#(also - hate to make a joke about this - but like... what's the average time-frame of ''TERF to holocaust-denier''?)

[racke7]

I think one of the easiest comparisons for the movement of “don’t support JKR” is this:

Imagine if Donald Trump was... exactly the same as he is now, but he had a voice that could just... make a wolverine purr. Imagine that.

Now, even if his voice was objectively fucking orgasmic to listen to, why the fuck would you ever invite him to speak on literally anything at all?

“Oh, but his voice is really nice to listen to-”

“Every word out of his mouth is some level of hate-speech.”

“Yeah, but if you just don’t listen to what he says, but just his voice-”

“You’re showing your friends videos of him saying horrible things, and sighing about his voice. You’re giving him money to keep saying shit, and a platform to say shit from. Do you think your friends are going to assume that you “only care about his voice”? Or are they going to get the fuck away from you, before you start spouting the same shit he is?“

And like... if you’re so desperate for a “good voice” to listen to just... invest some time into looking for really good ASMR-stuff instead?

[snoelledarts]

tell me about don't ask, percy!!

OKAY This one is set in a sort-of AU where after Percy and Annabeth go to college they don't see Nico and Will for like, a handful of years! It's a solangelo fic but from Percy's perspective, which is weird but bear with me LOL. Basically they all get together for the first time in forever and Nico (now 21) has finally hit Puberty(tm) and Percy is flabbergasted. I just think Nico deserves to glow up, and that there should be at least one universe where he gets to be the tallest of the Big Three kids. Snippet under the cut!

When Percy knocks, suitcase in one hand and Annabeth’s cool palm in the other, he’s expecting his mom to answer. But it’s not his wonderful, smile-lined mom with a plateful of fresh blue cookies like he’d been hoping. It’s Nico. 

All the air leaves Percy’s lungs for a second. Sure, Nico had a growth spurt the last time he saw him, but Nico at 17 still kinda looked like a kid. Scrawny, not quite grown into himself, a little underfed and pale despite his best efforts. But now… the last four years have been really kind to him. He’s clearly an adult now. Like Percy would see him on the street and wonder what nearby college he went to kind of adult. His clothes fit right, his black t-shirt tight with a random band logo and intentionally baggy black pants adorned all sorts of chains and embellishments. He looks straight off of some punk kid’s outfit inspiration page. Percy’s stuck between feeling proud and so, so overwhelmed.

“Nico!” Annabeth drops Percy’s hand and lets go of her suitcase, looping her arms around Nico’s lithe middle for a big hug. He looks tanner, his hair curling past his shoulders and his eye-bags less dark, and his face breaks out into a large (distinctly not Hades-like) grin as he leans down to wrap now-toned arms around Annabeth in return. Percy would definitely consider Annabeth tall, but she looks average wrapped in Nico’s arms. 

“Good to see you.” He squeezes her just once, still smiling when he lets her go. One side of his smile comes up just a bit higher than the others, and the tilt of his dark eyebrows always makes his smiles look a little sad, but gods is it good to see him happy and healthy. 

“And good to see you too,” Nico says as he sticks a hand out to shake Percy’s. Absolutely not. 

“Oh, come on!” Percy smacks his hand away and pulls Nico into a crushing hug, pulling him down just a bit so he doesn't feel quite so short. Nico, thankfully, laughs against him, squirming a bit to try and get his arms around Percy too but they’re crushed in between them. Percy eventually pulls back but keeps his hands on Nico’s shoulders. “What are they feeding you at camp?!” He jokes, making a show of the fact that he has to tilt his head up to look Nico in the eyes. He’s only an inch and a half shorter, but it still feels like a whole Hell of a lot compared to the little squirt Nico used to be. 

“Magic,” Nico jokes, just as Will walks up behind him. 

“I thought I heard commotion at the door!” Will’s thousand watt smile comes into view as Nico backs up from the door frame to let Will past, separating himself from Percy’s grip.

They give their proper hello’s to Will too, exchanging hugs.

Will is also much older looking since the last time Percy saw him. He supposes college will do that to a guy. Not much has changed other than he’s a bit square-er than he used to be. Far more jawline than the round baby-face he used to have when he and Nico started dating. Now, instead of boyish charm, he gives more… Texan charm? Surfer boy charm? No, Percy kind of hates both of those. He definitely looks like his dad, though. Apollo’s genes were strong in this one.  

“No, but, really! When did you get so tall?” Percy can’t leave it alone as he and Annabeth haul their meager suitcases through the doorway. 

“Uh, I don’t know? I don’t exactly measure myself everyday,” Nico laughs, which he seems to be doing a lot. Good. Percy can’t help but laugh too at the mental image of Nico against a wall while Will makes a pencil mark next to a wall sticker of a ruler, carefully writing the date next to it like Percy’s mom used to do. 

“I’m definitely a fan,” Will winks at Nico, clearly taking joy in Nico’s blush and the not-really annoyed roll of his eyes. 

Percy opens his mouth to reply something stupid when his mom rushes into the living room. Saved by Sally Jackson once again. 

“Percy!” She rushes over, knowing Percy will drop everything he’s holding to wrap her in a giant hug. He squeezes his mom tight, burying his face in her shoulder and letting all of his other thoughts fall away.

[hua-mo-jin-is-a-cutie]

this is the only social media website where I feel like I can talk about this without getting hated by teenagers with no media literacy, but I watched (pirated) Hazbin Hotel. And while I'm still very critical of Viv herself and the decisions she's made about her staff and her public statements and her past actions, some of which are very gross, for what it's worth, I think Hazbin is alright.

There are things I'd do differently sure, but it's like... aggressively average. The music is hit or miss, with mostly catchy tunes accompanied by lyrics that often made me cringe a little by how they already feel like outdated references to current slang. I also really don't enjoy when they have a big musical number come out of nowhere and have other characters acknowledge that they're singing. It really takes away from the musical numbers themselves. it's like musical writing 101 to NOT do that.

I know this is something people tend to criticize, but I'll be honest I like most of the character designs. They have fairly distinct silhouettes and it's kinda what drew me in enough to watch it in the first place. I'm particularly fond of Nifty. I do think some of them are a bit too complex, too busy to be super appealing, and must be hell to animate. I also think there's not really much cohesion in character designs of the world other than color, and even that's a stretch. I wish we'd at least been given some sort of reason in the show that some demons are furries and others aren't.

The animation is pretty nice, though the camera movement tends to make it a bit hard for my eyes to focus when there's a lot going on.

I've seen a lot of people complain about the pacing and while I agree that things are moving too fast, that we need time to get to know these characters and this world and earn these, what are supposed to be, hard hitting moments. I also acknowledge that I like fast pacing. I want it to slow down, but not astronomically, just a smidge.

I'd say the writing is also hit or miss. Sometimes it's got me fairly entertained, but other times it's making me uncomfortable and not on purpose. Again, slang that will quickly become or already is irrelevant is a major issue for me.

Contrary to what I've seen many people saying, I actually thought episode 4 was handled decently enough. Honestly the pacing is really the only thing holding it back for me. It doesn't feel like it's glorifying or romanticizing sexual abuse or domestic violence. It frames Valentino as the abuser he is when it's most important, even when he is a bumbling idiot in other scenes. Scenes of abuse between angel and Val are taken seriously enough. I wasn't a huge fan of the song Poison, but I also don't think it's romanticizing SA. I mean it literally ends with Angel sobbing on the floor so... I dunno how anyone came to that conclusion. There are times when the show jokes about sexual assault which I do think is distasteful and is one of my gripes with the writing overall, however when it comes to the topic of angel and val, it's handled well enough.

I'm interested in seeing where the plot goes with how episode 6 ended even with it's flaws. It's going in an interesting direction so far and I think the music of that episode was pretty good, calling back to the first episode's song with Adam in a clever way.

So overall I'd give Hazbin like a 6/10. It's fine, but it's got flaws. I'd like to see the kinks ironed out in season 2 and have Viv acknowledge some of her mistakes or at least take criticism well for once.

Anyway, stan Nifty, she's best girl.

[secretgamergirl]

You know there's more to culture war BS than just shouting on the internet, right?

I had a longer version of this, but lost it to a browser crash, so forgive me if this is a bit terse. I constantly see people doing this thing where they look at reactionary propaganda accounts ranting and raving about how a movie having a black woman in it means America is dying or whatever the hell, noting what an absurd thing that is to say, and then ruining it by adding "and then you have people on the other side saying stuff that's just as extreme! Like 'nazis like this guy need to be shot' or whatever!" I used to always be baffled at how people could manage to "both sides" this sort of thing, but it suddenly dawned on me that the sort of people I'm describing might actually think the propaganda accounts are JUST shouty creeps on social media and there's nothing more to it than that.

There was a similar angle I kept seeing back when mainstream media started paying enough attention to Gamergate to start talking about it and referencing it in shows and such. Everyone was hyperfixated on all the messages targets who got media attention got on twitter or whatever, just horrible hateful shouting and verbal abuse and all. Like... that stuff EXISTS, and yeah, that alone would be pretty awful, but it's important to understand that these monsters are also actually murdering people. A lot of people. And this is still happening.

If you're just the average person on the sidelines, you're going to see the people throwing temper tantrums about movies, because that stuff exists as a recruitment and retention tactic. The people who produce the 4 hour long videos about how they're making a new version of Snow White and this time Doc is gonna be played by Lucy Liu (this is not a real example) or whatever don't actually care about children's cartoons at all, or the integrity of dwarves, or whatever other stupid thing they're going on about. And their regular viewers don't care about any of that either. They haven't watched it, they aren't planning to watch it, there's good odds they never watched the original. What they're doing is keeping the fires going. There is this whole huge scene of bigots and grifters and delusional bloodthirsty wanna-be feudal lords, and their whole thing depends on keeping this pile of howling frothing little rage monsters they rely on both as a crowd to direct and a source of income scared and angry at all times, and they can't ever let then calm down and think straight or they'll realize they've been wasting their time obsessing about ridiculous fantasies.

The followers they have now all got recruited in with some variation on the idea that there is some sort of all-powerful evil cabal with an evil agenda to ruin something they used to like "with diversity" and they're going to do it to everything else next. So now that lie has to be kept up or they'll leave, and the people benefiting from it HAVE TO keep finding things to hold up as "further evidence" that no, really, look, they're gonna make a new X-Men with Giancarlo Esposito as Professor X! (I don't THINK this is a real example, but he'd be great for that.) We're not just making this up!

The real Rosetta Stone for this was these people freaking out about TMNT Mutant Mayhem. For something like two months after this absolutely fantastic movie came out (for real, go see it if you haven't, any given frame of it would make a fantastic blacklight poster), if you searched for anything related to it, you'd see a bunch of youtube thumbnails of performatively angry losers screaming about how "THEY MADE SPLINTER GAY!?"

And yeah, same garbage content in these about the evils of diversity and destroying your childhood and the legacy of characters and bla bla bla... But the thing is, they uh... didn't make Splinter gay. He's actually straighter than he's ever been, in fact. It's central to a lot of really solid jokes. There's no fake out about him being gay, no misleading trailer where you'd maybe get that impression. It's all a big telephone game thing where some creep overheard someone laughing about a scene where he's hitting it off with another character, and didn't realize that she was a girl. Because, and I cannot stress this enough. Not one single person freaking out about this had actually watched the movie, knew anyone who had, or did even the most basic research before making their propaganda videos about this. They really lost out too, because not only is it, as I said, a great movie, but they could have gotten fodder for like half a dozen more videos about how those evil diversiteers made several characters women whose toys from the 90s didn't have giant boobs! And they didn't even give them giant boobs for the movie! Can you even tell which of these are women without hearing their voice actresses!?

But yeah. Months of shouting about this non-existent gay Splinter in a movie they never watched, and never being called out on it by their audience who also didn't watch it. Because they're not there to review movies. They're there to keep nazis stirred up about how SOMEONE is ruining movies and insist how people need to do something about it. People who actually buy into that stick around, they watch a bunch of other videos like this, maybe follow the people making them on social media, and eventually, they get fed a list of names of people and organizations who they claim are the ones doing all this ruining, and where those people live, and where people are getting organized to deal with people like this, and eventually this genuinely leads to people taking bags of guns to public spaces and killing a bunch of people and letting poison gas loose in convention centers and overloading the phone lines of hospitals and such.

So yeah, if you see other people getting a bit heated about stuff like this, it uh... may in fact be that you're looking at some of the people who are dealing with terrorists trying to kill them or having actually killed people they care about, and not just people being overly heated about people saying the stupidest things you've ever heard about movies or games or whatever.

