#which would be a problem because everyone is terrified of humans

[ishipgenfics]

Happy STS! But oh no! One of your characters has been stabbed! What chaos does this bring about? Who's been stabbed, who did the stabbing, who yanks the sword out without thinking, etc.? ♥️

Oh this is a fun one!

Birch(Your Human): Gets stabbed. It is a teenager with no experience in self-defense, if someone is trying to stab it with any degree of skill, they are almost certainly going to succeed. Plus it has bad experience with needles, so it might end up freezing up.

Rhy'cd(You): Panics. Panic panics panics. Someone tells them not to pull the sword out and they go, "Well then how long do we leave it in?Forever?! Besides, maybe you can pull them out for humans." She is informed that you in fact cannot, and starts panicking even harder. Eventually has to be dragged out of the room because her pacing around asking questions constantly is doing more harm then good.

Your pilot: Holds its hand. They're awkward and uncomfortable at first, people lash out when they are hurt and they know how dangerous humans can be, but all it is doing is screaming. So they whisper softly to it, and hold its hand as tight as they can, and hope everything will be alright.

Your engineer: This is not her job. She doesn't know how to do this. She focuses her energy on fighting off whoever stabbed them, on getting them off her ship. Later, she thinks something might be wrong with her, that the instinct to try and go help didn't even occur to her. She is wrong, but she will think it anyway.

Your scientist: It knows how this works. Its species might not have blood, but lots of others do, and its been doing research. Makes itself burn bright bright bright and cauterizes the wound after Rhy'cd pulls it out in a panic. It feels good about itself for being able to do something useful.

Bonus!(characters that have not yet been introduced)--

Alex: Alex is that kid who's really sure he knows a lot about first aid. He's just so sure that he knows what he would do if he got stabbed, but in reality he watched like two Red Cross videos and took a CPR course and that is the extent of his knowledge. He really thinks he's being helpful. He is not.

Ciralarus: I think Ciralarus probably has some actual medical experience. At the very least she's helped with kids before, so she knows how to tie up wounds and what to do in an emergency situation. She'd probably be the most helpful out of anyone.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

would love your opinion of the newest episode of DW, if you get the chance.

HAHAHAHA YES I HAVE MANY THOUGHTS

Alright okay so

I only have one complaint, which is that that wasn't a faerie ring. You could still have the shamble, no problem, but it should have been over the top of an actual faerie ring, which should be a mushroom (or, at a push, stone) circle. Not some cotton that would blow clean off the cliff edge in three minutes.

HOWEVER

This is the first time I've seen Doctor Who do a time travel story using, not Doctor Who time travel lore and rules, but Welsh faerie rules. (First time I've seen anything do it, in fact.) In Welsh myth, people who enter faerie rings or get entranced by the music become suspended in time, out of sync with the real world. They think they danced for a night, but when they return it's been 100 years, and they crumble to dust as soon as they eat/drink/step on land/etc.

In this case, this is what I think happened to Ruby. She spent that time in Annwfn, seeing what would happen if the binding on the ring was broken. When she 'dies', she returns to the spot and lasts long enough to give her younger self the warning, then crumbles to dust.

But, a time travelling Ruby is not the woman who follows her throughout the episode. That, in fact, is a gwyll.

The gwyllion were hag faeries, usually of mountain tops (though Pembrokeshire's liminal cliffs are 100% from Welsh mythology - it was said that if you found a faerie ring on one but only put one foot in, you could see the faerie islands in the sea. And that faeries used to visit the human markets in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion. So while gwyllion are unusual there, it's not an impossible relocation.) They were malicious and sometimes vicious faeries who delighted in making people lose their way, could strike an uncontrollable and ungodly terror into travellers, and who feature in more that one myth as an old woman that someone tried to approach, but they always appeared at the same distance away, impossible to catch up.

CAN YOU SEE THE PARALLELS

And the best part!! Is that this is why she defeats UNIT!!!

Kate tells Ruby that her agents have necklaces of silver and salt to keep out the supernatural, but that's just generic fairytale shit. That doesn't work on gwyllion. Salt drawn in a line would provide a barrier, but the UNIT soldiers aren't trying to trap or block the gwyll; they're trying to capture her. What works, very specifically, is a knife. Iron or steel for preference of course, but it needs to be a knife.

But UNIT has no Welsh employees and the soldiers have guns, not knives. And so they all become entranced.

(This is also what I think the gwyll 'says' to everyone to turn them against Ruby. She doesn't say anything - she sings.)

This is also the first time I've ever encountered any mainstream media doing Welsh faeries and understanding the tone to strike, which is 'unknowable, unstoppable and fucking terrifying'. I think I've only ever read it in Catharine Fisher books, and she's a Welsh author so... yeah, obviously. But I basically vibrated with delight and excitement for the entire episode.

Oh my god, hang on, Roger ap Gwilliam! Okay, I have two theories about him.

My weaker theory and the one I don't like is the kind of boring and obvious one, which is that he is himself not human. A lot of Welsh folklore features the devil, and I get that vibe from his role in the story. But, I'm not keen, because I can't see the link to the gwyll.

But my strongest theory, and the one I have chosen to believe, is that he's a human who made a deal with the Fae for power, and then reneged. There's a Metric Fuckton of stories about humans fucking up Fae gifts in some way, and the punishment is usually something ironic but always results in the loss of the gift. It could be a faerie harp that makes everyone dance, and the Fae tell the giftee not to abuse it, but they cruelly force everyone to dance so long and so hard that the faerie returns, takes back the harp, and then takes the human's ability to ever make music again, so example (by taking fingers or eyes or tongues as well, often.)

So I think Mad Jack strikes a bargain for power - but, then tries to abuse that power (nuclear war). But part of the bargain is that the Fae cannot approach him directly ever again. In the real world, they therefore tempt him into the faerie ring and bind his soul there, problem solved - until the Doctor accidentally lets him out, and gets his own soul stuck. Ruby, therefore, becomes the instrument through which they manage to take that power away once again - and then, her final Fae gift for her service is that they use the temporal anomaly of the faerie ring to send her back, at the end of her life, and give her a second chance. This time, with Mad Jack's soul left bound in Annwfn.

The fun part is, RTD is a writer who understands the power of not explaining everything and leaving some things up to the viewer's imagination, so none of this is ever going to be explained lol. But yeah, that is a gwyll. The moment she appeared, I said out loud "Oh holy fuck, gwyllion." That was a gwyll.

As a final observation, I loved seeing Siân Phillips, and I choose to believe they filmed those scenes in a pub because they could only get Siân if they agreed to just come to her local. The woman is a queen.

[ultimateloserboy]

Bill Cipher Analysis Post ‼️

(I could be wrong about some things since the book is fresh, feel free to expand this post or correct me! May be a little edited as well!)

To start things off: William Mischief Cipher, (yes thats his actual name) is a dream demon from another dimension. To be specific, the second dimension.

Despite Bill being a literal shape— and also a demigod— it’s implied that Bill had a human-like childhood. He had a normal mother and father, he went to school, and overall seemed to have a normal life. The problem, however, was that he was born with powers completely unknown to his dimension.

Bills world was 2D, meaning there was no up or down. It’s hard for us to grasp the concept of his world, and its implied Bills dimension felt the same way about us. They couldn’t grasp the idea of other, less flat dimensions— but Bill could. Not only did he understand the concept, he could physically SEE the other dimensions— which drove him crazy with confusion and frustration.

It’s also implied that Bill was born with physical powers others in his dimension didn’t have— for example, there’s a line in the book where he remembers being bullied in school for having the ability to conjure fire.

It’s implied that Bill tried to tell everyone about the other dimensions, but they didn’t understand. The other people of his homeworld considered him troubled and insane. There’s a poem written in code on the silly straw page of his book detailing how he was fed medicine to keep his “visions” away, but would only drink it out of a silly straw. This poem implies he was a baby at the time of taking his medicine, implying further that his powers were terrifyingly strong even from an early age. This— paired with the fact he could shoot fire from his fuckin hands— made him dangerous as a child, because (at least from what it seems) any childish outburst or tantrum could accidentally turn dangerous from his lack of understanding or being able to control the powers he was born with. He was a walking time bomb.

“Eye doctor of a different kind who wants to make his patient blind / The doctor says three sips a day will make the visions go away / Fussy eater, baby billy, wouldn’t drink unless its silly.”

(((The doctor was taking away Bills ability to see the other dimensions, rendering him somewhat blind. Bill fussed about his medicine as a child and would only drink it out of a silly straw.)))

Eventually, Bill tried to bring his world into the third dimension— or at the very least, show them it exists to prove that he wasn’t insane. It’s unclear what exactly he did to try and accomplish this— but it went wrong and started a terrible fire that left only him alive.

