#(AT LAST IM POSTING THIS. HERE IS MY GIRLS MAIN MODERN LOOK!

[universestreasures]

Kisara Utahara: The Blue-Eyed Maiden (Duelist Attire)

Following her training under Grandpa Muto and the healing of the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon that she inherited from him, Kisara officially becomes a duelist in her own right. This is the attire she wears specifically when it comes to dueling, but she also has been shown to wear this outfit during other more 'casual' circumstances as well. So, this is most likely what she'll be wearing on default in my modern verse most of the time unless otherwise specified. The outfit features a light blue jumpsuit with a Blue-Eyes inspired design etched in gold and blue, a gradient sash around the waist, gold high heels (not featured in this art), a gold choker with a blue rose, a gold card locket that contains her Blue-Eyes, two wristbands (one short and one long), and a golden wing-shaped accessory around her ear.

Art & Character Design By: My Wonderful Boyfriend @throneofein <3

Coloring / Outfit Concept Idea By: Me.

Note: Please do not reblog or repost this art, or use this design! This design was made by me for my Kisara specifically for my own use, and this art was posted with permission by the original artist!

[grzybjek]

for some reason i cant answer this ask directly BUT thank u user @honestlytastygayasstrash for the ask now get ready for the longest post ill ever write. I fucking love talking about my characters.

here they are. my scrimblos. :

Antek, token cis white man of the group: -ISFJ, he/him, age is around 18, listens to ABBA, Queen, Modern Talking, Manaam, Obywatel GC, Lady Pank and Depeche Mode.

(i think i wrote it on his ref sheet but he got his scar by simply tripping over a cupboard as a child. He doesnt tell anyone about this though and always comes up with different stories about how he got the scar. So some people think he got it by winning a bear fight or fighting a drunk old man)

-he is a fucking menace. and i mean it. most insane man on earth that always tries to grab others attention in the most dangerous and stupid ways imaginable. Also uses alcohol as his weapon to look and act more cool and always fails miserably. Hes also very noncommittal and always switches out the people that he talks to after a week, simply because he doesnt feel comfortable with anyone. But he still loves getting attention from others so he keeps getting into these relationships just to drop them later. Theres something different about Bianka and Gabriel though and thats why theyre friends. and I think his pinterest board explains his personality better than i ever will

and some fun facts! hes surprisingly good at cooking and is the only one in the group that knows how to drive a car.

if it comes to Bianka shes my favorite goth woman ever. Here is some info about her: -ENTJ, she/them, is around 17, listens to Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Myslovitz, Republika, Depeche Mode and The Cure.

-Obviously shes recognized mostly for her gothic makeup which I absolutely love drawing. And shes goth herself, and is even in a gothic punk band! The band members include her, as the bassist, Helena as the singer, Janek as the drummer and Antek used to play the keyboard before they kicked him out.

And this is how I imagine them:-) just two alt girls and just some guy. Love them

-Bianka is the most confident out of everyone in the group, even Antek who's all over the place. She knows when to stop talking unlike him though. However her being confident doesnt mean she likes being in the spotlight, in fact, she absolutely hates it. She hates that everyone is always listening to her and whenever she walks in the room all eyes are on her. So most of the times she just wants to hide and spends time in her little circle of friends, but if theres an emergency then shes the first one to intervene. She also has a very weird moral compass just like Helena so theyre best friends, obviously.

Literally her. A fun fact about her is that she has like four Siouxsie and the Banshees posters in her room and owns a golden retriver which I didnt name yet.

oh and i forgot to mention but Bianka has Chinese ancestors and has a lot of chinese facial features that I always fail to draw because I focus on her makeup too much.

The last one is Gabriel, miserable ginger guy whos also the main character of the plot and yet i know so little about him. Im still figuring out his personality honestly. Anyhow:

-ISFP, he/him, age 17, listens to Tame Impala, Gorillaz, The Strokes, MGMT, David Bowie, Dolly Parton and Depeche Mode. All three of them are Depeche Mode fans.

-As I mentioned I know very little about him. But I think hes more of watcher of the world around him than a member of it. He's mostly quiet because he cant figure out when its the best time to speak, unfortunately that also means he keeps his best jokes to himself. Hes also mostly dissociated from the world and tries to be an active member of it so bad that he always ends up doing stupid things or hurting himself in the process. I think its just safe to say hes still figuring out his place in the world, and because the world around him confuses him so much he holds onto safe memories most of the time. Thats why hes a photographer and likes catching all of the important moments of life on camera, its like a comforting feeling for him. Hes also very irrational and a people pleaser but i blame it on his undiagnosed AuDHD honestly.

questionable pinterest board explains his personality well too

-as hes the narrator of the story, its very important to mention hes a queer character. I avoided talking about the queernes of others characters on purpose, since its an important part of their story that i dont want to share yet but without any context ill just say that Gabriel is a trans man and bisexual!

as for fun facts he owns a cat named Felek, really likes green olives and lives with his grandparents. Antek also taught him how to drive a car but he never put that info in use.

AND HERE COMES MY FAVORITE PART!!!! ILL EXPLAIN THE DYNAMIC BETWEEN THEM ALL!!!

starting with Gabriel and Nastka, whom I didnt mention in this post as shes just a side character, its important to know that these two are childhood friends. Theyre not that close anymore, their relationship disappeared as time went on, but they both keep each other in their memories and think about each other a lot. They both nicknamed each other after Dead Poets Society characters too, so Nastka never calls Gabriel by his name, but Todd. Theyre also neighbours and share a balcony. Sometimes they meet there as theyre hanging up clothes to dry and just exchange smiles.

The relationship between Gabriel and Antek is more complicated. They met on a party once and never got to know each other better, but couldnt stop thinking about each other. Gabriel just knows about Antek from Bianka's stories and vice versa, and whenever they meet everyone thinks theyre best friends because of how well they can get along without even knowing a thing about themselves. They always end up dancing together on parties, going on walks at night and talking about their favorite books somewhere in the corner, having deep conversations about their views of life but they never ask each other personal questions and if you ask one of them to say whats their favorite color, they wouldnt know. I like to think the universe never gave them a chance to know each other better because if it did theyd be too powerful together. Maybe if they got to know each other better theyd be more than friends.

Bianka and Anteks relationship is pretty similar to the relationship between Gabriel and Nastka. Theyre also childhood best friends and first met each other in the counselors office in 6th grade as Bianka tried to beat someone up for being mean to Antek, a guy she didnt even know yet. She just needed an excuse to get in a fight with some boys that she didnt like and somehow made a best friend ten minutes later. Since then theyve been on and off, sometimes splitting up for months at a time and going back to each other to spill everything theyve learned while they were away. They always find support in each other even if they cant understand each other that well and are total opposites. Somehow Bianka always finds a way to cheer up Antek, even if shes the one to make him feel bad in the first place.

Antek was the first one to suggest they should make a band, and they tried several times until they ended up with Helena and Janek which I previously mentioned.

And the last one, Bianka and Gabriels dynamic..... its very cute actually. Bianka is the first person to show Gabriel the world around him and introduce him to new possibilities. She showed him goth dance moves and helped him find his taste in music. They met in high school as they sat together in math class and if not Bianka being confident and immediately accepting Gabriel as her friend, hed never speak to her. He probably still thinks shes too cool for him, but is very happy to have her as a friend anyway even if he feels belittled by her sometimes. Feeling belittled is why Gabriel usually doesnt speak to her first and waits until she does it first. They often do sleepovers where they watch all of their favorite movies for the tenth time.

Also they all have friendship bracelets. All three of them.

I dont know what else I could talk about so i think thats all!! Thats still such a long post I hope someone actually reads it. Thank you for asking about them I had so much fun writing this<3

I also purposefully avoided talking about the plot of Migawka because I want to keep it a secret. I really want to write a book or a comic one day with all three of the characters and so I wanna keep the plot to myself until I finish writing.

anyhow, heres migawkas pinterest board.

https://pin.it/7tFnFoH

[swordsmans]

!!!! omg!! okay, this is definitely going to be a longer list (edit: 25+/-ish?). a good rule of thumb with horror lit is not to read summaries beyond the first two sentences max, because it relies on the unexpected almost exclusively (due to the limited medium). with that in mind, i'm going to keep my descriptions short and list only "key words" to describe each. i also highly discourage looking up ratings/reviews, as horror lit typically rates low (since it's suuuper subjective). look up the covers and pick based on that (im a librarian. im giving you permission to judge these books by their covers. it's okay)

reiterating my warning about looking up specific sensitivities, plus an added warning that all but two of these are very adult books.

All the White Spaces - Ally Wilkes

historical cosmic/creature/survival horror; polar expedition to the antarctic goes horrifically wrong, leaving the ship's crew stranded on the ice; trans man protagonist

The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling

isolation/sci-fi/survival horror; what if you were trapped alone in an abandoned space mine for weeks and your only connection to the outside world was a woman you've never met talking to you through your exo-suit's radio?; fucked up lesbians, my beloved

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

sci-fi/medical/body horror; one of the few YA horrors i have ever endorsed, and a good "intro" to the genre; lord of the flies but with teen girls and grotesque body mutations as a heavy-handed metaphor for the inherent horror of growing up; queer girls

The Change - Kirsten Miller

"fantasy"/body horror; similar "theme" to wilder girls, but instead of puberty it's menopause and instead of weird science bullshit you just gotta roll with the ride; read this if you support women's wrongs; bisexual/lesbian women in the 50+ age group

Into the Drowning Deep - Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire

deep sea/creature horror; camera crew sets out to make a history channel ancient aliens-style fake documentary on mermaids... but the marianas trench has many secrets; okay, i read a lot of lesbian horror

A Dowry of Blood - ST Gibson

historical/creature/romance horror; what if dracula's wives were actually in a fucked up four-way polycule?; epistolary format; FF/MM

The Salt Grows Heavy - Cassandra Khaw

slow burn/creature/body horror; post-apocalyptic mermaid and her nonbinary/genderless plague doctor companion... encounter plot; 106 page novella; nonbinary author (who i've met--theyre super cool)

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke - Eric LaRocca

psychological/body horror; two women meet on an internet chat room. an apple peeler is involved; great intro into "splatterpunk" if you're just getting into horror lit; 120 page novella unless you read the collection ("and other misfortunes"), which also has some additional short stories; trans author, more fucked up lesbians

Plain Bad Heroines - Emily M Danforth

historical/dual-timeline/haunting horror; 1902: an all-girls school becomes obsessed with the sordid lesbian tell-all of young woman named Mary MacLane... modern day: an up-and-coming writer and two actresses begin filming a movie on the abandoned school premises; 640 pages and not a single non-queer character. trust me, i kept track; "main" couple is a FFF poly trio but honestly the gang's all here

Bunny - Mona Awad

cosmic/psychological/body horror; what if regina george ran a psychedelic homoerotic sorority cult in a creative writing graduate program and... well.; not gay, not straight, but a secret third thing

The Book Eaters - Sunyi Dean

"fantasy"/creature horror; vampires who devour information instead of blood; a woman on the run with her young son, a monster worse than the old clan who raised her; lots of plot packed into 298 pages; lesbians (hm. okay. maybe i should branch out.)

Hell Followed With Us - Andrew Joseph White

creature/body/sci-fi horror; another rare YA; post-apocalyptic ultra-christian cult turns a trans boy into the biblically-accurate bioweapon antichrist, he runs and finds refuge with a group of queer refugees while trying to hide the fact that hes--you know--the antichrist; the gang's all here

Your Body Is Not Your Body - (anthology)

body horror, but a little bit of everything else too; 30+ trans authors come together to write a manifesto on the erotic horror of the trans body; (ive met a couple of these authors, all very cool) [see also: "the book of queer saints", another similarly-themed anthology with some of the same authors but fewer stories]

Queen of Teeth - Hailey Piper

splatterpunk/body horror; vagina dentata; another gem on the erotic horror of the trans body, this time through delicious metaphor; 198 page novella; also a rec from the icons at necro's genderweird body horror panel last year

The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey

sci-fi/existential/slow burn horror; a woman and her clone must get along after her (their) husband dies; one of my favorite books of all time; nonbinary author but this one has queer themes without being specifically queer (their other books are more explicitly queer, just not "horror")

honorable mentions to some of my favorite not-so-queer horror that's still worth the read:

Passersthrough - Peter Rock

cosmic/psychological horror; an exploration of memory and aging through an estranged father and daughter; at eleven years old, a young girl goes missing in the woods, then reappears after a week with no memory of where she's been; "Sad Clown Lake is filled with bones"

Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss

existential/psychological horror; a young girl's father forces his family to take a two-week vacation isolated in the wilderness living only with the tools and knowledge of iron age britons; artistic and literary, written with very little/no punctuation; 144 page novella (i recommend the audio because of the punctuation thing)

The Grip of It - Jac Jemc

cosmic horror; a young couple purchases a fixer-upper to begin a new life together... it goes about as well (or worse) than you'd expect

This Thing Between Us - Gus Moreno

cosmic/creature horror; his wife buys an "Alexa"/Google Home but something's not quite right. the smart home's creepy little quirks stop being funny when she dies; an exploration of grief through a horror lens, this one made me cry for real in real life

The Twisted Ones OR The Hollow Places - T Kingfisher

creature/cosmic/survival horror; both of these are faves and you could go with either one and still have a great time. i read The Twisted Ones first, but literally just pick whichever cover you like more; honorable mention to "What Moves The Dead", a novella they've recently published which apparently has queer themes--but I didn't include it above because I haven't read it yet.

Lakewood - Megan Giddings

medical/body/psychological horror; a young woman signs up for a medical study that promises to pay for her elderly mother's care in exchange for her participation in the trial

The Boatman's Daughter - Andy Davidson

southern gothic/"fantasy" horror; retelling of the baba yaga folktale interwoven with real-life southern mythology, set in the modern-day Arkansas bayous; literary, graphic, not for the faint of heart

My Heart is a Chainsaw OR The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones

[MHIAC] slasher horror; not YA despite the protag's age; a teen girl is convinced there's a serial killer on the loose in her town, but no one believes her; [TOGI] cosmic/creature horror; four men "make a mistake" in their youth. that "mistake" comes back to haunt them

Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer

cosmic/sci-fi horror; okay, this one you can still read the full summary for and walk away unscathed--it's very hard to summarize; technically the first in a trilogy; written by the ann vandermeer's husband (i have met her, too! it was awesome.)

this is getting out of hand so i'll stop here, but... yeah! hopefully something piques your interest (*￣▽￣)b

if anyone's got recs for short-medium length horror comics/manga that would be much appreciated... i wanna get into more of that stuff but i don't know where to start >_<'

[koo-zy]

hello! do you have any fantasy/historical jungkook x reader fic recs ?

hello lovely!! i’m so sorry i missed this yesterday :( i was actually planning on reorganizing my tumblr because i feel like no fics are ever going to be able to be found my blog LOL so hopefully that’ll be done soon!!

as for the fantasy/historical fics.. i’m honestly not too sure what “fantasy” (do demons count..? soulmates..? werewolves????) typically includes so i’m just going to include a bunch of fics that hopefully fit in :”) here are the first ones that i thought of + summaries included in their main posts!

also.. i’m sure i missed a lot of amazing fics (mainly because i’m dumb as hell and don’t really know what can be included in “fantasy”) and would like to apologize in advance!! 

@inktae ’s entire masterlist (they have a lot of fantasy fics!)

while this isn’t just jungkook recs, @ficswithluv had a fantasy category a few weeks ago!

@kpopfanfictrash ‘s jungkook masterlist

@fortunexkookie ‘s jungkook masterlist

one shots!

énouement - @littlemisskookie Mulan!AU

War is Hell, but it’s what you had to do to take your brother’s place. Of course, between the days of Hell are little slices of Heaven you’d call your Captain, Jeon Jungkook.

midas - @gukyi 

jeon jungkook was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the power to turn whatever he wants into pure gold. you were born with healing and invisibility powers but without a cent to your name. so when you’re plucked off of the streets for pickpocketing and assigned to be his minder as punishment, you realize you’re going to have to overcome a lot more than class differences if either of you are going to get what you want.

i will not lose! - @jimlingss Magic!AU

A single bet - use every means to make Jeon Jungkook fall in love with you.

a piece of the moonlight - @/jimlingss Mulan!AU

For your loved ones, the people who are waiting at home, the people who have died - you will fight. And sometimes to fight means to sacrifice: who you really are and the person you really love.

dynasty - @/jimlingss Historical!AU

It’s no secret that the Emperor is infertile. But even so, a girl is selected every three months and brought to become his concubine in hopes of conceiving the next heir. This time, it’s you. And in order to prevent execution, Jeon Jungkook might just aid you in conception.

game of temptation ft. knj, myg, kth - @/jimlingss Succubus!AU 

As a succubus, your beauty is unrivaled and shaped to tempt mortals. But it’s still hard to resist Taehyung, and there’s little you can do once you’ve been coerced to do his bidding for him. This time, you find yourself entering the affluent Kim Household as a housemaid. And these poor humans don’t know your intentions are far from being angelic.

knot today - @kinktae

(IDK IF WEREWOLVES COUNT BUT JERHFBDSKNZX THIS IS REALLY GOOD!!)

