#(but because we got so much on him that he became pretty much my fave character and i'm a teeny tiny bit in el o ui i)

[theshadowsingersraven]

this nyxlin drama lowkey reminds me of the time a zutara artist was run off tumblr because they drew aged up katara/zuko romantically, but I think it was actually angry kataang’s or e/riel’s -because they also drew gwynriel and e/riel’s were jealous- who were stirring up shit 😭

That would honestly make a lot of sense for how/why I didn't see many posts from them or overall in the Nyxlin tag when I was catching up on what happened. Pretty much every person (notably largely Elriels) who supported Elain Week's censorship got an insta-block from me if they weren't already. And I'm sure a decent amount of people blocked me from my stance on Elaingate, Rhys Week, and Nyxlin Week.

And good! You should block me. Seriously. Art has the right to be celebrated and appreciated, especially in the circumstances designed to do that for a specific character and dynamic! Character appreciation and celebration will never look the same to everyone, and just because it's not what you enjoy doesn't mean it stops being appreciative or celebratory. If you can't grasp that, you don't deserve access to my art anyway. You certainly don't deserve to be in my space, that's for damn sure. Kindly, get out.

Honestly, it kind of makes sense considering the overlap of canon rigidity, purity culture, and morality policing of fiction coming from sides of the fandom that generally can't accept criticism about their faves, or even things that go against what they want for their faves. They are terrified of creativity that doesn't give them what they want and it shows. It's the most Evangelical-ass shit ever, and it's fucking weird.

Like...for all intents and purposes, Nyx is an OC in any works that feature him. And I'd know, because I wrote an adult Nyx for my ongoing ACOTAR D&D campaign set 20 years after ACOSF. So yes, Nyx is twenty in my timeline, because it's writing and I can do what I want lol. I have no basis to write Nyx off of other than Rhys and Feyre. Which means...I'm still doing my own character-building to only less than I would for a completely new OC.

Let's compare, shall we?

Writing my OC Solara's backstory: Writing her parents from scratch ✔️ Writing her early childhood ✔️ Writing her trauma ✔️ Writing her adolescence and relationships ✔️ Writing her interests and adventures as she became an adult✔️ Writing her dynamic with her love interest and how she interacts with Prythian as a whole ✔️

Now obviously these are all at minimum influenced by/will be derivative of aspects of ACOTAR because, y'know, transformative works. But still, I made her.

Writing Nyx's backstory and how he is as a twenty-year-old adult: Writing his parents from scratch ❌ Writing his early childhood ✔️ Writing any trauma he might have ✔️ Writing his adolescence and relationships ✔️ Writing his interests and adventures as he became an adult ✔️ Writing his dynamic (collaboratively) with his love interest and how he interacts with Prythian as a whole ✔️

And this is a version of Nyx that I made. Yes, it's still influenced by canon, but if I put in 90% of the same effort to write him as an adult as I did a complete OC, we can acknowledge they're functionally the same.

It's not that people look at Baby!Nyx and instantly think he's perfect to be shipped with someone and there's something to be gleaned from canon about him in particular. We know nothing about Nyx as an individual. That applies to any Nyx ship.

The appeal, at least in my experience, to Nyx ships, including Nyxlin, is the dynamics at play around Nyx, i.e., his role as an eventual leader and powerful figure in the Night Court, the dynamics that affect Rhys and Feyre also extending to him, how the rest of Prythian/Illyria might view the first offspring of High Fae, Illyrian, and Made parents. It's about his circumstances, not him as a character because he is not a "character yet", he just exists!

People are just creative enough to consider those long-term effects on who he could become and how that interplays with other characters. I don't mean to be cruel, but genuinely, have these people never created an OC before? Have they never shipped anything outside of canon? Have they never read any fics featuring time travel, for example, as a plot point to get characters in the same era at the same time when otherwise the ship would not be able to happen? Are they that unfamiliar with making circumstances outside of SJM's canon to allow things to happen for fun?

Genuinely, the lack of creativity for all of us being in this for reading and writing is concerning.

Even just saying this and advocating for Nyxlin's right to be celebrated as well as Tamlin as a whole pretty much puts me in the position of having to tag this as pro-Tamlin. And I wouldn't even describe myself as anything other than Pro-Azriel and probably Pro-Nesta and Pro-Elain because I don't really dislike any characters. I'm equally as critical to all of them and if their good parts just sort of cancel out the bad or are only a bit outweighing one or the other...I don't actively dislike them, I'm just neutral about them.

But this fandom is so fucking polarized because of the toxicity and the Us v.s. Them, Morality Policing culture that's been festering, people can't even neutrally address something. People are harassed so quickly just for not understanding or being familiar with something, and then in the other court people do the harassing because they don't understand or aren't familiar with something the other party likes/dislikes. If don't utterly despise Tamlin, it's somehow considered supportive enough to qualify as "pro" to antis.

Too many people in this fanbase create this parasocial-adjacent attachment to these characters like they're real and have real feelings/boundaries that need to be protected. They are not! Characters can't be hurt by anything happening outside the narrative. Just because you personally do not like something/don't find it appealing or even find it discomforting does not mean it's morally objectionable. It's just not for you, and understanding that experiencing content not made for you is not an attack on you is kind of a necessary life skill.

This rant ended up way longer than I expected it to be, but anyway...y'all stay safe out there.

[randomthefox]

The guy who made this tweet later said he was joking, but you wouldn't be able to tell since there are a lot of Sonic fans who say this stuff sincerely. They'll turn on a game within days of its release and say they "realized it sucks". So after playing it for a week and loving it, the controls suddenly became terrible? Either way, this "joke" pretty much confirms Sonic "fans" like shitting on Sonic games and making the franchise they claim to love look worse just for the hell of it. I don't know why, as a Sonic fan, you would want to make a game look bad, even though it's not. We all should how people on the internet treat Sonic. If you say a Sonic game is bad and don't clarify that you're joking, most will take your words at face value and just run with it.

There's also the problem of Sonic fans feeling the need to shit on one Sonic game to prop up their favorite. Whenever people compliment a Sonic game, it's never just "This game is awesome, it controls well, I love the story, etc". It's always "This game is awesome and way better than garbage like [insert Sonic game here]! Too bad Sega doesn't make stories and gameplay like this anymore."

I've seen Sonic Unleashed fans on Metacritic give Sonic Colors low scores simply because its story was more comedic and simplistic. Why do Sonic fans feel the need to make Sonic games look bad, especially Sonic Colors, a great game that critics generally liked? Putting down one Sonic game to make your fave look better isn't gonna draw people to the franchise, y'know?

Thank you for sending a screenshot off of anon, instead of sending a url to twitter under anon. Sincerely.

I'm sure the only reason he said he was joking was because he got blowback. He made the mistake of having an actual opinion instead of just following the herd off a cliff.

It's really just the inverse of the way everyone talks about Sonic Forces. People decided before the game even came out that Sonic Forces would be bad. And so after it came out that was the only acceptable opinion to have about it. People decided that Shadow Generations would be the best shit ever and a return to form for Sonic. So now after it's come out that is the only acceptable opinion to have about it.

People make up what their opinion about a Sonic game is before they even fucking play it. If they ever actually play it.

So when someone DOES actually bother playing it themselves, and they realize "hey this isn't like what everyone was saying it is like" they get mobbed and browbeaten into conformity. Which is annoying. I do not agree with unleash_yt's opinion, but it disgusts me that people basically punished him for expressing it and forced him into compliance with the accepted majority consensus.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone to get swept up in the hype train for a game, play it themselves, and realize "wait this actually blows ass." It happens all the time. Look at No Mans Sky. Look at Duke Nukem Forever. Look at Daikatana. It is a routine happenstance in the video game industry. And people really should learn by now to NOT get swept up in the hype machine. I was extremely critical of the hype machine around Shadow Generations for this very reason. I was saying at the time that Shadow Gens is just going to be a short little expansion pack for an existing Sonic game that was already short on its own, and while it would sustain ME a hyper Sonic fan, it would NOT sustain people who are more casual.

And. Like. I was right =P but because the majority consensus had already been decided about Shadow Generations before it came out, now nobody is allowed to deviate from it lest they suffer the retribution of Being An Individual. Like, I think his complaints are weird and dumb and wrong. The controls are just exactly the same as Sonic Frontiers. And the level design is no different from the level design of any other Boost era Sonic game. But he's allowed to just not like the game. At least in my book he's allowed. Obviously in the book of the Sonic """""fans""""" he's not allowed to have an independent opinion, he MUST conform to the majority consensus OR ELSE.

>There's also the problem of Sonic fans feeling the need to shit on one Sonic game to prop up their favorite. Whenever people compliment a Sonic game, it's never just "This game is awesome, it controls well, I love the story, etc". It's always "This game is awesome and way better than garbage like [insert Sonic game here]! Too bad Sega doesn't make stories and gameplay like this anymore."

Yeah I can't fucking stand that shit. You can't convince me your wife is beautiful by telling me how ugly every other woman at the bar is. At best it's just going to make me hate YOU, and at worst it's going to make me start thinking your wife is a bloated cow. Sonic fans have an EXTREMELY bad habit of this and it's completely idiotic because it can ONLY possibly appeal to people who already share that opinion. If the basis of your glazing up Sonic Unleashed is "SONIC FORCES SURE DOES SUCK ASS DOESN'T IT LOL" then only people who already like Sonic Unleashed and dislike Sonic Forces are going to agree with it. People who like Sonic Forces and don't like Sonic Unleashed are just going to be alienated. And people who think both games suck are just going to think you're a dumbass for thinking there's a difference when they're both the same garbage.

People need to go to the store and buy some fucking self esteem and figure out how to talk positively about the things they like entirely on their own merits without senselessly bringing up other pieces of media to compare them against for no reason.

[dira333]

Date Nights with Shinsou Hitoshi

Shinsou Hitoshi x reader

this is my new installment - Date Nights with the My Hero Academia Cast - It's going to appear irregularly and I've written about 4 of them already so if you feel like your fave deserves to go on a special kind of date, let me know.

Wanted to gift the first one to @alienaiver

Festivals with Shinsou

1.

He wouldn’t have dared to ask you out so soon if not for the summer festival.

You had mentioned how much you wanted to go but had no one to go with and he’d asked, sweating bullets, hornets rolling in his stomach, but he had asked.

And you had said yes.

He felt nauseated again, waiting in front of your apartment building.

Had the Yukata been the right choice? 

He’d always worn one when he went with his family as a child, but maybe you were more into street clothes?

He fiddled with the sleeves when the door opened and you appeared, the warm light from inside casting a halo around you.

His breath caught in his throat as he took you in.

You were wearing a white Yukata with purple accents the color of his hair.

“Hi.” You smiled at him as you walked over, “You look good.”

