#only i have more context now but idk if that rly helps

[kashmirichaiwithmehr]

.

[heart4gyu]

teach you || heeseung x reader

note: it’s a whole lot of kissing and the end is pretty suggestive so minors dni !! i honestly haven’t proofread this and ugh idek if rly like it so sorry please enjoy tho.. also i’m considering doing a part 2 idk lmk what you think ^_^ [part 2!!]

wc: 2,147 words

your class had just ended and you were now making your way to the cafe that heeseung had told you to meet him at. he texted you earlier about needing to ask you something important and no other context. which was unusual for him because it was usually you who would text him asking for help on an assignment or to cover for you when you were late to class. so for him to be asking something of you, it had to be serious.

you walked in and the small bell chimed as you searched the room for him. and of course, there he was, punctual as always. he was sitting by one of the tables near the window, two drinks already on the table in front of him. “hey heeseung,” you said, placing your bag on the ground as you sat in front of him. you picked up the cup and tilted it trying to see what was inside, “it’s your usual,” he said as he watched you. “oh thanks,” you smiled, taking a sip. “i’ll just get straight to it… you know that girl that i’ve been tutoring?” he said, fidgeting around with his cup nervously. you immediately rolled your eyes, “yeah what about her,” you said, putting your cup down. “well she sort of asked me out on a date this weekend,” he said, avoiding your eyes. you were one of his closest friends and he was one of yours so you knew him well and vice versa. he knew you didn’t think fondly of her, knew that you didn’t trust her and rightfully so. she was beautiful, extremely popular, and very rich but she wasn’t exactly at the top of her class. you weren’t super popular yourself but you knew a lot of people, you were a people watcher. you’d often see her hanging around the smart students; her scrolling on her phone or filing her nails as they scribbled down equations or edited slides for her. you knew exactly what she wanted from heeseung but you didn’t want to hurt him by telling him the truth. because when she would hold his hand or ruffle his hair as she asked him for another favor, he’d take it as an act of affection.

“so what? you need help rejecting her?” you asked, and he met your eyes again, lips pressed into a thin line. he sighed and you picked your cup back up for another sip. “no…” he said, still fidgeting with the cup, “y/n, i want you to teach me how to kiss.” you almost choked on your drink hearing his words. “YOU WHAT?” you almost yelled, in the busy little cafe. you cleared your throat as peoples heads turned towards you, you composed yourself as you scooted in. “repeat what you just said… slowly,” you said to him, still unable to believe what you heard. “look, if you don’t want to then you don’t have to but you’re the only person i know who can help me with this. i have no other girl friends and you have experience with these things,” he said, emphasis on the last part. you knew what he was referring to since you always told him about your one night stands and past relationships. but you never would’ve thought telling him your stories would give him an idea like this. “if she really likes me, i don’t want to disappoint her,” he said, his innocent eyes practically doing the begging for him. you felt bad for him, knew that she didn’t want anything more than his help in her passing grade. “…okay, i’ll teach you,” you sighed. “yes! thank you,” he said, leaning over the small table to hug you. it made you sad to think about how genuine he was in requesting this of you. you just hoped that she was also as genuine as him, you hoped she proved you wrong. “but hee, if she really liked you she wouldn’t be disappointed just because you’re a little bad at kissing,” you said and he just nodded as he sipped on his drink.

you had told him that you’d meet him at his dorm on friday after your classes. so there you were, just as you had planned but if this wasn’t the most awkward experience you’ve ever had, you don’t know what was. he had put on a movie before you got there and it had been playing in the background ever since, completely forgotten. you were both sat on the couch in the living room, heeseung had a roommate but it was friday so he was out. “okay let’s just start,” you said, crossing your legs and turning your body to face him on the couch. he did the same and when you scooted in a bit, he copied you again. “lick your lips or something, they’re kinda dry,” you said, licking your own right after. “so first, you want to make sure the moment is right. don’t just go in and randomly kiss her,” you said, and he nodded his head, listening intently. “how will i know when the moment is right,” he asked, fidgeting with his sleeves. you always thought that habit of his was cute, he always needed something keeping his hands busy. “you’ll just feel it, there’ll be a sort of tension around the two of you, you know what i mean?” you said, hoping he at least understood how to read the situation. he nodded and you took a deep breath, preparing yourself. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t a little nervous too, but how could you not be? he’s one of your best friends and yeah, you’ve kind of always thought he was a little attractive. “i’ll show you and then you can copy me,” you said. he nodded but the way his eyes were glued to your lips and his legs were slightly shaking told you he was getting impatient. you knew he’d had his first kiss some time in high school so you weren’t worried about that. just the fact that you were going to kiss your best friend was making you stall a little more than you normally would.

you cupped his cheek with one hand and used it to pull him towards you. he closed his eyes the second your skin came into contact with his but you took the chance to take in his features as you brought him in. you licked your lips once more and finally placed your lips on his. a peck first, and then reattaching your lips for a few more seconds just to see what you were working with. his face was warm, and the room was fairly dim but you could still make out the flush on the tip of his ear. you backed away just enough for your noses to still be touching and you both opened your eyes. “why don’t you try moving your lips along with mine? and let’s try, maybe 20 seconds, yeah?” you suggested, bringing up your other hand to rest on the back of his neck. he flinched a bit at the coldness of your hand on his neck but nodded quite enthusiastically anyway. his reaction made you smile and he returned it before bringing his hand up to your cheek, almost mirroring you. once his lips were on yours, you both stayed still for a second before you were tilting your head and moving your lips against his. he wasn’t as bad as you had imagined, then again, this first step in kissing wasn’t the hard part. you tilted your head to the other side and you were really about to lay back and pull him over you, when he suddenly pulled away. you were confused as he sat back and waited for you to say something. “it was 20 seconds,” he said innocently, as it finally clicked. “oh yeah,” you almost audibly gulped. you cleared your throat before you spoke up again, “you actually did really good… it’s just the hard part comes when you add tongue.” you watched his shoulders rise as he took a deep breath. you weren’t even really sure if he wanted to take it that far. “can we try that… maybe?” he said abruptly, hands in his lap fidgeting with his sleeves again. cute. “of course,” you said, scooting back in. your head tilted as you leaned in to kiss him. you kissed regularly for a few seconds before subtly parting your lips. he copied you again, giving you access to his mouth. you licked at his lips first wanting to make sure he was really okay with it. he tilted his head to the side in response, giving you even more access. you pushed your tongue into his mouth, and when his tongue came in contact with yours, he let out a loud sigh. the noise causing both of you to pull away, a blush creeping onto both of your cheeks. he was breathing heavy and wiping his palms on his sweats. “sorry,” he said, just above a whisper. you laughed, a breathy laugh in no way mocking or pointedly at him. he was worried he’d made you uncomfortable but you laughed so he did too. “i’ve never kissed anyone with tongue before,” he admitted and you thought it was cute how he couldn’t look you in the eyes. “well that’s what i’m here for… just try and do what i do, okay?” you said, caressing his cheek gently. he leaned into your touch as he nodded. you couldn’t get over how cute he was, he was like a puppy.