When your first heat approaches and you are left partnerless, who better to turn to than your alpha roommate that you’ve spent the better half of your life hiding your feelings for?

ego - @luxekook Harry Potter!AU

(..i also don’t know if HP counts LOL)

in which jeongguk is a cocky lil shit and the reader has to take him down a few pegs

stumbling - @hayjeon Prince!AU

an ask in their inbox regarding the prompt: hii! so the royal wedding of prince harry and meghan is today, and since my bias is JK and since i’m such a sucker for royal stuff, can i reuest a fic of bts all being royal of 7 different kingdom, and all of them being invited to jin’s wedding and the girl (oc) is also invited and kookie met her there, and eventually took an interest at her? the girl is also royalty from other kingdom. thanks!

werewolf!jungkook - @/hayjeon

an ask in their inbox regarding the prompt: Werewolf!jk? (im sorry ik it’s overused and unoriginal) where he and his mate have pups to take care of and they’re quite a mischievous bunch!

there for you - @cupofteaguk Hogwarts!AU

Jungkook is always known for doing things unapologetically, and it makes sense given how almost nothing gets under his skin—almost nothing, but maybe there’s an exception that takes a form of a muggleborn with the shy smile and quirky spells.

say you won’t let go - @/cupofteaguk Soulmates!AU

You’ve been eighteen years old for ten years when Jungkook first moves in 

new romantics - @/cupofteaguk Hogwarts!AU

Jeon Jungkook will go down in history as one of the best Quidditch players that ever graced the Hogwarts scene. It seems like he always gets what he wants—his life is very predictable in that sense. What he cannot predict, however, is the newest weekend employee wiping down the tables at the Three Broomsticks.

a cinderella story - @suhdays Modern Cinderella!AU

you are forced to work multiple jobs as you live under your stepmothers roof. unable to move out and strive for complete independence, you do what you can in order save enough. turns out, as a college student that is harder than you thought. so, you distract yourself by joining online chat groups in which you meet a boy that goes to your school. that boy? none other than the rugby star himself, jeon jeongguk. it doesn’t prove to be an issue until he asks to meet you at an upcoming halloween party. he’s never noticed you before so why not hide yourself in order to live your dreams, if only for a moment?

explorer - @1kook Alien!AU

Jungkook does not want to impress the frankly tyrannical ways of his planet on you. He just wants to stay here and keep your couch warm for you, hold your hair back when you wash your face in the morning.

rottenfolk - @junqkook Faerie!AU

a look was as hazardous as chemicals, a kiss as perilous as poison; his eyes and lips felt akin to a cure, but he was purely venom.

the young wolf - @/junqkook Game of Thrones!AU

he was promised to another, meant for another to hold and to love and to kiss. but when his hand lingered on yours for a moment too long to be proper, and when his eyes held yours for a beat too long to be a passing glance, you allowed desire to creep into your veins, to take root inside your heart. perhaps before you might have been permitted to love him freely. perhaps he might have even been promised to you instead. but war was no place for the wants and desires of two people, no matter how much they yearned for it to be.

the lighthouse - @rubycoast S2L!AU

(im not too sure if this is considered fantasy but its one of my favs!)

you and jungkook had one thing in common: you were both lost souls stagnant in the search of some fulfillment. the one of many differences was that your story had been written on your sleeves, while jungkook’s was a story needed to be unriddled.

black magic - @hansolmates​ Magic Uni!AU

a witch with an ambition for learning, you stumble across a crushing spell in the middle of the forbidden section. of course you have to try it out! what happens when the crushing spell not only has jeon jungkook crushing on you, but you crushing on him?

the sea & the storm - @jamaisjoons Fantasy!AU

the sea is a powerful mistress. she is calm and beautiful. she is mysterious and alluring. she is a force to be reckoned with. above all, however, she is lonely. until she meets him. fantasy au.

the lionheart’s oath - @sugaxjpg Knight & Princess!AU

There was no happy ending, no dragon slayer to save the kingdom and get the princess — there was only him: Jungkook. A simple orphan that was lucky enough to be invited into the castle, a former homeless thief that had found shelter in the form of an elysian heir. Now, after twelve years by your side, he was about to lose you to the world you sought to explore.

ghosts just wanna have fun - @/sugaxjpg Psychic & MedSchool!AU

When Jungkook discovered that he could communicate with dead people, the last thing he expected was that they would be there to give him romantic advice.

wartime child - @ktheist Wizard!AU

raising a baby in wartime isn’t easy. but when your baby starts showing signs of magical abilities, you’re forced to ring up the only other person you know he takes after: jeon jungkook.

birth of an empress - @/ktheist Dragon Slayer!AU

partners for three years and friends for longer, jungkook thought you’d remain so until he saw you with the knight at the merchant’s trade.

alternatively, the friendly neighborhood wizard trying to propose to the infamous dragon slayer in the middle of slaying a dragon? now, that’s classic.

series/two shots!

fear in your eyes - @/gukyi Werewolf!AU

(again, idk if werewolves count but hifksdjcx !!!!)

there’s a werewolf in that forest behind your house, they told you, and he’ll eat you before you can even beg for mercy. 

the worshiper series - @/jimlingss 

Long ago, there were gods who resided in Heaven -- existing to watch over and protect the universe. Each of them had their own flaws, trials and tribulations; some which were more sparing than others, but these are their stories...

a promise of freedom - @/jimlingss Wartime!AU

War is cruel and its inhumanity has not spared you. Captured by the enemy, you were brought to the front lines to heal their wounded. But after one night of saving a particular man’s life, he swears to fulfill any wish of yours.

one year, my love - @/hayjeon Historical!AU

You forge a marriage contract with the strangely speaking man who suddenly stumbled into your town with memory loss, but little do you know that he’s actually the lost Crown Prince, and a lot can happen between a married man and woman in one year.

demigod!au drabbles - @/hayjeon

an ask in their inbox regarding the prompt: i have a supernatural au prompt! how bout daughter of hades/loner!reader and son of zeus/bully! jungkook?

into the woods - @/junqkook Goblin!AU

getting hurt and stumbling upon a goblin in the forest leaves you completely at his mercy, though you aren’t sure if that’s necessarily a bad thing.

lionheart - @/junqkook Magic!AU

as a sorcerer, it is of the utmost importance that you keep your magic a secret from everyone. when you become prince jungkook’s servant, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep your identity hidden; especially when you fall in love with him.

a royal exchange - @/hansolmates

she’s the man!au where the princess impersonates her brother yoongi in order to finish his degree on time while yoongi is thrusted into princely duties. jeongguk is in the mess purely through room arrangement

knight!jungkook x princess!reader - @/ktheist

a series with 27 parts!

that’s all i can think of off the top of my head right now :(( not gonna lie, half of these probably don’t even fit into either of those categories and i know there are so so so many amazing fantasy/historical fics out there!! i wish i knew them all but i hope this helped a little bit! if anyone has any fic they’d like to rec, feel free to send it to meee :)

and finallyyyyy i leave my following page open for viewing as well so you can check out all of the authors i follow!! please show all of these authors (and many more) some love! <3

[scapegrace74-blog]

Ginger Snap, Chapter 2

A/N I am breaking probably the only rule I gave myself when I started writing fanfic, which was Don’t Ever Post a WIP.  But lord knows I’m not immune to peer pressure and the narcotic that is reader feedback, so here it is, the second chapter of what is now an open-ended modern AU story about Jamie the Chef and Claire the Kitchen Disaster.  Still a first person Claire POV, so I apologize in advance for any stray pronouns.

For the first chapter, I recommend reading it on Ao3, since I’ve made some minor edits since I first posted it on Tumblr.  See above re. not planning on posting a WIP.

Oh, and funny story.  When I decided to check the location of the real Ginger Snap catering company in Edinburgh, it was squished between “FrazersOnline” and “McKenzie Flooring”.  If that’s not kismet, I don’t know what is.  The location I describe below, however, is based on a catering venue here in Ottawa called Urban Element, where I’ve attended a few team-building events.  I have yet to set anything on fire, though.

I checked my phone for the third time, confirming I wasn’t lost.  

Frank and I moved to Edinburgh over the summer, just in time for him to start his position as Associate Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh. Despite our years spent in America, neither of us cared overmuch for driving, so we chose a flat (or rather, Frank chose a flat and I concurred) not far from campus.  Therefore, this was the first time I’d ventured as far afield as Leith, a maritime enclave just to the north of the capital that couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be grittily working class or artistically hip. 

When I finally reached the address, I had to smile.  No main street pretensions or non-descript commercial frontage for Ginger Snap Catering.  Before me stood a two-story red brick fire station, still emblazoned with the crest of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Services.  The two massive truck bays were now enclosed by see-through doors that could be drawn back on a sunny day.  Through these a warm yellow light could be seen, spilling onto the grey, damp pavement.

A petite woman with dark hair manned the small reception area, a red-haired toddler clinging to her like a marsupial.  She held a phone to one ear while simultaneously pacing the polished concrete floor.  I stood as unobtrusively as possible near the door, but in such an open space it was impossible not to overhear her side of the conversation.

“... they willna take ‘im back until ‘is fever goes down...  aye, an hour ago when I picked him up but it hasn’t... nay, i dinna think it’s... tis jus’ terrible timing with two weddings t’morrow... Could ye?  Och, I owe ye Mrs. Fitz, a million times o’er... Anytime, we’ll be here.  Alright, soon.”

The speaker turned to me, the harried look of a working mother sharpening her already honed features.

“I apologize fer keeping ye waiting.  What can I do fer ye t’day?”

Before I could respond, the young boy, probably no older than two, began to fuss, rubbing his flushed cheek against his mother’s shoulder.

“Och, mo ghille, Mam kens ye’re poorly.  Mrs. Fitz is coming as fast as she may.”

Unable to quell my instinct to diagnose and then cure, I spoke up.  

“I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation.  Based on his age and the way he’s holding his head, it may be an ear infection.”  At the woman’s penetrating look, I hastened to explain: “I’m a doctor.  Would you mind if I took a closer look?”

Permission granted, I carefully palpated the boy under the jaw and peered as best I could without an otoscope into the offending ear canal.  Confident in my diagnosis, I recommended treatment with a warm compress, an over-the-counter analgesic ear drop, and children’s paracetamol to control his fever.  If, after twenty-four hours the symptoms had not improved, they could consider seeing his pediatrician for antibiotics, but these were only truly necessary for a persistent infection.

“Och, ye ‘ave no idea what a relief it is tae hear ye say so, lass.  He’s my first bairn, ye ken, an’ I can ne’er tell if I’m over-reacting or being negligent.   Can ye say thank ye tae the nice doctor, Wee Jamie?”

My stomach jumped.  “Wee Jamie?  Is he related by chance to Jamie Fraser?”

“Aye, tis his nephew.  I’m Jamie’s sister, Jenny.  Ye ken my brother, then?”

The pieces fell into place, and my insides settled.

“We’ve spoken before,” I explained.  “I’m Claire Beauchamp.  You and your brother helped me with a dinner party emergency last Tuesday.  I came to return your market bags, and to thank you again for coming to my aid during my hour of need.”

Jenny and I spoke for another ten minutes, sharing the superficial narratives of two strangers brought together by circumstance.  She was warm and thistly by turns, and I felt a longing for the honesty of female friendship that I’d given up when we left Boston.  Eventually a matronly woman arrived to collect Wee Jamie.  I carefully wrote down the exact names and dosages of my prescribed remedy.

After Mrs. Fitz and Wee Jamie had left, it occurred to me that Jenny needed to get back to work.  I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do, even if I hadn’t thanked Jamie himself.   As I began to make my goodbyes, however, Jenny interjected. “If ye’re no’ in a rush, why dinna ye join our afternoon cooking class?  My brother will be demonstrating how tae make quiche.  Tis the least we can do, after ye helped Wee Jamie.”

Which was how I found myself standing behind one of six cooking stations arranged across the fire station’s main area, a bright red apron covering my black slacks and saffron turtleneck.  My impetuous curls were slowly breaking ranks from where I’d slicked them into a bun that morning.  I worried I looked like a human Pez dispenser.

I glanced at the workstation immediately to my left.  A slight woman who I guessed to be roughly my own age was engrossed in her phone, a cheeky smirk playing on her berried lips.  Her strawberry blond hair was swept into an effortless chignon that made me twitch with envy.  She looked up from her screen and caught me looking her way.

“Geillis Duncan,” she said, offering a well-manicured hand.

“Claire Beauchamp.  Pleased to meet you.”

“Is it yer first time taking a class, Claire?”  At my nod, she leaned in and whispered conspiratorially: “Ye’re in for a treat.”

Before I could enquire what she meant, a murmur amongst the other students (all women, save one) was accompanied by the heavy tread of work boots on polished concrete and a familiar Scottish burr.

“Good afternoon, everyone.  Thank ye fer joining me on this dreich Scottish day.  I ken a few of ye are new, so let’s start with a brief overview of yer stations and some basic safety reminders, before we tackle the quiche.”

Today Jamie was wearing a pair of olive pants that tapered down his endless legs and a technical shirt that clung valiantly to his upper body.  He looked like he’d just stepped off the nearest rock climbing pitch.  I wondered if he owned anything that answered to the name of a professional wardrobe, but I couldn’t deny that he looked impressive, in an athleisure sort of way.

“See what I mean?” Geillis hissed at me as Jamie made his way to the front of the hall, speaking now about optimal burner temperatures.  “That man is a dozen kinds of yes.”

I concentrated on each step of the ostensibly simple recipe.  Pie crust had been the previous week’s assignment, so I had only to blind bake the prepared dough already at my workstation.  Once I had the crust centered exactly in the pie pan, pierced with a fork in orderly rows and placed in the oven, I rushed to catch up with the others.  I’d missed Jamie’s instructions regarding pan frying the bacon, so I increased the flame, thinking I could make up a little time.  The fatty meat crackled pleasingly as I set it in the lightly greased pan.  I was inordinately proud of myself.

Things went very badly, very fast.  First, my eyes wouldn’t stop watering as I meticulously peeled then dissected the onion into near-transparent crescents. Tears obscured my vision and I tried to wipe them away without contaminating my hands.  To my left I could make out Geillis skillfully cracking eggs into a glass bowl, her pie crust already elegantly filled with crispy morsels of bacon and caramelized onion bits.  

A vague sense of having forgotten something important tickled my mind.  My pie crust!  Grabbing a silicone glove (I wasn’t making that mistake twice) I rushed to the wall oven and extracted the pan.  Giddy with relief, I saw the dough was only a little dark around the edges.  

Before I could return victorious to my station, Jamie uttered a Scottish noise of alarm from his vantage at the front of the class.   We both rushed across the room to where my rashers of bacon now resembled blackened shoe laces obscured by a heavy veil of smoke.  With practiced ease, Jamie lifted the entire skillet into the adjacent sink and turned on the cold water.  A cloud of steam enveloped his head, highlighting his auburn curls.  I bit my lip as he looked my way in amusement.

“I hope ye werena planning on serving quiche to yer faculty guests t’night, Ms. Beauchamp?”

I stood meekly next to Geillis for the remainder of the class, no longer trusted around open flame without adult supervision.   She graciously allowed me to extract her quiche when it was done baking.  It looked like a magazine cover.  Meanwhile, my workstation looked like the scene of an industrial accident.

While we were waiting for her quiche to cook, Geillis and I got to know each other a little better.  She was a Highland lass from up near Inverness.  Married to a wealthy older man, her life sounded like an endless quest for diversion.  Despite this, or because of it, she had a sharp-witted frankness that I appreciated.  She was also a hard-core gossip.

“Wee besom,” she remarked with a nod towards a blond girl who was currently monopolizing Jamie’s attention with endless questions punctuated by manufactured giggles and flicks of her pin-straight hair.  “Tha’s Laoghaire Mackenzie of the Mackenzie brewing dynasty.  They’ve a live-in cook, so there’s only one reason she attends these classes, and it isna for the quiche.”

I watched Jamie laugh over something the girl said, mineral eyes alight and his perfect white teeth on display.  I suppose I couldn’t blame her.  I wasn’t here for the quiche either.

The interminable ninety minute lesson finally ended.  I thanked Geillis profusely and we exchanged numbers before she rushed off for her reiki treatment.  Gathering my trench coat and purse, I tried to slink away without calling any further attention to myself.

“Ms. Beauchamp!”

I cursed under my breath, then turned to face him.

“Please, call me Claire.  After I nearly burned down your place of business, we should probably be on a first name basis.”

Jamie chuckled. It sounded more natural and lived-in than his earlier response to Laoghaire, but I was likely fooling myself.

“Och, wha’s a cooking demonstration wi’out a wee bit of drama.  Will ye be joining us next week?  We’ll be making ceviche, sae I willna need tae put the fire brigade on stand-by.”

“Bastard,” I replied to his cheeky smirk.  “Alas, I don’t think I’m cut out to be a cook.  It appears to be the one science I can’t master.”

“Cooking isna a science, Claire,” he explained with sincere intensity.  “Tis an art.  Perhaps tha’s the root of yer struggle.”