“You look good.” He said back, regretting it immediately. He sounded like a parrot.

“I mean you look beautiful. I like the color.”

“Right?” You spun around in a circle. “It’s so pretty I just had to get it. But yours is pretty as well.”

You looked up at him and his heart fluttered at the sight of your smile, your face so close to his. 

“It matches your eyes.”

The walk towards the festival was short and he enjoyed the warm evening air and the quiet of the streets. Your hands brushed against each other when you walked, a shiver running through him every time you touched.

The entrance to the festival was not hard to miss, with masses of people gathering there. The noise made him stop, wondering if he’d really been okay with that as a child or if this wasn’t normal at all.

“You okay?” You turned to look at him, sympathy in your eyes.

“Yeah, sure, I…” Your hand moved into his, cutting his stuttering short. 

“If it’s too much for you we can go back.” You pressed his hand and he pressed back.

“It’s fine. You just got to protect me.”

-

2.

It had become a ritual.

You’d outgrown the Yukata you’d worn to your first date long ago, but that did not matter.

Even at winter festivals you always found something to wear that would match his purple hair.

Today it was your jewelry, drops of purple glass dangling from your ears and your neck.

“How are you feeling?” He asked as he parked the car. “How’s the pain?”

“It’s about a two or a three. Manageable.”

“If it’s too much for you we can go back. Anytime. I’ll carry you to the car.”

You laughed and got out of the car.

“I’m fine. I rested the whole week for this. I’m not leaving without my Takoyaki.”

The noise was a lot, but he came prepared this time.

It had been Deku’s idea, of course. And he wasn’t the only one getting good use out of the tiny headphones that canceled out most of the noise but still allowed him to enjoy a conversation with you.

By now it should have been embarrassing too, that most of the street vendors knew them by name.

You got a Takoyaki for free, the little old woman making them now a good friend you made six years ago.

“You got to eat for two.” She says, patting your hand. 

Shinsou flushed a scarlet red while you laughed freely. 

“Oh, I’m not pregnant. But I’m still going to enjoy this Takoyaki.”

“Can we get some goldfish?” You asked, your hand warm in his. 

“Do you really want goldfish? We already have three cats.”

It was the same discussion at every festival. So far he had always won, mainly because you easily became distracted by something more favorable - the stuffed toys.

“Look how cute this one is!” You pointed at a stuffed version of Chargebolt. “Let’s win it. It’s the perfect present for their baby shower.”

He hesitated, pointing at a plus to the side.

“I don’t know, did you see that one?”

It was a stuffed Dynamight, only recognizable as such by the color scheme. Whoever had produced it had lacked the motivation to do a proper job. He had a lazy eye, his hair looked completely wrong and his gauntlets were sewn onto his feet.

Had Shinsou been alone, he’d ignored the plush or taken a picture for the group chat, but he knew you better.

“Oh no.” You breathed out in agony. “The poor thing. No one’s going to want it.”

There was the sorrow and then, just as predicted, the resolution.

“We’ve got to get it.”

“Already on it.”

Shinsou might not be the Number One Hero - he did not mind leaving that spot to Deku - but he knew he was your Number One Hero.

Especially today, when you got to leave the stand with two stuffed toys pressed into your arms, little Chargebolt and poor troubled Dynamight.

The smile on your face was worth all the trouble he’d gone through securing the prize.

And when they left the festival later, a couple yen lighter but with full bellies and two identical lollipops in the likeness of Ingenium - they did not get his hair color right, but who cared about that? - it felt reminiscent of their past as well as their future.

Their had been many dates like this before, too many to count.

There will be many dates like this in the future. Shinsou hoped it would be too many to count. 

My Kofi if you want to tip me

[gizkasparadise]

final leg of a journey to love thoughts!! (eps 35-40). this got so gd long so under a cut it goes. spoilers, of course:

PLOT STUFF/PACING

pacing for the plot definitely got shredded in the last chunk, which is a damn shame because otherwise i've been finding the pacing pretty much perfect. eps 35-37 in particular felt like they could have been like a 10 episode arc. ep 38, which mostly dealt with wu palace politics, should have been cut or streamlined imo and more time given to the characters we've actually been riding along with the whole story. by the time we get back to the pregnant empress, prince danyang, the first prince whose name i dont even remember, and the prime minister, i do not care about any of them and i think this subplot was simply just trying to fit too much shit into one bag

that said, this show still let the emotional moments hit and breathe and linger. i love the grief for the fallen liudao comrades as we go, as well as the less heavy but still emotionally important moments like yang ying and tongguan bonding over their upbringing. and we got a wedding /;3;/!!! for this show, the relationships and characters matter more than the storyline so im not mad about anything at all

side note: it's so gd millennial to have a story about a bunch of 30 something year olds who want to fake their deaths and retire into obscurity but instead they go and die for a boss they hate

CHARACTER STUFF

this show consistently brought a lot of depth to its side characters (and side side characters!!). i said it in an earlier post, but it bears repeating that even someone like deng hui i didnt expect anything from, but he got such good development and writing that he became a stealth fave. his dying words essentially being "dude, quit fucking around" ? iconic.

i didnt like tongguan as much as everyone else, so im pretty meh about everything regarding him. the attempt to force-wed ruyi was tonally really weird and didnt make sense (i assume there was some cuts made surrounding it). but LOL at him reusing all the outfits and decor immediately for his wedding to yang ying. baby duke, you tacky motherfucker. i ultimately think yang ying deserves better than him, but the good thing is that she knows this, so she'll be able to hold her own and then some entering into this partnership

shisan really was the heart in a lot of ways--the mom to yuanzhou's dad for the liudao. i was not expecting him to break my heart the way he did, but the fact that he held both qian zhao and sun lang as they died and then tried his best to remove yuan lu from harm and saved chu yue and was just very much a nurturer all the way through got me. his character couldve been cheap comic relief but the writing + performance really elevated him into one of the (imo) most memorable wuxia characters. his line wondering who would get to behead his beautiful skull!!! and how his mantra was always that he was going to drink the best wine, see the most beautiful women, and make the best of friends and he dies having lost the ability to see and having just had wine in memory of qian zhao, yuan lu, and sun lang. like. shut up!!

ruyi and yuanzhou were both so great and they're gonna be the drama OTP to beat forever. i loved the gender reversals, that they both were so respectful of each other, and that they also felt very mature in how they handled things and communicated. they were really interesting characters both together and apart and that's always a win-win. they had a schroedinger's ending where it's not super clear if they're alive or dead (i interpreted it as the latter), but what's kind of beautiful is that either option is satisfying to me. if they both died, they're reunited and with their comrades and the story is truly about the journey and the meaningful short connections we have. if they both survived, it's a bookend with the beginning where they each faked their deaths to escape. A+

COSTUMING

i gotta just separately mention the costuming for this show because it was 15/10. the textures, shisan's accessories, the way red became integrated with yuanzhou's wardrobe and blue with ruyi's. the details on the liudao name amulets!! SO GOOD. i love when characters' clothes tell a story on their own

overall i just really loved this drama it is probably my favorite wuxia ive seen so far! it's gonna be in my brain for awhile lol feel free to send fic prompts if you've made it this far :'D

[beautifulpersonpeach]

For the Anon who sent me a personal ask on how they became a Jimin bias, you asked me not to post it so I won’t, but much of what you said I relate to a lot, for the rapline especially. That’s the problem. I’m barely keeping it together with just three of them. Adding Jimin to the mix will completely ruin me.

I know it.

Y’all don’t know me in real life so it might sound like I’m exaggerating lol, but I’ve watched all seven members in BTS since debut. The opinions I have of every member today hasn’t changed that dramatically from my initial impressions of them. The things I love about Jungkook, Taehyung, SeokJin, Jimin, and the rapline, haven’t changed much for me. It’s just intensified. Meaning that the longer I’ve watched Jimin, the more I’ve felt the need to, sort of, make space for him. Because he’s just so…. he’s too much. When he’s cute, he’s *too* cute. Jimin is too hot, too intense, too kind, too pretty, too masculine, too feminine, when his voice goes high it’s *too* high, when it’s gritty it’s *too* gritty, too metallic, too everything. Jimin is too much. He demands a lot. He’s just like Yoongi in that way. Hoseok kinda just walks in and takes what is his. Namjoon kinda just stands there and those who belong to him find themselves crawling to him.

Jimin demands the world stop spinning, he forces space-time to freeze in place while he commands your full attention.

Jimin has always been… Jimin. It’s hard to explain. I know there’s this view that most of the fandom hates him, but hard as this might be to believe, I’m convinced it’s actually the opposite. Everybody sees him. And most people love him. He just inspires a particular kind of insanity in a lot of people, unfortunately including some very unstable and abusive people, and because he and the rest of the maknaeline happen to have the most biased fans, the rest of the fandom has to lock those parts of the fandom out the main spaces, and try to control for it. Very Imperfectly.

Anyway.

You also asked for my fave pics of my biases but y’all should know I never post those lmaoooo.

Here’s a few random ones for you though.

*

*

(My friends always said JK would be the first to bias wreck me, and there’s still potential for this, but I have to be honest that Jimin got here first)

*

*

And stretching with Hobi :)

*

I miss SeokJin so here’s one for him too:

*

Taehyung meanwhile, has yet again fallen my hand, as we say back home. Godspeed to the ARMYs saying they’ll educate him because he’s really too pretty and too old to be acting a fool on live. Bada Lee might not know better (doubtful) but he really has no excuse.

My honest reaction:

*

Anyhoo, thanks for that write-in Anon. I love that you’re in such a happy place in fandom now, you’ve found a way to balance your love for your bias with your love for the other members, and also managed to find a pocket in fandom filled with people who share your values. Thanks for everything else you said about my blog too. Maybe one day my tune on the rapline and Jimin will change (lol), but today’s not that day. 💜

[temnurus]

Recent Wangxian Faves

It's been a while since I compiled a general rec list, & I've read a metric ton of fics already this year. Here are ten of my more recently read favorites, some of which I've even read twice already because they were just that good! Y'all know the drill with me and smutty fics, so I hope no one is surprised when all of these are rated Explicit, haha. Sex isn't the theme of all of them, certainly, but it is present in all of them to some degree. Please note that these are listed in no particular order. Now, without further ado, onto the recs!

heart notes by spookykingdomstarlight (E, 92,632)

Thoughts: This fic had the most unique jobs for them that I think I’ve seen yet, & it was wild how well suited they turned out to be. Lan Zhan as a perfumer is one of my new favorite things that I never knew I needed, but here we are. The regret hung so heavy throughout most of this fic, & my heart ached for both of them. As hard as I typically find break up & make up fics to read, this one was 100% worth the angst. The love that went into writing it was so obvious, & it was just beautiful. I reveled in Lan Zhan being a master of his craft, & Wei Ying wanting so badly to help him when he was in trouble & ultimately became his champion when he so desperately needed one brought me to tears. Read this. Plainly put, it’s a masterpiece, & I loved it so much.

as the sun will rise by vespertineflora (E, 125,858)

Thoughts: This fic rocketed into my top five the instant I finished it. Probably even before that, to be completely honest. I love Beauty & the Beast AUs, which this was even though the author just used the Fairy Tale AU tag instead of being more specific. There aren’t really tentacles, but it was fair to include the tags for comparison because the vines work the same way, basically. Well, minus ejaculation. The only one doing that until near the end of the fic is Wei Ying, not that anyone’s complaining, haha.