you kept your hand on his cheek as you sat up on your knees, his eyes on yours the whole time. you wondered if he felt the tension too. your face was above his now and he uncrossed his legs so that they were on either side of you. you connected your lips and he was immediately parting his, wanting to feel your tongue on his again. so you gave him just that. your tongue came into contact with his and it took him a couple of seconds before he started to move his along with yours. you removed your hand from his cheek and placed it in his hair, your other hand sliding along his neck and shoulder. he tried to move his tongue against yours and into your mouth but he wasn’t as skilled as you. you pushed your tongue into his mouth and let it explore for a while. he brought his hand up to your cheek again, tucking some hair behind your ear and he felt you smile a bit at that. feeling more confidence now, he placed his other hand on your waist. and you don’t really know what got into you as you pushed him down onto the couch. he wasn’t laying flat against the couch because of the pillows but you were still above him. “sorry, is this too much?” you said, pulling away just an inch or two. “no- no no i want you to keep going,” he stumbled. “this is a bit more than just practice, don’t you think?” you said, and he laughed a bit. “i think you’re just a really good teacher,” he said and this time you laughed. you moved your legs so that now they were on either side of his, and you sat back on his lap. he groaned as he adjusted himself under you, and it didn’t take you long to realize why. you blushed as you got up off his lap, sitting where you originally were when you first got there. “maybe we should stop for today,” you said, as he sat up. “that’s probably a good idea,” he said, placing a pillow on his lap. there was a flush on his face that reached the tips of his ears and down his neck. it was cute and it made you feel good that he reacted this way when you hadn’t really done anything. you looked at each other after a second and you both laughed. “good luck on your date tomorrow hee,” you said, as you leaned over to place one last kiss on his cheek. you got up and figured you’d just walk yourself out, seeing as though heeseung had a little problem to deal with. “thank you y/n,” he called out, as you made your way to the door. you smiled and waved him goodbye as you left. when you were gone, he lifted his cold hand up to his burning cheek where you had kissed him. he let himself fall back onto the couch, thinking about what just happened still a blushing mess. and for the rest of the night he had one thing on his mind, and it wasn’t the popular girl he was going on a date with.

[unicyclehippo]

watched the sister melanie reading scene in season one again. i cant see bc im crying but anyway immediately following it, its suggested that ava goes to talk to lilith n im lowkey obsessed with the ways in which avatrice help each other grow. beatrice tells ava earlier in the season that there’s always more to people, to their stories, but it isnt until their melanie conversation that it feels Real to ava. only then can she talk to lilith properly, with the understanding that there’s so much to the other girl that she doesn’t know. like yeah we rightfully talk a lot about how it shows her an aspect of beatrice, and how to leads to the closeness required to get through the 20ft of rock, but its rly incredible how much beatrice being honest & direct with ava helps ava to like. have proof of the depth of humanity. its just like her conversation with mary except mary’s is more direct, more precise - actual details about mary’s history. beatrice’s is .. hinted at, smth that ava comes to the understanding of through context. and i dunno i guess when you realise, when you understand something about another person without them saying it, it becomes easier to look for those context clues. maybe it starts ava Thinking about lilith and why she wanted the halo, beyond the fact that ava wasn’t worthy. like, maybe its not about ava at all. maybe beatrice’s anger isn’t about ava at all, maybe lilith’s had less to do with her than she thought. the melanie conversation helps ava to think about other people, guides her in how to think about others. idk thats just a rambling thought but im enamoured of it now

[youremyheaven]

okay so i'm so the anon who brought up how freaky solar men are up & i thought abt how i wanted to go abt this like i was orig. going to continue my spiel and outline every single kink i saw as a pattern but ... i just want to be concise + this is an astro blog i don't want to get too graphic on here so here's me wrapping it up (sorry this one is anti-climatic):

so at the root of it solar men go into sex - honestly any situation in their lives - asking themselves 2 things.

how can i have fun here? & how can i maximize on said fun?

how & will this feed into my ego?

it's an oversimplification of solar men but i think thats the gist of what drives them in any situation. so you can use that logic to apply to whether you'd think a solar man would be into smth sexually or not. like for e.x. solar dom men tend not to be munches in the bedroom (sorry girlsss 😭). but it makes sense as to why when you apply the logic of them being ego & pursuit of happiness driven. and if you do meet a solar man who does like eating their girl out ask them their reasoning for it and i swear their reasoning will somehow fall into this logic too (e.x. "it's fun for me" or "it makes me feel like im the man")

anyway with that being said there's only one other kink they rly lean into that i do want to elaborate on bc it's fun! it's roleplaying. they're so fun in this regard they like to play up certain scenarios (typically a power imbalance dynamic at play in it too) and they rly like it when you dress up for them; again there's also this air of unserious fun to it too like they just don't take themselves too srsly. like my fav memory w my latest sun dom ex was the time when the mid-autumn festival rolled around (he's chinese) and i asked him how he wanted to celebrate since his family was back home so it would just be him & i so he came up w the idea that i dressed like a bunny and delivered him his "mooncake". this is context for those who don't know (how he explained it to me so if this is botched i'm sorry omg): for chinese ppl there is an association b/w rabbits and mooncake during mid-autumn festival; jade rabbits often delivering them. anyways to make a long story short, i ended up picking up a box of mooncake for him and when i showed up to his place he had a whole bunny lingerie ensemble laid out for me so you can put two and two tg and figure out how that went 😂

now with that wrapped up i acc wanted to touch on the last ask you answered: hearing your type now i do not recommend a sun dom man for you actually. sun men def play it cool and i'll be honest they're the type to bully/tease as flirting and i find that the kind of women that best respond to the super cocky, kind of a bully style of flirting from solar dom men are saturn dom women (who dish it right back to them) and lunar dom women (extremely receptive & thrives in passivity). just as claire put it. your type acc sounds more along the lines of a venus dom man (they're simps & tend to worship - they just don't have that external tough guy thing going on imo) combined w smth else. i remember you saying you had a mercury dk do you mind sharing the nak/sign it's in? that could probs help w figuring out whats best for you

oh my last thing do you think solar dom men tend to be drawn to working as commercial pilots? if so why do you think that may be? bc as i was writing this i realized all of my exes were either commercial pilots or up in the corporate ladder. working corporate for them makes sense i feel like i've seen that somewhere but it's the pilot thing i'm curious abt

damn 😳😳😳

Yeah I def can't stand Saturnian men (mainly Anuradhas) and idk any Solar men but while they sound 🥵🥵 they're not for me as you said

I swear my type is a Venusian man who will worship me 🤤😤😩😭 I think I really like the idea of a big serious tough guy that others are intimidated by but who is a complete sweetie with me. Having a partner that is socially respected and taken seriously is vvv important to me (probably bc I have Venus in 10h) I do see the effect of my Mercury DK bc I love to flirt and tease and I love the smooth talking type of guy, I really value emotional & literal intelligence in men but beyond that Mercurial men are horny little rabbits and that kind of puts me off. I want a Venusian man who will be more refined about that sort of thing??? My old friend is with a Bharani Moon guy and honestly I want what they have. He puts the shoes on her feet, carries her bags and feeds her even?? Like that guy loves to give and is a complete simp (idk anything else about their relationship so idk what the downside of all this Venusian affection is)

When you said commercial pilot I stopped breathing 😳😳😭😭 because I only know one person who is a pilot and he's Krittika Sun 😩😩😩 I think Sun dominant people both men and women are drawn to the top of the hierarchy, they need to be the best at what they do, they won't settle for anything less than that and all the Sun dominant people I know are extremely ambitious and hardworking. With flying, they're literally on top of the world and in the air, that's as Sun dominant as it gets. Maybe that's a simplistic take but I think they're drawn to the high life and doing something that only a few get to do. I think all benefic planets kind of create a sense of elitism and exclusivity in its natives (I know Sun isn't widely considered to be a benefic but it's ...The Sun...) our solar system revolves around the Sun, life on earth centres the Sun. The natural most comfortable place for a Solar person is at the top of the ladder, they don't feel like they "belong" anywhere else. The Sun is used to being needed but the Sun doesn't need anybody or anything, if ykwim?? Probably why Sun natives dgaf about anyone or anything lol

[cornerihaunt]

omg thank you!!!

