#it's debatable if that's better or worse

[tcfactory]

A smile for the master

Okay, what if white lotus Luo Binghe and OG Shen Qingqiu body swap.

The fake cultivation manual does make Luo Binghe qi deviate. Relatively early too, he's still in his white lotus phase. This qi deviation just coincides with one of Shen Qingqiu's many, many deviations and, by some freak twist of luck, swaps their bodies.

The only people who know about this are Yue Qingyuan, Mu Qingfang and the people directly involved, because they can't let word get out about the body swap. Unlike all the regular shenanigans (amnesia, de-aging, animal transformations, etc.) Mu Qingfang has no idea how to approach fixing this. He can't even tell if it is possible to fix it or not. This is such a one-in-a-million thing that there's no precedent.

So for the time being Luo Binghe in Shen Qingqiu's body will be confined to the bamboo house, under some supervision, with the excuse that Shen Qingqiu is still under danger of another qi deviation. And Shen Qingqiu gets to go out and pretend to be Binghe.

He's meant to move into the bamboo house to 'assist his shizun in his recovery' (yeah, right, like anyone would believe that), but the first thing he does once everyone leaves them alone that evening is grab a few things in a qiankun pouch and prepares to leave.

"Where is shizun going?"

"Wipe that pathetic look off my face! I'm sleeping in the woodshed."

"But shizun doesn't have to! This disciple will sleep in the side room, I-"

"I don't care where you sleep in my house. But I'm not sleeping under the same roof as a man, and you currently qualify as such."

It's such a strange thing to say that it sticks with Binghe - does his shizun genuinely feel safer in the woodshed than in the same house with his own body??? - but he is still disoriented and in so much pain that he doesn't have it in him to argue. Mu-shishu said it was not unusual for a severe qi deviation to cause pain, but he hopes it will fade quickly.

The pain doesn't fade by morning. It stays a persistent, sharp ache in his joints that seems to sap the strength from his limbs. Binghe thinks he can cheer himself up by cooking breakfast in shizun's kitchen, but his hands shake and his fingers refuse to bend right. He still scrapes together two servings of palatable congee, which gets him an unreadable look from his returning shizun. You'd think Binghe would be able to read the man's expressions on his own face better, but all he can say for certain is that his face has never made that expression before.

"Shizun, how do you stop the shaking?" Binghe asks tentatively. Shen Qingqiu made tea and brought over a few dry biscuits that looked completely unappetizing to Binghe. He planned to pointedly ignore them in favor of his own, much better food, except he has eaten two spoonfuls of congee and he's suddenly feeling sick. Something on his face must be showing because Shen Qingqiu snatches his bowl away and pushes the biscuits to him instead.

"Eat one, slowly, with the tea. It will help you keep the food down." In Luo Binghe's body his shizun has no problem eating both portions while Binghe nibbles on the biscuit. It's bitter from the herbs, but it does help. "Haven't you learned how to channel qi to stabilize your body? Useless little beast." After a moment his eyes grow wide and he hastily holds up a hand. "Don't try it with my body! The last thing we need is for you to have another qi deviation."

"Even this useless one knows how to direct and circulate his qi, shizun." Binghe tries to pout - it has never worked on his shizun, but maybe he will be more receptive of such tactics when it's his own face - but finds that the muscles of his face are not working as they should.

"Not with my meridians you don't. I thought even the lowliest of outer disciples have heard by now that my cultivation base is ruined." He squints up at Binghe and his glare is no less formidable on a different face. "Little beast. What are you trying to do with my face?"

Binghe has, in fact, reached up and is trying to feel out why he can't move part of his face as he should. "This... is there a scar here?" He's not familiar enough with scars to be sure, but he can feel the slightly different texture of the skin with his fingers as it curves around his cheek and jaw. Strange, he's sure he would have noticed before if his shizun had such a big scar on his face.

Shen Qingqiu slaps his hand away.

"A mule kicked me in the face when I was a child. They put an ointment on it at the time, so it healed well enough that it's no longer visible."