It’s unclear whether or not he started the fire itself on purpose or on accident, but either way its implied that he absolutely didn’t understand the permanent consequences. It’s something that deeply traumatized him. It’s blurred out of his memory, and in denial, he pretends everyone is still alive. It’s up to the reader to determine whether or not he can be forgiven for this, but out of everything Bill has done on purpose and out of malice, this doesn’t seem to be one of those things. It seems he genuinely wanted to free his family from the confinements of his dimension and to this day he still pretends that’s what he did, even if that’s not the case. The regret of his actions is something that goes on to shape his character today.

“Twisted out of shape after the kill— the ghost of his family haunting him still” (((Silly straw page)))

Bill has lied about this day on multiple occasions, and has also lied about how he feels towards it. He’s terrified to face the guilt— so he either pretends he did it on purpose and doesn’t care, pretends something or someone else did it, or pretends it didn’t happen all together.

While talking to Stanford, he calls himself a monster. This is what he truly thinks of himself. However, he pretends to be a different person than himself. His entire life past the day of his dimensions burning has been a lie of pure denial.

On top of denial, he refused and still refuses to grow up. After running off into a crumbling dimension with his “henchmaniac” friends, he started acting like a rebellious teenager. Unlike most villains with a specific intent to hurt, he went throughout the universe with the sole intention of having as much fun as possible. However, with his terrifying power and uncaring nature many casualties happened on the side. He’s guilty for them, and even finds some of them funny, but hurting people wasn’t and isn’t his MAIN intent. (At least not most of the time. He IS known to hold grudges, or dismantle someone’s face for fun, but those things aren’t part of his overall goal. Not saying they aren’t shitty, but his main intent is important to understanding his character and complexity.)

His main goal is to distract himself from his past with as much chaos as possible while also seeking attention from anyone he can get it from. He talks about Stanford and says he needs Bill to boost his ego, but really it’s the other way around. Bill considers himself a product to sell, he caters to people by using false charisma, pretending they’re the ones that need him when in reality he’s starving for their praise. He is desperate for someone to speak highly of him because his mind has nothing good to say, all the words he says out loud are compensation. He believes deep down that nobody will love him if they know who he truly is and what he’s done— and he’s not really wrong. And look! He couldn’t even admit that’s how he feels about himself so he pretends he’s giving advice! (He does this SO MANY fuckin times in the book..)

It appears in the book that the more he regrets or suffers from his past actions and traumas— the more he hurts and destroys the things and people around him as a distraction— all under the ruse of “partying”. So, in an immature attempt to absolve himself of guilt, he stacks more guilt onto his endless cycle by continuing to hurt those he loves again and again— pretending not to care but truthfully caring so much that he’d do ANYTHING to drown out the feeling. Ironically, his way of drowning out his feelings is by causing more harm. He is an endless, pitiful paradox.

It’s often misunderstood that he is a uncaring, but that’s what he WANTS you to think. That’s what he WISHES he was. His guilt and remorse doesn’t absolve him from the things he’s done, but the fact that it’s there is a GIANT and IMPORTANT part of his character. He CAN feel empathy, sympathy, sentimentality, and ESPECIALLY regret. He may be a considered a sociopath, but this doesn’t mean he’s not a person with feelings as well.

He’s so distraught over losing Stanford that he drinks himself into a state of temporary amnesia that made him fall into a ptsd episode— his memory is so bad he ends up thinking he’s talking to his mother who’s been dead for probably millions of years.

This doesn’t excuse what he did to Ford AT ALL (I felt a little sick looking at the knuckles page..) but you can’t truly understand his character without understanding that he is LYING when he is cruel to Ford. And no, just because it’s a lie/front doesn’t mean he’s absolved from saying or doing something horrible, but it DOES mean he is unique and complex.

It’s perfectly reasonable to not forgive Bill for what he did to Ford, because it’s not really forgivable— but I also think it’s fair to explore the complexities of “evil” characters. SAYING A CHARACTER REGRETS THEIR ACTIONS DOESN’T MEAN I THINK THEY DESERVE FORGIVENESS!!! Especially in Bill’s case, considering that he PRETENDS to not be sorry, which makes him terrible even if he doesn’t mean what he’s saying. He might as well not be sorry at all HOWEVER!! It’s still important to distinguish him from a sociopathic stereotype— so I have to acknowledge that he’s a little sorry anyway, even if that regret is hidden away and doesn’t help literally anyone.

He values his own comfortability over the people he loves. Meaning he’ll always be cruel instead of apologizing because even if he’s truly sorry, he can’t handle the fact that he did something wrong in the first place— He’ll just play dumb.

At the end of the day, though— Bill is much more complicated than “Guy that just wants to explode people with his mind and take over the world”— I mean yes, he’s also that— but he also has hella bad ptsd and possible other mental issues that I’m not qualified to diagnose. He has a mother who he misses and a pain he carries with him.

None of the pain he harbors will ever justify the pain he’s caused— So no, I don’t think he’s ACTUALLY forgivable (though I may joke). However, in my opinion, I do think he’s redeemable! He’s going to live (or at least be in purgatory?) for millions of more years. He already got a punishment of literal death and has the empathy (somewhere) to continue forward and start fresh. He has thousands of years to heal from his trauma and wallow in what he’s done.

The Pines family may never forgive him, but out of the child-cartoony love in their hearts they offer him not forgiveness— but live and let live. (Well, at least Mabel does.. love you sweet girl.) If he goes around them they’ll beat his ass like in weirdmaggedon, but if he stays away, they will too. At the end of the day, he’s been stopped and they’re happy. If he is alive, (((or is going to be??))) he might as well heal.

And, well.. even if you think he doesn’t deserve that somewhat happy(?) ending, a redemption arc for him has been hinted at for years. Sorry, man. Respect to you and all but like… friendship is magic and the evil demigod is gonna start working at your local wendys once he’s outa space arkham. It’s just the way kids shows go, man.

(((Edited note: I apologize for my original wording when it came to “sociopath”— I wasn’t aware of its actual medical use and I should’ve done my research on that! I’ve changed this post to be more accurate in that regard, so if old reblogs look different it’s because they’re the original version.)))

[to-mah-to27]

Headcanon that Saiki Kusuo collects people with honest intentions.

This might be less of a headcanon and more of just a dissection of the series, but every time Saiki talks about people in general, it's always nihilistic and defeatist.

He doesn't like weddings because of hearing the guest's thoughts and how it directly opposes what they are saying.

He doesn't like Christmas because of how people are always thinking about themselves and what they want rather than about giving and being grateful, which is against the very spirit of the holiday.

Basically, people's thoughts show a darker and more egotistical side of humanity, and overexposure to this has added to the already mountainous problem of Saiki distancing himself from everyone and everything.

Almost every time a new character is introduced, Saiki treats them in this same way, expecting them to be secretly self-absorbed and immoral. But by the end of the short, they prove to be otherwise.

-That's- when Saiki goes all Tsundere and "well I guess I'd rather not owe him a favor or anything" and uses his powers to help them.

Saiki -does- hate Nendou. Until Nendou jumps in to stop him from getting mugged by two other students. Saiki knows he has been nothing but cold and dismissive to this guy, and yet while getting the shit kicked out of him for getting involved, all Nendou does and give him a thumbs up and tell him to run.

Saiki hates Kaidou, too. Sees him as another outcast trying to become friends with him on the principle that they are both alone. Until Kaidou actually jumps in front of the other student to save her from getting attacked by a snake. Kaidou is terrified, yes, and panics and thinks "Why did I do that?" but he still did it. He risked bodily harm and infection to save someone else and -that- is what heroes actually are.

Saiki doesn't necessarily hate Hairo, but he does admit they aren't the type of people who would get along. But then Hairo goes as far as to scrape his knee for Saiki, even if it was to keep him in a game he doesn't really want to play. He recognizes Hairo is someone who sticks to his morals, and he respects that.

Teruhashi took a bit longer, especially because at first she really was the type of person who says something the opposite of what they think. Their relationship is a little more complicated, I think and I've already talked about it before, but I do think that it was when she committed so hard to her appearance that she was willing to eat that "ramen" from the place Nendou showed them. Actions speak much louder than words, as Saiki as a character is a very good example of. At a certain point, is it really a facade if she is willing to go that far?

Basically, Saiki has a soft spot for people who are honest and true.

He can't force himself to really truly push them away like he could do if he really wanted to. Because that's so rare in the world to find a person like that, at least for him, and so it is very difficult to force them out of his life when he knows they are only trying to help.

At least that's how it starts.

I can do another post about the rest of the characters if y'all want

[st4rvedbuck]

I think the fandom of Ninjago should talk about Zane's fear of losing his humanity and his fear of any negative emotion in general. And how they contradict each other.

(warning, yap sesh ahead) TLDR: can nindroids get therapy? If so we need 5 therapists for Zane immediately

It's already established that Zane has a fear of being seen as just a machine, nothing but a freezer with fake coded emotions. But I haven't seen anyone talk in depth how he seems to turn off his emotions whenever he's faced with grief or stress, and how he only learnt to not do that far into his life.

