#she deserves a little dictatorship

[thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra]

diversity win! the woman who tried to start another dictatorship is a lesbian!

[ilikepjo24]

Lol another dumb take on reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/s/ER8SmBToSm

WOW! There are so many things to unpack here...

"Iroh, the most-" Iroh!? IROH!? THE Iroh!? The "redeemed" warlord that only gave a fuck about being a warlord after it affected him personally? That Iroh? The Iroh that left a child to bare the weight of a nation just bc he, the mature responsible adult, wanted to sit on his ass instead of being mature and responsible? THAT Iroh? It seems awful like both those actions appear to be those of a selfish and unempathetic person. And let's not forget that even after his "redemption" he assaulted June. So how exactly is he the most understanding and kind person in the show, exactly?

Would you like to know who actually is the most understanding and kind person in the show? AANG.

The boy who found it in himself to forgive and learn to have affection for the dude that chased him around the world and almost hurt/killed him and his friends multiple times. The boy who found it in himself to forgive the nation that genocided his people enough to want to help them, teach them their old ways and bring them back to the light. The boy that found it in himself to spare Ozai, a sadistic, manipulative, abusive warlord that wanted to watch the world burn in an attempt to satisfy his narcissism. And may the record note that Iroh did not extended his own brother the same mercy. He believed Ozai needed to die, when Aang didn't. So Aang is more empathetic, understanding and kind that Iroh.

And do you know what Aang has to say about Azula?

That he believes in her ability to do good and be good. That he trusts her to do so. He could have had her executed. He didn't. He could have taken away her bending. He didn't. He could have said she's born evil and a bad egg. He didn't. He put in a good word for her. He said she did something good. That can be good. THAT'S what the actual most understanding and kind person in the whole franchise has to say about Azula.

"She smiles when-" So did everyone else and so does everyone ever alive when justice is served. Because for the audience, the event was unfair and traumatizing. But for the people of the Fire Nation it was justice. And it's only normal for people to be happy when justice is served. When a groomer goes to jail you don't think "oh, that poor groomer", you think "good, this piece of shit definitely deserved it". Similarly, in the Fire Nation, an imperialistic dictatorship, when someone disrespects their Firelord, which they worship as almost a god (if not more, bc we see them worship their Firelord more often than Agni), and that person gets punished they don't think "oh, that like boy", they think "good, this piece of shit definitely deserved it". That's not called "being a bad egg", that's called propaganda and borderline mass brainwashing.

"She mocks-" She's repeating what she heard from adults in her life. That's not being a bad egg, that's bad parenting.

"She tortures-" Not cannon in any way. We've heard that she threw bread at them. Not only was that told from Zuko's pov, who's known to be a biased narrator when it comes to Azula, but it's also not even that freaking bad. It's bread, when it hits the water it becomes soft. No one ever died because they got hit by a loaf of bread. And she doesn't burn them with.

"Her mother's comments-" Oh, you mean the "what is wrong with that child"? That comment? That comment that was thrown at a child after doing a very normal childlike thing? I used to to play execution with my Barbie dolls and beheading them by pulling off their heads and my least favourites would always be the ones that got executed. Kids break toys they don't value and/or like. Azula is not obligated to like or value a gift that wasn't for her. The doll was a gift for every little girl. It wasn't personal. It wasn't hers. She doesn't have to like or value it. She doesn't have to not break it. The only reason that she chose fire instead of execution is because she had fire handy. That comment Ursa made was absolutely not justified.

"She's never given an excuse-" Not only is this take proof that media literacy is dead, it's flat out anti-intellectualism. We see that Fire Nation schools brainwash kids by shoving propaganda in their faces and we know Azula went in a Fire Nation school. All that's left to do is put 2 and 2 together. It's 4. It's fucking 4. Azula was brainwashed in the Fire Nation school that she went to that brainwashes Fire Nation kids. Canon fact. Use your brain.

"Her vision of what she wants is twisted-" What, exactly, is twisted about wanting to be acknowledged by your family that is proud of you, being loved by your family that is supposed to love you anyway, and completing the mission you've been brainwashed into thinking is the right thing all your life? What is twisted about reaching expectations and having a happy family? I'll wait.

"We're supposed to sympathize with the spi- No, we're not. The spirit is very obviously a liar and a manipulator as we've seen throughout the whole damn comic. And it wants to eat her. The spirit is the villain of the story that has been continuously twisting reality to weaken Azula's ambition and will to fight back, so that it could kill her. By the end of the comic we're supposed to know that the spirit is a full of shit and we shouldn't trust what it says, since all it has said throughout the whole comic is lies. Not sympathize with it.

"Rationalizations of her behavior are believe yet unprovable and based on subtext." It's almost like she's not the main character. The show isn't going to take time diving into her background. They are going to only give us subtext and we have to use our critical thinking skills and come to a believable conclusion, as we do. Zuko loving Ursa isn't outright stated at the show at any point, but we know it's a fact because we see it in the way they interact. We know his mother matters to him because he thinks of her and misses her. That's subtext. And we know Azula is not to blame for the person she was bought up to be because Fire Nation schools canonically brainwash their students. That's subtext. You can't selectively decide that this subtext is enough to prove this point, but that subtext doesn't prove that point because it's not outright stated. That's called double standards.

"The show portrays her as being inherently evi-" The show? You mean the same show that didn't even portray the genocider, treacherous dictator (Sozin) and the abusive, manipulative dictator (Ozai) as inherently evil went out of its way to portray the manipulated, abused, brainwashed child as a bad egg? ...Sure. That's what happened.

"Mai and Ty Lee do the same stuff but are portrayed differ-" No, they are not. Mai is portrayed as somebody who abused the power they have over others, since she views ordering servants around as a fun activity, and as somebody who has no empathy towards their family, as she didn't hesitate to agree that her brother has less worth than a king. Ty Lee is portrayed as sadistic, since she's animated to smirk and sneer while taking down soldiers defending their homes. I think she even goes as far as to mock them at sons point, but take that with a pinch of salt. They are portrayed to be classist, sadistic, unempathetic people that only give a fuck about the select few and mystery everybody else. Y'all just refuse to see it because Ty Lee is cute and is constantly infantilized because of it and because Mai protected your lord and savior, Zuko, right after she was done being classist and unempathetic. They are not portrayed as better, you just go out of your way to portray Azula as worst.

"Even in LoK-" Azula is given Freudian Excuse. You just refuse to see it because, as opposed to Legend of Korra, the creators do not chew your food up and spit it in your mouth for you to swallow. You have to put the pieces of the puzzle together and make realization. Which can understandably be hard for people that have a brain the size of a peanut, like yourself.

"It feels weird for a show like Avatar to imply somebody was evil from birt-" It feels weird because it is weird and it is weird because it's something they would never do which is why they didn't do it. You literally just created this narrative inside of your head while understanding that it goes completely against the philosophy of the show. And now it's weird to you that it doesn't align with the show? Make it make sense.

This isn't asking for an Azula redemption arc (although "this fourteen-year-old who was acting under orders of a tyrannical fire lord can't be redeemed" seems incredibly harsh), this is just me wondering why the writers consistently, across mediums, refuse to suggest that she's even the slightest bit a product of her environment? But Zuko gets a pass for pretty much everything more or less? Alright then lol.

This is close to being the smartest thing you have said during this post. Unfortunately it is easy to notice that some of the creators just don't like Azula. That's it. That's the reason why. They don't like her and they don't want her to have a happy ending. So it's good that somebody else is riding this show now. Faith Erin Hicks, as we see from her comic, is not afraid to treat Azula as the victim she is, and is not afraid to lay the blame on the adults that failed her. As opposed to previous creators, she seems to be willing to apply the general philosophy of the show in Azula's character as well. Which is something she's able to do because Azula is not, in fact, inherently evil. She's a victim of abuse and a manipulated child that has done some very fucked up things but has all her life ahead of her to grow up and be better.

Give us a scene of Ozai molding her into the cruel person she is

Supporting and praising bad behavior is enabling it. A good parent would say "I understand that you were upset at feeling as though you were underestimated when you got efficient results, but it's important to keep your cool and respect your instructors since they have more experience than you. If you feel as though the inability of this instructor to stray from traditional paterns is holding you back, communicate that problem with me, and I'll find you a new teacher if it's necessary." Does Ozai do that? No. What does he do? Praise her. What will Azula do in response? Repeat the same behavior to receive praise again. What is that called? Nursing cruel/bad behavior.

Give us a scene of Azula being at least a normal child at some point.

Stealing sweets at a sleepover and recreating scenes from a movie/play with your sibling? I recall doing both those things as a child. We're talking about universal normal child experiences.

Don't vindicate her mother being cruel.

The narrative itself is not excusing Ursa. Azula herself goes to lengths to hold her accountable, actually. The only ones excusing Ursa's actions are Zuko, who's looking at her through rose colored glasses, because she's one of the first people to show him love, and he wants to sing the best of her, and the fandom, for the same exact reason.

Have Iroh say something slightly more insightful than "she's a crazy bitch leave her alone"

Personally, I don't value Iroh's opinion at all. I think he has to work through the issues that he obviously has with himself, instead of projecting those issues onto Azula, which is what he's doing. But since you care about his opinion so much, here's him saying Azula has the capability to find peace.

Here's an easy one: instead of smiling when Zuko got burnt, Azula looks visually horrified. That tiny, tiny change would've made her far more nuanced! It wouldn't be much, but not only would it make the fire lord's actions seem even worse, it shows us that deep down, she does--or at least, did--care! This is more in line with the show's themes and far more interesting than "she's just gonna be super evil hehe".

Here's the thing. Azula doesn't smile because she's just so "evil hehe". She's smiling because Zuko is receiving a just punishment for his actions. At least as far as she's concerned.

Think about it, in the Fire Nation they treat their King as a god. They pray/say an anthem/swear loyalty to the Firelord and the crown every single day. It should be needless to point out that nobody would question the actions of the Firelord. They would just assume that this is the correct course of action because this is what the Firelord is doing.

Azula not only is a subject of that Firelord but she is the daughter of her father. She was 11 when the Agni Kai. At that age, kids do not question their parents. The think things are right because the parents do it. If Dad is upset with Zuko, then Zuko must have done something wrong, because Dad can't be wrong, he's Dad, he's never wrong.

So both as his daughter and as his subject, Azula has been conditioned from the day she was born to think that he's always right. So when he decides to punish Zuko, that's just another instance where he's right. So why would Azula be upset with him for being right? Especially considering that if she were upset with him, it's possible that you would also receive a punishment for disagreeing with his methods.

So imagine you are Azula. You see your dad, who is always right, and is also your king, who is also always right do something. Anything. Do you think to yourself "Why would he do that? That's bad!" or do you think "He's right for doing what he does because he's always right."? She's under the impression that he's a just ruler and father, so why wouldn't she be satisfied at the sight of him rendering justice to the foolish subject that disobeyed? Especially when having a different opinion can result to being in danger?

Do we get anything from the answer to her personality being "bad egg"?

No, we don't. Which is why this isn't what they did. You just have a false idea of pretty much everything regarding Azula's character and how it was handled.

Thus proven.

