#literally THEE dynamic of all time

[scattered-winter]

the worst thing about keith genuinely being one of my favorite characters on the show is that he has like. the most storylines. and development. and the most rabid fans. and even the show fundamentally misunderstood him (shoved him into a role he neither wanted nor was ready for in any way and in doing so changed him so completely that he wasn't the character i first fell in love with because he got turned into Sword Shiro)

[angelsdean]

their sibling dynamics are so fascinating to me bc i have a similar parentified dynamic w/ my own younger sister, like to the point where it's the "joke" in the family that i'm literally her second mother / third parent like people say that about me. anyways. but we're also like, besties ??? and we have a bigger age gap than dean and sam, double their age gap actually. and we both make fun of each other and "fight" and have our own inside jokes and can make each other riot with laughter from just a single look and we can have whole conversations w/o saying a word and we have overlapping neurodivergencies that just make us go "same brain!" but then also she has sensory issues that i just do not get and vice verse and we tease each other abt them but if anyone else were to do such a thing obvs it'd be like wtf dude??? but we're allowed to be extra mean to each other (and no one else can) bc we love each other and it's unconditional and we're literally besties. but then at the same time, she'll be a huge baby and not want to do something or do it wrong and i'm just like [exasperated sigh] "give me that" and just do it myself. or she won't want to order at restaurants. or ask for help finding something in a store. and i also do not want to do that but my older sibling "mother-mode" kicks in and i'm like ok fine i'll do this for you. and i always give her the bigger portion of things if it's not evenly cut or distributed. and i'll leave the last of the pink lemonade in the fridge for her and drink water instead. and it's just, a weird complicated dynamic of "i love you like my own kid but also you are my sibling and we will have these sibling moments of getting on each other's nerves but i'm also always going to put you first in the things that really matter" and that's how i see the sibling dynamic from dean's POV really. and sometimes the show manages to show that dynamic but a lot of times it flops hard on getting the sibling-isms right and it's very frustrating lol

[hellonearthtoday]

double posting in one night because I'm awesome and unstoppable. read more if you want to be bombared by my warrior cat au

CAT JALLY IS HERE!!!! Idk why Dallys mom chose his dork ass name in the og but he's named very blatantly after the state/city here. He's bounced around different locations a lot, especially for how young he is. He's been in Texas, New York, and now Oklahoma. He hitchhiked in people's cars to get place to place, before eventually settling down in Oklahoma once he got situated w homegang.

Dally and Johnny are actually THEE dynamic duo here. Dally is farrrr more hype about sparring and fighting than Johnny is, like that freak lives and breathes it, (he likes winning) but Johnny still kicks ass because Dally trained him. Johnny has like has a sleeper build because he's constantly hunched over like a crinkled plastic bag so they don't ever expect it when he leaps at them like a sugar glider and starts scratching the shit out of them

Johnny doesn't really like sparring at all because he doesn't like hurting his buddies, and Johnny literally has only two modes and it's passive or actually rabid so he always reflexively holds back when they try and spar with him since he cant be normal about sparring. So he just ends up literally standing there doing nothing. Imagine those videos of goats just freezing. Or opposums playing dead

He can play fight with the others fine, but he can only really spar for real with Dally because he's not afraid of hurting him. What I'm trying to say is Johnny hones in on beating the enemy whenever he fights and he literally can't multitask. he's LOCKED in

Johnny mostly tag teams w Pony because first of all Pony is not doing that shit alone and SECONDD of all, while Dal and him DO fight good together, Johnny tried sending him A Look one time mid battle and Dally didn't get it and asked if he was abt to cough up a hairball. Then Dally was body slammed by the guy behind him Johnny was trying to warn him about

Johnny tried explaining what he did afterwards and Dally said that shit was stupid and Johnny mumbled smthin abt "Pony would get it😒😒😒" he was low-key embarrassed though

[punkeropercyjackson]

🌊Percy Jackson headcanons🌊

Inspo from @jellyfilledeyes !!

🌊Afro-dominican.Monoracial darkskin and super strongfeatured,he literally looks exactly like Poseidon the 'lightskin Percy' crowd is illiterate.Full name Perseo Isadore Jackson

🌊Autistic.He's also literally the protagonist of the neurodivergent abuse victims series,y'all's denial is deeper than the sea

🌊Transfem bigender.Any pronouns + A hoard of neos and was on estrogen for a while but got no surgeries for extra gender fuckery

🌊Afrosolarpunk and knows how to diy things that don't even exist,does activism/charity and goes to riots/protests,is a straightedge and listens to Mcr,Teezo Touchdown,Megan Thee Stallion,Alt Black Era,The Cure and Meet Me @ The Altar

🌊Cut ties with Annabeth by Boo.Percabeth is 'destiny' by virtue of cisheteronormativity and amatonormativity textually and book!Annabeth is a bad person who needs to leave her alone for both their own good's

🌊Weird/niche interests king.She's into obscure podcasts,indie games,underrated cartoons,cult classic movies and non-corny musicals

🌊Was a Warrior Cats and Bubble Guppies kid

🌊Huge Superfam fan.That's why they compared Jason to Clark Kent as a compliment and knows like all the lore

🌊Platonic soulmates by choice in every universe with Nico and Hazel.Them and Nico spent the year gap between Botl and Tlo bonding and in Son Hazel turned them into a trio and Sally legally adopts her like she did Nico.Percy is their eldest brother and pseudo-dad

🌊Super into kidcore as trauma coping and also due to autism

🌊Loves Cotton Candy Bang,double cheeseburgers with loaded fries and blue flan

🌊Queerplatonic best friends with Rachel and their connection came from her being autistic too and never meeting anyone like her before him.She's a trans punk like her too and helped her transition and she basically lives at La Residencia Jackson part time

🌊Sally opened up a family bussiness:Familia Jackson Beach Shack.That's where his money comes from

🌊Except for Nico's chronic pain meds and mobility aids,which he guilttrips Poseidon for

🌊And Hazel gets to live the happy friendfilled childhood he didn't with his help

🌊Lego lover,Animal Crossing and Pokemon understander and Hot Topic hater

🌊Only part of Marvel he cares about is Spiderverse and his favorite Spiderpeople are Hobie Brown and Gwen Stacy because they're too much like her not to be

🌊Nico got him into cozy horror and Hazel got him into MLP(his favorite ponies are Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy and he knows Flutterdash is real and Wendell & Wild is his movie of all time)

🌊Unironically plays Fortnite

🌊His piercings are a standard eyebrow piercing,forward helix on both ears,a spider bite and a tongue ring

🌊Sharks are superior in his opinion

🌊Killed Luke and slowly did a revolution in the greco-roman mythos world with that as what got to ball rolling but it really hit when he killed Zeus a year post Hoo

🌊Supposed to have been Special ED to make friends and school easier but had a such a big meltdown when Sally offered at his 9 years old because his internalized ableism was already so bad and to this day they both regret it and wonder what could've been

🌊Underground shows and parties Percy's beloved

🌊Goes on petty crime sprees for fun and letting frustation out

🌊If Rick wasn't a pussy,his girlfriend would've been a sugary sweet but powerful asf black pastel punk girl who's got the same of sense of humor as him and undooms him from the narrative against everyone's pressured expectations(Ichihime dynamic is perfect for Percy)

[mediumgayitalian]

fic rec friday 8

hi!! welcome to fic rec friday. every week, i pick five fics i have bookmarked and rec them with a little review. check them out!