He probably picked up that habit from when Dr. Julien turned off his memory switch before "dying" back in season 1. And he realized that if he went so long not feeling bad about the "death" of his creator by simply not remembering it or not having the actual emotion of grief, he wouldn't feel bad either when anything similar happened if he just turned off his emotions like Dr. Julien did to him.

The fact this lasted as long as it did meant nobody picked up on it* and tried to tell him he was wrong. Which only validated that idea because if there was a problem with it, someone would've told him..right?

But how can you say you don't want to lose your sense of humanity as a robot while simultaneously doing something humans can't whenever you're faced with stress? I'd say he'd overthink it, and feel guilty about not being honest with himself. He knows hes being irrational, but hes still terrified of the thought of no one seeing him as a person.

But at the same time, he's never been taught how to face stress by himself. Only for other people. It's not like he just doesn't know that ignoring your feelings is a way to avoid the problem and a bad coping mechanism, he obviously knows that. He probably just doesn't know any other solutions because his situation is so niche.

Because how could anyone not want what he has? In his position, he probably feels as if everyone would kill to be a nindroid. Since nobody tells him otherwise. We even see clips where the others use Zane's robot body as a joke or in one case, use him as a fucking cleaning robot. Can you imagine how dehumanizing it must feel for someone to be forced against their will like a puppet into doing a weeks worth of chores?

Zane probably feels as if his fears are irrational. Like he shouldn't have them because being a nindroid seems to be the only thing that others care about when they see him. He's a logical person for sure, but everyone has irrational thoughts and unless you face the reason you have those thoughts they aren't going to go away and they'll cloud your judgement. Zane, for sure, is not doing that. Because we can see he just simply forces himself to stop having emotions when they happen instead of facing them, which only fixes it temporarily.

So hes afraid of being seen as just a freezer with fake emotions (i have more to say about the "fake emotions" part), and because he doesn't face his feelings about why hes afraid of that he lets himself believe that is how people see him. Which causes him to think that fear is stupid and that he shouldn't have it, which makes him turn off his emotions for a while, and the cycle continues.

He also might believe his emotions arent needed. Like maybe at some point he convinces himself that if everyone else only sees him as a calculator with ice powers, maybe that's what he actually is. So on top of everything, he feels like since hes only a computer, all his emotions are fake. Therefore unnecessary.

Not to mention he most likely feels as if he's weak for letting Vex manipulate him. And emotions = weak, weak = manipulated again, manipulated again = letting everyone down. But thats just a little thought i had to let out.

If i could write I'd probably make a fic about him being confronted by this fear, but until then it'll stay in my brain.

Poor boy. Just look at him. He doesn't deserve this bro AUUGIGUGJGJGGHHGHHHH IM AUTISTIC 🥹

Edit: *i rewatched crystalized today and realized the other ninja ARE aware of Zanes habit. They just dont gaf 😭WHICH MAKES IT WORSE!!!

[nanawritesit]

WWDITS Headcanons: You Having the Opposite Aesthetic of Everyone Else at the Vampire Residence (fem!reader)

tw: vampires, blood, corpses, mentions of killing, mentions of virgins, immortality

you were brought into the house to work as nadja and laszlo’s familiar

after having so many familiars die on the job, they had pretty much lost hope that they would ever find one that was right for them

so when you of all people, with your brightly colored hair, glittery makeup, long nails, and hot pink platform boots, were still around after a few weeks, they knew you were special 💞

of course they had their doubts at first, thinking you were much too soft for the job based on your cute aesthetic, but you surprised them with how tough you were

you had no problem finding them victims, cleaning up blood stains, and disposing of corpses. the promise of eternal life was much too great for you to give up because of some gore

nadja is overjoyed to have another woman in the house, and quickly becomes more of a bestie than a boss (as long as you do all of your duties as a familiar too)

she requires you to attend weekly “girls nights” with her, the guide, and mini nadja, but even if they weren’t mandatory, you’d happily go along

sometimes you’ll get all dressed up and go clubbing, taking everyone’s drinks for them since they can’t ingest human food

you stick out like a sore thumb in your pink sequin mini dress and heels, the rest of them shrouded in black lace, but you have an amazing time regardless. they really know how to party!

but sometimes you just have sleepovers where you watch mamma mia and talk shit about all the men in the house

laszlo didn’t take you seriously at first. he never really saw the appeal of having a familiar, thinking he got along just fine without one, but wanted to please his good lady wife

he could never understand how nandor was so attached to guillermo. he was just some human who followed him around and did his bidding

that was, until you came along

he found it was really nice to have someone to practice his music with, to organize his library for him, to help him into his coffin every night… and after a while he really grew quite fond of you

which scared him, because he knew how fragile human life was

but that only made him want to keep you under his wing more, to protect you until the day him and nadja decided to turn you

they love having you accompany them on their nightly walks, carrying their parasol behind them as they bask in the moonlight

they’re super protective of you, especially from people who assume you’re an easy target because of your looks

like, if anyone tries to mess with you around them, lazslo will yell at them to go fuck off, and nadja will practically go feral and rip their heart out

you’ll have to BEG her not to hurt them for her to even CONSIDER letting them go 💀

nandor pretty much falls in love with you upon first sight

he absolutely adores your style, loving how unique it is compared to anyone else he knows

he tries and fails to flirt with you all the time while you’re working, until nadja eventually yells at him to leave you to your chores, and he’ll scuttle away bc he’s scared of her 😀

he sometimes asks you to do his makeup like yours, saying he wants to “glitter like twilight”

his undead heart stops when you lean close to his face to do his eyeliner 🥺

he desperately wants to ask you out but is terrified of what nadja would do to him should you agree

she thinks you’re MUCH too good for him

he eventually goes to laszlo for help, since he’s such an “expert” on modern women 💀

he agrees to help him, but tells him that if you guys start dating and he hurts you, he’ll kill him 😗

guillermo is honestly just so thrilled to have another human in the house to sympathize with him 😭

the two of you quickly become partners in crime, dragging bodies down the stairs together and recruiting virgins for your vampires to feast on

he also wouldn’t hesitate to slay any vampire who tried to feed on you

you always stick up for him when the vampires aren’t taking him seriously, which helps since they all value your opinion tremendously

nandor gets a bit jealous when he finds out that you and guillermo get lunch together everyday 😭

guillermo admittedly gets a bit jealous when you’re turned into a vampire before he is, but is obviously very happy for you

but since nandor has such a soft spot for you, you’re able to convince him to turn guillermo sooner :) that way you can be a big happy vampire family forever

collin robinson thinks you’re quite entertaining, although he gets frustrated at the fact that you somehow always dodge all of his attempts to drain your energy

when you go out on the town with everyone, you have major scary dog privilege

when you walk by, people see a pretty pink princess 💞

and then they see the three huge, dramatically dressed vampires, one emotionless suited man, and one monster slayer walking behind you and they’re like oh shit nvm 💀

[tyrantisterror]

A Dozen Or So Great Vampire Ladies

Ok, so, on a mostly unrelated post the topic of good vampire ladies came up, and @bisexualdaikaiju suggested/challenged me to do a top 10 vampire women list. As a self-professed lover of vampire women, it felt like a challenge I couldn't back down from. But it is kind of challenging, for two kind of contradictory reasons.

First, while there are MANY female vampires in fiction, most of them feel like afterthoughts, getting far less characterization than their male counterparts, who more often than not are the star villains of the show. When these supporting lady vampires do get something to do, it's generally the same role: make their human lovers sad when they rise from the dead as a monster that has to be killed, an emotional beat that is often undercut by a lot of these vampire women not getting much characterization to endear them to us before they died. Everyone wants to have the Lucy Westerna plot beat from Dracula but they don't want to do the work that Bram did to make Lucy lovable. The lady vamps who get to step out of Lucy's shadow are rare - but that just makes them all the more wonderful.

The second problem is that, since this is an obsession of mine that few seem to share (there are lots of vampire fans, but man do the boy vamps get to hog the spotlight among them), I've done a lot of scattered thinking about it and I just know I'm bound to forget at least one excellent lady vampire character that should be here. And whittling it down to ten, and trying to rank them? That's too hard! My thoughts are too mercurial to do that reliably in a way I don't forget!

So instead here's a list of, like, a dozen or so lady vampires that I think are just fucking stellar, many of which I think break the mold of what pop culture makes us expect lady vampires to be. It is not ranked - I love all these characters more or less equally, and think it's a lot more interesting to see how they take their archetype in different directions than to figure out which one is "best" of the lot.

Carmilla Karnstein

I'm going to start with the most famous literary female vampire, Mircalla Karnstein from Carmilla. I think she might be the first vampire to have an unhealthy obsession with using anagrams of her real name as aliases, though I'm sure now that I've typed that someone will find an earlier example to school me. She's also the one who popularized the idea of lady vampires being extremely sapphic, with an arguably genuine romantic affection for her female victims. She's got well-deserved clout, basically, and like Dracula has been adapted countless times and reinterpreted in some excellent ways. My favorite screen Carmilla is Ingrid Pitt's take, which captures her fierceness, passion, and tragic nature so well.