[mayakern]

now i’m curious what were ur fav MP goofs !!! :0

ok i have a 10 image limit and some of these are multi-image jokes so i’ll try to distill these as best i can. also these jokes are all from i think chapter 4 and later, where i really flourished my sense of humor more

1. marina’s high school crush/bff sharkwanda being a highly contentious contestant on a spoof of top model

this is specifically a spoof of the early seasons, which usually had an assessment within the first 2 or 3 episodes, including a weigh in. as much as i loved trashy tv, i always hated these moments so i thought it would be funny to have a literal shark and to have her be weighed against mostly average-sized humanoids because it would be ridiculous for anyone to expect a healthy shark to weigh the same amount as a human.

there were a couple other layers to this: george idolizing her as a strong, independent woman. george’s brother freaking out because sharkwanda just ate a man on camera and no one’s overly bothered by this. george chastising him for not realizing it was obviously fake/over dramatized for the ratings (and not examining that then this moment of “self empowerment” would also be fake). and then also i named her after a fish named wanda. except she’s a shark named wanda. she’s also the most beautiful and popular girl in the world and she wins her season and becomes a very successful model.

2. the tinsley family thanksgiving outfits. actually their themed outfits in general. i think shit like this is super cute and funny. i also just enjoy writing siblings who rib each other lovingly.

also the part of this where george’s mom has three eyes (she’s psychic) and her dad has no eyes, so her brother has two eyes and for all intents and purposes looks human, but he is a full blooded monster. early on i had some ideas for an off shoot chapter about eli and his struggles with his identity (being a monster but not looking like one and not feeling at home in either community), but it got scrapped for time and also because it felt like too close a parallel to mixed race people who pass as white and that’s not my story to tell.

3. sharkwanda’s cover (up) girl ad campaign during the superb owl half time show. some of this stuff was a bit on the nose, but there’s a line about sharkwanda finally having makeup that doesn’t melt off her face like hot cheese that i still like

4. this multi-strip joke where franny’s dad pulls a turkey out of a hat. just read it there’s nothing to explain lol

5. basically every part of the magic shop scene, but especially the part where percy meets franny’s dad for the first time during a very tense situation and franny’s dad is wearing a skeleton (this is a reference to ranma 1/2). and then also percy sits and there’s a whoopee cushion. it’s incredibly awkward and not exactly haha funny, but it simultaneously cuts and adds to the tension in a way that is very monsterpop.

6. human!franny getting ben a dog toy as his secret santa gift (he doesn’t own a dog) and then dropping it and then it making a horrific, shrill squeak when it bounces

7. the whole situation with chadler, his horrible christmas outfit, the marshmallow gun, and him taking sexy santa ben as prisoner.

8. ben, killed by glitter, soon to be avenged by his crush comrade (or not)

9. george being gifted a framed painting of a photo of herself, asleep during class, which she later carries into an actual museum and gets in trouble for because a guard thinks she stole a piece of art

10. the brotebook

this has been very long but i hope u enjoyed it

[wandaluvstacos]

BRIGHT DAY BLUE DAY

CHAPTER 31 IS NOW UP

In the city of Yukiktrum, the hierarchy is clear even when the laws are not: Alphrim rule, betsra serve, and ometki bear young. Claiming a part of the city is easy, but keeping your territory is not, so Alprhim like Chramkut govern with talon and tooth. Maintaining power means control access to ometki, and by selling access to both them and their eggs, Chramkut has turned Themself into a ruthless and wealthy warlord.

Untkra once served as Chramkut’s prime ometki, but that time has passed, and Untkra has been replaced by someone younger. After one failed escape, it was only Untkra’s history with Chramkut that saved them from execution. Untkra knows that getting caught trying again will get them executed, but Unktra is willing to sacrifice everything if it means leaving the conflict-ridden city of Yukiktrum behind. This time, Chramkut’s prime laden ometki wants out, and they’ve begged for Untkra’s help. Untkra is done bearing offspring Untkra will never meet. It’s this way or death.

However, the desert landscape beyond the walls of Yukiktrum is hostile and unknown, and there’s no guarantee that there’s anything out there worth escaping to. What Untkra may not be ready for is what hope lays beyond the dunes, and the redemption that a new home can offer. Yet when another ometki needs saving, Yukiktrum calls Untkra back in what could be Untkra’s most daring rescue yet. 

Genre: Sci-Fi

Rating: 18+

T/W: This story is dark in nature, and while nothing explicit is ever shown, there are repeated references to rape (including underage), sexual slavery, and I suppose what equates to child trafficking (is selling eggs considered child trafficking?). There is also violence, murder, drug use, and prejudice/bigotry. This story also contains the trappings of a/b/o. It’s not so closely married to the trope as most a/b/o fics, but it is quite obviously based on it. 

Excerpt:

       Akche wasn’t sure at what time married couples decided to have sex. The Alphrim at school always joked about it, but there was no discussion of the specifics. Akche’s teachers had covered the details of it around the time Akche hit puberty, but again, they had spoken like Akche should know how to proceed the moment they had the access. It wasn’t that Akche didn’t want to, but in their fantasies, it had always been a given that the other party was interested too. Vamtlak seemed about as interested in fucking Akche as Akche had in finding sand roaches living in the kitchen sink drain. Some might say that the betsra’s opinion of it didn’t matter, but even if Akche could take advantage, the idea of it wasn’t titillating. Akche needed to feel wanted, not tolerated. Forcing Vamtlak would probably make them hate Akche, and Akche already felt resented enough. They were always told that Alphrim were protectors, and Akche couldn’t claim to protect someone while harming them. Akche would rather Vamtlak like them. Akche enjoyed being liked.

            Still, Akche found themself staring at the back of Vamtlak’s head, wondering what it would be like to kiss them. Akche had never kissed anyone before. Vamtlak always smelled a bit like food, and Akche liked that. Even though Vamtlak was tall, they had that slim-flanked betsra frame that Akche enjoyed looking at. They also took good care of their feathers, which were a pale yellow at the roots and a pastel green at the tips. Akche wanted to touch them, just to see if they felt as soft as they looked.

            Akche shifted onto their side, and they saw Vamtlak’s shoulders tense. Akche had thought someone being scared of them would be flattering, but instead it made Akche feel ashamed. They hadn’t done anything to Vamtlak. In fact, they’d probably done more than your average Alphrim to make Vamtlak feel at home. They told them to visit their bet-itlapt and a friend who lived just down the street. They complimented the food they cooked after every meal. They’d slept next to them every bright day without touching them. What more could Akche do to make them feel safe? Were all betsras this jumpy?

            “I’m not going to make you do anything,” Akche said, voice seeming overly loud in the confines of the bed closet even as they attempted a tone barely above a whisper. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

            Vamtlak didn’t respond for a few moments before slowly rolling back a shoulder to look at Akche. Their pretty pink eyes were full of apprehension. “I’m not.”

            “You sure seem to be.”

            “Just homesick, that’s all,” Vamtlak murmured, returning to staring at the opposite wall. “Thank you though.”

            There was a long silence as Akche considered what to say next. Finally they sighed and decided it was time to get up. They weren’t getting any more sleep this blue morning anyway.

[septembersghost]

https://slate.com/culture/2023/06/taylor-swift-matty-healy-dating-breakup-the-1975-backlash.html I feel like this gets it and doesn't get it

okay, so the entire situation is, to borrow a phrase, a lot more nuanced than that, because i don't think it's fair or right to tell people who were hurt and disappointed and mad about his behavior or her association with it that they were wrong for feeling that way, or overreacting. that's silencing and othering and dismissing very real concern and emotions. the way she frames his behavior is disingenuous at best ("odd jokes" at the expense of a vulnerable and marginalized group are still prejudiced and harmful here, that's an awful excuse). at the same time, the sheer amount of blame that eventually landed on taylor, and was somehow by comparison minimal for him, was also unbalanced. (fauxmoi HATES HER, it's unhinged over there! blind worship and blind hatred are two sides of the same frightening coin). it's not this simple, condemning bigotry matters. but i do think the author makes a point here:

A cultural preoccupation of the 2010s was trying to figure out the moral relationship the average audience member had to the art and entertainment they chose to read, watch, and listen to. People were rightfully disgusted to realize the degree to which cultural production had been used to whitewash brutality and abuse, particularly in industries like Hollywood and music, where a few people really can and do act as kingmakers. They felt betrayed to realize that people who had crafted sensitive and insightful pieces of art simply seemed not to care about real actions in the real world. But in the 2020s, this impulse has mostly run aground, exhausting itself. Decisions about what music to listen to, or movies to watch, or books to read have little to no wider moral implications for audience members because, as individuals, they don’t really have the power to change the world in which these cultural products exist. Moral disgust, however appropriate, didn’t ultimately imbue their choices with moral weight.

[...] We think that art is tied up with the moral aspects of life because, on some level, it is. The trouble is that for the average audience member, this sense of disgust resolves into the individual, binary choice to engage or not engage. The desires that accompany even justified moral repugnance—for people to be “held accountable” for what they’ve done, for instance—usually have no real way to be acted on or fulfilled, except through public agitation. What remains is rather an anxious instinct—if I go to a Taylor Swift concert or post about her on Twitter, will people think I’m a bad person?—and a punitive wish to see somebody suffer for something, at least once.

the line between accountability and valid criticism to moral outrage and punitive demands is thin at times, and the biggest issue here was not in criticizing taylor for making a bad choice nor disgust with m*tty, it was in punishing *each other* and using social justice language as a weapon to deem people good/evil/valid/invalid for being fans of her music. our sensitivity and empathy towards one another is important! but morally judging and punishing and tallying fandom against one another is not the healthy or helpful way to go about doing that.

[direwolfrules]

Star Wars As Star Trek AU: Obi-Wan’s Backstory

So, Obi-Wan's backstory in this AU gets some appropriate tweaking.

He grows up in the Stewjoni Highlands with his family. It's a boring existence for a child like Obi-Wan. His parents seem determined to live in the past – they don't even have a replicator! Obi-Wan though, he dreams of the stars. He's constantly in trouble for doodling starships and constellations in his notebook instead of paying attention to lessons.

When Obi-Wan's seventeen he runs away from home and takes the Academy entrance exam. He passes.

The Academy on Coruscant is grand, and quite awe inspiring, but it quickly becomes home. His classmates are strange, maybe even a little insane, but it's clear he's in good company. Obi-Wan's a little insane himself after all.

There's Quinlan Vos, who transferred in from the Guardian Academy on Kiffex, a move that was sponsored by Admiral Tholme. He's a trouble-maker, a flirt, and a devoted friend. Quinlan's in the same command courses as Obi-Wan, though in others, particularly investigation related classes, Quin's ahead. Transfer credits, they're amazing things.

There's Siri Tachi, who seems to enjoy being as contrary as possible. Her and Obi-Wan briefly have a thing before deciding they're better off friends. She eventually winds up taking investigations training. This shift in career trajectory came after a conversation with visiting Lieutenant-Commander Adi Gallia. No one knows what was said, only that Siri left Gallia’s office a more confident person than when she walked in.

Then there's Bant Eerin, who attends Starfleet Medical and takes extension courses to balance out her education. She's in Obi-Wan's engineering and command classes, and the two become the best of friends.

I...don't really know what to say about Reeft? He's there? He's a perfectly average officer with an above average appetite.

Garen Muln is the star of the Academy flight team. He's also decent at diplomacy, something that shocks his friend group to no end. To be fair, if you saw they way him and Obi-Wan argued you'd also be surprised to see his high marks in Diplomatic Courtesies and Protocols.

Obi-Wan also manages to form a rivalry with fellow student Bruck Chun. Bruck's a spoiled ass who thinks "Oafy-Wan" is a funny insult. It's not. Bruck's just a spoiled rich kid who's a badmiral waiting to happen. Their feud is legendary, and ultimately ends in Bruck getting expelled after trying to frame Obi-Wan for a crime.

At the Academy Obi-Wan makes the mistake of taking one of Captain Qui-Gon Jinn's courses on Xenobotony. At first Qui-Gon kinda hates him, he feels like Admiral Yoda, Chancellor of the Academy and full time troll, is trying to force a new mentee on him. Unfortunately for Qui-Gon, it works. Especially after Obi-Wan and him work together to foil Bruck's schemes. Qui-Gon got dragged in because of Xanatos-related nonsense.

While at the Academy Obi-Wan meets Satine Kryze, a Mandalorian exchange student and eldest daughter of Jorad'alor Adonai Kryze, the Duke of Kalevala. Qui-Gon pretends he sees nothing, Obi-Wan's friends do not. They mock him. Relentlessly. Siri and Quinlan make so many jokes about how Obi-Wan's type seems to be people who can kick his ass, physically or verbally.

Obi-Wan struggles to respond to that cause like, they're not wrong.

Satine’s exchange semester ends, and they part amicably. They’re both a bit heartbroken but they love each other too much for one to ask the other to forsake their duty.