After The War I Went Back To New York by @buoyantsaturn

now that everyone else has written their three-days fics heres mine

first of all -- hamilton title. giggle was giggled. second of all, will being soft on nico day ONE and nico noticing immediately is so so real. fave solangelo dynamic of all time. this is lichrally one of my top five three days fics bc its such a CLASSIC

2. Bones by @buoyantsaturn

“Did you just throw a handful of bones outside?” she asked carefully. “Yes,” Will answered immediately. “Why was there a pile of bones in here in the first place?”

will being super excited over nico's powers >>>>>> literally EVERYTHING else bc he is a huge massive nerd!!! and will's powers are SO SO SO cool!! and theyre basically the same coin anyway. what is necromancy if not healing magic but goth

3. Sunshine and Daisies by @buoyantsaturn

Whenever Will needed a break from studying, or had spare time between classes, he liked to walk around the city, wandering into random shops and looking around for a little while.

Will wanders into the di Angelo siblings' flower shop.

flower shop fics have a little je ne sais quoi, and oumph, if you will,,, they’re irresistible. also. ALIVE BIANCA???? its nearly impossible to do in canonverse but in au....i do adore. she does indeed deserve to be around to tease the shit out of her dweeb brother. it is ever so lovely to see.

4. Two Minutes for Hooking by @buoyantsaturn

He blinked his eyes open, glaring up at Will. “Who the hell are you?” “I’m the medic you’ve been avoiding every practice,” Will answered. “Who the hell are you?”

I LOVE THIS AU. i think its my fave buoyantsaturn fic tbh. like not to reinforce canadian stereotypes or anything but hockey aus are the BOMB, and short king hockey player nico x absolutely takes no shit will??? immaculate vibes. i adore. i adore so so much. i have literally read this series so often that im reasonably certain i could recite the first 500 words from memory

5. Hey There, Darlin' by @buoyantsaturn

Will was pretty, and Nico was angry about it. He knew he shouldn’t have come here. He knew he should’ve just gone back to his cabin and stayed there until breakfast the next day, but no. He saw a cute boy and had to go after him. Of course he did. And then Will had to act like Nico was some kind of savior during the wars, and he smiled at him. That smile alone was enough to make Nico realize that this trip was a mistake.

first of all -- #everything is the same except will is the epitome and they dont meet until now is THEE most intriguing tag maybe ever, i needed to read no more. second of all -- whipped nico. god hes my favourite. third of all the big house scene made me GIGGLE it was so fun and silly. adore.

thank you for joining me this friday!! happy reading!!

[justaboot]

sorry took a nap

OKAY I've always lost my mind a bit at New Gods on the Block, but I could never put my finger exactly on what it was. Specifically this scene.

First off, visually it's BRILLIANTLY laid out and dynamic, and I think that's a huge part of it, because it physicalizes the entire episode thesis.

It's about power dynamics.

We've talked about this before, but the kids have put Scrooge up on this towering pedestal. Della, who's been in their shoes before, spends the whole episode trying to get them to kick that image, because it's stupid, not healthy, whatever. But the point is, I think what's so intriguing about the adults in this episode is that they're ADULTS. Scrooge and Della have kicked the parent-kid dynamic for this one, the dust has settled, and they're on equal footing.

The episode lays that out as soon as they get home from their failed adventure. The kids are having their life crisis, we're worms, etc, and they have Della come in and de-mystify the scenario immediately. It's low stakes. Don't worry about it, look, here's the formula, it's happened before, it'll happen again.

So suddenly, she's coming in confidently and easily on the same plane as Scrooge. This is what happens, whatever. They're partners, she's not subservient or looking up to him. She spends the whole episode treating him like a peer, the adults and the kids, and she's pissed at him like a peer, so that when THIS scene comes around, you've got a great setup for a visual struggle, too.

There's all this discussion about an effective team, who's worthy, whatever, and the kids fall behind, and Della and Scrooge jump in. After all this talk about teamwork, a huge visual point is made about Scrooge and Della having silent, effective communication and team work, and I think the most important part is that Della goes first.

This whole episode is a conversation about power dynamics, and Scrooge being this god-king, and Della pulls him up.

Now, you've got a fight scene happening in a fight scene, while their primary activity is climbing. Again, everything in this episode has been about team work, and this climb is old-hat enough for them together to weave in and out and still have it out, and the timing is EVERYTHING.

Scrooge is critical of what they're doing, where are those kids, why aren't they helping, etc, and he's been placed higher than Della. Suddenly, though, when she turns it around on him:

She climbs above him. They talked in the artbook about how she used to be in the kids' shoes and knows what it's like to hinge her worth on his opinion, and now, she's knocking HIM down a peg.

Suddenly SHE'S in the position of power, where she's put herself, (and he's let her, long way from don't raise your voice at me) because pre-series, they (and Donald) were a team. That's the point that he has to take a look outside of himself and see that the kids aren't on the same page. He's thought of them as a team, but didn't vocalize it, didn't treat them fairly, etc, and the kids heard and that had consequences. He literally doesn't hear them, he's not listening, and it takes a smackdown from someone who's decided she's on the same plane to get through to him.

It's one of the few times Della's one of the adults and not one of the kids, and it's really brilliantly executed. It adds a lot of dynamic, and the implied history and experience together adds a really dynamic layer. She used to be Thee adventure team, and that's still true. Idk the silent teamwork got me.

Anyway, this episode is my fav and a lot more thought was put into this than it looks, thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[canichangemyblogname]

911 fans do understand that someone doesn’t need to be devout to still be Catholic, right? They don’t have to be actively practicing or a staunch practitioner to still be a believer and, crucially, culturally Catholic, something which will influence their lived reality and worldview.

Sure, Eddie Diaz has been far from the most devout Catholic and he has frequently been portrayed as the least likely member of the 118 to believe in the supernatural. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe in God or honor the Saints or practice casually. Nor does it make Catholicism any less influential in his life. He might be the type of guy who’s a “Chreaster” (Christmas + Easter Christian; a.k.a. A “submarine Christian), but that doesn’t mean Catholicism is any less influential on his upbringing, lived reality, or worldview. In fact, it has deeply impacted how he views his place in the world as a man and even how he views other people’s place in the world relative to him as a man.

