#they’re the ones who’ve saved me

[stargirl-and-potts]

Ed must have been crying under that blanket, stunned and hurt as he was, learning Stede left him for Mary, who he never loved, Mary who made him miserable. He must have been sure Stede could never have felt what Ed felt and then done that. But Ed’s pulled it together by the time he sticks his head out to let Stede know how mad he is. And he keeps it together, even calling himself an idiot for trusting Stede, even baffled and longing, until Stede says “I love your chin!”

Hearing that word, Love, aimed at him by Stede, that does him in. That’s when Ed’s eyes fill with tears and he goes still, can’t look at Stede, orders Stede not to say the next part. Because if he can’t take just hearing that Stede loves his naked chin, then hearing the whole of it will undo him. And he’s spent the whole dinner barely holding it together, visibly feeling everything and terrified by the force of it.

So he says, No, you don’t get to say that to me, not after I never even got to say it and I meant it so much. And I’m not telling you anything now. I already said my part. Then the tears recede a bit with the strength of him standing up for himself, for his hurt, and he just peeks to see how Stede will take that No.

But when Stede drops his head and takes that in like it matters to him, what Ed doesn’t want, and doesn’t seem to spare a thought for his own pride — doesn’t take a moment to fret about Why did I come all this way, then, if you’re done with me — when he only wants to be sure Ed knows he adores him regardless, just being near him, whether or not Ed has anything to give him — that’s when Ed finally turns to him. His fear fades a little under the light of wonder, and he glows a bit at Stede, even sad and sore as he still is; because that’s when he knows he wasn’t wrong. He’s not in this alone. Stede feels it too.

[luckykiwiii101]

HOW TO ACTUALLY FEEL FULFILLED

Hey Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl Here. Three little birds sat on my window, and they told me that some of manhattans finest elite, aren’t feeling so…elite.

And i’ll tell you, that you don’t need to worry.

People may give you advice on how to feel fulfilled, but doesn’t mean it will fulfill you.

Because little does your naive self know, that they’re just telling you what makes them feel fulfilled, not what makes you feel fulfilled.

No, I’m not talking about the fulfilment of “Yeah, I’m a God” that lasts 3 minutes. I’m talking about true fulfilment. The one that takes you places. The places you want to be. The long term fulfilment. The unshakeable fulfilment, because you know you are who you want to be.

Here’s how:

STEP 1: Decide what makes you feel fulfilled.

Is it affirming?

Is it visualising?

Is it scripting?

Is it just simply deciding that you have it?

+ more

STEP 2: Do what fulfills you every time your desire comes to mind. Fulfill yourself until the feeling of desire completely vanishes. You can compare it to your soul feeling some sort of hunger, feed your inner self until you no longer feel the need to. Because you are fulfilled.

Not sure what fulfils you?

Try to visualise or affirm or any method you’ve heard of, and whichever one(s) fulfill you, then those are the one(s) for you.

How do I know when i’m 100% fulfilled?

- You aren’t identifying with the 3D

- You aren’t waiting for your 3D to conform AKA being impatient.

- You feel free knowing you have what you want.

- You aren’t trying to get anything in the 3D.

- You think FROM your desire and not OF it.

- You aren’t viewing your desire as a desire, because you acknowledge that you can’t desire something you already have.

- You know that the 4D is realer than the 3D will ever be.

States to NOT occupy:

- State of lack (not accepting your desire in the 4D).

- State of waiting (waiting for the 3D to conform).

- State of failure (believing you’re doing something wrong).

- State of trying (trying to achieve something in the 3D).

REMINDERS!!!

- Mental health comes first

- You don’t have to fulfill yourself when you don’t want to.

- It is impossible for your 3D to not conform, you don’t have to assume that your 3D will conform.

- Your 3D reflects who you are. So give it something new to reflect.

What People Think The State Of The Wish Fulfilled Is:

- Complete bliss and happiness.

- Thinking OF their desire.

What The State Of The Wish Fulfilled actually is:

- Knowing that your desire is YOURS in imagination (4D) and standing FIRM in that FACT.

- The FEELING OF KNOWING YOU HAVE IT!!!!

A thing that a lot of people do is, they’ll affirm “I have everything I want.”

Then they’ll observe the thought, not the FEELING it gives them. The feeling of knowing. Although the whole point of affirming is to give them the feeling. Automatically putting them in the state of the wish fulfilled.

Relish in that FEELING until you are completely satisfied.

And we all know what satisfaction feels like. Like having a delicious meal and feeling full afterwards. Like taking a nice warm bubble bath on a cold winter night.

So feel satisfied. Fulfilled.

Don’t EVER go back to the undesired state.

Read these short reminders + quotes from people who’ve manifested their dream lives. (It will save your life) —>

[speakergame]

Progress Update - 3/4/24

Hello and happy March!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? ���� Well, I finally have some good news for you this time: I have some actual news!

I'm happy to be able to announce at last that an update is on its way! I’ve still got some assets to make and code cleanup and testing to finish, but I should finally have something to show you soon.

I’ll put a cut at the end of this and go into more detail about the what and why of what I’ve been working on during this long and unintended hiatus, but the tl;dr is that I hope to have an update out by the end of the month, and that said update will break any saves made in Chapter 4. Unfortunate, but unavoidable, since Chapter 4 had to be recoded from the beginning 😞

I just want to thank all of you once again for sticking with me through my extended silence! Especially to my patrons who’ve put up with me putting everything on pause month after month while I dealt with my real life shit, and to everyone who’s sent me kind and supportive messages to let me know Speaker hasn’t been forgotten. It really means a lot to me.

Okay, enough of that sappy shit! I’m gonna get back to work finishing this up 😁 I’ll put out another update later this month once I have a more definite release date.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you’re having a fantastic 2024 so far, and that the rest of the week treats you kindly. See y’all soon! 💙💙💙

(For those who want a more detailed breakdown on what’s been happening and what to expect, hit the readmore)

I won’t go into the personal life stuff I’ve been dealing with this past year that has slowed down my work, but as far as the actual game goes: 

To put it simply, I just wasn’t happy with it. Some of it could be because of how many times I had to reread the same section while I was coding the scenes that would’ve taken place after the last update, but no matter how much I edited or rearranged it, I didn’t like how that scene turned out. There was something… formulaic that had been happening with the way I always laid out scenes, and a bit of stagnation in the story, character, and relationship development that bothered me.

So I rewrote it. And when I still didn’t like it, I rewrote it again. And I still didn’t like it. I thought about scrapping the whole thing on more than one occasion as I struggled to get out of the corner I’d written myself into.

Inspiration finally struck at the beginning of this year, thanks in part to another interactive novel I follow, and I really like the direction I’ve taken it now. 

Instead of the RO split scenes happening where the last one left off, Speaker, Seer, and Gavin are gonna have a chat about Things™ to move the next story arc forward. Then Speaker will get some downtime, by themself at first and then in an extended scene split with the RO of their choosing. 

All the Big Plot Things that were going to happen in Chapter 4 will be moved to Chapter 5 instead, and 4 will be a bit more of a filler episode. A deep breath before the plunge, as it were.

This split won’t just be a quick conversation/reaction from the RO, but a full on different direction for the rest of the chapter based on who you choose. Most of them will involve leaving the house; all of them will involve actual one-on-one time (or one-on-two time, as the case may be) away from the others. And though romance isn’t required, all of them will have the potential to really move the romance forward if you so choose. One or two might even have a lock-in choice (maybe. I’m not 100 percent on that, so don’t hold me to it) 

These scenes won’t be in the next update, because they’re all very complex, but the update will definitely have the Seer chat and at least some of the by-yourself stuff. The update after will have the rest of the alone time stuff (including the clothes/body CC you’ve all been waiting for), and then the one after will start the RO scenes. I think.

