#'ish' this is literally a full on rant

[soopysoap]

being overly emotional when pmsing when ur usually a reserved blank face 😐 kinda person is genuinely the most embarrassing thing in the world

[jash-updates]

Most normal energy drink consumer

[bukuoshin]

Ooh, new makeup thing I can do for no apparent reason except that I think it looks cool, yay!

[jamicha]

"oh yeah, i'm guilty of shipping crimes" (the crimes were shipping an adult and a child)

IF YOU KNOW ITS BAD THEN WHY

[luffyvace]

Undertaker wants to Court you! ~(Headcanons)~

Can’t wait for the public school arc who’s with me?!

this dude is so silly 🗿 enjoy some hcs of this ridiculous little man

Undertaker is funny. He uses that to his advantage when courting. Well, it actually depends on what type of humor you have- most of his are usually those jokes that are kinda funny but at the same time your like ‘That’s outta pocket! 🤦‍♀️😑😂’ yk?

he always wants to hear jokes. He asks you randomly and no matter what type he laughs at them. Rude humor? Hilarious! Dad jokes? That one really tickled his fancy! 😂 why did the chicken cross the road?? To get to the other side? 🤣🤣💥

now usually I feel he has a specific sense of humor but with you everything’s just kinda funny. It’s that moment when your with someone who you can laugh at the most unfunniest stuff ever and still be cackling at it anyway 😭💕

he’s always telling them as well. Might I say, at the worst times 😏 you just watched someone run over a stray animal? Oh he’s got a joke for that hear him out- LIKE BRO 😭⁉️

HES THE TYPE OF GUY WHO MAKE YOU LAUGH BEFORE EVEN TELLING YOU THE JOKE BECAUSE YOU KNOW ITS GONNA BE STUPID 👍

Let’s also talk about hiiiis…! weird side! (I’m saying ‘side’ like he’s isn’t always weird..) This is pretty much him just being a creep? Ish? Like that scene where he was in the barrel licking salt…🤨 or how he’s always in coffins (which tbh seems more normal for a grim reaper but still..) either way this dudes’ real weird and he doesn’t tone it down, even around you despite the fact that it may or may not (you decide) push you away

He’s a very mysterious dude, so how ever you met him I guarantee it was eerie and somewhat strange. Therefore you were likely intrigued by him, so when you went on your first date it was, well, very interesting! There’s so many layers to unravel with this guy! Ngl even now you’ve only semi unraveled this incomprehensible man but at the least you do learn more as you get to know him :P

his past is….complicated is an understatement- gimme a new word.

literally no one but him knows his full past all the way up to this very day. Looks like no one has stuck around long enough! Since you will I guess you’ll be the first to figure it out! ;)

now I’ll say this, he won’t sit down and just tell you everything, no. That won’t be any fun! 😄 you’ll have to have the intelligent to sit down and decode it piece by piece with the tidbits of information he gives you randomly. Yes! It’s going to be comical seeing you try and put this whole thing-a-ba-jig together! (^_−)−☆ 🤣

his nonjudgmental yet opinionated personality is scary if you don’t like folk who come off too strong. Or if your sensitive- 😄 he’s a ‘tell-it-like-it-is-and-I-don’t-give-a-ship’ type of guy. Buuuut! If your similar to him in that sense you’ll probably understand him a lot more. Him being nonjudgemental is perfect for peeps of all types so that’s a plus!! 💗

ranting about his fascination with humans during your dates comes with the package! ☝️He just does, it’s always one of his topics, and ngl it’s nothing boring either, he’s got quite a few stories to tell with even more jokes in between, which is sure to make for a lovely date <3 plus at some point all species in black butler experienced being a human, and idk about y’all but the study of human nature, psychology and how the brain works is a very interesting thing for me! I’d definitely be able to keep a conversation like that up for some time, me personally.

He puts up a front of a funny weird guy when there’s more to him if you read between the lines. Which, don’t get me wrong that certainly is a part of the real him, he just makes sure to highlight it so you don’t look at the rest 😃👌

he’s a real creepy fellow..even towards you 😭 (on purpose) and whether he’s trying to court you or not there’s no escaping it- if it starts to push you away he’ll find a way to incorporate laughter into it to make it more appealing, but no, he won’t change his ways 😭

WHY DOESN’T HE WASH HIS HAIRRRR

(yes it’s canon 😞)

you force him to wash his hair 😘💋 pls he needs it. or at least do it with him so it’s more fun. It’ll probably be easier to convince him that way

Time to talk about his work as a grim reaper!!! :3 (retired anyway) if you are reaper you get to follow each other around doing tasks! human? You both go your separate ways to work, whatever that may be. A demon? The same as a human really! Just this time you might have a contract with somebody. Buttttt!! A perk of all three is getting to work in the funeral parlor with him ;3 it’s a good disguise if your a demon/reaper and also some good quality time for you and your reaper 😘 (i mean, I hope you don’t mind morbid stuff cuz he’s a mortician after all 😅)

his little Russian roulette with the phantomhives 🕺 (LOL) no seriously I have no clue what type of relationship he has with them besides the fact that he serves them for the price of top notch laughter 🧑‍🍳💋 but you might! I’d say he’s more willing to let you in then anyone if he’s trying to court you! That obviously means he wants to trust you with his heart! So yeah! You likely know a thing or two—more about Ciel than Vincent but any info will do at this point 😭 it’s a start right? 🤷‍♀️

whenever Ciel comes over you get to witness him or Sebastian try to make undertaker laugh, it’s not like they can kick you out, you work there! Perks 😏 You can pretty much tell the one time Ciel made him laugh himself it was just a whole bunch of tomfoolery 😂 (why did it take so long⁉️😭) Sebastian is also able to make undertaker laugh really hard immediately so I wonder what he does 🤪 guess you’ll get to see! 😋

undertaker opening up to you is a process that requires patience. And don’t be pushy!! I mean this for your sake, by the way. You’ll drive yourself crazy since you’ll never get an answer that’s not riddles or straight up jokes. 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

yeah overall his way of courting is really strange but when it comes to making things official he’s poetically blunt. The type of blunt where you have to process for a second like ‘wait what does that mean- oh. OH-’

Anyway I’m gonna talk about the actual dates now cuz I’ve pretty much just been mentioning the madness that comes with it this entire time :3 and yes as I said that’s a way of courting to him. He’s weird and blunt but doesn’t wanna do things the traditional way. So getting you involved in his antics is his way of saying ‘hey i like ya and I want ya to stick around’. And jokes. HAHAHAH 😂

dates with undertaker normally consists of tea, jokes, human psychology and gossip 🗿 ever since I saw ciel in wonderland I couldn’t get over the fact that undertaker was at a tea party and now I headcanons him to like tea LOLOLOL! I mean I know that’s how the plot goes in the actual slice movie and he was just playing the role of the character but, think about it—don’t it kinda fit???? Like?? Okok Hear me out hear me out- imagine sipping on some tea with Undertaker and gossiping on the latest drama from the underworld, ‘I heard a rare case is happening where blah blah blah *giggle* *giggle* chatter chatter..’ ETC! like idk how to explain it but do you see the vision???

I can also see him doing that dramatic anime thing where they sip they’re drink majestically then say something intelligent sounding (☝️🤓) (about psychology, for him) as the wind blows 😂😂 YK? LOLL even worse if your in a outside background and his eyes shows (cuz the character who never shows they’re eyes always show them when they get serious 🤣)

i love how shameless this guy is

why don’t we know this guys’ real name⁉️ Can’t even give him a nickname because ‘undertaker’ isn’t nickname material!! What am I supposed to call him???? Taker’ ⁉️😭🗿

ENJOY @doudouma HERE’S YOUR SURPRISE~ 🤗

[wine4thewin]

Okay, okay. I love the Furiosa movie. Not as much as Fury Road but I love it for what it is.

However, there is one really odd plot hole I can’t get over that sort of ruined the undercurrent theme/threat of female enslavement in Immortan Joe’s male dominated dystopian cult.

Spoiler-ish comment rant below?

Furiosa gets tossed into the big ole Wife Vault for a hot minute. She escapes and…no one notices? No one cares? Okay, she’s new, I guess I can ignore it.

The big one that I cannot understand at all: She joins up with Praetorian Jack and returns to the Citadel, long ass gorgeous hair, looking fine as hell. Clearly a woman!

How, someone tell me how Immortan Joe didn’t snap her up and toss her ass back in the Vault to see if she’s not barren? How did this not occur?

Literally all full-life women in this place are placed in chains. That’s…that’s like Immortan Joe’s thing.

You can’t tell me this Bad Man felt so generous that he’d just let Praetorian Jack keep her on his crew. I’m just. Ugh.

It sort of ruined the threat aspect of being a woman in this hard, terrible dystopia where women have no rights (they are valued only for breeding perfect specimens or providing milk). How did this NOT APPLY to Furiosa?

Was Joe like, “oh she fights, I guess she doesn’t need to do the most important duty that only a few women in this Citadel can perform”?