Do mind the tags because this did get a bit emotionally heavy, particularly if you’re sensitive to Major Character Injury. I thoroughly enjoyed Wei Ying & Lhan Zhan’s characterizations & their dynamic. The writing was superb, & there was an engaging & interesting plot besides the titillating monster-fucking going on. I’ve pretty much read this twice already, & I have zero doubts there are many more rereads in my future. I sincerely urge anyone to give this one a try. It was so, so good!

you'll always know me by anaphoricae (E, 127,006)

Thoughts: Oh, this was so, so good. I’m a delicate flower who wilts during break up & make up fics, & this one was no exception to that rule. It was so gorgeous though. We got glimpses into their past throughout the nonlinear narrative & got to see each of their points of view at different parts of the story. I was particularly enamoured of Lan Zhan’s side of things, but that isn’t too surprising at this point because his pining for Wei Ying is always so relateable to me, ha.

And on that note, his pain was excruciating & deeply felt during the parts that covered their separation. I cried more than once as a result. The awkwardness & tension of their reunion quickly gave way to the magnetic pull between them, & I was practically glued to my seat until I finished this fic. The feelings were all so intense, & I loved every minute of it. Highly, highly recommend it.

Cloud Nine by mssdare (E, 80,064)

Thoughts: I loveloveloved this! I’d seen Wei Ying as a YouTuber before but not Lan Zhan, so it was a very neat thing to see him doing. I didn’t think it would suit him at first, but the author made it work perfectly. The tags were heavy, but the fic was mostly about the aftermath of Wei Ying’s mental breakdown when he came out of treatment & was trying to adjust to life in the real world again. I felt for him so strongly in this, & I appreciated the author’s respectful but unvarnished depiction of living with mental illness, including the often difficult time one can have dealing with the side effects of medication.

All the people who cared about Wei Ying touched my heart in this fic, but of course Lan Zhan was his number one. Lan Zhan’s ASMR videos being so comforting to Wei Ying during his recovery made me want to cry, & the slow burn of their developing relationship was really beautiful, not to mention satisfying. It did of course earn the angst with a happy ending tag, but there wasn’t nearly as much angst as one might expect with the subjects the fic touched on, just in case that’s comforting for anyone.

With No Particular Affection by Chrononautical (E, 92,397)

Thoughts: I love me a good arranged marriage fic, & this one was particularly good for a modern day AU. The idea that Wei Ying must marry Lan Zhan in order to save his family’s business is admittedly a flimsy excuse, but who are we to complain when it gives us stories like this? I’m certainly not going to, haha. The misunderstanding in this one was agonizing due to an overheard conversation, & I literally wanted to cry whenever the title phrase popped up in the fic.

However, the author balanced it with adorable interactions between Wei Ying, A’Yuan, & Lan Zhan, particularly all the fantastic fluffy domesticity after their nuptials. It was definitely a bumpy road on their way to happiness, including some corporate espionage! This fic had a little bit of everything, & I enjoyed everything it had to give us, including a very satisfying (and happy!) ending.

Comfortable Silence by WritersBlock823 (E, 65,072)

Thoughts: Oh, this was such a satisfying read. It’s now easily one of my favorite college/university AUs. I loved the randomness of their first encounter & how it led to them becoming roommates. The angst surrounding Lan Zhan being deaf & how that affected his interpersonal relationships was handled with care & respect by the author, & Wei Ying respecting Lan Zhan’s autonomy & his thoughtfulness when it came to communication between them made me cry a couple times. They both had painful memories to work through, & those moments could be brutal & emotionally exhausting but in a cathartic way, at least in my opinion. The smut was super hot, & I was thrilled with their happy ending. They totally deserved it, but then they always do.

i'm the one for your fire by occultings (E, 42,931)

Thoughts: What can I say? This is yet another gem by occultings. It motivated me to watch the source material for the AU before I allowed myself to read the fic, & I’m so very glad I did. I would’ve enjoyed it without the context, but it undoubtedly let me enjoy the fic just that much more. The concept alone was enough to have me laughing, but the fic delivered on it even more. Lan Zhan’s thoughts were so compelling, particularly the dirty ones, but then again, I’m a huge pervert, so don’t mind me, haha. This fic was sexy & sweet & had a little bit of everything. I highly recommend it, as well as the BL drama/manga that inspired it.

Hanlong by Alexandra_Kreuz & micratus (E, 282,550)

Thoughts: This fic blew my fucking socks off. It was absolutely phenomenal. One of the best Modern Cultivation AUs I’ve read, & that’s saying something because there are some big contenders in that category. I found it very original while still having perfect characterization for all my favorite people. It even convinced me that Wen Ning & Xue Yang was a viable ship! (At least in a modern AU where XY isn’t the absolute worst, heh).

The slow burn was real, but it was so fun seeing everyone come together for the different lecture series held in rotating sect territories each year during their teens. The plot was superb, being both action packed, angsty as fuck, & full of the best romance on a low simmer until it finally flares into full on yearning in adulthood. I loved every single minute, & I very much hope you will, too.

backfire by spookykingdomstarlight (E, 115,570)

Thoughts: Please, please, please mind the tags. If any of them are triggers or squicks for you, I’d advise against this one. That said, I 100% loved it. No notes. The angst was heavy for sure, but the author’s notes clarified anything scary, & the major ouches were mostly off screen &/or not graphic.

Lan Zhan & Mo Xuanyu’s relationship was agonizing for me to read, but it was so obvious that Lan Zhan had been in love with Wei Ying all along (to everyone but Wei Ying, of course). I was glad Mo Xuanyu didn’t consider Lan Zhan’s feelings as infidelity even though Lan Zhan himself struggled with guilt over it. The author included the tag as a courtesy but clarified this in the author’s note. I can’t abide cheating, so I was grateful for it.

The slow burn was real, & I was mad with impatience by the time it actually got to any BDSM between Lan Zhan & Wei Ying. It was totally worth the wait, though. People who haven’t experienced spooky’s writing might be surprised by the depth of emotion in this work when it’s set in a world where BDSM roles are a biological trait, but I promise you this is a feature in ALL of their fics. They’re just saturated with feelings & absolutely gorgeously written. They’re my favorite Wangxian author for a reason, ha.

Caught in 4k series by KizuKatana (E, 184, 553)

Thoughts: This was brilliant & brutal at the same time. The sheer unfairness of the events surrounding Wei Ying’s expulsion from the Jiang sect was appalling. Yu Ziyuan was definitely villainized here, but it made sense & worked for the plot. It made me hate her even more than usual, but that was sort of the point, ha. Wen Qing was the real MVP with the way she went to bat for Wei Ying & basically adopted him into her family. It happened so naturally that no one even had time to question it or think about it too much. I loved his found family, as I always do.

Wei Ying & Lan Zhan butting heads so disastrously at first was rather dismaying after everything else Wei Ying had been through, but the way Lan Zhan fell for him so hard & so completely (as he tends to do, lol) more than made up for it. The social media aspects of this were both engaging & fun. I even enjoyed the extras, & sometimes I don’t bother reading those after a long fic if they don’t hook my interest with the summaries. I can’t recommend this highly enough. This author has quickly become one of my favorites.

[epickiya722]

While I won’t deny that there is some misogyny in Hori giving Mirko and his other female characters costumes that expose more skin (mainly for fan service) whereas male characters get costumes made from their dna so they don’t have to be half naked, people hating on Mirko BECAUSE of her costume is so laughable since her leotard is meant to look like the one-piece bodysuits wrestlers wear and her hero alias was even inspired by a real life wrestler

It is very damn laughable.

At most, the female characters do expose skin.

But the male characters also service fanservice, if not more. It's just that people are so use to male characters going shirtless during fights, I feel like it just flies over their head that some of those moments are fanservice.

Need a whole board to count the amount of time Midoriya and other male characters went shirtless. That one shot of Todoroki after he almost killed Midoriya after their match? Yeah, the way it's shot, even in the anime, that's fanservice. The costumes are tight, and there are scenes to showcase how tight to give emphasis on the muscles. Crust's costume exposes his abs and thighs and Vlad King's got a whole cleavage window.

That AFO scene when he regenerates his body and he's all buff and nude? That was fanservice.

That scene when Mr. Compress shows his face? Fanservice. Shigaraki and Dabi have became walking moments of fanservices.

What reason does Shigaraki actually need to be shirtless?? After season 5, he can't keep a shirt on. Dabi? "It's to show his scars." Oh, that, too! But it's obvious the team caught on that he has fans that want to lick him. Hence, his recent costume change.

If people gotta talk about the fanservice over Miruko, then bring the same energy for the male characters and the female characters more. That's what bothers me.

Miruko is designed to reference an actual kickboxer. Mirko Cro Cop is a real person (even referenced in the first chapter of JJK which tickles me because it was for Itadori, who is my other favorite. Yeah, Horikoshi and Gege read other's stories and are friends). If the wrestling gimmick wasn't clear enough, her backstory has her wear a mask like a wrestler does and she fights others... in a wrestling ring!! She fights like a wrestler!

So her costume actually makes a lot of sense! Both in the case of her fighting style and aesthetic.

Yes, some of the designs for the female characters could be a little better, but it's the amount of energy people want to bring to voicing their hatred about Miruko's actual pretty tame costume to everyone else. She ain't the only damn body in the story serving fanservice, so stop acting like she is.

And considering that Miruko is also a grown woman is always what make me even more confused.

In the case of Yaomomo and Hagakure, it makes sense people would be uncomfortable. They are still teenagers, just 16. I'm sure we all are tired of the teen girls being half nude for fanservice trope.

But Miruko? That woman is almost 30. I would expect for people to thirst over her just as much as they do the other characters. Grown women are allowed to be sexy.

Oh, my bad. Apparently not. I forgot how people get upset with women who are confident in their sexual appeal and want to show it off.

The same people who complain about Miruko being sexy are the same people who probably read smut posts about Bakugou.

The way the fandom acts towards Miruko is the point of my post from yesterday.

Y'all hate her costume, but don't mind it on your character for your obvious horny reasons. A lot of the fics and art was horny.

