#- full of straight women i don't know. The Fear. Is Real.

[thezombieprostitute]

Tech Tuesday: Ransom Drysdale

A/N: Written for @the-slumberparty's December Daze Challenge.

Prompt: can i put my cold hands up your sweater for warmth?

Word Count: ~1.3k

Warnings: Alcohol consumption. Please let me know if I missed any!

Previous

The bar isn't as crowded as you'd feared. Usually you spend New Year's Eve in the comfort of your own home where no one can judge you for going to sleep at a decent time. But Ransom had insisted that going to a random bar full of strangers was his New Year's Eve tradition. You probably would have fought him a bit harder but you were still recovering from Christmas.

Ransom knew you were trying to reach out to your family again. That you'd hoped to make progress with them over Christmas. When you came back to the office the day after he saw through your fake smile. He's not pushing for details, part of being a good friend, right? But he can at least hang around so there's someone you can talk to if needed. He'd hoped that going to a bar and picking out potential kissers would be a good distraction for you.

At least until you confessed you'd never had a New Year's Eve kiss before.

"I've told you my parents were...fundamentalists," you griped. "There are some aspects of it that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to shake. Like kissing some random guy being a bad idea."

"Well, what if you get to know the guy first?" Ransom thinks. "Just don't lead with 'never had a New Year's Kiss'. That'll just bring out the weirdos."

That makes you half smile. "Yeah, definitely wouldn't want my first kiss to be with a stranger."

Ransom's brow furrows in confusion, "you mean first New Year's Eve kiss, right?"

"That too," you casually confess before taking a long sip of your Pretty In Pink cocktail.

Ransom gives you a look you can't decipher before saying, "maybe this was a mistake."

"No! It's a new year, it can be a new experience, another aspect of the old me that I let go."

"Only if you're certain now, before you've had too much to drink."

"Aren't you supposed to get drunk first? Liquid courage and all that?"

Ransom hesitates. It wasn't that long ago he'd be the first to encourage you to kiss whatever creep came along, just to spite your parents. Encourage you to be more like him, playing life like a game without consequences. But he's not that guy anymore. Right? At the very least, you're too good a person to be mimicking his behaviors.

He lets out an exasperated sigh, "no. You're telling me now, while you're sober and thinking relatively straight, if you really want to do this. Before you take another sip of that drink."

You give Ransom your best pout and you see him bristling. "I just wanna have some fun, Ran," you pout.

"Maybe this was a mistake," he shakes his head.

"No! You participated in my Friendsgiving tradition, I want to participate in one of your traditions! You said this is something you do every year and I want to participate!"

"We can spend the evening here, but we're gonna both forgo the kissing part," Ransom concedes. "We'll just get drunk and raise a toast at midnight, okay?"

You pout for real this time. "Why is it such a big deal? It's just a first kiss. Aren't women today supposed to be empowered to kiss whoever they want?"

Ransom considers his words. "You're right that you don't need permission to kiss anyone you want. I just...Something I've been trying to work on is reducing my family-induced cynicism. I know from experience that if you treat kisses like they're nothing, they can lose their meaning. I...I want better for you. Better for my friend."

Knowing how difficult it is for Ransom to talk about these things you stop pouting. "Okay," you nod. "Just a toast to bring in the new year."

"Thank you," he sighs, looking a bit more relaxed.

"How about we start the evening with a toast?" you offer, raising your glass. "A toast to friendship and new beginnings?"

Ransom raises his beer bottle, "and to not letting our past dictate our future."

You clink your drinks together and take a sip.

A couple hours and several drinks later you're feeling a little woozy. Ransom offers to go get the refills but you're adamant that it's your turn to do so. He's a bit tipsy himself, you've never seen him smile so much, and he agrees to let you go.

You give your order to the bartender and hold onto the bar to steady yourself when you feel a presence to your left. A tall man in a blue suit leans on the bar next to you. He's pretty handsome, even with the stubble. It actually works with his short hair. He turns to you and you struggle not to gasp at how pretty blue his eyes are.

"Oh, sorry if I'm crowding you," he smiles.

"No, not at all," you giggle.

"You here with your boyfriend?" he asks, gesturing to Ransom.

"Friend," you tell him.

His smile widens, "I'm Nick."

You give him your name as heat rushes to your face. This handsome man is talking with you!

"Got any plans for midnight? It's coming up in just an hour or so," Nick asks.

"A toast!" you say a little too loudly.

He gives you a mock frown, "no kiss?"

"No kisses! Just a toast. Ransom's idea."

"Ransom your friend?"

"Yup! And he's great! Once you get to know him."

"Yeah? Would you be up for introducing me? Letting me get to know him?"

"Sure! He could use more friends and you seem the friendly type!"

"That I am," he smirks.

The bartender brings you your drinks and you pay for them before making your way back to Ransom. Nick is very helpful at keeping you steady on your feet.

Back at the table you beam at Ransom, "I made a new friend! His name is Nick."

Nick holds out his hand to Ransom and says, "nice to meet you Hugh."

Ransom's smile is gone and whatever buzz he'd been feeling is greatly diminished. He grabs your hand, "we're going. Now."

"What? Why?" you pout. But Ransom gives you a look that pierces your drunken haze enough that you're grabbing your coat to go with him.

Ransom's jaw is clenched and he's practically dragging you out of the bar. Risking a glance back at Nick you see him smiling smugly, making you feel even more confused.

Once outside Ransom takes a breath of the cold air to steady himself. The plan was to walk back to your place since it was so close to the bar but now he's not sure. What if that asshole follows and makes things worse for you?

"C'mon," he tells you, taking your arm. "We're going to catch a cab back to my place."

"I don't like your place," you drunkenly confess. "It's so bare."

"Well then I'll make sure to get some interior decorating advice from you while we're there tonight, okay?"

You giggle at the thought but then you shiver, "Ransom, it's cold out here and I don't have my gloves."

"We're going to get a cab soon enough," he promises as he walks down the sidewalk, pulling you along with him.

"What's gotten into you? Oh, why did Nick call you Hugh? Is that what set you off?"

"Sort of," he grunts, looking everywhere for a cab. He doesn't want to use a Lyft or Uber in case this Nick character decides to share in on it.

"My hands are cold," you whine. "Can i put my cold hands up your sweater for warmth?"

"When we get into the cab, sure."

You giggle, "I'm gonna hold you to that."

Ransom's barely gotten you into the back of the cab before you shove your hands underneath his sweater, making him yipe.

"Mmm, so warm. You gently squeeze his belly and snuggle close. "Even better than a plushie," you murmur as you start to fall asleep.

Ransom half carries you into his apartment and you give a little squeal when you see the Sweater Pusheen you'd gotten him sitting in a chair.

"You kept it?"

"Of course I did," Ransom admits. "Makes for good company."

You start to tear up, "I thought you hated it because I never saw it after I gave it to you."

"It's a nice gift and I like to have it around. Kept me from getting too lonely at Christmas."

You wrap your arms around Ransom with such force he falls back onto the couch. He tries to unclasp your arms from around him but you're holding tight so he waits for a few moments, letting you get the hug out of your system. Normally you ask permission but he's not going to begrudge you being a happy drunk.

He chuckles and rolls his eyes when he hears your soft snoring and resigns himself to a night on the couch. He looks at you softly and kisses the top of your head. There are worse ways to bring in the new year, he figures.