“Perhaps it is.  But in that case, I may as well give up now.  I haven’t an artistic bone in my body.”

His languorous perusal of said body lit a different kind of flame in my belly.  Geillis was right; he really was a dozen kinds of yes.

“I canna say as I agree.  Come back any time if ye’d like tae try again.”

I blushed, thoroughly discomfited by his blatant flirting.  He knew about Frank.  He’d fled from him onto my fire escape, for Christ’s sake!  Maybe when you looked like James Fraser, every interaction with a woman was merely a chance to hone your craft.  Or maybe he was truly ignorant of his effect.

“I’ll take that under advisement.  Thank you again, Jamie.”

“Until the next time, Arsonist.”

[maxthommusic]

DDLC SPOILER POST

OKAY. WARNING. Doki Doki LITERATURE CLUB SPOILER POST AHEAD. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU'VE PLAYED DDLC AND PROBABLY MOST OF DDLC PLUS! TOO.

YOUVE BEEN WARNED.

IM GONNA START TALKING.

OKAY?

OKAY>

OKAY<

OKAY...

I can't get Doki Doki Literature Club out of my head. I've tried writing a post here about it several times, always walking away from it, because it always kind of turns into a review of sorts; or if not a review, I start going down the rabbit hole of what it all means and my posts read like the strings of yarn stretching across a conspiracy board, constantly stretching back and forth, back and forth. But therein lies the exact beauty of DDLC. It's deep inside my head. I can't drop its tethers; instead I carry it with me day in and day out, playing the music in my head, thinking about the characters and how they fit into the greater narrative. DDLC is, quite frankly, just one of the greatest games I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying, and I simply want to gush about it.

What's incredibly unique about DDLC is that it grabs hold of a theme and sticks with it through all of its many tendrils. While there are plenty of layers to this very thematically complex experience, I feel that we always come back to the overarching concept of "selfishness."

Sayori first decides to hang herself because we either deny her love or force our love upon her. Yuri commits suicide because she cannot help but be madly in love with you, going insane due to the greed that she has to own you. Natsuki has a complete meltdown and snaps in two because she needs your attention; she fatally needs you to play with her. Then Monika is completely motivated by selfish desires too -- she's tired of being overlooked by you, the main character. She wants all your adoration and decides it would be better to remove everyone from the game than try and deal with her obsessive compulsion. But probably the most intense application of "selfishness" is the one is imposed on the player. Purely by starting a "New Game" you are subjecting these girls to a violent future because if the Plus! content is any true indication, nothing bad will happen if YOU don't selfishly play another round. By breaking the fourth wall, the game becomes self-aware in many, many ways and part of the narrative IS your contributions to the game. Read the e-mails among staff, check the unlockable artwork and their captions, do the Side Stories -- EVERYTHING is connected. The entire presentation IS the story; your involvement, included. And if you check every corner of the DDLC universe, you'll find so many stories and realities tucked away that I can't remember the last time I encountered such a rich, carefully planned, thoughtful narrative.

Part of what you uncover is the potential truth that everything is probably okay as long as you don't get involved. It's only when you start a New Game and insert yourself into the story that the sentient Monika starts going off the rails with her jealousy. Yes, it does seem apparent that all the girls are struggling with something in their personal lives; but aren't we all? It's a beautiful story about finding something to ease that pain, to cope with it. No one is there to try and change the other person, they're there to support them. And in that way, DDLC is really lovely and endearing. What I can't figure out, though, is who is the real villain. Is it you, MC? Is it something in the code related to whomever becomes Club President? Is it, plainly, Just Monika?

From here I'll have to keep my tinfoil hat from slowly materializing... and it's about here where I decide to delete a post after I've rambled too long... but the lingering point I'm trying to make is that DDLC is an entire universe filled with heartwarming stories, made all the more poignant due to the horrible future that lies in wait for everyone if you decide to play. By breaking that fourth wall, Team Salvato makes you a participant, thereby turning Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri and Monika not just into NPCs but friends. Team Salvato asks the ultimate question: what is the place of fiction in our lives? How can fiction be powerful and what's its purpose? Like the Club, maybe we're all just looking for a place to feel comfortable, accepted. We seek out new stories so we can experience the lives of others and maybe gain some perspective about our own existence. By playing DDLC, Team Salvato tries to present you not only with modern existentialist questions, but also offers a salve for whatever may ail you. Using intensely graphic horror mechanisms to convey that message is just part of the grisly fun.

[pocmuzings]

hello hi , it is g , ur friendly local neighbourhood hindu indian ( as in south asian  ) ! so a few people requested that i just make a guide-esque sorta thing on hindu  indian characters ! im not really good at guides , so instead , these are just little things i’ve noticed or picked up on that could really potentially strengthen the next indian character u ( pretty please ! ) pick up ! 

disclaimer : i am writing this from my perspective and it is NOT definitive , nor do i speak on behalf of all hindu indians  ! i am a 23-year-old bisexual cis female hindu indian , with one older gay brother, and a Train Wreck middle brother . my mother is from new delhi , and my father is from nairobi but has indian heritage ( not sure which part of india bc he’s an Engima ) . i have extended family in india and have visited india about 10-15 times throughout my entire life .

so firstly , im so glad u all are here and want to write more hindu indian characters ! please please do so !  i hope this helps , encourages u , and isnt too confusing !! 

psa : i need everyone to know that this is a very basic ‘ guide ‘ and theres a lot it DOESNT touch on or address bc i didnt want to get too Extensive and Detailed and have people Turn off and not Read it . this is just written in the terms of hopefully helping build  character / be relevant to characters a bit better that ive employed into writing my OWN hindu indian character creations !  but if u have any other questions pls reach out to me or any other indians in the rpc and im sure we’ll try our best to assist u !

FCS: 

one thing i’d really like to say is that its great to see fcs like dev patel  , deepika padukone and avan jogia picked up every now and then in rps , but there’s actually a LOT of other indian fcs you could be and should be using ! the main reason people don’t seem to know them is because they’re not ‘ hollywood ‘ stars per se ( it was a super big deal when pr*yanka broke out of bollywood and into bollywood but we don’t talk about her on this Blog ) . they’re usually bollywood stars and i don’t really see bollywood discussed that much in the rpc ! 

if you’re after MORE indian fcs , i have a tag of indian females here , and indian males here . the fcs on my blogs are also not ALL that exist . there are plenty of other blogs out there that post indian fcs , such as sonamhelps &  bollymusings !!! there’s also some really great faceclaim directories out there that include a LOT of indians with resources !

 unfortunately , i do not know of any trans indians or nonbinary indians but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist . indian cultures and beliefs are still quite Old School and not super progressive . india only just had it’s first wlw mainstream bollywood film released last year . lgbtqia+ issues are NOT really spoken about in india or within indian families at ALL , and if they are - they’re usually dismissed or reacted to Very Very Badly . ( again this isnt definitive and im sure and hopeful that some indians have had GREAT coming out stories and been accepted by their families but this has not been a common thing ive seen or witnessed from my cousins my age , indian friends , myself and my brother who are lgbtqia +  ) 

FOOD : 

we do eat with our hands and we eat like PROS with our hands . we can shovel it so easily and quickly . i don’t know how to describe it but you use the first three fingers of your hand to place the Food there , and then use your thumb to kinda scoop it off and into your mouth . this is NOT unhygienic because indians wash their hands very regularly and most of the time we aren’t actually touching our mouths to our hands ! 

indian food is MADE to be eaten with your hands for the most part . it is literally NOT practical to eat food with a knife and fork . here’s a really great article explaining things more in depth re: indian food and using our hands !

cows are seen as Very holy beings in hindu indian culture , and for that reason - there isn’t a lot of beef being eaten or consumed. sure , some indians DO eat beef but i don’t think its super common, but in my personal experience as a non-beef-eater this results in A LOT of me asking ‘ oh ,  sorry what sauce does that pasta come with ? ‘ ‘ oh those are beef sausages ? sorry i can’t eat them ‘ etc etc . beef is in a LOT of things , and this makes me very very careful and almost pedantic about what i do eat and ask about , food wise  !

indian food is seen as stinky by a majority of white people . it has a very very strong smell as im sure u know , and opening ur lunch box as a little kid to a Curry or Dal ur mum has made u ? one way street to being bullied . i also remember a time a real estate agent continuously told my dad nobody was interested in buying our house bc it smelled too much like curry,  despite my mum not having cooked curry in Weeks ( just say what u Really mean ,  bitch ! )

 indian curry exists but so does dal / daal . this is curry-like dish that is usually made out of lentils . so if ur going to talk about indian food and u know curries and samosas . . pls also bring up dals . and sabji ! ( sabji is usually just boiled vegetables plopped together . a lot of potato usually )

desserts are what we call Indian Sweets  . this is stuff that is usually very VERY sugary and a bit of an accustomed taste . theyre very colourful and LOOK beautiful but even i , for one , can not eat many indian sweets bc they are a Lot of Sweet and Sugar    . examples of indian sweets that u can google  : gulab jamun , burfi , rasgulla , jalebi etc . here’s a great link for more !

give me spiced food or give me death . literally . . put some cumin in . . put some garam masala . . put some chillies . . flavour ur Food for my Indian Taste Buds 

FAMILY : 

if you are the oldest son of an Indian Family . . congratulations . you are now the Head of the family and must carry every weight and burden alone . it is extremely isolating and taxing on you ( my dad is the oldest indian son , and also - so is my eldest brother , obvs ) . there is a LOT that is expected of you to do . you are expected to quite literally run the family and be the ‘ man of the house ‘ by yourself . 

if you are a daughter . . . even BIGGER congratulations ! you are basically a maid to every male or guest who EVER comes over to your house . you must be a Hostess , you must be in the kitchen cooking , serving snacks, bringing tea , and then washing up and basically waiting on Hand and Foot . you will not be included into a lot of dialogue or engaged in a lot of conversation and TRUST ME ! THAT WILL GRIND UR GOD DAMN GEARS IN THE 21ST CENTURY ! 

if you are a boys’ boy ( aka straight and Sporty ) , then congrats ! you get it the easiest : you are the favourite of every social event . the uncles and cousins love talking to you and dude-ing it up with you , and the aunts fawn over you and think you’re the Best Thing since sliced bread . sit back , put your feet up , and expect to be treated like a God. you can do absolutely no wrong . ( my middle brother is this to a T and listen . . he’s been in and out of jail for physical violence and ab*se for over 5 years . and family still FROTH over him . my teeth are gritted to dust thinking of this again ) 

indian aunties are lethal . they gossip like teenage girls . they will find out everything . they will bitch behind your back . they can NOT be trusted .

everyone is ur uncle or aunt, sister or brother . literally everyone . ur cousin ? no. thats ur sister . ur dads friend ? no , thats ur uncle . you will call them as such . EVERYONE is family .  

family is in general a VERY BIG THING in indian culture , too . ‘ what will it Look like to everyone else if we don’t all arrive together ? ‘ my dad usually asks dskjdfjn . it’s all about Looking Right and Standing As A United Front  . that being said , indian family has undying and unwavering loyalty for one another , they just show it in a very Weird way .

FASHION: 

female hindu indian formal  clothes are usually really embroidered to hell and back and this makes them very scratchy , uncomfortable, and HEAVY . you aren’t running anywhere anytime soon in a full blown lehenga or saree 

most ‘ modern ‘ hindu indian women do not wear full Indian Clothes all the time . some do , but usually it’s a lot of wearing a kurti tunic with jeans , or just normal everyday clothing . again , this is going to be different based on which parts of india your character is from , though ! 

usually , older women and married women  wear traditiona hindul indian clothing quite often . i know my mum wore a sari AT HOME everyday when i was growing up, until i was like 13 and took her shopping with me to get something Else to wear . 

bindi’s just stick right onto ur forehead but they do fall off a lot , especially when ur wearing makeup or sweating . again , you don’t need to wear a bindi everyday , unless thats ur preference . i usually only wear them for festivals . ( festivals means indian celebrations , not like . . coachella  ((which u should not be wearing a bindi to , if ur not indian fyi )) )

male formal clothes are usually just literally anything Formal and buttoned up for the most part , and u can get away with that , or you can wear a really nice kurta

indians wear white at funerals , not black  ( not sure if this should go in the fashion section but this entire thing is being organised into a Mess by now anyways ) . you CAN wear black to a funeral of course , but its common to wear white !

DATING ( tw’s for islamaphobia ): 

modern day indian / desi fuck boys exist and my god they are Something Else . hasan minhaj did a really good piece about this and explaining them to a T ( starts at 1:43 )

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT WILL MENTION ISLAMAPHOBIA AND HOMOPHOBIA ! ) basically according to Older  indians , ,  ur dating options  in 2020 go like this ( if ur a cis female like me ) : hindu indian men are god tier , white men are Not Okay But I Guess So Bc We Have To Accept They’re Everywhere , females / being lgbtqia+ is not Taken Seriously , and muslims are literally not even close to being an option or Accepted  . again this isn’t definitive but based on a lot of  indian media i’ve consumed and seen how they portray muslims in general as well as Dating Options , as well as talking to other indians  , both who are older / traditional and hold these ideals , whereas Younger gens generally do NOT hold these ideals  / actively are Against these backwards ideals.   i remember when i was in year 6 and had my first boyfriend . . he was a muslim and my dad FLIPPED the FUCK out  . it’s not even that i was dating someone / young / his only daughter . . it was mainly because i was dating a muslim . again , this is a very OLD SCHOOL and traditional way of thinking and it is NOT CORRECT .  pls don’t take this as a note to be islamaphobic if u write an indian character bc . . thats literally the opposite of what im trying to tell u here . 

yeah arranged marriages are definitely still a thing for us , even now in 2020

YES if u are an unmarried / single indian ( ESPECIALLY if ur a woman ) about to enter ur 30s . . ur in DANGER and u are the black sheep and theres probably something Wrong With You bc why are u still single ?

TRADITIONS / BELIEFS / SUPERSTITIONS :

idk if its just me and my family but we are SUPER superstitious . if you say anything like ‘ he hasnt gotten sick in years !’ immediately , everyone knocks on wood or their head . if you were planning on leaving the house and sneeze ? thats bad luck , stand and wait for five minutes then u can leave . we have a strong belief in drishti , or  alternatively : The Evil Eye  , and making sure we don’t invite it into our lives . a lot of our prayers are about warding drishti away .

the evil eye is kinda Complicated but basically its an ill-wishing upon an unsuspecting person . if somebody is jealous of you or angered by you , they may wish upon you or cast upon you the Evil eye ( or even just glare at u whilst ur not looking and thats Big Bad ) . 

a lot of older indians , like older people in general i guess , are not super progressive or Open . this isnt ALWAYS the case but older indians can be very very stubborn in their beliefs in what is Right and Wrong , Normal and Not Normal 

theres a LOT of hindu indian festivals and events ! tbh too many for me to even keep up with . but without fail at least once a year ill say to ONE of my friends ‘ oh sorry i cant make it . i have an indian Thing on that day ‘ and its usually about a festival , so pls be aware that there are a LOT of indian festivals and if ur writing an indian character , its perfectly understandable and Relatable for them to say they can’t make it to a party or hang out with their friends that night , for that very reason !

the main / most popular ( ? ) festivities  that i personally do celebrate every year without fail are : 

diwali ( the festival of lights , celebrating goddess lakshmi roaming the earth . in my household this is usually turning on literally every single light and lighting candles and fireworks / sparklers and saying some prayers , and eating a formal dinner all together !  )  

holi ( the festival of colours . celebrating victory and love . again personally for me , this was usually celebrated at the temple with all of us Kids running around throwing paint on each other ! ) 

rakhi / raksha bandhan ( a day of sisters celebrating their brothers . you tie a rakhi which is usually a bracelet / holy string around your brothers wrist , feed them some food , pray for their wellbeing and in return they gift you something . in my case, i usually get money from them ) .

navratri  / durga puja ( 9 nights and 10 days of celebrations but tbh u don’t have to do all the days . or i mean . . i don’t . i fast one day from morning to night and then i slide on over to boogie and dance dandiya which is literally the MOST FUN dance ever bc its based off some Historical Fight and u go faster and faster and keep going until ur absolutely SPENT bc u dont wanna lose ur place in the circle )  

there are SO MANY HINDU INDIAN GODS too . and so many prayers to all of them and to just general Life Wellness . chances are that ur character will know at least ONE aarti / gazal / prayer off by heart and have sung it at least 30 times in a monotone voice . the ones i know off by heart bc ive had to sing them 3000 times ? om jai jagdish hare , & the gayatri mantra 

GENERAL LIL THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO CATEGORISE ( tw’s for skin whitening , colorism and classism ) :

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT NEEDS A TW FOR SKIN WHITENING AND COLORISM  ) lets hold indians accountable right now : we advertise SKIN LIGHTENING CREAM  . i think they finally stopped that earlier this year / due to BLM ( i’m not entirely sure / could be wrong ) , but thats literally how bad it is , that we would openly advertise and encourage people to literally bleach their skin rather than look darker . 