More on this below:

Cultural Catholicism— specifically Mexican Catholicism— is why Eddie hallucinated his former girlfriend as THEE Madonna. But not just any Virgin Mary, she looked to him like Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Tepeyac. The Catholic influence on his upbringing has had a large impact on how he views manhood, womanhood, and the relationship between the two. This Catholic influence, combined with the influences of the patriarchy in Mexican culture, like machismo, has led him to view women in the role of carer instead of partner. It’s why he seems to “use” his girlfriends as glorified babysitters. It’s why it seems he’s been looking for a woman to simply “take the place” as Chris’ “new mom,” instead of find someone he enjoys life with. It’s part of why he has a hard time getting it up or keeping it up when he’s in a loving and respectful relationship with a woman. It’s part of why he could only fuck around with Shannon when she wasn’t filling the role of “mother” for Chris, but once he let her back into Chris’ life, she ceased to be his wife and then became “the mother of my son” (see: the beach scene). He keeps falling into the trap of sorting women into either the Madonna archetype or the Whore archetype, yet people aren’t really talking about WHO he views as the Madonna, HOW he views the Madonna, or fucking WHY.

As @/talktonytome mentioned, it is the cultural influences in his life and the absence of his father that have taught him what “being a man” means. He was expected to assume the role of “provider” from a young age. He was forced to grow up fast, literally parentified by his paterfamilias. His own father told him that he had to assume the role of the “man of the family” as a child, and yet would continue to exert an incredible degree of influence and control over Eddie’s life course and decisions, as Eddie, Shannon, and Chris were completely financially dependent on Eddie’s parents (and dependent on them for child care). This dependency fostered an hostile and toxic dynamic. On top of this, he was literally just a kid when he got his girlfriend—who was also just a kid—pregnant. He believed that he and Shannon *had* to make it work for their kid and that they both *had* to “step-up” and “do it right” by getting married, despite literally being teens. There are reasons why babies should never feel pressured to or be forced to have a baby.

Because of his father, Eddie comes to believe that a “real man” devotes his all to his wife and kid, never abandoning them and always providing for them, unlike his own father. Which is why Eddie has spent every waking moment since moving to LA trying to make up for a life choice that he truly believes meant he abandoned his family: joining, and then reenlisting, in the army. “I ran out first. I ran out on both of them. … Instead of going back home, I reenlisted. I told myself it was to pay the bills—” “But you were running away too.” “Yeah…” It was all overwhelming because he wasn’t ready, so he sought an escape. He felt trapped by his circumstances and his family and saw only one “legitimate” route out: joining the army. He was then forced to grow up more by the force-arm of the (equally authoritarian) masculinist state: the United States Military. And this institution would continue to reinforce aspects of machismo that he’d learned through his father. Showing fear, pain, or grief makes you weak. Turn off your instinct to cry, embrace stoicism, and push through with any weapon you’ve got; it’ll award you accommodation.

This is also why he has spent every day since Shannon died punishing himself. He believes he abandoned her. He believes he failed her. He wasn’t able to devote his all to her. He couldn’t provide and he couldn’t make it work. All of this makes him a failed man in his mind. A failed husband and a failed dad and a poor excuse of a man.

Cultural Catholicism was also part of the reason for the familial and societal pressure to marry that he experienced as a teen after getting his girlfriend pregnant. It does, in fact, contribute to the social pressure to be partnered. And not *just* partnered, married. Through the church. There actually *IS* a reason Eddie’s mind immediately jumped to “marriage” when Tía Pepa set him up on a blind date. There is genuine pressure in Latiné families not just to be partnered, but to get married. Tía Pepa ambushed him with a date because it “breaks [her] heart to see [him] alone” and she’s afraid of him being alone forever. And she told him this immediately after bringing up how Alicia is getting married soon, and how Rafael, Fernando, and Liliana are all having kids. She might say “¿Que marriage? Who said anything about marriage?” (immediately after bringing up marriage, mind you) or “Let me introduce you to—” or “You need to get back out there—” now, but it will be “When are you getting married?” and “When are you having kids?” later. Being alone is stigmatized. Not getting married is stigmatized. Having a kid out of wedlock is stigmatized. And the thing is? Your parents and family don’t even have to be devout practitioners themselves to still contribute to this social pressure. Hell, you don’t have to be a devout practitioner to still believe any of it. Like Eddie hasn’t been the most devout and yet the seal of St. Christopher still holds a great deal of meaning to him.

Eddie doesn’t know who he is outside of being a provider. He’s never had the opportunity to discover himself. He went from being a kid to being a husband and father over the course of nine months. He then quickly went from a military career to being a single father in a new city, finally under his own roof at the age of about 28+. He never went on a long meandering road trip across the US and several countries in a quest to “find himself.” He never went to college where he’d experience new friend groups and ideologies. He has been under the thumb of authority or expectation since he was a teen. He’s never been alone.

So, how does he now find himself when he can no longer be what he’s long defined himself by?

[phoenixwatchesmovies]

Dracula Season Watch Party: The Lost Boys (1987)

After moving to a new town, two brothers discover that the area is a haven for vampires. - Dir. Joel Schumacher

Let's get one thing straight: this movie isn't. Stick a pin in that because we'll get back to that in due time.

In that case, though, WHERE DO I START? This is a fucking great movie and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. (I didn't say you have to like it. Quality is objective and personal taste is not. Go forth with that nugget of wisdom.)

Starting at the beginning, then, we get one of the best movie themes ever written (as evidenced by the amount of covers that exist), some of my favorite establishing shots ever filmed, and the character entrance that made me say out loud, "OH SHIT 👀"

YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN. As the top comment on the video says, "you know it's awesome when you click just to watch the opening."

The entire movie is like that, TBH. It's almost as quotable as The Princess Bride Thee Greatest Movie Ever Made, and is matched only by The Shining for scenes I'll just watch on their own because I love them that much. Like this one, for instance, that I'm linking because I'm going to bring it up again later:

^^ the music, the camera, the lighting, the transition from the headlights to the lighthouse... It's so good...

Other great music moments include the "People Are Strange" montage of slice-of-life style clips of folks going about their day in Santa Carla intercut with all the posters of missing people hung up around the boardwalk, "I Still Believe" featuring Tim Cappello, Tina Turner's former saxophone player, "Walk This Way" as the boys close in on the surfers on the beach, and ENDLESS uses of "Cry Little Sister."

Brief moment to talk about the Emerson family dynamic. Script, performances, and direction all work together in all the best ways so you never doubt how much they care about each other, or how far they'll go for each other. You can argue for family being one of the core themes of the story, whether it's the one you're born into or the one you're...well, born in a sense, into. Either way, it's about the bonds you make, be it for a lifetime or an eternity.

