#this is a very nuanced take on it and pls i think it's incredible

[lightningandfireinmybones]

Okay besties!!! I love the vibe we have going in here. Might I also throw in my two cents because regarding the whole Rhaegar / Lyanna thing, I have some thoughts as well?

So... I think that no matter how you slice it, it could never and would never have worked out. Not only was Lyanna a child (older than say Dany when she was sold to Drogo yet still a child) but also Rhaegar never treated her as an equal.

I find it very hard to believe that the She- wolf, Lyanna Stark herself, the Knight of the Laughing Tree, the girl that was so head strong that Ned is reminded of her when seeing Arya train with Syrio, the same girl that so earnestly and gently was moved by Rhaegar's sad songs at Harenhall, that she would be on board with fulfilling some grand prophesy.

Because the good version of events is that Rhaegar was forthcoming about the prophecy. He was the Heir, he was slowly and under the table making moves to remove Aerys from the throne and since his youth he was conceived that he could recreate the three heads of the dragon. (being born during a horrific accident that leaves almost everyone dead and was maybe caused by your grandfather in an attempt to revive dragons will mess you up I guess)

So when Elia could no longer safely give him that third child he looked elsewhere.

The bad version, and one that I am mote inclined to believe is that Rhaegar didn't tell Lyanna of the prophecy. He was sent to find the Knight of the Laughing Tree, he found her in the God's Eye and that's how the mess started. Lyanna was already infatuated with him (iirc the grand feast had been the night before and that's when she'd heard him sing)

In addition to that, he was the Prince and the Heir. You don't have to be Cersei to get blinded by that.

The whole dynamic was completely off. Rhaegar knew what he was doing. He knew the consequences and that's why he took her and kept her at the tower of Joy, otherwise he'd just have a bastard, or keep her as a paramour. But he knew how outrageous something like that would be.

He had an opportunity to "give" Lyanna back and he didn't.

Instead he started a war that ended with the brutal rape and murder of Elia and his already existing babies and poor teenage Lyanna all alone in Dorne.

Idk what Elia knew or though or didn't think but i believe that GRRM means for us to be very suspicious of R+L.

Besides throughout his book despite insisting upon the very young age of his characters (mainly girls) when being introduced to sexual situations the narrative always condemns them. For more thoughts on this let me suggest this video

ht tps: //youtu . be/QnYa0zSDl7o by Hill's Alive. It's her thoughts on this exact topic and I thing she makes some valid points.

Targaryen men and their prophecies and their ease to cast away their living children in favour of more future kids. The only thing that can bring the fall of the house of the dragon is the delusion of some of their Kings istg.

In the end no matter what one's thoughts on the R+L thing is (All opinions are valid and respected 🖤🖤 let's allow room for everyone) we can all joyfully be united under our hatred and rage over Aegon being Jon's name in the show. Rhaegar already had an Aegon! He was going for a Visenya!!! D&D kind of forgot about that i guess.

(besides aegon is so basic couldn't they do sth sexier? Side eye)

bestie you just do not miss

because whether you believe rhaegar to be a master manipulator (i am somewhat inclined towards that,,, growing up as the crown prince knowing you will probably have to usurp your father,,, you're not unaware of the moves you have to make) or not, there is something inherently unsettling about the way he approaches lyanna

his tragic background also indicates he had to grow up faster, should be mature enough to know exactly what he was doing!! (also that art piece released recently from the calendar i think with rhaegar and lyanna on the cover,,, the vibes are haunting which is very interesting to me)

and i think it's just like a man like rhaegar to think he is this savior and be determined to fulfill a prophecy that actually has far-reaching horrific implications on everyone around him with zero regards for the consequences (especially to the women,,, his wife is raped and murdered, his daughter is murdered, lyanna is left to die alone in childbirth, his mother is alone on dragonstone giving birth to his sister in terrifying conditions)

THAT VIDEO DOES NOT MISS, i think at the very least thinking critically about how and why it's presented like that is important

and all opinions and interpretations and shipping are respected in this house bc fandom and media is a very safe place to explore ideas and kinks and fantasies and i am a staunch supporter of rights and wrongs both being fun and important while also being aware there are implications and critical thinking to do at the same time

for real, i think a consistent theme is the hubris of men (particularly targ men: daemon, aemond, maegor, aegon I, etc) being their inevitable downfall LIKE WE GET IT YOU'RE HOT AND SPECIAL BUT PLS HAVE SOME NUANCE AND CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

and i feel connected in this chilis tonight over rage for how D&D just gave up on any critical thinking about some of the more difficult concepts in the end, i know it's hard to give any targaryen a better name than aegon but sweaties i can think of at least 4 off the top of my head:')

EXACTLY HE NEEDED A WARRIOR PLS

(also this is just my pure want thing here is that if he's trying to recreate the 3 heads of the dragon, the third head should be a hot warrior woman,,, jon snow eat rocks give me a dark magic queen instead)

[galedekarios]

i'm reading a new interview tim downie gave about gale and it offers some of tim's own headcanons about gale, as well as tim's thoughts and insights on gale's character:

Nerds & Beyond: I like that you mentioned that the game is full of rounded characters because they are, they all have different aspects that make them feel real. I adore that Gale specifically is so serious and studious, but at the same time he has this really playful side — he often jokes about how he was a mischievous youth, he encourages other people like Arabella to do so, he understands when The Dark Urge first mentions their violent thoughts. There is a lot of nuance and depth there. But the quality that I love with Gale most is that obviously he is very ill when we first meet him – not that we know immediately – and he’s dealing with a lot of chronic pain. I find him incredibly selfless because he takes that day-to-day head on to help the party, which is an aspect I feel continues to show throughout the three acts. What’s your favorite quality of Gale’s, or what did you take away from him? Tim Downie: It’s so interesting hearing you say that, because I had so many different feedbacks about what people take from the character and sometimes things really surprise you. It’s interesting hearing that such and such has taken that particular aspect, because there are broad things like “He’s funny,” and that’s quite nice, that’s a nice trait, though not one you necessarily get to see that much. It’s so interesting hearing other people’s views about what they take from Gale.  The idea of dealing with chronic pain I found really interesting and an interesting subplot to play, and that was the great thing about doing something like this is that it is so unbelievably nuanced. You have so many layers that just keep going and going and going, as much as we all contain multitudes within ourselves. We all deal with these things, but only certain things pop up to the surface at any given point.  What did I take from Gale, though? I liked his studiousness. I would imagine that he was probably bullied as a kid for it, and he was probably a bit of a joker because he was bullied, and he uses that as a defense. But an even bigger defense for him is “I now know stuff that I didn’t before,” and that’s a power. It’s very similar to when you are being bullied and you’re the funny one – that’s your power, that’s your thing. “I may not be able to hurt you in a traditional sense, but I can say things that will make you feel pain,” which is a very different thing because you physically can’t go after them.  That’s the wonderful thing about acting and this character as well is being able to explore all these things that you might not have, that you might have gone, “I’m not gonna look at that again, I don’t want to deal with that,” and then it brings it up again and it’s like, “Oh, this is actually quite cathartic,” to re-explore these these moments of sorrow and loss and how you deal with grief and things like that and heartbreak and how you get over that.  It’s not all just tears, you do try and make a joke of it.

i really like that they are addressing the topic of gale's chronic pain. it's something that doesn't get addressed often, not even in the game itself.

i also found his answer as to why people might connect to gale very nice:

Nerds & Beyond: Gale is the most popular origin character to play as. What is it about him that you think allows so many different players to connect with him to the depths the fandom has? Tim Downie: I really don’t know. I think you’d have to ask the players that, ‘cause I don’t know, to be quite honest with you. He’s a wizard, and who wouldn’t want to be a wizard at the end of the day? I always say the difference between wizards and sorcerers is that sorcerers just pretend – they just assume they know what they’re doing, but a wizard has really learned this trade. And so there’s that kind of weight of knowledge and learning, which I would love to play as and be for a length of time.  I think it’s also the frailties. I like characters, and a lot of people do I’m assuming, that have flaws, otherwise you’ve made them completely unapproachable. To be completely superhuman or completely extraordinary at something then removes the humanity from it because it becomes like, “Well, that’s never gonna happen.” But when there’s a flaw, when there’s, “Oh, I’ve got that wrong, too,” or like, “My knees hurt” as you say, or “I’ve got a bit of a headache. I really don’t want to do this,” “You’re really annoying me, this is very annoying, could you please hurry up?” or “Stop licking the damn thing,” it’s always those moments that are fun because it shows what we’re all thinking at that point, it removes it from almost archetype and stereotype and it becomes human in a way.

gale is approachable and likeable, has flaws, but is genuinely nice. i think that very much sums up his character.

this bit here made me laugh:

Nerds & Beyond: When you’re talking about those different layers in the humanity building, I think one of the most important aspects in this game is the more “background” or passive dialogue, so dialogue that is prompted in the world and not in the cut scenes.  For instance — the first time I made Gale sneak he immediately complained about his knees, and it was such a real moment where he was just like, “Oh, don’t make me do this. This is not what I’m here for, I’ve got bad knees and I’m not made for this.” Did you have any of those background lines or moments that stick out as being particularly fun to craft?  Tim Downie: I remember the first time I ever had to do waiting, I found it infinitely interesting in so many ways. The idea that I did actually just have to wait and just actually, “Hmm…” Those little things I find really funny because they’re probably the closest to me that the character ever gets. His waiting mannerisms are kind of very English – slightly annoyed and I’m not going to show it to you though because we’re all being very nice, but I’ll do it with a huff and a slightly sarcastic, “Well, that’s great. Another 20 minutes. That’s great.” Those kinds of sentiments I found wonderful and incredibly fun, and funny, to do. 

if you want to read the whole interview for yourself, you can do so here!

[pondphuwin]

i saw a comment from somebody on facebook who said that gemini norawit said on his instagram that my love mix-up is going to be the last series he's going to do a ship with fourth nattawat because he wants to focus on doing a straight ship with, who we're all assuming is, prim chanikarn, since they're starring in the dark dice together. but the whole issue with this is that i can't find anywhere on his instagram that he said this so i can't say how credible the factoid actually is.

buuut~ looking back on it, how gemini portrays his characters when shipped with fourth, i feel like... fourth carries the weight of the majority of their on screen chemistry. gemini mostly looks really awkward showing romantic feelings for fourth's characters. even when doing fan service, he seems to be a bit more on the awkward side and pulls away or dodges fourth's advances. he could totally just be playing into this shy persona but i still feel like gemini doesn't feel entirely comfortable in his ship or maybe portraying queer characters - now that's not to say he isn't queer in some form or at least an ally, he is what he is and that's nobody's business but his own.

i guess i just hope that gemini doesn't feel awkward portraying a character in a queer relationship and that's just his style of acting. time will tell when this new series comes out and we see how he acts paired with a girl in comparison.

hi anon! hmm this is interesting.

first of all, i’ve never seen gem say that mlmu is his last project ever with fourth so if you ever find the source of that info pls lmk!! i do remember him saying in an interview that he would like to do a series with a straight ship because he had already acted with a boy, so now he wants to act with a girl (what an incredibly bisexual statement LOL) but i didn’t take that as him saying he didn’t want to do bl anymore.

it has honestly never crossed my mind that geminifourth might divorce soon. to me, their gmmtv’s latest It Boys yaknow. it makes sense to me that they would lead other series separately so gmmtv can take advantage of their massive fandom and individual popularity but i still expect them to work together in the future. also. gemfourth are besties, they have a lot of fun working and playing together, and they flirt all the time whether they’re promoting a series or not hahaha. like yes their dynamic is definitely We Are Best Friends I Love You My Bro but that's typical of gmmtv pairs, and they're still having fun being an established pairing.