[babybluebex]

Bex, please do further research on who Kamala Harris picked as her vice president. he’s not a good person. Quite frankly neither is she.

i usually don’t talk about politics here, bc like this is a fandom tumblr blog, people dom’t come to my blog for that, but this election is a very important election to me

and sure, maybe kamala is not necessarily a good person. i’ve done a little research on walz, and i like what i’ve found so far (although this has just been some basic research i did during my shift at work, not anything in depth, so on the surface he’s got my vote but i’ll def have to look more into him), but again, maybe he’s not great either. but who’s the alternative? trump and vance? because a third party candidate is NOT going to be elected into office. they just won’t. this country is a two party system for a reason. historically, third party candidates are NEVER a good choice, even if they’re absolutely in the right and deserve the vote.

the winner of this election will either be an outright homophobic racist bigoted fascist who is advocating for a dictatorship and essentially all of my rights as a mixed-race queer person to be eliminated. OR it will be someone who is not as blatantly evil as that. it’s as simple as that. either/or. again, it could be argued that some of kamala’s politics are not where they need to be, but this really is a battle between having my rights GUARANTEED to be stripped away, or even having a tiny bit of hope that i can maintain my life the way it is.

everyone says this for every election (and in my own research, tim walz seems like a perfectly fine candidate, kamala too, but idk i guess my political science degree didn’t prepare me to do research on presidential candidates) but this really is a lesser of two evils situation. and idk i wanna try to maintain an idea that there IS hope and our governmental system COULD find a little reform. and that hope lies with the democrats, no matter who they are, bc the republican candidate should not even be able to run, he is so corrupt. even republicans are turning against trump because of how severe he is.

so, yes, anon, i will continue to do my research on kamala harris and tim walz, but as far as i’m concerned, they can’t do anything half as bad as trump ever has, and, when november comes, that is who will get my vote.

[bestanimatedmovie]

Revenge of the Underrated

15. Help! I'm a Fish vs Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs

Vote in the other polls!

Propaganda:

Help! I'm a Fish

"It's a Danish movie from the early 2000s, so it already has that uncanny valley feel of being unfamiliar to the average American viewer, and is almost entirely 2D animated with 3D only used to help instead of being the main medium. It's about 3 kids that stumble upon this scientist's lair and the youngest of them, Stella, accidentally drinks a potion that turns her into an aquatic animal (a starfish for her) thinking it was Kool-Aid (or lemonade, depending on the dub). Her brother, Fly, throws her into the ocean not realizing that the starfish was his transformed sister and he and his cousin, Chuck, drink the potion (a flyfish and a jellyfish respectively) so they can search for her in the ocean. Along the way, they accidentally drop the potion into the sea which gives sentience to a pilot fish and shark, the main villains. They then start to administer the potion to any fish they find.

I heard about the movie from a Youtube review and then watched it for myself that night. It was super fun and I could totally see this being a fever dream movie from some unsuspecting 8 yo. Part of the reason I say that is because the movie isn't afraid to have its dark moments. Fly gets slashed by a crab and almost DIES. Chuck has to do a risky mission in order to get Fly and Stella back to the scientist's lair so he can turn them back. Stella admittedly didn't do much, but she's 4, she gets a pass. She makes a seahorse friend, so that's good. The parents of the kids track down the scientist in his lair and confront and are ready to beat him up before he manages to show them the video of Stella turning into a starfish (the scientist planned to drink the potion on camera to prove it works, but forgot he had to get the antidote, leaving the potion alone and getting Stella's transformation on camera). There's even a moment where you think Chuck's mom straight up (accidentally) stomped on Fly's fish body before you find out it was just a stuffed fish and Fly is a human again.

As for the villain, he was a fun little sleezy villain, immediately creating a dictatorship with his newfound intelligence (he had a whole song about it). And Fly uses that against him by tricking him into drinking more of the potion to become smarter. Unfortunately, the potion doesn't just give fish human intelligence, it MAKES them human, and the last you see of the villain is him drowning and floating away as a half-fish, half-man igor. Horrifying but so, so awesome.

The animation is spectacular, the voice acting is great in both English and Danish (plus Chuck is voiced by one of the dudes from Breaking Bad), and with actual peril for the main characters (I forgot to mention that they would be stuck fish if they didn't take the antidote in the next 24 hours). I'm definitely going to find a CD of this movie to show/traumatize my future kids + niblings. "

Really cool animation, really interesting storyline and fun songs that stick to your brain like a fever dream

Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs

Red Shoes is a Snow White retelling that features a plus size princess and teaches that it's who a person is on the inside that matters. It contrasts Merlin, the male lead, who is normally conventionally handsome but cursed to be a "hideous" (actually quite cute) dwarf, a form he's desperate to escape, with Snow White/Red Shoes who is normally an adorable plus sized princess (ie not the traditional beauty) who is trapped by necessity in the form of a thin traditional princess, a form that she's incredibly uncomfortable with. It's ultimately about being your true self, loving who you are, and looking past appearances to find the beauty that lies within. Also, Patrick Warburton is the magic mirror.

It's an adorable, sweet movie that deserves more people to know about it! It was so fun and funny that after I watched it the first time, I turned around and immediately rewatched it with my husband (like he came in during the last 5 minutes, and we immediately started it over).

[trivalentlinks]

🔥 - i'd like to order an unpopular opinion on leverage, please!

Sorry for the very, very late answer, but to make up for it, have two unpopular opinions:

The first one's a bit of a cop-out. I think it's the less popular opinion, but probably because most don't care that much either way:

I head-canon that Damien Moreau is actually a banker/financier, ie, his primary source of income is actually derivatives investments and market prediction, and all the buying countries, arms deals and other such clandestine activities is just to give markets slight pushes in the direction he wants. (I've previous talked about this here (my last reblog addition))

This opinion seems "unpopular" in that the more common reading is that he's a mob boss who just calls himself a 'banker' to make himself sound cooler than he actually is. Which I think is a totally valid reading, consistent with what we are shown in canon! Like, he's all about image, and it's totally believable that the entire financier/banker persona is just that.

One reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is, as I described in the other post, because I like the parallel with team leverage and their "alternative revenue stream". This is also why I like to head-canon that when Eliot and Moreau were starting out (after Eliot met Toby and left the PMCs with his newfound conscience), before things got bad, they actually did good--only destabilizing horrible, abusive dictatorships, using their alternative revenue stream to help people. The parallels are just so compelling to me this way.

Another reason I prefer the actually-a-banker reading is that it's more relatable to me. I know people who work as financiers (hedge fund/high frequency trading/crypto firm founders or high-level quants etc).

None of them (that I know of) would actually do illegal things to manipulate prices, but it sometimes seems like if they were a little less risk-averse, a little less ethical, who knows? And when they tell me about the people they know, people they describe as "if you took a person's stats and dialled 'ethics' all the way down to zero"... These friends think anyone too stupid to see through a cryptocurrency white paper deserves to lose their life's savings. So when they say someone has ethics dialled to zero, well. You don't wanna know.

On the other hand, I don't know anyone who's anywhere close to being a mob boss.

-

Here's a more genuinely unpopular opinion, in that I think most people believe the opposite, and actually do care:

I really like Jimmy Ford. I find the character very relatable and very compelling. I feel like a lot of people in the fandom just write him off as a bad father, but I don't think that's fair.

I talked a lot about this here (skip past the "..." paragraph; above that were my old early thoughts about Moreau, before I reformulated them to be my current thoughts)

As I mentioned there, I see in Jimmy Ford every parent who didn't understand their kid, but loved them, and as Jimmy said to Nate, that's more important.

Every parent who grew up at a different time, in another country, in a harder, less forgiving world, who wants to ensure their kid can survive that old environment, without realizing that that isn't the kid's world anymore, that their kid is actually thriving in this new world, the one their parents sacrificed to raise them in

Every parent who flipped out when their son decided to major in sociology instead of computer engineering, because they could never have made a living with a degree like that

(but he's going to do more than make a living with that degree; he's going to make a difference)

Every parent who constantly monitors their daughter to ensure she waits for marriage, because in the old country she would have been shunned or worse if she didn't

(but she's not there right? her parents worked and sacrificed and bled to bring her up in this more forgiving world)

Every parent who sits next to their kid for hours a day until they get their daily hour of piano practice done (and yells at them until they do every day, disturbing their neighbour, who's just trying to focus on doing her research and grading her students' papers, not that this is personal or anything), because the parent managed to survive and to move to this country by working relentlessly at everything they did and can't imagine a world where a 7-year-old is allowed to play and to find their own interests

(but they will, maybe not then, but one day, years down the line, they may even end up liking music)

Maybe it's that I'm a kid of immigrants who knows a lot of kids of immigrants, but I think I'm more forgiving of people who raised their children in a culture different from their own and struggled to adjust to that.

[buttercupblu]

one day, the clouds parted and an Angel tumbled down, falling all the way from the celestial sphere, but landing light as a feather in a bushel of white roses. she looked up at the sky—brushing off her darkened wings—and with squinting eyes, gazed at a kingdom so bright but so rigid and said with a calm breath, "well screw you, i didn't want to be a part of that snooze fest anyway." and promptly made her own Heavens on Earth.

(in no particular order...maybe)

one punch (OP)

jojo's bizarre adventure (JJBA)

jujutsu kaisen (JJK) (lowkey regret the day i pressed play on this🤭)

record of ragnarok (ROR)

eventually attack on titan (AOT) once i'm finished with it (Levi should've been in the harem 🧍🏾‍♀️)

Angel's Heavens and why she loves them:

🩷Buddha (ROR): this man is my Lord and personal savior—watch ROR if you don't know what i'm talking about. Buddha exudes peace in his every waking and sleeping moment but try him if you want to and earn a first-class trip to Nirvana 😘. his tongue game is BRAZY (you've seen the gif) and he loves to BITE. he makes sure we do yoga together every single morning to start our day and after making sure my back is nice and stretched out, he breaks it 🧘🏾‍♀️. but he always puts me back together with soft coos, humming purrs, and tender strokes. this man is my lock screen, my peace, my husband, my everything. i keep him fed and not just with food; he will never know hunger as long as i am alive 🤍

💜Geto (JJK): mymanmymanmymanmymanmyman. if Sugu asked me to have his kids, i would say "how many baby?" and i am clearly not mother material 🥴. my husband #2 that i would turn my back against the JJK world for in a heartbeat. he could call me a 🙈 and i would say thank you. in all realness, i get geto. i really do. my little alien, my little aquarius, he just wants justice at the end of the day—truly. not power, not dictatorship, just for things to be right, safe. there's something about his maternal instincts that lets me know he would take suchhhh good care of me—he's so careful, so understanding. i'd never have to lift a finger (except when i'm being a brat) and his Suave Commercial locs make me want to wrap them around my fist and pull. he has a face card that will never decline and baby, i keep on swiping 🤧|sidenote: i need his gender pls and ty

💜Choso (JJK): my pookie-wookie puppyboi boyfriend Cho, what would i ever do without you??? idk, there's something about Chosito that sets my motherly instincts on fire 🔥 . i want to love on him, nurture him, care for him, and absolutely reduce him to tears all in the same breath. he's such a family man, so full of love and kindness and security and i adore that about him. my soft and gentle man, i feel like he's a 70-30 sub-dominate switch but gIRL do not be fooled 😩—when that man loses all sense in that cute little pig-tailed head of his, you better have an icy pack and aftercare on standby 🧍🏾‍♀️

💚Josuke (JJBA): oooohmygAWD 😩 what isn't there to say about boyfriend #2, Josuke?? the hair, the moves, the suave looks, the no-bullshit attitude. besides Dio, baby invented jojo-posing like, kneel before your Leo king?? he's so cute and creative and such a quick thinker like omg part 4 had me STRESSED, but he gets his quick wits from his no-good cheating ass pappy 🤭. josuke keeps it real, calm, cool, and collected. he's a bit too forgiving (fk Okuyasu) but that's only because he has a 💗 bigger than his hair, and when im not spending hours styling it and getting him together in the morning, im daydreaming about his love, care, and cuddles i get every night. and if i ever hurt myself, he's quick to heal my boo-boos with magical kisses🤍

💚Narancia (JJBA): my silly little goof ball pup #2, omg he's so precious and innocent and deserves soooo much more 🥺. Narancia is just...pure unadulterated love in human form. he doesn't judge, he doesn't reject, he's a bit quick to anger but it's always deserved because look at him!! how could you be mean to such a precious little thing, he wouldn't hurt a fly (unprovoked). my baby's a little slow but what he doesn't have in genius, he makes up for with his heart. and that boy can dance and dress his ass off, lets fking goooo skintight leather steel-bone corset top 🗣️

🩷Sukuna (JJK): ok listen....hear me out...balance🧍🏾‍♀️. he brings balance. everyone else is muddled and normal, soft, or innocent but Kuna resides in the extremes, is the perfect polar-opposite of Choso, and rounds out the group with good ole fashion discipline 💪🏾 (read Exercising with Sukuna if you don't believe me). he's not my favorite to deal with because the man puts the ass in asshole bUT it's good for my soul to toughen up every now and then. if you want something done and you want it done right, ask Sukuna. he'll grumble and berate you the entire time but sh*t will get done and better than you ever thought it could be. .......he also has 4 arms, 2 dicks, and a stomach mouth—good fkin bye.

