#the fandom? his like 10 followers? his mutuals? we may never know

[hoescarer]

yall dont understand how important barbava is to me guyss GUYYSS. theyre like opposites but both equally fucked up in the sense that both of them hide behind these confident and assertive personalities and try to be perfect all the time guysyss :(. and and aand even though their beliefs clash alot they still try to help each other as much as they can and ad and :( guys :(

[leave-a-whisper]

Hi friend! If you would like to participate — list 5 things that make you happy, then send this to the askbox of the last 10 people who liked or reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers! 💜

Thank you!! I already did one of these but I'm down to do it again!! You can never think of enough happy things in life.

An update from my previous post, but my Celtics won game one!! 3 more wins and we have the championship!

I love wip wednesdays and seven sentence sundays. I may tend to accidentally share my entire fic through snippets, but sharping snippets like that is a big part of what makes the writing process so enjoyable!

I also am so happy to see that people have enjoyed doing my music monday tag! I really wasn't sure if anyone would be interested, but those playlists are so cool to listen to with so many people participating. I love fandom. I love music.

My parents and my best friend. They’ve always been there for me even through some of the worst times in my life and I'm so grateful to have them.

Photography, mostly of nature. Fun fact: all of my tag game banners are made from pictures that I've taken. Here's a few of them in their original form.

The locations of these in order are Boston, Apollo Beach, Tampa, and St Augustine.

[feralkwe]

in an effort to not succumb to a potential panic attack, i will instead focus on some fandom nonsense! i've had a little influx of new follows, almost exclusively people i've seen in the ffxiv tags and watched from afar for awhile now, so maybe i should do a little intro post.

i'm feral kwe (kwe means woman in anishinaabemowin) but you may feel free to call me just b. just a tired, queer, indigenous lady who is an eldritch being in tumblr years (my original blog started in 2008 or 09) and gets a little too lost in the blorbo sauce. the fandom i'm currently most active in is ffxiv, but i dabble in good omens, mass effect, a couple of the gay vampire shows, and have been in and out of marvel fandom. i'm a dragon age old, my first online fandom and the one i went the most hard in up until now, so consider that a blanket warning for the upcoming months, since i'm not sure yet where i'll fall into it again. for the foreseeable future, i'm quite happy in my ffxiv brainrot, and will happily go on and on and on (and on and on) about my wol, kit hareington given even a breath of permission to do so.

i write fic! i'm feralkwe on ao3, and have the highlights marked in a pinned post. i write original work, too, and have even sold and published some. it's easy enough to find, so i won't link it here, but if you are curious and want to ask me about it, please do!

speaking of asks! my askholebox is always open and i welcome people to just drop in unannounced. consider this open provocation to do so! i don't have anon enabled, and likely never will. my life is better for it. 11/10 do recommend as a life choice.

i don't follow a lot of people. i keep the number artificially low for the sake of not having so much go by that i can't keep up. that said, i do try to check in on the blogs of people who follow me from time to time. i don't really make mutual/non-mutual distinctions. since i block with abandon for any multitude of reasons, if you're here at all i already love you. that said, if you follow @yamisnuffles or @icescrabblerjerky you are likely to see a lot of overlap. they're my ride or die lifelong besties and we exist in a state of mutual whimsy that can best be described as 'lol ilu'. do with that information what you will.

i try my best to use tags consistently for things i know need it. that said i do my best to stay out of active dragon age main tags, and do not use any of those in original posts. the most pertinent one, the one i was asked to tag the most, and the one i've had the longest is #and that's jenga, my personal anders tag. if you need something tagged, please ask, and i'll try my best to accommodate reasonable requests.

i probably haven't read your blog description. i probably did not notice if you have a dni. i assume if you're here that i don't fall under any umbrella you desperately do not want to engage with. i do not vet the blog of every poster i reblog. if you think i've done something harmful, please give me the benefit of the doubt that i did so unknowingly, and give me a chance to correct it. i'm human, and so are you. i just ask that we try to be excellent to each other.

i think that covers everything! if i missed anything, like i said, ask! or just come say hi and introduce yourself!

[ofallplaceswhythis]

tcoptp thoughts pt.10

im skipping im skipping im skipping im skipping im-

Chasity..... i am trying so hard and i may be biased but.....

....omg, thats why - its all connecting. holyyyyy fuckk

So nice that tomny and tonya decided to send him his very own guitar for his birthday!! theyre such good friends [delusion :( ]

Sirius and Remus' friendship is so overlooked in this fandom its so sweet there is a reason they are friends to lovers guys

james's hatred towards antlers and remus's face covered in chocolate need to be drawn where is the fanart

SHIT THE SEX TAPE?????? WTHHH

LILY TOLD JAMES SHE LOVED HIM?!?!?! gosh the gossip - and they're fictional

Y'know what snape, you are just a coward who hides behind words in order to get his way, and you have no real friends because, guess what, YOU'RE A DISGUSTING PERSON. And literally nobody cares about you and you will die alone with my knife in your stomach regretting every single action in your entire pitiful existence as I watch the life leave your eyes and constantly remind you that the only reason you had survived this long was because you were such a disgusting person that nobody could get near you without projectile vomiting on your head, which may be the reason why your hair is so greasy. You are meaningless like a mosquito and you will perish not only physically but from memory as well because as soon as you are dead literally no one will care about you. You are that boy that rips apart insect limbs from their bodies and you will meet your demise. No matter what your backstory is that does not justify the abuse you caused and thus you will suffer the consequences. You will die by a poison coated blade and be it whoever it is there will always be the sound of laughter and fireworks that will soon follow after your corpse is disposed of. The only way you will be able to survive is if we bury you alive with worms eating your body and your screams reverberating of the cold, concrete walls, knowing that you will never be found again. The world will become a better place as soon as you are gone from it.

aww they're all so cute <3333 ily lily

REMUS HAS A CRUSH ON SIRIUS PINING'S COMING FUCK

And with that, the first half of the fanfic comes to a close. [👏👏] [ literally had to pace for a few minutes]

ily wolfstar but i just feel so bad for marlene. Im sorry girl :(

And immediatly starting with angst. fucking amazing [WHY TOM]

'where we're going? it aint home' and why dont i just FALL ON MY SPEAR LIKE A ROMAN WHOSE OBSESSED WITH SACRIFICING THEMSELF. UGH. WHYYYYYYYYY

Them not picking up the phone when Tonya leaves but picking up the phone after Remus does is just - holy fuck

ughh remus why do you have to say stuff like that

Remus's queer panic is honestly a mood

no wait whats happening. ...did they just break up...?

why get into a car accident when you can just read Tonya's letter?

tell me a story is really starting to sound like tell me a secret and i am not ready to handle that kind of mentality at this time

sirius are you hearing urself 'ill never leave you' typa shit

ok the mutual pining is about to commence and i am not ready

[cathsith]

Hi, reddit people. I hope you're encountering more friendly people than douchey people.

There's a shit ton of useful and thorough guides that provide instructions on how to use the site. This is more of a "shit that's good to know, in no particular order" type of guide

Random thoughts:

💠 Profile: put whatever you want, as long as you put something. It's up to you what you want to share. Just practice common sense internet safety.

💠 People have some really, um, interesting names here, many NSFW. Personally, I think it's hilarious to reblog deep social commentary from someone with a porny name, but if you're concerned about having that on your blog, maybe make sure to check.

💠 I'm sure some of you are old enough that maybe you were on livejournal and are still mourning its loss. I miss it too, especially for fandom. Your best bet at recreating some of that experience is to find creators you like (many fic writers include their Tumblr on their ao3 profile or fics) and following and interacting with them here.

💠 You can either comment on or reblog posts if you want. Some people seem to have *opinions* as to whether it's better to comment or reblog but it sort of seems like a generational divide. I decide which one to do based on how much I want to add and if it's particularly interesting, well thought out, and/or funny.

💠 A lot of people talk about how likes are useless, but I personally think it's a YMMV type of thing. For a while I tried to keep my likes limited to things I wanted to save, since you can't save posts here unless you bookmark it on your browser. But I also tend to like personal posts or reblogs from mutuals as a mark of support. Yes, you should reblog art to boost the artist's exposure. And no one does what they should do every time and I'm sure artists still like getting likes even if they'd prefer reblogs.

💠 Some people have started putting DNI (do not interact) in their info on their blogs and may get mad if you reblog from them. Sometimes people reblog stuff that you like and then you find out that you strongly disagree with their politics/beliefs etc. No one sensible expects you to vet every single person you reblog and if anyone puts up a fuss, you can probably safely ignore them unless they report you for abuse. I've never heard of that happening.

💠 You can contact people two ways: asks and messages. Asks have a word limit and if you go past it, will broken up and may be sent in reverse order. Asks also allow you to be anonymous. People can reply publicly or privately. If you want it to stay private, you should probably state that. If you are anonymous, obviously the response can only come publicly. Messages are essentially chats. A lot of people are cool with getting messages, but I personally am too awkward to use them except with mutuals. (But I'm totally cool with getting them, if you are so inclined)

💠 Mutuals: some people follow others back everytime, some never do. But there's a funny thing where we (tumblr people) get deeply attached to mutuals even if we've never had an actual conversation beyond a comment or two. It's a thing, but a nice thing.

💠 There are a couple famous people hanging around. They're great and surprisingly good at tumblr. Be cool.

💠 Blaze posts are relatively new. You can pay like $10 to have your post shown to people like an ad. Some people use it to advertise their etsy or personal store site, but plenty of people also post pictures of their pets or reminders to drink water or hopes that you have a good day. I usually enjoy them but they're fairly unobtrusive if you don't.

💠 Because there isn't much of an algorithm here, ads can be really random and really strange. You can get rid of ads entirely with a paid account. I think that includes blaze posts but I'm not positive.

💠 Tags here are weird. They fall into a few categories:

🔹 Subject tags: fandoms, music, sports, current events, medical or psychological conditions, history, science, etc

🔹 Warning tags: they're obviously not required, but they're not hard to add and are really important for a lot of people. Sometimes they're posted as "cw: warning" or "tw: warning" but sometimes it's just the warning itself. Just do your best. If you see something tagged "unreality" it means that what you're reading isn't real, but may be presented as if it is. This is (to the best of my knowledge) a warning for people with delusional disorders. It's also generally acceptable to request that someone add a content warning.

🔹 Personal tags: people come up with tags they use on their own blogs for categorization. Some of them are pretty clever. If something is just tagged "personal" then it's considered rude to reblog unless the poster says it's okay.

🔹 Conversation tags: I've been here for ages, but I still don't know the origin of "talking in the tags." Whatever the reason, we do it a lot here. Sometimes it's a quick reference or quip, sometimes it's a dissertation. The longer the tags, the more entertaining they tend to be. If you see a screenshot of tags, that means that they have undergone "peer review"and deemed important or funny enough to be moved into the post itself. It's a high honor.

💠 Tumblr holidays - I think this list has most of them

💠 There is some AMAZING original fiction and artwork here, some of which has been deemed Tumblr Folklore. Check out this list

💠 Okay I'm gonna stop now because I keep adding shit and I've had this draft going for almost 24 hours now and I would like my tumbr app back now

Hope somebody finds this helpful! Feel free to say hi if you want

[marypsue]

Hi! I was wondering if you had any fic recs for Stranger Things? Or honestly just any good fics that can act as a complete narrative without knowing the source material?

Thank youuuuu

*gleefully rubs my hot little hands together*

Yes, I have recommendations! The second part of this request is unfortunately gonna be a toughie, because I tend to like fic that is strongly in conversation with the source material, but I'm sure there are a few things I liked that you could enjoy without knowing the show! I'll mark them out with an asterisk. I'll also mention prominent ships, but you may notice that I skew towards Steve/Nancy/Jonathan. 

