#not Inherently romantic but you can definitely see it there. no confessions are given but theyve already made their vows in blood

[nihiltism]

oh is feeling a looming sense of dread when you see a romantic subplot in the distance even if it's not a straight one not normal

[n-a-gindustries]

i. i um. made a beavis and butt-head playlist.

(reasoning for each song is under the cut bc i have. a lot of thoughts.)

1. "Lullaby to Nightmares" by They Might Be Giants

(BOTH) This song is meant to encapsulate the veerryyy beginning stages of their friendship,,,like when they were gross toddlers/little kids fucking around in the summer heat of their stagnant town. only the faintest implications of them being n e thing more than friends.

2. "Adam" by Alex G

(BUTT-HEAD) Butt-head is a little pissy elementary schooler who doesn't know how to handle his weird new emotions for his friend so he just beats the shit out of him. get it together, man.

3. "Hold Me Down" by The Happy Fits

(BEAVIS) Beavis is a very unstable elementary schooler who values Butt-head's company and role in stabilizing him. he doesn't really understand much of anything at this point he just knows he likes his friend a lot.

4. "I Get A Kick Out Of You" by Frank Sinatra

(BUTT-HEAD) Man Butt-head doesn't really get why but Beav is like his only source of genuine entertainment and human connection. he's a massive loser but he's HIS massive loser and he values the time they spend together. but no he's definitely not gay its not like that.

5. "The Red Means I Love You" by Madds Buckley

(BEAVIS) Beavis loves violence and his favorite violence comes from his interactions with Butt-head. It's not inherently romantic but there's absolutely something weird going on that no one really wants to unpack right now.

6. "You're My Best Friend" by Queen

(BOTH) Quoi??? They're getting over themselves and actually appreciating the genuine friendship they have without hiding behind a thousand insults and beatdowns???? It's a miracle! Let's hope no drastic event occurs to completely throw a wrench into their life and relationsh-

7. "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" by Michael Bolton

(BOTH) Of course I had to add this song are you kidding? Some kind of wrench has been thrown into their lives (the extent of which is dependent on the timeline) and don't know how to cope with such drastic change and the possibility of losing each other permanently.

8. "The Wheels Fell Off" by The Hoosiers

(BEAVIS) Beavis is pissed off as hell bc he can kind of get over himself emotionally but Butt-head has padlocked himself within the closet and has reverted to being a little bitch. At this point he feels like they're probably broken irreparably and has kind of given up. he's leaving.

9. "Something About Us" by Saint Motel

(BUTT-HEAD) BUT WAIT!! Butt-head realizes he will probably die without Beavis and goes to stop him from leaving and confesses and Beavis confesses back and all that. its all very sweet and gay and im happy they're finally done being incredibly stupid.

10. "I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher

(BOTH) YAAAAY THEYRE CORNY N IN LOVE. its cute i imagine theyre just chilling in the honeymoon phase completely unphased by the actual shock and horror the rest of highland is feeling about this new development. they're made for each other.

11. "Boyfriend" by The Hot Freaks

(BOTH) further on into da relationship n they r still going strong!!! theyve been boyfriends 4 a while n they r sickeningly sweet in their own putrid, lovely way. they really just want to be togther for the rest of their lives.

12. "No One Knows" by Stephen Sanchez and Laufey

(BOTH) both a little bit older and waaayyyy out of the honeymoon phase. they have had their fair share of problems and arguments (see: AN INSANE AMOUNT), but at the end of the day they love each other and should not split up bc imma be real no one else wants them.

13. "Love Song" by AC/DC

(BUTT-HEAD) OF COURSE I HAD TO ADD A SONG EACH FROM THEIR T SHIRT BANDS. Butt-head you corny bastard.....he is a middle aged dude in gay love and he knows Beavis is in gay love and he wants to be that way with him forEVA.

14. "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica

(BEAVIS) Beavis's turn!!!! his aging ass is sooo happy to be with the one person as repugnant and gross and mean and interesting and funny and perfect as him and he doesn't give a single shit what other people may think of them. they're happy.

15. "Museum of Idiots" by They Might be Giants

(BOTH) They r old farts and they r still going strong. good for them!!! they've been in highland all of their lives and they have no plans of leaving ever or splitting up ever. they are going to live and die in this town and they are perfectly content with this because they have each other. this is their perfect life.

[bleachbleachbleach]

Hi! I don't know whether you're interested with the topic I'm about to discuss, it's about the relationship between Kyouraku and Nanao. Lol. All we know until the end of TYBW is Kyoraku and Nanao are officially revealed as uncle and niece. Only to that point, no more no less. But yesterday I scrolled over Instagram and found somebody commented in a post about Kyoraku, asking 'Kyoraku and Nanao are married right?'. Of course, people are denying it (some even said he's married to his zanpakutou lol). Later, there's this one guy went 'YES THEY'RE CANONICALLY MARRIED AND YOU PEOPLE JUST DON'T ADMIT IT'. Then he got himself explaining about the moment in chapter 651 (when Nanao asked Kyoraku to gave her sword back, when she said something about 'The man I adore will laugh at the curse'), there's a kanji word on that scene that defining Nanao's love confession to Kyoraku that leading into their marriage (sorry I forgot which word, but it's on the exact scene I wrote before). At first I was certainly sure this guy most likely misinterpreted the situation. But later on, I asked myself, what if I'm the one who didn't understand what I read? What if they're actually married and I didn't realize it. Idk, but if it's true I feel like it somehow ruin the atmosphere of the story (plus I'm sure both of them never thought about marrying each other because WHY SHOULD I MARRY MY OWN UNCLE/NIECE??). That's why I wanna ask for your opinion since you're indeed a thorough reader of Bleach, are they indeed married? Or is there any indication they cross the path and begin as husband and wife? I'm sure none of us wanted it, imagine marrying our own uncle lol. Your analysis lighten up my soul as a die-hard fan of Bleach who loved to contemplating every simple detail of the story lol. Thanks before!

I’ll begin by admitting that I am not someone who is bothered by fictional cartoon ghost incest, so if Kyouraku and Nanao want to be married, sure, go be married! I’m 1000% certain weirder marriages have and will continue to happen in the Seireitei. But the part about this conversation that’s interesting to me is—

Well, let’s start from the beginning!

"Marriage" is on the table here as a thematic concept because of the Ise Curse, wherein Ise women marry men, and the men always die (and their children are always women). Nanao’s mom tried to cheat the system by marrying out of the Ise Clan and into the Kyouraku Clan, but her husband still died anyway.

Nanao’s line isn’t inherently about marriage—she uses the phrase お慕いする人 (oshitaisuru hito). お慕い (oshitai) is an honorific way of expressing admiration/respect/adoration/pining. But, especially with those last two, you can see the valid potential to read the line romantically. However, it can also be used in reference to a grandparent, a teacher, or other non-romantic partners for whom you feel deep admiration.

Bleach 651

Given that the context is Nanao’s mother’s love life, and a curse that governs the love lives (and/or marriages) of Ise women, I think it’s reasonable to read that context into Nanao’s line, as well as into Kyouraku’s response (a small but witting smile), and to understand this exchange as romantic.

She's definitely talking about Kyouraku to Kyouraku here. But is she talking SOLELY about Kyouraku, or is she also referencing some future hypothetical man? I think that’s more open to interpretation.

As far as her message to Kyouraku, I’d personally read it less as a confession of love than as an assertion of agency. This is the part love so much about this scene: She and Kyouraku are losing this fight. Soul Society is losing this war. They’re probably all gonna die and it’s all beginning to feel a little preordained, a little like just deserts, a little like past romances being crushed by a cruel and inescapable family curse. For Nanao to say this now, in this moment, is to ask Kyouraku to stop protecting her and to let her join this fight―no matter the odds, no matter the sense of inevitable and pre-governed fates. Because the Kyouraku SHE knows doesn’t take shit from "fate"! He laughs at such things, and he believes, in the deepest core of his being, in a mutable world. This is what Nanao loves and admires about him. 

She reminds him of this, and he smiles. They did not come here to die at the hands of the Wandenreich, or to fall to punishments meted out for crimes that are and are not theirs. If they have crimes to answer for, the answer is not death. There’s other work that must be done, on the other side of this. If Kyouraku can believe that about the Ise Curse (and Nanao's future love life with this future hypothetical man) and give Nanao her sword, then he can believe that about this Thousand-Year Blood War.

Can that faith and devotion also be read romantically? Yeah, sure go for it. Can it be read entirely platonically? I’d say yes, that too!

Personally, I think Nanao probably dodges the Ise Curse by being Extremely Lesbian, but whatever she ends up doing I’m pretty sure it involves a lot of sex and even more forms of love than that amount of sex that don’t have anything to do with sex OR romance. But that’s all beyond the purview of this scene. XD

[takaraphoenix]

Ship game!! What about Nico and Will?? It’s pretty popular, but I don’t think I’ve seen you write much of it…

That's an interesting one in that I have vocalized my reasons for disliking it way back when it first became popular but instead of just linking that, it has been years so I think it's time for an updated version.

Firstly: This post is gonna be properly tagged and not crosstagged so if any shipper comes across it and feels the need to bitch about it, just don't; your lack of curating your own tumblr experience is not my problem! ;D

Now, there are three key factors that play into my dislike of this ship: How it was written, what it represents, how the fandom around it acts.

1. It’s rushed and uncomfortable

In BoO, it was incredibly rushed. They had literally five sentences of interactions before they walked into the literal sunset together. Five. It was just entirely born from Riordan's Noah's Ark Complex, where he just can't let people be single. The series was ending and he needed Nico to have an endgame so he rushed into some random romance with zero build-up.

The way their interactions went down was also severely uncomfortable for me. Will was acting so offended by Nico not wanting to go to camp and be friends in an entitled way that he had no right to be, he downright guilt-tripped Nico about how he had wanted to be friends. Nico has been just so severely traumatized at such a young age and his coping mechanism, as unhealthy as it was, was to run away and hide. Will acted like Nico not wanting to form attachments to people who could potentially leave him again was somehow just an Edgy Emo Decision and not a direct reaction to his trauma. His entire approach to Nico was basically all these hippie posts of "Don't have depression!! Just go out into the sun and stop being depressed!", which is already a bad take with non-medical people but he's supposed to be a doctor (and let's not get into the shadiness of him technically being Nico's doctor).

There is also an inherent "I can fix him" angle to this ship and to me, only few ship dynamics are more uncomfortable than that. If you want to fundamentally change a person's behavior and personality, you... don't actually want to be with this person.

Now, here's where my points overlap, because the following parts of their writing that bothers me also stand for what this ship fundamentally represents.

2. Solangelo is a queer ship written by and for straights

I'm a queer woman and as a queer woman, I want queer wish-fulfillment, not what straights want out of queerness. I'm kind of tired of that, I've been sitting through it for enough decades now. That's, of course, not to say that no straight writer can give proper queer representation, but far too often do straight writers - even the most well-meaning ones - project straight desires of queerness into their queer representation.

Let me explain that closer through this ship.

Nico's been in love with Percy for years and I'm going to do my best to not hijack this post with some Percico agenda; that's not what this his about, this isn't some "my ship is better than your ship" ship-war nonsense. It's simply a canonical fact that Nico has had romantic feelings for another character for years.

A character who, in this medium, is heterosexual. And if you're queer, you've been there. In love with your straight best friend. It's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason.

We have also all been well-meaningly rejected by said straight friend.

And here's the straight desires for you: The queer person who was in love with a straight person just immediately stops having those feelings and will then as quickly as possible fall in love with the next queer person they meet to be happy and no longer uncomfortably in love with a straight person, because that thought makes the straights uncomfortable.

Queer wish-fulfillment would be for Percy to return those feelings, for the queer character to get his first love, to not be rejected. That thing queer teens always dreamed about for themselves.

Aside from the wish-fulfillment angle, the pacing is another problem. Let me repeat, Nico was in love for years. But a five sentence conversation with Will once causes a crush on Will and we see him physically turn away from Percy and toward Will just immediately to rebound and actually fall out of love with Percy and in love with Will. Anyone who's ever been unlucky in love will attest to just how unrealistic and ridiculous the pacing here is.

It's also straight queerness in another respect; Nico has been the first ever queer character we meet in that world. He loves a straight guy - and to get over that, we introduce the second queer character. Because heaven forbid there are multiple queers to pick from. No, in straight-written queer romances, there is always that one main queer and then they introduce a second one and the two just immediately hit it off and develop a romance like all a queer person needs to form attraction to someone is the confirmation that the other person shares your sexuality.

Also the notable gay guy on gay guy ship here, whereas the more queer-wish-fulfillment option would have also included more nuance to the queer experience, because Percy doesn't have to be heterosexual just because he has only been with girls so far. It's a very old-fashioned - think 90s and early 2000s - kind of straight-written queerness that there are only exactly two homosexuals and that those two homosexuals then pair up.

And, listen, I'm not immune to these outdated straight-written queers entirely, I have many such ships that I grew up with that I am still fond of because they were groundbreaking at that time and they weren't outdated yet back when they happened in said 90s and early 2000s. I am however a grown woman now and just like I have grown, so has queer rep so I am not as easily baited into falling onto my knees in gratitude for canon rep. You have to go with the times. And this ship, by all that is given to us, is just entirely outdated straight-written rep.