i believe we're in an era where actors in branded couples can do separate projects and then come back and do bl. i know with past divorced gmmtv couples like BW or ON, that's not the case, but those are specific circumstances. i mean...we're getting a kristsingto bl in the next year, honestly anything is possible.

personally, i’ve never felt that gemini was uncomfortable acting as queer characters or being in romantic scenes with fourth. in general, fourth is more experienced and more comfortable as an actor than gemini is. we know that fourth was probably gemini's first kiss ever and that gemini was really shy during msp because he has never been in a relationship before, i think some of his "discomfort" can be explained by that. i also just think gem has only ever played awkward/inexperienced characters, like his awkwardness or nervousness makes sense to me as heart or as tinn.

there are actors out there who have been ashamed of or uncomfortable working in bl, and obviously there's a lot of nuance within that topic, but to me, gemini doesn't align at all with those attitudes. i agree that at times, gem can be shy doing fanservice, but like you said, he's playing into that shy personality to match fourth's boldness and to be fair, fourth is VERY affectionate and likes to tease and surprise gemini. there are lots of times where we can see gem being affectionate with fourth (and with other male actors), and it seems like he really enjoys and values working with fourth and being in bl series.

at the end of the day, gemini is still so young and it's very early in his career. we haven't seen him acting at all outside of his bl roles and he overall doesn't have much experience as an actor yet—i think he's very much still finding his feet, so it's not really fair to make generalizations about his acting style. i personally think gem is a lovely actor, his portrayals of tinn and heart mean a lot to me, and his chemistry with fourth is great. i would be interested in hearing back about your thoughts during/post-mlmu and when gem's future projects are released ^__^

[kar-krashew]

Pls tell about your malec AUs

omg what a completely unprompted ask <3 /j (ty for asking ily)

Cars au pt 3: of my many malec aus, the most out of pocket one was obviously the cars au, which had a 3rd installment that i never published! this entire fic was meant to be magnus and alec going through a bunch of domestic bs while magnus absolutely accosted alec with cars based innuendo. this was to replace the original 3rd installment of the cars au, which was meant to be a very long winded cars 2 au that i do drop hints towards in the 2nd cars au (hence, the "import-export business" line by izzy, it's a line i took from finn mcmissile) there was a lot of research (watching cars 2 multiple times) that went into that one but i didnt like it after a while for personal reasons and also it would end up canonizing sizzy which i wasnt vibing with entirely. if i ever finished it it would have been the proposal scene, instead of simon (mater) “messing up” Alec’s (mcqueen’s) big race it would be the big race + proposal attempts, and the final proposal would happen in the clock tower scene where instead of just the spy trio, malec would be there too but the plot got contrived pretty fast sjfjfk so I scrapped it. However, the car innuendo fic would instead be the “I love you” fic, because love confessions always pair well with crack! That’s my life motto.

Part of the WIP below:

Alec’s brushing his teeth one morning when it starts: Magnus seats himself on the counter, leans in seductively, whispers, “Is that a gearstick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” and Alec spends the next two minutes choking on his toothpaste.

“What,” he coughs, “What the hell–”

Magnus simply bites his lip and winks. “How about the full service, darling?” He takes advantage of Alec’s respite from coughing to shrug his robe off of one shoulder, highlighting the fading marks there. “I could even throw in a free lube job.”

“Oh my god,” Alec says. He’s not sure what it means about himself, but whatever Magnus is doing is definitely working.

“What do you say, Alexander?” Magnus scoots even closer to the edge of the counter, trapping Alec’s hips between his calves, who shifts willingly. “Would you like to inspect my rear bumper?”

“Oh my god.” How are these only getting worse? “If I come back to the bedroom, will you stop?”

“Hm,” Magnus hums. He loops his arms around Alec’s neck. “I suppose I could be convinced with a ride.”

Alec groans. “For the record, this is the worst way you’ve tried to initiate sex.”

“Perhaps, but you can’t say it was unsuccessful. After all, you seem well on your way to plugging my tailpipe.”

Alec has to kiss him before he can say anything worse.

flower shop au: THIS ONE WAS SO ELITE. honestly still considering writing this one out, I ran this by (aka memed about) @\peachygos a few times too because that is how most of my aus start and it was my take on the stained biker x flowershop employee ! It’s flowershop!alec and biker!magnus but more nuanced than that, obviously, as I am a strong advocator for Alec getting in his Slutty era aka being the. (For lack of better term) h*rnier out of the two because I believe in flowershop au equality. Magnus would obviously be himself but by god Alec is soo horny like. canonically and I would simply be making him in character aka incredibly gay for Magnus and, since he won’t be like in an InstitutionThatHatesTheGaysTM he will simply be so gay the whole time. Biker Magnus who is like I would like some flowers haha hi Vs flower guy Alec who is like heart eyes sultry eyes the whole time. This got incoherent and I am very sorry about that but yes !

MegaMind au: once again incredibly unnecessary and stupid <3 i will not elaborate on this but I DID manage to make it a lot gayer and serious than you’d think

[dykeyote]

for the chnt 'choose violence' ask game :-)

7,8,9,10,21

YIPPEE i love games like this

7: character i hate not bc of canon but bc of how the fandom treats them ..... UP AND ADAM . i actually really liked adam i thought his aesthetic was really fun and i was excited for him but the way he overshadows other characters who are way more promiinent despite having no speaking lines and no personality yet and not having had literally anything to go off annoyed me . give me salem content!!!!!!!! no more of him!!!!!!!!!! ive seen enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (no hate to my adam loving mutuals i dont shut up abt jedidiah and he takes up a lot of space too its just a certain kind of adam fans that grate on me)

8: common fandom opinion everyone is wrong about . taptap . usually how people kind of take away elijahs agency in his own actions? people tend to favor a portrayal of elijah that suggests that while his Actions were bad, his Intent was not bad . that he didnt know what he was doing somehow and was trying to do the right thing . which i think is pretty blatantly disproven by the fact that he was still weird towards sydney before the ritual ever happened and by how malicious his manipulation of sydneys disabilities is but eh . i also find people dont tend to understand what jedidiahs arc as a privileged individual .... Means? (this isnt gonna be femidiah discourse i swear pls pls) which is on two sides of the spectrum theres the spectrum that just decides hes a completely bad person without any rigorous analysis of his character that treat privilege as an unnuanced thing . OR people who refuse to analyze that many Many interactions jedidiah and sydney have automatically have an underlying of ableism to them and that most plot poitns in their arc you can look at and say this is about disability bc they like jedidiah and again, cant see privilege as nuanced, and feel like they hvae to avoid the everpresent fact of his ableism and privilege to be able to like him . both of which come from a lack of understanding of how privilege like . works . ppl struggle to be nuanced about jedidiah i find . and as a whole like to take the characters and decide if theyre good or bad based on how much they like them

9: "worst part of canon ..... oh thats hard i really like chnt its hard to pick out a Worst Part . most of the things i dont like are characters i want to see more of or things that are really well written but that *I* dont like cough cough elijah . hmmmmmm . this is hard . uhhhh . what do i DISLIKE in chnt thats not fanon . like id say i dislike that so far the main antags appear to be both young attractive sexymanny types and i hope they vary that later on? but thats like HEAVILY influenced by how annoyed i am with the treatment of adam and elijah in the fandom so idk how fair of a critique that is and we've also seem so little of adam and the show as a whole that it seems in poor faith to judge him absed on what is about 80% fanon . so my only gripe that i can think of immediately isnt really good media criticism .... maybe ill have more complaints as the show goes on" answer from another post (:(:

10: "worst part of fanon . may be predictable based on the above response but oh my god i hate fanon elijah so much . i HAATEEEE him more than i hate canon elijah and i HATE canon elijah . i hate him!!!!!! i hate him when hes sexyified i hate him when hes goofy and silly i hate him when hes just a little guy i hate him i hate him i hate him!!!!!!!!!!! it takes an incredibly interesting villain who is absolutely vile and it makes him boring as hell!!!!!!!!!!! add that to the fact that fanon elijah overwhelms literally any content for just abt any character you might actually care about especially the women and i am frothing at the mouth" also from another post >:)

21: part i think is overhyped . LET ME CLARIFY THAT I DONT MEAN THAT ITS BAD . i can think something is overrated and still like it . but VERY easily rowaniper..... i love rowaniper i think theyre very cute and all but people seem to forget that they interact in like ..... one episode ......... and its a cute episode!! but people act like theyr The Main Romance or something and its like can we calm down . and i wouldnt even mind so much but people tend to ignore like ...... everything interesting about their relationship? bc to ME . the sweetest thing about rowaniper is how juniper Tries for rowan how he acknowledges his own flaws and how he harms rowan and tries his best to improve tings . but people like to pretend that junipers done nothing wrong ever so you dont even get that most interesting part of their relationsihp </3

[screechingkingdomhottub]

eating "healthy"

Sup so a lot of you youngings dont know what health truly is. Let me explain. Health is doing things that your body or mind is benefitted by. That's what it is. Here are some things that are commonly thought of as healthy but are actually unhealthy: - Fasting. No honey, that's starving yourself (unless for God or something but even then there's usually advice to be careful about it, as I understand it during Ramadan you don't fast if it's unsafe for you, which is a really important caveat, well done Islam! but I'm not muslim so pls dont take my word as fact) Eating is incredibly important and you shouldn't make yourself ill starving and causing yourself to lack nutrients for "health" - Cutting stuff out cold turkey. Unless it's like a super serious addiction, you should be able to ween yourself off of things, this is much healthier and less of a shock to the system.

-Smoking weed (cmon I know my branding haha), look I'll admit that some tests and personal anecdotes are concluding that CBD can be helpful in pain relief and sleep. However, smoking a mind altering substance may not be incredibly healthy due to the smoking part. Mind altering can also mess with people's mental healths sometimes and cause you to have panic attacks or similar, but that's not everyone's experience. Wow how nuanced damn I'm growing up...Weed bad! dont do it! hate everyone that does it! yknow i just dont have the energy to have that kinda hate anymore like i just got so much love now it's actually so weird. It does have side effects and it's tiring defending that it can be bad but I think the general opinion is beginning to realise people just wanna get high and I'm realising I'm salty cause I'm an alcoholic. I'm sober but like damn I wish I could have fun. Anyway that brings me to: - Red wine. "Red wine is good for your cholesterol". Anyone saying that does not know what a cholesterol is. It's when too much of a fatty substance is in your blood. Alcohol has so many risks and especially wine which hits you slower and tastes like juice (this is from a guy who downed bottles of wine in 5 minutes...it's so easy and so dangerous) , alternatives are: nuts and oily fish mainly. Have some fruit and veg. So all health is a lie? Not exactly, you can be healthy but like here's some things on the flip side. Things people think are unhealthy but are healthy.

Laziness. Be Lazy Sometimes. 99.9% of the time, people want a lazy day to have a day of rest. They're overworking themselves. Doing a thing every day is great and admirable but if your brain is dying then it isn't worth that one leg day. You can skip leg day today. <3

Fat. So much fat food. Here's the deal, some fat food is good for you. There's literally a thing called good fats. Unsaturated fats are the good ones: nuts and fish. Also a little bit of "bad" fat is good because fat itself gives you vitamins such as Vitamin A, Vitamin D and vitamin E. A helps your vision and defend against illness. D helps your bones, your mood and your immunity. (love vitamin D, take the supplements if you live in the UK they change your life mate) and Vitamin E helps healthy skin and eyes. Trust me, you'd rather have a lower risk of skin cancer than a little bit of a belly.