Sadly I don’t have anything post-Season 4 to recommend, since I still haven’t finished it (spooky season goals?), but there should still be plenty of good stuff in here. 

(Side note, I'm not going to recommend anything that I haven't actually read yet, myself, for obvious reasons, but I've heard the Fandom Classic is In A Strange Land, by MrsEvadneCake. And I've read their oneshot The Wolves In The Walls and can vouch for that their writing is amazing, so. Check that one out.)

just being in your arms (underneath the mistletoe) by quirkily (2,988 words) is a super sweet Stoncy oneshot that just struck exactly the right chord between coziness, pining, and mutual understanding. Also, poses a fun question if you (like me) care way too much about slasher movies.

break them right by scoutshonour (aka @trulyalpha) (20 chapters, complete, 143,404 words) also has Steve/Nancy/Jonathan, but it's not the only focus. I feel like to describe this one as 'plotty' might give the impression that there's another world-ending threat that the characters have to fight, which isn't quite right, but there is significant meat on its bones, story-wise. It follows Jonathan Byers after the events of Season 3 (in an AU where Hopper survived and he and El both had to move in with the Byers) trying to figure out how to handle his overwhelming survivor's guilt, the ways his family is changing, and his feelings toward both Nancy and Steve - both positive and negative. This one made me tear up in a few places and left me with a warm feeling in my chest, the writing's so thoughtful and full of great imagery and symbolism, the characterisation is 10/10, and the author's a gem of a human being. I haven't read all of her stuff, yet, but I'd say it's a good bet that it's all worth a read.

*Speaking of which, we have the time also by scoutshonour (11 chapters, complete, 124,371 words) is one of those ones that you could probably read with no familiarity with the source material! Nancy and Jonathan are vampires, and have been since 1983. Steve's a human, and has been since about 2000(?). Will Byers is missing, presumed dead since the late eighties, but recent events are making it look like that might not be the case... (This one is an earlier fic and it shows in places, but it's also a fun romp and I love the author's sense of humour and character. Also this concept.)

A Stumble by sarcastical (10 chapters, ongoing, 25,948 words) is a diamond in the rough that I'm going to take every opportunity to plug because it is criminally underrated. It diverges from canon at the end of Season 1, and instead of having El on the run, it asks what might have happened if she'd been found by the people from the lab instead. This author nails down a unique narrative voice for El that rings so true and has so many unexpected funny and heartbreaking elements that I'm desperately envious. There's a lot of thought in this one, and places where things I'd never considered get highlighted in a very deft and effective way. The focus is much more on plot than romantic relationships, but it looks like they're going with the canon pairings.

the night so black (that the darkness hummed) by meliebee (15,983 words) is a post-Season 2 meditation on trauma in the aftermath of supernatural bullshit, through the lens of Steve Harrington and more supernatural bullshit. There is a plot, but it's very strongly tied to the emotional fallout, which is my favourite kind of plot. This fic implies that it could end up becoming Steve/Nancy/Jonathan in the future, but you can read it as platonic if you prefer.

*Jackrabbit Underneath by Grey_Lark (31 chapters, ongoing, 210,614 words) does not need my help reaching an audience, but, well, you asked. Steve Harrington has superpowers he doesn't realise are superpowers. It changes everything and nothing about how the story plays out. Again, the focus is more on plot than romantic relationships.

all these acts of violence by bixxelated (aka @bixxelated) (13 chapters, ongoing, 48,970 words) is another one that I feel is severely underrated. Canon divergence AU of Season 3 where, instead of El, it’s Mike who gets bitten by the Mind Flayer’s weapon. Everything goes horribly wrong from there, in the most entertaining way possible. bixx has such a grasp of these characters and how best to hurt them, and makes some points that cast things that really frustrated me in canon in a new and more interesting light. Also, the climactic scene really spoke to the Terry Pratchett fan in me. The final chapter is still yet to come, but where it ends is a satisfying (if sad) jumping-off point. Mostly plot-focused, but Mike/El is a big part of that plot, so it’s a big part of this fic, too. 

the tune of coffee by Patricia_Sage (1,549 words) is going on here because I am going to drag as many people as I possibly can down into the Bob/Joyce/Hopper hole with me. Cute, sweet, funny fic focusing entirely on these three trying to work out a romantic relationship around their respective kids. 

Best Laid Plans by pterawaters (11,190 words) is another one where the romances take a backseat to the plot. And in this case, a very, very funny plot. Dustin Henderson is convinced that Steve has some kind of supernatural sixth sense to be able to turn up just at the right moment and save the day so often, and he’ll go to ridiculous lengths to prove it. 

kids are dying out in the snow. by ghostshaming (2,876 words) is a mid-canon snippet of character study focused on Nancy Wheeler in the last few episodes of Season 3. Her relationship with Mike is really at the heart of this one and it got me good. 

*this must be the place. by dickovny (6 chapters, complete, 13,416 words) is the only purely Joyce/Hopper fic on this list, and one of my favourite versions of their relationship that I’ve seen in fic or onscreen. Jim and Joyce have a lovely domestic life as a childless married couple with fulfilling artistic careers in a charming house which may be trying to kill them. All is definitely not what it seems. 

Firestarter by echovalley26809 (3 chapters, ongoing, 23,796 words) appears to be abandoned, which is a crying shame, because it was amazing. Another one that has El as a POV character and does brilliant things with her narrative voice. Post-Season 3 canon-divergence AU where Hopper lives and doesn’t end up in Russia (are we starting to see a pattern here?), where El’s powers come back...different. (And as one huge metaphor for trauma.)

Better Than Aspic by Sholio (2,520 words) is a conversation that I badly needed to see between Joyce and Karen Wheeler. Funny and sad in turns, and I love the sense of a shared history between them. 

Purple Haze by Sholio (1,936 words) is a very, very silly, very cute Nancy/Kali fic that has dinosaurs. What more do you need?

*the other side of the coin by younglegends (9,186 words) Role reversal fic where it’s Mike who gets snatched up by a Demogorgon and goes missing for a week, instead of Will. There’s a significant splash of Steve/Nancy/Jonathan, but the real draw in this one is how the different characters being in each other’s places changes the story. Does a very clever thing with Mike being a DM that I appreciated. 

What About A Threeway? by gala_apples (3,105 words) I will drag you all down into the Joyce/Bob/Hopper hole with me. This was the first fic I read for them, and remains possibly the best AO3 has to offer. Also convinced me that a Big Unexpected Kiss That Reveals Feelings is the way to go for this ship. (It’s also, IIRC, the steamiest entry on this list. Heed the tags.)

*Let's Stop the World by Sholio (5,339 words) AU where Steve and Jonathan become friends prior to the events of Season 1, and the pool party goes...very differently. This one’s also Steve/Nancy/Jonathan-flavoured.

Nought by Anonymous (2 chapters, ongoing, 10,000 words) also appears to be abandoned, and I hope the author is okay, whoever and wherever they are, because they mentioned being a healthcare worker at the beginning of the pandemic. This is, hands down, the single best fic I’ve ever come across in the ‘Steve Harrington Has Powers’ tag. And I’ve read most of said tag. (And written one!)

*The Very Best People by scioscribe (18,150 words), on the other hand, is one of the best fics I’ve read in this fandom. Steve and Robin go undercover in an evil suburb as a newly married couple. It’s exactly as awkward as you’d think it’d be. The power of friendship is on full display in this one, and I still think about how the author described the pinks of the house exteriors whenever I’m driving through certain late-eighties-early-nineties suburbs. 

Mourners by Rosie447 (1,716 words) Hawkins holds a funeral for Jim Hopper. Nancy Wheeler remembers another couple of funerals she attended, not so long ago. Mike is a pain in the ass until he isn’t. I really love Nancy and Mike’s sibling relationship, and it’s strongly in focus here. 

So This Is The Aftermath by nyctanthes (3,404 words) This one’s restricted to logged-in AO3 users only. Will Byers questions everything in the aftermath of Season 2. This one hurts in the best possible way.

The Unquiet Gate by scribefindegil (8 chapters, abandoned, 17,468 words) is a crossover with Gravity Falls, where post-Season 1, both Barb and El end up in 1983 Gravity Falls. One of the big complaints I had about Hopper on my first watch (and, honestly, still do) is that he’s just...not Stan Pines, so seeing El get adopted by Stan was everything I needed. Sadly abandoned, but still well worth a read. 

the light (had too much to dream last night) by palmviolet (33 chapters, complete, 86,430 words) has such a fun concept and some absolutely fantastic imagery. Joyce Byers has more of a personal connection to the happenings at the Hawkins Lab than anyone realised. I have also heard good things about this author’s fic view from a bridge, but again, haven’t read it myself yet so I can’t put my personal seal of approval on it. 

*now I am the violence, I am the sickness. by poisonquiver (14 chapters, complete, 35,537 words) AU where Jonathan Byers is the child who was stolen at birth and raised as a psychic experiment. Robin is in it! Everything is horrible and painful! It looks like the author intended to turn it into a series, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. Still, it stands well on its own. 

smoke signals by plastiswafers (2,359 words) Steve and Robin watch movies together. Steve has a best friend now and doesn’t know how to feel about this. Heartfelt and hilarious. 

sea legs by plastiswafers (2,066 words) Steve is dealing with the aftermath of Season 2. Not well, maybe, but. He’s dealing. 

The Steve Harrington, Demogorgon-Whisperer series by RadScavver (4 works, 17,023 words) was actually part of the inspiration for the road goes ever on (I’m not plugging my own work on a reclist, you’re plugging your own work on a reclist!). I didn’t find it until I was already well into planning the road goes ever on, but it definitely worked its way in there when I was writing the scenes with Gizmo at the Harringtons’. So. If that was something you liked, you will like this, also. 

*The Right-Side Up AU series by midas_touch_of_angst (3 works, 199,070 words) is a role-reversal AU where El and Max are the kids who find an escaped psychic kid in the woods. Good fun if just to see how the author changes everybody’s roles, and how that plays with their canon personalities. 

*And finally, Black Christmas by daddygrandpaandthebeaver (aka @daddygrandpaandthebeaver​) (687 words), which I love unreasonably. Steve asks Robin to show him her favourite Christmas movie. Courtney’s grasp on the characters is impeccable, and I laughed real laughter until she unexpectedly punched me in the gut. 

...and now that I’ve come to the bottom of this list, it occurs to me that you might have been asking for fic from fandoms that aren’t Stranger Things which could be read with no knowledge of the source material. Oops. Well, if that’s the case, I have to plug:

*A Draught of Light by GretchenSinister (32 chapters, complete, 200,099 words) This is a high fantasy novel about the immortal avatars of darkness and light, their tragic history, their forbidden love, and their attempts to restore balance to a world that has all but lost it. It also uses characters inspired by the 2012 animated movie Rise of the Guardians, which you do not need to know literally anything about in order to read this. In fact, I’d recommend it even more strongly if you don’t. 

[space-blue]

Have you heard of the LOL/ Arcane theory popular on Twitter right now that Vi so far has been coded as a... wife-beater for a lack of a better term? What's your opinion on this? Do you feel there's any room created by the narrative to consider this?

Yeah ok that's a rough one… Might lose some followers over this lol

I stay far and away from "twitter fandom drama". I don't think the limited word count is very conducive to productive dialogue. Here? Sure. I can write an essay on silly meta and my silly mutuals (affectionate) will actually read it and even reply. So no, I use twitter to reblog art and post some of my own for Arcane, but I'm almost never on it and not interested in whatever "Arcane Twitter" has to chirp. I was completely unaware of this nonsense.

