#the perspective is so off in this leave me alone abt it though

[foraging-beast]

random little drawing because dan is so easily manipulated by herbert touching him it’s kinda silly

[nickwildelvr]

Genshin rant that I have to get out bc no one has talked abt this but

BIGGEST PET PEEVE is when people make childes dad abusive or homophobic because he sent childe to the military bc ik that sounds bad OUT OF CONTEXT but lets put this into his fathers perspective ok. His “timid and hesitant” 14 yr old boy suddenly goes missing for 3 days and has come back a completely different boy. He is now an egotistical violent maniac. He HURTS people, PICKS FIGHTS WITH EVERYONE, imagines tearing off BIRDS’ WINGS. And even though his dad was extremely worried the last straw was when childe took place and POSSIBLY EVEN STARTED a HUGE BRAWL with CLOSE FATALITIES. HE ALMOST KILLED PEOPLE. Do u realize how scary that is to see that type of drastic change from your own child(e). (I had to) THAT MAN WAS SCARED OF HIS OWN SON. THATS SCARY TO SEE??? and in this little town of morepesok it’s not like there’s fucking mental hospitals let alone ANYWHERE IN TEYVAT so at that point what else is there to do. I mean u CANT just let him get worse as he gets older he’s probably gonna join some gang or smthn. So “he had no choice but to send his BELOVED SON to the fatui”. It’s not like he did it to make his son worse or to hurt him, plus childe was FAR from hating it and still loves his job. Plus he gets big bucks too 🤤❕

And I do not for one second think that childe resents his father for it. Now I still definitely don’t think they have the best relationship when it comes to opening up though, or anything emotional, maybe their past plus as dash of toxic masculinity in there. I feel like they would both avoid the topic too, maybe sometimes it’s a little bit stiff between them. Childe would probably be a little more closed off to his old man than he is to his mom yk cuz there’s no way he’s not a mamas boy. BUT THEY STILL FUCKING LOVE EACH OTHER AND HIS DAD ISNT HITTING HIM OR CALLING HIM SLURS LIKE GOD. Leave that man alone he loved his son more than anything and still probably does.

I’m sad childe isn’t that major of a character to the point that we would probably ever get a close look into his relationships with his family let alone his father but that’s just my personal take on their dynamic. I just am GETTING TIRED of people saying this like “I bet childe hates his father” “his dads probably homophobic” “poor childe he got sent the the fatui :((“ MAYBE BC HE ALMOST KILLED PEOPLE???? Like what That’s on him bruh 💀

I removed the drawing I originally put bc anything angst that I draw makes me cringe so bad after a week 💀💀💀💀

[yuukei-yikes]

WAIT i was the vacation dream kanoshin anon but i just remembered an actual one i thought of myself not my subconcious but i somehow forgot about it-

in my delusions a route similar to the novel route is what gives us str (not mekakucity actors shh- canon isn't real if it's from mca), meaning Kano has his weird ass traumadumping session with ene and whatnot and ends up having to spill the beans to the rest of the dan INCLUDING shintaro not just shintaro casually vanishing-

anyways so this ends up with the same vibe as novel-route kano and shintaro which is like. i mean. kano literally describes shintaro as looking at him the same way he looked at ayano and that kano "can't win against him" like. 🤨

Yada yada everything w/ clearing eyes, similar fight to mca ish ( i like the idea of marry draining her friends of their life to save their lives it's interesting to me-) and wahoo ayano. hi. she exists now (with ofc haruka and hiyori too-) and obviously everyone's like HOLY SHIT. especially the mekutrio. and ESPECIALLY kano.

Like I imagine Kano has a much harder time wrapping his head around the fact Ayano's back since while the other two just saw her death as suicide, he knew what caused it / all the clearing eyes stuff so he couldn't really accept her death and move on, while the others (obviously heartbroken over it though) were able to accept it and grow, yea?

Well we get those feelings of "holy shit my sister is alive" but also mixed with these feelings of "oh fuck. i (very unfortunately) might have a thing for my sister's crush." and IMMEDITELY backs the fuck off from both of them. He doesn't ignore ayano obviously but he doesn't seek her out, and he just actively avoids shintaro. ayano's concerned but meanwhile shintaro's just kinda like. what the fuck did i do to you???

Anyways dunno how that gets resolved i never thought past just the idea that kano can barely handle these two facts alone (ayano is alive now and he might maybe like shintaro a little bit (ew)) but together? Fuck. He is Not thinking on that he is backing Way the fuck up. Nope. Not his circus not his monkeys (he is actually just the entire circus).

Anyways long story short when Ayano comes back and everything is resolved kano's unresolved grief over her death but also the budding crush he's developing on shintaro hit him with the force of a truck (haha) and he does Not know how to handle that so he just Doesn't

DUDE. YOU AND I. SAME BRAIN. LIKE THIS IS SO SPECTACULARLY ALL MY SAME FEELINGS RIGHT FROM DELUSIONALLY IMAGINING NOVEL ROUTE WITH A GOOD END AS MY IDEAL ROUTE AND MARY TAKING THE SNAKES HERSELF AND ALMOST KILLING EVERYONE AND KANO LIKING SHINTARO AND BEING SO FREAKED OUT HE BACKS OUT LEAVING SHINTARO CONFUSED BECAUSE HE THOUGHT THEY HAD WORKED EVERYTHING OUT IN THAT CONVO WHERE KANO COMES CLEAN TO KIDO AND HIM(AND TAKANE HERE TOO) sorry for yelling. i just get excited when i get same brain with someone. like exactly. EXAAAACTLY.

but for ayano i think kano is super close with her and he's constantly trying to go back the same relationship they had where ayano relied so heavily on him, especially bc kano wants to distract himself FROM himself so he wants to focus on how she's doing but ayano isn't gonna do what she did. she realised just how messed up it was putting kano through all that and she feels so responsible. ayano and kano are on this weird YOU CAN COUNT ON ME. NO U CAN COUNT ON ME. NO NOT ME COUNTING ON YOU, YOU COUNTING ON ME!!! constantly... imagine kano sitting through ayano go on and on about shintaro bc ayano can see kano wants her to rely on him so she's like well it doesnt hurt anyone if i just talk abt my crush. like its a thing she can stand talking abt and from her perspective kano will be satisfied just hearing her talk about anything she doesnt talk to anyone else. and kano sits through it like 😁😁😁(wants to explode into a million pieces)

also god the bit u mentioned abt kano saying shintaro smiled at him like how he used to smile at ayano. sorry like allow me to attach the whole thing because

☝️☝️☝️⁉️⁉️⁉️like what the fuck is this. WHAT WAS JIN THINKING WHEN HE WROTE THIS LIKE THIS IS SOOOO. homo. kano is so insanely homosexual for shintaro in the seventh novel like there are several examples it's amazing. anyways the "he's invincible" line i am particularly obsessed with and it's why i always insist kano has this weird thing where he's constantly trying to have the upper hand with shintaro while shintaro unknowingly and effortlessly outsmarts him just by being himself.

kano's feelings for shintaro are so complicated and full of resentment and he always wanted shintaro to be entirely horrible just to justify how he feels, but shintaro keeps proving he's a good person and kano keeps being unable to deny not only that but also that he LIKES him and even admires him. and it drives him so crazy.

meanwhile shintaro's feelings for kano are complicated bc 1. wtf does he hate me or not. 2. augh he's a guy im not gay. 3. my girlfriend(?)'s brother. like shintaro hating kano's guts back is funny but it's not the move like it's not true. shintaro wants nothing more than to get along with kano!!! everyone gets on shintaro's nerves and kano gets on everyone's nerves, so bc of this i understand the common misconception of shintaro hating kano back.

anyways shintaro is so clueless bc he thought they were ok?? they talked it out so it's fine?? he can't ever figure out kano's inconsistent behaviour. he decides that it's probably bc he's protective of ayano but he knows that's not all of it.

ugh ugh ugh. KANOSHIN FIRST KISS WHERE SHINTARO'S LIKE genuinely sad and confused and finally confronts kano like seriously what's the matter?? i thought we were cool already?? and kano's super dismissive like whaaa nothing omg of course we're best friends❤️ but shintaro isn't letting it go and kano is getting rly fed up bc his patience is SO short when it comes to shintaro which also pisses him off like why is he making me feel so out of my element like the best i do is LIE why does he drive me SO CRAZY. and then shintaro's like i just wanna know what can i do to make things ok!!!!! and its so genuine and he is just so earnest and pathetic looking kano kisses him impulsively.

anyways. kanoshin.

[maguneedsalife]

T'zekhwalker - Final Zenos Fight

i spent so much time here it needed its own post. i'd be lying if i said this one scene wasn't a main reason i pushed t'zekh through the main story (the other was i wanted him to get to 90/get the rdm artifact gear so he could wear his canon glam but you know)

so, some background for folks who are new here: t'zekh was the main wol for stormblood. he was the one zenos became obsessed with, and he has spent most of endwalker trying to get zenos to leave him alone. he knows zenos desperately wants t'zekh to kill him--to come at him with fire and rage and bloodlust--but t'zekh refuses to kill anyone no matter how much they deserve it.

i had been waiting so long for t'zekh to be able to do this dialog choice and the answer i had envisioned for him actually changed from the time i did this with aoife. originally i'd thought he'd go with option 2, but by the time i got here, 3 was more his style.

which ended up being a good thing, because zenos's response to that answer was fucking perfect for t'zekh

small aside--it drove me bonkers back when spoiler embargo first lifted and ppl (mostly on twitter) were INSISTING that answer 1 was the only possible canon answer and if you picked any of the others you were clearly playing the game wrong. even despite yoshi p confirming that there was no "correct" answer and the team had tried to write it so that players could respond to zenos the way they felt best reflected their own character's experience. people were STILL out there like "sorry but if you didnt pick option 1 you're just wrong"

so to see the text validate my choice and my hcs so perfectly has me feeling vindicated in this chilis. it is okay for people to have a different experience of the game than you!!! (i'll get off my soapbox now)

option 3 was perfect for t'zekh because he is finally fed up enough with zenos that he's finally willing to cast aside his moral opposition to killing in order to make sure zenos can't hurt anyone else in his name.

and zenos caught on to that and responded in kind.

anyway then i took a fucktillion pictures in the instance (most of which i'll put on my wol blog)

it was so hard to get them in the same frame lmao

and then i did the solo fight! not too bad on red mage, surprisingly enough - was very thankful to have vercure though lmao

this punch is still just as satisfying the second time

On my way to the last credits sequence i learned that you will actually fuck up the music timing if you skip or speed up the credits. it was playing revenge twofold when it was supposed to be playing flow together. that was very jarring. i don't know why they haven't set it to just start playing flow together for that sequence. dont skip the credits folks

and that's a wrap! i uhhh might have abandoned him before finishing out the quest so i could go farm memoria misera with aoife but im very happy to have (technically) beaten Endwalker with him before the year ended, which was one of my goals.

I think I started main story with him in January, so it's taken me about a year to get through... mostly what set me back was i had to make time/build emotional strength to make progress through parts I knew would be difficult emotionally. But I committed to not to skipping any cutscenes and just pressing on through a second read, and I'm glad to have embarked on this journey.

as soon as i finished endwalker the first time i knew it was going to be equally aoife and t'zekh's story. they both ended up having stakes in the plot in different ways, and getting to play through and see things from t'zekh's perspective was so much fun.

i still keep thinking abt the version of the ending in my head, wherein t'zekh is lying at the edge of the universe and all he can think is "i want to live, dammit!!"

and he hears a voice calling out to him.

"there you are!" aoife shouts, "I was looking all over for you!"

T'zekh has spent so much of the story kind of in aoife's shadow, grappling with what it means to be a "hero" in his own way. he spent a lot of stormblood resenting her absence.

but by the end of endwalker… i think they end up really close friends

---

Next, it'll be Banri's turn.... skipping as many cutscenes as possible so i can get him through before Dawntrail!

[magireco]

Would love to hear more thoughts on how these girls have understandable teenage motivations (A+ tag analysis by the way)

1. Thank you!!!!!!

2. ALRIGHT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS (shuffles my papers). i’ve gone off about homura’s motivations in depth before but i think it was only in dms/groupchats? anyways i’ll go in order with All the girls bc i think about this all the time as a teenager who grew up mentally ill and had their perceptions skewed because of it, and also i don’t think it’s talked about nearly enough for the others, at least on my blog... so, buckle up!!! this is REALLY LONG!!!! 