Which, I mention earlier that even straight-written rep can be good. If the author tries. Riordan doesn't really try though; he does the bare minimum when he writes any of his rep - and there have been many, many more qualified voices being very vocal about his depiction of people of color and, as a woman, I've been vocal about his depiction of women. I don't want to derail this post with all of that, but I do think that it bears mentioning that Riordan doing rep but only doing a bare minimum and not putting in the necessary work to deepen the representation he wants to give is a repeating pattern that has been pointed out many times by now.

(I’d also like to point out that no, it is not just the ship and not just the listed instances that make it straight-written rep for straights. It’s Nico’s entire queer arc, starting with his forced coming out. A severely traumatizing event that is completely brushed over because the straight author doesn’t understand the impact this has on queer people. Not to mention the framework; Nico’s coming out isn’t Nico’s story, it happens in Jason’s POV, it is given to us through the POV of the straight bystander who gets to be Best Ally by assuring Nico that being gay is okay. This kind of coming out is not a queer wish-fulfillment, it’s a straight wish-fulfillment of getting to be the straight savior, the ally to show the gay the light of acceptance. And, additional to the ridiculous pacing of how fast Nico gets over his love for Percy, Nico also gets over years of internalized homophobia just because of, I don’t know, Jason’s few encouraging words and the fact that Will paid attention to him? For a gay kid who was in the closet all his life, the nonchalant way in which he publicly confessed his crush to Percy at the end made absolutely no sense and was written as basically a joke, finished off with Nico literally high-fiving Percy’s girlfriend despite those two never having seen eye to eye before but this is straight wish-fulfillment so all straights are Super Allies, because that’s the way straights want to see themselves, even though Annabeth has shown before just how jealous she can be and she most definitely wouldn’t go around high-fiving people who confess to her boyfriend. Nothing about Nico’s queer arc in HoO felt natural or queer or satisfying.)

Sure, Solangelo on a surface level is big because it's a canon queer couple in a YA book-series and kudos for that and yay for the kids who get to grow up seeing queers in YA books, but I actually do think that kids growing up with books written in the 2010s shouldn't grow up with 1990s levels of representation, because the 2010s overall are actually at a far more nuanced and better level of representation when it comes to queerness. And I do reserve the right to quit on too straight-written and too outdated queer rep in a landscape where I can get more satisfying representation elsewhere; we don’t live in times anymore where you necessarily have to love every bit of rep because it’s the only one you get.

Now that we've gone through my first two gripes, let's wrap this up with the final point, because it also directly ties into this.

3. The new wave of antis hiding behind this ship

A huge part of the fandom is so busy kissing Riordan's ass solely for giving them queer rep at all they think that both the author and the ship are beyond flawless and that kind of attitude is not good. Just because an author includes rep doesn't make either perfect. Absolutely no one is beyond critique - especially not when said critique comes from the very people the author is representing. And even beyond any "valid" critique on the ship, quite frankly, someone should also be allowed to just not like it, without any reasons given at all.

But there is a certain... protective obsessiveness about this ship that doesn't allow a not liking. Very similar to how PJO bore this mindset around Perc/abeth already. It's okay to have OTPs, even OTPs that you have a blindspot for and just don't want to see any flaws in. It is however not okay to then go around attacking people who don't like the thing and mind their own business.

Solangelo's bred a new generation of antis in this fandom. And, particularly with the fact that this post too receives an "anti" tag, I feel like there needs to be a clarification (because tumblr likes to forget what actually makes an anti). Not liking something doesn't make you an anti, venting in properly tagged posts doesn't either; it's the people who harass others, who seek out the content they dislike to then complain that it even exists and who actively try to make others stop creating for it - those are antis.

And with Solangelo's popularity, there was a high rise in Percico antis, who sought it out, were unnecessarily nasty about it, harrassed creators and tried to enforce some kind of "Solangelo supremacy" that won't allow other ships for the characters.

I've been in fandom long enough to be perfectly aware that not all Solangelo shippers count into this category and that there are completely normal and nice Solangelo shippers, but this is a Venn diagram where the overlap between Solangelo shippers and antis is too large to not widely associate the nasty people with the ship itself. (I've been there myself, shipping the very ship behind which a fandom's antis all hid. The second-hand embarrassment of having these people give the ship a bad name is horrendous and I do feel bad for all the normal Solangelo shippers.)

The more often I encountered these people, who made Percico bad (sometimes in wildly ridiculous manners that bent and deliberately misinterpreted canon) and who in the same breath praised Solangelo high, the more tired I grew of that ship. It's a simple game of association, really. You see that linked to the gross and nasty behavior and you start associating the ship itself with that gross and nasty behavior - and with all the things I said before that already weighed into my dislike of the ship, this just was the final tipping point, really.

And that's it. That sums up why I dislike Solangelo. It was hastily rushed, uncomfortable in its execution, it is outdated rep that very much feels as straight-written as it factually is and it does not feel aimed at me as a queer person but rather at the straight audience and it has gathered a cult following of quite uncomfortable people who on their own would be reason enough to avoid it so you can avoid them.

Send me a ship and I will explain why I do or don't ship it

[sapphic-luthor]

Hello again, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve popped in here.

But I’ve been thinking about this. Do you think they’ve cooled off on Kara/Lena interactions because of how inherently gay season 5 was framed? If they hadn’t wanted to give credence to the ship, they probably shouldn’t have revolved an entire season around them. Like if I try to think of what happened in s5, all I think is that it was a really long break-up.

And then season 6 enters, Kara and Lena have like this tentative acceptance and forgiveness for the past (though I do think Kara still owes Lena another apology; there was just a bit too much on Lena’s end in 5x19). Lena spends multiple episodes trying to save Kara, nearly going so far as to not save the day so she can bring Kara back and having a really emotional time about it. We get a hug and this tender moment that is too short and then legit no interactions there after.

They haven’t had a time to properly talk about anything. It’s strange too given the closeness that really developed between them in s3&4 and how the whole of s5 was centred around them. I just think it’s odd how little we’ve seen them together, almost as if the writers intended to keep people from shipping them (despite it making the most sense at this point if they’re going to end the show with Kara in a relationship.)

Because I’d really enjoy some hard conversations about the dubious nature of Kara being Supergirl and hiding from Lena for 3 years, or why Lena went all Luthor on Kara when she’s never given anyone else quite the same treatment.

Like she had known Andrea for some ten years and when she betrayed her, just cut her from her life. Which just brings me back to the point that if there’s no romantic context, then it makes zero sense why Lena did and said some of the things she did.

hmmmmm i have been thinking about this one for some time now.

do i think they purposely separated kara and lena to make it seem less gay? not necessarily.

but.

Like if I try to think of what happened in s5, all I think is that it was a really long break-up.

no i mean it literally was. there's genuinely no better way to explain a full season of teary-eyed arguments and confessions and staring at each other's photos and "the world is at stake but all i care about is you" scenes. because it WAS. it was a breakup! it genuinely was.

They haven’t had a time to properly talk about anything.

this is, i think, just a side effect of the writers room rather than a purposeful choice. it's definitely extremely weird to see them have an all-out meltdown in season 5 and then nearly nothing in season 6, but i'm chalking that up to the fact that the show has forced a bunch of new and fucking weird storylines nobody asked for into season 6 and they're probably feeling like they have to focus there to drive the """plot""" which now apparently includes lena being a witch i guess

Like she had known Andrea for some ten years and when she betrayed her, just cut her from her life. Which just brings me back to the point that if there’s no romantic context, then it makes zero sense why Lena did and said some of the things she did.

OKAY ACTUALLY I'VE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS??? like i have but i haven't made that entire connection before and oh my god. lena and andrea were best friends for over a decade supposedly and when andrea betrayed her in what was arguably the worst possible way (see: family trauma, trust issues, magic powers) lena just.... ghosted her. and yeah that's definitely a rough way to end a friendship that heavy, but she almost REMOVED FREE WILL FROM ALL OF HUMANITY when kara hurt her which feels. um. a little bit different!

[quwarichi]

heard from your mother au - The Ripple Effect

this is my early birthday gift for @schmuzz1 Ever heard of the ripple effect? you probably did but let's go over it once more; the ripple effect is like if you took a rock and threw it into a lake. Where the rock would hit and sink a ripple would be created, and from there it would only grow bigger and bigger, taking over more space, until the water settles again.

HFYM is the ripple effect ficsonified. The premise is simple, for those who watched the episode Despair in the last season of Supernatural. Castiel confesses his love to Dean, gets taken by the Empty. He wakes up in 2003 in a motel room, without his memories and only a memory saying “Don’t do this, Cas” which helps him figure out his name is Cas, and that he’s a hunter. Simple.

Then he meets Dean.

Now, we’ve all read various pre-series fics, haven’t we? It’s a token when giving fans a time-gap that we don’t know much about, they’d try to fill it as best as their imagination limitations will help them. So what is so special about HFYM?

In a word; Cas.

Meet this angelic being, who without his memories fully believes his humanity, and drives around the US not looking for answers, exactly, but just trying to help out to the best of his ability. By putting Cas in a setting pre-series, and letting the readers know that this Cas is their Castiel, the story already kicks into gear with a race to see when and how Cas will affect the story.

We didn’t know about angels until season 4. We didn’t THINK there was a better way to kill demons other than the Colt until season 3. Characters and themes that we would’ve taken years to get to know in the show are being used and constantly appear throughout what HFYM would call season 0 (or is that just me? make some noise). But Cas changes all of that just by being. For this next part, I recommend you stop reading this post if you haven’t read this fic, go read it in its entirety, and come back here after you’re done and had time to adjust.

We good? Good.

Pamela Barnes, the love of my life and a five-episode cameo in the Supernatural show. In HFYM, she acts as Cas’ best friend most of the time, teaching him the highs (hehe) and lows of having what they all figure is a really developed psychic ability. Bringing Pamela in chapter 16 was not only a brilliant use of character but a ripple effect. But I get ahead of myself. To understand why Pamela is suddenly there, we need to identify the biggest ripple of them all; Dean fucking Winchester.

Dean and Cas, from the start, develop a sort of kinship. It’s reminiscent of their first meeting in Lazarus Rising, where Castiel rescues Dean but also has its own charm. Here, Cas has no idea he’s an angel, and that’s why humanity is so strange to him. Dean views Cas as a weirdo that is not to be trusted, and later as a weirdo that he can kinda trust but make sure to watch his back around him.

In a way, they’re mirrors. Cas’ effortless way of creating acquaintances highlights just how isolated Dean is from people because of John’s influence. Whenever they’re together, Dean finds himself surrounded by others too, but apart it’s clear that Cas (to much of my, and probably his, surprise) is the social one.

Quoting the fic tags: “like maybe if he [Pre-series Dean Winchester] got a boyfriend he would have calmed down” is the very abstract explanation of the ripple effect. By being isolated for so long, without even Sam to keep him company, Dean couldn’t develop properly, resulting in the Dean we get in season 1. But ripples (courtesy of Cas) reach him and that’s where it all comes together. By meeting Cas pre-series Dean is given two things; one, no more isolation, time to grow sunshine. Two, a romantic subplot.

Now I don’t know how much you know about media - but romantic subplots are usually very character forwarding if done right. The best thing about the romantic subplot in HFYM is that it’s not immediate. Fuck no. It’s built on months of friendship and a bond forged in hunting, in putting each other’s lives in the other’s hands like it’s nothing. When they finally get together (I did the math, they get together when the story is like, halfway over. 52% to be exact) it makes sense because you watched them forge the bond and thus pushing their character development further. Romantic subplots are one of the best ways to push a character to their limits (looking at you, chapter 49) and then break those limits. So the biggest ripple was basically Cas and Dean thinking “huh, lemme smooch” and then doing it instead of eye fucking for twelve years.

But that’s not what I’m talking about, exactly. The biggest ripple effect that Cas did with Dean is that when season 1 starts (did I mentioned this was a canon rewrite? We love multitasking), when Dean goes to get Sam for Jericho and everything is put into hyperdrive, Dean is different. It affects how people around him act, especially Sam. The first season is very Sam-driven, but the main character will be changed by changing the “supporting” cast. It doesn’t help that Cas ripple effect number 2932#: Save Jess has definitely quelled the grief-rage thing that Sam has going on in canon since she’s not gone, and is actually around them for a while before leaving to work with Bobby and Jo. Sam immediately notices that something’s different about Dean, but he can’t put a finger on it. Requoting tags: “he would have calmed down”. Gone is the aimless rage and loss that makes him reckless and drinking too much. Gone are the women chasing days because he’s in a committed relationship. Heck Dean has a bit of self-esteem now, having bagged that (points at frog-shirt wearing Cas) and it affects the story in the way he and Sam interact.

Sam can feel that Dean’s hiding something from him (Cas) and it makes a rift between them because he doesn’t get who’s this hunter Dean hangs out with that is definitely replacing Sam in Dean’s eyes - the same guy who used weird powers to save Jess from a demon. Dean is still hurt over Sam leaving for Stanford and anxious about him finding out about Cas and John and everything. Basically, take season 1 brother dynamics and throw a live grenade in the mix. That grenade is Cas, btw.

Ripples, man.

Cas affects the story - he gets Dean to get back in touch with Bobby because he’s looking for an explanation for why he heals from mortal wounds like it’s nothing, why he doesn’t need sleep, and why he’s never hungry. Bobby connects Cas to Pamela, thinking Cas is an odd psychic, and Pamela becomes inherently important in the way that she helps Cas control his powers and provides his first real… non-platonic experience (off-screen, dw they’re friends) that later helps him discern what Dean is to him. Through Bobby, he also meets Ellen and Jo, in the Roadhouse. He goes on hunts alone, and finds a knife that helps him save a possessed girl named Taylor who is later a part of an actual episode (Hookman) and there’s recognition, she’s not just a standby person and that connects with Jess’ storyline, that connects with Sam’s storyline that connects with Dean’s storyline. By being him, Cas creates ripples everywhere he touches because he’s not supposed to be there.