Sugar. Having a little bit of desert or pudding is not going to kill you. What people mean is they don't want you to eat nothing but sugar and get tooth decay.

Gaining weight. OH YEAH IM COMING FOR THIS ONE. So for the record, I'm a very low stakes body builder now. I have gained about 10kg of muscle in the past year (my god that's an unbelievable amount) and the way people in the scene treat their bodies is insane. People assume we're all healthy but it's horrible to put your body through the bulking and cutting like your kidneys can't keep up with the protein and your stomach is confused trying to digest it all and your poor intestines too. Just cause someone looks super muscly doesn't mean they are. Gaining weight isn't always bad, sometimes people desperately need to. Also if you've previously not been eating enough then your stomach will think you're overeating when you're eating normally. This eventually passes as your body adjusts but gaining weight at this point means you're eating enough and your brain will be fully prepared to function. This is something I see particularly common with people recovering from EDs. They get scared to see they're gaining weight and think they're eating too much but it's really just their body needing to adjust to the correct amount. Also you need to eat to get nutrients, important ones especially.

If this is useful pls let me know. If it's not useful...fuck you

[deadandphilgames]

Hiiii Allie, I was wondering if I could maybe get some advice? feel free to ignore this if you're not feeling like it though, I am aware this is kind of weird :///

so I recently met this person at an event (I feel like it's relevant that this was a kink event...) and we started messaging quite a lot, we get on pretty well, and they asked to meet up (in a completely friends way) and I was like sure! new friends is good, you know? (I'm in a new city so kind of taking any friends I can get)

one thing led to another and now we've kind of been fucking for like..a month? (eek don't judge me pls) only problem is: I've mentioned that I'm, for one asexual and two not looking for a relationship, and they've said they're fine with this, but are getting increasingly intense about like. feelings. and going on dates etc. which is putting me in a kind of awkward position bc I can't let any of my other 'vanilla' friends know about them bc there would be all sorts of questions that I simply can't answer (we also have a biiit of an age gap, I'm quite a bit younger than them (...I'm 20 and they're 30), which honestly I'm fine with if it's just fucking but I would never actually date someone their age?? I'm not sure if that makes sense on any level) and also I've obviously said I'm not looking for a relationship. they're starting to talk about me meeting their friends and calling me more pet names in random conversations, and I don't know if its something we can just talk out or what..

anyway basically what I'm asking is am I being incredibly dumb here? (I AM being safe so don't worry about that) but I feel like I need to do something as I'm not feeling 100% positive about this, and I know it's probably not something that could last longterm anyway but idk it's fullfilling a need? that makes me sound like a complete asshole though bc they're really very lovely and I feel like I'm the one holding back on everything but I really feel nothing romantic towards them at all....idk

this got really long sorry, thank you in advance if you do decide to answer this (and dw if you don't I'll figure out what to do eventually<3) I don't really have anyone else I can ask<33

there’s obviously a lot of nuance and things but you’re not being an asshole for telling someone “I don’t want a relationship I just want a fuck”, especially if they agree because you’ve set a boundary. You’re also not an asshole for not being into someone/wanting to date them. (Especially with an age gap.)

but if you think they are secretly playing a waiting game or they think you’ll change your mind it’s a good idea to let them know again that you’re not interested in a relationship, and then decide whether you should stop fucking all together or take a break or whatever is needed.

also… with that age gap i would probably break it off tbh sooner than later, im giving it the benefit of the doubt for not being horrific but obviously there’s an inherent power dynamic between a 20yr old and 30yr old, and with the fact they seem to be hoping for a relationship… maybe it’s time to find another fuck buddy

[valjeans]

Ranking of all the actors who played each role in the last les mis cast then please

ok since literally one of you asked here goes:

Valjean

Chris Jacobsen Honestly, this man's Valjean is just something else entirely. His portrayal just has so much thought behind every action and I truly appreciate a Valjean that is just a little bit fucked up because he did fully spend 19 years in prison. You need to listen to his Bring Him Home to appreciate just how perfect his voice is. Not just my favourite Valjean of this cast but one of my favourite Valjean's ever.

Joseph Anthony Ok he fully got like 2 shows this entire contract but I saw one of them and was utterly amazed! He's only like 26ish but genuinely his acting was so great you'd never notice. Also it was very obvious that he started on the tour watching Dean Chisnall because his performance was very soft and nuanced like Dean's! Here's his Bring Him Home too if you're interested.

Luke McCall Always had a lovely voice but didn't exactly do much acting in his pre-pandemic era, very wooden. However, he came from the Staged Concert a changed man. His finale is genuinely heartbreaking from start to finish, I have quite often found myself in tears. He could have ended up at no. 2 but his vocals have REALLY let him down these past few months. Here's one of my fave clips of him in his vocal prime doing The Confrontation opposite Richard Carson.

Jon Robyns Look I love Jon, I really do...but his voice has just been in constant decline this year and I spend shows where he's on genuinely preparing myself for the inevitable cracks on all the big notes. His acting is really quite fantastic but god, until he takes some time to fix his vocals I honestly can't rank him any higher.

Javert

Richard Carson I wasn't sure about him to begin with but the way he grew into the role as he got more chances to go on was truly my favourite thing this cast. A fantastic, old school, PROPER BARITONE, javert. He's so perfectly cold and callous and his suicide is this perfect, unhinged breakdown at FULL SPEED (also truly incredible technique that he can do those big hyperventilating breaths and sing at the same time)

Bradley Jaden A truly extraordinary Javert on a good show, an incredibly below average one on a bad day. I think there was a point around June/July where he'd really found a perfect balance to his batshit suicide and coldness throughout the rest of the show. I also truly loved the way he embraced the valvert vibes.

Fantine

Kathy Peacock INCREDIBLE. The vintage Fantine we deserved. God I loved her. Here's her I dreamed a dream from her debut.

Jessica Joslin Another Fantine with a very classical musical theatre voice. I never really found her IDAD emotional enough though, like her acting was just never quite enough for me.

Ellie Anne Lowe ANOTHER Fantine with a very classical musical theatre voice. Only saw her once pre-shutdown but loved every single second.

Chanice Alexander-Burnett Look she was fine, a perfectly acceptable Fantine. I really never thought we got much from her acting wise though and I truly despised the riffs she sometimes did in IDAD.

Never sat Natalie Green but tbf she had literally one show and I'm sure I'll undoubtedly get a chance in the coming year!

Enjolras

Leo Miles If you've followed me long enough you'll know I was for a long time a Leo hater. However, I do not regret this. He has genuinely really improved in this past year and I love that for him! He's always had a lovely voice but he was so wooden. Now his Enjolras is absolutely heartbreaking, him and Connor's Grantaire are literally so in love with each other. Also pls listen to this note.

Joseph Anthony Just a really good Enjolras tbh.

Jordan Shaw Honestly...just all over the fucking place. Everytime I think he's maybe improved he'll just make the most bizarre choices ever. Like I've honestly gotten used to his more contemporary voice but I just can't get used to his absolutely batshit portrayal. Sometimes it can be fun to watch Chris' jaw literally clenching when he's being particularly bad. Also shoutout to Bradley who gave one of the best Enjolras' performance I've seen despite literally not knowing a single bit of the blocking. Him winging that new One Day More marching was iconic tbh. Also shoutout to Will Richardson who was fairly good but also nothing particularly special.

Eponine

Mared Williams One of the best Eponine's I've seen. A really interesting voice and such fantastic acting. The first time I've ever cried at A Little Fall of Rain. Here's her On My Own

Sha Dessi For the first half of this year she was absolutely nailing it, her On My Own felt so intimate. Unfortunately seems to have had some serious vocal issues for the past few months that have really let her down which is such a shame!

Jessie Hart To be honest she's still a fantastic Eponine. I'd definitely say the Eponine's have been the strongest all round, there's no a bad one! Her Eponine has an edge to her which I really enjoyed and her On My Own almost made me cry once. Also shoutout to Jenna Innes who I won't rank here but was an absolutely beautiful Eponine that I would have probably ranked 1st if she'd been a permanent cast member!

Marius

Harry Apps MY ABSOLUTE BELOVED FREAK OF A MARIUS. He's so weird and awkward and just a young guy in love, it's absolutely adorable. It makes his Empty Chairs such a heartbreaking contrast. His final one had me in actual proper tears.

Danny Colligan Honestly, don't have that much to say. He was fine, just a run of the mill portrayal tbh, and his voice is a little thin for my liking.

Michael Kholwadia Genuinely seemed like he'd just walked onstage for the first time and was winging it. His voice is nice enough but very wooden.

Cosette

Claire O'Leary Honestly she's just number one cause at least she can hit the notes.

Charlie Burn You know, she isn't the best vocally, but I do enjoy her acting, especially with Valjean in In My Life!

Phoebe Williams Don't really like her voice and honestly didn't think she did much acting tbh.

I'm actually not gonna rank the Thenardiers because I didn't get to see Georgie or Matt! I've also seen pretty much every single possible combination of covers and swings for the smaller roles if you want to hear my rankings of any of those just drop me an ask specifying which!!

[beckface]

make a big ramble post about becky/wordgirl and how much you love her <3

hoooo boy lets go. The people are kind to me :D

Long rant below the break!

Okay like actually she is one of my absolute favorite kids show protagonists out there. I’ve talked about this before but Becky is SUCH a good character to base an educational superhero show around, the creators KNEW what they were doing.

First off I unironically find her one of the funniest characters in the show. Don’t get me wrong the writing for the villains is incredible (ftr I think Granny May is absolutely hilarious and we don’t acknowledge her enough) but the sheer concept of the main character of an educational show being an absolute know-it-all brat like a fourth of the time feels like something that should be in one of those kids-show parody videos.

Imagine if during an episode of a different show aimed at a similar age group was like “Hey kids! Where is the beach?” and the character was about to point at the beach to teach the lesson or whatever and Dora the explorer pops up out of goddamn NOWHERE to be like “UM ACTUALLY It’s right there! I can’t believe you didn’t see that, thank god I was here to help you ^-^” and then she punches them in the face

Becky lowkey having anger and ego issues too is just. So wonderful. I have a bias towards otherwise good characters with #problems and Becky is just the perfect example of that. I really like how it’s not treated like a comedy prop only though. The show portrays that Becky is allowed to be angry and that it’s normal and natural for her to react to things with anger, and it shows that she has every right to be confident and proud of herself, but if she lets it get the better of her and starts treating others badly the show condemns her immediately, and I think that’s a great lesson for kids to see. It shows the nuance of emotions and the appropriate ways of expressing them without turning the kids cartoon into a complicated, unfun mess.

Also I think tobecky is really cute, but I think that the way it is handled in canon was exactly how it needed to be handled and is a great subversion of the normal trope. There's more than enough media where the girl finally sees the good in the boy who does the bare minimum for her and loves him, or where the responsibility falls on the girl character to “fix” the guy character and it’s treated as incredibly romantic, and Wordgirl (the show) just actively making fun of Tobey trying to get WG to be that for him is great. It’s, again, a very important lesson for kids. 