Next

Tech Tuesdays Masterlist

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory;

@late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82; @ozwriterchick; @ronearoundblindly; @lokislady82

@thiquefunlover63

[non-un-topo]

Second-hand stress from a family member's wedding is reeeal

[jugsonmydick]

I don't believe that this is a kink, dude...maybe you're just a run of the mill, creepy male rapist. The loser bi chicks in your inbox believe that this is a kink, but I doubt any normal person would. I think you really ARE a dangerous male. This is reality. This is who you are. Your masturbatory fantasies confirm you to be inhuman, because all rape lovers surrender their humanity via their arousal towards stripping someone else of their body and their own right to it. Those who claim that their violent rape fantasies are simply fantasies are trying to preserve their own sanity and supposed innocence. I don't feel sympathy for you, but in that same vein, i couldn't possibly imagine what would drive someone to these fetishes and ways of thinking. Similar blogs focused on raping lesbian women also vex me, but at the same time, don't as much as yours does. The way you type is very distinct, and in a way, it sounds like you are trying to sound "dumb." Is this also a part of your fetish? Sounding like a "dumb woman" while talking about raping trans men and lesbians? Perverted trans women are the same as every other man; fathers, brothers, uncles, male friends, strangers, because they are all cabable of fetishizing rape and women's suffering. They "live" as one, but they cannot see that they are real. You want jugs on your dick, but are unable to humanize the women that you stroke your dick to. You don't see yourself as having sex with another humam being. I would not even be generous enough to say that you objectify women with what you post. You talk about women like weird animals. How does someone live this way without becoming a suicide statistic? Do you think if your mother had a glimpse into the future of her son that she would not have taken a knife to her own stomach and torn you out of her body? Have you considered that your mother, as a woman, has always been and always will be terrified of men like you? That all women are? Do you think she would have wailed in horror at the nauseating thing her son would become? It is not my intent to try and change you because I feel as though that is not my responsibility, nor is it possible, I just need to know if you are self-aware or not. You sound like an insane perverted man, and if you're not on the sex offender registry now, you will be. I understand if this ask is embarrassing, but most people would agree that you belong in a padded room. Apologies for any typos I may have made, and though this might come off as aggressive, it comes from a place of genuine curiosity, fear, a bit of disgust, frustration, but not genuine malice/ill intent. Please post this and respond! That is all I ask.

hi, uh, wow. i didnt see this till now. normally i would type out a big, thoughtful response full of lots of synapse-frying pornlingo but in this case i think it would be more frustrating for you if i kept it short and sweet and just straight up told you "hi! this made my dick hard. you should dm me so that i can turn my brain off and jerk off to your pretty face while you keep yapping off words that go in through one ear and out the other. 😇"

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

Miami Vice S1E22: Evan

An estranged friend forces Sonny to confront a long buried secret.

Perhaps out of a fear of repeating myself-- I've said a lot about Evan, both in analysis and in fic-- I got a little stuck on this one, this time around. I guess I don't want to seem like a broken record, or like I'm overstating the importance of a single episode, but Evan is as much a distillation of everything that Miami Vice "is" as anything-- it's bleak, it's heartfelt, it's beautiful, it cuts to the heart of Sonny's inability to love himself, and it 's deeply, heartbreakingly queer.

It absolutely should have been the Season One finale. Lombard is a good episode, but it's not Evan good. On top of that, the last few episodes have all had a running undercurrent asking-- "hey-- what is *normal*, here, especially for Sonny? What does it mean to be vulnerable, to share your life and your secrets with someone? What do we mean when we say 'partner?'" that feels like it reaches its climax with Evan. And even further, Evan's whispered portent at the end of the episode-- that he made his choice, that Mike Orgel made his choice, and that now it's Sonny's turn to make his choice-- sets up much of the rest of the series thematically. The series finale is Sonny's answer: in the end, he chooses to step away instead of letting himself be destroyed like his friends.

BUT. I don't really think Network Television in the 80's really wanted the season for their very expensive and incredibly popular show to end on Sonny's Repressed Gay Trauma, because then audiences would've had to sit with that all summer, and frankly I suspect more people might have had an Aha Moment about Sonny's sexuality if that had been the case. So instead they ended S1 on Charming Mobster Dennis Farina, which is fine, but not quite as thematically powerful.

So what to say about Evan that I haven't said already? The episode opens with Evan selling guns; to demonstrate the power of the weapons, he shoots the hell out of a bunch of mannequins. I hadn't recalled that before he did this, he kissed the mannequins around their middles. It's super performative masculinity-- Evan is terrified of not being seen as a "real man," so his only options are, essentially, violence and (straight) sexuality, both of which he enacts on the mannequins. It's unsettling to the the point that one of Guzman's goons keeps making a face like "do we. Do we have to buy guns from him," and it signals to the audience that something is Not Right with this man.

Because this is an episode about gay men and what it means to be a man and how man treat one another, we get an interesting little moment where Larry is leaning over Stan's shoulder and reviewing case files with him. Stan seems irritated at the lack of personal space, and tells him to go look over files on his own desk. It's a bit of a throwaway gag, but it's also the kind of gentle, thoughtless repudiation of closeness that makes intimacy of any kind difficult between men of any sexual orientation. When Sonny talks about the way he and Evan and Mike Orgel used to talk to and tease one another before Mike revealed he was gay, this is the kind of behavior he's referencing.

The scene where Sonny has to go undercover as a far right gun nut to get information from a neonazi is both disturbingly still relevant and disturbing from an in-universe perspective. Sonny, still too pretty even in fatigue pants and a government-issue cap, looks like an underwear model doing military cosplay; he almost seems younger, like putting on the trappings of his Vietnam days transported him back there. In order to convince the gun seller he's serious, he says he's done with the military because the military is full of "women, half-breeds, and homosexuals" (which he says like it's four words-- HO-MO-SECK-SHUALS), but he turns away while he's saying it, and his face radiates pain and fear. He is wildly uncomfortable in this persona; we know he doesn't believe these things, but more than that, you get the sense that he's genuinely concerned his disguise as a Grade-A American Heterosexual Tough Guy is not going to hold up under any serious scrutiny.

I have a lot of questions about this painting, presumably belonging to Mr. Unfriendly Drug Lord Guzman, of an emaciated man with a railing between his ass-cheeks. Like. Is that so on the nose that it circles back to mysterious again, or is it literally a painting of an ass railing in the Let's Talk About Gay Stuff episode?

Castillo is extra recalcitrant in this one-- he argues with the ATF agent and insists he'll bust whoever needs busting, and then shortly after is just like NO when Sonny says he cannot be involved in this case

The ATF agent refers to Evan as Sonny's "old playmate," which feels uh, pointed

Rico asks Gina a favor and she sighs and says he "always needs a favor;" she still seems a bit irritated from No One Lives Forever

Guzman's manservant lifts him out of the pool and dries him off and dresses him, so perhaps the painting isn't all that odd for him

When Evan tries to convince Guzman to back off of the deal with Sonny, Guzman is eating a plate of fruit in a bathrobe, the sea over his shoulder, bathed in pinks and blues. Evan, on the other hand, eats the true breakfast of champions-- a cigarette and whiskey-- and everything around him is grey and white.