Not visible, but still present. Later, after Shen Qingqiu leaves for Luo Binghe's classes, he stands in front of the bronze mirror to test the range of his expressions and suddenly understands why Shen Qingqiu prefers to hide the lower half of his face behind a fan. The scar tissue tugs on the muscles of his face and makes the way one corner of his mouth moves rather ghastly.

It's not the only scar he has. It takes Binghe until the afternoon to work up the courage to take a bath and he can't help to look at his shizun's body then. The history written into the man's skin is distressing to say the least. Cuts and whip marks, all etched in deep, and burns, so many burns. The most horrifying is on one of his thighs, the muscle and skin deformed where it was burned deep; Binghe has seen kitchen accidents before and this has the look of boiling oil, but it's position and size both speak of intentionality. He can't even imagine what shizun has done to be injured there, so close to an intimate area.

And the crowning jewel of all scars, the one that raises the most questions in Binghe's mind, is the slave brand. Qiu, it reads on the left side of his chest, still clearly legible despite obvious signs that someone tried to ruin it with deep cuts; the character just ate even deeper into the flesh to retain its shape.

He's standing in front of the bronze mirror, staring numbly at the brand while the water goes cold next to him, only snapping out of his stupor when the front door slams open, then closed, then his shizun calls for him. "In here, shizun!"

Shen Qingqiu is in a good mood - the body he's in is strong and healthy, despite everything, and unlike that dolt of a little beast, he knows exactly how to get out of chores - so he doesn't immediately snap at Binghe when he finds him inspecting his body. "It would have been too much of a blessing to expect you to not undress and poke at my flesh the moment you were left alone."

"I just wanted a bath." The face he currently wears doesn't lend itself to his usual tactics, so he simply... doesn't try. It makes him much more tolerable in Shen Qingqiu's eyes. "Begging shizun's forgiveness, I expected him to take longer with this disciple's daily chores."

"Unlike you, I don't have the personality of a doormat. I've done the chores for you and Yingying and then tricked one of your shixiongs into insulting Ming Fan, so he got saddled with the rest." He says it like it's the easiest thing in the world and there's a disapproving edge to it. See, little beast? His eyes say. Why don't you do it this way, it's so easy.

"I don't know what shizun expects from me," Binghe finally says, his frustrations overflowing. "I want nothing more than to cultivate in peace! I used every trick I have ever learned to make the bullies go away, but it only made things worse!" He claws at the slave mark, as if he could rip it from the skin and hand it to Shen Qingqiu. "I thought shizun to be a rich master who would not understand, but shizun has come from a background as lowly as this one's! Shizun should understand! Shizun should-!"

"Shut up. You don't know anything about me." There is no real anger in those words, but Binghe immediately shuts up. Shen Qingqiu regards him with something calculating, until he finally comes to a decision of sorts. He closes his eyes, schools his features and when he opens them again the picture of innocence looks up at Binghe, a harmless white sheep who could do no harm.

It's almost as good as when Binghe does it.

"What did you say your mother's job was?" The moment is gone and Shen Qingqiu arranges his features back into something more comfortable and Binghe, still reeling, answers on autopilot.

"This one's elderly mother was a lowly washerwoman."

"An elderly woman, of a low, but stable position, with no ambitions left in life and no power to protect her son." Shen Qingqiu exhales slowly. "She taught you to smile, hasn't she? To be good and docile to avoid trouble."

"Yes!" Finally, it feels like they are going somewhere, they have found common ground. "My mother taught me that no matter what grief or grudge settles in my heart, I should always-"

"Have a smile for the master," Shen Qingqiu finishes for him. He looks annoyed, but not angry - at least not at Binghe. "Go take that bath." He reheats the water with the touch of his hand and a careful application of qi. "This master has essays to grade."

The hot water is a blessing, but Binghe still hurries to get clean and get dressed again. Shizun, true to his word, is grading essays at the table when Binghe returns. Binghe fidgets with nothing to do while his shizun works, so eventually Shen Qingqiu chases him off to make tea so he can work in peace.

Binghe is just returning when the sect leader arrives. "Qingqiu-shidi, Luo-shizi. I hope everything is going all right so far?"