2. Amy from Fright Night

Ok, we're having one Lucy Westerna knockoff on this list, but as Lucy knockoffs go, Amy is one of the best. It actually helps that she spends 90% of her movie as a human, because we get to know and love her so much before she turns monstrous. And once she does...

It is pants-shittingly terrifying. I will never stop raving about the vampire designs in this movie - they made their "game faces" so fucking monstrous and I feel like in a better world this would be the standard ever since, especially since they still gave the vampires pathos while making them so ghastly when they've got their feeding faces on.

3. Drusilla

Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a bunch of vampire characters, and to its credit they did a decent job of making the ladies just as distinct as the gents. Harmony and Darla could both have made this list, but my favorite was always Drusilla, who was so traumatized before she became a vampire that it kind of overwhelms the demon spirit inside her. Like, bare minimum thing to make a lady vampire more interesting than 90% of other female vampires in fiction: give her at least one personality trait, preferably an interesting one, outside of being a vampire. Drusilla's fun, and she survives the entire series after dumping her boyfriend to be a single female vampire. Good for her.

4. Ruby from Scary Godmother

Ok look I am a fake Scary Godmother fan but kudos to the artist of the books for making a lady vampire who's very clearly of the nosferatu mold and is also explicitly benign and sweet. A+ vampire lady character design. I hope it doesn't awaken anything in me.

5. Nadja

What We Do in the Shadows is excellent at finding new takes on vampires in general - it even made me actually like Psychic Vampires as a concept, a feat I thought was impossible - but goddamn do I love Nadja specifically. She's got a distinct personality as vampire ladies go, being very confident and self-assured while also being a complete fucking goober (it is a comedy, after all). She's perfectly capable of being terrifying AND hilarious, often at the same time. A vampire girl failure, in the parlance of our site. I love her.

6. Lady Dimitrescu

I know that she's apparently only in a fourth of the game, but it's still pretty great that Resident Evil 8 decided its mascot villain - its equivalent of the Tyrant, G, Nemesis, etc. - would be the hottest woman I've ever seen a milf an 8 foot tall lady vampire. She's not dainty and willowy like most lady vamps in fiction - not an ambush hunter - but rather HUGE and capable of tossing a human around like a rag doll. She's a physical powerhouse and she looks fine feminine while doing it. Despite being an unabashed blood-sucking monster, she still has enough depth and complexity to have important relationships (like a genuine love for her "giant mass of hive mind flies" daughters), and also she gets to have an awesome transformation into a fungal vampire dragon, which is rad as hell. Also goddamn, her fashion sense is immaculate.

7. Hecate from Hellboy

"Hey, she's not a vampire! She's a goddess! That doesn't count!" Fuck you, my list, my rules. Hecate posits herself as the progenitor and mother of vampires, she drinks blood, and her main form in the comic is as a sicknasty lamia version of the iron maiden used by Elizabeth fucking Bathory, if she doesn't count as a vampire, nothing should. She is the concept of a vampire amped up to maximum capacity, a major mythological figure and an awesome villain.

...also I lowkey shipped her and Hellboy when I was a teenager. They could have made it work!

8 - 12. Carmilla and her girl squad from Castlevania

I suppose I could have counted Castlevania's Carmilla as an adaptation of Miss Karnstein - they're both basted out of Styria, both sapphic, and it's clear she's meant to be an adaptation of the former, just as the Dracula of this show is meant to be a take on Bram's famous vampire. But ultimately they're VERY different characters in the grand scheme of things - Castlevania's Carmilla has none of the tenderness and vulnerability of her literary counterpart, instead being full of barely restrained fury. She is an excellent villain, complex enough to be interesting but thoroughly despicable enough to make it VERY satisfying when she bites it.

I also love her girl posse... in concept, at least. They've all got great designs and the groundwork of interesting characters, but of the the three, only Lenore, the waifish redhead, gets to do much of note. The two on the edges kind of just show up for a few scenes and then bail before the plot catches up to them, doing very little of note - though at least the big hunky one gets one of the coolest fight scenes in the whole show.

Back to Lenore though - she gets a really nice character arc, and manages to become one of the few sympathetic vampires in the series (while still doing a lot of monstrous shit - she is not a defanged vampire by any stretch). I think her death scene is one of the most moving moments in the series finale.

13. Seras Victoria

A good female vampire has at least one non-vampire part of her personality, right? Ok, so, Seras is:

the muscle in almost every scene she is, which is to say, the one absolutely beating the shit out of people while her allies run for cover

the perky henchman/morality pet of one of history's greatest monsters

the sole ray of sunshine in cast of edgy, cigar-chomping grizzled mercnaries and antiheroes she's been pressganged into fighting alongside

the victim of some HIDEOUS trauma even before her vampirization

the protege of a wise master who gets a full hero's journey arc, taking up his mantle at the end of the series

Like, I love her. She's the secret protagonist of Hellsing. She's got layers like an onion. The scene where she killed Zora Blitz reminded me why I love anime.

(yeah it's the TFS version fuck you)

14. Youko Shiragami

My Monster Secret is not a horror manga. It is a romantic comedy about a bunch of idiots trying to keep painfully obvious secrets hidden and succeeding only because almost everyone around them is as dumb as they are, just in very different ways. It is a manga where an entire chapter can be summarized as "all the characters race to get the last McRib, using their various supernatural abilities to try and cheat their way to the front of the pack." It is one of the funniest and most heart-warming stories I have ever read, one of my favorite romances of all time, and an excellent piece of long form story-telling.

One of the two main characters is Youko Shiragami, a vampire girl who can't let anyone know she's a vampire or else her dad will pull her out of school. She desperately wants to have a normal life with friends and, like, school shenanigans, but her fear of people uncovering her secret and hating her is so immense that she's been isolating herself from everyone, accidentally torturing herself by being close to what she wants but unable to actually have it.

At least, until Kuromine, the other main character of the story, discovers her secret while trying to ask her out on a date. He ends up promising to keep her secret, and the two of them form a real friendship that blossoms into a very sweet romance, where Youko gets to display all her incongruous personality traits that go against what you'd expect of vampires - namely, that she's kind of a ditz, with an unrefined style of speech and a complete inability to be suave and seductive. She's a sweet, flaky goofball with a big heart, who just happens to drink blood and tan really quickly in the sunlight. There is no other vampire like her, and the world is richer for her being in it.

15. Marceline, the Vampire Queen

This list isn't ranked, but if it was, I'd put Marceline at the top. I think she is not only the most unique and deeply characterized lady vampire in fiction, but ranks right up there with Dracula in how she redefines the idea of what a vampire can be. Like, look at the forms she takes!

There are DOZENS of different monstrous shapes Marceline takes during Adventure Time's 9+ seasons of television, and any one of them would be a superb and memorable vampire on its own. And she's ALL of them. Just on a design standpoint, she is a standout. I think only Dracula himself could compete.

But she also explores what the concept of what a vampire is in ways no other vampire in fiction can, in part because of the unique nature of Adventure Time's setting. In a world where humans are an extreme minority and most people are weird monsters, a vampire isn't that odd, so we get to explore what being a vampire means divorced from the comparison to "normal" human beings. There's the expected tragedy to Marceline, of course - she's a 16 year old who has been stuck in that adolescent state for hundreds of years, and much of her character arc over the show (including the magnificent vampire-centric storyline, "Stakes") focuses on the horror of being stuck in that transitional state, not quite a child but not quite an adult. Marceline struggles to mature, to understand herself and others, and her vampirism both keeps her distant from reaching those goals but also gives her a lot of time to figure out how to approach them when the opportunity arirves. Marceline goes from one of the most immature and selfish characters in the show to perhaps the most emotionally intelligent, blossoming into a sensitive and thoughtful person she could never have been without first becoming a creature that seems so inherently opposed to ever having those traits.

And she did it all in a children's show where she was rarely if ever allowed to actually drink blood - a problem the writers got around by having her suck the red color out of things, which is right up there with the Joker Venom from BTAS in terms of genius ideas spawned by children's show censorship.

Marceline is the GOAT.

[nqmonarch]

Red Flags in HSR Characters

I have a problem of simping for the most red flagged characters except I can't handle red flags. Like violence makes me nope the fuck out of any relationship, I am so scared of getting hurt in any way, shape, or form. In real life I'm fucking terrified of being manipulated into being dependent on someone because I've experienced that shit and it isn't fun. Hate being insulted, degraded, all of that.

But the red flagged characters are just too cool???

Like Dr. Ratio, sure he's a pompous shit and would probably end up degrading you which I hate but he's so cool?! So I need to find some way to make him into this weird yellow flag without making myself into some super genius because no way is that gonna happen.