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT NEEDS A TW FOR COLORISM AND CLASSISM ) colorism is a BIG thing in india and usually linked to class . generally speaking , the people who are Darker Skinned are usually people who work outside / labourers or homeless even , and are therefore seen as lower class / bottom class . the lighter skin you have , the more privileged and advantaged you are bc ur seen as working a Good job out of the sun and having a home . it’s incredibly classist as well as just generally Fucked Up . why am i telling u this ? mainly so u understand the importance of using a dark skinned indian fc vs a light skinned indian fc which i know is hard , bc a lot of darker skinned indians arent in hollywood / have resources , but its still something to Think About .  

i have a long Ethnic name . literally my first name is 10+ letters , which i know doesnt seem that long Necessarily but its also a Super Ethnic name with e’s and and j and n . it Flows and Sounds very clearly different from a christian name . it is VERY important to me that my name be said Correctly because i’ve spent so much time having it said incorrectly or Westernised . i also know a lot of indians my age who ( like me ) have had to dramatically shorten their REAL first name ( which is usually also pretty long . not always , but it is Common ) , to fit their name into white people’s mouths better . please put some thought into ur indian characters name !

not all indians speak hindi ! hindi is one of MANY dialects within india . there is also tamil , urdu  , bengali , punjabi , telugu and SO many more , so pls research which part of india ur character / their family  is from bc hindi won’t always be the default language for them !

not every indian is hindu ! of course ur character doesnt have to be religious at all , bc if im being honest IM barely religious but my FAMILY is and this is smth u should think abt bc religion is a pretty big thing for indians . so even if ur character isnt hindu , they were probably raised with SOME religious beliefs . have a think about which religions they would have been brought up with ! there’s a very large percentage of practicing muslims , sikhs and buddhists too ! and even christianity !

WRITING WISE / CREATING AN INDIAN CHARACTER WISE :

the first step should be to consume indian media ! listen to indian music . watch bollywood movies ! theres SO MANY  out there on everyone’s netflix . if u want some recs , let me know and i can try my best to find smth for u ! if u want smth thats Hollywood-indian . . . Hasan Minhaj is great to watch , especially his episodes on indian culture / politics , and Never Have I Ever on netflix was rlly good / relatable for me personally as an indian growing up in a western society !

i would really really love to see more indian rep in general , but i’d also like to discuss the Stereotypes that ive seen indians portrayed as in mainstream hollywood media :

indian women as soft spoken and subservient beings who are abused by their husbands and have no say in anything 

heterosexuality within indian relationships and indian dating 

indian men as sleazy 

indians in general not being seen as Sexy or Sexual beings with any sex drive at all 

Stumbling , Stuttering , Nerdy awkward messes of men who don’t know how to interact with anybody they find sexually appealing

an indian character that everybody ( usually white ) finds Uncomfortable and Weird and is seen as usually the Butt of the joke .

 i think those mentioned above could be helpful in how to plan your next indian character and think about how to SUBVERT a trope theyre often portrayed as , or create an indian thats not stereotypical !

so what and who SHOULD you write ? 

an indian character who is proudly and openly gay , or bi 

a trans or nonbinary indian ( PLEASE ! ) 

an indian character with really super accepting parents and family 

an aromantic indian 

an indian who is focused on their career first and not their dating life 

a fuckboy / fuckgirl ( honestly . . i’d love to see it )

a indian character who is a party animal 

an outspoken indian female who takes no shit and is strong in every sense of the word

a confident , smooth talking indian businessman who is Sexy and Lusted After ( not in a gross christian grey way but just . i’d love to see indian characters seen as Sexy . not in a fetishy way , either , but just because it’d be a nice change in pace ! )

a character who IS traditional / religious but also very progressive and forward thinking in their beliefs 

honestly just any character that isnt whats mentioned above

[otterplusharchive]

rey! do you have any recs for kdramas? i have never watched any, but i like lovable characters and romance ? thank you in advance!

I DO IN FACT HAVE DRAMA RECS HII not all of these will be kdramas, but ill start with the kdramas ive watched and enjoyed and ill include all the warnings for them that i can remember off the top of my head and a brief synopsis for u!

kdramas-

1. weight lifting fairy kim bok joo

this was probably one of the first kdramas i saw people post about in like 2015 and i watched a little bit of it in 2016 but then only just got around to finishing it last year. the basic gist of it is its about a young sports college weight lifter, kim bok joo, centering around her navigating through her life and trying to figure out who she is and what she wants in life and what she wants to be. her romantic interest in the show is a swimmer and they have a sort of rivals to friends to lovers, he is SO in love with her and its adorable. i absolutely loved the side characters in this show theyre all so fun and kim bok joos best friends and weight lifting team are especially delightful. my main warning would be that this show addresses eating disorders and theres a lot of mention of both weight gain and weight loss, theres also a plot point early on where kim bok joo has a crush on her eventual love interests older brother but it gets resolved and the older brother literally goes "i didnt realize you had a crush on me and if i knew that i wouldnt have been so friendly with you, it would be completely innapropriate for us to be in a relationship". overall its a really sweet and emotional fun show but if you have issues with weight talk id skip this one

2. tale of the nine tailed

this one is really recent from last year and i didnt expect to be so hooked by it but boy howdy did i get attached to all the characters and the wild plot. it feels hard to explain the plot but basically a nine tailed fox named lee yeon is living in modern day seoul and is working for the underworld finding paranormal spirits/creatures/other rogue foxes that are causing havoc on the world, hes resigned himself to living this life while waiting for his girlfriend who died tragically 600 years ago to come back to life because he traded his status as a mountain god in order to ensure that her soul would one day be reincarnated. a plucky investigative journalist named nam ji ah figures out that hes not human and shenanagins ensue because she looks exactly like his dead girlfriend oooooo whatll happen. the plot beyond that gets really wild and its hard to explain and is easier to just watch. if u enjoy paranormal adventures this one is good. my one big complaint and issue with this is that the immortal mountain spirit meets his original girlfriend when shes a child and she continues to visit him off and on as she grows up which is Hm I Dont Like That! but thankfully the present time romance our female lead meets him when shes about 30 if im remembering right. also warnings for general fantasy violence, references to child abuse, animal death, and abandonment issues

3. extraordinary you

HUGE unreality warning for this. if you have issues with feeling unreal or have paranoia/delusions about not being a real person id avoid this one just because of its premise

ok i know i said tale of the nine tailed was a hard plot to explain but BOY extraordinary you is even HARDER to explain. because its so wild but so good. its about a girl who realizes that she is literally a side character in a comic book, and the story becomes her trying to change the story to save her character from dying but it becomes a lot more than that. the romance in this is literally tooth achingly sweet and the show itself is very pretty, i loved the side characters in this one and the show was engaging and interesting to watch it became really layered and meta. super reccomend this one honestly. my main issues/warnings that i can remember off the top of my head were just one character being the classic controlling boyfriend stereotype, bullying someone specifically for being poor, unreality like i mentioned before, and then at the very end there was this love interest for a side character who got reincarnated from a past piece of writing that they had been in and put in the comic but she was a student and he was the school cook which is weird but thankfully they like barely interact at all and theres no real romance he just like recognizes her and its barely a thing at the end of the show but its still weird

4. mystic pop up bar

big warning for suicide, sexual harrasment (which is framed as being bad and the guy whos harrassing the girl literally gets thrown off a roof)

i havent finished this one yet and thats mainly because im not emotionally ready because this one makes me soooo emotional. if you like found family this is a good one. its about a pop up bar run by a woman whos been tasked with solving the problems of a certain amount of people in order to atone for her crimes in the past before dying, shes able to enter the dreams of people and solve their issues using the information she gets in the dreams. paranormal shenanagins ensue, she acquires a son and a husband and it kills me its so fun and quirky and fun despite handling dark themes and peoples problems. also very sweet the found family murders me

5. kingdom (netflix original)

i literally am not going to be able to watch any other zombie media because kingdom and train to busan are the best pieces of zombie media ive ever seen. warnings for gore and violence and just general horror aspects.

i absolutely love this one its so thrilling and well done, i love the acting and the way that this show looks its absolutely gorgeous. a zombie plague breaks out in joseon period korea where the emperor has died and then was brought back to life by the queen and her father in a ploy to try and keep their family in political power, the crown prince must find answers. a lot more happens and its very dramatic and good i love the characters in this one

cdramas

1. the untamed. if you follow me and you havent watched the untamed im begging you to watch the untamed. literally one of the most beautiful stories ive experienced in my life i am not joking when i say i cried multiple times over it. the main characters are canonically gay in love and have a son together please watch the untamed. handles a lot of dark themes, heres a tw guide

2. the sleuth of the ming dynasty

this is another one i havent finished but its fun so far, very gay, found family, food, and solving murder mysteries during the ming dynasty

3. hikaru no go (also known as qi hun)

havent finished this one, there is some propaganda about hong kong in the first episode but as far as i know thats the only instance of something like that in the show

this ones about the game go and so far its very sweet and fun, local boy awakens a ghost who was a master of the game of go hundreds of years ago and eventually is persuaded to learn how to play go with the aid of the ghost. im really liking this one so far its very cute and i love the characters in it. if youve watched the untamed nie huaisangs actor ji li is in this one!

4. the legend of yunqian

this ones very short and on youtube, all the episodes are about 5 minutes long and its a lesbian time travel fantasy adventure with a happy ending! funny and cute

jdramas

1. cherry magic

please please please watch cherry magic. the premise sounds very much like a weird yaoi kind of thing but trust me on this. trust me. it is so heart warming and sweet and i was so emotional about it and the growth of the main character.

adachi gains the power to read peoples minds on his 30th birthday based off a urban legend that if youre a 30 year old virgin that youll become a wizard. after gaining this power he accidentally finds out that his extremely popular and handsome coworker has a crush on him, and shenanagins ensue along with adachi having blossoming feelings in return. this show was really refreshing in a lot of ways, adachi is a main character who like.. is unsure of himself and insecure in a very kind of realistic way, he closes himself off and is afraid to reach out to people and through the course of the show we see him slowly come out of his shell and realize that hes likeable and lovable and that people want to be around him and its so nice to see. my main complaint about this show is that i dont really like the background couple, but otherwise this is a very sweet and refreshing gay romance that has a happy ending!

some others that i myself havent seen but that ive seen people talk about a lot and that i want to watch eventually:

- the legend of fei (cdrama)

- the wolf (cdrama)

- gaurdian (cdrama, not the kdrama one called goblin)

- healer (kdrama, i did watch some of this one but it was in 2016 and i never finished it so i barely remember any of it but i do remember liking it)

- nobody knows (kdrama)

- its ok to not be ok (kdrama)

sorry this is so long but i hope youll be able to find a drama u enjoy!!

[ad1thi]

Bruised, Not Broken - CHP 1

i just realised that i never posted this here?? so here’s my kinda weird Assassin!Bucky x Toni modern AU that came to me in the shower and im still figuring out as a i go along. the first two chapters are done (and out on ao3) so i’ll be posting chapter 2 in like a day or two, but after that - updates will sync up here and on ao3

//

chapter 1/? || also on ao3

//

James is just about to fall asleep, can feel his eyelids getting heavier and his body slowing down, when his phone starts ringing on his chest, startling him back to wakefulness. He fumbles for it a couple of times, swiping his thumb over the half-shattered screen and bringing it to his ear.

 “Barnes,” he grunts through the phone, and the voice he hears trinkle through the static makes him sit upright. He wasn’t ever accepting to hear from him again.

 “James,” the man on the other end of the line says, “I need you to do something for me, and I need you to not ask any questions.”

 “I wasn’t aware we were on speaking terms,” James replies carefully, trying to keep the curiosity out of his voice, “This must be a pretty big favour.”

 “This one isn’t for me,” the man says shortly, “There’s a truck parked in the alley on the corner of 5th and Main. There’s precious cargo inside. I need you to get to the truck and drive it the hell out of town. Don’t look back, and don’t stop for anything.”

 “You expect me to uproot my life, and I’m not even allowed to ask what’s going on?” James demands, even though he already knows he’s going to say yes. He wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important, if there wasn’t anybody else who could do this except for James.

 “You trusted me once,” the man says, after a pregnant silence, “There was a time when I would tell you to jump, and you would say ‘how high?’. Someone’s life is at stake, so can I count on you or not?”

 James surveys his apartment. He doesn’t have a lot of clothes, they could probably all be stuffed in a large duffel bag if he tries hard enough. His plates are all plastic, and there’s some leftover take out in the fridge.

 Rent’s due in a couple of days, but somehow, James doesn’t think his landlord will be all that upset if he sees an empty apartment. Or that surprised. 

 “I can be there in 30 minutes,” James concedes, “I just need to get some stuff together.”

 “Bring your guns,” the man says, “and don’t be late.” He ends the call before James can come up with something smart to say in response. He manfully resists the urge to throw his phone against the wall, if only because there are people who still need to be able to contact him; and pushes himself to his feet.

 The duffel bag is stuffed under his bed, right next to where the guns are taped, and it’s quick work to get them both out. James takes a couple of seconds to check the magazine in the handgun before stuffing it in the crook of the back of his jeans; and then feels around for the extra clips he knows he has stashed somewhere.

His clothes are strewn all over the one-bedroom apartment, and while James would love to just stuff them into the duffel bag and call it a day - he takes the time to fold each other, smoothing out the wrinkles as best he can. He’s not particularly vain, not anymore anyway - but his Ma drilled into him the need to keep decent clothes, and the Army hammered it home.

Before he steps out of the apartment, he takes a second to look at his reflection in the mirror, rubbing an absent hand over the beard that’s grown over the past couple of months. He debates taking the time to shave but decides against it. He’s going to an alley; appearances don’t matter.

 He grabs his toothbrush and places it on top of his clothes, before zipping up the duffel bag and swinging it over his shoulders. He taps on his phone screen to check the time, and he’s got about 15 minutes before he’ll be late. If he walks quickly, he can be there in 10.

 James is at the threshold when he takes one last look at his apartment. It’s easily one of the most decrepit places he’s ever lived, even counting his days in the barracks in Afghanistan; but it’s been home for the past four months and he’s oddly loath to leave it.

 With a sigh, he pulls the door and jimmies the key into the lock; clicking it shut. He slips the key into the fake plant pot poised outside that Natasha gave him as a housewarming gift, because she thought it would make the apartment homely; and then swings over the railings, bracing himself with his hands when he hits the ground.

 His apartment was only two floors from the ground floor, and it’s late enough that there’s nobody around to watch his stunts. Besides, he’s on a clock.

//

He sees the truck the minute he turns into the alley, but there doesn’t appear to be anybody waiting for him next to it. On instinct, James’ hand rests on his gun, while the other fishes out his phone to make sure he isn’t late. 

 It’s dark, almost impossibly so, but James’ eyes are used to darker, and they adjust quickly. A quick sweep of the alley confirms his suspicions - that he’s the only one here, and he resists swearing out loud, if only because it will draw unnecessary attention to himself.

 Letting go of his gun, he makes his way over to the truck, peering at the back to see if he can make out what the precious cargo is. There’s a bundled-up duvet stuffed into the back of the truck, placed in a way that you wouldn’t even notice it was there unless you were looking for it.

 James braces his hands onto the edge of the truck and hauls himself up so that he can get a closer look, walking softly so as to not jostle the cargo. He crouches down when he’s close enough; and with the steady fingers, pulls at the duvet to reveal whatever’s inside.

 There’s a girl, no, a woman, who can’t be older than 20, covered in bruises and contorted in an impossible position. James is going to kill him the next time they run into each other; their past relationship be damned. Hesitantly, James brings his fingers to her neck, relaxing slightly when he feels a weak pulse. He checks her eyes next, finger catching on the underside and pulling it down to reveal glazed pupils; almost vacant.

 There’s a distinct possibility that if James looks closer at her neck; he’s going to find a tiny puncture wound that resembles a needle. He’s definitely going to kill him the next time he sees him. James might even hunt him down just for the pleasure of the kill.

 He pulls his phone out of his pocket and redials the last incoming number, shoving it between his shoulder and crooking his neck - leaving his hands free to peel back more of the duvet while he assesses the woman’s injuries.

 He picks up after two rings.

 “I don’t do this stuff anymore,” James barks, not even giving him a chance to get a word in edgewise, “I don’t take people out. What the fuck have you gotten me into? She looks like she was the punching bag for an overly enthusiastic MMA fighter. You’re going to tell me what’s going on right now, or I promise you, I will hunt you down.”

 “So, you opened the cargo,” the man says in a calm tone, so calm that it infuriates James.

 “Yeah, I fucking opened the cargo, and I’m telling you right now - I’m not killing this woman. I don’t care who she is, or what she’s done, I’m done with that life. You’ve got some nerve giving me this kind of job.”

 “James,” his voice doesn’t waver in the slightest, “James you’re not there to kill her. You’re there to save her.”

 James pauses at that, hands stilling from where they were inspecting the cuts around her thighs, “What do you mean, save her?”

 “Look I can’t tell you much, because it’s classified; but we’ve had her and her husband on surveillance for months. You have to believe me when I say if I knew what he was doing to her, that he was beating her; that I would’ve put an end to the op. I only found out two weeks ago though, because she’s good at hiding it. Almost too good.”