Like, if Splendid Angharad was a fighting bad ass, Joe still would have thrown her ass in the Vault. No questions asked. Nah girl, I have men to fight for me. What do I not have? I don’t have men pushing out perfect babies!

The whole misogynist world in the Citadel got reduced by this plot hole not being explained. Furiosa spends all this time hiding as a Boy, but then freely shows herself? Doesn’t make sense, I can’t make it make sense.

A scene could have fixed this, but instead we got a massive time jump where we just have to accept that Furiosa is somehow driving the War Rig?

😭

Side note, the scene of her sleeping in a room full of War Boys also gave me the yikes because there are so many things that could just…go wrong…in that situation…

[ghostpaynes]

Gentle reminder in infodumping on why it wouldn't work for Cat King to go to hell to get Edwin. This is the assumption hell would work the same as the underworld

Yes Orpheus and Eurydice is canon which yes means he did try to get her back.

BUT

Orpheus is the son of Calliope and Dream of The Endless

The only reason he had the chance was because he asked for advice from Destruction which lead him to talking to his aunt. Will repeat AUNT.

Even then Death was like "if you do this you can not die" which leads him to being torn to shreds and existing only as a severed head. This is an example of why you shouldn't mess with deat

And we can also look at Dream, who has the ability ish to be almost everywhere know everything and who is (basically) an immortal being who almost get stuck in hell just for getting back his property.

What is Cat King going to accomplish going to hell? Besides being stuck in hell

Like obviously he wouldn't know the full extent but I feel like he'd know Orpheus as a real story and not to fuck with death. Besides he probably didn't know and realistically didn't have a way to hell besides maybe dying six or five times. He is still a living being

Also while I'm on this rant why Cat King didn't help the girls makes total sense. HE JUST DIED. Like literally just died and was threatened mega death.

Esther is stronger than him and she literally proved it. The only thing he could would be a distraction maybe and I doubt that would have worked favorable. Cat King is not fully immortal and he is not all powerful. He has not only Edwin to think about but his cats. His subjects.

[hugsandchaos]

Follow-up to Halfa Dash AU

Believe it or not, Danny starts to get jealous of Dash. In his eyes, Dash got everything while he got little to nothing. Everyone in town knows Dash’s “secret” and work to hide him from the GIW or prying eyes. Valerie and the Fentons work together with him, and Vlad learned to let go of his anger a long time ago and isn’t in the picture.

When Danny helped in his universe, he was called a menace for accidentally causing property damage in ghost fights, half of which is caused by the other ghost attacking him and the other half is Danny being thrown at buildings or the ground, so he literally has no control over it! Even when he tried! He still tried to help the best he could, but it was never enough for the town.

“I gave all I could for them, and then some, but what did I get? Hunted! Torn open! I didn’t expect anything, not even a thank you!”

When Dash does it, he’s considered a hero, gets pats on the back, that kind of stuff. His fire core in still underdeveloped, but he warms up the area when he’s in ghost form. People love that, unless people are already hot and sweating, but no one lashes out. Danny’s ice core lowers the room temperature, and sometimes his body temperature. No one wants to hold hands that are cold.

As you can tell, Danny is pissed about this. He’s happy Dash doesn’t have to deal with what he did, but he’s still pissed.

As for Sam and Tucker, I have two ideas.

They went along with him to the alternate universe, where none of them existed, and all live and work together to get by and help each other out. There was no way they were leaving him alone.

The alternate Sam and Tucker like Dash. They think he’s a pretty chill guy, and they don’t understand why Danny keeps avoiding him or flinching. A part of Danny feels betrayed by this, even though he knows they’re not the Sam and Tucker he knew.

I think the last straw for Danny would either be Vlad or Lancer.

When Vlad comes into the picture, he’s not just… well, not a fruit loop, but he helps Dash! He helps him with his ghost powers, he teaches him, and Jack, and Maddie! He gives tips and advice on what to expect in the future and how to deal with it, and gives him his number incase he needs him!

Danny’s anger reaches a whole new peak.

If it’s Lancer, then it’s when he figures out that Danny has no parents and is living on his own. When he talks to Danny about this after school, he blows up at him. He goes on a rant about how Lancer thinks that he knows what’s best for him when he doesn’t know the full story. He lets it slip that he’s from another universe and had really bad experiences that made it hard for him to trust people and asks how he can be sure this isn’t a trap of some kind.

Eyes are glowing green, the room is freezing, and Danny’s cussing while trying not to have a mental breakdown and failing. He doesn’t want to be put into any adoption or foster care, especially with some strangers, and he’s determined to not let that happen. If anyone, he’d allow Frostbite to adopt him.

Surprisingly, this Frostbite and the one he first met are very similar and recognize him. It’s as if they’re actually the same! Like the Ghost Zone didn’t change, or at least, the Far Frozen didn’t.

Or maybe I can add the Nightingale Family from the PenPal AU! They’d be the one able to adopt him because he meets them all over again, and they’re some of the few people who are still the same. He knows he can trust them, so when they offer adoption, his answer is yes and a big hug.

I think that eventually, he and Dash might have a rivalry-type friendship. Ish. Danny’s constantly pushing Dash to get better with his skills. Dash likes to challenge him to a sparring match or race. Or maybe it’s like this closer to the start, but Danny’s genuinely mad under the mask. He’ll start to appreciate this Dash sooner or later.

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

Ok a rant about Cerri bomb and how much I HATE her

In the addict music video she was a very supportive friend of Angel and I loved her in the pilot! I wish we got that supportive best friend to Angel in the final product, but unfortunately she is a woman in a vivziepop show.

She’s AWFUL now I can’t stand her, the way she tried to make Angel relapse was so weird like pilot cherri wouldn’t do that! I also really dislike her design it has to be one of my personal least favourites (not the bottom though nothing is worse than alastors design to me) she isn’t enjoyable to watch anymore she had potential if she’d only been introduced earlier! Imagine if she was introduced in episode 4 and played the supportive friend she was originally supposed to be!

And GOD I hate her ship with pentious, it was SO RUSHED, so poorly done and the ship isn’t very “so cute and in love!!” When you remember she showed literally NO interest in him until Angel brought up that he has 2 dicks, and this is supposed to be a romantic relationship we CARE about.

Cherri didn’t need a romantic relationship she needed CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT we needed to get to know her! If you’ve only seen the show and no other Hazbin media at all (which shouldn’t be required you should be able to get all your info FROM THE SHOW) you’d barely know anything about her character or who she is. I wish we got pilot cherri bomb, and that she got a design update, and that her and pent’s relationship was either taken slower or didn’t happen at all

You silly little creature you, you have me writing in my notes app instead of Tumblr because I’m about to go crazy!

Cherri Bomb. More like Cherri what the hell happened

Anyway I���m gonna tackle this one thing at a time, and also forgive me if I word something weird I just woke up an hour ago at the time of writing this.

First thing, design: I personally quite like her design since it very loosely reminds me of Iris from Ruby Gloom with ofc the one eye, the very rowdy personality and kind of the hair, but those are very broad design choices and its just me remembering some random girl I thought was silly but like Iris did it better.

Okay now second thing and then we go into literally everything else: My blog has been an angry pit of despair for everything in Episode 6 as of recent so let’s tap into that again 🤏 just a little. I am going to give my classic centrist opinion and say I don’t mind Cherri Bomb all that much but I absolutely get why people dislike her, and I mean this in the kinda way as people who dislike… Idk Fukuchi from BSD. WILD jump in fandoms but gimme a second. I can’t 100% say that Cherri Bomb in the pilot was better than the series since we have no idea if maybe for some reason she was intended to be like that offscreen, but judging by the pilot and “Addict” alone, it’s very unlikely. I could see her maybe being a bad influence at times and being like “Loosen up dude we’re in hell and its Friday” or something (idk if they have Friday in hell but everyday is probably Monday 🥁) but overall I feel like she’d end up apologising for it. However on the other side of things, I can understand why Cherri did that in Episode 6. Of course not to say this is okay, but Cherri is still very clearly not in the “redemption” mindset. She’s happy the way she is and is really only focused on certain aspects of issues. We see her comfort Angel in “Addict” but thats basically the extent of it. Cherri’s definition of “self-care” seems to be less of actually taking care of yourself and more like just letting go and having fun instead which really only gives a momentary fix to the issue, much like how substances can be abused. Do you kinda see what im getting at? Cherri offering Angel drugs while he’s trying not to relapse is not okay, full stop. But her reasoning as to why makes a bit of sense for her purpose in the show which is honestly not much, since, as you said, she is a woman in a Vivziepop show.

To my knowledge Cherri is like 30-ish years younger than Angel Dust in Hell experience so she’s likely not reached a point where she’s gotten tired of how things work, as well as the fact we don’t really have much of an idea on her backstory aside from that random shot in “Addict” of that guy in a puddle??? But generally she seems to be in a better position than Angel is, so there isn’t really any reason for her to want to change, yknow? I will say I do like exploring characters that are good friends while still being bad influences at times, but I’m going to be honest I feel like thats really not what Angel needs right now. I wouldn’t be as pissy about it if she did end up apologising afterwards (I’m just gonna headcanon she did for my sanity) but even then as Angel’s friend we don’t know like… anything about her. I would’ve really liked to get some kind of callback to the pilot where Cherri mentions she thought Angel was dead until the random Sir Pentious turf war, and maybe we could see her actually being worried about Angel again instead of those 3 frames in “Addict”, but Hazbin is rushed and I guess we don’t have time for that. And also YES it would’ve been great to see her in Episode 4 and actually doing something but again, Vivziepop is boring.