3. i tried writing like, an individual thing for every member of the quintet all together in this one ask, but i ended up talking a little too much about homura and now i’m going to split up all the different analysis stuff for each character into the reblogs and work on it every so often! you’re free to kinda skim of course because i really did write a whole novel but here we go!! read under the cut. :3 this is literally essay length btw. i did NOT expect it to get this long but if you want to read it all i’d recommend it but i don’t expect most people to

First: Homura Akemi

okay so i’m going to kind of summarize everything but from the perspective of empathizing with her so if you don’t want to reread a whole recap you can skip to the ending few paragraphs

Summary

first of all, in episode 10, homura’s past is explained for the viewer. she was a shy, unsure girl who had been bedridden for a long time. she was clearly unsocialized, not to mention she went to a catholic school and those can be brutal, esp in japan... that’s all we know about her in that episode, but it’s revealed in one of the drama cds that she was bullied as a child(& further at mitakihara middle), her parents never were mentioned ever (i assume them to either be dead or neglectful, considering she lives alone and unchecked), and in magia record, homura says to natsuki that she’s never had friends before, she hasn’t been on vacation before until the beachside bonds event, hasn’t ever celebrated valentine’s day, has never celebrated new years, etc... 

clearly, she’s missed out on a lot not only because of her sickness and hospitalization, but because of her isolation as a child at school. judging by her demeanor and the way she reacts when madoka comes up to her without being asked to, something like that had never happened to her before. it’s clear to me that madoka was many of homura’s “first’s”, her first friend, the first person who reached out to her, the first person to compliment her name honestly(validating her, disproving her dislike of her name), the first person to regard her so kindly rather than judging her based off of her appearance and demeanor (like other students had apparently done, this is also shown when the other students at mitakihara middle make fun of her for being tired after only being able to run one lap). AND, madoka (and mami, but homura knew madoka better at that time) saved her life, even though homura was so willing to die, just in that moment... i’d assume it made homura feel like someone believed in her even when she was at her worst. it’s really clear by the glimmer in her eyes that these are nice people that made her feel happy and welcome... and then walpurgisnacht came. she didn’t know much about magical girls and just believed in madoka and mami to be able to defeat the witch because she saw them as strong and saw the witch as defeatable, despite its size. and then mami died, right in front of her and madoka... 

this kinda seems headcanon-y when i phrase it this way but it’s practically proven in her actions but i really think homura is scared to be abandoned, especially by someone who was as overtly kind and nonjudgemental to her as madoka... it’s in the way she cries her name and says “don’t go” before madoka runs away to fight walpurgisnacht. OH ALSO, i need to address this one thing really quick because people like to assume that homura didn’t care about mami from the beginning and only liked madoka. it’s not that she wasn’t sad when mami died, she was clearly terrified and didn’t want the same to happen to madoka, also mami LITERALLY WASN’T IN HER CLASS OR HER GRADE so i assume she spent most of her time with madoka considering they were in the same grade and class and probably shared most of their periods with each other... but also, once again, mami is older than both of them and homura probably saw her as more of a mentor/teacher that she needed to impress rather than madoka who was more on her level, i guess?

anyways, moving on... homura had to see madoka die (& experience the crushing guilt she felt for “letting madoka go” even though there was nothing she could’ve done) and literally says “i’d rather you had lived than saved someone like me” ... her self worth is below zero. she makes her wish to be strong enough to protect madoka(because she sees madoka, her first friend, who saved her life which she felt had no worth, as so strong and noble) which causes her to go back in time, etc. etc., you know the deal. okay before i move on to talk a little more abt the timelines and the personality change i’m going to address why it’s reasonable that she’d be attached to madoka.

i mentioned before that homura said herself that she had never had a friend before. just like, put yourself into her shoes for a second. this girl has no idea how to make friends; it was never taught to her. it’s literally rational that she’d get attached to her first ever friendship. it’s not “normal” the way she views madoka, but how could it be? this is her first time having a friend, she’s afraid of being abandoned by her, but she’s had to see her die over and over again anyway. she doesn’t want to lose madoka. even if she doesn’t go about it in the right way, there’s no way she would’ve actually known how to Do relationships. no one taught her. i think that needs to be empathized with more...

i kinda feel like i need to summarize all this just bc if i word it right it kinda reminds you & puts into perspective just how terrible and scary all of this was.

anyway Again, i would skip straight to the end of timeline 3 (where a New Flavor of trauma is given to homura) but i need to first address timeline 2 for a second. it was homura’s first time repeating the timeline, she trained with madoka and mami again, she was still hopeful despite what happened, etc. kinda just bonding further with madoka Again... and then it’s at the end of this timeline that she watches madoka turn into a witch, just in front of her very eyes... and realizes the true fate of magical girls. when she resets the timeline again, it’s up to her to start anew and break the truth to the group when she sees them again. when she tries telling the truth, sayaka immediately shoves this aside, claiming homura was just trying to split everyone up. it’s clear that that hurts homura. (also the little shinies in her eyes were wavering which is anime-code for sad) her feelings were immediately disregarded by sayaka and she couldn’t defend herself, but madoka did for her, and mami tried to diffuse the situation. 

after they all find out homura was right when sayaka turns into a witch, mami kills kyoko and ties up homura in her ribbons and aims a gun at her, and this, rightfully, ignited a fear within homura... madoka is forced to kill mami in order to save homura, leaving only the two of them to fight together. then, when walpurgisnacht comes that time, The Promise is made... madoka tells homura to go back in time and save her from becoming a witch (because she doesn’t want to curse the world that way, she still sees beauty in it) and homura agrees, saying she’ll never stop until she saves madoka, and then... homura has to mercy kill madoka before she becomes a witch. she cries loudly and shoots madoka’s soul gem... it’s literally so heartwrenching and (usually) brings the viewer to tears, or puts something into perspective for them...

then we assume the personality change happens in the timeline right after. this personality change causes a lot of discourse because sometimes it’s seen as kind of irrational, but personally, i think even moemura had at least SOME resent for the world around her considering what she’d been through. it’s madoka’s repeated deaths that finally push her over that edge. i could get further into the coolmura arc but that’d take a WHILE, so i’ll just kind of explain something briefly though -- why homura ended up becoming even MORE focused on madoka. and i’m also going to debunk the claim that homura doesn’t care about her other friends as fast as i can before moving on.

also, ONE LAST side tangent, for those that think homura really did do a 360 degree personality turn are wrong. it’s shown explicitly in homulilly’s labyrinth that there’s this... “core” homura, a shadowy purple silhouette with braids. every time the series depicts homura’s internal self, it’s always glasses+braids, symbolizing her “child” self, who she truly is. she never stopped being that person. she doesn’t want to kill. ...but i can get into that in a rebellion analysis later! this is also shown in wraith arc bc the person inside her soul gem has glasses+braids. anyway let’s get to the next part i’m going to rant about

Homura’s Love for Madoka, but Otherwise Apathy

homura has seen many different, yet all similar, versions of her friends. the first claim i’m going to talk about which i saw brought up quite a few times before is in regards to homura and mami. first of all, homura absolutely still cares for mami, and not just in the “i only care about your life if it affects madoka’s” way. one part that always gets me is when mami ties her up in the series timeline after homura frantically warns her that this witch isn’t normal, to which mami IMMEDIATELY brushes this off, without even giving homura a chance. then, when mami’s ribbons fade away, homura looks horrified and just goes “oh no...” and it’s kind of obvious to me that it was in response to mami’s death rather than madoka’s reaction. this is arguably up for debate i guess because i’ve seen different takes on that reaction and it’s ambiguous, i guess? but i’m about to get into something extremely similar and that’s the sayaka situation, where madoka throws sayaka’s soul gem onto a moving car. homura gasps and immediately pauses time and disappears, running in literal open traffic and climbing on top of a moving car to retrieve sayaka’s soul gem. one could argue that this is ALSO only just because homura wants to save madoka (and kyoko) the fear, but don’t you think her expression would be different? if homura truly didn’t care for sayaka’s wellbeing, wouldn’t she be making an expression more similar to like, “oh, this shit again...” instead of the frantic one she was making in the scene? this kind of thing Also happens when kyoko asks homura to leave while kyoko’s about to sacrifice herself in oktavia’s labyrinth, and homura looks up sadly at kyoko and then back down at madoka, and once she knew kyoko was dead, she just quietly said “kyoko...” to herself. she usually refers to them as [last name, first name], but she dropped that during that moment... it otherwise sounds like a bare minimum thing to do, but keep in mind the timeline we’re shown in the series is implied to be like, the 110th timeline, i think? like, this is the last timeline, she’s worn down, but she still does have empathy -- or at least sympathy -- for the others. she still loves them. 

homura promised to be madoka’s protector, she dedicated her life to her, and also she doesn’t have a choice not to dedicate her life to her anymore, even though that’s not fair to her... homura is in a really hopeless situation and madoka is her hope, and madoka is the one that judges her the least out of the quintet (like saying “i’m sure homura is good” to herself) upon first impression. also okay i mentioned this already in my last post (which you saw) but i’m going to bring it up one more time, homura is not mentally 26!!!!!! she is still 14 mentally!! in order to be 26, you have to have experienced 26 years of new life experience. maybe you acquire that through school, maybe you aquire that through friends, whatever it takes. but homura just repeated the same month over and over, and it’s not like her body (canonically) ages ever. she just kind of gets transported back into her body in the hospital again considering she’s back wearing her braids and pajamas... so, yeah. no mental development there. i also mentioned this here but i’m gonna say it again, that just makes it even harder for her to actually age correctly... it stunts her to 14. imagine being 14 for 10-11 years...

In Defense Of My Own Claims

btw before you think i’m just going full-on radical homura apologist, i’m not explaining all of this to be like “homura made ALL THE RIGHT DECISIONS because her trauma gave her an excuse!!” because like, Obviously, she did a lot of bad things, she killed people, did a lot of callous things, a lot of thoughtless things, a lot of things that make her seem emotionless, etc. but i just have trouble blaming her considering how things ended up, and it’s not like she enjoys killing people. she’s not sadistic... she ends up becoming short with all the others not only because of her (extremely) weakened trust in them, but also because the amount of times she repeated the timeline. i’d imagine it makes her feel like the others can’t truly die because she can just go back and see them again. (this is also why wraith arc/post-tv series must’ve been hard for her because she can no longer turn back time, things are permanent now, deaths are forever) she’s become so worn down that she’ll do anything to escape the loops... also considering she has no choice but to continue? although it shouldn’t be, it’s technically her job as a magical girl to defeat all witches and walpurgisnacht counts. it kills magical girls and tears up the whole city and she’s usually the only magical girl left... her choices, when defeated, are either to give up and die or to go back and try again, and she made a promise to her first ever friend to do just the latter... i just don’t understand how this isn’t easier for people to comprehend, that all of this trauma and stress and responsibility on top of an already traumatized 14 year old does not mix well. ever. she had to figure out all of this by herself.

TL;DR:

homura was a previously traumatized, unsocialized 14 year old with (very)low self esteem & self worth whose first friend (and first love, really, let’s be honest) died in front of her in horrific ways and she watched as she (and the other friends she came to make) drifted slowly apart from her in her endless and futile attempt in saving her from what proved to be an inescapable fate. also she’s 14 and also she’s (canonically) mentally ill and a lesbian. not a monster, not evil, not “psycho”. and that’s that!

[heavymetalchemist]

I agree w/ some points u made in ur meta abt jiang cheng, but wwx wasnt just a sworn brother. they literally grew up side by side and yet he was wilfully blind to wwx's nature that should have made jc trust him: wwx's goodness, his tenacity, his selflessness. jc knew him and yet in his grief and anger and haste to blame someone he pours it all on his brother who, as selfless and self-loathing as he is, accepts all the blame. It's not abt the lie, but that jc chose to believe the lie.

I’m guessing this is in response to this post and to clarify, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian ARE brothers, and I didn’t mean to diminish that by comparing the blind trust to Lan Xichen and the Venerated Triad.

However, here’s the thing, like, what lie are we talking about? Because the lie I’m referring to in that post is multifaceted:

Your golden core has been restored by Baoshan Sanren

I’m totally fine

I can absolutely control all this resentful energy and this new cultivation method isn’t hurting me at all

I don’t carry my sword any more because I don’t feel like it, even though it is very publicly rude of me not to

You cannot rely on me to help you run the sect because I am off in a tavern drinking all day, stumbling home drunk, but again, I’m totally fine and have nothing to discuss with you about my mental state at all, I swear I am just a fun-loving guy!

I have said before on my blog that I don’t like good person/bad person dichotomy, for a number of reasons, but primarily because it implies a static state of being and causes a willful blindness to harm people cause. People are complex, and while I do think intent matters, it’s not magic. Wei Wuxian gives up his golden core for Jiang Cheng, with all the good intentions in the world, but he does this without consulting Jiang Cheng, lying to him about it, drugging him to perform experimental surgery, dealing with the trauma of three months in the burial mounds and not having a core alone and absolutely refusing and rebuffing every overture Jiang Cheng makes trying to figure out what’s wrong with him, causing a lot of political problems with his behavior that Jiang Cheng then has to smooth over (and the Jiang sect is in a very fragile place, politically), then busting into a prison camp and killing ALL the guards with a fierce corpse and running off to the burial mounds with the last of the Wen cultivators.

And even with all of this, Jiang Cheng still defends and cares about him, they have that entire staged fight after Wei Wuxian insists on leaving the Jiang sect, which to Jiang Cheng is a betrayal of his promise to be with him in leading the sect, but Wei Wuxian does not tell Jiang Cheng about the whole surgery thing so he really doesn’t have a clue about how much Wen Qing and Wen Ning did for him (although, of course, if he had known about it he would never have let them do it, I’m sure).

From Jiang Cheng’s perspective, how is he supposed to trust in this goodness and selflessness? WWX is throwing the Jiang sect under the bus. WWX is not helping rebuild the sect, he’s drinking all day. (Of course he’s traumatized, they’re ALL traumatized, but he’s not talking about it so how can JC help?) WWX murders a bunch of Jin sect cultivators, running off with a bunch of prisoners of war, from the sect that attempted a full-scale genocide of the Jiang sect. (And to be clear I do not condemn this action and think that Blood Feuds Are Bad, however, in context this is a world where blood feuds are a very real thing. Personally I like the AU where they get Nie Mingjue on their side, as the Nie sect actually has a lot of power that the Jiang sect simply doesn’t, and therefore they can protect the Wen remnants that way. But I digress.)

Not to mention, WWX is using demonic cultivation, corpses are running around, he’s thrumming with resentful energy. Not a good look.