🩷Saitama (OP): he makes me laugh, there's not much more to say 🤣. the most normal out of the group and the most nonchalant. Saitama is literally my best friend who never takes anything seriously just like me. our favorite hobby we do together is literally grocery shopping and i will wake my ass up every saturday morning to be by his side as he spends way too much time comparing fruits and vegetables just to get the same things he does every time. he's also the strongest and would deck everyone on this list if it came to it (argue with the manga, not me 🐸☕️)

honorable mention: Levi (AOT) because this short king 👑 cares too much and gives no f**ks at the same time and has the best resting b*tch face/face card i've ever seen 🧍🏾‍♀️

🪽current fav fic written by Angel: God is Fair|Suguru Geto since you were young, you knew you were meant for each other. he comes into your life like a storm and grows closer no matter how distant you seem. he swells and captures your heart every time he's near. so why do you keep fighting him? angel's note: full of backstory, poetry, and tear-your-heart-out angst with one of the sluttiest, smuttiest part twos in existence

🪽current fav recommendation from another author: One, Two, Three (it's not only you and me)|STSG x Reader "what suguru is trying to avoid saying is the whole cliché of 'we saw you from across the bar and we really like your vibe'," the white-haired man says, gaze flickering down your body. he looks back up, making eye contact. "but it's true, so we were wondering if you'd like to join us for some fun," he says casually, blue eyes piercing. angel's note: and it comes with an AMAZING playlist yall wtf 😩🖤

🪽current fav song to write to: Cigarettes out the Window|TV Girl

🪽fav genres: [writing: nasty, slutty, toe-curling smutty smut, thrillers, enemies to lovers, coming of age]|[reading: psychological horror/thrillers🧍🏾‍♀️, silly goofy supernatural/sci-fy like John Dies at the End (an incredible series that will have you in tears from laughter, stg), dystopian fiction, fiction satire, coming of age/young adult, the classics (surprise)]

🪽hobbies: writing, reading, skating, graphic design, being outdoors as much a possible, being at peace

beats me 🤷🏾‍♀️

nah jk.

the real reason will forever remain a mystery, but i think it has something to do with connectedness.

the first major story i wrote was handwritten in the largest binder i could find in the 4th grade and was about fairies with elemental superpowers.

my first fandom was typed out on my mom's typewriter at her job and about 40/50 pages and was about the boyband B5 (shout tf out to you if yk who they are 🗣️).

both of these instances explored hobbies/interests that i was deeply into. i wanted to share my own take on these things that occupied so much of my time with others who also couldn't escape the clutches of favorites and fandom.

i also wanted to "escape" from a life i thought was dull and bland in favor of living in a world that was bright and full of color and literally in the palm of my hands.

now i do it just because i like to torture myself 🤍

i would create an entirely new world if i could, but i'll settle for pouring my heart out on tumblr

💗first and foremost, all of my characters are 18+. i don't really care for writing aged-up minor characters but when i do, it will be mostly fluff but they will be adults at the end of the day, especially when you consider real-world timelines.

💗smut: i know what you came here for 😏. this does include some more controversial dynamics like consensual non-consent (CNC), ageplay, petplay, power exchange (top, bottom, sub, dom, "slave", etc) rough play, but these writings will always come with tag warnings because everyone likes their tea different 😊

💗fluff: ofc everyone loves a bit of fluff. tis good for the heart to remember that you have one (not me though, y'all be safe)

💗angst 😈: there's nothing i love more than stirring the fictional pot. it hurts so good

💗long ass stories that are almost always projected to be under 8k but end up breaching 10k because i have no control over my life 🤠

💗i will write characters outside of my Heavens/top fandoms but i have to be familiar with those characters/show—keep that in mind in case i reject a future request

let's be civil little angels here

🚫hardcore gore/mutilation: love to read it but cannot write it. am baby

🚫unsafe fetishes: i am kink-shaming 💩, race play, STDs (god why does this need to be said), grApe, i n c e s t, necro, actual torture, etc.,

🚫cliche/exaggerated mental disorders: like saying someone who is very tidy has "OCD" or someone with mood swings is "bipolar"; those are incorrect stereotypes AND i am not licensed to give even fictional characters those diagnoses

🚫pregnancy: gasp, ik. but listen, i have no idea what it's like to be pregnant or have kids (other than my stuffies) nor envision that for myself because it does not seem like much fun 😅 and frankly, i don't really care for it as a plot point? i'd consider it maybe for a drabble request but no major plots

🚫anything else i may be uncomfortable with down the line. i don't have a lot of hard nos but people can get weird sometimes 👀

reblogs, likes, and comments = angel kisses and i have soft, plump lips so 👉🏾👈🏾

i'll eventually open up my asks for requests but this gojo fic (teaser here) is balding me and taking up alllll of my time right now. once they do open, i may be slow to fulfill requests but that's only because i care too much about making great content 🥺. until then, you can still blow up my inbox with reviews, recommendations, thoughts, nonsensical jibber-jabber, whatever; Come chat with the Harem

[koreanbibliophilegirl]

Personifications of Dream SMP Factions

Okay so I came up with this idea during my exams. (Exams always do something to my brain lol) I was thinking about Pandora's Vault as a hot butch, then I remembered this fic about L'Manberg personified, plus this fic about personified countries, and it somehow spiraled into this.

(This is all based on personal interpretation & recollection of DSMP lore, please don't come at me for getting things wrong!)

The rest of the post is under the cut:

I gave all the factions it/its pronouns, since they're manifestations of, well, factions. I think they would have other preferred pronouns though, mostly related to the faction's characteristics.

(For instance, Snowchester uses he/him pronouns because Tubbo and Ranboo are so close & act almost like one entity.(I know, I know, c!Ranboo uses they/them pronouns too, but idk I thought this fit...) On the other hand, Manberg uses he/him pronouns because it's a dictatorship and Schlatt operates the country as the sole mastermind behind it all. Pandora's Vault uses she/her pronouns because Pandora deserves to be a butch because while Sam is its warden, Pandora is, at it's core, different from what Sam himself strives to achieve.)

Plus, all factions have an inherent love for its' members/citizens, since any faction is a collective of its people. Except Pandora, bc y'know, she's a literal prison.

Also!!! every name mentioned is c!, not cc!.

-

L'Manberg- (it/they/he/she) Dressed in L'Manberg soldier attire. Looks like a mix of all the L'Manbergians. Hair is auburn, kinda curly, and wears red-and-blue tinted sunglasses. Has fox ears(?), braces, is boisterous and kinda overdramatic. Enjoys growing flowers, beekeeping, and baking. Follows the L'Manbergians around, Wilbur and Tommy the most. Pretty young, but gets older and more serious as the war drags on. Manifested in the drug van.

Pogtopia- (it/he/they/she) L'Manberg's other form. Hair is darker now(more like Wilbur's than a mix of everyone's), has eyebags, sunglasses are gone, and dresses darker. Looks like Wilbur mostly now, but near-exclusively follows Tommy around like he's a lifeline. Is not manic like Wilbur, despite looking a lot like him now, and recognizes how far-gone Wilbur is. It tries very hard to cheer up the rest of the Pogtopia people.

L'Manberg(new)- (it/they/he/she) Dresses in red, blue, yellow, black and white again(not the soldier attire, but the flag design is incorporated into its clothes), is scarred all over and sadder. Hair is blond now. Tried to follow Tommy to exile but Tubbo stopped it. Cries every day & grows weaker.

L'Manberg(post-doomsday)- (it/they/he/she) A ghost. Invisible to most now, new members of the SMP can't see it unless they're told about L'Manberg. And even then, it's very hard to see or recognize them. Tommy sees him clearly though, and she still follows Tommy everywhere. Even more scarred and wounded now. Sad and quiet.

Manberg- (it/he) Wears a suit, has ram horns, and face is completely featureless, no eyes or nose or mouth. Has dark, slicked back hair. Follows Schlatt around silently. Usually follows Schlatt's orders without complaint, but absolutely refuses to hurt anyone, even at the expense of being hurt itself by Schlatt. Tried to stop Tubbo's execution and ended up being blown up as well. Didn't die(since Manberg was still intact) but his featureless face gained a huge scar like Tubbo's. This scar stayed even after Tubbo went to Pogtopia. Exact age is difficult to determine, but is physically quite small.

the Butcher Army- (it/they) Dresses in black clothes with the Butcher Army standard bloody apron. Face is shaded and unremarkable, just one face in a crowd. Doesn't speak much, and when they do, it's just general Butcher Army stuff like how they're trying to bring Technoblade to justice, or whatever. Doesn't seem to have much personality.

Snowchester- (it/he) Young, younger than L'Manberg was. Looks a little like it too. Has snowy gray hair(a mix of Ranboo's black and white), goat horns like Tubbo, and is missing an eye like Michael. The other eye is wintery green. Dresses in snow clothes, a black-and-white bomber jacket and a pale green-blue dress shirt with a tie underneath. Is quiet, has a shy smile like Ranboo, and is generally quite innocent like Michael. He likes pranks and chaos too though, like Tubbo. It's a peaceful little thing, but if you somehow get him angry its eye will turn purple and his body will start giving off a pale, eery green glow like radioactivity.

Kinoko Kingdom- (it/she) Looks like her namesake, Komori Kinoko from My Hero Academia. (Specifically, Komori's powered-up version with the chubbier cheeks and visible eyes, not her normal, emo version.) Wears light flowy clothes in earthy colors, soft purples and blues and ruddy browns and greens. Loves taking naps in the sunshine, reading old books, and exploring the Kingdom. Tiny mushrooms sprout wherever it walks, which is usually just inside the borders of the Kingdom. She never really goes far beyond that. Also likes training & sparring, though it tends to be relaxed about it, treating it more as a sport than anything else. She's usually sweet and kind, but also a tad chaotic. Bit forgetful. Looks somewhere in its twenties.

