#only issue is that this is the girl im kind of confused abt because i cant tell if im crushing on her or if its just platonic

[fabulouslygaybean]

im terrified to turn 18 next year but also i basically just confirmed with one of my best friends that we're gonna find an apartment together and be roommates so suddenly the future doesn't seem too horrible

[tirfpikachu]

hey! i have a question i just stumbled across ur blog. im a cis woman and always was super fine with being a cis woman, and i have many trans women friends! and they all recognize that i have been thru a lot and still go thru a lot with men hitting on me and harassing me and i havent experienced trans people ever being sexist or anything. the only thing i ever heard that was odd was a girl claiming trans women also have a monthly cycle but im not educated enough on it to know if it is true or not. is the sexism the type of stuff that goes on behind closed doors or is it just some of the people you interacted with specifically? im just curious how common these beliefs are in your opinion!

i think the majority of trans people are not sexist nor misogynistic. but i believe there's a minority that is being brushed under the rug, seen as just radfems cosplaying as trans to cause trouble, not worth talking about, and anyone pointing it out is told either it doesn't happen or most trans people aren't like that, so you're not supposed to talk about it, and the victims of the misogyny, harassment and assault/etc from trans people (mostly transfems sadly) are ignored at best and usually mocked and harassed by ppl calling them liars. which, of course, isn't unusual for women to experience, but it can hurt worse coming from within leftist communities, especially from other afab people and/or people who live passing as women in society and know what it's like to face such things.

i think there's an issue of people thinking cis women are inherently more privileged, and that amab privilege is not a thing at all, that cis women and transmascs have no right to call out shitty, sexist, misogynistic behavior from transfems. that's the current culture in lgbtq spaces. when you're surrounded by good-hearted trans folks, it's easy to be confused when such things are brought up. all you may think is oh man, those people make trans folks look bad. it's like the boom of detrans people going on; no one wants to talk abt it bc it involves criticizing how trans ppl currently handle gender-questioning folks, and they all hate the idea of slowing down someone's magical gender journey, even if it may come from repression, internalized bigotry, trauma, mental illness, etc. it comes from a good place. like raising a kid with total freedom, it feels more natural and kind. but that kind of hands-off, 24/7 validation upbringing can cause harm to children too later on, and so can this. ppl need to let detrans ppl tell their stories in a neutral, non-judgy way for questioning folks to listen to varied experiences. many detrans folks aren't transphobic, have beloved trans friends, and love nuance. abuse from transfems also comes from the physical privilege and privileged upbringing that transfems had on the axis of sex/agab. they may have been disprivileged in other ways, ofc. based on being gnc they faced things that afab people didn't. but they also need to keep their afab-specific misogyny in check. passing as male will never not be a privilege on a certain axis of oppression. transmascs accept this very easily when they transition, but many transfems refuse to. enough of them that it harms afab people.

there's just this... stubbornness among transfems and transfem allies to acknowledge afab-unique oppression from their upbringing and body type and not be The Most Oppressed. you're not allowed to talk about amab/afab dynamic in a way that isn't about transmisogyny. and it doesn't help anyone! even transfems! you need to come to terms will everything you are, sex/agab included. the reason transmisogyny is different from anti-afab misogyny is because of sex/agab. even without afab/amab terms, we still have tme/tma now. but who can claim transmisogyny? only those assigned male at birth. who can claim anti-afab misogyny? only transmascs and cis women. amab upbringing brings bad behavior because people tell you your body type means you're better and stronger because of your dick and not having tits, because you're not just a hole to be stuffed and impregnated, you instead have the weapon on your body. afab babies are aborted because of their body type. afab bodies are shamed for menstruation. all these things are afab-specific. yet transfems do not allow afab people to say there's an axis of oppression that transfems do not experience and should be good allies for.

there may be MANYYYY transfems who are respectful. and that's great. but afab people are not allowed to speak up and demand it in spaces without being called transmisogynists. the harsh pushback against the term transandrophobia and cis women saying they experience unique oppression was full of harassment and violent threats, including sexual ones, because of their afab body type. the overwhelming majority of transfems still have their penis, and the overwhelming majority of transmascs kept their vaginas. on the basis of sex, people with penises have privilege and are empowered in society, and people with vaginas are vulnerable. even medically, research focuses on amab body which costs some afab ppl's lives. in cultures where medical transition doesn't happen, transfems do not pass as female, and thus don't face misogyny. they only face what we refer to as transmisogyny, which is bigotry against gnc amab people, and not them being seen as women by the average person. and people who don't pass as women don't face misogyny. i think transmisogyny and misogyny are not the same thing. transmisogyny doesn't need one to pass as female to happen, while misogyny does. trans women are ofc affected by what's being said about women in their self-esteem and personal lives, but if they don't pass as women they don't have to fear misogyny irl. AND THAT IS A PRIVILEGE.

this is stuff that should be so obvious and no big deal to talk about. transmascs have very complex talks about their mixed experiences with facing misogyny on the basis of being afab but not in other ways if they pass, or see it as misdirected etc. but transfems do not tend to be open to having those complex talks without yelling bigotry. again, that is NOT every transfem. i think most people, once they deeply get to know someone, will be more open to nuance. but with the average person? with someone who's almost or fully a stranger? often, transfems do not see talks of anti-afab oppression in good faith. hell, they called it bigoted that they were left out and told to be good allies when abortion rights were in danger!!! they would tell ppl to check their transmisogyny, be all woe is me. meanwhile if the roles were reversed, transmascs would admit their fault right away. that is, in part, evidence of afab vs amab upbringing in action. and different upbringings should be talked about. transfem bullshit should be called out. i want everyone to be friends, i truly do. but cis women need to be seen as oppressed too, we can't always be seen as the privileged oppressor when we risk horrific misogyny irl that some transfems don't even face!! and transmasc ppl deserve to be validated on their unique struggles without transfems feeling offended!!! i'm so glad you're surrounded by lovely trans folks, i really am. i am too irl and i love my trans friends. but there's a dark underbelly that needs to be talked about. and things need to change!

[minquiec]

🎶 itsssss beeennnn 🎶 a hotttt minuuutteeee 🎶 sincccee iveeee went insane on here so let's just get into it yeah

Yall already know what it is

jia + the archer x not strong enough

When the trend first like got popular I was like eeehhhh that's not rlly jia

Haha lol

the archer:

'screaming who could ever leave me darling, but who could stay'

the spiderman curse

Or smth idk HAUSHA the canon events and everyone dyinnnggg

And also her own personal life like her parents didn't even stay soooo

Who would (COUGHCOUGHXOUGHOBJEHUHC)

And while jia isn't like uhhh how do I put it

She's not insecure yet she's also deeply insecure at a more ??? deeper level??? Idk how to say it

Like it's more like "I hate the way I have become because of things I cannot control and the way it makes me FFFFUUCCKING LONELLLYYYY"

but in a sadder way HAHSJS idk she copes by ignoring her problems (js like me fr)

So while at the same time she's like yeah I'm just a person I'm good with it 👍 she's also like what, could anyone possibly see in me to stay (side affects of distant parents!!!! Side note: THISNISNT TRAUMA DUMPING IM FINE)

'cause they see right through me'

They as in all the people she's known and don't know

That doesn't make sense gimme a

Like they as in the people of her city, people within the hq probably, people shes acquainted with, friends with, etc etc etc

They as in all people other jia herself sees right through her and fail to see just *her* per se

And it's probably her own fault tbh I mean she kinda like

Masks it so who's damn fault is that girl 🤷🤷 DAMN

But despite them never truly seeing the her that's incredibly lonely, she'd much rather prefer to keep it that way which then rolls onto the topiccc offffff

'can you see right through me'

okay this is kind of personal interpretation and changing the lyrical meaning to fit her lore BUT IDDDCCCCC IM RUNNING THIS SHOOOWWW LET ME BEEEEE

Y'all already know who this is directed at hirjejkejejkejekejejejjejejejks

hob

HEHIIEHHRBBBBDBBBB

Anyways

Like the last one I said she'd much prefer to keep her self under wraps and ignore the problem

But obviously since I'm FUCKING delusional and SOOOO fucking CRIMGEE ofc he's an exception HHHHHRHBBBHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRB&-!-!

And because he's the only one who's ever really gotten underneath that layer

She was

Sooooioioioooooo

Fucking confused by it

And because she's never addressed her issues properly, she's not used to this and so this line would almost be like

She's BEGGING him to just pllleaaase be like the rest

Please just see through her because this kind of thing has never happened before and she's SCCCCARREEDD to care too much and what if he leaves too and what if it's all for naught and what if what if what i

Girl we get it

But anyways the last line was

'I see right through me'

Would obviously be referring to her own denial to see herself by ignoring 🧚🧚 herrr fuckingnnnn problemmmsss and feeelinngggsss 🎶🎶 cause hey. Why be sad when u can be glad and very very silly

Anyways the next part

'always an angel never a god'

BITCH

I feel so strongly abt this line rn

Obviously I'm on,

Jjk tok and so I kind of got the train of thought from there but

Always an angel never a god cause she can save as many lives as she tries but she can never save all the lives she cares about

Always an angel never a god cause despite being blessed with a power that gives her the parallel of an angel she can never save her world that will inevitably be destroyed by its own deity that granted her that power (since ig angels work under god/gods and so she'd be that angel working under the deity which would be the god and do you get what I mean)

ALWAYS AN ANGEL NEVER A GOD CAUSE WHILE SHE WANTS TO DO SO MUCH GOOD, YET SHES NEVER A GOD BECAHSE SHE DOESMT HAVE THE BENEVOLENCE OF A GOD CAUSE SHE STILL CARRIES THAT SELFISHNESS OF NEVER WANTING TO BE SPIDERGIRL AND HAVING THAG RESPONSIBILITYAJNNNNWNNENEJDD AUAUAYAUUUUUAHGGEEEUUEUEUEUUEUEUE BREAKS DOWN AND STARTS DISNETNTEGRSTING

yeah okay that's all and this is all just personal interpretation btw so it might not match up to its original meaning but HEY

im gonna go draw them hugging now or smth idk bye bye

[puppyparkmoving]

in regards to the “safeship” idea: i’m worried that some people might try to turn this into a “no villain / morally grey characters” kind of thing. i don’t think that’s your intent, but i’ve seen enough discourse regarding these types of characters to make me a bit weary. like, i don’t people labeled as proshippers just because they have villain f/os.

I really dont care sorry. I ship with villains and i dont get confused for proshitting becuz i dont consume or excuse actual abusive content or fetishize immoral things. This issue ur describing is different from this situation.... Completely.... I know some ppl r rlly high n mighty n treat villain shippers like garbage or whatever but not only am i outspoken abt ethical and moral villain shipping being ok (im the one who made the poaitivity banners....) But also its not my fault if someone is so dense they misread the blatant intent being literally exactly what it is. It is literally JUST to make sure fucking sexual abuse survivors can get on tumblr too. Two separate issues conpletely. If someone doesnt want someone with villain f/o's interacting they can be a big girl and put it in their dni and ppl can just respect it and block them and vice versa. It has nothing to do with the far more dead serious issue i am trying to remedy.

[n0ct0urn1quet]

unbelievably in love with my gf rn but i have decided NOT to ramble in the tags and am instead rambling in the post but only bc i have lots to say ant it literally would not fit in the tags . ANYWAYS KJDFKLJDFKLGH @vergildotcom

i just :] she is so prety,,,,so shaped,,,,,,unbelievably shaped (positive),,,,,,everything abt her physcially is just !!!!!! lovely!!!!!!!!!!!! she is so round and chubby and very much pillow shaped (which is epic bc honestly? the pillows i have rn are flat and i wake up with a sore neck every morning. however if i just use my gf as a pillow i wake up with NO sore neck and NO back pain or anything . literally she is a much more comfier pillow than my Two Actual Pillows DJKSJKG)..... shes so . bfhnjg :)

and she is just !!!!!!!!!11 so kind.......so sweet.............ealierer we were talking n i was all yearny n she was like "bro whats that" n im like "w,,,,,,whats what,,,," n shes like "whats that on ur face" n imall confused ?? so im like "idk bro,,,,,,,,,,,," n then shes like !!!!!!!!!!!! "*mwah*!!! its me!!!!!" n im like :O :O :O :O :O !!!!!!!! its u!!!!!!!!!!1 on my face giving me a kis!!!!!!!!! waow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <:]

idk im just thinking so hard abt her rn she makes me . verey haby. n not to get kinda sentimental ig but i rly need to reliaze that. like. i dont Need to worry about a lot of things. i dont need to worry about taking a picture of myself n thinking that i look bad in the picture or i dont need to worry about how my brain works or anything like that bc. she'll lov me regardless. i could send a picture of myself who just woke up and i could have my hair be all crazy and wacky and all over the place and she would be like "u look prebby :)". i could have an Episode n get all anxious ovr something dumb n she would b there to help n even if there wasnt something she could rly Do to help she would at least . Be There. n thas all that matters to me

idk i just <:] i just lov her a lot yk,,,,,shes just. the nicest person iv ever met. im very very lucky to have met her and sometimes it baffles me that we met completely on Accident. i remember a while ago her n i talking n she told me she found my tumblr blog completely on accident bc she meant to click on someone elses blog but ended up clicking on mine n its just. it is baffling to think that if she hadnt accidentally clicked on my tumblr blog 4 years ago we might not have even. like. met each other at all.