Obi-Wan graduates from the Academy and wouldn’t you know it, Captain Jinn’s finally taking a new ship assignment and he specifically requested Obi-Wan.

Life on board the USS Maverick is…interesting, to say the least. Civil wars (in which Obi-Wan falls in love with two people who can kick his ass), sentient trafficking investigations (go take a nap or something Xanatos, eat a Snickers), and copious amounts of alien flora and fauna that tries to kill Obi-Wan (Qui-Gon please, just let the boy take his allergy medication before dragging him on away missions).

Qui-Gon’s not-girlfriend Captain Tahl occasionally shows up, and she’s decided that if Qui-Gon is Obi-Wan’s space dad, then she’s his space mom. Qui-Gon’s former foster son Feemor works at a Terraforming station, and has decided he’ll be a good big brother to Obi-Wan whether Qui-Gon likes it or not.

Various contemporaries of Obi-Wan in canon either show up as fellow officers on the Maverick or as crew on other ships and stations throughout the Federation. Adi Gallia is at some point Qui-Gon’s First Officer, probably around the time Obi-Wan’s a Lieutenant.

Speaking of Lieutenant Kenobi, he has the most eventful couple years after that particular promotion.

First, him and Qui-Gon find out what happened to dead Mand’alor Jango Fett. Turns out, Fett didn’t die, he was kidnapped in the wake of Galidraan and sold to the Kaminoans so they could experiment with making Clone super soldiers (I’ve decided in this AU Jango wasn’t a willing participant). Using a deepfake of Fett the Kaminoans managed to lure in several Haat’ade to use as trainers. Jango was kept compliant by giving him Boba. “Here’s a son, a sweet, vulnerable child who depends on you. Would sure be a shame if we activated the kill-switch we implanted and you had to watch the life drain from his little eyes, huh?”

Yeah, so that’s a situation that ends in Jango dying in a shootout between Kaminoan security forces, a Federation Strike Team, and Jango’s secret Clone Rebellion. No one knows who fired the shot that killed him.

This directly leads into event number two, Satine returns to Obi-Wan’s life.

The Mandalorians send her as their ambassador so they can figure out what the heck to do with all the Clones. Mandalorian law forbids them from allowing Augmented individuals into their space, let alone granting them citizenship. So, the clones, the eldest of which at this point are twenty-ish (I don’t have a good timeline in my head, we’re playing fast and loose and the Clones age normally here) gain Federation citizenship instead. The debate in the Mandalorian government about the clones will circle around fruitlessly for years.

Many wind up enlisting in Starfleet, applying to the Academy, and joining various civil services. Mace Windu somehow ends up with custody of Boba Fett and a young psychic clone named Omega. Kal Skirata just straight up disappears with his 104 commandos plus the six Nulls. They reappear later for… something.

Anyway, during the negotiations things between Obi-Wan and Satine reignite and nine months later Korkie is born. Obi-Wan doesn’t know he’s a dad by the way, because politics and love is the death of duty and all that jazz.

Third, the Maverick is assigned to transport Queen Amidala of Naboo to important trade negotiations. At this point Obi-Wan is a Lieutenant Commander. The mission gets derailed, psychotic Zabrak Augment assassins tend to do that, and Qui-Gon dies, Obi-Wan had to literally cut a man in half, and also now he’s a Captain.

Solid -7 out of ten on the mission-rating scale that one.

Oh, and a few years prior Qui-Gon took custody of this feral rat child named Anakin, who's currently an Ensign on Starbase M-7. So now Obi-Wan's all Anakin has, and boy that's a lot of pressure.

Obi-Wan serves with distinction for a couple more years as Captain of the USS Varactyl before finally getting assigned to the newly minted Venator-class ship, the USS Resolute.

[shsl-baby]

sleep meme - yuu-kun

Type of bed: They prefer a twin sized bed, which is really all they need. They also prefer that there’s room underneath for them to stash things they don’t want out in the open. This also provides them a space to go when it’s storming or when they’ve just had a bad day. They’ll slide below the bed frame and stay there until they’re feeling a bit better.

Number of blankets: They often forget blankets are even an option, let alone multiple at the same time. On an average night in the tropical weather, they won’t bother with one at all. 

Number of pillows: They only really use one. They don’t like having a lot of pillows on their bed, so any others usually end up on the floor.

Type of clothing: Whatever they’re wearing. They’ll change if prompted to, but then they’ll stay in the pajamas until they’re prompted to change again or take a shower, which is an entirely different battle in itself.

Does it matter where they sleep? They don’t like sleeping with others in the room. It makes them anxious, so usually they’ll wait until they’re alone to fall asleep. The only exception is if they’re absolutely exhausted and can’t stay awake no matter how hard they try. They also hate sleeping in the dark, so they often keep the lights on or fall asleep during the day.

What do they do if they can’t fall asleep? If they’re sleepy - which is most of the time - you can bet they’re also cranky. This is where most of their practical jokes come from. They’ll slip something nasty into Hinata’s breakfast or ‘spill’ some glitter on the carpet somewhere. Harmless, but annoying. 

Frequent dreams/nightmares? They don’t like talking about what goes on in their head when they’re asleep- they hate the way people react. But their nightmares are frequent, if not nightly. Of course, they usually involve Junko in some way. It varies from night to night. And when it isn’t Junko, it’s the Remnants, everyone else on the island, the way these people treated them during the tragedy. It’s hard to forget, though they hold no grudges. They were just doing what Junko said, so it’s fine, yeah?

Deep slumber or naps? Deep slumber, once they finally get to sleep. It can still be easy to wake them, though, so careful not to make too much noise if you’re near their cottage. They’ll be even crankier than before if you accidentally wake them up.

When do they sleep? Usually, someone eventually comes along and tries to force them to go to bed, which they are very vocal about hating and it rarely ends up being successful. Other times there’s a good chance you’ll find them curled up under a table in the dining hall with a whoopee cushion in their hands, snoring away. They’ll wake up if you touch them, so it’s better to just leave them there for a bit.

What could wake them up? It’s a good idea to whisper. If you walk and talk as softly as you can around them, they may stir a bit but they’ll stay asleep. Just be careful not to drop anything.

tagged by: @mechatiqe

tagging: @hxpelessnurse + anyone else who wants to give it a try!

[ladyautie]

FYI, being neurotypical / able-bodied and knowing a disabled person doesn’t give you free range to joke about disability, especially if you don’t know the person that well.

This morning, I have a colleague that I barely talk to here and there who came up to me and asked me unprompted (don’t do that either, by the way):

 “Tell me if I’m wrong, but you’re like slightly autistic, right?”

I’m pretty open about my disability at my workplace, so I told him that I was “autistic”, ditching the functioning label, and he then added, I kid you not:

“Well, I think I’m going to see my doctor this afternoon, and get diagnosed with Stupidity Syndrome, so that I won’t have to deal with our customers anymore.”

I was stunned. I didn’t even know what to say or how to react, but my anxiety took over and I let out a nervous laugh, and I think he took it as a sign that his joke was funny? Somehow? 

He then started to understand that it wasn’t the case, and he rambled about how he was the stupid one, and he just wanted a way to not deal with customers again. 

Just so you know, I’m very open to making fun of myself and my disability, especially around people who I feel safe with. I laugh about my executive dysfunction, my social mistakes, and even my sensory issues. 

But this joke felt like a slap to my face, given that I have an accommodation to not work with customers specifically because of my disability (and he knows that). 

I fought to get that accommodation, and it was almost taken away from me a few times, because my previous boss hated me and used every leverage he could have against me. I’m working my ass off so that people won’t think that I’m “slacking off”, because I’m accommodated that way. It’s not something I just got from visiting a doctor once and that was it. It’s a constant struggle.

It wasn’t just a slap to my face, but to every autistic person I ever came across, whether they’re intellectually disabled or not. 

I’m so angry at myself that I wasn’t eloquent enough at the moment to let him know how ableist his joke was, how ableist the idea of “stupidity syndrome” is, and how much he was disrespecting disabled people who are struggling every day just to get the tiniest amount of respect from other people and society.

I’m all for “let’s stop framing disability as a full-on tragedy all the time”, but it doesn’t mean that we have to go to the opposite and mock it / belittle it like that! 

This colleague legitimately thought that, because he knew I’m disabled and I’m open about it, it gave him a free pass to just joke about it, without giving it a second thought. It doesn’t. Especially if you don’t know how to joke without belittling others.

You’re NT/able-bodied and you know disabled people in your entourage? 

Well, instead of just going straight for “Oh, I can joke about that, I have a disabled friend/colleague/cousin/whatnot”, keep yourself informed. If the person is open to talk about it, then ask them about their disability (and learn to accept when “no” is “no”). 

Try to show at the very least the minimal amount of understanding, I’m begging you. It’s not that hard, trust me.

Also, stop being so ableist towards intellectual disability in general. You’re not better than others because your IQ (which is a bullshit concept too) is average or above average. 

Edit: it’s okay to reblog this post if you want to.

[hoetolegist]

Okay so… I have a twilight- JASPER HALE, request where it’s like, the reader (any gender- idc) and their Indian and their super insecure about their culture, looks, and skin color and their insecurities only get larger when JESSICA STANLEY insults them about being Indian and so they distances themself from Jasper and all the Cullens who love y/n more than Bella. And then Jasper, being heartbroken turns into the major and demands why they’ve been ignoring him and they’ll like, burst into tears and explained what happens and he’ll be so mad and feel bad for yelling at them it’s all cute and fluffy at the end cause he tells them HE LOVES them AND INDIA and it ends in rough, loving smut But it doesn’t have to be Jasper it can be Stefan Salvatore or Steve rogers or blah blah blah but i’d prefer one of those three especially the vampires

Title: You're beautiful to me

Summary: an Indian teenage girl moves to a small town where she's seen as different. Can she get through it with her best friend by her side

The smut is so anticlimactic I rushed the ending 😭 I'm sorry

~

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is what they always say. "Stop saying stuff like that, you're pretty" they repeat every time you feel off about yourself but none of that helps. None of that stops you from knowing that you just aren't that attractive and that guys wouldn't even look at you twice. You honestly wouldn't even consider yourself average, you have a big nose, thick eyebrows, big puffy lips, shabby hair and dark skin that irritates you to no end

Everyone around you has milky white skin that dazzled in the sunlight but you and your family are so dark. Your family moved to Forks, Washington a few years ago because your mom wanted to see things outside of India, she wanted to explore and make her pottery business worldwide. When you first moved here you immediately noticed how different it was. It was very dull, always raining and surrounded by rainforest

You eventually got used to it and the humidity stopped bothering you the way it did at first. Your first day of school was hectic, you saw and felt people staring at you all day. They were whispering and pointing and you didn't know wether it was because they liked you or because they disliked you. Now you've also gotten used to the stares which still often happen but now they probably stare more because of who your best friend is

"Hey! Are you ready to go?" You heard a deep voice shout from the other side of your door. You looked around, making sure that you had your backpack and your keys. You opened your door to a tall, gorgeous man smiling down at you, leaning up against the door frame. "Yes I'm ready Jas, we have to stop somewhere for breakfast though" you replied to him

Jasper Hale was your first friend here in this small town. When you first saw him you thought he was so beautiful and to this day he still has such inhuman beauty. There was just no way he could be real! He has this pale marble-like skin, wavey honey blonde hair that fell just a few inches above his collarbone and the prettiest golden brown eyes that glisten in the sun

Maybe you kind of had a tiny crush on him but you'd never even think about acting on it

-

Chemistry class is so boring and you have no friends in here. You looked toward the door and saw Jasper walk past, oh good he's out. Your hand quickly shot up "may I go to the restroom?" the teacher stopped talking and pushed her glasses up "yes go ahead. Take the pass and if you're gone for more than-" you were already out of the room before she could finish

You practically skipped down the hallway with the biggest smile on your face but your smile slowly faded as you turned the corner and spotted him walking hand in hand with the one person you hated most, Jessica Stanley. She's such a bitch! She always has something to say about you. She cracks non stop jokes about your hair, your clothes, your skin, everything. It's annoying

Before you could turn around and sneak back to class you saw her glance back then stop walking. "Oh if it isn't y/n" she said as she dramatically turned around, her hand still in Jaspers. You rolled your eyes and turned around to start walking back. "Don't even start Jessica" you said trying to stay confident. She can be intimidating sometimes, you just never know with her

"What kind of eye sore are you wearing today?" she shouted after you, you stopped walking and turned around. You kind of liked your outfit today - you wore a white lehenga, decorated with gold polka dots and a white and gold choli, a dupatta draped around your shoulder. You were always insecure about wearing your traditional Indian clothes and the main reason is because of Jessica but your mom never allows you to wear anything else