Now, to answer you…

WHERE? Where is the proof? The textual, in the show, screenshot to screenshot proof that Vi is even remotely "coded" as a "wife-beater"? Do the little birds provide it? [this is a rhetorical question, don't feel the need to provide links, I've lost as much brain power on this theory as I'm willing to]

Is it that clip I've used myself, that hints at Vi hitting Powder in the Enemy video? Has like… none of them gotten mean to your siblings when they drove you mad? Did they all have golden childhoods? Vi sure didn't. She's an orphan at this stage, just moved in with a man whose nickname is the Hound, who she just saw cave someone's head in with his fists. Her younger sister is basically her daughter, and she's already shown signs of mental illness, probably from before the bridge.

Vi, as a kid, is incredibly disadvantaged. She's dirt fucking poor, her role model rules their criminal underground with his fists, and her sister/daughter/ward is a chronic problem-maker with mental issues and probably her own boatload of trauma. I mean, they both walked into an actual charnel, amid dozens of dead bodies, to find their own dead mom (and presumably, dad?). As preteens!!

I think, by and large, we can cut Vi some slack for hitting Powder. The Enemy video hints she pushed her to the ground. Is that the wife beating coding? I see nothing else. And if that's in, then it's actual bollocks.

Meanwhile, do you know what you get if you type "What Profession Has The Highest Rate Of Domestic Violence?" in google? Yeah, that's right. Non-Fictional Enforcers

A couple between a victim who was falsely imprisoned for 5-to-10 years and is trauma ridden by the way her entire life was shaped by systemic injustice, and a cop… Who has the highest percentage chance of beating who? As you may have guessed, I'm not a big fan of Caitvi as a season 1 ship.

There is NO evidence in the show that Vi would be a wife beater. Slapping your sister for murdering your entire family in a moment of blind sorrow and rage isn't the same as being an abuser. Worse, the show takes insane pains to showcase Vi as being basically the same in act II and III as in act I.

They make such an effort to make her seem to still have that "good heart" of hers. She is precipitated into a relationship with an enforcer mere days after she's let out of prison. It's completely unrealistic. The show is ready to bend itself into a pretzel to tell us that Vi is fine, and she is SO kind actually that she will let one cute enforcer prove to her that her prejudices are wrong! uwu

Do you have any idea what 6+ years in a jail would be like, as a complete innocent, being beaten so many times the warden forgets? And please, it's a mixed prison too, since she's in there with Mek? The show bails out of making Vi as dark and traumatised as she ought to be, by all rights.

The show chickens out of taking the time to make Vi scary. To make her hate and distrust Caitlyn, who is the pretty face of oppression, who didn't even think to release her on her own after finding she was wrongfully imprisoned, and instead needed to be threatened.

They unrealistically sped up their relationship because they wanted the fandom working its teeth on their lesbian romance like a chew toy all the way to season 2.

So no, in my blunt, honest opinion, there's no "coding" for Vi being a wife beater. She's "coded" as an unrealistic goodie who came out of prison emotionally stunted, stuck in her 15 yo self, refusing to see reason when it slaps her in the face—but very ready to see how pretty the enforcer lady is—and otherwise unaffected. She's cool, she's strong, she loves her sister, she's so kind she won't even make a convincing effort at hating Cait… but she lets her ruin things between her and Jinx. Vi suffers the most in act II and III, characterisation wise.

I find it incredibly frustrating because building actual earned trust between Cait and Vi is not actually that hard. There's a few changes to be done in the way they interact, especially early on, and it becomes so much more convincing.

Worse regarding this theory, the one Arcane writer who has been… oversharing… her headcanons, is Amanda, the Caitvi bandwagon driver. You think Riot would let her hype Caitvi as a cute ship for season 2, only to tear them apart with domestic violence?? It'd be like strangling the golden goose. And after they went and took out all the police brutality lines from Vi's LoL character too! No chance.

People who speculate that Vi would hit Cait or be a wifebeater are probably projecting what they want to see and calling it "X-coded" because it makes them sound serious. The doctor's prescription is a whole day at the park touching the grass, and then a whole month watching quality essays on media literacy and analysis.

[pale-silver-comb]

So I know absolutely nothing about Leverage except what I've been seeing you post lately and I have to admit you're making it look tempting to watch! Can I ask what are some of your favorite things about the show/reasons you would suggest people watch it? And is there really a poly relationship that is canon?

Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I am going to do my best not to just “asdfghkjl” at you and answer coherently.

In a nutshell, Leverage is about 5 people. 4 are criminals (Parker, Hardison, Eliot and Sophie) with different and unique skill-sets and 1 is an ex-insurance investigator (Nate) who, at one point or another in his career, has tracked down (or at least attempted to) the other 4. The whole show is essentially: man reluctantly reforms 4 criminals to use their criminal powers for good and 4 criminals move into man’s life and stubbornly refuse to leave because, goddammit, now they have morals. 

I’ve got a lot of favourite things about the show but the main ones are as follows:

1. Found family. And I’m not talking about loners who come together to fight crime and happen to co-exist to the point where they realise they happen to have found themselves a family. I mean, Nate and Sophie are the Drunk Uncle and Wine Aunt who somehow become Mom and Dad to 3 beautiful criminal children. Mom and Dad love their criminal babies and the kids love them (as well as each other, but we’ll come to that in a moment). You get amazing family moments such as: Mom and Dad packing the kids lunch before sending them out to kick corporate greed’s ass; Mom and Dad giving the kids ridiculously expensive and personal Christmas presents causing their most Grumpy Kid to go very very quiet and soft as he runs off to gleefully play with his new murder toy; the kids interrupting Mom and Dad’s big Movie Style Kiss to ask if they can please keep their new underground layer and huffing and puffing when Dad tells them no.

2. Found family: the OT3 edition. To answer your question, the OT3 is indeed canon, confirmed by the creator. Now, usually, “confirmed by the creator” infuriates me because most of the time it’s a way for a creator to be seen as “progressive” without doing anything to actually be progressive. That isn’t the case here. The OT3 are built up carefully and while it is obvious the creators didn’t originally intend for all 3 of them to become a relationship in the romantic sense, by mid-season 5 we are given a very clear picture of where Parker, Hardison and Eliot are heading in their relationship. There aren’t any kisses at the end to signal this but there are solid marriage vows in not only one but two episodes. (And by marriage vows I mean literal equivalents of marriage vows: “for better or worse” and “’til death do us part”. I’m not even exaggerating). The OT3 also doesn’t need explicit romantic narratives to convey how much they love each other. Their love is laced through the whole show, from the way they teach each other things to the way they respond to each other and work as a unit. The way they fiercely protect and admire each other. Like someone once said, if you need characters to kiss or say I love you to let the audience know they love each other, you are writing them wrong. 

Aside from that, each of the parings in the OT3 are just. Gah. They are so well done, with friendship being the solid basis for them all. The creators never expect the audience to assume anything about them or fill in the gaps. They give us their relationships on screen and reference many things off-screen to show us how these relationships continue to build in between episodes.

Hardison and Parker are a canon couple and date in the show: it’s approached slowly and they are so goddamned sweet. They are basically every fluffy slow-burn trope with a healthy dash of mutual pining in the mix. They are basically that quote “love is patient, love is kind”. (I would like to add their romance never becomes the focus of the show or overrides the importance of any other relationship they have with the other characters, especially Eliot.)

Hardison and Eliot are the Old Married Couple and from day one are already bickering and looking at each other/making comments that are found in every UST fic ever (not to mention Hardison has a very good knack for making Eliot grin like a little kid, when usually he’s basically an Angry Little Chef Man). They argue, they play, and love each other plain as day. 

Parker and Eliot are more subtle but every bit as wonderful. They have an unspoken connection and understand each other on a level no-one else can. Parker and Eliot are not good with giving themselves over to affection for different reasons (and Hardison plays a central role in helping them realise it’s okay to want it and have it- that boy has endless patience) but there is something so beautiful in the way the two of them come together on their own and develop their own special bond that works for them. Parker and Eliot are that trope where the characters don’t need to speak to understand each other perfectly. They just do. Their love language is a lot of the time non-verbal but speaks volumes. (Parker also likes to annoy the hell out of Eliot and Eliot....just.....lets...her. Because he’s soft. The softest, grumpiest boy.) 

I could go into so much depth for each pairing and their dynamics as a 3 but that's for another post.

3. Subverting stereotypes. There is the occasional hiccup in the show regarding stereotypes but ultimately, Leverage gets an A+ when it comes to writing characters and making them 3 dimensional people who are not defined by certain characteristics or events. Nate could so easily fall into the White Man Pain trope where he uses the trauma of losing his kid as a reason as to why he is entitled to act like a dick. Nate is a dick but he doesn’t use his pain to excuse it and I appreciate that. Hardison is a black man who is soft and nurturing. Easily the most empathetic and patient of the group. He’s nerdy, an actual genius, and has the biggest heart of all the characters. Nate is maybe the glue but Hardison is definitely the heart. Media’s usual aggressive, amongst other, racist stereotypes can fuck right off. Parker is canonically autistic (I am sure this was confirmed by one of the creators) and she is not defined by it. It’s not written as some kind of singular personality trait. It’s part of what makes up Parker but it’s only one facet of who she is and not once is her actions, thoughts or feelings treated like a joke. Sometimes people don’t understand why she does and says the things she does but it’s met with patience and fondness over the course of the show. Equally, it’s not met with over-caution. Parker is just Parker. No-one tries to change her. The other nice thing is Hardison, who always makes sure Parker knows she’s amazing because of who she is and not in spite of it. Finally, Sophie is in her 40s. She’s not treated like she’s past her prime. Ever. She’s sexy, smart and never is she pitted against or compared to Parker (who is younger) for anything. Sophie is amazing and there’s never even a conversation of “I may be older but I am still *insert adjective typically associated with younger women here*”. Sophie is possibly the first female character I’ve ever seen who isn’t just unapologetic about her age but has never had to apologise for her age. It’s a non-issue and that’s that. The women on the show are written so well, right down to secondary characters and it’s beyond refreshing.  

4.) It’s just fun. The show has a “monster of the week” type format. Except instead of a ghoul or a ghost, the monster is some corrupt wealthy and powerful individual or organisation. The show draws on real-life individuals to do this and therefore closely parallels real-life people and events. It addresses important political, economical, social and environmental issues while at the same time remaining fun and light-hearted. The characters constantly get the chance to play dress up and by GOD do they have fun with it. You get to watch Eliot beat up bad guys in the most delightful of ways, usually after a witty non-sequitur and with a weapon you’d never think could be a weapon. The dialogue and back and forth between the characters is everything. And finally - my favourite thing- the team can never resist striking a dramatic pose after they’ve taken down the bad guy, making sure the bad guy sees them. I mean, they COULD just walk away, satisfied they’ve taken the person down, but nope. They gotta be dramatic bitches 24/7 and pose like they are models for every single month of this year’s Criminal Calendar.  

5.) Competence Porn. So. Much. Competence Porn.  

Honestly, I could list a thousand reasons for why Leverage is amazing but to list them would to be spoiling so many amazing moments you’d get to discover for the first time on your own if you do choose to watch it. It’s the kind of show you can watch with an eagle-eye and sink your teeth into. But it’s also the kind of show if, you would prefer, put on in the background for something entertaining while you do something else. Each episode is about the job at hand but it’s made up of so many moments between the characters that show how much the creators and writers care about them. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll do whatever it is you do when something Soft and Wonderful happens that makes your heart melt. I am so beyond grateful for Leverage. It’s everything I always wanted in a show. Nearly every show I’ve watched in the past 10 years has disappointed me in some way, usually either because the writers run out of steam or characters who I love are treated poorly or given some kind of unnecessary “shock value” arc. Leverage doesn’t do that. Leverage is what it says on the bottle. Fandom isn’t something I joined because I needed canon fix-its. Fandom only enhances and celebrates an already excellent canon. 