Grandpa gets his own bullet for being such an icon, and for having the absolute #1 best last line of a movie in history. We waited an hour and a half for the punchline of a joke we didn't even notice we were being told. 🫡

Suppose I'll move onto the Frog brothers. Their antics are where most of the comedy comes from, and if there's one thing I have a problem with in this movie, it's the way the two halves don't quite fit together. Michael and David and Co. work on their own as an edgy, stylish, coming-of-age story. Sam and the Frog brothers are the most obvious giveaway that the original concept was something a bit more similar to The Goonies. And it's probably because I like the vampires a lot more, but the kids just aren't that interesting. They're funny and necessary, but I'm not as invested in what they're doing.

Which brings us back to the Lost Boys themselves. The name is a deliberate reference to Peter Pan, and that's where the tragedy of the whole thing comes in. Screenwriter James Jeremias, after reading Interview With The Vampire and the character Claudia in particular, ran with the idea that the reason Peter and his gang never grow up is because they're vampires (which came first, this movie, or the theory that Peter and Co. are the souls of dead children?). You can see that influence throughout the story, and apparently David and the boys were meant to contrast with Michael in the way they represent adolescence, given they're eternal teenagers.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I don't get that very much. I'm sure it's there, but in terms of x vs y, the vampires and the Frog brothers have always stood out more to me. Compare the two kids trying so hard to appear grown up (Edgar even puts on a deep voice that fools no one) and the four kids who will literally never grow up.

I also called this a tragedy, at least as far as the boys are concerned. What else could it be, being a horror movie, but you watch scenes like the bike ride and it's fun and exciting and you understand what Schumacher is going for. They're alive and living in the moment, free in the way only kids seem to be. As you learn what they are, you realize that, for them, at least, this freedom is forever. Life will always be one big party going from one thrill to the next. The tag line is literally "never grow old, never die." And only one of those is true by the end of the movie. The gut punch about David's death (aside from the fact that he dies at all, what can I say, I'm obsessed with him) is that he doesn't go out like the others do, with blood and melting flesh and explosions. He just...dies, as that child choir kicks in one last time, and you see him for what he always was--a dead kid.

In conversation with tragedy is the theme of monsterhood as a whole. When Michael is faced with the reality of what his new friends are and what he himself is becoming, David has this to say: "You'll never grow old, Michael, and you'll never die. But you must feed." Spoken after the vampires have slaughtered half a dozen beach bums, we have the cost of immortality underlined for us. We've also seen Michael struggle against his new nature when he nearly attacked his own brother earlier in the movie, and it's not like he chose to go after Sam because he's evil. It's instinct. Hunger. A matter of survival. We see him alternatively warning Sam to stay away from him and pleading for help to stop what's happening to him because he doesn't want to become a monster, a killer like David. And that's what makes David and the rest of the boys the antagonists, because their survival depends on killing and feeding on other people, but that's all they're doing, is surviving according to their nature. That's the tragedy of monsterhood.

Along with the realization that someone had to have done that to these kids. Someone chose to make them what they are, and that's the real evil of the story.

And speaking of Max, I appreciate the fake-out approach to revealing him as the real Big Bad. It's very Scream, where you were pretty sure it was Billy the whole time but there was that one scene that threw a temporary wrench in your theory. But Star's line about Max being a secret David was protecting comes out of nowhere in a way that feels like there was a bit more context for it initially, but it never made the final cut.

Which leads me to my other gripe. The pacing and timeline don't seem to be in obvious cooperation. Again, it feels like more was there at one point, but transitional scenes were left out, so it's hard to tell how much time passes between the Emersons moving to Santa Carla and the final showdown. Things could either happen very quickly in which case the escalation is on a level with Romeo and Juliet, or it's more spaced out and the space isn't apparent. And I'm leaning towards the "spaced out" approach.

Now. Allow me a few more indulgent moments, because we gotta talk about David.

Look at him.

LOOK AGAIN.

Istg, he stepped around the bend of that merry-go-round and I said, out loud, with words, "oh shit." I had a crisis for days afterward due to the gender envy. I STILL don't know if I want him or if I want to be him. (I'm too fond of my hair as it is to even think about whether or not I'm brave enough for a bleached mullet, so at least I don't really have to think too hard about the answer.) All this to say, can you really blame Michael? One look at this guy and I didn't know what kind of egg joke I wanted to make, so I'm not surprised our boy Mike was trying so hard to fit into this group.

(Yes, you're correct, I'm circling back to my opening statement.)

You can read this as straight up, pun slightly intended, guys being dudes and Michael just wanting to be accepted by the local cool kids. Makes sense, really. They are cool. He's the new kid in town, and that folds right into the usual coming of age narrative with finding your place in the world along with discovering your own identity, etc etc. But if that's the case, then why all the long, frequent, intense eye contact?

@verified-villain-fxcker gets it. 🥂

Look, I'm sure if you tried hard enough to find a heterosexual explanation for the homoerotic tension I'm seeing, you could. But you're on this site, browsing the tag for this movie, so do you really want to? I've got a whole thesis statement on how Schumacher being a gay man/identity influencing one's art/motorcycle clubs being part of queer culture rattling around somewhere in my head, but to keep mostly on topic, I'm sticking with this: part of the coming of age story is discovering your identity, which includes your sexuality. Therefore, it's hardly a stretch to say this is a movie about gay awakening as much as anything else and that Michael Emerson is a disaster bisexual. Of course I'm not the first person to see it that way, but Pride Month is almost over. What else was I going to end on?

He's queer, your honor. Happy Pride. 🏳️‍🌈

[t00muchheart]

As I do when I am hyperfixating on something, I have read a LOT of supernatural fanfiction in the last few months, and I get a lot of the titles I read from other peoples’ recommendations or collections on ao3, so I figured I’d share some of my favorites in case anyone else is looking for recs :)

AUs:

Spirit of the West by teen_dean

This is a shock to literally no one who follows me because I regularly bring it up, but it honestly is one of the best things I’ve ever read. The 90s horse girl AU of your dreams (or, if you haven’t dreamed of one, that you never knew you needed). The storytelling is immaculate, the symbolism rich, and it only improves on re-reading

And this, your living kiss by opal_bullets

Poet Dean AU featuring genuinely beautiful comments on language and writing and how we encounter stories and words and what they can do, and also some honestly incredible poetry

where there is darkness by quiettewandering

Lighthouse keepers AU! this one is a bit mysterious and I did scream into a pillow after finishing it. If you know the story of the Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers, it is loosely inspired by that.

Phantasma by thisisapaige

Messy Dean, my beloved. Messy, Stanford-Era Dean, my beloved. Dean breaks off from John and buys a haunted house, and things sort of escalate.