So instead put him in like a tutor AU, he's teaching you and when you get something wrong he gives you such a side ways insult. Like it takes a minute to realize it's an insult, it's worded in such a creative peculiar way. The second it registers you begin doing ten times worse on every question. It doesn't take long for him to realize that being told you're shit isn't inspiring to everyone. So he takes a... kinder approach. He's still a hard ass and strict but he's actively trying to do better and you can tell, when he starts a sentence suddenly stops and then brings that sentence in a completely different direction. You both end up learning. You end up learning the material and he ends up learning how to be somewhat better at dealing with people whose ideal day isn't being insulted.

Then there's the aeons. i simp for all of them, like how can you not??? Especially Nanook (using he/him pronouns for Nanook), Yaoshi, IX, and Aha. Now first off IX isn't a red flag IX is a lovely little black hole who I will defend with my life. But the other three??? They're as red as a stop sign.

Like sure, Nanook would probably destroy you the first chance he gets. Maybe Nanook is the destruction because he wants to be destroyed. I, I don't know man. Like he's so beautiful but how the hell do you even write romance with him? That isn't just like destroying the love interest.

Maybe he's had an insatiable urge to destroy everything ever since the dawn of his existence and he can't remember why. He's always been filled with rage, hatred, toward everything that's existed. Then he sees you and it all comes rushing back toward him. Your death, the hole it filled, the only thing that could really be blamed was the universe. It was everyone and everything's fault. So he would destroy it all to protect you.

Still a red flag but man I'm trying my best, no matter what Nanook will always be a red flag. Yaoshi on the other hand... surely there's a way I can make Yaoshi into a yellow flag after all they just want to help.

Yaoshi who would save your entire planet, heal every individual part of the ecosystem and every person, just to see you smile. They would ask nothing in return and instead remain by your side, enjoying the beautiful of the world. Then the mara strikes, people begin to lose their minds and themselves and you're left to beg them for a way to reverse this. But this is the price of life.

Yaoshi assures you that this is natural but they still watch on in horror as you inevitably succumb to the mara as well. Only then do they try to figure out how to fix it.

The further I get the more hopeless I become. Then there's Aha...

They probably found you entertaining at first, a human full of surprises and excitement, someone that could survive any trial. Then you grew on them a bit more and they found himself becoming attached. Aha wasn't supposed to be attached but this of course just makes an opportunity for more entertainment! Now they're actually invested and can experience the nail biting tension of all this drama!

Just another form of entertainment, it'll be a shame when you're gone though.

Then there's all the other beautiful red flags Ruan Mei, Jing Liu, Blade, Luocha, and Aventurine and Sunday seem like red flags as well even though they're not out. Like if bad to date why do I want to date?

Their red flags are a part of them and it's hard to work around it, so sometimes you just gotta embrace it. Life's rough man. In the end it's my fault for liking red flags. I'll just stick to Jing Yuan for now, peak husband material.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 407: Wait Why Are You Running Away

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan figured out how to control his quirk upgrade and was totally chill and normal about it. Definitely not terrifying at all. He actually spent the entire chapter smiling and laughing like the wholesome little boy he is. I don’t know why Kid For One is so freaked out about it. He even politely introduced himself using his childhood nickname. Clearly he just wants to be friends with you, KFO!

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “sorry to keep you waiting, here’s the AFO and Yoichi flashback you ordered at long last” and proceeds to serve a nightmarish stew of HUMAN MISERY and RATS and STABBING and CARNAGE and SO MUCH MURDER and THE SINGLE MOST FUCKED-UP CASE OF CODEPENDENCY ANYONE HAS EVER WRITTEN. I was not even remotely prepared for any of this, and if anyone else claims that they were, I will call you a liar to your face. If this chapter had a mouth it would scream. Or just sob, ceaselessly and uncontrollably. I’m really glad Horikoshi is on break next week because that man needs to take a fucking nap. My god.

okay WOW

anyone else read the first two words and just immediately say to themselves, “oh okay, so it’s gonna be one of those chapters”? I mean, I guess we were due for a darker chapter after last week’s Kacchan Comedy Tour. but idk, I just wasn’t expecting “homeless sick prostitute with a drinking problem” levels of dark

AND SHE’S PREGNANT?!

what exactly is this manga rated again? doesn’t this backstory seem just a little bit raw for the impressionable kiddos??

has anyone actually checked in on Horikoshi recently? you know, just to make sure he is okay??

what a fun and wholesome manga this is

the lil baby arm covered in blood with the AFO hole on the palm. lying next to the dead mom hand. what an image to sear into our minds. I guess it’s been a while since he killed any dogs. gotta keep us on our toes somehow

also wasn’t expecting AFO and Yoichi to be twins! that puts an interesting spin on their relationship, because it’s usually a closer bond than even regular siblings. especially with all of that delightful shared trauma from a young age!!

yes, exactly

ohhhh this chapter is gonna hurt me, isn’t it. okay. ooooooookay. let’s do this

OH I’M SORRY, THERE’S MORE?!

Horikoshi my dude. you do realize that their mom dying in childbirth and the two of them just barely surviving and growing up as street orphans would have already been MORE than tragic enough, backstory-wise. you did not have to turn this into a freaking horror show with RATS TRYING TO EAT THEIR NEWBORN SELVES jesus christ

and THAT’S where you chose to put a one year timeskip?!

what the fuck am I reading here, you guys. no please tell me, I am actually desperate to understand

so the narrator is saying that some of the quirks manifested later in life, in “pubescent and pre-pubescent stages”, which is interesting because it’s the first time I can recall hearing about someone actually manifesting a quirk that late. maybe Deku’s old OFA cover story was more plausible than I realized

anyway so eventually it occurred to everyone that they should maybe freaking study this shit, idk. and eventually the researchers concluded that the superpowers came from a new gene that apparently isn’t human. and upon hearing that, society apparently lost its freaking mind. which is fascinating to me because it implies that the turning point wasn’t actually the superpowers themselves, but the realization of what it meant

like, so they were apparently fine with it when they thought it was a “mysterious disease”, but somehow it hit different when they learned it wasn’t actually a sickness at all, but instead the Next Step in Evolution. and it became an “us vs them” thing, as opposed to a “we have to cure these poor people” thing. damn

anyway so now Japan is a dystopia and we’re cutting to a big crowd of merc-looking dudes who are getting ready to attack some “meta freaks”, how lovely

but who is this figure in the shadows

I ask politely, as if it wasn’t already beyond obvious that this is AFO about to wreck some people’s shit

ohhhhh my god lmao

hopefully Katsuki and Deku can take the present day AFO out before he winds up looking like this. because this little fella is clearly demonic and idk if anyone can stop him

you all don’t understand. you need to run the fuck away right now

oh shit it’s already too late for them

it’s too late for any of us. it’s over. it’s all fucking over

((((；゜Д゜)))

AFO I am putting the manga down. I am backing away slowly with my hands in the air. I mean you no harm. please for the love of god have mercy

holy

“you see, we told you he wasn’t human” okay Scientific Research Group, you know what?? you win this round I guess

“HE WAS LITERALLY EVIL FROM BIRTH” HORIKOSHI SERIOUSLY ARE YOU OKAY??

HE WAS BORN AN ARROGANT BABY is literally the most terrifying sentence I have ever read

what the entire fuck

it’s a gorgeous sunny mid-November afternoon outside my window. but no matter how hard it tries, the light cannot reach this place

what kind of moron would throw a can of soda at him. officially the stupidest person we have ever seen in this manga

OH MY GOD OF COURSE IT’S HIM LMAO

(ETA: how come baby Yoichi has clothes that fit him perfectly but baby AFO is just stomping around wearing a tablecloth.)

BABY YOICHI. OH MY GOD. HOW THE HELL DID YOU GROW UP TO BE SANE AND KIND AND GOOD. THAT’S MY QUESTION THAT I NEED ANSWERED RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE LITERALLY A MIRACLE. YOU ARE AN IMPOSSIBILITY, DO YOU KNOW THAT

small and weak, but also so, so cute. all of the cuteness genes went straight to him. no wonder AFO was jealous

(ETA: just want to press pause for a second to speculate about what type of twins AFO and Yoichi are, since it has some relevance to the story, and especially to the OFA/AFO quirk lore. so! at first glance the two of them would appear to be fraternal twins, just based on the fact that they have very different appearances, and also the fact that Yoichi doesn’t have the AFO quirk – no holes in his hands, etc. identical twins are born from the same fertilized egg, so in theory they would both have the same sequence of DNA, which means Yoichi would have had the same quirk as AFO. but that doesn’t appear to be the case. so all of that points to them being fraternal, not identical.

on the other hand, there is one piece of evidence in this chapter that does support them being identical twins, and that’s the fact that per the narration, AFO absorbed most of the nutrients from their mother. a few minutes of google fu informed me that this condition is relatively rare, and only happens in cases where two twins share a placenta, which typically is only the case for identical twins. HOWEVER, for what it’s worth, there have also been rare instances where two fraternal twin placentas fuse together and become a single placenta. AND this apparently also increases the chances of one of the twins gaining more of the nutrients and causing the other twin to have a lower birth weight.

so based on the evidence here, my conclusion is that the two of them are most likely fraternal twins with a case of placental fusion. besides, you can’t tell me that stealing his baby brother’s placenta while the two of them are literally still in the womb doesn’t sound like exactly the type of BS that fetus!AFO would pull, lol.)