[p-redux]

Since so many people have asked for it already, is there any way you can post the Sam girlfriends timeline on your blog? Or would that bring trouble from ES lurking here? Thanks.

Hi Anon, I have gotten a bunch of requests for this in Asks, Comments, and DM's, I'm too tired to do a full retrospective with exact dates, picture and video proof, etc (it's all out there), BUT I will do a sort of summarized general timeline. As for trouble from ES lurking...that's never stopped me. Hahahaha.

Amy Shiels: Sam and Amy starred in the movie "Young Alexander" in 2003. The movie didn't get released for like 10 years. They seem to have been FWB (Friends With Benefits) on and off 2003 until 2014. For more info, search hashtag #AmyShiels and #TheBarbieWars #BarbieWars #Samy. Confirmed dated, but most likely FWB. More on Amy down below.

Abbie Salt: First met around 2011, when Sam filmed "A Princess for Christmas" with Abbie's sister, actress, Charlotte Salt. They dated briefly then.  For more info, search hashtag #AbbieSalt #Sabbie. Confirmed dated. More on Abbie down below.

Katie Rebekah Osborne: Dated before 2012, broke up when Sam left London to tour with Batman Live and Katie moved from London to Australia. For more info, search hashtag #KatieRebekah #KatieR. Confirmed Dated.

Amy Shiels: After being on and off for years, Amy went with Sam to the premiere of Outlander in New York in July 2014. Then when Sam went to L.A. where Amy lives in Sept. 2014, after Outlander Season 1 filming ended. Amy and Sam were photographed out on dates... until Sam met another petite blonde, Cody Kennedy in Oct. 2014. For more info, search hashtag #AmyShiels and #TheBarbieWars #BarbieWars #Samy. Confirmed Dated.

Cody Kennedy: October 2014 to sometime in January 2015. For more info, search hashtag #CodyKennedy #TheBarbieWars #BarbieWars #Sody. Confirmed dated.

Abbie Salt: When Sam went back to the UK for the holidays Dec. 2014,Jan. 2015, he met up with Abbie again and they rekindled their romance. Cody went bye-bye and Abbie and Sam dated from around February 2015 to November 2015. For more info, search hashtag #AbbieSalt #Sabbie. Confirmed dated.

Mackenzie Mauzy: Sam's longest committed relationship was with actress/singer, Mackenzie Mauzy. They dated from around March 2016 (first seen together by my eyewitness source holding hands at the Guns N Roses concert in L.A. April 1, 2016) to some time in 2018. For more info, search hashtag #MackenzieMauzy #Samzie. Confirmed dated.

After Mackenzie, Sam seems to have dated a variety of different women and does not seem to have been involved in another exclusive relationship.

So for 2018 to the present, 2021, here are the women Sam has been seen with (not in chronological order, since I can't remember exact dates and I'm not going to go searching). I'll post the women's name and the hashtag to search under for more info:

Pretty Blonde with Sam at Nobu London opening #NobuMysteryBlonde #NobuMysteryWoman Unconfirmed whether that was his plus one date for the event or a PR person. Has never been identified by name as far as I know. Fandom CSI fail. Unconfirmed dated.

Hayley Helene #tunagate girl #HayleyHelene. Not confirmed they dated, but she was on the boat with him during #tunagate so people assumed. Unconfirmed dated.

Danielle Kling #DanielleKling, woman he met in Hawaii. Also most likely the woman with the braids spotted with Sam in Scotland later on. Fan posted a pic. Confirmed dated.

Christina Ochoa: #ChristinaOchoa #Samtina, picture of them holding hands...at an airport, I think. Confirmed dated.

Georgia Ellenwood: #GeorgiaEllenwood #Samgia Spent time together in Chicago, he also went to one of her meets in NY, she posted IG story with Sam. Pretty much confirmed dated.

Hannah James: #HannahJames #Samnah #Jamieva #PlotTwist.  Recently received source confirmation that Sam and Hannah did indeed date, I think sometime 2018 or 2019.  MORE on Hannah down below.

Gia Marie: #GiaMarie #MissGia #G #Gia #MissGiaMarie #GiaSam #Hawaiigate Pic of them with their arms around each other walking on Malibu Pier, both posted from weekend getaway to Del Mar or Big Sur, can’t remember which one it was, I think it was Del Mar. Anyhoo, they went away together for a weekend getaway at a beach town in CA before they spent weeks in Hawaii together. Both posted from quarantine in Hawaii. Confirmed dated.

Anna Longford: #AnnaLongford #A #AH Mutually followed on Instagram. She lives near London, but posted from Scotland a lot, when Sam was there. He also was in London when she was there. Speculation simply because same place, same time, they mutually follow, and she’s the type he usually goes for--pretty, sporty, blonde. Complete speculation and unconfirmed dated.

Hannah James: #HannahJames #Samnah #Jamieva #PlotTwist. Both Sam and Hannah have been in Los Angeles, specifically Malibu recently. I have source confirmation that Sam was in L.A. still as of Friday. Not sure if he’s still here or not. But as of Friday, Sept. 3, 2021, he was. Received 100% CONFIRMATION from a trusted person that Sam and Hannah did indeed date sometime starting in 2018-2019. We had all suspected but it had never been confirmed, now it is. Seems like they may still see each other when they can. That part is unconfirmed. But they for sure dated in the past. Pic of them looking cozy together. Comments from mutual friends that would not know Hannah if not for Sam. The only connection is Sam. Confirmed dated.

So, that’s all folks...unless I forgot someone. Sam has had some exclusive, committed relationships and has also dated casually...sounds like a NORMAL MAN to me. 

PS. Anyone come at me with any negative comments about Sam and I will blast you. Sam is 41, gorgeous, rich, famous, and a nice guy, given all that, he could have dated 100 times the amount of women by now. By Hollywood standards, he’s, dare I say it? A monk, hahahaha. Like I’ve said before, he should date more, expand his horizons...try a cougar perhaps. Ahem. ;-)

[incarceratedcastiel]

ok. quick little sentimental post bc i’m abt to hit post limit again (under the cut bc i accidentally wrote a lot) (pictured above me trying to process nov 5 a year ago) (rip i have to do this on my sideblog)

i just wanted to say this past year has been really really fun. idk if i’ll still be here this time next year (i said the same thing about today, ha) but even if not this has been the most fun year of my online life. i’ve never made so many friends in fandom like i have here, i’ve never seen so much incredible fandom creations with fics, artwork, amvs you name it, like i have here. getting to love cas and affirm his identity and his love for dean with you all has been so meaningful to me, as someone who has been uncertainly navigating my own sexuality for more than half my life. maybe it’s pathetic that i log on here every day to literally just like posts from my little friends, but i love it so much. and every time i see all my dm conversations it truly makes me tear up to see a visual of how just how many people i’ve connected with on here through this fandom. if we’ve been mutuals for a year i love you, if we just followed each other today by proxy of our sideblogs i love you, if we’re not technically mutuals but i follow you or you follow me, i love you and i’m so happy you’re on this journey with me. whether i’m only here another week or for the next 10 years, i just want you guys to know how much you’ve impacted my life this past year ❤️

so, all to say, happy november 5th everyone, because this day is about cas and dean but to me it's also about us finding each other.

and now, tagging some mutuals who've really impacted me this year (this is not even close to everyone. i'm just drunk and didn't premeditate this post oops):

@bigdestiel - beloved same taste in women mutual, i love clowning in the tags with you sooooo much you're hilarious

@bedpissercastiel - i'm SO thankful you cold messaged me that day back in may, you're hilarious. sorry for leaving you on read just now i'm typing this post

@castielmegafruithell - confession in my head i think of you as my casgirl wife, i love talking to you so so much

@castiel-kline - what did i do to deserve to be mutuals and besties with such a talented content creator. ik you're not misha now bc you're a better poet than him

@deancasday - you've changed your url so much, but i always look forward to seeing what the next one will be

@floral-cas - we haven't talked much but i cry every time i think about how much positivity you've injected into this fandom

@ghostmary - my jackgirl hero - thanks for listening to me ramble about my favorite boy

@homophobicdean - i've been holding your hand for so many months i've lost count, you're such a soothing constant on here

@icefire149 - intimidating blog to dear friend pipeline, thanks for helping me process beat sheet

@lazarusrisingnatural - we've not been mutuals long but i feel SUCH a kinship with you <3

@pissbabydean - we've not talked much but i think so endearingly of you. and yes i really do call you piss in my head

@rotomcity - i LOVE being online with you, i love being on the same wavelength as you. i will prev your tags until i die

@saileen-away - queen of twilightnatural follows ME??? i'm unworthy. all my favorite content was made by you

@undeadcas - i give my little eileen pop a kiss on the forehead every night, thank you for making her

@5november2020 - tswiftnatural mutual, i've had the time of my life fighting dragons with you

and literally so many other mutuals, it blows my mind how many of you there are. if we haven't talked know that i literally think of you as a good friend in my head <3

[regina-del-cielo]

"The Old Guard" Daemon AU: Booker and the white goose

It’s the year 1812, and you are a horrible goose…

This was supposed to be just a Cursed Thought, but somehow when I put it out into the Void, the Void (aka mutuals and followers alike) chanted back ‘DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT’, so yeah, vox populi assigned Booker a goose daemon, so we go for it!

I have decided to go for the domestic goose (Anser anser domesticus), because while wild geese (the greylag goose) do spend the winter in Southern France, namely the Camargue, it’s really a question of statistics – Booker would have been more familiar with domestic geese

also, wild geese weigh around 4 kg, while most domestic breeds, especially if they were selected for the meat (which, let’s be frank, it’s most of them), are much heavier (the heaviest breeds reach 10 kg); and Booker is a freaking tank, so his goose should be a tank too

the breed I (vaguely) used as inspiration is the Touraine goose, because it’s a white French breed that Booker may have reasonably seen in his first life (since it’s gone extremely rare in the 20th century, finding pictures was A HASSLE)

(almost no one today would recognize a specific breed by looking at her. They would just mentally catalogue her as a ‘white goose’ and leave it at that)

(fun fact: most white goose breeds have blue eyes; seems fitting that the Sad White Man should have a blue-eyed daemon)

geese are flocking birds, they tend to band together in groups for protection from predators, and even domestic geese are never kept as single animals, they’re always at least in couples (🎶 ~ Found Family Vibes Babe ~ 🎶)

geese form life-long monogamous pairs (and wild geese have some pretty high levels of gay couples, GEESE SAID MLM RIGHTS), and goslings tend to remain with their parents until the next breeding season. Goose parents are extremely protective of their nests and babies, and if a member of the couple dies, the other goose will mourn them for a time – Booker sounds like a very family-oriented guy, and he’s still mourning his first family, as we all know.

domestic geese are hardy, extremely adaptable animals, who can pretty much fend for themselves as long as they have some grass to graze. They are also very smart birds, with an excellent visual memory and tend to notice any unusual elements and behaviours in their territory, which makes them fearsome guard animals – they are loud, territorial, and aggressive. Booker’s fighting style is literally ‘whatever works’, so he has to be adaptable. And as the tech guy running background checks for the ops, until Copley he obviously was doing his job well, so he must be good at clocking on less than trustworthy people

(and he is protective and caring of his family when he’s not making monumentally STUPID decisions, although we mostly see it with Andy and Nile)

the Vibe, with the two of them, is Chaotic Bastard 🤝 Chaotic Depressed Bastard

I think that Booker being a Conflicted Character in this AU would reflect in him having quite a few arguments with his daemon, who on the other hand is straightforward to the point of bluntness and takes no bullshit from anyone, let alone her own human. She may have bitten him in the shins quite a few times in the last 200 years, and he may have yeeted her away by the neck quite as often