she’s a huge capitals fan (and loves her boy ovechkin) so i def keep up with the caps now. i know there are intermissions between each period, i can gauge how a game is going based on score (like 1-0 isn’t a HUGE thing by second period but 2-6 as a final score is a curbstomp kinda thing)

i don’t have a team myself yet that i support beyond the capitals, which is a support-by-proxy thing, but i always keep up on the score at least when i’m busy doing something but i know she’s watching a game

i also know enough to know the poor flyers got HUMILIATED saturday. i’m an ohioan and i know damn well the jackets suck ass but then they turned around and won 6-2 against the flyers and fucked up the flyers’ path to the playoffs despite the fact that the jackets sure as hell ain’t going this year

she listens to it a lot more than watching it until the playoffs unless she can go to a game or isn’t busy and can sit and watch it, so following has been more difficult since i have auditory processing issues BUT watching numbers has helped. i know about goalies being pulled if they’re sucking (which blew my mind) but i’m still trying to understand the circumstances where a team pulls players and it’s like 3v5 etc and more complex things than that

i’m just a simple gay but i’m rly enjoying it thus far! idk how i’ll pick my team tho

boooo the caps boooo /j!!! i do love ovi tho (he scored what i’m pretty sure is my favorite goal ever, against arizona in… 2006? it always makes the highlight reels. for good reason!!)

imo the team finds you and not the inverse. like i literally imprinted like a baby duckling (or a baby penguin? haha) on the penguins.

that one flyers game i was checking on for playoff race purposes and my god. i was hoping (sort of foolishly, bc as you’ve said, they’re not the best team lmao) for a jackets win but i did not expect that blowout from both of those teams??? insane little game

speaking of playoff race. i feel like rn it’s such an exciting time to get into hockey!!! you have an insane playoff race for a spot in the east, and anyways the playoffs themselves are gonna start soon!! (right during ttpd release week lmao so that’s gonna be fun FOR ME)

i prefer to watch the game simply bc if i only listen i can’t really… see it? but i have listened to a couple of games and imo it is sooo much more intense with the radio broadcast than the tv broadcast. if you like numbers you might like “watching” a game as i did last year, so by literally checking on the gamecenter on nhl.com which has aaaall the numbers (shots on goals, hits, face-off percentages, etc) and it’s a fun way to gauge the way a game is going. also you’d love. LOVE the standings bc those are sooo fun once you get into it and know how to read them!! calculating who needs to win what in order for your team to get into that one playoff spot is fun (if not unnerving. but fun)

on the when a team pulls a player etcetera imo that stuff you get it by watching really. bc there’s shifts and there’s line changes and power plays and penalty kills but they alllll make sense in the context of the game.

[feekins]

hoo boy, ch 8. okay. I've got tea steeping. I've got a comfy throw blanket. I have my cat on standby, bc...honestly idr how I reacted the first time I read this almost 20 years ago. all I know is that a lot of things flew over my head at that age, so it should be uh. interesting. to see what I get out of it as an adult.

so yeah - my thoughts and things as I re-read ch8 of Trigun vol 2.

I'M NOT NERVOUS. YOU'RE NERVOUS. 🫣

(NOTE: I'm reading the Dark Horse [physical] and the Overhaul [online] translations side-by-side)

ok so uh. this is gonna be a longass post. no joke, I took reference pics of almost every single page of this chapter, but thanks to the 10-image limit...well. we'll see how this goes.

on the very first page, we have some context-changing translation discrepancies.

in Dark Horse, we've got:

WOLFWOOD: "I got a bad feeling...about these guys." (referring to the dudes he beat up when they tried to jump him as he walked into the church in the last chapter)

LEGATO: "How rude. How else do you expect to be treated when you suddenly trespass?"

meanwhile, the Overhaul has something much more informative, once again:

WOLFWOOD: "Who are these idiots? The Roderick slavers?"

LEGATO: "My apologies... I just needed to show late arrivals who they are dealing with."

then, on the next page, we see that Legato and Wolfwood haven't met before (which was something I was wondering about last chapter). they only recognize each other by physical descriptors (Wolfwood's cross, Legato's skull and torture device).

(Dark Horse on top, Overhaul on bottom)

again, the Overhaul is more informative. and the panel right after this one...Vash looks so exhausted 🥺

there's also a difference in Dominique's last words to Vash a few pages later. Dark Horse has her saying, in reference to Legato "No one stands up to that man. Do you think he'd help me after I've failed?" meanwhile, the Overhaul has "If I can't be of service to him...then there is only one way this can turn out."

and then, she jumps :( Dominique remains one of my fav GHGs... it would be nice to see her return (she's on Wanted posters!!!) in tristamp, but. in any case. I lov her. and I'd love to learn more about her 🥺

Vash passes out right as Dominique's falling, and my younger self always thought that was weird? but their fight was a LOT more taxing than it first appeared, at least to me. we see proof of this later in the chapter.

some little translation discrepancies here. Midvalley's line in Dark Horse always kinda confused me. ty, Overhaul, for clarifying so much! oh, and Legato's last line here - for some reason I always thought he was talking about Vash? but now I realize he's talking about KNIVES. that's not translation-induced confusion, tho - just me being A Silly Lil Guy again, I guess 🤪

oh, and I didn't point it out in the last chapter, but...there's something striking about there being a church right at the top of Jeneora Rock. I can't explain why. it's just...something that rly sticks out or seems important to me.

OH, BUT THEN!!!

IT'S THE DOCTAAAAAAAAAand that's all the screaming I'll do about him for now 🤭

again, the Overhaul's translation is more informative, explicitly mentioning Knives' injuries, but idk. maybe I'm nitpicking. whateverrrrr, me likey additional info =u=

now...we get into the heavier topics.

their plan for resurrecting Knives is. disturbing. to say the least. you've got the physical horror, which was what most struck me when I was a teenager...but what gets me now is the violation/exploitation/stripping of agency from another plant for personal gain/survival...of which humans are guilty...but this time, it's all in the name of The Big Bad Human-Hater. and so, right when we finally get to meet him in the flesh, the narrative shows how, Plant Shenanigans aside, Knives...really isn't all that different from the humans he so hates. he perpetuates the exact. same. shit. the cognitive dissonance, man... 😣

more Dark Horse-induced confusion the Overhaul's cleared up for me

then, at the bottom of the page, where Wolfwood's grousing, Dark Horse has him saying "Shit! What the hell was with all th' training?!" (another line that always confused me) whereas the Overhaul has "Shit! What the hell am I doin'?!"

and that leads me into the next thing I wanted to note: it's here that we see Wolfwood is a man stuck between a rock and a hard place. he gets frustrated with it, doesn't want to do it, but he fully believes he can't get out of it :(

I also want to note a difference between the manga and tristamp - manga Vash is able to sense Knives the moment he's resurrected, whereas tristamp Vash is only aware of Knives' presence when the diner piano starts playing (ep 3). it's an interesting difference!

but then, there's fking...

...this. immediately after Knives is reborn.

I didn't think anything of it as a teen. but now...initially, I was horrified, thinking "oh shit, oh fuck, what the hell is he doing to his 'mother' now" BUT. looking at it a second time, I think I get what the context is telling us. on the previous page, there's Knives WITH HIS 'MOTHER' UNDERFOOT. on the panel immediately below the one I've shown, there's an explosion. so. I think what's going on here is that Knives is using his plant abilities to bust out - which still isn't great, most likely killing his 'mother' in the process...but unfortunately, considering who this is, it tracks;;;;;;

(Dark Horse on left, Overhaul on right)

so much more urgency comes through in the Overhaul's translation here - "...I NEED to face him. I have to END this!"

we also get a lot more out of the Overhaul on the next page, when Vash is talking about his memory loss. both translations start with Vash saying "Everything on the other side is blank..." but whereas Dark Horse has him continue with "Where there is no memory, I must go to fill in the void..." the Overhaul has "I lost all memory of what I've done. All that was left with me was a void and a memory of a mountain of rubble."

then, when Vash gets to Knives and points his gun at him...Knives' absolutely deranged reaction, which I found funny as a teen, now just. gives me the chills. as does how tristamp drew directly from this exchange for their meeting in that diner.

aaaaand we have some translation weirdness after Knives sees Vash's scars and is all "Vash y u no learn?!" Dark Horse then misattributes 2 speech bubbles in a panel with Vash, instead having Knives say:

KNIVES: "If you keep count, you've hurt so many more than you've killed. And compare that to all the destruction you've caused..."