I may actually split the RO scenes into separate updates, and let my darlings over at Patreon vote for the order they’re released. That way I can focus on one at a time instead of trying to split my attention six ways at once.

Okay, that’s enough rambling for me today. Time to get back to work! Still got a lot to get done before this is ready, but it’s so close now.

[starlightseraph]

house md is actually a love story with a bunch of medical jargon layered on top and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

the first episode is all about whether or not house cares about wilson. it’s proven that he does.

through the first series, it’s established that they’re the only two people who put up with each other.

in series two, house nearly gets back together with his ex. he tells her to leave him. then wilson gets his third divorce, which, like the others, was because he was never fulfilled in his relationships with women. he stays with house. he’s in a hurry to leave, but house tries to make him stay. he eventually moves into a hotel to get away.

in series three, wilson obsesses about trying to ‘fix’ house. to teach him humility and gentleness. when house doesn’t change, wilson is willing to go to prison to protect house.

series 4 sees wilson enter a relationship with a woman, and house is crushed. he can’t share wilson. when the woman is dying and she can’t be saved, wilson asks a gravely injured house to risk his life. house does it, but he can’t save her. house is willing to take that risk because he thinks that, given two options for companionship, wilson would be happier without him. house nearly lets himself die, because he’s afraid to live in a world where wilson hates him.

wilson tries to cut house out of his life in series five. it doesn’t work. he realises that house makes him happier than anyone or anything else in his life. later, house has a psychotic break, and wilson saves him from himself.

series six changes everything. house moves in with wilson. their lives revolve around each other even more so than before. wilson risks his life, and decides he wants house with him. they buy an apartment together, for them and only them. wilson proposes to house as part of a scheme, which he never would’ve done, even as a joke, several years before. wilson no longer gets afraid or angry when people notice his closeness with house. house tries to get wilson to come out of his shell, to stop relying on his relationships (specifically his relationships with women) to define him. wilson realises that he doesn’t know what he wants for himself, just that he wants house to be happy.

in series seven, house and wilson no longer live together and are both in committed relationships with women. yet, somehow, they still choose each other. when both of their relationships end, they lean on each other more than ever.

in series eight, they start off on bad terms, but they quickly realise that their connection is stronger than their anger. wilson gets cancer. house does everything he can to help wilson fight it and to convince wilson to keep trying. then he decides to let wilson have a peaceful death. they plan to relive all their best memories together. when it looks like they might be separated for the last months of wilson’s life, house nearly kills himself. he can’t stand living without wilson. he thinks about all the people who’ve cared for him and all the possible happy endings that he could’ve had. he thinks about how he sabotaged them all, he never let himself be happy and he never did right by the people he loved. at the last minute, he decides to go against one of his core beliefs, that people can’t change. he decides that he’ll change, he’ll save himself for wilson. he’s never been about to do it for anyone before, but he does it for wilson. they quite literally ride into the sunset together.

in the early seasons, wilson is deeply denial about his relationship with house. he gets defensive and angry and scared when people make assumptions about their relationship. he only ever wants to be around house, but he also tries to distance himself. he slowly becomes more comfortable just being with house and very clearly loving him. he becomes more comfortable with casual intimacy and domesticity, when he had fiercely rejected before. he’s spent his life clinging to this idea of getting married to a woman and settling down. but he realises that he doesn’t need that, he just needs house.

house is always ready, he is always receptive to anything wilson gives him. throughout the show, he eggs wilson on, pushing the boundaries of their relationship. when it’s his last chance to be with wilson, house does what he thought was impossible.

they’re in love. they want to fuck so bad. they get their (sorta) happily ever after in the end. they change their souls for each other, they break out of the boxes that they’ve lived in, they break down the walls they’ve put up. they balance each other perfectly, they become better people when they’re together. they save themselves so they can save each other.

i’m gonna have a breakdown just thinking about it.

[girlboypersonthingy]

Let’s make this adorable~ Sal Fisher x afab reader who’s all about romance. Loves cooking for him and sending him love letters through his locker. She’s just enamored by him and has to express it.

OOH OOOH OOOH!!! YES, LOVE IT. Gonna do some headcanons. I love this man endlessly 🩵

Notes: I write all characters as adults (besides Pidge VLD) so this will be adult Sal, therefore out of high school so I’m gonna avoid the locker talk.

Sal x reader-Hopeless Romantic 💖

Cook for him and he’s gonna lose his absolute mind. He will go back for seconds even if he’s miserably stuffed already- just wants to show his appreciation

The only ppl who’ve ever cooked a meal for him is his mom and Lisa so it truly makes him feel so special and loved.

LOVES physical affection too! Hold his hand, link arms with him, kiss his prosthetic, hug him often- he loves it all.

He’s a bit self conscious and might be timid when showing you physical affection so feel free to take the lead! Initiate the touch first and he’ll become more confident and return the gesture ten fold!

Just don’t stop touching him okay? If anything, touch him more! As long as he has you in his grasp or can feel you hanging on him somewhere, he feels secure.

Plz plz plz leave him love notes everywhere and anywhere! Sticky notes on his gearboy, long thoughtful letters left folded up on his dresser, more sticky notes on his bathroom mirror about how gorgeous he is.

And he leaves them all in their respective spots, just letting you add more. He can’t stand to remove the notes, it hurts his heart a bit too much.

If you remove them yourself and replace them with new notes, he’ll actually probably cry at the loss of the old ones. Like 🥺

“you…threw them away? Why?”

“To make room for the new ones, babe! It’s fine, Sal, they’re just sticky notes.”

“No…no they’re not. They mean everything to me.”

Starts to remove them himself and saves every single one in a shoe box under his bed.

You bet your ass Larry teases him when he finds the box and starts digging through it all while Sal is absolutely proud and happy to go through it with him, rereading all your lovely poems and compliments.

Don’t be afraid to call him cute pet names or show PDA in front of his friends. He lives for that shit. Lowkey loves when Larry and Todd snicker and make faces at him after you kiss him or call him ‘honey’. He doesn’t care, it just makes him feel even more giddy and in love with you.

MIDDAY NAPS IN HIS BED WITH GIZMO CUDDLED BETWEEN YALL OMFG BEST SLEEP OF HIS LIFE

Kiss the inside of his prosthetic right in front of him and let him know it’s so he’ll always be able to kiss you even when you’re away from him

Bonus points if you wear lipstick so he can see the kiss mark before he puts his prosthetic on.

Imagine he takes it off later around Larry and Ash and both of them are like “uh, Sally, you got a little something…on your face.” And he’s sitting there with a dopey grin and blushing cheeks like “yeah, I know~”

GOOD LORD, when yall are alone, feel free to pull his prosthetic off and just go ham with the face kisses. You don’t even need to ask to take his mask off when it’s just you and him, just yank it off and make out with him already

Gift him stuff! Doesn’t matter what it is- could be a dozen fresh roses, a lollipop from the dollar store or a shiny rock you found on the ground while walking to his house. He’s like a crow, he’ll hoard it all no matter how small.

All in all, he loves having an ultra loving and affectionate partner, just give him time to warm up to it and he’ll gradually start returning the favors.

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

Character Flaws vs Writing Flaws:

While catching up on some of the stuff people have commented/sent to me, I noticed someone mention how Katsuki being a bully is a flaw of his and that not every character needs to be a good person.

First of all, when did I ever say that a character has to be morally correct to be a good character? Some of my favorite characters are villains who’ve done worse things than Katsuki.

So what’s the difference between them and Katsuki?

Well, the villains have a reason for existing. Joker is meant to serve as a parallel to Batman, challenging his morals while also showing what an unhinged Batman could look like.