The otherwise undisturbed surface is broken because Cas is there to break it and create ripples that connect with each other, all unknowingly, and the way it’s constructed is incredible.

I could add more about Dean’s bisexuality journey or realization, or how lack of trauma makes Cas a lot more narrative-free but it could all come crashing down on him if he remembers the past, or how Sam and Jess are so interesting like yes girl flesh out the revenge reason we see in three episodes, but this is getting long and I could always make new posts about this fic that I love so much.

Happy birthday, Jenn, you’re an incredible friend and writer and I’m so lucky to have found you in this mayhem of a fandom.

Go read heard from your mother (she don’t recognize you) on ao3, you magnificent people.

[crispyapplepies]

AkuRoku Defense pt 2

Axel and Roxas’s ship has had one of the most bizarre fandom journey’s i have ever come to witness. It has gone from being one of the most popular ships maybe ever, to being dead cancelled over a supposed age gap and I find that completely unfair, especially when it speaks to so many innocent people who emotionally depend on the ship, (yes innocent includes the spicy people because art literally is not a crime). So its time to defend it.

Brief Review on Nobodies vs Aging

First of all, l already explained in part 1 what the Nobodies Don’t Age thing means but I’ll go over it again briefly, since it can be confusing, though also many people seem to demand their hands be held rather than use their imaginations to understand. Even so, here’s the short version just for a review:

-A person in KH is made of a heart, body, and soul.

-The body reflects the heart in KH. (See: replica bodies taking on the appearance of the heart that’s inside them). 

-A nobody lacks a heart, making them just a body and soul. They’re advanced zombies of sorts.

Nobodies do not age because they have no heart for the body to reflect. This is why they won’t change until they form one. Change includes age

-Ergo, you can imagine any age you like for Axel to be nobodied, cuz he was frozen at that age and did not change for 10 years. Not until he met Roxas. 

We’ll come back to this again later.

Axel Loves Roxas Canonically

Second of all, Axel loves Roxas and you are allowed to interpret that as platonic, familial, or romantic, I don’t care as long as you’re not forcing that idea on others like the ship police. That said, people are allowed to explore how romantic this love potentially is. 

And what you might like to know is that the canon is even open to this. Axel’s love for Roxas is canonically expressed, and if you would like, you can even interpret that love as romantic. See below:

We are going to look at the japanese translation because AS ALWAYS good old SENA is here for the straights and erases the gay, like clockwork. 

In English, Axel says this:

Axel: I wanted to see Roxas. He...was the only one I liked... He made me feel...like I had a heart. It's kind of...funny... You make me feel...the same...

Axel’s line here in Japanese:

Axel: I wanted to see Roxas... I loved him. Being with him... it made me feel like I had a heart. I feel it from you, too... the same kind of....

You may notice that as romantic as the line “he made me feel like I had a heart” sounds, the original can be read as wAY gooier, specifically cuz of this word:

好き: "suki"

Now here’s the thing. Japanese is a pretty vague language which is why context is so important for these things, as well as what you say, and what you don’t say. 

“Suki” is a very key word here because it is often used in romantic confession scenes.

(I have no idea what this panel is from, I apologize lol) 

It CAN mean something casual, like “I love video games”, but considering Axel is saying this with his dying breath, I don’t think we should be treating it as some hyperbole. He is referring to a person and it is meaningful. However. It is still a word with plausible deniability. Japanese has several words for love, “ai” for example being one of the most inarguable means of referring to romantic love. So choosing “suki” still leaves room for the homophobes to disregard it as something not romantic. Which makes it objectively inconclusive. Here is the thing though… they specifically chose that word, suki, a word which IS so often used in a romantic context in many anime and manga. 

They also chose to use that word rather than something objectively platonic. Which means you also cannot conclude Axel did NOT mean it romantically. Given his devotion to Roxas, and the fact that they chose this word of all words for him to say… I’m personally going to assume it’s romantic. You are free not to interpret it that way. But I am because I am considering the fact that they did not choose something strictly platonic. 

(My translator friend actually freaked out when I showed her this, she’s translated and seen enough confession scenes to know what connotations that particular word comes with lol). 

If you’ve read my queer coding doc, you may recall I also go over how this is one of the most important tricks with queer coding. You write something that CAN be viewed as queer but with plausible deniability for straight people to ignore it. It’s a means of protecting oneself and the text from homophobic oppression. It is a legitimate practice. So even though it can be denied as a queer text, it can also very very well be viewed as a definite queer text. We are choosing to queer it here. It is not as explicit as it could be, but it is still very bold, suggestive coding considering the homophobic world we live in, and especially with KH2 being released in 2004. 

“But Age Gap!” (ughhhhh)

We’re back to this cuz I also finally have the Japanese version of that infamous page in the Day’s novel to look at.  

I hope you’ll forgive me if I get a little bit salty but I don’t like to repeat myself lol so I’m gonna try to keep this section short and to the point.

In this interview with Nomura, he expresses that nobodies do not age, and they exist as they were at the time of becoming a nobody. He then suggests Xemnas seems 30 ish.

Now I truly do not care to hold your hand through the process of thinking creatively because you should be using your own imagination, if you have one, to think critically and creatively about what this idea means.

Kingdom Hearts is a FANTASY game. Nobodies are a FANTASY concept. They can break ALL the rules about real life that you want them to. But I will go ahead and explain this for you even though I’ve already done it many times, in this very document even and in other meta posts.

The body reflects the heart. Nobodies are frozen as they are from the moment they are “born”, which is to say the moment they are created. Glorified zombies. They aren’t going to age unless they form a heart. Why does Xemnas look 30? He has a heart! Or he was formed 10 years after TerraNort defected. You tell me. Why did Ienzo age? I dunno, you tell me! Either he formed a heart and didn’t know it, (he’s passionate about his work, he loves Ansem the Wise, any number of things could’ve made him form a new heart), or he was nobodied later in life. Axel is frozen at whatever age he was when he was nobodied, all the while Ienzo could’ve been nobodied 10 years later. It’s a fantasy, and these are fantasy rules. That scenario can happen. YOU decide. Until the canon tells us for sure, your imaginations can run wild with explanations. Even if the canon does tell us, you can still imagine whatever you want for your own headcanons. Freedom is amazing, it’s salty and sweet. 

Now let’s talk about that annoying page in the Days novel people keep shoving in my face.

This one right here. The official english translation is this:

That’s not the worst translation I’ve seen them put out there. But let’s look closer at the Japanese:

 Here, Axel says he thinks Roxas is about 10 years separate from himself, but things like age don't exist for nobodies.

Already that’s making a lot more sense to me for nobodies since we are told nobodies do not age. As such Axel speaking like he is 10 years older would feels almost contradictory when he has no heart and cannot change. 

This wording is important. Recall me saying that Japanese is very vague so all of the context matters. No one is denying that 10 years passed between Birth By Sleep and Axel meeting Roxas. However. Nobodies don’t age.

(please dont make me explain that a third time in this essay alone)

The Japanese and English both express that age does not apply to nobodies, (as discussed above^^^^) and the Japanese furthers this with its wording. They have 10 years of separation between Axel being nobodied, and Roxas existing.  

Axel saying in English that Roxas is simply 10 years younger than himself is rather misleading considering the ambiguity of the original. I can’t fault the translators too much for not understanding this nobody concept so well because it is obviously confusing. However, I do not think Axel was saying Roxas is literally, in real life human somebody terms, 10 literal physical years younger than him. He is expressing that he became a nobody 10 years ago whereas this guy became a nobody very recently, and it shows with how little he can even function right now. A zombie who has been wandering around with no heart for 10 years meets a fresh zombie wandering around with no heart for 1 day. 

I know antis are gonna use it against us no matter what, but at least know that akuroku is not inherently pedophilia nor is it inherently an adult/minor ship.

In many of our headcanons, Axel was frozen at age 18 or 19, with Roxas being 16. Absolutely no one is required to view them with a big age gap because imagination is free and you literally have no right to police it, but also because the canon expresses these nobodies as beings outside of the realm of age. They do not operate under real life rules or somebody rules. Think of Steven Universe where Rose was thousands of years old but only “grew up” as a person when she fell in love with Greg, a human in his 20s-30s who asked her to consider other people’s feelings. Consider the mind of a nobody as a state of Neverland. You aren’t gonna age unless you step out of it and change. Mature. Isn’t it sad that Axel did not feel like he had a heart until Roxas? No wonder people ship it!

Coding is Obvious

Finally I wanna conclude on a simple thought. This interview right here? I’d be curious what the original Japanese actually says lol but the english translation of it says that romantic akuroku was not Nomura’s intent. 

Here’s the thing though. If you know anything about queer coding, you know that using romantic coding between 2 male characters is signaling something. It is not something you should ignore. It would not be there if the characters were meant to be viewed as objectively straight. And for something “unintentional”... there sure is a lot of coding at work here.

From Axel pinning Roxas down and asking him to come home in a very sexually suggestive pose,

to watching the sunset in sheer bliss together just enjoying the peace of reunion,

to watching the sunset together while talking about what LOVE is, specifICALLY romantic love,

To this. And I already told you what this was in Japanese.

I’m not saying Nomura lied…

But I am saying that a whole staff worked together to create these games, and it is very difficult for me to believe that no one thought to say “these characters appear to be romantic, let us change the scene to be more platonic” if the characters were not meant to be romantically suggestive. 

Tl;Dr I wanna live in the timeline where people let you ship akuroku lol

[dracothedeatheatingcupcake-ao3]

TPWP Chapter 19 Spoilers!!!

Hi guys! 

So, in chapter 19 of TPWP, I chose to go a more explicit route than it had been going previously. I decided to write about why I did that, as well as go over Mondo’s mentality during it all, since I don’t have his perspective written yet, oops.

It prolly will be best to not read this until after reading the chapter, though, or else this won’t make any sense, ha. 

You can find the explanation under the read more. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Okay. So, when I was originally thinking about this story, I didn’t have much idea of where I wanted to go. Right? I was just like “I have the desire to write, so I’m gonna write.” No plans for where the story would go, no real end game in mind. Just… I wanna write, so I’m gonna write. Everything else will come with time. 

 It wasn’t until around chapter… 13, 14? that I started to have a strong idea for where I wanted this story to go. I’d had small ideas before, like in chapter 12 I knew I wanted to add a Halloween festival (which originally was going to be a dance before I remembered Japan does festivals, not dances), and I knew I wanted to have the sauna scene somewhere. Also, in chapter 9 I knew I wanted to have Chihiro befriend Mondo and have them tell Mondo their secret (which, by the by, was originally going to occur back in chapter 9 instead of in chapter 17. Rather than have Taka get all passionate and demanding, Taka and Mondo were going to overhear some dude harassing Chi in the library, they were going to follow the voice, and Mondo was going to be all “oh dude you’re gonna regret that,” ha. That was gonna have Taka be all “oh dude, he’s not all bad, is he?? Huh…” and Chi would be like “woah he’s a nice guy. Maybe I can tell him my secret???” But then I got sidetracked with the passion and couldn’t fit that in, but knew I wanted it somewhere. But I’m very much digressing, ha).

 Anyway! While I had individual plot points figured out, I didn’t have anything major. Nothing concrete, just a bunch of mostly unrelated ideas. 

 But then. Then, in chapter 13, I wrote the, uh… “nocturnal emission” scene. I did that mostly because I was growing tired of the slow burn and wanted some relief of having them kiss and confess, without it ruining my plan. But when I was writing and editing it, I kept thinking “man, wouldn’t it be cool if they did something like this? If they were all “dude you’re so awesome and I’m so attracted to you and I really wanna do ~~~sexual stuff~~~ with you, hahaha. Platonically, of course!!! Ahahaha!!!!”

 I didn’t think it would work at first. I knew I wanted this to be a slow burn and I knew I wanted to end this story right before winter break, so I couldn’t have them get together until this story ended. I was afraid that having them ~~do things~~ together would have them go too fast and would make things complicated. 

 But I was really starting to like the idea. I began seeing ways I could play with the idea without it being inherently romantic, with having them still deny their feelings. I didn’t know if it would work, but I decided to lay down the groundwork anyway. I wrote chapter 18, figuring it would be funny and make both boys painfully aware that they ~~~like~~~ the other (even if Mondo denies it), if nothing else. And then I figured, well. Why not write chapter 19? Worst case scenario, I don’t use it and write something else. And I usually hate doing things like that. Once something is written, that becomes my canon, usually, and it’s hard for me to do anything different. But I can do it, so I figured it was worth the risk. 

 I was very iffy with the chapter at first. The first part of the chapter was hard to write and was initially… not good. Very clunky and awkwardly worded and I didn’t like it. But I kept going because… whatever. I had the idea of making Taka aware of Mondo’s decidedly not platonic interactions with him, since I figured that even Taka would begin to see the truth when all the evidence points in that direction. Plus, I figured it would be good set up for what I wanted to have happen. Taka does not strike me as the kind of person who would do anything sexual unless he really liked and trusted the person he was with. I kind of head canon Taka as being somewhere on the ace spectrum, ha. Projection, I know. Maybe graysexual, with Mondo as a kind of exception, or demisexual, feeling attracted to Mondo now that he was romantically interested in him. But because of that, I didn’t think he’d just be willing to jump into Mondo’s bed, so to speak, if he didn’t have some inkling that maybe his feelings were reciprocated. 