Evan smiles completely genuinely when he sees Elvis, and Elvis makes no move to attack him, which makes me cry

Like. He and Sonny were such good friends that Sonny's alligator missed him

Just throw me in the bay and forget about me as the fish chew me to death, I guess

When Sonny refuses Evan, Evan says he'll happily take Rico instead, and that's when Sonny really starts getting angry-- it's one thing for Evan, who Sonny blames for the death of an old partner and friend, to put Sonny's life in danger, it's another thing altogether for him to casually suggest Rico could be another bit of collateral in their shared history

Thank you script writers for lines like "I wouldn't have had to pull Freed's jacket if you'd been straight with me" (that really is the issue here, isn't it, Rico? Sonny can't quite do that, can he!) and "we are involved... *pause* in an operation." The gay subtext in the gay text episode is logged and noted

Evan encourages Guzman to shoot them all, himself included, and casually tells Sonny and Rico that Guzman used to "shoot people just for being left-handed," which feels like a metaphor for.... something, some kind of... human difference that has been, historically, punished and marginalized... couldn't tell you what, though

Tubbs speaks French to Michelle-- do we ever hear him doing this again? Does Tubbs speak French for real, or is he just like, repeating something he heard on a perfume ad or something?

When Sonny comes in, looking all hangdog, and tells Tubbs they need to talk, Tubbs tells Michelle he wants a rain check-- Michelle's response is "I bet you would," which is very ambiguous-- it seems equally likely that she's telling him he's got no chance or that she straight up doesn't believe he wants the rain check because she's pretty sure Crockett's his ex

I've talked at length about the gas station scene, but the fact that Rico's response to Sonny's confession about Mike is "how did you handle it" rather than anything else-- the man knoooows half of Sonny's issues here are coming from his internalized homophobia and self-loathing

I don't think Evan has changed his clothes for three days?

Logistically, it makes no fucking sense for Sonny, Evan, and Mike Orgel to all be queer men, but the episode really doesn't do any work to make Sonny or Evan obviously heterosexual, either. It's very easy to read either Sonny or Evan's guilt and trauma as coming partially from their own identities, and the way they both talk about their bad reactions to Mike's coming out reinforces this. Evan's line, "I've found more ways to hang that rap on myself than you or the devil will ever know about" mirrors Sonny's earlier insistence that Rico is not his "priest" and that he doesn't have to "bare his soul" to him; Vice is not a show that frequently has its main characters suffering from religious guilt or trauma, so it seems very meaningful that both of them are bringing their despair back to the idea not just of guilt, but sin. And perhaps even more specifically than that, sin that they refuse to let anyone-- friend, priest, or devil-- see.

Gina and Trudy show up in regular police uniforms at Guzman's arrest, which I think is the only time we see them dressed like that in the entire series

Peter Gabriel's Biko initially seemed to me like a really weird choice for the end of the episode, given the specific milieu it was written in and for (South African apartheid and the police murder of an anti-apartheid activist), but upon this rewatch it dawned on me that what they were trying to do was, a bit clumsily, tie the two ideas together. Mike Orgel died because he was part of an oppressed minority group, and if you read Evan as a closeted queer man, he has followed after him (and warns Sonny-- potentially a third closeted queer man-- that he will also need to make a choice about how to lead his own life soon enough.) I don't necessarily love slotting in one marginalized group for another there, but it's a very 80's sentiment, I think, so I'll let it stand. I think it's meaningful that the lyric "you can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire" precedes Evan's warning to Sonny. Was Mike, then, the candle?

The episode ends with Sonny tenderly cradling Evan's head while Rico stands with his hand on his shoulder; he's allowed touch and intimacy with Rico (as he was at the gas station) that he could not have ever really had with Evan except under extremely extenuating circumstances and now death. Mike, Evan, and Sonny couldn't find a way to "deal with it," as Rico put it, but the implication is that maybe Sonny and Rico can.

[notmorbid]

the word for world...

dialogue prompts from the word for world is forest by ursula k. le guin.

this world was made for men.

i like to see things in perspective, from the top down.

hating you isn't worth the trouble.

who told you what to do?

it's hard to turn your back on two pointed guns.

may i come in? i've come a long way.

i took you for a god.

it seemed to me i had seen you before. perhaps in a dream.

we must hear your story.

alone, you downed a giant?

it is altogether bad. there is nothing good left.

you don't see the danger. how could you?

i'm not raving. this is true fact and dream.

the world is always new, however old its roots.

where is our home now?

you have done what you had to do.

it is always your choice, whether to believe or not.

so long as the door is shut, everything will be alright.

my dreams are all bad, and they're all the same.

you have left your roots behind you.

i'm as full of forebodings as a stupid old man.

here we met. and here, part.

you are surer of me than i am.

i dream very little for myself anymore.

i'm an old, hollow tree. only the roots live.

the fruit of fear is ripening, and i see you gather it.

all that we fear to know, you have seen. you have known.

this is a new time for the world. a bad time.

where you go, fire burns. only the blind cannot see it.

i dreamed of you before we met here.

i don't like opinions stuffed into my own mouth.

you did not think things through.

am i to take all this simply on your word?

you're a fool, but a loyal and brave one.

wrongs done cannot be righted.

the anthropologist cannot always leave his own shadow out of the picture he draws.

what luck to meet you here.

i don't know what you are.

it would be better if i had never known you.

you should have a tougher hide by now.

old women are different from everybody else. they say what they think.

you might have escaped, but you stayed.

you can't save a people by selling a friend.

it's the way things are. it's human nature.

maybe leaving descriptions of what we wipe out is part of human nature.

i prefer to seek facts, rather than the truth.

in diversity there is life, and in life, there is hope.

i thought to drive the evil, but it drives me.

why aren't you like the others?

it seems that nothing will ever be the same or be right again.

help me up. i have eels for bones.

i'm not sure you know what a promise is.

this is no dream. this is real.

a realist is one who knows both the world and his own dreams.

there is no triumph in the world anymore. only death.

if you'd left, where would you have gone?

i'm not inferring anything. i'm saying it straight out.

`sometimes you have to be able to think about the unthinkable.

you can't trust anybody anymore.

few can actually face reality, when the going gets tough.

i don't feel so good.

[the-scooby-gang]

THEY CHANGED IT!!!

I'm watching HBOVelma (by 🏴‍☠️ means, HBO will not see a shadow of my money) for review purposes but what I came to talk about here is that the Brazilian dub changed the #MeToo line!!

Daphne: " Yeah it must be it [selling drugs for money gain], because the genius Velma Dinkley always knows everything about everyone and has no fear of talking about it"

Velma: "Exacltly. I do talk, darling. Like every comedian before TikTok was invented"

THE FUCKING BRAZILIAN DUB CHANGED IT!

This an actual commentary on real shit instead of the " i hate women that speak up about being raped by celebrities" mess that it was before.

After TikTok, people started filtering themselves with words like "Unalive" and there are things in TikTok you have to sensor or straight up not show or talk about because of the way the platform works

Its a perfect change? No, but its better than what was there before

I have many thoughts on this hell scape of a show and how the one I'm watching feels slightly different because of the voice actors (since they are the same voice actors that the Gang always has since Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated they can't take the "we know each other for half a decade now" from their voices so the gang talks with a layer of familiarity and fondness that the english version doesn't have. Hell, in this very line Velma calls Daphne "Querida" [Darling] in such a natural way. It has a mocking tint to it but at the same time there is something familiar and fond because I have heard Fernanda Baronne as Velma call Daphne "Darling" before and on those times they were friends) and I want to truly dissect where they dropped the ball... and set it ablaze

I will make a full season review. I will watch both the Brazilian Dub and the English dub to compare and have a more nuanced view since this line has show me that the dub may be making this more tolerable (and they deserve a Prize for that because this is already hell for a scooby fan with the voice actors putting their whole pussies in their performances to save this shit, I can't imagine the feeling that will rise on me when that familiarity is gone)

Lets call it "I watched Velma HBO so you don't have too"

See you later my meddling kids.

