#… it’s weird knowing to the core of my being that I care about that family so much and the few times I’ve seen them I’m so excited and then

[trash-bin-ary]

… how does my mind decide what is too much to post on here like I deleted one about not having a mental map of my elementary school at all and not remembering big parts of it,,, oh, siffrin moment it was me admitting I struggled to remember the friends/people I hung out with often I had then. That’s what I decided was too far but now that I’ve worked through that and joked about it it’s chill to say, god damnit that one post isn’t the first post again

[fairuzfan]

This post is for the anon who sent me that video asking me to debunk it's claims so they can be better equipped against accusations of antisemitism.

Sorry, I won't post the video since I refuse to have that man on my blog but I can give you common Zionist talking points and the illogicality behind it.

To preface: most of the questions Zionists will ask you are a trap, and will make you fall into a "rabbit hole" (as I was once told when I was younger), as we try to apply their reasoning. My advice is to ALWAYS center the humanity of Palestinians. For example, when a Zionist says:

"Don't Jews deserve a homeland to be safe?"

It fundamentally ignores the core issue: Palestinians are being raped, murdered, and expelled from their homes so that the establishment of this so called "homeland" may exist. When people ask this to you, I personally advise saying something like:

Why must Palestinians suffer for the establishment of this homeland?

Always recenter to the issue at hand—the inhumane removal and treatment of Palestinians.

"Palestine belongs to the Jews and Not Muslims"

The whole premise of this claim is flawed—there is a weird tendency to equate Arab/Palestinian=Muslim when it just is like. Completely untrue. There are Palestinian Christians, Bethlehem is famously a Christian city, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Jews, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Muslims, who have been there for centuries. My grandpa told me stories of how he would turn on lamps for his Jewish neighbors in Al-Khalil (or Hebron) during Shabbat.

To claim that Palestine is EITHER Islamic or Jewish doesn't make any sense and completely neglects the fact that dissemination of culture has occurred for centuries, as well as the intermingling of people throughout generations. To somehow assert that for some reason, Jews and Muslims did not have ANYTHING to do with each other—did not create together, did not build families together, did not build culture together, all while being PALESTINIAN—is incredibly racist and nonsensical. "Palestinian" is not a religious identity—it's a cultural and ethnic one.

Also, it does not negate the core issue—Palestinians are being killed, removed, and tortured so that others can live on that land.

"Well what about [something about partitioning land]?"

Honestly like, who cares about the partitioning throughout the 1900 and early 2000s. Sorry, I'm not going to list the whole "partitioning" history nonsense. The whole reason "Israel" exists is because of a Mass Exodus, murder, and rape of Palestinians. Everything after that is rendered obsolete.

"Well, I heard Palestinians allied with Hitler"

I don't know how to tell you this but Palestine was under British Control. No they didn't.

"Israel withdrew from the Gaza and left them to themselves and they put Hammas in charge"

Oh yeah, Israel totally left Gaza, that's why Gazans' water, electricity, internet, and food is completely controlled by Israel (this is sarcasm, Israel still controls basic life in Gaza).

Go back to centering the idea that no human deserves to be shoved into an open-air prison, starved, and controlled. Did you know that the Zionist Entity controls the amount of water Gazans receive, as well as counting their calories to ensure they don't have enough energy on a day to day basis?

"I heard Israel asked Arabs to stay"

Show them these papers and videos when they say this:

If you can't show them these videos, check in the next point what to say.

"Well the Palestinians left of their own will in 1948"

Palestinians in 1948 didn't "leave." They had heard of how the Zionist Entity was slaughtering Palestinians en masse. Women especially heard stories of rape and sexual violence. They fled from *violence*. Again, from an earlier post, that this was a calculated effort on the Zionist Entity's part to try and get them to "leave" on their own and "abandon" their houses so that they can come in and say "hey, they left on their own so, we can come in and take their houses now."

Anyways, the idea that once you leave your house you can't ever come back to it is incredibly odd to me as an argument on Zionists' part. Like if you leave your house right now to go to the grocery store and you come back and see someone in your house and they're like "sorry dude, this is my house now, you left so that means you can't come back," you'd be like, "what the hell!" It would be even weirder if everyone agreed with the guy who took your house, which is what happened to Palestinians.

In Al-Khalil, or Hebron, Palestinians always have to have someone stay in their house or else a Settler will come in and take it from them. So it still goes on today as well.

This is not a point, but when that one person in the video said "Arabs lived under Israeli rule" and showed a clip of a bustling city with mountains, I'm pretty sure that was Amman, Jordan, not Palestine lol. Those buildings in the mountains look like how downtown Amman builds the residential areas. Could be wrong tho.

"There are no Jews living under Palestinian rule in Palestine"

What is this, some sort of gotcha argument? What are they trying to prove, the racist (obviously false) notion that Palestinians hate Jews as a whole? How do they know no Palestinian Jew lives in Gaza? Also, Settlers in Palestinian Territory exist??? I had never heard this claim before, its incredibly stupid lol. You're automatically a citizen of "Israel" if you're Jewish, whether or not you live in or outside of Palestinian Territories. So of course technically they don't live under Palestinian rule, they're granted full rights as an "Israeli" citizen automatically!

Go back to talking about the inhumane treatment of Palestinians, I wouldn't bring up the above counterpoint unless they really won't let it go since the main point is mistreatment.

"Why are Christians supporting Israel then, if it's a secular issue rather than a religious one?"

Well actually for a couple reasons:

Oil interests and regional control of goods (White People Supporting White People).

Weird fundamentalist ideology where they want to enact the second coming of Christ.

And finally because they are racist and don't think Arab Christians deserve to live. They literally bombed a 1500+ year church the other day. Why would (White) Christians cosign that.

Anyways, its a stupid argument again, because it forgets the core issue of Palestinians dying and being displaced.

In summary, always go back to the point of centering the Palestinians being displaced, tortured, and murdered, no matter the argument a Zionist gives you.

[colourstreakgryffin]

I saw you're taking Hazbin hotel requests so I thought I'd shoot my shot! So reader is a young boy who also died around Alastor's time(Early 1930s) . He's so confused and overwhelmed by how fast everything is progressing. So when he hears Alastor humming/singing a song from the 1930s he feels a sense of comfort and familiarity. Bonus if it also happens to be their favorite song! Take your time and you're amazing!

Oooh! Fourth Alastor request and I am having such a great time with this! This man is so fun to write for! After I finish here, I am gonna go cook some Jambalaya then pop it into my pentagram and summon Al so he can cook me!

Alastor- Night & Day

Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom…

when the jungle shadows fall

like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock

You don’t recognise anywhere you are… this place. It’s hot, dark, dangy and uncomfortable. There’s nothing here resembling Earth and it’s shaking you to your core. Not having the strength nor confidence to move anymore from the alleyway you were just dropped into upon arriving here from the pentagram in the dark sky. Everyone is too much for your young mind. Well. Other than that, those lyrics…

As it stands against the wall

Like the drip drip drip of the raindrops

When the summer shower is through

So a voice within me keeps repeating you, you, you

That song is a symbol of comfort for you. Night & Day by Cole Porter. Something your mother use to sing to you every night before bed, the sound of pretty rain hitting your open window as that beautiful sweet woman would sing over and over again, all without it growing repetitive, until you fell asleep. Having wonderful dreams all the time

Even though you’re scared out of your mind, you begin to walk out to the streets. Packed to the brim with all kinds of weird-shaped adults but you avoid most of the them, weaving through this thick crowd to find the source of the soothing lullaby of your whole life and the voice singing it. It sounds dapper, transatlantic, if not an old radio. Is it coming from a radio?

Night and day, you are the one

Only you beneath the moon or under the sun

Whether near to me, or far

It's no matter, darling, where you are

I think of you

It felt like a game of cat and mouse. Running around to find where that wonderful singing is coming from and it feels like the person is constantly teleporting, no adult should be this frustrating to find. Or, you’re just too overwhelmed from being dropped into literal Hell to even realise your coordination skills are as dropping as you did. Your mind is racing to come to terms with what’s going on

This isn’t New Orleans at all… and not a single trace of your parents around. Are you alone? No. No. You don’t want to be alone, you’re too young to be alone. Is everybody here too evil to care about a literal child Sinner being stuck on his own and having to fend for himself in ways he doesn’t know how to…

By all the unholy gods. Somebody help

Day and night, night and day, why is it so

That this longing for you follows wherever I go

In the roaring traffic's boom

In the silence of my lonely room

I think of you

The loud noises of talking, of the wall of built-in weird flat devices screeching and echoing, the patter of footsteps. It makes you want to hide away and sleep to try shake off all the distress and overwhelming feelings you are being tormented with but that song is way too recognisable and comforting for you to ignore so you just keep pursuing it

Maybe, it’ll be pointless and the singing source will be from a Radio of your year but it almost feels like the song is organic and from a person. That means there is an adult of your time here. A man from the 1930s, Hell, he may be somebody of your family! That’d be wonderful and your hopes are high that when you do find the source, it’s somebody you’ll get to embrace and talk to

Day and night, night and day

Under the hide of me

There's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me

And this torment won't be through

Until you let me spend my life spreading love

A flash of bright red crossed your eyes when you finally had managed to shakily but stubbornly and determined, pasted through the big careless and if not almost hypnotised by the running TVs crowd, and continued down the road in half sprints. Following a array of melodically humming, recreating the beat and rhythm of the song as it seems the source is quite invested in such a song

It felt like forever following a mere sound across the city’s streets but there he is. The source of the singing, he’s so close that you can finally reach a arm out and take his hand to catch his attention

Day and night, night and day—

The man instantly mutes his singing. He is tall, in a nice fancy coat with long hems at the bottoms, with a pair of what seemed to be tall deer ears on the top of his head and his pale face branded with a permanent toothy grin, he looked both menacing but yet friendly. Turning around to face the nine-year-old Sinner running around the Pride Ring’s own Pentagram City’s streets to chase the source of a song of familiarity and now has chased and caught his hand, Alastor reacted rather friendly and understanding to be presented with a child of his own era

Leaning down to be kneel before this young confused on-the-verge-of-crying boy, the Radio Demon says smooth and curious with that same radio effect almost overlapping his charming transatlantic accent, placing his free hand on your little shoulder

Something about Alastor reminded you of a popular figure from New Orleans you’ve met before

“Greetings there, young man… tell me, where are your parents?”

[yumeka-sxf]

An analysis on Anya (an Anya-lysis!)