"Good timing," Shen Qingqiu looks up from the essays with a wolfish expression that makes Binghe's face look almost scary. "Qi-ge, think fast: smile for the master-"

"-Snarl for the wolves-" Yue Qingyuan answers without thinking, something sharp and dark glinting in his usually soft eyes. This minute slip in his mask scares Binghe more than the worst of his shizun's temper.

"-knife for the rivals." Unexpectedly, Shang Qinghua pops his head out from behind the wide bulk of the sect leader. "Why are we reciting the Urchins' Laws?"

Shen Qingqiu narrows his eyes at his shidi. "Where this one grew up we said rocks for the rivals, but the sentiment is the same." He gestures for Binghe, who stands frozen in Shen Qingqiu's body, to serve the tea. "What is Shang-shidi doing here?"

"I might have, ah. Overheard? Overheard the situation and I might know an herb that can remedy it. Liu Qingge is already on his way to get it, so it's only a matter of days!" He rubs the back of his neck. "I just wanted to be here when zhangmen-shixiong tells shixiong the good news."

"That's acceptable." Shen Qingqiu takes a sip from his tea, then pushes the essays away in favor of an empty sheet. "Then Shang-shidi can stay and help us remedy a serious shortcoming in disciple Luo's education. It would seem he only learned to smile and never to snarl, leaving him with the appearance of an unfortunately spineless disposition."

"I see." All three adults look at Luo Binghe with pity, even the one currently wearing his body. He takes a big gulp of his tea to get away from their staring and almost chokes from the overwhelming bitter taste.

"It's fine, shizi! I think there are no better people to teach disciple Luo these lessons, so he will learn them in no time!" Shang Qinghua hurries to reassure him.

"That's not- thanking shishu for his encouraging words! It's just this tea is unexpectedly bitter."

The lords all look puzzled. "Bitter? Has Shen-shidi acquired a new blend?"

"As if you could tell," Shen Qingqiu huffs dismissively and takes another sip of his tea. "I don't taste anything wrong with it."

They all turn to Shang Qinghua, who takes a sip and immediately makes a noise of disgust.

"It's been severely over-steeped," he declares, pushing the cup away.

"Interesting." Shen Qingqiu drinks the rest of his tea and shakes his head. "Disciple Luo can't taste bitterness, so he doesn't know when he over steeps the tea."

"This one can taste bitterness, shizun! Mu-shishu's cold medicine-"

"-doesn't count. Even zhangmen-shixiong can tell it's bitter and he has almost completely lost his sense of taste when we were children."

The sect leader has a soft, awkward look on his face and Shang Qinghua stifles a laugh behind his sleeve. "Can confirm! Yue-shixiong once drank an entire undiluted bottle of chili oil on a bet when we were disciples. Luo-shizi is in good company."

Good company indeed. It's strange and a little frightening to see the three untouchable immortal masters acting so human, but Binghe rubs the scar on his face and thinks of masks. The same way Binghe puts on the mask of a meek little lamb every morning, the peak lords put on their own masks each day.

In the fifteen days it takes for Liu-shishu to get the herbs and return, they teach Binghe how to navigate the power plays of the sect in the way only those not born into power know:

A smile for the master (be pleasant and meek and uninteresting in the face of those who can hurt you without consequence, because it's boring to bully docile and uninteresting servants. Bide your time and only plot where they can't see it).

Yue Qingyuan smiles, because he has risen above the rest. Nobody would dare to trample him, so he can wear a smile if he wants; it makes him more approachable. Luo Binghe smiles at him and the sect leader winks back; this comes the easiest to him.

A snarl for the wolves (do not let your peers trample you. You are roughly of equal standing and power, so fight for what you deserve. If someone with only slightly higher standing tries to strike against you and you can get away with it, bite the hand that struck you, so they would think twice before they try again).

Shen Qingqiu was born a wolf and will likely die one, too broken and battered to become a prized, pampered hound. He snarls at the world and wants Binghe to snarl back at him, to show him that he has the determination to make it through. (Urchins who don't learn to bare their teeth when they should all die, trampled in the dirt, and Binghe suspects that his shizun has seen it happen enough times that he has hardened his heart against it.) It comes frighteningly easy, once he tries, and he makes sure to restrain himself so he doesn't become a mirror of his bitter shizun.