HEY!?!

okay?!?!?! well to be fair he did throw that soda at him

oh my god this is so fucked up. in like the best and worst way possible

I genuinely couldn’t ask for a better AFO backstory. it’s so incredibly twisted, and you actually do feel sorry for him. or at least I do. but it’s also beyond clear that this kid was FUCKED UP BEYOND ALL REASON right from the get go. zero goodness in him. literally doesn’t see other people as people. sees them as possessions only. things to rule over. not other thinking, feeling human beings. and that includes his own little brother

but. even if it’s not actually what I would call love, there’s still... attachment, there. it’s the closest he can get to actually caring about someone. guh. just, somehow they have both managed to humanize him, and at the same time made him less human than ever. this manga, man. this fucking manga, though

lmao and here we go. Captain Hero

you know, all those times that I made fun of AFO for not knowing how to read, I never suspected that the twist in his backstory would be that he LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO READ dfksjdlfkjslkdf

but seriously though. because Yoichi appears to be self-taught, and I can’t see AFO having the patience for that, and CLEARLY no one else was around to teach him, sooooo...

oh my goodness it’s actually getting wholesome up in here

what a good fucking boy. poor AFO. fuck me, I can’t help it. it’s not your fault you’re the world’s greatest monster you poor bastard

now we’re cutting to THREE YEARS LATER. okay

is he going to declare war on the glowing baby

typical teenager concerned about nothing but likes and view counts. AFO you would be so much happier if you stopped worrying about all of that and just focused on your own growth

oh, lol. well that was quick

(ETA: r.i.p. Damien.)

“this guy had more instagram followers than me. so I killed him” honey. sweetie pie. you need therapy

omfg

all this time I was wondering who AFO’s middle school lit teacher was who had failed so spectacularly at teaching him reading comprehension. and it was YOICHI ALL ALONG. omg

“and, presumably, that’s how it always was and always will be.” dude. can you imagine listening to AFO’s oral book report on A Tale of Two Cities. “ahem. it was the Best of Times. the end” buddy noooooooo

it was at that moment when Yoichi knew, etc. etc.

oh my GOD I scrolled down to the next panel right after this one and I just IMMEDIATELY DIED LAUGHING

“WAS IT SOMETHING I SAID” ffffffffffffffff I fucking can’t omfg

NOW THIS HUSSY IS STEALING HIS BROTHER AWAY FROM HIM NOOOOOOO

HE’S HIS!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!!!

oh my god the hands. so wait, is this just the standard symbolic BnHA handholding, or are there More Levels To This. when exactly did Yoichi pass OFA on to Kudou. like is that why the sudden close-up and all that? omg

WHAT!!!!

OH THAT’S THE END, HUH? THAT’S THE END RIGHT THERE, AND THAT’S JUST HOW IT IS. I SEE. OKAY THEN. EXCUSE ME WHILE I PUT MY LAPTOP DOWN AND GO INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND SCREAM INTO A PILLOW

oh my god. and break next week too. this is what you guys have been dealing with this entire time huh. I understand your feelings now. godfuckingdammit lmao

[witchofthesouls]

So this is based off of my own personal medical experience as well as my mutual love for aliens being terrified of humans (aka Humans are Space Orcs)

We set the scene as follows; TFP Megatron and Soundwave having a human mate who is pregnant and due. The problem? Hybrid baby is having trouble coming out ‘naturally’ and has to be delivered via a C-section.

To describe a c-section accurately, you are pealed like a literally onion - layers being cut to reach your organs and uterus. Despite popular belief, your organs are not taken out during a c-section but they are moved aside in order to reach the baby. Once baby is taken out, organs are still there as they should and mama is stitched up. It’s by no means an ‘easy’ surgery both during and after for recovery.

I picture both holoformed Soundwave and Megatron supporting wifey and one of them (probably Megs) takes a peak behind the cover and sees his wife’s organs and baby possibly being yanked out and at the most probably pales (most dads either vomit or pass out).

I would like to add in some culture clash to go with the "humans are space fae/orcs" vibe we got here.

I'm thinking it's a post-war TFP au, so it makes sense how there's humans and Cybertronian medical personnel in this shindig.

For some reason, the newspark refuses to detach themselves from their latches inside the womb, even as it contracts in a vain attempt to evict them.

26 hours later and no progress in stage 2, the human carrier getting a C-section to fish out the barely six-pound metal infant as staff figure out how to manually detach the nutrient connective tendrils.

It takes the infant a moment to find their voice, but they do and don't like the cold air! Wailing their displeasure to everyone around.

It's not the worst Megatron and Soundwave had seen, but they're in the middle of stoically grieving that it came to this point, and they have no idea how the human will take it because the human wanted a large family-

Until, still high and exhausted from the entire ordeal, the human carrier blurts out to give them a year or two. Part to heal and part to psych up for another 2.5 years of pregnancy because it's the other mech's turn to spark a new one.

The Cybertronians get a crash course on how humans are able to repair internal damage to a certain extent, which includes their equivalent of a gestational chamber. It's a wonderment to them because surgical intervention during an active carriage is the Cybertronian equivalent of a hysterectomy.

The C-section scar gets a lot of attention from Megatron and Soundwave. It's their favorite scar.

(And because Megatron is the one that initially sparked this one, it's a girl.)

[inuhodo]

Dan sighs, putting a hand to her face. She doesn't miss that she's keeping her fingers grouped—the index and the middle, the ring and the pinky.

its an honest job making the prothean cipher affect shepard more but its a living! minific the excerpt is from below the cut

Dan doesn't understand herself, sometimes. It's a terrifying feeling, because she's used to understanding herself and her motivations—she has a theory about herself that she won't share—but she's at a loss here. The Captain's quarters of the Normandy let her sit and consider this wrongness as they make their way to Noveria, at the very least.

Feros was… Difficult. Dan would have preferred to have washed her hands of every colonist there if it meant solving the problem faster, but that's not how it worked. She had to fight tooth and nail to knock them unconscious and make sure everyone survived. It meant more time with the spores everywhere, more time with the growing headache, more time with that damn plant.

She doesn't think it's the plant's fault for her wrongness, either. She wasn't in the colony long enough to be effected like that salarian, and Chakwas cleared everyone that was outside for no ill effects. And yet, Dan sits, staring at her hands.

How many fingers does she have? Five fingers, which she knows to be the correct amount a human should have, but it feels unwieldy in a way it never has before. She has to remember that she can move each finger independently.

Dan sighs, putting a hand to her face. She doesn't miss that she's keeping her fingers grouped—the index and the middle, the ring and the pinky. She wonders, then, if this feeling of what she can only describe as some sudden onset of body dysmorphia against the shape of a human was caused by whatever that asari had beamed into her brain.

So, protheans had three fingers, incredible. Humans have five.

Dan forces her fingers apart, curling each one individually. Five, she repeats internally. Five.

[a-local-idiots-shitpost]

Mc makes Origami for the Brothers

Original

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucifer:

you made him a tiny peacock

he did not acknowledge it other than a thank you

which is his usual refusing to show how he feels

because he was incredibly proud of you, doesn´t matter if it looked perfect or not

it also got a place on his desk in his room

and if anyone touches it or tries to take it, they will get hanged and/or eternal house arrest

he won´t ask for a second one but he will gladly take another one if your planning to make more

Mammon:

he got a heart made of money

which cause a horrible internal conflict for Mammon

on one hand he will cherish it forever on the other hand he´s the Avatar of Greed and saving money isn´t really his thing

best thing would be if you just made him something new

I mean it won´t help him with his former conflict but it will distract him long enough

and he will have the bragging rights that you made him not one but two things!

and he will definitely try to get more and if you made some casually some may or may not get lost and magically make their way in Mammon´s room

Leviathan:

he got a surprisingly accurate paper Henry (the Fish not the Snake or the actual Henry from TSL or a figure of you based on his nickname for you)

and he did at first think you once again stole Henry

and he was terrified because Henry was out of water

he was very relieved when he found out it was just a well made paper Henry

he will get even happier when you only made him something and if you made something for his brothers…

I mean he IS the Avatar of Envy so it isn´t hard to imagine

but if he get´s more than his brothers or his look nicer he will be happier, still a jealous little shit but a bit nicer than before