KNIVES (next panel, speech bubbles are his): "So, shouldn't you...point that thing somewhere else?"

the Overhaul is, once again, a lot more clear here:

VASH (in reference to his scars): "They're nothing compared to the burden of death and destruction you've put on me! You're gonna pay for your sins, you monster!"

KNIVES: "Considering what you did with that right arm of yours...shouldn't you be pointing that gun somewhere else then?"

I believe that's what we call gaslighting? and the victim blaming Knives does over and over is... 😬

more translation weirdness. no comment here - I've been working on this post for literal hours now igkhddkhdjg

...no translation weirdness here - just wanted to note...I didn't get this part as a teen. now, I do... 😟

and both translations of the first thing Knives says to Vash after forcing him to bring out the angel arm now strike me as. so messed up. part of the SA/noncon allegory...

KNIVES (Dark Horse): "Well?! How do you like it, Vash?"

VS

KNIVES (Overhaul): "How is it?! How does it feel, Vash?!"

and then, right before it fires? for some reason, Dark Horse completely leaves out what Vash says/thinks immediately after Rem's name. before the Overhaul, I had no idea that this bit was a thing: "...we were no good...right from the start." 😭

now here. have an Emotional Support Charlie. she slept beside me the whole damn time I wrote this post 💕

[caatws]

Yondu's death and how it was handled in the following gotg projects is the main reason I think how Gamora's been treated is unforgivable. A funeral and two other follow ups to your death/to honor your importance vs "you're not dead, you just can't remember". It would take 2 minutes tops to have Mantis, Drax and Rocket say 2 sentences to eachother about missing Gamora. They don't even had to shed tears if that would be too much. Drax already hated Thanos for killing his family once before. Where was his anger.

vol 3 reduced Gamora from a fully realized character who was an equal partner in the story and interacted with the others and guided them, to mainly someone only Peter really knew. Carrying over her relationship with Nebula from Endgame is the only saving grace. Worse is that Peter talking about it is the only time the canon gives Gamora credit for being essential to the family's origins and by extension the franchise.

Also it makes me really sad that Zoe has probably given the best performance of the bunch throughout her entire mcu run and because Gamora's arc is such a mess it completely overshadows that by the time you get finished vol 3. In fact, imo, vol 3 was fire performance wise for but hits rock bottom plot and arc wise. Without her death or if they had ressurected her, I think she easily would have had one of the best arcs in the mcu.

yeah, when i was comparing the treatment gamora's death to nat's that was already Oof but now comparing with yondu is just...OOOOOFFFFFF. it's just sad seeing the characters not get a chance to rly express their grief for her ever :'( and i think only rly exploring peter's grief makes it seem like gamora rly just existed to be his gf, which i know is a whole nother can of worms of discourse happening in starmora land rn (and given all the circumstances in the film, i honestly think the way starmora as a relationship was handled was pretty solid)

tho we had the holiday special (and i did enjoy it!), i kinda wish we'd had some other gotg project (love & thunder doesn't count since they were just there for 2 secs to support thor LOL) between endgame and vol 3 to actually explore the fallout from iw/endgame a lot more, not just for the gamora situation, but, like, everyone else too. like i mentioned earlier, i think there's a gaping hole in rocket's arc (and nebula's but to a lesser extent) given where his arc left off in vol 2, then the 4 years that passed offscreen between that and iw, and then the 5 years that passed offscreen during endgame, and then ANOTHER 2 years passed offscreen between endgame and the holiday special/vol 3 (i think). i'd imagine losing all of the gotg would've affected rocket a LOT (like remember when he literally shot gamora so she wouldn't risk her life to save peter like lol) and then when they returned, surely that would shift the way he approached his relationships with them

similarly with nebula, i'm assuming she only stuck around with the gotg bc after endgame bc she'd become rocket's bestie for the restie (which i love) and also idk helped the avengers defeat thanos (? idk it also seems like the gotg were just kinda absorbed into the avengers for those 5 years and then became separate again after endgame, which would've been cool to establish more explicitly in canon) but given how uninterested she was in hanging around the gotg at both the end of vol 1 and vol 2, i think we needed to see more of how she went from that to practically being a de facto leader of sorts for the team in the beginning of vol 3

like i said before, i do think much of vol 3 was still very much firing on all cylinders, including the performances, but some of these holes in the arcs were still hard to look past. i know gunn said he wanted the film to be something you could watch on its own without all the context of the previous gotg films/iw/endgame (which makes me wonder how much that informed the way he approached things like the gamora situation) but i think including more story elements and references to past works that would've made vol 3 more dependent on the previous gotg appearances would've fixed quite a few of these problems

[i-have-bees-in-my-brain]

Personal rant or some shit bc i just wanna get this out rn. yeeeee this will be long

So today i had a vit of a stressful day with uni n all bc ive been sick and admittedly lazy over the last week up til like tuesday and i had to turn in an Interpretation/essay tonight and prepare a group presentation for tmr (saturday seminars should b illegal but ok i literally chose this). N e way so ive been procrastinating like hell up until this morning so i didnt rly eat before showing up to seminar at 12am and afterwards i had to check with my one remaining presentation groupmember and finish the interpretation and tgen i had swordfighting class at 5. I didnt Really gave time for it but its fun and im very behind bc i misses several lessons already and am generally. Not good at it lol. n e way i turn up to swords and we peactice some routines ig and heres where the peoblem rly starts. Basically i am a huge crybaby, always have been (im older than firestar btw for context), esp when i feel criticized or yknow. Make mistakes or anything and since i was a sports h8er with 2 left feet n hands all my life n cried often during school pe bc i kept messing up n git embarrassed, it was an important step for me to sign up for this uni extracurricular swords class bc. Doing sth sporty in front of others tgat. Isnt very easy and i gotta learn from scratch is a bit out of my comfort zone. But normally its all v fun, im not good/easily the worst in class but thats ok i learn and move my body and talk to ppl! Proud of myself! Well today not so kuch, i noticed i was getting tense bc of not understanding how to do a movement and everyone (3 experienced fighters bc the main teacher was sick plus 2 other beginners that r learning faster than me) lookimg at me and trying to give helpful pointers and me still doing it wrong... H8 dis feeling bc i kinda freeze up instead of being able to take the tips n try again. Its hard for me to translate input like verbal instructions and demonstsations into my own movements as is. In this state i cant do anything properly and i feel the cryings abt to start while wanting nothing more than to MOVE ON NORMALLY. Well my eye started to get itxhy n teary so i excused myself to "take care of my contacts" (lie) (why am i even so ashamed that i feel i have to lie/make up excuses?? Bro???? That just made the situation Actually cringe?????? Im normally not an ashamed person and cryings just a state/expression but idk) so it was better for a bit until it wasnt. Then i full on cried in class while 2 ppl were actively showing me things/helping me do em right n everyone else kimda watched, kimda practiced. They did ask if i was ok and i said yes like a liar. So at the end of class i normally take the bus home with one of the other new guys but i today just didnt feel able to keep talking to him. So he also asked if i was ok/why i cried and i said i just do that under stress and why i am stressed (uni) so that was also a bit of a lie but only kinda. I said i was gonna go to the livrary instead (another lie, was gonna call my bf to calm me down abit n then take the next bus) so i did tgat n it kinda worked and this genius asked if i had eaten. Bruhhh of fuckin course im sensitive ive only had 3 baked goods all day and hadnt even noticed!!!!!! So then it all made sense, mans gotta get some freakin noursishment to keep their composure in swords class! So i went to another bus stop than normally bc i needed sth from the store and bruh the guy i normally take a DIFFERENT bus with is there (awkwardly votta tell hik i changed my mimd abt the library) and we talk a bit (i feel like i talk to him wayy too much in comparison to him, like we dont know each other that well at all, idek his real name and yknow. If he actually enjoys talking to me) and yea

So now everyone in the 14th century peasant larp class knows my terrible terrible secret:))):)

[judasisgayriot]

Actually your analysis reminds me of a couple things

1. Nathan’s locus of control; he’s spent his whole life being controlled by others that even having control of just his life doesn’t feel like enough when he gets it. That combined with how he’s been raised to “change the world” or whatever leads me to believe that he only feels like he’s the one in control if he’s controlling others’ lives as well. He can’t give himself mental breakdown bangs alone, he has to drag someone else along (such as Claire in s3), and then he acts almost surprised when the other people involved don’t like the results.