 “So why is she drugged and in the back of a truck instead of at the police station giving her statement?”

 The man sighs, the only indication that he is bothered by this, “I was told that the op was too deep, and she was collateral damage. If he killed her, I was allowed to call the police - but anything short of that, I was just supposed to look the other way; and file it for when he was officially charged. They said that if they started him now, that the rest of the case would fall apart, and it wasn’t worth the risk. Not when we were so close.”

 “So, you smuggled her out instead,” James surmised.

 “If it makes you feel any better, she asked to be drugged. I explained who you are to her as best I could, but she said that she was in a shit-load of pain, and it was more than likely that she would lash out at you on instinct alone; so, drugging her was the best option.”

 “Why didn’t she go to the police?” James asks, even though he already knows the answer, “Why do it like this?”

 “She said that he had all the local police in his pocket, and if she went - they’d probably just send her back home with a couple of new bruises.’

//

‘I need her alive,’ he’d said, ‘I need her alive, and well enough to testify when we finally bring down the hammer on her piece of shit husband. Whatever you need to do to keep her alive James, do it.’

 He’s been driving for close to six hours now. New York is long gone, and there’s a fair chance that James has crossed state lines. New Jersey was a distinct possibility for a half mile, because nobody worth their salt from New York considers New Jersey a place; but James has more connections in Massachusetts; more people to count on if things go south.

 On his lap, the woman stirs slightly, but doesn’t wake. Her head is pillowed on one of his thighs; the duvet covering her up till her shoulders, and she sniffles and moves closer to him; as if chasing his body warmth. Almost on instinct, James reaches out and soothes a hand through her hair, running his fingers against her scalp ever so gently.

 She leans into the movement, imperceptibly, and after a couple of minutes of movement; stills again, going limp. Whatever sedatives she’s on must be strong, but it’s clear that if they don’t stop soon; she’s going to wake up and that’s not good for her, or for him.

 They’re about an hour out from a motel that James trusts; with an owner who looks the other way for the right kind of money, but he’s worried that she won’t make it that long. When he was moving her from the back of the van, he jostled the duvet, and he knows that she’s got nothing more than a threadbare shirt and her undergarments on. Whatever her situation was, clearly it was bad enough that trousers were too much of a waste; and sedated or not - her body is feeling the effects of the frigid winter air.

 “Fuck,” James murmers into the open air, and pulls up on the side of the road. As gentle as possible, he cups his hands under the woman’s arms and brings up to a sitting position; her back resting against his chest. He shifts slightly in the tight spot, shrugging off his jacket and slipping it onto her shoulders.

 It isn’t easy tucking her hands into the arms of the jacket without jostling her wounds, but James manages; even though every new bruise makes him want to break something in frustration. His earlier assessment that she was a punching bag isn’t inaccurate, and just from touching her hands, James can estimate multiple fractures around her wrist all the way up to her elbow.

She’s startling beautiful; long brown hair that flows past her shoulders and curls ever so slightly at the end, eyelashes that frame her cheeks and chapped lips with slight teeth indentations; like she bites them a lot. James can’t imagine even raising his voice at her; let alone marking her up the way her husband has - and not for the first time, he curses the fact that he can’t take her to a hospital, or to the proper authorities; who’ll do right by her.

But he can’t, because his job isn’t to get her to the authorities, it’s to keep her alive - and James is going to do it even if it kills him.

tbc

[lady-plantagenet]

What hasn’t already been said: The Spanish Princess 2

Episode 1: CamelNOT

[Lively Music Plays]

I shit you not... that’s what it said in the CCs.

Tower of London (?)

*Catherine looks at the array of crowns like a museum curator and the proceeds to strut down the halls*

Wolsey: *gives her this strange look which is a mixture between damn girl and the eagle is my spirit animal.

Then Catherine gets fake detained and taken to Henry in what must be a strange variation of the whole Robin Hood/Maid Marian roleplay they historically engaged in.

... did she just call his erhm manhood his kingship? Well that’s original, I’ll give them that. Also funny how Bessie Blount initially looks on in fright... don’t worry girl that will be you soon.

———————————————————————

*the four ladies have a brunch friendship moment together*

I see Blount is among them... I see they are setting her up as Catherine’s friend in order to play up the whole betrayal.

Alright. Jokes aside, I realised how much I’ve played myself. I was inspired by @melusineloriginale ‘s sporks (which if all this TSP episode posts got you in the mood for PG show mockery I urge you to check out here - you’ll thank me later). In truth, Henry VIII’s early reign is a bit too late from my main area of focus for me to make intelligent jokes.

I’ll content myself with just bullet-pointing random thoughts that came into my head, and if some intelligent thought gets through, well that would be the pinnacle. In any case I’ll aim to not parrot some of the stuff that’s already been said, repetition can get annoying.

This image embodies this post, but maybe not the show. I’ve noticed those Starz productions get better by the end.

First Scenes:

- The recap just reminded me how much I will miss Margaret Beaufort in the coming episodes. I know her portrayal was innacurate but Harriet Walter just made everything better.

- They are making such a big deal out of this whole ‘we were crowned together, we rule together’ thing in this episode - it makes no sense. Catherine was an influential Queen but she was definitely no more than a consort and never saw herself as more.

- Ruairi’s new haircut is pleasing to my eyes.

- When she says ‘Abuelo’ it’s super adorable awww

The Ferdinand and Charles V scene:

- Bessie Blount looks so much like Ursula Pole lmao. Also they totally got the Pole children’s birth order wrong and UGH WHERE IS GEOFFREY POLE???

- I like Mary Tudor’s actress and her facial expressions. However, this whole polyglot image they are representing is innacurate. I am fairly certain she knew no spanish and I recall reading a contemporary account which said that she was not very learned.

- I’m pretty sure it would be considered bad luck to prematurely crown your son ‘Henry IX’ while you’re still alive.

- I actually like the whole Grape motif in this episode. It’s probably the smartest thing they’ve come up with so far for this episode. I know a lot of you will be all like ‘there’s no record of Ferdinand being abusive’ but this choice sort of makes sense when you recall Joanna’s treatment. Also I appreciate them for not being tacky and showing flashbacks of more overt abuse eg physical. The sugared grape is also fairly symbolic (the sugar is like a gilding, the grape easily crushable)

- OMG the guy from Garrow’s law is playing Thomas More!

- AND PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME IM NOT SEEING THINGS? Margaret Pole x Thomas More is happening?? Please god that is a historical crackship I am getting behind. Yes. This is what I’m most invested about.

Margaret Tudor and Scotland Scene:

- The whole ironic cutaway to Margaret being all depressed after Charles Brandon’s statement about her charming Scottish king is such a cliché movie technique.

- If this were a more artsy film I would think the whole setup resembling a stereotypical middle-class family breakfast was done on purpose for humorous effects or to create a link with the past. But here I don’t have as much trust in the producers. I think they just failed to capture the time period accurately.

- The modernisms continue: ‘Negassi please stop playing’ idk, there just something so modern about this for some reason ahaha

- Also again, I’m getting tired of all this ‘Catherine is basically queen herself’, ‘Catherine is a political genius’, ‘Catherine Catherine Catherine’ ugh. I don’t think the producers understand that Henry VIII was a very autocratic and traditional ruler. He didn’t make any show of joint-rulership (correct me if I’m wrong).

- The teeth thing is funny, smart and I liked it.

Back to Westminster:

- I like Ferdinand’s actor!

- Also Catherine’s response to ‘who are you loyal to?’ was not that smart. I feel like the producers wanted us to be impressed. What if Spain and England’s interests conflict, ey??

The Joust:

- I care too much for the whole Margaret Pole plotline. I’m so invested.

- I could watch a series of More and Pole just exchanging lines. I love the actors too and this is my hope for this series. The whole frustrated parents is SO CUTE.

- I didn’t know More tutored Reggie, I would be curious to know more.

- The way compton says groom to queen’s stool is freaking hilarious. He looks like a pervert.

- Henry Pole is a darling and must be protected at all costs.

- Oh Christ oh Christ that eyeball shot was just... good job on the special effects guys. Don’t know what the point of that choice was.

- I found the whole armour mentions after interesting, it looked so set up as a PR campaign because Stafford speaking about the armour just sounded like a statement agreed on beforehand ‘should have worn the same’ and the Catherine with ‘steel in the bones’ and Ferdinand’s impressed face (it was him playing them?)

- Am I giving this show too much credit?

- Also whats up with “God save the Queen?”

War Counsel:

- Henry VIII’s actor is quite charismatic in this scene. It’s almost as if Catherine is the hothead and Henry the wise one that speaks less but more significantly. It almost feels like they gender-swapped them.

The Bedchamber:

- Did Catherine breastfeed the baby? I thought it was Anne Boleyn. Doubtful... I’m tired of the trope of ‘you’re a good woman if you insist on breastfeeding the child yourself despite social conventions’. For a feminist show, the writers seem very attached to some 1950s perceptions of motherhood.

- I feel like the age difference between Catherine and Henry is well conveyed.

Scotland Again:

- ‘All the sheep were pregnant’ 👀 oh touché Margaret. oh my. Did she just?

- I know they are playing out this disenfranchised Margaret arc to reinforce how great Catherine and Henry are (cheap technique) and to build up to her involvement in Flodden (innacurate historically but I know what the show will do). But I will say this: the humour is pretty good in the Scottish scenes! But I know it’s unintentionally so... (I highly doubt they wanted us to laugh at Margaret hitting James or calling Alexander a pig).

Westminster and the baby chamber:

- What’s are those red splotches on the babies face??

- Oh that shot of Margaret and silent Reginald :((( it makes me sad.

- And now the Poles are at church! I just love the look of them.

- That scene of Maggie and Catherine was needed, as we didn’t get the best friends vibe much in this episode. The whole thing looked a bit pagan though, but it was nice :)

The whole Ferdinand’s betrayal segment:

- The grape motif again was fitting, him snapping the fruit right before she gets to it even despite her knowing what he’s like and what he’ll do, was a good parrallel.

- I’m tired of hearing of this ‘Camelot’. Even in the novel, Camelot was Catherine and Arthur’s dream and... can we just live it up with Arthur?

- Ursula Pole’s, Bessie Blount’s and Mary Boleyn’s actresses look way too similar.

- I fail to see why Catherine thinks she’s turning into her father... she doesn’t strike me as much of a game-player or subtle two-facer.

- I’m intrigued what will happen with Oviedo and Lina... I feel like they won’t stay in England long.

- He was made knight bannaret... nice... but why does he thank Catherine publicly for this? It was in Henry’s gift that he was made a commoner Knight.. if this transpired irl Henry would have been gravely insulter.

Catherine’s Dead Baby and thereafter:

- Guys. In all seriousness, I don’t think the TV series is trying to imply that Catherine killed the baby with her negligence. I mean, they are so bent on us liking her they wouldn’t do that. It would be a bit too ballsy anyway. Remember the red splotches I mentioned earlier? Could those have been a sign that he was already ill but no one noticed/was in denial?

- The pebbles in hands would have had more emotional payoff if it had been established earlier if you know what I mean. Basically, this episode is too fast and entire arcs begin and end within it which extinguished any build-up.

- Oh man Henry is so sweet in this, how will they build him up as the tyrant he was historically if they keep this up?

Scotland Again:

- I must admit, I don’t like all those nicknames they keep using. But somehow James calling Margaret ‘Meg’ is nice and seems fitting.

- What’s a hermana sister?

England Last Mourning Scenes:

- YOU DID NOT BUILD CAMELOT ughhh

- Why is Catherine giving the speech and not Henry?? It turns out Catherine was more emotional historically then the whole perception of ‘perfect queen of stone’ to which some people hold her. However, I doubt it would have been proper of her to give a speech in such a emotional manner.

Conclusion:

6.5/10

Some of the dialogue was stilted, the costumes are confused as to which era they’re supposed to be (aesthetically distracting) and many other characterisation issues.

I don’t have high hopes for this series in terms of cinematography or art but I sure as hell expect it will be entertaining. So far, everything is just getting set up and I find some aspects promising. As you can tell I am truly excited over how the Margaret Pole plotline. I am also interested in how Henry will be portrayed, with Catherine being so OTT and pushy this episode Im starting to Stan him more. In this show he appears sensitive and serene and kinda... adorable. Kind of like a little brother hanging onto his sister’s skirts.

But in a way that is a disservice to the real historical figure which would not tolerate such a representation. I am very irritated by this whole ‘joint-rulers’ thing which is just sooo innacurate. These STARZ shows have an obsession with showing women turn into men for the purposes of feminism - I see.

Catherine overpowers Henry too often and it sometimes feels like he’s HER consort. Of course, the feminism in this show is schizophrenic as we get the overemphasis of Catherine as a 1950s motherly ideal with the whole breastfeeding angle (“you’re better than other noble woman who would find this beneath them”, “they’re not as motherly as you”).

So the relationship dynamic between Henry and Catherine is a bit off at the moment, but oh well.

Mary Tudor is a bit distracting with her dark hair but I find the actress extremely endearing and promising. I know there will be emphasis on her storyline too and I hope they’ll not be clichéd with it.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Ive never really understood the hype surrounding Taylor Swift - I mean, I like some of her songs, but im not big on modern pop music so generally she just doesn’t really click for me. But I find it interesting that theres quite a few of Beatles/Swift blogs - like, they should have very little in common given that they’re from completely different eras and all, but somehow people seem to find a lot of semblance between the two. << and thats not me shitting on any of these blogs btw! Hope I don’t come off as rude or condescending there <3

Anyway, I was just wondering what got you into Taylor Swift? (I think ive read your post on how you got into the Beatles)

Hi, anon! Don't worry, I don't think you're rude or condescending! I agree they don't have too much in common and I don't really like their music for the same reasons.* I do have a playlist of Paul songs that have similar vibes to Taylor songs but it's mostly lyric-based. (Also the Beatles For Sale songs actually have quite the Taylor-tinge because Paul and John were not immune to Country Music)

I saw @stewy say once that a possible reason there are a good handful of us Swiftie-Beatle People on here is the appeal of a vast discography, which I agree with. If you have an artist/group with 200ish songs, it's just really fun to really dive into their work and explore all the facets. I also think: we're talking about the most popular band of all time and one of the highest-selling artists of the 21st century. They have a lot of fans so there's bound to be overlap, regardless of musical differences.

Moving on to your question: Getting into Taylor was an extremely personal experience for me and so my explanation is probably going to be kind of long so I'll put it under a read more.

It was spring-summer 2014, I was 15. I had heard the more popular songs of hers starting with Love Story and enjoyed pretty much all of them (I always found her hopelessly romantic point of view fascinating) but before I got a Spotify account in 2013 it was difficult in general for me to really get into an artists' entire discography so most of her songs had flown under my radar.

At the time, I was in this very weird sort of codependent online friendship with this girl who was basically my first real best friend and my first more or less crush. She was very depressed and I was very much in an I Could Fix Her™ mood, except that I obviously couldn't fix her and it made me feel like I wasn't enough and she had begun pulling more and more away from me and not replying to my messages and it was simply driving me insane. I consider it the saddest period in my life.

at some point during this period, I started trying to connect with other people (all online, I didn't know how to talk seriously to anyone IRL) and explaining the issues I'd been having, and one of the people who brought me joy and whom I actually felt not drained talking to was a huge swiftie. And IDK the fact that she loved Taylor and the fact that talking to her made my life better (and also the fact that I liked all the Taylor songs I knew at that point) just made me decide to give her a listen. And I think that whole "large discography discovery" phenomenon really helped me at the time (funny, because her discography has doubled since then). It gave me something new to focus on; there were just so many songs to discover, all telling such rich stories. I also have always loved bridges, they are almost always my favourite part of a song. And Taylor, god-bless her, loves them too and always puts her ALL in them. Like pretty much every bridge of hers brings the song to the next level, and even a lot of her songs I don't adore tend to have great bridges (Stay Stay Stay and Paper Rings come to mind). I think one of her most underrated qualities is how good she is at song structure and really building up an entire musical journey with a song. She also almost always adds cool ad-libs in her second and third choruses to keep the songs interesting and dynamic (or at least since she's gone pop). Anyways, back to the story: Then Taylor announced 1989 as her next album and released Shake It Off, and it was just like this great happy thing for me to look forward to, when I had very little keeping me going. The era was promoting a lot of happiness which in hindsight was slightly fabricated and it was just a really great thing for me to latch onto.

At the same time I was coming to realize that I was gonna have to pull away completely from my friend and all those break-up songs just… Hit, y'know? Like, some people seem to think Taylor's a one-trick pony because she likes to write break-up songs but to me, break-ups are just like this moment where you as a human can potentially feel every single emotion, and Taylor's songs have covered every facet of the concept. Here are some songs I remember from that period, that all meant a lot to me at the time because they explained my own pain to me so well:

Haunted, for the absolute terror you feel in the first moments you realize someone is probably gonna leave you. Come on, come on / Don't leave me like this / I thought I had you figured out / Something's gone terribly wrong / You're all I wanted.

I Almost Do, for the inner turmoil you feel when you know you have to stay away from someone for your own good but you really, really have to resist just running back to that person. We've made quite a mess, Babe / It's probably better off this way / And I confess, Babe / In my dreams you're touching my face / And asking me if I wanna try again / With you / And I almost do.