thats another thing i think about! sometimes i think about. my Life. before i met her and before i rly joined tumblr. back when i was living with my dad n mom in a not very safe household. n sometimes i wish i could go back n prevent them from splitting up or think about how my dad couldve gotten better if he had just gotten therapy for his issues but. the thing is. if all of that happened and he did get help where would i be. i dont think i would have ever joined tumblr because my dad didnt rly want me on any social media at all so i dont think i would have even met maria. so sometimes in a weird twisted way im Glad all of that bad stuff happpened bc. if im being honest, if it never happened i wouldnt have moved in with my sister, she would have never shown me tumblr, i would have never made an account and i would have never met maria. n idk thats juts wacky to think about. yeah those events left me with severe trauma n a shit ton of other mental issues but it led me to the girl who kinda saved my life in a way so for that ig im just thankful that all of it happened. i mean yeah i got a fucked up brain now but heehee i have a gf and she makes me happy and i loveve her :]

and idk just !!!!!!!!!!! knowing that in a few years or less we could be moving in with each other,,,,,,,groughg it makes me happy. so happy. and its just so weird to think about bc we've been together for 4 years and in like the first year or two we were togteher we kinda didnt rly vc a whole lot n we couldnt rly video chat so all we rly had was jus talking thru tumblr/discord and we both desperately wanted to see each other but we jus. couldnt. n we wanted to try n raise like $300 or something to come see each other but its kinda funny bc like all we were worried about is seeing each other. we didnt think about like if i would stay with her in her house (she was living in a . very very very very small place at the time) or like if my mom would be coming with me or if the ppl she lived with even like Knew About Me so its kinda funny how we just wanted to meet in person without. actually thinking about it n planning it all out SKJDKJJKG but then we actually did kinda get somewhere this year where like. it was maybe most likely going to happen. i was gonna come visit her and my mom was gonna come n my gf n i were just gonna . visit for a few weeks. unfortuantely that didnt end up happening because someone moved in with us and now we're nearly broke and just straight up cannot afford it but. we're still working on it

but as i was saying its just wild how in the first year or two that wer were together we were so . desperate n upset that we couldnt see each other much. n it was definitely a lil bit rough. n we just kept saying that each day that passes means we're getting closer to seeing each other and like. here we are, 4 years later, with a very slim chance that it might still happen. i mean we still have the rest of july and like early august to plan something out. its a bit late and its very very expensive rn for me and my mom to travel but if we're lucky things might work out. my sister might move out within the nxet month or so, mom might get a raise, she might be able to afford to travel, stuff like that. its a small percentage but its not 0. and plus even if we dont visit we can still vc and video chat when we want to, and plus no matter what happens im STILL going to go live with her n im STILL for sure 100% going to meet her Eventually. lke its for sure gonna happen n its gonna b very epic :]

sorey this is. a lot !!!!!!1 sorey pepper if this is too long or anytihng ik ur used to reading just small gayposts but like i said earlier i am ni a very rambly mood n i want nothing mor than to just make u happy n put a lil smile on ur face befor u go to bed. u make me rly rly happy n ur just very very important to me. i love u so very much hunny,, seep well ,,,, i lob u :] :]

[solarsleepless]

what r max's stims? :)

SHSHJSHJSJSJSHJSH

okAY yes i have many thoughts abt adhd max i am vibrating rn

okay so first of all theres the average well known "flappy hands"

but she really likes it when she has sweaters with longer sleeves because then she can just flap them around

leg bounce leg bounce leg bounce

cracking her knuckles. she does this SO often its unreal

she doesnt have many vocal stims but she goes "ba ba ba" or just humming and singing sometimes

also running her hand on the bottom of her skateboard, and/or rolling the wheels

just being on her skateboard and swaying is a huge stim

chewing her shirt lmao

im also gonna say that she also stims by pressing on buttons and other stuff in the arcade. its just Nice To Do

also stims by kicking off of the ground on her skateboard. very nice

well this is gonna turn into adhd max rant get ready

she had adhd combined (like yours truly) and finds it hard to concentrate in class

she totally hyperfixated on video games at some point

and comics probably

and skateboarding too

she is a VERY picky eater. like she could barely eat stuff in california, so when she moves to hawkins it only gets worse

sensory issues my abhorreeed

can't stand too-loud noises (b!lly of course knows this and turns up music in his car so that he can't even hear himself)

that being said she cant STAND the silence and always needs background noise (she and el bond over liking white noise from tv)

SHE LOVES TANGLERS SO MUCH

goes nonverbal sometimes because of the fear that if she says anything itll just make things worse. the party + steve is very concerned at first, then learn to live with it

WHISTLE STIM WHISTLE STIM WHISTLE

she has so many weighted blankets. she couldnt actually use them much because it was too hot in cali but then in hawkins she used them all the time

SPINNY CHAIR SPINNY CHAIR

undiagnosed

loves fluffy jumpers. she never really used or felt them earlier because of the hotness of california but when she was cold and lucas lent her his fluffy jumper...

well let's just say he didn't get it back

rubbing her hand over lucas's knuckles :)

i know i've already said singing stim but just imagine her singing 'material girl' or 'old time rock and roll'

echolalia! only sometimes tho

like erica will go "hey max me and lukie are gonna make a cake wanna help?" "cake?" "cake" "cake!" "cake!" "cake"

also the sinclair family is so accepting. they're confused but they just accept max and thats okay

once the party started looking up what adhd was, max brought it up once and immediately they all went 'that's only for little boys'

(which is bullshit obvs)

remember that sleepover scene where max is dancing? yeah that but its a stim

the party + the teens have a running joke of max being moth because she stares at lights so much. visual stim

she scratches as a(n unhealthy) stim but it gets worse after billy's death

hates it when people shout, usually goes nonverbal if it's directed at her

jumps when she's happy!!

you know how she just wears basic and unlayered clothes? yeah she chooses them on purpose because tight stuff feels Bad

she hates labels with her entire being

she seems like the kind of gal to bite her nails

also adopted dustin's "grrr" as a stim

"hey max- grrr" "...what was that?" "...grrr" "could you teach me how to do that" ".. o k a y ?"

will and max (i hc will as autistic) both have lil stimming sessions! they just notice the other stimming and join in, just leaving them laughing at the end!

lucas is super understanding of her stims

he learnt to recognize when she's understimulated and gives her fidget toys!! and if he doesnt have any then he'll just straight up grab her hand and start rubbing his fingers against the knuckles

i'd like to say:

*SLAPS ROOF OF MAX MAYFIELD* THIS BITCH CAN HOLD SO MUCH RSD

she wasnt doing so good in the first place

thinking stuff like

"maybe if i wasnt born then my parents wouldn't have divorced"

and stuff like that

(billy intentionally makes it worse because of course he does)

but then it gets so. much. worse.

you know mike said "because you're annoying" in s2?

YOU CAN BET THAT TRIGGERED HER RSD SO HARD

and also when el just walked past her in s2? yeah well

that didn't go off well with her rsd either

lucas has to reassure her that she's not a mistake, she's not annoying, he doesn't secretly hate her, etc etc

he doesnt think he'll ever forgive mike for triggering her rsd so badly

this has so many hurt/comfort possibilities in fic holy fuck-

lucas immediately shuts down her deprecating comments

like IMMEDIATELY

he wont stand for that shit

he is glaring so badly at anyone who triggers max's rsd

unless it's someone they love (like erica) who doesn't actually know what they did wrong and want to make up for it

once erica activated her rsd by accident

just with a lil lighthearted comment

"ugh i hope you arent as annoying as lukey's little friends on the walkie talkie"

once erica finds out abt what she did she feels SO bad. babey

she does everything she can to make up for it

apologizes properly when they're both brushing the barbie's hair

she finds out max stims by brushing barbie's hair when max has to look after once

so when she can see max is understimulated she'll just toss a barbie and a hairbrush her way

also likes max's echolalia (can you hear that? its the sound of max's euphoria boosting)

erica learns to lower her voice around max

max can't watch anything without subtitles btw

she just cannot

she'll watch it and cause she's smart she'll figure out what's going on

but often has to turn to lucas and go "whats going on???"

she loves the feeling of snow thru her gloves

maybe its the cold but still. very Nice

uhh i have more but i cant be bothered also this is too long already

[haijimee]

It Should Be You

authors note: um i love tobio bcuz hes so blunt and mean <333 but here <33 i couldn't figure out a name for the bitch so meiko ig?? idfk im terrible w names dhmu

cw/tw: slight??angst?? if u squint??, fluff bcuz that's what im all abt, uh, some naughty words (watch ur mouth tobio >:(( ), uh plastic ass hoe??? fuckin shit up???, childhood friends to lovers <333, DW HAPPY ENDING!!!

song to listen to: Home to Me (Live) , Devil & The Deep Blue Sea

[Tobio Kageyama x Female Reader]

He didn't get it. Why was this happening to him? His teammates told him that getting in a relationship would be enjoyable, so he did, with this girl named Meiko in his class, who wore hair extensions and way too much makeup. She was the first girl to confess to him after the conversation so he said yes.

But why was she so fucking annoying? He could hardly stand it. Sure he had a short temper but she made it even shorter. Always whining and complaining about everything!

"Tobioooo!! I said I wanted to go the the PINK café! This is red!!!"

"Tobioooo!! Why are you practicing right now?! You should be taking me on a dateeee!!"

"Tobiooo tell me my makeup looks good!"

"Tobiooo! Why were you talking to that other blonde girlll!! I don't care if she's your manager you can't talk to other girls when you have meee!!"

God, if she wasn't a girl he would've sent a ball into her face. He tried to talk and she would cut him off talking about her so terrible problems, which consisted of her makeup looking horrible or her hair was disgusting.

She looked the same to him so he made no comment until she whined about it. But the thing that irritated him the most as that she kept trying to change him. Saying he should dress more cleanly, or that he should focus more on her than volleyball, which was so fucking stupid! He wasn't going to change, he liked the way he was!

He hated it. His teammates said relationships were soothing and would make him happier, but he just felt shitty, he could never get a break.

And he told this all to one person. You. His best friend.

He'd rant about Meiko and all the issues on the days he'd go over to your house, he'd lay down on your bed as you'd comb your hands through his soft black hair, whispering "really?" and "oh Tobio" every now and then. He spent most of his free time with you, usually, but Meiko kept dragging him away. It made him stressed and unhappy, he was so used to spending everyday with you. But on some days he could spend time with you, avoiding Meiko and walking home with you as he used to.

On one of those days, he was tired, drained, as you both walked through the door. You said hello to your mother as you slipped off your shoes and Tobio did the same. You took your backpacks and walked up the stairs to your room.

But the second you closed the door he flopped down on your bed face first. You laughed, taking his backpack from his hand and placing it next to yours as you climbed on your bed and laid back against the pillows and headboard, opening your legs and patting your lap as he crawled over, flipping over to look up at you.

Your hands found their way into his coal black strands, egging him on to begin talking, easing him easily into relaxation. And the waterfall flowed. Telling about how Meiko began screeching at him because he wouldn't eat the bento she made him, and he explained that it was all burnt and smelled like shit! So of course he wasn't going to eat it!

"And she went all 'I put love into that bento!' but if that's her love it's fucking gross!" he cried and you giggled, closing your eyes in a smile.

He looked up at you, as you began to laugh harder, your shoulders shaking as you laughed, little snorts interrupting your giggles, which made you laugh even harder.

He looked at you and felt his heart pound, his face go beet red. He had never realized how happy he was with you. How comfortable it felt to have his head in your lap, your hands on his face. He'd never noticed how he knew everything about you, from your favorite food to the strangest birthmark you had on your back. He had been there for a long time, and you were the only person strong enough to break down his walls.

As your giggles settled you looked back down at him with the warmest smile.

"Go on, tell me about the rest of your day Tobio, I wanna hear."

He stared at you, wide eyed before he sat up quickly, startling you as you jumped. He looked at you, his eyes tracing every feature of your face.

"Why couldn't it be you?" He asked, his face blank.

"What?" You said softly, confusion in your expression as you looked back at him.

"Why couldn't it be you who confessed?" He said.

You stopped, blinking.

"Tobio what do you mean?" You laughed nervously, was he serious? Of course he was, Tobio was always serious! But what was he talking about? 'Why couldn't it be you who confessed?' What did that mean?!

"I mean, why can't you be the one I'm dating?" He said bluntly, and your jaw dropped. Your cheeks flushed red as you looked at him.

"Tobio! You have a girlfriend you can't just say that! I'm just your best friend!" You squealed, fisting your bedsheets between your hands.

"But why can't you be more? Do you not like me?" He looked sad, his eyes looking down. It panged in your heart.

"Of course not Tobio. I like you, I like you so much! But- you have a girlfriend! Don't you love her?!" You cried, the words dug into your heart. He loved her.

"No? What made you think that?" Tobio asked, confused.

"Well, you're dating her so you love her right?" You asked, stating the obvious.

"What? No. My teammates said that dating would make my life better so I said yes to the next confession, though it's not making my life better to be honest." He said, and your jaw dropped. Again.

"Tobio! Do you even know how dating works?!" You screamed, grabbing his uniform collar and pulling him closer.

"Um...no?" he said, sweat dropping at your tone. Was there something special about dating he didn't know? Like, money? Or magic?

You looked at him, massaging your temples.

"Dating is something romantic. When two people feel love towards each other and decide to pursue a romantic relationship together. Where you kiss and go on dates to the movies or to restaurants or cute cafes where you get lattes with hearts in them. Where they're both comfortable with each other and cuddle on the couch, talk about life and the future. And if things go well they get married and live life together, maybe having kids or getting pets. Just loving each other with everything they have.." You said softly, a faraway look in your eyes, ever since you were a child you had dreamed of something like that. And as you grew, you realized you wanted to have the future with one person. The one person you could never have.

Tobio Kageyama.

He looked at you, his eyes wide in realization.

"I guess I'm breaking up with Meiko now. Thank god." He said, and you looked at him, laughing a bit. You felt so at ease with Tobio, even now he was making you smile and laugh. "So..have you ever..dated..anyone?" he asked.

For some reason, he didn't like it. The thought. He didn't like the picture in his head of you sitting on the couch with some random guy. Going out together and..and kissing. Or you running your hands through some other guys hair as he talks about his day and you give him that soft smile or snort laugh. It made his chest hurt. He didn't like it not one bit.

"Ah..no..I've never uh..been one for dating.." You mumbled, cheeks pink. Tobio looked at you and suddenly you realizing his eyes were sad. And as he looked at yours he saw beyond that smile you always gave him. He saw the swirls of pain in your eyes. He hated it. You gazed back at him to see those sad blue eyes, his lips curled in a frown as his brows furrowed together.