Going forward I would really like to see Cherri, if not become a patron, at least try to be a better friend and sure if she wants to keep doing stuff she can keep doing it, but just don’t encourage other people to relapse. It is very simple.

SIR PENTIOUS! About Sir Pentious, this is going to be incredibly short. I don’t hate the ship but also I’m not really crazy about any of the Hazbin Hotel ships? I also don’t really hate any except for the genuinely horrid ones but thats basic sense. I absolutely agree with you, Cherri does not need a romantic interest. Romance doesn’t always = growth and growth should not always = romance. She needs some genuine character TLC and I hope to god she gets some in season 2. We’ve only seen a few minutes of her so I have yet to give a firm opinion, but as of now I’m just hoping they do something actually interesting with her instead of just alluding to Sir Pentious ship. Also the penis thing. 1. What was that, and 2. It made me and my friends briefly pause to sex Sir Pentious and come to the conclusion he is likely transgender/hj

TLDR; Please give us a fun Cherri Bomb again. ☹️

[okkos-ferrum]

Unorganized helluva boss apology tour rant cuz I think I'm going crazy

Disclaimer, cuz I know helluva fans can get defensive: A lot of this is probably my subjective opinion. I'll state my tldr as my actual objective piece of criticism, but otherwise my gripes throughout this could be based on my tastes and expectations. I genuinely don't want to take away anyone's enjoyment of this show nor hate on anyone involved, so if u just want to enjoy helluva, totally skip this :]

I think I'll actually have to give my hot take here and criticize this episode, because everyone has given way too much praise for an episode I think - in the long run - hurts the show

Im not gonna even bother organizing my thoughts I'm just gonna rant, but to start, i think the decision to start the ep right after full moon chronologically wasn't the best move. The full moon episode cliffhanger was an impactful scene and a dramatic way to start the rift between stolas and blitzo. It's where the dam of two-ish seasons finally breaks, where to me, stolas and blitzo have already said everything needed to be said, at least at the emotional maturity they currently are at. Any changes in said conversation about their relationship would require growth from both separately in order to foster a healthy discussion.

So to undercut that tension by IMMIEDTLY having blitzo somehow wiggle his way back into stolas's private property to have both double down on their stance diminishes the weight new moon's finale had. The conversation, while it does add further clarity, feels repetitive and emotionally taxing to watch, because the show has literally zero scenes of either of them reflecting on the previous night. So it's just them starting up the same fight with the same talking points we already know.

Yeah, maybe it is in character for blitzo to demand a conversation after new moon, but it shouldn't have been the path the show took. It should've allowed the story to stew in the feelings brought out in new moon, both in a narrative and meta sense by taking a break from stolatiz.

Cuz honestly I'm a bit drained of it atm. The show sells itself on the premise of blitzo being a "boss" (a hell of a bos-) and him working with imp. But all of s2 has had this obsession with stolatiz ever since the popularity of ozzie's (for good reason that episode was amazing and one of my personal favs still).

Just abt half the eps in s2 carry an emotional weight around the stolitz relationship. (where s1 has stolitz is make out sessions and the occasional threat to their life, s2 takes it up to actual life or death situations and full backstories) . This increased tension and focus draws away from the intial episodic format to become a more serialized (and imo) melodrama abt the status of the stolitz relationship. Rather than concern itself over any of the imp characters and their emotions, helluva has made all of its emotional beats and stakes throughtout the whole season relate to stoltiz in some way (or it's parallel with fizz and Ozzie in ep 7).

To return back to the ep, I also take issue with its writing of verosika. I will admit that this could be subjective, as my partner, who loves verosika and was worried abt her writing going into the ep, enjoyed how the ep integrated her. But idk, I think it is so lame that an ep like full moon, which is marketed to be abt stolitz, is fine wasting its time writing the cherubs for 90% of the episode, while can't bother making verosika a larger character in her own ep.

Like she's a SINGER, but no she's back up for STOLAS'S SONG this ep. And it's not stolas's hasn't had the chance to sing love ballads before, he's got plenty. But no, the host of the party can't even be a duet to stolas, she's gotta be back up. Like it couldve been a way stronger connection between these two if they sang a duet, rather than the show AGAIN prioritizing verbalizing stolas's emotions again.

We get a full flashback to blitzo's relationship with both fizz and stolas, but nothing on his other significant relationship??? Just a line or two of how it went down and that's it??

Side tangent: It gets on my nerves how so many people are realizing now that verosika is not a bad person. Like it's clear from even in her intro ep in s1 ep 3 she's angry rightfully for how blitzo screwed her over. But now that she actually is being nice and forgiving to stolas and blitzo respectively, now she has earned the fandom's respect??? Like the amt of comments of "Oh wow, verosika isn't a villain, she's an anatognist" drives me insane

Like to me, this ep should've stepped away from stolas directly, and focus on blitzo and verosika. Have blitzo go back to ignoring his feelings by jumping back head first into business, now with the asmodeous crystal. Then bump into verosika somehow. However it may happen, verosika and blitzo, either angrily or calmly, reflect on their own past relationship at the end, which might have blitzo making a realization of how he is repeating his past mistakes. Use the episodic format to slowly allow blitzo to mature so the next time he meets stolas, he won't just double down like he did in the beginning of the ep.

I think, personally, the decision to have verosika host the anti blitzo party diminishes her as a character. It chooses to again define her by how blitzo hurt her, rather than touching on the other underdeveloped parts of her character. She has shown to be very petty yes, but to go through all this effort seems too much, since she is a pop star and should have better things to do.

Maybe explore how she, a succubus, who is meant to have primarily sexual relationships, goes abt on her day to day as a celebrity who went to rehab. Or her relationship with maybe knowing barbie. Or the other ways to explore the set ups for her in ep 3. But no, she plays second fiddle to her second focus ep for the stoltiz drama. But yeah sure, let's have full moon be abt the cherubs.

On a final and likely my most pettiest point, this ep made me cringe a lot. I'm sorry, this is very subjective of me, but I need to say it. So much of this ep felt like fanfic. Always hammering in how "he's a prince and you're an imp" kind of deal. Stolas getting overly drunk after taking a swig of one drink to have blitzo handle him being drunk. The million puppy dog eyes by blitzo, like it felt too pitying. The rushed pacing felt like a result of this indulgent kind of writing, where it priotizes creating the cute shipping scenes before thinking about the actual plot and its effect later on. Again, just my taste tho

Alright I think I ranted enough but ...

Tl;dr: Apology tour messes up the pacing and focus of the show by continously centering itself around the stolitz drama rather than allowing time to reflect by themselves

[sloowoorants]

Thoughts After Watching Hannibal

About two months ago, I saw some Hannibal fan art on Twitter. It looked pretty cool, and I just so happened to have some free time, so I thought: why not watch the show? It's just a normal crime thriller, right?

I expected the type of show that's relatively light yet still intriguing, filled with sarcastic humor, starring a typical grumpy-but-genius protagonist. (This is vaguely the type of show that I’m generally into: Inside Job, Sherlock, House, Suits, Mr. Robot….)

I was so, so wrong.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the bat-shit crazy fever dream of a show that Hannibal is: bizarrely artistic gore, incessant cannibalism puns, completely unpredictable romantic subplots, torturous sex scenes that feel like angry acid trips, a multitude of absolutely unhinged psychiatric conduct, esoteric cryptic dialogue which require five google searches and a whole thesaurus to understand, two lesbian murderers "milking" a guy for his sperm to inherent his family heirloom, long scenes of intense and unabashed eye-sex, clumps of dog fur sticking to sweaty bed sheets…and a literal fucking social worker crawling out of a horse, alive and breathing and everything, covered in whatever acrid substances come from a horse uterus.

I ended up watching all of Hannibal in a week, hastily devouring it in just a few sittings.

In no way am I a professional film analyst or critic, but after having stayed up for nights on end, every single one of them spent under my blanket binging episodes until devilish hours of dawn (and barely comprehending the plot from the sheer speed I was consuming the show at, but also from sleep deprivation), I have cultivated a skull full of thoughts on this blessed masterpiece, and I need to rant about it. Which is exactly what this post is.

I am going to separate this ranty-meta-ish thing (I think a “meta” is what it’s called? I’m not sure, I don’t use Tumblr a lot) into two parts: one, about the representation of morality in the show, and two, about the intimacy between Will and Hannibal. It’s not super well written, my grammar is a bit iffy, but I hope you still enjoy reading this, and remember to take everything I say with a grain of salt. After all, I am just some guy with unrestricted internet access, a keyboard, and a little too much passion for the media I love :)

Part One: Hannibal Lecter’s Morality

Hannibal loves art. There is no episode in the entire show where he doesn’t reference some artistic thing—He plays the piano, he plays the theremin, he frequents the opera, he draws, and he finds peace at the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence. His love for art is why he kills, he transforms people he considers to be “inferior” and “ugly” and elevates them into art. He is acting out his own sense of justice, creating meaning from the meaningless.