Last Kiss, for that absolute sadness that comes simply with remembering everything that was good and not comprehending how it could've possibly ended. I still remember / The look on your face / Lit through the darkness / At 1:58 / Words that you whispered / For just us to know / You told me you loved me / So why did you go / Away?

Forever and Always, for that feeling of desperately wanting to hold on to what you still have but at the same time realizing it probably isn't going to last and having no idea how to fix it, plus feeling like the other person doesn't even care. So here's to everything / Coming down to nothing / Here's to silence / That cuts me to the core / Where is this going? / Thought I knew for a minute / But I don't anymore.

Dear John, my all-time favourite song, for that moment you find clarity and realize that you deserved better and that you were headed in an extremely dark direction because of this other person. [DISCLAIMER: my friend did NOT abuse me nor did we have some inappropriate age difference. But the way she would ignore me and her general moodiness really affected my own mental health and self-worth problems] You paint me a blue sky / And go back and turn it to rain / And I lived in your chess games / But you changed the rules every day / Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone / Tonight / Well I stopped picking up / And this song is to let you know why.

(She's covered more aspects of break-ups in other songs [cheating, divorce, feeling awkward around your ex amongst others], these are just the ones I remember being really important to me when I was first getting into her)

She really helped me feel a lot less alone during one of my loneliest periods and I really can't thank her enough for that. Soon after this, I started crushing on a girl in my class and Taylor's love songs started to take on a new meaning for me as well.

What's crazy to me is, when she went on hiatus for a few years, a part of me thought maybe I'd grown out of her and no longer had much in common with her, but when reputation came out I was pulled right back into my love for her as a person and musician and then when Lover came out I found that she was still explaining feelings to me better than I ever could (specifically with the songs The Archer and Cornelia Street). And now with folklore and evermore she's simply absolutely perfected her story-telling and I find myself deeply moved even by the songs I don't directly relate to. I feel like she has this amazing ability to find the absolute truth in the specific. I've never had a summer romance with someone who already had a girlfriend and mostly wanted to go back to her, and yet the bridge of august feels so real to me, y'know?

Back when we were still changin' for the better Wanting was enough For me, it was enough To live for the hope of it all Cancel plans just in case you'd call And say, "Meet me behind the mall" So much for summer love and saying "us" 'Cause you weren't mine to lose

It's hard to explain but looking at this, like it's so much more than the story it's telling. It's talking about how when you're young you really need so little to feel satisfied; how sometimes the idea of someone maybe spending time with you is better than actually doing things with other people; and how if someone using you without much thought can make you feel like you're not even entitled to grieve what you lost. Sorry. I'll stop. Don't want to go insane.

So, all of this is very personal and unique to me, but I think really the main thing that draws me to her is how vulnerable and honest she is about emotions, how eloquently she can explain the pain of being alive to me. Some people think she isn't the strongest singer, but I think, much like John actually, one of her greatest assets is how good she is at projecting emotion. The song happiness is a song I think has some lyrically weak moments but her vocal performance on it is so raw and devastating that every single line works even when, looking at it on paper, it feels like it shouldn't.

Hope this rambling made sense to you, lmao?? I love talking about Taylor though so thanks for the ask! Also very open to giving song recs if you do want to check her out more but I won't unless solicited to lmao *Sort of off-topic but I do think there's a relation between my fascination with the Beatles' history and my love for a great break-up song. I like pain I guess :)

[razanartuk]

about me tag game thing

i was tagged by the wonderful @nothingunrealistic! thank you very much ily <3

under read more bc i was not capable of keeping my answers brief this time around

why did you choose your url?

this...was supposed to be a short explanation but it turned into quite a tale so strap in i guess because we are going on a ride. back in 2017 i was just getting into musical theatre rp and i was still feeling too shy to really talk to anyone ooc so i would just wait for people i wanted to interact with to post starter calls so i could just do things in character with them the easy way. So i did this with my friend cam, who posted a starter for me using a lyric from If I Could Tell Her. she linked the song so i could listen to it, so i did and i went ‘wait a minute, is that Ben Platt from Pitch Perfect?? (and other things too, but i only recognized his voice at the time bc of the acappella girl movies)’ and yes it certainly was.

i had zero idea what the plot of Dear Evan Hansen was about at that point, and for some reason based off Just That One Song and the poster art of who i assumed was Some Guy in a Polo Shirt i started to think it was about some jock guy who broke his arm and had an emo/goth friend who had either died or gone missing under mysterious circumstances. also i intuited that Evan had a crush on his friend’s sister but he couldn’t tell her that directly or his emo friend would kick his ass. so i was like mostly wrong, but a little bit right.

oh and i knew jared and alana were characters from the show bc cam said that they were i think?? but i had no idea what their role was. so after listening to if i could tell her, i listened to good for you and all i really got out of that was that evan the apparently not-jock guy had done...something... that really hurt jared and alana. and at that point i finally decided to go look up a plot synopsis and i found out i was waaay off base. but honestly this is why cast recordings should include scene dialogue in the songs bc otherwise you just get soundtracks like dear evan hansen where the songs have like. zero context. we really just go from waving through a window to for forever to sincerely me without like. any reason as to what is happening huh. It’s honestly not a surprise anymore that all those people on twitter had no idea the plot isn’t about gay teenagers.

anyways. cam was writing jared and she made a post at one point about wishing somebody would write alana and i was like ‘oh i could do that!’ (after i had actually Seen a bootleg and finally knew what the whole story was, of course) so i made a multimuse rp blog featuring alana beck, nabulungi hatimbi, chloe valentine and some other characters, and cam started sharing her headcanons with me that alana is trans, jared and alana were close friends when they were little kids but they sort of drifted apart as they got older and their priorities in life changed, jared was the first person alana came out to when she realized she’s trans, etc.

one night i started talking about wanting to pick a more theatre-relevant url for my blog and trans-[character name] urls were getting pretty popular, and at least 3 of the friends i made through rp had changed theirs to coordinating trans-[character name] and i think it was cam suggested i should make mine be trans-alana so i did. eventually i realized the unhyphenated version was available so i changed it to transalana with no hyphen and i have lived here ever since. sometimes i think about changing it but i feel like transalana has become a part of My Brand and i am not so great with coming up with cool names for things.

any side blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them

in theory, i have sideblogs... i don’t really use them, but of the ones i do have, there is:

emsbookblog - this was supposed to be where i would post excerpts of the book that i’m working on, but i think i did that maybe one time roughly 2 years ago and then promptly forgot about it/got nervous about my writing and was scared to share anything else. the rest of the stuff that is there is assorted writing tips. i don’t really know what to do with it now. i probably should post all my little thoughts about em and anita and caleb there instead of infodumping on my main from time to time, but if i do that then i have to promo a sideblog and direct people over to it which is always annoying to me when i could just do it on this blog which is much easier

dearnovelhansen - this is basically no longer used, but was a sideblog i made specifically to talk/complain about the novel adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen which was about 3 years ago?? maybe? i can’t be trusted to understand the passage of time. but to summarize: i thought it was an honor just to have the story be made more accessible since many of us couldn’t see the stage performance, but i hated a lot of the creative liberties that were taken. my main grumbles are that everyone who isn’t evan or connor is done so dirty in the novel. connor’s still kind of done dirty in the book, but not as much as like. heidi, alana, jared, and zoe are.

horseisle3 - this one was meant to be a place where i could just enthusiastically post screenshots from hi3, but instead it turned into a blog where i occasionally reblog other players’ hi3 content and bitch about how bad the game admins are bc hi3 is the tumblr famous (infamous?) homophobic horse game. the game where it was once okay to call your club store the gulag bc according to their head of hr, ‘it’s just a russian word for prison’ but you can’t say ‘im gay’ without somebody accusing you of corrupting young children who play the game. unfortunately there aren’t very many good interactive horse games out there, so this one is still about as good as it gets. it’s either that or star stable and i don’t care about star stable.

mlaenie - i’ve had this url saved for i don’t even know how long. way way way back in the day when i wanted to escape from the clutches of the onceler fandom i abandoned my first blog where i basically had an alter ego i guess?? and i decided to just be myself on the new blog. i don’t fully remember who came up with it, but one of my sister’s mutuals suggested that if you scrambled the letters in your name you could come up with aesthetic-looking urls. so lauren’s url became lrauen, and to match with her mine became mlaenie, which i abandoned on tumblr after about a year or so? but have continued to use as my main username on twitter, reddit, youtube, xbox, steam, and discord. i barely ever use any of these accounts aside from twitter, steam, and xbox, but yeah. so i’ve decided to try and turn this empty sideblog into a place for video game thoughts maybe. we’ll see how long it lasts this time around.

how long have you been on tumblr?

i made my first tumblr account in december of 2010, but i didn’t understand how to use it at all or how to customize my theme to look cool and unique so i quickly abandoned it. i made a new account in september of 2011 after some kids at school and my sister told me i should and i have been trapped here with varying degrees of activity/inactivity ever since. i have witnessed the rise and fall of the lorax/onceler fandom, hyperfocused on lord of the rings, star wars and back to the future all at the same time, and for the past 4 years i’ve mostly been a musical theatre blog with assorted other fandom stuff mixed in. i feel i have seen everything and nothing, but mostly i’m just tired and bored.

do you have a queue tag?

no bc i don’t use a queue. i’ve tried using it in the past but i irrationally feel pressured to sustain a coherent theme to queued posts and my brain simply does not vibe with that so i just don’t use it at all anymore. Instead i instantly reblog or post several unrelated thoughts in succession and then don’t post again at all for 3 days. the way god intended

why did you start your blog in the first place?

my very first blog was intended to be a place for me to post all of my petz 5 animals’ profile info, but i didn’t have any understanding of how coding worked at all and i don’t think i really wanted to learn, either. so it just sat there, unused. my second attempt at blogging was as a classic rock fandom person, so as you can probably imagine i was pretty pretentious about ‘modern pop’ vs the beatles, the rolling stones, the who, the monkees, and so on. and then i slowly devolved into a lorax fandom blog and everything went to shit so i made a new blog for lord of the rings/the hobbit which later evolved to include star wars and back to the future blogging. and then for the past 4 years i’ve been mainly a musical theatre blog with other random stuff i like thrown haphazardly into the pot. wonderful.

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

because my url is transalana and two of my most prominent lgbt headcanons are that alana beck is trans and a lesbian. i gotta be shouting out @kinqmike though bc she’s the one i adopted the trans alana beck headcanon from in the first place!

why did you choose your header?

in 2017 i was hyperfixating on Dear Evan Hansen (and Be More Chill, but there weren’t many gif-able videos then considering it ran for a month in New Jersey in 2015 and there was only one yet-to-resurface 35 minute bootleg) so i just grabbed a random gif off of google. i really should get to replacing it with a new header of my own though. i just don’t know what i should do for it.

what’s your post with the most notes?

i have lost track of how many notes it has (i think it’s somewhere around 200 now?) but when Will Roland and George Salazar performed Two Player Game on Good Morning America, i posted a screencap of their Jeremy and Michael along with that one quiz answer meme that says stuff like ‘i want to see it grow up healthy’. i didn’t tag it with any ship names or anything because i was anxious about having it show up in the tags, but somebody who reblogged it from me did tag it as boyf riends and i firmly believe it took off because of that. i don’t think i make posts that are relevant enough to amass thousands of notes, even by accident. which is probably a good thing bc if i did i would have to block so many of them.

how many followers do you have?

on this blog? 175 according to the counter. how many of those are still real people and how many are bots and abandoned accounts? i have no idea.

how many people do you follow?

i try to keep it somewhere around 200. i think i’m sitting at 180 right now but i kind of need to go through and clear out the really inactive blogs.

have you made a shitpost?

let’s think about this for a second. i’ve been on tumblr for nearly 10 years. you might even be able to say i’ve made more than one. they’re just not what you would call...popular shitposts.

how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ post?

that stuff makes me so incredibly anxious that i have to fight the urge to want to yeet my laptop or mobile device through the closest window whenever i read it, so i try very hard to avoid any sort of ‘if you don’t reblog this, i’m judging you’ posts. i find them very manipulative and not particularly helpful

do you like tag games?

yeah babey!! i just frequently forget to do them, but please know that if you have ever tagged me in a tag game i felt incredibly touched by the gesture and the @mention even if i completely forgot to do the thing afterward

do you like ask games?

i do! but also rip to literally anyone who has ever sent me an ask meme bc it takes me so long to answer them. i’m still working on a micro fic prompt from a few weeks ago. also, horrified to realized that it has in fact been a few weeks and not 3 days anymore.

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i don’t know that any are tumblr famous as a whole. but probably @neverheardnothing

do you have a crush on a mutual?

in any sort of romantic connotation? no. not that i’m aware of. there are mutuals that i have friend crushes on where i want to be friends with them but i get so anxious when it comes to meeting new people that usually nothing ever comes of it. i’m really not good at small talk or other casual conversation either which, as you may or may not be able to imagine, sucks. i just wanna skip over all of the awkward introductions and ‘hey how are you, how is life, what are you doing with yourself?’ stuff. not because i don’t care about it. i do, but i think most of my friends/the people i want to be my friends are also depressed and anxious so asking these basic questions about life tends to uh. make us all nervous. and i don’t do much with my life so i always have the most boring answers anyways.

i’m not tagging anyone officially bc the @ thing has just completely given up on me at this point, but if you want to do it, go for it. and then say i tagged you so i can read it c:

[extreme-technicality]

Im only messing with you 😘 while im here though could i have some fic recs puh-leaaase - 🍍

Ooh honey, you have no IDEA the can of worms you just opened :D (since this list is so long I’m gonna split it up into SFW Complete, NSFW Complete, SFW Ongoing, and NSFW Ongoing)

SFW Complete:

The Invisible Girl [sonamae]: OK SO it’s Hagakure-centric, with background Hagakure x Shouji and KiriBaku. My favorite part about this is that the romance is important, but not the focus. The focus of this oneshot is on the family she creates with Bakugou, Satou, Todoroki, Kirishima, and Tokoyami. Go read it, it’s great. BIG BROTHER BAKUGOU FTW!!!!!

Ground Zero [sonamae]: Speaking of Big Brother Bakugou, this is the next oneshot in the same series as the above one, but from Bakugou’s pov. Again, the romance is important but not a focus, and that’s so fucking refreshing and I love it so mUCH idk what else to tell you. Just go read these two. The rest of the series isn’t complete, but these two specific fics ARE, hence why they’re in the Complete section.

Lighting The Beacon [M3zzaTh3M3z]: This is one of the first bnha fics I’ve ever read, and I’m so glad this was my introduction to the fandom!! It’s a pretty fluffy oneshot, starting off with Kiri asking Baku out and Baku rejecting him because “who ever heard of a gay hero?” Aizawa hears about that (the basics, no details like names or anything), and things…start to change. Mic says he’s married to a man (its Aizawa), All Might comes out as pan, ace Midnight…and at the end, Bakugou asks Kirishima out very publicly. It’s so near and dear to my heart, and it honestly deserves more attention than it gets.

You’re only relevant until you’re older (they’re gonna talk about you over and over) [futurehearts]: Pro-Heroes Red Riot and Ground Zero are happily married and Baku has a reputation to slowly destroy :D (he’s soft, mainly for his husband, and he knows it…and now so does the rest of the world lmaooo).

Love Notes [PurplePersnickety]: Kirishima gets really, REALLY sappy love notes on his desk for a week or two and works to figure out who it is (spoiler alert, it’s Bakugou being a Soft Bitch). When Kiri asks him about it, he confesses everything and they date in secret for six months before telling the whole class (oneshot).

Sonder [Maplefudge]: I bet this bitch thought she wouldn’t get a shout-out well guess what you write good and there’s nothing you can do about it This is the first work of maple’s I ever read, and it’s perf <3 I’m love. It’s a look at the “totally platonic” (how much sarcasm can I add to two words?) Kiribaku from members of the class, over the course of 13 chapters. It’s full of fluff, useless mutual pining, obliviousness, and “platonic bro kisses”. Read it if you need to scream at some useless gays.

Anger Management [Julietwasanidiot]: The entire fandom is gearing up for S4 by writing hurt/comfort KiriBaku post-raid fics, and I am HERE for it. Because of when it’s set though, there’s going to be spoilers so if you’re anime-only you migt want to steer clear of this one. It’s got an ICONIC rice-and-anger line, though.

Stupid Mistakes [lemxnfox]: Kirishima and Bakugou got in a fight! They fight a lot, but this fight they’ve been fighting for six months and the class is #OverIt. They concoct a plan to lock the two of them in a room and force them to make up– and they DO. Side ShinKami and TodoDeku.

No More Fragments [Ischemia]: Canon-compliant…to a degree. Shinsou takes his place as the Superior Purple in Class A, gets himself a boyfriend (Kaminari) and a squad (the Bakusquad)…and loses it. Or does he???? Canon-typical violence, side Kiribaku, mystery plot.