I like how Becky isn’t mean to Tobey though (we’ll get to miss power in a minute) but she’s not wholesome uwu nice to him, she acts like a kid. They have dynamic that many kids that age have, they get into bantering, sometimes they take it too far because they’re kids, at the end of the day though watching them interact, whether at school or at a battle, feels like watching two hothead have a playdate (Go Gadget Go is the exception to this, we all acknowledged that was weird and too far but we can chalk it up to Tobey being 10 and not fully understanding how bad it was)

Keep making tobecky fan content though pls I eat that shit up like candy

Okay I went on to talking about the actual show BACK TO BECKY SPECIFICALLY

It’s kinda sad how easily the villains, especially the adult villains, can just trick her into letting her guard down. Like she has this very clearly instilled respect for just adults, which is understandable of course she’s 10, but it gets her in trouble a lot. It’s never that big of a deal though I just wanted to make a note of it. And anyways ABOUT THAT-

I swear I won’t talk about it for too long just hear me out okay (if you’re following me we both know damn well this is why you followed me so you legally have to stay for this part)

Her relationship with DTB grabbed me and like at least a quarter of the fandom by the face and told us we had daddy issues, the whole Boxlietner thing is :( but I think it’s very sweet how parts of their relationship remained when he transformed. They’re just on the same mental level throughout the show. Other word-smart villains like Tobey she just doesn’t seem to click with as much, and I think while a big reason is because her and TB used to be friends, I also think that they just. Mesh well. Their personalities balance each other nicely, and maybe i’m just absolutely fucking bonkers but WG like imitates his posture and shit a lot of times whenever they’re in a scene together I just think thats cute. Every time I think i’m exaggerating how much of a gay brooklyn dad he is I see another clip of him parenting WG or his henchmen. Like this man oh my god. DTB is the most fruitcake ever

Also him and a couple other villains are the closest thing she has to parents when she’s being wordgirl, which is literally half of her life : D pain. No wonder that's who she reaches out to when she can’t talk to Sally and Tim

ALso also headcanon that she got her fear of spiders from Steven because of that one spider episode where they were both scared of spiders.

Becky being OBSESSED with pretty princess is wonderful and every time something interrupts her show the universe should compensate her with 1000 dollars.

She’s just absolutely adorable. She reminds me so much of the kids I work with at summer camp and it makes me happy. Witty little superhero pop off queen.

The way she’s comically horrible at art and anything related to art is a funny gag and her FINALLY understanding art and making a good painting in the second to last episode just because she realized that the reason Becky loves Violet’s art so much isn’t because it’s good, but because it’s Violet is the cutest thing in the world I am holding onto these two like they’re my children

And then rhyme and reason happens because this show is cruel

Also Becky should go apeshit. I'm embarrassed to say that during the entirety of Miss Power I was like “yessss be horrible yesss” just because I personally need all of my favorite characters to

a) suffer 

b) do awful things

c) both

More fanfics where she either goes evil or goes vigilante please idc if it’s in character or not. My fatal flaw is being obsessed with trying to write in character to the point where I avoid things that could be fun, don’t be me kids. Make wordgirl evil just because.

I might add on to this later but it’s already over two pages anyways I love becky wordgirl botsford

[hihereami]

Ami Ami Ami Ami Ami Ami, pls pls, take this as an invitation to go absolutely off about your magnus studios AU because I am in love and I need everyone else alive to also love the idea

You came jusssssssssssst after I posted about it!

BUT! I'll take the chance to rant some more because the idea of Melanie and Georgie engaged in this very dumb, very chaotic dynamic while Jon and Martin peer from the sidelines at their two friends is HILARIOUS.

I also have a lot invested in the fact that the Movie they meet in is THE movie of their carreers, all of theirs-- the only time when Jon's script came through without major changes, where the female leads are complex, multidimensional and interesting to act. It's UNNERVING and everyone is deeply afraid of making the wrong move and - when they meet on set - Melanie and Georgie feel so stressed and pressured by the already watchful gaze of the media (who expects full blown diva drama) that they take it out on each other.

And that's not good! That makes them more stressed! it makes the crew incredibly uncomfortable! It makes Jon see the nuances of his script get lost! Plus the director is a studio puppet and an idiot and won't step up (and keeps encouraging method acting bs :/) !

They both decide to step up and apologise to Jon after a particular day on set where he just. breaks down at the sight of his work being so throughly torturing for everyone involved. and that's where Melanie and Georgie meet - truly see each other - on the doorstep of Jon and Martin's home, where they went to apologise.

I'm very inspired by Joan Crawford and Bette Davis for this. It's very interesting how the media was obsessed with pitting them against each other when... they never hated each other with the passion fiction says? Bette had her own feud going on with the studios, while Joan was kind of trying to adapt and survive to an industry that kept wanting to spit her out. Here's a really good video on the subject.

As a film student, even though the fic has 40s vibes for its star system and the such ... I kind of think more of critiquing the current state of cinema, specially Hollywood. Not only it keeps perpetuating the same bullshit over and over (or creating new stereotypes after it tries to redeem itself for old ones), the industry is stifling for any creative working under it. It censors, it cuts, it rejects.

The work enviroment in film- from crew member to actor to scriptwriter - insists on trapping you in a box, a role and inhumane work hours. Not unlike the fears!

(And that's not only in Hollywood. If I start talking about the argentinian film industry... I won't stop).

But people have always been revolting against that, yknow? It's interesting to think of how this enviroment affects the characters, their relationships, their friendships and romances!

[idk-my-aesthetic]

Ok the whole thing w/ clogging up ao3 tags is stupid for multiple reasons, like how it fucks with screen readers for one, but the MAJOR issue is that having too many tags isn’t actually a problem w/ ao3

Like seriously guys? There is a lot to criticize. And I say this as someone who heavily relied on fandom spaces to get me through some really really hard times and still loves ao3. I can say I love what it does for fandom while also acknowledging there’s some seriously fucked up shit going on both behind the scenes and with ppl who use the site. It’s literally like saying “I love tumblr but I acknowledge there are literal nazis on here and as a Jew/human with a working brain I hate them and that they’ve been here so long”

Like. I get u think ur sticking it to the man or whatever. And idk I partially agree bc. There’s so much nasty shit and some technically illegal shit that I don’t want to even mention! But ur not even wasting the moderators time or anything ur just being obnoxious and then everyone starts discoursing on tumblr and I’m legitimately tired of it. I don’t wanna see ppl defending gross stuff and I’m tired of talking about the ppl who do defend gross stuff bc I don’t wanna remember that they exist bc I have shit to do irl and not enough space in my brain for them

So. Idk ima propose at least a temporary solution before I have to hear one more argument for or against censorship bc y’all seriously don’t understand how to have a nuanced conversation

How about instead of asking AO3 to take down gross fics (which may or may not be morally correct but will 100% reopen a very over done conversation) instead we ask for some specific plausible things

1) when you use ao3 explicit and unrated fics are automatically filtered out. They do this on ff.net. Yes it may be like 2 extra clicks for ppl who wanna read explicit stuff but ppl who don’t are going to do that anyway, and it protects the people who don’t know to do that and don’t want to read graphic tags. Most importantly it requires consent to browse explicit fics. Yeah you need to give consent to read explicit stuff, but you can look through the incredibly graphic tags/summaries without consenting to anything. It’s literally the default. Which is both upsetting to ppl who don’t wanna see that and also maybe a bit of a legal loophole they should close up

2) a “suggest tags” feature. This would be moderated by authors not ao3 staff. Basically ppl can like..... idk entire a series of tags and you can choose if you want to add them or not. The person submitting them has an option to be anonymous or not. Obviously the author doesn’t have to add every random tag and it might be annoying but it would help with making sure triggers got tagged. It would be helpful if it didn’t let you suggest tags that were already suggested/on the fic but I’m not too picky. Like I said the point of this is to make sure ppl can block stuff properly, and it honestly might also help authors with visibility bc like. Obviously you know the tags you use but you don’t know what tags other ppl look for. Again maybe it may be obnoxious with ppl having a lot of tags but people already have a lot of tags

3) a dispute rating button. Now before someone bitches at me that the ao3 moderators don’t have time to go through disputes- I know I already took that into consideration. Basically the idea is when you dispute the rating the site will ask you what rating you think it should be and anonymously log it. So if someone rated something M but you think it should be an E the site will log that and send a message to the author. The author has a choice if they actually want to listen to ppl and change the rating or not. They don’t actually have to listen to the ppl disputing the rating. Unless they get a certain amount of disputes. I was thinking maybe like 50 or so?* So if 50 ppl say “hey this really needs to have a different rating” then and only then would the moderators take a look at the fic. And the moderators would then figure out what the rating should be.

(*idk if 50 is the right #. I was thinking it should maybe work on like a percentage of your hits in the fic?)

3.5) have a sexual content marker. This is marked as 3.5 bc i feel like this idea if implemented would be misused. But yeah in theory you could just have a sexual content marker that could be clicked by the OP and then automatically filtered. Again you could use the system from #3 but again I feel like ppl would missuse it.

Anyway yeah. I wanted to give some viable solutions ppl on both sides might actually agree with. Like I get not wanting to make concessions with gross ppl, but it’s a lot faster so I’m ok with doing it for now while the rest of y’all continue to debate or w/e

Final note- please for the love of g-d learn how ratings work. Ask someone else’s opinion if you have too. I have seen so many explicit fics marked as mature or teen it’s a legitimate problem. I’ll give a quick rundown of what each rating means but pls guys

General- g- basically go by what you’d see in a Disney cartoon

Teen- pg/pg 13 - there are swears there’s violence, sex may be mentioned, you might call someone sexy or smthn idc, but no one is shown having sex or or discussing/thinking about it in detail

Mature- R - injuries/gore may be described with more detail. Uhh there could be some heavy making out and the characters might talk about sex or feeling sexually attracted to someone. But actual sex is not shown!! If you have to mention or refer to someone’s genetalia in any sexual way you should probably move it up to an E. Even if ur characters are fully clothed the entire time. Also If you’re talking about kinks outside of a quick joke or reference you should probably move it up to an E.

Explicit- NC 17- sexually explicit content. (You can put non-sexual violent stuff under here but most ppl leave it under mature)

TLDR/oversimplification(for the ratings) -

General: nothing sexual

Teen: implied sex

Mature: refrenced sex

Explicit: shown sex

General tldr:

Some criticisms of Ao3 are valid and needed, and some are just stupid and infuriating (specifically talking about the tag thing stop it’s annoying and ableist). There is constant arguments and drama surrounding those criticisms, and I decided to offer some solutions that actually have a chance at getting implemented, even if I would prefer a different option.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

ATLA fic recs pt 3!

part 1 part 2 (again, consider this a re-rec of everything I recced in those parts, those were all brilliant fics! I have really good taste y’all) 

This is for Spotlight Saturday (which I didn’t even know was a thing oh my goodness that’s so cool) and also bc I passed two milestones since making the last one of these! thank you! I don’t know why you’re here but I’m so glad you are! <3 <3 <3 <3 also, a gentle reminder that I love so, so many more fics than appear on these lists, and there are even more fics that I’m simply not exposed to. if you want to send me your work or the work of people you really like, please do so! (G or T only, please)

1. Hooked by @listless-brainrot I know List writes fic specifically to cause me pain but I cannot tell you how much serotonin I got when I found out during the Great Jetru Summer Storm of 2020 that somebody had a) already made content and b) that content was literally incredible. Like not only does List have impeccable taste and an impressive amount of patience he’s also a really good writer??? To be perfectly honest I sometimes turn my brain off a little when I read fic, but List makes me sit up and pay attention to his writing and the way he’s writing. I think the framing device here with Haru telling this story to the gaang at the Western Air Temple is so interesting (and it makes me so scared list dude please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means you can’t-) and Jet and Haru’s burgeoning friendship/relationship? has been handled with such care and with such depth. I am absolutely obsessed with how he characterizes Haru in particular. Haru, being such a minor character, normally doesn’t get any kind of characterization, but List really said not only is Haru going to be the pov character of this fic, I am going to create an environment that gives him so much nuance. We really have no choice to stan. 