Call Horikoshi a "misogynist", but some of you ain't even no better because of your treatment of Miruko. If you're gonna complain about her costume being "too much", then I need to see that for almost every single body on that same post. People like to say "You're just horny for her", well, what's the problem? Same people who complain that Miruko fans find her attractive are the same people who find their own faves attractive and only that. Some of you probably can't remember your fave's favorite food or their birthday. So I'm trying see what's the problem.

"Oh, here's another Miruko butt shot."

That's the only butt shot you noticed? Hm... kind of odd to be specific about a Miruko butt shot instead of "Oh, here's another butt shot". Is it just me who smells the absolute bullshit that this fandom is sometimes? Just me? Could be just me.

And it's not even just the costume that bothers me.

[lynzishell]

✨23 Faves of 2023✨

I've been tagged on a few different versions of this throughout the month. For mine, I've decided to take 23 moments from my story and share them in chorological order. 💖TYSM for tagging me @hannahssimblr, @jarakio, @rebouks, @theosconfessions, @bloomingkyras, @igotsnothing 💖 I'm sorry if I missed anyone... I'm usually better at keeping note of who tagged me but I dropped the ball on this one and had to search through my mentions lol!

Alright... let's dive in shall we?

✨First up: Looooook at baby Phoenix 🥹 hehe! This was the first time he visited Mt Komorebi and the first time he saw snow... sparking his love affair with both. If you listen carefully, you can hear Wolfgang yelling in the distance, "Yo Penis!" (I miss that nickname. Special thanks to Becca for never letting it die 😅)

✨Ahhh The Bluffs -- I think this is my favorite lot in game, and look how stunning it is at sunset! This is from Phoenix's 18th birthday... aka that fateful night when [redacted] was [redacted]

✨Just me being obsessed with San Myshuno... particularly the Spice District. This is from Phoenix and Dawn's movie night... back when they were still just friends/co-workers.

✨Eeee this moment still gives me all the feels! When these two finally crossed the line from friends to lovers.

✨This one doesn't need a caption... just look at them... and the vibrant colors... 😍

✨The moment they became official

✨Falling in looooooove

✨I don't know why, but this is actually my favorite pic of them

✨Greta returns...lol! It was actually unintentional how well these two match the environment, but it made taking screenies so fun!

✨My second favorite pic of these two... *sigh* just look at them

✨Enter my Asher obsession... I can't tell you how happy I was when I found this pose because this is exactly how I envisioned him entering the room... against the door frame all leaned over and relaxed... even the way his feet are crossed and his left arm just hangs... it's just sooo HIM.

✨I mean... ahhh! I love him! and Lex too lol... we don't see much of her in my story, but these two have been BFFs since middle school. She's super sweet and funny.

✨Atlas and Asher, my loves. There's so much in this scene for me... I had such a clear picture of it in my mind looong before I created it in sims, and I was pretty happy with how it came out. And the song I used was very purposeful (even if I never state why lol) This moment here was actually quite self-indulgent if I'm honest.

✨Yep, still obsessed with these two lol! I just love this shot... the colors and the way they're holding each other. This is actually the desktop background on my laptop lmao

✨I had soooo much fun making this post!! Omg this song is so fkin good! I'll probably reblog this post on New Year's just for funzies 😊

✨Back to Phoenix and Dawn as they prepare to move in together... Had to get a shot of the fountain before saying goodbye to the Spice District

✨Ahaa and here we are.. beginning the journey up Mt Komorebi! I think this little bridge is my favorite spot along the way. It's really cool, and I got lots of great screenies from all angles. I really like this one.

✨Love how this shot came out! We all know this moment, yeah? Right before Dawn [redacted]

✨Yay! Celebrating the fact they made it to the summit... enjoy you two, you earned it!

✨Me carefully side-stepping the sad posts... love this moment of the two of them reconnecting... with the water and the city in the background... I just think it's nice.

✨Relaxing in their favorite summer spot... I love all the blues

✨I really like this shot from Kiyoshi and Kaori's wedding, with only their ceremony in the distance in focus, and the vibrant colors.

✨This seemed like a nice one to end on. I love the snow falling out the window, and the way Dawn is lit up by the candles. And I know there are mods to get rid of the z's when they sleep, but tbh, I kinda think they're adorable lol

Thank you to anyone who took the time to go on this little journey with me! If you made it to the end, please help yourself to a cookie 🍪 and know that I adore you!

My story will return on Jan 1st yay!! 🎉

I'm not going to tag anyone because a post like this doesn't need a tag! If you haven't done this yet, PLEASE do! Revisit your work from the year and share your favorites with us! Let's all go into 2024 feeling excited and inspired 💖

[cuntycassandra]

Okay so I fucked up with the original post as it wouldn’t let me edit it from drafts after putting a video in there, so I had to start from scratch. So this was the ask, thank you @practically-an-x-man !

Oh wow this is quite a lot to get through! Alrighty let's get going.

Alexander Summers:

First impression:

l'm just going to talk about movie Alex, because I have other thoughts on comic Alex. I knew Lucas Till from other things like Hannah Montana and the YBWM music video, and also because after the drama with Ezra Miller everyone wanted LT to play the new movie flash, so I remember recognising this face when I first watched FC and thinking "oh yeah he's cute", and I liked his whole broody demeanour, but like, that was it. He became an honorary fave just because I knew he was around the mansion when Peter would've been young, so he was in a lot of the 'Cherik raise Peter' fics.

Impression now:

Jamie will tell you that I always develop a love for the more 'obscure’ characters in media, the smaller amount of screen time, the more likely I am to become obsessed. And so when I went back to rewatch the movies I was just pulled in when it came to Alex. I thought he was so interesting with soooo much potential, his dark but almost juvenile demeanour was like a hook, and I loooove his relationship with Charles. It's also amazing to get to experience a movie you love with a new found appreciation for a certain character because you notice so many new things. Every acting choice LT made for this role l've picked up on now, not to sound dramatic but every little detail helps fuel how I see Alex as a character/person, which is someone with so much complexity and depth.

Favourite moment:

Pretty much all of his scenes in Apocalypse, except his death. Even though I prefer FC, I love seeing how much he's grown and how much he's improved just in general. It's so lovely. But also this one specific deleted scene from FC that gives me all the feels,

Idea for a story:

I have a lot of ideas for Alex in the works, they're mainly on hold just because I went to uni this past September so l've been taking a fanfiction writing/reading break. My current main fic that l'm working on (that Jamie will be happy about), is Alex meeting and bonding with six/seven year old Scott after Vietnam. You'll know because you've read my fic but I picture Alex's relationship to be very strained with his parents, but he's making an effort because he's like, 89% sure Scott's going to be a mutant and he doesn't want him to have to deal with the same reactions he got all by himself.

I also have ideas around an OC of mine but I don't tend to talk about my OCs very much.

Unpopular opinion:

Hmm. The Alex fandom is very small so I don't think there are many 'unpopular' opinions. If we circle back to comic Alex, l'm not really a big fan of any of his romantic relationships. I like the characters respectively, I just don't tend to like them together.

Also I just prefer Alex to Scott, which isn't unpopular but it'll piss Jamie juice off :)

Favourite relationship:

Love love love looooove his platonic mentor-student relationship with Charles.

Favourite Headcanon:

Love the idea of Alex picking up on Charles’ British slang while living at the mansion between FC and DoFP. He wouldn’t say them in a British accent, but he’d say things like jacket potato, not baked potato (the second chapter of that fic will be dropping soon), and football instead of soccer, and I feel like Charles would really appreciate it because it would be something Raven used to do. Although I see her doing it in more of a teasing way compared to Alex, Alex is just adapting to his surroundings.

Hank McCoy:

First impression:

I remember quite liking Hank when I first watched FC, I don’t think I had a huge opinion on him but I did enjoy his presence. I liked his bashful relationship with Raven and I think Nicholas Hoult played the character well. He was like in between Alex and then Cherik and Peter for me, I cared about his presence because he was often involved with my top three, but he wasn’t obscure enough for me to develop a proper obsession with.

Impression now:

Kind of the same to be honest, if anything I think I may have gone off him a little bit. Not because of anything huge, but the way he is with Raven in that one scene in FC irks me a little. I do understand his reasoning, as someone with a physical ‘deformity’, I’d do anything to fix it, but I’m also like dude don’t tell this girl she’s not naturally gorgeous-. But overall I do still like him, and I did like his ending in DP too. (Even though I don’t like DP.)

Favourite moment:

Either when he and Logan are fighting in the foyer in DoFP or just his involvement with the montage in FC. Him being like “am I still a bozo?” to Alex, like bro what do you think the obnoxious little blond is gonna say-.

Idea for a story:

I like the idea of potentially writing a small oneshot about Alex and Hank having a conversation, maybe just before Alex leaves for Vietnam. I feel like it’s the only time they’d ever have a vulnerably emotional moment together. Alex wouldn’t admit to Charles he’s worried about going, and Hank would’ve picked up on enough of Alex’s social behaviours to realise it.

Unpopular opinion:

Not sure if this is unpopular but I don’t really ship him endgame with Raven. I ship them as a midgame, but if she had lived in the new timeline I don’t think they would’ve lasted, I think they’re a classic case of right person, wrong time. They were at totally different stages of life.

Favourite relationship:

Love his annoying brotherly relationship with Alex, and his mentor relationship with Charles.

Favourite headcanon:

Sean was the one who got Hank to smoke his first joint, and Hank was so concerned about what it would do to his brain/mutation that he caved and told Charles, as if they aren’t all adults who can make their own informed decisions. I don’t like reducing characters to a caricature, but the idea of Hank shyly telling Charles he’s stoned and has some minor concerns is so funny to me.

Patricia Thornton:

First impression:

In typical Summer fashion, Thornton wasn’t a favourite when I started MacGyver, that was solely Mac and Jack. I just thought she was pretty and badass, and I really enjoyed her banter with Jack. That was kind of all I thought on her.

Impression now:

I. Love. Her. Literally she is such an icon. I came to appreciate her pretty quickly because I binged a lot of MacGyver while I was recovering from my hip surgery, and then when I found out about the traitor storyline I was devastated. I love her snark, her facial expressions, how much of an amazing spy she actually was? I still love her relationship with Jack but I’ve also come to appreciate how she was with Mac and Riley. She wasn’t a helicopter boss/parent, but it’s so clear that beneath the sternness and consistent annoyance, she loved those brats so much.

Favourite moment:

During the Christmas episode, at the end, she’s talking to Mac by the Christmas tree and it’s a clear moment of how she wasn’t just the boss of this team, she was also a friend. She kisses Jack’s cheek, she lets Bozer touch her, she and Mac talk about Christmas gifts, I love it. (I also love her in the fourth episode of season one where she’s beating the shit out of people.