In a way, he must have a certain degree of respect for his victims to do what he does. He could have just killed people and disposed of their body in a dumpster, but that’s not his style. Even if he doesn’t “care” about his victims in a traditional sense, there’s this unique honesty and attentive in his murders. Hannibal cares enough about his victims to make them art. And I’m not just talking about the way he displays their bodies, I’m also talking about his cooking, because a big part of art is also cuisine.

He follows a strict code of his own ethics, it’s almost like he’s acting out his “duty” to kill, to eradicate and transform the lesser “scum” of the world. To be killed by Hannibal is almost an honor, like being killed by God personally, skin to skin. Wouldn’t you feel a sense of divinity and fulfillment if God killed you with his own hands, knowing that he respects you enough to choke you himself, then turn you into an elegant display? Every kill of Hannibal’s is filled with passion – Which poses the question, does he kill out of hatred or not? When I think of violence fueled by hate, I think of sex or race based violence. But that’s not Hannibal. He kills victims he considers to be rude, yes, but is it a humiliation? Is it degradation?

This whole "elevate-swine-into-art" thing is also shown through the way that gore is generally portrayed throughout the show, and not just Hannibal’s murderers. It’s very interesting the way gore pretty in Hannibal. It’s often meticulous. It’s meaningful.

These murders are all aesthetically pleasing. For me, it creates a cognitive dissonance: on one hand, I know that these are painful, brutal murders, one the other, they’re kind of nice to look at, which makes me think—Have I ever for a second, while watching Hannibal, considered the crime scene to be beautiful? Have I ever viewed one of those scenes as art rather than gore? As an artist myself, do I understand Hannibal’s obsession with beauty? And if so, what type of person does that make me?

And I love the way this show makes us really think in Hannibal’s shoes, because of how unconventionally it portrays him as a villain. Usually, shows will provide villains with a backstory, but that doesn’t extend beyond just creating sympathy. In Hannibal, the villain is humanized. We understand him. We empathize. And what does that make of us?

Have I ever, in all seriousness, rooted for Hannibal instead of Jack Crawford? Have I ever thought someone deserved to die in the show? Have I ever looked at what Hannibal was cooking, and thought it looked delicious, despite knowing that its human flesh? Have I ever been annoyed at innocent patients of Hannibal, like Franklyn, because I viewed them from Hannibal’s perspective?

On top of that, Hannibal’s philosophy makes sense. I find myself agreeing to a lot of the things he says.

For example, this dialogue from S2e12 "Tome-Wan", when Will finds Mason Verger and Hannibal in his house, and Hannibal asks Will if he should kill or spare Mason Verger:

HANNIBAL: Murder or mercy?

WILL: There is no mercy. We make mercy, manufacture it in parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain.

HANNIBAL: Then there is no murder. We make murder, too, it matters only to us. You know too well that you possess all the elements to make murder. Perhaps mercy, too. But murder you understand uncomfortably well.

Does Will only have the capacity for mercy because he has the capacity for murder? Does mercy only have meaning in the context of murder? Is our own compassion a reflection of our violence?

With that said, are the things that I believe to be evil still evil when I throw away my moral believes? Is morality only meaningful in my own perception? And if so, how much am I contributing to evil if I am the one judging it? Do I create the evil that I so adamantly detest? Does deciding what is murder and isn’t not murder require the ability to, and intrinsic understanding of, murder? Can the morality of life and death be so clear cut, separated into different categories?

These are the types of questions that the show makes me ask, which is part of the reason I love the show so much.

I also love how the show puts a dark turn on empathy. Empathy is way too often portrayed as one of the best traits of all time, many claim it to be the most important aspect of mankind, but Will’s empathy is what ends up making him go on a downwards spiral: He is drawn to the darkness because he can understand it. He chose to teach at the FBI academy because he gets to feel like a killer without actually killing.

It made Will miserable, being able to understand killers. It gave him all sorts of guilt and self-hatred and confliction, which was why he was so damn miserable at the start of the show. And on top of that, no one really cared about him, Alana only had a whole “professional curiosity” thing going on (yes, I know that Alana’s character is one-dimensional because Hannibal’s female characters are poorly written, but even with that in mind, I still think that a huge part of Alana’s affection towards Will was in fact just curiosity), Jack was constantly pushing Will past his limits, so the poor dude didn’t have any connections to anyone until he met Hannibal.

And after Hannibal clocks him immediately when they first meet with the whole “your  values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations” situation, Will experiences his first kill: Shooting Garet Jacob Hobbs. Ten. Times. Then he confesses to Hannibal that he liked the feeling of killing him.

But Will can’t let go of his morality, it’s the only thing he’s been able to hold on to this entire time. It’s his lifeline. He holds onto it so dearly because he needs to convince himself that he’s a good person, that he’s not a killer, and that he’s doing the right thing. Yet, he knows that letting that morality go would be so freeing. He wants to. Hannibal helps him let go of it, and we as viewers can’t help but be on Hannibal’s side, because Will’s corruption arc is so gratifying. We like it, deep down we root for it. And what does that say about our relationship with our own morality? Does our morality tie us down? Do we crave to be free?

Will’s killing style is different from Hannibal’s, though. He’s passionate, reactive, and he doesn’t care about the process of killing, or the display body (before you say “the firefly man”, I believe he was imitating Hannibal’s style instead of curating his own), as long as the person is dead. He kills them from a sense of righteousness, like a vigilante justice. Was it wrong for him to find a sense of pleasure in killing Garett Jacob Hobbs? Does finding pleasure in killing corrupt his righteousness? Is it worse to kill out of passion, or kill meticulously? Is Hannibal’s style of killing more respectful? Is Will brutal? Just because Will kills out of a more conventional moral judgement and Hannibal doesn’t, does that make him better than Hannibal?

Another way the show convolutes the concepts of good and evil is using religious symbolism.

For example, from S1e02, “Amuse-Bouche”:

HANNIBAL: Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time, and are we not created in His image?

WILL: Did God feel good about killing?

HANNIBAL: He felt powerful.

(Shocking that this line was from the literal second episode. This show got intense so fast.)

And Will’s quote from S3e02, “Primavera”:

WILL: God can't save any of us because it's...inelegant. Elegance is more important than suffering. That's his design.

Is God an artist? Does that justify what He does? Are we only creating taboo out of His works to comfort ourselves? What does it mean to view the world with a purely aesthetic vision?

It’s these quotes that really allow me to see from Hannibal’s perspective: To him, there is no ultimate purpose of the world, there is no end goal to achieve, just the creation of beauty, and that’s terrifying to think about. Even as an atheist, it’s hard to digest the belief that there is no purpose to anything. We spend our entire human lives looking for meaning. But Hannibal doesn’t see it that way. Life and death are just futile processes to create art, and there’s no bigger point behind it. The cycle of life is supposed to be art. In a way, he’s like the God (sounding like Hannibal here), giving people meaning by making them into art, just like how God designates meaning onto every creature he makes.

And the show has a lot of art parallels, not just with Hannibal’s murders. Here are some that I’ve noticed:

(Parallels, in order from left to right, top to bottom: Nude From Back by Picabia compared to a shot of Bedelia from the back, The Persistence of Memory by Dali compared to Will’s clock drawing, Le Double Secret by Magritte compared to how Will saw Hannibal after visual overload from light therapy, Ophelia by Millais compared to Bedelia sinking into the bathtub, Portrait of Pablo Picasso by Juan Gris compared to Will’s hallucination of himself falling apart in a mirror, Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan by Ilya Repin compared to the cliff scene.)

I’m not the only one that has noticed these. Here is cool blog that focuses on artistic references in Hannibal, they’ve also noticed some of the ones I noticed: The Art of Hannibal.

Bryan Fuller probably didn’t do these on purpose while directing. But it still unintentionally solidified this theme artistic divinity. So I think Bryan must, to some extent, understand Hannibal’s obsession with making art out of death, because of the way art is subconsciously woven into the show. I don’t know though, just food for thought.

Anyways. Will, at the end of the show, while being cradled in Hannibal’s arms, both of them covered in blood that appears black in the moonlight, says to Hannibal: “It’s beautiful.”

And all that morality fleets and becomes insignificant in the face of aesthetics.

To Hannibal, beauty is moral. To Will, morality is beautiful. Have the lines begun to blur?

Part Two: Hannibal and Wills intimacy

“For [Hannibal and Will], two people who have been wandering their whole lives through a world in which they have not really experienced any viable form of connection with another human being—because they’re two extremely unusual people—and then they meet.”

-Hugh Dancy quote from SDCC 2013

Hannibal loves will. He drew him and Will as Patroclus and Achilles. He was ready to run away with Will in S2. He surrendered himself in S3 just because Will rejected him. And lets not forget the little twitch in his face when Francis attacks will. And when this dialogue happened (S3e12, “The Number of the Beast is 666”):

WILL: Is Hannibal in love with me?