Las Nevadas- (it/he) Also looks somewhere in its twenties, though it looks a bit younger than Kinoko. Gelled-back jet-black hair, classy dark green beanie(beanie like Q, green like Slime, dark bc Classy™️). Dress shirt, tie, suspenders. Lots of gold accessories. Has a few purple freckles on its face, and orange highlights in his hair. Maybe green creeper markings? Give the boi some neon splashes. Acts slick and confident(and kinda manipulative) like a businessman with outsiders, but is super nice and sorta anxious when he's only with his members. Cares way too much about its citizens, even though it knows Purpled doesn't like him. Low self-esteem. Usually follows Quackity. Q flaunts its existence to people & is genuinely very proud of his country, but is also slightly unnerved by his knowledge of Nevadas's real personality. He knows personified factions reflect its people and the ideals it stands for, but he isn't entirely sure what Nevadas's nervous, slightly obsessive disposition is implying. Also, Nevadas has a crush on Kinoko. Kinoko is a bit confused, but thinks Nevadas is cute, so she might as well go along with it. Nevadas puts on a suave & slick act with Kinoko, though Kinoko can see right through it. She thinks he's sweet and silly, and also maybe a little lonely. Q doesn't approve of them flirting so much, and tells Nevadas to stop visiting Kinoko all the time. Not that Nevadas listens.

the Eggpire- (it/they/he/w̴͚̮͒̇̓e̴̺̬͉̅̋) Demon with red skin, white glowing eyes, two huge horns of red diamond sprouting from its head, and flowing robes. Has a missing arm, torn-up fairy wings, a red gold medallion, and a cat tail. Looks like a child, but you can tell it only looks like one. Unnerving smile with sharp predatory teeth(also red), sweet & melodious voice, silver-tongued and manipulative. Upon closer inspection, you can see that their entire body, clothes and all, is made of writhing, pulsing red vines.

the Syndicate- (it/she/they) Nicknamed Syndi by her members. Electric pink hair with a black-and-white half-and-half streak, tied in a short, tiny braid down one shoulder. Large black angel wings and enderman horns(one black, one white). Wears fingerless gloves, the opposite color of the horn on that side. Blood-red eyes. Anarchist, obviously. Snarky and deadpan, but smiles a lot too, and is generally quite a warm and kind person. Is nimble & fast on their feet, and is a quick thinker. A wise scholar and fearsome warrior, a sharp-eyed strategist. Enjoys reading, baking, and dancing with its members. Looks like a young adult. +Also, I haven't decided whether the faction personification thing is a general occurrence or strictly a DSMP thing, but if it's a general thing, Syndi is best friends(and possibly in a QPR) with the Antarctic Empire(it/he, fully-grown adult, nicknamed Antares, AE emperor attire, blue-and-white bucket hat with a wider brim than Phil's, thin and pointy white gold crown, snowy-white longish hair with ice-blue eyes, one emerald earring, giant white wings and piglin hooves, loves the thrill of battle, enjoys reading & woodcarving, makes lots of deadpan jokes, would like to just retire already please and thank you).

Pandora's Vault- (it/she) Ah yes, the one who started this whole ordeal. Despite me imagining Pandora as a hot butch at the start, I changed Pandora to be a teenager! Albeit a butch & pretty teenager. Looks like a creeper mostly, like Awesamdude, but her torso is made of crisscrossing obsidian bars that resemble a prison or a really messed up ribcage. Usually wears enchanted golden armor on top of it though. Has long hair that looks like dark curling smoke with lava-like streaks running through it, and a gold head guard that kinda looks like a tiara. Has a gold gas mask too. Stickler for the rules, as expected of it, and scarily efficient with weaponry. She seems stoic and fierce on the outside, all rigid ideals and indifferent cruelty, but it's actually really desperate for peace and order. Would go to extreme lengths to enforce order. Dislikes Dream and Technoblade. Also doesn't like Ponk. While Sam feels guilty about what he did to Ponk, Pandora is quite vocal about her opinion that Ponk had it coming to them. Is uncomfortable with opening the prison cell for Quackity, but thinks it's for the greater good that he gets the Revive Book away from Dream. Not many hobbies, it spends most of its free time patrolling/guarding the Vault. She does like inventing though, usually things to improve the efficiency of the prison. Sam was surprised when she appeared, since he didn't think Pandora counted as a faction. He still treats it like a daughter though. She's daddy's little girl.

Greater Dream SMP- (it/they/he) A child. Really. It looked like Dream at first(at least, people assumed that was what Dream looked like behind the mask), with straw-blond hair, bright green eyes, and pale freckles. It gained new features every time a new person joined the server. When they grew up, they grew up suddenly, aging in shocking speed during the L'Manberg War. He settled as a sad, serious adult with a haunted look in his eyes. It stopped following Dream after he went further and further off the deep end, choosing to wander the land instead- keeping well away from L'Manberg(and later, other countries) of course. Slowly loses the features they got from people who abandoned the Greater Dream SMP to create their own country/faction. Eventually people stop seeing him and think he's disappeared, but he's still there, just lurking. It looks unremarkable now, with next to no distinctive features. They hang out with Eret in her palace and museum(they love the museum), visits multiple factionless members of the SMP, and greets/sends off Aimsey on their little pit stop in the server. When the server loops & resets, he resets alongside with it, and returns to his original form. It kept all it's memories, but it never says anything, choosing instead to give its people a fresh start, with a blank slate.

-

I probably missed a few factions, but this is all I could think of haha.

Also I accidentally posted this as a draft a few days ago, panicked, and privated the post in record time. This is a repost😅

[millerscoffee]

can i just say, wow. thank you? thank you again, thank you officially. from the bottom of my silly little heart, the community i've found here has been so welcoming and again i'm speechless with the mutuals and friends and love i've found here within a short amount of time. you all have been so welcoming to me – i really wasn't sure what i was doing when i made this blog and maybe still don't quite know. but it makes me happy that we've built a bond together. thank you so much, seriously. what the fuck? 💐 THIS IS FOR YOU

because of a milestone, i want to put requests open for small drabbles with these prompts i found from @glasswriter1 (thank you!)

this will last from august 27th - september 9th, 2023 and basically once one is assigned, i won't be writing another of the same prompt. i'll mark them off so you know! heeeere we go:

angsty prompts

“So this is it? This is where it all ends?”

“I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”

“Don’t come back for me.”

“I don’t think I can make this work with you anymore.”

“We could be together, but at what cost?”

“You knew this would break me,” X whispers. “That still didn’t keep you from doing it.”

“When you left, you took all my goodness away with you.”

“You want to do something for me? How about this?” X says. “Leave me the fuck alone and never come back.” (frankie morales x f!reader)

“I loved you so much and for what?”

“Please think this through. I’m willing to make this work between us,” X pleads. “Just one more chance, please.”

fluffy prompts

“Do you know how glad I am to have met you?”

“It’s crazy how everything makes much more sense when you say it.”

“Make me a playlist sometime, will you?” (frankie morales x f!reader)

“In another universe, we are not together, probably not even in the same country. And I’m glad that this isn’t that universe.”

“Do you know you mumble in your sleep?” X says. “It’s precious how it’s all either about stars, strawberries and rainbows or murder, arson and dictatorship. There’s no in between.”

“I never thought you’d agree to be with me of all people.”

“You make me want to be a better person.”

“My therapist asked me to make a list of all that I was grateful for. I don’t know but… every second bullet point is about you.”

friends to lovers prompts

“He/She/They can never give you what you deserve!” A says. “So who can?” B asks. “Can you?” “Yes.”

“All I can think about is kissing you when I shouldn’t,” A confesses. “You aren’t mine.” (steven grant x reader)

“I can’t tell you why I don’t want you sleeping with other people, I just know that I don’t.”

“I can never be just friends with you,” A speaks. “My heart would eat up my soul.”

“I look at you and see more than just my best friend. I see a hand I want to hold, secrets I want to protect, love I want to share,” B says. “I see my future.”

“I love you, I’m sorry.”

flirting prompts

Brushing hands under the table.

Stealing glances.

Blushing whenever the other laughs/smiles.

"Last night I fell asleep thinking about how you said you liked my dimples. I can confirm it was the best sleep I've had in ages."

Finding dumb excuses to hold each other's hand

"They should do a census count of all the cute people in the nation and you'd top the list."

Resting one's head on the other's shoulder while traveling together

Consciously staying close to each other in a room full of people lightly touching the other's face, brushing away a lock of hair, fixing their earring.

misc. dialogue prompts

"You look better in my clothes." (joel miller x f!reader)

"I don't think I'll ever get used to waking up next to you."

"If there's a god, I think they have your face."

"You make me want to be better."

"As long as I still know that you'll be around, I'm gonna be fine."

"Whoever has a problem with us can come fight me."

"I can't believe you fell asleep on top of me again."

"I've never felt better than I do when we're close."

"For the longest time, I believed that love was a myth. Then you came along and proved to me that myths can sometimes be real too."

"You're such a pain in my ass both literally and metaphorically."

smutty prompts (thank you @eloquentmoon!) – rating: 18+ MDNI

“Let me see those eyes.” (frankie morales x f!reader)

“Please kiss me.”

“Louder. Let me hear you.” (santiago garcia x f!reader)

“Do you want my fingers?” (joel miller x f!reader)

“Hands behind your back.”

“Swallow.”

“Breathe through your nose.” (joel miller x reader)

“Don’t hold back.”

“I want you to ruin me.” (javier peña x f!reader)

“Touch me there. Right there.” (jonathan levy x f!reader)

again, these will just be around 200-800 words (give or take idk). i typically write for joel miller, frankie morales, and javier peña, santiago garcia (hi oscar isaac fans) – but i don't mind branching out for these! din djarin, anyone? i also want to branch out into the oscar isaac cinematic universe (tehe), so steven grant, marc spector, jonathan levy, more santiago garcia. most of all, i want to make you lovers happy – i'm more than willing to try new characters for this! but please keep in mind, i do not write celebrities.

I FUCKING LOVE YOU LOT, thank you again. i'll never say thank you enough. ♡♡♡

[fostersffff]

The Big Gundam Watch, Part 14: Mobile Suit Victory Gundam

What a mistake it would have been for me to skip this series.

I observed in my last post that opinions on Victory Gundam seem more volatile than ZZ, and now I understand why. Like F91 before it, Victory Gundam is an attempt at soft rebooting the Universal Century, but obviously unlike F91, it had the chance to be a full, ~50 episode TV series. I can say with confidence now that this is the format in which Yoshiyuki Tomino is at his most powerful.

For better and for worse, Victory Gundam takes the essence of nearly everything that came before and refines it into a more pure, undiluted version of itself. I'm of the opinion that this works brilliantly for the most part, although when it does fall flat, it really hits with an echoing thud. Even so, Victory Gundam has usurped ZZ when it comes to my opinion on "the true successor" to 0079. A lot of that is down to executing on a most of ZZ's plot beats and character archetypes better, but it also adds some new elements that improve upon it as well. With that said, I can think of no better element to start with than with the belle of the ball herself, Katejina Loos.

CATEGORY 5 WHITE WOMAN

I have been thoroughly enchanted by the story of Katejina Loos. I knew, via osmosis, that she was a Bad Woman who does Bad Things, but I wasn't exactly sure what that really meant. That descriptor applies to characters like Haman Karn- who I love- Reccoa Londe- who I hate (affectionate)- and Michele Luio- who I hate (derogatory). She has a little bit in common with all three, because she's all the most stereotypical "evil woman" traits wrapped into a single character, but what makes that so engaging is watching how those traits get worse and worse and fucking worse over time, in a way that is kind of disturbingly mundane.