Idea for a story:

I want to write more of her and Mac, I like the idea of her going to see him in the hospital after the incident in S1E1, but he’s at a generic hospital in Italy, and when she and Jack arrive the doctors are like “are you guys family to the patient? 🤔” and they’re like “uh…”. And Jack is like “oh yeah, we’re his aunt and uncle, this is my wife” on a whim and Thornton looks at him like she’s going to take off her shoe and shove the heel up his nose.

Unpopular opinion:

She’s better than Matty. That’s ragingly unpopular but to me she just is, I prefer her dynamic with everyone compared Matty’s character to dynamic with them. And there’s no problem with Matty, I just haven’t warmed to her, like at all. I don’t find banter in her sternness, whereas with Thornton it was more of an exasperation.

Favourite relationship:

I love all of her relationships with the main team, Mac’s is probably my favourite, but I do love how she is with Riley, and Bozer. They’re like her exhausting children and she’s just DONE. And of course her love-hate relationship with Jack is top notch.

Favourite headcanon:

I’ve never talked about this before but I have this deep rooted lore idea that Thornton had a lung transplant as a child. There’s even more lore behind why but I won’t bore you with that, but anyways I have this hc that while on a mission with Jack when they’re first working together, he finds her immunosuppressants in her backpack, and because she hasn’t declared them to anyone on the team, except Oversight ofc, as nobody knows about her lungs, Jack’s first thought is “…she’s dealing drugs.” And confronts her about it, and she’s just like “😒”.

After that, only Jack knows about it, and I like to think that while she’s in prison, he goes to see her and even though he’s mad because he thinks she’s a traitor, he’s still like “they’re giving you your pills for your lungs right?”

Warren Worthington III:

First impression:

I don’t really remember my first impression of Warren. I remember in TLS, when we see him trying to cut out his wings, my first thought was “WOAH IM UNCOMFY”, but overall I think for me he was just sort of…there?

Impression now:

I like him a lot more in TLS than I do in Apocalypse, in Apocalypse I find him a bit obnoxious, but I like the complexities of his situation in TLS, as much as I don’t like the movie itself. I think it’s really interesting to see his development throughout that movie considering he has such little screen time.

Favourite moment:

I do actually quite like the scene where he flies away from his father before he’s forced to have the mutation cure. Very powerful and I think the actor did a nice job.

Idea for a story:

I don’t have one off the top of my head but I like the idea of something to do with he and Alex talking, for my universe they both have somewhat ‘unsupportive’ parents, so that could be an interesting exploration.

Unpopular opinion:

I can’t say I have one because I don’t know the character well enough. Maybe that he kind of annoyed me in Apocalypse? Like I get why he was the way he was, I just didn’t feel emotionally connected to him. I wish they could’ve fleshed it out a little bit more.

Favourite relationship:

I have no idea.

Favourite headcanon:

Again, not really any idea cause I don’t know enough about him, but I’d love to hear a few of yours sometime.

[cursedvibes]

I agree with everything in your post about Megumi, I really wish Gege would remember to show more about the characters and what they're feeling. I don't even expect much because something shifted in his storytelling and he's been focusing on fights (and that weird love storyline because why do we have more insight on secondary characters rather than the main characters?) but a page here and there would go a long way. As a Megumi fan the fandom has been a blessing with everyone sharing their speculations or headcanons so it does hurt a lot but for anyone just reading the manga that doesn't really pick up the characterization crumbs Gege drops once every blue moon I really do wonder how much they empathize with the characters...

That Shibuya Yuuji scene still haunts me so we know he can write good emotional and impactful scenes ;;

You can definitely tell that Gege wants to wrap things up, but I think overall, there isn't really an overly big focus on fights compared to how earlier in the story or that we're lacking character moments. Shibuya was all fights and it makes sense that the Culling Game and final fight in Shinjuku would be like that too. We still always get a break though to not make things too monotonous. Like the Perfect Preparation arc, the beginning and end of different colonies, Kenjaku's whole plan with the international military and setting free of curses, Hana's & Angel's introduction and then the meetings to discuss the Culling Game before Megumi got possessed. It can get very exhausting on a weekly basis (with additional breaks), I definitely feel it with Sukuna's fight in Shinjuku at the moment, but looking back on it, Gege always makes sure to include a couple of chapters for characters to discuss plans, bring in more world building, reflect on what happened or just give backstory etc. Even with the final fight in Shinjuku we have Kenjaku vs Takaba as a break between two major confrontations. I guess you could call their meeting and comedy show a fight but only in a very abstract sense. It is a much needed break from the pretty formulaic fight Sukuna has going on, where he's essentially just standing around and waiting for people to jump him.

Similar with character moments. Megumi and Tsumiki definitely got the short end here. We saw Megumi kill for the first time and worry a bit about Tsumiki, but after the fight against Reggie, he didn't really get much focus or development and then he just became a sad damsel in distress for Yuuji to save. I'm sure we will find out more about his changed mental state in the following chapters, but there was very much a lack of groundwork beforehand besides "what Sukuna does makes him sad/suicidal". I mean, I would've guessed that anyway.

I don't think that's a general problem though, which makes Megumi's situation and Tsumiki's relegation to being just a cardboard cutout for Megumi to project his issues onto with no depth to her own character all the more frustrating. For example, the Culling Game was what made me care about Noritoshi and even put him in my top 10 faves. He was pretty forgettable for me beforehand. Maki also had a major focus on her with her own arc and character development both in Perfect Preparation and the Sakurajima colony. The Baka Survivor mini-arc did massive improvement for Takaba and Kenjaku's characters (killing Kenjaku was a ludicrous decision, but that's it's own issue, they definitely got some much needed character development). Same for Kashimo for example and by extension Sukuna. We learned more about Sukuna's philosophy and how hollow it really is, plus he has shown the first signs of reflection about his world view. Megumi's possession has kickstarted a big change in Yuuji's character too. He's become much more forward and self-sufficient, now even being the one to formulate and lead the plans to save Megumi. His first fight against Sukuna was also a big character moment (still kind of missing that energy in the current fight).

So I think generally we don't really have a problem with not knowing what certain characters, even main characters, are feeling or them not having enough focus. The only ones where I noticed this is Megumi and Gojo. With Gojo, Gege seems to have switched to Basic Shonen Battle Autopilot and giving us essentially no character focus in Gojo vs Sukuna besides Gojo's death scene. There was barely any focus on Gojo and his changed mindset (or not, not even that we can say with certainty due to how he was written) before or after his big fight. I assume it had to do with Gege not knowing what to do with him and just somehow wanting him out of the way, but I don't know what's up with Megumi.

I think the characterization crumbs we did get for Megumi aren't that hard to pick up on, but they're just that: crumbs. When they don't have to be. The glimpses we see of him do look very depressing and you can feel for his situation, but it requires a lot of heavy lifting done on the side of the reader, when you could've just shone his reaction during the Yorozu fight and things would look less like a one-dimensional "Princess locked in ivory tower waiting for rescue" type of situation. Megumi's predicament has given Yuuji a lot of development and I really like that, it's honestly what I care about most, how this affects Yuuji, but especially with the big moment we just got the lack of preparation for that from Megumi's side becomes pretty obvious.

[lingeringscars]

top 5 yj pairings or top 5 canon characters 👀

top 5 yj pairings is becoming ships because @itchose is evil and made me choose dynamics so see here for that.

shauna/tai. they have an intimacy that will never be recreated by anyone ever. they understand each other better than anyone. betrayals by the other feel personal even if they aren't totally. they love each other, they hate each other, they can't live without each other. they're in love and they are not. they're everything.

mari/akilah. they've been gfs from the start. they went from not really knowing each other to clinging to each other. akilah becoming the most important person to mari, the one she can be the most vulnerable around, the one that she trusts the most. mari letting akilah cheat at choosing cards (and akilah deciding against it) because she's her person.

tai/van. they fascinate me sooo much. a casual hookup turned serious that could never be maintained once they leave the wilderness. the conflict in their views and the way tai shoots her down and van learns to speak up. the love that is this common thread between them even when that happens.

lottie/laura lee. laura lee as the only person to actually talk to lottie and make her feel heard and validated. no one in her life has ever done that, and in the wilderness she's probably overheard people talking about how weird she is acting and how she lost it and she's gone crazy, which isn't great when looking at her dad! but laura lee supported her and trusted her and had this long-lasting forever kind of impact on her.

shauna/nat. who am i if i don't force them to be included. they are real to me. they meet in person for the first time and it reeks of jealousy and love gone bad. i am entirely convinced they had an affair idc. they talk shit about each other. they love each other. shauna is jealous of nat, shauna loves nat, nat loves shauna. they cry over each other. shauna nurses nat back to warmth. nat begs and begs for people to help shauna. the hunter & the butcher. they are everything. i love reminding people that when nat picked the queen card we see shauna's reaction <3 it's not just because of what comes next <3 she's second because she's second to travis in this essay i---- they are real to me <3

bonus: shaunajackie. they compel me. they live in my mind. they're in love with each other. they're part of each other. the only reason they were bumped from this list is because they would never act on any of it. also honorable mentions go to: gen/melissa, jackie/nat, & lottie/nat. i also feel like i need to put travis/nat here because they are so deeply connected and influence each other in everything.

i immediately thought this was top 5 yj canon chars and then realized it could be 5 canon in general so you're getting both dohgs

yj:

mari

nat

tai

van

shauna

bonus: akilah, travis

canon in general:

christian ozera (vampire academy). tiffany told me to read this series and thought i'd attach to other people and then i came away with him and have been with him for 9 years now. he's my number 1 forever, really. snarky, lonely, caring, pushy, loyal love of mine.

bellamy blake (the 100). another long timer. been writing him since the season 2 finale in 2015. i've been with him through the trenches. he is a part of me at this point

layla keating (all american). i added her during or at the end of season 2 or maybe at the end of s1 it's hard to remember now and it was mostly for olivia/layla w/ cj reasons but the more we got of her, the quicker she became an actual and instant fave. her depression arc(s) is one of my favorites of all time, and it's handled really well imo. she's so complex and layered and fascinating, and i will defend and love her forever

spencer hastings (pretty little liars). at this point she is also a part of me. i don't even know if i can list the reasons why she's in my top 5, especially when all the pll girls are so important to me, but this show and char are a piece of me.

daisy johnson (agents of shield). while i think mari is making her way into All Time Favorite Chars territory, i need to go with another that I always come back to (and the one on this list that I Do Not Write). daisy's story is just so important to me. she finds a home, a place, a family, and a people. she finds a purpose. she finds love. despite everything she goes through and went through, she has so much heart. she fights for what she believes in, she hates herself despite being the best person ever, she shines like the sun and kicks ass like no other. she's a hacker with a heart of gold. she's everything to me.

ask me my top 5 anything // always accepting

[kani-miso]

noticed you like limbus company...who is your favourite sinner if you don't mind me asking?