2. and the stars, they too, tell of spring by @katarahairloopies when I first read this fic I went absolutely feral, as I am wont to do with Kit’s fics and with yueki content in general. It’s just so personal. And like not in the queer eye meme way (although,,,,yes) but to me it’s very clear that the author has spent time in the situation they’re describing, in one way or another, and took a lot of care in rendering that situation to the absolute fullest of their ability. It’s one of those fics that has just stayed with me even though I read it a while ago, like I can still picture the situation, the way they described it, the way I felt reading it. Simply iconic. Simply iconic. I wish every atla fic writer would have the kind of care and patience with Yue and Suki’s characters in their long af fics that Kit does in a really short and pointed piece of work. 

3. i like my girls just like i like my honey by @lazypigeon I am....obsessed with this???? I love it??? It is totally gorgeous. I’m a sucker for ship fics that also explore friendships and the whole friendship between Sokka and Yue was just so queer and so utterly perfect. The jokes about their neighbors thinking they were married...the background zukka...the dresses....I loved it all so much. It really brought a smile to my face to read some fluff about two friends going outside to hang out with one another, like can you imagine??? wild. And then we meet Suki who is a farmer at the farmer’s market that Sokka and Yue go to and y’all pls tell me why farmer’s market aus aren’t a bigger thing because the idea of Suki being a farmer and asking Yue to go sample strawberries with her was just???? so cute????? like go off that’s absolutely iconic again we have no choice but to stan! And Sokka was absolutely hilarious when he was trying to wingman for Yue it was so funny and cute. also bonus for the title it was simply *chef’s kiss*

4. the anchor by @firelordemai one of my fave Maiko fics to date. Both POVs were on point but there was just something extra about that Mai POV it was gripping. I could not tear my eyes away from the screen reading this. I love love loved so much how the rock stood for their love for one another and how Zuko kept it, the whole way through, just utter and complete perfection I’m getting emotional just thinking about it oh my goodness. Legit it’s been a minute since I read the fic I’m just sitting here thinking about the use of language and how their relationship progressed and I am crying!!! I am crying!!! just. the talent. the talent! your fave could never! I am just obsessed with how the author chronicled them growing up and the challenges they faced as teenagers and the way they were driven apart and came back together again and my heart was on the floor in pieces when Zuko left it was just. oh my goodness. read this. 

5. time for the moon night by @kahtara ok storytime: when that ask game where you tell the author your favorite fic of theirs went around I hit up Joey and said that it was between laughter lines (which I have recced before peep part 2) and icarus, point to the sun and that I was planning on reading time for moon night but I just didn��t know if I had the emotional strength to do it and they said it’s less sad than laughter lines so I was like all right chill I’ll read it and NO, NO IT WAS NOT LESS SAD THAN LAUGHTER LINES, IT WAS, PERHAPS, MORE SAD THAN LAUGHTER LINES. in all seriousness, time for the moon night is my new favorite fic of theirs. the way they write yukka in general is just so full of nuance and emotion, they really flesh out both Sokka and Yue’s characters so well and in such a careful and precise manner and I really love it. The way time is bent throughout this whole fic is just so amazing. this kind of gorgeous, thoughtful writing that isn’t shy to really get at the depths is the reason I love fanfiction. this is why I care! ao3 is FREE. and yet you can get writing of that quality and substance?????? i’m floored honestly. 

6. if you ran away (come back home) by @shrinkthisviolet I want to spotlight one line in particular. “She wondered how long it would take him to notice the weak spot on the dummy’s left side.” That is so Mai. That is so Mai. The author did such a wonderful job capturing Mai’s situation and her perspective on it, but that line prepared me for an absolutely wonderful character study of Mai and look into her situation before and after the Agni Kai. I’m honestly so floored at how the author was able to portray such an intimate character study that so in character and so well thought out. Mai stans, come get y’alls juice. This one is also really sad and I cried a little (me crying at ATLA fanfiction is exactly as common of an occurrence as you think it is.) What was particularly heartbreaking to me was the way that the author showed how, even as a kid, Mai was driven to suppress her feelings and play to her best political interests. She’s just a kid! She’s just a little baby!!!!!!! I’m heartbroken, and I’m at a loss for words, quite frankly. I want Mai to have the whole world. gosh anyway this author is so incredible and I’m so so excited to read more of her work, because this was just stunning and deserves an incredible amount of praise. 

[ohshitmomitsawritingblog]

Yeesss an active Naruto account! So glad I found you 💗 I really like how you portrayed Kakashi in your last post and I would like to request J, O and Y for Kakashi and Hidan pls 💕

 Yeaahhhhh!! nart fandom is still going strong even in 2020! I started to re-read nart back in November of ‘19 and was really surprised at how active the fandom still was on twitter and tumblr. Im really glad you decided to shoot me a message! I really appreciate it, thank you so much! I’ll be real I saw your message and kind of lost it a little today, I was very nervous about Kakashi’s section so it’s really nice to hear that someone liked it!

Kakashi

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

Jealous? Kakashi? Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes? No! Maybe. 💕

Kakashi DOES NOT know how to function 80% of the time. It takes him a while to sort out his personal feelings - he thinks he knows what he feels, but when it comes to emotions, like jealousy, that demand a bit more naunce? It feels like fog is clouding over the word he’d otherwise be able to plainly zero in on.

Kakashi’s jealousy is quiet and something he fiercely keeps under wraps. I think there’s nothing that matters more to him in a relationship than his partner’s freedom and sense of self esteem, and I think he views jealousy as a kind of ownership/overstep he should be ashamed of rather than a human emotion that is neither inherently good nor bad by itself.

Kakshi gets jealous rarely, but when he does, it’s hard to swallow the feeling of shame that accompanies it. 

Kakashi is a prodigy, okay, he’s an amazing ninja and cook and house keeper amongst many other things, but he’s still really, really bad at the nuances of being human. Especially a human who isn’t ruled by his PTSD. His S/O spends too much time at work during his rare off day, and the rare pang of jealousy - that he does not act on in any way  - makes him so uncomfortable that he has to busy himself with something until they get home. And then he almost seems stand offish. It’s his way of giving them space, but his S/O couldn’t understand the reasoning behind it unless they spend years with him or have several conversations about it.

Basically, he’s spent so much of his life truly alone, socializing largely in a work environment context, that he has no idea how to operate in a domestic relationship.

On the flip side, Kakashi is so hellbent on hammering down the little every day pangs of petty jealousy he feels that when something big happens, like a stranger flirting with his S/O? He sticks his nose into the situation immediately. 

If it wasn’t sad it’d almost be hilarious - Kakashi can’t tell the difference the difference between situational, and relatively minor emotional bangs that feel similar to jealousy, to outright being DEEPLY territorial of his S/O.

Does he think they’ll flirt back? Hell no. Does he immediately chase off the guy with a well timed arm slung over his S/O’s shoulders and a bit of killing intent rolling off him in waves anyways? Absolutely. 

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

Kakashi in love doesn’t show that he’s in love often. He’s a secretive guy and honestly, if he’s in love, he’s going to try to hide it as long as possible. From everyone.

This is only partially because Kakashi is shy about love - about 60% of the reason behind keeping things private is because he wants to hit that sweet ten year anniversary date and throw that fact out casually during a group luncheon and see the chaos unfold. 

He also does legitimately struggle with being open and intimate. He worries his S/O will think he’s embarrassed by them, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Kakashi in love is all about small intimacies. The brush of his fingers over his S/O’s bicep, the touch to the small of their back. Kakashi is surprisingly handsy, even in public. 

Of course, he’s a ninja, and he’s a little self conscious, so he usually does this in such a way that people don’t even catch it.

He doesn’t hold hands in public, no way.

He never lets them walk on his blind side. He just likes looking at them.

I can see Kakashi liking to touch his S/O’s hair often. He’ll pat the top of their head if they’re on the shorter side, tucking a stray lock behind their ear if their hair is long enough. There’s something so intimate about it, and Kakashi likes how quiet that touch feels to him. Sometimes it feels even better than kissing his S/O.

He picks them up from work most days, and they walk home together. In fact, the biggest tell that Kakashi is in love is when he spends most of his evenings with his S/O.

He cooks for, or more typically, with, his S/O almost every night. He likes spending quality, domestic time with them. It’s his way of slowly wading back into the very concept of cohabiting with someone after years of being alone. 

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

Kakashi misses his partner a lot. I’m going to assume the most common reason for their separation is missions.

Kakashi as a young adult seemed married to his ANBU career, with his S/O as a side chick at best. 

Post team seven, he’s a little better with his schedule, but Tsunade relies on him a lot and it’s not like he can just tell her no. 

And then as Hokage? Well, actually sneaking out of the office seems to be like a fun new game to him, so–

Anyways, I think Kakashi copes pretty well, if only because separation is a constant in his life.

I think he has times where he’ll space out thinking about his S/O in the wee hours of the night when he can’t sleep. Otherwise, he’s focused on the mission. He needs to make it out of his assignments alive in order to see them again after all, and Kakashi post team seven doesn’t have a death wish. 

If he has an S/O during his ANBU days, his thoughts are more obsessive, fixated on the only source of warmth in his life that he’s allowed himself to have. I can imagine a few scenarios when he’s with someone in this very dark period of his life, and the entire thing could only be described as intense.

Anyways, pining is for people who can afford to get stabbed.

Ultimately, I don’t think anyone could ever tell Kakashi was missing anyone. He may seem a little quietly sad in moments, or maybe sigh for no reason, but I doubt anyone even knows he’s with anyone for years. See the above section.

Hidan

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

Surprisingly, I don’t see Hidan as a jealous guy! 

If he is jealous at all, it’s over something minuscule and ultimately harmless, like being apart for a large gap of time. 

He doesn’t think his S/O would cheat (he’s a man devoted to god and his faith, has a blooming career AND a six pack, what more could a person want?) but it’s more so longing that turns into jealousy only when he toys with the idea of his S/O not feeling the same kind of longing. He wants his partner to mirror his feelings and doesn’t like feeling like his absence is easily glossed over. He totally gets into his own head and overthinks things.

He’s the type to gripe at his S/O. I feel like whining and slinging around insults is how Hidan communicates best and it gets even worse when he feels threatened or anxious.

He actually needs verbal reassurances a lot.

He’ll keep bitching until his S/O consoles him or speaks frankly with him.

I think Hidan’s partner is someone who could take care of themselves, so if they were ever the subject of unwanted attention, Hidan would step only to play up some white knight fantasy gone rogue. He’ll beat up (or murder) the offender and then make out with his S/O like some horny wild man.

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

Hidan in love is actually pretty low key. I think for Hidan, there’s flings, and then there’s the person he loves, who he’s gonna settle down with. He just assumes his life will be full of flings that are mostly for sexual gratification until he meets his S/O.

Totally does not expect to fall in love, ever, so he has no idea how to deal with it when it happens.

I think he prays a lot more when he’s in love. For spiritual clarity or forgiveness for these ‘weak’ feelings in him that presumably conflict with the teachings of Jashin, I’m not sure.

Kakuzu notices this and bitches at Hidan for wasting their time, but eventually stops when even he realizes how much conflict Hidan seems to radiate off of him in the early days of his romance.

Hidan also gets more violent, as if to compensate for being in love with his S/O. He goes on a straight up killing spree once he completely admits it to himself.

Comes to the conclusion that being in love actually makes him a better follower of Jashin, since he slaughters droves of people for the sake of your relationship.

Around his S/O, Hidan seemingly goes from incredibly tense and broody -almost guilt ridden in some odd way - when he hangs out with them, to something flipping a switch in his head and him going back to his normal, brash self. It’s weird. He kiss his S/O like he’s trying to eat them in public now. It’s kind of hot.