Caught In My Own Web [anxioussaliorsoldier]: SHINSOU IS IN 1-A!!!!! And he fucks up when trying to use his capture weapon lmao. Kaminari finds him and they recreate the iconic Spider-Man kiss…and then Shinsou passes out from the blood rushing to his head. It’s cute guys.

Be Selfish For Me [A_Reflective_Projection]: WARNING– the entire thing is Aizawa asking 1-A to be careful as pro heroes, by taking them to a hero graveyard. It’s painful. It’s sad (especially when Aizawa brings up a classmate of his who died in their first year as a pro). It ends bittersweet, and there’s some good Dadzawa content in there. The most present ship is Erasermic, and that only really makes an appearance in the last chapter.

Closer [MikeWritesThings]: Fluffy Erasermic, canon universe, where Aizawa starts calling in to Mic’s radio show cuz he misses him. It’s sweet af ❤️❤️

Meaningless Holiday [dysonQueer]: It’s a sweet Valentine’s Day fic, canon-compliant, with established Erasermic for the soul. I highly recommend it if you’re having a rough day and you need some feel-good fluff

Come Back Toe Me [Milligramme]: Aged-up, Pro Hero fic where Kiri has a shit day heroing, but he isn’t physically hurt. Not until he breaks his toe on the coffee table, that is. He can’t stop laughing, and Bakugou can’t stop worrying about his dumbass boyfriend.

Kiss Me Through The Screen [Ischemia]: Aged-up fic with ShinKami as the main focus and some side KiriBaku, but…uh, most of the Bakusquad aren’t full-time Heroes. Kami dropped out of UA completely, and Shinsou never went in the first place. So, Kaminari is working at Jirou’s cafe and works as a SFW camboy at night, while Shinsou is a teacher and watches the stream nightly. Later there’s a plot around a stalker, again please keep yourself safe Pineapple Anon!!

If I Don’t Act… [SilentNorth]: This is gritty and painful, but don’t worry! There’s a happy ending :D (I rarely read/write/recc pure angst, you’re safe here my child). Kiri is a college dropout working two jobs, living with Mina as his roommate, and with a hero complex the size of Texas. Enter art student Bakugou, who can save himself thank you very much. Some mention of depression/attempted suicide, as well as slightly less than canon-typical violence, please keep yourself safe and skip it if that’s going to trigger you, Pineapple Anon.

Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all [theroyalsavage]: A Kiribaku “10 Things I Hate About You” AU where Todoroki asks Kirishima to fake-date Bakugou so he can date Midoriya. Everything is going smoothly until Kirishima accidentally falls in love *gasp*!!

The Skeletons Inside Of Us [firelord_zutara]: Erasermic, quirkless AU where Mic was the lead singer of Aizawa’s favorite local band in college. Aizawa has a crush on him, they lost touch after college, and they didn’t meet again…until their nephews (Aizawa adopted Midoriya, Shinsou is Mic’s sister’s kid) meet and by extension, the uncles. Background ShinKami and KiriBaku, written for EraserMic week (7 chapters).

Life’s a Drag(on) [PurplePersnickety]: FANTASY AU!!! You know, the Fantasy AU from the third ending. But altered, juuuuuust slightly. Bakugou lives in(? ish) a village and helps a dragon when it’s hurt. A day or so later, a (hot) new guy comes to town named Kirishima, and the dragon keeps coming around. Shenaniganery follows. :DDD

Space Dust [PurplePersnickety]: Do you like Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and/or Men In Black? Then you’re gonna fuckin LOVE this :DDD It’s got half-alien Kirishima, cyborg Bakugou, mention of a larger universe outside of the planet (outside of the oneshot too, lbr). It is a oneshot though, even if it is a long one, with canon/typical violence and mention of kidnapping and child experimentation. Please put your mental health and well-being above everything else and skip it if it’s gonna trigger you!!!

Achromatopsia [PurplePersnickety]: DID SOMEBODY SAY SOULMATE AU???? No? Well hAVE ONE ANYWAY!!! Kiribaku soulmate AU (oneshot), where you only see in one color until you touch your soulmate for the first time. Fun fact, achromatopsia is the complete inability to see any color!! I’m sure that’s not gonna have any bearing on the story whatsoever…

NSFW Complete:

A Cast for your Heart [KTG]: Heads up, this is LONG. 90 chapters, 268k, it’s magic and sex and drAGONS and angst and almost-dying!! The fantasy system is completely original, set in modern times, and the OCs??? Don’t get me STARTED. Kiribaku, Tododeku, and Seromina are the bnha ships present as well as a lot of OCxOC ships. There’s also a sequel set to come out this month (July 2019)!!

Long Time Coming [Madam_Muffins]: I’ve probably recc’ed this before, but I just. I just love this one so much, ok? It’s massive Kiribaku slow burn, outlining what might happen if Bakugou is just a little bit more emotionally constipated. Baku fucks up, gets help, he and Kiri get together (and fuck a little), and there’s elements of the Reincarnation and Fantasy AUs in there towards the end!! Go read it, madammuffins is my amazing tumblr mom and I love her to bits.

SFW Ongoing:

Engraved In Your Mind [Hejter]: FACEBLIND BAKUGOU KATSUKI!!! It’s canon-compliant, except for that little detail, but she writes it so WELL that now I can’t look at canon!Bakugou without thinking that he’s faceblind. Kiri finds out and starts working to build trust with Bakugou and help him on his path to becoming the top hero, and it’s GREAT. Slowburn Kiribaku. Like,,,SLOW.

Define: Oblivious [PurplePersnickety]: I bet you thought I was done with the Purple reccs. I’m never going to be done reccing Purple. Deal with it. I mentioned, in the summary for Love Notes, that there was a six month time skip? This is what happens in those six months. SeroKami and MomoJirou are side ships in this one.

The Right Thing [TuesdayTerrible]: Established Kiribaku where they’re graduated from UA, and living together, and being pro heroes…and then one day Baku finds a little girl who tried to kill herself cuz she was quirkless. Needless to say, this strikes a chord in Bakugou (cuz…yknow, he kinda told Midoriya to kill himself in like episode one and then it was never addressed again). He can’t stop thinking about her, and while we haven’t gotten there YET it looks like it’s gonna end with him and Kirishima adopting her and Bakugou apologizing for the bullshit he put Mido through. There is mention of a suicide attempt (clearly), skip it if that’s gonna trigger you!!!

Hands Off! [PullingAllMighters]: Much like Kiss Me Through The Screen, Hands Off! is a non-canon compliant aged-up AU where not everyone is a full-time hero. Kiri is, Kami and Sero are his sidekicks, Ochako is in a different agency, and everyone else is doing Other Shit. Bakugou hasn’t revealed his full backstory yet, but it looks like he was a Pro Hero until a year or so ago when something bad happened and now he’s got PTSD. His old apartment building burned down so he’s living in Ochako, Momo, Jirou, and Mina’s guesthouse until he finds a job and another place to live. This has a fresh take on the hero system, and I really really enjoy it so far!! There is, however, a fairly detailed scene of Bakugou being triggered so if reading that would trigger you, please don’t!! Keep yourself safe, Pineapple Anon!!! Endgame Kiribaku

Blood of my Hand [PurplePersnickety]: Is it obvious yet that I LOVE purple’s writing??? This, I believe, was the gateway work, and I’ve dived headfirst in and not looked back. Fantasy AU, slowburn Kiribaku, and it’s. I can’t even sum it up. There’s too much. It’s too good. Game of Thrones WISHES it could be what BomH is. There’s mention of slavery and past child abuse, please skip that if it’s going to trigger you!!

A Boy and his Dragon [VanHan]: Oh look, another fantasy AU. Have you figured out that I have a type yet? Kiribaku but the Kiribaku hasn’t really happened yet, cuz Bakugou is a literal child who got kidnapped and is probably gonna get sold. He doesn’t even know Kirishima is Kirishima, he just knows him as the cool dragon in the cage. This one just barely makes the SFW list, because there’s no explicit mention of fucking, but there’s a really really gross pedophile that shows up fairly early on and hasn’t died yet. There’s also graphic depictions of violence in the first chapter, and once you combine those two things I would absolutely understand if you decided to give this one a pass, too.

Everglow [Maplefudge]: ANOTHER fantasy AU?!?! In MY fic recc list?? It’s more likely than you think. This one just started, and it’s got that enemies-to-lovers shit going on. Dragons plus my favorite tropes = FUCK YEAH!!!

Crimson [Crocodillia]: I bet you thought I was done with the fantasy AU reccs, didn’t you? Well, HAVE ANOTHER!!! This one has strong HTTYD vibes, and I’ve literally never seen anyone try that before with these characters!! So far there’s only two chapters, but I am HOOKED and if you like HTTYD…you’re gonna like this, too.

Becoming Human [FoolishFortuna]: Demon!Bakugou becomes Human!Bakugou when he refuses to take a kid’s soul. I think we’re three chapters in and he just got to earth and met Kirishima, as well as a few holy people (Midoriya, Ochako, Iida, and I believe Tetsu). Now he gotta find his daughter and keep her safe. Kiribaku with some fairly graphic descriptions of torture and cannibalism in the second chapter, don’t read it if that’s gonna trigger you!! Also he pretty brutally rips apart the girl’s abusive parents.

Surviving for Second Chances [SilentNorth]: TWEWY Kiribaku AU!!! There’s some differences between the original game and the fic, for pretty obvious reasons (medium, objective, and character differences being a few), but this got me to FINALLY watch a playthrough of the game cuz I’m too broke to go and buy it myself!! Kirishima as Neku and Bakugou as Joshua, plus Mina as Shiki and TodoDeku as Rhyme and Beat. Canon-typical violence, and we just finished up Week 1!!

Love And Other Allergens [thefrailtyofgenius]: A Quirkless AU where Todoroki is a lawyer with a flower shop underneath his apartment. Todo finds out he’s allergic to one of the plants, buys a different bouquet every week instead of, yknow, asking for help like a normal human being (I say, knowing damn well I’d just buy allergy medication and not even try to figure out what I’m allergic TO), and accidentally falls in love with the cute (and absolutely fucking ripped) flower boy (Midoriya lmao). It’s LONG. The TodoDeku is extremely slowburn, and there’s a fuckload of side ships. An incomplete list: Erasermic, Kiribaku, ShinIida (Shinsou and Iida), and MomoJirou. Bonus Endeavor’s Bad Parenting, Midoriya Hisashi’s Bad Parenting, and both of those assholes getting locked up forever :D (I’m so serious about the length tho, it’s like 40 chapters or something).

NSFW Ongoing:

Mixing Signals [Shippeh]: Kiribaku aged-up, but they’ve tried to date multiple times and every time Bakugou fucked it up. Every time they broke up, they pretended like they’d never tried in the first place (which…oW), but this time. THIS time, Bakugou swears he’s gonna make them work.

Heartbeat Thunder [Shippeh]: This is one of the few ABO fics I’ll recc, because it’s not just “ooh heat sex fun times”. This has THOUGHT put into it. They’re confused kids goddamnit, let them be confused!!! Basically Kiri doesn’t ever want to rut so he’s suppressing everything about being an alpha, while Bakugou thinks that trying to hide from your secondary gender is stupid. They do fuck tho, which is why the fic is in NSFW Ongoing.

Take a Chance On Me [FanficIsMyThing]: The other ABO fic I’ll happily recc. Kiri is an alpha which lets him be a hero, while Baku is an omega so he’s gotta be a vigilante until the laws get changed. They run into each other on patrol a few times, Baku helps Kiri and crew out a few times, and every time Kirishima *mysteriously* fails to catch the vigilante Chemical X. They haven’t actually fucked yet, but there’s been enough sexy times to put this squarely in NSFW territory. And it’s not just sex!! I don’t wanna spoil, but it’s good I swear.

Opposed to the Typical [Heronfem]: A model/fashion designer AU featuring HoH!Bakugou, model!Bakugou and designer!Kirishima, as well as a metric shitload of others. Basically Kiri is an intern with Fatgum who gets called to help another studio with their fitting, gets assigned to Bakugou, figures out he’s HoH and handles it like a champ. Because he does it so well, whenever Bakugou needs to get his measurements taken again, they immediately call for Kirishima. And ofc they gonna fall in love :3c But its more complicated than that, and I don’t wanna give too much away, but make sure that you pay attention to any trigger warnings at the start of the chapters!!!

[lexosaurus]

Do you ever feel lonely being asexual? I feel like none of my friends understand what it's like and it's so isolating and terrifying and I feel do broken. Have you ever felt this way? How do you handle it? Sorry if this is too personal.

Hey anon! I hope you’re okay! I also hope you’re ready for a long post because that’s what this turned out to be!

Firstly, you are NOT alone. I think every ace feels this way at somepoint or another. It’s super common, especially since there really aren’t many out-aces, there’s virtually no actually helpful resources out there for aces, and most people legit have never heard of asexuality or believe it to be something that can be cured either through sexual acts or medication. The fact of the matter is, that being asexual is very much an isolating experience and it can be really really hard to become comfortable with.

For me, I grew up in a conservative town in a liberal state. So while no one was outwardly aggressive towards lgbt people which gave me a false sense of security, coming out was ROUGH. I lost all of my friends to the point where in highschool I wasn’t allowed in a party that everyone else in my grade went to, I got in a massive fight with my mom and ended up having to move out for a few weeks (don’t worry, we’re super close now), and I ended up going back in the closet which only ended up with me being coerced into having sex a bunch until I finally reached my breaking point. I realized I had to figure this out or I was gonna lose it.

Moving away from that environment was probably one of the main ways that I was able to start feeling okay. I moved to a nearby city, dropped all my old friends, made new ones, joined new activities, etc etc. I made sure my new friends knew I was ace pretty much right away, but I didn’t really talk about it past the casual, “Yeah, I’m asexual. I’ll date anyone but I won’t have sex with anyone. It hurts my body and I don’t like it.” and then that was it. I mean, I answered the inevitable questions that followed as if no, they weren’t dumb questions or invasive, even if maybe deep down I thought they were. But other than that it was just a casual mention, made sure they were chill with it, and then moved on.

And knowing that my friends were totally 100% okay with me being ace was like the best thing ever. They don’t UNDERSTAND being asexual on a deep level, (not even now after 3 years of living together), but I don’t understand how their sexualities function on that deep level either. It’s a two way street. And sometimes with people I’ll even ask them, “Okay but how do you KNOW that you like like someone like that?” and then they’ll have to take a step back and be like, “Oh shit, I guess it’s just innate. Oh damn I’ve never thought about this. Huh. Wtf.” You know, just showing curiosity in their feelings and showing that it’s okay to ask “obvious” questions really does a lot.

But tbh, my friends and I now will talk music or memes way before we’ll talk lgbt stuff. And half my friends are lgbt too. I just chose new friends who I connected and related to on deep levels that had nothing to do with sexuality at all.

The second big thing I did, and this is gonna sound counter-productive, was I unfollowed every ace-centered blog on Tumblr. No joke. I went through my followers and unfollowed EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. I found that a lot of ace blogs, even ace-positive blogs, made me feel good for a second when I saw those ace-positive posts, but in the long run they ended up being really detrimental. Thinking about asexuality like something that needs constant validation is not healthy, no matter how positively it’s presented.

I was in a place where being asexual wasn’t normal in my head and I needed to normalize it, not validate it. Because validating asexuality comes AFTER normalizing it, not the other way around. So I needed to not constantly think about it or read about it or see it all the time. I needed to just watch it casually in modern media (aka watch Bojack Horseman and Saiki K on Netflix), talk about it with REAL PEOPLE irl in casual conversation occasionally, and just in general start looking at it like something as normal and mundane as my brown hair or dark eyes. Asexuality isn’t special, it’s not cool, it’s not sad either, it’s just another normal thing that contributes to me as a person.

So now when a follower reblogs an ace-positive post, I feel good. Like truly good. Not that fleeting good that will disappear in 30 secs and remind me that “oh yeah, there are a lot of people out there that hate aces.” I just get an occasional reminder that, “Oh yeah! I’m ace! Nice! I’m dope af!” 

But being asexual isn’t like in my “top 5 qualities” list. I don’t write my bios and put my asexuality at the top of my “about me.” In fact, I don’t even think i wrote that im asexual in my about me on tumblr lol. It’s not that I don’t like asexuality, it’s just so normal to me I’m just kinda like “oh yeah im ace. i have dark eyes. and 10 fingers. surprise! Okay now back to the good stuff…”

Also, a bit of a sidetrack, but that “everyone’s valid” culture on tumblr is actually super toxic and not good. And so getting away from that is v helpful to your mental health.

The last thing that I did that helped me a lot was actually a bit of a coincidence but I met a girl irl who was my coworker who happened to be asexual too. We worked together for like a year, we totally vibed and started hanging out together a ton, and then one day out of the blue she was like “yeah I’m pretty sure I’m ace too.” It was super dope and just having that one person that I could relate to like that who I also truly enjoyed hanging out with was like a breath of fresh air.