HELL YEAH PM ASK

i reallllllllly like gregor and sinclair,,,, also dante if you count them as a sinner.

the first reason i liked gregor was because of his unique design, i love the bug arm,,,,, after watching his story, he soon became one of my faves. im dissapointed that there's not much stuff about him explored in his canto,, its also pretty short since its the first canto,, its fine though i can just read metamorphosis. i really love his moments in hells chicken,,, (best intervallo for me because it focuses on two characters i really like (gregor and ryoshu))

i liked sinclair because he looks like don (i found limbus company by oomf and i only knew don and dante,,,😭), his canto was probably my favorite canto because thats when i actually REALLY got into limbus. his canto has the best npc there (demian👅👅)

i just really like dante they're my fav out of all of them. i have a list why they're the BEST limbus character/nsrs

clock head and coat, peak character design.

red, yellow, and black color pallette, peak colors.

black (literally black) skin, peak.

most interesting story (please dont view them as a self insert mc i BEG YOU)

has a self destruct button.

ngl im reaching so far with this but what if dante becomes something like white-night because uhdhdnne they technically give the sinners blessings (reviving them), and white-night has the 12 apostles thing, meanwhile dante has 12 sinners (with they, themselves as the 13th). dante can literally be anything since we dont know anything about them in canon,, we dont know if they're a good person or not so maybe jsut maybe they could be the antagonist like joky dshir imageinge dannte w boss imagine how peak the bgm will be omhmcc if in hell we livs lament was alllready so peak what would a dante boss fight ost sound like ohhhh mymvm god.

haha funny tick tick sounds

[kitkatt0430]

idk if youre still doing in it but tommy merlyn, oliver queen for the character ask game?

It's been a while, but not that long so sure :D I do enjoy answering these, after all

Tommy Merlyn

1: sexuality headcanon

He's bi. Definitely bi. More into women than men, but he's an equal opportunity flirt.

2: otp

Tommy/Oliver or Tommy/Oliver/Laurel - there are a few other ships for him I like, but not to the point I'd call them an OTP

3: brotp

Tommy & Oliver & Thea where Tommy is the unofficial third Queen sibling - after all, he is actually Thea's sibling for real already

4: notp

Tommy/Thea for what are probably pretty obvious reasons. I feel so bad for Thea in season 1 knowing that part of her freak out in season 2 over having her biological parentage kept from her is knowing that she hit on her own brother and her mother never warned her.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

In the Earth Prime universe, Tommy took Laurel's last name and became Tommy Lance. After his dad tried to blow up half the city and nearly killed Tommy along with it, he's not exactly keen to stay a Merlyn. So it makes sense that when he married Laurel, it was the Lance family name he wanted to honor and continue.

6: favorite line from this character

I really like this exchange:

Tommy: Dinah Laurel Lance always trying to save the world. Laurel: Hey. If I don't try and save it, who will?

It's very cute. And I do enjoy Tommy/Laurel even they're not an OTP to me, so having them be flirty while also kinda summing themselves up at the same time? He wants to support Laurel even though no one ever really taught him how to do that and she wants to save people be it as part of CNRI or as the Black Canary.

7: one way in which I relate to this character

Tommy struggles a lot with his feelings of not being good enough and when I was his age (when this show began he was older, now I am, how dare time work like this) so did I. Admittedly, for very different reasons. I've definitely found my sense of self confidence and self worth, though, and I'd like to think that Earth Prime Tommy did too, even though we didn't get to see it happen.

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

He can be a little misogynistic at times. I do see it as something he's growing out of over the course of S1. End of season Tommy is way less prone to making an ass of himself objectifying women the way start of season Tommy is, so at least it's something he's got character growth about.

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

cinnamon roll, definitely

And now for...

Oliver Queen

1: sexuality headcanon

Bi or pan. Oliver definitely has a crush on Barry going on by the time the Flash season premier rolled around.

2: otp

Barry/Oliver and Tommy/Oliver

I used to really like Felicity/Oliver and then the ship became canon and I just... didn't like the way they kinda brought out the worst in each other at times *shrug* a good example of being careful what you wish for, I suppose. Some ships are better left to fanon.

I actually really like the show Laurel/Oliver as exes, that was a fun dynamic for them. Though for the comics its Dinah/Oliver all the way.

3: brotp

Oliver & Dig, Oliver & Barry, Oliver & Tommy

Oliver & Dig especially though. It is fun seeing their friendship grow and be tested and come out stronger in the end. I was glad that if Oliver had to show up one last time on the Flash that Dig was there to see him and say goodbye.

4: notp

McKenna Hall and Isabel Rochev

The former... I do like her and Ollie on the show, they're cute but... she's a cop and comics Oliver would never.

Isabel having been one of Oliver's father's affairs and her only sleeping with Oliver to get revenge on a dead man who chose not to abandon his children is gross and squicks me so much when it happens on the show.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

Oliver tells Barry that he can inspire people with hope because he inspired Oliver first. Meeting and becoming friends with Barry made Oliver want to be a better version of himself and he just feels comfortable around Barry/trusting Barry in a way he doesn't with everyone else.

6: favorite line from this character

So I don't know what my favorite line is, Oliver gets a lot of good zingers in, but I really love this exchange with him and Malcolm every time I rewatch S1

Malcolm: What are your thoughts, Oliver?

Oliver: I think the vigilante needs a better code name then "The Hood" or "The Hood Guy."

Malcolm: I agree. How about Green Arrow?

Oliver: Lame.

And then what is Oliver's final code name? The Green Arrow, of course.

7: one way in which I relate to this character

Honestly, I don't really know that I relate to him. He's a very different person from me which is probably what makes him such an interesting character to delve into when writing.

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

Joining the cops??? I thought his inability to stop lying to people about shit could not be topped and then the final season happened. Comics Oliver would disown show Oliver over that one. He may not have been an real police officer, but working with the cops like that was just... crossing a line that should not have been crossed with this character.

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

so many problems, I love this character anyway :D

[magnumdays]

Magnum PI 5.10 ‘Charlie Foxtrot’ review

So lots of stuff happened and at the same time not that much stuff happened. Some rapid fire thoughts.

(spoilers...obviously)

We did get some Miggy heart eyes... never gets old!

For me I think the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes were the best.

I liked it but also preferred the season 4 ‘Higgy spy adventures - MI6 don’t care about you...I do’ mid season finale to this (I mean there was the x-mas one too but plot-wise it was the spy episode that was the season finale right?). Like IDK, more emotional impact in that one was better?

Maybe Magnum should have been the one that got snatched or shot here. Just saying.

Poor Cade! Like even though TC is the one that got shot and paralysed (:O) I feel worse for our poor baby Cade!

RIP Childs, you were just starting to grow on me. No funeral? Is that going to be the start of 5.11? Or do we just not care enough about Childs for there to be one?

Very little Miggy in this one, even if soft + banter was cute, I feel like it was a pretty quick flip from kind of feel-y end of 5.09 to start of 5.10 which was all banter though really was meant to be like what? half an hour apart?

(Magnum being domestic and making Higgy food (or hot milk) and stuff has been like the running theme of this season and I want to nominate him for some boyfriend of the year award. Not just for the cooking but, you know, a little bit for that.)

(Higgy just keeps on going - seriously she was drugged and had crazy wacky nightmares like a few hours ago? This girl can not catch a break.)

Why is it so hard to make a villain still scary after learning their motives/backstories? 

Anyways...

Higgy sharing recipes from childhood, Magnum being all ‘you’ve had a rough day, how about we take a break (from watching news stories about the lady who tried to kill you and totally drugged you up a few hours ago’ and stuff’ is adorable. We almost got the “why does Higgy not drink tea” story which now is a story I must know. Like come on! It’s almost as enticing as maybe one day learning what her tattoo is...

Juliet looking out the guest house window and noticing commandos - you cannot tell me that was legit not her worst fear coming true - and then our faves being all badass (that flip!), very much a good start.

Then, because I’d somehow gotten it into my head we were going to have ‘Robin’s Nest under siege’ for like a good chunk of the episode, I felt a little bummed out. Because I wanted like hostage, drama, no police, gang vs, baddies. But I didn’t get that.

Now, other than the fact that Rick is the person we’re looking for and TC is in the hospital, this case feels weirdly like just a normal case.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but somehow it lacked a little of the ‘wow shocking! thrilling! excitement’ I’d hoped for in the mid-season finale. Maybe-just maybe because we kind of know Magnum, Higgins, Rick and TC and even Gordy and Kumu probably with 99% certainty aren’t going to die.

Which is nice.

But it also makes them being in danger less scary than for example say Cade had been taken or Suzy or even Childs (if he’d not gotten blown up.) Why Beth or Dennis being in danger is scarier than Rick. Because they could die. There is actual bad things that could happen.

I think that’s why Higgy in the mental hospital still felt scary and had lots of potential, because we knew she was going to be alive - we just wasn’t sure what kind of messed up visions, drugs, weird electro shock stuff that could have happened to her, right?

So I am kind of excited to see what they do with TC not being able to feel his feet/being paralyzed. Because you know, that is scary stuff, and super duper emotional and scaring to go through (good thing he rigged the chopper for Shammy to fly!)

Bad guy (well gal) of the season instantly became less badass when she became an actual person, which is sad. If that was her backstory of falling for a terrorist, dead child or just how not scary she felt IDK. I just felt a little sad for her.

Did it all also go kind of fast?

Fast can be good, it means it’s entertaining enough the 42 minutes flew by fast. But it also maybe means it was a little unmemorable. Which I think is what this episode ended up being for me.

Also random small question - would anyone ever get found or saved or stuff figured out without Higgy’s hacking skills? Just you know, asking for a friend...

(I’ve also been watching some K-dramas lately and IDK, I guess I wanted more melodrama and more cute-y feels and angsty accidental car accidents and evil CEO father figures than I got...)

Depressing for my Miggy heart, that this episode failed to really deal with Higgins ‘I’m scared Mangum will die’ worries and I doubt we’ll get it next “season”. Rather brought up Magnum’s worry about the gang maybe being broken up if TC or Rick didn’t pull through. Just because he said that and Rick made the video, I almost wondered if they would kill of Rick.

So when they didn’t it felt a little bland.

Mean of me to say, but that would have been pretty interesting and brave of them to do. Kill Rick I mean.

Like that would have been something! Suzy getting that video and it would also maybe be a “ahah” moment for Magnum, making him feel a little of what Juliet have been feeling with Richard and why she’s so worried. It could have gotten us a Miggy ‘I love you’ moment too, because though we know our two idiots love each other they haven’t said it yet.