On a much lesser scale, despite his extremely limited screen time, Moonfish’s bloodlust, lack of sanity, and cannibalism serve two purposes in MHA: to showcase Fumikage’s power and to give the readers an example of what the heroes of this world have to deal with.

Katsuki’s flaws are meant to show the flaws of a world that values raw power over morals, but he fails at this. The reason why? His flaws are never allowed to be flaws.

Katsuki’s aggressive and hostile nature should have him struggling to make friends, yet he has the two pillars of 1-A, that being Ejiro and Denkias described by Hori, immediately befriend him with no issues. His inability to empathize with others should have people wanting to steer away from him, but his instead 1-A loves him, Eri loves him despite being the last person who would, and anyone who doesn’t love him is seen as being in the wrong.

Katsuki is meant to be a big fish in a little pond, someone whose ego isn’t challenged until a certain point, and the Battle Trials were meant to show this. While yes, Katsuki has a mini-breakdown over the fact that he’s no longer in a class of people with weaker quirks, he has no issue claiming a spot as a Top Dog and he still continues to demean the people around him.

Katsuki’s aggressiveness is meant to be both a flaw and an asset. His aggressive nature is what motivates him to defeat the villain, but it’s supposed to cause him to have a one track mind when it comes to hero work. Rescue, teamwork, all of that is ignored by him to fight the big bad. His ego caused everyone to have a tougher time during the USJ, but is that ever touched upon? Nope. It’s just ignored. When Katsuki saved Kyouka, there was no buildup to it. It just happens. We never see him struggle with teamwork because everyone else follows him like a lost puppy.

Meanwhile, Izuku is meant to be Katsuki’s parallel in this department. He’s meant to showcase why too much selflessness isn’t good while also showing that a hero is more than just their raw power. Problem is, Izuku gets completely shat on no matter what he does. He goes after a villain to protect U.A? Gets criticized. Does his best to work with Katsuki? Gets blamed despite it solely being an issue on Katsuki’s end. Does everything perfectly? Nope, still not enough. Compared to Izuku, who always seems to be in the wrong, Katsuki’s placed as this paragon of heroic virtues despite the fact both characters are supposed to be two halves of a whole. They’re supposed to learn from one another. Problem is, Katsuki’s flaws are always ignored while Izuku’s positive traits are demeaned.

Finally, Katsuki being a bully is supposed to serve as a starting point for his character. He’s meant to grow and develop as a human being. Again, he doesn’t, or at least he doesn’t do so in an organic way. He never suffers consequences for his behavior, he’s constantly propped up and coddled instead of criticized, and he’s given some heroic moments despite there being no buildup to them. In the span of a month he goes from nearly killing Izuku to risking his life for him. Where the hell did that come from? Honestly, I wouldn’t care if Katsuki being a bully is his sole purpose for existing, but he’s meant to be more than that. This is supposed to be a well developed and fully fleshed out character who grows from his selfishness and is meant to show that anyone can be a hero, no matter their starting point. But when the development is crap and he hardly changes outside of some OOC moments, then his flaws cease to be flaws that he’s meant to overcome. Instead MHA treats it as him being quirky and misunderstood.

In conclusion, you just can’t present something as a character flaw and expect it to serve as an excuse as to why a character exhibits said flaw. You have to think of the following: what purpose does this flaw serve? Is it meant to be used to teach a lesson? Does it set something in motion, whether it be the development of this character, another character, or does the flaw cause the character’s downfall? The only thing Katsuki’s flaws does right is that they set up Izuku’s story, which again would be fine if that’s Katsuki’s purpose, but it’s not. Him being a bully isn’t something that he overcomes in a natural way. His redemption story is the equivalent of filling things out of a checklist without being fleshed out. Every time he screws up, it’s never treated as a screw-up. Oh he failed the hero license exam? Well so did Shoto so he’s not unique there, and the proctors still suck his dick even while he’s “failing”. Him being the reason for 13’s injuries? Never brought up.

Katsuki’s flaws don’t piss me off because they are flaws, but because the writing of his character IS so deeply flawed despite being a centralized character in the story.

Oh, and as always, someone can dislike a character for whatever reason they might have. If people don’t like Katsuki because he’s a bully, then they have every right to. What I wrote is a response as to why I think Katsuki’s a shit character and how it’s not because of his flaws themselves, but how Hori goes about writing these flaws.

[cooki3face]

what kind of seducer are you (18+)

this is me using my mornings to be productive and doing what I said I would do for you guys in the first place lol, these readings take me a long time and a lot of energy even if it doesn’t seem like it so I hope you enjoy these and find them entertaining <33

***

i.

I’m giving immediately everyone wants to see you everyone wants to be around you or people perceive you to be someone well known and well sought after and that within itself is the pinnacle of your allure. Everyone has to have you. You’re a wish fulfillment to many people I’m hearing it girl. I’m also getting debutant vibes like there’s this very timeless beauty that you manifest, or like Bridgerton vibes, you’re the diamond of the season, everybody sees you, everyone wants to look at you, everyone wants to know what you’ll do next.

I’m hearing people also see you as someone who can protect and love very well and it makes them feel very greedy about you. Your energy is enlightened, you heal, you love. And when you have energy like that people can be very attracted to it and desire to have it all for themselves. To overconsume. Like I hear people saying that your energy, the type of person you are is very scarce and they’d like to have a taste, they’d like to have you for themselves.

I’m also getting people may think you’re very good in bed or they fantasize about you and what you can do I’m hearing you’re very beautiful. You’re a perfect embodiment of what desire and love is. You could be a virgin or be very protective over your sexual energy and who you give yourself over to and that curiosity and desire to dive into you is what really attracts some people to you. You make people very thirsty. You’re a reservoir of water in the desert.

Im hearing you’re the one thing people make sure to ask their God for. You may bring people a lot of peace and solace and people see you to be a nurturing person or someone they want to rest with or be around in their time of hardship in need. Like when we had nightmares as a child and we went to lie with someone we knew would keep us safe or would support us or listen to us even if what we were afraid of felt silly or unreal.

People sense that your accolades are within. Like you don’t have to prove yourself or display your talents or achievements publicly or through things that are physical and tangible because people know and you know that you are a good person and have many talents and wonderful attributes and abilities. People also believe that you’re very wise and smart as well. And I’m hearing that you may even take the sexual charge out of people not in a bad way because you’re very desired but you take out the ache and the craving of being sexually driven to fill a void because people see you as fulfilling enough or a lot already without having to sleep with you or use your body for healing.

You make people feel as though they can have all the things they fear they cannot or don’t deserve.

***

ii.

There’s something about your emotional receptivity or your emotional energy that brings people to you. You could be a masculine energy or a man because I got the king of cups. People feel that you care very deeply about a great deal of things even to the point of it troubling you. They feel you have a lot of heart and that you would be ideal for marriage or long-term commitment because they know you’d love them with everything you’ve got and for a long time.

People may feel as though you can heal them or open up their hearts to be saved because you understand them or you may relate to their sorrows and worries. I hear “They’re filled to the brim with love.” You may attract people who’ve come from broken homes or come from places where they weren’t very loved or valued and people feel as though you can shower them in love and affection and fill a hole in their heart. People may leech off of you at times or drain your energy because they see the things they did not receive at crucial moments in their life in excess in you.

I’m hearing people saying that your love is like love. Your s*x, your affection, and your touch is what love is supposed to feel like. You may be very gentle but rough at the same time, very strong, and give off very protective and patient energy. I'm hearing that people fall for you very fast and very hard. You're almost addictive and it takes them long bouts of time to feel their really free of the effect you have on them. People feel you even in your absence when you're not around to have and to hold. You're a lot to miss. You're a lot to love and be loved by. There's so much excess.