2. Nathan’s identity/lack thereof/lack of awareness of it. If Nathan’s got a true self, I think it’s hidden WAAAAY down deep, so deep down that even he doesn’t know where or what it is. This leads him to “not know” who he is without his family or others to tell him. So repressed that his surface-level brain doesn’t even know what gay is.

3. You know, you’re right that this man spends basically every episode of this show utterly in the trenches, with vibes resembling a cat that fell into the bathtub.

4. All that said, I think part of why I feel the way I do about Nathan is a factor of timing. When I got into Heroes, I was at a stage of processing/healing from my own childhood emotional neglect that involved deliberately NOT sympathizing with a parent’s plight and instead prioritizing whether the child is having their needs met, because a lot of my CEN trauma came from not wanting to put a burden on my mom due to her own problems. Thus, I’m super sensitive to when fictional kids are going through CEN. So first, I was like, put off by Nathan’s jerky persona, and then I was seeing all the ways that Claire, Monty, and Simon weren’t having their needs for support and validation met just- white hot rage on their behalf tbh. Like yeah Claire DOESN’T have reason to trust him at the end of S1, yeah she DOES have the right to be disappointed in him during S3!! And yeah okay maybe she cuts him “too much slack imo” in Mexico, but that’s probably more of a “I’m trying to have a relationship with you” thing than an “actually I do believe you can 100% fix this” thing.

I guess all this is why I’m more inclined to point and laugh at Nathan personifying the Ben Affleck Smoking meme than to sympathize, but I really appreciate the conversation— did a lot to help me understand the ins and outs of how he personifies said meme!

Completely fair tbh - we all bring our own experiences and perceptions etc to everything really. I guess in the context of the show Simon and Monty are such non-characters that the show basically just forgets they exist, and so do I a lot of the time lol (not to be callous, the show just doesn’t bother to do anything with them lol). I see what you mean 100% though, although I think in the very few scenes we do have it seems like he is genuinely good with his kids, or wants to be (Claire saying he wants to be a good person in Into Asylum is very astute) - it’s very open to interpretation, although I think Nathan is just like, bad at giving his full emotional self to anybody, lol. He’s fuckin broken. A shell of a man. With Claire, I think he means it when he’s like, I missed out on all this time with you and now you’re grown up and idk how I even fit in your life now. He did Severely Fuck Up (and you’re right that he ends up dragging others into his personal trauma spiral lol) but I do love their scenes in Mexico just bc I think both of them really *want* to have a relationship but don’t rly know how to yet and Claire is. Just so good to him and they both break my heart :( I think it’s so sad how he literally thought she was dead for most of his life too. Has to fuck someone up. Not that that’s an excuse but eh. Idk. He’s just like a sad wet cat to me. I love him whether or no. Lol

[mechawolfie]

i love that what got me to play disco elysium was seeing screenshots of the game and thinking “WHAT the actual fuck is this game”. and now i’ve played it and i’m still thinking the same thing

[custom-emojis]

genq do you ever wonder if it’s like. worth it. bc if i were y’all id have deleted my entire social media presence 12x over by now

Oh every fucking day. Y’all have no idea 😂 like I don’t wanna complain or seem all woe is me. But i have considered burning this blog to the ground multiple times and especially lately it really does kinda take a toll on me. Here’s a list of various things I deal with due to this blog AND it’s associated discord;

I cannot talk about any of my interests or opinions lest be ripped apart and have my income demolished

People purposely going out of their way to trigger me? For some reason

Blatant transphobia and misgendering ? For some reason?

Death threats????? For some reason???????

Directly being told I deserved and likely enjoyed my abuse

Having my content stolen, reuploaded and edited near constantly

Having said stolen content made into stickers and sold on websites like Aliexpress where I can’t get them taken down

People making literal hate videos about me because I… expressed my sexuality?

This is lesser but. A lot of people just fucking demand content straight up? No thanks, no please. Not even context. I get a lot of asks that are just ‘x emoji’ or just a single word of what they want with no explanation.

People coming into my DMs and just venting and traumadumping to me COMPLETELY unprompted when I’d never talked to them in my life because I’m ‘popular’ and I guess that’s just acceptable to them?

People entirely only interacting with me with the intentions of boosting their own shit / getting stuff out of it ?? Which like idk I don’t mind helping people out but I would prefer if ppl also like. Interacted outside of that

People going out of their way to just straight up ask my discourse opinions? Or just straight up telling me theirs! No matter how many times I say it’s a trigger and that I want no part in it. Similarly, people just fucking assigning a discourse opinion to me that they feel fits best and spreading that as if it’s fact when I’ve not said anything about it.

People just. Straight up thinking I’m their best friend? Or even being actively affectionate or even romantic towards me when we’ve never interacted before?

A whole slew of the weird and absolutely absurd shit ppl send to me on anon. If you’ve followed me for any amount of time you’ve surely seen some

People like. Obsessing and idolizing my relationships? Like it gets really creepy sometimes how much ppl get rly into my dating life. ^^;

And like. That’s just what I thought up on the fly with my husband. And sure to an extent some of this is just tumblr being tumblr. Or people being shitty. But the fact all this happens and revolves around an emoji blog is a little wild. Don’t get me wrong- I love running this blog. And I will continue to. I definitely think the pros outweigh the cons. But I also think a lot of ppl don’t quite realize how much comes from it bc I really don’t post as much abt the bad as I used to. Ppl… complained abt it lol ppl complained abt me answering anon hate and complained that I posted negative content at all, so I just stopped unless I feel it’s

Important

Funny or I can make fun of them

Something I need to set a hard boundary on.

Anyways I didn’t rly expect to go on such a rant. I’ve just been super burnt out and thinking abt this a lot lately. I don’t plan to stop doing it anytime soon but I’ve been trying to kinda. Be a bit more stern on shit and hold my ground a bit more. Thanks for the ask honestly, gave me a reason to sit down and explain some of this.

[pocketsizedquasar]

it’s been a bit now so. misc 200/end of mag in general thoughts? under a cut because this is a bit long, and i will preface this to say that i mostly enjoyed the episode but this is going to be mostly my criticisms, bc i feel like the good parts have already been well covered by people other than me. so yeah just a warning this is mostly crit

- it’s Still very hard for me to parse how i feel about this episode, but i think after sitting on it for a bit, i’ve come to the general conclusion that i am very satisfied plot-wise (in terms of tragedy/the structure of tragedies, the open-endedness of our ending, the general Writing TM), but not so much satisfied character-wise (in terms of arc and relationship resolution). I think we deserved more resolution on wtgfs -- i wanted more with them! more with melanie and jon; more with the melanie and georgie and basira’s side of the plan. more than that really small tidbit that we got at the end! and... honestly? a little bit more emphasis on the weight of Jon actually dooming other worlds in the end, and what that means for Jon and for wtgfs/basira. Especially with the context of the consequences re: the Web...won. no caveats or complications, the Web got. Exactly what it wanted.