She looked you up and down and laughed "I can't believe you walked out of the house with that ugly skirt on and do you need a jacket? No one wants to see your mid drift it's ugly". You looked at Jasper but he just stood there, like he wanted to say something but couldn't. You scoffed and bit your lips to stop your tears from falling. You ran to the bathroom, the jingle of your many bracelets echoing off of the walls

-

Jessica's laugh rang in your ears, why does she have to be so mean? She has been ruining everything for you since you first got here

You started to think about that time you celebrated your 16th birthday at school with friends and classmates since your parents had no time for it. "Happy birthday to you!" This was the most attention you've ever gotten at this school, you smiled at everyone and blew the candles out as they cheered. "Thank you everyone I-" your thanks was cut off as a monotone voice spoke out "ew are we really going to eat that?" Of course it was Jessica Stanley, she never lets up on you

You sighed "it's red velvet cake Jessica, not poison"

Her face scrunched up in disgust "but it's homemade right?" You nodded slowly, not knowing what she's getting at

"We don't know what you people do to your foods" she eyed the cake like it was the most disgusting thing she's ever seen "I won't be touching it" she grabbed her bag and walked out of the classroom, a few people following close behind her

You shook you head to stop yourself from thinking about such moments and lifted a hand to wipe your cheek as a tear rolled down. You feel so much more ugly than you ever have in your whole life

Suddenly the bathroom door swung open and in front of you stood Jessica. "y/n I wanted to say sorry" you stood there in silence knowing that she had more to say

"I'm sorry that Jasper just doesn't like girls like you, he likes girls like me or Bella. You will never be more than a friend. Got it?" You had no more fight left in you, not like you had any to begin with, so you just nodded. She smiled and looked you up and down again hate etched into her features "oh and do us all a favor and stop wearing those horrendous sheets that you call clothes". She soon walked out of the bathroom, you couldn't hold your tears back this time

-

A few days passed by and you stayed away from Jasper and the Cullens completely. You started wearing baggy jeans and oversized sweaters, your mom begged and pleaded for you to not give up on your culture but she didn't understand what you were going through

You sat in the back of chemistry class, giving Jessica the satisfaction of changing you completely. You saw a figure standing at the door from the corner of your eye, looking up you saw Jasper waving you out but you quickly looked away. He's the last person you want to see and talk to

When you were walking to your car, you noticed someone leaning on the front of it. You recognized the silhouette, soon realizing that it was Jasper's brother Emmet. "fuck" you whispered to yourself as you closed the distance between you and your car

He smiled at you and laughed "you know I heard that right?"

You chuckled dryly, just standing there with your arms crossed "yeah your super hearing is so cool" you said sarcastically "can you move please?"

Emmet just stood there looking at you, studying your facial expressions and your body language. He knew something was up. "I've never saw you in jeans before y/n" he sighed. You looked at him dumbfounded, why does he care? It's none of his business what you wear

"I can wear what I want Emmet" you sneered "I saw the way you guys looked at my other clothes anyway, someone just let me know what all of you were too afraid to tell me" he looked shocked "so move" but he moved fairly quickly

You were getting angrier with every word that came out of you mouth. You didn't want to look at his face anymore. You jumped into your car, starting it as quick as you can and driving off

Emmet was one of the siblings that you were close to, alongside Rosalie. They were the ones you could talk to when you just couldn't talk to Jasper. You don't know why you had treated him like that and you wished you could take it back but what's done is done

Maybe this'll keep them away from you

-

Knock knock knock

Three soft bangs woke you up quickly. Was someone knocking on your window? You sat up in your bed and rubbed your eyes, the clock showed 2 am

Knock knock knock

You heard the knocking again, it sounded more frantic. What if it's a kidnapper? Or a robber? What if-

"I'm not a kidnapper y/n open the window" you knew that voice! It was Jasper, what was he doing here so late? You suddenly sprung into action thinking he might be hurt or someone got hurt. "What happened?" You questioned as he jumped inside "did someone get hurt?"

He looked like he had been crying for a couple of hours. He doesn't have that glow in his eyes that he usually has. "Talk to me, tell me what I did wrong please" he whispered in the hush of the night. You stood there confused

What were you supposed to say? You've never seen him cry before, he's never this vulnerable. "Come on Jas you have to go" you tried hard to make sure your voice doesn't waver "uh you probably just need some sleep okay?" You were trying to walk him back to the window

Jaspers sadness quickly turned to anger. He was upset with how you were treating him, he's heartbroken and now you're trying to just shove him back out the window? "I don't just need sleep y/n!" he shouted in your face "I need you to tell me why you've been ignoring me. What did I do to hurt you so bad that you would rather shut me out of your life completely!"

Your eyes watered, you were never able to take people yelling at you too well and you take Jasper yelling at you one hundred times worse. "Fucking say something y/n!" he continued. He saw the tear drop from your eye and he immediately softened

Jasper grabbed you, hugging you tight as you cried into his shoulder "I'm sorry" you eventually said. You started telling him everything that was happening "it's been going on for years so you would think I'd be use to it by now". He rubbed circles into your back as you spoke, telling him about how you felt in the hallway "...and you looked at me, you looked at me and said nothing while she said the most disgusting things about me"

He looked displeased with himself, like he could just kick himself right then and there.

"The bathroom...she said a lot of things" you told him everything that was said to you and he looked livid. His eyes went black and you knew exactly what was happening

"Hey, she's not worth it" he faced the window, trying not to show his fangs. When you first found out about him he was hesitant about being around but soon he became comfortable with you. Sometimes his lack of control over his emotions is what keeps him from fully showing his true self around you

Your voice calmed him down "it's not worth it Jas" you repeated. His breathing eventually evened out

The silence was deafening, you just wanted him to say something

"I love you" is all he said

You nodded "I love you too Jasper" you wrapped your arms around his waist from behind him, resting your cheek on his back "I'm sorry for not being the best best friend like I promised I would"

You could feel him inhale before you felt yourself being disconnected from him. Next thing you know it you're face to face with him, his arms wrapped around your waist this time "no y/n, I love you. I love you so much it hurts" you gasped and tried to step back but he just held your waist tighter

"I'm not the type of girl you want Jasper. I don't fit in with you or anyone else. I think it's best we stay friends" you softly spoke out, your voice shook despite your efforts to keep it from doing that. You managed to get out of his hold to go sit on your bed. "Please leave" you finished firmly

Silence washed over you. You felt your bed dip as Jasper sat next to you but neither of you said a word

Eventually he spoke up "I think you're beautiful". You looked at him with your mouth opened in what could possibly be shock or disbelief? You don't know it's a mix of emotions right now. Your eyes stared into his, trying to find a lie within them. No one has genuinely called you beautiful like this. "I love the clothes you wore, they were so colorful. They were what made me fall in love with you. The real you"

You stood up after he said that. Fall in love with? In love with? Oh my fuck. "Uhm" you were panicking now. What if he was just lying to you? Him and Jessica will probably laugh at you about this tomorrow. But now that you think about it Jasper has never laughed at you, even when he was stuck in the hallway situation with you he didn't even pretend to be amused

You slowly sat back down at the realization that he's being real with you right now. Jasper slowly brought his hand up to cup your cheek, his thumb slowly caressing it. "I love everything about you and where you're from. Did you know that I ordered a cookbook from India so I could learn how to prepare all of your favorite meals?" he smiled a small smile "that was going to be our first date"

He was going to do all of that for you? Really? You chuckled softly, flashing him a small smile "I had no idea" now you felt even worse for treating him the way you did. "I'm sorry Jasper. I didn't mean to push you away I just thought it would be better for you if I wasn't in your life anymore. I've had a crush on you for years and I always thought you wanted someone like Bella because she's like one hundred times prettier than me" you were talking too much, something you did when you were nervous

"No one is prettier than you. Not in my eyes" There was a moment when you just sat there looking at each other. Jasper shamelessly stared at your lips for a few minutes before looking back up at your eyes. You don't know who leaned in first but one second you were having a tension filled staring contest and the next second Jasper's soft lips were smushed up against yours. The kiss was hot and desperate and neither one one of you had came up for air yet

Jasper was the first to pull away "you don't know how long I've waited to do this" he breathed. You took that time to just look at him, admire his beauty but that didn't last long as his lips were back on yours in no time

He layed you down and began kissing your neck sucking a hickey under your ear which which you now know is a sensitive spot "Oh" you moaned. This is a new feeling for you

He kissed all the way down lifting your shirt up to kiss your stomach. When his lips touched your skin it felt amazing but you still panicked "wait wait stop" you cried out. Jasper stopped immediately upon hearing your voice, he looked up at you with concern. "It's just uh" you didn't know how to say this, you didn't want him too laugh at you

"I've never done this before" he just looked at you confused "I'm a virgin Jas" you finally said

His eyes grew wide for a split second before returning to normal size. "Oh I- uhm do you not want to do this?" He stood up awkwardly, scrambling to fix himself just in case you were going to kick him out. You grabbed his arm and pulled him back down "I know I want to do it and you're the one o want to do it with, I'm just scared that I'm not going to be what you are expecting"

Upon that confession he grabbed both of your hands and kissed them gently. "you're everything I've ever wanted y/n. We'll go slow and I'll be gentle if you want". You shook your head "okay, I trust you"

You began kissing again, this time slowly. You laid back and he smoothly started to kiss your jaw and down your neck. "Ah" you whined when he nipped a sensitive spot on your neck. He looked you in your eye as he kissed down, lifting your shirt up to place searing hot kisses on your chest. You sat up to take your top completely off, he practically drooled at the sight

You had no bra on "fuck your boobs are so pretty baby" you blushed at his words not knowing if you should say thank you or not. You moaned loudly as he wrapped his lips around one of your hardened nipples. His hand slowly crept down to tease the waistband of your shorts. He looked up at you for approval

Almost hesitant you shook your head yes. You shivered when his fingers slid between your soaked folds. You clawed at his shirt

"Off" you desperately pleaded, wanting to feel his skin against yours

His chest on yours felt nice, both of you were warm, this was nice for you. It was with someone you truly loved

-

"I want to be inside of you so bad" Jasper rubbed his cock between your wet folds

Once you guys were fully naked you were wondering if you should be having second thoughts about this but you don't. He had to talk to you about covering yourself up though "you're perfect, don't hide it" he had whispered against your lips

Your breathing was heavy as you waited for him to put the condom on. So far you had cum twice and you never knew how amazing that feeling was until now

Jasper rubbed your thighs gently sweat g to relax you "I'll talk you through it" he promised

You nodded and tried to lay as relaxed as possible. Okay it won't hurt too bad

Oh how wrong you were

The first few inches were hell, he whispered softly in your ear "you got this" and "just a little more, you can take it"

You looked at his face once he was fully in, he was sweating and breathing heavy. "y-you can move now"

Jasper tightened his grip on your waist and slowly pulled out then slammed back into you "fuck you're so tight" he moaned

You scratched his back as he thrusted harshly into you. Both of you had agreed on going slow but the pleasure mixed with a tinge of pain felt too good

"faster please" you panted, you were dripping with sweat. You didn't have to tell you twice he picked up the pace, the sound of skin slapping skin echoing through the once silent room

You felt dizzy with pleasure a bubble if heat was forming in the pit of your stomach. You knew that feeling all too well now

Jasper was now leaning over you, hands on wither side of your head, face in your neck. You held his hair out of your face as you both chased your highs. "Come for me baby" he whispered in your ear. His deep raspy voice was enough to pop that bubble instantly and you cried out as you came on his cock, your pussy squeezing him tight

"fuck fuck fuck" he squeezed his eyes shut as he continued to thrust in and out of you. You caressed his back and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. "I'm gonna cum, mm" he grunted before he stilled completely, filling you up

He collapsed on top of you, still holding himself up a little as to not crush you. You both were a mess of sweat and cum

He rolled off of you and layed next to you "I love you" he smiled at you softly

"I love you more" you threw your arm around his waist and cuddled up to him

Never in a million years would you have thought that this would be your life

[blind-rats]

The Rise & Fall of Joss Whedon; the Myth of the Hollywood Feminist Hero

By Kelly Faircloth

“I hate ‘feminist.’ Is this a good time to bring that up?” Joss Whedon asked. He paused knowingly, waiting for the laughs he knew would come at the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer making such a statement.

It was 2013, and Whedon was onstage at a fundraiser for Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to legal equality for women. Though Buffy had been off the air for more than a decade, its legacy still loomed large; Whedon was widely respected as a man with a predilection for making science fiction with strong women for protagonists. Whedon went on to outline why, precisely, he hated the term: “You can’t be born an ‘ist,’” he argued, therefore, “‘feminist’ includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people, is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us.”

The speech was widely praised and helped cement his pop-cultural reputation as a feminist, in an era that was very keen on celebrity feminists. But it was also, in retrospect, perhaps the high water mark for Whedon’s ability to claim the title, and now, almost a decade later, that reputation is finally in tatters, prompting a reevaluation of not just Whedon’s work, but the narrative he sold about himself. 

