riverdale. How can you not. You hear the CW is making an Archie adaptation and you scoff. You and your smug sense of self worth go, “Look Margorie, they’re making a show based off of Archie. And it's a grim and gritty reboot let us laugh.”

And laugh we did. While we were doing that though it went on for Six. Seasons. And also It’s lost its mind. Like I can’t be the only one you’ll be hanging out and you’ll mention Riverdale and someone will go.

“Oh yeah Archie started a cult.” Or “There’s like seven serial killers” Or “Jughead is weird.”

And that’s, that’s weird right. Like I never watched 90210 or Degrassi. And at least with the latter I feel shit would go off the rails. But like reasonably. This show just exceeds that. And that terrifies me.

So lets you and I. Go on a journey. To a small town, a town that once resided on the checkout lines of grocery stores. A town of Americana and high school. A town now home to way too much sex and murder. Let us go,

To Riverdale.

Aight so we’re not five minutes in and these two white bitches are def having an incestuous relationship. I mean they’re driving out to the woods in like a…. It's a car that exudes wealth. They’re holding hands and going to row a boat. These two weird rich people are Cheryl and Jason Blossom.

Jason then dies. Oh the tragedy.

It's a whole big thing and everyone is sad except for this one lady who’s like. “I hope he burns in hell.” Weird flex but ok.

Also there's a narrator maybe? I think he’s gonna be a beginning and end of episode deal.

So the rich boy is dead. Let’s meet Veronica Lodge shall we? Veronica is rich and her dad is under investigation for embezzlement. She looks like Mila Kunis and would probably be in this role if she was 20 years younger. This thought will not leave me. Also she's like Sheldon cooper if he name dropped classic literature.

Her and her mother Hermione are in Riverdale now to escape? I mean they have a butler named Smithers. So like they still have that.

I guess this is where I’d go looking into the history of the character and discuss her adaptation but man I just don’t care enough. Maybe at the end of season 1 ok?

We’ll note that Hiram Lodge, her father, embezzling money is a new thing, as well as The Blossoms…. Period.

Then we meet Betty Cooper. All I know is in the comics she can fix cars. Her.. brother? I think? (I think this might actually be Kevin who isn’t her brother).Tells her to just ask Archie out. Then he peeps him through his window and says that Archie got hot.

Archie did get hot. Let’s not lie. For some reason they made Archie hot. I do not know why they did this. I am not against it per se. It’s def weird though.

Meanwhile Archie is being like, a worst Troy Bolton. He’s trying to juggle a budding music career and Football and taking over his dad’s construction business. The plight of the straight white boy.

Anyway they get to high school and like…. Man this is a drag to recap. Like I skipped over Betty’s neurotic mom whom I'm convinced killed Jason but like… man…

Like what happens now? We meet Kevin and he’s gay. He’s that prime time gay too. The one who’s dressed for an Abercrombie commercial and just a bit too feminine. He’s the best character right now and I hate it. Veronica immediately takes him under her wing as a gay best friend which is the most accurate piece of writing in the episode.

They have an assembly about the dead rich boy and his creepy sister is like, We’ll still have the back to school dance. But we’ll plaster his face everywhere. It’s what he would have wanted.

Then Archie, his lovers and Kevin eat lunch and….

Oh right Archie fucked his teacher.

Archie Andrews fucked a grown ass woman.

His teacher Geraldine Grundy performed statutory rape on her student.

And this is important cause while they were having a wrong they heard gunshots. Cause also everyone thought Jason drowned. So they can't tell anyone because.... You know…. A High school teacher fucked her student…. Who is a sophomore.

We find this out and that's why he’s into music now. And he writes these. Guitar ballad fuck boy songs. They all say it's good but it's not their fault. Sometimes you need to write about someone having talent when they have none. It happens its limitations.

Also on the first day of school every extra curricular is holding tryouts. And I wasn’t a sports kid but doesn’t this stuff happen like a week or two in? Like saddling students with this stuff isn't good.

So Betty and Veronica try out for the cheer squad and its… its ass… I mean I also was never a cheerleader so maybe this is how tryouts work. They just kinda. Well they move but I'm not impressed. And when this doesn’t work Veronica kisses Betty.

Let me know if your high school cheer squad would make out like a bunch of horny bastards during halftime. Cause uh… I don’t think they do that.

Cheryl is unimpressed because their moves were weak and their kiss was derivative. Then she bullies Betty for lets see. Her sister was dating her brother and then it got ugly. Betty doesn't blow up at her but Veronica says that fuck you you pompous bitch.

They make the team.

Archie meanwhile also makes the team by…. We don't even see him play; he's just, away from every other player standing there. Anyway he has a whole thing about do I join football or help my dad.

Archie's dad is great so far. He doesn't help Hermione get a job but he gives descend advice to his son. Archie's dad is also hot. He’s a good dad.