(he also must have tucked her under his arm like a baguette to make sure she didn’t launch herself at annoying people so many times during negotiations or undercover ops holy shit)

Her name is Adéline, and it’s fully in honour of the geese from The Aristocats – in the original they’re called Abigail and Amelia, but in Italian they’re named Adeline and Gwendoline. Of the four, Adéline was the name that seemed to have been around longer in French

(yes, I know those geese were British. I know exactly what I’m doing here)

(also, Adéline is a variation of Adéle, which means ‘noble’. And Sébastien means ‘the revered’, so. They fit)

(I know that the Fandom Hive Mind seems to have collectively decided that Booker’s wife was named Adéle. Well, seems like a good Married Couple Inside Joke to me – Booker being razzed by family and friends for marrying a girl with the same name as his soul. Adéline, of course, fully approves)

some historical notes: geese were domesticated sometime in the 3rd millennium BCE in Ancient Egypt, and the Homeric poems mention Penelope having tame geese in Ithaca. The Romans dedicated entire sections of farm management treatises to goose-keeping, and the most famous literary evidence of guard geese comes from Titus Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita: the Gauls invading Rome in 390 BCE were stopped from scaling the walls of the Capitoline Hill by a flock of geese, which hadn’t been eaten by the starving population because they were sacred to Juno (the Roman equivalent of Hera, the goddess of marriage); the dogs weren’t disturbed by the intruders, but the geese honked so loudly and incessantly that the city’s defenders were woken up and were able to defend the citadel.

still according to legend, St Martin hid in a stable full of geese to avoid being elected bishop of Tours, but the geese honked and made such a fuss at the intruder that the inhabitants of Tours found him and he had no choice but to accept the nomination – and that’s why in most of Europe you eat roasted goose on St. Martin’s Day (I call that petty revenge, Monsieur Martin)

the English, being contrary as always, eat goose on Michaelmas instead, and it’s said that those who do eat goose on that day will never have problems in settling their debts

(am I going to connect this with Booker and his penchant for winning bets? Maybe)

not to mention, domestic geese were the ‘cheap’ alternative to pigs for many rural communities across Europe, since no part of the goose is wasted (like for the pig), it needs very little care, and its meat is fatty and nutritious.

it is also an important ingredient in Jewish culinary tradition (at least in Italy), especially the salame (this is for you, Jewish!Booker lovers *blows kiss*)

as I said in my general thoughts post, most members of the Guard have a predator daemon, more or less apical in their natural environment (you’d be surprised, but cheetahs are most definitely NOT an apex predator in their habitats). And predators have been associated with warriors in… basically any human culture, I dare say.

and then there’s Booker, whose daemon is not only a herbivore bird, and thus a prey, but the domesticated form, literally selected to end up on people’s tables when they’re chubby enough. Cue the Sad French Baguette watching his self-esteem plummet on the regular because “I’m not a warrior like the others, I’m just a deserter and a cheat”, etc. etc.

anyone who had a Hostile Encounter with a goose, my brother first, would happily dismiss such a notion; and Adéline does dispute it, every day, by being a fucking nuisance during fights, and insisting on carrying spare daggers in her mouth when they go on an op.

(“the others have teeth and claws, I have knives”, she says, preening her feathers)

she also scared the shit out of Maryam and Reparata when Andy, Joe and Nicky went to find him in Russia – while he was dying repeatedly at the noose, every interval of time in which he was alive was a chance for Adéline to chew at the rope to free him.

when she saw the three of them come close, she opened her wings to make herself look bigger and hissed and spat against them with such ferocity and unexpectedness that Maryam jumped in Joe’s arms in a fright, making them both topple into the snow. Reparata reacted with a more dignified growling, but Adéline was hardly fazed by the wolf showing her teeth

they had to wait until Booker died again to come close enough to cut the rope and get him down – Andy just commented that they were going to have their hands full if he was ‘as spirited as his daemon’.

(he was a handful, but not in the way they expected considering their first encounter with Adéline)

I think that before becoming immortal Sébastien wasn’t especially perturbed by his daemon being a goose – they’re common animals, and he was a common man

also, the society in which he grew up was, quite literally, a pressure cooker close to explosion. He was born in 1770, when France was still in full Ancient Régime; but the Enlightenment and its philosophes had been shaping the culture of Europe for a century by then. It was a time of philosophical debates and scientific discoveries, walking hand in hand with state censorship and a stagnant society structure

although the centre of it was of course Paris, Marseille was hardly ignoring it – the Académie de Marseille was founded in 1726, and despite the fact that the 1720 Plague almost halved its population, the city’s port was the most important in Europe, the door from which the goods of the colonies entered France

political theorists discussed society reformation and rights of the individual, and criticism of Church institutions was rampant, with Voltaire at the helm – Europe had spent a good half of the 17th century being rampaged by religious wars, and there was very little religious freedom for anyone that wasn’t Catholic in France

the sharp separation between nobility and the ‘commoners’ of the Third Estate (and even poorer segments of the population) would have become established even in the way their daemons settled, with the nobles and richer people having large or exotic daemons that no commoner would have ever seen in real life

(this is also the age of taxonomy: Linnaeus published his Systema Naturae in 1735, followed by subsequent editions; natural history went gaga over classifying animals and plants, and this reflected on how educated people related to their own daemons)

I can see more radical philosophes in this Daemon AU writing scathing pamphlets that wonder why, if a daemon is a representation of one’s soul, should a corrupt, lazy nobleman be more worth of a lioness daemon than a poor man with a brave heart, solely for his position? And since daemons tend to settle in the form of animals a person is personally familiar with, why should a young woman grown up in a farm, whose daemon settled as a cockerel or a ram or a goat, be accused of witchcraft by the Church for that? Why should snake daemons be vilified in commoners, but shown as symbols of power when draped on the shoulders of a king’s mistress or a cunning politician’s?

if all men are created equal (Thomas Hobbes dixit), then so should their daemons be afforded the same equality, right?

these concepts and discussions had been circulating in French society for decades by the time Sébastien was old enough to understand; state censorship was heavy, but there was a lot of book smuggling from abroad among booksellers, not to mention clandestine pamphlet and newspaper printing, especially in the 1780s

(listen. I know we’ve been snickering at Booker’s nickname being a pun on his surname… but what if we pressed on it even more? What if he loved books because it was his family business? Imagine if his father was a bookseller or a book printer, that maybe smuggled censored books from Switzerland to round up his income…)

Sébastien is nineteen when the French Revolution starts. It’s an earthquake, the old world is being overthrown and a new one is being built in front of his very eyes – feudalism is abolished, a new Constitution is written, all Church properties are confiscated, and newspapers flourish

it is in these tumultuous years of radical changes that Sébastien’s daemon settles into a goose; an animal that, with its popularity and hardiness, in the revolutionary environment must have looked very fitting for a citoyen. A symbol of the strength of the people

(do I think he volunteered to go to Paris in 1792 to protect the République? Personally, yes. I really like the idea of twenty-two year old, idealistic and chomping at the bit to do something Sébastien Le Livre belting la Marseillaise with his full chest, together with his friends and fellow citizens, Adéline honking and marching next to him)

(if he’d died and woken up immortal in 1792 instead of 1812, the Guard would have met a very different man, I think)

(the whole chaos of the Terror, the Directoire and then Napoleon waking up one day and restoring the monarchy thoroughly changed Sébastien’s perspective about the Revolution, together with settling down with marriage and children)

(Napoleonic censorship and the reciprocal embargo between French and English products also makes his printing work harder, and so Sébastien falls back into the other side of the family business… but unlike his father, he’s also good at copying, so he goes into forging rather than just smuggling books)

(we all know how that ended up, don’t we?)

Other references outside of Wikipedia and Reverso translator (I had to interact with. Too Much French for this)

Ashton, C. (2015): Keeping Geese: Breeds and Management. Crowood, 192 pages

Bagemihl, B. (1999): Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. St. Martin’s Press, pgg. 479-481

Darnton, R. (1982): The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. Harvard University Press, 258 pages

[imreallyhereforkataang]

hello, i don’t know who to ask about this but i’m new to the fandom and saw that you really like kataang. what’s your interpretation of katara’s glance down after the kiss before the invasion? i’m not a fan of the surprise kiss trope but even with that said, i had thought she liked him back. it didn’t seem like she did at that point or through the rest of book 3, and then next thing we knew they were endgame in the finale. sorry for being a bother, i’m just a little confused (like katara i guess haha)

Hi, Anon! Welcome to the fandom! Hopefully it treats you nicely lol.

Ah yeah. I've seen this talked about a lot over the years. And, y'know, I get it. It can seem a little out-of-place at first since, as you noted, Katara shows signs of being romantically interested in Aang beforehand, and now that they've had their second kiss, she doesn't look too happy about it. As someone who ships them, I initially would have loved to see them happy in that moment, to take another minute to themselves just to share grins and maybe laugh a bit because they've taken that step, put their feelings out into the open, and they're both glad for it. To a shipper, or to someone who's rooting for our protagonist to express his feelings, this does feel like a celebratory moment. I'm taken out of the context of the scene for a second because the pretty music has shot in and I'm still surprised at Aang's move and I'm happy to see an actual, mutual (as Katara leans in) kiss between them.  

Then again, this situation is a lot realer for them than it is for me. I'm the viewer, I can hear The Cave of Two Lovers' theme, I can see this being painted in a positive light because we see these two come together for a brief moment, and the narrative is, in a sense, praising that. In-universe, though, it's a bit more complicated, and Katara looking sad really isn't so out-of-place.

Remember where they are and what they're doing, what they were saying moments before and what they're about to risk. For them, this is the quiet before the storm, their possibly final goodbye. Aang is about to fly off and face his destiny, confront what he's been training for over most of the year, "since the day we met" as Katara puts it, and determine the fate of the world based on whether he wins or loses. Whether he comes back or not. And he puts the reality of the situation out there. "What if...what if I don't come back?" It's the threat of that possibility that spurs him to kiss Katara. And she figures as much.

Despite the music suggesting otherwise, this isn't a happy scene (and perhaps that's why we don't get the full score until the finale, because this kiss is only foreshadowing what could be). It's tense, and bittersweet, and pretty tragic imo. Aang knows he could die. He says so. And then he kisses her. And I feel like Katara breaking out into a great big smile in that moment, even though she does have feelings for him, would just seem off. Idk, personally I'm not sure how you (impersonal) can celebrate finally kissing the person you like when you remember that what drove them to make their move just now is the very real possibility they might never see you again. That they're about to leave and face that risk, and there's nothing for you to do about it. Seems like an upsetting situation to be in. 

There's also the fact that I'm skeptical Katara didn't already know Aang had feelings for her. I'm not saying it was always on her mind or that she paid much attention to it, she may have been putting all that stuff on the back burner or pretending it wasn't there as much as it was (including her own feelings) to focus on more important things, but I think she at least knew it subconsciously. I mean, Aang's not very subtle sometimes lol, and they've shared plenty of moments. So when Aang kisses her and Katara jerks back and her eyes widen in surprise, it's not because she didn't expect Aang to have these feelings (at least imo), but because she was in the middle of talking and is taken aback that Aang broke the unspoken barrier between them. 