For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention by thursdaysfallenangel

I don’t even watch hockey, but this AU kind of made me want to start. Rivals to friends to lovers all while dealing with the homophobia in the NHL

time has come today series by teen_dean

Team Free Will brings in teen Dean Winchester to help with a case, parallel worlds come into play; every version of Dean Winchester falls in love with Castiel & all the good stuff like that

What Baking Can Do by cowlovely

Baker & Dad Dean fic and Doctor Cas? What more could you ask for?

Everyone’s a Critic by Englandwouldfall

Food Critic Cas and Chef Dean meet in a truly unfortunate way. This is worth it for Cas’s reviews alone, but also the Dean-Gabriel dynamic

FROTUS by kathscradle

A President Cas, Restaurant Owner Dean romance that was honestly just a good time

Fix-Its:

take the bones, begin anew by JustStandingHere

This was one of the first fics I read and it is sort of peak disaster™ Dean Winchester. I love a good “I fixed up a house for you and didn’t realize it meant I was in love” fic and this one is iconic

i want to do with you (what spring does with cherry trees) by sobsicles

I ugly cry every time I read this fic. It is a run of Cas and Dean’s relationship in seasons 13-15 and has Dean making a friend and it hurts but also it’s so good. Maybe my favorite Sam line of any fic comes from this fic ("If he thinks what you two do is friendship, then I must just be some guy he happens to speak to sometimes.”)

break the skin (to break the barriers) by sobsicles

Dean gets tattoos, and as he does, he tells the tattoo artist his life story. This is a post-15x19 fic told from an outside perspective and it is so well-done

Dumbassery, Denial, Doing by sobsicles

Listen tbh this list could be dominated by sobsicles and so I am showing restraint by only including three of their works. Their Dean characterization is everything to me and this fic really highlights Dean growing to understand himself better when given the freedom to

Revisions by bizarrestars

THEE what if Dean and Cas got together earlier and Chuck just wrote it out? fic.

a turn of the earth by microcomets

I love a work that explores pre-series Dean, and this one is great. Basically, think what-if later seasons Cas and pre-series Dean met (Strandlines by aeli_kindara is another good example of this premise, but in Strandlines, it is pre-series Cas as well as pre-series Dean).

psalm 40:2 by unicornpoe

On a similar note, psalm 40:2 is a great pre-series Dean, future-Cas fic. I am a bi Dean believer but this fic did sway me toward the gay Dean camp because it’s simply so good.

You Belong Among the Wildflowers by ImYourHoneyBee

Dean fixing his relationship with Jack? You got it. Dean trying to work through losing Cas? Yep. Dean getting Cas back by being stubborn? It’s there.

Who You Gonna Call? by saintedcastiel

Dean has a ghost following him around as he tries to start a life post-series, and for a while, he can’t figure out what’s happening. I love nothing more than Dean telling people he and Cas were married because he doesn’t know how else to explain and this fic delivers so hard

quilts by fleeceframe

A “Cas didn’t confess before getting taken to the Empty” fic. Soft things all around

Miscellaneous:

Fathers & Daughters by sinnabonka

On a different note, this is one of my favorite Claire fics. It looks at Claire’s relationship with Cas and the impossibility of it, and it’s so artfully done.

Bus Loop Madness by batz_in_blue

Literally just a “what if everyone lived, Jack was a toddler, and they all picked him up from school?” AU. I audibly laughed while reading this, and it’s an essential pick-me-up from the heavier fics.

More of my favorite sobsicles fics include: gorging myself on you, still can’t get full (insatiable), and he’s back (with a mind of his own), six hundred sundays (and many more), oh sooner or later it all comes down to faith, things happen (they do, they do, and they do), according to all known laws of life, and profoundly bonded (by law)

Also, honorable mentions to Ninety One Whiskey, which is such a good fic, and Make a Believer Outta Me, which is a Hocus Pocus AU that is honestly just a fun time.

[aaliyg]

Liyah and KK Sister Dynamics HC's

Warning: cursing

Dialogue Color Code: KK, Liyah, Ice

Kinda short but ayee

(basically little sister KK, big sister Liyah 😊)

She's stealing Liyah's food most definitely

"Aye KK have you seen my chipotle?"

"...No."

"...Why is there rice on your cheeks? Nobody cooked rice today- Kamorea."

"I THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T WANT IT!"

"WHY THE FUCK- bitch you're paying me back."

"I don't have the moneyyyy!!"

"Figure it out then."

Liyah is a decently early sleeper (like 10:30 the earliest) so uh... KK has ALOT of candid pics that she uses as memes in the gc

Aubrey: When I say I slept like a BABY last night....

Liyah: You and Aliyah was having fun huh 🤭

Aubrey: stfu

KK: Aubrey rn: *insert pic of Liyah sleeping*

Liyah: ...if u don't delete that rn istg

KK: hmmmmmmm no💙

Liyah: i hate you.

KK: oop not the punctuationnnn...love you too bookie 🤭

Liyah: 😒 Aubrey how bad would it be if i committed murder

Aubrey: honestly i support it

KK: AUBREY

KK is THEE biggest Liyah+Azzi truther Lizzi™ for short (yes KK did trademark it. deadass.)

"Soooo how are you and Azzi doing? Yall kiss yet??"

"Girl wtf- no..."

"Are you gonna?"

"Please leave me alone man."

"Aww trouble in paradise?"

*Liyah side eyes her*

"My bad girlie my bad."

EVERY SINGLE TIME Uconn mics KK up there are two people on the top of her hitlist: Ice and Liyah (free them)

"We back with another videoooo!!"

*in the background* "Oh God.."

*side eye* "ANYWHO let's go ask the people some questions. SO Icey Baby. Ice Cube if you will-"

*Ice side eyes tf outta her*

"....sassy much. Anyways what song are you listening to right now?" *leans the mic*

"Um Snooze by SZA."

"Ouuuuu I CAN'T LOSE WHEN IM WITH YOUUUU!! I like it I like it." *bolts over to Liyah*

"Heyyyy big sister!!" *purposefully looks down* "Or little sister..."

"Aight now what do you want?"

*looks at the camera* "You see how she treats me yall? Anyways...why did you eat the last of my pringles?"

"You literally told me to?"

"..."

"..."

"ANYWHO-"

KK will always drag Liyah into a tiktok dance. Liyah doesn't mind, but KK starts regretting it when Liyah starts making the dance even more complex

"Ouuu we could do it like this..."

"Liiiiiiiii PLEASE it's just a simple dance."

"But it could be SO much better. Let me cook dammit."