"Hey Tobio whats wrong?" You asked as you looked at him, reaching out to cup his cheek. His heart started pounding again, erratically beating against his chest. He stared at you, eyes wide before jumping back, scrambling a bit away from you as you watched in confusion. He calmed down, moving to sit on his knees as he looked at you again.

"So..do you..love someone?" He asked, breaking his gaze away from yours as he looked down at the bed.

You eyed him, before lifting your chin up a bit, looking at the corner of your ceiling.

"Yeah. I do, and I've loved them for a very long time." You said softly, and his head snapped up to look at you. Of course you loved someone, he spat in his head. You were so kind and so nice, it's obvious you'd find someone nice who you'd fallen for. But his chest squeezed. He knew there was someone. But why. Why did it hurt so much. Knowing it wasn't him? Why couldn't it be him.

He hadn't even realized he'd been clutching his chest, squeezing his uniform so hard his knuckles turned white. He hadn't realized until you grabbed his hand, unfurling it from the black material of his uniform as you took it in yours, rubbing your thumb across his knuckles like you always did. He looked at you, and felt the pain build up again as he stared into your eyes.

"Who is it..?" he asked, praying the emotions swirling in his head weren't betrayed by his voice. You looked at him and then at his hand.

"I don't think I'll tell you." You murmured, and Tobio gritted his teeth. As the thoughts in his head pounded until one slipped out of his lips.

"I want it to be me."

He said, and your eyes widened as you looked at him.

"What?"

"I want it...to be me.." he repeated, his ears and face reddening, "I want to be..the person that you love.." he mumbled, as the thought settled in him. He did. He always has. Wait a minute. He always has. Yes..he..he has hasn't he?

He's always wanted to be the person holding your hand on the way to school. The one who leans over and asks you for help with his notes. The one who eats lunch with you as you share your food, as he sloppily takes his chopsticks and places a piece of chicken in your mouth as you laugh and put a piece of eggroll in his. He always wanted to see you at his games, it fired him up to see you cheering his name and looking so proud when he did a good set. He always wanted to be the person who took you out for snacks and who you could call at 2am when your crying because you feel sad, and he'll go over to your house just to hug you and listen to you rant.

He..he wants to be the person to kiss you, and hug you and cuddle you and take you out to romantic places. He wants to be the one to marry you.

As he looked up at you it hit him in the face. He has always loved you. It's why dating Meiko felt wrong. Why the past few weeks without you felt wrong. The truth was, he couldn't bare life without you. He wanted to always be with you.

You were still mulling over his words, eyes wide and blank. You couldn't even comprehend what you were saying until you said it.

"Silly Tobio..you've always been the person I loved."

You clasped your hands over your mouth as the words came out, face red as Tobio stared at you, his eyes were wide as he realized it. You both sat there for a few seconds before he carefully crawled over to you, taking your hands off your mouth and pressing them to his chest, where you could feel the fast beating of his heart.

"Is this..is this weird?" He asked softly, and you looked at him, his pink cheeks and ears, and smiled. Smiled so much as tears fell from your eyes and cascaded down your cheeks. Tobio began to panic but you simply pulled him closer, burying your face into his chest as you hugged him tightly. He looked at you before relaxing, sitting down as he wrapped his arms around your torso, resting his head atop yours.

"Hey?" He asked softly, after you two had sat like this for a few minutes. You looked up.

"Mhm?"

"Does this mean we're dating now?" He asked, and you giggled.

"Just break up with Meiko tomorrow and yeah, yeah I think so." You said, and Tobio gave a proud smile. As you both shifted to lean against the pillows, legs and arms tangled up as you pressed close to eachother, his head atop yours and you snuggled into the crook of his neck.

"Hey?" He asked again, and you hummed in an answer, as he looked down at you.

"I think I'm in love with you."

"I think I'm in love with you too."

CAN YOU GUYS SEE THE TEARS IN MY EYES OH MY GOD

its so fucking LONG now that i realize it. i just got so into this wrote this in like 3 hours..

i love awkward tobio hes so cute

anyways

now kiss <333 come get ur man tobio stans <33 THAT RHYMED FUCK YEAH

[chocowhomps]

ok i lied im talking more but this time its about transboy kevin because thats my constant that never changes and i refuse to view him as a cis boy (im kidding except im also kind of not for my own interp)

i obsessively think about kevin hiding that he is trans. no one but nazz knows. like when they were all so SOOO young kevin used to have his hair be as long as it is in the flashback episode and not realize he was trans but feel uncomfortable and confused internally. but because of one of the eds scams his hair gets hacked clean in half. its like a hair salon scam but they got no idea what theyre doing.

but kevin obsesses. he isnt mad. pays the eds and leaves. cant stop looking. his parents arent home and wont be til that night but what’ll they say? but he cannot stop thinking abt it. so he stumbles upon a box of clothes one of the parents was essentially throwing away. takes them for himself and puts on the baseball cap his mom always hates him wearing bc he ruins his hair. tucks most of it in and just, goes. says hes ‘kevin’ and a different person and nobody questions it bc theyre young and gullible and he feels GOOD for once. like he gets rowdy like a little boy does and doesnt feel constrained to be a certain way and its liberating. then his parents get home and he gets scolded for being covered in dirt and misbehaving.

he never lets it go. he develops an alter ego. he ONLY tells nazz, bc they were forced to be close as the ‘older girls’ of the cul-de-sac. nazz swears herself to secrecy bc she cares about him and their friendship and it means so much to him. when his parents are around he’s his birth self and when they leave he’s kevin. he develops anger issues and cant control it and becomes vindictive as a shitty means to cope. nazz keeps pushing to tell them until he finally admits it. his parents are self aware enough even if they dont fully get it to feel so guilty and get him therapy and new clothes and redo his room how HE wants it so he isnt scared to close his fucking curtains to the street anymore. he has a toxic masculinity streak because hes dysphoric as fuck!

kevin is an insider extrovert and he listens to everyone and cares for them but hides SO MUCH about his interests and likes if they could be seen as traditionally fem coded hobbies. like hiding how he likes to bake as an example. he does not let people in and the few who are are still locked out he doesnt vent he doesnt talk about how he feels an finds it insanely difficult to do so bc his parents love him but sometimes they just dont make a lick of sense and make him feel like he cant talk to them, and he internalizes that with everyone around him. 

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, Se03. ep 5,(part 1)

In part 1 of this post, more than analyzing, I want to understand few confusing things first. I’m not annoyed or angry, I’m just confused & trying to piece things together, so, kindly don’t feel off with my usage of  (!!!) & (???). lol. I’ll ONLY discuss two things here that confuse me a lot. ( Real ep review/ analysis will be in part 2)

1- Momiji’s romantic love for tohru (the real love triangle). What?!!!!!

I’m so shocked that momiji loves tohru romantically! So, in order to understand ( where did this come from!!) I re-visited his scenes with tohru since se01 & trying to see if I missed anything! Below is my speculations:

Is it love at first sight?!!! When Momiji first met tohru he kissed her on the cheek. I’ve always thought lightly that in the eyes of the reserved Japanese (bowing is greeting), all Europeans (kissing on the check is greeting). hence, Momiji’s kiss, he’s half Europea. However, perhaps it is a Kureno/ Arisa type of love at 1st sight/kiss?! kureno nearly kissed Arisa on the lips on their 1st official meeting. But Kureno/Arisa kiss was meant to be romantic/sexual with adult kureno’s “ I wanted to taste her lips”. but Momiji’s is a peak on the cheek & he was a child, so... I don’t think he’s struck by love before he’s officially introduced to us the audience.

Is it gradual growing love like kyo’s ? in all Momiji/ tohru eps, he always just wanted to play with her, visit places & spend time together.  (hot spring & beach vacation) are his own ideas. But momiji didn’t want tohru exclusively. He intentionally invited both yuki & kyo to the hot spring & even was begging kyo to come. He invited all zodiacs to the beach & wanted all to spend time together. I believe that the hot spring ep especially showed momiji as this playful, innocent & naive kid, wanting to share tohru’s females’ hot spring section. I don’t think momiji was madly in love at that time. He was a child going “ waaaa~, kyo hit me” &  jumping here & there. 

So, summer vacation? but then again, Momiji slept with the children & tohru doted on them all. He defended tohru but they all defend her & love her. he said to kyo that he “selfishly wanted to be with tohru” but I didn’t  catch any romantic hints from that. Was it really that time?? they all wanted to spend time with tohru. Yuki said “ I’ll kidnap you”, kyo agreed to go to the beach right away, kisa was glued to her to the point of annoying hiro! So, when? & why not let us as the audience know abt momiji’s feelings.

Is it related to opening up to tohru abt his family issues? He confessed to tohru abt his dad, mom & momo. She cried for him & hugged him. I never got the feeling in all those scenes that he was in love! it seemed to me like friendship love similar to hana’s/Arisa’s or siblings love substituting his nonexistent relationship with momo.

Is it just me?? I always saw momiji as this baby in toddler clothes, jumping, laughing & a ray of sunshine! A child but with the most mature heart & mind. Tohru didn’t help momiji, he was already helping himself first & reaching healthy conclusions abt how he should deal with his own traumas. So, perhaps (Me) not seeing him as a teenager stopped me from seeing his romantic love? but they showed me hiro/kisa’s love. Elementary school kids! so?

Regardless of when he fell in love or how, the point is, this is heart-breathtakingly tragic! cuz (a) tohru never saw him more than a child at first, then as a precious friend, (b) she’s intensely in love with kyo, which brings us to tohru’s core issues. (Tohru loosing yet another loved one). Tohru’s own issues aren’t fully explored yet, but her love for kyo has been blatantly hammered to us since se01 finale! this is because kyo being locked in the cat room equals (death) which parallels her mom’s (death). Tohru will be living her tragic trauma again but this time, kyo replacing kyoko! Thus, giving tohru a room for growth & character development.Tohru’s intense love for kyo was shown in by the drastic change in her attitude in se01, ep.24, chasing firmly after him even when he pushed her & refusing to let go until he’s back home cuz she wants to! then yuki blatantly saying “ she loves him, too, the way she looks at him“  im se02, ep22 & “don’t worry, tohru, he won’t accept (the other girls confession)” in se02, ep 17 & all her scenes with kyo in that ep where she’s scared he’ll let go of her & other scenes throughout the 3 seasons.

...so why momiji’s impossible & unrequited love is introduced?

I believe it is to push kyo to not let go of tohru. To throw kyo into this internal conflict between selflessly letting go of tohru so she could be happy (like hatori did with kana) & selfishly wanting her to be his lover ( like haru). Kyo himself expressed these two conflicting thoughts in se02, ep, 9 “ I hoped we could always be together somewhere  far off (selfish love) & “ I don’t want to take anything from you (selfless love). So, momiji is challenging kyo in a way making him realize that selfish love might not be bad afterall & selfless love could be harmful! cleverly reversing the two concepts. So, I get why this love triangle was introduced. but whyyyy momiji! T_T.. choose someone else, Writer-San! poor Momiji we learned abt his love the same ep we learned it hopeless & he can’t pursue! T_T. couldn’t you at least put the two scenes far away, so I get time to grieve his broken heart! T_T.

2- Yuki/Machi ( Yuki is in a such hurry!!!!)

You could use the analogy of yuki’s starting the story as a (baby/child) taken cared by his mother (tohru) who taught him to be a person (all se01), Yuki took this knowledge  as a (kid/teenager) & formed friendship on his own with (kakeru) in (se02). it is not after yuki became a true equal friend to kakeru, chocking him & equally teasing him, that Machi was allowed to talk abt her self as a real character with agency & thoughts (se02, ep24), now yuki must be a (teenager/Man) & fall romantically in love, hence (se03, eps 2 & 3). All this is amazing. So, I kinda expected the following:

yuki won’t take as long as kyo in confessing/ realizing romantic love since he/machi don’t have a shared baggage nor obstacles from the past.

 he won’t be as fast as haru’s “ i love you/ kiss/ make love”. But then again, Haru & Isuzu have already known each other for years & are already in love, they just put a name to their desires & went on with it.

So, yuki should be in the middle, noticing, knowing abt the person, crushing, then realizing love & wanting a future together! Cuz yuki is this type of person who values taking time thinking thoroughly, right??

I’m confused as yuki wanted to confess the curse & to be with machi romantically right after the machi background scene? I know not everything should be on-screen & him falling slowly in love could be off-screen...  the flower is a yuki/machi “ noticing her stage”, her fighting with him over the red leaf is “ noticing him stage” for her. but there’s only ONE intimate scene of them together! Her raw tears when he comforted her in her flat (the chalk scene is bonus). but.. I never expected that yuki is planning to confess his curse & feelings this early!!!!!! yuki! are you SURE she loves you? ( I mean we the audience know 100%) but how is HE sure?? yuki going this big stage so soon felt a bit un-yuki. but then agin, perhaps that’s part of the new changed confident yuki? I duno, I mean Machi was never given a proper time to prosper, but yuki was always given all the time there is to explore his feelings & even other ppl’s feelings! He’s there in kyo/tohru ‘s story to tells the audience they’re in love, he’s there in Isuzu/ haru to mend their gap. I mean yeah there gotta be more scenes abt them for sure, we’re in ep 5, but I never expected a the intruppted confession now & this soon!

perhaps it’s just me, again?! Maye I’m so invested in yuki & accustomed to him always taking time that I kinda expected more before he’s thinking of confessing. I really thought that confessing his curse/love is yuki/machi’s own story climax compared to kyo/tohru’s story climax with kyoko & Isuzu/Haru story climax after breakup, oh well. I’m positive we’ll see more of yuki’s journey with machi as yuki is rarely absent in any eps. More scenes to come!

That’s the end of my headache! XD. I apologize for giving you headache if you were kind enough to read all this. kindly, don’t spoil future scenes or sub-plots to me. I’m just expressing my shock at how fast the plot moved! just few eps ago, I was watching motoko love journey that survived 3 seasons! Hands down Motoko wins in furuba! XD. Jokes aside, Can I say we’re officially where “the plot thickens?” Is it going down? This ep felt like a bullet train!