They're touchy feely throughout the show. Katara's kissed him on the cheek plenty of times, they've even kissed on the lips before now. They have sparks, and they've been dancing around them quite a lot, from the Book 3 premiere at the latest. But they haven't gone that extra step to put it out there too far, where there's no mistaking the meaning behind these gestures. I think, on Katara's end, she would have been okay with putting off making any official moves for a while, given the war and several other possible factors preventing her from feeling able to spend too much conscious thought and emotion on it, and so she's surprised that Aang's kissed her because they'd been keeping their more romantic intentions implicit up until then. She won't be realizing afterwards or celebrating in her head that "omg, the guy I('ve sorta been avoiding my feelings for but actually do) like likes me back," because she’s known this, but it’s been left unsaid and kept slightly quiet in Katara's musings. Now, it's out there in the open, they're past the safe zone, there's little room for ignoring the feelings anymore, and it sucks so much that they had to make their way there now. It's such tragic timing, a kiss that doesn't stem from a smiles and rainbows conversation where they sit down to talk about their feelings and where they want to go from there, but a kiss done out of desperation, out of the possibility that Aang doesn't come back. Through that lens, it's almost like they kissed "too early," especially for what happens next.

See, my impression is that Aang's kiss was meant for two possible scenarios -- Aang loses and thus doesn't come back, which means there's obviously no future for him and Katara. Alternatively, the day is won, the war is over, he comes back and the world is finally at peace; they can stop running, they can celebrate and breathe and talk about where they're going from here in an environment more appropriate for that. And since Katara kissed him back, it seems like she affirmed that there's something there for them, given he returns. But instead, something happens that I don't think they anticipated. Aang does come back, but he didn't win. So, in terms of Katara and Aang, they're now at a bit of an impasse, a situation that their kiss wasn't intended for, and it leads to this semi-awkward limbo because Aang's still alive but ideally that kiss between them wouldn't have happened yet. 

Everyone needs to regroup, start it all over again, keep grinding and come up with a new plan. There's no time to get sidetracked, now more than ever. And, to me, that's reflective of what happens to Katara after Aang kisses her and takes off from the sub.

Katara's reaction is to dwell on the kiss. She wants to, but Sokka reminds her that there's no time to. So Katara snaps herself out of it, and she moves on. And then they survive the Day of Black Sun, but the fight isn't over for them yet.

You asked about the DoBS kiss, so I'm not gonna waste your time hyper-analyzing Ember Island Players because there is a lot that's been offered and discussed about that episode. But if you were to simplify the reason for Katara's stance there, it's pretty much just holding up what was established in DoBS.

At the Invasion, while caught up in surprise because she had an expectation that they wouldn't broach the subject this way, if at all, for a while, Katara kissed Aang back, and she kissed him back because she wanted to. But since then, she's had more time to think, and she won't be so caught off guard next time. Aang expresses during EIP that he wants to try a relationship with Katara sooner rather than later, and that he'd thought she felt the same since she kissed him back (as well as the moments they shared before), but Katara is adamant now about this not being the right time. She fully intends to keep her head in the game, like Sokka reminded her at the Invasion. That's essentially what she thinks Aang needs to remember now, too (and yeah, like I said, there are other ideas that can be brought in that contribute to the articulation, but this is the primary point being conveyed here).

Whatever the reason, her response causes Aang to reevaluate his conclusion about where they stand. Even though the war isn't over, he thought that, because he survived and Katara accepted his kiss before, maybe they could try anyways. But Katara still feels stuck in limbo, and she makes that clear. It's also significant to note that Katara doesn't make Aang any promises about being together after the war, which imo was a good move on the writers' part (I have a wip about this but idk when that'll be done lol). Anyways, Aang backs off, following her lead and putting romance aside.

I do want to talk about the second half of Book 3 as a whole, though, not just EIP. I've seen people criticize this portion of the story in terms of Kataang, but I think that, besides the substance of these episodes, it's important to keep in mind that the last 10 episodes of the series (The Western Air Temple and on) originally aired 7.5 months after Day of Black Sun. Not only that, but these episodes all aired within the same week. It was a big, hyped-up event on Nickelodeon dubbed "Countdown to the Comet," and it took place over the course of 6 days. That sort of schedule for finishing a show is...unusual. But it was also intentional here. 

Even though the episodes don't have to be watched that way, the final 10 episodes are, in a way, all together the final big bang of the series. They're majorly dedicated to the most critical elements of the main story, including Zuko finally, after 2.5 seasons, joining the gaang and him finding his place in it. I'd say that The Western Air Temple to The Southern Raiders are most generally about that, about Zuko being accepted and making amends especially to the original three members of the gaang (who he's hurt much more than Toph). The viewer is gratified by watching Zuko do what we all hoped for him, forming relationships with Aang, Sokka, and Katara after all this time, merging our most important A and B plots. The other major things the last 10 episodes are for are the final battle, of course, because that's going to be our conclusion to this journey, and Aang's preparation for it.   

So yes, onscreen interactions between Aang and Katara are fewer, but by no means does that make the rest of Book 3 an undoing of what they have. All their setup has been established, we're good on that, and we're going to leave that relatively be for now while we delve into the action until we're ready to revisit. And besides, imo, they still have extremely critical moments in the last 10 episodes that I am deeply, deeply happy exist. They're more subtle and less explicitly romantic -- a lot of them take place when they're not even around each other, but they speak volumes to me about how Aang and Katara have influenced each other, and how important the other is to them.

These 10 episodes are like a refocus of our largest priorities, and Kataang coming together is put on hold (again, I think that benefits the main story) for the end. But even though we watch less scenes where they're together, with more scenes of Zuko joining and hanging out with each of them individually in place, there's hardly indication of Katara and Aang avoiding each other after their DoBS kiss, or even post-EIP. 

They're still friends first. What they're avoiding is not each other, but a new possibility for themselves, because right now they're choosing to ground their feet in what they have. Basically, around each other, they're pretending what unfolded between them never happened until, possibly, on Katara's say so, it's appropriate to resume that aspect of their relationship.

And after the war, probably into a few months of peace (based on the state of Sokka's leg), she decided it was. She felt ready, and they dove right in.

I hope that clears things up! And don't worry, you weren't a bother at all! I love talking about these two, but unfortunately I became really busy the past couple days (plus this response got deleted and I couldn't salvage it because I saved a copy of a cursed screenshot of Aang and ig it was scary enough to erase my clipboard history :3). Thanks for your patience lol!

[ladyaj-13]

I posted 552 times in 2021

192 posts created (35%)

360 posts reblogged (65%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 1.9 posts.

I added 241 tags in 2021

#aj rambles - 58 posts

#louis tomlinson - 33 posts

#endeavour - 26 posts

#one direction fanfiction - 26 posts

#bbc ghosts - 25 posts

#1d - 17 posts

#tag game - 14 posts

#my fic posts - 14 posts

#aj answers asks - 14 posts

#fanart - 14 posts

Longest Tag: 129 characters

#i'm never sure who my mutuals are so if i ever tag you in something and you're like 'who is this person' pls don't worry about it

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Fandom: One Direction, The Great British Bake Off RPF Pairings: None Tags: Baking, Friendship, Reality TV, Canon Compliant, Post-One Direction, Teamwork, Fluff Rating: G Length: 3.8k

Summary: The camera pans across lush parkland to highlight a white tent, crisp and blinding in the spring sunshine. Four people cross the green lawn, elbows knocking until one is shoved to the side. The camera shot changes, zooming in on the same four figures lined up in cream aprons.

“We’re One Direction,” they say, with cheesy grins and almost in unison. “And this is The Great British Stand up to Cancer Bakeoff!”

Read the fic!

65 notes • Posted 2021-06-23 18:10:06 GMT

#4

If you’re wondering what my sense of humour is, it’s this gif

79 notes • Posted 2021-01-07 09:02:29 GMT

#3

An underrated scene is when Lady Button opens up about her death, and the older ghosts say "Yes, I knew that actually. I was there." It's funny - not just Martha's delivery, but the undercutting by the other ghosts, and the revelation that Fanny never put 2 and 2 together when she learned about the afterlife and realised her day-to-day business was watched by a horde of unseen others.

And then you think about it a bit more, and realise that in that scene, Fanny still thinks it's a secret. It's been a hundred years. And not once, in all that time - all the disagreements and bickering and boredom - did anyone bring it up. Not Robin, who let's face it, messes with people for fun. Not Thomas, who isn't above trying to score a cheap point. Not Mary, who can be pretty oblivious. Not Kitty, who wants to bond and share secrets. (And not Humphrey, but of course he wouldn't.)

I just think that's actually really sweet.

126 notes • Posted 2021-01-07 17:09:55 GMT

#2

Fandom: One Direction

Pairings: Harry/Louis, side Zayn/Liam

Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University; Dual time periods; Enemies to Lovers; Recreational Drug Use; Zouis friendship

Rating: G

Length: 9.6k

Summary: Is it ethical to accept a dinner date for the free food? And will you hate me when I go anyway? Fact 1: Louis hates Harry Styles. Fact 2: Louis is temporarily living off toast and spaghetti hoops Fact 3: ...Louis may be semi-accidentally dating his worst enemy.

Read the fic! (would have been useful to add the link from the off, but hey, I'm a rebel :P)

210 notes • Posted 2021-06-24 12:07:25 GMT

#1

Can we just talk about how Mike is the real MVP of Button House? It must be weird, and not just in the 'not sure if there's a ghost watching me in the shower' way that the show riffs on, but that he's alone in this huge house with his wife who's constantly having conversations he can't follow, laughing at things he can't see, and has a whole new group of friends (if we're being generous) and a new life that he'll never be a part of. He must feel left out. But he handles it all with such... I wanted to use the word grace, but that doesn't go with Mike! Aplomb? Humour? I don't know - he's just very accepting and easy-going about it all, and it's a situation which could have easily gone the other way, and I love him for it.

506 notes • Posted 2021-01-06 08:25:06 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 72 Poll Results (for Anime Only Watchers)

The poll closed with 61 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Manga Readers’ poll, click here.

Anime only watchers, beware of spoilers if you venture over to the manga readers’ poll results.

--

RATE THE EPISODE 61 responses

Unlike the last couple of weeks, this episode brought in a higher amount of 5-star rankings, indicating the episode was overall well received. 

crazy intense crazy edge of seat 

10/10

It was too short. I need more. Can't wait for the next episode❤️

WHICH MOMENT AT LEVI AND ZEKE’S LOCATION WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 61 responses

There were many focuses this episode, so we opted to split up the favorite moments into a few separate parts. Though Levi and Zeke’s scenes didn’t talk up the bulk of the episode, they were still prominent. 60.7% most enjoyed watching as Levi agonized over the deaths of his comrades after hearing Eren had escaped from prison, doubting whether the deaths had meaning or not in the end. Far behind that, at 16.4%, was Zeke and Levi’s banter about whether or not Levi is popular. 9.8% were happy to get the story about what happened to Connie’s village back in episode 26.

WHICH MOMENT INVOLVING FALCO, GABI, THE BLOUSE FAMILY AND NICOLO WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 61 responses

When it came to the moments where Gabi, Falco and the others were the main focus, the fandom (at 41%) most appreciated the moment where Sasha’s father talks about why he believes Sasha died, choosing not to punish Gabi for her misdeed. 23%, on the other hand, were happy to see Nicolo reveal the truth about Gabi to the Blouse family as he held Falco hostage. 13.1% enjoyed the altercation between Gabi, Falco and Nicolo beforehand. 11.5% enjoyed the overall tension between Nicolo and Gabi arguing over the circumstances of Sasha’s death. 

I really liked the scene where Niccolo reveals the truth about Gabi and Falco. I wasn’t sure how the reveal would end up happening/when it would happen, but every beat was so satisfying.

WHICH MOMENT INVOLVING THE SURVEY CORPS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 60 responses

The Survey Corps inadvertently get involved in the restaurant drama and manage to drag in the Yeagerists with them. Though, when it comes to moments that involved the Survey Corps, Eren showing up to menacingly greet Armin and Mikasa was at the top of 65% of respondents’ lists. 

floch epic smile

Eren literally stole the episode with that casual greeting.

Eren just dropping his existence on Armin, Gabi and Mikasa.. nice moment.