Also B and V get dressed in their uniforms. Then just leave like that’s their normal outfit like they are the most popular girls in school. Then Veronica makes Betty ask out Archie to a dance that is also happening tonight.

Jesus how many things are going on in this damn school.

Unrelated Hiram sent Hermione a bag full of money. This will hopefully go somewhere.

So Betty gets home and her mom is like “Cheryl Blossom is evil and you can't do cheerleading.” Betty tells her mom shut up. I’m still convinced she killed Jason. She's just super weird and controlling.

So they go to the dance and it’s fine. It's a dance. Cheryl makes Josie and the pussycats play the song she and Jason were conceived to. It's what he would have wanted.

Oh right Jossie and the pussycats are here. Feels weird they’re pulling them this early. But ey you do you Riverdale. I’ll only judge you harshly.

Archie tells Ms.Grundy. Either help me with my music or I go to the cops and tell them you had sex with a minor. She agrees and now Archie can do football AND help his dad. And all he had to do was engage his teacher in illegal sex! Score one for Archie.

Deduct 20 from the audience. I hate it here.

Also Kevin and Moose are going to do gay shit later. It’s what Jason would have wanted.

Moose isn’t blonde here. Which bothers me cause like he’s got the build but the blonde sells it. Like Flash Thompson if that makes sense.

Cheryl invites the world's worst throuple to her house for an after party to embarrass them by…. Forcing a seven minutes in heaven situation. I unno how she did this cause ok she picks Archie then spins a bottle. It lands between Betty and Veronica. And before this she stands behind them so either she had like magnets or a Stand or something.

Archie and Veronica kiss in the closet after having angst and Archie being like “I don't love Betty, but I do love my adult teacher.” Betty left cause anxiety or something and Archie goes to look for her.

Oh right Jughead.

So yeah Jughead is here and not Archie's BFF. which is… blasphemous. He’s writing a book about the murder of Jason. And like that's weird, cause he’s just doing PI work to write a book which is also just the season. Also the page he’s writing is not the same as the one in the margin of his program and that bothers me.

Archie shares awkward words with Jughead and then he’s gone again. Jugheads just kinda been looming over everything. He hasn't eaten a single burger either. He’s weird and also the narrator.

Betty is at home and Archie tries to reconcile but that fucking fails. I feel I should care but it’s still the first damn episode.

Kevin and Moose are about to do gay lake shit but WHOOPS. Guess they found Jason’s body. They find out he’s shot so no idea why we had Archie fuck his teacher now. Oh god they’re gonna be like “oh we don't have to worry now” aren't they?

Jughead says someone gets arrested next episode. That’s a decent hook at least.

I’m only one episode in and I want to die. It’s what Jason would have wanted.

[skullsandwineglasses]

The Rebel Princess First Impressions (episode 16)

My first drama of 2021 and my first drama in 4 months. 

AvenueX’s harsh review piqued my interest, especially when she mentioned the high production quality of the drama and the list of talent that was behind the production of the drama. So I went into this drama knowing nothing about the plot, having high expectations for the production, and no expectations about the characters because of AvenueX’s criticism. I’ve always respected Zhang Ziyi because of her dedication to the art and her legendary filmography, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I agreed with AvenueX; ZZY has an aura and elegance that’s meant for mature, cold characters, so I was wary of her playing a Mary Sue who’s innocent and doted upon. 

I first saw Zhou Yi Wei when he played Zhao Liying’s classy, composed, protective, and rich older brother in My Glamourous Times. He’s not classically handsome, but there’s a measured confidence in the way he carries himself that exudes masculinity, and that’s also balanced by his more feminine qualities like his quiet, airy voice and his full lips. He also has an intense gaze that feels like he’s looking straight into the soul of whoever he’s speaking to. 

I also watched ZZY and ZYW’s collaboration on I Am an Actor, so I knew that the chemistry would be there between them. 

Okay, so enough preamble. Spoilers ahead. 

First 8 episodes:

I didn’t mind ZZY playing a young teenager. Yes, it does take a bit of getting used to, but kind of like the CGI in The Irishman, but it very soon doesn’t become distracting and you manage to suspend your disbelief. I came in expecting the worse, like an exaggerated caricature, but ZZY actually pulls it off quite well. Since this is a coming-of-age drama, it’s a given that the first few episodes are going to be about a main character who starts off as innocent, naive, and carefree. I’d rather have the main actress portray these young scenes than to have a completely differ actress do this. The first few episodes are meant to anchor you emotionally into the drama and to empathize with the FL. If you introduced ZZY after 8 episodes, you wouldn’t really emotionally connect with her since the trauma that catapults the character into maturity was experienced by the younger actress. So for me, the age was a non-issue. I was concerned that it would be cringey, but it wasn’t. It’s called acting ffs. Why can people play older characters when they’ve never been older, but people can’t play younger characters, even though they were once that age. I forgot how pretty ZZY is though. 