 And as for the actual sexual encounter… that had come to me back in chapter 14, when Mondo and Taka were discussing all of that. The way I saw it, the idea kind of… stuck around in Mondo’s head. Now, I’m ace. Right? I don’t really understand sexual attraction. And while I do feel desire and all that, I definitely understand people who don’t feel anything sexual at all. But I imagine that allo (people who feel sexual attraction in general) people with no concept of what asexuality is wouldn’t understand something like that. They wouldn’t understand not feeling desire. And so, it concerns Mondo, who uses that sort of thing to destress and forget his troubles for a little while. 

 Upon hearing that Taka doesn’t, and knowing how tense Taka always is, it niggles at Mondo and makes him worry for Taka. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with not feeling sexual desire and not wanting to pleasure yourself. I imagine that Mondo could even understand if Taka didn’t feel desire at all, and if he didn’t want to do things like that in general. But what concerns Mondo is that he KNOWS Taka feels sexual desire. I’ve not yet discussed this in the chapters yet, but, uh… ya know Taka’s “nocturnal emissions?” Well… let’s just say that he is very vocal during them. And he has been known to let slip a certain name. The owner of said name definitely hearing Taka and knowing exactly what that means, even if it kind of shorts his brain out to think it, ha. 

 Anyway. This has been rattling around in Mondo’s head for weeks by this point. If my timeline was how I originally had it, it would be longer, but since I had to condense everything, it’s been like… 2 weeks since Halloween? And Mondo has been thinking about it constantly despite himself. Even more so after the bath. He knows Taka is tense, knows that jerking off helps relieve tension, and he knows that Taka is attracted to him in some regard, even if Taka thinks it’s wrong. 

 And I would like to state for the record that Mondo ABSOLUTELY meant the offer innocently when he first brought it up. He just wanted to be all “hey bro. So, I know you don’t do this since you find it morally wrong, but it’s not, and it would be cool if you tried it. No one would blame you. And if you wanted to think of /me/ while doing it, well that would be cool too, HAHAHAHAHAHA-”

 But when Taka started getting all upset, Mondo started getting upset. He really cares about Taka, and he hates seeing him cry and be unhappy. And when Taka mentioned feeling broken and wrong, Mondo /hated/ that. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with Taka at all. Even if Taka didn’t feel any arousal, he wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with Taka and would be 100% supportive. 

 But the thing is, he /does/ know that Taka feels arousal. He does know that Taka feels these things and is perfectly able to do it all, given his dreams. And so, he /knows/ that Taka’s problem is a mental one. And he thinks that maybe if Taka just… forces through the problem, like Mondo often will, well… maybe that would help. And Taka would feel better about himself. And he’d be able to have a way to relieve tension. 

 (And, of course, Mondo would be able to see the guy he’s unwittingly crushing hard on jerk himself off, but that’s completely beside the point, right???? Mondo’s just a really good bro and wants to help his bro in any way he can. Bro.) 

 He didn’t quite realize how much he’d enjoy the whole proceedings, though. And oh, did he enjoy it. Watching Taka touch himself. Watching Taka watch /him/ as he touched himself, his eyes full of desire and heat, clearly desiring Mondo deeply. It was the first time he realized that maybe… just /maybe/ there is something more to what he’s feeling. More than the familial love he’s been telling himself he feels. And it’s not like he’s never felt attracted to Taka, or like he’s never wanted him, right? He has. Many times. But those times he’d make excuses. Tell himself he was just horny in general and that it had nothing to do with Taka personally. That he didn’t actually want Taka but just wanted /someone/. But this… this is the first time he can’t really excuse it away, not with how much desire he currently is feeling. He does his best not to think about it, just keeps going, wanting to help Taka, but… it’s now there in the back of his mind. A tiny little seed of doubt and desire. 

 And when Taka pulls away, tears in his eyes, saying that there’s something wrong with him, that he’s broken, well… Mondo is so far gone by this point, ridiculously turned on, and he’s drowning in his concern. He hates seeing Taka so unhappy with himself, and he wants to prove to Taka that there’s nothing wrong with him. And with how far gone he is, he doesn’t think about how bad an idea this whole thing is. He doesn’t think about how supposedly straight guys shouldn’t do things like this. He doesn’t think about how he shouldn’t even be thinking about things like this at all, not if he were truly as straight as he tries to pretend that he is. All he knows is that Taka is distressed and unhappy. And that he’d do absolutely anything to make him happy again. 

 He didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as he does. Even with the niggling thought in the back of his head that he’d been enjoying the previous encounter a bit too much, he didn’t think he’d be so turned on by touching Taka. He thought he’d do it kind of militantly, a task he had to do, something that was kind of meaningless but important, nonetheless. 

 But that’s not how it felt. And Mondo was so far gone that he couldn’t begin to chastise himself for feeling how he was feeling. It was like a religious experience for Mondo, honestly. An epiphany. A moment of “oh. So that’s what I’ve been feeling.” He has no idea what it means, or why he feels like this, but he… he /likes it/. Likes touching Taka, likes making Taka feel good. He likes kissing Taka, too, and in that moment… he wants nothing more than to have Taka. All of Taka. He is so far gone that he can’t close the floodgates, can’t stop the desire he’s feeling. He loves Taka, he already knew that. But for the first time… for the first time, he realizes that he is /attracted/ to Taka, too. And it’s not as terrifying as he would have thought. 

 Of course… this all changes once they’re done, and the desire has faded. Now… getting a bit meta here. But like I said in the end notes, I initially had considered making Mondo completely fine with everything that happened. He was going to be like “well, guess we shouldn’t call each other kyoudai anymore, heh…” and it would be awkward, but ultimately, they’d realize they had sexual feelings for each other. 

 But! If you recall what I said earlier, I wanted this to be a slow burn. A VERY slow burn. Having them get together this early wouldn’t make sense in that regard. And honestly… it wouldn’t make sense for Mondo’s character, either. Not how I’ve been writing him. So, I made a decision. Rather than be okay with it… I’d make him deny and repress himself again. I came up with a reason for him to be so repressed and scared of his feelings later on, which if you’ve read the TPWM companion chapter for chapter 6 of TPWP, you have some idea of what his problem is. 

 Anyway. Ultimately, my decision to do this was less “hehe hot bois being lewd” or whatever, and was more “this could lead somewhere interesting and I’m intrigued to seeing how this will play out.” I started having an idea of where to go with this story and this plot line was very important to it, honestly. I usually hate smut that has no bearing on the plot at all, so I made this smut be purposeful and have meaning. It leads somewhere and has a purpose, I promise. 

 Also! Why I had Taka have, um… erectile disfunction issues. Mostly, I figured that he’d be the type of person to be super embarrassed by that sort of thing. And after spending at least eight years forcing himself to ignore and repress the fact that he’s gay, not to mention how upright and moral he forces himself to be, I imagine that pleasuring himself was low on his priorities. And there are people who get so very anxious at the thought of self-pleasuring, usually religious people, but I figured it would work with Taka too. Plus, it was the only way I could imagine nudging Mondo into doing such a thing. Mondo cares so much for Taka and seeing him struggling would make Mondo want to do literally anything for him. Including, uh… that, ha. And it allowed Taka to accept the help. So… yeah. I don’t know much about ED and wasn’t looking forward to researching it for this story, so I didn’t do much research and was like… it’s fine, ha. 

 Anyway, I hope that all made sense! And I hope my reasoning for it all is understandable. 

[musicallisto]

without fail tag

THE “WITHOUT FAIL” TAG — List five things that you, WITHOUT FAIL, weave into or explore in your stories, whether it be specific themes or tropes, character archetypes, allusions to other literary works, what have you! It really can be anything that you consistently include in your narratives for whatever reason. Then invite others to share theirs by tagging them!

I was tagged by @deadlymodern - thank you so much for tagging me, this tag is amazing and I loved reading your answers! I can tell you have a very thorough approach to your writing & themes, it’s so cool!

(tagging people at the bottom of the post if you want to skip)

1. flowers, skies & words

grouping them together since they're all related to a wider, general literary device: symbols and allegories in my stories. Without fail, I’ll always use flower symbolism to evoke certain themes, places, characters... withered petals for death, blossoms for youth, you name it, it’s probably been in one of my stories. just consider my main WIP’s title, The Grave of Roses (Le Tombeau des Roses). It’s a little basic, and has been used time and time before in literature, but I still love it.

Other elements that often make it into my stories as symbols are planes (because I love aviation obviously, but also as a symbol of breaking free, independence, of man’s domination on mortality, what with having tamed the skies, but also his frail condition and how everything hangs on a thread). Also, the sky is pretty.

And lastly, words, stories, novels always have their place in my stories, and more often than not one of my characters is a writer, or someone who uses words and stories as some kind of comfort, outlet, or a driving force.

At its [the tombstone] foot, below the name, red roses piled up, enough of them to cover ten graves. A single vermilion bud, a wind-swept poppy, clashed with the rest of the bouquet, and Samuel knew that it was William's children who had placed it there. Only they knew that he didn't even like roses anymore, and that he would come to lay poppies on his father's memorial every time he returned to London...

The tomb was both smaller and prettier than Samuel imagined, less opulent than England would have wanted to give its precious child. The morning sun, like a caress, illuminated the epitaph, a Latin verse that Samuel had known in the past. “Bury me southward,” he heard William say so clearly that he almost turned around, "so that I can look at England and France in the same breath." His name, however, was drenched in full light, facing east, and inexplicably this saddened Samuel.

“And there it is... it's pretty, don't you think? I don't know if he would have liked it... You probably know it better than I do...”

“And why do you care about that, huh? You don't even believe in God.” “He's a writer. He believes in symbols.” “He believes in vanity, alright.”

“I think he would have liked it anyway,” he nodded in agreement, his eyes glued to the lonely poppy. (Translation)

2. parental roughnesses

this was bound to come, because I feel like we were all pretty fucked up at some point in our lives from our upbringing. I didn’t go for straight up “parental issues” because I don’t deal with like, abusive or absent parents or anything, just complicated relationships between parents and their children, but who still love each other. Oftentimes it has to do with one of the children idealizing the heck out of their parent and slowly realizing that they make mistakes and are not a hero at all, and/or unmeetable expectations and parental pressure. but it’s not like I’m projecting or anything lol

“You never knew Father, William,” Grace stopped him immediately [...]. “Don't you dare pretend you know what it's like.”

“Growing up without a father is not necessarily better than losing him in childhood! Everyone here has suffered from his disappearance, Grace. You have no idea how much I miss him, despite never meeting him. But that's all in the past now. And there's no reason for there to be another war.”

“Of course there is!” she retorted ferociously, despite the tears spilling from her eyes. “Of course there is, and they're going to send you there like Father, and you'll want to play hero like Father, and then you'll get shot down like a dog! Where's it going to be this time, huh? Above Luxembourg, just like him, or maybe somewhere in your beloved France?” (Translation)

3. patriotism

One way or another, all my stories always deal with patriotism, nationalism, pride in one’s country and more broadly speaking one’s relationship to it. It questions what it means to belong to a country, to share one culture, one language; does it justify acting in the benefit of one’s country, and where do you draw the line before you intentionnally harm others’; what even is a country, a nationality, and it what sense do you belong to one, and what do you owe it, if you even owe it anything? Is it wrong or right to feel love and attachment to your place of origin? And what does it mean to fight for your country, for its values, for its people? & other things of the like. It probably stems from my own experience as a binational person; growing up, I was always asked stuff like “but who do you root for in a football game” “but are you like really French or not?” “if Spain and France got into a war what would you do?”, and this all lead me to question “am I more French or am I more Spanish - which one am I, and which one would others perceive me to be - do I need to pick a side? And how can I express my affection to these places that raised me both differently, without undermining the other - or others? can I still be proud of my heritage given the horrors my countries have committed in the past?”. I still haven’t found a definitive answer, so my writing is just me throwing trails out to the world and hoping I’ll figure it out someday. that’s why my stories often have a war setting; firstly I just love historical fiction, and secondly it’s the perfect backdrop for all these questions to unfold.

William laughed at the idea - he, a true Frenchman! It was a very silly thought. He may have loved what he had seen of Charlotte's country, but England was not to be ashamed of any other land, for it was the only one he would love until his last breath. (Translation.)

4. just a hint of supernatural

I love me a good ghost story, and I’m a fan of everything spooky, but what’s subtly spooky, and not the gory, in-your-face horror. This particular theme may have increased since I saw The Haunting of Hill House which completely OBLITERATED ME with how it uses the house and its ghosts to tell a story of family and trauma and memories... but I’ve loved ghost stories forever. Another piece that truly resonated with me was One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) by Gabriel García Márquez. It was my first dive into the world of magical realism and I didn’t make it out of there the same person I was when I entered. This one is not necessarily included in every piece without fail, because some are just too anchored in reality, but if it’s not a straight-up spirit or an otherworldly creature, I’ll always find a way to include an aspect of superstition, a myth, a legend, a tale from faraway that is neither proved nor disproved throughout the story. It truly adds to the atmosphere of the world, even in a very realistic and gritty setting, I believe.