Katejina starts out as what I can most succinctly describe as a Privileged White Liberal; she's from money, but because she hates most of the wealthy people around her- including her own dad- she considers herself wholly different from them. Because of how they shuffled the first few episodes, her introduction is literally "I'm glad all those rich assholes died", glazing over both the grotesque cruelty of the situation because she thought they were bad people who deserved to die anyway and also that she is, in fact, one of those rich assholes.

At first she goes along with the League Militaire, mainly because there's nowhere else to go anyway, but she often bristles against most of the other members. This is because they pretty willing to point out that she's a rich asshole, but also more importantly because she disagrees with them using Uso as a pilot for the Victory. It's entirely possible this may have been amicably resolved- especially considering her initial attitude towards the Zanscare Empire is "they're obviously bad guys"- if not for her abduction by Cronicle Asher (who, by the way, may have The Most Tomino Name).

At this point I need to take a detour to talk about him, and how one of the other smartest things Tomino did was make Victory's Char completely unlike Char. While he is scheming against the Zanscare Empire's military dictatorship, he's a genuine believer in Mariaism- a matriarchal doctrine advocating for peace in space- and wants to elevate his sister (the titular Maria from Mariaism and Queen of the Zanscare Empire) from merely being a figurehead to the actual ruler of the empire. However, instead of subterfuge and betrayals, he's trying to change the system from within, doing his duty as a soldier with the utmost diligence so he can rise through the ranks, which will allow him to achieve his goals while not inadvertently destabilizing the empire (and thus Maria's access to power). He's maybe the most Straight-Edge Good Boy I've seen in a Gundam series, but unfortunately, all of that Good Boy Energy is being used in service of the genocidal military dictatorship. He regularly expresses distaste for the methods Zanscare's military regularly employs, but he carries out those cruel tasks anyway, because ultimately, the end will justify the means.

With all that in mind, Cronicle being the one to abduct Katejina is legitimately the point of no return for her. That genuine Straight-Edge Good Boyness of his endears her to him immediately, which leads her to reconsider what she thought of the Zanscare Empire; after all, Cronicle treats her with such a great deal of kindness and respect, so surely they can't all be bad. That one commanding officer even shot the subordinate who tried to feel her up, even! Combine that with the fact that the members of the League Militaire were mean to her, and that they have to use an innocent little baby boy like Uso to fight for them... maybe she was wrong about who the bad guys were.

I'll speed it along here, but what is essentially a corruption arc is on full display from this point forward. Slowly, she starts to integrate herself more and more within the Zanscare Empire's military, halfheartedly trying to justify what she's doing as "spying" to Uso and company until she doesn't even care to bother with that anymore, more and more convinced that Cronicle is just, and his plan to elevate Maria as the true ruler is for the greater good. The last act of kindness she musters for Uso is letting him know Shahkti and the others are safe, but the next time we see her after that is in a Zanscare dress uniform, and then later in the same episode, in a Zanscare mobile suit.

And once that threshold has been crossed, she continues to sink lower, going from "maybe we can just... capture Uso, and bring him over to our side" to "he's gotta go". And then she starts employing increasingly depraved methods of "he's gotta go", sliding from simply killing him in combat, to ordering the all-female imperial guard to fight him on foot and naked (or as naked as early 90's Japanese TV would allow) to try to fuck with his head, to finally faking a surrender after she's already lost everything so she can stab him, because fuck him.

If the League Militaire (and Uso as its spearhead) had just fucked off and let Zanscare achieve their goals, Cronicle would have eventually usurped the military dictatorship, given Maria the freedom to enact her will, and everything would have been perfect. It would've been like a fairy tale: she's swept off her feet by a handsome prince who enlists her aid to rescue to queen, and in saving her, they save the whole kingdom, and then they live happily ever after. The only minor caveat was the mountains of innocent corpses it was all built upon.

Uso- the innocent little baby boy no more- took all that away from her- the prince was dead, the queen was dead, and the kingdom had fallen apart- and rather than actually admit defeat or commit suicide, she instead continues to try to kill him, until her brain basically poisons itself as a self-preservation tactic- it's not the V2's Wings of Light that blind her, it's literally her own rage.

And, shockingly, that's where she ends up. Still alive, but unable to see the world around her anymore and with no memory of anything but where she lived. Karlmann's name evokes a memory she can't access anymore, which makes her cry for reasons she can't understand. Shahkti gives her a replacement compass so she can make her way back to Uwig and continue to live, and presumably just live... assuming Uwig has even been rebuilt, considering this series seems to take place within the span of a year (if Marbet's pregnancy is anything to go by). It's honestly a much crueler fate than I was expecting, but it's hard to argue it's not one she earned.

All of this is to say: it's possible I may change my opinion once recency bias wears off, but I think Katejina Loos is maybe my favorite single character in a Gundam show to date. A perfectly executed villainess, top to bottom.

And, you know, nice thick eyebrows, which is terrific.

Now that I've finished gushing, let's get to the normal segments:

THE STUFF I LIKED

This series is just ripe with Tomino names. Cronicle Asher, Maria Pure Armonia, Karlmann Dukatus, Junko Jenka, Duker Iq... and I would be remiss not to mention that while not explicitly said in the series, Marbet's last name is Fingerhat.

I adore the technology level of UC 0153. We've advanced forward from F91 and now goddamn near everything is beam-based; even things that aren't mobile suits use beams because the technology is so normalized. I'm also of the opinion that it's enhanced further by Tomino's obvious appreciation of the aesthetic of Pastoral European Landscapes and 20th Century European Cities; the visual clash of super futuristic robots and old-timey environments worked in F91, it worked better here, and I imagine it'll continue to be just as strong- if not stronger- in Turn A and Reconguista in G

I know on a meta level that Victory Gundam was pushed even harder than previous Gundams in the direction of MAKE TOY, which sounds like a nightmare creatively, but fuck if they didn't make it work. The in-universe justification for most of the wheel-based weapons is goofy, but damned if they don't make the Einerad (The Tire) one of the most devastatingly effective support units in the franchise. And, to be honest, if I had access to a toy as a kid that was just a cool robot inside of a wheel, it would've been, like, my favorite toy.

Plus, despite my noted dislike of the Zakrello from 0079 for being a Goofy Snake Ship, having most of the Zanscare's mobile suits have the dogu statue eyes that open into vertical slits is a great unifying aspect that is also super different from Zeon's monoeyes.

One of the coolest things about this series is how it flips the formula from 0079, Zeta, and ZZ with regards to setting. It starts on Earth, which frames space and the colonies as different and scary. Like, it was fascinating in 0079 to see the White Base crew react the way they did to a thunderstorm and other Earth phenomena we obviously take for granted, but here's it's like: hey man, space is fucking scary! I was genuinely anxious watching Shahkti and Suzy trying to get Karl and Flanders into normal suits.

This also extends to the finale taking place on Earth, which is a genuine first for the franchise. You'd think this would make things slightly less deadly overall, but man Cronicle goes out in a bad fuckin' way.

Following up on that: I love Angel Halo as the ultimate threat (with one caveat I'll mention that in the next section). "Total Human Regression as performed by Warhammer 40k's Golden Throne" is much more horrifying than what I was expecting (which was A Super Duper Space Laser), especially considering they showed what happens if everyone in an arbitrary area suddenly falls asleep, and that every time someone blew up a section of Angel Halo, civilian bodies would just FLOOD out.

I also really liked how the memories Angel Ring was evoking when Maria was trying to pacify Uso were just ever so slightly wrong, in terms of what the characters are saying. That's a very tiny detail to address in such a long series, where most people wouldn't even remember what was actually said as it was airing, but it's appreciated.

At this point I consider Tomino to be pretty masterful at a lot of things, but I think one of his strongest abilities is writing mascot characters who are good. Victory Gundam has a baby, a dog, and the most talkative Haro yet, and all three of them are great. Karl and Flanders are just a normal baby and dog who primarily either enhance hijinks or raise stakes, and Haro earns the extra lines it has by constantly being in MVP in bad situations.

THE STUFF I LIKED LESS:

It was dumb that they arbitrarily had Episode 4 as the first episode so they could show the completed Victory Gundam right away, and then spend the next three episodes framed with Shahkti going "well Karl, as you know...". I know this ties back to toys, but surely it could've just been written differently in the first place.

While I did like Zanscare's refusal to acknowledge the Victory, Hexa, and V2 as Gundams, I'm so mad they were mainly referred to as "the white ones" instead of "white devils". "The White Devil" is my favorite name for the RX-78-2 and I hate that it doesn't get used more referencing Gundams, especially in contexts like this.

So obviously from a series composition point of view it was never going to be the case, but I was bummed out that in-universe, Marbet was intended to be the League Militaire's ace and got sidelined due to her injury. This isn't such a big deal, because she contributes regularly and actually lives through to the end in what I would consider to be the best possible circumstances (Oliver is dead and instead she has Uso, Shahkti, Karl, and Flanders as a family), but it's was just like "aw no you're so much cooler than this dumb kid with a bowl cut!"

I straight-up don't like Oliver. He just shows up randomly but everyone knows who he is, he's revealed to be the commander of the Shrike Team (who actually are foreshadowed in an earlier episode!) but arrives without them for some reason, he has a strained romantic history with Marbet, and he gets a completely unearned Bright Slap shortly after showing up, which is already something I hate outside of its original context in 0079. Then despite denying it, it really seems like he shacks up with Marbet because Junko died and she wins by default, and then after nutting inside he just killed himself in spectacular fashion, achieving nothing. Fuckin'... bad vibes, all around.

Lupe Cineau, huh? My complaint here isn't that she's a weird pedophile, bur rather that she really shouldn't have been? Her introduction is that she's a Stone Cold Bitch, murdering the guys in the bar she just got information from when she first shows up. And her tactic to try to seduce Uso into joining up with Zanscare seemed less like "oh my, a cute little boy, I know exactly what to do..." and more of a dismissive "he's like 12, all I need to do is show hole and he'll be in our pockets forever". Like, 'she fails at seducing a 12 year old because she's too much of a Stone Cold Bitch' is the point of that entire scene! Statistically, not every antagonist could be a quality one, but it felt like they just scrambled to figure out how to reintroduce and get rid of her, and the bath scene was the most memorable thing about her, so: pedophile.

There sure is a lot of biology in this series! Most of it has to do with Karlmann, naturally, but I was taken aback at the scene of Shahkti washing the diapers in the river and you see his poop get washed away. Odelo pissing himself and it filling up the bottom of his normal suit was gross but like... kind of informative on how that works? But then the scene where Cronicle redirects Suzy to the bathroom when she sleepwalks to pee in the hallways was just... eugh.

I don't know why they felt compelled to allude to the threat of Angel Halo's psycommu physically degenerating people as well. "Everyone on Earth will mentally become an infant, and if they don't die in the initial collapse of infrastructure that causes, they'll eventually starve to death because they lack the capacity for self-preservation" is scary enough!

I can't really begrudge Tomino for reusing it, because it's a powerful scene, and Karl was much more important to this story, but the fact that Karl has the same origin story as the F91 baby was just like "you can't just do that again, man". It's not even as good a moment because the pilot intentionally shoots down Karl's mother, versus F91 baby's mom just accidentally getting brained by a spent shell. They're even wearing similar outfits!