As promised in my Twiyor season 1 wrap up post, it's time for me to give Anya time in the analysis spotlight – an "Anya-lysis" if you will! (yes, I've been waiting to make that pun!)

*I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I felt that splitting it into two would have hindered the flow of the analysis, so I kept it as one long post. But I promise it's not as long as it seems...the high number of images make it seem longer!*

Before I get into my analysis, I wanted to preface this post with a fantastic quote from @incomingalbatross, who perfectly describes the unique role Anya has in the series.

"Realizing that Spy X Family really is The Anya Show to me, and not just because "oh look, cute baby child" but because Anya is the center of the story. She has so many secrets resting on those tiny shoulders. She is juggling so many agendas. She's the one who knows everything and her choices drive the plot—she chose Twilight, she chose Yor, she chose Bond—and even when you look at the other characters and their relationships she IS the star they orbit around! Twilight and Yor's relationship is built on their shared care for Anya! And more than that, at the core of it all, Anya's goals are the ones we're invested in.

The center of this story isn't the superspy trying to do his job, or the assassin trying to do hers. It's the little girl who said "FAMILY" and pulled the building-blocks of one close around her with all her tiny strength, and everyone else in this story keeps being moved and changed and redirected by the force of Anya's attachments to her family.

And at the same time she is SO SMALL"

While Twilight may be the protagonist, and Yor the deuteragonist, Anya is definitely the main character in Spy x Family. Not only would there be no "family" without her bringing Twilight and Yor together, but her status as the main character is quite unique among shonen series, or even media in general.

Typically in stories where a little kid (like, below the age of 10) is the main character, either the majority of other major characters are also little kids, or the kid's main purpose is to be a cute comic-relief foil for the adults. But while there are kids Anya's age in SxF, the other important characters in the plot, namely Twilight and Yor, are not. So rather than the typical scenario of the main kid character constantly being surrounded by and working off their fellow kid characters, Anya is more often interacting with her adult parents. And it's not just for cutesy moments and comic relief – the true heart of SxF is about a fake family that could any minute be destroyed, with only little Anya being aware of this grim reality and doing everything she can to keep things together...all without the ability to be truthful with anyone, not with the adults or her fellow kids. While her parents are each secretly fighting for their own vision of world peace, Anya is too…the "world peace" of the family she doesn't want to lose. It really is a one-of-a-kind scenario for a little kid character.

But having such a special main character role doesn't necessitate a well-written character. But in Anya's case, she definitely is. In fact, I think she's the most well-written little kid character I've ever seen.

Too often in media little kids are portrayed as being overly cutesy, overly bratty/whiny, and/or act much older than they should. A key factor in making a little kid character believable is that you can't just make them cute and/or emotionally immature...they have to also be weird. Anyone who's spent time with little kids knows all the weird stuff they say and do because of their less restricted child brains and ignorance about the world. A good example of this is Lilo from Lilo and Stitch (another well-portrayed kid character). The movie does a good job showing all the weird habits Lilo has, like the bizarre origins of her favorite doll, the freaky voodoo stuff she does to the local bullies, and how she totally buys the fact that Stitch is a dog. Likewise, Anya has tons of little endearing weirdnesses, starting with her wanting a spy dad and assassin mom simply because she thinks it's "cool," to the funny lingo she develops like "ooting" (odekeke) and "ohayou-masu" ("happy morning," a.k.a, an adorably incorrect way of saying "good morning"), to thinking it's acceptable to give George a leaf as a parting gift (then wanting it back later), to her comical remarks whenever she thinks Loid and Yor are being "flirty."

Another realistic aspect of Anya's character is the fact that she's not super-smiley and overly cheerful/bubbly like many other main character kids. Not that she doesn't smile and can't be cheerful, but her default expression is a look of uncertainty or wide-eyed cluelessness, which makes sense considering her upbringing (I'm talking about her default expression in canon, not in merch or other marketing as characters tend to always smile in these even if that's not their usual expression – just look at Yuri's merch!) Most of the time when other characters are talking, she looks perplexed, like she isn't sure what's going on but she's really trying to learn/understand.

These expressions make more sense to me than a child who smiles all the time, because she's at an age where she still doesn't understand the right emotions to feel at the right time. A fantastic example of this is when she punches Damian – her face is totally blank! No anger, no fear, no embarrassment...because she still hasn't learned the proper emotions to feel in a situation like this.

All she knew was what Yor told her and that she was bothered by Damian's attitude. In fact, the iconic smug smile that she shows in that scene is the result of her not knowing how to properly react when faced with bullying (cry, get angry, etc).

Similarly, she has a very bored expression when all the kids are upset about George's plight, as if she doesn't really get what all the to-do is about. This also creates good contrast to how the other Eden kids from their rich families were probably forced to grow up fast, and thus act more like 8-10-year olds than the 6-year olds they're supposed to be. Meanwhile Anya, who's supposedly younger than them, stands out with her more childlike mannerisms.

This all makes sense not just because she's still a little kid, but because her view of emotions has been skewed by the fact that she can read people's minds. So she has to not only learn the socially proper way to react to people's actions and words, but also when she should, or should not, react to what's on their mind. I believe this is why she has such a wide variety of expressions compared to the other characters – her mind reading has forced her to experience way more emotions at such an impressionable age, though not always with enough context and guidance to identify when they're socially acceptable to express.

There are way too many examples of Anya's incredible range of expressions, so I'll just have to pick a few!

Put all this together – her childlike reactions to situations, but with a twist because she can read minds, plus her endless array of comical faces, and you have one of the funniest characters I've ever seen.

Because Anya has such a wide variety of expressions, and her default expression is that of uncertainty, there's a lot more meaning when she does smile. The shining smile she has when Loid praises her for getting a stella, when she plays with Bond for the first time, and when she meets up with Becky after their shopping trip, have a lot more significance because that's not an emotion she expresses all the time. Since happy/cheerful isn't her default mood, the emotional impact of scenes where she does smile is all the more stronger.

Likewise, considering her age, Anya isn't much of a crier either. Having a kid character burst into tears and throw temper tantrums is common, but the amount of notable times Anya has exhibited this behavior is relatively few. She did have a tantrum early on when Loid stopped her from going into his room and when she demanded that Bond be her dog…but those are the only notable cases in my opinion. She has shed tears here and there, but again, not a significant number of times. Similar to the scenes where she smiles, when she does cry (in a non-comical way), like when she's reminded about her mother at the Eden interview or when she's finally reunited with Yor after the bus hijacking, it has a lot more meaning.

Another common trait for little kid characters is that they're usually a representation of total purity and innocence. While Anya doesn't have the same dark ulterior motives and immoral occupations that the adults have, she's not shown to be a complete angel either. Even though good intentions are what drive her, she can be a manipulator, mischievous, and even cocky at times, like when she insists on being called' "Starlight Anya" after getting her first stella, when she was being overly competitive with Damian after the bus hijacking, when she was joking around on the bus after finding out the bombs were fake, and when she almost attacked Bond after he chewed up Penguinman. But all of these examples only serve to make her a more fleshed out character as opposed to just being the cutesy, happy series mascot all time.

Obviously because of her mind reading powers, she manipulates the adults around her all the time, but again, there's never any malice involved…it's clearly the result of a little kid doing everything in her power to keep the happy family she's created. And due to her mind reading ability, she's learned to be much more proactive than reactive – she knows what people are going to do before they do it, and what their intentions are without them saying it. This has allowed her to become resourceful way beyond her years, which has led to her saving the lives of both Twilight and Yor on more than one occasion.

One emotion Anya does have an abundance of is empathy. Typically children don't start to develop empathy – the ability to understand and relate to the intentions and feelings of others – until a bit past Anya's age. But because of Anya's ability to read minds, it makes sense that this part of her development would take priority over something like proper speech and school smarts. Her empathy extends to all the adults around her, her fellow kids, and even animals. While a lot of her empathetic actions stem from her need to help keep Twilight's and Yor's identities secret and thus maintain the peace of the Forger family, there are many examples where this isn't the case and she's simply acting out of nothing but concern for others: comforting the Eden cow because she understood it was scared, worrying about the well being of the Project Apple dogs, leaping into action when she heard someone drowning, and comforting Damian when she knew he was scared during the bus hijacking.

Even when identity reveals aren't at stake, she still comforts Twilight and Yor when they need it, like when she thought Twilight had a nightmare after his backstory reveal, and when she knew Yor was concerned about Loid's relationship with Fiona.

The bus hijacking was a prime example of Anya being empathetic, but not to an unrealistic degree. She empathized with Billy enough to diffuse the situation, but not on a deeper level because, again, she's a little kid. She understood he was upset, but she didn't have outpouring sympathy or deep, introspective thoughts about his situation – that's something an adult would do, not a little kid who's still learning what emotions to feel at what times. What she eventually does is something that makes perfect sense both for her personality and age. With some great resourcefulness on her part, she was able to figure out what she had to say to manipulate Billy the right way, but at the same time she was playing it by ear and basically clueless as to the depth of the matter, yet mustered up all the courage she could…typical Anya.

There are a lot more examples like this of Anya's sense of empathy, too many to list. But the bottom line is, although Anya does use her powers to manipulate people to benefit her own situation and those she cares about (who can blame her?) it's clear that even at such a young age, she's a genuinely good girl who wants to help others and do good in the world, even if she's too young to realize it yet. Not unlike her parents, really. I think we'll be searching a long time before we find another 1st-grade aged character as awesome as Anya.

[potatoofdefiance]

My two cents and a rant on the allegations and Good Omens

(I will probably regret this later)

This has been eating at me for a while now, ever since the news broke that Neil Gaiman was a sex pest (see infamous TERF-adjacent podcast by Tortoise media) and I have been consciously and unconsciously ruminating over it for weeks now, so here goes.

I think the news of Neil Gaiman hit me harder than I was expecting, and certainly harder than I would have liked.

I didn’t (and certainly do not now) consider myself a “true fan”. I was never a hard-core fan, one that goes to signings or book fairs or cons to meet my favourite author. Partly because I never latched that much on any of the authors of the books or movies I loved, and partly (maybe for the best now that I think about it) because I never had the money, or wasn’t located in a geographically favored area. Meaning I never lived anywhere near wherever events with Neil Gaiman were happening.

So, with all this in mind, how is it that the news managed to hit me so hard?

I thought (read: ruminated) about it, and I think it is because of Good Omens. And the latest times. In my life, and I think a good chunk of other people’s lives too, these last few years have been a roller-coaster. You choose which particular scenario the roller-coaster is set into; mine is on fire, running through a sea of shit and we are being slapped by gooey flaming eels hard in the face.