"Oh my fucking God." *throws hands up in surrender*

KK almost busted her ass once 😭

If Liyah is driving KK is GLUED to that passenger seat. She loves it there

"Hehe yeahhh I get aux." *shuffles music and plays God's Plan by Drake*

"Playing Drake during these trying times huh?"

*busts out laughing* "Don't blame me blame Apple!"

"Mhm.."

KK will always brag that she has scary big sister privileges and she's not wrong at ALL

*Aubrey and KK play fighting a bit TOO hard*

"Aye cut that shit out."

*Aubrey and KK IN SYNC* "Yes ma'am."

*cue Ice cracking up in the background*

[theburialofstrawberries]

Many thoughts on monkey man and since I have a final to submit in 48 hours now is the perfect time to get them out. Not surprisingly another movie in which women are not real people but serve to stand in as men's motivations/succour (the only woman who approaches reality is Queenie, the oppressive boss/pimp). Dev Patel should rightly have fallen in love with one of the many women at the temple in which he recuperated, and I'm pissed that he didn't. If you're doing all the action movie tropes anyway, healing > falling in love > renewed motivation is literally THEE trope and the only reason it doesn't happen is because the creators were like, I am happy to include trans aesthetics and this weird orientalized mysticism, but trans ppl as real people who have sexual potential with the protagonist is a bridge too far!!!!

I do think it was impressive of this film (made in 2021? earlier?) to anticipate ram mandir, to anticipate it would result in more dispossession, and to show indigenous people at the forefront of that dispossession; most action movies are not interested in systemic questions and don't have the hero putting aside the guy who killed his mom to focus instead on a symbolic stand-in for hindutva; I was also impressed by the effort to show some of the relations between hindutva and industry and worker conditions; the ooh-look-how-gritty stylized slum and rickshaw chase sequences were whatever, but I really did like that we got to spend some time with the (oft vilified) Indian stray dog. For the constraints it was operating within (the action movie genre + literally no precedent of a mainstream movie set in India that deals with the dynamics of hindutva/fascism) it was a good first step. And I am not immune to dev patel doe eye

[jessaerys]

sorry this is an unholy post but my definitive mellonear thesis is that even if we took at face value the superficial reading of canon that claims mello unambiguously hates near (which is a refusal to engage with a glaring amount of context and subtext and very on the nose literary themes but the sake of argument lets ignore that), even if he in fact had absolutely no fond nor familial ties to near even after having grown up together

you shrimply cannot deny that mello would still get weak at the knees if he knew that near loves and/or wants him. at the very least he’d be eager to hatefuck him. like just from a plain crude framework of power dynamics (one of thee pillars upon which the erotic imagination is built) if he knew that near loves/desires him it would blow his entire sexual landscape to smithereens! his life would be divided into before-he-knew and after-he-knew! power is hot! everything is sex except sex which is power!

how are other lovers ever going to compare to the brain-rewiring eroticism of getting to ravish the annoying guy around whom his lifelong inferiority complex orbits. to quite literally be on top of him exercising all the societal connotations of domination that come with being the penetrating partner during sex (← not that i think this is their bedroom dynamics, just that, even if mello's preferences in the bedroom were usually the opposite, in this context the power exchange would have to be absolute. near topping at the beginning of their sexual relationship would make them so much worse [in a sexy way] but that's an entire different thesis we do not have time to unpack right now)

(and what near gets from this is catharsis in the form of getting to momentarily escape the suffocating weight of the responsibility of leading literal intelligence agencies all over the world in a manhunt for history’s most prolific serial killer. at the very least getting railed by the love of his life. but i digress) (personally i think feeling wanted/needed by near in a more familial/brotherly dynamic in addition to a sexual dynamic would cure at least 80% of mello’s mental illnesses; they were written to be two halves of one thing, the symbiotic nature of their strengths and weaknesses is literally baked into the characters)

what was i saying. oh yeah like look at that freak of a blonde man which is a redundant statement and tell me that every other erotic experience could ever compare when it is backed up by canon that mello’s neural pathways are near-shaped. starting a foundation that helps the eroticism-and-sensuality blind cope with their disadvantages

[gizkalord]

i kinda think if they're gonna play the angle of "sabine feels like ezra is her only family left" then they need to actually spend time digging into why and how ghost crew splintered up 🤷 call me crazy but even if you're trying to cater to non-rebels fans you still need to account for your preexisting character dynamics. the ghost crew dynamic was THEE most important relationship in rebels and i need a little more than vague hand-waving and assumptions to buy into the idea that sabine feels that distant from hera, chopper, and zeb (WHERE IS HE BTW???) as a valid plot point.

like if i'm remembering correctly hera and sabine have not been in the same room together. they've ONLY spoken to each other over hologram. hera LITERALLY played a surrogate mother role to sabine especially when she was estranged from her birth family. i would buy sabine's emotional spiral way more if she even HINTED at any frustration that hera can't even physically be there for her.

this isn't me saying that it's inherently unrealistic for them to all drift apart. i actually think that's an interesting/believable idea that with kanan and ezra gone and diverging life trajectories post-war, they struggle to maintain the same close relationships. because sometimes that's how relationships in real-life break off too.

but i need to see SOMETHING to make me believe that. and right now there's nothing. no indication that anything's off between hera and sabine, and straight up no zeb. no reason why they weren't able to support her emotionally through her birth family's deaths. and instead it's all this angst and focus on sabine and ahsoka's estrangement which is a completely new relationship that came out of the blue.

[punkeropercyjackson]

I hate........how sexualizing teenage superheroes is the norm in the superheroes fandom at large.Forgive me for traumadumping ig but i have really strong feelings on this as an autistic adult with a special interest in superheroes at large themselves and itself as a genre

My first hero spin was Big Hero 6.By the time it came out,i was 13 so i was allowed internet access no problem and naturally i went looking all over for content of literally everything about it but my favorite character was Hiro so he was what i searched for the most and he was LUDICRIOUSLY objectified and fetishized for his wasian heritage and when the series came out,he got an official love interest named Karmi who's 16 to his 14 and she got tons of hate from Hiro x Gogo and Hiro x Honey shippers despite them not only being college aged to his again,FOURTEEN years but we got explicit ages for them in season 2 when the Nerd Gang minus him gratuated from SFIT so they're canonically TWENTY ONE(i feel it's an important sidenote that Karmi's brownskin with a hooked nose and her VA is indonesian/chinese mixed so her heritage is obvious and as to how it contributed to her reception vs easian Gogo and blonde light-eyed Honey)

My second one was Bnha and there's been tons of discussion about the base's problem with the UA students and Himiko and i thank everyone who's posted about it deeply but my specific one is that my otp of the series was and will always be Shouto and Momo aka Todomomo even if i'm not nearly as into Bnha as i used to be because they were the first ship i actively made content for and it lasted years and that combined with me headcanoning them as bi4bi,t4t and autistic4autistic helped my egg crack and realize my own autism big time so their relathionship eternally has a big place in my heart