And then Jin Zixuan gets his heart punched out. In CQL there’s a second flautist, but in the book he simply loses control (the control he SWORE he had) and even in CQL it’s not like we find out about the second flautist until the end. How is JC supposed to trust in WWX’s goodness when he’s just murdered his brother-in-law? When he’s abandoned his family and sect for the people that murdered them? (YES I know the Dafan Wens weren’t involved in actively killing people but this is the whole blood-feud-thing, audience knowledge is not character knowledge, etc.)

And then at Nightless City, WWX loses control AGAIN (or at least appears to), three thousand people get murdered, Yanli dies, and JC STILL can’t actually stab him. JC was DESPERATE for any sort of explanation or reason of why this was all happening, but over and over WWX said it was fine, and the real takeaway for JC by the time Nightless City rolls around is - this man is not the boy I grew up with, this man is no longer my brother, my brother would NEVER do this would NEVER hurt Yanli, so it can’t be him any more.

It’s not unlike knowing someone who becomes addicted to drugs. Someone you knew and loved becomes an alcoholic and their whole life goes up in flames and then they’re drunk driving and then they kill someone doing it, and how long are you supposed to sit there while they destroy themselves, telling yourself that you know they’re a good person on the inside?

Now all that said, on the OTHER hand, if you’re talking about the lies that the other sect leaders were spouting, about how WWX was speaking against JC, about how he doesn’t respect him, etc?  You are SO right and it pains me so much that JC didn’t have the ability to stand up to those assholes and say “He’s my brother, shut the fuck up” a la Yanli to Zixun at Phoenix Mountain. Even with all the crap going on in the background, it was obvious to the other (older!) sect leaders that WWX was very powerful and very close to JC and they deliberately tried to undermine the Jiang sect and I hate them. That plays into a lot of the trauma that JC personally has but yes, I think that’s one of the failings that haunts him - how could I have listened to their poisoned words at all?

[theoreticalli]

tma and unreliable narration

you know in thinking so much about melanie and jon and helen and jon (and to an extent georgie and basira and martin too) I just keep coming back to how good an example of unreliable narration tma is (spoilers thru 160 and for 187, as well as a link to a post abt the finale).

because jon is our pov character, right? for the vast majority of the series, outside of statements, everything we experience is implied to be through his perspective. we start out with him and him alone, we return to him again and again-- alone in the tunnels, alone in America, alone after the Unknowing, alone as the apocalypse swirls around him. we let him entrust us, an unseen confidante, with things he won’t tell anyone else. we are intimately familiar with his experiences and his personality, and we see every little moment of development he goes through. we spend so much time with him.

but jon... is wrong sometimes. like, objectively, we know that. his paranoia spiral in s2 is the first major indicator that this character, who is functionally our narrator, is not objective. he makes decisions based on prior experiences and the information he has and assumptions from both, like we all do. it’s just good character building! it makes him feel more real if he’s wrong sometimes, if he has flaws and blind spots!

and sometimes he is wrong. the most signposted and indisputable moment is the web table, when he just straight-up puts the clues together and comes to the wrong conclusion, or when he spends a whole season being suspicious of tim and martin (and elias) when not!sasha’s right there. basically, He Is Not Immune To Propaganda

so that’s our sign that this is not the kind of character who is always or even usually Objectively right or in the right. he’s not frequently outright wrong, either, but his view of things is always limited, and the other characters are carefully placed to be foils to his perspective, to highlight things he isn’t thinking about or illustrate contrasts or just other opinions. again, It’s Good Character Building! it’s smart writing to have all your characters exist first and foremost as bundles of principles and priorities informed by certain key backstory events, because then you can rely on that to figure out how they’ll react to any given situation, and personalities and quirks tend to fall into place from there. my brain is not moving on the frequency to illustrate exactly what all these foils are right now but I’m sure there’s other posts about that so moving on

most of jon’s conflicts with his allies are not because either of them are wrong, but because they each have distinct and conflicting perspectives. and there’s some posts I see that just... frustrate me because they only take into consideration the context for jon’s actions, and don’t extend the same analysis to any other characters involved. there’s no thought put into why georgie might feel the need to draw the boundaries she does, why melanie goes off on jon at the specific times she does, or god forbid when either of them try to reconcile with him at various points. jon is sympathetic to us as the audience in his shoes, but the actions he takes don’t always have positive effects on those around him in the same way that other people severely hurt him without really meaning to. really, my first reaction to posts like these is always to want to just point out 5 different moments of context that show that most of jon’s allies are never being malicious to him because they’re bad people, or heartless. they have their reasons, and are not being cruel for cruelty’s sake like many of the avatars. they aren’t required to agree with him to still be taken in good faith.

(I have a post about this wrt the end of s5 that I’ll link here to make this stay mostly spoiler free so feel free to go read that but anyways)

and there’s also the things jon directly says about other characters, which again, should not always be taken at face value! and this bit is partly a personal grievance with the way helen’s arc ended, so ymmv, but I think that leaving the exact nature of the distortion (esp how it meshes with its host of sorts) more vague is much more effective in terms of her function in the story. so to my interpretation, even though jon says a lot of things about what the distortion is, that doesn’t necessarily mean any of them are entirely accurate! that’s a point helen made repeatedly, and her role as a foil is to make it clear that the truth is never one thing, no matter how the eye likes to pretend it can find objective reality. she wiggles her way out of the liar’s paradox because reality is complicated, and there are many statements that lie in that grey area between true and false while still sounding very sure. so even though jon states a lot of things in a very certain tone, that doesn’t mean any of them reflect the nature of the distortion any more than anything helen said before. it’s just one more piece of information to put together with everything we’ve seen about the character’s words and actions up to that point and come to our own conclusion!

to me, that’s a much more fun and interesting way of engaging with this story than only looking at things through jon’s pov and taking the things he says without a grain of salt, and I think jonny’s done a really good job of having a lot of characters with specific traits and clear histories that pretty consistently inform how they engage with any given situation. of course, there’s a lot of characters and a lot of extrapolations one can make, especially for more minor or intentionally mysterious characters, so there’s no one right way of understanding a given person. but it’s fun to mess around with, to discover new bits that you’d forgotten about that inform your interpretations, to fill in the gaps.

that’s all no I will not shut up about melanie king if you read this far thank you so much you have my affection and pls reblog w your thoughts!! xoxo

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

from an anon, about parents and school

(it's just long, that's why it's under a break XD)

here's my proposition: make parents understand that not every child should conform to whatever traditional career paths that exist. as an asian, i could feel the pressure to take science like a fucking boulder on my body. i have to rant a bit.

i am the younger sibling, my brother is two years elder to me. i was never instilled any curiosity in anything science related, i was kinda left all by myself lol. my brother tho, maybe because he was older or because he was a guy (yeah LMFAO), was encouraged AND involved in a LOT of coding, mechanix (its a construct-ur-own-stuff thing).

i guess i never really noticed until i was leaving middle school, that i was not as smart as him, and would probably never be. but i had other strengths he didnt have. i love writing, im pretty good at it. i am analytical and subejctive, i like thinking and making conclusions about things. i mean i guess i've figured out what i could be better at, right? but the problem?

its that my parents dont see it. its as if they dont know me or they DO know me and are just forcing the things they need onto me. it feels selfish of them to completely forgo my actual strengths. like YES OK i UNDERSTAND i can never be as smart as my brother, but u dont have to pretend like i can. because pretending that i can achieve whatever he has, is just going to affect YOU. because i have accepted long ago that some things arent for me.

they think i dont want to put effort into anything i do. that im lazy and want the easy way out. god, every time they say this i want to honestly show them that its the things IM interested in, where i put in the work. its so belittling.

ive written articles abt bts, their music, about how carl jungs theory of archetypes and i occasionally ask a lot of questions about the world to you (hi lol). i just dont get why they want me to waste energy on something im clearly uninterested in.

short answer, point to BTS and say, "They're Asian, they make tons of money. Leave me alone."

just kidding XD

If I'm being serious, I don't think they will change their mind. They will continue to force their ideals onto you, because they believe in certain career paths had assured success and that is what they are after. They either want you to make a certain amount of money, have a certain status in life, or simply know that you can obtain a stable job. To be honest, these are not really traditional career paths at all if you think about it. Becoming a doctor takes many, many years and it is hard ass work. Parents just make it seem as if these are the only jobs available to you, even if you know it's not true.

Men vs women in Asian countries, well, I feel everyone knows this, but many Asian parents born in their respective countries put more effort into their sons than daughters. Firstborn son? He probably walks on water to them XD

I understand what you mean when you say your parents do not understand. This might sound egotistical (it does now that I'm writing it, I am very sorry) but I was the one in my family who got the best grades. None of my siblings got better grades than me (basically I had a 4.0 from middle school to university), and do you think with all that I would be immune?

Nope.

I am good at the sciences and I am good at the humanities as well. I had an interest in reading, writing, and drawing. Reading fiction, I could pass it off to educate myself. Writing? I could pass it off as something for school. But drawing?

Woo, boy.

This was a constant fight. I do not back down (a rebel, wcyd) and I drew and it would get ripped apart. I drew and it would get torn up and thrown away. I drew and and would be beaten, yelled at, constantly belittled for my interest in it even though I was good at the sciences and math. To my mom (my dad doesn't count, he had zero interest in parenting) - if she did not think it was going to make money in the future, it was useless. If I could not spin it into profit, I should not be doing it (very fun childhood I had, yes). The most ironic thing is, after I became an adult, she suggested I start drawing again and sell it to make money.

Hello?

You literally forced me to stop drawing because you constantly connected it with negativity???

(not now, I have since stopped talking to her and started drawing again and it is purely for myself, not to show anyone else, I do not even post it on social media or show anyone irl)

Not saying your parents will act like mine, btw, only sharing my experience.

The idea that you'll never be as smart as your brother? That's bullshit lol. That's like saying intelligence is only valuable if it's science or math, which, as you know, is not true. You are you. He is himself. It is not you cannot do those things. It is that those things are not what you want to focus on. You have a limited amount of time in this life and you have chosen the things you want to delve into and explore.

You don't have to be good at everything. Everything is just not good enough for you.

I am of the mindset that you should try and learn everything you can about this world. I love learning, personally. I think knowing everything I know, from the humanities to the sciences, enriches my life and gives me a broader perspective.

But I totally understand how you feel, because being pushed into something makes you end up hating it. Parents push their kids to learn this or that and kids end up resenting schoolwork because it doesn't feel like something they wanna do anymore. It's just adults yapping in their ears and it feels pointless. Grades aren't everything. You think anyone cares that I aced Physics with Calculus I and II as an adult? LMAO, no one gives a shit. You passed, good enough XD

Here's how I think you should treat school. It's not the content that matters. It's you understanding how you learn each subject. Every subject is different and how you learn them is different. It is not because you are bad at the subject, it is because you haven't figured out the best learning style for you. Teachers have to teach a mass of students and, yes, I understand this seems very tedious to have to "teach yourself".

The skill in learning to learn becomes so, so valuable as an adult. It is how you maintain interest in things, how you develop new interests, and how will come to find meaning (in whatever you want to focus on finding meaning for). I'm not saying that you will be able to find your perfect learning style in every subject, but I am encouraging you to simply see it in that light.

And, you might find certain things to be not that important to you, in which case, just pass the class, it's totally fine if it's not going to help you for the career path you're going for XD Nobody asks me about the themes of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (tbh, a pair of overdramatic loons) or how I feel about Sigmund Freud (actually a twat, but that's neither here nor there).

Let them talk. That one that walks your path is you. Focus on what you want to focus on. They are set in their ways and they way to show them there are different paths is to walk them.

[lokislittlesigyn]

so....that episode of loki amiright? how do you feel abt it?

Ah, Nonny. That's what I've been trying to figure out all day.

I watched the episode twice now, and after a very long and eventful day, full of emotional highs and lows, I'm really not sure where to stand.

Let's start with the good. Spoilers below.

- Sylvie's backstory. I want to know more, and hope they show more. But this episode really solidified how much I like her as a character. I hope she can truly move forward as herself - whether she wants that to be as a Loki or as something different. Maybe both.

- Loki's line about how Lokis (this is from memory, sorry) "We might lose, painfully even, but we don't die. We survive." Hearing those words? After Infinity War? It felt like he was saying them to me. And to all the other fans who need to hear that. Loki is intensely important to a lot of people, and seeing him get hurt in such horrific ways leaves a lasting impression. At the very least, knowing he's never gone for good? That nothing stops him? That helps.

- Hunter B-15. I never disliked her as a person, just felt she was very set in her ways and absolutely devoted to the TVA. When that came crashing down, as we saw, things really changed for her. I'm honestly really glad for this character growth and I wish her the best. And I desperately hope C-2O isn't actually dead... if she is, I want to know who killed her.

- More Mobius and Ravonna being friends. I love that. And I do still like Ravonna, as a person - I believe she truly believed the Time-Keepers were real. Or else, she was afraid of whoever was controlling them. Because we can see in that scene when she walks to them, she looks scared - and the only other beings there are the Time-Keepers, so she has no reason to be putting on a show. I believe she really was that apprehensive. I also think lying to people like she did is wrong, but we have yet to see the fully story of why.

- Lovely to see more of Asgard, even a glimpse. Lovely to see Lady Sif again. Absolutely BRILLIANT to see some myths being worked into the MCU! I plan to write a full fic of Loki cutting Sif's hair! But seeing Loki get repeatedly assaulted? Intensely upsetting. I really didn't enjoy seeing him in so much pain. I am not a male so I don't know how much that kick would hurt, but it certainly seemed to wear him down... sigh.

- Loki being honest with himself. I don't think he's a narcissist, but I do think he needs attention and he's afraid of being alone.. And honestly, I am too. I hate feeling alone. So seeing him say that, hearing that confirmation of what I thought, it really encouraged me.