Sure, the FL is a Mary Sue, but I didn’t find her annoying. Maybe it’s because ZZY makes it work. Who knows. Essentially, everyone dotes in her, every man has a crush on her. She’s spoiled, she’s kind. She’s perfect. Her lineage is incomparable and powerful (even if a little incestuous). Not to mention a little corrupt as well. I guess she wasn’t annoying because she doesn’t try hard to be righteous. She has a privileged life and she’s just living with what she’s given. She only asks that she is able to have a love marriage instead of an arrange marriage. Typical, but understandable. 

My complaint is that I didn’t feel any chemistry between her and Zi Tan, the second prince. Unlike Ming Lan and Yuan Ruo in Story of Ming Lan, Awu’s first love just didn’t capture the imagination. Maybe it’s because ZYW’s Xiao Qi stole the show from early on, which made it hard to jump on board Zi Tan’s ship. 

Awu and Xiao only had a handful of interactions, but their chemistry is palpable (ZYW’s gaze is just....ugh swoon). They first meet that night at the festival where she unknowingly insults him and then he saves her and Zi Tan later that night. Then a couple episodes later, he saves her again when she falls off the roof during her escape from the crown prince. They only cross paths briefly 2 times in 4 episodes, and one of those times they weren’t even talking to ech other because she faints, and yet he’s totally taken by her. He’s a goner. But he know she’s out of his league, and so he keeps his feelings to himself, even though he can’t stop thinking about her and stays up at night staring at the moon remembering their 2 encounters. Talk about a slow burn. Insta love shouldn’t work, but again, it does here. 

I like Xiao Qi’s character. He doesn’t speak much, he doesn’t emote much, but he’s not the typical cold, distant, irritable ML from idol dramas. Xiao Qi isn’t afraid to love. He’s tender, gentle, composed, and calm. The sexual tension between him and Awu from when he rescued her to when they consummate their marriage is through the roof. He takes on the role of a husband by taking care of her, entrusting her fully with managing his household, puts her above everything else in his life, and always takes her side. He closes the distance between them while still giving her space, respecting her, and waiting until she’s ready. Even though he initially thought of himself ill-suited for her, once they’re married, he slowly wins her over. Episode 13 is obviously my favourite because that’s when Awu finally warms up to him. 

Honestly, this relationship only works because of the smitten looks that Xiao Qi gave her that night when they first met at the festival. Those few intrigued/amused looks carry this relationship for 13 episodes. And I love how he brings up that night again when he’s caring for her after he rescued her from Helan Zhen. 

Speaking of Helan Zhen, I find it funny how it sounds like Helian Zheng from The Rise of Phoenixes, and it’s played by the same actor too (edit: NOT the same actor. This is Yuan Hong who played Jin Si Yu in TROP, and a more veteran actor than than the one who played Helian Zheng. Should have known that ZZY would pick Justin Hong who has much more acting experience. TBF tho, with the facial hair, they look similar) and has similar costuming. 

In terms of the political storyline, it’s not bad, but it’s not great, so I see AvenueX’s criticism here. I haven’t watched too many political intrigues, but so far, nothing has been overly surprising or shocking. 

The level of acting and production definitely lives up to expectations, although I have noticed some jumpy cuts. Some of the night scenes in the palace also look kind of CGI though, especially the sky. 

General Song is great. The ML always has a loyal sidekick. The FL also always has a loyal maid, and a disloyal maid who betrays her. In this sense, the drama is quite formulaic. 

It’s also nice to see Kara Hui and Angie Chiu act opposite each other. Angie Chiu is obviously speaking cantonese, and it looks like Kara Hui also speaks cantonese when she has a scene with Angie Chiu, maybe to help her get immersed into the scene. 

Overall Impressions: My basic self is only watching this for the romance, which so far has been slow and minimal (but really good). Xiao Qi is completely absent in episode 16 unfortunately, which is about Awu gaining the respect of his army. 

I do think this is a good spot to pause though. There’s no angst yet. Awu and Xiao Qi are at a good place in their relationship, even if they’re temporarily physically separated for now. Emotionally, they trust each other. It’s them against the world. 

But I’m worried about the upcoming episodes. Based on comments from MyDramaList, it sounds like there are going to be misunderstandings by around episode 33ish, which I’m not happy about. I was hoping that it would be similar to Ming Lan and Gu Tingye’s relationship dynamic where they trust each other fully and there are no secrets or misunderstandings, and they work together against the antagonistic forces opposing them. But it sounds like the drama is going, to well, stir up drama between the leads. 

I powered through 16 episodes in 2 days, and only 41 raw episodes have been released. Which means that I’ll probably catch up within the next few days, and then I’ll have to play the waiting game until the finale at the end of February. So I’ll just take a pause now before things ramp up and I get too attached and maybe watch something else before coming back to binge this.