In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of being “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” on the Justice League set when Whedon took over for Zach Synder as director to finish the project. Charisma Carpenter then described her own experiences with Whedon in a long post to Twitter, hashtagged #IStandWithRayFisher.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Carpenter played Cordelia, a popular character who morphed from snob to hero—one of those strong female characters that made Whedon’s feminist reputation—before being unceremoniously written off the show in a plot that saw her thrust into a coma after getting pregnant with a demon. For years, fans have suspected that her disappearance was related to her real-life pregnancy. In her statement, Carpenter appeared to confirm the rumors. “Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working on the sets of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel,’” she wrote, describing Fisher’s firing as the last straw that inspired her to go public.

Buffy was a landmark of late 1990s popular culture, beloved by many a burgeoning feminist, grad student, gender studies professor, and television critic for the heroine at the heart of the show, the beautiful blonde girl who balanced monster-killing with high school homework alongside ancillary characters like the shy, geeky Willow. Buffy was very nearly one of a kind, an icon of her era who spawned a generation of leather-pants-wearing urban fantasy badasses and women action heroes.

Buffy was so beloved, in fact, that she earned Whedon a similarly privileged place in fans’ hearts and a broader reputation as a man who championed empowered women characters. In the desert of late ’90s and early 2000s popular culture, Whedon was heralded as that rarest of birds—the feminist Hollywood man. For many, he was an example of what more equitable storytelling might look like, a model for how to create compelling women protagonists who were also very, very fun to watch. But Carpenter’s accusations appear to have finally imploded that particular bit of branding, revealing a different reality behind the scenes and prompting a reevaluation of the entire arc of Whedon’s career: who he was and what he was selling all along.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 1997, midseason, on The WB, a two-year-old network targeting teens with shows like 7th Heaven. Its beginnings were not necessarily auspicious; it was a reboot of a not-particularly-blockbuster 1992 movie written by third-generation screenwriter Joss Whedon. (His grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show; his father wrote for Golden Girls.) The show followed the trials of a stereotypical teenage California girl who moved to a new town and a new school after her parents’ divorce—only, in a deliberate inversion of horror tropes, the entire town sat on top of the entrance to Hell and hence was overrun with demons. Buffy was a slayer, a young woman with the power and immense responsibility to fight them. After the movie turned out very differently than Whedon had originally envisioned, the show was a chance for a do-over, more of a Valley girl comedy than serious horror.

It was layered, it was campy, it was ironic and self-aware. It looked like it belonged on the WB rather than one of the bigger broadcast networks, unlike the slickly produced prestige TV that would follow a few years later. Buffy didn’t fixate on the gory glory of killing vampires—really, the monsters were metaphors for the entire experience of adolescence, in all its complicated misery. Almost immediately, a broad cross-section of viewers responded enthusiastically. Critics loved it, and it would be hugely influential on Whedon’s colleagues in television; many argue that it broke ground in terms of what you could do with a television show in terms of serialized storytelling, setting the stage for the modern TV era. Academics took it up, with the show attracting a tremendous amount of attention and discussion.

In 2002, the New York Times covered the first academic conference dedicated to the show. The organizer called Buffy “a tremendously rich text,” hence the flood of papers with titles like “Pain as Bright as Steel: The Monomyth and Light in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” which only gathered speed as the years passed. And while it was never the highest-rated show on television, it attracted an ardent core of fans.

But what stood out the most was the show’s protagonist: a young woman who stereotypically would have been a monster movie victim, with the script flipped: instead of screaming and swooning, she staked the vampires. This was deliberate, the core conceit of the concept, as Whedon said in many, many interviews. The helpless horror movie girl killed in the dark alley instead walks out victorious. He told Time in 1997 that the concept was born from the thought, “I would love to see a movie in which a blond wanders into a dark alley, takes care of herself and deploys her powers.” In Whedon’s framing, it was particularly important that it was a woman who walked out of that alley. He told another publication in 2002 that “the very first mission statement of the show” was “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”

In 2021, when seemingly every new streaming property with a woman as its central character makes some half-baked claim to feminism, it’s easy to forget just how much Buffy stood out among its against its contemporaries. Action movies—with exceptions like Alien’s Ripley and Terminator 2's Sarah Conner—were ruled by hulking tough guys with macho swagger. When women appeared on screen opposite vampires, their primary job was to expose long, lovely, vulnerable necks. Stories and characters that bucked these larger currents inspired intense devotion, from Angela Chase of My So-Called Life to Dana Scully of The X-Files.

The broader landscape, too, was dismal. It was the conflicted era of girl power, a concept that sprang up in the wake of the successes of the second-wave feminist movement and the backlash that followed. Young women were constantly exposed to you-can-do-it messaging that juxtaposed uneasily with the reality of the world around them. This was the era of shitty, sexist jokes about every woman who came into Bill Clinton’s orbit and the leering response to the arrival of Britney Spears; Rush Limbaugh was a fairly mainstream figure.

At one point, Buffy competed against Ally McBeal, a show that dedicated an entire episode to a dancing computer-generated baby following around its lawyer main character, her biological clock made zanily literal. Consider this line from a New York Times review of the Buffy’s 1997 premiere: “Given to hot pants and boots that should guarantee the close attention of Humbert Humberts all over America, Buffy is just your average teen-ager, poutily obsessed with clothes and boys.”

Against that background, Buffy was a landmark. Besides the simple fact of its woman protagonist, there were unique plots, like the coming-out story for her friend Willow. An ambivalent 1999 piece in Bitch magazine, even as it explored the show’s tank-top heavy marketing, ultimately concluded, “In the end, it’s precisely this contextual conflict that sets Buffy apart from the rest and makes her an appealing icon. Frustrating as her contradictions may be, annoying as her babe quotient may be, Buffy still offers up a prime-time heroine like no other.”

A 2016 Atlantic piece, adapted from a book excerpt, makes the case that Buffy is perhaps best understood as an icon of third-wave feminism: “In its examination of individual and collective empowerment, its ambiguous politics of racial representation and its willing embrace of contradiction, Buffy is a quintessentially third-wave cultural production.” The show was vested with all the era’s longing for something better than what was available, something different, a champion for a conflicted “post-feminist” era—even if she was an imperfect or somewhat incongruous vessel. It wasn’t just Sunnydale that needed a chosen Slayer, it was an entire generation of women. That fact became intricately intertwined with Whedon himself.

Seemingly every interview involved a discussion of his fondness for stories about strong women. “I’ve always found strong women interesting, because they are not overly represented in the cinema,” he told New York for a 1997 piece that notes he studied both film and “gender and feminist issues” at Wesleyan; “I seem to be the guy for strong action women,’’ he told the New York Times in 1997 with an aw-shucks sort of shrug. ‘’A lot of writers are just terrible when it comes to writing female characters. They forget that they are people.’’ He often cited the influence of his strong, “hardcore feminist” mother, and even suggested that his protagonists served feminist ends in and of themselves: “If I can make teenage boys comfortable with a girl who takes charge of a situation without their knowing that’s what’s happening, it’s better than sitting down and selling them on feminism,” he told Time in 1997.

When he was honored by the organization Equality Now in 2006 for his “outstanding contribution to equality in film and television,” Whedon made his speech an extended riff on the fact that people just kept asking him about it, concluding with the ultimate answer: “Because you’re still asking me that question.” He presented strong women as a simple no-brainer, and he was seemingly always happy to say so, at a time when the entertainment business still seemed ruled by unapologetic misogynists. The internet of the mid-2010s only intensified Whedon’s anointment as a prototypical Hollywood ally, with reporters asking him things like how men could best support the feminist movement. 

Whedon’s response: “A guy who goes around saying ‘I’m a feminist’ usually has an agenda that is not feminist. A guy who behaves like one, who actually becomes involved in the movement, generally speaking, you can trust that. And it doesn’t just apply to the action that is activist. It applies to the way they treat the women they work with and they live with and they see on the street.” This remark takes on a great deal of irony in light of Carpenter’s statement.

In recent years, Whedon’s reputation as an ally began to wane. Partly, it was because of the work itself, which revealed more and more cracks as Buffy receded in the rearview mirror. Maybe it all started to sour with Dollhouse, a TV show that imagined Eliza Dushku as a young woman rented out to the rich and powerful, her mind wiped after every assignment, a concept that sat poorly with fans. (Though Whedon, while he was publicly unhappy with how the show had turned out after much push-and-pull with the corporate bosses at Fox, still argued the conceit was “the most pure feminist and empowering statement I’d ever made—somebody building themselves from nothing,” in a 2012 interview with Wired.)

After years of loud disappointment with the TV bosses at Fox on Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon moved into big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. He helped birth the Marvel-dominated era of movies with his work as director of The Avengers. But his second Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, was heavily criticized for a moment in which Black Widow laid out her personal reproductive history for the Hulk, suggesting her sterilization somehow made her a “monster.” In June 2017, his un-filmed script for a Wonder Woman adaptation leaked, to widespread mockery. The script’s introduction of Diana was almost leering: “To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls. Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.”

But Whedon’s real fall from grace began in 2017, right before MeToo spurred a cultural reckoning. His ex-wife, Kai Cole, published a piece in The Wrap accusing him of cheating off and on throughout their relationship and calling him a hypocrite:

“Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

But his reputation was just too strong; the accusation that he didn’t practice what he preached didn’t quite stick. A spokesperson for Whedon told the Wrap: “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife. Many minimized the essay on the basis that adultery doesn’t necessarily make you a bad feminist or erase a legacy. Whedon similarly seemed to shrug off Ray Fisher’s accusations of creating a toxic workplace; instead, Warner Media fired Fisher.

But Carpenter’s statement—which struck right at the heart of his Buffy-based legacy for progressivism—may finally change things. Even at the time, the plotline in which Charisma Carpenter was written off Angel—carrying a demon child that turned her into “Evil Cordelia,” ending the season in a coma, and quite simply never reappearing—was unpopular. Asked about what had happened in a 2009 panel at DragonCon, she said that “my relationship with Joss became strained,” continuing: “We all go through our stuff in general [behind the scenes], and I was going through my stuff, and then I became pregnant. And I guess in his mind, he had a different way of seeing the season go… in the fourth season.”

“I think Joss was, honestly, mad. I think he was mad at me and I say that in a loving way, which is—it’s a very complicated dynamic working for somebody for so many years, and expectations, and also being on a show for eight years, you gotta live your life. And sometimes living your life gets in the way of maybe the creator’s vision for the future. And that becomes conflict, and that was my experience.”

In her statement on Twitter, Carpenter alleged that after Whedon was informed of her pregnancy, he called her into a closed-door meeting and “asked me if I was ‘going to keep it,’ and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me.” She added that “he proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me following the season once I gave birth.” Carpenter said that he called her fat while she was four months pregnant and scheduled her to work at 1 a.m. while six months pregnant after her doctor had recommended shortening her hours, a move she describes as retaliatory. What Carpenter describes, in other words, is an absolutely textbook case of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, the type of bullshit the feminist movement exists to fight—at the hands of the man who was for years lauded as a Hollywood feminist for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Many of Carpenter’s colleagues from Buffy and Angel spoke out in support, including Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” she said in a statement. Just shy of a decade after that 2013 speech, many of the cast members on the show that put him on that stage are cutting ties.

Whedon garnered a reputation as pop culture’s ultimate feminist man because Buffy did stand out so much, an oasis in a wasteland. But in 2021, the idea of a lone man being responsible for creating women’s stories—one who told the New York Times, “I seem to be the guy for strong action women”—seems like a relic. It’s depressing to consider how many years Hollywood’s first instinct for “strong action women” wasn’t a woman, and to think about what other people could have done with those resources. When Wonder Woman finally reached the screen, to great acclaim, it was with a woman as director.

Besides, Whedon didn’t make Buffy all by himself—many, many women contributed, from the actresses to the writers to the stunt workers, and his reputation grew so large it eclipsed their part in the show’s creation. Even as he preached feminism, Whedon benefitted from one of the oldest, most sexist stereotypes: the man who’s a benevolent, creative genius. And Buffy, too, overshadowed all the other contributors who redefined who could be a hero on television and in speculative fiction, from individual actors like Gillian Anderson to the determined, creative women who wrote science fiction and fantasy over the last several decades to—perhaps most of all—the fans who craved different, better stories. Buffy helped change what you could put on TV, but it didn’t create the desire to see a character like her. It was that desire, as much as Whedon himself, that gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer her power.

[jockpoetry]

supernatural sees women as a tool for development and strengthening of narratives/motivation and dean sees his body as a tool. is that anything?

When I saw this ask I really made the 🥴in real life. So, yeah anon, I do think there’s something to this.