Side Notes:

I never liked the “children in deep love theme” that hiro has as children shouldn’t suffer the romantic pining & suffering as teenagers & adult ppl,  so, I really appreciated that Momimi altho was 15 when we 1st saw him, lived his childhood without the “oh my! I’m so in love~ pining~ suffer”.

The story introduced ( momoiji in romantic love) the same ep Momiji got tall, so making it as sth he expressed once he hit puberty like most boys his age. He even said it “ I’m a man now”, which is again sth boys feel once they get taller & experience other feelings.

Momiji never catches a break! T_T. My son is denied the types of love he wants (parental love, sibling love & now romantic love! ).

I don’t picture momiji/tohru together as a couple cuz it wasn’t built that way in the story & most of their moments weren’t romantic/sexual tension. to me it was the ultimate friendship!

I wish my son finds love on-screen! If Moyoko/Nao gets on-screen love, give my boy on-screen love, too!

Nah~ forget that~ I’m just sad for my son, I don’t want to see him paired with any character quickly to compensate him not having tohru. This is not doing momiji justice. So, I get the ED art of him with Momo.

If kyo has someone who loves him one-sidedly (Kagura), tohru now has someone who love her one-sidedly (momiji).

The kagura/kyo confrontation was heart breaking, but it had to happen cuz kyo knew she loved him & had to stop her. I hope Momiji never confesses to tohru, I wouldn’t be able to survive seeing tohru turn him down.Tohru & momiji are just too kind for such sad situation.

So, does this mean that the two characters with unrequited love are Kagura & momiji? they’re the only characters with no romantic partner in the ED.

Hana is without a lover in the ED, too! XD. Thank God! I love her crush on kazuma, cuz hello~ who won’t crush on this hunk! & teenage girls can crush on grown up men rather than boys (I know I did, but it was just my girlish crush). I’m thankful it is just a crush & teasing kyo tactics & not true romance! don’t give me another Arisa/Kureno, plz. lol.

[medranochav]

my moms been living with us for 4 months now. her stay was initially tolerable but is now triggering and I find myself regressing in a lot of ways. Her grief has evolved into torment and per her m.o. she'd like for her issues to take first priority. Except, my sis and I are grown now, and as a therapised household (literally we've all been in counseling, babies included) though we still lean on each other for support, we ultimately don't function codependently.

And beeecause that's not how we grew up, I think my mother is now having to contend with the reality that she has to do the emotional work of surviving her many traumas (and currently her many dramas) on her own. We support her but we can't fix it for her.

Currently, it's a crisis a day and she's spiraling into mini catastrophic states everytime. Which was sufferable at first because despite my labored support, I still maintained my boundaries and didn't adopt her distress as my own. The problem now is the increasing frequency with which these crying spells are taking place. Not to mention the fact that she's been doing so in front of the kids; something that would normally be acceptable because my sis and I make space for feelings (even our own) in our home. The difference being, we do so responsibly. We listen, we talk, give affection and/or space but always with the fundamental knowledge that our emotions belong to us individually and only we can be accountable for them. A gentle reminder that though part of a unit, they still have agency and accountability.

This interdependency makes way for a more compassionate exchange. Whenever they see us cry or be vunerable, the kids have the wherewithal to approach us without attaching themselves to our emotional circumstance. It's an empathy that perceives our emotional reactions as relatable but still not their responsibility. I've seen our work proven time and time again.

One example is when my sister's [redacted] died and the boys spotted her crying on the couch. Without being prompted, they approached her independently, commiserated, hugged and kissed her and shortly after went back to playing on their electronics. It was such a graceful display of emotional validation that demonstrated their love for her without sacrificing their own desires in doing so. Truly remarkable, that at ages 5-8 they maintained boundaries while still being there for their mom.

They're also there for one another but it's seldom a sinking ship. And when emotional support is rejected they respect that as well, without taking it personally [tbh that has more to do with concepts of mandatory consent that we impart on them, but as is evident, it applies. #intersectionality] It's an ongoing practice that I'm proud to be a part of, considering the kids have codependent figureheads in both their maternal and paternal families. WE'RE TRYING TO BREAK CYCLES HERE.

Yes, our home is a safe space for emotional processing but always leveraged with the emotional balance of self reliance, awareness and resiliency. The kids have proven to have the capacity for this and through teaching them, so do we.

It's human to have outbursts, but my mother's pattern is proving to be less intrinsic and more deliberate. She needs an audience in order to experience catharsis. A potentially reasonable behavior except for it's her only one. So it's imbalanced and seeks refuge in the reliance of our total empathy.

Furthermore she's disingenuous in her emotional performances. When approached out of concern, she responds with the proverbial, "I'm ok." Like, its subtle but super manipulative to say that, when we can CLEARLY see she's not. The kids see and hear her, the least she could do is not gaslight them. And I'm not saying her tactics are successful but it exposes the bby's to unnecessary dysfunction and covertly teaches them to assume the responsibility of communicating her emotion for her. She's also non verbal and unpredictable and tho not at her best rn [like, literally who is? this year has wrecked us all] she and we deserve proper communication.

The mind games are soul sucking and triggering for me in a way that is not for my sister. Though we share a mother, the repective versions of her that we experienced as children differ greatly.

My sister's the eldest and spent the first couple years of her life as the only child to a very young mother living alone in America after being displaced by the civil unrest in her native El Salvador. By age 3, with the addition of a new baby sister (my moms 2nd) she was sent to a country fully at war. My sisters would spend the next half decade of their lives in sunny wartorn tropics, watched over and raised by our family of four women. A blissful antithesis to their future with our mom. Upon the return to their forgotten country of origin (USA) and severed from the only family and community they've ever known, the girls were whisked away by a mother they barely remembered and a baby brother they had never met... marking the beginning of my mom's descent into single motherhood.

My mom resented having a brood of kids, namely her 2nd and 3rd, who's father was abusive and absent. Don't know much of the facts outside of what she would ritualistically berate my siblings about during her brutal tantrums -as if it were their fault they simply existed. The second born, my other sister, left home at 12 and has been estranged ever since and the third, my brother, has recently severed bonds abruptly claiming a new life with a woman he's known barely a year yet now calls wife. Proving that despite being raised by the same woman we all had different mothers.

Since my siblings endured a childhood with a volatile, violent woman who managed her emotions thru physical abuse... when she wasn't, she was neglectful of them, turning her attention onto me... the youngest (four years removed from the rest of the pack). I bore witness to said abuse until I was 5, when it was litigiously exposed, forcing her to abandon corporal punishment and rely solely on mental/emotional abuse. That's the version of my mom I got.

I was 10 when my sister left for college. Just my brother and I remained. Similarly to each other we both lived in service to our mother. Whereas his duties were more physically laborious, mine consisted of full on emotional labor. I spent most of my childhood navigating a homelife that was so saturated and occupied by my mother's opera of a life, that there was no room for my feelings, thoughts, desires or identity. I was her plaything, a person sans agency. My age and vulnerability proved advantagous when grooming me. I learned to behave in ways satisfactory to her needs. I was made to react to (and collect) her emotional distress, endorse her judgements of others, perform well in school as a testament to her rearing, and accept her violations of me as normal. I was a shackled spectator, whose own emotions were mere reflections of her dramatizations. I was tailored to be the MOST convenient. So I kept secrets and coped alone. I knew just enough abt myself to remain human but lacked the vision to actualize it. And because emotional abuse is so insidious in its indoctrination, I was really none the wiser until I too moved away years later.

I'm almost 30 now and I'm a mess. I can't establish enduring relationships, I'm fat, I'm broke, I'm debilitatingly avoidant, socially inept, codependent, confused and lack significant self worth. I spent the past decade delving deep into undoing all the work done to me to keep me a reliable supply for my mother and coming to terms with all the time lost in doing so. I've had glimpses and proof of another life but this year sent me back to old coping mechanisms and devastatingly familiar relationships. I read that by its very nature, all pandemics have to end and I thought I was strong enough to share a definite time&space with my abuser for the foreseeable future.... but with no end in sight, I kind of really wish I had established a clearer version of myself and where I stand in this family, to her.

Similar predicaments flung us both to the south and having her here is like a screen forging images of the same dysfunction I exhibited upon my arrival 7 years ago. There's so much I wish I could tell my former self, namely, "it's not your fault. you're not alone. you don't have to try so hard and tomorrow is another day" And perhapz it's this layered vision of myself as seen thru her that compels me to want to save her, but doing so requires me to get too close to a flame I've yet to extinguish. Im not foundationally sound enough to go up in flames and rebuild afterwards, I need a few more rounds of therapy for all that. I'm a stitch away from coming apart at the seams. Weak construction, but I'm still standing. I have more life to live and can't risk the breeze of my mother's chaotic whims to topple what's taken years to forge. I love her, because she's the only mom I got and because she's the kids' only access to our motherland. How can I reconcile this version of me with this version of her?

[yakocchi]

The Bewitching Full Moon // Count

smh they’re never gonna release points-based event cards ever again are they guess I gotta make my own 5-min headers

This event is another one of those “His POV” events. I guess the reception on those has been very positive (which, good, bc I like them too) so they’re pushing them out more and more. They’ve also been pushing the envelope on these ooh lala so sexi ma gah stories with these scandalous avatars. yea sexy ok w/e but are they fashionable? idk abt that one chief... and according to the twitter surveys the community has been comparatively lukewarm too. I mean if they’re gonna make event avatars harder to get why are they getting uglier man

also holy crap the resulting doc for this thing got really long i hope tumblr doesn’t destroy me copypasta

edit: here comes me “slept on it” day after edit, fixed formatting issues and grammar errors that stuck out. if it made it even worse imma cry-

Spoilers under the cut! Please credit if you take any of it, thenk u (･ω･*) image-heavy!

Under the full moon, which shimmered with an ominous violet light - a single stagecoach wheeled through the city. (I wonder how many times it has been where I’ve left the manse like this with her.) I sneak a glance to my side, and gaze at Kara’s dress-clad form. (Dress, shoes, gloves, necklace, hair ornaments...) (I give you every single object, article to wear - and with that you are dyed in my color.) (I experienced that joy even before, but...) Now that we have become lovers, that joy is becoming more and more difficult to come by. (Whenever I look at you, there is this emotion - one that is difficult to put into words - that surges within me.) (Frankly, I try my best to simply suppress it.) (...Well, there is particularly something that is too much to entirely subdue.) I recall that sweet sensation of the very moment where I get to strip off the dress I give her– While deep in my thoughts, a smile cracks my features.

count: the joy from dressing her up is becoming rarer me: ? o whys that count: bc the horny supersedes it me: sir

[Kara]: “Count?” (Oops- if she learned of the things like the carnal passions I bear, she would surely grow disillusioned with me.) [Count]: “It’s nothing. You are just so stunning that a smile eased onto my face.” [Kara]: “D-Don’t play around, please…” As if to hide her face, she lightly puts her hands on her cheeks. She takes small breaths, apparently to temper her heart, before looking up again.

[Kara]: “Um… Tonight’s banquet is opening quite late, isn’t it?” The typical banquet opens its curtains at approximately sunset, where the usual routine is to have dinner together before taking pleasure in dancing and chitchat. However, the time now is already past 10. (Will this be your first time going to this type of evening gathering?) [Count]: “There are nobles who grow tired of the same old pattern of the typical party.” [Count]: “So occasionally, evening parties with fascinating themes appear.” [Kara]: “Fascinating themes’?” [Count]: “Costume parties, calling on an acrobat…” [Count]: “Which reminds me of this one gathering where all the lights of the mansion were to be off. It was quite the fascinating party, yes.” [Count]: “Well, now I’m wondering what tonight’s party will be like.” [Kara]: “Hehe, I’m looking forward to it.” (Whenever you so innocently accept the circumstances at hand like this– because it’s you, I get worried. But...)

With a hand I quietly turn her waist towards me, and bring my lips to her ear. [Count]: “I don’t mind if you enjoy yourself, but I would like if you could firmly avoid being careless.” [Count]: “As in these kinds of parties, the dangers lie hidden.” [Kara]: “What do you mean by ‘dangers’…?” She quietly stares at me, visibly failing to catch the meaning behind my words. [Count]: “In a space separated from everyday life, reason easily crumbles away.” [Count]: “And when instinct conquers reason, the floor changes into a hunting ground for love.” I smoothly stroke her back and hug her waist. [Kara]: “Coun-…“ [Count]: “I do not have even the slightest intention to present my adorable lover to such wolves.”

[Count]: “Because you only belong to me, after all.” [Kara]: “—Nn,” I wrap my arm around her body that had slightly jumped, and as if to engrave my touch I press my lips against hers. [Count]: “…So that you will absolutely not separate from me. Understood?” [Kara]: “…Under, stood…” [Count]: “—Good girl.” I narrow my eyes in satisfaction at her answer, and intertwine our hands against my knee.

(Back before we became lovers, I feel that I still had my wits about me.) (So it was quite unexpected of me to become brimming with emotion like this from simply spending time after time together.) (But, tonight… it has become more difficult than usual to tie down…) I shift my gaze to the window, and the moon that floats in the sky above radiates this violet. (—It couldn’t be… Well.)

When we step inside the noble’s mansion, a different world stretched before us. The saloon was colored a brilliant red, and several tables had been arranged in a line where aristocrats entertained themselves with card games and roulette.

[Count]: “So you’re surprised by the casino.” [Kara]: “Wow… I’ve seen Arthur and the others play these sort of games, but this is the first time I’ve ever set foot in a place like this.” [Kara]: “So there can even be things like casinos in the parties of nobles, huh?” [Count]: “In the beginning, gambling was an activity popular within the elite. So it has been as much as a long time for me too.”

“get it cuz im old as fuuuu”

Her eyes swelled of fresh expectations as she looks around the saloon. (We came here to enjoy ourselves, so yes, I would like you to have fun. To be honest, I would rather not teach you how to play the more dubious games, but…) (If it’s just something like cards, there shouldn’t be a problem.) While I survey the surroundings, right in the direction of the bar counter a voice calls out to me.