Hidan is such a freak that even the Akatsuki, which is a collection of freaks, don’t get that this entire slow burn horror movie scenario was over love until Hidan very loudly complains that he was interrupted mid-fuck during a summons. Someone mentions paying the sex worker extra for the interrupted time and tells him to get some ice. 

Hidan scuffs and loudly announces that he’s with his PARTNER right now. Kakuzu confirms but only sounds mildly annoyed because he’a eating Hidan’s S/O’s food and watching Hidan’s S/O’s TV. 

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

Hidan pouts. So much.

Typically if it’s just a few weeks or days, Hidan doesn’t really give any outward indication of missing his S/O. He knows he’ll see them soon. He’s a chill guy when he’s not murdering people for pleasure and religious clout. The longer that gap of time is though? He goes from ambivalent to mess FAST.

It’s like someone flipped a switch after month three of his not seeing his S/O and someone brings them up and he’s like. Wait. When’s the last time I saw them again? And then his brain fuzzes out of existence momentarily when he does the math.

For real: Hidan is one of those guys who tries to be real macho about his S/O and him being apart for so long, but once he starts to think about it it eats him up.

He goes from trying too hard to insist he doesn’t miss them, to sulking on day two. Kakuzu wants to kill Hidan at least 200% more than usual because when Hidan sulks, he’s like a little kid.

He gets this sour look that just never goes away. He hunches his shoulders. Kicks the dirt or gravel on the road when they stop to rest for the day. Kakuzu would be inclined to ask what’s wrong but he knows better to open that can of worms.

Also does he really care about this undead shithead kid’s emotional problems? Only kind of.

He’s a ninja, not a therapist, and he’s making ninja money. Does Hidan have therapist money? Hidan doesn’t even have shirt money.

The pouty phase lasts for a while. It becomes less apparent, but as it turns inwards, Hidan becomes more violent.

Ahh, good ol’ Murder-violence! He gets more aggressive (if that’s possible) and prays more. Way more. 

On a more serious note, it does actually give Hidan solace to pray and affirm that if Jashin wills it, he and his S/O will see each other soon. He promises his Lord a plentiful sacrifice when that happens.

Once he sees his S/O again he pretends like he’s totally chill absolutely chill and didn’t even miss them one bit! He ruffles their hair and gives them that rough side hug that jocky, slightly redneck older cousins give.

[caffiine]

A BRIEF PAUSE

From my regularly scheduled content. I’ve got some shit to say, y’all (forewarning for spicy language and spoilers)

I thought about making this post on my fandom subblog but this show and this relationship have been TOO important to me for the past 8 years to not give it its proper place in my life. strap in bc im not sure how long this mf is about to be.

When i started this DUMB show at age 19 tortured soul “empath” dark academia me thought sam winchester was going to be my favourite character. and don’t @ me, i love sam now in his own right (and we deserve some SAILEEN PEOPLE). but after literally less than 5 episodes i KNEW dean’s character and his arc were going to be amazing and beautiful and he immediately became my favourite brother. The nuances of his character i.e. his shell vs his true self were so evident to me even in the first couple seasons. in my humble opinion, he had the most growth of the two brothers.

They all deserve to be happy, but for whatever FUCKING reason dean has the HARDEST TIME OF ANYONE being happy in this show. I know it’s his character. I know it was written that way. But FFS.  I kept wondering when they were going to wrap up his emotional arc and stop torturing the poor dude.

then in season 4 they introduced castiel and 1) I thought the new concept of angels as assholes was super cool and 2) I hardcore SIMPED over misha collins (still do). I watched benignly as cas and dean began to form this relationship that seemed pretty special. I started watching the show when it was in its eighth season and I binged the shit out of it for two weeks until I was caught up. By the time I was caught up I was CERTAIN there were some feelings between them and I LOVED it. I am bisexual and I was ECSTATIC for a potential queer relationship between two masculine-portrayed dudes. I went on tumblr to express my newfound theory, only to find out that this was a real THING. “Destiel” was already an idea that had absolutely and intensely BLOSSOMED in the fandom  for several seasons already. So many others saw what I saw and saw the potential of emotionally tortured/constipated “daddy’s blunt instrument” dean and the unfeeling daddy’s boy cas “crack in his chassis” Winchester being allowed to be happy together. I felt validated and hopeful. For a while.

Then it was season after season of hopefulness for them to be finally happy with each other while still fighting the ills of their world with sam and the other new members of their family that were added along the way, only to constantly have that hope seemingly teased away at the end every single time. By season 11 and the introduction of amara (not bashing, eventually loved her character and her development too) I gave up. I lost hope. I stopped watching the show. I didn’t want to keep watching my two favourite characters continuously abused by the story they were thrown into.

I know not everyone likes destiel, not everyone thought it was real. That’s chill, idc. Stories are so often meant to be (and sometimes inadvertently) left up to interpretation by the person experiencing and consuming them. It’s what’s so amazing about books and shows and movies that are able to make us feel so intensely about them and their characters. And I felt SO strongly about dean and cas. It was honestly really upsetting to me, the way the show was going with their relationship.

A while later season 13 had been going on and I started seeing some things pop up on my dash. Hopeful things. I did a bit of research and accidentally saw THE SCENE from season 12 and I couldn’t help myself. I restarted it. I watched the whole thing from the beginning again AND introduced it to my boyfriend I think partially as a way to ensure I wasn’t imagining shit (it took him awhile and a lot of me internally screaming during many scenes but by season 9 he was like “uh are they in gay love”). Fast forward to me finally catching up as season 14 was starting. I was still hopeful, somehow. And it happened AGAIN. Season 14 and the beginnings of 15 made me so sad. I HATED what they did with their relationship. I HATED the way it ended. I HATED the way dean treated cas and everyone around him. It felt like the show was taking his whole character arc back to day 1. I didn’t understand. I kept watching for a couple episodes after the big argument and cas left but the luster was gone and eventually I just stopped.

I love this show. It has meant so much to me as a story. So many of the characters are/were very dear to me. I know it’s a running joke with this show about character deaths and homophobia but the strength of the bond I felt was between cas and dean gave me a lot of hope. But it wasn’t enough. I felt betrayed one too many times. And for those of you who kept watching, for whatever reason, I don’t hold it against you. It’s still a beautiful and interesting story without cas and dean’s relationship. But I just personally couldn’t do it anymore.

I hadn’t planned on watching the rest of season 15 when it came back after pandemic hiatus, at least not for awhile. So imagine my FUCKING surprise when I was doom scrolling through twitter during election week on Thursday and I see supernatural trending right along with election shit.

What.

I couldn’t stop myself, I looked and literally SCREAMED and made my boyfriend spill his wine all over our couch. I didn’t know exactly what happened as I hadn’t seen the episode but APPARENTLY all my emotions and feelings had been at least partially vindicated. So I BOUGHT season 15 so I could finish watching where I had left off. I watched 8 episodes in less than 24hrs (don’t judge me there’s a quarantine) and I LIKED them. And it might’ve been bc I knew what was about to happen in 15 x18 but I really felt like the show was getting STRONGER as it neared its finish.

I was so excited for 15x19. I read so many posts from fellow fans, destiel and antis alike. There really weren’t a lot of bad emotions running around. Everyone seemed hopeful and excited like me.

I probably don’t need to go over 15x19 emotions but im going to anyway. I was disappointed. I was confused. I was angry. we are in season 15. The last season ever for this show that has had a HUGE following of fans who have loved it, sometimes unconditionally, sometimes even though it wasn’t the best (and sometimes less than good). A season and show that had just announced YES. CAS LOVES DEAN. ITS REAL. And I shouldn’t have to go over the nuances of why we would expect more after this, with two episodes to go before the show is done forever.

But I will bc im mad af.

Like I said in the beginning. Dean’s character arc has been incredible. His emotional growth – as subtle as it might’ve seemed – has been amazing. And dean has always been an emotional, loving person. he just felt like he wasn’t because the world made him feel that way. And that’s sad, y’all. Dean deserves to realize he DESERVES happiness. And in 15x18, we were finally heading basically directly there. With destiel, yes, but even if you’re anti, what cas said to dean about who he is and why he loves him obviously struck a fucking chord with dean. It obviously changed the way he viewed himself (RE: “that’s not who I am, that’s not who we are”).

But for WHATEVER reason that’s ALL we got in 15x19. One fucking SENTENCE about dean realizing maybe he’s not just built to kill people. And then jack leaves without a single mention of Eileen or cas or Charlie or literally anyone they ever cared about and dean rode off into the sunset alone with his brother while we watched a fucking FIVE MINUTE MONTAGE that made me want to hurl my own body into the sun they were driving toward. And cas is STILL DEAD.

BUT THERE’S STILL ONE EPISODE LEFT AND FUCK ME IF I HAVENT BEEN PAINTING ON MY CLOWN MAKEUP ALL WEEK. SO WHAT DO I WANT????

ONE: DEAN DESERVES HAPPINESS. REAL HAPPINESS. What the FUCK supernatural??? Wasn’t this the whole point of his arc??? And don’t get me wrong I REALLY want that happiness to come from Cas and a real spoken relationship of some sort between them bc it also ties in with my second point but tbh just PLEASE let dean be happy. Dean is a loving person and does everything for love as we JUST FOUND OUT. Dean would NOT be happy with everyone he’s ever loved gone for the rest of his life. I just don’t believe that’s fucking true. h elp him pls.

TWO: CAS DESERVES HAPPINESS. I know we got this whole speech about “happiness isn’t in the having it’s simply in being”  but like. Really. Castiel was supposed to be a throwaway character no one was supposed to care about. But we all cared SO MUCH that he lasted 11 SEASONS longer than intended and became a main character and an integral part of the story. Cas has arguably sacrificed more than anyone on this show. His last act was to sacrifice his life to save the man he loved. He knew where he was going. He knew he was finally going to be able to tell dean he loved him and then immediately be taken by the empty where we know now thanks to season 15 that everyone in there just gets to dream forever about their regrets and sadness. HOW IS THAT FAIR. HOW IS THAT A GOOD ENDING FOR CAS. HOW DO YOU EXPECT ANYONE – CHARACTERS AND FANS ALIKE –TO BE HAPPY ABOUT THAT. Its messed up, supernatural. Y’all KNOW it is and I hope to HIGH HEAVENS this is going to be corrected in 15x20.

THREE: give sam Eileen back. 

Well that’s all I’ve got in me, folks. I’m absolutely and intensely dreading Thursday. Im scared and nervous and obviously still angry that this is absolutely going to be the opposite of what they promised – another “game of thrones” ending. Some of y’all are giving me hope with your posts about maybe they’re trying to keep the ending a surprise and maybe cas is coming back and how can they not and why else would they have done the second to last episode like that and I hope yall are right.

Either way, im glad I am not alone with my feelings. Thanks yall for the experience of this fandom and show. Let’s stick together on Thursday, no matter our differences.

 PS stop calling jensen ackles a homophobe or ill hex you. 

[hawopro]

Thoughts of a rare soul who enjoyed DMBJ’s Time Raiders 2016 adaptation (2/2)

Or: why TR 2016 is a Pingxie movie

[SPOILERS]

Continuation from this post.

Okay, normal movie review aside, this post is my attempt to discuss the very-compelling Pingxie story that pulled me into the deep end of niche within niche fandom. I am now wholeheartedly shipping Pingxie.

Incredibly long post, so here’s a summary:

Symbolism & foreshadowing in nuances

Pingxie & past lives

These are the nuances that sold me TR: the song, the button, the masks, the scarf, the hands. They added an extra layer to the movie and made you really think about the real story. 