You could give off very paternal energy. The girls with daddy issues love you, the boys with daddy issues find themselves wanting to crawl into your lap too. You could be very dominant as well. Stubborn, strong-willed, and unwavering. People find very high expectations for what it means and what it feels like to be loved by you. I’m hearing “I wouldn’t wanna be any place else.” People want to stay with you. You could be very prone to be caught in long-term relationships even if you don’t intend to stay for very long because people hold onto you so tightly.

You almost make people want to be willing to share cause they know other people want your time and attention and love to and they’re not ready to ever let you go on to someone else. The people are also saying that you’re very action-oriented and very driven and that makes them want to follow you wherever you go.

***

iii.

People could see you as very relaxed as well as very intellectually aware. They see you as very level-headed and smart. You’re someone people see as destined for success or someone who can’t help but be on top or come into a lot of good fortune within their lives because you’re just naturally very strong-minded and steady.

People may also see you as someone who isn’t afraid to take risks and is very brave in life. They see you as someone who is consciously aware of their inner calling in life and is intentional about the things they do and know exactly where they are going and that level of stability and knowing attracts people to you. It’s as if they’re saying if this person is stable and knows what they want out of life surely I can learn something and even if I don’t this is the person I want to spend time with.

Im hearing please don’t stop the music by Rihanna as well. People see you as a fun time or a night they never want to end when they spend time with you. People may also think you’re very good to sleep with as well like after a night with you their world is rocked and they want to stay right where they are. People see themselves enveloped by a little bubble while there with you. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is important. This energy really reminds me of Bed Peace by Jhene Aiko and Childish Gambino.

People feel as though you have a thirst for life, like you’re challenging the status quo, like if the world were to shift or change or if everyone woke up one morning and decided they were gonna do what they wanted to do, not go to work, not go to school, eat whatever they wanted, kiss the person they loved or be in any way spontaneous it would be because of you. I’m hearing “you’re a firecracker.”

People are attracted to you, seduced by you, because of the freedom you offer them. You radiate self-love and expression and they desire to be in that energy themselves. You’re like art. Like the countryside or loud jazz music that’s being overheard from the window on a long summer night.

***

these messages were really sweet, made me love you. Okay, good morning, good night, or good evening lol, I love you and I hope this was what you needed. Be sure to book a personal reading with me by going to my Instagram and clicking the link in my bio if you wish to have a reading with me personally. ❤️

[long-leggged-socialist]

So some fuck ass mom posted on tiktok about her 14 y.o CHILD getting a Brazilian wax/waxing on her body bc it’s “hygienic” (she obv didn’t post the it actually getting done but I digress).The woman who re-posted the video onto twt is having to argue with brain dead women who say “ITS HER CHOICE” and saying she’s a weirdo for being concerned and that they don’t have a problem with a child getting waxed more so than the mom posting the video to begin with, as if we can’t fucking multitask. I think I’m officially black pilled I’m so serious.

No wonder why women fall for the dumb shit men do bc y’all are working with room temp IQs and ZERO critical thinking. The funniest part is when the consequences of not being critical end up happening the feminist who’ve been telling y’all to think more than two seconds will be blamed/“why aren’t so called radfems talking about this!!” And then it fades bc no one wants to read anything or make actual change, I don’t even think a toddler getting lip filler will make y’all use your fucking brain for once.

Y’all are on your own I can’t deal with this shit anymore. The fact that women are fine with the bar being in hell and are allowing these men to get them pregnant when roe v wade has been overturned tells me everything I need to know. We can argue internalized misogyny till the cows come home but the bottom line is that there’s a fuck ton of y’all that don’t wanna be saved and frankly speaking, I don’t wanna save your annoying asses either.

Women should be outraged, should be disgusted and repulsed by the way we’re being stripped of our rights and sense of self not just in legislation but personhood via these traps they’re setting for girls. Robbing them of their youth and innocence bc of the porn addicted moid goblins they go to school with and societies penchant for pedophilia towards girls.

But nah, instead yall break your backs to say “LETS NOT DEMONIZE ALL MEN” after hearing about a horrific tragedy inflicted upon a woman after someone’s comments “I fucking hate men.”Like I’ve said before men don’t have to lift a finger to keep patriarchy alive and running when women get on their knees for free lmao.

[strangelittlestories]

I share an allotment with a group of like-minded, similarly afflicted mythics and metaphoricals.

They’re mostly a nice bunch - escapees from legend, myth and folklore, mainly.

There’s a couple of nice ancient warrior men who help me carry bags of compost (when they’re not too busy making eyes at each other).

Then there’s the werewolf who scares a lot of the pests away and grows lovely blood oranges in the greenhouse.

I don’t always get on with the sirens, who keep trying to add salt water to the fish ponds, but I do have to admit they harmonise beautifully. Mainly they sing about sustainable farming and permaculture - but that could just be what I hear…

We get a few brownies and hobs, too - and we’ve agreed a fair percentage of each harvest to be set aside for them, in exchange for their labour and the little magics that they offer to make mundane tasks go a bit quicker.

The main problem I have (other than rare Editor turning up - and we’ve managed to repulse all their incursions so far) is with the seer with whom I share the herb garden.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, we get along okay. I’m what those in the know would call ‘a blindspot in the weave’, which means I don’t show up in prophecies - so she doesn’t need to worry about giving me dire warnings for me to ignore. It saves on foreboding wailings and I Told You So’s and largely makes for a chiller relationship.

But I am nearly certain that she’s been stealing my herbs.

Not the dangerous or esoteric ones, mind. Usually it’s just perfectly ‘literal’ cooking herbs that go missing. And I’m fairly sure it’s her, because the leaves are always plucked right on the morning they’re ready.

I’ll be heading over to the allotment, excited for the day’s gardening, and sorting through my list of the various plants who’ve whispered through their roots (and into my dreams) that they’re ready to be harvested (along with the latest plant gossip).

And then I arrive and the stalk of my herbs are bare and when I sing and croon to them and ask who did this, they keep stubbornly silent.

I mean … it’s not a big deal. It’s a small price to pay for an otherwise very equitable arrangement. It just grates sometimes; sticks in the craw, y’know?

But I guess it’s true what they say:

Prognostication is the thief of thyme.

[physalian]

Physalian's Top 10 Narrative Pet Peeves

*For now*

In one way or another, these all boil down to “Author took a shortcut and I absolutely noticed”. In other words, most of these stem from Manufactured Sincerity.

All of these come with the caveat of *except when done well*. I’m ordering these from “I’m annoyed but I’ll get over it” to “Nope, DNF”. 

10. Sad times = Alcohol

Everyone drinks when they’re depressed apparently. Only women or fat men are allowed to eat away their sorrows with ice cream and guilty pleasures. No one’s allowed to go on a self-pity shopping spree. No one just goes to bed.

They drink. Or they go shoot something. Or punch a wall. It’s usually out of a flask or a crystal decanter. It’s usually whisky (specifically bourbon) or scotch, or something out of a brown paper bag.

Maybe this is my own bias as someone who does not drink, but writers, please come up with more diverse ways to show your character is mourning someone or something, beyond immediately heading straight for the alcohol. Not everyone likes liquor, not everyone owns a decanter set and crystal glasses.

Let them eat or shop or sleep or get high, or watch their favorite show or a really sad movie or listen to emotional music. Let them cry if they’re bad boys. Don’t make them punch walls.

9. Down time = Sexy Times

This applies of course only to narratives with implicit or explicit sex scenes and what I mean by down time is those situations where characters are either on the run or have some crucial deadline to meet, some race to win, what have you, and the second they get some time to breathe and have a heart to heart, they both let their guard down and ignore impending doom and sleep together.