ZEKE ACCUSES LEVI OF BEING UNPOPULAR. LEVI DENIES THIS. WHAT DO YOU THINK? 61 responses

During their conversation in the forest, Levi accuses Zeke of being guitless over the fate of Ragako village, to which Zeke retorts by saying Levi must not be popular. 44.3% of respondents aren’t sure whether or not Levi is or ever has been popular, but got a good laugh at seeing him get so defensive over the accusation. 24.6% feel that he must be popular… he is humanity’s strongest, afterall. 19.7% think if he is popular, it’s only among the Survey Corps. 

Petra and Levi crumbs!!!

Well he’s popular in the real world.

He just don’t care

PAPA BLOUSE SAYS THAT IT IS UP TO THE ADULTS TO SHOULDER THE SINS OF THE PAST, AND TO “KEEP THE CHILDREN OUT OF THE FOREST.” WHAT DO YOU THINK? 59 responses

This question had a little less to do with the content of the anime, but more where viewers stand from a general worldview when it comes to what Papa Blouse had to say. The majority, at 57.6%, do feel that it’s the adult’s responsibilities to do everything they can not to burden children with the problems created in the past. 22% feel the opposite, however, and believe that children are no exception when it comes to dealing with the problems the world faces. 18.6% are somewhere in the middle, agreeing that ideally children wouldn’t be forced to bear the brunt of our sins, but that it is regrettably unavoidable. 

All problems in AoT are there because of children inherting their parents/ancestors sins. Stop it, listen to Mr. Blouse

WERE YOU SATISFIED WITH THE EXPLANATION OF WHAT HAPPENED IN RAGAKO VILLAGE? 60 responses

We appeared to finally get an answer about what happened in Connie’s village 4 years ago. Overall the majority of the fandom has accepted it as fact, with 55% feeling that it really cleared things up for them, while 11.7% accepted it but felt that it was a cheap explanation. 31.7% feel that it was a lie fabricated by Zeke and want to see if any other explanation surfaces in the future. 

I felt like they went over it very fast, would have like a more in depth explanation

DO YOU THINK THAT ZEKE CARES ABOUT THE SURVIVAL OF THE ELDIAN RACE? 59 responses

Zeke claims his actions have all been for Eldia’s sake. Levi is sure suspicious of this statement, but what about the fandom? 45.8% don’t want to say one way or another if Zeke is being genuine about this claim and want to wait and see how things unfold. 32.2% are absolutely positive that this is a lie, and that Zeke would rather see the Eldian race perish. Only a small handful feel the opposite, and believe Zeke genuinely wants to see Eldians thrive. 

i think yes, but only for their use as possible weapons as titans?

LEVI AND ZEKE BOTH SEEM TO AGREE THAT THE MILITARY IS WASTING TIME. BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU? 59 responses

57.6% landed somewhere in the middle on this question, feeling that it’s possible the military is taking too long to make a move on, well, anything… but that they also can’t just leave caution to the wind when it comes to their delicate situation. 35.6%, on the other hand, feel they are taking too long and there is really no excuse for it (other than, perhaps, incompetence). Only a sliver of respondents think that they aren’t wasting time and doing the best they can to get things under control. 

They are in stand-by for too much time, time and events are catching up with them 

They should be listening more to Eren and prepare for Marley's inevitable attack. Marley and the Warriors are the true enemy, not Eren.

KAYA SEEMS TO THINK THAT SASHA AND NICOLO WERE IN LOVE. WHAT DO YOU THINK? 60 responses

58.3% of respondents believe Kaya is right, and that Nicolo and Sasha had mutual romantic feelings for each other. On the other hand, 38.3% feel that the romantic feelings were purely one-sided on Nicolo’s part. We may never know for sure without Sasha’s perspective. 

We haven't seen Sasha interact with Nicolo expect when eating his food so it's hard to tell

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NICOLO ATTACKING GABI AND FALCO? 60 responses

Nicolo wasn’t at all welcoming of Gabi bragging about taking Sasha’s life, and in his anguish tried to attack her. 56.7% feel that while this isn’t particularly excusable, it was an understandable thing to do, given the circumstances. 38.3%, on the other hand, were only disappointed that Falco got in the way. One respondent feels the opposite, and hopes that Nicolo gets some kind of karmic justice for his action. 

Falco always takes for Gaby I'm sad 

Attacking Falco, big nope. Attacking Gabi, TWO THUMBS UP!

Glad Nicolo got to punch Gabi, but I'm disappointed he was talked out of it with talk no jitsu. Shoulda killed Gabi on the spot.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT MIKASA’S COMPASSION TOWARD GABI? 59 responses

After Papa Blouse’s speech, Mikasa checks on Gabi and asks to see her wounds. This is quickly followed up by her outright protecting Gabi from Kaya’s rage. 37.3% were just happy to see her get any focus that wasn’t centered around Eren, while 30.5% have nothing but praise for our heroine. 23.7%, on the other hand, wish she hadn’t intervened at all and let things play out as they may. 

Bad Mikasa, bad! I’ve lost ALL love and respect for her now!

Gabi should have died and I will forever hate Mikasa and Artur for not letting her die

Hating Mikasa forever for stopping Kaya

AFTER SEEING GABI’S EMOTIONAL RESPONSES OVER THE BLOUSE FAMILY’S GRIEF, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HER? 60 responses

We got a colorful pie chart with this one. 26.7% felt happy to see her finally getting some (hopefully) positive character development, while 23.3% felt the complete opposite - that they don’t think she truly feels anything about it and that they still don’t enjoy her character. 21.7% are happy to see she feels some remorse, but it’s not enough to make them like her. However, 16.7% are starting to feel more warmly toward her. 

i dont like her, but i like that shes developing as a character. If she finally made the connection that all of them, as human beings, shouldnt be carryign the burdens of their past and defining eaxh ither by the mistakes of their ancestors, creating a never ending cycle of violence, which she is shown as on the brink of umderstanding, then i might begin to like her character a little more

I love seeing Gabi’s slow realization that the islanders aren’t “devils”. Girl needs some kindness, and I’m glad that they can forgive her.

I still hate Gabi. No development will ever change that.

NICOLO SAYS THAT YELENA GAVE THEM INSTRUCTION TO SPIKE THE WINE. DO YOU THINK SHE IS THE ULTIMATE MASTERMIND BEHIND THIS SCHEME? 58 responses

Changing focus here, we move onto the wine plot. 39.7% believe that Zeke is the ultimate mastermind behind the wine plot. 20.7% don’t want to say for sure who exactly was in charge of it, and 17.2% believe it is purely Yelena’s doing. 10.3% think it may be someone else that we are unaware of just yet. 

I think Yelena is definitely cooperating with Eren.. but not Zeke? 

i think she got something from zeke, but then continued on to do what she thinks that zeke would want, in zeke's name

FLOCH IS AWARE OF THE SPIKED WINE. DO YOU THINK EREN IS AS WELL? 61 responses

When it comes to Eren’s possible awareness of the wine plot, 42.6% believe that he definitely knows about it, while only 27.9% think that he’s completely oblivious to it. 21.3% didn’t want to say one way or another, and the remainder have already been spoiled on this.

WHY DO YOU THINK THE WINE WAS SPIKED WITH ZEKE’S SPINAL FLUID? 58 responses

Nearly half of respondents (48.3%) believe the wine was spiked with Zeke’s spinal fluid as an insurance in case Paradis does anything to threaten Zeke. 13.8% feel it is on a lesser scale, and that he is simply being cautious about Eren and his intentions. 17.2% believe it’s not related to a potential betrayal at all, but rather the ability to have pure titans available should Paradis be attacked. 

He wants to wipe out the higher ranks to control Paradis himself

I really don't know but I'm sure he has a great plan in mind

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN TO FALCO? 58 responses

The majority of the fandom feel more confident than not about Falco’s future, feeling that though he may become a titan, he will be saved by one of the titan shifters. 10.3% believe that he won’t actually be titanized at all, with another 10.3% stating they’re simply not sure. Only a small handful actually feel more bleak about Falco’s fate.

WHY DID NICOLO CONFESS? 59 responses

45.8% of respondents feel that Nicolo felt pressed to confess about the wine due to multiple factors. 30.5% believe he did so because he didn’t want to lie about the ramifications to his friends in the Survey Corps. 10.2% believe he was moved by the Blouse family’s compassion, and 6.8% felt that he knew the jig was up, and another 6.8% believe he simply felt guilty for attacking Gabi and Falco.

WHAT DO YOU THINK EREN WANTS TO TALK TO ARMIN AND MIKASA ABOUT? 59 responses

37.3% believe that the contents of EMA’s conversation will revolve around what Eren’s goals are. 13.6% believe that he’s there to negotiate with them about something or another. 11.9% believe that he’s going to try to get them on board with his plan and try to recruit them as Yeagerists. 10.2% aren’t sure what he’s seeking out, and only one person thinks he’s going to threaten them. The rest have all been spoiled. 

I think he gonna tell tem he is the new final boss of the game 😂

all of the above except threaten snd ive been spoiled 

possibly the first two, i think hes going to ask them to join him after letting them have a little bit of insight, and possibly somehting about their past as friends

DO YOU THINK EREN WILL COME TO “UNDERSTAND” WHATEVER IT WAS MIKASA AND ARMIN WANTED TO SAY TO HIM? 56 responses

Though it’s not clear what Armin wanted to say to Eren beyond trying to figure out what his goal is, 46.4% believe that Eren won’t be having any of it and will not come to an understanding. 41.1%, however, feel the opposite and think that Eren will come around to whatever it is Armin and Mikasa want. The remainder have been spoiled.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Voice acting on the revelation that Gabi is the one who killed Sasha is so superb! I like how our characters want to stop the cycle of revenge even if they appear as unrealistically kind. And Floch, he looks like a demon! It looks like he just feels so great to be in control and I just want things to turn around for him. And Levi's popularity with the ladies? I like the little comedy sprinkled into these episode. I just feel for him the irony of the situation that the person they protected with their all turned out to be like that.

It was sooooo good. The scene with Gabi and Nicolo had so much emotion in it. And I paused and said "holy shit" out loud when  Eren appeared

Caused lots of conflicting feelings towards characters and provided a lot of character development

The wine was definitely sus

Super looking forward to the next episode...I feel like something absolutely crazy is gonna happen! thanks MAPPA<3

Nicolo could have easily been the MVP of this chapter. Then he backed down because of that coward Artur Braus's cringe speech. Shame.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 59 responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated! 

If you haven’t yet, please take a moment to send in your vote for up to 5 favorite characters for our 2021 character popularity poll! 