A knife for the rivals (be ruthless and deadly to the outsiders who come to harm you and yours. Set aside internal strife in the face of outside threat and sharpen your fangs together; the only good enemy is a dead one).

Binghe doesn't know what to think of Shang Qinghua at first. The An Ding lord has his own flavor of pathetic (it's not quite the same as smiling, he thinks), but Binghe is not a fool. If the sect leader is the smile and his shizun the snarl, then Shang Qinghua is the knife, and his cultivated helplessness is the perfect disguise for his sharp edge.

Out of all three of them, he decides that Shang Qinghua scares him the most.

The day after they are switched back Luo Binghe returns to the bamboo house to report to his shizun.

"So early today, little beast." Shen Qingqiu doesn't look up from the novel he's reading, sprawled carelessly over the couch. Binghe knows that this crack in his shizun's peerless facade is only there for him to see because he has lived in his body for two weeks and knows exactly how much agony he is in day in day out (Binghe did some much less dignified sprawling when he was wearing that body, that's for sure), but it still makes him feel honored, in a way. He's in on a secret none of the other disciples are and it makes him feel... special.

"Ming-shixiong had an unfortunate incident with a hive of wasps and forgot to assign his shidis extra chores."

Shen Qingqiu glances at him over the edge of his book. "Where in the hells have you found wasps this time of the year?"

"I could not say. Shizun will have to ask Shang-shishu."

The set of Shen Qingqiu's mouth shifts. It's not a smile, but it's as close as the man gets and Luo Binghe's heart soars when he sees it. His shizun stands with mesmerizing feline grace and plucks a manual off from his shelf. "Catch." Binghe scrambles to catch the manual, his eyes going wide when he recognizes his shizun's calligraphy. The book is bound in an old cover to make it look used, but the pages and the contents are all brand new. "This master has noticed that disciple Luo's current manual is unsuitable for his cultivation. This one will be a better fit."

"Thank you, shizun!" He turns to walk into the side room, planning to pretend that he belongs here ('sometimes if you are confident enough, you can make others think that you belong somewhere you have no business being', Shang Qinghua said), but he stops dead when his shizun calls after him.

"Where do you think you are going, little beast?"

"To my room, shizun." He brazenly meets Shen Qingqiu's narrowed eyes and carefully gauges the man's mood. He's not angry yet. "This disciple has no place in the dorms, but he got to thinking: wouldn't it reflect badly on our peak and our peak lord if word got out that one of the Qing Jing disciples sleeps in the woodshed? This one is not a man, so he thought shizun would have no opposition against him taking the unused side room in exchange for performing extra chores around the house."

Shen Qingqiu approaches him with an aura like a fierce storm, but Luo Binghe stands his ground. The man wanted him to snarl back; it was time to test the practice of that theory.

"Luo Binghe has done a lot of thinking in the day since we last met."

"Of course. This disciple had years of thoughtlessness to make up for."

Shen Qingqiu exhales sharply; a silent laugh. "Luo Binghe might not be a man yet, but he will grow up to be one. Why should I tolerate his presence?"

"This one might become a man, but only if shizun can't mold him into something better."

"Insolent little beast!" He expects the smack with the fan. It smarts like always and it's likely going to leave a bruise. He doesn't expect the hand on his head, not petting, but... acknowledging. "Go to your room."

Binghe can't restrain the smile that spreads over his face. It earns him another smack, lighter this time, but it's worth it. He sets the new manual down on the bed and starts brewing tea for his shizun, lighting a timer talisman so he doesn't seep the leaves too long.

It took him to walk a mile in his shizun's boots in the most convoluted way possible, but he has finally done it: he found common ground with his master. It could only get better from now.

[post-it-notes7]

Looks like Falspar's either got a bone to pick with Dark, an offering of an olive branch, or some mysterious third thing. Can't blame Dark for wanting to stay scarce, for the time being.