Satan:

you made him a Cat but also a little paper figure that´s supposed to look like Lucifer

he loves the little paper cat more than anything, doesn´t matter if it´s just vaguely cat shaped or a really good looking one

he would die and kill for it

he would also make you something

I mean Origami is a calming activity so it wouldn´t surprise me if he does it or at least tried it once

he would definitely want you to make a second cat so his won´t be lonely

the paper Lucifer was for Satan to let his anger out on it instead of the real Lucifer

it was pretty much destroyed after the first day though

Asmodeus:

you made him a very cute Panda

he loves it more than anything and it will definitely be featured on his Devilgram

and good luck to anyone who says it looks bad

Asmo will destroy their social life

he would really love it if you made more things for him

or if you both made something together

he would really like it if both of you could do something with just each other

also will take a bunch of you doing Origami together

for the most part to make everyone jealous because he get´s to spend time with the best Human in all three realms and he wants to remember as much of the time just the two of you spend together

Beelzebub:

originally you were thinking of making something food themed but knowing he would eat it he got a tiny Sheep

and he was a bit disappointed at this but he would have definitely eaten it and be disappointed by the lack of taste

it would have still tasted better than some things he ate

he really loves his sheep though!

he also wanted to make Origami with you and Belphie

but he tried to eat the colorful paper… and sometimes what he made

but it was still fun

and you did manage to finish some things

Belphegor:

also a little Sheep

you have to stop him from falling asleep with it

because it would get destroyed

he also tried to make Origami with you and Beel

but his problem was that Origami is a rather calming activity, he is the Avatar of Sloth and you were trying to stop Beel from eating all of the paper

yeah he fell asleep as soon as you were distracted

when he woke up he was covered in little paper flowers

he just smiled and fell back asleep

[actual-changeling]

i think it's funny that whenever i post something about aziraphale not caring about individual humans—only humanity as a concept—the ONLY counter argument everyone always throws at me is 'he gave his flaming sword away'.

mate.

that was six thousand years ago. LITERALLY fresh out of heaven, to the only two humans in existence, who were the entirety of humanity at that point.

let's look at what he's like in more recent years, yes?

ah yes, telling a person living in an alley that her girlfriend is going to hell with a smile. what a kind person. and the wonderful follow-up which sounds like it is straight out of some conservative, capitalistic asshole's mouth.

and fun fact, someone like that has said THOSE EXACT WORDS to me at some point.

crowley asking the real questions here like always

but hey, that was 1827, maybe he was just having a bad year. or decade. or century.

what about the present day? see, crowley is terrified of gabriel and hates his guts, but do you know what he does? he answers his questions very patiently. he is kind. once he realises gabriel isn't pretending he makes him hot chocolate and tries to help him remember, he empathizes.

aziraphale's patient is non-existent. he yells at him immediately, gets frustrated with the most simple questions, refuses to interact with him and leaves crowley with him after crowley told him "what i NEED is for him to be nowhere near me". how considerate. but hey, maybe he was just having a bad time.

job! he was kind in job, right?

except that he doesn't care about job losing his house, his farmstead, all of his animals being slaughtered and only has a problem with the children dying; which he then tries to rationalize away with his fucking "that's not what god wants" shtick.

meanwhile crowley already has plans to protect the animals AND the children AND job and sitis as best he can.

the flood? perfectly alright to drown everyone, including innocent animals and children! it is god's plan, and what do a few humans mean in god's great big ineffable plan, huh?

then again, he doesn't show much empathy for god's son either when he's being nailed to the cross. french revolution and people being beheaded? oh yes, sure, dreadful—anyway i'm just here for the crepes, the dying humans are just background noise, let's not do anything about that even though it is literally my fucking job as an angel. but noooo. he got peckish and then had lunch. what a fucking hero.

'accidentally' killing a dove because he just had to shove it up his sleeve for a magic act.

someone getting shot and dying? because i was careless? don't care. anyway.

armageddon and all of humanity dying? don't care either until i realise what i personally would lose and then i suddenly give a shit.

centuries upon centuries of aziraphale piling up money and he rather terrorizes poor people than entertain giving them a single dime. crowley has to remind and talk him into it, and as thanks he gets dragged down to hell and tortured.

aziraphale is dripping kindness, isn't he? and all of this doesn't even take into account the ball—human puppet show for his own amusement, this is supervillain shit and you know it—or all the other times he ignored human suffering so he wouldn't be personally inconvenienced.

and ALL OF THAT does not take into account how fucking horribly he treats crowley before time even existed.

aziraphale is not unkind. on a big scale, he cares about humanity, he cares about being nice, being good. he wouldn't intentionally harm someone, but he does not care enough to not be careless—he IS careless, and does NOT care if it kills creatures or humans.

his own personal wants and comfort trump everything else, and that is canon, it is text, it is fact. if you have any canonical examples of aziraphale being genuinely kind simply to be kind, not to be selfishly altruistic, please do add them, i'm serious! if you think i'm wrong, prove me wrong. everything i just listed exists in canon, so please, do the same in return.

giving his sword to adam and eve six thousand years ago does not magically erase everything that came after and it does not give him a free pass to behave however he wants, no matter the cost.

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

im such a big fan of the linda public school vs homeschool debate i think its a really interesting conflict, because obviously roman was homeschooled and it wasnt really beneficial towards him (which virgil could probably sympathise with regarding all of his mortal friends being terrified of him briefly), BUT also trying to tell logan or even patton that public school is the best option for their fae child is so obviously gonna be a problem, and then even when roman saw how logan was treated he didnt see how young it started and how much it was ingrained in him that he was wrong, and virgil didnt really see any of the worst of it so trying to commicate why its such a concerning idea is going to require bringing up some unpleasant things. but ALSO linda is not logan ((is it fair projecting his experiences onto linda or by trying to protect her are they gonna cause a complex anyway where she internalises being fae is wrong?)) or roman or patton or virgil and either choice could be uniquely beneficial or damaging just based on how she responds to her environment, which is impossible to actually determine without some trial and error, and id bet good money they dont want to risk the "error" part at all

just a very cool and interesting debate i feel, i enjoy how everyone has so many reasons to be so emotionally invested

thank you so much, you get exactly the vibe i was going for. the dichotomy of roman and virgil who were so so lonely as children due to isolation, versus logan and patton who were so hurt because of bullying, putting them in two very different camps as to what's best for their kid, makes it SUCH a hard conversation to have. they pretty much start having it the moment she's born and it continues for the next two years, and its the closest to genuinely angry they ever really get with each other. because theyre all really stubborn, but they rarely disagree on something this important so vehemently.

compounded by the fact that they dont yet know if she's going to age more like a fae or a human, and that being a visibly-6yo in middle school would theoretically make that issue exponentially worse

tentatively, im thinking that she will be homeschooled until she goes to college, and also that thats kind of one of the reasons why she doesnt do as well as she hoped. she had structure (in a house full of autistic people, you bet she had structure) but also a lot of freedom over dictating that structure, and the freedom to deviate from it when she needed to (in house full of ADHD people, you bet she was allowed to go run around in the yard whenever she needed a break).

so in college the combination of 1. less structure in the sense that she has less support network and people to hold her accountable and 2. less freedom in the sense that you can leave whenever you want in college, but the class doesnt stop and wait for you to come back, means she doesnt have the skills to make it really work for herself, especially compounded with the fact that she's emotionally much less mature than her peers

and that fucking sucks, for her and for LAMP. because you can debate for years, and you can do your best, and you can do everything right, and your kid might still wind up with baggage because of something you did. something you did and believed in your heart of hearts was the best thing for them.

the world is big and full of sharp things and you cant actually wrap your kid in bubble wrap. the bubble wrap is also full of sharp things, in this metaphor that immediately ran away from me.

all you can do is just keep stocked in bandaids, and hold their hand while you put it on.

[beatrice-otter]

I'm so confused by your perspectives. So if you joke about right wing politics you could potentially normalize it to yourself or to others so just don't talk about it, but you can't do that with what you read on ao3, it's "just fiction." Make it make sense

One of my problems with antis who want to censor stuff is that having to fight back against censorship means it's hard to talk about the nuances of what a person chooses to read or say or write or watch, without it being twisted into "and that's why nobody should be allowed to do it and everyone who wants to is a pedophile so we should control what people are allowed to say and read!" So here's some nuance.

All words matter and affect the people who read and say them.

How they matter and how much they matter varies dramatically from person to person, and in any individual case you can't tell what that impact is going to be or control it.

The things that have the most impact are pretty much always going to be the things with a large driving force of the dominant culture behind them, or a complete social circle that you can be absorbed into advocating for those things both in fiction and in real life. In other words, while the things you read and say affect you, the people around you affect you a lot more.

"I said this" is much more effective at training your brain than "I read this."

"Pay attention to how you joke about things that our society counts as normal" is very different from "nobody should ever be able to read/write about certain topics."

Here's an example. When Jaws came out, people were terrified of sharks. The amount of shark killings--sharks killed by human beings--skyrocketed, and remained high for years. People saw a movie about a scary shark, and generalized it to "all sharks are bad and should be killed." Which was broadly in line with the message of the film. But note that it didn't result in a similar backlash about the other message of the film, the ways in which people are endangered by politicians and businessmen who care more about profits than people's lives. Why? Because "sharks are bad and dangerous" was already part of the larger culture, and "politicians and businessmen endanger people" had a lot of cultural weight both for and against, so there were cultural forces preventing people from taking that aspect too far.