- Mobius is well-written, though I don't necessarily agree with all his decisions or what he says, I really appreciate how he investigated what Loki said and chose to help him. Also, I think Mobius is going to find Loki in that place where the Variants are and save him. Team up against the TVA.

- The Time-Keepers were fake I KNEW they had to be fake I KNEW it. It remains to be seen if they were ever real or not, and who's behind the TVA (again I don't believe it was Ravonna, especially as we saw her as a hunter earlier, so she likely wasn't there at the start) but I feel rather clever for not believing in the Time-Keepers.

- Loki. Variants. Comic Loki. Young Loki. Alligator Loki. More Lokis. I want all of them, I want every single one of them, Loki in all his forms is wonderful and I want to meet them all.

- Honorable mention: A friend told me that Loki got pruned but showed up later. Honestly? If they hadn't shared that? I don't think I would've been able to make it through the day. That, and some theory posts about pruning being transfer than a murder, saved me.

Now for the things I was mixed on or didn't exactly like...

- The elephant in the room.. Loki and Sylvie's relationship. Now, to be clear, I love the idea of Loki seeing himself from an outside perspective, seeing the potential, and being able to directly empathize and emotionally grow by connecting with someone. I also love the idea of that happening independent of romance because it doesn't have to be romantic.

I can't find a real confirmation of if it's romantic or not. An official Marvel article talked about how the writers created Loki "falling in love with himself" while an interview with Kate Herron said it's "Not necessarily romantic." There are so many mixed signals.

//TW for PTSD, panic/anxiety, mental health here

For a while, I felt absolutely crushed and heartbroken. I didn't anticipate seeing Loki look at someone like that to do that to me. I felt numb. I cried a lot. And this afternoon, for the first time in a long while, I didn't imagine him with me when I was scared. I didn't imagine him being around, telling me it was okay, telling me we'd get through it together. Instead, I was just alone. I had to not think about it or I would've honestly broke down into sobs. My mental health took an incredible downward spiral and I was stuck trying to fight off a panic attack in public for over an hour. it was not easy. I've since pulled myself up and told myself to wait and see what happens. There are options. For instance, this is one version of Loki.. There are obviously other versions of Loki that I can imagine as "mine" if I so choose. Time will tell what happens.

- This isn't necessarily a .. Bad thing, in terms of story. But seeing how broken Loki was after Mobius was pruned absolutely shattered me. I cried. I cannot stand seeing him so upset. That same horrible expression is what he wore in IW for part of the opening scene and I can't get it out of my head. It's horrible. I am really holding on to Loki seeing his friend again. They have to reunite.

//TW ends

- I would've preferred to see B-15's life? Maybe I'm just too invested in the side characters, and the acting in that scene was certainly great! But I just, I really care about her and I want to know what makes her happy. I want her to be happy...

- C-20 is dead. Maybe... I really hope she isn't actually. I really liked her too...

Ah, that's all I can think of for now.

Overall, I feel a lot of emotions. Confusion, hope, worry, sadness. I hope next week's episode will continue the story well, and help make sense of things.

[sothischickshe]

5 Favorite kinkfest fics? If you haven’t read any yet, or haven’t read all, 5 you’re most excited to read?

Oooh anon, great question, thank you! (though I am cackling over the idea that I wouldn't have read them yet. HA)

I'm going off what's been posted to the collection on Ao3. I feel like there were more than those, but idk let that be a lesson to everyone to do the proper admin ha ha:

Touch (without leaving a trace) by @sdktrs12 for the prompt: pre-brio. beth’s short at a drop and offers herself to the gang to negotiate more time. rio only watches as she get passed around, turned on but refusing to touch her. he comes to her later that night. alone. Gangbang, exhibitionism

I remember reading through the prompt list when i was like yea ok i could do a short promptfill (hubrishubrishubris) & this prompt was one where i was like: welp, i don’t think i can do anything good with this so nah. i dont think i was even particularly enthused abt reading this concept at the time?!

and then the reality of this is so fucking good!!! the thread of beth’s exhibitionism & desire to be appreciated/seen + rio’s like curiosity/obsession & voyeurism, and the distinction in what’s allowed between the two scenarios...like yes!!! excellent!!! thank you!!!! and i absolutely love the rio pov & how narrow the focus of the story is

To be seen by @anijade for the prompt:  I want Beth and Rio doing the deed and getting caught by Reah. Maybe Beth notices but keeps going. Voyeurism

This story is T-rated AND super-sexy, which i think is very hard to achieve! and i LOVE this take on rhea, which feels v true to her canon characterisation. I love that she develops a friendship with annie!! i love how she’s kinda judgemental about but also intrigued by brio (V A L I D). i love how the voyeurism and exhibitionism play out through the outsider perspective from someone who has individual relationships with both rio and beth

salty sweet by @foxmagpie for the prompt:  Beth and Rio are secretly hooking up. Beth is blowing Rio in his office (bar? warehouse? au where he works in an office? idk) and when they’re interrupted, she continues secretly blowing him underneath the desk. exhibitionism, public sex

First of all? filling one’s own prompt? iconic behaviour. I TOLD YOU ALL TO DO THIS DID I NOT. this also filled a stray prompt from me which im also pro, ha. this fic has EXACTLY the kind of established relationship brio i live for - they’re so competitive AND playful, and clearly an absolute fucking nightmare to be around haaa. I love the way that this deftly wields the story of two related incidents and how one builds off the other. (also i personally think NO stories have enough brackets in, but this one at least came close.)

A Moment’s Silence by @femalegothic for the prompt:  Beth giving Rio sloppy head, Rio playing a bit rough. Deepthroat.

This story includes the prompt SUPER well but also there’s a lot more going on during their rendezvous, and the totality is super sexy with amazing build up. I love this glimpse into what could have been, and Beth and Rio’s characterisation feels super true to this kinda canon(+ divergence) point (sniff). i also LOVE how quickly the premise is set up (especially as someone whose own promptfill fell off the rails haha). also deciding: i do not wish to write about balls, therefore they do not exist is truly iconic behaviour

swear on a silver knife by @mego42 for the prompt:  Rio loves shaving Beth, especially her legs, with old fashioned tools. She returns the favour. Shaving kink, maybe little knife/razor play

At present time (though i may eat my words bc, you will note, it still says 1/7 on it........................) the shaving kink element isn’t necessarily the aspect of this story i’m most excited about. I’m so excited about this as an angsty post-s3 longfic!!! i love the way meg writes these idiots!!! and how she writes mick’s response hahah. i love mess!!! i love angst!!! i am pretty excited about the blades though & do hope beth & rio permanently shave each other’s throats off. points deducted for it still saying 1/7, but additional sympathy points added for going off the rails with a prompt so it probs evens out

i think that’s my personal top 5 but i honestly HONESTLY recommend checking all of them out cos they were all so good!!!

[kushamisaru]

W-would you tell me more abt your feh crack ships??? Gatekeeper and emmeryn was so interesting

I SURE WILL!

Gonna put this under a read more though because it might get long

The thing is, I started out with maybe 3 ships? But then the manga had the AUDACITY to be like "sorry you can't have romantic relationships fr in heroes :(" and I made a couple more out of spite because like. C'mon. They literally get married in the s support. Anyway I'll start off with the ogs and maybe a few more but know that once I made that choice I couldn't turn that part of my brain off so there are a lot.

I think the first was Loki and Seteth. Which might seem weird but,, hear me out. Seteth is all about order. Loki is a literal trickster goddess. I imagine her like, constantly bugging him and trying to get his skin and she does, but also he gets used to it? And it gets kind of weird when he doesn't see her for a while? There's also the fact that, in her own mischevious way, Loki has a soft spot for kids. Since they're both healers imagine her helping out Flayn and Flayn thinking she's fun and cool then Seteth sees them hanging out and nearly has a heart attack lol. Oh! Spoilers for 3 houses but another big appeal for this ship is that compared to some other characters, Seteth's life span is probably closer to Loki's lol. This one is hard for me to explain but I feel it in my soul

Next up was Helbindi and Eir. So I think what originally happened was me thinking Helbindi questions Eir about how death works since y'know, he should have died, (but also he's low key asking to try and gauge whether his sister could be brought back as well). But somewhere along the line I started thinking. Helbindi's whole thing is trying super hard to seem tough (and he is! to be fair), but deep down he's a softie. I think Eir would end up seeing right through him, not through like some super strong intuition but more of, what's he gonna do, kill her? Lol been there done that. And once he realizes he can't spook her off they just kind of vibe, and then they get to talking about the awful stuff they had to do under their awful ruler's orders. And they bond over not really feeling like they belong. Then suddenly Helbindi realizes he's feeling,, soft? around her? And Eir notices she feels happier? maybe even just happy in general? tbh it probably takes them a while to put the pieces together but that's what it's all about sometimes.

Next we have Laegjarn and Triandra. One day I made the connection that these two both made big sacrifices for their younger sisters and it wouldn't leave me alone. And then I looked at Triandra's lvl 40 conversation where she said more than anything she just wanted someone to understand. And I think Laegjarn would understand very well. But! Not only would she understand, she could give a new perspective. Because in that same convo, Triandra feels like the love she had for her sister wasn't enough, that in the end she was too weak to fully protect her. In Laegjarn's she talks about how her love for her sister was what made her strong and kept her going.I have this very specific image in my mind for this one of like. Laegjarn having a dream and being in that world, by a body of water, and she leans down to drink and she sees Triandra. And since Triandra is a fairy of nightmares of course things start to go wrong. This keeps happening until Laegjarn notices a pattern and confronts her... only to wake up. And that's when Triandra gets summoned. And then things happen from there.

Those are the ones that are the most in depth but there are lots of others.

Reginn and Kliff. So Kliff likes to learn, and he likes magic, right? Reginn operates a magical metal... horse thing. I think it could be a good conversation starter and after that I can just see them bouncing off each other well

Takumi and Shanna. Yes this is because of that gauntlet. Can you imagine them bumping into each other occasionally, then that gauntlet happens, right. And Shanna reaches out a hand to him from his spot on the ground and she's smiling and she says "Hey, good match!" and the sun behind her forms like a halo behind her and Takumi's like "Oh shit,," and then later on maybe, during that possessed gauntlet, she's there by her side and look. They'd be cute okay? Trust me

Summer Mercedes and Summer Rhys. SPEAKING OF CUTE oh my god this is so soft,,, like they're both such kind people who try their best to help others. And they would not make an exception for each other! You know on those days Rhys is feeling particularly weak under the sun Mercie is there with that drink weapon lmao and he's her biggest cheerleader when it comes to the whole breaking away from that arranged marriage or w/e her adopted dad was trying to get her to do. Mans is like "Go out there and live your dreams!" They both just look after each other and it makes me happy

There are more but I think I've rambled enough for now. I can always do more later if you or anyone else would like though! Thanks so much for this ask it lowkey made my day lol

[babycracker]

'Coping Mechanism' for tanner?👀👀

thank you chichi!! ❤

send me a topic and an oc and i'll give you some related facts

under the cut bc tanner is an inappropriate disaster.

so, as you know (but no one else does yet) tanner has a teensy drug problem. so coping mechanism fact number 1: he sporadically uses speed to keep himself awake and avoid his nightmares. it started as a way to keep himself awake when he first started with the agency and struggled to stay "on" as much as they expected him to but then the nightmares got bad and he figured it was as good a way as any to avoid them. the agency (and ub) don't know bc cora (his handler) found out and warned him that he'd be caged if she or anyone else ever caught him again, bc even though it wears off pretty quick with his half-supernatural metabolism, while he's under the influence he's pretty aggressive and hard to handle.

probably no surprise to anyone at this point that sex is a big one for him. he's a very lonely, very insecure, very sad guy and sex is smth that he knows he's good at so it gives him a bit of a confidence boost, as well as it being a way for him to get close to someone without risking developing an actual attachment. he's really physically affectionate, he thrives on touch, and sex is how he kinda indulges that part of himself without worrying abt making anyone think he has feelings.

his temper is another thing; acting aggro started as a way to get ppl to leave him and his sister alone but it's become so ingrained now that the second someone hints at thinking that he's weak or incapable he skims defence and lands in offence and loses his shit. the fact that it works for him re: his job just kind of solidified in his mind that that's how he needs to be and made it worse. he didn't used to be violent or aggressive or all that easy to anger, but nowadays he just finds that it's the easiest way for him to be.

his wings!! ive said before to a couple ppl (and like you guys know ive made my own nephilim rules up for him so pls just go with it lol) that it's like an effort for him to keep them hidden constantly. he does it without thinking - ive compared it to when ppl walk around with their stomach sucked in before - but every now and then when he gets really stressed he'll go somewhere he won't be disturbed just so he can unfurl them for a while. it's like a big weight off for him and helps him relax and get his thoughts to make sense enough for him to gain some perspective.

last one is his kind of casual way of doing things. he doesn't so much cover his feelings with humour but he plays everything off as nothing. like if he accidentally does smth nice for someone and they pick up on it he'll kinda shrug it off and almost neg them just to get the point across that he barely noticed he was doing it.

[phanlight]

Imagine Living Like A King Someday

prompt: Southview Boarding School isn’t a castle and Phil Lester isn’t royalty, but he has everything. His father owns the school, he’s popular, has the best room, gets all the best treatment – there are very few things that aren’t handed to him on a platter. Dan is a cleaner/Phil’s personal maid there, and he isn’t as lucky. Everyone seems to take an aversion to the outsider, including Phil (at first).