[Baron]: “Ah, the Count. It has been a while.” [Baroness]: “After this we’re playing a bit of poker, but would you like to join us?” I turn my eyes to see a baron who I was acquainted with and his wife beckoning me over. [Count]: “Kara, would you like to try?” [Kara]: “I only know the very basic rules, but I’ll try.” [Count]: “I’ll teach you, then.”

[Count]: “…And with that, I have shown you more or less the fundamental rules– but is there anything else that you may be confused about?” [Kara]: “I think I’ll be okay from here…!” [Count]: “Then, let’s put it into practice.” [Kara]: “Please go easy on me.” [Baron]: “Well, young miss, when it comes to winning or losing there’s no such thing as leniency.” [Baroness]: “Oh, you! You shouldn’t scare such an adorable little lady like that.” During our pleasant chatter, the cards are dealt before the four of us and we each check our individual hands. (A King, another King, a Three, a Seven, and a Jack… With only these, I can form One Pair with my Kings. A rather mediocre hand.) (Or, I could discard the other three cards and aim for a Three of a Kind?) (Well then. And Kara…?) While maintaining a poker face, I slide a glance and— [Kara]: “…” Within the tension her cheeks were slightly flushed red, and her mouth was shaped into a faint smile. (It appears that good cards have come to her.) (…But I probably should have also taught her the techniques of forming a poker face.) Though subtly smiling bitterly, I pleasantly watched my beloved to whom I shall compete with in her first poker game – She was fixated on the five cards in her hand before suddenly lifting her eyes. The moment our eyes met…—

(Huh…?) Almost in slow motion, my fingers move… [Count]: “—kgh,”

My fingers pick out the two Kings from my hand and throw them into the muck without a moment's hesitation. (Why, am I acting like…) (For a moment, it was almost as if someone had taken over my body—) Akin to a marionette, my actions had disregarded my own will. In my centuries of living, it was the first time I had ever experienced anything like that. (Just what on Earth was…) 

[Baroness]: “My, it’s rare for the Count to lose his poker face like that.” [Count]: “Perhaps it’s also all just an act?” [Baron]: “As you’d expect from the Count, you can’t underestimate him.” While playfully exchanging banter, my consciousness was once more preoccupied with some thorough reflection. What rose from my mind was the suspicious moon that had risen in the sky. (—The “purple moon”.) Much like tonight - once every several centuries, there is a night where moon gives off a violet light. (That moonlight sharpens the vampiric senses, and additionally…) (On the night of the shining purple moon, vampires cannot oppose their loved ones.) As for my loved ones, it is undeniably Kara. (In other words, tonight my body is – controlled by Kara.)

If this is the case, then it would explain the cryptic behavior from just a minute ago. (If I cannot go against her wishes…) (Right when I met her eyes, it is highly probable that she had wished to beat me.) I turn over the new cards that were dealt to me in exchange for my discarded ones. (An Eight, and a King.) (If I hadn’t thrown away those Kings, I would have formed a Three of a Kind...)

[Count]: “…It appears I’m out of luck.” I line up my random assortment of cards by suit and place them down on the table. [Baroness]: “Hehe, I have One Pair.” [Baron]: “I also have One Pair.” [Kara]: “I have a Three of a Kind.” She breaks into a cheerful smile and reveals her hand. [Count]: “It seems that Lady Luck is smiling upon you.” [Kara]: “Hehe… it seems like it.” From that carefree smile, a sweet feeling spreads within the depths of my heart.  (The real thrill of poker is supposed to be the psychological warfare, but) (When you are so innocently delighted I seem to forget all about that.) (This is not entirely the way I would have wanted it, but I got to see something lovely.)

And so, as the game continued— …In the end, I was unable to outplay her. [Baron]: “It surprised me to see the Count so clumsy at poker.” [Baron]: “Are you up for another round?” [Count]: “Please forgive me, but I cannot afford to display such an unsightly side of myself in front of my beloved anymore.” [Baroness]: “Miss Kara, I had fun with you tonight.” [Kara]: “Me too. Thank you for inviting me to play.” We leave the table, and I call on a waiter dressed in black to halt for me. [Count]: “May I have two glasses of champagne?” Receiving the pair of flutes, I hold out one of them to Kara. [Count]: “For your victory.”

[Count]: “So, for the occasion, shall we have a toast somewhere?” [Kara]: “Yes, of course… Um, where are we going?” [Count]: “How about someplace like the balcony?” [Count]: “With your first poker victory, it is a special night.” [Count]: “I want to have a quiet toast between just the two of us.” [Kara]: “O-Okay…”

Between the two of them, the honey-colored champagne sways in the glasses as if to mark the beginning of a sweet night…

Clinking our glasses, the champagne bubbles rise to the surface. [Count]: “Congratulations. Even to the end, I just couldn’t beat you.”

or rather “Congratulations - For I couldn’t win (over you) even at the end.” but that sounds kind of shady hm

[Kara]: “Thank you, but I definitely just got lucky there.” [Kara]: “I guess there really is such a thing as beginner’s luck, huh.” [Count]: “You say that, but you still seem rather happy about it?” I set my glass down and stroke her grinning cheeks with my fingertips to poke fun at them. [Count]: “Are you really that pleased about besting me?” [Kara]: “This is the first time I’ve ever won against the Count with something, so naturally I’m happy about it…”

lol i know they mean by “winning” in the general sense but i like to think they’ve played several types of games together and he just never lets her win

(You are truly not wearing a poker face of any kind right now.) (Even when you do try to hide it, it’s clearly apparent when you are thinking about something else.) [Count]: “But that’s not all, is it?” (I know that you wanted to beat me because the light of the purple moon had affected my body to do so.) (You so deeply wanted, from the bottom of your heart, to win - so I want to know the real reason behind it.) [Count]: “Come, truthfully confess to me.” [Kara]: “I can’t let anything slip past you, it seems…”

She’s at a bit of a loss for words before slowly looking up at me to possibly gauge my expression. [Kara]: “The truth is… back from when you kissed me in the carriage, I had been thinking about it.” [Count]: “That you wanted to beat me in something?” [Kara]: “Yes. At the time, while I was trying my hardest to calm my heartbeat…” [Kara]: “You, however, maintained your composed, collected face, right?” [Kara]: “That moment today wasn’t the only time it’s been like that; ever since we’ve become lovers, it has happened so many times that it’s impossible to count…” She tightly bites her lip. [Kara]: “I just can’t compete with someone like you.” [Kara]: “But then I thought with something like poker, I could perhaps win with luck on my side.”

[Kara]: “Since I’ve always been the one being toyed with…” [Kara]: “Tonight, I thought… that I wanted to see the Count’s– see Abel’s, restless face…”

At that moment, I realized the consequences I had wrought from my prying – but it was already too late. The instant she shot through me with those eyes blurred with shyness, I could hear the sound of my reason shattering into pieces…

[Count]: “kgh—” (—I cannot fight it.) (Kara, I want to… No, I need – to take you.)

So I changed this entirely bc there’s no English equivalent. The original line can be literally translated as “Kara, I want to take you… no, take you.” What he does is change the pronoun he uses for “you” (kimi → omae) to signal the change in the level of intimacy. With most people (mansion residents, people in general) the Count uses “kimi”. Though with those who know him at a closer level, like Leonardo and Vlad, he uses “omae”. (Mostly) men are only really supposed to use “omae” with people they’re close to or it comes off as rude. This is significant with the Count and MC’s relationship because he begins to refer to her as “omae” when they’re alone together (and thus wants to make a point about how personal it is) once they reciprocate their feelings in Chapter… 24(?). The writers are more than aware of this, because all of the Count’s His POV stories in his route are titled 「君○○」 “kimi ____” but the His POV titles for the Endings use “omae”.

[Kara]: “—gh, Abel…” When I strongly embrace her, from the corner of my eye I catch sight of the moon in its sheen of purple light. Paired with this boiling sensation in my blood, I once again realize the meaning of my existence. [Count]: “…As you desire, I shall become just a man for you.” [Kara]: “A, bel…? —Mn, nn…” I steal her lips, as if to take away all of her warmth. (Just simple touches are not enough.) I draw her head closer and entangle our tongues to steal those lips even deeper. (What’s this - it’s sweet… from the scent, the touch, and the taste…) However, my hunger was not sated even by this kiss. (More - I want to taste you, more…) I pull her waist towards me and capture her tongue that had attempted to escape in a fluster. Dominated by instinct, like a starved beast I devour her lips.

(…Seeking her in this way, in an unknown place where someone could come, what in God’s name is wrong with me?) The remains of my reason murmur from the edge of my mind. But, contrary to those feelings, there was a certain kind of a pleasure intoxicating my heart. (The sense of my reason being thrown aside… is this sweet, hm…?) My fingertips, in their longing for her, slowly ride up the hem of her dress.

sir this is a community balcony i’m gonna need you to take yourself out

[Kara]: “Ngh… A, bel…”

[Count]: “Whether to accept or refuse me, is up to you.”

PREMIUM ENDING

The “purple moon” sharpens the vampire’s senses, and additionally– a vampire’s body that basks in its moonlight shall be dominated by their loved ones. [Kara]: “Since I’m always the only one being toyed with…” [Kara]: “Tonight, I thought… that I wanted to see the Count’s– see Abel’s, restless face…” —A loved one’s wishes, for tonight, can be granted under this moon that emits this mysterious light. My fingertips, in their longing for her, slowly ride up the hem of her dress. [Kara]: “Ngh… A, bel…” [Count]: “Whether to accept or refuse me, is up to you.”

Releasing her lips from our deep kiss, I securely hug her from behind and place her hands against the balcony. [Kara]: “Abel, what are…?” The eyes that look over the shoulder quiver in confusion. (Right now, as instinct overwhelms me... I want to take you.) [Count]: “Show me that disheveled form of yours some more.” A hand glides upwards to approach her chest, and wraps around her breast through the silk of the fabric. [Kara]: “Nnn… Abel,” [Count]: “It’s all right. I shall hide you in a way that no else can see.” [Count]: “Even for myself, I do not intend to show that sweet expression of yours to other men.” [Kara]: “That’s not the…” Her eyes were widened, and moistened with shame. [Count]: “And just who was the one who said that they wanted to see my restless face?” [Kara]: “That’s...” The adorable figure of my beloved, trapped with lowered eyes, also makes a bewitching pleasure sharply simmer within me. (If I happened to look into a mirror right now… Without a doubt, I would see that the face I’m wearing is far from that of a gentleman.) [Count]: “I know that you also want to learn of these indecent pleasures, hm?” [Kara]: “I…—nn,” To cut off her words, I rub the peaks of her breasts against the silk with the pads of my fingers. [Kara]: “ah- Mn…” [Count]: “To the point where I can find that out immediately— harden them for me.” [Count]: “Not wanting to know this pleasure... you don’t seem that way at all, or am I mistaken?” (Because of the purple moon, I cannot go against her wishes tonight.) (If she truly didn’t want this, I wouldn’t be able to even lay a finger on her.) (Since I am able to touch her, this means—)

[Count]: “…You truly, want me to forcibly take you, don’t you?” Burying my face onto her nape I move my fingers to agitate her, her body trembling within me. Desperately biting her lip, she stifles her sweet voice. (Whatever it is that you are thinking, I will quite distinctly know what it is.) (Because the one controlling me, is you yourself…) I rub her with my fingers again, and she twists her back with a shudder. [Kara]: “Hah, ah…” [Count]: “It seems that you are feeling it more than usual.” [Count]: “To seek a thrill like this, what a bad girl you are.”

[Count]: “But, if you don’t keep that voice down, you will be heard, no?” [Kara]: “Ha, ah- But… I can’t… hold o-…” [Count]: “There’s no other choice, then.” The corners of my lips raise into an elegant smile before I lift her chin. [Count]: “I’ll stifle it for you.” [Kara]: “Mn, uhn…” Continuing to lovingly caress her breast in one hand I press my lips to hers, providing even more heat. A voice laced with temptation spills out from her wetted lips. [Kara]: “A…bel… if you do, any more than this, I…” [Count]: “Then if I do any more than this, what will happen?” [Kara]: “Don’t bully me…” Her lovely voice cries out between the light brushes of our lips, and my chest sweetly tightens from the sound. (This appetite will not be satisfied until I make her wholly mine.) [Count]: “Do you take me for a man who only teases and leaves you unfulfilled?”

[Count]: “I shall stain your entire body with pleasure.”

…In a certain room. I slip off my coats, vest, tie, and finally shirt to reveal my bare skin…While I fling them onto the sofa one by one, I lead Kara in the direction of the bed. (The part where I drive her to the corner like this… is exceptional tonight.)

[Kara]: “Ah…” Hitting the edge of the bed, she casts her eyes down as there is nowhere else to go. [Count]: “…Got you.” I capture her beloved body into my arm’s embrace, and slowly push her down onto the bed. [Count]: “In here, you can be as loud as you like.” [Kara]: “But… is it okay to use this room as you please…?” [Count]: “When we arrived tonight we had talked about the themes of evening parties, correct?” I move my hand from stroking her blooming cheeks to press a fingertip against her lips. [Count]: “For those who wish to indulge in something rather risqué for the night, they prepare rooms like this.” [Count]: “So I shall receive this room for use with my humble gratitude.” I unravel the ribbon on the back, and the silk dress almost seemed to glide off her shoulder as it fell down.

(I do like to beautifully dress you up – but stripping you down with my own two hands also sends my heart racing.) [Kara]: “gh…” I seize her hands that were about to cover her chest and pin them to the sheets. [Count]: “Without hiding anything, show yourself to me.” Her exposed skin became shamefully dyed with the hue of roses before my very eyes. This color, teeming with vitality, made my vampiric instincts ache painfully.