If you’re in the real world and you are that stressed for any of the reasons above, you’re going to be constantly looking over your shoulder, worrying about what you’re going to do next, wondering if you should even stop to rest, not be dead on your feet but have enough energy to bang.

Obviously if it’s played for humor, that’s different, but in dramas, or especially in environments not suited for intimacy (looking at you fantasy and sci-fi) it just feels ridiculous and particularly gratuitous. Non-aces please tell me if this is a legit thing you would do, I sincerely want to know.

It also tends to happen with near strangers who’ve only known each other for several days, possibly weeks with little buildup, and they also tend to be at each other’s throats bickering incessantly. Save the sex for after you’ve won and can really dedicate all your attention to enjoying it.

8. Pointless Filler Pit Stops

Or ones that last way too long for no reason. I love filler, but only *productive* filler. It doesn’t have to service the plot, but it does have to develop at least one character, a relationship, the lore, somebody’s backstory, or be really funny and/or interesting to sit through.

Usually, it feels like it’s there to pad the run time or slow the pacing, but rarely does anything for the overall story. A fair bit of season one of ATLA is filler pit stops, but even when they go to all these random places for one-off adventures, the story is still showing us the world they live in, making it a teachable moment, introducing important characters, foreshadowing, or is just mighty entertaining to watch.

ATLA has only one pointless filler pit stop: the infamous Great Divide. It doesn’t positively develop any of the main trio, we never see these side characters again, Aang’s story is a complete lie so it doesn’t develop the lore or the world, and, most importantly, it’s just frustrating to watch. Your first job as a writer is to entertain, and this episode is annoying.

7. Fridged Character Motivation

I don’t mind the “fridged lady love” inherently. It’s a quick and dirty way to give your brooding hero backstory and everyone is familiar with it. I’m annoyed at how it’s the only nuance these characters tend to get, like this man’s dead wife/girlfriend/dog is his sole motivation for everything he does in life and all his goals.

I like broody badasses. I don’t like one-note broody badasses. His character existed before he met his dead love interest. Who was he back then? Does he have any friends who hate the man he’s become? Old mentors who’ve lost their faith in him?

This man’s arc is usually not even therapy-via-violence to get over his dead wife, it’s just a ham-fisted excuse to make him mean and short-tempered. Who is he, unrelated to this fridged character?

6. Dumbass Villains

The villain has captured the hero and friends and plans some dastardly torture to break their will. The villain has all their tools prepared and monologues about how easy it’s going to be, and the hero usually says something along the lines of “you can’t break me” or “I can take it,” whatever. And after several pages or minutes of screen time, the hero’s right, and then the villain breaks out plan B: The hero’s love interest, or their parents, who have just been waiting in the wings.

Why is this almost never plan A? The hero can always handle the pain, and always breaks down the second it’s someone else’s health on the line. Why doesn’t the villain, who’s always pissed at the lack of results, start with the proper motivation?

It’s either this or they wait until the perfect dramatic timing to reveal some skill or weapon or ultimatum after precious time has been lost, deadlines have been missed, and money has been burnt. Or they’re in the boss battle and they wait until the hero thinks they’ve won to pull out their secret weapon.

Unless you can give your villain a valid reason to not start with all the tools they have at their disposal, it might as well be a reverse deus ex machina. Even if it’s something as simple as Plan B hasn’t arrived on scene yet.

5. Everybody Has a Somebody

A topic I plan to expand on so I’ll keep it short here. Basically, the story wraps up and every eligible single character has a love interest they’re in varying stages of romance with. No one is spared, or they’re already dead. It’s a race to the finish line to give these characters significant others because that’s just what you do, it’s what audiences expect, there must be a romantic subplot.

Particularly annoyed when it’s an ensemble cast and the entire hero team only has relationships with other members of the hero team and no one outside this unit of 6-10 characters (*cough* Percy Jackson *cough*). No one is allowed to be single, or happy that they’re single. Everybody has somebody, no matter how well developed or plausible this relationship is.

4. Half-Baked Twist Villains

No one likes these characters and I’m not saying anything new here, and yet it still keeps happening. This one comes from just recently rewatching the abysmal Cars 2 (which is older, I know) and just trying to untangle this plot. This plot, that Pixar rinsed and repeated in Incredibles 2, and really thought no one would notice. This plot, where the villain creates a problem that doesn’t exist to make their own agenda look better, whether that’s malignant superheroes or green fuel.

Both try. Neither pretend the story is absent of a villain, unlike, say, Frozen. Both movies have a villain, they just have a hidden identity. The reveal just never hits as hard as the writers expect it to because, once again, they didn’t actually do the work to write a competent villain, they just slapped a “villain” sticker on their foreheads and called it a day. Why? Who cares.

3. Consequenceless Revivals

I love revivals, I love bringing characters back from the dead, love watching it, love writing it, love the drama.

Don’t love it when they’re suddenly back with no explanation or price to be paid. A character death should be a major event, and if you kill a character just to make your audience sad, then bring them back with zero effort, death begins to lose meaning in your world. CW shows are particularly terrible at this, specifically the TVD universe and Supernatural.

In the earlier seasons, when Sam or Dean died and came back, they still experienced character growth by dying and the experiences in hell, the PTSD inflicted, the new emotional battle scars. Even when Dean died a thousand times in the “Mystery Spot” episode, the point wasn’t “ha ha funny Dean dies again,” it was exercising Sam’s crippling codependency on his brother, as Gabriel says. There are consequences, either for the character’s psyche, or a cost for bringing them back to life.

2. Wimping Out on Promised Death

This decision makes me want to throw the book at the wall, or pause the movie and walk away. It’s the penultimate battle, the prophecy is upon us, a character or one of two characters must die to save the day, it cannot be impeded, avoided, or circumvented. We’ve known this is coming since the story began and are prepared for the tears and bloodshed.

Then the magical miracle springs out of nowhere and everyone gets to live. Kill them. Please. Even if it’s my favorite character, I’d rather cry over their death than be disappointed by plot convenience. If this is the tragic, fulfilling end to their arc, then that’s how I want it to end. Rarely do these characters get revived in a satisfying loophole everyone should have seen coming. I just feel manipulated.

1.  Forced Miscommunication

*Picture me walking a stadium hawking Pointless Drama like cotton candy and cans of beer* Cheap Drama! Anybody want some Cheap Drama? Cheap Drama!

In the real world, people make misassumptions all the time and many of us are conflict-averse. We avoid talking about our problems to those who’ve wronged us like we’re polarized magnets. Forced miscommunication doesn’t care about anxiety, which would be fascinating to explore as explicitly anxious characters suffering legit mental issues is under-utilized. No, these instances just have characters eavesdropping or snooping and, out of character, make all these outlandish assumptions, refuse to listen to explanations, and start a fight that lasts juuuuust long enough until it’s magically resolved without consequence.

It doesn’t do anything for the story. It exists independently of these characters’ relationship and has zero impact once it’s resolved. I am 100% down for a single miscommunication causing an emotional outburst so extreme that it has the offended party seriously considering the strengths of their relationship, but it never happens that way.

—

TL;DR: The existence of a trope does not do the job of writing a compelling story for you. If you can look at any one scene in your book and not explain why it matters, what impact it has on the plot, story, or characters, delete it or rewrite it so it does. Even if it only exists to be funny, there should still be something gained from the experience.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #8 – The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham James

This has been on my tbr for long enough that I entirely forget what originally put it there – the only thing I actually knew going in was that the author was ‘the My Heart is a Chainsaw guy’ (I have not read My Heart is a Chainsaw yet either). Given the genre, that was honestly probably ideal. As was the fact that a blizzard hit a couple days after I started it and I’ve been reading it looking out on a frozen snowscape – it’s very much a winter sort of story.