[sanstropfremir]

please let me join the dance conversation since it's the form of art i am actually the most interested in. i've been dancing as a kid for 6 years, and i don't mean to say that that gave me any type of authority in the domain, but it did leave me with the slight ability to recognize a good performance (or whatever makes a good performance to me, personally) and a great appreciation for valueing dancing as acting, like you said. too often i've seen dance ranking videos from actual life-long dancers who value technical skill above anything else. even if they take into consideration the facial expressions, it doesn't hold much weight and that always lowkey pissed me off. because when i am watching a performance, i care way more about the emotional delivery rather than the technical one. of course, this is not to disregard skill, because emotion without skill just ends up messy. good enough to appreciate as a form of authentic self-expression, but still messy, and mess won't make you a good dancer.

i've really enjoyed seeing you say dancing and acting have a mutual component since i've always felt that way too but never knew how to put it in words. two groups that come in mind when thinking about this are blackpink and itzy, i have no idea how familiar you are with them so i'm sorry if the following come across as foreign to you. but i gotta say, regarding bp, i think there's always been discourse over lisa vs rose as the best dancer. technically, everybody knows lisa is miles ahead, and i have to say she has decent stage presence and some pretty nice facial expressions too (taking into consideration how limited bp's concepts have been so far). rose, on the other hand, has a certain style that appeals to a specific audience (which i am not a part of, her lack of body control is so irritating sometimes) but i can see why some would find her charming. i would say her stage presence is decent too, but i can't help but choose lisa over her, and not just because i'm biased. but because in order to be a true dancer, you need the right balance between technique and emotion that gives your performance that star-value and appeal. and let's be real, kpop is really lacking in that "true dancer" department.

another dancing discourse that goes on is in the itzy fandom, where fans are pitting yeji and chaeryeong against each other. their techniques are quite different but they are each very good in their respective style. now, i've seen people call yeji the better "idol dancer" since she has better developed facial expressions, and chaeryeong the better "overall dancer" since people value her technique more. and i'm just like, no. emotion makes or breaks a dancer. everyone can learn technique, but emotion is hard to fake, and when you do, the non-authenticity is very much obvious.

that's why i love san as a dancer. he might not be the most technically skilled, but he is skilled enough to hold his own. and his way of living in the performance, of just letting every feel of the song wash over him and show the audience 110% and more - nothing compares to that, no amount of technicality. stage presence is something you just have, and no matter how much you train for it, you will pale in comparison to a natural.

wow, this is really long so thank you if you take the time to read it all and respond. english is not my first language and sometimes i'm having trouble finding the right words to get my point across exactly how i think of it in my mind, so i hope the message is delivered accurately, haha :D also, i must add i love the way you talk, your speech has a flow and a uniqueness to it you don't find everyday. and we love a developed vocabulary<3 may i ask how old you are?

thank you for the compliment, thats very sweet of you! english is my native language and i have spent just as much time, if not longer doing academics as i have doing performance work so at this point ive developed a very specific style. there’s a joke that theatre design is 90% communication and only 10% design, and it’s not wrong. it helps that i like to talk and my brain works very fast sometimes.

im glad you took the time to write this out! and don't apologize for your english, it's excellent and very clear. you are correct i know very little about blackpink and itzy but i would likely agree with you, dance is equal parts emotion and technique and that is my preference in idols as well. but i don’t think that the kpop industry needs to have ‘true’ dancers, though. yes it is fun to watch those who are technically and charismatically gifted in dance, it is only a portion of the experience that they market. also i think we lose a bit of objectivity in kpop because all idols are required to dance, but i dont think ive seen one recently that's a legitimately bad dancer. even the ‘worst’ dancers that i can think of are still leagues better than the average person on the street, but we see them as ‘bad’ because they work directly alongside peers who are legitimately gifted and have a passion for dance as a form. 

it's interesting to hear you say that everyone can learn technique but emotion is hard to fake, because i hear a lot of dancers say that. i think this comes from a misunderstanding of what exactly acting is and how it works. i would argue that a statement closer to the sentiment that you (and many others) are trying to get is ‘not everyone can do both at the same time.’ the average person is no more predisposed to acting then they are to dance, because acting is a skill that can be taught and exercised in the same way dance can. sure, there are people that have a higher latent ability, but if you put in the work, you can learn. why do you think there are acting classes and schools and conservatories? you can get a doctorate in acting if you really want to. the thing about acting is that in order to be good at it, you have to both understand and be able to implement the correct postures for mimicking human emotion. this is an insanely complex task when you get down to the brass tacks of it. just think about your face and body posture for a moment. why are you sitting/standing in that particular way? why is your face in that particular expression? what do you think your posture is saying to someone who is observing you? how would you change it if you wanted the person to start a conversation with you? if you wanted them to leave you alone? 

there’s also a general assumption that acting comes from a place of genuine or authentic emotion, and this is the fault of modern ‘method’ film acting. i have a very long thesis about how much i hate method acting and i can make a separate post about that if people are curious. but suffice to say, acting very rarely comes from a ‘genuine’ place. it may be informed from a genuine place, but by nature it is not real. thats what makes it acting. and i think dancers seem to be under the impression that showing emotion while dancing has to come from the dancer personally feeling those emotions, when thats not the case at all. this criminal fancam is a perfect example of exactly how good taemin is at putting on a character for a performance. you can very clearly see him drop character after the main camera cuts, and pretty much any concert footage shows this as well.

now, being able to do both a complex system of physical movements with your body and also control the minute details and timing in your facial muscles and posture? thats pretty fuckin hard. not a lot of people can do that, it takes just as much practice as learning technique does, just not in the way that people might think. but it is possible.

[zuzuslastbraincell]

For the salty ask game: 6, 10 and 16? <3

6: Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

I never used to like kataang or maiko much, but I’m good with the former and really like the latter now.

while I’m still not a big fan of the kataang (without wanting to write an essay: ember island players ruins it for me), I’ve softened on it a lot largely just from seeing the content for it on here. they’re just honestly very sweet? I don’t know if it’ll last for practical reasons, but the idea of aang & katara offering each other hope from the beginning and until the end is just lovely. 

as for maiko, I absolutely love the strength of mai & zuko’s dynamic (platonic or romantic) just from their boiling rock interactions alone. I feel like a lot of early s3 maiko very much demonstrates that they have some communication difficulties to work through together (thinking about the beach in particular here, but also the ‘are you cold?’ scene, as well as the break-up via letter interaction, that’s the big one) and in a sense mai represents part of zuko’s ‘ideal’ life as a perfect prince that he realises that he has to break from in the first half of s3, but I’ve come around to the idea that if they spent some time working through their communication issues they could really have something lovely? I do also think mai deserves a short break from the stifling culture of nobility/time to explore herself first, but after that? totally could work. like, i’m personally really attached to the gay zuko headcanon and always have been but a lot recent mutuals are maiko shippers and i’ve become very attached to maiko as well because of them (in parallel universes of course).

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

so many things....

1. less racist, more sensitive worldbuilding. crucially better south asian rep, clear south asian rep. this also means including removing the caricature of guru pathik and changing the design of combustion man (and p’li) not to include a reference to shiva. the show’s philosophies and vocabulary owes so much to south asian culture and the lack of representation in that aspect alone is shocking.

2. references to the fact that there are some air nomad survivors / descendents in hiding in various and that being a late s2 / s3 subplot. (maybe aang is still the last airbender tho? but certainly his culture won’t die with him). the culture isn’t perfectly preserved / has changed with time and enduring hardships, some things have been lost, but there are still survivors clinging on, proud. maybe it’s this community that helps with him the avatar state, not a random guru? or they could help him with his s3e1 dilemma about ‘blending in’, as many of them have discarded certain aspects of appearance in order to hide? i feel like this could add so much to aang’s arc in the latter half of the show.

3. better writing of the white lotus, with the white lotus as a international resistance org that operates in all nations, that uses old man’s pai sho club as a front. they’re introduced as opposing the dai li in ba sing se, as trying to organise resistance in secret, have ties to some local revolutionary/radical factions as they have a long standing rivalry with the dai li (& part of the reason the dai li side with azula is to crush the white lotus and resistance to their reign). iroh is not grand lotus but merely gets recruited in s2, as part of a redemption arc.

4. a subtle iroh redemption arc where iroh realises he cannot simply be passive and perhaps let the treasonous thought ”hm, maybe it would have been better if the avatar fought sozin” cross his mind - he needs to take a more active role in opposing the fire nation, and he joins the white lotus. i think he also needs to reckon quite specifically with the cost of the siege of ba sing se, he needs to make amends to those hurt from it on both sides - be confronted by fire nation defectors who left after the siege because why were their deaths less important that his son’s? as well as encounter how the siege left scars on the lower ring, in a less visible way (untrained lower ring residents formed resistance militia and generally died in huge numbers; plague and starvation greatly affected the lower ring, etc.). no iroh as a moral authority here - he’s morally grey trying to become good. also he doesn’t stick around in ba sing se, he realises the jasmine dragon, as lovely as it is, isn’t true redemption either, and at the end of the series he stays in the fire nation.

5. leading into point 3 (and 4): in s3 the gaang encounters and works with grassroots underground resistance in the fire nation. i think this is a better message than ‘oh the fire nation is a soceity ridden by class division that exploits its poorer / less privileged people and its own environment as long as it doesn’t affect the elite, and turns even its most privileged children into traumatised child soldiers and is indirectly hurt by its own colonialism and imperialistic culture, and that’s deeply sad’ - i think a better message is ‘the fire nation is a society with all those problems and you can do something about it. you can stand up. even though that’s scary.’ this resistance group is around for day of black sun (in fact they’re vital to it) and then you see a key member in boiling rock too.

6. no combustion man. honestly? weak writing. would much prefer zuko attempting to ‘stealthily’ track the gaang on the false premise of a ‘welcome home tour’ where he slips out under night to try and chase them down - this would mostly be alluded to in a few scenes. i also think this would get zuko to realise how much the fire nation itself has been hurt from war. i think the main early s3 plot points e.g. the beach episode still happens, as does the war meeting. i feel like zuko would need extra firepower to be a decent s3 threat - maybe he takes mai and ty lee with him? zuko ultimate lesbian ally takes bored lesbians from the palace for a knife throwing chi blocking field trip kjfshdj i’m joking. but seriously we could also have a combustion bender on board as well as a potential new character (i’m imagining someone like a younger p’li if i’m honest, same age range as zuko), as long as they have a character beyond being a scary assassin. maybe they defect early to the resistance group before the day of black sun, tell zuko they should too (but zuko doesn’t listen)? that’d be rad.

7. the existence of grassroots resistance would basically allow for the series to end with zuko being offerred the crown, but deciding to give it up / end the royal line. rather than a power vacuum, or iroh, the existance of resistance means there are clearly people (i.e. adults) who can fill that space. maybe this is a bit optimistic of me but i would just love to set up a scenario where zuko doesn’t become a boy-king of an imperialist nation and where absolute monarchy doesn’t continue, where there’s a clear shift in system. i understand the narrative power of zuko acknowledges he has inherited wealth and power that has been gained through exploitation and imperialism, and dedicating his whole life to undoing the damage his family has done, but i think he can do this without being the fire lord? in fact not being the fire lord is a good first step. zuko finds another way of doing exactly this.

8. talked about this a lot recently but better toph s3 representation & greater ties to the earth kingdom. also, i’d just appreciate a lot more flavour from the earth kingdom as a whole, and more prominent characters from there?

9. okay i’m not sure there is quite honestly space in the narrative for an azula redemption clearly on screen in as much depth as zuko’s but 1. i’d like iroh not to treat her horribly, thanks, and maybe even try to reach out to her at appropriate moments, maybe we see him (comically) say a lovely warm hello during her s2 appearances, maybe we see her play pai sho with him in s3 while he’s in prison in return for some secret info he’s not actually giving her while he’s not-so-subtly suggesting she should defy her father (but it’s too little too late, he already *chose* zuko in her eyes, and perhaps he did and is only just beginning to realise that) 2. i would like some hope and optimism at the end for azula. her breakdown is truly tragic but it feels like pain for pain’s sake in a sense - i would have loved for the finale scene with zuko & ozai replaced with a scene where someone visits azula and tells them they’ll be there for her and/or they love her. perhaps iroh, perhaps zuko (though i think that one would be more complicated obviously). i would love a post-finale scene where iroh sets up a tea shop somewhere in the fire nation where we see azula out the back, finishing up wiping down/mopping the patio, and before aang goes inside to say hi to his friends, we see them bump into each other - azula bows deeply, a clear apology, and aang accepts it. then we see azula runs off to go hang out with some friends before we follow aang inside as he encounters his own friends.

basically i’d rewrite a lot of s3. i’m dearly, dearly attached to s3, especially the second half, which has some of my favourite episodes of the entire season, but i think it’s flawed.