Quick Disclaimer before I actually launch into my thoughts™: A lot of my read of Dean stems from my experience as both an oldest daughter and a transman. Being the oldest daughter was an experience I lived for many years, but I am also a man. I wasn’t raised as a man, I wasn’t socialized as a man, and even though once I came out upon reflection my masculinity was obviously there. Like I was a man™ before I knew I was a man. Even when I actively tied my identity to femininity for a long time! A lot of my prideful moments were based around statements like: “I was the only girl who (fill in the blank).” 

So I am just putting that out there before I launch into my spiel about Dean/Gender/Tool because they all interlock for me. 

I am also going to apologize in advance because I know this has fully gone off the rails and I’m not even done writing it yet. If this is incomprehensible ! Well, happens to the best of us.

First off, most importantly I guess before we discuss womanhood and Dean and the way both are utilized on the show I need to say that I personally don’t subscribe the whole Dean is female coded thing. 

It’s a read I can absolutely understand. But for me..he’s not. 

He’s a hypermasculine man to the point that when (and because he is written as a punchline, as the stupid™ brother, as the whore™, as the mother/father™, as daddy’s blunt instrument™, etc) Dean deviates from the pre-accepted definition of hypermasculine it’s Wrong. 

It’s Instantly Feminine. 

I think the internet has made the world very black and white, or blue and pink maybe. This point, I think, colors a lot of these discussions. Dean cooks, he cleans and so therefor he’s female coded. When that really just feeds back into the whole toxic masculinity loop. You can’t be masculine and cook and clean and cry. That’s for feminine people only. 

I get the argument! I do, I just think that Dean’s actions are not inherently feminine, it’s just in the vacuum of Female and in the Absence of Traditional Masculinity it makes sense to assign him female coded and move on.

IN FACT the way that Dean is the action hero of the show, the Masculine™ one on the show - but he cries, and he rages, and he cooks (Again and Again) and cleans (Again and Again). The fact he’s macho and confident but he has so little self esteem. Is frankly insane to me. You have this blaze of glory character who is so depressed that they have him kill himself. Twice. In explicitly “I hate myself, I hate hearing all the things I hate about myself, I want to destroy myself” ways. 

On just a regular ol’ network show that is just ungodly bad at times. They let their Male Hero cry - all the time (if I linked every example of this the essay would be...longer than it already is, but just take my word for it). Dean tears up and grieves and shows more than just Angry Horny Violent™ (he shows plenty of that, don’t get me wrong) but he’s Emotional (Again and Again and Again). In many different ways!

I mean, beyond even just tearing up, they make their Male Hero™ face sexual violence in pretty, uniquely horrifying - and queer! - ways.

Let’s make it clear, they did a lot of this unintentionally. 

Or they do it as a joke. 

Off of dean for a moment to say women are plot devices in this show. I could probably count on one hand female characters who have sincere depth to them that have roles outside of progressing plot, filling a filler episode, and who are still alive. Like even characters such as Charlie who are wholly developed, and interesting, are only remembered/mentioned/utilized to progress plots or fill an episode out - and then she dies. For pain™ for plot™ for no other reason than to traumatize a character. 

Which let’s also make it clear Dean’s trauma is also only used as a plot device (as is Sam’s but in a different way, and Cas’ trauma is a whole other barrel of fish we’re not gonna dive into right now). Like wholesale full stop they don’t actually care about what happened to him. Unless it’s relevant in an episode. 

Oh that boys home he was left at when he was 16 for months? Sure we’ll sprinkle that in in the back half of the series. Oh he was covered in bruises and said it was from a hunt (when it’s clear contextually they were from his father but saying the fantastical but true is easier than saying the uncomfortable but true). As Dean says though the story became the story, he was sixteen. He just went along with what John said.

We only see Dean ever truly rage at John, by the way, when either Dean is dead (when he’s between life and death and he rages at John, right before John “apologizes” for traumatizing him, for putting too much on Dean’s shoulders, and fucking dying) or John is dead (the Djinn episode where Dean is straight™ and John is dead™ and he goes to his grave and just yells and rages like he should have to his father in the real world).

Dean’s trauma from being both tortured and torturer in hell? Yeah, we don’t talk about that after it’s Relevant™. Even though it’s clear - especially in the demon!dean, mark of cain era, all those years later - Alastair still has his hooks inside of Dean. I stopped watching originally after s8 ended. I was fed up with the show, and with this whole renaissance I’ve been doing a rewatch and I’m into season twelve now and it really has never come up again. 

Even when he had the mark of cain and he was tasked with questioning and accused of torturing it was “the mark has changed you” and not “you were victim and victimizer in hell for forty years, which is longer than you’ve been alive on earth” (and, was about as long as he wound up living. Which is desperately sad.

Because we talk about Sam’s desire for a “normal” life but, Dean wanted out too. He was tired in the first few seasons of this show, he never had a chance to taste freedom (we don’t count the boys home, because that was a different kind of regimented life, and it was a false freedom) the way that Sam did in Flagstaff with Bones or at Stanford with Jessica. Love for Dean is sacrificing, it’s putting himself/his happiness/his well-being last.

Because Dean only knows love in the context of violence (like all of these fun examples, for starters) is a phrase that I’ve said a lot both in private chats and on here, and I absolutely think it goes to him being a tool (a blunt instrument, a plot device, so both textually and metatextually) instead of a person. Which Cas sees Dean’s shame/guilt and sees that side of Dean because he touched his soul, and saw more than just the Righteous™ man, more than just the tool, he saw A good man, not a machine. 

On the other side though you have how “bad guys” view Dean: Desperate, Sloppy, Needy, Dean’s hole (Again), which is again so wildly counterintuitive to the story of a Macho Man Hero™. You’re using vocabulary that is both queering him and feminizing (and I know this a meme format, but sincerely it is done in a derogatory way it is feminizing. It’s breaking him down to bare parts, to a sloppy hole). 

My whole rewatch I have been absolutely fascinated by how identity and free will is utilized/conceptualized on this show. Castiel has been my main focus, but Dean and how he is framed by himself and others is...fascinating - and frustrating. The writers inconsistency lends itself not only to this unintentionally queer character, but also one that again is incredibly easily read as a non-traditionally masculine character.

As a feminine character.

This show has so few female characters that of course it had to foist the roles/behaviors/plots that a female character might have onto a male character. Which I think is part of why reading Dean as trans (either transmasc, or transfemme) is so easily done like.   

Half of these are shit posts, but you can find trans allegories/textual evidence in this show again, again, again, again, and again. And this is unintentional, they don’t want you to look at Dean and see woman, former future or present. Like a lot of these I’m sure are punchlines for them, because women/queer folk are punchlines to them. 

Sometimes the only women in an episode are random witnesses who get two sentences of dialogue, and then the main guest character is a man. Who flirts with Dean, and Dean is receptive to it. 

They paint themselves into a corner, there are female Rabbi. So easily could Aaron have been a woman instead of a man, but they made the choice to play up the HaHa Dean & Men card. 

Because, again, Dean has filled the slot of Woman™ of Female Lead™ and the flirting would’ve been straight if Dean was a woman. It’s a plot device, they needed to have the guest character be disarming, be cute, make the main character flustered. 

It’s just the main character is a man, because they’re allergic to women. But they still need those female plots, tools of femininity, to move their show forward. I mean I am a big subscriber to transmasc Jo (no idea if anyone else is with me on this one, but let me explain). Jo is in love with Dean (concept) not Dean (actuality). Which, we’ve all had our eggs cracked by someone like that. We were in love with them until we realized we just wanted to be them.

He loved her like a little sister, she loved him like a lost idol. He’s a golden calf and she dies for him, because she believed in him, she was the original character dashed at the altar of the Winchesters. 

I fully believe if she had lived and if this show had a crumb of actual good writing Jo could have been a deeply compelling transmasc character. But I also think she’s a fascinating inversion of Dean. Dean is a Masculine Character who subverts Toxic Masculinity, Jo is a Tomboy™ she’s not your (if you take it straight, literally and metaphorically) average female love interest. She’s angry, she’s not soft at all, all edges and corners and thorns. She isn’t helpless, she’s stubborn but not in a “you’re going to get punished for this” way. She’s right when she’s stubborn. She’s helpful, she’s a martyr. 

I could do a whole other essay just on Jo (and Ellen, and Ash, what a fucking trio!) but needless to say Jo was one of the first...plot device feminine tools sacrificed to this show. She was a regular, she was unique, she was an engaging character, and she still died (to progress the plot? no. for man pain? yeah, for like three episodes maybe, and then it’s forgotten just like the rest of Dean’s trauma, as we mentioned above). 

Dean and Women and Love is a very interesting tool used too because. Boy they sure try to make Dean love women and it fails in small ways, and in big, meaningless, failed het domesticity (again) ways. Not to mention whatever Lust (in the form of a woman) having no effect upon him, when they could have used that moment to assert his Masculinity and Heterosexuality. He behaved normally? And...also...whatever the fuck the Adios thing was!

Like they have these opportunities to make him Traditionally (toxically) Masculine, but make the choice to...not? To soften him. Because it’s a tool. He’s their female lead, textually he had to take on the role of mother(/father) to Sam, but...I mean this is a million miles long already. I know, but we absolutely can’t not talk about his Paternal/Maternal behaviors. (Which appear again and again again and again, outside of his relationship with Sam even/especially). He’s the mother hen, sage, safety net, beacon, home to so many side characters they meet.

I mean in many ways Jody is also a Dean comparison. Lost her family. Found a new family. She is non-traditionally feminine, but easily flustered and Silly™ (let’s just drop the entire sex talk over family dinner scene with Alex and the boys and looking to them for help, even though she was already a mother, and she’s a cop, and a hunter and this confident no nonsense individual.... She’s not). We are meant to see her as this hard ass, but she makes extra food for the boys to take back to the bunker. She’s deadly in a fight, but also still easily overwhelmed and put into damsel mode, and she cares so much even in the face of adversity.

It’s also fun to see how Jo | Jody are reflections of Dean at different points of his life. Younger, cocky | Older, settled.

Even when the text tries to tell us that he’s not.

When it reminds us that he’s violent. That he is his father, even if he says that Sam is more like John (which was reflexive, which was angry because of Adam and how Sam was behaving like Dean in that episode, and yes there are parallels to be drawn between Sam and John, the show barely dives into them). Instead we’re told that Dean is John (Again and  Again and Again and Again). 

So intensely that a fanfictionalized version of the Winchester Gospels makes it an entire fucking musical number. 

And yet, despite the texts insistence to make Dean Macho Man Father Reborn™ We get this Dean who is silly (and directly compared/contrasted to the female character in this scene), soft, in heels, nagging, and... Sully (you know Sam’s imaginary friend who has the same Haircut Dean has, who is a softer, shorter, friendlier, campier, version of Dean who was a replacement For Dean until the real one let Sam back in? That? Sully?) it’s hard to take them seriously. 

Hell, even when he was A DEMON? What did they do? They had him sing off-key drunken karaoke, they had him doing this ! Like that’s your hero, unhinged, free to be as bad as he could be, and you put him in a cowboy hat in a romance with the king of hell. 

The Female Lead, everyone. Who’s biggest betrayal(s) comes at the hands of his love interest (again, a man even though it was an angel who could’ve taken any vessel! who could’ve been recast, who canonically dies admitting his love to Dean - that one), who he tries so hard to be loyal to. 

The contradictions of his character are laughable. He is so emotional, but if he is engaged about his emotions? He shuts down, or he’s exasperated about being asked about them. It really is Female Lead/Only Here For The Plot disease, because everything is more important than him. How’s he doing? Doesn’t matter outside of the context of how x character is doing or that y character is dead. Or his emotions only matter if they’re done in penance. 

They also really do frame him as Pretty Boy™ in a violent way, or in a derogatory manner. They’ll give us homoerotic shots like this or these and never really acknowledge how these are gay shots. Sorry the gun scene is a a straight up sex scene, the beer sip spilling out over his mouth is oral, the scene where Cas fills up Dean’s glass with whisky is also a sex scene, they do this shit on purpose but accidentally queer it up. If Dean was a woman these scenes wouldn’t even matter. They’d be passing moments, but because he is not just a man but A Man™ they’re insane to see.

Not to mention all of these scenes and all the ones I haven’t linked where Dean dresses up. He performs masculinity, but he performs femininity too. He’s a plot device that is slotted in to whatever role they need. He’s Super Straight Butch Man™ but coaches the lesbian on how to successfully flirt with a man. He’s Action Hero™ who sits through a montage with the same lesbian and yays and nays her outfits, and enjoys himself.

Fuck he loves dressing up, he feels better in these costumes because performing a character is easier than being himself. Because who is Dean? He’s a tool, both textually and metatextually. It is exactly how the women and because of the women on the show that Dean is the way that he is. If there was a more steady female presence Dean would not be half as much of a plot device or half as camp/gay/feminine/non-traditionally masculine/queer coded as he is. 