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

I've read that this is, or was at the time, Hideaki Anno's favorite Gundam series, and lines up with when he would've been making Evangelion- and I definitely think he cribbed some things. As soon as I saw the episode title "Beneath the Ultra-High Altitude Attack" my eyes narrowed, and I can't be convinced that Arael wasn't inspired by the Zanneck and Fuala's mental instability. Also: Angel Ring and Human Instrumentality and the associated Christian imagery.

Speaking of Fuala Griffon, she is Victory Gundam's winner of the "fucking insane fit" award, wearing an oversized suit and porkpie hat while riding a dirtbike with the biggest case of resting bitchface I've seen since Monsly in Future Boy Conan.

I kind of regret learning about trigger discipline (keeping your trigger finger extended along the side of the barrel of a gun until you're actually going to fire) because now it's one of those things I look for everywhere, but in this case I do think it's the second most telling detail about Cronicle's character. The other being the fact that Flanders is cool with him.

Speaking of Cronicle and guns, for however out of character it may have been I was hootin' and hollerin' when Shahkti stole his gun and shot him.

Final note on Cronicle: My favorite thing about his mask that I only realized in writing this post is that it's the inverse of Char's, covering everything but his eyes and hair.

I really like the Eyecatch Flipbook they must have made to include as an extra for the laserdisc release of the series, but it does kinda... disrupt some things. Most notably in the last episode where you get the very violently abrupt shot Cronicle slamming into a piece of Angel Halo before cutting to HARO WORLDWIDE with the cute little jingle.

I legitimately thought Maria's demonstration where she healed the sick was staged. Like, it would be revealed that Maria was a low-level Newtype with some genuine power, but all the people who claimed to have been healed during that demonstration were crisis actors designed to make the public fall in line. In hindsight, I don't even know if "crisis actors" was a concept anyone had ever thought of before the turn of the century.

I alluded to it in another post, but due to the scant few memes that have circulated about this series, I was shocked to learn the Shrike Team were protagonist-aligned. I thought that they were the ones who did the Bikini Bazooka Attack, because a second faction made up entirely of beautiful women just seemed unlikely, and I kept trying to figure out at one point they were going to turn on Uso, especially considering most of them are dead before the halfway point.

I'm really proud of the image I used for the header, and was initially planning on doing a full video of the clip, but video editing is hard. Then I was going to photoshop in more characters' faces but I didn't want to hunt for images of the right angle for that many characters. But that was a really good Shahkti face, so I left it in.

IN CONCLUSION

Victory Gundam is without a doubt my favorite of the Tomino-directed TV shows thus far, and in the upper eschelon of favorite Gundam shows. For however much he hated doing the series and may still hate it in hindsight, it's not like he just phoned it in. It's got a good cast, good conflict, good mobile suit designs, and despite a massive kill count and some really fucked up parts, it doesn't strike me as being particularly edgy or even mean-spirited. It's absolutely not going to hit the same for everyone, but I think if Tomino's other Gundams clicked with you, it's more than worth a shot.

Next up: considering I've already watched the next two entries in chronological order, I'll be moving ahead to the third Gundam OVA series, The 08th MS Team, notable for being the first new entry in the Universal Century timeline following G Gundam and Gundam Wing and for often being recommended in the same breath as War in the Pocket. Considering how that turned out, I'm optimistic that this will also be good, and if nothing else, it's sure to have that 90's Anime OVA budget going for it, much like Stardust Memory.

[thisgirlnamedblusy]

Hiii!! Can i request a fic where student!reader is taller than marilyn (she’s only like 5’1 haha) and she just teases marilyn for being short despite her being older than the reader. I don’t really have a plot but itd just be cute and fluffy. Thank you!!

Yesss, here it is!!! I hope you like it, even it's a bit short!! Sorry about the language mistakes!!!

The shorter, the better

Pairing: Marilyn Thornhill x Fem, Student! Reader

Warnings: Fluff

Word count: 1,761

Summary: You love being taller than her, and you fin it so funny sometimes…

 N/A: Requests are open!!! Sorry about the delays, I’m working hard on your requests. I love you all!!!

You were sitting at the library, preparing for your literature test. You hadn't slept well for several nights and all you did was yawn. Probably if you didn't spend your nights making out with your botany teacher, you wouldn't have any trouble sleeping.

It was something improvised, that no one could see it coming. Little by little, that trust you had with Marilyn Thornhill turned into something more than a friendship. You never asked why, or if she felt comfortable kissing a student. Certainly you didn't care much if it seemed good or bad to her, the point is that those shy encounters in the corridors, in the conservatory or in her room didn't stop.

You didn't even know if you were girlfriends, lovers or friends. You didn't know and you didn't want to know. As long as Marilyn didn't say anything about it, you could imagine whatever you wanted, and that was really, really funny.

You were almost the only person in the library. There was no people around you and that made you even more bored.

The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs distracted you from your "funny poetry study" and you looked up the stairs curiously. Your salvation slowly descended. Marilyn.

She looked around her and smiled as she spotted you, approaching you.

“Good afternoon,” she said, sitting next to you. You looked at her with a frown.

“Good afternoon?” You asked, joking. She sighed and nodded.

“You never know who might be listening behind the shelves,” she whispered to you, with a mysterious tone, as she took a stack of papers out of her bag.

“ You paranoid, ahem,” you said between coughs, dissimulating. She raised her eyebrows and shook her head.

Of course she was paranoid. She felt like a delinquent, loving a student, kissing her, biting her neck at night and whenever possible. You didn't understand that shy and reserved attitude she had with you during the day, but it was worth having a little patience. The nights were wild and full of passion.

“What are you doing?” She asked, pulling out a pen as well. You snorted and pointed to the huge literature book you had on the table.

“To die terribly of boredom,” you whispered in a very low voice, seeing that the librarian was walking near you.

“You are very exaggerated,” she whispered in your ear. Your hair stood on end when you noticed her breath. She always got those reactions.

“Exaggerated? Try to study all of this stuff without falling asleep, it's a challenge, I assure you,” you said, yawning again.

Silence returned to the library. She seemed to be marking tests, including yours. Your height allowed you to see well over her shoulders. Naturally when she realized it she put her arms on top of the paper.

“Don't look, that's cheating,” she told you, giving you a nudge. You smiled and shrugged.

“I deserve an A, you know that,” you joked, following the old librarian with your eyes, who imposed the particular dictatorship of silence without any mercy.

“You are very sure of yourself,” she whispered, winking at you.

You started playing with the pen, making funny faces at the redhead, bewildering her. She shook her head constantly, but she couldn't help but smile. There was a moment when Marilyn's hand reached under the table, grabbing yours and caressing it. You enjoyed those little clandestine gestures of affection. They made your heart beat too fast.

“Oh, my God,” She sighed, letting go of your hand and getting up.

“What's wrong?” You asked.

“Wednesday Addams. She always goes beyond what I ask of her,” she grumbled. You laughed, you knew your classmate well and you knew that if she wasn't the best at everything, she wouldn't be able to breathe comfortably.

Marilyn went to a nearby bookshelf, looking for a book. You looked at her funny, wishing that what she was looking for was out of her reach. You smiled victoriously as she reached for her hand to reach for the top shelf, naturally to no avail.

You couldn't help a little laugh, which obviously caught the attention of the redhead, who looked at you with eyes of fire. You dodged that poisonous glare and pretended to read the boring book you were studying.

When you thought the danger had passed, you looked sideways once again at a desperate Marilyn, who was beginning to take small jumps to reach that desired book. You laughed again, now more shamelessly.

“Do you mind stopping…?” She said aloud, earning the librarian's menacing look.

“Shh!” The old woman said, then returning to the newspaper she was reading. Marilyn rolled her eyes and surely she was struggling not to say an expletive. She looked at you again.

“Would you mind to stop laughing and come to help me?” She said, now in an almost inaudible whisper. You blinked rapidly, smirking, and moved closer, looking at her curiously.

“What's the problem?” You asked in a mocking tone, with your hands behind your back.

She grunted and pointed to the top of the shelf.

“I need that book,” she told you, hissing. You frowned and shook your head.

“Which one?”

“The dark green one,” she told you, beginning to lose her patience.

“Oh, that one…, okay…” You said slowly, reaching out a little to grab it. The redhead sighed in relief and she extended her hand towards you.

“Great, give it to me.”

You went to do it, but at the last moment you pushed the book out of her reach, raising it above your head.

“What are you doing? Stop fooling around and give it to me now.”

“I'm giving it to you, just take it,” you continued to tease her, causing her to press her lips together and move her arm awkwardly, to no avail, of course. She gave up, understanding what your game was about.

“Okay, (Y/N), what do you want?” She whispered to you, hiding it as best she could. The old witch was watching you.

“I want to kiss you,” you whispered, keeping the book out of her reach all the time. She opened her eyes and looked everywhere. Always so cowardly, you loved her.

“It's not the time, nor the place,” she told you, dragging her words. You shrugged, smiling wickedly.

Marilyn snorted and looked around again.

“Come,” she told you, grabbing your free hand and taking you to a more secluded place. Once behind a dark hallway, she put her hands on her hips and leaned into you, standing on her toes. You closed your eyes and accidentally lowered your guard.

Before her lips brushed against yours, she reached out her hand, managing to snatch that book from you.

You looked at her annoyed and crossed your arms.

“That's not fair,” you said, indignant. She smiled victoriously.

“Says the same one who takes advantage of the fact that I'm short,” she told you, leafing through that manuscript on carnivorous plants.

“Oh, I'm not taking advantage… I was just having fun,” you said, sighing, leaning against the wall.

“Does my height amuse you?” She asked, pretending to have been offended.

“Well, a little,” you said, playing along. “You have to admit that it's funny that you're so short being… Well, being older than me.”

Marilyn's jaw dropped and she shook her head.

“Oh, now you say that I’m old, fantastic,” she said, almost growling.

You shook your head, afraid that she might have misinterpreted your words.

“Oh, no, no. I didn't mean that,” you said a little nervous, gesturing with your hands. “It is just that…”

Marilyn rose back onto her toes, her hand gently stroking your cheek. She kissed you before you could react, and that kiss melted you so much that you let yourself go, grabbing her waist and pulling her body against yours. When she pulled away from the kiss, she came off her tiptoes and hugged you, her head resting a little higher on your chest.

It seemed like you were making fun of her, but you weren't. You loved having her in your arms, like something fragile, like something that had to be protected. That's what you wanted, you wanted her to feel safe by your side. You were completely crazy about her, you couldn't hide it.

“Hey, Marilyn,” you whispered, stroking her hair. She looked up, smiling and resting her hand on your chest.

“I wasn't laughing at you, I promise,” you said, staring at her and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I know, honey,” she told you, with a reassuring voice. “I like being short, I like that you protect me with your hugs.”

“You're adorable,” you said, smiling warmly. She smiled and leaned up again to kiss you.

If you continued like this, you would lose control soon. A slightly uncomfortable tension was building and you didn't want to lose your mind and put it on a table to unleash your deepest desires. You came up with the best way to put out the fire that had been fanned inside you, the only way you could.

“Hey, what do you think if we stop doing these boring things and go to your room to…? Well, for you to show me that pretty book…” You whispered, bending down to her ear.

Obviously she hesitated at first, but it didn't take her two seconds to bite her lip and nod, going to the table to collect her stuff.

Making sure no one was looking at you, you walked down the corridor where the teachers lived until you reached her room. You really didn't expect her to accept your lewd proposal, it was a very unusual time. You didn't want to think about it anymore either.