Maybe someone might enjoy this. That someone isn’t me.

But the point is: I have been struggling. With my life, with a mental health condition, with the world and my place in it.

Enter Good Omens. In an effort to actively expose myself to “nice” stuff, stuff that would, if not make me feel better, at least make me laugh, I started tapping more into the fandom.

I’m not a fandom person. Again, never latched onto anything that had a fandom big enough (where are the Ann Halam fans? No one is making cosplays of Sloe from Siberia, are they?).

But with Good Omens, it seemed perfect for me. I wasn’t invested so much, it didn’t make me feel like I was “lacking” something in order to be part of it. I just felt like I didn’t care enough to really be vulnerable to it, I felt like it could have been a nice innocuous hobby.

But that’s the point. Thinking it was innocuous made me let down my guard enough to actually fall in love with the fandom. Fall in love with those two weirdos of characters (which by the way, I’ll say this now: I think Aziraphale and Crowley as portrayed in the series are more a product of fans and Tennant and Sheen than they are a product of Gaiman and Pratchett. And this is not a bad thing per se, I think, but let’s give credit where credit is due).

And let me be clear: I gained so so much from joining the fandom. It has positively affected so many seemingly unrelated parts of my life, and I’m so grateful to so many kind strangers on the internet who have shared such wholesome art with me, and have gifted me so much, that even putting it into words is simply not enough to explain all of it.

And one of the results of this “wave of wholesomeness” is I also started following Gaiman more closely.

Like so many, I loved Coraline. Gaiman seemed a genuinely nice person. An old guy who had wisdom to share, and who seemed to be fascinatingly non-stereotypical? If that makes sense. What I mean is that he was everything my father warned me against. A goth, weird, a writer therefore an artist (and in my family we know artists are fools who end up on the street jobless and homeless). And yet, to me now he seemed such a normal guy. Yes maybe someone who enjoyed that fashion style, but otherwise very far away from the usual excess of a rockstar. Of course I was too young when he was at the peak of his rockstar years. English is not my first language, and when he was 40 I was in elementary school and just learning about him, and you know, they do not write about his fans passing out at signings or his groupies on the back cover of children’s books.

What I mean is that I didn’t have access to all the media and information about him.

So I start seemingly connecting to this writer, whose works I have enjoyed for the most part, and who seems such a nice guy in how he interacts with his fans and people in general. Such an inoffensive, kind person. And kind seemingly to everyone.

I started liking him. To the point where I remember telling my partner: you know, Neil Gaiman is someone I’d take a coffee with (which in Italian culture is one of the greatest honors one can give you. Having a coffee while sitting at a café and chat for hours is what good friends do).

So, in my mind he had a special place now. He was someone I started to admire and look up to.

And this is, I think, where it hurts. It hurts because even if I wasn’t personally victimized, I never met him, he never acted creepy with me, he doesn’t even know me, it still felt like I, as part of the fandom, had been used for his clout. And also, it hurts to feel like someone you trusted because of how they presented themselves has lied to you.

And on top of that: it is so fucking disrespectful. The fact he thought he could get away with it. With hurting so many people (one is one too many by the way), and causing so much pain, while also enjoying crowds of adoring fans, both online and in person.

I find it personally difficult to reconcile my love of the GO fandom with all of this right now. And I think it’s for a number of reasons.

Firstly because the silence of institutions and people around these facts has opened some old wounds and made me angry again towards a system that I perceive as hostile towards me and people like me who might be vulnerable.

What I mean is: I know that Gaiman is a powerful person, and a lot of people need to bring money home and are tied to contracts and what not (yeah I’m looking at our favorite two male presenting british actors here) and I understand it. I do. And this is exactly why this stuff makes me angry again. Angry at the whole shitty system we live in, where if you happen to be in some kind of power imbalance you might end up having to eat shit and shut up while witnessing violence against you or others and not being able to utter a word about it. This sucks. It makes me angry. It makes me angry that Michael Sheen, someone I like to believe would be among the first to shout “I BELIEVE THE VICTIMS” if he was talking to friends at a bar, likely has to shut up and play nicely because Darth Amazon has some fucking clause written in Braille somewhere that says he has to sacrifice his firstborn if he ever dares to suggest he doesn’t like anyone related to the franchise.

It makes me soooo angry that we stay in the dark, and we only know from those people who are brave, and powerful enough to speak up about something that (allegedly) has been known for fucking years in the writing community. That this person was a creep. That he was treating people, mainly women and non-binary folks, if not bad, at least poorly.

And you know, this makes me even more angry because I have been in such shitty situations too! I was a victim of a system where exploitation and borderline abuse were normalized in a work setting.

And it wakes something deep in me to read that “it was an open secret bla bla bla” and again: I understand why people set up whisper networks instead of taking these giants down. I understand it. It still makes me angry because I simply do not want to live in such systems. Systems where I’m either the sacrificial lamb or I’m the one tying it on the table, or handing the axe over to the butcher, or a witness who has no power to stop the suffering.

I don’t want to live in such a system. But I have to. In my real life. I have to put up with so much shit sometimes, shit that makes me feel like I cannot stand up for my values because hey, I need to pay the bills too. And Good Omens was one of those few things where I could escape a bit into an alternative reality, where everything could be a bit better.

And I’m sure the fandom is still like this for most of the fans. I have witnessed first-hand how supportive and cheerful this fandom can be.

For me though, it still makes me think of all this...tsunami of shit.

I want to be able to enjoy the silly fanart, the memes, the wait for season 3 again. But I can’t. I can’t because my brain does not work like that. Good Omens still means Neil Gaiman too much to me. And I cannot go around talking cheerfully about Good Omens while feeling like I’m feeding into the clout of someone who used their power to coerce vulnerable people. Because (and I might be wrong) it feels like the message I’m sending is: my comfort show/book is more important than your pain or your life. And I can’t. This is not the truth.

I feel for the victims. Probably I feel even more than it would be healthy for me, or normal. But I don’t know, I feel like I connect to them. Maybe because I’ve been a victim of abuse perpetrated in clear power-imbalanced relationships, or because I felt like nobody cared about me and my wellbeing for so long, that eventually I stopped caring too.

And it is bad. It’s dehumanizing to a point where you really start believing you don’t matter. Your wellbeing doesn’t matter. There are more important things.

Ok so, I don’t want the victims, the survivors, to feel like this. They matter. They matter to me because if there’s one thing that is going to re-ignate the sacred fire of defiance in me is being able to stop this self-feeding cycle of self-loathing and misery. You matter. We matter. Vulnerable people who have been hurt matter to me. If there is one thing we can do to resist these systems of oppression and these people who abuse their power, that thing is believing that the people they hurt matter. If not more, at least as much as them.

And the way I show myself and others that the victims and their lives matter to me is by distancing myself from Neil Gaiman and his works, at least for now.

I feel bad for people who might have found themselves unwillingly tied to all of this. I feel bad for Sheen and Tennant, for all the wonderful artists and craft-people who have put so much of their work and love in Good Omens and I don’t want to let them down.

My two cents are that season 3 will not be canceled if they see there’s enough traction, and definitely won’t be canceled unless fans start a crusade against it, which won’t happen most likely.

The fandom loves Tennant and Sheen too much, and these are too much nice people to really hold a grudge against them, so I don’t think it will be canceled.

I’m afraid we (I say “we” meaning everyone who loves Good Omens) will be “held hostage” by Gaiman in the sense that he knows season 3 is not going to happen without him, so it’s either “we” or the majority of “we” behave, or it’s not going to happen. Which again, I don’t think he would lose the opportunity to make some money, and he also has contract duties to fulfill, but it still is worth it for him to try to leverage his power.

I wanted to end this rant on a positive note, somehow. But I don't know exactly what to say. Recently one of the things that has brought me laughs and joy has been the Channel 4 series “We are Lady Parts”.

In one of the episodes they quote a very beautiful poem, which came back to mind when I was listening to Claire (the latest woman who has come forward with allegations) on the “Am I Broken” podcast.

The poem is Speak by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, I will paste the version from the show, because I think it’s very powerful and beautiful.

Speak, for your two lips are free Speak, for your tongue is still your own This straight body still is yours. Speak, your life is still your own.

See how in the blacksmith’s forge flames leap high and steel glows red, padlocks opening wide their jaws. Every chain’s embrace outspread.

Time enough is this brief hour Until body and tongue lie dead. Speak, for truth is living yet. Speak, whatever must be said.

[aroacenezhaanddainsleif]

when I played Caribert, I was pretty disappointed about the lack of impact Dain seemed to have on Kaeya, honestly. during Kaeya's hangout, he didn't mention the weird cryptic blond dude who just dropped family lore once, which I thought would have been pretty important?

but in truth, I think Dain actually had a HUGE impact on Kaeya.

we can all know that from Kaeya's personal lore and former events that Kaeya had very conflicted feelings over his duty to Khaenri'ah and his love for Mondstadt, even with his estranged relationship with Diluc (which now seems partly fixed?), but in the performance route of Kaeya's hangout, Kaeya makes his choice.

The story of Prince Qubad is a very, very thinly veiled metaphor for Khaenri'ah all throughout, and then we finally get to the end scene of the play:

Kaeya: When I departed my beloved home to fight in a foreign land, I did so to honor his (my father's) wishes and for my duty to our people. Kaeya: alas, is this fate's grand design… that I should spend the rest of my days in a foreign land, till I am laid to rest in a grave far from home? K: Must it be so…? K: my dear audience, I ask you this: do you believe in fate? if fate decreed that your life was to end in tragedy, what would you do? Traveler: I would challenge my fate, and rise above it. / I would bravely face my fate. K: then so must it be! I shall discard this intaglio, and rid myself of the shackles of fate. G: my dear prince, do you intend to betray your father, and abandon your heritage? K: fate means to send the machinations of war to every corner of the land, to fan the flames of conflict til they engulf the entire world…

K: fate would see my sword tainted with the blood of innocents, that the bright banner of my homeland might fly in every nation known to mankind. K: but I shall not bow to the will of fate. I am no pawn in heaven's plan. K: I, Kaeya Qubad, will spend the rest of my days in a foreign land, til I breathe my last in a place far from home. K: but I must walk this path, or freedom dies by my hand. goodbye, my tribe and kin. farewell, sweet land of my birth.

after a lifetime of questioning his role, Kaeya makes his choice for Mondstadt. and I think this happening after meeting Dain isn't a coincidence. (and no, not in a soulmate way or shipping way- this is Kaeya's moment of choice, not infatuation.)

after not only learning the history of his origins, Kaeya meets a Khaenri'ahn who... doesn't want to return Khaenri'ah to its glory days? who is more focused on helping others and minimizing damage than causing more for his own gain? who chose his path and has not budged since, even through loss?