In conclusion....

[quibblesandscribbles]

Centaurworld Rewrite: A Serious Adventure AU - S1E1 Outline

I’m doing rewrite outlines, prepare for some AU. That being said, I still like several parts of Centaurworld a lot, namely Rider, Horse, Wammawink, and whatever the hell is going on with the Nowhere King, and hope there’s a second season to watch (which I will if Netflix doesn’t ruin our hopes and dreams).

Anyways, here’s like, a rewrite or whatever. I will probably post the outlines as I go, episode by episode. Will I get to them all? ADHD-willing, we’ll see. Also feel free to use these ideas/outlines? I don’t mind. 

Also assume there are songs in this even if I don’t specifically mention all of them. Also I guess this rewrite kinda chains the 1st and 2nd episodes together as a two parter? Maybe, idk.

Also I’ll preface this with this too: I ship Wammahorse, yes I SHIPSHIP it. Moving on.

Some headcanons before we start:

Warworld (*the world Rider and Horse are from) is a Low Fantasy Setting, there IS magic, but it comes in two variations, either very subtle low-powered but relatively uncommon, or Terrifyingly Powerful and so extremely rare to the point that it’s not very well known and “just myths” (usually for Big Baddies)

Ideas for Horse’s Degree of Sapience Prior to Worldhopping:

A: Horse was just a regular, non-magical horse, and their exposure to the Artifact and Centaurworld has essentially made them a Fully Uplifted Animal. - This is interesting, but ultimately a difficult idea to convey because it would require a lot more setup and wouldn’t exactly fit Horse’s characterization without some rework. This is an amazing idea, but I won’t be using it because it would slow things down too much.

B: Horse is a low-fantasy magic steed raised as warhorse/war asset, who is much smarter than your average animal steed/companion similar to a DND Ranger’s pets, or Mabari from Dragon Age, or a Ranger Horse from John Flanagan’s ‘Ranger’s Apprentice.’ The combined exposure to the Artifact and Centaurworld could account for her gaining speech and her body expressing limited physical adaptation to Centaurworld’s different physics (her body’s new extended range of motion for example) but of course I’ll be limiting this because having stakes make it more fun imho. This is my favorite, I’m using this.

Horse would’ve been considered a very valuable war asset (trained warhorses are like, historical ferraris, expensive as hell, i can only imagine what low-magical smart warhorses would be valued at), though still ultimately expendable for the war effort like anything else

Let Horse have horse behaviors (*can you tell I haven’t really left my horse phase behind lol)! Nipping and grooming behaviors as affection or warnings, ear positions to indicate mood, grazing to eat, laying down only when truly relaxed, sleeping standing up. COME ON.

Centaurworld is a High Fantasy world with an Absurdist bent but with darker undertones, similar to how Adventure Time is, with an extremely high saturation of magic, maybe you could even theorize that due to the Splitting of the Two Worlds that all the magic is being Dammed up in Centaurworld like a river or reservoir, this could be a future plot thread that could be picked up in a later season.

Basic Changes: 

Durpleton, Glendale, Ched and Zulius are supporting cast, not main

Durpleton is less stupid and more of a Kronk-expy: a little dim but ultimately kind/means well, has at least 1 life skill he’s good at buried in there though for the life of me I can’t think of one right now.

Glendale’s Narrative Framing: Glendale is amazing, but the kleptomania will be allotted ONE (or two) joke mentions but narratively isn’t treated like one after, somehow establish that her kleptomania is directly intertwined with her anxiety levels. Are there other denizens of the Valley that know the Herd? Are they mad at Glendale for stealing things? Does Wammawink have to constantly run interference to cover for Glendale? Probably.

Make Ched look like less of a pointless asshole: Have him show concern for his friends’ safety and his suspicion of outsiders, AKA Horse. If he’s going to be a jerk, at least let it serve a purpose.

Zulius can stay roughly the same - Zulius is great okay, just don’t tell me there’s backstory and then NOT TELL OR SHOW US ANY CLUES about what said backstory/history IS! (other than forcing us infer/project the headcanon[?] that him and Splendib might’ve been exes, from how they act around each other without any other context/visual/or confirming exposition we literally know nothing other than Splendib and him split/had a nasty falling out and Splendib took the glittercats and the career in the divorce.)

S1E1: Hello Rainbow Road

Opening scene in Warworld

If these episodes were allowed to be longer (shuddup it’s my AU), have the scene open with Horse sees Rider comes running out of some underground castle ruin catacombs and ominous roaring and clanging behind her as she deliberately sets off a dungeon booby trap (arrows or fire) she must’ve avoided while dungeon crawling earlier, and Horse runs towards her and circles at a canter and then Rider does a Running Mount (mounting a horse while the horse is in motion) and shoots an arrow at that flies offscreen

Smash cut to the DRAWBRIDGE door falling and Rider and Horse come galloping out while dodging some javelins and arrows and 1.5 seconds later 1-4 armored minotaurs (the lizardmen?) riding some coursers (swift horses or horselike creatures idk have fun) gallop behind in hot pursuit.

WARWORLD CHASE/FIGHT SCENE

Rider and Horse take out 2 of the pursuers on the run have Rider stay on horseback, dodge and make 1 pursuer shoot/javelin another 1 into a nasty-looking fall, and then Rider nails another 1 right through the helmet visor with an arrow. Have Rider throw a smoke bomb or something at the 2 remaining ones trying to catch up.

2 Enemies left but Horse is forced to skid to a stop as the suspension bridge approaches, then a tense moment forced to walk in order to escape safely across the suspension bridge which Rider cuts once they’re across. Maybe have 1 of the minotaur pursuers having been on the bridge somewhat behind them before Rider had to cut the line, sending the enemy hurtling down below. The remaining minotaur scout stares at them ominously from the other side before leaving.

Have Rider breath a sigh of relief

Smash cut to Horse and Rider traveling across a wartorn landscape, start Horse’s internal monologue narrative until they finally get to the hill and see the ruins of their village

Everything from this point to Horse getting transported to Centaurworld is the same as canon

Not Actually a DREAMVISION SEQUENCE: 

Shot/Animated from Horse’s 1st Person POV: Darkness, the sound of whooshing Horse falls, shimmering flash colors [if this were an actual show pls put a Epilepsy warning at the beginning of the ep], then a loud Splash as Horse falls into Dark Water. POV looks down and we see Horse’s front legs and a bottomless abyss below and a then flash of green and off-white from deep below, then look up to see blue light, see the swimming motions of Horse’s front legs and getting closer to the Blue Light

Horse wakes up, blinking, alone (no Durpleton)

Horse gets up looks around, doesn’t see Rider anywhere and starts makes Whinnying sounds (specifically, Whinnying is a social horse call, like specifically going, “Rider where are you!?” in IRL horse)

“And what are you supposed to be?” the “camera” wheels around to see Ched who has landed on Horse just within reach of her tail so Horse lets out a startled squeal (the Horse noise, not the human one) and does that thing where horses use their tails to swat away insects which sends Ched FLYING as Horse’s squealing morphs into her Talking/Yelling “what the heck is going on?!”

Horse does what panicked horses do, she runs

Horse stumbles into meeting Durpleton, who freaks her out more

Meeting kinda the same as canon but with less constant emphasis on reminding the audience that the writer’s can’t write comedy

Wammawink and Horse meet, Ched flies in and goes “hey that asshole kicked my a-I mean attacked me, but I totally beat ‘em.”

Horse tries to leave, discovers the Barrier, tries to get through, fails multiple times, but only 3-4 attempts shown with time passage show by the time of day changing, have Horse’ talking to herself a bit about how utterly weird the talking words thing is, that this is a “human” thing why is this HAPPENING she needs to get back

Waste less time on the visual gags of the Barrier repelling Horse, also get rid of the Tree Catapult scene because it doesn’t jive with Horse being a horse, why do they know how to make a catapult? Also because I hate how it basically shows us that Horse has no physical danger or chance of injury from being FLUNG around like Pokemon’s Team Rocket.

Have the rest of the centaur Herd come up to and talk to Horse while Horse is trying to get through the Barrier, and Horse talks about the outside and her world and doing things, squeeze in some convo about how there’s no (current) war in Centaurworld and how Horse thinks that that “freedom must be nice.” Anyways these conversations are what has Glendale, Zulius and Durpleton at least considering the ups of leaving.

Durpleton: Durpleton approaches Horse alone and asks about where she’s from, what’s home like, expositiony bits for Warworld and how much Horse needs to get herself and the Artifact back to Rider; Horse should say something offhand, like how she dreamed about exploring the world with Rider after the War seeing new things together, to which we’d cut to a shot of Durpleton looking thoughtful, before asking a completely unrelated question before Horse asks to be left alone. He doesn’t go originally, but gets distracted by something (butterfly?) and trots off.

Wammawink, Ched & Glendale: Atop a hill, Wammawink looks up to see stormclouds gathering off in the distance and comments that they’re going to be in for some rough weather, then goes over to offer Horse food, but gets distracted by some other Valley Denizens who are mad suspicious that Glendale is responsible for something of theirs that’s missing. Leaving Wammawink to go off and have to run interference leaving Glendale to approach Horse alone. Horse will learn that there’s no (current) war in Centaurworld but there was one historically, and Glendale will offhandedly mention that they’ve stolen everything from everyone in the Valley at least 4 times and with the unspoken implication of boredom. Ched will butt in and heckle Horse like, “could you leave any quieter?” and Horse sniping back, ears pinned back and animated horse stress behaviors. And Horse’s last failed attempt at passing the Barrier has them drop the Artifact, and we get a shot of Glendale spotting and eyes widening at seeing the Artifact unattended on the ground, then we get a smash cut of Glendale getting herded away by Ched.

Zulius: Goes over to ask about Horse’s avante garde accessories (her bridle, saddle & armor[barding]), makes comments on her style/aesthetic and asks where he could find some. Horse loses her patience, and says that she Needs to concentrate on getting back to someone they care a lot about and could you please just go away? 

Horse: (voiced as a rhetorical question) “Haven’t you ever wanted to go back to someone you loved before?”

Zulius gets a Look on his face, then he’d puff up, cover up the Armor Piercing Question’s effect on him with more bluster and then turn away as it gets later

Around sunset, Horse finally gives in to go ask Wammawink what’s up, and how can they leave.

Wammawink tries to feed them and convince them to stay, but Horse waves her off and moves away while muttering something about coming up with a plan

Speaking of plans, the Herd excluding Wammawink (& Ched) start talking about being bored, and mention Horse saying stuff about exploring the world (taken out of context, deliberately)

Wammawink, smelling the ugly head of discontent, sighs in defeat at not being able to recruit this new outcast in the Herd and approaches a grazing Horse and says she’ll help her through it with her magic(not admitting that the Barrier is her magic working in the first place because it’s not relevant right now okay) but then we get the “What’s magic?” bit from Horse and the rest of the Herd butts in with the Song. They wander off to go to bed afterwards, and Horse wants to go Now but Wammawink says that she’ll help Horse leave the Barrier but only in the morning because “you look tired”

Horse: “That doesn’t matter.” *awkward silence*

Wammawink, sadly: “Of course it does.” *Horse has already walked away*

The sun finishes setting as the wind blows the plants and through Wammawink’s fur (ominously) and she shivers, going back to the campfire

DREAM SEQUENCE: It’s dark, then we get a flashback dream of a younger Rider and Horse, idk a memory of something to showcase them either while in training or really show their Bond okay? End with them sitting around a campfire with other young soldiers and horses, someone is humming something (the first few bars of the Nowhere King’s Lullaby, no actual words yet). Then Dream!Rider turns to face Horse and asks, “how could you?”

Horse: “How could I what?”

Dream!Rider: “How could you leave me behind?” (The humming grows louder, there’s a lute being played, growing discordant)

Then Horse starts calling into the darkness/void, “I’m coming back for you, Rider! Just hang on, alright?!”

Rider: “Oh Horse, it’s already too late for me.”

“Rider!” Horse yells as they jolt awake, standing, because horses typically sleep standing up.