Yeah, Rick’s death would have made for character development everyone too, going forward. Like maybe suddenly super over protective Magnum in the B part of the season? TC being suddenly a sad boi and not himself and struggling with a depression sort of thing, freaking Cade out, making him consider moving with his family on the mainland, making it worse. Higgy feeling like she failed the guys and Suzy because she was too focused on Magnum’s safety. Suzy could just be a big mess and we could have Miggy babysitting moments? But it’d be sad because Rick is dead... So much potential for angst and stuff.

Whatever. I’m not considering writing a fic where Rick died. I’m really not.

Anyways, I did like the ending with Cade and Higgy talking a lot. Higgy somehow being her normal ‘feelings?what are those’ while at the same time really saying awesome and uplifting things and just all around being the new spokes person for Happy Endings... 

They guys all joining up and it feeling pretty hopeful was nice too. It was a nice place to end it, because while I got some angst and worries about the TC recovery plot, he’s alive and kicking and got his friends. And he’s TC! Come on, he’s going to big bear his way back to running after bad guys in no time. And if he don’t, he still awesome!

(Though what happened to TC’s girl? Is she not his girl anymore? Did I miss something? Maybe she’ll show up in part B of the season!)

Yeah, over all I enjoyed the episode, but it did not feel super-duper much like a midseason finale. I’d also like to inform everyone that it’s 132 days until September 3rd. So basically forever! How will we ever survive!? I guess we do have some pretty epic Miggy fluff and content to re-watch...

Anyone know when we’ll know anything about season 6? 

[nikethestatue]

Hello New and Old Followers!

I was inspired by @gracieart and her cool intro to herself, so I figured I'd do something similar, because it's been a hot minute and I have thousands of followers and it feels like it's time to do this.

My name is Nike and I am an Elriel

It's funny, but I don't really remember how I became an Elriel, but I think I got so mad over Azriel's POV that I started looking for other Elriels and I found them! (phew). The first 2 people i got to talking to were @elriell and @tswaney17

But I actually started off as a MAD Feysand(er) and Rhys is my first love in SJM books.

Before SJM, I never really read fantasy, beyond LOTR, and one day, my Kindle suggested a 'sexy dark fantasy' and I was like, what's a sexy dark fantasy? And it was ACOTAR. I read the first 2 books, and then ACOWAR came out and I read that, and I just wasn't enamoured with ACOWAR at all, so I sort of lost interest. And then it was Covid and literally months of nothing to do, so I picked up ACOFAS, and then ACOSF was coming out soon after. So I re-read all the books in the mid-2020 and got into the fandom.

A little bit about me.

Food: I love anything that swims. Any seafood. In general, I will pretty much eat anything. Don't particularly love sweets.

My least favourite food is pasta.

Hobbies: I write and sometimes I paint/draw. I have a case of extreme wanderlust and love to travel. Anywhere, everywhere. I love art--hence the amount of art I post.

TV: I am known for not watching TV and having no clue as to what is popular.

My life revolved around football (or soccer in the US). I watch it all the time--in fact, I am watching it now. I am a massive Premiere League and Seria A fan. Otherwise, I like House of the Dragon and Euphoria.

Music: Best way to describe my music style is chaotic. I love everything.

I loath Adele.

Books: Dark romance is where I am at. I don't actually read a ton of fantasy--only very specific fantasy and only from authors I like and trust.

I love Angel Lawson, Amelia Hitchins, and my girls Peckham and Valenti, I love David Ignatius and Daniel Silva, and I used to love the Pendergast Series, until it jumped the shark.

Dude: I have a dude. He looks exactly like Cassian. He often acts like him too. I love him.

Sometimes, he BETAs my fanfics. He's got strong opinions on fantasy dudes. (Cassian is his fave. SHOCKER)

Ships: Darius Acrux and Roxanya Vega is the ultimate ship of my life. That is love. And I am waiting for Elriel. I love Nessian.

Edu: I have a BA in International Relations, a Masters' in History, and an MBA

What am I like? The closest you can compare me to is Lance Orion. Kind of bitchy, but loyal, and only love like 4 people.

I HATE fighting. I am not confrontational, especially not online, with people I don't know. I am not going to waste time proving something about myself to a gray box.

There are definitely people in this fandom that I hate. But I try to avoid them.

Distinctions: I am fluent in 3 languages, know 2 more.

I've not been to the movies in like 10 years. I've had one, maybe two blogs dedicated to just hating me. LOL

I don't have any other social media that's associated with this fandom, so no need to look anywhere.

That's me and my sister.

We don't look like that anymore.

[loveandlegacy]

hiii, it's me again 👉👈 this time i'd like to send in sevika, ekko, jinx, & ambessa

helloooo!! thank u for a roster of more fun characters! i'm very <3 that you like hearing my opinions 😇 i hope these ones are interesting too!

sevika

How I feel about this character - ALSO ONE OF MY FAVES. the head bitch in charge!! i loved her from the moment i saw her!!! we have to stan.

All the people I ship romantically with this character - long headcanon i guess. i feel like she’s the kind of person who maybe wants it in an ambient sense, but also has had a hard enough life, and lost enough people, that she feels like the idea of ‘romance’ is childish or naive. she was probably a late teenager during the day of ash, and i think she actually did find love in revolutionary circles, and the woman she fell for in those spaces was already sick from a life of hard labor in the fissures. then the day of ash happened, nothing improved for the undercity, and the woman died and sevika? never really got over that one.

My non-romantic OTP for this character - MAN several.

grayson. GRAYSON. is it good? no. sevika hates her. she REALLY hates her. i think grayson is actually a zaunite who ranks among the few people who “got out” when she was pretty young (her family could send her topside for school or something) and she thinks she’s helping her people by acting as this intermediary in the position of the sheriff and sevika is so mad at her about it. class traitor!!! she’s pissed that grayson even shows her face in zaun, and grayson i think mostly weathers this rage because it feels welcome kinda? and honest. piltie ettiquette has never suited her. also the hatesex is amazing.

viktor. listen. sevika to me is gay. like Gay gay. as is viktor. with that said, i think they share enough of a mean disposition and an interest in the sharp edges of things that they could fuck and both like it. or not fuck, honestly. i think intellectually they exist as interesting points on a spectrum. i think sevika would be kind of pissed that viktor turned “traitor” and decided to keep the company of topsiders, but she might feel some kind of way about him once he returns to zaun as the (maybe) machine herald. plus he’s sick from his life in zaun and sevika’s last real romantic attachment (in my head) died from life in the fissures, so there’s Something worth picking at there. also i think she’d just like his personality? he’s kind of snide and mean in an understated way that i think she’d respect and appreciate lmao. and if he goes the way of the lore, he becomes sort of a weird zealous true-believer, which sevika i think also is, and i feel like they match each others' intensity in that way. also another honorable mention for mel/sevika/viktor. speaking of which!

mel! again, maybe not in a sexual way all the time? idk, i mean. i think sevika likes women and also has eyes, so it’s not like she won’t admit mel’s stunning, but i think more what interests me is the antipathy sevika might feel about someone on the council who is also not from piltover. mel comes from a much more combative culture than piltover, and i think once sevika found that out she’d be like ok well where’s the bitch under all that elegance. i know you’re pissed about stuff too. let the claws come out.

vander. i don't think there's anything romantic or sexual there, but i think vander was a revolutionary leader who really inspired sevika when she was younger. she looked up to him and admired him, and then kind of got her idealist heart broken when he became more of a placating pacifist after the day of ash. like for better or worse, sevika sees him as having entirely abandoned the needs of people who will never benefit from 'peace' with piltover. it's like entirely unsurprising to me that she turned on him lol

My unpopular opinion about this character - i don’t know that i have any unpopular opinions about her? i think maybe that it makes sense that she dislikes jinx. not because jinx is actually bad or wrong or anything, but because their personalities are so vastly different, and i can understand why sevika has no real patience for someone like jinx, who tends to operate more erratically.

maybe actually unpopular: i was pissed when vi beat her in their second fight lmao.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon - i really would like to see what happens if she interacts with viktor or viktor’s cult in s2! i know people think she’s on the tier list to die, and i really hope she doesn’t. i think she’s one of the most interesting characters in the story and i’d like to see her story resolve in something other than death.

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

ekko

How I feel about this character - THE BEST GUY!! like literally and sincerely. the only one doing any work. everyone else is running around with these personal vendettas and selfish ambitions and deep traumas and ekko who has just as much reason to struggle with those things as anyone else is out in the streets trying to build a safe haven for his people???? HELLOOOOO

All the people I ship romantically with this character - I KNOW THIS IS SO BASIC but i love timebomb ;A;

i love that jinx and ekko are mirrors of each other. they have similar childhoods and then the violence that comes into their lives sends them down completely different paths. they're like a bifurcated, lighting-struck tree, burnt down the middle, growing in parallel away from each other. i like that they're both mired in symbols of time, where jinx is never fully free of her ghosts and ekko's whole Thing is about finding a way to have just a little more time. small enough dashes of the past to change the future. i like that where jinx regresses emotionally, ekko has to grow up way too soon way too fast, and they can only meet in the middle when they are literally trying to kill each other. i like that they would without question be bad for each other canonically, because that makes it sadder. i like that they maybe could have been good for each other if everything had just been a little bit different because that makes it the saddest. i truly love the weird heartbreak and horror inherent in 'you look like someone that i loved once' even if that love was childhood best friends. two people standing on opposite sides of a smoky mirror, watching shadows move around in the glass.