I hear murmurs of legends among the soldiers. [...] One of those stories caught my attention, I must admit... It is not very special, nothing more than a children's tale, but I thought it was beautiful enough to please your Romantic soul. Some pilots speak of a cemetery, somewhere in the countryside north of London, which has something mystical about it, lost in the flowers that sway as far as the eye can see, in the calm rhythm of the wind, wrapped in the heady scent of eternal spring, and where the bravest warriors would go to rest forever, tired of their exploits and the continual explosions. No one knows exactly where it is or what to do to be buried there, but this beautiful image simply floats like a dream in the minds of many and, I confess, in mine as well since I first heard about it.

It is said that there only flowers dare to disturb the heroes in their sleep... This fragment of silence is called the Grave of the Roses.

So if I were to leave you, if you were to hear that I am gone...

With a bit of luck, that is where you will find me.

5. love

this one is broader and less obvious than you might think. Of course, I’ll always, always implement an element of romance to my story (and more often than not it’s angsty with star-crossed lovers or insurmountable obstacles or forbidden romances and whatnot), but there’s more to it. I don’t think I have ever written a story that is entirely grim and bleak, simply because I do not believe the world is built like that. I’ve said time and time again that love is my favorite thing in the world, and I believe it is the force that drives us all forward and connects us all together; love is, to me, the truest power of humanity, and its inherent purpose. And love covers all subjects and all types of relationships, but my absolute favorite ways to explore and show love in my stories is through long-lasting, rock-solid friendships (because friendships are often overlooked both in fiction and real life), and just a grandiose love letter to humanity as a whole. I’m an optimist, and many people who have suffered more than I have would deem me naive for thinking this - and I cannot blame them -, but as Anne Frank put it more bravely than I ever could, “despite everything, I still think humans are good at heart”. My stories are always born out of love and made for love. For the love of humanity and kindness and literature and love of myself, too, because sometimes I just like rereading the words and thinking, “wow, I’ve made it this far. look at me go.” In a word, yes, I would say that is what it boils down to; my work, but also what I hope my entire life and being will be. An ode to love.

“He admired you and truly loved you, you know. You were a good leader, I'm sure, and a good friend, above all.”

He thought she was going to put her hand on his shoulder, and prepared to bend to avoid it, but instead she came to rest on the polished marble of the tomb, which was already beginning to erode at the corners. The soft light bathed her hand, and Samuel's on the other corner, still resting above William's surname, the only thing he had been proud of from beginning to end.

“And I loved him too. I loved them all. If you only knew...”

well, I got carried away, as I always do when talking about my writing, but it made me miss it so much. I haven’t worked on any of my projects since literally October and I’m feeling the void rn. anyway, thank you again for enabling me to ramble about what I love most, Thais! and I’m tagging @softeninglooks, @lxncelot, @myriadimagines​, @swanimagines & @randomfandomimagine + plus any writer who wants to talk about their marvelous work <3

[thoughtfulpaperback]

Charmed 02x18 Review SPOILERS!!!

Alright Y’all! Since there is no new episode of Charmed tonight I thought I would just post my review up today to make up for the lack of an episode. I’ve been saving my 10/10 for this moment!!! Honestly though 10/10. I was extremely entertained through the episode. I thought it was beautifully directed by Rupert. I thought everyone gave great performances including more sidelined characters (usually including Mel which i don’t like but since it has been a standard this season doesn’t affect my overall rating).  Standard format. Likes. Dislikes. Then episode highlights.

LIKES

1. Hacy Kiss Moment

Y’all knew this was going to be the first thing I mentioned. Damn! Listen however you feel about the handling/mishandling of the Hacy story-line you can’t deny this was one of the best kiss/confession moments ever. Macy is in control. They are just soaking up the moment. The smile of realization and joy on Harry’s face when Macy just takes command and asks him to get his butt over there and dance. The slow walk towards her and their dance mimicking the jimmy x macy scenes yet showing how different in feeling they are. That laugh of joy and hugging moment at the end. Y’all!!! I can’t! Story wise, It is so nice to see macy and harry have a moment of joy. In many ways they have been put through the wringer so much in both seasons, so to get some fluff. Beautiful.

2. Maggie, Mel, and Ray

Okay so I wish this storyline would have been distributed more evenly across the season, but I don’t feel this storyline came out of nowhere and it addresses so many things that I feel were worth exploring. Firstly, Maggie’s panic attacks. I do wish we would have had hints of them earlier, but other than that I felt this made a lot of sense. Maggie and Ray mended part of their relationship, but it wasn’t until after he left that she found out he knew the whole time that he wasn’t her biological father and she seemed upset by that information, although it got sidelined because of the situation they were in. While I know people think Maggie’s storylines are always about guys. I believe it has always been about growing up and to an extent being abandoned. Season 1, Maggie dealt with her sister not trusting her or at least not always telling her everything and treating her like a child. This season especially Maggie has been openly fighting against the way she feels Mel and others infantalize her and view the way she thinks. Yes especially when it comes to relationships, but not limited to that. Stretching back to 01x17, Maggie’s greatest desire is a love that will never leave. And it isn’t just romantic love. When fighting with Mel she straight up says that demon can give her “what Dad, Parker, and Harry could never give her: a love that will never leave.” In 02x15, Jordan treats maggie like a child and then when she asks him if he really is going to leave her, he says “that’s what men do”. Which to me isn’t necessarily about romance given that the only people who have stuck around in Maggie’s life are primarily women, even harry was gone for a bit. 

So you have these “conflicting” thoughts in Maggie. She is trusting, wants to see the good in people, and believes she is an adult with something to contribute. But then you also get the other part showing that, she actually fears people are exactly what they have been in the past (that is that people will leave or that they cannot change, or that in then end it doesn’t change anything for her). 

So with that, she then finds out that Ray and Mel have been improving thier relationship and she doesn’t know anything about it on top of the fact she is sore about him never telling her about her parentage. In these last few episodes we’ve seen her try to take charge and be proactive in a way she hasn’t been before, which is good, but you wonder how much of that is suppression of her feelings. What is she “sacrificing” to become the “adult” she thinks she needs to be? In sum, Panic attacks made sense for her story and I thought Sarah did a brilliant job acting. Her last conversation with Ray had me in tears! 

So for Mel and Ray in this, they had small roles, but Mel’s growth was amazing. For one, I really do wish there was more than like one or two references to chuchi after the first time her and her dad went on a mission together. more consistent small comments about ray sendings information of checking things out would have been nice to have more understanding of Mel expanding/healing relationship with her father. But moving on. Mel this season has taken a back seat and I hate that, but with the small character developing moments they have given us . . . I think that moment where Mel is looking in on Ray and Maggie having their conversation and walks away is the second best one this season in terms of development. Mel has admitted to always trying to be the person she thinks she needs to be. She basically said the same thing last season when she dropped out of her Master’s program. She is always trying to be this protector but at the same time wants to be able to let go of the wheel. Mel looking in probably to make sure she was okay was in character, but that moment where she nods and walks away able to realize that in this case Maggie doesn’t need her. This isn’t her “fight” or moment, and her being comfortable enough to walk away and trust that “it’s all good”. I feel old Mel would have wanted in, wanted to explain herself and defend her reasons for keeping that info on the DL, or would have stayed by the door just in case Maggie would need her at some point. But she trust both of them. Which I feel is huge! Anyways when they do little things like that which make sense I love it and just wish they had more moments like that spread out this season rather than some of the other stuff they tried. 

3. Marisol, Macy, and Harry meeting

Heart broken! but I loved it. I love that Macy did get to meet her mom, especially since lots of people in the fandom complained about how unfair it was that Macy was the only one to never get to really meet her mom. I didn’t care about personally, I like a little bit of bittersweetness so I didn’t mind. This scene was all about the bitter sweetness. Marisol getting to meet and talk to macy but not actually see her. Macy having to have her memory altered to forget the meeting, but still internalize that advice. Although now I wonder if that friend Macy spoke about in season one was actually herself and her mind just making up a new person to make up for the erased memories. More likely than not she really was just super serious and restrained, but then went crazy (like many do) in college and just started to shed off that restraint then her powers came in and they had to back that up. 

There is a tragedy in macy and her mothers situation. I don’t think this scene took away from that, but at the same time it added a new dimension to Marisol. Marisol definitely earned her Elder role. 

I loved how Harry in that moment. He explained what he was going to do, as best as he could without freaking her out (he was told to be gentle with her), I like how he shifts strategies when he sees her flinch away. He was being as clinical as could be before that, but when she flinches in fright, he gets personal “It will be okay” “I’d never do anything to hurt you, you have my word”. his movements were slower the second time around. And although she wasn’t going to remember his name, he still took that moment to tell her what it was. it was sweet. The background music was a bit off to me at first, but other than that it was great. 

4. Jordan

Every episode he is in I fall more in love with Jordan Chase. He is this seasons Harry. Harry season one was that way for me, but now it’s jordan. I love how he is open with Maggie and although she doesn’t want to hear it he tries to be as gentle as he can while explaining panic attacks. Then him with James! I love these guys together Rupert and Jordan are just so good in scenes together. 

DISLIKES

1. James

This is a huge nitpick. and I don’t really dislike it...I am just wanting the writers to make up their minds. So Jimmy and Harry, supposedly make up James. Jimmy has the old memories, but harry’s were erased? I thought the mind meld was showing that Jimmy still remembered but Harry had access to those memories because they shared that link. But now, apparently, Harry with no magic and no memories of being Harry is James with James’s memories.... 

Okay so if harry is equally as much of James as jimmy and Harry is a product of the new experiences and memories he made, then why is jimmy necessary? Like how is it that one cannot survive the other if they seem to be equally the “old” person as before. Because that means that jimmy isn’t necessarily inherently evil or less James and his faults than harry. He is a product of his experiences and memories which are of being locked up in a bottle without a body. Like I just want some real clarification, which I assume will be given next episode, but I wish we would have had more info through out the season. 

2. Julian is not that smart

@slowlyandrogynousmiracle mentioned it in her podcast, but I was also blown away by the fact Julian didn’t seem to make it make sense that there was something up with Macy and Maggie. Mijo! They literally disappeared at the same time that your testing room was broken into. Macy was down there just moments before she disappeared. Did your Aunt not tell you what happened? 

Also, I still don’t know what exactly Julian’s game is. That is I was sure before that he knew, but that he probably had other plans than what we all were assuming, or that Aunt Viv has different plans than Julian. This episode didn’t clarify anything, at least to me, again I expect that the next episode will do that, but I didn’t think this Julian moment added anything new other than expose the charmed ones to him. 

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

1. James refusing to be held captive by a couple of “girls”. Reminding me of Harry’s first interaction with the trio.

2. James asking Macy about what she and Harry were. That cocky “what?” I might have issues.

3. Maggie’s rage and new power

4. Ray saying that it didn’t matter to him that Maggie wasn’t his bio daughter. “The truth is . . . I love you too damn much.”

5. Jordan pulling out that scalpel and saying he needs to cut that chip out of Harry.

6. That LAST SCENE 

[angelofthequeers]

hi, i was making an aroace sapphic character and wondered if you could give me any tips? :)

I can sure try! If anyone is uncomfortable with semi-explicit talk about sex (in terms of smutty writing and vague personal anecdotes) then feel free to skip over the asexuality part. I’m mostly going to talk about my own experiences as an aroace sapphic to try and offer more depth than just generic character advice. And this is my experience; not every aroace is the same. I’ll also refer to your character with she/her pronouns but they might not be the ones that she uses, so I apologise in advance if that’s the case.

So this is assuming that she’s fully aroace instead of, like, somewhere else on the aro and ace spectra (such as demisexual or greyromantic). I direct you to look up oriented, angled, and electio aroace to get a better idea of ways in which this entire package of aro, ace, and sapphic might come together - you don’t have to use or adhere to these labels but they do provide handy information in case you want a better understanding for your character. Basically:

Asexual

I don’t experience sexual attraction (or if I do and I’m demi like I first thought, I sure as hell haven’t noticed it yet). I never look at someone and think “hmm, they’re so physically hot and I want to smash them specifically”. A lot of my smutty writing was heavily influenced by other people’s smut at the start because, like...I didn’t know what was supposed to be hot. I didn’t inherently know what to describe when writing sex scenes. I had to rely a lot on other people and put together what they found “hot” in terms of physical descriptions of bodies because I don’t feel that kind of draw to people. Back when I was into Supernatural, everyone always went nuts over Misha Collins’ hipbones and I was like...yeah, they’re nice aesthetically because they stick out and they’d probably be sharp and cool to touch, and I incorporated that into my writing by often focusing on Castiel’s hipbones from Dean’s perspective. But I truly didn’t understand why they were considered so attractive. I wasn’t physically drawn to any part of Misha or Castiel (apart from things like his hair and eyes, and even then it wasn’t a sexual draw) and I had to absorb what parts allosexual writers found hot and then translate that into my own writing. I claimed to have a crush on Brendon Urie when I was 16 purely so I wouldn’t look like a “freak” to the other girls in my year, and I made that claim based on my aesthetic draw to his looks and assuming that that was what sexual attraction had to be.

(Look up aesthetic attraction. It’ll blow your mind once you realise that you can be drawn to people without it being sexual in any way. This is a very good definition of it).