[CHAPTER MASTERPOST]

theres something so funny to me abt having written all of this over a matter of months and then picking it up 4 entire years later like nothing happened

still thinking of the enormous steaming mess past left future me to clear up in terms of plot but i think we're finally there THANKS 2016 SHELLEY

[AO3 LINK]

Twenty-Three (fINALLY)

By far the best thing about this job, Dan decides, is the Thursday afternoons. They allow for a lull in the week, a window wherein Phil is enveloped in a research project and Noah equally as swallowed up in rehearsals. December being only a breath away had made for a sudden increase in workload for both of them; it seems leaving the holiday season for an actual holiday is far too big an ask for the education system. Dan feels sorry for them. He remembers his burning resentment toward academic responsibilities; how much he’d loathed being made to study while the sky loses its light. He’d taken pity on the pair of them and stocked up on various study supplies – all edible and a few drinkable, much to their delight. He’d left them with all the Kit-Kats, Doritos and Jaffa Cakes they’d possibly be able to cram into a four-hour session. He’s becoming something of a mother figure, he giggles when he tells Lawrence.

There’s something about conversations with someone as wise as the head caretaker, the nicest boss he’s ever had, that jolts everything back into perspective again. Sometimes, when anxiety gnaws and every breath feels uneasy, the only thing that helps is a few words of wisdom. Of true compassion. And as caring and as gentle as Phil is, sometimes it’s worth listening to someone over triple his age; with triple his life experience.

And way over triple his collection of mugs. They stand in rows in a cabinet next to the desk, a glass door keeping them on proud display (there’s no way he doesn’t polish that regularly). He can’t count the teas they’ve had together, but he’s never had the same mug twice. It makes the overall experience just that little bit more enjoyable; a guaranteed smile no matter how bleak the day.

“Wallace, or Gromit?” is the first thing Lawrence says when Dan creaks open the door.

He frowns. Bit of an odd way to say hello, but he’s had weirder.

“Sorry?”

“If you had to pick?”

Dan chuckles, his frown melting away. Months of this place has made him warmly familiar with Lawrence’s eccentricities and quick-fire questions upon entering. The only one who works here with a personality, Phil often calls him, before quickly adding Below fifty, of course.

“Gromit,” he says decidedly. “He’s cute.”

“Gromit it is,” he whips around, presenting Dan with a steaming ceramic version of the dog, his left ear protruding into a handle.

“How did I not see that coming?” Dan chuckles, taking the mug and nearly burning his fingertips. “Thanks,” he sips a little too quickly. “Let me guess; you have a Wallace one too?”

“A-ha!” Lawrence spins around again holding with an identically sized mug, the other character still grinning despite having a head full of boiling hot liquid.

“You never cease to amaze me,” Dan grins, shaking his head in disbelief. He plops himself down on Lawrence’s enormous armchair, shifting a jacket off of the seat. Despite his repeated insistence that he really doesn’t mind and the stool looks really comfy, actually; Lawrence insists he takes his chair every single time he comes over.

‘It’s just lovely to have a chat with you, kid,’ he’d say. ‘I don’t get many visitors.’

The whole thing swamps Dan’s small frame, the upholstery devouring most of him, but the comfort is unbeatable. He could fall asleep here.

“Look at his nose! His- look at that! Hey- you’re missing it!”

Dan’s eyes dart around the room. “Wait- what?”

“The mug!” he urges.

Dan frowns, peering at the steaming Wallace. His grin looks like the taste of Brie.

“It’s-…” he squints. “Big?”

“Not mine you daft thing- yours!” he points.

“Mine?” Dan looks down. Gromit stares forward, his black button now a cherry red. “Oh!”

“Clever, that, ain’t it?” Lawrence enthuses, his eyes shimmering. “Must be a heat detector! I don’t know how they do it, these things,” he beams. “It’s like they’re finding something new every day.”

Dan’s heart glows. It would come as no surprise if he’d been waiting all week to show him that.

“I’ll keep an eye out for it next time,” Dan smiles, looking down. “I used to have a Pac-Man mug that did a similar thing, actually.”

“Pac-Man, eh?” Lawrence says as if it’s the eleventh Grand Theft Auto. “What used to happen? Did he do his little routine?”

“Not quite,” Dan giggles, assuming his ‘little routine’ constituted flying around a maze uncontrollably. “The ghosts just appeared. Nothing moved, though.”

“That’ll be the next step, I tell you,” Lawrence says. “Goodness knows what they’ll be able to do even one year from now. Come next Christmas you’ll be buying me a mug that can sing.”

Dan’s grin doesn’t stop. How someone so many times his age can still bear such child-like enthusiasm for the small things really is something treasurable. The gem of Southview, he decides as he takes another sip and studies the bottle opener collection beside him. Lawrence makes this job bearable. Worthwhile.

He doesn’t tell him such mugs actually exist; doesn’t let on the Cherusker stein is a particular favourite of his. The cabinet full of them was in fact possibly the only tolerable aspect of the May Fair experience; – he’d forever spend lounge duty dusting them, lifting every one and smiling as gentle lullabies spilled out until barked at to ‘stop wasting time’. He makes a mental note to make another addition to his Christmas shopping list. He’s certain Lawrence is aware of their existence, but he’s sure he wouldn’t be expecting to unwrap one only three weeks from now. Seeing those eyes crinkle with joy under years of laughter lines is a gift in itself.

He only realizes he’s smiling when Lawrence matches his grin.

“You’re at a funny age,” he sighs, clinking the spoon against the china. He places it on an Abbey Road coaster. “That’s what my mother used to say,” he pauses, forehead lined with thought. “Mind you, she’s been saying that at every age I’ve been,” there’s a silence. “Even now.”

Dan grins, imagining a woman twenty-odd years older but about a metre shorter. It warms his heart to hear she’s still with him, with them. Here.

“What does that say, eh?” he continues. “There’s never an age you’re going to look back and everything around you will have fallen into place. Never a moment you’ll dust off your hands and think ‘well, that was easy’. Because that isn’t life.”

The final sentence resounds all around the hemisphere of his consciousness. What absolute truth there is to be found in that.

This is precisely what he loves about his conversations with Lawrence. It isn’t just the tea. Not even the comfort both physical and emotional alike; the guarantee that whatever he confesses to doing won’t go any further than the office walls. It isn’t even the advice- which he’d go so far as to admit is more beneficial than Phil’s, at certain times (there’s just something about hearing it from someone who’s double their combined age).

It’s the lack of judgement. The listening ear. The only person he can truly guarantee is without a single trace of bias or underlying ulterior motive. The ‘I’ve experienced, lived, truly knocked down but bounced back every time’ tone that resonates through every pebble of advice, each wise word he gifts away.

And he feels safe, talking to him. He feels comfortable. It’s everything every single past job wasn’t, and even now, when Dan drags a scalding sip to his lips and listens to Lawrence’s stories, his pellets of wisdom and anecdote after anecdote involving life in the Sixties, he realizes he’s truly safe here. Happy, almost.

“How old is she? Your mother?” The question escapes his lips before he can exercise any control over what he’s asking. Shit, he hopes that wasn’t too personal. Not a lot of things are off-limits when it comes to conversations with Lawrence, but boundaries are still unclear.

Lawrence remains unfazed, his expression still thoughtfully soft.

“She’ll be ninety-eight this June.”

“Eighty-eight?” Dan frowns. He must have heard that wrong.

Lawrence points a finger to the ceiling. “Up ten.”

His jaw drops.

“Wow.”

“Yep,” Lawrence contradicts with a warm head nod. “She’s lived through a lot, has our Maggie.”

“I can imagine,” Dan breathes, leaning against the desk. His respective lifespan has already thrown enough in his direction. He can’t imagine what four times that would be.

“Lived through two world wars, bless her,” he sighs, his eyes studying the windowsill. “Lord alone knows what the woman must have witnessed,” his eyes flicker to Dan. “Then bringing up three kids on top of that,” he shakes his head, slurping the steam. “I don’t know how she does it. Still going strong, mind. She’s an angel.”

“Truly,” Dan sighs, his gaze leaning further and further out of the window. A crow comes to a soaring descent onto one of the branches, leaving a flutter of yellow leaves in its wake. If he narrows his eyes he can make out the very outline of a nest somewhere further in. “You’re lucky to have her,” he says before his thoughts can catch up.

Lawrence huffs out a chuckle. “You sound almost as old as I do, kid,” he hesitates. “Though you’re right. I am. I love her.” There’s a silence. “And I make sure I tell her every single day.”

Something tightens in the back of Dan’s throat. He blinks a couple of times, sipping carefully. “That’s lovely,” he mumbles into the mug, masking the crack he knew was going to appear in his voice.

“It’s important to say it as often as you can, you know,” he says, tearing open a box of Leibniz and giving Dan the first pick. They’re orange – his favourite. Last week’s rant over the white chocolate ones had clearly been taken on board. “However you say it. In whichever respect you mean it. You have to tell them how much they mean to you. You have to tell them you love them.”

A crumb goes down the wrong way.

“Careful, kid,” Lawrence gives him a firm thump on the back. Dan erupts into coughs, pausing to choke on his own breath a handful of times.

“You okay?”

It’s an amusing question given he’s a shade of scarlet and can only gasp in response, but he nods anyway, reaching for the tea.

All good, he mouths.

A couple of scalding sips later his lungs finally begin to recalibrate.

“Fuck-…” he huffs out a sigh. “I don’t know where that came from- I-…” he chokes again. “You’re right, though, about the-” another cough interrupts him.

“You’re meant to eat it, not inhale it,” Lawrence chuckles. “You donut. Here-“ he pulls out a drawer, scrabbling through loose sheets of kitchen roll and various CDs (without cases, much to Dan’s anxiety) before thrusting a half-opened packet of Soothers into his hand. “Finish them off, kid.”

“Oh, Lawrence,” Dan’s heart all but melts. “Thank you.”

He only takes one, but Lawrence insists he keeps them.

“Just in case you inhale your dinner tonight,” he chuckles, before adding, “Don’t you go choking on that, for God’s sake.”

“The irony of choking on a Soother,” Dan giggles. his speech a little indistinct. They’re a little on the sticky side but they still taste good. The peach ones have always been his favourite.

“Remember what I said,” he reminds him as Dan chews.

“Thank you,” he says again.

“Not at all, pet,” he smiles. “They need eating up.”

Dan chuckles. “I meant for the-…” he trails off when he spots the gleam in the older man’s eye. He doesn’t even need to finish his sentence to know he knows.

“It’s my pleasure. As long as I can be useful for something,” he raises his chipped mug to his lips as if it’s a champagne glass. “Always remember to give your energy to the right things. And the right people.”

Dan smiles, twining a loose thread around his pinkie. Another pellet of wisdom to come back to when he feels his mind darkening.

“I never used to be much good at that,” he admits. “The right people were always the wrong.”

“Ah, but never forget how far you’ve come,” Lawrence says. “You’re telling me things you wouldn’t have even been able to even think about months ago.”

Dan looks up. “Seriously?” Shit, he hadn’t even noticed.

“Would I be joking?” Lawrence simply says, furrowing a large silver eyebrow. Dan looks down at his tea, sipping carefully. It’s reached a perfect temperature, the liquid hugging his lips. “You tend not to be able to see your own progress, but others can. Others do,” he insists, grey eyes promising.

Dan feels like he’s going to cry.

“Thank you,” he breathes, disguising his mouth with the mug again.

“You don’t need to thank me, kid,” he chuckles.

“It’s unbelievably hard not to,” Dan admits, chuckling too. His eyes threaten tears but he can’t stop grinning.

“If anything, I should be thanking you,” he says.

Dan stares at him.

“Me? What for?”

“Oh, kid,” Lawrence sighs, his eyes glittering. “You have no idea how much I appreciate you. We’ve had some real characters in and out of here, I’m telling you – between you and me, and don’t even let this get to Phil, but-…” he shakes his head, his eyes following another crow headed in the same direction. He’s probably watching the same tree; Dan briefly thinks before he continues. “Some were okay,” he says almost as if to convince himself if anyone. “Mary, she was lovely. But some,” he closes his eyes, shaking his head. “Look- I really shouldn’t be telling you this- Lord alone knows how unprofessional it is to be-“

“I wouldn’t worry,” Dan interjects, immediately apologizing for interrupting. “Workplaces harbor all manner of dark secrets. I’m sure a little venting about a couple of difficult colleagues doesn’t even come close.”

Lawrence chuckles, dusting biscuit crumbs off of the desk. “That I can’t argue with, kid,” he continues wiping, as if to process his next thought. “I’m not one to speak ill of people- of anyone, but-…’ he shakes his head. ‘You have no idea how much easier a time you give me, kid. It’s a joy to have you here,” he lowers his voice. “Some of them didn’t even turn up.”

Dan feels his face burn a little. Something warm floods through his veins. Shit, he’s never been told anything like that before. Never anything even remotely close. There’s also something particularly wholesome about Lawrence giving a recount of lousy employees like it’s a business-shattering affair, all hushed tones and closed doors.

“It’s great to be here,” he says quickly, his heart thumping. “It really is. It-…” he stops himself, interrupted by the abundance of possible phrases. Saved me, is the only one that adheres.

“I know,” Lawrence says before he can even open his mouth. He reaches forward and gives his knee a quick pat, and Dan wonders how such a small motion can harbour such reassurance. He doesn’t even need to finish his sentences he’s this understanding. “You’re a delight of an employee, I hope you realize,” he grins. “Everything you do is so appreciated here, kid. I ought to tell you that more often,” he pauses.  “Sometimes the advice we give is advice we need to take ourselves, eh?

“And vice-versa,” Dan smiles, before hesitating. “Maybe I ought to express myself more.”