MOST OF ALL i like that jinx doesn't call ekko his name. she calls him the boy savior which like. yeah, she's mocking him, but i don't think any of the other firelights call him that. i have a feeling that's a nickname that came to life as stories about the firelights spread in the undercity. i like that jinx knows him as that - some person in a story - and not ekko. things change, people change, they changed, and this is what they're left with. rumors and stories about each other 😭

but also if you want a happier version, in the modern au that lives only in the imagination space between me and a friend, jinx and ekko are little hellraisers who spend half their time committing crimes of minor ecoterrorism and half their time doxxing the shitty teachers at their shitty school. extremely logged-on gen alphas texting 'kys' to each other to flirt

My non-romantic OTP for this character - wahhhh here we go!

benzo! not in a bad way, i just sincerely spend a lot of time thinking about how benzo came to be ekko's adoptive father and what he taught ekko before he died. i choose to believe that ekko's parents were good friends with benzo, and that they died in the day of ash and benzo took ekko in. i think that benzo DID NOT have the same revolutionary spirit as ekko's parents and actually spent most his time with ekko trying to encourage pursuits other than resistance and revolution. i think he worked really hard to get rare books on physics (specifically) for ekko to study, because he could tell ekko was a really bright kid, and knew his parents would have wanted the world for him. i also think losing multiple parental figures to the enforcers taught ekko the lesson that no one in piltover would ever come to save or help anyone in zaun, the people of the undercity can only depend on each other.

viktor because i know in league lore ekko is supposed to hate viktor and i can easily see that going the same route in arcane, and i like thinking about how they would get there. i also think the two of them are interesting in their relationship to time - viktor is trying to find a kind of permanent futurity and ekko is trying to break the past (or he will be if he invents the zdrive). both of them know that time is limited. both of them are actually kind of haunted by this. i kind of wonder if part of why ekko might hate viktor in arcane is because viktor feels too similar to ekko for comfort. ekko says that it's not enough to help people survive, you have to give them a reason to live - but viktor is all about survival. and more than that, we have reason to believe that his faith in survival will reach people that not even ekko has figured out how to help yet. i do believe ekko WOULD help the people whose bodies have been decimated by shimmer addiction, but he may not know how yet. i think it would kind of terrify and infuriate him that viktor manages to reach those people, but by methods that i think ekko will find entirely distasteful. but also: magic is tempting. ekko himself i think will have to deal with some serious questions about his own ethics if he builds the zdrive. i don't think the zdrive is intrinsically evil or anything and it's probably less corrupt than the hexcore, but i do think that there are questions that come up about how much you can try rearrange the past before you turn out to be like viktor by another means. i want to see them interact! i want to know what happens when ekko, who is the only person who hasn't yet had to confront some darker version of his own morality, sees the full extent of what can happen when you try to outrun time.

My unpopular opinion about this character - i'm not sure if any of my opinions about him are unpopular? i feel like people kind of dismiss him because video game/internet culture is baseline racist, but that seems like an uncontroversial take

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon - i actually really hope he meets mel. i don't think he'll necessarily feel especially positively about her (although who knows. he's 100% fine w heimerdinger and i feel like that makes no sense given everything we know about ekko and about zaun), but i do think seeing them interact would be compelling, weird, and interesting.

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

jinx

How I feel about this character - lol i feel like this is such a hot take on tumblr but i mostly feel....completely neutrally about jinx. i think she is a good character but i really hate how she's presented in the show and in the game, so much so that i almost stopped watching the show altogether when she showed up after the time skip. i'm glad i kept going, but there's a lot about her presentation that really irritates me, and i think all the most interesting stuff about her character is mostly recuperated by her fans. with that said, i do think that in the best moments she gets in the show (so like. the end) she is an exceptional character study of someone who has suffered serious multiple traumas and who struggles to direct her own sense of self. i love that she's a curious, inventive person and not purely just a hot crazy girl trope, and i do love that there is depth to her character AS someone who is clearly dealing with a lotttt of mental anguish and turmoil. i hope there's less of the like tee-hee cutesy stuff in season 2, bc i loved the note of absolute grief she ended on in s1

All the people I ship romantically with this character - ekko!!!!

again, i know it's basic. i don't think it would ever pan out in a happy-ending way in the show and i don't want it to. i think from jinx's side, i like it because i like to imagine that she HAS the space to feel strong and complicated feelings about someone she isn't literally related to and who isn't a parental figure in her life. i think a lot of how she's presented in the show, she's profoundly, unhealthily dependent on silco, and i think that suits the trajectory of her story, but i do sometimes wonder if she ever had moments where her loyalty to him wavered or if she ever thought some other life was possible - and i think that at least HEARING about the firelights might inspire that questioning-of-faith in her. not like she thinks the firelights are in the right, but i do think hearing about a gang of orphans running around trying to survive might make her think about how her own life could have gone if things had been bad but in a different way. i think she thinks she's entirely unforgivable in many ways, and can't imagine being accepted by anyone but silco, but i do suspect she wishes ekko could forgive her, the same way i think she wishes vi could still love her.

i love angst and sad shit is what i'm saying

My non-romantic OTP for this character - this is probably going to be the least verbose section of all the characters because i HONESTLY do not think super hard about jinx's inner world and life 😭

with that said, i think the obvious one is vi? like. the familial trauma, the fear of loss, the fear of being loved but loved the wrong way....it's all there. i also just like their relationship because i don't think it's the kind of angst you usually see presented between sisters in western media? i could be way off on that but that's how it feels to me!

vander, actually. OTP is wrong but i actually wonder how jinx perceived or related to vander before he died. we don't really see her interact with him 1-on-1 and i kind of wonder if she even understood what the day of ash was about before he died, or if he just never talked about it.

My unpopular opinion about this character - i said it like 3 seconds ago but i really dislike a lot of how she's presented/characterized in the show. it's better than the game, but it still irritates me that a seriously traumatized young woman who has episodes of what are arguably psychosis is flattened out into "sometimes she giggles around like she's five years old". she doesn't even act that way when she's a literal child. in fact powder is kind of solemn and shy; the tilt-shift into this cackly manic pixie harley quinn type character feels like borderline insulting to the idea of what her character is about

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon - i don't know that i have any clear wishes for her. i am excited to see what she's like in season 2, since the few glimpses we've gotten so far make her seem like a much grimmer character? and i think that'll be neat

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ambessa

How I feel about this character - AND THE WORST MOM AWARD GOES TO MY DEARLY BELOVED DEADBEAT DAD AMBESSA MEDARDA. you say child abuse, she says 'good parenting'. never quit, ambessa.

All the people I ship romantically with this character - literally no one? i don't think she loved her literal husband and i don't think she thinks romance is good for anything except weakening your resolve when it comes to making hard decisions. marriage is something you do to shore up power, and ideally you can tolerate the other person, but romance is certainly not a prerequisite to a marital contract.

but having said all that, i do spend time wondering what her husband was like. i assume he's dead based on how she talks about him in the show, and i think he probably wasn't as directly assertive as she is or they would have killed each other. i mostly imagine a very cold, austere man who was very well-learned and actually a really capable military strategist, but from a less powerful house than the medarda clan. i think her father arranged the marriage to shore up land holdings in the medarda name and ambessa and her husband did their duty of basically having an heir and a spare and nothing else 💀

not an especially loving home life, is what i'm saying. i'm not entirely sure how he died, but i think he did pass away when mel was like 8 or so - not the first and not the last of many tragedies in her life 😭 probably also compounded by how actively not ambessa herself seemed to be about the whole thing.

also i wouldn't put it past ambessa to have contrived circumstances to get her husband killed in battle if she really felt like it.

My non-romantic OTP for this character - ok i'm just going to say up front that i think ambessa has had a lot of non-romantic and toxic sexual entanglements in her life because i think she feels about sex the same way she feels about combat and war: it's all about power and there's always a winner and she likes winning regardless of the forum or the medium as it were. so here we go:

swain lmao. i basically agree with you that she fucked him when he was younger as a flex on him, and was later surprised/annoyed that he didn't die when he was supposed to in ionia. and then he coup'd darkwill and man. MAN. she hates him. for outmaneuvering the black rose. i don't even think she feels especially fond of darkwill or of the black rose, but she doesn't like being outdone and swain outdoes basically all the other patrician houses with his takeover of the entire empire. i think she hates him also because he embodies a "better" noxian ideal than her. he puts the empire before everything, and proved that through patricide. ambessa would never (maybe could never) put noxus before her family and it makes her furious that swain does this thing she can't do. that she has this weakness where he quite literally has none (that she can see. i think he has his weaknesses but they're all way. weirder. than filial piety or something). and then he has kino killed, to add insult to injury. ambessa would probably let all of noxus burn to put an end to the grand general for that.

jayce, and i would like to preface this by saying NOT in an "i'm sexually competing with my daughter for the same object of affection" way. i mean it mostly in a menacing way? i think ambessa doesn't think very highly of jayce like. at all. and i believe in my heart of hearts that she fucking hates that mel fell in love with him and sees it somewhat as her solemn duty to manipulate him into behaving in a way that best serves the medarda family interests. i don't mean to say that she succeeds all the time. i just think that she sees him mostly as an annoying player who's in over his head in a big, violent world. as a result, i think all their interactions are pretty terse and slightly-to-very antagonistic on mostly ambessa's end, though i can see a more grim/exhausted version of jayce who antagonizes back, especially in s2. obviously also part of why ambessa hates the idea of mel being "in love" with this guy is because she thinks mel is making herself (and the medarda family by extension) more vulnerable. my friend and i hold to the belief that there's at least one universe here ambessa threatens to mel's face to have jayce killed if he does something she really doesn't like, but i also think that could feasibly happen in canon 😭 it's just that the circumstances in the actual show never led us there. once in a while i think she does have to admit that jayce is actually smart, even if he's a naive idealist. and in spite of any threats she might make on his life, she does know she needs him around because he's her key to hextech. which of course means she wants to get at least two warmasons to learn how to manufacture and use it, so that she can dispose of him if she ever feels she needs to.

singed. idk dude. they don't fuck but they do match each other's freak in a really specific, really bad way. i think where ambessa sees a world to be conquered, singed sees a bunch of specimens to be dissected and catalogued and pinned up into little butterfly boxes. SUBJECTS, to both of them. if ambessa's whole thing is power, singed's whole thing is survival. not his really, just like. seeing how much you can cut up or pare away or peel off or burn out and still keep something alive. and where they meet in the middle, only the worst stuff can happen in a very war crimes 4 war crimes way.

mel!!! it's just. so awful??? i mean in the best bad way, but their relationship IS awful. like no matter which way you slice it, ambessa's version of mothering basically amounts to ongoing psychological and emotional abuse. from her perspective, mel is too soft, too sweet, too sensitive - ie not destined for a life of survival in a cruel and gruesome world. so ambessa did her very best to break her of those things at every turn. if you cut up a kid's heart enough, eventually there'll just be scar tissue left, and that's what you want, right? <- ambessa's logic. because of this i think she also in general deeply underestimates mel. like she knows she has a smart daughter, but she thinks she also has a weak daughter who can't stand up to the world and who certainly can't stand up to ambessa herself and who doesn't know what's best for her own life and so on and so forth. it's bad. it's brutal. it's maybe actually the ugliest kind of love that appears in the whole entire story.

My unpopular opinion about this character - i'll be real. i don't even know what the popular opinions are about ambessa. i think it rules that she clearly keeps an entourage of twinky dudes at her beck and call and i have been led to believe that some people think that's """cringe""" so maybe that's an unpopular opinion???

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon - i actually want to see a lot more of how she interacts with jayce in s2!! i think it'll be horrible. i think she will exploit every emotional weapon she can with him. i think that as his idealism slowly starts to ossify and he becomes a harder, crueler person, he'll have less tolerance for her manipulation, but he may actually agree with her worldview more as time goes on, and i want to see what all those interactions are like and i hope they're absolutely miserable especially ESPECIALLY if mel has been cordoned off from power or if she's down in the undercity somewhere (or just too injured i guess??? i like that option the least) so she can't try to intercede between the two of them to deescalate anything