The story’s told in five parts of wildly varying lengths, each with it’s own endearingly cheesy b-horror movie title and each following a different protagonist. The first four each follow one of a friend group who, as a bunch of fuckup teenagers, trespassed on hunting grounds that were really supposed to be reserved for elders and shot a bunch of elk they had no right to – including a pregnant young cow who was for one reason or another special. Ten years later, the Elk-Headed Woman drags herself back into the world, and begins getting her vengeance for the death of her and her child on each of them (and everyone they care about) in turn.

I have a longstanding opinion that a full-length novel is just too long to sustain a real horror story – by 300 pages things have fairly reliably collapse into urban fantasy or action or farce. The breakup into different parts solves this very well – they’re all very much connected and interwoven, but each feels like its own distinct narrative unit with its own tension and rising action.

And this is very much a horror story in the classic, just barely short of shlocky sense. A trespass against vague but understood sacred laws that leads to horrific and bloody retribution against everyone involved is as close to archtypal horror as you can possibly get, after all. The last section is even focused on a Final Girl! Specifically, it’s a subgenre that I can’t really name but feels very familiar to me – and one I’ve always been a huge fan of, anyway. It’s somewhere downstream of The Count of Monte Cristo, a story where the agent of supernatural doom spends the majority of the story consciously working in the background, manipulating events and exacerbating the protagonist/victim’s flaws to lead them to a contrived but tragic end? Think the netflix Fall of the House of Usher, but like about the exact opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

Class is very much something the book cares about. All four protagonists grew up poor on a reservation with little in the way of wealth or opportunity, and by the time they’d turned eighteen all four of them were the kind of young asshole who made life just a little bit worse for everyone around them dealing with the same shit. Ten years latter the three of them who’ve survived that long have gotten over themselves and matured in their own way (and to their own degree), but none of them are exactly flush with cash or living lives of bourgeois respectability (though Lewis comes close). The precarity and only tenuous connections to the society around them just make them better prey for what’s hunting them, of course – in every case, death comes after the (either metaphorical or very viscerally literal) destruction of the few close ties they have, and the only one to survive is also the only one who could really expect people to come rushing to their rescue.

Speaking of close ties the protagonists have – the book’s conception of gender is fascinatingly weird, or at least fascinating in the sense that I’m not at all sure how intentional it is. Of the four main victims, one dies alone at eighteen, and the other three who survive the next ten years are all pretty much explicitly saved (or at least improved and uplifted) by a relationship with a woman who, if not flawless, is basically strictly his moral and practical better. Even the most consistent fuckup of the group has a redeeming feature of being willing to do just about anything for his daughter (despite having lost the chance to really be a big part of her life several times over). With one exception, these women all then die, messily, entirely and explicitly to fuck with and ruin the lives of their men. It’s like someone read Women in Refrigerators and went ‘well there’s an idea...’. It’s blatant enough that I feel like it’s got to be making a deliberate point, but (unless it’s just genre emulation) what the point is does escape me slightly.

Also on the note of stuff I’m quite sure is going over my head at least a bit – basketball! It’s a pretty vital thread running through the entire book, to the point that one of the big set pieces of the final act is literally a basketball game with the monster. Which, like, I watched enough bad anime as a small child to find contrived game-playing under unclear mythic rules with things that really want to kill you instinctively endearing, but I can’t really do anything with this except just point at it.

So as the title might imply, this is a novel that’s concerned with race – all but I believe exactly one character is either is either Blackfeet or Crow, more than half the book takes place on a reservation, and a chunk of the rest is spent having to deal with racist assholes of varying severity. Now, I admit that I have at this point a probably overly cynical view of books that end up on breathless ‘socially conscious horror’ or ‘s/ff from diverse creators you NEED to read’ lists online, but I was still rather pleasantly by how matter-of-factly this was handled? I suppose the best way to put it is that culture, upbringing and racialization deeply inform everyone’s characters, but it never feels like the book is preoccupied with providing some assumed naive and impressionable audience any Important Lessons or provide Good Representation to valourize or emulate? Which is probably just a sign I need to raise and re calibrate my expectations, but.

The monster doesn’t exactly work as, like, a coherent character in terms of her skills and abilities, but as a monster the Elk-Headed Woman is great. But then I love contrived fucked up tragedies and am a longstanding partisan of Spooky Deer Horror, so I suppose I would say that.

So yeah, fun read!

[dragonfly0808]

Aisha: The Thesis

I don’t know if I have to keep saying this but SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE FUCKING REWRITE UP TIL THE CURRENT CHAPTER (S4 CH 14)

First Things First

The very first words on Aisha’s character sheet are: Sporty, socially awkward dancer

I feel like it’s a bit difficult to explain my thought process when it comes to Aisha. I think most of us can agree she was def the most interesting and most fleshed out in the OG, from her badass intro to her backstory and storyline in s2, she was a young girl who ran from home to avoid being isolated and was loyal to the point of risking her life to save her pixie friends.

Something that was very important to me was showcasing Aisha as being socially awkward and having a hard time believing people like her due to her trauma, years of isolation and never really having friends her own age. Her main relations up til this point have been with Nabu (who she stopped seeing when she was about eight and never really knew), Anne (who she fell for but abruptly stopped seeing when she was twelve) and the pixies (who aren’t human and therefore can’t really give Aisha the experience of having very relatable friends)

Due to all this, an important focus for me in s2 was showing Aisha as feeling like an outsider, she’s not only new to an already very clearly established group who already fought a war together, but she doesn’t really know how to become part of the group and isn’t always sure whether she’s intruding or not.

I tried to show how her integration to the group is kinda slow, giving her a pre-established friendship with Helia so the two could bond over being the new kids and having her first bonds be with Flora and Brandon.

She doesn’t really feel like a part of the group until the girls’ make a mock welcome-to-the-Winx ceremony that they don’t realize is so very important to Aisha because she’s never been part of a group like this before.

^ All of that makes for someone who is incredibly loyal to her friends, everyone in the Winx is very loyal but for Aisha specifically it goes even deeper in the sense that, these aren’t just her best friends, they’re her first friends, the first people that ever made her feel accepted and safe and didn’t vanish on her.

Imposter Syndrome say What?

Imposter Syndrome is a real thing and Aisha suffers real badly because of it. This is smth I’m exploring in her arc during S4: Generation Why (Talk About How Fast We Grew). This affects her in 2 main ways-

She feels like she isn’t a real part of the squad after the confrontation with the Ancestral Witches back in s3 finale (I’ll talk a bit more about that in a moment)

She feels like she won’t be a good queen and often compares herself to Stella and Sky who’ve gotten more experience in that aspect. Aisha can feel suffocated by the thought of some day becoming the queen of Andros, even if she loves her planet, being ruler seems like smth that would take away most of her freedom, which is pretty much her biggest nightmare.

Now, I’ll take a moment here to say that I feel like I haven’t given Aisha the attention that she deserves due to s2 being when she’s introduced and s3 having so much PLOT going on that the character arcs got slightly lost for most of the squad. In S4 I want to redeem this cause my girl deserves some more focus. I will say that the Generation Why arc won’t be the beginning and end of Aisha’s evolution in s4, though it will have a pretty big impact on how she views certain things.

If I’m All I Have, That’s Enough

One of my fave moments in the entire rewrite, is Aisha’s fight against fake-Anne (the Ancestral Witches) where, as the Witches try to convince Aisha that the squad doesn’t truly care for her and only friends with her out of pity, Aisha makes it very clear that, even if that were true, she’d still fight for herself. Because she knows she’s someone who deserves to be fought for and protected.

But even if no one missed her… Aisha would not give up on herself.

She had been alone most of her life, which meant she’d had to take care of herself. And she wasn’t done doing that.