Probably one of DMK's better ideas

[artharakka]

So, how was your weekend? Rhiam met a shapeshifting god of forests who transed her gender 🌷

[cepheusgalaxy]

look guys i very strongly disagree with the "trans men hold privilege over trans women" point of view and i'm finally able to articulate why:

I think trans men don't hold privilege over trans women, because privilege is kind of a consistent thing.

Like, bear with me: I'm an abled person. I have privilege in relation to disabled people. Because, if me and a disabled person are in a Situation where this distinction is relevant in some way...I'm literally never gonna come out with the worst hand. Never. No matter what the situation is. This is a consistent fact.

Now, when we talk about different transgender identities, I think this gets more shady, because the "who has privilege in relation to who" is a relative statement. One example I saw of people explaining why in their view trans man have privilege over trans women is kind of like this: Imagine there are two passing and stealth trans people, a trans man and a trans woman, in a workplace. Then, it comes a coworker, being blatanly misogynist. Regardless of their views on trans people, in this situation, the trans woman is gonna get the worst of it, in relation to the trans man, because he will be viewed as a man.

It makes sense, and I don't think this hypothetical situation is inaccurate or anything, but I'd also like to point out why it doesn't work as a good point to why transmascs have privilege over transfems. Imagine we change about any variable in this situation. Let's say the trans woman is closeted as a guy, and the trans man is openly transgender. The misogynist coworker then would very much target the trans man in their points, especially if they are particularly transphobic. Now imagine both of them are out and openly trans, with the bonus that now both the man and the woman are gnc. Depending on other specifics, the misoginyst coworker might be bigoted to just one or both of them.

Like, do you see? In different situations, the different trans people have the worst hand. So that doesn't mean that because of the first case, trans men have it generally better. Because there are many kinds of trans men, and simply not all of them have privilege over trans women. In some cases, they might even have it worse precisely because they are trans man. So the privilege the trans man in the first example has is not a consistent thing over trans man! Maybe it's common, I don't know, but when we compare it with someone who has real privilege, like me, an abled person, I ain't ever encounter myself in a situation where I'm having it worse because I am abled in comparison to someone who is disabled.

That's why I think trans woman and trans men simply don't hold privilege over one another, simply because it varies. It depends on who the trans men and women are, it depends in what situation they are in, it depends on the people around them, it depends of so much!!! So saying that trans men have privilege over trans women sounds simply surreal!

I think that, also, the different patterns of the situations in which trans woman have it worse are important to be discussed, and that's why we have the word Transmisoginy, to discuss these issues pertinent to the nuanced oppression trans woman face (and on a similar note, that's why it's also important to have fucking words like Transmisogynoir, because a black trans woman's Situations will be different from a white trans woman's Situations and it's important to to recognize that). THAT's why I also think that we need words like Exorsexism and Transandrophobia, to identify the patterns of situations where trans men have it bad precisely because they are trans men and not something else or because nonbinary people have it bad precisely because they are nonbinary.

SO, in short, my opinion on the "trans man have it generally better than trans woman and that's why they have privilege" debate is that trans man don't generally have it better than trans woman, but some trans man in specific situations have it significantly better than trans woman and that in other situations trans woman have it significantly better than trans man and that is basically a case-to-case scenario and that's also why we need the specific words for different shapes and faces of transphobia to better understand these cases and why x happens with y at z situation. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[xx-just-a-demon-xx]

finally watched the cinematic masterpiece that is the lego batman movie

yes joker has a batman phone case because you cannot convince me he wouldnt

[a-literal-toaster-wtf]

anyone ever think about how collectively the aces ultimate goal is to die because . boy do i

[nappingpaperclip]

get called a queer/fag more often, eat less because you can’t afford it, have your house fall apart, can’t save up for anything because if you do your bf will be kicked off of Medicare, can’t afford vaccines, can’t afford hrt, can’t afford drs appointments, see post after post of trans people murdered every day, post after post of battered children’s bodies, but 30 something year old homeowners on the internet keep responding to my criticisms telling me it can get worse. like how, what is worse than genocide? than my brothers and sisters being killed and put out on the streets every day? little kids being beat to death in the bathrooms, being buried under rubble. white supremacist caravans driving through my city to go crush immigrants drowning trying to get across the border cause they got deported while their kids are in cages. please tell me. how can it get any worse?