Marilyn opened the door and rushed in next to you, closing it immediately after.

Her eyes sparkled with desire, just like yours. But you needed to do something first, something you always wanted to do.

“Wait, wait,” you said, stopping the passionate kisses that she was giving to you. She looked at you strangely, looking at the old clock that it was hung on the wall. Without giving her time to think, you took her in your arms, feeling powerful, a chivalrous lover.

“(Y/N)…” She said between laughs, while you took her to bed without any difficulty.

“I promise you it's not a joke. I always wanted to do this,” you said, leaving her lying on the bed and leaning on one of your arms.

“Great, you've made it, now I want you to always do it...”

[elliewiltarwyn]

What was it like for Mia going back to Garlemald and seeing it in the state it’s in? And I think she’s friends with Jullus, if I’m remembering correctly. if so, what was it like for her to see him again?

hooooh my god Ube do you know how many words I've written about this precise subject. it is literally the second-longest document in the scrivener project.

maybe one day i'll actually post that part of the fic lmfao. but for now i can rant about what's in it i guess, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to :D

TL;DR: SHE DOESN'T HAVE A GREAT TIME

The whole core of Mia's personal story is realizing the evils of the imperialist, colonialist ways of her country, how she benefited from that as a citizen and how her family actively contributes to it, and how she gets the fuck out of dodge and figures out how to fight back against it. Something she didn't expect, though, is how distancing herself from where she used to live figuratively and literally let her somewhat dehumanize where she came from. It was very easy for her to convince herself once she was out that Garlemald deserved anything she brought to bear against it as a Warrior of Light, that it deserved whatever wounds the Alliance would inflict whenever it managed to fight back. It was a little easy for her to forget that she grew up next to a nice guy named Jullus and helped him babysit his siblings and had a Totally Normal Childhood Friendship with him (...albeit one built on the luxuries that can only be secured by an empire bent on conquest).

(I would like to confirm that I put together her backstory - her father being Aulus mal Asina, her growing up basically smack in the middle of the capital - before Endwalker actually came out and confirmed there literally was a district where loyal R&D engineers were awarded estates smack in the middle of the capital, and that there's a boy roughly Mia's age who lived there. If I didn't know better I'd say Jullus was hand-crafted and served to me on a silver platter to be the "childhood best friend" that helped me put the rest of that backstory together. :V)

When the contingent starts forming and all the people in charge keep affirming "we're not going in as invaders, these people are victims," it sort of slaps her across the face how much she's forgotten she grew up among real people with real depth to their lives, and seeing what the Telophoroi have done to other civilizations, she suddenly feels sort of... hollow. When they get to Garlemald and look out at the ruined capital beneath the Tower of Babil, she gets a twisting sensation in her stomach and she starts feeling sick. Her initial thought is "I wanted Garlemald to fall, but not like this" - and then she feels even worse for wishing a fate like this on people she knew. She starts having to reckon with having dehumanized Garlemald's citizenry, the bas's and cen's and aan's and even many of those above who still held no real power in their military dictatorship, as much as Garlemald decried Eorzean peoples as "savage."

Because if she had stayed, how likely is it that she would act any different from the Garleans that now hurl curses and wish death upon the Ilsabard contingent and the Warriors of Light? Not very. That's proven very decisively when her childhood best friend suddenly turns up.

When they find Jullus, she grows even more bitter, because she had started to cling to a little hope that maybe he had the same realizations she did, or maybe that he did so even better - that he didn't forget his own humanity. She's certain he had it in him, knowing how kind he was from growing up together. Finding that he's deep in the nationalistic sauce makes her feel even more wretched.

She wants to genuinely help the people she grew up with, but that's clashing with how lost in that sauce they all are. She bites her tongue when Jullus lashes out at her and calls her viator (<-oh look a small amount of foreshadowing for Zenos later being so branded :V). She doesn't rise to Quintus's bait. She just keeps moving forward, doing whatever the Ist Legion demands of the Eorzean envoys, and jumps headlong into the pool where once upon a time she and Jullus watched his siblings splash around in order to pull out the ceruleum heater. She doesn't expect Jullus to change his spots, thinking him as ruined as the city they're in the middle of...but then he starts to. That little hope starts flickering within her again, and it would make her so happy to see it realized. She doesn't miss her parents - she's long since written them off as inextricable parts of the Garlean war machine, and long since reckoned with killing her father in particular. But if her old best friend can come around...

But he continues to carry out Quintus's orders. His thumb wavers above the trigger that would seriously injure the twins that she thinks of as little siblings. She fixes him with a cold glare as he marches her and Ellie back to Camp Broken Glass. When they learn what happened to his family, she demands to know whether their sacrifice was worth Garlemald's pride. He punches her in response - Ellie has to pull them apart.

She sees her friend careening towards the precipice, and she doesn't know if she can stop him. And then the legion loses their bargaining chip, and he orders the ambush on the contingent - and she lunges at him and wrestles him to the ground. She can't take this anymore. She could easily write him - and Garlemald - off here. His neck is within her grasp. But instead she practically screams into his ear that "you're better than this!" And the force of those words put a halt to the ambush, and she goes on, furiously blaming the imperial ideals that brought them here - "those ideals don't give a damn about you and you deserve better!" That's the realization she had so many years ago, and she tries with all her might to impress it upon the friend she knew and loved.

Everything else kinda plays out as usual from the MSQ: Lucia gives Quintus the Xth Legion's message, and Quintus releases the Ist from their duty. But on the fringes of the camp, having all this thrown in his face is too much for Jullus and Mia.

And Ellie awkwardly comforts them both as best she can as they sink into each other and weep for everything they've lost - though there might be the small hope that, with things the way they are now, they might be able to start patching that friendship back together.

[censorious-asshat]

"The fate of the world is in your hands." What a load of crap. All the choices that had anything to do with it were made for me. I lost all the ability to do anything good for this place on my my own accord once he said that. It's so tiring getting all the praise and all the blame for everything that happens in the harsh world. And the war is almost over, but not for me. This pathetic title of the chosen one will follow me everywhere and haunt my very existence till the day i become one with the sky.

All this effort, stress, torture, and pain, just for the exiled princess to become queen. Could i not become the queen. After all, i just saved the nation from the dictatorship that ruined the nation for a century. The choices that i made are the ones that will shape the political future of this place. I deserve that throne more than the worthless princess.

She isn't even all that. It's not that I'm jealous. Imagine the throne being placed into the hands of a meek little bitch who was exlied because she was caught wearing her moms jewels in the stable boy's bed. She is frightened of everything and still is processing everything.

The throne is the last thing on my mind, though. It's the least i deserved. I spent the last 6 years of my life doing someone's bidding for this nation, and im just 22. The years of my life i should have spent learning and growing were instead spent on quests that i mostly faced near death because of, and i dont get anything from it. All that will be left of my legacy will be that i was the chosen one who wasn't chosen at the end.

"The fate of the world is in your hands." You know what, it is. The fate of the world is in my hands, and i will change it. I will change it to fit what i want and what it deserves. And i will do whatever i can to make this true.

I, Mira Kashyap, will grab the reigns of the future and carve it into what it deserves.

[shinidamachu]

As someone who is not well versed in Brazilian politics, may I ask what change do you want to see with the new presidency? Thanks. ☺️

It's less about structural change and more about going back to normality.

The first thing you need to understand is that Brazil just lived four years of literal fascism. A less explicit version of fascism, but fascism still. And so, the bar for the next government is underground low.

All I want is a president who won't pick up people with dwarfism thinking they're children.

Twice.

Someone who won't steal somebody else's dog and then having to return it to its rightful owner.

A president whose environmental policies aren't reduced to "only pooping every other day..."

...Or getting beef with Hollywood celebrities.

I want a president who won't have to eat pizza on the streets of New York city because no restaurant would allow a non vaccinated person to go inside.

Someone who won't ask what golden shower is. On his official Twitter account.

Or encourage a crowd to chant "imbrochável," a slightly vulgar Portuguese word that translates roughly to "never limp," to himself.

I dream of a president who can eat like a normal human being.

And who won't send a humorist to a press conference just to fuck with the journalists and take focus away from our pathetic economy "growth."

I'd honestly settle for someone who won't gratuitously offend the First Lady of France.

Or who won't wait hours in a hall to say "I love you" to Donald Trump just to get blatantly ignored.

A president who won't salute other countries' flags.

Or neglect international obligations in order to cut his hair.

Most importantly, I want a president who, in the middle of the worst pandemic of recent history, won't offer an ineffective medicine for covid to a fucking emu.

I purposely kept this relatively funny, but the sad truth is that Bolsonaro is military scum. He defends the Military Dictatorship Brazil was under (1964-1985) to this day.

He has openly said he's a torture enthusiast. He has told a woman he wouldn't rape her because she doesn't even deserve that from him. He has said there was "a mood" between him and some 14 years old girls he met. He has lied about indigenous people indulging in cannibalistic practices, stating that he'd eat an indigenous man himself, no problem.

Bolsonaro is a negationist. Of the pandemic, of the vaccines, of the climate changes, of our very history. He called covid "a little flu," mocked people wo died due to the lack of air, neglected buying the vaccines, said he wouldn't be responsible if the ones who took the shot turned into alligators, constantly fought against the use of masks and the implementation of lockdown.

To him, the Military Dictatorship of '64 wasn't a dictatorship at all and it should have killed more people. When he was a congressman, he voted "yes" to impeach president Dilma Rousseff, while paying tribute to the man who tortured her in that very same dictatorship se fought against.

He has made easier for people to get guns. Women, LBGTQIA+, black and indigenous people everywhere didn't feel safe anywhere anymore because police brutality and bigotry escalated to alarming levels. Under the first three years of his administration, Amazon's deforestation rate rose 73%.

And to top it all off, this has been the most corrupt government since our redemocratization, but nothing is investigated because Bolsonaro is actively interfering on everything just to save his and his sons' asses.

After years of him putting our electoral system in check and saying without any proofs that the whole thing is rigged, his supporters are blocking important avenues, protesting against his loss even three days later and calling for a fucking Military Coup.

So yeah. I just want normalcy back.

[teensadventuresstudio]

The story of Pommel Creed (P.Creed welcome home -Assasin's Creed)

takes place in renaissance, in Italy, where a young man named Wally Darling lives, he has a sister named Julie Darlin and his two brothers, the oldest Jon darling who always got into trouble and his younger brother Beau Darling who loved collecting feathers.

Everyone loved Wally, he was seen as a king, everyone surrounded them .... but the King of France became jealous, because Wally was loved by everyone and everyone said that he should be the king, Wally was always very Humble and Charitable, his heart was bigger and he was not bitter, he always forgave everyone. until one day the King found out that the Serpent Clan, a rival house to Wally's house, died of envy of him, because they possessed valuable relics that were hidden inside the house, so the coveted king also proposed a deal with the Serpents, kill Wally and bring his family to strength and these relics, that I will make them sick and not kill them for it, and that happened, they surrounded Wally's family.

Wally y went to the secret room to get the family relic, as his father had asked for the ceremony of passage so that his brother Jon would now be responsible for the job of serving the house and be the next to inherit the Snitch Family Farms, the golden snitch was the most used relic at the ceremonies, he put it in his pocket, but when he left he saw that his parents were caught and his 2 brothers too, he tried to make his sisters flee to the house of the friend of the family while he took the time to bring the people of the Clan of the serpent, however he was kidnapped, they spaced him until "death" leaving his left eye blind with an X-shaped scar and they hanged his two brothers and his father, already his sister and mother fled to his family friend's house desolate by the deaths.