- on that note,  From a uh. Critique against capitalism standpoint I’m not sure how I feel about the ending? And I don’t really want to. Read too much into what isn’t there? But I mean mag has long been a pretty explicit anticapitalist narrative so...? Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the implications of WTGFs and basira basically just being treated as narratively right in terms of letting the eldritch evil stand-in for capitalism have whatever it wanted and feeding it and doing exactly what it asked them to do. and having Little consequence as a result of that. Obviously they’ll still face loads of hardship, but that comes from the apocalypse, not from, like,.,, doing the direct bidding of the Capitalist Monster/System/etc to be clear, i’m not like...mad they made the “wrong” decision; there was no wrong or right decision here. but I am a little upset that for all they spent 199 discussing the various consequences of each choice, we got to see very little of that actual consequence playing out...none of the survivors seem to really be carrying the guilt or even the full understanding of what they did, because they never saw the suffering they could create as anything more than a hypothetical. i feel like we could have spent just a bit more time with them dealing with that. a bit more time even with jon dealing with that, a bit more time spent on jon changing his mind. other people have said as much better than me but. yeah

- i feel like there was a lot of character stuff brought up in s5 and especially act iii that i would’ve loved to have seen more resolution of. why have that whole thing about Georgie telling jon to give melanie his last words himself, if Jon was going to come back but then never bring that up again (full disclosure this is smthn that @pronouncingitwang​ brought up!)? Why have Jon say he was “going to go  apologize to [his] boyfriend”/Jon tell Martin multiple times that they were going to talk about their fight “later” and then not have that happen on screen? Why did we have two whole episodes of cultist interactions if they were just going to be removed off screen? Why have martin’s “I’ll get jon to destroy me like the others” decision if that doesn’t really come up? what about salesa!! why tell us melanie hating jon is a projection of her self hatred and then not bring that up again? why give annabelle all those juicy interactions with martin and then turn her into a monster when jon shows up, why give her so much character and backstory and then so thoroughly remove her agency? why have all these really cool parallels between jon and annabelle if annabelle is just going to be this monstrous and agency-less plot device with no follow-up? what happened to her!

- on that note...annabelle. They... really took this character who is a Black woman and who had so many parallels to Jon and who they could’ve like. very easily Actually made into a protagonist of color (because we only got one!! and she’s a cop!!!!) (or if not protagonist, at least smthn more sympathetic), (which wouldn’t have negated previous racial problems w tma, but would’ve shown growth from them) and made her a scary monster who just Serves her capitalist entity overlord without personal agency and then bows out when she’s no longer needed...you can have whatever diagetic/watsonian explanations you want for how 197 went, like sure she was just ~being dramatic~ and putting on a show for jon, but all that is still something the writers Decided to do in the real world, and the racial implications of her character arc are just. not great. and her character had So much more narrative potential. idk i will forever be salty about annabelle

- i Still Don’t Like the web being sentient!! i said this after 197 and i’m sayin it again! i think it makes it less frightening and less interesting! with the End being aware of its own, well, end, I actually thought that worked, and i really liked the corpse routes ep, but for some reason I didn’t with the Web? which seems hypocritical of me, I know, but, look: The embodiment of the fear of dying being aware of and welcoming its own dying emphasizes the inevitability and the truth of that fear. Which is why it works for the End. It’s still not recognizably /human/, because it is inexorable and certain, in a way nothing human can be. So its awareness of its own end DOESNT feel like flattening the worldbuilding. And using my own logic, I guess sure you could say the embodiment of the fear of manipulation and schemes being capable of scheming does the same thing but it. It rly doesn’t feel the same to me? Bc that’s rly a fear borne of human sentience & behavior. and so to give it that sentience makes it feel more human, and less interesting within the context of the horror. this is definitely just a personal taste thing as far as how i like horror and eldritch deities and such but yeah.

- i liked the statement a lot like, as a little self contained story? it was really nice to have jon give us one last story before the end. I thought that was sweet and i liked how the statement was written! on the same note though, i could’ve also gone without knowing like. the entire cosmology of how the fears came into being. again, just a personal thing, i don’t like my horror to be known, even at the end of it all when it doesn’t matter what we’re still scared of anymore. I just. I want my fears to be frightening and beyond comprehension and unknowable. it just leads me to have more questions than i really need at the Final episode? i would love to keep the jon giving us one final statement thing, and you know what? i would've loved: statement of the archivist, regarding jonathan sims. no idea what you’d do with that but it sounds cool in my head.

- very minor and very specific-to-me thing but i Don’t Like that basira got to be the Last Words...sorry y’all I just don’t like basira i can’t get behind trying to make me feel sympathetic for a cop who stood by and let people get murdered by the state for years and only felt bad about it bc fearpocalypse i just can’t. i don’t like her never have never will and also melanie and georgie are right there why didn’t they get to have the last words it would have been so much better ... why not have the person who loved jon and Knew very deeply his tendency to self-sacrifice say something or why not the person who is in-canon very similar to Jon and self-admittedly projecting her self hatred onto him say some sort of her own attempt at peace why not either of these two ahhhh

- i uhhhh. really liked jon killing jonah. jon for once getting to be angry for himself. that felt really nice. no ceaseless watcher nonsense either, just him and a knife and beating the shit out of this guy who even now continues to underestimate and belittle him. and i liked jon doing what he did in general -- i actually changed my mind on this; i really didn’t like it at first but i do now. i’m sad that it came at the expense of his promise to martin, but it makes sense and...i don’t want to say jon was right, because i again don’t think any of the decisions were right per se, but in terms of like... not doing what the “elder fear deity who wants to feed on fear and pain for literal eternity” wanted... yeah. i get it. he would never have been able to go along with that willingly. and he really shouldn’t have been, considering all that he went through being a puppet for said elder fear deity. and from a tragedy standpoint too, i actually think it’s a really really well written end for him. considering how my favorite tragedies are structured and how the way out has to be presented to us, but the tragic hero Ultimately will always fall back on their faults, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. hamlet is granted a way out and he doesn’t take it; he always always hesitates. captain ahab is granted the chance to turn and leave his chase and love instead, and he doesn’t take it. orpheus turns around. etc etc. I think it was also really lovely that jon got a twist on that, that in the end he did change, for just a moment, and chose love instead. even in the face of all the horror that that might mean. i really like that he and martin are together, wherever or however they are. that martin is allowed to feel (rightly) furious and betrayed and still so, so unconditionally in love. 

idk i have more thoughts probably but again they’re very hard to parse and mostly just getting into the super specific realm which i don’t think is particularly helpful

i have a lot of feelings for jon and martin and their ending i think it was the best possible ending we could’ve gotten for those two and i Am really. I just have a lot of feelings.