Maybe she still wasn’t all that comfortable in her own skin. Maybe she was still figuring out who she was and what she wanted. Maybe she still doubted herself and the way others viewed her sometimes.

…but that was okay.

She didn’t need to have everything figured out to know that she wanted to live. 

If not to see her friends again… then just for herself.

Because she wanted to meet the person she would become someday.

Because the twelve-year old Aisha she’d once been had deserved to be protected. Just as her future and present self deserved that too.

So if no one was there to save her… then she’d save herself… for herself.

I really wanted to send a message that, while a lot of media will give someone with low self esteem some other motivation to fight for themselves, I really wanted to have Aisha fight for herself, to see that, if no one would fight for herself, she herself would still do it.

It’s a bit hard to phrase but I do think it’s been one of the most beautiful moments in the whole rewrite and while yes, Aisha still doubts herself and her place in the group, she doesn’t doubt that she wants to keep going and that she will fight for who she was, who she is and who she will someday become.

This kinda manifests in her finally standing her ground against her mom and making her see that all the shit she put her through in her childhood was wrong and only affected her in a negative way. It also manifests in her immediately feeling like she was exaggerating (pesky intrusive thoughts) and having to be pulled out of spiraling by Nabu.

I’m really excited to finally give her a bit more attention in s4, beyond just the current arc.

You Can’t Spell Lonesome Without Me

I feel like I’m bouncing all over the place with this thesis but just bare with me please.

Aisha’s main trait as a character is loneliness. She’s been isolated most of her life and, thanks to intrusive thoughts and imposter syndrome, her brain will make her feel alone and like she isn’t a real part of the group, which of course leads her to sometimes be lonely even when she’s with the other girls.

Because you don’t heal from that shit in just one year.

I really wanted this for Aisha cause it’s smth I myself struggle with due to some… really bitchy behavior from certain ‘friends’ in middle school, to this day it will take me 6 months to truly believe someone likes me and isn’t annoyed at spending time with me. I’m in college and middle school still haunts me, so I think it’s only realistic for Aisha to not instantly heal from what was probably an even worse situation.

Her loneliness is one of your brain constantly sabotaging you even when you’re happy with the friend group you currently have.

Thoughts Behind her Main Relationships

Flora: They are best friends, and their friendship is one of softness and comfort. They’ve both dealt with extreme loneliness and have both felt like not-quite-part-of-the-group at some point or another even if it’s for different reasons.

They have a perfect introvert/extrovert balance and are the best at bringing the other out of their respective comfort zones without making it feel forced or pushy.

Their friendship is midnight tea and sitting on balconies looking at the stars and dancing on the beach and cuddling after nightmares and doing each other’s hair and helping each other forget the pain and remember why they love life.

I feel like their friendship can be hard to explain because their friendship is one of quiet moments, of comfort and softness and the little things. It’s the flowers in Aisha’s sweaters and the seashells on Flora’s necklaces. It’s the comfortable silence and the random dance parties.

Nabu: Something I really wanted to do with this relationship was have Nabu kinda help Aisha heal her inner child. When he reveals his identity, they’re playing on a see-saw, they talk while sitting on swings, they run around the beach kicking water up at each other.

Nabu lets her act like a kid, something Aisha never really got to do thanks to her mom. He lets her feel like she can be childish and embarrassing cause she knows he won’t make her feel bad for it. They feel safe around the other, enough to act however they want to.

Another big thing in their relationship was trust and open communication, their situation is slightly awkward due to having an arranged marriage in their future, Aisha questions both their feelings, if they truly fell for each other or if they were just taking the convenient way out. Nabu is very clear that that isn’t the case and that’s what allows their relationship to flourish.

Going to Nabu is really one of the first times Aisha allows herself to go after something she truly wants, contributing to her coming into her own person.

Brandon: So, I would say Brandon might be Aisha’s first deep connection in the squad along with Flora. Brandon kinda sees right through Aisha and her self-doubt and he’s the one that really helps her start coming out of her shell.

The two are massive extroverts and love any and all outdoors activities, and they bond massively over this, constantly going for hikes, skateboarding or trying out new things.

And yes… Aisha does have a bit of a crush on Brandon at first, due to him kinda being the first guy she connects with in her teenage years, and him being… well… Brandon. While she never makes advances or even thinks about it (cause she would never do that to Stella) this does make her feel like an actual teenager, since she never really got the experience of having a silly little teenage crush.

The two are very close and, since both are very touchy people, it does contribute to the crush. Once the crush phase passes, Aisha sees him as a platonic soulmate, the two have a lot in common but wouldn’t ever really work as a couple cause they have too much in common. They are very supportive of one another and just really get one another.

Who is Aisha in this Rewrite?

Aisha is a young woman learning to be comfortable in her skin and to live and fight for herself.

She’s an incredibly loyal friend who struggles with imposter syndrome and intrusive thoughts. She’s working through that and trying to stop feeling like an outsider.

Aisha is someone who spent most of her life in isolation and wishing to run away, to be free. She’s someone who’s learning and embracing a new meaning of freedom and who is trying to come into her own in a way she can be proud of and that won’t restrict her freedom or make her go back to the lonely girl she once was.

Aisha is someone who, even at her darkest times, will fight for herself.

————

Masterlist

Aisha Moodboard

Aisha’s Instagram

Flora and Aisha Moodboard

Aisha and Nabu Moodboard

Aisha and Brandon Moodboard

[thisbelongsto-nohbodys]

[Anne is at her parents house, she and Oum are looking through a bunch of wedding catalogs]

Anne: Thanks again Mom for helping me with this. I knew that a wedding between two people was expensive so I should’ve figured that one with three people would be even moreso.

Oum: Don’t worry dear, your Dad and I have it mostly covered. We’ve been saving up for this type of wedding with you three for years.

Anne: Wait, really? How’d you know?

Oum: Remember that time when Marcy visited when she’d come back for the first summer break since she moved? That one day when you three went to the beach all day and fell asleep in the van on the way home……

[Flashback. The Boonchuys are stuck in traffic, Oum is driving, Bee nudges her and points back to the Trio who’ve fallen asleep. Anne in the center her head resting on top of Sasha’s who’s head is on Anne’s shoulder and they’re holding hands. Marcy’s head is nestled on Anne’s other shoulder as Anne holds her close]

Bee: Awww, this is so cute. Tho’ I wonder who Anne will pick to ask out, my money’s on Marcy.

Oum: It’s obviously Sasha, there’s no debatin——

Anne sleeptalking: Hmmmm, Sashy, Mar-Mar, I love you both I want us to stay together forever……

Sasharcy sleeptalking: Love you too Annie, let’s get married later…the three of us……

Mr and Mrs B:……………………

Bee: Guess we need to save up for a triple wedding…

[End of Flashback]

Oum: and we’ve been saving ever since.

Anne: First off, I don’t think that that happened and secondly, if it did happen then we’ve been engaged since 14?!

Anne: ………

Anne: wait…you and dad bet on my love life too?!!

[envysparkler]

okay so one of those ‘take a canon scene and see how it works in fanon batfam’ ideas.  in this case, the Batman v Red Hood fight, you know the one, yes that one where Bruce beats the everloving shit out of a Jason that’s not fighting back.

how do you make this work in batfam, you ask?  well 😈.

Jason needs connections in the underworld for some case.  problem is, Hood’s been an antihero for a good long while now, and most people consider him a Bat.  Jason’s solution is simple--stage a confrontation so public and so egregious that the entirety of Gotham knows he’s not a Bat anymore.

and whaddya know?  Batman’s the only Bat in Gotham at the moment.  Steph’s visiting Cass in Hong Kong, Tim’s in San Francisco, Damian’s spending the month in Bludhaven with Nightwing, it couldn’t be easier.  Jason just has to convince Bruce of this plan and they’re good to go!