BEDELIA : Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you... ache for him?

It is my belief that Will also loves Hannibal, although I understand that it’s not as agreed upon in the fandom as Hannibal’s love is. I think Will is just a little bit more reserved with affection, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Hannibal.

But one thing is for sure—there is a lot of homoeroticism in the show:

So, whether you think the love is reciprocal or not, the show is still, to put it lightly, really gay.

Hannibal’s love for Will is dark, possessive, powerful. Will is the only one that is capable of understanding Hannibal, and Hannibal was willing to risk literally everything just for Will to connect with him. He goes to extraordinary lengths just to make Will a murderer.

But even throughout Hannibal’s ruthless manipulation, which Will eventually becomes aware of, Will still stays for Hannibal. Because deep down, Will was willing to give up his own innocence to have that connection. Because Hannibal was the only person that could really understand Will too, no one else would be able to accept his dark tendencies.

S2e02, “Sakizuke”:

WILL: I don’t know which is worse. Believing I did it, or believing that you did it and did this to me.

(I remember reading a really good post by endlessly fascinated on how Will was actually being manipulative by saying this quote. I can’t find it though. If someone finds it, please tag me!)

Will eventually grows just as obsessed with Hannibal, as Hannibal is obsessed with him. Proof: telling Jack that he wanted to run away with Hannibal, telling Hannibal that he can’t get him out of his head, and that his inner voice is starting to sound like him him, and the “where would I go?” when Hannibal tells him not to leave his side, and the “one could argue, intimately” when Chiyoh asks him how he knows Hannibal, and the “before you and after you” when Hannibal asked him where the difference between the past and the future come from…I could go on forever. Will has never felt so grounded before, not in the way when he’s with Hannibal, with him, Will can see his own reflection, and he’s never been able to see that before.

And oh, the love language between them is violence. Will tries to kill Hannibal (someone tell me how many times, I forgot), and Hannibal tries to eat Will and a plethora of other fucked up shit. But in my eyes, none of those were out of hatred. Both of them trying to murder each other is out of love, out of acceptance, and out of forgiveness.

S3e06, “Dolce”:

HANNIBAL: You dropped your forgiveness, Will.

HANNIBAL: You forgive how God forgives.

And, S3e03, “Secondo”:

BEDELIA: Betrayal and forgiveness are best seen as something akin to falling in love.

HANNIBAL: You cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love.

No one can control who they love, or who they forgive, which is why Hannibal forgives Will and stabs him in the same breath. He is forgiving, not letting go.

Will forgives Hannibal too. He forgives Hannibal way too many times, throughout all the manipulation of Hannibal. Think about just how much insanity he’s endured: drugged, gutted, encephalitis abused, hypnotized, framed for murder, a serial killer was sent after his family, had his brain literally almost eaten, and despite all that, Will still forgives Hannibal—it was not a conscious decision. We cannot control who we forgive.

If Hannibal is a fallen angel, then Will is God to him. And God is indifferent, sometimes even cruel. Like Hannibal said himself, good and evil has nothing to do with God. Will forgives Hannibal, but that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t want to hurt Hannibal; just like how Hannibal forgave Will, but still gutted him. In that moment, Will forgave indifferently, so he could get back to revenge. They both forgive like blades, they both forgive with pain.

Doesn’t God forgive through punishment? God will forgive you for your sins but you still have to go to hell, right?

Violence is a pillar of stability in their relationship, it’s how they understand each other, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the smile on Will’s gut a permanent reminder of Hannibal’s hurt, and all of Hannibal’s scars a reminder of Will’s hurt.

I see all of their trying to kill each other is affection. Hannibal doesn’t try to eat Will because he hates Will, he tries to eat to immortalize him, to keep Will as part of him forever.

And through that violence, Hannibal helped Will let go of his morality. Will had spent forever trying to repress himself—Molly was a failed attempt to escape into normalcy. Will definitely thought about Hannibal those years Hannibal was in prison.

S3e13, “The Wrath of the Lamb”:

HANNIBAL: When life becomes maddeningly police, think about me. Think about me, Will.

Will definitely missed the hunger, the violence. We can see this though the passionate way he killed the Red Dragon. He probably held Molly’s gentle hands and desperately wanted to feel something more. To feel something dangerous. Something that could simultaneously revive and ruin him. Molly never understood him the way Hannibal did, and he will never love her the way he loves Hannibal.

He did think about Hannibal when life became maddeningly polite. He probably fantasized about what they’ve done, what they could’ve done, and the feeling of freedom when he’s with Hannibal.

And Hannibal waited for him patiently, staying exactly where he was three years ago. And when Will eventually pushed them off a cliff together, Hannibal showed no sign of resistance, and just let them fall.

“I think [Hannibal]’s feeling that embrace and that’s the first thing that he’s feeling, and even as he’s plunging into the Atlantic, he’s first and foremost thinking about the man he’s holding onto and the man who’s holding onto him.”

–Mads Mikkelsen on Hannibal’s thoughts during the final scene

Their violence is something that we as viewers may never comprehend, but we can all understand their intimacy. Isn’t it what we all want, after all, to be seen?

Anyways...

Hannibal is a great show! 10/10, would recommend. Although, the lighting kind of sucks. Bryan, if there is a season four, please make the show brighter, for the love of God.

Thanks for reading this! :)

[dangermousie]

Would you consider giving Are You The One/ Hidden Charm a chance? It has The Double vibes and not at all sweet ones, although there are funny and touching moments. The angst and male lead shooting/stabbing are delicious. The female lead has amnesia during the first part of the drama but she's not a dummy. And the male lead is digging his own grave with his lies and manipulations while falling deeply in love with her. I really do think it could be right up your alley.

Hi!!!

Thank you for the rec!

I actually did check it out - I watched the first six eps back when it started airing. Alas, it was not the one for me and its charm remained hidden (sorry, I honestly couldn't resist!)

6 eps is probably a good representative chunk; it's not impossible that a drama that didn't work for me for the first 15% will end up working afterwards, but it's pretty unlikely.

I agree that on paper, the premise sounds very much my thing but for whatever reason, the execution just didn't click. It felt really fluffy and bland and I had no emotional investment or interest in the characters or their relationship. Some of it is the actors - ZWY was wonderful in Lost You Forever, but he came across as muted here (and confession time - I was so annoyed by LYF2 and his character encapsulated why - that even though it wasn't his fault I probably should have a little break before I should watch him in another drama because I just get annoyed all over again) and Wang Churan is an actress who has never evoked anything but irritation in me for whatever reason except for small role in Joy of Life 2.

But honestly, it's just the vibe. As I am sure you can tell, I am an emotional vampire who lives for intensity in my dramas (it doesn't have to be high angst melo; a slice of life drama like Will Love in Spring will do just as well provided I am emotionally drawn in.) And this drama just did not grab me emotionally at all. They were competent, nice-ish people who I felt no dislike of but also no involvement with. My feeling was - they get a happy ending? Nice. A terrible ending? Also nice.

There is literally only one other circumstance under which a drama where the narrative and the leads don't grab me can become an obsession - and that's if cinematography is gorgeous enough. The Double for example was a beautiful fever dream visually so even when I lost a lot of interest in the narrative in the second half, I loved watching it. I will watch any Guo Jingming production, however nonsensical and full of actors I don't care for, because I find the visuals that jawdropping. But while Hidden Charm is not a badly filmed or ugly drama, it's workmanlike - the cinematography and visuals in general do not stand out to me.

This is a very long screed so apologies. tl;dr summary: I tried it and it's not in the least a bad drama but it's not to my taste because it feels fluffy and not emotionally involving to my tastes.

But if you are watching it, hope you are enjoying it!!! Everyone has different tastes so my rant above is a purely personal explanation as to why it didn't work for me, not a comment on the drama quality.

As to my cdrama slate - I am pretty stoked for Love in Nirvana which supposedly drops in September after Hidden Charm ends so hopefully I will have better luck in the fall :) And Chang Le Qu on the 26th though it's mango so good luck to me with subs!

[catboybiologist]

Random actual vent that is probably more venty than my usual random little things, but occasionally I have to step back and think how asinine the salary system for PhD students can sound to people outside of academia. I really just want to like... lay it on the table, because it really is fucking dumb and I occasionally want validation that its fucking dumb.

Note that this is all coming from a traditional lab sciences, in the US perspective. Also, I'm really fucking ADHD and have a really, really shitty brain for bureacracy, so this is a rant and isn't really intended to be informative and might be wrong in places, its just me word vomiting.

Let's start with something straight off the bat- grad school isn't really school. It's work that creates value for the university, and you happen to take one or two courses on the side that the university has determined will make you better at that work (your mileage may vary). It's an entry level job, essentially. You create value for the university in one of two ways- you either contribute to research that gets them grant money, or you teach undergrads that pay tuition. We'll get back to how that affects you later, but first lets talk about something else: what the university claims they pay you vs what you actually get paid.