[Kara]: “n-no… It’s embarrassing…” [Count]: “Then, if I stop looking… I shall have a taste instead.” I meet her breasts and crawl the tip of my tongue along the peak. [Kara]: “Ah, aah… Abel… Mn,” She pushes against my chest in light resistance. But before long her resistance had ceased, and gradually changed to that of her disheveled sighs and sweet gasps. [Count]: “It seems that you’ve become quite honest with yourself.” [Kara]: “To be loved like this – I have no choice but to be honest, right…?” [Kara]: “As tonight will be the only time I’ll get to know of your ferocious emotions…”

My mind is suddenly drawn to her wording. (Does she know about the purple moon…?) But I cannot imagine that she would know about something like a rare phenomenon that occurs only once every several centuries. I stare at her as if to look into her heart, and our eyes meet.

[Kara]: “More… Please, lose yourself to me, more…” (If she does know about the purple moon, and thus is purposefully provoking me, then…) [Count]: “What a naughty girl. Do you want to ruin my composure that badly?” [Kara]: “Yes…” The Count’s body is completely, sweetly steeped in her words, and as if it were alcohol his reason gradually dissolved. (Right now, even the words that I always shower her with will not come out.) For his heart was dominated only by the instinct of a vampire, and only by the instinct to love her as a man. [Count]: “I want to cast away my morality and reason, and just love you.”

FIN

this guy…………is a lot. i thought maybe everyone would be like this for the event but no, leo only gets weird bc essentially his mc was dumb enough to try to pick up broken shards of glass with her bare hands (im not trying to shame her… but i am) and then it’s not really isaac’s fault when he already has the worst bloodthirst out of all of them so sir step into the paddy wagon, the horni police will question u shortly

anyway tl;dr the sweet ending has the mc reveal to him early that she knew what the purple moon does to vampires in terms of the heightened vampire senses and crud but not the obedience to loved ones so he tells her blah blah romanceu talk but he still wants to bone and so they go home to do it instead. 

Make sure to purchase the Epilogue when you have the chance! It’s good stuff ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

So, thanks for reading! (`･ω･´) Sorry if it’s hard to parse through. there’s a reason why editing is a job people get paid for orz

[hinasho]

isle of the lost vs descendants 1 characterizations

the book ends literally when the movie starts so their personalities cant be that different right? lets see

(similarities posted at the bottom!)

DIFFERENCES:

book: when evil queen goes on about beauty related things, especially in regards to her daughter, usually evie would begrudgingly recite whatever “tip” eq taught her and just go along with what she says. not to say she hated those kinds of things, but whenever her mother brought it up, she never expressed similar excitement or engagement. more often than not she was indifferent to her mother’s beauty antics, and we only see her talk about them in regards to herself in the last few chapters (im not talking abt the mirror incident, but the one liners she’d drop about her appearance here and there) movie: when the parents first tell their kids about going to auradon, eq talks about sprucing her daughter up before she leaves and evie is visibly excited about the makeover. she also goes onto encourage it on others as seen when they’re all in the limo and she tries to put makeup on mal.

book: the villain parents are not friends and we almost never see them together. the one time we saw the parents/adults all together was in the prologue scene for evie’s 6th birthday party. after that they never interact and dont pay each other any mind. this is especially true regarding evil queen and maleficent, as they state in the book that they’ve been at odds ever since they fought over who’d rule the isle. eq has also just been welcomed back into society after being banned by the other, so time-wise, at worst, they are still enemies and, at best, barely tolerable acquaintances. movie: evil queen & maleficent have a significantly close relationship, so much so that eq knows her house like the back of her hand and where maleficent keeps things, specifically that her spellbook is in the fridge. they even have a laugh about how they use to run things before being forced to live on the isle. they seem to be genuinely close. 

put the rest under the cut bc this post is too long lol

book: jafar and jay’s mantra is “whoever has the gold makes the rules” which was significant because it helped them while in the forbidden fortress movie: jafar and jay’s mantra is “there’s no team in I” (while this change was surprising, i also wasn’t that upset abt it bc both book and movie!jay struggle with teamwork)

book: carlos is not athletic at all and goes on about how he hates gym class. he is very focused on stem and doesn’t really care about any other kind’ve hobby. meanwhile jay is athletic and does casual parkour when going anywhere. movie: both of them do extreme parkour in the opening song. im not referring to the dancing ofc, but the extra flips and tricks they do. this is not unusual for jay, but is in regards to carlos.

book: jay isn’t the only one that goes around stealing things, mal very much does it to. at the end of the day they’d even compare how many things they’ve stolen to see who’s the best thief. jay usually wins, but still, both are thieves. movie: when they get to auradon, mal is very confused as to why jay would take the time to steal things and even needs for him to explain why he does it.

book: ben describes audrey as a classic fairy tale princess. she finds all things in auradon lovely and beautiful, and even has a bird land on her finger during their date. while she does think negatively of everyone on the isle, she acts mostly “lovely and sweet” before anything else, and it is not faked. think: giselle from enchanted. movie: idk how else to explain this difference besides “audrey just has a different vibe”. she is more regina george-esque than genuinely cheery, and puts on an obviously fake smile and attitude so often that queen belle expresses distaste for her 

SIMILARITIES:

mal likes art and goes around the isle putting up tags --- (the romance storyline wasn’t bad, but it would’ve been nice to see mal maybe join an art club? or get into painting or smthg else related to her hobby)

carlos is afraid of dogs --- in the book he can’t even say or hear the word bc it’s a trigger for him. he can say “puppies”, but he cannot say the word dog. whereas in the movie, he says the word several times. this is an extremely minor difference to be fair

when they’re afraid/think they’re in danger, they all cling to jay

they’re not used to sunlight 

the ben & mal tension on first meet (and continued infatuation before the cookie scene) --- in the book both characters have had a dream about the other. they didn’t know who the other was, but they remembered the dreams vividly enough that they were able to describe their faces in detail. in the movie when they first meet, both pause on each other several times. it’s likely because of the o’l Disney Romance™️, but it could also be because of curious recognition. 

jay is a flirt/smoother charmer and girls fawn over him

carlos is good with and likes science & technology

mal wanting to prove herself to her mother & the others not being as set on it --- in the book, mal is constantly reminded of the times her mother has called her “not worthy of bearing her own name or of being her daughter” and it causes mal to lose her cool several times. the other VKs also have parental issues ofc, but ones that are not as focused on proving themselves like mal’s are. theirs lean more towards other problems. in the movie she is extremely insistent on reminding them what they’re at auradon for and that this is their “one chance to prove themselves”

the core four freeze in fear when confronted with the reality of their parents’ pasts

mal can touch maleficent’s scepter --- to be fair that dance number in the museum was most likely just mal daydreaming, but still

jay going off on his own/following his own plan --- in the book jay and jafar plan for him to go with mal to the forbidden fortress and then double cross her and steal the scepter for himself, taking it as their “big score”. in the movie when they first see the wand with their own eyes, he runs off in front of everyone and only opens the gate enough for himself to squeeze through. carlos has to open it wider so they can all get through it after him. and once theyre in the same room as the wand, he reaches for it first against mal’s wishes.

carlos is bad at sports --- this is in both the differences & similarities section because, while in the book & movie he’s bad at sports, in the book he also doesnt like them and has no desire to do them as he is completely focused on science & tech. while after some practice in the movie, carlos joins the tourney team alongside jay. (i personally would’ve preferred for him to join a computer or engineering club)

mal can manipulate people with ease (book: evie / movie: jane & ben)

fairy godmother is mainly the one that enforces the “no magic” rule --- beast may have created it, but both in the book & the movie, people/creatures talk about fairy godmother being the one that restricts them

carlos climbs trees/searches for higher ground when afraid

evie knows how to use her looks, specifically her smile, to get the things she wants (book: persuading dr. facilier / movie: getting info out of chad)

audrey likes to dance 

carlos is sarcastic & competitive 

mal cheers up evie when she’s upset 

evie is good with academics

ben wanting to be his own person rather than act like his father --- this was a good continuation from book to movie as ben only realizes he needs to be himself in the final chapters, which he just continues to encourage in the movie. 

mal’s spur of the moment saving tactics

the villains aren’t good with computers/the internet --- the isle canonly doesn’t have wifi and in the movie the villains struggle with the laptop that was most likely given to them from an auradon representative

audrey’s family still being deeply traumatized by what maleficent did 

belle not letting beast talk shit 

mal pitying her mother for what she went through --- in the book: when she sees the past of what happened at aurora’s christening and sympathizes that her mother was nothing but a sad lonely girl. in the movie: the “and i really wish you hadn’t gotten there yourself” line during ben’s coronation

annddd yeah!

honestly there were a lot more similarities than i was expecting, and i am pleasantly surprised! book to movie things dont usually crossover well, but honestly, the first movie didnt do too bad of a job of it. 

tbh i think the one that probably suffered the most was audrey’s character. she really seemed very different from her book counterpart. this isnt to say that book!audrey was a saint and would’ve treated the VKs kindly, but she also wasn’t a fake person and was genuinely that cheery and upbeat all the time. whereas in the movie, it seems like almost nobody likes her (except chad) bc of her “fakeness”. 

i personally think if they were gonna go with the “bad girl and her minion” role, then audrey should’ve been the minion. in the book she was kind’ve an airhead (?? idk she just tended to have her head in the clouds a lot) and if one of the auradon girls told her to act a certain way towards the VKs for the “good of auradon”, i could see her listening to them. i dont know if she’d be the one to come up with the evil deed herself though. 

overall, the continuity flowed pretty well. i wish they didn’t change audrey’s character like they did (they probably could’ve had jane play the role of ‘stuckup girl’ tbh since she was a new character and her mother had a higher position in the kingdom compared to audrey’s parents anyway, so smthg to boast abt), but other than that, the movie’s characterizations were kinda close to the books!

[sleepingfancies]

please go off abt detective loki,,, im curious to hear what u have to say abt him!!! 💖

*SLAMS CHAIR DOWN*

SO. YOU WANT ME TO GO OFF ABOUT LOKI.

Praying for you that this read more link works bc otherwise this is gonna be a Cursed Post to all my poor followers. Shit gets long. I have A Lot to say akdjfshfk

Thanks to the investigative skills of the amazing and wonderful @deputyrook (ily), I recently learned that Detective Loki’s backstory included such things as: serving time in juvie, he was formerly religious, and he also possibly suffered from some kind of drug addiction he’s now clean from. It was briefly mentioned in the movie that he spent 6 years in a boys’ home (a rather rough one, by the way Loki talked about it). Boys’ homes are, by definition, “residential sectors where boys are provided food and care when they cannot be adequately cared for by their families, either due to a family crises or the child’s own behavioral issues.”

What this tells me is that:

A) Loki most likely had some heavy childhood trauma that drove him into being a “bad kid” (not that such a thing actually exists, imo, but that’s another essay for another day). It probably took well over a decade to get himself stabilized.

B ) Loki of present day has no family, no personal connections, no friends, absolutely nothing to call his own except the clothes on his back, his car, and... maybe a place to live? I assume he has one somewhere, but we never see him there - he’s constantly either prowling around town or at the station.

C) Loki’s occult tattoos, and his general distaste for anything religious, probably come from an internal place of feeling like some higher power abandoned him along the way. I have no doubt he carefully selected each one to have some personal meaning, but ultimately they all tie back to distancing himself from Christianity (double that if he was religious as a child, or came from a religious family). This also makes me wonder if his last name was something else, and that he changed it to “Loki” upon getting himself back on his feet.

D) Heading off of the boys’ home note; boys’ homes, like most other institutions in the US, legally can’t force residents to stay once they turn 18. Assuming his time there ended at 6 years because he aged out and went off on his own, well, for one that means he was admitted when he was 12 years old. Which is... wow. For two, that means his behavior was never necessarily resolved. Which, given how Jake plays Loki, I’m inclined to believe (I’ll touch on that later).

All of this leads me to some interesting observations during the movie.

For one, Loki is amazing at staying the “adult in the room” in the face of belligerence (e.g. Keller Dover losing his shit in Loki’s car). I know personally, it is almost physically impossible for me not to get my back up when someone else decides they want to take some aggressive tone with me - and I am about as far as one can get from a “troubled kid.” So I have to wonder how many years and how much abuse Loki endured to be able to choose not to respond to people antagonizing him? I have a hard time believing it was just police training that got him to this place of neutrality. And it seems to me like he’s making a genuine effort to stay calm, and to calm the people around him (”please just let me do my job”).

Which leads me into something Mrs. Dover said. “They say you’ve solved every case you’ve ever had, is that true?” And to be fair, I assume Loki’s silence there is supposed to imply that that isn’t true, but it implies so much beyond that. It implies he puts 100% effort into his cases, that he barely sleeps when he knows there’s a chance he can put dangerous people behind bars and save innocent lives. It also implies he feels deeply about the cases he hasn’t solved, or the ones where he got the perpetrator put away but the victims didn’t make it out alive. He carries that with him, constantly.

We see more of this when Keller recognizes his daughter’s bloody sock. His immediate response is to blame Loki. “This is your fault. You didn’t try hard enough. You did this to my daughter.” And Loki says nothing, he doesn’t make any different expression - but his eyes twitch. Jake Gyllenhaal remarked that this was a physical tic he improvised for Loki, one that served as Loki’s channel for intense emotions and/or becoming overstimulated with thoughts and information. Rather than actually emote, his eyes twitch. There is nothing newly informative or particularly overstimulating about the bloody sock scene, which leaves only intense emotion to be the cause of that twitch. And given Loki’s panic when he was searching Bob’s house and boxes for Anna and Joy, I doubt it’s anger. I’m willing to bet it’s that Loki already feels that way. He’s blaming himself. Keller just spoke Loki’s own feelings into existence.

I’ll circle back to that in a minute, because I think Loki making his cases so personal is very telling of his character.

Now, to go back and touch on why I think it’s most likely Loki aged out of the boys’ home rather than graduated - Loki has adapted with his behavior, he hasn’t resolved it at all. It does not seem to me at all like Loki has therapeutic strategies, especially considering I’m 99% sure any therapist or behavior counselor would not encourage bottling up your emotions and disconnecting yourself from human contact. Loki made these steps on his own. He learned to redirect his anger to people who deserved it by becoming part of law enforcement. He decided that he was safer closed off and unavailable to intense emotions. He might’ve even decided other people were safer stuck on the other side of his walls.