And it’s important to separate libido (sex drive) and attraction (the draw to specific people) because a lot of aces can have an average to high libido and even sleep with people but just...not feel sexually drawn to anyone. So in the case of your character, you have to decide whether she’s going to have no libido and/or is squicked by the concept of sex, or if she’s got a higher libido and is drawn to the concept of sex, or anything in between. Me personally? My libido and my draw to the concept of sex fluctuates - sometimes it’s as high as what you’d expect from a typical allosexual, sometimes even the vague idea makes me cringe and my engine is flat - but I’m never attracted to anyone specifically. That lack of attraction is what makes me ace, because you can also get allosexual people (non-asexuals) whose libido and relationship with sex is like this.

There’s that misconception that ace people are pure virgins who cringe at the very idea of being touched and sure, some ace people are sex-repulsed and touch-averse, but a lot of us aren’t. Some of us might enjoy sex as a bonding activity in the same way that you’d enjoy yoga or another form of exercise; it’s nice and feels good, but it’s not exactly our highest priority and we could go without it for a good while if we wanted. Some of us actively enjoy sex and initiate it often. Some of us are okay with one-night stands because we’re not attracted to anyone specifically and just want the sex. Some of us don’t want to do it with someone else but enjoy some self-love every now and then, whether as stress relief or because that’s just the kind of sex we enjoy. Some of us are okay with touching someone sexually but don’t want that touch reciprocated.

Even if you’re not planning on putting your character into a sexual situation, it’s handy to figure out her relationship to sex and touch because that can give her another dimension, such as where does she draw the line with touching? At what point does she see it as going from non-sexual to sexual? What kind of touch does she crave? Does she not want any touch at all, either because she hates it or because she’s afraid that it’ll inevitably stray into sexual touching? I crave touch because I’m a very tactile person, but when I’m touching someone who’s not a family member, I’m always uncomfortably aware of how one tiny shift in position or one slide of a hand can make things stray out of my comfort zone and send the wrong message. And I hate it when people unexpectedly draw me into contact, such as someone suddenly hugging me. That could also be a dimension of my autism, but I do feel that my asexuality plays a part because touch from a family member of mine is always different to that of anyone else.

Aromantic

And then we come to romantic attraction. I...don’t know what that is. I mean, I do know what it is in theory, but where’s the line between platonic attraction and romantic? Some of us aros might enjoy romantic-coded things like kissing, yet not feel that romantic draw to a specific person. And what makes these things romantic in the first place? Dates are just a hang-out between people where you get to know them better. Kissing can be a sexual thing, and many one-night stands or friends with benefits kiss without it being romantic. Family members cuddle. Friends compliment each other’s appearances. All of these things can potentially be reshaped to remove the romantic element, and that’s what makes it so confusing for me personally to figure out wtf romantic attraction is.

Just like with asexuality, we can range from romance-repulsed to craving a relationship that’s romantic in nature. Some of us are okay with being in a romantic relationship with a friend who’s attracted to us in that way because we want increased intimacy and don’t mind it taking on a romantic tone. Some of us freak out when a friend confesses to us. Some of us don’t really want or don’t care for a romantic relationship but want to not look like an outsider to alloromantics. Some of us do it for the tax benefits.

(But in all seriousness, the world is currently heavily skewed in favour of romance. Some places only accept your next-of-kin if they’re legally family i.e. your spouse, and just being their good friend won’t cut it. Capitalism makes it so that we basically have to live with others to survive in certain places because living alone is inaccessible. Marriage comes with certain benefits that other relationships don’t. Queerplatonic relationships can be just as deep as romantic ones and incorporate everything that romantic ones do yet in a deromanticised way, yet they’re not seen as valid. Look up alterous attraction to see how love and attraction can be so deep and yet something that doesn’t slot neatly into romantic or platonic. Once you start seeing all this, you just can’t stop).

I had a month-long online relationship with a girl back in 2017 and I thought I was feeling romantic attraction. I was giddy to talk to her, I had 7-hour phone calls when I normally had anxiety around phone calls, I felt good and happy when she sent me selfies...but there was something about the relationship that I couldn’t put my finger on. I thought at the time that it was just because it being online meant that I didn’t have the physical intimacy (like cuddling) and that affected it, but now I realise that I’m aro and I was trying to force myself into this idea of an ideal relationship because I didn’t know that you could be close and not be romantic partners. I still talk to her and we’re still close, but there’s so much less pressure and panic now that I’m not trying to force myself to be attracted to her in a way that I think I should be. But I’m still drawn to her in a way that I’m not drawn to men and in a way that’s not just platonic, which is why I call myself sapphic aroace. And even if I figure out whether I am drawn to men as well, it still feels...different. More on that later on in this ask. But it’s basically why I just call myself queer and why I’ve given up on trying to find the Perfect Microlabel for myself, because I never will.

So regarding your character, the first thing to do is figure out where exactly she sits on the aromantic spectrum. Is she fully aro? Does she feel romantic attraction once in a blue moon, and who does she feel it towards? How close would she have to be to someone to feel that attraction? Does she constantly question what romantic attraction is, or does she not even care what it is? Does she want a romantic relationship, or does she crave close friendship? Does she not understand where that boundary between close friendship and romance is? How would she react if a friend confessed romantic feelings to her? Is she okay with doing things like cuddling, or does she fear that it’ll be misread as romantic? How does she react when people tell her to stop flirting or otherwise imply that she is? Can she tell when others are flirting with her? What even is love at first sight? Why is romantic love so much more important than platonic or familial or any other form? Why are people so obsessed with finding The One™? Why can stories only be relatable/attractive/amazing/etc. if there’s a romantic relationship in them? Why are the ‘greatest love stories of all time’ romantic? Why can’t those greatest love stories be between friends? What do you do when you’ve got a wlw or mlm relationship and you want to offer this representation but don’t want to feel pressured to make them romantic just because of that? Why even is love itself seen as such an important thing, like we’re inhuman robots if we don’t love someone in any way? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

(Like I said, once you start questioning this stuff, you can’t stop. That was basically my raw thought process while I was writing that paragraph, and that last one about the wlw/mlm relationships is my current struggle with my original characters).

Sapphic

So, tying in a sapphic draw with being aroace, I once again urge you to look up oriented aroaces, along with angled and electio. I recommend starting here and here. Basically, what we feel isn’t romantic or sexual, and it might not be just platonic, but it’s something. It’s something important enough that we feel like it’s a key part of our identity because it shapes how we interact with people and it might make us feel separate enough from aroaces or aspec people that we start to question ourselves and where we belong. Going back to an aro who might crave or be okay with a romantic relationship or an ace who might be into sex, they might be an oriented aroace who wants this partnership with someone they love or wants sexual experiences with only those who would fall under her sapphic attraction umbrella. In the case of your character, how does her sapphicness interact with her aroaceness? How does her attraction to women or woman-aligned people differ from her attraction to those who aren’t included in the sapphic umbrella? (Look up non-binary sapphics, for example). Does she feel like she has to call herself sapphic/a romantic-oriented term and leave herself open to potential relationships because she doesn’t want to be alone, or does she genuinely feel that attraction? Once you add in the aroace dimensions, it changes the gay/bi/pan/etc. dimension to something that can’t just be defined as “attracted to this gender” and it’s something you have to think about to know how your character would interact with different people in different circumstances.

Good luck with your character! Don’t hesitate to ask if you need any more help 😊

[kagemajaya]

Unripe Expression - High school romance and friendship done well

Misughan Pyohyeon - 2016, Aga - 9/10

Jaewon and his boys - my favorite harem yet

I’m not much of a manga reader, if you don’t count BLs that is. BL manga is one of the very few things that can pull me out of boredom, and I consume on average one volume a day. Korean webtoons are definitely a part of this comic devotion of mine. They are almost always easy to consume (not something I can say for manga) and the format lends itself to binging extremely well. Many a night, starting a new 80+ chapter webtoon has been a grave mistake for me, as I end up welcoming the sun with whatever couple I’m on a journey with at the time. Another feature of most BL webtoons is that somehow their drama never suffocates me, no matter the seriousness. Albeit a huge generalization, even when they make me cry rivers, they never feel quite so pessimistic as their Japanese counterparts. I always know what sort of an emotional reaction I’ll get out of them - which is not a bad thing if you are reading romance as a enjoyable pastime.

Unripe Expression, while seemingly just another one of the cute high school romances with some light drama, changed my mind as it built towards something subtly different. Throughout the majority of the story, I had two main feelings: that the story was ordinary but very involving, and that the main cast was individually superb characters. They were well-written and had lives and feelings of their own, and they were all extremely sympathetic even after they made mistakes. At the end, my feelings on the boys remained strong, but another thought struck me. The story was their desires, interactions, overall relationships, and characterization otherwise. The romantic pursuits and the friendships that Aga showed us were nuanced and alive, and I love each and every one of them.

Jaewon, the MC, is a sweet guy and first and foremost I wanted his choice to be realized, and this was in spite of Junseo being my best boy. While Jaewon had agency in the narrative, and he had a choice from the very beginning, the romantic plot never revealed what it had in store for us at the end. This is a 70 chapter comic, and I only knew who the lucky guy was in the last 2-3 chapters, a truly unpredictable gem. This can rattle a lot of people, and perhaps, if I hadn’t been convinced by the relationships of Jaewon and the boys, I’d have felt the same. Looking up some reviews after I finished the story, I found that not a lot of people were happy about the ending, so this might not be one of the stories you choose to read when you are in the mood for wish fulfillment. Speaking for myself, it fulfilled my wishes in terms of great relationship development on all counts, so even if I felt sad for the unlucky ones, I was completely satisfied with the way this particular story turned out. I bought every one of their plotlines, and that none of them were tools for fanservice to the audience. I was reading the real lives of a bunch of good high school boys, and what I wanted for them was not really their concern. Aga certainly has the qualities of a writer that I respect passionately. They seem to be writing for art and not the reader. Having said that, I’m still a weak human, so I’d love to see a continuation story for the other boys who couldn’t get Jaewon. [Big spoilers past this point until marked otherwise.]

Is it gonna be him or him or him? An embarrassment of riches...

First and foremost of those boys is of course Junseo, the reason for the public outcry in reviews. Junseo is the most well-built character and it is perfectly natural to be on his side as he helps Jaewon through his identity crisis and romantic troubles chasing Karam. He is sweet, loyal, a great friend, and as we witness him support his friend wholeheartedly, he falls in love with him in the process. The fact that he had already had a very intense relationship before high school and was broken hearted over it adds to our deep sympathy for him. His own transition from friend to boy in love is believable, and the story helps us support him in his quest through the first half of it - until we start getting a bit more into how Karam sees Jaewon (well at least me!)

My journey in what I want for Jaewon was quite shaky. In fact I’d say I’d have probably felt okay with whoever he ended up with. However, my top choice changed throughout the story; first Karam, then Junseo, and Karam again. I never stopped loving Junseo the best and feeling for him, but as mentioned, I wanted Jaewon to have who he wanted. We knew Karam was slightly interested in him from the beginning but the nature of that was not entirely clear. As we got further away from understanding him, my heart was turning towards Junseo and giving him what he wanted. However, Aga eventually turned the story back to Karam, with a new tool in the game - Jaewon’s first love Yoonsung. Yoonsung didn’t only trigger Karam to understand his own feelings better, he also showed us that Jaewon’s feelings were fully mutual. Karam can come across as the least developed of the group, and he is certainly the “less exciting” choice, but his own struggles with his feelings were gripping. Despite feeling that Jaewon was special, and despite being confessed to, he turned down Jaewon and still wanted to stay with him. This trope of being scared to lose a friend can come across as ordinary, but in this case the execution was superb. Karam wasn’t actually scared, and without respite, he kept sticking to Jaewon and flirting with him and doing everything in his power to stay in his heart. He didn’t want to lose Jaewon’s love for him to Yoonsung. The inherent selfishness of this is also inherently titillating to me - as long as Jaewon was only looking at him, he didn’t want to bother with the troubles that come with romance. Thankfully, Yoonsung came across as a very open threat to his possessive love. Little did he know, the real possible competition was Jaewon’s best friend Junseo.

Yoonsung himself comes across as the easy boy, the playboy who is playing games, and why would we ever root for him? The truth is we’ve read plenty of BL where the childhood love of the hero returns and has had a transformation of his own and gains the heart of his love again. Yoonsung is a charming boy, and from his perspective, the story is a sad one. The boy he’s loved all his life doesn’t pick him, and he doesn’t even make it simple. Jaewon’s protests against Yoonsung’s advances are flimsy at best. In the space of a few days, he gives hope to all three boys with his actions. Karam has already been confessed to, Yoonsung is allowed physical closeness, and Junseo emotional closeness. Jaewon’s relationships with each of them make these interactions believable and not-unlikeable. They are all a part of the natural flow, and in the end, as a boy who has been turned down, his confusion is natural. I find the final choice of Karam incredibly realistic, as he’s never stopped loving him. And luckily for Karam, he wasn’t too late to fix what he had almost undone. Unlucky for Junseo of course, because given enough time, I have no doubt that he could have made Jaewon forget about Karam’s rejection. Just the timing wasn’t right. Poor Yoonsung, on the other hand, was entirely too late. His time had been almost ten years ago. His unintentional rejection of Jaewon as a well-meaning child was the final chance he was ever going to get. 