On paper, my income is approximately 3 times as much as my actual, take home income. There's two reasons for this. The first is that I am technically charged tuition by the central university, which is then immediately paid off by the source of my income. In official job titles, that's technically included in what you're getting paid, although most universities don't even bother advertising that. The other confounding factor is that you're literally always considered part time. The exact % time varies depending on your exact schedule, and of course your university, but its actually weirdly consistent even between universities. Technically, the work you do on your thesis isn't "work", and the university doesn't technically pay you to do it. Even though the work you do on your thesis literally generates revenue for the university in the form of grant overhead. But we'll get to that. If you're a researcher for a given appointment term, you're expected to also do research activities that are unconnected to your thesis- which is ridiculous, because there's no lab in existence where the work isn't all interconnected in some way.

Half time appointments are common, but lots of different percentages exist.

So, if you ever see a figure that says that a grad student position is paid at about $80k a year, that's whats going on. The highest take-home income I have EVER heard of in the US for PhD students is $54k, at Stanford neuroscience. I think its a bit higher now, but that at least gets you a ballpark. Most STEM PhD students on the high cost of living coasts are paid 30-40k ish, and in cheaper areas you can expect to take 5k off of that. These are for degrees that usually make six figures on the job market.

And then there's the other convoluted problem- the source of the funding. This is where the academia salary model really has a unique brand.

Basically, when you're a PhD student, you're not working one job for the full 5-7 years. You're constantly flipping between job titles within the university, and who exactly is paying you changes as a result.

The most basic distinction is researcher vs teaching assistant. TA is easy- you work "part time" (but oh my god those workloads are not part time sometimes [although the class I'm TAing now is very chill so its w/e][fuck you molecular genetics at my master's uni tho]), and the department you're teaching for pays for your tuition and your salary as a result.

Researcher is a bit weirder. Basically, each lab is conducted as its own independent financial unit, managed by a Principle Investigator (PI, or to any grad student, the professor/boss/research advisor/liege/monarch/authority of the lab). The PI is constantly writing lab wide grants to supply the core funding of the lab, including the salary of the grad students. Grants can be pretty general, but there are also very specific ones that check in how the money is being spent. These include training grants/fellowships/tbh the name is arbitrary for a lot of these. Those are grants that are written to supply the salary of a specific grad student.

Couple things to note- the university charges the PI in a lot of ways on this. Notably:

They charge tuition on every grad student, as mentioned previously, which under a researcher appointment is paid from the PI to the university.

They charge overhead on grants- basically, they take money out of every grant the PI gets.

If the previous two sources aren't enough, oftentimes universities will pay rent on the amount of building space a lab takes up (although this is very inconsistent between universities)

Researcher appointments are considered favorable to teaching appointments, because they mean you can spend more of your time on your thesis. But, its dependent on whether your PI has the funding to pay you all that, which is a big if. So, every quarter or semester or year or however much your university decides to renegotiate it, you essentially switch jobs, in a way. Obviously its a lot more simple and streamlined than actually switching jobs, but your title, responsibility, source of income, and sometimes your actual pay changes constantly.

And to anyone who has been through a PhD, you're nodding along like this is all the basic stuff, because all this is so NORMAL. Like this is all the normal system, and this is the bare basics of it as well. And it's weird that it's normal, right? Like, most of my career has been tied to academia, so I don't have a fantastic benchmark for this, but this isn't how it works outside of academia like... at all.

Over the course of late last year and bleeding into this year, multiple graduate student unions have had strikes or negotiations regarding pay scale, but its been a very difficult situation for the average grad student to untangle because of how weird the source of pay is. Because technically, even though you functionally work a single, salaried job with slightly changing obligations, what's happening behind the scenes is that you're essentially hopping between jobs every couple of months. In an ideal system, those jobs always have the same pay, but that's increasingly becoming not the case. Sometimes that means getting paid more overall, sometimes slightly less. Union negotiations have made this pay slightly higher overall, but its still a mess of a system.

And obviously, there's paperwork associated with so many of these steps.

So in my last post, when I said "getting a grant", that was what I was referring to- applying for training grants that will guarantee that I don't have to teach extra or get extra money from my PI for the time I'm here. I'd love to get more teaching experience, but ofc I want to do it when I want to, not when I have to. I'm applying for multiple training grants over the next couple of months that will hopefully fund my salary specifically, and hopefully I'll get at least one of them. And tbh, I don't even care that much about teaching, I more want them because it'll dramatically simplify all this for me.

I love what I do to death, but untangling this shit is what gives me imposter syndrome more than anything. I think my arrogant streak shows when I can genuinely say that I've never felt imposter syndrome based on my scientific knowledge. I have felt it over two things- my motivation/productivity (which is a different rant entirely), and the fact that I am really, really bad at untangling the level of bureaucracy required to just... exist here. Just give me my fucking paycheck and let me do my science, and tell me when you want me to teach.

[dailymothanon]

🌊 • Perhaps I have been having Maine in my brain lately… whatever it is about lighthouses, he is correct. I sorta wanna sketch him more an’ all, hopefully my brain will allow it tomorrow u_u I did have some ideas for him btw! So, rants of those in the read more 😼

Although he likes seashells, he doesn’t collect them because it increases shoreline erosion.. perhaps he may take pictures or sketch them, tho! And perhaps other things he likes to look at along his coast; also because I’m pretty sure lighthouses often don’t have much of any internet access he’s probably gotten good at traditional sketching to past the time

Also I think he really liked listening to the older New England states about their sea stories or folk stories when they had the time to tell him when he was younger; he’s like the youngest New England state last I checked yeah?? Yeah. Hence leading him to get real interested in lighthouses

Speaking of which he’s like. Literally a lighthouse as a person. And a Maine-coon cat. I think he’s like rather pale because of. Something. I forgot the reason on why tbh but it was probably weather related I guess. And his hair silver-ish cuz Maine cats and such, and grayish green eyes— but I can tell Alaska’s getting face fulls of snowblindness on the very sunny days 😔 he can take it. He’d burn his eyes out if it meant he could look at Maine for as long as possible

also remember when I said that one time that Maine makes me think of green and silver 😼 I’m adding navy blue to that list, my brain is simply thinking like that

actually now that I think about it Maine’s and Alaska’s (albeit inconsistent on Ak’s side—) designs rather contrast against eachother 🤔 Maine having brighter colors; skin hair and eyes or whatever, shorter too obviously, and no facial hair meanwhile Alaska is darker in eyes (he also has monolids) skin and hair, from native Alaskan traits, as well as being tallerererer, and a beard. I thought that was rather interesting because it was genuinely a coincidence

Anyways shoutout to Maine, he’s like this cat fr

[cloudlessly-light]

Pull me tight and close your eyes (Part 2/2)

A/N: Part 2 of this silly little story, based on an ask from @sequinsmile-x! I hope you like it all you wonderful people! Title: Pull me tight and close your eyes (Part 2/2) Summary: College AU. Emily’s best friend and roommate starts to date Aaron and it’s the first time Emily feels like she can’t trust herself around another person. She shouldn’t be envious of her best friend, but she is.   Word Count: 4k Rating: Explicit Warnings: Smut, rough sex, teasing, dirty talk (ish?), consumtion of alcohol

It's only a few days later that Chloe comes home saying that her and Aaron had ended it. She says it with a knowing look to Emily who’s just gotten into bed.

“How did he take it?”

“It was very… mutual.” Chloe answered as she started to pull off her clothes. “He brought it up before I had the chance to. So,” She stopped in front of Emily in her underwear and poked her nose “now it’s up to you.”

Emily scrunched her nose but she could still feel excitement in the pit of her stomach. She laughed lightly as her best friend continued to talk, ranting about classes like nothing happened. And she wondered how she got so lucky with Chloe, that her best friend supported something that could have easily torn them apart.

*

The first time she sees Aaron after the party was actually on accident, and not how Emily had pictured it. She was running late, a coffee in one hand and a bag over her shoulder. She had just finished a job interview for a summer job, wanted to award herself for pretty much nailing it but had lost track of time and now she was late to meet Derek and Spencer for dinner.

She’s distracted and as she rounds a corner she literally crashes into another person. Her coffee goes everywhere, staining her light grey top as well as the man whose hands are on her waist.

“Fuck!” She mutters and when she looks up to yell at the stranger she realizes that he’s no stranger at all. “Aaron.” It’s so familiar, flashbacks to his apartment only a couple of weeks ago when they ran into each other in the hallway. “You make it a habit to run into people?”

“Just the pretty ones.” He smiles, hands still on waist and if she wasn’t feeling the way the coffee was seeping into her clothes she probably wouldn’t have backed away. But she’s starting to smell the coffee, can feel the warm liquid turning cold and uncomfortable so instead she rolls her eyes at him.

“Great.” She looks down and sees the state of her shirt, soaked and stained. “Thanks for ruining my clothes.” She wants to sound irritated, but the tone comes out teasing.

“I’m sorry.” He genuinely looks sincere and that’s when she sees that his shirt is stained from the coffee too.

“It’s okay, but I have to get going, I’m already late for a dinner thing.”