There are a whole of two times Loki clearly loses his temper - when Bob keeps drawing mazes rather than giving him a straight answer, and when Bob kills himself and Loki realizes he just lost his best lead. While these are both reasonable things to get worked up about, he reacts so intensely and so personally to them that (circling back to my earlier point) it tells me, deep down, there is an incredibly soft and vulnerable heart in there that’s been locked up for decades.

Loki didn’t want Bob to kill himself. He didn’t mean for things to escalate that far. You can hear it in his voice, he’s genuinely shaken and upset by what just happened. In the following scene when he basically destroys his desk, that is directed at no one and nothing but himself. He’s so angry at himself - for not understanding Bob’s maze, for getting Bob killed, for having to tell the Dovers their one suspect is gone, for feeling helpless when it comes to finding the girls. Loki doesn’t deal well with other people’s failure, but he doesn’t even accept his own.

And I mean - do I even need to mention when he finds Anna? The man is bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his head, he’s half unconscious, he’s a long way from the hospital, but he doesn’t even think about any of that. He makes it his one singular goal to get her to the emergency room even if he dies trying. And the way he talked to her? “Stay with me Anna, don’t die, just hold on.” I know on the surface it’s obviously just a tactic to keep her (and himself, let’s be honest) awake. But it was so deeply feeling, so honest, so raw, so panicked?

I don’t know, man. I’ve said things to other people before that I wished someone had said to me, and that’s what those lines sounded like to me. Which, if he had been a drug addict at one point, and if he overdosed but no one was there for him? The puzzle pieces fit.

And then to have people visit him in the hospital? To have someone call him a hero? He has no idea how to react to that, because I’m guessing neither of those things have ever happened to him before. And he isn’t really sure what to say to someone being so overwhelmingly grateful for and to him. So he doesn’t really say anything. His eyes just twitch. We can fill in the blanks.

The man has a soft heart, a vulnerability that he refuses to let anyone see, but it’s there. He’s just as scared and angry and confused as Keller 90% of the time. He just hides it better.

Which, ultimately all of this leads me to the conclusion that - for as far as Loki’s distanced himself from religion, as clean as he is now, as stable as he is, as well as he’s channeled his anger, as guarded as he keeps himself - this entire job, to him, is a chance at redemption.

Loki doesn’t think he’s deserving of love. He doesn’t believe he’s capable of having the kind of stability the Dovers are so familiar with. He doesn’t think he can just slide into a friend group after all these years. He doesn’t regard his own life highly. But the ability to save other people’s lives and keep dangerous people locked away - that’s his apology to the world. Of course he cares about these cases because he’s a good man, but it’s more than that. It’s that he believes this is the only way he cant repent for not always being a good man.

Which leads me to his first name. I’ve rambled about the symbolism of his name to @deputyrook before, but David. David. Given all of the Biblical symbolism in this movie, personally my mind immediately leaps to David and Goliath.

David - detective Loki and his desire to be a good man - is in a constant war against Goliath - Loki’s own trauma and troubled past. And there really isn’t a way to have one without the other, which makes Loki’s character so tragic. He isn’t ever going to heal, not completely, not when his entire career is him trying to apologize over and over again. He solves almost all the cases he’s given because he won’t, can’t, accept more failure.

Loki’s last line in the movie is “pray for the best, prepare for the worst.” For being a character so deeply centered in anti-religion, that’s an odd line to make his last. Combine that with how strange it is that he wouldn’t also change his first name, if he changed his last name to distance himself from religion. His name, and that last line, might just be symbolic of the few shreds of hope he has for himself. Hope that maybe he can have what the Dovers have, the hope that maybe one day when he’s gone he’ll be remembered by somebody and for something good.

Because that’s really all he wants, all he can hope, for himself. Since he doesn’t think he’ll ever have human connection, or love, or a family - as much as he would like to have those - he’ll settle for being just a little more than somebody’s bad memory, or being a little more than some name on a headstone.

[sxyurii]

Hey, I've been your follower for years now and recently I've been through a breakup and I saw your post about it and I feel really sad I don't know how to move on and I just wanted to ask could u give some tips 😢❤❤❤ Love you and your blog so much!!! Sending you much love

Omg hi angel!!! 💕 im really sorry to hear that :( It sucks but we gonna get thru this baby

This will be a long post but also for anyone whos going thru a breakup rn, I'll type out everything that I wish someone told me before 😂

HOW TO WIN A BREAKUP

Ok so im gonna put shit that I know from expierence and as a psychology major so we have some gold hacks here on getting over a breakup 😏 First, I've personally had like quiete few breakups and honestly that FIRST ONE is ALWAYS the worst. If this is ur first breakup im rly sorry but its gonna suck for a while LMAO just remember that first one is the most painful but once you get over it its like antidote for life. No breakup will hurt that much as far as I know. Now lets start. U broke up youre sad, alone, crying, now what?

1. Call your friends. ALL OF THEM. I always felt my breakups before they happened and with this recent one I summoned all of my friends and they were all there with me before and after it happened. Venting helps and emotional support will be the first thing here. You are very vulnerable and sensitive right now and your emotions are all over the place probably. You're sad, angry, confused you wanna kill him all of that shit and having people there with who you can let out all those emotions is SO SO SO important i cant stress it enough. Dont bottle emotions D O N T its tempting but its toxic as fuck and it prolongs the healing. Buy junk food, have girls night, cry to your friends and talk about it until you don't feel need to anymore, cry more. Use all emotional support u can get, ur girls got u. BONUS TIP therapy helps alot. Ive been to therapy to help me sort my emotions out and its been super helpful. Remember also friends arent therapists, sometimes a professional help to guide thru emotions is the good choice too.

2. DELETE EVERYTHING you have that reminds you on them. I personally dont have hard time with it I know some people do but its also one of the most toxic things. Delete the pictures, chats, unfollow them block them even if u have to, mute, delete the songs that remind u of them. Literally erase their existence from your life. Due our brain not knowing difference between someone breaking up w us and someone dying pain we feel is intense and gets to point we feel physical pain. Memories trigger emotional responses and keep opening the wound. You need to heal. Patch it and let it heal. Dont poke it by seeing still things that remind u of them.

3. dO NOT STALK THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA. DONT DONT DONT. ITS LIKE DRINKING POISON EXPECTING THEM TO DIE??? What you could possibly find that will make u feel better??? Them posting that they miss you and want u back??? Nah sis, social media presence of people is so biased and its SO EASY to fake anything. You can misinterpret alot and you might also see stuff that will hurt u. Some of my exes (idk abt this last one tho bc I never stalked his social media since we broke up and im super proud on it) would post stuff that they know would hurt me or make me jealous or just some shady shit and you dont want to go in a place where u know someone just wants to hurt u. You are better than that. Protect your mental peace at all costs.

4. Journal. With this recent breakup I wrote like alot about it, i took my emotions and wrote paaaages. Let it all out. Draw abt it. Find ways to turn your pain in art.

5. DONT TEXT YOUR EX. CUT THEM OFF. its the best for you. You cant heal in a place you got hurt. If you wanna text them handle phone to ur best friend. I know whenever you are alone u will feel so lonely but trust me better call your friend than hit up ur ex LMAO We all still think we want our ex back even some time after breakup. We tend to idealize our exes in our heads and remember only the good times and stuff and then its just painful illusion. I know i did that alot with my exes so with this last one i decided to prevent it. Best way for that was to make a list of all the things he did that would hurt me, make me sad or mad and that i just didnt like abt him. Whenever I would feel im thinking I miss him I would read that list and see he wasnt so good and there was a reason that relationship ended. It will come to point u will see you werent happy and you will be slowly letting it go. He aint shit trust me.

6. Usually it takes 3 weeks for the worst symptoms of breakup to subdue bc our neurotransmitters need to balance again. Love is a drug and breakup is like withdrawal from cocaine addiction. Your body and mind will go through symptoms same as cocaine addict. Remember to be kind to yourself. Take care of yourself. I know for me issue was I would be like "get over it" and not allow myself to be hurt abt it. Be kind, you are going though huge emotional trauma and you deserve all the time and space to be hurt and feel it. Feelings are like visitors, you just have to accept them with out resistance and let them pass. Acceptance is the key.

7. Focus on yourself. You were so used on putting effort and energy into that person. Take all of that energy and put it back in YOU. Be selfish. Treat yourself. Date yourself. Write things you love about yourself. Rediscover your passions. Focus on school. On your beauty. dYE UR HAIR DO A TATTOO DO UR NAILS DO A FACEMASK PLAY SONGS SINGING HOW EXES AINT SHIT Fall in love with yourself. This is something that you will be ready to do when you processed all the emotions in healthy way.

8. Idk did i forget something but just to add this. "This too shall pass". You will heal. You will mend. Never close your heart to love again. You deserve love and one day you will have it. Dont let your pain make you push love away. Breakups are extremely good for self growth and be grateful for it because trust me you will grow so much and you will learn so much about yourself.

I hope I helped at least a bit 💕 I keep feeling like I forgot something but know that you and anyone can always hit me up in DMs and ask for help. Im always open to help anyone and dont hold back. Im sending you so much love honey 💖💖💖💖💖

[elvesofnoldor]

im losing my entire fucking mind and i dont know anything abt myself anymore and why? why? all cause one day in undergrad, out of nowhere, i went “hey am i a woman?” like i was asking myself what flavour of cheesecake i wanted for dessert. That was like, right after i felt comfortable with the fact that im a lesbian. And the answer should have been simple and short: “yeah duh you dumb fucking bitch, why did you ask? why do you think asking this is fucking productive? forget about it!” But no, i decided to engage with the question and it opened a fucking pandora’s box, and this question latched onto me like a fucking parasite, because this question allows me to think about another crucial question im always afraid to ask myself: am i truly attracted to men? With lesbianism, i can answer this question with ease by saying, no, these flimsy “crushes” i have on like two or three boys when i was a child/teen were result of compulsory heterosexuality, boom, that’s it. simple! not to mention, i know that lesbians can experience attraction to men in the past and even had past relationship with men and still be lesbians, sometimes sexuality isn’t solid as a brick, and none of that should have mattered! 

 so yeah, lesbianism is the answer i LIKE, yet part of me is not satisfied with this answer! of course! why not! since when am i ever satisfied with anything EVER?  over time, i started to want a “man’s body” when i see a cis dude with bare chest in picture, and it seems like i started to identify more and more with...masculinity and manhood...in general? even fictional men? at times? i dont fucking know! its a huge mess! and confusing! and my memories are all blurry and false and twisted by my current perception. sure i think i always kind of aspire to “androgynous looks”, but i like being a lesbian! At first, i was like, maybe im a non binary lesbian cause oh baby i know im not bisexual-- i dont want to be with men, but i want to be with women and that’s a certainty. And i know i had one real crush in life--sure it brought me nothing but misery but i know i had one true crush and it was a girl, a friend, from my high school-- whereas my possible feelings abt real boys or fictional men are very flimsy in comparison. still, part of me started to think that perhaps i can only process these feelings i might have for other men/boys in the past if i can...idk see myself as another man? i dont fucking know! Literally, it’s the most unproductive thing to think about! More importantly, i did not fall in love with any real man nor do i want to fall in love with any man! but i still kept questioning myself about this, cause i kept having these strong feelings abt,  FICTIONAL MALE CHARACTERS. And idk, part of me was like, “maybe you’d be comfortable with your attraction to men if you...are a man?”, and yeah i actually engage with this line of fucking thinking. its so fucking embarrassing that MEN THAT ARE NOT REAL can have such ridiculous heavy impact on me, it’s fucking ridiculous and i hate it!!! Every time i started to get invested in some stupid story that doesn’t matter cause it’s a fucking fictional story, there is like, this ONE MAN, one fucking bitch, that i felt very strongly about and it didn’t feel entirely platonic. i knew i was not straight since a teen and it took me FOREVER to even seriously consider that im a lesbian even though i dread the thought of being with men for the longest time, precisely because i keep having these weird strong feelings about fictional men every once a while!!!! 

makes no mistake i explored more rational options. during this time i made a rant abt it on here--i didnt want to! i tried not to make personal posts cause i dont want to bother strangers! but idk i guess my attention seeking whore ass just have to put my personal feelings out there eventually or i will die? anyways, a very nice mutual talked to me abt it, he was a trans man and as it turns out we shared a lot of similar experiences in regards to gender, and you’d think--hey maybe that helped? but no it fucking didn’t. it was nobody’s fault but it didn’t help, cause i clung on my womanhood for no apparent productive reason. i was still confused and, well, like a normal person i was like, let’s have human interaction! let’s actually explore my attraction to women! you don’t want to be with men so forget about them! forget what you might feel abt them! explore what you KNOW! explore certainty! so i did and ofc it ended up in shit, cause a girl who has a girlfriend (it was a closed relationship btw) asked me if i wanted to “hang out” on a dating app for wlws called HER and i genuinely thought it was a date? didnt know she has a girlfriend until AFTER we met. i wasn’t actually even surprised that she didn’t actually want to date me, because im ugly! im not attractive! im not even attracted to myself lol! plus she was very nice and cool and i was just happy that i made a friend with a fellow lesbian. but after that, i lost motivation to use that dating app, because one minor set-up and failure is all it takes for me to give up, its always like that with me. because im weak and pathetic, its always been like this. 

yeah at one point i basically said im non binary on my bio, but  i rather tell ppl im a lesbian and be done with it since im not entirely sure abt being non binary. Also, I know that non gender-conforming lesbians are everywhere, cis lesbians who are uncomfortable with gender identity exist! butches exist! they are here and they deal with it and they find community. but i don’t identify with...being butch? it was very nice to see gender non conforming, tom-boyish or butchy women out there, they  gave me hope, they are my heroes but i just dont feel like...they are me? i dont feel like feminine women either, im attracted to feminine women but i dont identify with their look and their femininity. like i said, this is a huge fucking mess. 