[dog-teeth]

hi... idk if this is stupid but any tips on telling apart gender envy and attraction? i've been questioning for years and it's really throwing me off. i don't wanna transition only to realize i wanted to be with the person instead of being them :((

this ended up being long asf cuz i love to ramble so im gonna put it under the cut

i’ve struggled a lot with that too, i started being attracted to men after transitioning more, instead of just having gender envy towards them, thanks to physical/medical/more intense social transition which made me able to interact with men while not being perceived as a woman. it was all very confusing.

generally, i don’t think pure attraction would make you?? want to transition??? like if you were just attracted to them then you would be attracted to them as your current gender, not want to change your gender to be more like them? i guess maybe that could happen but honestly i don’t rly think cis people usually work like that.

i also think you need to deconstruct your idea of what ‘transition’ means - it’s not like one singular process over a set amount of time that you go through and then suddenly at the end you realize you made a mistake and don’t identify that way. transitioning is an active choice you make every moment of every day, and the vast majority of it is internal + social, not physical, so if you end up changing your mind, you can do it just fine. i strongly doubt you would go through an entire social and medical transition without realizing that you actually just wanted to be with someone. along the way you will be able to understand which parts of gender and transition make you happy, and what feels wrong. you’ll be able to feel out how things like altering your gender presentation with clothes, pronouns, names, etc, feels to you. if it makes you feel more like yourself, you’re probably not just doing it because you’re attracted to someone.

you can (and should) also take your transition as slow as you want, deciding to transition is a big deal but also it doesn’t have any inherent repercussions, from that decision you can choose to do whatever you want with your gender. take it one little step at a time, it’s not a big huge thing that happens all at once, it’s a slow and tedious and active process that will give you plenty of time to figure yourself out along the way.

as always, my blanket advice is that thinking really hard about your gender identity and what you want and how you feel often does not help, what does help is actually experimenting with your identity/presentation/etc, in whatever way you think would be most helpful and doable, even if it’s just by yourself or with a close friend or online etc. it doesn’t have to be drastic or public.

if you’ve been questioning for years, that’s a pretty solid indicator that some part of your identity, gender, sexuality, or presentation, is not currently what will make you happiest & your most genuine self. which part, i can’t tell you, but you can figure out with experimentation.

it also can be both gender envy and attraction. i feel that way about guys sometimes. it doesn’t make either aspect less valid or important, it just means there are traits of that gender/person that i find attractive both in a partner and that i want for myself. now that i’m more comfortable in my body & presentation (shoutout to hrt), the relationship i have with gender-envy-attraction is a little different, it would take a whole essay to explain but basically i just have a type LOL.

i can’t tell if you mean that there’s one specific person who you feel gender envy / attraction towards, or if this is a more general thing for you. if you mean one person, then consider looking for other sources of gender inspiration, like other people you’d want to be like, and see how it feels, and just think about your life and experiences separate from this person.

either way, think about who you would want to be if there were no expectations or context. just if it was you alone being able to choose what gender you were born as, or how you would want to look/be if you could instantly magically make it happen. if it’s something different than how you are now, then that’s significant! for example, i know that if i was the only person on earth and no one would ever see me, i would still want to have a flat chest. and i wouldn’t be able to choose which gender i id want to be born as because i wouldn’t want to be born as either one. dealing inn hypotheticals like this can be frustrating and unhelpful, but it can also help you get to the root of your feelings by removing the practical context of your life.

as always my perspective is that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from experimenting with your gender, and you should go for it, and if you end up realizing that it’s not for you, that’s totally fine and you can go back to being cis! no harm done! but if there’s even a chance that changing something about your gender would make you happier, you should try it out.

[sweetnsaltycorn]

Ayooo thanks for the tag Deia!! :) 💚 @novampirebrainrot

A-Age: i do be in my 20s

B-Birthplace: Austin, Texas

C-Current Time: 23:44/11:48pm (fuck I have Orgo at 7:30 tomorrow oops)

D-Last Drink You Had: Seltzer

E-Easiest Person To Talk To: I have a lot of good friends but the easiest to talk to would be Domino (talking in nicknames here) but I’d say all of my close good friends I’m comfortable talking with

F-Favourite Song: back and forth between Mr. Brightside by the Killers, Technicolor Beat by Oh Wonder, Sweaty by Crosa Rosa, and Front Street by Will Wood and the Tapeworms, Killer Tune and—yeah I like a lot of songs oops and it varies from time to time

G-Grossest Memory: (CW: sexual assault/harassment) at the moment either my many nonconsensual sexual moments with guys or my few consensual sexual/romantic moments with guys—I gag at both (for context I just recently realized I’m a lesbian) idk if it counts as this kind of gross but it crosses my mind a lot and I feel gross!!!

H-Horror Yes Or Horror No: OH HORROR YES IM AN ABSOLUTE SLASHER SLUT

I-In Love: platonically, with my close irl friends and my Internet friends (you know who you are) and my many fictional character crushes (currently Lady Dimitrescu like—)

J-Jealous: Yeah I’m with Deia on this one, if I feel jealous I feel sad but Hmm I think my jealousy issues are a lot less than what they used to be. Even so it wasn’t that bad

K-Keepsake: oh of course, I keep old drawings, photos, pretty much everything that I’m sentimental with. And that’s a lot of things.

L-Love At First Sight: I wouldn’t say love but I get flustered very easily @ women in public akdksjcj women are beautiful but I wouldn’t say love at first sight

Except maybe that wicked pretty ginger girl painting in one of the grassy areas on campus with the rly pretty makeup, if I met her again I’d try to ask her on a date ajdjajdj

M-Middle Name: I don’t feel comfortable sharing this publicly

N- Number Of Siblings: 1

O-One Wish: to uh help humans to not destroy the planet

P-Pop or? I like alt pop more, and Japanese City Pop even more. J-pop (different from City Pop) is also good too

Q-Question You Are Always Asked: “why are you like this?” AKDJAJ it’s a running joking question in a couple of my irl friend groups

R-Reasons To Smile: My friends, esp my friend group that’s my true family <3 (and experiencing and learning new things!)

S-Song You Sang Last: (DEIA I LOVE THAT SONG YOU PUT ITS A BOP) and 裏切り者のレクイエム CUZ ITS A FUCKING BOP BUT SO IS GREAT DAYS

T-Time You Woke Up: 7:30am for my goddamb orgo II class

U-Underwear Colour: red lace with a mini bow (ik it didn’t specify the other descriptors but I’m feelin spicy ok and I love lace)

V-Vacation Destination: legit everywhere but right now it’s probably Japan, back to Old Quebec, and yeah just everywhere

W-Worst Habit: I tend to overwork myself a lot but what’s even worse is my stubbornness and the ability to not shut the fuck up sometimes oops

X-X Rays: yeah checkup X-rays but some other stuff for some health complications I’ve had, including an ultrasound for that same health complication

Y-Your Favourite Food: TOMATOES (and udon)

Z-Zodiac Sign: I assume sun sign but I’m an Aquarius

But Ah whatever I’ll give more than that:

Rising: Cancer

Sun: Aquarius

Moon: Aquarius

Mercury: Sagittarius

Venus: Aires

Mars: Aquarius

Lilith: Aquarius (I have too much Aquarius in me help)

ÅÄÖ - The last line of text you wrote in your mother’s tongue? - “bitch ass”

👉(taking this bit from Deia) For the people I’m tagging now, remember to only do this if you want to and feel comfortable doing so :,)

Also don’t forget to tag me I’ll love to read your answers for those questions

@vampiretsuki @vampire-therapy @zaraenia @jardinsdeminuit @minimandies @nam00n

Thanks again for the tag Deia!! Love ya

[stray-tori]

TPN S2 Appreciation

I remembered I started this so here we are: there's a lot of problems with s2 but you've probably heard everyone talk about them anyway so I'm skipping that and going straight to all the stuff I DID like about s2:

opening

episode 1

(episode 1) seeing them interact with the environment

(episode 1) Ray running + being out of breath animation and voice acting

episode 2

(episode 2) especially the parallel with the drop like holy shit

episode 3

(episode 3) the fish bug scene while maybe out-of-place is pretty cute and funny

(episode 3) the wall scare is pretty ominous and as of ep3, not yet stupid.

the **OPENING**

(episode 4)

(episode 5) the shot of the apple rolling and the camera turning over with it. so cool.

(episode 4) Ray shooting the demon animation cut even though Emma was robbed

(episode 4) Chris knowing the bunker tunnels after we saw him playing there with other children is really nice. Especially knowing that in the manga he's sad he can't explore properly, I think it's a nice in-character touch haha.