“Oh, you already do, kid,” Lawrence says. “We know.”

Dan’s grinning at his tea when he catches the end of his sentence.

“Especially Phil, did you say?”

“Oh, tell me about it. He can’t speak too highly of you, can our Phil. He can’t stop talking about you altogether, mind. ‘The Dan Button’, we call it.”

This conversation isn’t doing Dan’s sensitive blush reflex any favours whatsoever, but he’s past caring. He’s something of an open book to Lawrence anyway.

He stares at the row of vintage Cadbury mugs lining the top shelf of the cabinet (the 1970s Caramel edition is his favourite – there’s just something about the golden writing) as he continues. He wonders if he has a Phil Button. Does he talk about him a lot? Fuck, he hasn’t even thought about it. Usually there’s so much to say; whether it be an anecdote from the passing day or a conversation they’d had or something they’d watched or witnessed or read. It’s difficult to keep track of his own train of thought whenever anyone mentions him. The topic usually leads itself, his own mouth merely a guide. He’ll have to ask Noah if it’s getting excessive.

His eyes stay with the branch. The two crows huddle around the nest-like cluster. By the time this conversation is over the tree will probably be completely leaf-less, he notices as more fall.

“I don’t have a Phil Button, do I?” he says before he can stop himself. Fuck. He just couldn’t resist.

Lawrence only smiles. An eyebrow thinks about twitching upward.

Dan smirks at the silence. Okay. Enough said.

“You kids,” he sighs, swallowing the remains of his tea. “Look out for each other, won’t you? Remember what I said. Tell people how much they mean to you. They aren’t mind-readers.”

Dan smiles, and promises.

“Always.”

Lawrence grins. “I’m glad you ended up here. Doctor Lester is particularly fond of you, y’know.”

Dan stares at him. Surely not. He’s never even seen the man talk, let alone crack anything close to a smile. Any communication between the two had always been by proxy – usually through Lawrence but Phil a lot of the time too. It’s eerily easy to forget they’re even related at all, let alone father and son.

“Oh yes,” he continues, reading his expression. “I shan’t embarrass you with the details, but he says it’s simply a delight to have you on board.”

Dan stares out of the window. Another crow had joined whom he had presumed to be the mother (how can you even tell with birds like that?), both fluttering close to their respective nest. More leaves fall with every judder.

“Well, that-…” he giggles, already feeling his face flush again. He’s going to have to invest in some makeup at this point. “That means a lot. To say the very least, I guess,” he widens his eyes, staring into space. “Wow. God, that’s-…” disbelief silences him. He shakes his head. “That’s the first time like-…” his eyes flicker wider. “Ever.”

“Yeah,” Lawrence remains tactfully quiet. Any allusions toward past jobs are always met with nothing other than gentle sympathy – never questions, never any further comments. Dan can’t thank him enough for that – the past is to be referred to, not relived. If its only reflective purpose is to one day be used as a comparison, something highlighting the incline of quality of life thereafter, then so be it. “You’re appreciated here, kid. By all of us,” he leans forward. “Between you and me, I think he can see how happy you’re making Phil. Y’didn’t hear that from me though, alright?” he nudges his foot with his own and throws him a quick wink.

Dan goes from pink to peony. He makes sure to chew his biscuit properly this time, dunking it in the remains of the tea. Another choking fit at his point would probably send him head-first into the recovery position. He doesn’t reckon being carried out of Mr. Headforth’s office on a stretcher would be his finest hour. Not when he’s finally made it onto the good side of the school, of the staff and communities therein; unusually tight-knit for such a vast population.

He looks up. He smiles.

“No, I didn’t.”

Lawrence’s eyes flicker down to his cheeks. He doesn’t need to say anything.

::

And I make sure I tell her every single day.

It resides with him for the rest of the afternoon, the phrase burning itself into his consciousness like a tattoo behind the eyes. He can’t let it go, not when he’s studying that pineapple streak the sunset left behind, Phil a breezy nuzzle to the cheek. Not when they’re pacing through the corridors somewhere in the evening, somewhere between the fall of the sun and the rise of the moon. Not even when their hair becomes a confusion of two shades and every breath is shared.

However you say it. In whichever respect you mean it.

He wonders how Lawrence tells her; his mother. When. Where. Does it depend on the day? The hour? Circumstance? He knows there are more than eight letters involved in the action, more than three words to its weight. Does the meaning bleed through his everyday phrases? When he asks her about her day? Whether she’s eaten?

He gulps, his heart thudding.

“Have you had lunch?” was how he’d greeted Phil this noon. “I have loads of pasta in the fridge. I made too much again.”

He stares at the ceiling.

“Text me when you get there,” was how he’d said goodbye this evening. It had started as a joke between the three of them – the campus, although spanning acre-upon-acre of land is still nothing but a speck when compared to the rest of the outside world – but had quickly become something of a tradition (to the extent Dan would often find himself receiving ‘i’m ok <3’ texts from someone in the next room as him).

“Take care,” is how he punctuates most ending conversations with the other boy in hindsight. Still eight letters. A different combination of such, albeit, but a mirrored meaning.

Oh god. He’s fucked.

You’re at a funny age, grey eyes remind him.

Every cell in his body agrees with that, and apparently it’s something they’ll have to get used to. It looks like that’ll never stop, not even after ninety-eight trips around the Sun.

Remember what I said.

Dan does.

[overdramaticly-dying]

Mrs. Cuddles

Alright, it’s time for Mrs. Cuddles, requested by @tenchikotheauthor​!!

This episode is pretty great!! It’s another Raph episode, and it's nice to see our red boi get some solo attention- although all the other characters are still strong when their moments come, and I absolutely love the sorta chill vibes this episode gives off... like this gives off Saturday afternoon vibes, y’know? Anywaysss, let’s start-

-They all get together to support their big sis and her new job, its so sweet

-Leo’s their face-man, so obviously they use him for pranks

-April’s lil laugh asdfghjkjhgfd I love her sm

-THEIR FACES IN THIS SHOT ARE PRIME SIBLING CULTURE???? THAT’S HOW YOU KNOW SHITS ABT TO GO DOWN

-idk abt ya’ll, and I know Raph’s reaction is seen as a joke but like... is there a reason why he’s so scared of her??? Like it’s seen as a joke cuz the others see it as a joke... but I’m skeptical...

-Raph’s desperation to assure April that her acting is good

-”Raph’s fear flops make me laugh every time” uhhhhhh Splinter???? 

-”Haha, I’m enjoying this” valid sibling response tbh 

-Somebody already mentioned this, but Donnie’s genuine laugh??? it's amazing

-”anD foR tHe reCorD thEsE arE tEarS oF LauGhTer”

-Raph admitting that he’s scared so early on instead of leaving it as that cliche ‘final battle’ moment that he needed to stop being in denial??? amazing. This show consistently turns cliche’s on its head and it's amazing

-”ok demon- reVEAL YOURSELF”

-”I will never marry any of them off”

-Mikey and Leo playing air hockey while April watches... I love how casual they are, and not just watching tv, but doing normal stuff like this?? it's great

-Raph getting their attention by just... yeeting himself on the air hockey table

-”If you’re gonna go, take a bat, or the turtle tank- HEY, AND DON’T SCREEEEAM”

-Donnie loves his bros, but I really like that they show him having alone time and working on projects that he wants to work on, instead of always just upgrading tech or finding solutions.

-He likes sculpting?? that’s pretty cool

-”Oh dear me, gasp, it is Mrs. Cuddles. Nice try Raph, come on out”

-the line delivery is seriously on point

-also lets talk about how both April and Donnie assumed it was Raph. I know I say this a lot but, Sibling Culture

-Donnie’s genuine scream because he was beinG FREAKIN CHASED WITH A CHAIN SAW???

-”AGAHH DONNIE! phew, it’s just Donnie’s head”

-his bros know he has a bust of himself, and they don’t judge him (at least to the point where Donnie needs to hide it). Healthy.

-”Thanks Donnie’s head!” *yeets it aside*

-Leo getting frustrated with losing

-Mikey taking a shot while Leo’s distracted

-Sorry I just really love the subtleness of the whole air hockey thing

-”Woah. we really broke this poor guy... Wanna skateboard?”

-”I’ll guard the door while you grab the weapons” “Great idea!” *clears barricade and leaves*

-Mikey clinging to Leo

-”So when she kept growing, that wasn’t a clue to stop screaming?”

-”Why can’t we just scream for help now?... oh, right. we scream she grows, not smart, got it”

-They look so tired

-”I’m starting to think this prank was a bad idea”

-HE SAYS THAT SO CASUALLY.

-”Whoa- you’re huge! I uh, see you met Mikey”

-Splinter heard something going on and came to check on Raph

-Ok but sidebar: this is kinda the first episode where we see Splinter fight or show how protective he is of his kids... I like that its apart of his character, and wasn’t brought up in an episode based around him, or some big showstopper moment- he just protects his kids, that’s what he does

-lastly- CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE BACKGROUNDS IN THIS EPISODE??? Like it stays in the lair, but it's absolutely beautiful???? I was gonna gather up all the shots, but there were way too many... there’s so many different perspectives and just the designs of it all??? It’s really beautiful, and you can tell how much thought, effort, and talent went into designing it- its seriously amazing

tl;dr This episode is really fun, and has some great visuals, along with character building, and fun sibling interactions!

(though seriously- what is Mrs. Cuddles??? a mystic creature?? is she from another dimension??? is she an alien??? she doesn’t seem like a robot, but maybe???)

[margridarnauds]

I know you prefer a-cast, but what are some pros to buying m-cast instead? There's a bit of a war going on abt which is better. I heard m-cast is better bc the cast is more senior and experienced, but I don't know what to believe. Is a-cast or m-cast just a taste thing, or is it abt smthing else? Would you mind making a chart or smthing for the pros and cons of both versions? Maybe ratings per category? I know you have a preference, but I just think you are quite nuanced. Thanks in advance!

I am very honored that you would think of me as someone who’s fair and nuanced! 

Before I begin, I’m going to say one thing that might or might not be considered....well. Very American of me, from the perspective of Japanese fandom: I do not believe, when it comes to spending the amount of money that these cost, on holding back information in order to appear diplomatic. I’ll try to be diplomatic, for the sake of people who might like anyone I criticize, but, also, if I dislike an aspect, I will try to find SOME way of making said displeasure known, because, again: The amount of money required to buy one DVD, let alone two, is quite a lot. I personally like to buy both, since it lets me compare and contrast, but my God, is it a bit of money (and this year, with the exception of the 2016 Elisabeth, I’ve had to cut down quite a bit while I’ve been abroad: I haven’t touched Frankenstein or Phantom...at least not yet.) 

Also, I am always willing to arrange streams of either/both casts, since this musical is my baby, so that anyone reading this now can see whether what I say is true or not, as well as in order to determine your own preferences. 

Alright, so that disclaimer out of the way, let’s start off: 

I kind of disagree that M cast is more experienced, as a whole. Let’s compare:

Marie  

Rena Sasamato (A Cast) - Had her debut when she was ten years old, in 1995. She is a Toho veteran with many, many musicals under her belt, including The Woman in White, Love Never Dies, Jekyll and Hyde, Les Miserables, West Side Story, Rudolf, Fiddler on the Roof, and, of course, the original 2006 production of Marie Antoinette, where she played Margrid Arnaud. 

Hanafusa Mari (M Cast) - Almost needs no introduction, such is the fame that she has. And I say this as a detractor. My personal feelings about her personality, acting, and singing aside, I can admit that Hanafusa Mari is a living legend in the Japanese musical industry. She certainly lives up to her title of “Empress”, in all senses of the term. She had her debut in 1991 (after, admittedly, undergoing the training of the Takarazuka Revue, so I will give her that she had experience beforehand, just not in acting and singing on stage), and remained there until 2006, when she retired in conjunction with her fellow top star, Yoka Wao. From 2010 onward, she appeared in non-Takarazuka roles, including my very first exposure to Japanese theatre, Dracula, in 2011. 

Now, of the two of them, I won’t deny that Hanafusa has more experience, however I also feel like saying that Rena has less experience is making it sound almost like she was some starving waif that Toho picked off the side of the streets in order to star in their new musical, as opposed to a seasoned actress in her own right who, on top of having an impressive number of musicals under her belt, also has experience in the musical itself. Hanafusa, when it comes down to it, only has four years’ more experience than Rena, though she is almost a decade older and undoubtedly, when she premiered, had more polish than 10 year old Rena. But, on the other hand, she DID remain with the Revue an impressively long time, which is very intense as far as how many musicals they perform on a yearly basis (most Top Musumeyaku only last about...2-3 years or so), she was the original Elisabeth in Takarazuka (a legendary role in its own right), and, my snark about her having the best career money can buy aside, I am willing to say that, for the most part, she’s earned her status as a legend. 

And I want to say that I’m not ripping YOU apart when I say this, I want to make that absolutely clear. You’re asking me a very good question, but it is something I tend to find quite a bit of when I talk Japanese musicals, in the sense that there is often this...assumption that actresses who started off in non-Takarazuka musicals (also a moment of silence for the Shiki actresses, who I almost never talk about but who are kicking ass as Disney Princesses) are somehow...lesser, or that they have less training. Takarazuka is and remains very prestigious, but it’s hardly the be-all, end-all of all musical theatre, and, in many ways, I would argue that Rena has more experience than Hanafusa, in terms of the world of Toho musicals, which require a different style of acting and singing: Less stylized, less affected, more what you would expect from a Broadway or West End show. It’s actually something that I find quite a few Takarazuka actresses struggle with when they come to Toho, as they have to adjust how they’ve done things for a new audience. 