Finding a fellow ace irl that you vibe with can be tough. She wasn’t the first ace that I’d met, but I tend to be a rather blunt person and the previous aces I’d met were all through my school’s lgbt club and they tended to be,,,sensitive,,,(told me i was ableist because I talk loudly and my loud voice was insensitive to their sensory disorders like bitch i’ve got hearing problems i can’t solve but you CAN buy earplugs so lol thank u next byeee),,,BUT I DIGRESS, chill aces are hard to find but finding that one person is so nice. But I should say I was pretty much comfortable with being ace at that point. That was kind of the cherry on top. So if this isn’t available to you, which it doesn’t sound like it is, that’s okay. There are other things you can do in the meantime.

Also, I do have to add that much of the phandom happens to be asexual. Idk how that happened but it did.  So if you ever wanna talk ace-things, I’m sure so many people on here would be DOWN to talk ace stuff. I’ve done it before, it’s fun. They’re all rlly nice.

So yeah that was pretty much how I got from a place where I was so defeated about being ace from pretty much everyone around me to now I’m totally comfortable and normal with it to the point where I have turned several homophobes into lgbt-supporters because “fuck, Lexx is so chill and we vibe so hard but she’s lgbt??? i really like her as a person but she’s bi and ace??? hhhhhh,..,,,,i guess lgbt people are cool idk man ya wow ok.” (Legit one of these homophobes sent me screenshots a few months back where some kid was calling me a slur like on instagram or something and he was like “What, you mad cuz she won’t sleep with you? Get a life.” it was sweet 😊)

[rontra]

ANONYMOUS ASKED:

i really like mwot and was wondering, do you wanna talk/loredump/etc about mwot during this blessed month of pride? (if not that's totally cool!!! i really like the au and am curious about it!)

REPLY:

YES!!!!

umineko spoilers below and LONG POST KSDJDKSKD i really went infodumping......you got me right in an infodumping mood....

also im being very casual in this post so if something is like weird or vague its probably because i got tired of thinking about it and skipped ahead. SKJDSJD

mwot is an umi au and its very gay and very trans because i, a gay trans, decided it was TIME to INDULGE

LIKE A MOUNTAIN WIND FALLING ON OAK TREES also known as MWOT, MW/OT, Mountain Wind + Oak Trees, MW+OT, or literally any combination of its parts, is an eva/natsuhi au, set in a vague modern big city setting

https://rontra.tumblr.com/tagged/mountain-wind-oak-trees

it’s a comedy, mostly? it has elements of backstory transphobia and  stuff like that but that’s not really the story i want to tell with it, so  i don’t go too deeply into it in the main fic. it’s mostly comedy and Self Care: The  Story (once these nerds get around to acknowledging that self care is  good, anyway!!!!)  

Eva is 20, nb lesbian (though she doesnt know half of it to begin with). generally a bitchard at the beginning but also deeply craving that Validation. Invested in making the fic harder to write due to pronoun shenanigans (shoutout to the lengthy section of intimate emotional scenes that uses no pronouns at all for eva but is narrated by them in 3rd person)

Natsuhi is like 21 i guess because im a sucker for her having like an annoying 1-3 years on eva bc eva would get mad about it. Also she’s trans, gray-ace, hopeless romantic, generally full of “quickly raising your eyebrows and looking away while sipping your drink and thinking Yikes” energy. weaponizes indifference but is no stranger to harder means. she’s a smart cookie

Sayo is also 20, gender clown car living her best life. Presents differently depending on mood and whim

krauss is like 22 or whatever. for housekeeping’s sake, rosa and rudolf are too young to matter (8 and 10, or something like that). dont even worry about it

honestly the weirdest part of the au is eva and sayo being the same age

also this au is the origin point of me & my friends using akikaze as nat’s maiden name. the more you know!

-

USHIROMIYA GOLD dishes up that yellow metal like you wouldn’t believe. led by kinzo whos so fuckin good at sniffing out that sweet sweet gold people are half convinced the man has psychic powers. Any piece of land he’s got his eyes on, he WILL get his hands on, no matter who owns it right now.

the land kinzo wants At The Moment is owned by the AKIKAZE FAMILY who have been notably on the decline recently. they’re in the economic shithole so this land is basically all they’ve got right now, so when kinzo wants it and it suddenly Has Value, they’re like “oh, shit,

anyway the deal basically shakes out that like, he gets the land and all the gold that may or may not be in it. he offers his eldest son in exchange for this land, to marry their daughter: in the bonds of marriage graciously ensuring a part of the winnings will spill over on them, while keeping them under his control without money coming into the picture.

Everything’s working out great and coming up kinzo. the deal is closed and everyone’s happy (i guess). until ONE DAY, just a few narrow weeks before the akikaze girl is set to move in with the ushiromiyas,

KINZOS

OLDEST

SON

DISAPPEARS

!!!!!

Krauss dislikes being told what to do, and his father’s ideals never lined up with his own. He thinks this entire thing is sort of fucked up and can’t live under his dad’s thumb anymore. That's why, immediately following Kinzo’s agreement with the Akikaze family, Krauss disappears. He’s just kinda left for greener pastures, to unfold his own life and pursue his own interests independent of the Ushiromiya name. He leaves behind a letter explaining it & basically he forfeits both name and inheritance, and Kinzo’s incredible deal is suddenly in jeopardy.....

obviously this is kinzo though, and all of his solutions are like, 20 times more complicated than they have to be? he’s DETERMINED to have this land so he’s like “i need an eldest son. shit rudolf is only like 9. fuck. well okay i have an eldest daughter with a deeply complicated need for validation and success entirely driven by her overall neglect at my hands“ and the rest. as they say. is history (???)

Ushiromiya Eva always saw Krauss as unworthy of the inheritance, and to her, his disappearance confirms this. She grew up always being made to feel inferior to her older brother, usually being ignored in favor of him, and it's bred a complex need for validation in her. Her values and strengths are more like Kinzo’s than her brother’s, and Kinzo recognizes this in the wake of Krauss’ disappearance.

basically he concocts this really wild scheme where eva has to pretend to be his oldest son and marry this girl or whatever so he can seal this stupid gold deal and she’s like “well lol if i get to be family heir” and hes like “yes that’s what im saying” and shes like “awesome let’s do it”

all of the servants are in on it too of course. specifically kinzo enlists SAYO who works there as normal staff and isn’t otherwise tangled into this family’s mess in any way whatsoever. she’s just here to serve tea and looks. anyway he’s like “you work on this with eva--i mean evan, my son, you must have misheard--and eva you have to listen to whatever yasuda says” and eva is like “that last part will not be frustrating for me at all”.

Yasuda as reigning Household Gender Presentation Expert is like “i think i just got orders from the master to bully eva?” and eva is like “i wish i could fire you but my dad just banned me from doing that” and then gradually...over the course of the project......they become....friends.........

(the au is tagged eva & sayo for a reason. they become FRIENDS!!)

mostly its just various combinations of shkanon dunking on eva and its all VERY good.

during all these shenanigans we make some startling realizations like “gender euphoria is a hell of a drug” and stuff, which is extremely harrowing for everyone (note: not for everyone. just for eva, who makes 10,000 realizations every day, and should not have been counted.)

(ok sidenote did anyone else put on their first binder & go like “hmmm. i live here now” because. mood. im projecting entirely into this fic)

Gender Clown Car yasuda (currently as lion) is like “you know there’s like more than 2 genders” and eva’s like “you fucking wehat”.

i also make a REALLY INVOLVED JOKE ABOUT CASTIGLIONI GOLD, THE RIVAL COMPANY, and how BEATRICE’S KID LOOKS A LOT LIKE LION, and EVERYONE thinks this is all VERY funny

(i would like to see it. also kinzo owes beatrice castiglioni $20 and she’s never let him forget it.)

now wrapped up in this stupid impostor scheme AND full of big wild nonbinary energy AND!! WITH AN INFURIATING NEW FRIEND!! IN THE STAFF!!! this one funky ushiromiya is all ready to get in on an arranged marriage or whatever. provided NO ONE EVER FINDS OUT that they’re faking it and replacing the Actual Heir, which would no doubt ruin the scheme AND bring kinzo’s wrath on everybody involved, of course.

-

AKIKAZE NATSUHI IS READY TO PUNCH HER FIANCE IN THE THROAT IF HE EVEN LOOKS AT HER but she understands what’s happening here. she knows she didn’t have a say in this from the very beginning. that the deal was sealed for her as soon as the name “ushiromiya” was said. she knows her family married her off quick in a bid to get rid of her. if she’s humiliated by this ordeal, she is far too proud to show it. she packs her bags and walks into the mansion with her head held high........and immediately has this exchange with her fiance

and this one

so that’s kind of the energy we’re going for with these two.

(natsuhi’s line in the second cap was going to be removed for being Way Too Intense, but everyone i talked to said it was too hot to cut, so i decided to indulge us all. blame the lesbians)

they IMMEDIATELY don’t get along but they kinda agree to like, mind their business, since neither of them are interested in playing house here. if they can get the wedding to go off without a hitch they can basically go back to never talking to each other again.

natsuhi’s entire angle here is essentially: her family was not that good, and this family likely won’t be better, BUT here she has a chance to build something new for herself. she’ll be out of her parents’ house. She needs this deal to stay for her own sake, but she has to get out ahead of her husband and set up a dynamic that favors her. when she meets evan she essentially gauges the kind of person she’s dealing with and picks her approach accordingly: this is not a soft man, and she has to be hard in turn to avoid being steamrolled.

and its VERY hot

anyway some stuff happens and it eventually they both sorta get each other’s secrets. eva is not the firstborn son and natsuhi is not the card kinzo thought he was pulling from her family’s hand and theyre both toast if word hits the public. directly after the wedding they establish a tense alliance of keeping each others’ secrets....

and then they.....fall...in l

there’s some fun tensions and realizations. eva is like “so im quickly catching on that no praise i ever received from dad was on my own merit and he’s kind of a dirtbag all around and his validation is kind of not worth it” and nat is like “word our parents are chains” & they run kinzo over with the down w cis bus. it’s fine. they get postcards from krauss sometimes. he has a motorbike now.

DID I MENTION THE PRACTICE KISSING

BC THEY HAVE TO PRACTICE! FOR THE!! PUBLIC WEDDING!!!!

and thats mwot i guess. it’s my au where natsuhi’s accent color is red and some other stuff happens too. happy pride month

[appavevo]

okay so listen some times you get really interested in one single thing and that’s all you think about for a long time so you develop some dumb thoughts and here are a list of mine about atla and tlok in no particular order

1. in tlok they made aang look so BORING like so COOKIE CUTTER. the only times i like how they made aang look is in the old friends poster and in the picture where he’s airbending the rolls like that’s IT like come on yall focus too much on making the hair differenet people got faces too ya know

2. TENZIN IS LIKE 16 YEARS OLDER THAN PEMA??? ISN’T THAT CRAZY??? LIKE PEMA WOULD HAVE ONLY BEEN ABOUT 20 WHEN AANG DIED. ALSO TENZIN HAD KIDS SO OLD

3. at the end of tlok bumi must be about the age (maybe a few years younger) when aang died that’s so weird bc bumi doesn’t look old i wonder how it happened with aang like maybe the last few months of his life he just physically aged like 30 years wouldn’t that be weird (and sad)

4. i mentioned this before but i’ve seen posts like “its sad to think about the fact that aang probably had to bury appa” and NO i refuse to believe that esp appa bc i thought an avatars spirit animal lives as long as the avatar? like roku’s dragon lived and died with him so that’s what happened with appa too. also momo, i’ve decided

5. kinda.............weird how learning the avatar state was like one of THE main problems in atla and aang had a hard time with it and it was considered this awesome power that we didn’t see that often and the in the legend of korra she just.......................gets it. like aang gives her her bending back and oh here’s the full power of the avatar state as well no need to learn about the chakras and meditate on life or whatever hey also have some energy bending as well why not

6. lin beifong is literally so hot 

7. also in the legend of korra, bending isn’t as cool.. like in atla bending has all the beautiful forms and its like a dance or an art like that dance aang and katara did was based on their bending moves!!! and tlok isn’t like that and they try to spin it like “oh its modern now” but that’s just lazy and  boring

8. also (that one video explained this better than i could) while it’s kind cool to see the new technology mixed with the bending at first, the legend of korra is so much more american than atla, like i can see how a city with all those cultures mixed together might be a bit culturally ambiguous but like....... idk they talk about democracy in a weird way and they literally got the statue of liberty type thing going on (although i love every reference to aang i can get) and idk how to describe it. the bending is like this too where it used to be based off of hung ga kung fu or tai chi chuan now it’s just ..........boxing. i’ve seen some people say it’s because its easier to animate but like idk

8.5 oh also the whole good and bad evil spirit thing goin on (i forgot their names i think the good one was raava?) was really like god and satan smelling even though they tried to paint it as yin and yang idk it just didn’t come off like that

9. speaking of animation while i am desperate for new material can they NOT MAKE ANOTHER LIVE ACTION VERSION like........make a NEW STORY or maybe just DON’T with how korra turned out just like.....focus on the goddamn comics bc those are kinda fun and chill

10. bolin is pretty funny but him and mako and even asami are kinda boring im sorry but they are(asami is more interesting than mako though)

11. also fucked up how like the culture that was the most accepting and peaceful and spiritual and kind is the one that we never fuckin see this isn’t really a complaint about the plot just like it fuckin sucks!!! i would have loved to see some gay and funny air nomads

12. also maybe this is just bc im a big dumb fan but i refuse to believe aang was a bad father like maybe he didn’t divide his time in the best way but hey no one’s perfect and kya esp made it clear she wasn’t interested in air nomad culture so like what was he supposed to do ALSO SORRY BUT HE HAD TO LITERALLY BUILD A WORLD OUT OF 100 YEARS OF WAR AND REBUILD HIS CULTURE OUT OF NEXT TO NOTHING LIKE SORRY HE DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO TAKE YOU FISHING OR WHATEVER 

13. i do love kya though bc lesb 

14. THAT ONE LINE IN TLOK THAT WAS LIKE “ZUKO KNEW AANG BETTER THAN ANYBODY”??????? LIKE OF COURSE THEY WERE VERY COURSE BUT KATARA IS RIGHT THERE???? HELLO???

15. bc im a big dumb stupid idiot every character i get attached too i immediately insist that they can sing bc i’ve always wanted a really good singing voice so i’ve decided that aang is just like, a great singer

16. god i just love momo

17. UHHH I’M CURRENTLY READING THE WIKI AND IT SAYS THAT KYOSHI LIVED TO BE 230??? THAT’S COOL????? 

18. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, air nomad avatars are just cooler bc of their fuckin tattoos. when those tattoos glow? fuckin tight. korras just got her eyes and like.......where’s the drama and conflama 

19. while the spirit world can be interesting idk how i feel about the spirits in the legend of korra, like all cutesy and weird like that, like i don’t hate it, it’s just really different from atla spirit world and idk

20. i’ve always been curious about aangs tattoos like,,,, the ones on his arms go into his armpit, but like the one on his back? does that just go all the way to his ass or what? and where do the leg ones stop do they connect with the back ones or just go to the hip bones or idk

21. i wanted a detailed map and description and history of air temple island and i want it now

22. while i know that extensive and unnecessary backstory and weigh a good story down WHO ARE AANGS PARENTS, I’M JUST CURIOUS. LIKE WERE THEY EVER TOLD HE WAS THE AVATAR?

23. i will defend aang until the day i die bc he was so young and so good and even the stuff he did selfishly he has like ample reason to can u imagine being twelve and waking up and realizing that not only are you the only person left of your race and culture and history and that everyone you knew and loved, like even people you didn’t really know but the people who you would smile too sometimes, the all died pretty violent and horrible deaths while you were just stuck in some ice bc you got hit by some storm after running away can u imagine???? ALSO LIKE the world hadn’t had an avatar for a century so he had to just like make shit up as he went along of course he could talk to his past lives but like..........idk!!!! and how do you build up

24. I ALREADY SAID THIS BUT KORRA JUST..........GETS THE POWERS. LIKE WE SAW AANG NOT ONLY LEARN THE ELEMENTS BUT ALSO DEAL WITH LEARNING ABOUT THE AVATAR STATE IN DEPTH AND HOW BEING THE AVATAR WORKS AND IT WAS SPECIAL AND INTERESTING AND WE COULD HAVE SEEN KORRA WORK TO GET HER AIRBENDING POWERS AND HER SPIRITUAL SIDE AND HER AVATAR STATE BUT THEY WERE ALL JUST FUCKIN HANDED TO HER EVEN THE E N E R G Y BENDING LIKE COME ON................................................................GIRL WHOS WRITING THIS

25. real disrespectful how much sokka is neglected in tlok!!! smh

26. this is very important to me but my favorite episode (not really including the last ones bc those are just on a dif level) but my favorite episode is 3x2 The Headband which was the footloose ep if you don’t remember..........it’s just fun............he just wants to dance AND HE WAS FUCKIN MACKIN YOU SEE THAT SHIT?????????? “DON’T WORRY ABOUT THEM IT’S JUST YOU AND ME NOW” LIKE BITCH!!!! YOU’RE TWELVE YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS BEIN THAT SMOOTH also i LOOOOOOVE the fact that aang being a good dancer is literally canon....................

27. i literally never wanted to know how the avatar cycle started like don’t explain the magic like that just leave some mystery