[markantonys]

I keep seeing comments (mostly from show onlies cause they don't know what's coming) regarding the Randlayne scene "oh God not another love interest like enough already." he has a lot of love in his heart! Leave him alone! Plus he deserves to have nice relationships now that he's out of that abusive relationship with Lanfear. I just have a bad feeling that people are gonna be really shitty about the polycule

yes, rand has so much love in his heart! he's not being greedy or trying to two-time anyone or to get 3 for the price of one, he is just Full Of Love! and he does deserve happy relationships after lanfear. BUT it isn't all about him, because elayne also deserves happy relationships with people who see her for who she is as a person, after spending her whole life lonely and surrounded by people who only see her title or want to use her for her position! aviendha deserves happy relationships where she can always have her heart shaded and where she can express vulnerability without fear of feeling shamed! min....................exists. djkfjg okay this is showverse, so show!min deserves happy relationships with people who care about her as a person and don't just want to use her for her viewings!

now, with that out of the way.............of course people are going to be shitty about the polycule. the majority of readers are already shitty about it and i won't be at all surprised if many show-onlys go the same way (though i'm sure rafe & co are well aware of how ~controversial~ a romance it could be and will do all they can to make it as ~palatable~ to a general audience as possible)

it feels like readers are split into 3 categories on the subject:

people (lbr, straight men) who fetishize the polycule for their own male power fantasies, but think that aviendha and especially elayne are too Annoying and too independent to be Good Girlfriends and that min is the only one who "deserves" rand since she "doesn't have any plot obligations to get in the way of being his girlfriend" (yes, that is a real sentence i once saw someone on reddit say with their whole chest lmao). i suspect this was the majority back in the day, but thankfully nowadays it's mostly a minority on reddit. these people want the show to have rand get to fuck elayne and aviendha, but only have an actual relationship with min.

people who think that one man having 3 girlfriends is inherently Misogynistic and Cringe, regardless of how consensual it is, how happy the people involved are with the arrangement, and how much agency the 3 women have within the relationship to set their own terms and call shots. this is the majority nowadays. these people want the show to split the polycule into two monogamous pairings, rand/min and elayne/aviendha.

a small fraction of people who genuinely enjoy the books' attempt at portraying a poly relationship and think it is a pretty good attempt for something written within the constraints of early 2000s mainstream fiction, even if it isn't perfect. these people want the show to keep the meat of the book polycule but just make some updates for the times, such as making textual the subtextual romance between elayne & aviendha and making min feel like she actually likes the poly aspect rather than that she's just putting up with it because she wants rand.

i think that the show-desires of group #3 are most likely to be met, but the beliefs of group #2 are the most prevalent, and so it's inevitable that people are going to be assholes about the show's version and start on that same shit of claiming that rand having 3 girlfriends could not possibly be anything other than Misogynistic & Cringe, while completely ignoring all the context that makes it, in fact, an equitable, consensual, happy, healthy, and pretty damn queer relationship. the Self-Described-As-Woke Internet Fandom Crowd is all over alanna's F/M/M throuple but as soon as it's F/F/M with rand/elayne/avi, they'll be crying Straight Male Fantasy. that's just how it is, unfortunately! some people just judge based on surface-level ~optics~ and refuse to take actual context into account.

speaking of surface-level optics, people will also be mad about rand getting more love interests what with egwene and all of that, so i'm thinking the show needs to a) have egwene and gawyn meet early in season 3, b) give them the most adorable and romantic meet-cute of all time, and c) make gawyn as babygirl and as lovable as possible so that everyone immediately jumps onboard the idea of him being egwene's new love interest and then won't mind as much if rand gets with aviendha later in the season. yes, this is all a purely objective proposal here, not at all me trying to cater to my own wishes djkfjgh

thinking of timeline, i'd bet they do the randgwene breakup quite promptly in 3x01, specifically because they need to start getting the audience adjusted to the idea of them not ending up together and there's no real sense in beating around the bush about it - the longer they postpone the breakup, the worse the audience reception of their subsequent romances will be, and i doubt rafe & co want that. i think the breakup will be entirely mutual, and amicable enough that egwene would give avirand her blessing later in the season and it would feel genuine (tho we may see some rand-egwene tension lingering since their relationship starts to grow mistrustful around this point in the books).

during 3x01 we might get some seeds planted for randlayne and possibly avilayne, but i wouldn't expect anything more than Vibes at this early stage. then, fingers crossed for a gawene meeting in caemlyn in 3x02ish to reassure everyone that rand won't be the only one getting new love interests! and then avirand will be the slowburn of the season, and they'd probably only juuuuust get together by the end, by which time hopefully people will be onboard with it - they should have a lot of good development time throughout the season to really build up to it and get the audience invested, and enemies/irritants-to-lovers is such a popular trope!

pair that with discussions of aiel polyamory and more randlayne & avilayne hints, and we're ready for elayne to join later; i definitely don't expect randlayne to happen before avirand, because i'm not sure there'd be a way to do that without it feeling rushed and audiences potentially feeling that egwene's toes are being stepped on. shuffling the order a bit to go for the avirand slowburn first and then add elayne afterwards just makes a lot of sense with the deepening of randgwene compared to the books. rand can't be getting into another relationship immediately after THIS version of the breakup (and particularly not with egwene's bestie), so it'd work better to have his first post-breakup relationship be the slowburn that takes most of the season to come to fruition. and they can reshuffle stuff to allow elayne a season 4/late s3 reunion with rand & avi, so that she can get involved at that time rather than at the beginning of s3.

(now, with rand/selene, obviously that relationship felt rushed & out of nowhere to the audience since they got together offscreen, and so people were very quick to complain about it, particularly for egwene's sake. but for this relationship, that's kind of the point. we're meant to see that the relationship means a lot to rand, yes, but we the audience aren't really meant to feel particularly invested in it ourselves, even when we think she's just a nice innkeeper. we ARE meant to feel a bit indignant on egwene's behalf, i think, because one of the central tenets of this season was that you can't and shouldn't do things alone, so we are meant to see that rand going solo has hurt his loved ones as well as himself. but with rand's actual endgame romances, totally different ballgame - rafe & co want us to truly enjoy, support, and feel invested in those, and so they'll be handled much differently than rand/selene, and hopefully will likewise result in different audience reactions.)

[yatorihell]

Noragami Reread Volume 1-3

I am so very late because I'm doing a million things but I will be done for the next chapter. Anyway this is my first reread so it's been fun seeing all the foreshadowing!

Chapter 1

Yato being so full of hope doing the job and his original top of the nation dream vs where we are currently is upsidedownsmileyface

Ass comment counter: 1

Yato really is the coldest bitch this girl is crying and being hunted by ayakashi and he's like oh no anyway

'Curses and blessings are two sides of the same coin' vomiting at the future plaque foreshadowing!