Because the story isn’t truly about tomb raiding and fighting monsters, it is as Wu Xie stated at the beginning, “This should be a story about me and him.”

It’s a story about Wu Xie and Zhang Qiling/Men You Ping, about their connection that probably started thousands of years ago, and it ran so deep that we couldn’t possibly fathom how far.

Wu Xie asked, “When did it begin? How did it end?” We don’t know, but we know it definitely exists.

To sum up the story before starting the analysis:

As a kid, Wu Xie snuck inside a maze-like place, took a button from a relic and was chased by a ghostlike figure for it, let’s call the ghost Bronze Mask. This experience haunted his dream all the way to adulthood. Then he discovered the tomb of Iron Mask, a tomb builder, found a key to the Snake Empress's tomb, and met ZQL ‘for the first time’ on the raid with his uncle. They bonded, and for some reason, ZQL wanted that button, which WX gave it to him upon their parting. At the end, it is implied that Bronze Mask is actually ZQL and Iron Mask is Wu Xie. 

Wait what? You think that ending came out of nowhere? 

NOPE!

First, let’s go back to the very beginning. The performer’s song. 

Which, according to English translation, goes like:

“Life is a dream What is unreal would be real Life is a mirror that shows your reflection But I hope the reflection doesn’t show the mundane Flowers bloom and flower wilt are a way of life How can life be as you wish?”

At first glance, it didn’t seem to be anything significant, just very pretty words, but after I finished watching, I realized it could be interpreted as foreshadows. 

The beginning couple of lines could allude to WX’s dream, and the possibility that there’s something more tangible in this connection with the Bronze Mask figure. Then they foreshadow the ending sequence when WX and ZQL walked past one another as themselves, but turned and saw each other as Bronze Mask and Iron Mask.

The words are telling us that even seemingly unlikely, things could just as likely to happen in life, and I thought they tie the ending back to the opening very neatly. 

The idea of mirror and reflection seems to come up quite a bit in the movie, window, mirror, camera lens, dialogues.

I'm thinking that a reflection of themselves symbolizes the idea that there lies another facet of their identities, hinting at past lives. Then we have ZQL’s crisis over his existence and amnesia, constantly wondering who he is, and whether he will one day lose himself.

The last two lines are about ZQL’s immortality, if to live means to bloom then wilt, then he doesn’t belong to the land of living at all.

At the end, the song goes:

“We don’t seek smoke and mirror Looking back at the time when the wise man rises It was a time of innocence and purity.”

Mirror appears again here, I haven’t even begun dissecting what this could mean. But I like to think the last two lines fit very well with Wu Xie’s character development, how he grew up after this trip.

NEXT, the pendant thing that I'm going to call a button.

The button honestly foreshadows that ZQL is Bronze Mask in two instances: when he took it from WX the first time and gave it back, then when he asked for it again when they were inside the tomb.

This is the connection that tied WX to Bronze Mask until he met ZQL, until he returned it at the end, AFTER the two of them formed a new connection with pictures, and memories from inside the tomb. 

The masks--specifically the Iron Mask foretells Wu Xie’s identity as Iron Mask.

He put it on when he was telling the writer the story in the opening. Then when he first discovered the tomb and the key, he also did that. I was very confused on why someone would put on a rusty old mask? I just chalked it up as a method to open the cage. I was wrong! BAM, foreshadow! 

That brings me to the scarf that Iron Mask wore in the ending sequence.

Looks familiar?! Well I would argue that that’s the same scarf that ZQL wore the entire time in the movie, and he very clearly used it to fight A-Ning. If the button is WX's connection to Bronze Mask, then the scarf is a memento--it's ZQL's connection to Iron Mask.

FINALLY, THE HANDS! And Michelangelo’s reference. Separate hands appreciation gif set here.

Hands are incredibly expressive, and I found myself very drawn to them while watching movies. Well, they are the forefront of Pingxie in this story, the movie keeps on showing them, figuratively and literally, reaching out to each other.

Hands are to catch, to hold, to protect, to save, and you will see all of these in Pingxie’s interactions. Heck, the director ended the movie with an entire sequence of their hands and freaking allude to The Creation of Adam!

There’s the first handshake, where ZQL opened up for the first time, and WX appreciated it and reached out first.

Then comes my personal favorite scene which I gif entirely here.

WX, standing on death’s door and still legit worrying about giving MYP his memories in the camera. Boy, pls stop. And you see ZQL freaked out. This was the first time ZQL reached out, this was trust, this was him caring about someone for the first time, you know, as far as he can remember anyway.

Then WX said to MYP, “I said I’d take care of you.” He really did jump headfirst onto a questionable tomb structure to save MYP. 

Here, WX literally saved ZQL, and figuratively saved him from his mind and existential crisis as well. Because after, ZQL said to WX, “Memories aren’t everything, daring to imagine is what everything is all about,” which is his character development! Hooray!

Bonus, that hands hold on the magical carpet ride.

AND the Creation of Adam allusion? Which shows God giving life to the first man? 

WX is man, he’s always on the left of the painting and all the hand-scenes, ZQL is basically god-like immortal, he’s always on the right. When the allusion to the Creation happened, WX was actually on higher ground, he was the one doing the saving. In this case, the mortal human gave the god life, not the other way around because ZQL didn’t know what living was, so he let WX show him.

The whole idea of past lives probably deviated so much from drama and novel, but it created such a compelling bond for WX and MYP in this movie. 

That is why I ship Pingxie now. 

You can’t watch this thinking it’ll be like the drama, or like a live-action remake of the novel. No, it’s meant to be a standalone film that showed only a corner of the DMBJ universe, but it unfailingly portrays the deep connection between WX and ZQL, and I love it.

[willowfey]

Hi Hana!! I've never seen spn, and the only thing I know is through your posts, and you seem passionate about it, so: would you maybe like to talk about the love story you've been denied? What is their relationship like? And what would you liked to happen?

ok this took me a While to respond to, bc i got Really Into answering but then got distracted before i could finish and my brain lost the thought folder in a closet somewhere BUT... i found it. and BOY do i have thoughts... i hope u know what u got urself into by asking this lol 

(spn fans, pls ignore what a fucking MESS this is, i know it’s all out of order, i’m not here to be accurate i’m here to be unhinged thank u very much)

(also follow my spn blog @himbodean)

(major spoilers under the cut for anyone thinking of watching, obviously)

let me preface this by saying that i first started watching this show when i was 14, i am now 22, and it’s still one of the most insane incredible stories i’ve ever experienced IF IF IF u ignore the fact that it’s a crappy tv show with bad writers. because it IS, of course it is, every fan knows it’s a dumpster fire, that’s not the POINT. the point is the story that came from that fire. the point is the story built from accidents, fate, actors doing whatever they want, fans seeing something special and fighting for it, the POINT is that free will and love triumph over god and writers and we’ll get into that meta momentarily but this is just a preface SO.... (also i would like to add that i stopped watching the show consistently somewhere in season 9, everything i know beyond that is from Perceiving posts and youtube compilations, so this will be very messy, but anyway)

let’s start with dean winchester, shall we? a boy taught from the age of four years old that his only worth comes from being Useful. take care of sam, hunt, do your father’s bidding, become a weapon. john winchester is a shitty father and person and i will not stand for defense of him, and i don’t care what his motives were for putting so much burden on dean but dean.... followed every order. internalized every failure. and did EVERYTHING to protect sammy and prove himself, in that order. 

classic fucked up Eldest Daughter Trauma brothermomdad comic relief emotionally constipated man. did i mention he’s bi and adapted a faux Macho Man exterior to compensate largely due to prior mentioned fuckass garbage father? well now i have. 

if you’ve been on tumblr for a while, a place where we just LOVE to analyze stories (and frankly my favourite part about it), i don’t need to explain every nuance for you to understand That Character Type. he would sacrifice himself in a second if it meant a moment’s happiness for someone he loves. for a long time, the only someone there is is sam.  

okay, now sam. youngest sibling disease. does not understand or appreciate at first everything that’s been done for him, takes things for granted, so gloriously unburdened because of dean’s shelter that he’s able to put all his focus into Becoming Normal. because he does not need to prove himself in the same way dean does. because dean always made sure he knew he was loved, useful or not. (samgirls don’t come for me i adore him but he’s an asshole baby, dean allowed him the privilege to be). he’s a very Smart asshole baby, academically, he’s studying to be a lawyer and he’s on track to have the Normal Life dean always wanted for him.

but, but, but

dad’s on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a few days. 

so this is where the story starts, kinda. stories are everlasting and theirs started eons ago when the canonical god and angels shaped humanity but shhhh this part of the story starts now. with the with the Head and the Heart setting across lonely america to finish an unfinishable job of ridding the world of evil. 

i won’t give you a synopsis of everything that happens, though with the way my brain is moving right now i Could. they save people, hunt things, the family business and all.... john dies, his weight on dean’s shoulders remains, found family is found, etc etc....

then sam dies. 

you asked me to talk about the love story i was denied, but to do that you need to know the love story we were given. because it’s not just dean’s love for cas, or even just dean’s love for sam, but dean’s LOVE. period. love, the driving force of every story ever but especially this one. 

sam dies. the only thing dean is living for, the only person on earth he truly loves enough to do anything for (w*ncest shippers dni we stan Brotherly love and that’s it). sam dies and dean has Failed at his only job, really, the only one he hadn’t failed until now. 

so, naturally, he makes a deal with a demon. (this is important i promise.) he makes a deal with a demon and sells his soul in order to bring his brother back. 

and it works. and they continue their lives together. sam has matured some and despite having youngest sibling disease he also has youngest sibling RIGHTS, and he can see just how much dean cares about him, and he thinks the absolute WORLD of his big brother. always has, really. dean will never see just how much sam looks up to him.

but dean’s time is running out... the deal has been made and soon, it’s time to pay his dues. he ends up in hell. 

now, something you need to know, that we the viewers did not find out for another handful of years real-time. god is real, right. god is a guy who goes by the name chuck. yes, he has a human body, he writes books about their lives and they have a very meta in-show fandom where high schoolers turn them into a musical and people write fanfiction about them it’s a MESS, but you need to know this because the meta of god=writers is so important and i’m on a ROLE here.

anyway, god is real. his name is chuck. he’s a huge asshole. he represents the writers, like actually.  angels are real too. 

now, my favourite introduction probably; castiel. angel of thursday. baby sibling of the angels. autistic coded (at first you’re like Oh, he’s like that because he’s an angel of course. then you meet his brother gabriel or really any other angel and you’re like okay, that’s not just an angel thing that’s a Castiel Thing and i love it and i love him).

just like dean, all castiel knows is to Follow Orders. and usually that is all he does. years later, chuckgod will tell us that in Every Single Other Universe, castiel saves dean from hell (he’s needed for the apocolypse, see, he and his brother are meant to be vessels for michael and lucifer), he saves dean and then he lets him go and he Follows His Orders. 

but this universe is different. 

in this universe, castiel lays a hand on dean in hell and he’s Lost (according to another angel, Found according to himself). the words dean winchester is saved ring so loudly throughout heaven that every angel can hear it. he grips him tight, raises him from perdition, leaves a hand print on his arm. a mark. a claim. leaves a piece of his Grace, of Himself in dean, and we don’t know it yet but dean leaves a piece of himself in castiel too. 

so, dean is back. he stabs castiel (but he’s okay bc he’s like an Angel Of The Lord in the body of a blue eyed hunk and you’d need an Angel Blade to hurt him, obviously, pfff). castiel tilts his head questioningly, as he often does, and says, more of a statement than a question, “you don’t think you deserved to be saved.” and dean doesn’t have an answer.

fast forward through some plot. dean, the corrupt failure of a weapon damned to hell because of Love, is chosen to be the vessel of michael. not lucifer. dean, the man who didn’t think he deserved to be saved, saved by an angel who was so Changed the moment they touched that now he’s on earth, with them, and he’s not following his orders, and the whole timeline is fucked, and godchuck is angry.

oh well. dean teaches him about burgers and led zeppelin and inside jokes and flannel shirts and porn (yeah... the pizza man doesn’t truly love the babysitter, that’s not the point of it, man). he teaches him about food and home and love and humanity and free will. that’s what they are, the three of them. Team Free Will. because watching humans for eons and falling in love with one, sitting beside one in a ‘67 impala listening to cassettes and watching him eat in a dingy low-lit diner are different things. loving humanity and Falling In Love with a human are different things. 