Now, what does this have to do with the overall point? Well, a lot of people bought Marie Antoinette FOR Hanafusa to begin with, since she does have a huge following. I have seen plenty of people admit that they only bought it for her in the first place and didn’t bother with the other cast. I have even seen, in the past, people argue with me on the idea of a musical that DOESN’T have Hanafusa in it getting a proshot, simply because, for them, she IS the world of Japanese musical theatre. Coming from that perspective, of course Rena is less experienced, because she, simply put, isn’t Hanafusa. 

In terms of their overall presentation of the characters, I found that their respective training really impacted how they portrayed the characters: Rena played Antoinette as being very elegant, with a pride that could turn to haughtiness. It made for an Antoinette that is interesting in her own right to watch, which is tricky, since I find that Antoinettes tend to be overshadowed by the other characters, especially Margrid, Fersen, and Orléans. She did include certain aspects of a Takarazuka performance in her performance, since her mother was a Takarazuka star in her own right, such as how to properly use an 18th century fan, but, for the most part, I’m willing to say that she played it much more naturalistically. 

Hanafusa, meanwhile, emphasized the tragedy of Marie’s life. Throughout a decent portion of the musical, she can be seen crying, especially during the trial (which Rena played straightfaced, playing a Marie that is totally numbed by grief), and expresses her happy, joyful moments in a very exaggerated, almost forceful way, more what I would expect from a Zuka actress given that Zuka performances tend to emphasize extremes of sadness and happiness. (Keeping in mind, of course, that traditionally, it’s expected for musical/opera singers to act in an exaggerated way in order to be seen from the back.) If you are used to Hanafusa, then you’ll LOVE it, because she is very much there, and it’s very much what you’ve been accustomed to. She does show her training; she doesn’t miss a single note in the entire production, but I do find that, in this one area, her added age over Rena might be to her detriment, as I find that her voice has thinned somewhat with age, comparing her now to where she was in Dracula or during her Takarazuka days. Her vibrato also isn’t quite to my taste. Not BAD, but not for me. She isn’t UNPLEASANT to listen to, and again, if you are buying it to hear Hanafusa Mari’s voice, that is exactly what you’ll get, but I also do think the luster of it has faded.

So, in terms of overall ratings, here is what I would put them: 

Rena: 

Year of Debut: 1995

Acting: 9/10

Singing: 10/10

Hanafusa: 

Year of Debut: 1991

Acting: 4/10

Singing: 6/10

Margrid 

Sonim (A Cast) - Sonim’s history has been gone into detail here by my friend, @chibimyumi who, unlike me, has a native speaker’s understanding of Japanese (as opposed to getting lucky with Google Translate), so I’ll leave it to her. But, suffice it to say, Sonim had her musical debut about...2007 or so (she was involved in other stage projects, but for sanity’s sake I’m marking her appearance as Johanna in Sweeney Todd as her musical debut) after the idol industry decided to be cowards and kicked her out because she didn’t conform to their pretty pink princess dreams, was offered the title of Ogosho IMMEDIATELY upon her joining up with Toho, and, since then, has distinguished herself as one of their undisputed leading ladies. She has appeared, to my knowledge, on three proshots, two of which I own: Mozart, 1789, and Marie Antoinette, and has also appeared in Kinky Boots, Tanz der Vampire, FACTORY GIRLS, and Rent.  

Natsumi Kon (M Cast) - Natsumi Kon is, admittedly, also no slouch in the world of Japanese musical theatre: She had her debut in 2011, with the coveted role of Juliette Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, and has since been in Les Miserables, Grand Hotel, the Addams Family, The Fiddler on the Roof, and The Secret Garden, as well as being the voice actress for Belle in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast. She has been praised as essentially being “the next generation of the musical world”. 

By the same standard I’ve set re: Hanafusa and Rena, there isn’t THAT much in terms of their ages, since they have the same difference in debut time (though in this case, it’s in Sonim’s favor, and I also think that it’s much more dramatic in terms of younger musical performers as opposed to older ones.) 

I feel like, of the two of them, more people would have come for Sonim, since she is an Ogosho herself, being at the same level of ranking as Furukawa and Hanafusa. What I suspect, in fact, is that Toho, in a CLASSIC Toho move, split the cast that most people would have wanted, with Hanafusa, Furukawa, and Sonim, but I can’t confirm and, honestly, I feel like Hanafusa’s very expressive Antoinette would have clashed with Furukawa’s more aloof Fersen, but that will be dealt with down the line. As it is, M cast has Hanafusa, and A cast has two Ogosho-level performers for the price of one with Sonim and Furukawa. (Meaning that, on a purely technical level, it has the most starpower behind it.)

Sonim has a strong belt and has a reputation for playing scrappy girls, possibly because she herself easily qualifies as a bit of a “scrappy girl” herself. Her Margrid is bitter and cynical, not necessarily kind. The years on the streets have warped her into someone who is primarily motivated by herself and her own personal revenge. She uses “the people” as a self-justification to pursue her own vendetta, only realizing by the end what it’s done and cost her. She doesn’t care for social norms AT ALL, and would be the exact type of person that you would see on a tabletop counter at 2 AM, legs spread out, trying to stuff an entire pizza down her mouth. She’s distrustful, especially towards men and, even for those that she trusts, she has a low level of tolerance for. She is, frankly, a bit of a bitch. And I adore her for it, because it’s more realistic to what I think someone would be like after undergoing what she has. She’s a kind of female character we get relatively little of, really. I do think that, on a few occasions, Sonim perhaps outbelts herself here but, in general, I feel like it suits Margrid’s personality more. 

Natsumi Kon took a more tragic bent to the character. Her Margrid IS a good person, at heart, but she lets her desire for justice, along with her own revenge, steer her towards a course that just causes more suffering. She is more like an 18th century Eponine from Les Miserables, the street girl who, if she’d JUST had the upbringing that Antoinette had, could have been a great lady like her. She seems to play up the love triangle with Fersen more, getting a little closer to him at different times, giving him more longing looks, while also seeming to have...some sort of dynamic with Orléans, with the two of them often touching and laughing with one another. She does have a very smooth, strong voice, though I feel like, on some level, she has never quite escaped playing ingenues, and, rewatching it with a critical eye, I think that, as the musical continues, her voice starts getting a little breathy and strained. I don’t really know whether this is by intent or simply because of the musical being very vocally demanding for the Margrids, but I do think that, if Sonim overbelts at times at the beginning, Natsumi has some issues by the end; the notes aren’t coming out quite as clear or as strong as they should be. Her Margrid has a little bit more of a polish to her and, in general, seems a little younger and more naive compared to Sonim’s. I do give her credit for really being willing to go UP CLOSE to her fellow actors in stand-offs, giving her Margrid the sense of being a little bit of a bull in a China shop; during the duet that Marie and Margrid share, there’s one point where it seems like Natsumi is only INCHES away from her face. I know that it’s out of style to make Harry Potter analogies, but Sonim plays Margrid as a Slytherin; Natsumi as a Gryffindor. She didn’t do a BAD job as an actress, and in fact adds some nice touches to Margrid that I do like, but she doesn’t really do anything too new with the character. 

Now, why does THIS matter? Well, for one, I think that, if you go in expecting the best of everyone, Sonim’s Margrid can be like a dose of cold water. Natsumi is more...palatable. Less conflict, less difficult questions, especially since it becomes that much easier to separate Orléans-As-Villain from Margrid-As-Heroine.  

Overall: 

Sonim: 

Year of Debut: 2007 

Acting: 10/10

Singing: 9/10. 

Natsumi: 

Year of Debut: 2011

Acting: 8/10

Singing: 8/10

Fersen

Furukawa Yuta (A Cast) - Probably one of Toho’s most bankable male leads at the moment. His presence in a musical is generally a VERY good sign to me that Toho is planning on a proshot, since they know that fans will buy anything he’s in. (To illustrate: I wasn’t PLANNING on buying Marie Antoinette, I had more than my fair share of doubts after the disastrous German run, but then I saw Furukawa Yuta and Sonim were signed on and I promptly got both casts. Best insanely rash move I’ve ever made in my life.) He had his stage debut in 2007 with The Prince of Tennis series, and since then he’s played in the Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) musicals, Elisabeth, 1789, Romeo and Juliet, and Mozart. Though he initially made his name with his dancing and acting abilities, along with his personal charisma, he has since worked on his singing, putting himself through Hell and back to earn his spot as Ogosho. While Mozart was his official debut, I would argue that, in some ways, it was as Fersen and then, later, Romeo that he REALLY got to demonstrate what made him star material. 

Mario Tashiro (M Cast) - Mario Tashiro, like Natsumi Kon, is absolutely no slouch either. He has a full, operatic voice that he uses to excellent effect, making him very recognizable even if you don’t know who exactly he is. Plenty of times, I’ll be listening to a trailer on Youtube and hear this BOOMING voice and go “MARIO TASHIRO?” He has been very prolific on the Toho scene, taking roles in Sunset Boulevard, Chess, Love Never Dies, Elisabeth (marking the first time in known history that Fersen is locked in a love triangle with Fersen for Marie Antoinette and then seduces Fersen’s son, Fersen), The Great Gatsby, Jekyll and Hyde, and Sweeney Todd, among others. 

In terms of approach, both men took very different approaches to their role. Furukawa played Fersen as much more aloof and distant, which makes for a contrast with Marie’s sunny, naive personality. He has a dry sense of humor and has a long-running cat and mouse game with Orléans where both understand, on some level, that they’re on equal ground. His love of Marie, while definitely a real, true love, is also very idealistic: Marie represents a world that, for Fersen, is slowly dying out, she represents the best part of humanity for him, especially after being gone during the war. I do not believe, looking at Furukawa’s Fersen, that he and Antoinette ever actually slept together, rather that it was very much a courtly love. He cares for Margrid, entreating her to have compassion, but there’s just enough wiggle room to wonder how MUCH of it is genuine VS him needing something from her at the time, and he’s very aware of his status as an aristocrat and makes use of it. It’s really unlike any other take on Fersen I’ve seen, in any media, and it’s part of why I ended up leaning towards this production, since it’s generally a MASSIVE feat to make me like Fersen. Furukawa’s voice in the role is softer, lacking the strength of Tashiro’s but still making for some very impressive low notes.

Mario Tashiro, on the other hand, focuses more on Fersen as a romantic hero, full of dash and daring. He has a notably dramatic take on Fersen, with flourishes and exaggerated movements, which, as an opera singer, are probably part and parcel of his acting training. If he’s aware of Orléans’ general presence, he doesn’t seem bothered by him, with their being really little sign that Orléans has any respect for him at all. He loves Marie as well, but it is much more of a sort of fairytale, Rose of Versailles love. There’s not as much moral gray areas to his Fersen, even though he makes the exact same decisions as Furukawa’s and, like Hanafusa Mari’s Marie, tends to go through extreme emotions. His voice was, as always, phenomenal, I give him full and complete credit for it, however, unfortunately, when put up against Hanafusa Mari, I found that the two of them had the tendency of trying to outbelt one another, leading to a distinct lack of chemistry during romantic scenes. (And you’ll notice that, despite generally being weighted against Hanafusa, I am NOT giving her the full blame for this one.) 

Furukawa Yuta (A Cast)

Year of Debut: 2007

Acting - 10/10 

Singing - 9/10

Mario Tashiro (M Cast) 

Year of Debut: 2009 (He had his singing debut in 2007, but his overall musical debut was 2009)

Acting - 7/10

Singing - 10/10

Louis

Takanori Sato (A Cast) - Probably the baby of the group, in the sense that he had his own debut a little while after the others, in 2015. In his case, and his case alone, would I say that there was a REALLY strong case for him not having as much experience compared to his counterpart. He has played in Titanic, Elisabeth, the Scarlet Pimpernel (the one with Kazutaka Ishi), Mata Hari, Legally Blonde, and Chess, the latter possibly most impressively since he did the entire thing in English. 

Yuichi Harada (M Cast) - I’ll be honest, I’ve never in my life been tempted to look up his biography before, but when I did, I was impressed to find that he’s actually been working in the world of musicals since 1992, when he was in Anne of Green Gables and then again in Les Miserables as Gavroche. He has had a long career with Toho, too, being in musicals such as Les Miserables, The Sound of Music, Titanic, the Beggar’s Opera, and La Cage Aux Folles, none of which I literally had any idea about until today, but that is very impressive. Massive props to him, honestly, as well as working as a director for Bare: The Musical, which...well. Props to him for branching out. I will never understand the love for Bare worldwide, but you know what? Almost all musicals deserved to be loved by SOMEONE. He has an impressive track record, I’ll give him that. One of these days, I’ll probably have to dig deeper, since I suspect that there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye. 

Takanori has a very smooth, strong voice, without the projection of Mario Tashiro. I found that his take on Louis was quite charming, tender to his wife, a normal man who Marie respects even if she doesn’t love him in the same way as she loves Fersen. (Honestly, can I just say: While we all know that Orléans has my entire heart....if Takanori’s Louis asked me to marry him....#PhilippeWho.) He’s a steady man, not really dumb, but well-intentioned and occasionally oblivious to the real danger, and it’s that that kills him, in the end. 

Yuichi’s Louis is much more...confused throughout the thing and, while I think Antoinette has some compassion for him, I don’t really feel like it’s love so much as...affection, mixed with a certain amount of pity. He does show moments where it looks like he knows a lot more than he lets on, but in general, I think he did play it as much more humorous, a lot more...well, dumb, at least until the second act. He does have a solid voice, I give him that, but in general, it felt like there was a little less subtlety in how he interpreted the role. There’s something almost childish about the way that he grasps Orléans’ hands when he’s asking him to intercede for them, whereas in Takanori’s case, it’s more him realizing that his cousin is...well. Orléans, but knowing that he has to do a little bit of crawling if he’s going to survive. 