And now i have finally fucking done it, huh, dorian fucking p*vus, a gay male character. The clownery of it all! how the fuck, do i explain to ANYONE that i, a lesbian, have feeling that isn’t entirely platonic about a fictional gay man? yeah thats right thats why i romance him! i lied! ok! i fucking lied, it was cause i want to fuck him! ok! yeah, i know, ridiculous. i feel like im disrespecting him, that im , idk, fetishizing him, but i am not! i can’t be! i love him so much it hurts? it shouldnt be like that. i really shouldn’t. i cant make sense of this, its driving me nuts. still, this whole ordeal eventually got me thinking abt my gender, yet again, and it pushed me over the edge and i even told my dad that i want to transition this summer, that i am a man because i thought maybe i’d be much happier and less repressed if i can just accept that i like men-- if i can explore this possibility. i know i will NEVER accept liking man as a woman, and i know i already kinda have some sort of identification with manhood and masculinity, so why not! i was coming up with solutions! but i didnt even fall in love with a real man, and i was considering this serious level of transition in my life that requires time, money, and the process concerns health risk??? for what??? i was looking up all these info about transition, for WHAT? i gotta be out of my fucking mind! the most ridiculous thing is that while i always like a number of female characters, i would never feel as strongly about any of them in particular as i would, for that one fucking man. Even merrill, like, i love her and i genuinely feel like i want to be with a girl like her int he future but i dont feel as strongly about her as i would for dorian, for some, fucking, reason. 

i headcanon the lavellan i used to romance dorian as a trans man, cause i was thinking, perhaps this would put things into perspective. and yeah, i wanna fuck dorian, but also i want to envision what my future CAN be using my lavellan as a proxy. things were simpler with my lavellan. he was handsome and had no body image issue, he was fit, transition was easy for him cause magic and he virtually spent no money on it, he was passing, his family and community fully supported him, he had a lovely girlfriend before he knew he was trans. sure, he has problems and issues to deal with but none are the ones i gotta deal with. he is not me, but he has what i wanted and what i wish i had: beauty, confidence, a girlfriend, easy FTM transition, and he is a man so he’s legally allowed to fuck dorian. but i did not transition, and im still a cis woman with long hair, and ppl looks at me and they probably still thinks im straight, im not straight but i AM a ugly cis woman and i dont think transition’d help cause i might just become a even uglier man lol. And if i dont become a beautiful, stunning man, then i dont want to become a man at all cause if things dont turn out perfectly for me, i dont want to do them and its always like that for me and its why im a fucking failure on everything right now. so many trans people are not passing, but they deal with it, not me tho! i can’t, cause im a pathetic baby!!!  i cant deal with any minor inconvenience in my fucking life i guess!!!! And i cant help but to feel weird about having a trans man as one of my ocs. maybe i should make him cis instead? im so exhausted,  i cant help but to feel that my trans mutuals want to just pull the trigger on me and unfollow me cause you all are silently judging me for having a trans oc when im still technically, cis. well judge me in my fucking face you fucking cowardly fucks! Am i cis? well idk, probably, maybe im just a hysterical crazy bitch of a cisgender^tm woman who is constantly uncomfortable with her gender, maybe thats all there is. who knows, all i know is that im burnt out, that i don’t know anything anymore and it was all a huge fucking mess that things dont matter. this is causing me nothing but pain and confusion and i dont want to be wrong myself. ftm transition is not, “oh geez lets just explore a option” kind of deal, its kinda fucking serious  and its stressing me out. i dont know what i want, who i am, anything and i can’t afford to be wrong so i dont know!!!!! i just dont know!!!!!!!! i talked abt with a therapist actually but all therapist do is to LIE lie AND LIE and tell me things i already know, “you need to be careful with about transitioning! it’s a big decision” who pays you to say this garbage to me? “you are capable and beautiful and you can do this! believe in yourself!” as if ppl saying this shit is enough???? as if i still need to go see a fucking therapist if i am magically ok after i talk to somebody and they tell me lies that sound validating????i know they dont believe in what they said anyways. “you are ok! you are fine, you have no problem” BITCH I WISH I AM OK, BUT AM I OK? IM FUCKING NOT AND YOU ARE $60 RICHER THAN AN YOU ARE AN HOUR AGO! FUK YOU! LIES LIES LIES!!!!! men lie too, i put on some bad eyeliner and some random creepy dude came and told me im beautiful! beautiful my ass! im fucking ugly and i know it, you really think im fucking stupid you fuck? am i just being a special snowflake? are the things that i know for certainty actually certainty??? nothing about me feels real anymore, and maybe im just being dramatic but  my self perception is non existent and i feel like im just lying to myself even though i thought i was being truthful and ppl keep telling me lies and nothing helps. im living on lies and it is festering 

[19possums-blog]

On tianshan relationship and their fandom, i guess ?

hello there @nightfayre !! Im the 5asks anon lol (the one abt the last chapter of tianshan). I wanted to thank you for your answer and continue to rant in your askbox but i figured it was so long that mb it would crash ur box lmao, so I... kind of created a blog..... hm. well theres no bad reasons to create an account is there lol ?? (also is there no way to send a long ask ?? why is it so limited :(( )

So once again thank you for anwser, and what an answer ! You raised many points i didnt think about and that was very interesting. I knew i would be glad to hear your thoughts ! the rest under a read more coz i think its going to be looong lol

(( To do a sort of disclaimer : I despise fandom discourse and im more of the mentality “let ppl enjoy what they want as long as it dont hurt real life ppl”, and “dont like dont interact”. So everything im going to say is not an attack against anyone, but just a way of prolonging a manhwa that i like. Most of all, i want to emphasize that at the end of the day, its just a manhwa : it doesnt justify being mean or aggressive towards other real life ppl. If you find yourself raging while reading fandom wank, just stop reading, block, and go outside a little. My way of enjoying the manhwa is to be analytical, to criticize (positively and negatively) and to look at the material source as well as the fandom in itself ; if its (understandably lol) not your definition of fun, this post may not be for you !))

Ur totally right in saying that the hardest thing is separate morality, reality and fiction. I hope my asks didn't come across as a 'u shouldnt like tianshan bc its not morally good'. There is a lot of puritan push back on tumblr lately, and im totally against it. Everyone is free to like/ship what they want ; reading only ‘morally good’ literature wont prevent you to become a nasty person - i would argue itd be the exact opposite, as your spirit wont be trained to think critically or to evaluate a situation (and every situations is always grey) by your own means. Also, its important to separate fantasies/what you like to read and who you are/what you do. To be embarrassingly honest, and like many people, one of my sexual fantasy is rape ; but in my real life, im in a queer anarchist collective that actively fights against rape culture and defends rape victims. That is why i dont have a problem with SheLI/Mo shippers (or even HeCheng/SheLi shippers) even if its not my cup of tea, but i would have a problem if in real life (irl) ppl would say to irl Mo that irl SL is good for him (or if they wouldnt find it wrong that a irl 30yo Cheng is involved wt an irl 15yo Li). I digress.

But then again this confusion about fiction/reality/morality is at the core of the tianshan fandom -and many fandoms. I dont know about you, but i grossly see 3 types of ‘trends’ depending on how ppl interact with the source material  :

1.The ones who think you cant like something while being critical of it. I love 19 days but I think there are flaws in it, beyond tianshan dynamic (like how OX handles the transition between funny and dramatic moments –I think its badly done). It doesn’t mean I personally hate OX and wish harm to their family oc. Worse than this, the ones who, because they dont like certain things in 19 days, feel free to harass OX on their social media.  Here its a confusion between fiction and reality and a lack of critical thinking.

2. the ones that loves Tianshan because they think it fits the trope “Dark, handsome, tortured violent boy who is violent towards fragile, sweet, pure cute boy because he loves him” and the typically associated trope “the pure boy will change the violent boy by the pureness of his heart”. Aka the most common yaoi trope. Again, if it pleases people to see Tianshan like this, good for them and i hope they have a nice time reading 19 days. Lets face it, I love really bad yaoi and books. Its just not how i see tianshan at all, but to each their own. I just have a problem when these ppl insist that its an ok behavior to have in real life and say things like “possessiveness is a proof of love” uncritically (hint : it isnt). For me, its the difference between enjoying fast food (thats okay), and wanting to force everyone to eat fast food and to find it pleasurable (not okay).

3. the ones that think what you like in literature defines who you are, and so in order to be a “good person” you have to only like “morally good litterature” -there are the ones I personally find the more interesting bc they can ask good questions. But alas, in most cases its just puritanism badly disguised and currently they are in all fandoms. Lets not delve into the issue of this statement : what is ‘morally good’ ? who are in the authority to proclaim what is good ? how can you recognize what is ‘morally good’ if you dont see what is ‘morally not good’ ? is it literature’s responsibility to educate its audience ? do literature have to point out “watch out audience what just happened is not okay” as if we were brainless children ? whats more important : what you like reading or what you do irl ? .... Okay i totally delve into this lmao. Here its a confusion between fiction and morality and a rejection of critical thinking : we could say its like when the Catholics prohibited women from reading bc it would pervert them and think of the children).

Returning to the specifics of what we've been talking about  : so in this last case, you (generic ‘you’) think that you are a good person ; so you have to read morally good literature. So in this case, fandom isnt just a harmless hobby, but a proof of how you are morally good, imagine the stakes ! But alas, you happen to like 19 days and most specifically tianshan. You said (@nightfayre​ ) that you judge Tianshan unhealthy as they are now, and i wholeheartedly agree with you, so im not going to discuss why since you already explained it so well. So, what happens when you like a morally not good ship, but you think liking morally dubious things makes you a bad person ? You bent over backwards to explain that, in fact, this ship is morally good, to protect your integrity. And thats why, in 19days fandom since the last chapter (and its the same thing with every chapter where flaws of HT are revealed!), there are many posts going around “hm, in fact, what He Tian did is good ! i know it can seems like hes a violent asshole who dont respect MGS because he punches him, threatens him, and dont listen to him, but hm.... in fact its because he’s nice...” and then they do mental gymnastics to justify what is, obviously, not morally justifiable. And i find its a pity because, my guy, my buddy, nobody is going to throw you tomatoes if you like a morally dubious character, and also bc nothin is morally good ! everybody does what they think is the best in ‘problematic situations’ ! and thats what make life interesting ! and so, 19 days interesting ! The flaws of HT (and MGS) are what drawn ppl to his character, bc it makes him real, its makes him contradictory, we can project ourselves in him, and we can see a complicated character with awesome latent potential. And yes, treating someone like a territory bc you care about them is a flaw lol. (on this subject : i saw ppl saying that its protectiveness and not possession : if you protect someone like you would protect a territory, then its not a healthy protection. you deal with a human whose agency you must respect, contrary to a territory).

MGS and HT are the product of what happen to them in their early childhood and then their adolescence. Like you said, they grow up in a violent, twisted world, where being emotionally distant is the norm. I would even say that they are expected to conform to the standards of (toxic) masculinity : channel all your emotions into anger, caring is being weak and feminine, prove your worth by your physical strength, be in control in all ur relationship, etc. I would say thats why Mo is so hostile towards HT : HT challenges his masculinity, by seducing him (everyone know that the biggest fear of macho men like HT and Mo is being considered gay -_-) and being stronger than him. Lets face it, Mo has kind of a homophobic issue, like all the boys. Between JY who tells HT its disgusting being told hes handsome by a man (at the beginning of the manhwa, i hope by now he had grown out of it), or Mo who tells HT he isnt happy that a guy is on his bed or who desperately wants to prove his heterosexuality by saying he likes all cute girls to his baldy friend... HT is more nuanced, but at the end, when he ‘seduces’ Mo, its always predatory. He doesnt let himself being vulnerable and he aggressively touches Mo even without his consent. For me, its a way of proving his domination, not his interest (and when i say that, i dont mean that HT is not genuinely interested in Mo -just that his actions dont translate this). ZZX is the only one who seems to have a healthy relationship with his masculinity lol, but then hes the healthy one in all aspects (thats why i dont like his character and am not invested in zhanyi, even if irl i would love to be his friend).

With all that being said, oc HT wont know how to adequately express genuine concern and interest in Mo ! This sort of social interactions is not something you just know, its smth you learn. And in HT and Mo’s cases, nobody was there to teach them -we could even say that ppl in their life made them unlearn caring behaviors. So HT does what he does best : he fights and forces, and is surprised when Mo thinks (obviously) HT is evil. And also, like you said, Mo will never be (at least how he is now) a driving force in their relationships bc he will always run away from bonding with ppl. So here we are, HT being the only driving force in their relationship, the same HT who only knows violence. No wonder that their relationship is like this...

As it is, i feel like tianshan is kind of in an impasse right now. One or the other is going to have to evolve if we want to see their relationships changing. Either HT learns how to care without being violent (seems complicated if Mo doesnt challenges him, bc HT isnt going to realize this without feedback since its how he has always functioned), or, more likely, Mo is going to be honest with him and tell him that his behavior is hurting him. Though more probable, I dont see it happening anytime soon : for one, Mo isnt capable of seeing when he is hurting emotionally and what is hurting him ; and also, bc Mo doesnt know any other language than violence, not unlike HT. I think its smth most of the fandom ignore, how violence is smth that HT and MGS both have in common, and how if HT wasnt violent, MGS certainly wouldnt consider him at all.

Anw im excited to see where OX is going with all this ! Like you said, the forced kiss was pivotal to their relationship, so im kind of hoping it would be the same here ! I just hope they wont... do like usual and just put a funny chapter and ignore this latest development.....

OMG i wrote soo much and there is so much i still want to say.... i think im going to do a second post... sorry about the spam lmao

( @nightfayre : i dont know how this site works yet, is @ you alright ? will it show you my post in your notif or should i send an ask ?  bc i want you to see my answer, but i dont want you to feel pressurized to respond or interact or anything !! above all dont feel pressurized, i was sad last night when you wrote ‘im sorry to not answer more quicly’ bc you should answer at your own rhythm or not answer ! your blog is a hobby, not an obligation, so dont feel bad to not do more when yo already do much !! )