Kaeya gets to see someone who is so Khaenri'ahn, so human at his core, someone who cares not for the fate and tragedy of their nation. Kaeya gets to meet someone from his homeland who tells him to leave it all behind, who tells him he should take the chance he has been given at his own life; who actively discourages the idea of Kaeya being a fated "prince" or being indebted to Khaenri'ah.

even though he never said it, I think meeting Dainsleif helped Kaeya choose his own path, which is all Dain ever truly asked of him, anyway.

good for Kaeya.

(i understand that i used "ship" tags but those are more for visibility and duo name than anything else. idm if you ship them, i just request that your tags do not turn my analysis post into a ship post, pls! :)

[paintedkinzy-88]

(So sorry i feel like im spamkmg yoyr ask box but i just rotate this au around in my brain like microve)

So i was checking out the posts linked through your coi au master post, and this part:

Did this this cut more deep than Donnie intended? Like does Leo still think about this one line even months past? Like does he think, as hes going on his nightly falling/flying sesions how his brothers couldnt even think of leaving april behind but didn't hesitate to leave him behind

Meanwhile donnie and bros dont see it that that. They see leo as equal, even without wings, they never once thought of it as leaving him behind. Because hes their brother, theyd NEVER leave him behind.

But then that got me thinking... did they accidentally like ACTUALLY leave leo behind that first night donnie made his wings. Cause i can see donnie and the ither two being caught up in the joy of flying together for the first time, maybe going too fast for leo to keep up on the rooftops, cementing the idea in his head that his bros dont need him.

This is long winded lol i just got angst on my mind 😭

Spam me all you want!! I may not be able to promise I’ll get to every ask I ever receive, I just don’t have that time, but I CAN promise that I see, read, and overthink everything anyone sends me (ง’̀-‘́)ง So send away!!

As for your question: Absolutely, yes, that moment struck Leo down to his core — but not like. Personally. He knows Donnie didn’t mean it like that! Realistically, he understands that his brothers/sister care just as much about him as he does about them. They’d never purposefully leave him behind!! At the end of the day, he trusts that, should he ever get seriously knocked down, his family would turn right back around to help him get back up.

But he still has a MAJOR barrier that he sees between them. One that Donnie AND April are now able to literally fly over. And now that he’s outnumbered, that wall feels even higher than before. He’s not alone, not ever, but it certainly feels like it sometimes…

And all of that is exactly why he doesn’t want to say anything. He not only feels a little silly to have this impossible dream in the first place (his hoard is literally birds and butterflies and shit, that’s so weird and pathetic, isn’t it???), but he doesn’t WANT them to worry about him. He doesn’t want them to turn tail and come back just to make sure he’s keeping up with them. He can’t hold them back like that!

It’s better to pretend he’s on the same level, train himself into the ground (even literally if that’s what it takes) to prove he’s on the same level, make them focus on his stellar swimming skills that are (to them) on par to their flying, than for them to ever realize that all he’ll ever do is look up at them from below.

Also, yes, after Dee made his first fully functioning flight pack, they all went on a quick flight around the city. April was the one to suggest they move it to the ocean so Leo could at least keep up with them and cheer them on…

[naarlar]

Okie so hot take: I don’t think Melinoë is as good of a protagonist as Zagreus. And here’s why.

It all comes down to motivation. Why did Zag go through the events of Hades 1? Because he was living in an abusive and volatile household and had to find some way to make things better for not just himself but his house. Otherwise he surely would have lost his mind having to deal with the abuse he got (remember at the beginning of the game basically only Nyx and Achilles were helping him. Everyone else is either neutral towards him or outright hostile). He needed answers, he needed to find out who and what he was by trying to find Persephone. And in the end he succeeded and was able to create a better life for himself and his house. Hell, even his relationship with his dad improved.

Now let’s look at Mel (yes this criticism is only addressing Early Access Hades 2). Why is she going through the events of Hades 2? Because… she’s been groomed since basically birth to kill Chronos. She doesn’t really have any other motivation than because it is what is expected of her essentially. She even says during her confrontation with Chronos, AFTER HE THREATENS TO HURT HER FAMILY, what do I care I barely know them (yeah sure she could just be bluffing to Chronos but that is still a very chilling thing to say when supposedly all of this is to save them and it makes her reunion with Hades lowkey ring hollow or weak). In another scene she even says the same thing to Hecate and says Hecate is more her mother than anyone else. Heck even in the flashback scene with young Mel and Hecate (which was very cute I’ll admit) she says she would want her mother to come back so Hecate isn’t sad. This makes all her motivations to kill Chronos and save the Underworld seem very… disconnected from the main component of the game? Being saving the house of hades and her family??

Like it’s expected of her and she was raised at birth to basically be prepared for this but she doesn’t have any personal reasons for doing any of this than just not letting Hecate and the others in the Crossroads down. Hell when she comes back from killing Chronos for the first time it honestly feels like Hecate is more interested and invested in what happened than Mel herself.

It makes her a really weird protagonist especially when comparing to her brother and how effective he was as a protagonist. Think about it, with Zag we got really in depth and character revealing moments where as the player we understand why he is doing all of this and so it is easy to go along for the ride because we like Zag and want to help him. Mel says she cares a lot about what is going on and wants revenge, but it all feels surface level (and which is understandable she doesn’t know these people, all she can say is “the titan took my family” when let’s be real she sees the people in the crossroads as more of her family). It honestly just seems like because she is expected to kill Chronos since she could think, she feels she has to do all this. It feels weird how she is disconnected from the core point of the game being to save the house of hades when Zag was so integral to that same core point in the first game.

I dunno, just my thoughts, I’m curious to see what everyone else thinks.

Edit: just fyi cause I feel with the comments I’ve been getting from my posts, I like hades 2 I am excited especially for the official release. I recognize my criticism/analysis could be wrong or out of date since the game isn’t finished yet. These are just my initial thoughts.

[hellosweetart]

I’ve thought of another route after the asylum ending: where Francis develops schizophrenia after Nacha and Anastacha cut him off. I’m no mental health expert but after doing a bit of research this is what I could come up with so if there’re any inaccuracies, my bad. Francis is completely isolated and locked up in his white room. He’ll never see his wife and daughter again after he kidnapped them and forced them to love him. When they told him they don’t love him anymore, it ultimately broke him. He can try all he wants to escape but he’s all locked up. And now his spirit is so broken that he didn’t have the will to live or find them anymore. Francis spends the rest of his days crying, calling out for Nacha and Anastacha to come back to him or lie down on his bed in a listless catatonic state. Francis won’t eat or take his medication even if the nurses ask him to.

He will create a world where he’s still with his family again, before everything went downhill. He and Nacha are still in love, she fully supports him and cooks him his favourite meals. Anastacha still loves him as a father. He still gets to hug her and say “I love you to his family.” He will create scenarios where they all lovingly spend time together like the park, the pool, the beach, anywhere as long as he gets to spend his every waking moment with them. What Francis isn’t aware of is that he’s actually all alone and that he’s just talking to the walls.

The psychiatrists and detectives observed Francis’s strange behaviour of hearing voices, talking to himself, his catatonia, etc, however since mental health care wasn’t the best so I don’t believe they know how to deal with it. During Francis’s sessions with his psychiatrist, if they try to shatter his perfect delusions, Francis will break into hysterical sobs and will frantically attack his psychiatrist shouting, “No you’re wrong! My wife loves me! My daughter loves me! We’re happy together! I know they love me! We’re in love!”

Francis’s memories will get blurry but if his psychiatrist questions Francis about his past or show something that will trigger any of his awful memories like a pot of hot tea or cigarettes, Francis will become more unstable and will have a mental breakdown, shrieking in fear as vague memories of his father abusing him or his mother psychologically abusing him comes back. Once again the medical assistants have to restrain him.

Eventually, Francis’s delusions would evolve to him regressing into a time when he was still with his mother. Even though his last memories with his mother was traumatic, he still held some love for her and Francis wanted to go back to a time where his mom still loves him.

“Mommy…mommy…” Francis muttered like a sad little boy asking for his mother’s affection, “Mommy…I’m tired… mom…can I ask for a hug… dad’s being cruel again… mom… can you tell me a story…”

He would go from crying fits to happy childlike giggling and vice versa. Soon his delusions would combine where all the three people he loves the most in his life come together as one happy family. He wouldn’t have to experience sadness and loneliness again as long as he has his mother, wife and daughter with him. Sometimes Angus appears as this weird uncle figure/good friend because a part of Francis still cares for him in a morbid way. This shows who Francis is at his core. He was an extremely traumatised and lonely child who went through so much abuse that it turned him into a monster that hurts people yet buried his emotions deep within himself. Everyone in his life abandoned him, including his own family. If no one could truly love him, what else can he do other than create a world where he’s happy with the ones he loves?

After years of being locked up in his padded cell, Francis Mosses is no more. He lost any semblance of what’s left of his former self. All that’s left of him is an empty shell drowning in his own hallucinations and delusions of the comfort of his made up happy family. The doctors would either lobotomise him or wait until the day of his execution.

As the day of his execution comes, Francis will savour his final meal of beef stew and strawberry cheesecake as he cries because it’s tastes just like home, how Nacha made his meals, where he and his family would sit down to have a quiet family dinner together. When Francis is strapped to the electric chair, he could barely make out his surroundings but he thought he saw his wife and daughter at the front stands (and possibly Angus at the back). When the executioner asks for his final words, all Francis could say is, “Nacha…Ana…where are you? I still love you…” before finishing the job.

Angus could only hide the sadness in his eyes with his hat. Even though he’s angry that Francis got himself caught, he still sees him as a friend and a part of him misses him. Nacha and Anastacha are crying into each other’s arms for support. All of their source of trauma is finally over. Despite everything Francis put them through, they don’t truly hate them as they thought they would. They still felt some sympathy for him but nothing could put weight the grief they caused them. Both mother and daughter stuck to each other after the execution since they only have each other now and they’ll learn how to cope with this together.

~ SK Francis anon 🔪

This is definitely one of the worst and saddest endings of the SK fanfic. When he is hallucinating about his family, it reminds me of Alice: Madness Returns, there the protagonist created her own world of imagination.