“Hot date?” One of his eyebrows raised and a smirk appeared on his face but she was sure she could hear the curiosity in his voice.

“Nah, just meeting a couple of friends. Nothing as fun as a date.” She answers and he looks more relaxed.

“In that case, would you consider letting me get us both in a cab and to my apartment? So you can clean up?”

“Cancel my plans?” Her eyebrows knit together and she starts to turn from him. “I don’t think so.”

His hand wraps around her wrist and she feels like her skin burns from his touch, stopping her from taking a step.

“You’re going to dinner like that?” He laughs and she bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at the sound of it.

“No, I’m going to hurry home and change.” She realizes as she says it that she wouldn’t make it to dinner regardless. There was no way with the afternoon traffic. She looks up at his handsome face, she wanted to go with him there was no denying that. “You live a few blocks from here right?”

The smile on his face turns into a full on grin and he nods.

*

She had texted Derek on the way, a quick explanation ending with a promise to make it up to them next week. When all she got was a have fun princess ;) she knew that Derek wasn’t angry, and Spencer wouldn’t be either.

They get to the apartment and it’s quiet, no signs of Matt anywhere.

“He’s visiting his parents.” Aaron answers before she has the chance to ask, clearly noticing the way her eyes move through the empty space.

“Oh.” Is all she manages to get out, excitement filling her at the thought of them being alone.

“Here you go.” Aaron pulls out a big towel and hands it to her, then goes to his bedroom and comes back with a shirt. When he winks knowingly at her, she can feel her cheeks tinting pink.

“Thanks.” She walks toward the bathroom, feeling his eyes on her the entire time. Once in the bathroom she showers, the coffee had stuck to her skin and she quickly washes off. When she’s done she pulls on his shirt, the dark blue fabric ending mid-thigh and she smirks when she pulls on her panties but skips her jeans. There was no doubt in her mind what would happen tonight, not from the way he kept looking at her, his dark eyes fastened on her like she was pray and he was starving. It wasn’t how she had imagined it, it was better.

When she comes back out Aaron had changed into black sweats, foregoing a shirt and she forces herself not to stare. He on the other hands stares like there’s no tomorrow.

“Cat got your tongue?” She smirks and jumps onto kitchen island.

“I knew my shirt would look better on you than on me.” He walks slowly towards her, taking his time and she can feel how her heart rate increases as the dull ache of arousal pulses between her legs. His eyes doesn’t leave her and she refuses to look away, not wanting him to think the had the upper hand. By the time he’s standing in front of her, she feels her breath coming out a little ragged, can feel the hair at the back of her neck rise and she spreads her legs just enough for him to stand in between.

His large hands wrap around her hips and pulls her right to the edge of the marble island and she can feel him against her, hard and straining and she gasps.

“Is this okay?” He asks, face so close to her that his breaths fall against her cheek.

“Yes.” She nods, almost wanting to laugh at the question but she knows why he asks.

“Good.” It’s a low whisper, spoken against her lips but he doesn’t kiss her, instead he lets his lips hover over her skin, and then he speaks against her ear. “From the first moment I saw you I knew I wanted you. Haven’t been able to think about anything else.”

She shivers, her fingers dig into his upper arms to keep steady, feels the want to grind her hips against his to relieve some of the pressure she feels between her legs. She can’t think, her mind too hazy to string a sentence together.

“I’ve thought about your taste, the sounds you make, how badly I want to make you come for me.” He places a gentle kiss against her jaw and then pulls back enough to look at her. “I got to hear you with Matt, but you knew that didn’t you?”

She nodded mutely, her tongue sweeping over her bottom lip to wet it.

“And all I could think about was how much I wanted to be in that bed, to have you yelling my name.” His fingers dig into her skin and she gasps.

“You know you don’t have to wonder.” She whispers and the look on his face turns close to feral. She moves one hand to let her fingers tangle in the hair at the back of his neck, tries to pull him close enough to kiss her and he hums teasingly.

“Not yet.” He tells her and she wants to pout, but settles for a long sigh. “I’ve never fucked a girl without at least buying her dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.” She wraps her legs around his hips and the sound that leaves him when he feels the heat of her even through her underwear and his sweats is breathy and low and she knows that she needs to hear it again.

“Trust me, you’re going to need your energy.” He untangles her legs and steps back, leaving her jaw slacked and horny and he winks.

Bastard.

He makes her pasta and lets her be in charge of stirring the sauce with a glass of wine in hand. His hands move all over her, she lets her own explore his body too. Her nails scratch gently over his back, her lips hover against his pulse when he pushes her against the counter to grab something, she pushes her ass back against him when he stands behind her. It’s a kind of foreplay she’s never experienced and by the time they’re sitting down to eat she’s pretty sure her entire body is vibrating from arousal.

They eat, and talk, she starts to actually get to know him and unsurprisingly she only finds herself more attracted to him. He wants to be a prosecutor, he wants to help people, he has a younger brother and his father died when he was in high school, which left him with an inheritance that explained how he could afford this sizeable apartment while still in school.

She tells him about the world, the places she’s lived and he listens so intently she feels like she’s the most interesting person in the world. He asks her about school, what she plans to do after and she’s truthful about not knowing but that she would want to work for the FBI or even Interpol one day.

By the time they finish dinner it’s getting dark and Emily finds herself looking out at the city through the living room window. Aaron is moving around behind her, putting things in the dishwasher and then turning down the lights around the apartment as he goes. She sips some of the wine still in her glass, so lost in the haze of arousal and the beauty of the city that she doesn’t hear him as he comes up behind her.

He takes the glass from her hand and puts it away, then he pulls her flush against him, her back against his front. She sucks in a breath, feels the goosebumps on her arms and legs as he carefully brushes her dark hair away from her neck.

“It’s beautiful.” She says and he hums, that low murmur of his that feels like it vibrates in his chest.

“You’re beautiful.” His words make her smile and she turns her head to look back at him. He’s so close, his touch sure but gentle when he angles her face enough while his other arm wraps around her waist to keep her planted. He gives her another second, to change her mind or say no but she only nods, excitement and pent-up sexual energy the only thing she can feel and then he finally kisses her.

He tastes like red wine and something she can only call Aaron. His tongue sweeps over her bottom lip and she opens her mouth to him, a soft moan leaving her when he kisses the air out of her lungs. She’s not sure how long they stand like that but when he pulls away they’re both panting and he’s hard against her backside again.

“Look out.” He whispers and then turns her head back towards the window to look out at the city. “Stay just like this.” The words are low against her neck, said between kisses to her skin and she nods.

She feels him pulling his shirt off her, leaving her standing in only her panties and she realizes that this is why he’s turned the lights off, so they can’t be seen from the outside. He pulls down her underwear to join the shirt on the floor then quickly stands up to pull her back against him. She pushes back even harder against him, feels his lips turn into a smile against her shoulder and she smirks too.

“Kinky.” She places one of her hands on the back of his neck to keep him in place as he sucks and licks over her neck. He starts to caress her body, slowly letting her get used to the feel of his large hands. He pulls her nipples and she arches into him, then stops to look at her over her shoulder.

“You have no idea.” His voice is so raspy that she can’t help to grip his hair tighter. “If you feel like you can’t stand, tell me.”

“Cocky, aren’t you?” She teases but she any retort he might have said is overpowered by the moan she lets out at the sudden pressure against her clit. One of his hands were between her legs, using two fingers to circle her clit while the other had found her breast, his fingers teasing and pulling on a nipple.

“You were saying?” He mutters and she can hear the satisfaction in his voice. “You’re so wet for me.”

“Aaron.” She whimpers and lets go of his neck only to reach for something else to hold on to, finally settling on leaning against the window. His fingers move lower, the two fingers that had been toying with her clit pushing inside of her.

“That’s it.” He encourages behind her, groaning at the feeling of her clenching around his fingers. His palm press against her clit, his fingers curling and moving inside of her. The moans and whimpers fall from her lips, her head falls back against his shoulder and her hips buckle into his touch.

“I’m close.” She mumbles “I’m so close.” The heat in her stomach builds quickly, spreads through her until it’s all she can feel. She looks down, sees people on the street and through windows in the building next to them and it only drives her closer to the edge.

“I know, baby.” He breathes against her ear, he can feel her body straining, can feel his own cock leaking from how badly he wants her. “Let go and come for me.” He lets go of her chest and wraps his arm around her middle just seconds before her legs give out. Her nails dig into his arm as she comes hard, the pleasure so intense that she forgets to breathe for a moment. She moans his name, eyesight going fuzzy before her eyes roll back and all she can feel is bliss as he drags out her orgasm for as long as possible.

His touch turns gentle as he lets her come back down, his lips trailing lazy kisses along her throat and shoulder until her eyelids flutter open. Her eyes are heavy lidded and hazy, pupils blown wide and he’s sure he’s never seen something so stunning in his life. She pulls him into a kiss, turns in his arms the moment she feels like her legs can hold her weight and pushes her tongue against his.

“Bedroom.” She mumbles and he nods, already leading her through the apartment towards his room while they continue to kiss and hands roam freely.