Yato has a little praise kink going on and it's valid

Yato's reaction to people who wants to commit suicide when we later find out he has seen Sakura's death and later on Yukine's is just

Chapter 2

Penis comment: 1

Yatori meeting oh god here we go

'I think forming ties with you is just gonna cause problems' AHA!

Yato sees her kick the shit out of a ayakashi and would like to have her as a shinki well I got a surprise for you!!!!

Chapter 3

'This could be kinds fun' proceeds to be not fun for ## chapters

We found Yukine right there

The sister foreshadowing is so heavy 10 years in advance of getting Yukine's story

Yukine spent 30 years drifting and has the right reaction to bring told to devote himself to a sweaty god

He straight up takes Hiyori's stuff lol

Hiyori death forshadowing tracker: 1

Chapter 4

Yukine saying he'll die from parental neglect WELL

Yato and Hiyori having different views on suicidal people until she realises why shinki are shinki and yh

Hiyori death forshadowing: 2

Chapter 5

Yukine conman but he's valid

Hiyori's soul is rather transparent in the legs sometimes

'Why don't you try dying for once' WELL

Yukine's fear of the dark forshadowing

Little girl shinki is so sad I forgot about that

It looks like soil being poured on Yukine AHA

Sister foreshadowing again

Hiyori death forshadowing tracker: 3

Chapter 6

Yukine is such a bastard this chapter

Hiyori liking Yato's smell jahdhb

Biggest plottwist is Yato saying Kofuku is his girlfriend 0.1 second before getting punted by her real man

Daikoku really softens up in appearance as we get to know him, he looks like mafia boss

'He's got a thing for kids' had me choking I forgot about that

Yato's backstory is so well written to foreshadow so much we see in the future whilst running alongside the rest of the plots

Yato and Yukine height difference hdhd

Bishamon's introduction mommy sorry

Chapter 7

'The justice of this world is putting evil to death' foreshadowing for Father in the future

I love men being accessories to powerful women

Kazuma's debt to Yato and knowing what's coming hhdjb

The art has always been beautiful and the character designs improve compared to other mangas early days

Chapter 8

Meeting Nora for the first time and she seems quite chill considering what she does later

Interesting how Yukine asks 'why does this always happen to me' when it's his first time as a shinki, shows he's used to bad luck

Daifuku has a car and we just never see it again (it probably blew up)

Yukine's trousers being too short in the leg

'I found him and I named him' Yato not releasing him no matter how badly Yukine behaves because he knows what he went through

Chapter 9

Hiyori thinking Kazuma is going to kill her when he's the most pathetic man alive

Hiyori meets the girl who killed Bishamon’s shinki. Meets Kazuma, another of Bishamon’s shinki, and notes Yato killed his friend. Brings up the dead shinki. Shocked Piikachu face when he gets mad

Yukine is so baby face this chapter

Nora meets Hiyori and it's on sight for knowing Yato

Chapter 10

Yato gives Manabu a knife and is like fuck 'em up ig

Yukine just wants to be a kid!!!!

'One is enough, just find that one irreplaceable someone' I'm eating glass!!!!

'I wish I had one myself' EATING GLASS!!!!!

'What you really want is something you can no longer have and you've finally figured that out' Oh god oh man

Yukine is just a baby

Hiyori saving Yato's ass again and hauling him to Kofuku’s

Chapter 11

Despite all the hate she gave Yato, Mayu still volunteers to absolve Yukine

Hiyori really shows up on the war gods front garden yelling for her simp without hesitation

Yato refusing to release Yukine and at this point teb years ago we're like babe just do it

Yukine really has no luck transforming into all sorts of monsters in this manga

'It was just like something a father would say' GLASS!!

Daikoku is so daddy this volume wait what

Yato says Sekki has talent as if he isn't the biggest soft touch who wouldn't let that daddy issue child go

Trios first hug oh I'm so sad Adachitoka you make me so sad will they hug again

[clouds-of-wings]

I don't even know what my top albums of the year are, but here are some I discovered this year that I really liked, so that I don't come across as ONLY a hater. Linking my fav track, or one of my fave tracks, on YT every time.

Molllust - Mother Universe (A glimmer of hope in the irradiated wasteland that is symphonic metal at present. Also one of the four female-LED metal bands I know. Like with a female composer! Such wow!)

Knights of Heliopolis - Ferrum Fero Ferro Ferror (ditto about the hope thing. Also they have an operatic bass frontman and holyyyyy shiiiit that is the best thing ever! I keep fangirling about this band but they used to be called "Phoebus the Knight", so that's the tag that's in.)

Nostra Morte - Sin Retorno (A flicker of light from the NON-wasteland that symph was 12 years ago)

Silent Opera - Immortal Beauty (ditto. Oh how I wish for soothing rain and some fucking OPERA VOCALS in the fucking OPERA GENRE. Why is symph metal full of COWARDS and CASUALS? I know I sound like Holden Caulfield, but that's because he's right and my role model.)

Nanowar - Dislike to False Metal (Power Metal, Nanowar being awesome as usual. I link perhaps one of their less surprising songs bc I'm a sucker for that Rhapsody stuff but plz listen to the whole album, it also has tracks like this - great variety really, and greater wtf! I gently pat Gatto's head and wonder what he will do next, clearly he's called Cat for a reason.)

Elina Garanca - Habanera (These are just some famous arias, but her voice is really nice! Dark-voiced mezzo-sopranos rule the world!)

Snowy Shaw - White is the New Black (I have been listening to this so much lately. Somehow I always ignored his solo work after the Notre Dame stuff except for some of his singles, but this album is actually really really cool! I don't know which genre it is lol. Metal Archives says "Heavy Metal", but that doesn't really describe it so well. Snowy has a lot of personality, and so does his music. Just click! You may not even regret it!)

Wolfenmond - Can't pick an album... Galdra (EP!) I guess. Folk metal or medieval rock with a woman who doesn't get forced to sound cute.

Grendel's Sÿster - Myrtenkranz Heavy metal / folk metal with a woman who REALLY doesn't get forced to sound cute. As SATW said, women should be respected, but sister Germany should be feared. Damn straight. This is an EP, same music first in English, then in German.

Kornalyn - Intemporel (French acoustic folk, revolutionary communist and anarchist songs. This guy is a folk song recording MACHINE and I like almost everything he releases.)

Therion - Leviathan 3 (I still wrestle with this album. A lot! I also know from past experience that in retrospect I'm more likely to regret not including it than I am including it.)

---

I also watched like 20 operas this year in an attempt to be a little less of a poser in the genre. I don't know which I would recommend the most. Wagner's "Die Walküre" touched me the most, both in terms of story and of pure epicness of the music. Kinda wiped the floor with everything else :/ It seems Wagner is the only one in opera who isn't shit at plots. Lohengrin also had a good story! Vivaldi's "Juditha Triumphans" (not technically an opera but an oratorio, but really I don't care, it's basically an opera) and Bizet's "Carmen" (I'm not linking that, there are 8945098340 good recordings, just find one that looks appealing to you) had the most pleasant music.

I also liked Alessandro nell‘Indie by Leonardo Vinci (no relation). I link my favourite scene. Don't worry about the lack of English subs, the plot is 4 hours of soap opera. They did a very traditional staging of this, like back in 1730, which means it's all countertenors and sopranists, half in drag. Thus it pairs nicely with the all-female Vivaldi one above. Back when women were real men who led armies and men had fake boobs or danced under falling rose petals singing about love, LIKE GOD INTENDED! TRADITIONAL VALUES!