I can also see that in spite of the trauma SK Francis had inflicted on them, there still part of Nacha and Anastacha that still care for him. They know its a wrong feeling but he has never been physically abusive to them, nor dropped his duty of being husband and a father. They are financially stable thanks to his hard work as a milkman. Its just that...his method of taking care of them is...suffocating. They don't have freedom when he's around. Meanwhile, Angus is weeping inside, not only he lost a companion on his business, but more importantly, his friend and ally.

It may take a looooolng loong way for Nacha and Anastacha to recover from the trauma. Its their life now.

Also, this is pretty silly and funny but can you imagine that during his execution, Isthar Ereskigal appeared and took away Francis.

"AH, my other lover, I finally got you!"

Of course Francis, in deluded state, thought Nacha is talking to him. "Ah, my sweetie. I thought I'll never see you again..."

People around are mortified to see a floating undead female monster took the one of the worst criminal in their century.

Nacha is the most terrified of the bunch because how much she looks just like her. Ana felt the same.

"YOU TWO ENJOY YOUR LIVES! HE IS MINE NOW! HAHAHAHAH"

Then poof, the monster is gone with him.

I am sure Ishtar will "borrow" a potion from Lilith that will make him into a literal monster in Astral Circle.

[citizensun]

Queerness and the House of Usher (spoilers!)

See I just added these Thoughts to the tags in @quecksilvereyes 's post but now I have Feelings too

TFotHoU (or HoU, as I will refer to it here), as expected from a Mike Flannagan show, has a bunch of Queer Rep™ to talk about. HoU is, also, about remarkably evil people - amoral capitalists who'll step over anyone if it means they'll get something from it. And look! Some of them are queer! Kinky too!

That's bad queer representation... right?

The show isn't that clear when stablishing sexualities, but we see that at least three of the Usher kids - Napoleon, Camille and Victorine - have same sex SOs/assistants with curious job descriptions. Prospero's taste for orgies probably implies queerness too, but honestly I don't remember if he gets it going with any guys in the story. I honestly have no idea about Tamerlane's voyerism thingie and Frederick is the only one with a "traditional family" going on.

Unrelated, but: Leo is definitely cheating on his bf Julius. Completely dismissing about his worries for him too. And for his cat. That's objectively evil, clearly. Vic literally killed her fiancée Alessandra, though she didn't stuff her under the floorboard, which is an L when compared to Poe's original. Cam doesn't believe in true love. Perry blackmailed his sister in law. Mean. He's also got a surprisingly high kill count for the family's disappointment, but since unlike Roderick he only killed rich people, we stan. I don't belong in Kinky spaces so I haven't got a big take on Tammie, only that - well, she's completely dismissing of her husband and sees him as a prop, just like the sex worker she hires.

Huh.

See, the nature of a story called "the fall of X family" is that X family is going to be the main character. The title kinda implies that they're falling for a reason, ergo, they're despicable fucking people. And they're queer! They're very queer. Many flavors of gay. They're the main characters, and they're monsters, and they're gay.

No, that's not bad rep.

Queerness as a movement, a community and a theory is very focused on scaping a cisheteronormative society's binaries (ie man/woman, husband/wife, public/private) and creating living conditions to those who fall outside of these categories - mlms and wlws, the trans, the nbs, the aros and aces... we are all queer, strange and estranged from this weird and limited worldview. And so we create a community for ourselves. It's very focused on care and anti-stablishment. Since a cisheteronormative society tends to be very white, rich and western, it's also focuses on anti-racism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism. Y'all know that, this is Tumblr and we love leftist Discourse.

I also know many, many gay people irl who are not like that at all. Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, terfs, completely apolitical people and the like. Sexuality at it's core is personal, not political, so there are gay people out there who are perfectly comfortable with their sexuality on an individual level but do not see the point of getting involved in the broader context. They're queer, but are they...?

Well—

Not to mention there's lots of asshole gays out there! Don't you have a shitty ex? Have you never been almost run over by a drunken butch who blew cigar smoke into your face? I have! Life experiences are just like that. Maybe you should touch more grass. You'll probably find a lucky gift from your neighbour's dog, who is an astrology-obsessed bisexual and also really hot but stopped making out with you at a party once she found out you're a pisces (the neighbour, not the dog).

(Granted, none of this is as bad as implanting an experimental heart contraption into the fiancée you just killed because she dared to have ethical principles and then being so consumed with grief you stab yourself in front you'd your dad but you know how it goes. We're not the 1%.)

My point is, queer people are people. We are complex. We fuck up, and sometimes there's still times to fix things and sometimes... there isn't. We're consumed by jealousy and regret and sometimes we're so locked into our own head we stop believing the rest of the world is real too. Just like any other people, because unfortunately, queerness isn't a sign of morality.

And even if queerness does mean community, kindness and acceptance, tell me... Where the hell would the Usher kids get those from? The people around them are not really peers – they're ass-istants, blowjob-giving apartments, orgy mates, heart surgery providers, hired fitness moneybags, perfect housewives. Even if the partners are all shown to care for the Ushers, there's still a distance, a power gap, that makes the relationships fundamentally wrong.

And the partners? Arguably they're the good queer rep in the show, but look – even when Julius and Alessandra are shown to be good people (or at least people with an ethical boundary), they're not the good gays, they're simply the good SO's to a family of psychos. Exactly like Bill and Morrie, who afawk are straight people.

Which leads us to HoU's parameter of morality - Auguste Dupin. He refuses to drink the Amontillado, symbol of all the Usher opulence over the years. He got screwed over by the Usher twins and by the Raven herself, but he refused to cave in (except for the informant part, admittedly). He's not a good gay guy; he is gay and he is a good man.

The fundamental difference between our show's main tragic yaoi couple isn't that Auggie is a happily out gay man (and therefore is good) while Roderick is a sad divorced hetero (and therefore is bad). Auggie is the richer man because he is a good man; he has a spouse and children and grandchildren he loves with all his heart. He has a family and a community and he has found a sort of happiness no money can buy. Roderick owns the world – but what does he really have? What do his children even have? How could they ever build communities for themselves if they were never in one? Their father made them compete for his love. He never nurtured their bonds, he just showered them with money and excess until it was too much for them to handle. Juno herself pointed out - they were never a family. The House of Usher was only that. A house. It is empty and soulless.

What is queerness without a community? How could the people who represent the relentless corporate normativity and cutthroat capitalism ever be good queer rep? How can they even be queer?

Hear me out: on the most individual, simple level, being queer is still about not fitting in. These kids are bastards. They are are PoC and women in a predominantly male and white dominated space. They're on top of the world, but they're still outsiders to their own House. How could they not be queer?

And yes, I know this discussion takes a different turn when it comes to representation in media, but it's not like Flannagan fell into a Hays Code-era flamboyant villain trope. Queerness is just there. Just like Victorine and August are both black people in (arguably) the opposite ends of the morality spectrum, there are queer characters of many kinds here. The story just happens to be about the fucked up ones.

HoU is a poignant critique of capitalism and a surprisingly funny adaptation of Poe. We'll judge it by that. It happens to be queer – more things should be.

[zeroducks-2]

Zero you mentioned hating on people who get prissy about people shipping characters they dont actively ship and it sparked a LONG burning question of mine concerning bias shipping culture in Batfam fandom. Fans who attack and complain and make a big show of hating on ‘batcest’ ships ARE SO DUCKING HYPOCRITICAL OH MY LORD. I don’t understand why it’s considered okay to ship Dick x Barbara or Barbara x Bruce, or Steph x Tim. But seen as a cardinal sin to ship Jason x Dick, or Jason x Tim or Bruce x Dick??? Especially when the only argument antishippers make is ‘that’s gross their brothers/father and son and that’s incest 😤’. I’m sorry? Did you not just post nsfw Dickbabs content? Did DC not make Steph and Tim romantic love interests? Is that not incest too? Considering the fandom classifies all of them as family, and in a lot of fan spaces and fanfics, are they not interacting and being written as a family unit? I see SO many people blog about Bruce seeing Babs as his first daughter, or being making weird headcanons on Bruce and Steph’s relationship and donning it ‘tired uncle!Bruce and weird niece!steph core’. Like you obviously see them connected to Bruce through familial ties, and yet you’re okay with them dating Dick and Tim who are legally adopted by Bruce and who are also known as his sons? The irony. The hypocrisy. The ducking mockery of it all. Personally, I don’t think the issue that antishipper have is the ‘incest’ part but rather the ‘gay’ part of it all. Game of Thrones taught me that the general public actually don’t care about fictional incest between characters as long as it’s not between two male characters. Because lord forbid the’s a couple of queers in media.

I have been talking about this many times and I have no qualms talking about it some more:

✨ IT'S NOT INCEST, YALL JUST HOMOPHOBIC ✨

The whole idea around "batcest" makes no sense. These are people who did not grow up together, aren't related and never even lived under the same roof. Incest is not a spectrum, incest means sexual intercourse with a relative within the prohibited degree of consanguinity, consanguinity means BLOOD RELATIONSHIP, and these people DO NOT HAVE IT.

But even then, they are a bunch of hypocrites because I have not ever seen anyone batting an eye over Dickbabs or Timsteph (or Jaybabs, or Timbabs - yeah depending on the time period or the media, poor Babs has been passed around a lot). Their relationship is the exact same as the boys' when it comes to shared experiences. Steph has even been a Robin. But nobody cares because 1, DC is not pushing the "family rhetoric" with the girls all that much since they treat them as lower importance characters (when they're there at all), and 2, it's not queer relationships.

And this is ultimately what makes me go insane about queer kids parroting anti bullshit. Censorship is the weapon used by bigots to criminalize, punish and ultimately erase queer people from existence, it takes to study queer history for five minutes to understand this. You can see it happening in every fandom space where every type of queer ship gets put through some sort of moral sieve, and they WILL find reasons why it's unethical to ship it. Did you know that now shipping Dick/Wally is problematic because "Wally has a wife" ? So basically they're turning the very reason why fandom was born (exploring something different from the standardized heteronormative/amatonormative way of doing everything when it comes to narrative) into something pRoBLeMaTiC.

And these little fucking idiots keep spouting queerphobic nonsense while feeling morally righteous, not understanding that they are playing the game of the same people who if they could would shoot them in the street for being anything but straight and cis. And I'm not even taking into consideration the amount of harassment that comes from antis who think bullying and suibaiting someone over the perceived honor of fictional characters is okay.