This means i've witnessed grown ass people saying Shouto almost touched Momo's boobs in that cap where he stopped her during their Aizawa fight(and his hand didn't even land on her chest)as a running thing and same for him acting as a macho man who rules over her body so she can't wear what she wants or exist near other men,including BAKUGOU who Momo HATES IN-TEXT,or have conflict with him because he'll just 'put her in her place as his woman' and Momo who's thee 'silk hiding steel' character and has adultification trauma that triggers her anxiety as the plot of the Todomomo starter 'Yaoyorozu Rising' with Shouto helping her with words of affirmation,healthy communication and good boundries on both sides that became the foundation of their dynamic throught the whole franchise,manga and extras,is reduced down the 'the class mom to Iida's class dad' as if she's ever even looked in his general direction and when she's rightfully earned her place as Shouto's best friend alongside Izuku himself and that is INSANELY imppressive taking into account her limited screentime.All i wanted was them being goth bf x pastel gf and getting to heal their inner child together and what i got was a nsfw Todomomo week on twitter and a certain artist drawing Momo/Dabi as an 'April Fool's' joke MULTIPLE YEARS in a row because he's also a Todoroki so it's also Todomomo lololol and i also did her with Natsuo and Fuyumi,i'm so funny!The only good thing to come out of that i started spite headcanoning Momo and Dabi as found siblings and platonic soulmates and realized i was actually on point

Then i watched Batman:Under The Red Hood when i was 19 and Jason became a character i selfship with romantically so i did the logical thing and started reading comics,starting with his.Did you know it's canon that while he dosen't exactly hunt them down specifically,he hates pedophiles and incesters so he once targeted a teacher because he was csa'ing one of his student's and expressed disgust at the thought of kissing any of his brothers based off them being brothers?You wouldn't know either of these things off fanon alone,you'd think he was creepy older guy who seeks out younger people on purpose when he dosen't seek anybody out period and that's his canon relathionships coping mechanism and it's also canon he couldn't talk to girls and pushed a guy off a roof for running a sex ring as Robin.As ROBIN,a fucking 11-15 year old Jason had that much of a moral backbone and willingness to take action in it yet everyone thinks he'd date a CHILD,even HIS OWN UNDERAGED SIBLINGS,with taking advantage of them as the appeal

I absolutely loved Into The Spiderverse as an afrolatino like Miles who was a troubled kid like he is too and i thought Gwen was super good too and Peter B's another character i selfship with romantically so naturally i was hyped for Across and the first thing the fandom did when the trailer dropped?Make a hyperpopular meme where that sweet,soft,wholesome scene where Gwen gets cheeky and looks through Miles' sketchbook and sees he's so in love with her he dedicated it's entierty to her just existing as herself into him seeing her as nothing but a sexual object with degrading features she does not have and it was a sick joke on Gwen because the boy she loves just wants her for sex and not even for what she actually looks and that just makes it even worse!!!Then there's the equally pure implied thing they did of her either stealing Hobie's sweaters because he makes her feel safe after her abusive dad kicked her out for being trans or him giving them to her to borrow as affection that ALSO got twisted into Gwen being nothing but a sex object,by people who see Hobie's age interpretation not even as a minor but in his 20s unlike how actual Ghostpunks do!!!!!!!,and don't think i haven't seen the Margo shit calling her 'thicc' and turning the girls into Miles' 'harem'

And the thing that made realize this is that it's always been like this is when i went looking for Teen Titans screenshots,first Starfire and Blackfire for me and my little sister and then ones of the animated Titans in general for my little brother because he did an edit-redraw of our DC self-inserts together using one so i got excited at how good it was and decided to ask for a few more since we have friends who have DC ocs too and we're all doing a canon rewrite fixit with them but the first results were fucking incest softcore porn and TOO DAMN MUCH horny Bbrae fanart.One of the friend's in question is like another brother to me and he's 17 and he thought there was nothing wrong with Jason/The Fenton Siblings because when i said find it triggering just in general,he tried to explain that i was 'making the wrong assumption' because a lot of people age up Danny and Jazz and he'd learned that from older DPDC fans.They literally groomed him and i'm so glad i met him and helped him unlearn that shit before he could get hurt

That's not normal.NONE of that is normal to involve children even if fictional because they're meant to be exactly like REAL kids mentally and physically and you get upset at the real ones for being upset by you doing this to them and even harrass them for it and i've had to directly defend another one of my little sibling's from harrasment from 'fandom elders' because he dared to have an opinion that 'dosen't follow the rules'.I'm sick of this,i can't stand this,this needs to DIE.There's no exaggaration over ten times the adult superheroes than they're are kid ones and you fucking ship them with eachother instead just sticking to the adults for smut.Batman and Robin were seen as a couple in ye olden times by a group of gay people not because Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson harbord secret romantic feelings for eachother since conception or intended to later on but because that specific gay people were irl pedophiles who used being gay as a defense

I don't care if i sound childish or if nobody who this is aimed at cares,i hate all of you for this.I hate you for tarnishing my special interest,i hate you for violating the history of superheroes and the creation of sidekicks and kid heroes as role models and escapism fantasies for real kids,i hate you for beyond disrespecting that superheroes as a WHOLE were created by jewish folks and that Clark Kent,the FIRST superhero,is the protector of all innocents with a deep love for children and gets especially angry when they're hurt and is a fundemental trait he has to have or he's NOT Superman or Clark Kent Kal-El or Superdad,i hate that the sexualization of underaged supers and them being abused as 'romance' by their fucking pseudo-parents is a long running punchline.I hate you with my entire heart and soul and actual comics reading knowledge

[atopvisenyashill]

That whole era of the Second Quarrel onwards is so obscure when it comes to the succession and the tensions surrounding it. No reactions. No massive events or much about dynamics. I want to know about Viserys's coronation. I want to know what he felt about his own succession before the GC. And before that, I want to know if Baelon ever tried to mend fences. If Jaehaerys ever mentioned it again, and how. How Rhaenys made her life, now all but an exile, on Driftmark. What motivated Aemma and Viserys's marriage. WHEN DID JOCELYN DIE?!

LITERALLY OMG. Number one frustrating thing about F&B is we get pages and pages of stuff no one in the world gives a shit about - Maiden's Day, that stupid story about Jaehaerys fucking the writer - and nothing on the subjects that actually got most people into the damn series like the POLITICS or the MAGIC. all of THAT is completly glossed over or Gyldane (and Yandel for that matter) just go "Well Barth did say this thing but that's nonsense" and then no elaboration. drives me up a WALL because yeah sure maybe the long, pages upon pages of battles and fighting are not my cup of tea but a) they're perfectly well written and b) THEY MAKE UP FOR IT BY GIVING ME SEVERAL CHAPTERS IN A ROW OF CERSEI AND SANSA JUST CHILLING AND POLITICKING IN DETAIL. He makes up for that in F&B by giving me MORE Jaehaerys as if that's what I want!!!