[animehouse-moe]

D-Frag! : Near Limitless Fun

Yes, this is an old series. Yes, it can be hard to find physically because of that. And yes, it is fun as all hell. I recently managed to get my hands on all but 3 volumes of the series so I've done a re-read from scratch on it, and it really is just incredibly hilarious. It can be a little formulaic with the whole straight man routine, but it gets both incredibly meta and off the rails with it. I mean, the sheer amount of jokes that they break out in relation to it always keeps it fresh. Getting tired of Kazama making comebacks? There's probably a joke or a remix on the horizon for it. And personally speaking it always gets me, whether it's one volume in or 16 volumes in.

Anyways, let me backtrack a little. What is D-Frag! ? Well. Well.... It's a high school comedy taken the max of what can be weird, with lots of other little bits mixed in. Kazama is a young delinquent who comes to Fujou high believing he'll be able to take it over and make a name for himself. Too bad he gets suckered in by the curious ongoings of a video game club and gets tortured into joining them. From there, his high school career of insanity and infamy as the king of comebacks (and second fiddle to the most fearsome people around) begins as they galivant and explore and in general cause mayhem and headaches.

Oh yeah, and there's 17 volumes and it's still not been a full year in real time in D-Frag! Yeah, that's right, this thing is stretched out, but you don't even think about it. One could only imagine how experiencing all of these moments one after the next would affect a young high schooler. Moving on, some art to break up my monotonous explanations of what D-Frag! is!

I don't think words could really explain what's so appealing to this manga. It's got such a classic feel to it and is so incredibly true to itself. No matter what trope it brings up, it'll subvert expectations and find a way to turn it silly and diffuse any and all tension. It builds things up and up and up, and just as it's about to place the final piece on top to complete it, Tomoya Haruno (the author) comes swooping in to topple it in the most satisfying way possible.

Not to mention, it's running jokes are absolutely top notch. There's definitely some that are rather cliched, but also more than a few that are fresh and enjoyable within the overall approach of the series. Like the constant jokes about the envy and fear that Takao's (one of the characters) chest instills in fellow women and girls.

It's really hard to talk about how D-Frag! is so much fun and such a great read without spoiling because I could talk on end about how refreshing, unique, and interesting redacted was. Or how the entire redacted arc was a wild card that was incredibly fun. Maybe this. Parents exist in D-Frag!, they really do. We see both Kazama's mother and father, we see Roka's mother, Takao's mother, Chitose's older sister, and a handful of others. Oh yeah, and just for effect, Sean Connery is a teacher at Fujou High.

And who totally could would forget the unique side characters of D-Frag! ? There's , and there there's , and of course you can't forget about . Jokes aside, the side characters have a real thing for being bald and weird in general and I'm all for it. It's so out of left field and random that it feels like two series collided to form this single one.

I swear, at least one chapter every volume has these ridiculous battle shounen introductions and interactions, and no matter what they get me every time. And they're so detailed? Haruno sensei absolutely put a good amount of effort into designing them and adding random throwaway details just to make them seem more absurd.

I don't know, I fully admit that D-Frag! isn't some foundational, groundbreaking series that has incredibly well timed or apt and effective humor, nor is it something super relatable or anything that really stands out by critical metrics. But to me, it's just plain dumb fun. One stupid thing after the next, one ridiculous escapade followed by another, guided by Haruno sensei's incredibly odd sense of interest and direction. It's something I don't know I'll ever grow tired of because Haruno sensei has stumbled upon a golden formula for D-Frag!. We're going to hit 15 years of publication this year, so here's to many more. (Also, check out the anime, it's loads of fun for what it adapts from the manga).

[firespirited]

Well, it's been a day. One of the ways my body lets me know i've overdone it (asides from pain and bp drops) is gastrointestinal distress which is actually quite smart at getting actually listened to as I'm forced to stay close to the toilet and not do anything physically strenuous that might provoke smth.

But hey Lily has perked up so much after her haircut over two days, she's back to her old mischief and recycling bin thievery. Worth it.

Readmore for ramblings

Up to episode 39 of Thundercats (plus the anointment trials of Lion-O) and I can't seem to find a skippable/key episodes list. Lots of discussion about production order and orders to avoid discrepancies but none that have, lets say, a sort of quality meter. I'm not sure how many times I can watch "old enemy finds new weapon"/"new enemy turns up out of nowhere" to attack the Thundercats. I'm interested in alliances, third earth lore, character episodes. There are only so many times you can watch Mumm-ra's extended magical girl transformation before it gets grating. This was absolutely not made for binge watching more than two at a time.

I'm thinking I might have to make one myself, there are recaps already but no table of new lore/character exploration vs basic filler (but may have a fun villain). I'm thinking of taking notes and if I can tolerate watching more Thundercats, sticking it on a neocities page.

I once printed a star trek TOS episode list and marked which ones had Kirk use seduction as a way to save his crew, in which ones he actually had romantic feelings and the ones without (at least if we deliberately pretend he's straight) . I regret not sticking that somewhere online before throwing it away. Kirk has few real romances and mostly uses his masculine wiles to save his crew. His romantic relationships are with smart independent women, his grand gestures are either for Spock, the ship herself or other core crew.

Today I did something I'd wanted to do for a while which is update the my crew 'mugshot' folder as there were dolls that have gone to new homes and a bunch I hadn't added yet. I snapped some quick photos but have about 7 more to do tomorrow.

The google spreadsheet is up to date but spread across 'my dolls: work in progress' -organized by work needed- and my crew' -organized by doll line-.

I also noticed i'd lost a bunch of ooak photos from the online galleries *and* the offline copy (the thumbnails were there but not the full size) and found them in the 2018 file backups. Not sure how that happens but grateful for file history.

Gunky bundle was cancelled by the seller. Oh well. Maybe that's for the best. It did have aqua fairytopia seapixie(?) - there are still a few I hope to get someday: jewellia with the blue translucent limbs, pale blue seapixie, ceo pink purple and blue fantasy skintone fairies with nice face alignment. Skipper face Kareena (blue) from starlight adventures. But I don't mind if the hunt takes another ten years.

Totally not in the mood to dig out the big box of 'barbie bundle' from under the bed and find a more photogenic approach.

The main problem is that usually I can sell at a big discount because I made money back on the bundle it came in so I zero the price cell. This new lot has quite a few dolls bought solo for my personal projects or were part of bundles with customs that haven't sold yet. It adds up.

My very real fear is that if I get out the box, I won't be able to resist keeping Pretty Girls, DCSHG, and a Snow white. OTL

It might have to wait until the SADS lifts to be more level headed and at peace with this hiatus for slow lower back rebuilding. I can't contemplate rerooting or other sewing/intense manual work for more than an hour at a time until the end of summer at this rate. It is what it is.

The little reorganisations and adding photos is sparking joy, not always in the moment but sometimes later, I'll see them and go oooh I have such treasures!

If you've slogged through this and read this far you deserve a treasure too, hope something that makes you feel happy when you see it or wear it comes your way this week. 💚💚💚

[weepingseraphstranger]

Rant. Very frustrated.

-

Anyone who supports that orange devil Trump can block me. ♡

If you hate my existence that much as a child-free non-heterosexual non-Christian woman who came from a WoC, you're such a disgrace. SUCH a disgrace to humanity.