Jaewon is the wholesomest slut in the world of BL

Another entirely doki doki element of the webtoon is that throughout the story no one ever finds out how close Jaewon and Junseo were. It was their own world, making their friendship particularly special - and make no mistake, it was a friendship, of the best kind. A huge strength of this webtoon was that despite most of the boys being in love with Jaewon, it wasn’t only about romance. It was very much about friendship, friendship of people who might have romantic connections as well. Whilst in many romance stories, friendship can be neglected, it is even rarer to see lovers or love interests portrayed properly as a friend. The perfection of how Junseo was equally in love and a loyal friend is one of the biggest draws here. Of course, we don’t only have Junseo as a friend but also Jaehee, who was the only straight boy in the crowd, Jaewon’s other best friend. Jaehee had a smaller role compared to the others, however, from his initial reaction to how he got himself forgiven and how he silently watched over his friend without wanting to make him uncomfortable, he had a subtle and sweet character development of his own. He was the less complicated friend-the one who was always there, unlike Junseo who had to leave at the end. And that choice was probably the one that made me the saddest. It was clear to me that Jaewon wasn’t only a crush for Junseo, so seeing him throw away his friendship was particularly sad. Jaewon respected his choice in the end, as he had briefly been there with Karam and didn’t appreciate the situation he was put in (once again showing that Karam is not such a goodie two-shoes.) In the end, this made the ending particularly bittersweet - not only because best boy Junseo didn’t get the boy but also because they had lost their best friends in each other as well. If we ever get a sequel, I would love to see Junseo get a boyfriend of his own, and back to being friends with Jaewon - and close friends at that! If I had to complain about anything at all, it would be that friendship does come behind romance as the main theme, and this means that once the romantic plotline ends, we don’t get to see any “side stories” to see where they all end up. Given how important friendship is to the rest of the story, it would have been more fulfilling to have one for the road.

Spoilers done!

In the end, Unripe Expression was a great success - telling a heartfelt story of love and friendship of five sweet boys, all of whom you could route for, for their own happiness. Harem is a particularly difficult structure to realistically execute and Aga did it perfectly here. None of the characters’ interest in the main character felt forced and I never found myself thinking, oh my god, why does everyone like this one boy! Even if the last choice may be controversial to some, Unripe Expression tells the story of Jaewon’s romantic escapades in a heartfelt and well-constructed fashion. Hopefully, you’ll give this beautiful (and extremely bingeable) webtoon a shot and Aga will one day grace us with more of their imagination and more of these boys’ friendships.

[okimargarvez]

THE MAGIC IF

Original title: The magic if.

Prompt: Penelope plays Ophelia in Amlet.

Warning: none.

Genre: comedy, funny, romantic.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: part 49 in Garvez canon Life.

Legend: 💑😘.

Song mentioned: none

1- This story is ispirated by my passion for theater, considering the fact Penelope joined a theater groupe... I had to write this. I’ve written it during the course of History of English Theater, dedicated on Shakespeare and especially on Amlet. They showed us different shows of Amlet, one incentrated on Ophelia character. 2- I love Luigi Pirandello with every inch of my heart. 3- My boyfriend understands nothing about theater and art at all. I think Luke has the same problem. 4- The magic if is obvious relative to Stanislavskij system.

GARVEZ STORIES

THE MAGIC IF

 -I don’t like it at all.- she barely holds back a laugh, looking away from the frown of her boyfriend. -Among all the dramas, you had to choose just that one?- he drives her crazy when he shows jealous. He's too soft, it reminds her of what Kevin did with Derek, only that she didn’t think that also one like his current boy could do such paranoia.

-Do you know it's just fake?- it's not the first time they've dealt with a similar theme. -It's not me the one that will kiss Carl, Ophelia and Hamlet will make love.- she takes his hands and sits down next to him on the bed. -Luke, do you think I could ever be attracted, I mean seriously attracted, by another man, when I got all this well of God available?- the man's pouting melts when he hears her use that explicit and provocative flirting tone.

-I'm not the only man in the universe, unfortunately.- he replies, chuckling. -And I don’t want another guy to put his dirty hands on you. I really had to find a theater lover, damned?- she hits him on the shoulder.

After all the dramas that I forced you to see with me you haven’t yet understood that it's all a wonderful illusion?- inside him he knows that the woman is right, but this doesn’t change the elementary fact that he is jealous about the idea that she kisses another man, whether it's for fake or not. But how can the engaged couples, the wives of the actors handle these things? And those who have to play even more burning scenes? Better not to think about it. Fortunately for him, her is just a hobby. -Everything depends on the magic if. You know that game you were doing as children, let's pretend that... and we became trees, little birds, whatever we wanted? It is essentially based on that. I have to think, eat, move as if I were Ophelia, I have to get into her head. And when I go on stage, I'm not your girlfriend anymore, I'm not Penelope, I'm not a computer analyst. I cease to be myself to leave my body to another being, a spirit that after almost five hundred years still has much to say.- Luke looks at her with a confused expression.

-This thing stinks as mysticism. What does it mean that you have another into you? You are... possessed?- he pronounces this adjective with a strange, almost frightened, indeed horrified tone. Too many years of Catholic upbringing bring with them such traps, things that can hardly be understood by those who grew up in such a different culture, like the American one. This is why many people had failed to understand why the priest who was the protagonist of I confessed hadn’t said what he had been told by the real killer and preferred to carry this weight on his shoulders, rather than breaking this so-called seal of the confessional. Hitchcock was European and Catholic. But she is wandering also in her thoughts; Penelope strives to return to reality.

-In fact yes, some scholars and men of the theater speak of possession.- he opens up even more his wonderful brown eyes and for a moment Penelope is lost, contemplating them. -I imagine that you have never heard of Luigi Pirandello.- his vague expression confirms her thought. -It was a writer and man of Italian theater, at the turn of the twentieth century. Yet I'm sure that at least once you've heard someone say "There are more masks than faces, on the street" or something like that... well, it's one of his quotes.- Luke can’t help but be fascinated by the enthusiastic tone with which she explains everything inherent in the world of theater. It had already been a shock to find that long ago she had been part of a company, with the express purpose of exorcising the murder attempt she had suffered. And certainly, he hadn’t reassured when he had described in detail the plot of that show.

-And how do you know an Italian writer and playwright of the last century?- he raises an eyebrow. It is clear that he couldn’t hold back his jealousy. Anything to do with Italy makes him automatically think of Kevin, the mysterious man with whom his Penelope had spent at least four years. And as long as he doesn’t know him, he will remain a shadow and appear to him far more threatening than he really is.

-Well, one person in my company mentioned it and... you know how I am, so curious, so I did a search on the Internet at home and then I went to one of those bookstores in the suburbs, those full of dust... and I took all the American editions of his novels and plays. It's really very fascinating.- he nods, looking at her as she settles the collar of her dress. In addition to being an actress, she has the task of the seamstress, given her passion for sewing as well. Her hands move skillful and precise.

-Are you sure that Ophelia had such neckline?- she can’t help herself, but she laughs at his frown. She feels him behind her and turning in his direction. -I would have definitely preferred if you had followed the original script...- he mumbles.

-Hey, Luke, you know what?- he shakes his head. -Carl can’t come to every rehearsal, so, you know... I'll have to practice with another man.- immediately he frowns, not understanding where she wants to go. -Do you think you are willing to make this sacrifice?- she smiles mischievously, playing with the necklace that ends exactly between her breasts.

-Uh, I... yes, I think I can do it. But I'm terribly slow to learn the lines. We will have to repeat the scenes many, but many times...- he approaches the female face. Penelope chuckles, while their noses touch each other. She closes her eyes, as she kisses him, her head full of their gasping breaths that in a moment fog up the glass of the mirror, given the poor size of the improvised dressing room in which they are. She struggles to hold back as much as possible, but then she feels his hand, this time yes, very cold, palpate her breasts and just can’t contain a moan of pleasure.

Someone knocks at the door, making them jump. -Hey, you two, in there!- a deep, male voice. Even Luke recognizes him, he plays Horatio. -Did you have cuddle each other enough? In five minutes, we have to start the rehearsals.- and then steps that means he is gone. Both burst out laughing, looking into each other's eyes for a few seconds and starting over.

-Are you satisfied now? I will not be able to look at any of them anymore.- but she is not really angry as she would to seem. -In a moment the whole building will know everything.- he seems much less worried.

-Well, you can say we were just trying to dig into your unconscious, to shape a believable character.- Luke shrugs. -It seems perfectly normal, many movie actors working in this way.- she doesn’t know whether to punch him or start kissing him again.

-You... you are tremendous. And you wanted to make me believe you didn’t know anything about theater! Method hot actor or cold actor? Stanislavskij or Diderot? The eternal conflict!- but man doesn’t understand a single word. -Leave to lose.- she takes him by the hand, dragging him. -We have to go on stage.-

TAGS: @theshamelessmanatee  @arses21434 @kathy5654 @martinab26 @reidskitty13 @jenf42 @gracieeelizabeth27 @silviajajaja @smalliemichelle99 @charchampagne14 @thinitta   @myhollyhanna23 @garvezz @mercedes-maldonado  @shyladystudentfan @cosmicmelaninflower @criminalminds14 @gonewhere @pegasus-scifichick

[atopearth]

Samurai Love Ballad Party Part 12 - Fujibayashi Sakuya Route

Not sure how I feel about Sakuya, especially when he listens to Nobunaga’s orders so faithfully even when it doesn’t seem to be beneficial to the heroine’s interests? Well he did say everything he does is for the heroine so maybe he’s just protecting her in his own way since Nobunaga is so powerful. She’s basically just gonna be there to make antidote/medicine concoctions though… No, even worse, maid at day and then ninja at night, what a tiring life… Lol, and now to hide why she’s never in her room at night, Sakuya has implied that they’re lovers and so she visits his chambers every night. Guess no one can complain that way lol. Although they were pretending to be a couple, it was nice to see them enjoy some dango and tea, and he even bought her a little present! I guess the cutest thing was seeing Sakuya express some emotion to how good the sweets were lol, guess food paves the way for everything hahah.

Genya and his dog are so cute! I wonder why Genya and Sakuya don’t get along, well it seems more like Sakuya has a problem with him, I wonder if it’s got to do with Genya’s attitude towards being a ninja, since he seems quite aloof and uncaring about rules, whereas Sakuya is extremely insistent on fulfilling his duties and ignoring all personal emotions, which makes him suitably approved to be a future head of his clan? Although they don’t get along, it does seem like they’re still fond of each other in their own way, hmm. Omggg, didn’t expect Sakuya to actually confess that she’s his first love, I guess it kinda had that mood since they went back to this place they went to and she said that despite his coldness, the kind Sakuya of the past is still in him. It’s really cute how when he got poisoned because he was distracted by the heroine meeting up with Sasuke, and he was worried that the heroine would go to Takeda, he actually said that he didn’t want her to go, so cute!

I see, the reason why Sakuya is so emotionless all the time is because for his first mission to become a proper ninja, he had to assassinate someone he had to spend time getting close to, and that affected him so much that he still feels guilty about it to this day. He succeeded in his mission but lost himself, and now he’s just a ninja that lives to fulfil missions given to him. I’m not surprised that Nobunaga was really the one who ordered the Mitsuba clan to be wiped out excluding the heroine since she knows the panacea recipe and is the only one that can make it, but I never really thought that Sakuya would do something that would hurt her, especially since Nobunaga is telling him now to kill the rest of the Mitsuba and he hasn’t really shown any care for that. Ooh, he’s willing to betray Nobunaga just for the heroine, that’s understandable considering that he’s actually a very emotional person. Tbh, I think I can kinda relate to Sakuya, I’ve always been a person that’s either too empathetic or too cold, never in between lol. Alike Sakuya, when it comes to work, I try my best to detach myself from my emotions otherwise I wouldn’t be able to work properly and I guess it makes me seem cold, but there’s nothing you can really do about it since if you let your emotions rule over you, you wouldn’t be able to work properly, it’s a pretty saddening thing though I guess.

To think that Sakuya isn’t actually a ninja of Nobunaga but instead has always been with the Iga hoping to get the Mitsuba medicine from the heroine and have their own evil agenda separate from Nobunaga I guess lol. Not surprised the heroine swapped sides to Sasuke’s I guess but lol, so much dramaaaa. Not surprised that she saved Sakuya’s life (when he ingested the poison and wanted to kill the heroine with him) even though he’s considered an enemy now, since he was dying right in front of her. Not sure if I really think Sakuya is really worth all this trouble and drama in this route though tbh hahaha, I’m so mean, but I’m seriously so tired of all this at the same time zz. I’m not sure how much I really want to care for a guy that was going to kill her and himself to fulfil his mission. I know that he’s traumatised and has been so focused and blinded to the idea of following orders after that first mission that changed him into probably thinking that if he doesn’t live for the sake of fulfilling missions, then why did he lose his heart for that first mission, everything would seem so pointless and so he feels that he needs to be a “true” ninja to make that guy’s death “worth it”. But that doesn’t mean the heroine is able to accept that he was ready to kill her and her clan so readily. Even if there is a part of the old Sakuya in him, it obviously is an untouched part that’s rarely seen and forcefully hidden by Sakuya himself, so it would be difficult to save him, and honestly at this point, I don’t really care anymore, especially since the heroine prioritised his life over her clan and her position with the Takeda.

It’s nice that Kaede (best friend in the Mitsuba clan) is there to talk and give advice to her every now and then. I’ve always felt that it’s pretty sucky for the heroine to have to deal with everything herself, make all the decisions for the clan herself and be all alone, with only Kaede coming sometimes. She’s so young and emotional that it must be quite hard for her to handle. You know, if this wasn’t an otome where you know that the guy would inherently be “good” and be with the heroine, I honestly don’t think I would have trusted Sakuya. He tries to protect her in his own way all the time but I honestly don’t feel it. What I do feel something for though is his voice! I actually really like hearing him talk hahaha.