3 years passed.... and Wally woke up, he didn't know how he survived, he just tried to find the relic but it was gone, those idiots took it, he then took his necklace from his father who gave it to him, a gold necklace in the shape of an ancient apple coat of arms, he held it tight.... so he tried to return home, he was received by Boris who said that his 2 brothers and his father had been killed, that the cities were taken by the clan and that many are being killed for this, Wally's life fell to the ground, he couldn't stand to hear that, he wanted justice, he wanted the blood of his enemies, he wanted to free his city and what was left of his family... so the friend, seeing the determination of the boy, decided to teach him about his family's secret, the art and of being a "pommel Punisher", he then improved his stealth and combat skills with a friendship to give justice deserved to the death of his family and his people.... he was no longer Wally but the fearsome Eks Wally the Punisher of the pommel.

(i spent a little bit on assassin's creed - ezio auditore)

Eks Wally: all his enemies call him Eks Wally, this nickname stuck in the city, everyone loves Eks Wally, Eks Wally is a great vigilante, he tries to help the city to re-establish itself, and regain justice for the family, stop this Dictatorship of the king and recover the stolen relic, he is a stealthy and skillful assassin, all his enemies fear him, he has his qualities intact ... but he messed with his family with a flaming sword.

Julie Darling: julie is her younger sister she is only 5'56" tall she is petite but very strong and protective of her siblings, she is determined and can be stubborn at times, she always prioritizes the well being of her siblings can get upset when they try to get into something bigger than them.

Boris: Boris is the best friend of the loyal family, wise and attentive, he is not the main character, but he is the tutor and great master of the family's Punisher arts, he always helped Wally's father, Ezio, in his travels and combats, and now he is passing the sword to Ezio, so that he can get justice for the family and save the City from Dictatorship, he is always calm, patient and calm, he saw Wally and his brothers grow... because he made a promise to take care of E's family zio forever, until his death.

The story of Pommel Creed (SC welcome home -Assasin's Creed) my au - @teensadventuresstudio

[tocourtdisaster]

Clone-centric Star Wars Fic Recs

Includes both Clone Wars and Bad Batch.

Stories marked with * include the clones using Mando'a and/or the clones having adopted Mando culture.

and the Force is with me by sauntering_down | 7.9k | oneshot

Rex, Cut Lawquane, Suu Lawquane

Summary: 

When he opens his eyes, Cut is watching him steadily, fingers still locked around Rex’s wrist. “Interesting mantra,” he says. “Where’d you pick that up?”

Warnings: Graphic description of corpses, panic attacks, PTSD

(Rex deserves to be able to let himself process the fallout of Order 66 and this story lets him have that.)

Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge by yellow_caballero | 33k | oneshot

Fox, Leia Organa, Sheev Palpatine

Summary:

SUBJECT: Regarding Senate Guard Objectives For Today

This is a polite reminder to all guardsmen that patrol schedules for the Senate vote ratifying dictatorships are posted in the breakroom. I am also issuing a warning to linear time that days should follow sequentially and are not intended to repeat. Please cease repeating. I am getting a headache.

Additionally, I'd like to remind all guardsmen that it is illegal to harbor invisible women in the Senate. If you see a ghost claiming to be Leia Organa, please remove her from the premises. She will be making a scene.

Thank you for your cooperation in preserving the peace of the Republic, and all hail the Empire.

FOX

(Kind of time travel, kind of unstuck in time, both Fox and Leia are in for a not-so-great time)

An Hourglass in Hand by ecarian | 77.5k | multichapter | completed

Cody/Obi-Wan, Anakin, Rex, Ahsoka

Summary:

“I thought daemons didn’t eat,” Rex noted once, during a celebration feast, as he and Cody watched Boga devour her meal with some fascination. Varactyl she may be, but she was a tiny one. There wasn't much interior space for the truly momentous amount of meat she was ripping into.

Boga daintily rubbed her beak against a folded serviette that looked kind of like a bird, and said, prim, “I can do anything a human can do.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan said mildly, from where he’d been tapping at a datapad. “Shall I save you a portion of these reports then?”

Warnings: Temporary character death

(The daemon-AU of my dreams. Cody is wonderfully snarky and there's just something so fun and satisfying about the writing style. I started reading this and couldn't stop.)

The Barking of Birds by Trixree | 1.2k | oneshot

Hound, Fox, Hound the bird

Summary:

When they finally catch up to this latest branch of the illegal exotic animal trade, they do so in a dingy warehouse nestled deep within the Lowers. It’s the cliche of all cliches.

What Hound couldn’t have predicted is the bird.

(Fox gets a foul-mouth parrot. Hound suffers for it.)

the keyring crown by littlekaracan | 39.5k | multichapter

Cody/Obi-Wan, Rex, Fox

Summary:

“You forget I’m not a Jedi.” Cody smiled to him, but even he heard the note of bitterness in his own voice. He was not like Obi-Wan – perhaps his brothers learned these things, but Cody hardly knew where even to begin. Hardly believed the plant, however determined, would last long in his care. “I don’t have the same…” He gestured, a little vaguely, somewhere in Obi-Wan’s direction. “…Growing tricks that you do.”

“There are no Jedi tricks involved in that sort of thing,” Obi-Wan said, voice well and truly soft now as his gaze rose from his mug to Cody. “It is not the cosmos which cultivates, at least for the most part.” He reached, gently, to close his fingers over Cody’s which were still wrapped around his mug. “It’s just your hands and your dedication.” He leaned in just a little bit, watching him - close and quiet. “And I know, darling, just how dedicated you can be.”

Warning: Panic attacks, aftermath of mind control

(The war is over and Cody is learning to live in the aftermath.)

*Art of War by Moxibustion (RyuuzaKochou) | 72.8k | multichapter

Echo, Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, Crosshair, Rex, Fox (Fives in absentia)

Summary:

Echo had never had any particular talents. He'd never sought to be special, never tried to break the mould. He'd never aspired to be anything more than a clockwork soldier, watching his far more brilliant brothers rise up above him. He'd never expected to wake up one day and find out that he was, in fact, the last of them.

Funny old galaxy, really.

Now he was in the Bad Batch and one thing he was rapidly beginning to understand is this: in a galaxy filled with combat engineers, the Bad Batch are artists. Echo had never really known much about art. At least... that's what he'd always thought. New body, new squad - maybe it was time to look at things in a whole new way.

A story about art, war, coping, hanging on, letting go, restoration, reforging, plotting in a brig, military intelligence isn't, Wrecker's diplomacy doesn't, cooking, the thin line between genius and madness, starting over, struggling with loss, team bonding, art therapy, guerilla knitting therapy, big boom therapy, shaking down shinies for fun and profit, guilt, rage, forgiveness, waging war by fitting in…

... and making your peace with standing out.

Warnings: Injury recovery, grief and mourning, PTSD

(Echo finds his place in the Bad Batch and comes to terms with never being able to go back to who he used to be.)

*their days are darker by always_a_slut_for_hc | 23.4k | multichapter

Wolffe, Fox, Cody, Bly

Summary:

After the death of ARC Trooper Fives, an altercation at 79's leads Wolffe to spend his leave snooping around the Coruscant Guard. Fox assumes he'll drop it and leave the Corries to their fate; it's what everyone else has done.

He is very, very wrong.

Warnings: Dehumanization, gaslighting

(The other Commanders finally learn what the Corries have been going through and it's not pretty.)

Dielectric Breakdown by Jessepinwheel | 65.4k | multichapter

Cody, Rex, Fox, Echo, Obi-Wan

Summary:

Cody had always believed the best of his General--strong, steadfast, and loyal. That is, until Obi-Wan suddenly assassinated the Supreme Chancellor and vanished without a trace, leaving the Republic scrambling in the fallout.

Five years later, Cody is still trying to pick up the pieces and understand why Obi-Wan betrayed them all.

(Cody doesn't know why the war ended the way it did and he can't let it go, despite the objections of his brothers.)

*Love Each Other With Abandon by Elthadriel | 25k | oneshot

Cody, Rex, Fox, Wolffe, Obi-Wan

Summary:

Cody tries to navigate his way through what might be the most awkward crush he could possibly have developed. Fortunately, his brothers are there to provide emotional support

Or, at the very least, provide amused commentary.

(The sibling dynamics in this story are perfect.)

*The Legend of Liob by Killbothtwins | 19k | oneshot

Cody, Waxer, Boil, Obi-Wan

Summary: 

The Republic sends a combat photographer to be attached to the 212th until further notice, citing the need for a morale boost. The clones make up a fake clone, citing the absolute fact that it is very funny.

Somehow, these two things save the galaxy.

(Or show a fake clone brings down a Sith Lord.)

*sunshine and the shade of poetry by Petrichor (Mythmaker) | 33.2k | multichapter

Cody, Rex, Wolffe, Bly, Obi-Wan

Summary:

"Sorry sir, but I don't think we've met," Cody said, turning up the friendly customer service representative levels by two points.

To his delight, there wasn't really any visible change in his general's expression. "Have I neglected to leave an impression on you over the last several years?"

"I'm not sure you want an honest answer to that question, sir."

=====

The war comes to an abrupt end, and everyone around him begins the long road to recovery and discovery. Cody, on the other hand, just needs to find a new job.

Unfortunately, he has no idea what to do next.

(Cody's just trying to get by, convinced that he doesn't need or want a higher calling. He's disabused of this notion.)

[areyoudoingthis]

Hiya, just wanted to inquire about Magical Realism.

I'm a big Del Toro fan, particularly Pans Labyrinth and Shape of Water. I've heard people talk about how the fact that he's Mexican helps his approach to this but its gone over my head. Is MR an important park of Latin American culture? (Like I'm Irish and we're big into our own mythology)

Hi!! I haven't seen Shape of Water yet, but Pan's Labyrinth is a wonderful example of what our latinamerican magical realism looks like. It's all about the way the magic is there to help showcase and process reality, in this case how a little girl cope with a world that is too terrible for her to look at directly.

Pan's Labyrinth isn't set in a fantasy world where the magic exists for its own sake and all the characters run around riding broomsticks or casting spells (I'm thinking Owl House here, not the other evil one where they also do this). The movie's goal isn't to develop a fantasy realm and send the characters on an adventure in it, it's to tell the story of how a young child survives in a new and strange household with a sick mother in the middle of one of Spain's most violent periods, it's to show us that cruel, hard world through the eyes of a little kid and how she manages to process what is happening to her.

Like I said in the post, most magical realism is about telling the story of our América Latina, the stories of our dictatorships and revolutions and civil wars, stories that are violent and hard but also fill us with hope. It's about showing our suffering but also our indomitable spirit, our ability to break free and fight on always.

Ofmd managed to capture that wonderfully with Buttons turning into a seagull. That moment was a cheeky joke about Buttons being magical after all, but it was mostly a way to showcase Ed's suffering, how hard trust comes to him after everything he's been through, how convinced he is that people (him, most of all) don't change, can't change. And Buttons proving to him that no, change is possible after all, in a beautifully whimsical way, was the spark that carried through the season and eventually led to Ed emerging from the sea, leathers back on after having just killed two men, and going on to kill even more British soldiers to fight for and protect the man he loves, accepting the part of himself that can do violence to fight abuse as another facet of himself that is also deserving of love. A+ work on getting the soul of magical realism.