Do you know how much I was fearing for my future because of every person he brought into office? How much I felt scared to live in this country when abortion was being targeted? How much I feel scared everytime that brain dead hooligan denies that our planet is dying? How much I feel scared that people still support him when he acts like he's had a few drinks and is giving a hand at the most absurd, crappy stand up comedy known to man? He sounds like my narcissistic, abusive father...and y'all eat that shit up??? And then call people who care for things that MATTER sheep? Filthy? Reduce them to nothing but "stupid leftists" and "creepy liberals" (which I can go on about how y'all are the creeps supporting a man who would fuck his daughter and a side that supports child brides, but I digress.)

Especially when I don't even like the democratic side, either, but I know who the lesser of the two evils is. Spoiler: not y'all. Not the side with that alternate reality Annoying Orange with an extra dose of money, narcissism, and lack of compassion. Not the one with people who claim they're holy people but look at a man who is actively a vile person as if he's the second coming of Christ. Cult mentality much?

Do you know how much I'm fearing for not only my future, but my half brother's, my sister's, my mother's and anyone else whose not a straight cis white Christian rich American born man who has so many kids inbreeding is probably unavoidable at that point?

No, you don't because you lack basic empathy and thinking processes to understand. You see a devil incarnate talking like the drunk man at the bar in a small country town who should be medicated and clap your hands like babies watching cocomelon. You guys won't even care if he starts wanting to oppress you and that is so sad.

Because you guys are so full of hate towards women, people of colour, trans people, non-heterosexuals, anyone who doesn't follow catholicism or Christianity, people who decide not to have kids, poor people (Although I'm assuming half the people who hang onto Trump's words like they're the plot twist in a soap opera are struggling for money so...not a good look for y'all), science, cats (for some reason. Red flag.) —Wait just animals in general because someone's family does trophy hunting (aka not hunting for the food, m'kay) and Peanut the Squirrel is only an exception to your guys war on animals tbh because you're only using him to further your political smear campaign against the side that probably cares about animals and their environment more, and just about anything that's not real science denying, oppression, absurd conspiracy theories, and uplifting the rich and powerful.

So yes, block me. I'd revel never having to interact with someone like you.

[artcallednaturalviews]

A W [aconpo]

If I ponder before I speak

Take the time to think

I can rhyme all day

before I give all of it away

What does that title mean?

One can start it real easy

Just as simple as easy peesy

Now, I know it's not a word

I being, a little absurd

Thought, give it a laugh

Throw in quick as the Flash

But before your jaw clinks

Before you click to escape

I hold smile try not to blink

To keep Your attention

Focused clear intentions

Show humanitarian decisions

Equal all Men

Equal all Women

Law Abiding Citizens

But if you want in

To walk in this land

Be respectful to all beliefs

You don't have to believe

For some they grew,

some refugee, not free

in foreign dirt, mountains and sands

Those who believe religiously

know the right plan

Some God, conscience,

selfless service,

honor the laying dead

pray, vow, bow down, lie down, stand head down,

knees crushing fabric,

feet upside down with head touching ground

it's all done in some ritual fashion stance

and the straight up profound.

Why can't you even see

the similarities

Even so

why can't we agree

Agree to disagree

Was that, that obvious

Understood its sunderance

Let's change gears

And build up walls

An omega fear engrosses all

America now closed

Lady Liberty still states

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" She needs to be toppled down

Before the walls surround

We still honor the likes of men

and the horrors that they did

like Custer the murderer of Native Americans

Your redskins, heathens, indians

M L King silence that nigger,

negro, colored, black,

(African) why not just American

Also why can't he be just Man

The poor but not a minority anymore

includes the beaners, spics, Hispanics

Hispania not even a fucking land

Just a bowl of Red, Black and Browns

Modern day slaves, low pay

even caged human

prison grounds

And forget the Yellows,

slant eyed, Asian internment camps.

Anyone who was not white skinned, different

but can't leave Jews, the Polish

the Irish, the Scottish

Simply less than human

all the many others

not even mentioned

Born on this planet and on to oppression

Earth is for all

But to those who cause pain

You need to get it together

Or move away

Womans and Mans

Every Ones Homeland

Stop there! What do you know other than history?

Says A W to Martinez

You where not there on say, D-Day

in maroon waters & sand

getting shrapnel in a foreign land

To kill an evil evil man

Listens A W from Martinez

I not, I joined during Desert Storm

but missed the invasion

With 82nd Med Air Ambulance Detachment

No I didn't but deployed to Mogadishu Somalia

it's African

Witnessed the horror of an evil ruler, unwanted memories

smelled death, gained skills

like hyper vigilance

Young (19teen) and eager

completely full of ignorance

Hear this A W, says Martinez

I consider myself

last name identified

most likely Mexican

An Honorably Discharged

Service Connected American

Veteran

Truly a Mix-ican American

My blood mixed from worldly sources

I personally don't believe in

vampire lycan wizardry courses

I believe in a self conscientiousness

Knowledge and experience

Live in right than wrong

I can't explain the supernatural

I believe in respect for our planet

The need to question

so we can give it

to the next 100 generations

to cometh

But the way we are going

Misery & Death is surely coming

No need for materialistic means

Sad to say we are losing

losing Our Humanity

In the beginning I said

"before I give, all of it away"

I don't know how to deal with this

all this nonsense

These times I feel hopeless and afraid

My anger, sadness and shame

Knowing our country caused such hurt and such pain

But can't turn a blind eye

And look away

In living thee A W

American Way

(A W has nothing to say)

Mark Martinez

American Citizen

Veteran

0ct21 2016

Been here since

Hock puck pogo stuck in funnel return

Mass wanting bruised balls

They play after me in mainstream

I’m peeing

See me bleeding

And tie- r -ing

7 years later

Still working!r Jackarse

[texanmarcusdavenport]

Lab Rats' Headcanons

(Mostly just neurodivergence & sexuality/gender headcanons.)

Chase

THIS SUPERHUMAN IS TRANSGENDER & AUTISTIC. someone get this boy some sound-canceling headphones. his transness is a huge source of insecurity for him, & adam's constant teasing does NOT help.

he is also a bisexual disaster(TM).

Bonus! Spike

mostly i consider spike to be like a fragment in a DID system, or a more realistic version of AI--he has a very specific purpose & behavior parameters & beyond that, he doesnt really. think? especially since he only comes out once in a blue moon.

the commando app triggers differently for everyone. chase's trigger is his social anxiety & general insecurity, not fear, thus why spike never activates when he's in actual danger.

ace or demi spike is an interesting concept. he's only attracted to dainty feminine people or muscle-bound gym rats, no in-between.

i know people love spike angst but i think he's actually pretty happy with his life. he comes out, fucks shit up, then sleeps for another year. what more could a guy want?

Bree

she is so. lesbian with comphet. and also adhd (hyperactive-type).

transfem bree is also very compelling (it explains why she's so desperate to separate herself from her brothers & fit in w girls her age). i think bree could've had a nice arc realizing that womanhood isn't defined by the clothes you wear or how you act, you're a woman regardless of all those things. unfortunately disney is full of misogynistic cowards 😔

Adam

Adam 🤝 Bree -> comphet. Adam is soooo aroace to me. he pretends to be attracted to women because he knows that's what's expected of him (& also it's funny/allows him to make fun of Chase more).

he is cisgender unfortunately 😔 but the biggest trans ally ever (effects of having so many trans family members)! it takes him like. a single day to get used to the idea of nonbinary people. a little longer to get used to they/them pronouns but he's TRYING.

he teases Chase for being feminine but in a weird way it's supposed to be gender-affirming? i mean, you don't make fun of girls for being girly, that'd be stupid (<- his thoughts, not mine lmao).

he has autism AND adhd (combined-type). double whammy. his sensory issues & rsd combine to make him kinda irritable/sensitive. he's social but crowds make him nervous, especially from season 3 onward. his special interest/hyperfixation is weird collectible items (an interest he & bree kinda share).