BTW it's working. Just to name one, tumblr is not even doing its little rainbow capitalism number this year, because it's not a good look to be queer friendly anymore. Antis are helping the people who want us dead get to a spot where being anything but "normal" is illegal. When it happens, and if we keep going the way that we are now it will happen, it's going to be their fault too.

[de1ete-bi]

thoughts of the Halloween episode of The Sun and Moon show

sorry its long (not really)

I liked Nexus in the begin when he was still New Moon. I think it helped the family more than having Old Moon stick around, not being able to sit with his thoughts and reflect on the way he treated everyone he deems below him mainly Sun. While it also allowed him to see the consequences and aftermath of his death and how it directly affected sun more than everyone else. While I think the addition of Solar indirectly caused Nexus' downward spiral, in the end I'm glad he joined the family. after Solar's death it was weird that he spiraled that fast. Now that I rewatch it he was spiraling far before that and it was just the last straw. Nexus's whole purpose was to be better, kinder, and more loving than those who came before him, I think after Ruin was exposed is when he abandons that purpose of being kinder to be "Smarter and Better" than Old Moon. I think that's when 'Dark" Sun started influencing him even if it was just a thought ever now and again, slowly chipping away at the core of his mind. I believe Sun was able to recognize that something was happening just not knowing what. That's why Sun started to pull away from Nexus and everyone else, cause he knew he was gonna get hurt, even if it hurt everyone else as well. While its a bold claim from nexus of that he was treated as tool, he was right in the fact that Sun was not the best brother to him. Though Sun never claimed to be, he was well aware that 1) Old Moon was "never" coming back and therefore could not hurt him, and 2) that Nexus was not Old Moon nor was he acting like him, However you have to realize that Nexus was walking around with his dead twin's face, the face that hurt him everyday for years. the face that he grieves for when he's was alone and no one can hear him mourn the loss of the one person who was with him for everyday of his life. Sun lost the other half of him when Old Moon died, and then Lunar dying soon after. he didn't get a chance to really grieve and, yet he still took care of Nexus and Earth. Nexus had some points, But not a good enough reason to go that level of insane. In the End he got a truly sad death which was to die by the hand of the one that still after everything did truly loved and cared for him.

My thoughts on "Dark" Sun

For "Dark" Sun to be the one to force Sun to choose between Nexus and Moon is very cathartic for the character of Sundrop in my option. Yes it was a little fucked up, it was necessary tho. It was what Sun needed for him to finally start making decisions and to grow more of a back bone. I do not doubt the claim that "Dark" Sun is every Sun because it makes senses in a way. We the viewers have never seen the universe where Sun doesn't exist ,because I don't believe there is one we would have seen or heard about it by now. However there are some special cases like Lord Eclipse who had the chance to get rid of his Sun but didn't or couldn't, or where puppet is from which I believe is the Base dimension for the T.S.B.S universe. Which leads me to believe that Sun and the other Suns are what their dimensions are based around or on. The fact that "Dark" Sun stopped time and pulled Sun to talk proves this more. There are more signs as well, like when "Dark" Sun talks to Sun and turns on the glow function so we can see a difference in who's who, along with that there is a one of Ruin doing it to, when he said he could feel the camera looking at him and saying hello while staring at it. It makes more sense why "Dark" Sun seems to know everything that happens to sun and his family, and why he says certain generalized statements about what Suns do and do not like. This also make sense why Sun can interacted with all or most energy sources like star power and wither shards with out many consequences, its because He is the begin, middle and end to the universe. That's also why he hasn't died in someway yet, because if he dies the universe go's with him His body will most like be the form of the wither storm for that universe or at least starts from his body. That may also be why he goes in to a trance like state when he sees "Dark" Sun's Dragon its the universe's coding deep in him that starting to from the wither storm. I do think if Sun was to die his soul(?) would go where the souls go and his body start the process of the wither storm. but if Sun didn't die, he would go in that trance like state and his body would start the process anyways, but he wouldn't be able to do anything. However I don't believe we the viewers have seen the last of "Dark" Sun, but I think Sun and them won't see "Dark" Sun again hopeful. I think Sun will Most likely look for someone outside of the family for therapy maybe someone atlas knows or would recommend cause i don't see Sun begin ok with talking to earth about it after all of this happening

please no hate this is just my option

[comet-soda-lite]

Final actual thoughts on the Agatha All Along finale:

Good:

- Everything with Nicky. That flashback was really well done and the climatic building song at the end was just fantastic

- I had heard the "Billy is making the road" theory and am well aware it would make perfect sense with his character, but I never actually seriously believed it for some reason until the twist was happening and I was like "wait" lmao. So yeah, that was good and it fit a lot of things into place about Agatha's behaviour I should've honestly put together way sooner

- "Am I killing this boy so my brother can live!?" "Oh Billy, sometimes boys just die" bitch, I'm sobbing

Bad (personal opinion alert!!!!)

- Why is Agatha Billy's ghost sidekick now? Did they just wanna get rid of the threat she posed but keep Kathryn Hahn around?

- The emotional core of the show is the coven and their ties to each other, Rio included. This leads into a couple points:

1) I feel Rio could've been a bit softer to Alice. Even if she started off the interaction as cold, she could've had some warmness for her for even just a moment. More "like greeting an old friend" death than "cold unforgiving cruelty" death. Though Alice's death was supposed to represent the latter, so it works I guess (I am just in denial)

2) Agatha not caring about the rest of the coven members other than Billy right up to the end kind of breaks the illusion that the coven ever formed any real familial bond at all, which shits on the weight of Alice's and Lillia's deaths (and Lillia's whole arc), since they were about sacrificing themselves for the others. The road being a fabrication by Billy just made this feeling worse

- Rio and Agatha should've had some resolution, like??? The tension, as it's introduced to us, is that they both still love each other and are even good for each other. Rio had to fulfill her purpose even though she didn't want to, knowing she'd hurt Agatha. And Agatha hates her for it, despite knowing Rio had no say in the matter and even did her a great kindness letting Nicky stay for as long as he did. They have no reason to hate each other logically, only emotionally. Agatha was seemingly set up from the start to have to work through that grief, by the end of which the two could reconcile, and at that point Agatha could go to death willingly or whatever. But the show ended up not exploring this at all, portraying Rio as a kind of toxic ex out of nowhere in ep. 8, and Agatha's eventual kiss with Rio and subsequent death was fueled by an ultimatum rather than a fully free and intentional choice. And then Agatha dies and Rio doesn't even get to talk to her properly now that the tension is (maybe???) resolved (or maybe not considering it seems like ghost Agatha is still avoiding Rio). This was not a great character arc. And I can't help but feel a proper resolution wasn't reached—not because it was the best writing decision—but because she has to stick around as a ghost for a future show/movie and needs something to do

- Not enough Jen.

Neutral (aka Misc. Thoughts)

- I guess this kinda confirms Billy is both Billy and William? Like, I think it's sorta maybe implied Rio can't reap William's soul while Billy is in there, so he's sorta preventing both of them from dying? Or not? Idk?

-[If not, recall that Billy is technically only three years old in MCU canon, which is very weird]

- Episode 7 still the best episode, fight me

[lifblogs]

The Right Body

@ailesswhumptober Day 20 Enemy/Stranger to Caretaker, Accidental De-aging, "I'm absolutely not qualified for this shit."

Fandom: The Bad Batch Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Word Count: 2874 Summary: The Bad Batch are separated by a cave-in, and Echo is injured and his prosthetic legs aren't working right. He only has Phee to help him, and he's not too sure of her yet. READ ON AO3

Echo couldn’t remember if he’d cried out when a rock hit his spine during the cave-in, but now he was on the ground, blue-gray dirt in his eyes, rocks still settling. He coughed as the dirt got in his throat. Phee was coughing too. Echo didn’t think anyone else had made it to their side of the cave-in, but that meant the rest of his squad was stuck with the pirates who had been idiotic enough to set off a bomb.

His squad was extremely competent though, and some pirates… not so much. Phee was pretty competent, though that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It got them dragged around too much, in his opinion. He was tired of her adventures and found her too boisterous, but Omega liked her, and Tech liked her, so Echo tried his best. At least he knew Hunter shared his sentiments.

“You okay?” Phee asked.

Echo tried to get up, but a weird sensation came from his prosthetic legs. Not pain, but… it was almost as if nerves he no longer had were being tugged at. His legs weren’t moving right. Painstakingly, exhaling as he used his core, he rolled over, and sat up to get a look at them. His back ached so badly that he adjusted his breathing so his ribs wouldn’t expand too much, causing more pain.

His legs were sparking, and each blue spark was accompanied with that strange feeling.

His back wouldn’t stop throbbing from where the rock had hit him, but since he could move he figured nothing was broken. Well, nothing organic. The rock must have hit the servos that connected to his legs.

Kriff.

“There’s something wrong with my legs,” Echo said aloud.

When Phee came over she crouched down, eyeing his legs.

“Can you stand?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

He didn’t actually think so, but Echo didn’t like anything about this situation. His legs were everything to him. They were how he got around, how he could protect his family. They helped him survive, helped him live.

He was used to doing tune-ups on them, Tech and Omega helping him out, but they were trapped without them.

“Here, I’ll help.”

Phee got on his left side, and put an arm around his waist.

He winced.

“Careful. My back’s injured too.”

She touched him lightly now, and let him put his arm around her shoulders. He tried to stand, and made it to a wobbly crouch. Echo swore as his legs sparked again, and he landed on his knees. He would have fallen onto his face if Phee hadn’t caught him with a hand on his chest.

“I think my legs are broken.”

For Echo that was a completely different statement than for someone else.

“There’s something wrong with the servos, I think,” he panted.

Phee helped him balance, but looked down, and then looked back at him.

“I’m absolutely not qualified for this scrag,” she said.

Echo had figured, but still: “Kriff.”

“Here, let’s get you sitting again.”

Definitely a good idea. Already his torso was aching from this fixed position.

Echo was panting by the time they got him resting against the rock wall again. The pressure hurt his back, but he didn’t have to work so hard to stay upright.

“Do you think the others are okay?” Echo asked.

Phee waved a hand, setting up lanterns so they’d be able to see better. “Pfft, they’ve got Brown Eyes with them. They’re fine. Plus Hunter is as good as his arrogance suggests.”

“That’s confidence, not arrogance.”

“You know from personal experience?”

Echo gave a light laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Phee dragged her bag over, while Echo worked on getting his comm working. Static met him for a few taps, but then the line was clear.

“Hunter, Tech, Wrecker, Omega, are you all okay?”

“We are fine,” Tech said. “Though pirates are firing at us.”