(episode 5) masked Norman with blood splattering behind him

Myuk Mahou cover art makes them look so cuteeeee

portraying the two worlds in parallel from the OP to wanting to care and save your family

the opening making me cry every time

cup-kun memes

(episode 3) them entering the bunker being so fecking tense and suspenseful, like i was expecting a corpse the entire time pff-

(episode 5) ray and emma using hand signals during the rooftop chase

(episode 5) the natural in-convo reveal about how they hide their scent by Lani/Thoma

(epsiode 5) the detail that they throw it in the fire to spread the masking scent when the old demon gets there

(episode 5) the old demon scene (listen ik people questioned this, but it's an old weak demon... I kind of see it like helping out a weak strong animal. I doubt this old geezer would have jumped Emma; it could reveal their location, that's true, but oh well - it’s implied he met them more often before so maybe Emma just slowly considered over time / maybe her realizing they’re not that different and all that yadayada)

(episode 5) Emma doubting herself because they've literally just been chased around (ik some people didn't like this and I get why but they've been barely surviving for like 11 months... she's lost and paralyzed, she's allowed to have her doubts, though they could be worded a bit differently. It just sucks that there wasn’t much of an arc regarding this after that, so. Yay Norman Christ has rescued us all.)

(episode 6) the reunion hug / scene, it looked so soft and nice ahhh- the entire art in that scene was just nice.

(episode 6) the atmosphere and framing of when Barbara was eating the demon meat. it came pretty unexpected and the moment you realize was such a big “ohhh… oh no.“

(episode 7) Lani and Thoma mentioning the migrating birds during their tower watch and that then later coming back when the kids think about where they could be was nice!

(episode 7) Norman’s soft “be careful” to Emma and Ray

(episode 7) Also Ray's reaction to "the gate is in gf" is just a mood haha

(episode 7) THE SHIPMENT PARALLELS! the sounds, grabbing his hand this time when he had to take hers during his shipment AHHH-

(episode 7) evolvment of the “dont do it on your own / involve your family/friends” by asking Gilda and Don to come with them on the search for Sonju/Mujika. Sadly this doesn’t carry over to ep11 where they decide to do sth as drastic as staying behind for god-knows-how-long without letting anyone know beforehand.

(episode 7) like their reactions to it are so wholesome, I really like how it is portrayed. Especially because up until now Emma was still bottling up. Idk I like that it takes a while for this to really settle in properly.

episode 8

(episode 8) “are you god?” / “I’ll be a god or a devil” / “are you a human?”

(episode 8) showing the demon suffering pretty graphically for what I expected

(episode 8) the simple fact that I got the experience of pure euphoria and a laughing attack when the parallel between Vylk and Norman was actually a thing, when I was so confused why they both had a distinct characteristic (the walking stick) in episode 5. My friends thought I was crazy but I was just big brain. (we were robbed of more stick though)

(episode 8) norman hand symbolism, with blood, Emma grabbing it, him looking at it and how it ties Emma to his plan inherently and then when it's not his blood on his hands but someone's that he's taking away from another living being.

(episode 9) the unspoken realization that he’s not the only one being tested by the test scanner was on the right-hand side. good shit. Ik thats technically not the anime’s idea but I like how they put the focus on it with blur and didn’t actively state it.

(episode 9) him coughing up blood to show how fast it’s been progressing/getting worse // though that implies he refused to take his meds OR that its that bad even with the meds which I don’t think is the point. Like the psychological warfare of giving the kids a condition that they can only fight while they’re in their prison bc they’ll run out of meds is just. hHHH

(episode 9) I really liked Norman going to talk to Vylk and… hhh- Emma *AHEM* and how he didn’t really know what to say, and .........… E-EmMa going up to him and apologizing for what demons did, showing empathy and understanding AND ABSOLUTING WRECKING NORMAN and me. man, cycle of hatred bad.

(episode 10) Emma speaking over the radio to everyone is just… so heartfelt ahh

(episode 10) The little kids sneaking amongst the others is rly cute and honestly kind of epic haha

(episode 10) the moms/sisters either not noticing them or not doing anything bc they’re on their side anyway is just… a funny thing to think about either way

(episode 10) Phil and Emma hug TvT

(episode 10/11) MICHELLEEEEEEE

(episode 11) the turning ceiling is pretty

(episode 11) I like the shadow asthetic of the Ratri exposition, generally the Ratri exposition is pretty nice aside from being so fast you cannot take all that in and process it properly

(episode 11) dramatic gate closing is dramatic

(episode 11) the slideshow of them in the human world gives nice glimpses into things, even if… very vague haha. Especially the shot of Isabella playing guitar stuck with me. And Phil on a train! Not a steam one, sadly.

(episode 11) while the demon world slideshow is uhhhhh SOMETHING, I do like that the weird dragon-on-water thing is in both the Ratri exposition during the promise thing and then also at the end, which at least gives A BIT of context to what's likely happening. Idk I liked that, but then again my standards aren't very high.

I'm not saying any of this outweighs the problems bc oh boy, but ye.

[sotorubio]

"like what was the eye closeup thing in the christmas dinner clip" - unpopular opinion n i understand if u won't post it. I think sascha's actor is so bad in acting. He only can smile and make puppy eyes. Like literally saschisi have a bingo of no good story, no good acting and no chemistry at all. It's disaster comparing to other druck pairings, 'cause all of them have at least good chemistry. So they use this close-ups and purple bubbles to "help" to create some kind of ~chemistry~.

unpopular opinions always accepted here 🤙

this is an interesting take n i don't completely disagree w u. generally i can't rly judge the skam actors' acting bc i'm not fluent in any of the remake languages (well except for austin i suppose) so i usually can't tell if line deliveries etc are good or not. however i have had issues w the chemistry too...

i think i talked abt this briefly before but like the whole sascha is ~ in love ~ w isi just.. didn't translate to me at all especially at the beginning of the season. it was clear from the writing bc that message was pushed from left n right constantly but i just like wasn't able to see it in the chemistry. remember that clip where they're playing music at sascha's place & isi starts talking abt lou & then leaves w umut n the camera focuses on sascha's face? so many ppl were just going ahhh he's so sad :( he's so gone for isi ☹️ n then i watched the clip myself n if i hadn't read those reactions beforehand i honestly would've just thought he looked bored... generally i think his acting is very one-note, i can't evaluate if it's good or bad since i don't know the language well but it's definitely just very similar from clip to clip regardless of context.

but then again idk if that's just specifically sascha's actor or if the problem is in the directing bc he's not the only character who has those moments. like i see eren as a pretty solid actor but even they had moments where the emotions were just.. not rly there. like the clip druckaddicts themselves posted abt? "wow kieu my thinks sascha likes isi n this was isi's reaction 😱" the reaction in question: 👤

so yeah i definitely agree that the chemistry is lacking, i'm just not sure if it's bc of the acting or the writing or directing or what.

the point abt close ups & lighting as a way to make up for it actually does make a lot of sense tho. i doubt that the team is looking at the scenes like wow our young actors suck ass we NEED to do smth abt this let's add close ups But now that u mentioned that i do think the intention is to make those scenes more intimate/intense/spectacular. like isi themselves told lou it was "magic" with sascha. so they're trying to overcompensate w weird lights & close ups to rly drill that in us like yeah these ppl are soooo soul mates trust me they're definitely so in love look how magical !! (pro tip: give the couple some development n show the magic in the writing itself next time ✨)

n i think that's just a preference thing but ive always been against this sort of cinematography heavy aestheticization of skam seasons (skamfr says hi), there's a certain style of cinematography that fits the realism & every-day-life feeling that they aim for but stuff like this just makes me feel like i'm watching some hallmark christmas movie smdjlsjd also... i say it's just a preference but apparently like half of the fandom wasn't sure if the kiss was real or just isi's imagination bc of the way it was shot so.. maybe it's actually just objectively bad 😭

so yes you're right the close ups r probably supposed to boost the chemistry but they're just... failing miserably. like the weird staring n shots of their eyes was so awkward like i could barely watch it but then immediately after there was a good moment when they were simply walking down the hall to the table slightly bumping into each other like that mightve been the most clear chemistry they've had all season 😩