(Jason does a whole monologue to try and convince Bruce, ending on the ultimatum, “if you don’t help me, I’ll find someone who will!”  Bruce panics.  he’d rather have Jason plot a fake confrontation with him than go fight-flirt with Black Mask.  one villain son-in-law is more than enough.)

it’s a whole production.  Jason writes scene directions.  there’s fake blood.  a dramatic monologue.  Batman tears the red bat off his chest.  the kind of shit that Gothamites would eat up.  by the end of this fight, no one in Gotham will think Red Hood is a Bat.

the plan goes off really, really well.

until it doesn’t.

what Jason maybe hasn’t considered is the vast plethora of people who love him, who would drop everything and come running to save him, and who’ve watched a bunch of footage of Batman beating the shit out of him.  while Jason is completely off grid and unable to answer any calls.

Jason returns to the Cave to update Bruce that he found the intel he was looking for, only to find him being held at swordpoint by Talia al Ghul while a furious and weepy Dick demands to know why he did it.  the rest of the family stand in silent judgment.

the Cave: *crickets* Bruce, pointing at Jason: it was his idea

[itsnothingofinterest]

I think that the LoV deserves to win in the Final War because if they win, they will be able to create a world for themselves. The Heroes never meant to deserve to win at all considering the fact that most of them are morally corrupted (like the HPSC) and they are more interesting when they lose all the time.

If Spinner were able to win against Shoji, that would prove that his point will be always right and he would be able to save Shigaraki. If Toya succeeded, it would be the punishment that Endeavor deserves for abandoning his eldest son. If Toga succeeded, she would be able to do anything she wants. If Tomura Shigaraki wins against Deku and destroys Deku along with the entire Hero Society, Tomura Shigaraki would be able to have peace with his friends.

If I may be allowed the opportunity to rant: I'm sure some will say this is crazy at this juncture of the story but honestly? I get where you're coming from. Or at least 90% of it.

I mean for starters, I sympathize with the League far more than the heroes (no surprise from a villain fan). I think they’ve earned the happy endings they want after how hard they’ve struggled against the towering odds they’ve faced, an area which I feel they far surpass the heroes. I want them to win, I want them to prove the strength of their bonds, all that fun stuff for them.

And just logically, if you look at the worlds both sides are trying to make…the villain's world kinda seems better? Because after all, isn’t the plan to just take the current world, tear it down, and rebuild it without a whole bunch of its glaring flaws? The easy world Toga wants where kids like her don’t fear for their lives. Where corrupt heroes like Endeavor and bigots like the CRC aren’t left to their crimes. In a warped way, they’re almost like young All Might.

Compare that to the status quo the heroes want back, the very one that brought us here, which I don’t see much reason to root for. I mean even if you say “but all the people who’ve died”; first off, I swear mha civilians frequently act like horror movie victims so I can only care so much for them. But if I did, they want back the very status quo that led to all that death in the first place so…it feels like it’ll just lead back here again. A return of the status quo? This chaos is part of the status quo by now, you sure you want it back?

(Granted this is all hampered a little bit by Shigaraki’s sudden decision to sink the country and really where did that come from? Did Tomura just say that to appear more inhuman? Did Hori make him say that to appear more threatening? Because that kind of interferes with a lot of the League’s goals y’know. Sure he doesn’t want to give the status quo loving heroes a chance to rebuild what he destroyed, but society still needs replacing as part of the plan. The PLF are still supposed to rebuild according to their desires. I may make a post about just this plot point soon.)

Not to mention that I totally get what you mean about the heroes not narratively earning a permanent win here. Not only have they as a whole not really developed and surpassed their old flaws, but just the fact that they’ve been doing their own war crimes in this arc (when you’re really supposed to stick to your morals and beat villains by the book against make-the-world-better-by-extreme-measures-type villains) really makes me think they just don't deserve the win because they kind of can’t be trusted going forward. I mean the final arc's supposed to show where everyone is ending up; how they'll be in the future. And the impression being left is that the heroes, even the kids to enough of an extent to worry, have shown the same corruption we know the HPSC for.

About the only thing I disagree with out on is that I don’t want Deku specifically to die. He can be, to put bluntly, a self-righteous moron about things he doesn't understand at times, and can be a bit of an AM clone a lot of the rest of the time; but I'd hardly wish his death for just that. Especially since it seems any hope for the heroes side not repeating their mistakes rests on him pulling his head out of his arse and getting a clue on how to be better than All Might. Not that I think that'll happen anytime soon, but that's why I keep insistently hoping for an MHA part 2.

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(Sorry I took so long with this. Mix of being busy with real life and being in a writing funk. Which is why this may not be my finest post either. Hope you understand.)

[jasonsmirrorball]

do you have any specific headcanons for jay?

i was going to answer this later when i got home but ! i’ve got free time now so. some of these might be in line with canon or not, i’m just rambling

heavily scarred. facial scars on his jaw, he’s got one running through his brow, various others all over his body following resurrection. those + his general resting face make him seem quite intimidating but i do think that most people in gotham are unfazed by it.

keke and i were talking about this and i don’t think this is an original thought but he helps little old ladies cross the street. he makes sure the working girls get home safe. if he sees a kid out by themselves in his vicinity he keeps an eye out to make sure they’re okay too. i can imagine him returning some neighbour’s kid home when they’re a little far from home and probably not where they’re supposed to be. he’s chill about it but he makes sure they’re ok.

i think sometimes it’s hard for him and bruce to look at each other. this is me projecting but to me i think it’s hard to look at bruce sometimes and not feel grief that threatens to swallow him whole. grief that sometimes feels like hatred but that hatred stems from the hurt of being let down. i don’t know if this makes sense. feeling like a little kid in a too grown body knowing your relationship with your parent is never going to be as it once was and knowing you can never go back because you’ve seen them now. i don’t know.

finds it hard to be touched sometimes. certain sensations, certain places make his head empty and not necessarily in a good way. very guarded, both touch starved and repulsed. it’s difficult.

stranger in his body sometimes, and yet i like to think that most people see through the scars to what matters. he gets on with older people, who’ve seen life in a way that most his age haven’t. aunties and uncles love him, to his surprise. it takes him a little while to get comfortable when your family meets him, he’s careful of overstepping, but they love him. if he doesn’t come with you, they send you on your way with extra food to bring him and messages for him that he was missed.

likewise, at community gatherings of family friends, the little kids love him. the rowdier kids don’t blink an eye at him, more interested in his potential as a new playmate than anything else. he’s introduced and they’re tugging on his sleeve after a few minutes, ‘look at this trick i can do!’ and ‘come play this game with us but you have to be on MY team’ and several choruses of ‘hey that’s not fair!!!’ until he’s taking turns on each team. the shy ones are curious, but they stick to your side and he tries to make conversation with them. he only ever gets shy turns of their head pressed into your arm but you both hear from their parents later that the little one hadn’t stopped talking about him when they got home.

he’s every auntie’s saving grace because they can hand off their kids to him and actually have a good time. boyfriend of the year award for real even though he’s a little awkward and clumsy around them. they love him.

finds it difficult to sleep, and wakes at the slightest sound/movement. situational awareness courtesy of bruce/the league/life pre-robin i think. you can hardly ever sneak up on him without him turning to catch you before you jump on him.

sleeps easier hearing someone’s breathing. i think there’s a period of time when he and roy share a tiny space and he just gets used to the sound of it. idk something about not being alone but also it’s just soothing ? i don’t know. sleeps with a point of contact with you always. a hand on you or his foot against yours etc.

anyway i miss him so much thank you for asking