Yuichi’s Louis DOES still get sympathy from me, but it’s in a way that is kind of insulting to him as a character, mainly because it’s less about HIM and more like “......god. Killing him is a bit like kicking a puppy. Like, you could do it, but my God, why would you?” Like, I do kind of want to write a fanfic where he can just......be safe........far, far away from everything, because I’m not sure if he would notice if they took him any place else, but it does kind of...take away his complexity? I will say, in his defense, looking over his entire performance, that seeing him constantly trying to smile as he’s being led while Marie panics, trying to let her know this is all going to be alright, is a tearjerker, though I still feel like his Louis is played a bit too much like the caricature of Louis that, at this point, I’m kind of used to seeing. That being said, while I don’t necessarily like all of the DIRECTION he took Louis, I can see that he put genuine thought into constructing the role, so I’m not going to nuke him too much in the acting category.

This one, more than any of the others, is probably YMMV, because I know people who were genuinely shocked to realize Louis is double-cast at all. Mainly because it isn’t like the role leaves THAT much of an impact, overall, having only one major song. I honestly think that the 2021 cast is making the right call in splitting Orléans and giving Louis one role, all things considered. 

Takanori Sato

Year of Debut: 2015

Acting - 10/10

Singing - 10/10

Yuichi Harada

Year of Debut: 1992

Acting - 8/10

Singing - 8/10

The Case for M Cast

Now that we’ve gone through the rankings, it’s time for the original question: What are the pros of M Cast? And, if you just listened to me laying all this out, you would think that I wouldn’t have much positive to say. That being said, when I was back in the States and could spend an hour or two watching musicals every day, a LOT of the time, I would watch M Cast. There has never really been a point where I said “You know? I regret getting that cast, I wish I’d just had A the entire time.” If I was dangling off a cliff and I could only save one cast recording, I would HAVE to choose A (and then promptly sob), but I do, genuinely, like M on its own and would recommend getting both simply to compare. 

- Mitsuo Yoshihara. Now, this is going to be odd for anyone reading, because I can hear it now: “But he wasn’t double cast! Wouldn’t you get him on A too?” Yes, you definitely would. But he is a very unique type of Toho actor in the sense that he changed up his performance for EACH cast he was in. If you look at M cast, he has a much warmer dynamic with Natsumi’s Margrid, either as a paternal substitute (making up for her own aristocratic father) or as a prospective love interest. He is MUCH more hurt in the final court scene, very clearly viewing Margrid’s decision as a personal betrayal. As the admitted and confessed Morléans shipper, I have to eat the angst up like it’s candy. The two of them have a nice amount of familiarity and chemistry with one another, presumably due to having worked with one another on other projects before. 

- Mario Tashiro’s voice. This deserves its own section because it is REALLY, REALLY phenomenal. You know whenever you’re seeing Mario Tashiro in something simply because that voice is VERY distinctive and is totally overwhelming each time you hear it. I noted my misgivings in his section, but overall? It is very much worth the price of admission just to hear him. 

- Different shots. I’m still figuring out exactly WHAT shots dramatically change from each cast, but M cast does contain some shots that A doesn’t have and vice versa. M cast doesn’t have this shot of Margrid and Antoinette, and A cast doesn’t have the one here of Antoinette and Fersen’s hands touching, which is a wonderful little bit of cinematography. I do think that, depending on the shot, you can get more or less of a character’s motivations in that moment. A personal favorite is Hébert trying to get Margrid alone during the scene just before the ball and Margrid shoving him off, which foreshadows what happens near the end of the second act. 

-Hanafusa and Natsumi’s voices actually do go quite nicely together at the end.

-Mario Tashiro does make for a very splashy Fersen; yeah, you might not spend too long dissecting what he’s doing when he’s on stage, but he is fun to watch swish around in his 18th century officer’s outfit.  

-My griping on Natsumi’s Margrid aside, I do think she has a lot of charm. No, it isn’t my FAVORITE take on the role, but I do actually like what she does, she adds quite a few nice touches to it, and she does make the song “Enough is Enough”, near the end of the first act, her actual bitch, adding her own riffs onto it to give it a sense of individuality. The parts where she’s smiling, hanging onto Orléans’ arm, make even my wrinkled, shriveled heart grow three sizes. I’ll be genuinely excited to see her return to the role in 2021 to see if there’s anything she changes, though I doubt I’ll be able to see any part of it in person. 

-If you’re a Hanafusa Mari fan, you get to see the kind of performance from her that you’ve grown to expect and appreciate. If you’re not, you get to see her get splashed in the face with champagne. Win, win, win. 

Overall, I think that it will depend on what you’re looking for. I really enjoyed the realism and the grit of the A cast, but not everyone WANTS grit, and in that case...I suppose M cast would appeal more, since M cast relies on everyone involved being much better human beings than A cast, though I do want to emphasize that everyone in A cast is still redeemable. (Except Hébert. Because fuck Hébert.) M cast is....easier to digest, in many ways. There’s a good queen, a stupid-yet-sweet king, a dashing hero, and a misunderstood-yet-angry-poor girl, manipulated by the siren’s song of the Revolution and her unrequited love for Fersen, who bullies the poor, downtrodden queen when she gets a chance before realizing the error of her ways. I think that, for many people, that’s perfectly fine, and that’s what they wanted, especially if they’re already used to Rose of Versailles. I do still LIKE it, because it’s a production of one of my top 2 favorite musicals, but I do think that, if it was the ONLY version of the musical available, I wouldn’t have spent so much time picking it apart. (Though I still would have thought it a MASSIVE improvement on the German.)

 I do put a lot of it on Hanafusa Mari’s influence, though, because of the prevalence of her fanbase and the general belief that no one could ever come close to their star, so why bother getting another cast. Especially given how....devoted the Takarazuka fanbase is in comparison to the Toho fanbase, and the Thing I’ve noticed where fans try to argue that there is some sort of empirical reason for their bias as opposed to simply liking one more than the other. 

[honeymoonjin]

pre-elimination thoughts

hello here is a compiled list of all the asks i woke up to this morning relating to the elimination ksdjfks please enjoy 

If u see it from the pov of yn like actually that the person yn said “lets vote kook off after he shared his feelings and got provoked abt it” thats gonna hurt koo so much and he probably will completely shut himself off/ maybe even ask to leave the house if sora allows that?😳 and for yall b’s to vote him off!!! I’ll never forgive yall if sora announces that he got voted off fr fr!!!

Listen I’m not trying to be hateful but what did tae give us this week in comparison to JK??? Did he give us a whole scene? did he take the time to set up the gym into an exam room? Give us a sexy doctor moment?? No. He gave us some relatively mild puppy play which is fine!! But i mean compared to everyone else’s scene?? JK needs his moment, needs US on his side! Tae will still have jimin if he gets eliminated but koo needs a moment to shine! #byetae #savejk

I just remembered the elimination is based on sex...i voted the wrong person😞

why are people kicking off hoseok what did my man do

I’m gonna day this once. Vote koo out and I’m coming for kneecaps. There is so much potential there with the Maknae line. Listen hear me out the candidate that would hurt the least is hobi I know he was gonna get booted last week but like he’s the one that is the least emotionally attached to yn ya feel?! And also I feel like this opens up opportunities for him to dick down other members…. not naming names but *cough* jimin *cough* anyways that’s my tea if Jungkook is booted this week Readers …. I’m cracking my knuckles and we’re fucking throwing hands accept there won’t be a Seokjin and Yoongi to hold me back when I push y’all on a coffee table 😤😤🥱🥱👊🏾👊🏾

jimin may of instigated the fight, but jungkook threw the first punch and to me that’s a lot worse

the way it just took me five minutes to vote 💀 and 4 minutes and 55 seconds of those 5, i was just staring at my wall contemplating

Let's try and think with the few braincells we have left fam. Hoseok scenes are the most fun to read bc he is extremely confident and also one of the most experienced in the house. DON'T VOTE HIM OUT. A lot of the others could have a great storyline just hanging out in the house and creating sexual tension and drama. HOSEOK SHINES WHEN HE'S PERFORMING AND BEING A HARD ASS CONFINDENT SEXY DOM. PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU DON'T VOTE HIM OUT JUST YET.

i swear to fucking god i y'all vote hoseok out i'm rioting

People out here fighting for who should get eliminated but I'm here cant even figure out who to vote for cause I love all of them so much,,,, BUT IF ANYONE EVEN COMES NEAR MY BABY JIMIN AND YOONGI AND KOO IM KILLING ON SIGHT -jimin slap me anon

Ngl y’all wish I could vote y/n out 😂😂😂 girl gets into a relationship on a porn show... with 2 guys she doesn’t really seem to even like that much in a romantic way. Idk I’m fine with vmin but I don’t like the poly :/ not because it’s poly just because it doesn’t make sense + it’s complicating a lot of shit. I love the story though so I’m gonna keep reading it I just don’t agree with the relationship. I don’t think she should have a relationship with any of them until the show is over

Aaah this chapter was so good but also a mess 😭 I literally don’t know who to choose, I would actually be the worst in such a situation because I hate making decisions like that! I‘m seeing all those aggressive asks you’re getting and I‘m just sitting in the corner over here instead trying to deal with emotions 🥺 I just hope they’re all going to be alright in the end!!

I sent u two asks already queen and it def shows what good of a job you've done but this time let me be selfish for a second Because these anons are pissing me OFF! I can't believe so many people are in favour of voting Taekook out bro I'm really gonna pull a Kook and fight yall in the living room like UR really gonna break their hearts like that? JKS gonna blame himself for opening up and Tae will be devastated that he cant touch MC since touch is one of his love languages! Yall make Me SIQUE!

im voting tae out bc imo his scene was v plain. I get that pet play is out there n kinky but it was boring. While the hopekook scene with y/n was explosive it felt like tae having jimin there for his scene was a cop out. n then they did their dumb poly thing which should honestly be against the rules. WHAT SNAKES! also ngl but i feel like jimins been such a b to hopekook all the time FOR WHAT! im voting out tae for this week n jimin after. VMIN CAN GO FUCK EACH OTHER IN THE BUNKS FOR ALL OF TIME

Please please please don’t throw JK under the bus, if he gets eliminated his mental state is going to crumble even more than it already did, poor baby boy doesn’t deserve to get eliminated specially if we vote solely on the sex, because this man really went all out with his prompt, he was so diligent with staying in character and all, AND come on y’all did you not read the part in which he was being taken out crying while saying how sorry he was for the mess? We can’t break his heart even more

#kickjk2020 vminy/n for the win ‼️😼

Okay I’m sorry for yelling in my last ask BUT I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t relate to the way jk reacted bc I’d definitely feel the same as him that, doesn’t make the actions he took right but I mean have y’all really never felt that upset and alone before? You’re up against a wall with no where to go dude. Ofc you’re gonna lash out. His prompt was AMAZING he put in so much effort and it was SPICEY. And he felt so apologetic after the fight. He needs more time please:(((( #SaveJungkook

Ok but what i think some of us don’t get is that the elimination vote is from Y/N’s perspective, right? So how in the world will that go down? After all this, her voting Jk off. So, what i’m saying is #saveSora and #savejk

that chapter was so emotionally exhausting 😓 you’re such a great writer but it breaks my heart nonetheless. I guess that’s all I have to say about the chapter. but as far as voting, my choices are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. cause one I want to vote out based off of sex, and the other strictly based on emotion. uugh I can’t decide (even though I know you want it based on sex). my final statement I’ll campaign for is PLEASE don’t vote out jin or joon 🥺 #savejin&joon

I see ask about voting my man Jimin or sweet baby boy jk and even sweet taetae out while I'm here wondering if we can veto yn out 😔 i get her pov but damn im really pissed that she just gets "plant mode on" in situations like this

I’m so sorry for my baby but Tae is the one who has to go, c’mon everyone he is the safest option! He will still have Jimin and he can still have fun with the rest of the gentlemen, and you can’t tell me that he wouldn’t enjoy just watching and/ or punishing y/n when she decides that she can’t keep her hands to herself, HE WOULD STILL BE ABLE TO ENJOY BEING ON THE SHOW WITHOUT THE SEX WITH Y/N BECAUSE WE’VE SEEN HIM ENJOY SEXY TIMES WITH THE OTHER GENTLEMEN! HE CAN STILL BE HAPPY IF HE GOES

If koo gets voted off I'm actually going to c r y just-

if y’all vote my baby koo out i will personally hunt you down and crack your spine like a fucking glowstick xx

PEOPLE DONT VOTE KOOK OFF. HE LET OFF SOME STEAM NOW ALL WE NEED IS FOR HIM TO APOLOGIZE AND MAKE THINGS RIGHT 😭

PLEASE DONT HURT KOO IM LEAVE THE BABY ALONE OKAY???:(((((((

#SAVEYOONGI WE GOT THE TINIEST CRUMB OF HIS FEELINGS ON THE COUCH WITH Y/N THE NIGHT OF THE THREESOME AND I WANT THOSE FEELINGS TO FLOURISH 👁️👁️

i’m sorry but if we’re voting by who did they prompt the worst you have got to choose seokjin. i feel so bad for him because the thing ab his feelings just came out but the most interesting scene he’s had up until now was the threesome with yoongi. if i could, everyone would keep participating but in this moment, seokjins the obvious choice to me

luckily it wasn’t as many as i thought but still fsdjfkjks phew yall are passionate ;;-;