There's a few eras in F&B I think are likely to come up in the main series or in dunk and egg which is why I think F&B is so frustratingly vague (and if they were kept vague for no reason….george what. george WHY). And I do get he wanted to give us more of what he was writing without spoiling later books but good lord i would actually rather wait longer for material that isn't 60% george going "well i can't tell them ALL of that, let's just wink at the audience." The Second Quarrel is one of those times that might be relevant later imo largely because there's just. NOTHING. NO INFO. NO EVENTS. Like you said, there are NO major events in this time period. the ONLY thing happening is politics and court intrigue but F&B isn’t interested in court intrigue unless it involves grooming a 12 year old girl and unfortunately there is only poor Aemma being groomed at this time so F&B says “too many old people they’re not sexy” and just gives us sparse details about marriage dates, birth dates, and death dates. We don’t even see how rhaenys and viserys feel about THEE QUEEN ALYSANNE dying!!!!!!!! She just. Passes. oh so sad. george i’m in your walls!

Unlike every other Targaryen child (Aemma, Viserys, Daemon, herself, even Aerea and Rhaelle to an extent) who is allowed to grow up at court surrounded by other Valyrians and members of the royal family, Rhaenys kids are denied this. With this move, as you say, Jaehaerys all but tells Rhaenys "get you and your fuckin kids the hell out of my city." Can you imagine being Rhaenys, newly pregnant, having been told for years by your father and grandmother that you will be Queen one day just to be suddenly and unceremoniously exiled from court and kicked completely out of the line of succession? Can't even begin to get into how deranged it is to do this to your pregnant granddaughter when she's mourning the loss of her father

WHEN DOES JOCELYN BARATHEON DIE. HOW DOES SHE FEEL ABOUT HER DAUGHTER AND GRANDKIDS BEING PASSED OVER?????? She is only a year or two older than Aemon, she could easily have still been alive and making a fuss during Viserys' reign especially after he names Rhaenyra his heir SO HOW DID SHE FEEL ABOUT ALL OF THIS.

Baelon and Viserys' coronations/weddings/big We Are The Royal Line Now Shenangians during this era are crazyyy right, because THE QUEEN OF WESTEROS is refusing to talk to the iron throne, can’t ride her dragon anymore, is losing her hearing and memory, and goes everywhere with Gael to the point that no one even attempts to marry Gael bc they know Alysanne will never let her go. THATS INSANE. They are LIVING SEPARATELY like practically pseudo divorced the way Doran and Mellario are, so is Alysanne just purposefully snubbing these celebrations and using “i’m old” as an excuse or is she passive aggressively riding a carriage all the way back to KL just to show up wearing velaryon colors to viserys’ wedding and then left again without saying goodbye before the banquet even started???

AMD BAELON. part of why i’m so turned off by him is bc we have no indication he felt even a little had but to be fair it has been pointed out to me that we ALSO have no indication he didn’t feel bad; we have no indication of his feelings whatsoever!!! for all we know HE could have felt this was unfair & had been in the middle of either brokering a marriage between his grandkids and her kids, or figured “hey we had this exact same issue with Auntie Rhaena, maybe I should build House Targaryen a second and third seat or even given Dragonstone to The First Born Girl as tradition from now on” like he really could have been trying OR he could have been cackling and rubbing his hands together and encouraging viserys to bed 13 year old aemma soon and often to ensure their line, and calling rhaenys a stupid bitch at court, like we just don’t know!!!!!

We get several “they never agreed on the succession” comments but how does that translate to ACTION. stop telling me dates and tell me WHAT HAPPENED.

[megabuild]

this isnt about the ask game but i need you to tell me more about your take on pausetho. i just binged starblight desert and theyre the worst /aff what do you have to say about them

the fact you've specified starblight desert is really interesting to me because not only it is a team canada series but it's also the most recent team canada series- which isn't a bad thing to be clear, because pausetho is eternal and forever, but it interests me because i think pause and etho's dynamic changes a lot in a way that i wouldn't consider applicable to other ships of his that have that long and ongoing history (eg. ethubs, beeftho).

when i think of pausetho i think. the two of them are fundamentally quite lonely characters. full disclaimer that i'm far from #educated on their respective mindcrack povs because i haven't watched them in a hot minute, but. etho is extremely lonely often through choice, especially imo with the way i interpret his time on mindcrack as being shortly after all the 404 nonsense on the lp (tldr he has just went through the most traumatic experience of his life and learned most of what he remembers prior is probably fabricated). etho is also known for his masks and during mindcrack i think a big one was being this very respected and almost famous guy.. a lot of it was in jest ofc but like he's Thee Etho's Lab! this in addition to the fact that he's sort of intimidating in the same way he was in 3l+ll because his uhc rankings were pretty solid.

meanwhile pause is also lonely but imo in a different way. because etho is a guy who chooses loneliness to avoid the eventual hurt that comes from connection whereas pause is a guy who chooses connection time and time again but never really properly connects. hes a lot harder to analyse so forgive me because i also have to tread the dreaded rpf/fiction line here and start pulling from examples most people wouldn't consider due to it being Too Real (also i dont care because its complicated but anyway) one thing that always sticks out to me is the various mindcrack podcast episodes where he ends up being outspoken? i dont have any actual numbers on hand but i Def remember it in regards to like, discussions of female gamers and gamergate and the like and pause often being the one guy to speak up and be like This is shitty actually. that in addition to some far more complicated things i dont have the words to get into right now eg. being the guy on the gayest straight server ever who is actually bisexual But anyway. my point is that among mindcrackers pause to me is in a weird situation where he certainly fits in very well but simultaneously sticks out like a sore thumb in ways he cant really do anything about without massively compromising himself, so despite not being lonely in the same way etho is, there is a certain Something there.. sorry this makes zero sense but this ask has been sitting in my drafts for like a week and im desperate to get rid of it. PLUS he also deals with this in the form of a mask (he is actually a very anxious and soft hearted guy imo but often plays up and is fiercer and shouts more to get laughs but also to come across as bigger and more intimidating than he actually is. not that he needs to because jesus have you seen this guys uhc stats? frankly i should have skipped this entire essay and just linked the various times that etho and pause have clashed in uhc)

anyway jesus this got long . all of this is literally not real btw the main reason i like pausetho is because theyre funny and pause is one of my favourite guys and i wish there was more content for him. but also generally like.. this is the complicated messy reason to like them but also yeah generally just watching team canada and seeing their dynamic is fun bc they are just really good friends ^_^