Echo straightened. “How is that fine?”

“He means we’re not injured,” Omega said.

“Not yet!” Wrecker responded.

“Echo, are you okay?” Hunter asked.

Echo could imagine his team running, dodging, and firing all while having this conversation. He figured that soon the pirates would all be dead, or stunned.

“A rock hit my back. It hurts, and my legs aren’t working.”

“What?” Omega gasped.

Phee said into her comm, “And I’ve only worked on ships, and some droid maintenance, so I have no idea what to do here.”

“I’ll walk you through it from here,” Tech said.

“Good luck,” Phee said. “‘Cause all I got is a hydrospanner and a solder.”

“That might be all you need, though a piece of string might come in handy.”

“Excuse me?” Phee asked.

Echo was confused too.

“If you tie it around a motor you can make a…” Tech sighed. “Never mind. Now what part of the prosthetics is damaged?”

“Hold on,” Phee said.

“Echo, you mind showing me your back? And taking off this… What is it?”

“A kama.”

“Do you need help?”

With a sigh, Echo rolled, and laid down on his stomach, propping his head up on his arm.

“The kama’s attached to my belt,” he supplied.

“Ah.”

Phee removed it, then asked, “What about your armor, and your tunic?”

“You can take off the belt and armor, and lift my tunic up,” he consented with a huff.

Echo took in a deep breath, not always a fan of people he didn’t know very well touching him.

“All right, let’s get a look here,” Phee said, his armor now removed. She lifted up his tunic, and Echo inwardly winced, knowing she’d see not just his prosthetics, but the covered implants he had along his spine. “Well, you’re certainly bruising,” she said. “Must’ve been some rock.” Phee must have then looked lower because she said, “Brown Eyes, I don’t quite know what I’m looking at.”

“Describe it.”

Phee did so, and Tech responded, “Oh, that is an easy enough fix.

“Echo, how do your legs feel?”

He frowned, but responded, “Like someone’s tugging on nerves.”

“Ah, that would make sense. Phee, you’re going to have to uncouple the lumbar rotors so you can deactivate the servo encoder without burning through Echo’s cerebral interface. Then you have to solder—”

“In Basic, please!” Phee interrupted.

“That is Basic,” Tech muttered.

“Oh my stars, Brown Eyes, I swear…” Phee cried.

“You see the circular nodules along Echo’s spine?”

“Uh…”

“They’re about two inches in diameter, gray, right above his culet.”

“Found ‘em.”

Echo felt Phee press.

He was anxious to have her work on him when she didn’t know much about this type of technology, but he trusted Tech to do his job well, even through comms.

His back seemed to ache more from this position, and he tried shifting his hips, but his legs sparked again. Echo winced at the strange tugging sensation.

He grunted.

“You good?” Phee asked.

“Peachy.”

“There’s a switch under a panel right in between the nodules. That should begin the detachment process so Echo won’t feel any of this.”

Phee must have hit the switch because Echo’s legs even stopped transferring the sensation of the rocky ground to him.

“Got it,” Phee called.

They talked as Phee worked on him. There was a strange dissociation with not being able to feel any of it. As time ticked on, he felt like this body was wrong, that this wasn’t his. Echo floated away from it, till he could look down and see this body, this strange, strange thing that was supposedly his. But how could it be? From the implants, to the prosthetics, the chemically ruined skin, and the inner workings of him, he didn’t quite understand it. This body had been blown up and tortured and experimented on, and this was what he, Echo as a person, was left with. 

It also was strangely intimate and unerring that Tech seemed to know more about his prosthetics than he himself did. It was like he was floating in something that didn’t belong to him.

A few times they had to pause for them to take care of the pirates. But then that was all clear.

“I think we can loop back around and get you two out,” Hunter said.

“No talking,” Phee told him. “Except for Tech. I have to think.”

“How’s it going?” Echo asked, surprised that it was his own voice that came out of him and not something mechanical.

“Shh.”

“It’s my body,” Echo grumbled.

“And that’s why I’m trying to be so careful,” Phee argued. “Hold on, I have to… Tech, what am I doing here again?”

Echo didn’t like that.

“Maybe we should wait for Tech,” Echo suggested.

His sense of helplessness was becoming keener with each second.

“No, I’ve got it.”

Tech’s answer was long, and Phee asked him to break it down again.

“Oh, I already did that,” she said.

“Without my instruction?” Tech asked.

“Sorry, I thought it was what you said.”

“Please do not break Echo,” Tech told her. “Or I’ll be less amenable to being called Brown Eyes in the future.”

“Can you two flirt on your own time?” Echo asked, lifting himself up to shoot Phee a glare.

She rolled her eyes.

“Calm down. I’ve got it. Kinda like a droid when you get right down to it.”

“I am not a droid,” Echo argued. His voice was strong, but his body didn’t feel that strength at all.

Phee paused, looking at him. He recognized guilt in her face, but she didn’t seem like she was going to try and stand her ground on this. She knew she was wrong, and she accepted that.

“You’re not a droid,” she agreed. “I’m sorry.”

Echo couldn’t accept her apology just yet, and simply let out a sigh as he laid back down.

“Are you almost done fixing my legs?” he bit out.

“I think so.”

She continued to work, Echo hearing the slight buzz and sizzle of the solder.

“I really am sorry for what I said. I hope you know I don’t see you that way. I… actually think you look pretty cool.”

“Oh, well I won’t tell Tech that,” Echo joked.

Someone must have had a comm on because Tech suddenly said, “I heard that.”

They laughed before lapsing into near-silence again.

“I guess I wouldn’t blame you if you did see me that way,” Echo admitted. “I even have a scomp.”

“And do you like having a scomp?” Phee asked slowly, carefully.

“Yeah, kinda,” Echo answered, surprising even himself. “I still kind of use it like my arm, and I like being able to help my team, and help others in this way. I know my body isn’t just for them, but I guess that’s who I am. I like helping. It’s what I was created for, basically. Plus you would not believe the kind of stuff droids have access to.”

“Echo, you’re telling me there’s droid porn?”

“That is not what I was getting at,” he laughed out.

“But there could be. You know that rule, if it exists there’s porn of it?”

Echo laughed more now, and Phee was laughing too.

“Fine, there’s probably droid porn,” he relented.

“Probably? I know there is. I swear, one time I caught MEL—”

“No, no, I don’t need to hear it.”

Their laughter continued.

“Okay, but I’ll keep it on the back burner for ya. Hey, what if you and MEL—”

“Are you trying to set me up?” he asked, completely incredulous.

Phee paused in her soldering, maybe to shrug. “Hey, I’ve seen it work before.”

“You’re crazy,” Echo muttered.

“Why do you think Tech likes me?”

“Oh, so he does?”

Phee gave him a light shove on his arm. “Shut up.”

Echo grinned, but then remembered what he had wanted to share:

“So… what I was trying to say earlier about my scomp is that the way the files show up in my brain is so… interesting. It’s like I’m not just my body anymore, but part of the information, part of something bigger. It feels… freeing.”

“Huh, sounds like a pretty good deal then.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“Hey, Tech,” Phee asked, “I finished recalibrating the servos. Is he all set?”

“Yes. You can connect his legs back to the rest of his body now.”

“All right, brace yourself, Echo, in case I messed up.”

“I sure hope you didn’t.”

There were a few different metallic sounds, and then Echo could feel the ground against his legs again.

About time too because the pain in his back was thundering through him in this position.

“How about we test ‘em out before we get you all armored up again?”

Echo felt a bit odd being exposed still, but with Phee’s help he was able to stand. He had to tighten his abdomen to stay upright though, as his aching back wasn’t doing the work it should have been. That was going to get exhausting.

Echo tested out walking a few paces, Phee near at hand. He couldn’t believe how her presence had gone from strange and irritating to… well, a friend.

“Lookin’ good.”

Echo felt good too. His legs felt completely back to normal, no fake nerve tugging sensations or anything. But he grunted as he moved, the pain in his back worse than he had thought.

“Hey, you good?”

“My back,” he said, voice tight. “It’s hurting a lot.”

“Darn, I don’t have a medical scanner with me.”

“Tech or Hunter should have one.”

Phee was picking up her things, and handed Echo his blaster. “Let’s go find ‘em then.”

Hunter was correct, the tunnel did loop back around. It appeared that the others had taken care of all the pirates as they were nowhere in sight, save for a couple of bodies in the blue-gray cavern.

Light streamed down from holes up above to paint designs against the stone, and Omega was jumping from one patch of light to the other. Though she stopped at seeing Echo and came closer.

Echo was breathing hard and taking smaller steps without meaning to by the time the others caught up to Omega. Phee was holding onto his arm to aid him.

Before anyone could say anything, Phee pointed at him with a thumb. “Someone get a medical scanner and look at Echo’s back.”

Hunter immediately started searching through Tech’s pack, and came over.

“How bad do you feel?” he asked Echo.

Echo gave a tight laugh as he turned around for the scanner to better penetrate into his spine. “Oh, you know, I’ve had worse.”

Hunter gave a light laugh too.

“Nothing’s broken,” Hunter reported. “No herniated discs either, though we could get AZI to look at you, see if there’s something I missed. Seems like you’ve just got a nasty hematoma.”

“Really?” Echo asked, not liking what this meant for how he would have to live his life till he felt better. Already his abdomen was tired from the extra work.

“Yeah, you were definitely pretty purple,” Phee informed him.

Tech came over, Echo glancing over his shoulder at him.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Fascinating.”

Echo rolled his eyes. “Quit ogling my medical scan like a cadet seeing a woman for the first time, and tell me what’s going on.”

“I have never—” Tech began to say.

Wrecker said, “Sure you have. Remember that one time when Master—”

Hunter cut in, “I don’t think this is the time for embarrassing stories.”

“Oh, yeah,” Wrecker said. “Another time.”

“No, not another time,” Tech said. “I will not have you airing my embarrassing moments—”

“What is up with my back?” Echo asked. “We can embarrass you another time, Tech.”

Omega murmured to Hunter, “What are we all talking about?”

“Wait till you’re older.”

Echo laughed a bit at that.

Tech said, “Your hematoma is around one of your implants, so I assume it is causing you extra pain. Perhaps AZI will have a nerve block for you.”

Echo nodded, a strange mix of exhausted and amused.

Hunter helped Echo the rest of the way out of the cavern, though Tech, Wrecker, and Omega had all volunteered to do so.

Phee took Tech’s arm. “You know I’m going to have to hear those embarrassing stories sometime, right?”