“For the first time, I feel...” he tells his sister Anna, another angel. (she was written to be dean’s endgame love interest, did you know? castiel was meant to be killed off. but everyone adored him immediately and anna was killed off instead, so where does that leave him?)

“It gets worse,” she says.

“I’m considering disobedience.” 

“Good.”

he’s no longer Castiel-Of-God. he’s just Cas. never again does dean call him by his full name. he becomes Cas-Of-Dean instead. 

so they’re in love and like the post that lives in my mind rent free said, they spend years thinking please say it without me having to ask, they have a profound bond, they dance around each other and sacrifice themselves for each other and dean prays to him when he’s gone, every night, cas rebelled he was hunted and he did all of it for dean, and everyone i mean EVERYONE knows.

“You’re confusing me with the other angel; you know, the one in the dirty trench coat who’s in love with you.”

“His true weakness is revealed... he’s in love. with humanity.”

“The stench of that impala’s all over your overcoat, angel.”

“Go ask him, he was your boyfriend first.”

“I thought you two were attached at the... well, everything.”

“It was all about saving one human, right? One man.”

if i tried to list out every time someone implied their love, every time they shared a Look or a charged Moment, i’d literally be here for a year and i’d be writing out the plot of 12 years worth of episodes. so. just know that the subtext is hardly very sub. 

they go to purgatory. dean abandons any other thought to find him, to bring him home with him, and cas spends an equal amount of energy trying to keep monsters away from him. in the end, cas pushes him through the portal back home, and he stays behind because it’s what he feels he deserves. dean rewrites the memory into him not being able to pull cas though in time, not holding on tight enough, another failure. 

they stop the apocolypse more than once. they die a few times and are brought back. plotplotplot they’re in love and everyone knows it, at one point cas dies and dean keeps his coat, folded in the back of his car. dean says don’t ever change. cas says i’ll watch over you. at one point cas is brainwashed and forced to kill a thousand copies of dean, but when it comes down to it, when dean is on his knees bloody and utters the words “I need you,” no amount of brainwashing can stop cas from dropping the knife and cradling dean’s face to heal him. 

cas plays god. the angels fall. now they’re both failures. dean says i guess i’m not the man either of our fathers wanted me to be. cas dies and says i love you, i love all of you. they’re pulled apart by a million different things a million different ways over the years but they come back to each other, they trust each other again, at the end of it all this is all they have. this is all that matters. what dean told him years ago still stands to be true; fate, destiny, god. none of it means anything. people, families, that’s what matters. that’s what’s real. you asked what about all of this is real, cas says to him later. we are. we are.  

fast forward some more. remember that i Have Not watched the last 6 seasons, i just know everything that happened. so things i’m sure are out of order, but it doesn’t matter, the story is everlasting, what matters is that they happen at all. 

they raise a teenage girl because her dad was cas’ vessel (long story). they also raise the antichrist. yes, literally. jack, essentially a three year old in the body of a 20smth or whatever. he calls them both dad. dean teaches him how to love and be human, and cas teaches him how to love and be human too, because dean taught him first. sam is still here, yes, i haven’t forgotten about him. they’re a little family. even when everyone else around them dies, they have each other.

cas dies again, of course. dean wraps and burns his body alone. now he’s brothermomdadwidow. the righteous man. the vessel of michael. lifting the fabric one last time, to look at the face of the angelhuman he loves. 

he comes back, of course. they always do. at least, until now they have, but then they never know when their last death will be.

at some point, they’re in purgatory again. i don’t remember if it’s before or after cas dies and comes back. but dean prays to him. says he should’ve never let him go (because sometimes he pushes him away, it happens and cas goes, not knowing dean doesn’t mean it. i went and you didn’t stop me, cas says. please say it without me having to ask). he says he gets so angry and he doesn’t know why, it’s just always been there. anyone paying attention to the story knows why. when he finds cas, dean starts to tell him what he was going to say, and cas cuts him off, says I heard you, but he didn’t hear all of it. he still hasn’t heard all of it.

(I’ve just realised i’ve gone on for over 2k words now but my gc is telling me to keep going now that i’m this deep, so. we will prattle on and u will know better than to ask me about my hyperfixations next time lest i write an actual novel when i should be sleeping sfgksjhf)

so, where were we? right. dean loves cas and sam and jack and claire and charlie and his whole found family and cas loves them all because dean taught him how to love from the moment he touched him in hell. they’ve all been good and evil. they live in a bunker now instead of a car. they fight godchuck on multiple occasions. he says “you’re not in this story,” and cas looks at dean when he says “we’re making it up as we go.” he also says castiel was ordered to watch over dean, and to date it is the only task he has not failed to carry out. i lose my mind every time i remember this detail.

remember how i said god=writers? remember how i said cas was going to be killed off? it’s meta. oh god, there’s so much meta. this story was not meant to exist, see. but it was always meant to exist. the last words mary winchester ever said to her oldest son, was a promise that angels were watching over him. she didn’t know that an angel would watch dean sleep all the time, that an angel would change the course of the world to protect him. the writers didn’t know, god didn’t know, but it happened. it happened because cas loved dean, because we loved cas, because misha collins and jensen ackles saw these characters in this story and we all came together and said Actually, We Decide, and Actually, Love Is The Most Important, and Actually, What Is A God To A Human In Love? 

they are Team Free Will, because we were first. the viewers. the storyseers who dared them to give god a face and let us have a word with him. it was not written to be a love story, but it was, because everything is, because stories take on a life of their own and no god or writer can change that. 

we’re almost finished, but not quite. i’m sorry if u didn’t want such a massive summary of everything but that is what u get on my blog. cas makes a deal with The Empty, which is sort of like hell but worse, because hell is fire and torture and pain and The Empty is nothing at all. blackness. aloneness. the opposite of love is not hate but apathy. he makes a deal with The Empty to save his son, their son, the antichrist they taught to be good, because dean taught him how to love, and to love is to sacrifice yourself for another. 

the deal is this: cas will go on living his life, for now. but in his moment of true happiness, it will come for him, and he will go willingly. 

now, the scene that prompted this supernatural renaissance. the scene that brought you to my ask box today. if i were you, i would go watch the scene for the full effect, because every word of it is like a gut punch but i will summarize for you now the best i can...

cas never knew what his true happiness could be, because the one thing he wants, he knows he can never have (he can, please just say it without me having to ask). but now he realizes. the happiness doesn’t come from having, it’s just in the being. just in saying it. just in loving. because he loves dean. he loves the whole world because of dean. he tells him this. knowing the empty will come for him, he tells him, because dean deserves to know. he is not how his enemies see him, how he’s seen himself his whole life. he is not a weapon, he is not anger or violence, he is love. everything he’s ever done, every decision he’s ever made. from the moment cas touched him in hell he was changed. and he loves him, and he loves him, and this is a goodbye. when he pushes dean away from him, he leaves a bloody handprint on his shoulder. 

and then he’s gone. and dean lost him again. and he sinks to the floor and sobs. 

what happens next, you ask? they kill god. well, actually, they show him mercy and turn him human. godchuck calls him quite the killing machine, and dean tells him “that’s not what i am.” because he heard cas, and cas loves him, and so he will be the man that cas loves.(and of course he loves him too, of COURSE he does, and he didn’t say it. cas never hears all of it.)

so they kill god in a way, the way we killed the writers, because they don’t decide who we are. and jack becomes god. jack, their son, who they raised and loved.

and just... do you see? do you see how dean’s love shaped the world?

he loved sam and it landed him in hell, he loved cas and it changed the course of the world, he loved jack and now jack is god, and the entire world will feel the benefits of what dean taught them. the entire world will feel his love. 

but why? how did he become this, if john didn’t love him? if mary died so soon? how did he become love without anyone putting it into him?

but then.... there was sam. trusting him, needing him, sam who gave him a protective amulet as a child to keep him safe, to bring him home. there was cas who listened to him, who saved him and changed for him and fought for him. there was jo and ellen and bobby and charlie and all these people along the way who Saw him for who he truly was. from the moment dean picked up baby sam from his crib and ran him out of a burning building, that little spark of love stayed in him and reflected in every person he met, until it grew and grew and

and now, jack is god. 

for me, this is where i stop working with the writers. this is where i ignore everything they’ve done with the ending instead of interpreting it, because they either didn’t know what they had or they did, and i’m not sure which is worse. 

so, what would i like to have happened? 

dean saves cas. pulls him out of the empty the way cas pulled him out of hell. pulls him out of darkness right back into the light. the righteous damned man who decides his own fate. i don’t care how or what trials they’d need to go through first, but bonus points if they end up back in the barn where they first met on earth. if i were writing this show, which i am right now, dean would leave a handprint on him too. and then dean would tell him everything he needs to tell him, and cas would finally hear all of it. there would be a forehead touch, a long lingering one, and also a good fucking kiss because god knows they deserve it. (they know they deserve it, which is far more important).  sam would get eileen back and actually give a shit about it (i know i didn’t talk about her at all, but she was sam’s deaf love interest and she deserved so much better than to be forgotten the way she was). 

cas would willingly give up his grace to become fully human. his grace would go into a large old oak tree, with beautiful full leaves, and they would build a house right by it with their own hands. a proper house, with bay windows and exposed beams and colourful painted steps. there would be a bedroom for jack when he comes home, which he does, even though he’s god too, because heaven is so lonely compared to a warm kitchen.  dean and cas would open a bar for hunters, a cozy place for advice and friends and a break. sam and eileen would get married. no one would move away from each other because people who love each other should stay together and that’s the only ending i will ever accept.  dean and cas have very loving sex on the reg but that’s another conversation. 

they’re happy. they’re together. they’re allowed to live the full lives that they’ve fought so hard for. because in a story where everyone dies, and hell exists, and they kill god sort of, the only radical conclusion is that they survive. 

i would like for the last scene to zoom out from the window of the living room, where they’re all together and laughing and eating, and i’d like to see the leaves changing and the old impala getting washed and the fence being painted, and a family through the window that slowly grows, and Miracle the dog running around some toddlers....

and i’d like the last shot to be focused on the tree made from cas’ grace, with their names carved into the wood like the old table in the bunker and the back of he impala. All of their initials now, on something very much alive.

bumbum.... bumbum..... BUM (screen goes black)

carry on my wayward can play now, and we all can cry out of happiness and shock that writers actually fulfilled their story and character arcs, and everyone gets exactly what they deserve. perhaps a marvel-esque end credit scene where humanchuck is like, idk on a public bus or smth. 

it’s 3am..... i’m gonna sleep now and literally not edit this at all, so pls excuse the multitude of mistakes i’m certain there are shahgfksab. pls follow my spn blog @himbodean too i would appreciate that. hope u enjoyed my hyperfixation story brain explosion, thank u for the ask and opportunity to ramble x