Once they’re in his bedroom Emily pushes him back against the bed, laughing when he falls back on it with a sound of surprise.

“You’ve had your fun, now it’s my turn.” She tells him and he nods, more than happy to finally get some relief. He helps her off with his sweats and boxers, leans back on his hands as he sits on the edge and Emily falls to her knees in front of him.

“Fuck.” He hisses when she takes his cock in her hand, tests the weight of feel of him before looking up at him.

“You said that you’ve wanted me since the first moment we met.” She whispered and he nods, jaw slacked and breathing ragged. “I’ve wanted you too.” The words are breathing against the tip of him, followed by her tongue sweeping over it teasingly.

“Emily, I swear I’m going to bend you over this bed if-” The vague threat dies on his tongue when Emily takes half of him in one go, her lips and tongue around him making his hips buckle at the unexpected pleasure.

“Maybe later.” She says when she pulls back with a smirk and then she takes him back in her mouth again. Her tongue presses against the underside of his shaft, her lips are wrapped tightly around him and she used her hand for the part she can’t fit in her mouth. She keeps her eyes on him, gauging what he likes as she keeps bopping her head up and down.

“Just like that Em.” His fingers tangle in her hair and she hums at the feeling. She takes him deeper, not caring when her throat constricts or tears fill her eyes. When she gets all of him down her throat Aaron’s head falls back, a growl erupting from him and she eagerly does it again and again.

“Jesus Christ, fuck stop, stop!” He pulls her off him with a breathless laugh “You’re going to make me come and I need to fuck you.” His thumb moves over her bottom lip, wiping some spit away. “Come here.” He helps her up to straddle him, one hand holding her neck, thumb under her chin to keep her eyes on him.

“I want you.” She mumbles and he nods.

“You have me.”

When she sinks down on him it’s slow, their breaths mixing and eyes locked on each other as she feels him deep inside. She swallows down his grunt when they kiss, her hips starting to slowly roll against his. He moves his hand over her body, up her thighs, over the globes of her ass, trails fingers over her ribs and teases her nipples. He touches her everywhere he can as he lets her set the pace, watches her with awe as she takes him completely.

“Gorgeous.” He mutters and she smiles through a gasp. She rocks her hips against his, already feeling herself getting addicted to the feel of him.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” She pants and he chuckles, the sound just as breathless. His hands finally land on her hips, start to help her move up and down as their pace gets more frantic.

She lets her forehead lean on his shoulder when he suddenly plants his feet on the floor and fucks into her, causing her to moan loudly.

“That’s it, let me hear it.” He mutters and she bites on his shoulder hard enough that it will probably leave a bruise, but she doesn’t care, not when he’s hitting into her perfectly.

“Don’t stop.” She pleads and he doesn’t. He keeps his hands on her, leaving his own bruises on pale skin from the way he’s gripping at her, pushes into her hard and fast enough for the room to be filled with noises of skin hitting skin. It’s dirty and rough, almost obscene and Emily loves it.

“Come for me again.” He grunts and she does in only a few minutes. Her hips buckle on his lap, her muscles tensing as he fucks her through it, only encouraging the desperate moans that leave her until she’s heaving for breath and he’s moving them both back on the bed and then lays her back against his pillow.

“Come here.” She urges him towards her, wraps her legs around his hips and catches his lips in a kiss. They only break apart when he pushes inside of her again, his thrust quickly becoming hard and deep.

“Perfect, fucking perfect.” He mutters somewhere near her collarbone and Emily shivers from his words. His fingers intertwine with hers next to her head, his eyes find hers and she can’t look away. Before him she had never been a fan of eye contact, but there was something about the way he was looking at her that made it impossible to look away. Then she feels his other hand moving between them, finding her clit and she whimpers his name.

“One more.” He tells her and she knows that they’re nowhere near the end. He fucks her with even strokes, is so deep inside of her that it’s bordering on painful but the pain mixes with the pleasure, making her cling to him.

When she falls off the edge for a third time she can hear him muttering dirty words in her ear. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t give her any time to calm this time and she knows that it’s because he’s getting close to his own release.

“Come inside of me, Aaron. Let me feel it.” She mumbles and he groans loudly as his hips stutter. He kisses her when he comes, lets his grunt be muffled against her lips as he gives in to his own pleasure. Emily whimpers at the heat of his orgasm inside of her, keeps her legs wrapped around him even after he’s gone soft and their heated kisses has turned into lazy, softer ones.

“We’re drinking some water and then we’re doing that again.” He tells her with a grin and she agrees with a smile of her own.

*

10 years later

Emily sits next to her now husband of exactly 67 minutes, her hand in his. She couldn’t believe how happy she was, how her life could have turned out this perfectly. She so caught up in the bliss that she barely hears the toastmaster calling Chloe’s name.

Her eyes find her maid of honor, standing with a microphone in hand and her own grin on her face.

“So, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m the maid of honor and Emily’s best friend since college.” She starts as she looks through the venue, finally looking back at Emily and Aaron. “I am also the person who brought Aaron and Emily together,” She stopped and her smile turned into a teasing smirk and Emily’s eyes widened. “You see once long ago, I went on a date with Aaron, when I really wanted his roommate, and my now husband of 4 years.”

“Chloe…” Matt shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, causing people to laugh.

“Now here’s the thing. Me and Aaron dated and we had a good time, but I was there the night Emily and Aaron met and let’s just say things were…electric,” she stopped to fan herself while giving them a knowing look. “and I knew that this was something special. Even if our lovely bride never voiced it out loud. Anyways, here we are, 10 years later and we are finally getting the wedding we all have been waiting for.” She raised her champagne glass in the air in a toast.

“And you were worried.” Aaron muttered quickly, knowing that Emily had been sure that Chloe would embarrass them.

“She’s not done.” Emily said just as quickly, holding her own glass in hand.

“Aaron I love you and I’m so happy that we get to celebrate you and Emily tonight. But I want to give a special thank you to Emily, you’re my best friend, you’ve stood by me through thick and thin. And let’s face it, not a lot of friendships could have made it through sleeping with the same man within the same month in college. Cheers!”

And there it was, Emily thought but she couldn’t help but to laugh, Aaron quickly joining her although he was much more embarrassed that she was. She felt his hand hold hers a little tighter and she turned to face him.

“Just imagine if you hadn’t fucked her, we never would have met.” She teased with a smirk.

“Just shut up so I can kiss my wife.” He kissed her before she had the chance to reply.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Can we get a full rant about the Paris special?

You're probably going to get more out of me once it fully airs but for now just.

The evil characters motivations just kinda suck for comparing them to the originals. Which again: I don't want to do because I hate the 'oh this other person had the same trauma and handled it better' thing, but when it's the same character going through the same trauma it's bullshit.

Shadybug's reason for being evil sucks because it's literally just 'she didn't meet Alya' which is supposed to be part of the Derision Retcon of how awful Chloé was even though it doesn't match with anything we saw in Season 1-3 but I can ignore that because it commits a worse crime: Letting us know that if Marinette didn't meet Alya that exact day, she would've gone full murderous villain before the day was over. Like literally Alya is the only thing different, which means even Canon!Mari is just one bad day from snapping and killing everyone.

Claw Noir makes no goddamn sense because Canon!Adrien was able to healthily handle his mother's 'death' even having Canon!Gabriel as his abusive neglectful bastard of a father. How is it that a version of Adrien that had a genuinely good father end up handling his mother's 'death' so poorly that he's down to kill whoever gets in the way as a coping mechanism?

All of this might be rendered unnecessary anyway with the fact that they're working for whatever 'Supreme' that's actually the Big Bad and might be forcing them into this? I need more info on that before I give a verdict.

I thought Hesperia being 'Good' would be the hardest sell considering Season 4 and 5's insistence that his evil plans have been 15-ish years in the making(despite the finale's insistence that he's only 'evil' because he misses Emilie) especially since clearly said plans are still in place as Alt!Adrien exists and Emilie 'died' meaning they got the Peacock. But other than the above plothole of somehow Good!Gabriel let Adrien end up as Claw Noire, he seems fine.

There's a lot of missed opportunities where they're trying to show alternate universes but only focusing on a single one. Like again: give us an Into the Ladyverse. We appearently see them for a few seconds during a Scooby-Doo Chase Scene™ which is the biggest slap in the face.

Other than the fact that this entire special on a base premise shouldn't be possible due to all other episodes insisting that there is only One True Timeline and that if anything somehow diverges, Bunnyx will come and make sure everything goes exactly as she remembers it.

We have yet another round of mass murdering terrorist supervillains who are validated because 'oh they were sad' so it's okay that they committed horrific crimes that they don't feel any remorse for outside of a 'let me just say, from the bottom of my heart: my bad.' but they're now redeemed with no consequences. And I wouldn't even care /that/ much because like a little hypocritical coming from an MLP fan if it weren't for the fact that 1.) they feel no remorse whatsoever and 2.) we have the narrative constantly beating us over the head about how none of this applies to the one abused teenage girl who's acting out because of trauma despite not going full supervillain on her own terms just being a jerk to her classmates.