Wrecker laughed. “Yeah!”

“So you’re really okay?” Hunter asked while Omega pestered Tech and Wrecker about stories of them as cadets—hopefully appropriate ones.

“I think so,” Echo said. “I felt… strange though. Like…” He swallowed roughly. “Like this isn’t actually my body,” he admitted.

“Well, if it’s worth anything,” Hunter began, “I like how your body is. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like what you’ve been through. But it’s the body of my friend, my brother. So to me, it’s just right.”

Echo blinked back tears. Hunter focused dead ahead to give him some privacy.

Echo nudged him with his shoulder, and Hunter nudged him back. He couldn’t say what he was feeling, couldn’t even put it into words. This was all he had.

Omega looked back at him and smiled.

Maybe this… maybe this was the right body for him. It was the body of someone who was loved.

Sunlight beamed down upon them once they exited the cave, and Echo thoroughly enjoyed its warmth.

[soleminisanction]

Hi! This may seem like a stupid question, but, what lantern do you think each Batfamily member (direct or adjacent) would be based on their personalities and your thoughts on the characters? And the beautiful, chaotic babies, aka Young Just Us? I know some think Tim would be a Green Lantern and even though I love it (mainly because Tim could develop a friendship with John and Kyle), I'm not entirely convinced that it's the right color for him. I can't see Stephanie as a Blue Lantern either… About that, and even though I know that they are different fandoms, I've to ask you the last question: do you think that Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson could be Blue Lanterns?

You don't have to answer any of this if you don't want to, I just wanted to get your honest opinion 'cause I love your meta, posts and fics.

PS: Sorry if I made any spelling mistakes. English is not my native language.

Not a stupid question at all. In fact, I actually answered it before, a couple of years ago.

The TL;DR on that post is that I think Green Lantern is a good default fit for any of the Bats, because you can't do what they do as superheroes without an insane amount of willpower. Personally, I pegged Tim as being a good fit for Indigo, compassion... if the Indigo Tribe didn't play by bizarre rules because men who write comic books are weird about emotions. I could also see an argument for Tim landing among the Star Sapphires, given how many of them are motivated by lost love.

When it comes to Blue Lanterns -- ugh. The Steph as a Blue Lantern thing is so frustrating and dumb. It comes from a single image in her Batgirl run, where people completely ignore the context: it's part of her Black Mercy montage, which means it's an illusion that only exists in Steph's mind and the only thing it proves in-universe is that Stephanie wants Steph to be a Blue Lantern. Which is in turn mostly just indicative of a massive ego, because Blue Lanterns are presented as literal messianic archetypes.

('Oh but it's a story Bryan Q. Miller wanted to do!!' Yes, and DC told him no, that's stupid, and made him use Barbara instead. BQM was a Smallville writer who confused Steph with a 1960s Broadway character, he is the last person you should listen to about canon)

Of the Bats, I think the one most eligible for Blue Lantern status is undeniably Dick, just due to the role he plays in DC's larger superhero society. I could definitely see Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson being applicable too.

The rest of the Core Four is trickier to pin down for me, personally. My gut instinct says Blue for Bart as well, partially because I think he's the one of the Flash family that best 'inherits' that aspect that made Barry the Blue Corps deputy in Blackest Night, and partially because of how he's been presented in the Infinite Frontier era specifically, as this bright bolt of color that rushed back into the world and brought the past with him.

But like. A part of me also wants to say that about Kon? Though I could also see him falling into the compassion-if-Indigo-wasn't-so-weird category, because that boy just cares so much for the people around him (in Hawaii, in Cadmus, in Smallville, in YJ and the TT, in the Superfam) and defines himself so much by his ability to be helpful and useful to them.

And Cassie, I'm inclined to put her in Green, with the temptations of Red, because she basically became a superhero through sheer gumption and repeatedly demonstrates her willingness to stand up to literal gods to do what she thinks is right; but there's also that anger and ability to do serious harm that Ares tried to cultivate within her that never completely goes away.

...so yeah, that's my (kinda rambling) two cents on the whole thing. 😅

[milawritesstuff]

jealous gavi smut?!?? I love ur fics/blurbs (idk the name of it I’m sorry) but it’s so GOOD !!

A/N: I can totally picture Gavi being super jealous of any girl he brings around the team bc he’s the youngest and ppl try to underestimate him. Don’t you think?

Warnings: ⚠️ Smut

•••

You and Pablo arrived hand in hand to Camp Nou for the game. Pablo had been injured and he had not been cleared to return yet. He put his arm around your shoulder as the two of you sat down. Pablo turned over to look at you and planted a kiss on your forehead with a smile.

The two of you had been dating for months but had only been public for a few weeks. Your relationship was still new to many who didn’t know the two of you closely.

“Everyone is watching.” You told Pablo. You could feel the eyes of the club’s fans looking over at your section. “Do you care?” He asked. You shook your head. You didn’t care if others saw but you were hesitant about what they would say. Many didn’t like that you were dating Gavi and found anything to hate on you for. You knew Pablo didn’t understand this and that he was actually annoyed you had even said anything because he didn’t understand why you wanted to keep things a secret in the beginning. In fact the subject had been the cause of many fights between the two of you. “Who are you trying to hide me from?” Had asked Gavi.

After the game the two of you went to to the locker rooms for Pablo to greet his teammates. As you waited outside for him you heard a familiar voice behind you. It was Ferran.

“Hola guapa.” He said as he took you into a hug.

“Great game Fer.” You responded with a double kiss on either cheek.

“How’s Pablo?” He asked. “Eager to return.” You chuckled.

The two of you stood talking there for a few minutes until Pablo came back out. Ferran and Pablo exchanged greetings before Ferran said goodbye to you. “Take care, guapa. See you soon.”

Pablo was quiet on the walk to his car until he finally broke the silence. “How long have you known Ferran?” He asked as he opened the door to his car for you. “Since we were little kids. Our families would spend summer holidays together.” You explained.

Pablo remained silent. “Did you two ever date?” He finally asked.

“No.” You answered point blank. “Why?”

“I don’t like the way he looks at you.” He finally admitted. “You have nothing to worry with Ferran, trust me. Apart from a makeout session years ago, he’s like a brother.”

Pablo clenched his teeth and turned over to take a quick look at you as he drove. “Wait, you hadn’t told me about this before.”

“It was nothing Pablo. We were drunk teenagers on holiday and it just happened.”

“Well did you like it?” Continued Pablo.

“Come on Pablo. I don’t even remember it. We were too drunk.”

“So what if you did like it?”

“The fact that I don’t remember it says a lot, I think.” You said with a chuckle.

“You think it’s funny?” He asked.

“Calm down Pablo, it’s just weird to talk to you about this. You’re my boyfriend and nothing in the past should matter now.”

Pablo was clearly upset. You could see his furrowed eyebrows and the way his nose scrunched up as he gripped on to the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were turning white.

You placed your hand on his thigh catching him off guard. “Would you like for me to show you that you have nothing to worry about?” You asked as you licked your lips and moved your hand up higher.

He turned over to look at you with eyes wide open. “I’m driving Y/N, don’t do this to me right now.” The rest of the drive home felt as if Pablo was driving 1000 miles per hour. His hand over yours.

As soon as you stepped into his house Pablo grabbed your hand and led you towards his room. “Let me show you that you won’t need anyone but me.” He said in a hungry voice as he pulled your shirt up and threw it on the ground.

Before you knew it you were laying on Pablo’s bed and he was leaving trails of kisses down your chest and eventually landed right on your core. With a few licks of his tongue Pablo had you yelling out his name. “Pablo…” you whimpered. “Say my name baby. Who else can make you feel like this?”

You whimpered at the feeling of his tongue darting in and out of you. You loved how hungry he was every time the two of you were alone. He held you legs open as he placed small kisses on your thighs. “Just you, Pablo.” You finally responded.

Before you could say anything else Pablo went back to your clit. With little nibbles he caused you to lose control. Your hips began to buck up “stop!” He said as he tried to hold you down. “Pablo, please.” You pleaded which caused a smirk to show on his face.

“I hate the way they all look at you.” He went on as he moved up your body. “Who?” You were caught off guard. “My teammates, every time I bring you around, one of them has to be clinging on to you.” He took one of your nipples in his mouth as he kneaded the other with his cold hands. “Pablo you’re exaggerating, but even if they were you’re the one I go home with.” You tried to reassure him but today Gavi wasn’t having it.

He grabbed your hands and placed them above your head. His lips immediately attached to your neck where he began to leave small bites. You could feel him getting harder as he grinded onto you, his dick trying to push itself out of his underwear. “Pablo you’re going to leave marks on my neck.”

“That’s exactly what I want to do.” He said. “I want them all to know you’re mine.” I want you to remember who makes you become a moaning mess when you look at your neck in the mirror. “Pablo, please. Stop teasing.”

“I’m not teasing baby girl. I just want you to remember how it will feel if you can’t have me, if you leave me for anyone else.” His lips now back on your breast. “I’m not leaving Gavi.” You reassure him.

He dips two fingers inside of you causing you to gasp. “Gavi, more.” You plead. He takes his fingers out of you and brings them up to his mouth before sucking them dry. The pure vision of this makes your core tingle. “Pablo, please fuck me.”

“Tell me who you belong to Y/N” he says with lustful eyes on you.

“Pablo Gavira.”

“Who makes you come over and over again?”

“You, Gavi. Nobody else.”

Finally he hears what he had been longing to hear and thrusts into you. He groans as you open your legs even wider. You need all of him inside of you. He goes in harder and deeper each time. He’s rough tonight. He slaps your ass and proceeds to pull your hair. This makes you moan, the pain excites you.

The way his abs lead the perfect trail to his dick and the way his hips push himself into you. How could you ever want to miss this view? He pulls out of you and asks for you to turn around. Your knees on the bed as you lean forward and open yourself to him. He goes in again but this time faster. He grabs onto your hips and thrusts faster and faster. He’s becoming sloppier but you don’t want it to end. He is able to go in deeper in this position and you love to feel him being this aggressive. His hand reached for your clit as he continues to thrust into you. He forms small circles around you which drives you crazy. “Pablo.” You moan.

“Say my name.” He says in between whimpers. He pulls your hair one last time which sends you in overdrive. “Pablo Gavira. I love how you fuck me.” Your last sentence sends HIM in overdrive. You can feel him coming, he lays on you as the both of you catch your breathe.

As he takes himself out of you and you lay on the bed you turn around to him with a smirk. “I should make you jealous more often, Gavi.”