I guess it’s nice that he’s finally honest with his feelings now that the Iga ninjas are after her for betraying them I guess, I mean, when he said that he would rather perish with her in the flames than lose his heart and emotions again, it was one of the rare moments I actually felt something for Sakuya😢 Pretty surprised that Sakuya’s father let them go so easily after all that, nice to know that Shingen is willing to take Sakuya as his shadow even though he was once Nobunaga’s shinobi, but yeah, everything seemed to work out so well all of a sudden lol, now the heroine and Sakuya can have their happy ending haha. 

Despite everything though, the light ending scene where they share their feelings for each other on the roof about how much they want to be together etc was pretty sweet. Their romantic moments in the epilogue with Sakuya understanding jealousy etc and being able to show more of his emotions after everything was rather cute, but yeah, I think I find it hard for me to take that transition of his personality easily, like I know he was always a person with too many emotions and that’s why he needed to cut it off to become a ninja, but at the same time it’s hard to brush off everything that happened? Despite everything, what Sakuya did was his choice even if he felt that he only lived to follow orders, I guess it’s just a bit difficult to see how everything is so normal and working out well when there was so much drama lol. But I guess I do also appreciate how after so many things, it was also Sakuya’s conscious decision to give up everything he lived for to finally live for something he actually does care about, which is the heroine. I think maybe it’s just the flow and delivery of things that I’m not a fan of lol. So yeah, overall, Sakuya’s route is nice and definitely more interesting than Sasuke’s but I feel like the flow of things was a bit awkward and…so much drama hahaha, like it’s normal that there’s a lot of drama I guess but this one felt very draggy imo😅😅

[nureyevsbf]

fuckin all of em for cu!!

that’s so MANY

i did omit one bc i just straight up could not think of an answer but i didn’t just want to put idk you know

How old were you when you & your F/O(s) first met?

i’m 24 when the war starts, and he’s...i think the best we get out of canon is that Cu as he’s summoned is abt in his 30s... i’d guess low end of the 30s. but given the nature of the summoning process he may not even know exactly how old he’s supposed to be.

Did you & your F/O(s) get along at first or did it take time?

we did!! there’s a lot of good chemistry and it’s important for a Master and Servant not to be bickering all the damn time during the war. and we’re both loyal to a fault and people who value loyalty so i think that helps

Who asked who out first?

hmmmmmmmmmmmm probably me just bc like.....even if he understands it the concept of dating is still probably foreign to him so like

Where did you go on a first date?

into the city, definitely just a really casual date

Does your F/O have any silly nicknames for you?

hmm no? probably not. i haven’t thought too much abt this yet (which is abnormal for me i usually make like a whole fuckin list of usual petnames and shit) but i don’t think he’d pick up anything...goofy so to speak.

the only thing i have is that he’d sometimes call me gallowsbird which isn’t. like. romantic. like it’s very grim and it’d probably start before we ever got together it’s just. a nickname he slapped on me bc it’s one of the common kennings for ravens but like. it sticks??

What is your favourite thing about your F/O(s)?

hmm this is hard to narrow down. i feel like it’s too broad but. his personality?? like he’s just very charming without trying to be. he’s very lighthearted and confident and amicable - we see it most in emiya no gohan and the ubw route, how he’s inherently just very likable and it’s very easy to be drawn to him.

also his fuckign arms thank u emiya no gohan for my life

Do you like to cuddle with your F/O(s)?

u fuckign know it

When was your first kiss with your F/O(s)?

hmm. i havent decided yet. it’s almost certainly when we finally sit down and confess to each other but at this point idk when in the timeline i want that to b

Who’s the big spoon?

me bc, as i’ve mentioned like a bajillion times before, i Hate being the little spoon

any time he doesn’t want to b the little spoon we just switch to one of us laying with our head on the other’s chest

Do you & your F/O(s) go out a lot or tend to stay in more?

hmm i think it’d be an even mix. i don’t think Cu would like being cooped up all the time but to that end he’d probably go pick up a part time job just to get out of the house (this is like borderline emiya no gohan canon) so i think since he gets out plenty as a result he’d be happy to do whatever

How do you comfort your F/O(s) when they are upset?

i think he’s the kind to need just a shitload of space if he’s upset (especially if it’s with me) so i’ve got to give him that. if there’s anything i can do to fix the issue i absolutely will. and though it’s not all the time, bc again he does tend to need more space, sometimes he does just want physical affection & im happy to provide if that’s what he needs.

What’s your favourite activity you & your F/O(s) do together

either go on walks together or go fishing!! i think i’ve also mentioned cooking before, that would b something

What was your first argument with your F/O(s) about?

i’ve mentioned this abt a bajillion times so far so i won’t go into detail abt it but it was that fight with saber

Who cooks for who most often?

at first i do but once he starts to learn and pick it up we kind of trade off a lot

[roominthecastle]

ethics, romance, sex: where’s Michael at? (nobody asked, rambling on my own accord)

Short version:

I think atm Michael’s character is markedly grey in these 3 “areas” of human experience. He’s started to shift away from his “old ways” and is now somewhere in-between. His “ethnical transition” is the most straightforward one and it can be used as a guide for speculation on possible shifts to romantic and sexual dimensions bc they are all parts of the larger reconceptualization process Michael’s been going through.

Long version: behind the cut

Michael’s an amoral being who was created for and, up until v recently, has existed w/ the singular purpose of inflicting pain on bad people. His human form is also meant to serve this very purpose. But he moves away from this “default setting”. He gains a new, more nuanced perspective that was previously inaccessible to him due to rules, norms, and customs. Living among human beings (the heart of his innovation) produces the wild card of transformative empathy and triggers a paradigm shift: the “gross insects” become close friends and the “stupid garbage” he’s initially forced to learn turns into a roadmap to a richer, more meaningful life.

“Stupid” and “gross” are keywords here, imo, bc they indicate Michael’s ingrained attitude: if it’s human, it’s reflexively considered primitive and disposable by his kind. This attitude is the norm and isn’t questioned by demons (tbh, it would be rather counter-productive for them to do so). But this “stupid and gross” seem to hold a covert interest, an inherent and genuine attraction to Michael. It’s the complete opposite of Trevor’s exaggerated sleazy overtures which still strike me as empty “all talk, no action” posturing, sth similar to when Janet briefly switched to “overt sexuality mode” despite having no real desire/interest or any relevant experience. It’s a function, a role to perform, part of the job. But to Michael, humans present a puzzling, stimulating otherness that invites close proximity and experimentation, which falls way way outside his job description.

This “repelling is also alluring” contradiction is nicely demonstrated on a small scale when Eleanor calls the white chocolate + shrimp combo nasty yet keeps eating it, or when she describes churro dogs to Michael and he responds w/ an excited “oh, sounds awful.” We know that given half a chance, he would try it. We know bc this is what happened on a much larger scale when he was given the opportunity to work as an architect: Neighborhood 12358W was born and he purposefully designed it in a way that granted him 24/7 close contact w/ “disgusting humans” and their gross ways.

His attitude towards human mouths is another interesting example that carries this contradiction:

“There are gonna be days when you're just sick of being around these disgusting humans, with their weird, gross little mouths, and their stupid elbows.” (201 - a rallying speech that I suspect is exaggerated but still serves to illustrate the basic demon’s view)

“Kissing is gross. You just mash your food holes together. It’s not for that.” (209)

And yet when we take a look at his small stash of human objects (106), we find wax lips that have sexual connotations (shiny, full, and red - they resemble the vulva) but are also edible and come w/ the “play now, chew later” tagline. Nice triple twist on the “mouths are for eating” sentiment. Michael also abruptly reverses his stance on kissing: gross suddenly turns exciting (hot diggity dog!). Granted, there may be other factors influencing this particular flip-flopping (I believe there are), but it’s still a solid example of the confusion created by the radical, ethics-infused reconceptualization process.

Michael starts to question things he never did before. He comes to regard humans in a fundamentally different way. He experiences the superiority of a species he always thought inferior and recognizes the inferiority of his own kind (Ya basic, Shawn.). In this sense, he plays Beauty in the tale as old as time who discovers that there’s more humanity in an allegedly primitive beast than in most of her fellow humans who mock her for the “crime” of being “different”. But the reverse is also true: being a demon, Michael also plays the Other/Beast. In the former scenario, Eleanor serves as the primitive Other/Beast being aided in her transformation, and in the latter, she’s Beauty who inspires transformation. Both work simultaneously and both result in an intimate understanding of one another, which opens the door to other areas of intimacy, i.e. those of romance and sex.

Feelings bloom whether we want them or not, but how we act on them (or not) is our choice. It’s impossible to tell the exact nature of Michael’s feelings atm. His actions indicate that love is already at work on at least a semi-conscious level but if it’s romantic love, there are way more reasons for him to keep it under wraps than there are reasons to confess. Same goes for sexual interest. Lack of overt interest does not equal lack of interest but to outside observers they can look identical, so, for now, canon is a question mark here. Another related question is, would he “cross the line” if there was encouragement from a partner, some guidance, and an opportunity to indulge? I think he definitely would w/ Eleanor, but it doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be obstacles or that he wouldn’t opt out later if he found it to be not to his liking.

I can see several options here but him rejecting romance and sex and having no interest there whatsoever just feel out of character to me given what we know about him and his past (see below). I still don’t think canon will ever go there, not in any overt, straightforward way, and it doesn’t have to, but this is still a very fertile and legitimate soil for shippers.

Michael is curious, loves experiments, and his core arc is about him shifting away from his original mode of existence which was marked by a lack of morality, meaning, and emotional/physical intimacy.

“Your lives aren’t meaningless. Everything on Earth counted for something. The same is not true here in the afterlife where I exist and have always existed. ... There is no ‘outside of work’. None of us exist outside our jobs. We have no homes, no hobbies, or relationships. We get the names of people to torture. We torture them. We get more names.” (204)

This isolated, (seemingly) aromantic and asexual existence just doesn’t feel to be a clear choice on his part but more like a result of not having an alternative to embrace (- sth he created for himself in form of his neighborhood perhaps?) If that’s the case, then I think there’s a good chance he harbors an interest in romance and sexuality, too, but it’s couched in reluctance/hesitance stemming from confusion, lack of experience, lack of a partner, initial aversion and, more recently, ethical issues. All of these are understandable but they are not binding or set in stone. He felt reluctance towards ethics, too, but he’s already moved somewhere between amoral and moral on that spectrum.

Michael finds reconceptualizing hard and disorienting, which is not at all surprising given how much he has to unlearn and recalibrate and discover still. Human ethics (a total buzzkill), human emotions (there are way too many), and human bodies (fragile, weird, and stupid) are alien to him, and it will take time to sort these new experiences and orient himself.

The matter of “human suit” is esp interesting bc it has direct relevance to the topic of sex.

“There are gonna be days when you're just sick of being around these disgusting humans, with their weird, gross little mouths, and their stupid elbows.” (201)

“Everyone in the Bad Place Bureau of Human Affairs gets randomly assigned a human body, so we can get the feel of how best to torture you. I gotta say it took me a long time to get used to the hanging bits. [Gross.] Oh get your mind out of the gutter, Eleanor. I was talking about my testicles.” (203)

“Let me just get into the mindset of a human. ‘Oh, I’m a human and my breathing tube is next to my eating tube. Oh, and look: my arms end in stupid little sticks.’” (204)

Demon anatomy and physiology are undoubtedly different from ours, which means that the appropriate form and function of various parts can significantly differ, including those involved in procreation and/or sexual acts (if demons even have any of those but given their “lifestyle” they may not). Michael’s in an alien body w/ weird parts that don’t look and function the way demon parts do + up until now his only interest in human anatomy has had to be to find ways to cause pain, so the fun potential in pleasure-focused experimentation is sky-high w/ the right partner (and if there’s one human who would ride a demon, that’s Eleanor) + making love to a human is the most radical thing Michael could do w/ his “human suit” tbh. And giving himself over to selfless love felt towards a human is the most radical thing he can do w/ his soul, which is already happening, imo.

Michael’s initial dismissal of human-y stuff is a product of his original indoctrination and “culture shock”, not of a set of immutable attributes. It also comes pre-mixed w/ latent fascination and begins to weaken due to exposure, “deprogramming”, and an innate quality other demons do not seem to possess. I mean, when he notices the crude erotic drawings in Kant’s journal, his eyes linger on the page only to conclude that this is an “interesting guy.” No longer stupid and gross but...interesting.

The idea of studying human ethics felt insane to him in the beginning bc it was so radically un-demon-y to do, so it’d be understandable if embracing human ideas and practices of romance and physical pleasure felt similarly jarring at first. It doesn’t mean he can’t or won’t (or hasn’t) develop(ed) an interest, esp. after having been exposed to stimuli and companionship of which he was entirely deprived before. If he’s developed some interest already, it also makes sense that it’s not advertised: he doesn’t have a teacher to guide him here, he’s seen what happened to Janet when she spiralled down this road, there are also way more pressing matters to focus on, and the most likely target of his interest is already “taken” anyway and must remain so.

I don’t think Michael will ever move out of the “grey zone” he currently occupies (or maybe it’s just my personal preference talking bc I love the grey), but that’s okay bc this grey has so many exciting shades and they are a lot of fun w/o being explicitly in-your-face.