[keymintt]

tagged by @holycorrupt (who has a rad webcomic you guys should check out)

rules: make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. see which character is everyone's favorite!

okay so it's actually kinda tricky for me to pin down all time faves, esp when my taste in media has changed/developed over the years so there is a recency bias to some of these guys

also i'm cheating and putting a sixth option of my oc serena from my brain bc she's been around for twelve years and that is not an option i expect anyone to choose, but i Need to put her on here for posterity she's taken up so much bandwidth

zero pressure if anyone doesn't want to do it but i tag: @honeybyte @savior-of-the-dreaming-dragons @beatcroc @impossibleclair and any other mutuals who want to do this !! >:3c

[zerodaryls]

it's so funny (read: sad) that if bigoted fuckheads didn't insist i was a woman simply by virtue of my body at birth, i'd probably be chill with she/her pronouns in addition to he/they. if my mom didn't insist i was her daughter, i'd probably let her call me that, and we could still have a relationship.

i'm nonbinary and 'gendered' words are hypothetically meaningless, but because there are so many people who are more interested in telling me who i am rather than lovingly and curiously letting me express my own sense of self, those words carry trauma.

there's no reason a nonbinary person like myself can't be a son and a child and a daughter. there's no reason a nonbinary person like me can't go by he, they, and she.

'she' is not a slur. 'daughter' is not derogatory. 'beautiful' 'pretty' 'gorgeous' 'feminine' are not insults.

to the contrary, they're parts of language that express certain facets of a multi-faceted human existence, like mine.

and i have this sad, mournful feeling that if it weren't for unloving, condescending people, i'd probably be down to be called any of those things alongside my usual masculine/neutral terminology.

but i'd rather die than let anyone tell me what i have to be called.

[fleouriarts]

more of this actually. capybara grant inspired by this post by @mystihl13footer thank you for putting that out in the world

🐉🌺🎨 summer commissions are open! come browse my site if you’re interested!

[sesamenom]

here's some eriador nandor as nomads in the dunland area

(somewhat inspired by cave creature thingol)

i feel like they would favor varda as Lord of Arda over manwe, since without the treelight, their only light source would be the light of her stars + her creations are basically the only ones they're guaranteed to see every day/night.

some groups of the eriador nandor (namely lenwe's group) created glowy starlight tattoos (like a wearable version of feanor's artificial gems) as a dedication to varda (and a convenient light source). and since it's mostly dark except for the starlight, they have purple/sable face paint for war/hunting to enhance the glowy starlight effect. they mostly stop doing this after the rising, though, since the sun/moonlight makes the contrast less effective than regular green/brown camo, and it becomes more of a traditional than practical thing. (maeglin got his color scheme from the sable paint)

eol is one of the former-nomadic-nandor laegrim who migrated sometime in the first age and ended up in nan elmoth (his starlight tattoos eventually faded bc he spent too much time either indoors or in a very dark magic forest and also he was evil so varda stopped recharging him or something)

the rising of the moon and sun + morgoth + men + migration of laegrim leads to an erosion of nandorin nomadic culture (since its a lot harder to wander around mostly-peacefully stargazing when the continent is suddenly full of orcs and men) and by the third age there are like three nandorin nomads left around the southern coastal region

the oldest nandor (born between cuivienen and the rising) are more cave-creature-y, with semi-translucent skin, really big dark blue eyes (like the waters of cuvienen at night), and extra good night vision but worse normal light and color vision. the ones born after the rising have normal skin and eyes, though most of them still have the white/silver teleri hair.

[pearl-kite]

I forgot to request today off from work for my birthday so alas, stuck at both jobs until 8pm, but I got a free coffee, I feel pretty for once, it's my zodiac year, and I might get cake at the second job, so hey it kind of balances out

[dragonknightofsummerset]

why Hot Shot, I was rooting for you!