It’s dawn but the wind and stormy weather signs are picking up but not here yet, Wammawink walks Horse to the edge of the Valley barrier and tries to convince Horse to stay here where it’s safe, but Horse refuses to be deterred

Brief shot of Glendale hiding a bunch of things from her Tummy Hammerspace in order to simulate the feeling of stealing things again later, including the Artifact which falls on the ground

A shot of Durpleton seeing and picking up the Artifact and spotting Wammawink and Horse some distance away going toward the barrier’s edge

Wammawink hangs back on a hill, glowy hands and the magic wall flickers and disappears, and Horse immediately breaks into a gallop and disappears into the forest, Wammawink sighs and turns away

Indeterminate amount of time later, Wammawink recasts the Barrier, and Durpleton misses breakfast so Wammawink enlists Ched to help her look for him because Ched can fly

Cut to a shot of Horse dropping from a canter to a trot on the Rainbow Road, it’s grown darker and the stormclouds are in the sky. Distant thunder booms overhead, and a few scattered raindrops start to fall

“Heyyyy! You forgot your necklaceeee!” a shout from behind

Horse looks back and sees a running Durpleton holding the Artifact, and stops, he catches up to Horse and is gasping, “Wow, you run fast, hoooo, *deep breaths* you’re really *another gasp* athletic! Anyways you forgot your Necklace.”

Durpleton ties the broken string into a necklace around Horse’s neck and Horse thanks them and wishes them a safe journey back to the Valley, but as this happens the rain gradually falls harder. Then the sounds of the Rest of the Herd finally catching up happen, and Wammawink mother hens Durpleton and wants take everyone back home but then a loud BOOM of thunder and lightning overhead, and then it starts to Pour down rain, forcing Horse and co to find shelter until it lets up. Maybe have someone mention something about landslides being a possibility? Durpleton asks how they found them so fast, dim remember, then brief flashback.

FLASHBACK: Wammawink and co searching and calling out for Durpleton everywhere in the Valley, and realize that he must’ve followed Horse for some reason when Zulius FINALLY shows up and mentions that he remembers Durpleton saying he was gonna give Horse back her necklace. The recast Barrier is brought down and they leave the Valley to bring back their friend.

Back to the present where the group has taken shelter as the storm picks up more, and thunder booms overhead, Horse has some nervous horse body language going on, then we get to hear her mutter-singing or humming the “I never fear the drums of war” to calm herself down, but with more stanzas please, when asked she says it’s a battle hymn that Rider sang.

If Horse was humming, Wammawink could ask why she doesn’t sing, she’s sure that Horse has a lovely voice

Horse goes “I’m a horse, I don’t sing.”

Wammawink tries to be encouraging, Horse is resistant

Wammawink invites her to eat (AGAIN) but Horse still turns her (love and affection) down (AGAIN!) and says she’s fine with grazing and Glendale pipes in excitedly that they have decided that they want to travel with Horse (Ched pipes up that he didn’t agree to this) but pls help us convince Wammawink and Horse protests but someone points out to ask “do you even know where you’re going” and they have a point

Horse acknowledges this and relents, states some stuff about how she’s not going to slow down much however. Then Glendale, Zulius and Durpleton rejoice, Ched acts tsundere, but Wammawink looks nervous and wrings her hands together and relents that “they’ll go with Horse as far as the nearest Shaman” and Ched will go, “hey don’t you know he-” and Wammawink shushes him quickly with a gigglecake

Wammawink doubles down on the mother henning behavior

Horse doesn’t eat Wammawink’s gigglecakes but grazes by herself nearby, occasionally answering a question or two when engaged by the others (not Wammawink) and Wammawink mentions how the weather probably won’t let up for very long and they should take it slow and that Horse should bundle up

Horse disagrees but its bedtime and a bedtime song occurs in the backdrop as a restless Horse struggles to stay alert and awake but eventually falls asleep

VISION SEQUENCE: A shimmer of soft blue light, then shots of Rider ducking and weaving, her sword flashing as she tries to weave her way through a horde of enemy soldiers, blood spatters, then an enemy archer takes aim at a fleeing Rider, and Horse calls out a warning. 

Rider turns her head with a surprised look on her face suddenly just enough that the arrow buries itself into her shoulder instead the middle of her back and then she stumbles, one of her arms going limp, but everything goes dark before we can see if she fell

Everything goes dark and the din of war fades away, we get a shot of Horse’s hooves splashing and making ripples into dark water but the camera doesn’t follow her, we hear Horse’s cries for Rider fade, growing further and further away

Still dark, but in the silence we hear distant sound, drip, drip, drip, drip.

Then the episode ends and the credits roll.

[summercurial]

dorley new chapter thoughts

hmm. aaronstef good. because im still mostly straight and the dorley girls arent allowed to be butch anyway theres still a little part of me hoping cis!aaron/stef is endgame. i mean, this has been pretty damn fluffy so far, idk how shes gonna pull off the genuine transing of aaron, who we dont really hate, and was clearly pretty easy to reform. i think she might do it by just making them all basically cis-by-default rather than actually cis and therefore unusually okay with it, but it SHOULD be ridiculously horrific and traumatizing. speaking of stefships, is she supposed to be like...asexual? i feel like she hasnt internally expressed attraction to *anyone*, which is like, kind of weird

i feel like the intended emotion w/ the christian sections is like...being happy for her? but like. everyone there is terrible. i do not like them. idk, maybe the intended goal is to make it clear to us *why* nobody destroys dorley, its really really nice being post-dorley if youre the right kind of person. i really like that stef is, at least so far, totaly un brainwashed, like, her option is help dorley or *die* and she still feels like maybe she shouldnt help dorley. i cant tell how uncomfortable were supposed to be. every time they laugh or make a little joke about what theyre doing to the boys in the basement my skin crawls

ANYWAY the feminist framing of dorley is a really funny bit. like. surely all of the graduates are aware that dorley in no way advances the goals of feminism

oh also do we think declan really isnt dead? i was surprised and annoyed when we didnt see what happened to him last chapter. i guess it makes sense, its one of the only open questions the story still has, but like. i wanna know!

also ok, this is like, my own weird issues, but i find the constant talk about how conventionally beautiful and passing they are kind of annoying. idk, transness is like...okay, your statistically average trans girl looks different from your statistically average cis girl, and that doesnt have to be a bad thing, yknow? like whatever i dont wanna psychoanalyze the author or whatever but it FEELS like this fixation on amabs achieving normative cis beauty comes from a place of idk...not self hate exactly, but a lack of self love. especially cuz like, ive looked at a lot of FFS pics and the results...usually arent that drastic?

final note: i mean. everyone has their own experiences but t blockers generally dont make it so you cant get an erection at ALL, at least not ime. are we supposed to understand that its like. some other cocktail? is it a goserelin thing? i still very much get erections

[movedtopassione-parfait]

La Squadra personal character hcs:

(WARNINGS: mentions of parental neglect, divorce, death, child abandonment)

Risotto Nero:

Risotto is a 7'0 (totally not my size kink showing) olive tan Sicilian guy, abandoned by his parents after he first opened his eyes due to his strange appearance and cared for by his grandmother. (cough cough credit to tenthgrove for the amazing story) Grew up close to his cousin since he had very few people in his life, that's why he was crushed by his death. After getting his revenge he felt like he couldn't return home, and turned to Passione instead. I feel like he's got a thick accent and deep sultry voice (much like the one from the fan made italian dub on youtube!!) His eyelashes are definately long and white, and I feel like he has many brown sun spots like I do! He often bumps his head on door frames, tells a dark joke but nobody knows it's a joke so they just think he's incredibly fucked up, and when he gets into a car you can see it shift from his weight. Has no preference for tea or coffee, he will drink what's available to him. His hands? Big and rough, they're scarred all over and he wears silver rings. Has a few piercings like snake bites and an eyebrow ring. Dick piercings. His favorite food is pasta alla norma.

Prosciutto:

Prosciutto is from Florence, he grew up with his parents there for a bit before moving to Palermo with his mom after they divorced. His favorite memory of growing up is staring down at baby Pesci in his crib. He's 30 years old, 5'9, and has an overbite + tooth gap. His voice is somewhat deep and has an accent, but not as thick as Risotto's. Has a terrible habit of blowing cigar smoke into people's faces, spitting while yelling, and taking way too long styling his hair in that weird triple bun style. Is more of a coffee drinker than tea, he enjoys a good black coffee or an espresso. His hands are very pretty, like slim yet thick fingers and soft to the touch because he moisturizes them with the finest lotions and creams. Sometimes he likes to wear a corset in the privacy of his room, he thinks they're extremely beautiful and he has a collection of really detailed ones. His favorite food is bistecca alla fiorentina.

Pesci:

Is Prosciutto's half brother related by their mother. Pesci is from Palermo, and grew up with no father figure since he left and was no where to be found after he was born, Prosciutto made sure to be a big brother figure to him because of that, their relationship is unbreakable since they only had each other from the start. He's 22 years old, 6'0 and has a blotchy birth mark on his cheek. His voice is neutral, neither high nor deep, but he does have an accent slightly stronger than his brother. Has a habit of chewing on the inside of his cheek when nervous, tapping his feet on the ground, and let's people talk over him even though he hates it (my boy is socially anxious). Prefers tea over coffee, coffee upsets his stomach. His hands are large and slightly calloused on the palms, but very warm and pleasant to feel. Wears dark green lipstick because Prosciutto said he needed something "striking" about his look. His favorite food is caponata.

Ghiaccio:

Ghiaccio grew up as a troubled teen in Naples, often getting into fights at school which caused his grades to fall unfortunately. His parents were neglectful, constantly screaming at him until they eventually kicked him out when he was 19. He tried his best to survive on the streets for years having no where else to turn, barely living in some run down dingy apartment. Risotto found him in an alleyway when he was 25. He's decently tall, standing at 5'10. He has a habit of falling alseep in random places such as the couch or backseat of the car, yelling and ranting about things he barely finds himself caring about, and using up all of the hot water in the shower. Prefers coffee over tea, he likes the caffeine boost which is why he has a slight addiction to red bull energy drinks (if you look in his trash can you'll see cans piled up.) His voice is actually pretty high compared to his teammates, which is why some people (Illuso and Formaggio) call him "Screacher." Hands are medium sized, his skin is slightly rough on the knuckles and finger tips, and feel chilly to the touch. Has a stash of identical glasses in his rooms incase they break on a mission. His favorite food is frutti di mare.

Melone:

Melone is from Florence as well. His parents were also extremely neglectful, but he never picked up on it while growing up. Some of his odd natures like being clingy & touchy, come from lack of attention as a child, he just wants love and a family deep down. He's 5'7 and his eye covered by hair has foggy vision. Has a bad habit of not knocking on people's door/making his presence known before entering people's rooms, working late at night, shouting "Di Molto!" at inappropriate times. Loves tea way more than coffee because of some of the weird health benefits they have. His voice is light and a bit feminine (much like Enmu from Kimetsu No Yaiba). Another one with very pretty hands, slim fingers with well cared for nails, also soft and supple skin. Enjoys cross-dressing very much, not just in the privacy of his own room but anywhere, he'll even dress feminine to lure in targets at clubs and casinos. His favorite food is zeppole.

Illuso:

Illuso grew up in Padua, right near Venezia. His mother was not in the picture so it was just him and his father, until one day when he returned home his father never came back. He already knew his father was wrapped up into organized crime, it was only a matter of time this happened. Inside he blames himself, thought there was nothing he could do to prevent what happened. He covers his grief up with a cocky and egotistical facade to protect his own feelings, but really he just wants someone to give him affection. He's one of the tallest members of the group, being 6'3. He prefers tea over coffee, because he doesn't like the bitterness of it. Has a bad habit of passing through ANYBODY'S mirrors including the bathroom ones, acting like he's superior, and leaving lights on in rooms accidentally. His voice is quite smooth and pleasing on the ears but not actually that deep. His hands are average sized, thick fingers but smooth skin since he also used lotion. Likes to paint his nails, not just black but any color he feels like. Hot pink? Sure why not, fuck it. He likes the sparkly colors too. His favorite food is calamari.

Formaggio:

Formaggio grew up in Padua just like Illuso, with his father in the house. His mother on the other hand, was always out clubbing or partying. Unlike the others, his father was actually a pretty decent influence on him, teaching him the important things in life were the people around you. Because of his father's lessons, he cares for his team like brothers and is always trying to lighten the air by cracking a joke. He's 5'11 and has more freckles and sunspots than the rest since he used to be outside constantly as a child and teen. Has a bad habit of leaning one of his arms on everything next to him (including people), talking with his mouth full, and leaving beer cans everywhere. Doesn't have a preference for coffee or tea since he barely drinks either unless it's coffee in the morning sometimes. His voice is deep, lazy and slow, though its a bit rough when he laughs you could still probably fall asleep listening to him talk. Rough hands, calloused on the palms a bit, as well as a few burn scars on them. Secretly likes to watch soap operas and telenovelas, he'll tell you it's "lame and unmanly" but you'll still catch him crying on the couch eating a pint of ice cream because he was watching the series finale of Rosalinda. His favorite food is rigatoni specifically with red sauce.

no sorlato today guys 😔 but I will be writing theirs in the future, I hope you guys enjoyed this since it's my longest writing I've done yet!! Illuso and Formaggio have the same hometown because they were childhood buddies change my mind.