Here's another example. Finding Nemo also had a huge impact in real life, but in that case the impact was inspiring people to do the opposite of the message of the movie. The message of the movie is clear: keeping fish in aquariums is cruel and evil, and something only a villain would do. But a lot of people saw that movie, went "wow, tropical fish are cool!" and completely ignored the message and went out to buy an aquarium with tropical fish in it. There was a huge spike in pet fish sales. Why? Because keeping fish in aquariums is a normal thing to do, that a lot of people find interesting, and there is no widespread cultural idea that keeping fish is bad, and so most people who watched the movie did not notice the messaging, and if they did notice it, they shrugged and ignored it because it didn't fit with the way they saw the world.

When we talk about problematic things in fanfiction, we are not (by and large) talking about things that our culture has normalized. Like incest or the Hydra Trash Party. You could read three incest fics a day for the rest of your life, and write one a week, and unless you had real-life friends who actively talked about how incest was good, you would be vanishingly unlikely to change your opinion about it.

When we write and read fiction (whether fanfic or not) about things like incest, it's very rarely about "incest is good, actually!" It's usually either "wow, incest is a fun kink to imagine in a safe space where there's no chance of it happening in reality" or "this is a thing that happens in real life, and it's devastating and awful, so let's explore that." Or even just "wouldn't it be fucked up if ..." The human brain is complicated. It's common to have fantasies about things that you absolutely would NOT want in real life. Fiction exists partly because it's a safe space to explore those things. Yes, that has an impact on the person reading it and the person writing it ... but that impact is usually catharsis or getting off or something, and not inspiring you to be more approving of that in real life.

Even if you're reading it on a fairly surface level and not engaging with the themes or stuff like that, it's still usually long and complex enough that the act of reading it requires at least a little bit of thought and nuance. It takes time. There's a lot there to notice, and the things that stick out to you--the things that affect you--might be totally different than what someone else might expect. You can't predict how any given individual will react or what they're going to take away from it.

Jokes, on the other hand, tend to be short and pointed. There doesn't tend to be much nuance. Either you find it funny, or you don't, and if you find it funny you're a lot more likely to have your hindbrain normalize it, because it is shorter and simpler.

What you say impacts how you think much more than what you read does. There's a reason that when people try to brainwash prisoners of war or whatever, they don't require them to read propaganda, they require them to write and say it. Because the brain is not good at compartmentalizing "I said X" from "I believe X." You may know on an intellectual level that X is wrong, but if you are saying it, and also hearing it from the people and culture around you, your gut is likely to accept X as true.

Right-wing jokes have a lot of cultural weight to them in real life, and a lot of people genuinely believe that they are true. If anything is going to slip through your defenses and affect you, an "ironic" right-wing joke is much more likely to do so than a Hydra Trash Party story on AO3.

Note that I am saying "hey watch out, this is a thing," and not "people shouldn't be allowed to do it" or "people who do this are secretly all fascists deep down."

I'm not calling for censorship, or harassment. I'm asking people to be wary of a larger trend in our culture and letting them do with it what they will.

[i-guess-im-into-this-now]

The Apothecary Diaries

First watch of first episode

At a glance, I knew I would like this show, but after one episode I'm pretty sure I'm going to love it.

Btw, do y'all like it when people give their first impressions of your favorite shows/books/media? Or their thoughtful analysis? Or their shit posting?

I do. I'll try to do that for you here.

So I'm watching this on Crunchyroll with English dub. Right off the bat I can tell you that I'm in love with Maomao. The voice actress is terrific, but also the character is intriguing. She draws you in right away with her intelligence, competency, inquisitiveness, daring, sense of responsibility, need for justice and expansive caring for every including strangers. She's got a whole lot of A+ character traits to absolutely love. Considering she wants to keep a low profile in the palace that's going to be a problem. I'm pretty sure everyone in her orbit is going to be sucked in by her and either love or hate her. There isn't a lot of room for indifference with a person this interesting.

The very first scene I knew there was something atypical about this show because a charming conversation between a daughter and her father suddenly had a black and white still frame of the the girl being abducted. The hell?!

That paired with the next scene taking place in a brothel helped me grasp the tone of this show. This show is going to have some more mature themes. Now, I know, I'm ready for it. I think. (I'll be alright as long as there is no boiling of people. I've already had two shows I've watched this year cook people and I'm done with human soup).

So we see a courtesan ask Maomao without surprise:

Have you been wounding yourself again?

To which Maomao replies, as if it's obvious:

Well, yeah.

Okay so self harm is something Maomao does. Perhaps in service of her medical research, but if she's willing to harm herself for this, then she might also be willing to put herself in harms way under other circumstances as well. I think the show is trying to demonstrate that she's self sacrificing here. Love that in a fictional character.

She panics and runs when the brothel ladies tease her about becoming a courtesan. Why? Is she intimidated by intimacy? Has she witnessed the courtesans suffering? Is she afraid that future would derail her own plans? Does she always get this flustered when teased? I'm not suggesting she consider becoming a courtesan but her panic is telling of something more.

She immediately gets kidnapped, which due to foreshadowing we knew was going to happen, but what gets me is her blasé attitude about it. Like it's just an inconvenience and not a terrifying ordeal. I immediately thought they would sell her to a brothel, but she instead ends up doing laundry at the palace. So we learn that Maomao can stay calm in a crisis and this makes me even more curious about her reaction to the teasing by the courtesans.

We find Maomao settled into a life of servitude at the palace. She's accepted what happened even if she is unfulfilled. She misses her old life, including the brothel, wonders about her father and longs for meat screwers, but she's already figured out the ecosystem she's in and how best to navigate it. She's so savy here. She compares the palace to the brothel and applies her knowledge of that complex social system to navigate palace politics. Maomao has already analyzed what would happen if she revealed her competencies, and has decided to lay low until she is able to extricate her self in a couple years.

She tells the viewers what we need to know about harem life and mentions that if one isn't careful they could end up as a concubine. It's a future she wants as little as that of a courtesan, even though she mentioned that low ranked concubines are treated better than the servants. I have to wonder if this is foreshadowing or if it is commentary on the roles of women in this society.

Palace gossip! Oh there's a handsome new eunuch in the palace? Maomao couldn't care less. Well okay.

I'm going to make a few completely unfounded predictions here just to see how far off I am when I watch the rest of the series.

Regarding the hot eunuch:

He's not a eunuch. He's got all his bits and bobs.

He's not just a palace manager. At least not completely. He's probably a bastard son or royalty in hiding or something. He's not nobody.

Maomao is going to be down bad for this dude.

What a waste. Grade A quality genes and no way of proliferating them. -Maomao on Jinshi's appearance

So Maomao can't be bothered to spare a second thought about handsome eunuchs, or nonsense about curses, but medical ailments? Now you've got her thinking. And I love that about her. She knows how to diagnose and treat ailments and she cares so much! She's trying to lay low but her passion and integrity can't be tempered by her very rational plan to protect herself by staying inconspicuous. She knows how to help and feels a responsibility to do so even if that help puts her at risk. Hero qualities right there.

Also, I love a character that is just... better than every one else. Maomao is more informed, experienced and able to diagnose than the court physician. Competency porn yes, please!

Speaking of competency... We need to talk about Jinshi! Our handsome "eunuch" (he's getting that word in sarcastic quotes until I receive proof otherwise). Out of the 3000 people living in the back palace, he deduces which one of them sent a warning to the concubines, and rangles a confession with nothing more than a scrap of cloth. He observed Maomao muttering about needing something to write on, and her mended skirt. He recognized that scrap of cloth as belonging to a servant girl's clothing. He understood the importance of her literacy and cleverly used it as a means to draw her out. Jinshi is every bit as capable as Maomao, and he's out maneuvered her in this. Maomao has met her match.

To Maomaos horror she is promoted to lady-in-waiting and I am here for it! Girl you are in the shit now! She seems really panicked about the new promotion, because she is smart and knows that this new position is fraught with dangers even if she doesn't know precisely what they are. She seems pretty smart and capable but the fact that Jinshi was able to so easily draw her out and expose her means she will need to sharpen her skills. I'm hoping the concubine and Jinshi will be allies to her in the palace.

Her panic about entering the court reminds me of earlier in the episode when she ran from the brothel. Perhaps she fears becoming entangled with any type of social/political group? Does she have more secrets that she's trying to keep hidden?

I just know that this character is going to be put through some trials. But she has so many great qualities and strengths, that I'm confident she can adapt and overcome. I am looking forward to watching her persist and triumph. And maybe cause a little trouble.

There are some qualities that Maomao just can't mute. Curiosity. A thirst for knowledge. And a sometimes troublesome need to right that which is wrong. - Narrator

Episode 2