Okay, but in all seriousness, after the chapter where Casey gives MC the cold shoulder, it became less interesting to me & I was hoping it'd pick up again when we went to Casey's hometown but that arc was over & done with way too quickly & it seems that the major conflict is the MC (forced or not) to reveal sensitive information to the public & now the team (including Casey) has "turned" on them, in the sense that they don't like MC anymore (obviously more complicated with Casey but the sentiment is there too) but I will say that I do like what Casey says to MC in today's vip chapter release at the start

I was talking with Sabrina about Hot Shot a while ago, and I mentioned that the story definitely would have been much more interesting if MC were an athlete too. Posts I saw when the book was announced said it would've been good if the MC was on a rival team (definitely agree with this one) but considering this MC is a reporter, I was thinking that they still could have been a reporter for the story but have a more fleshed out background for them. For example, there's hints here & there that MC used to play hockey, so it would have been nice if while in college, they did play but then because of an injury they had to stop playing and then decided the next best thing was becoming a sports reporter, which is how they ended up in that career.

Although there is nothing wrong with MC having always wanted to be a reporter & prioritizing their career, it would have been neat to add some emotional reasoning as to why reporting is so important to them; and I think it could have opened up some good discussions with Casey, especially when they try telling MC that they have no idea how hard/different it is out there on the ice, like MC could have been just as secretive about their past injury as Casey was about the championship they lost (which let me remind you, not much focus was put into it) & the conflict could have been something besides leaking info

Idk, I know this book wasn't like high effort but I tend to get attached to books with potential and Hot Shot definitely could have been interesting, and bad MC sprites aside, the innuendos somehow got worse lol, but I would have been willing to look past it if the conflict was anything else than what we got

[blairwaldcrf]

"Serena is always running"... Serena has never had a place to rest in the first place. (+family portrait by p¡nk)

[ohtobearandomftblog]

you’re right about the not caring about canon anymore because 100 yrs quest fucking SUCKS man it’s just trash… like they’ve destroyed 90% of the good characters making them soooo OOC just to fit them into the str8 ships it makes me so mad especially because this manga was supposed to be about friendship but what ppl ONLY care about is romance and it’s not even good

i saw they royally fucked up natsu. somethin bout him not knowing what a library is even tho the first quest he and lucy go on is to break into duke everlue's LIBRARY. and that one ova and ending where natsu is in the fairy tail LIBRARY.

also something something laxus flirting with the fucking enemy something something laxus giving his COAT to the fucking ENEMY something something laxus KNEELING for the ENEMY bc her bullshit ass magic makes NO SENSE. look i know theyre tryina make laxus more "likable" or some bullshit so itll make sense when he gets with mirajane (bc lets face it its gonna be mira not cana or lisanna or whoever else unless hes getting with that eNEMY) but like. we've known he respects women. we know hes grown since the battle of ft. you dont need to show that hes a sub gentleman who'll kneel to more powerful women so itll make more sense when he gets with the she-devil. like at this point im wanting to boost laxus/freed art and fics even tho i really dont care for that ship. controversial opinion ik

my hyperfixations/special interests/somethin like that have rotated from one comfort media (ft) to another and that other is currently dbz so 1 thats why this has been even less active than before and 2

in dragon ball super they fucked up goku. apparently bitch doesnt know what a kiss is. HE HAS TWO KIDS. what the FUCK are you on about. i mean im 70% sure in db he didnt know what marriage was and thought it was food or somethin when chichi made him promise to marry her when they both grew up. but like. he was maybe 15, living in the wilderness, his grandpa having died some years ago, getting no education. THAT made sense. him not knowing what a kiss is??? I FEEL LIKE WE'VE SEEN HIM KISS HIS WIFE BEFORE. ON SCREEN. WHAT THE FUCK.

it looks like manga authors are in the era of beating more money out of their completed series to the point that theyre just beating a corpse now. theyre tryina squeeze more money and attention outta shit that was still pretty big without new "canon" content coming out.

[karouvas]

remembering on my circa 2017 booklr I used to tell people to read Gemma Doyle by describing it as trc but with an all girls boarding school / all girl group in a historical setting… I was trying to do the lord’s work she deserved tumblr fame