Leo

nonbinary. chill with any pronouns but most people default to he/him. doesn't like dresses but does wear skirts on occasion.

pansexual or unlabeled. or possibly aspec? i don't know and neither does he, honestly. he just got here.

soooo adhd it's unreal. combined-type like adam. finally started taking his meds around season 3.

Donald

AUTISTIC. it runs in the family.

straight trans guy. kinda homophobic ngl.

Douglas

also trans (it runs in the family). i fully accept the headcanon that he's adam, bree, & chase's egg donor.

HEAR ME OUT. schizophrenic douglas? schizophrenia is often misdiagnosed with things like autism or npd, since they have a lot of overlap (eccentric ways of thinking, paranoia & trust issues can at times look like grandiosity, etc.). he probably made his own medication since he didn't like the ones his therapist put him on.

sooo bisexual disaster that's where chase gets it from <3

Marcus

not trans not cisgender but a secret third thing <3

(no seriously. technically he's cis because he was designed to be a guy & he has no desire to be a woman. technically he's trans because robots have no assigned gender & he's a guy. technically he's cis because robots have no assigned gender & he doesn't really view himself as having a gender. technically he's trans because he was designed to be a guy but he wouldnt really mind being a woman. technically--)

i also like the idea of transfem marcus? no real reason it just appeals to me. bree would be so excited to have a sister <3

ace. not aro but he views romance very very differently from most people. he'd only date someone who's really interesting to him. he gets his taste in romantic partner from douglas lmao.

SOOOO NPD & BPD. the constant lying. belief that he's better than everyone else but Not Really. mood swings. tunnel vision. dramatics. black & white thinking. feelings of emptiness. daddy issues. it's all there baby. he also has anxiety but don't bother telling him he'll just deny it lmao.

marcus knows a fair bit of ASL. he became aware of it because someone in drama club is Deaf; he likes how expressionate and to the point the language is.

marcus was originally one of the robots that the davenport brothers built to handle bionics. it's possible that donald helped build him at one point.

when they were building him, douglas went behind donald's back & equipped marcus with all sorts of things, such as a very primitive version of the triton app, mostly serving as a communication channel. that's why his eyes glow green.

(based off of this post) marcus also has a commando app named mike. mike's trigger is marcus' anxiety about not being "human enough", thus why he's just a Normal Guy.

Daniel(le)

transfem, obviously. major tomboy. actually 15 but looks younger due to the puberty blockers she's on. (her being thirteen fucks up the timeline in my head.)

she was adopted by a lesbian couple but they're. kinda neglectful. scratch that, really neglectful. thus how quick she was to accept douglas as her father.

bree is really excited to have a sister. she ends up mildly disappointed because she wanted to do things like go shopping & to the spa & talk about boys etc etc but danielle's not really into that stuff. luckily they can still bond over pranking adam & chase.

[thefaceless-man]

I think that a good chunk of what causes this confusion is a lack of awareness of the range of ways in which people have sexual fantasies. It's assuming that consuming porn (either written or visual) depicting certain types of people means that you must be sexually attracted to those people, and that you get aroused by that porn because you want to have sex with the people being depicted. It's the same error that leads to that infamous 'science proves all women bisexual' study - researchers assumed that everyone engages with visual pornography the way that the typical straight man does, by seeking out and responding to pornography that depicts bodies that they're sexually attracted to, so when they found that lots of self-described straight women become aroused in response to porn depicting women*, they assumed that these women must secretly be attracted to women. They didn't appreciate the wide range of things that 'being aroused by images of sexy women' can mean, such as being aroused by the fantasy of being as desirable as the woman in the image (especially as women are socialised to desire being desired!), or enjoying the fantasy of experiencing the same pleasure as the woman being depicted (a fairly standard reason why straight women enjoy solo female or lesbian porn), or even being aroused by the knowledge of how degrading it is for a woman to be objectified in that way for the male gaze.

Likewise, a lot of people discover adults in fandom getting horny over stories about teenagers having sex, and assume that this means that they must be sexually attracted to real teenagers. This always struck me as a very bizarre assumption to make about people's consumption of *written* erotica, where there's generally more emphasis on getting inside the heads of the people being depicted and less on how attractive the people being depicted are, but that's just an example of people treating stereotypical straight male sexuality as the default. In reality, being sexually aroused by the idea of teenagers having sex can mean many things that don't involve wanting to have sex with real teenagers, like wanting to make up for unfulfilled adolescent fantasies or traumatic early sexual experiences, or even just plain old eroticising the intensity of adolescent desire. Sexual desire and pleasure is incredibly thrilling when these feelings are all new to you, when the desire is intensified by the element of fear of the unfamiliar, and when you haven't yet learned to inhibit your urges quite so much, so it's understandable that people who are a bit older and have some real-life sexual experience under their belt would want to relive that stage of early sexual development from time to time.

(And let's face it, fandom is full of socially awkward nerds who didn't start having sex until their early twenties or even later, so there are a lot of fanfic writers who use writing as a way of living out the teenage sexual fantasies they never got to fulfil).

*Yes, I know that genital arousal =/= desire, which is another major methodological error with those studies. But that's never really satisfied me as a way of 'debunking' these results, because the reality is that a lot of straight women *do* enjoy lesbian porn and get turned on by porn depicting sexy women, and it still isn't fair to describe these women as 'secretly bisexual'.

Accusing people of things over writing teenage romance/smut always gets me because haven't most people experienced that or know someone who did? Why do people jump straight to "you must want to fuck teenagers irl!" over depictions of something that is a pretty normal occurrence growing up?? Like people could just be writing about their own experiences or wanting their blorbos do go through the same situation they personally did?

Yeah seriously

[needsmorewlw]

Heya,

I really like all the ideas you have for the Quarry gang in different AUs, like the superpowers or lingering werewolf changes.

But if each one of them was a different mystical/paranormal creature in hiding, who do you think would be what? Like maybe Max and Laura would still be werewolves, but we could have a vampire, harpy, kelpie, mermaid etc.

Can either be classic monsters or mythological creatures in hiding.

Thanks for the awesome content!

HERE WE GO

I apologize for how long it took me to answer this I rly needed to think about it.

I wanted to stick with a kinda spooky theme for all of them while also picking things that I felt matched with their vibes but I'm so happy with these.

Almost all of these creatures murder people for fun but we're going Teen Wolf style where these funky kids are doing their best not to murder anyone because they don't want to, also they're in hiding.

Also turned this into a full-on story Au. Apparently I can't help myself.

👇 The Quarry counselors as mythical creatures in hiding 👇

Max&Laura

I love the idea of them still being werewolves. And I love the headcanon of them being a cryptid hunting duo even more and I think that's where they all meet in this universe. I say that like I have the ability to write a fanfic. I do not. But I'll obsess anyway.

They're both werewolves, though they look more furry than the game designs. Still big and freaky but not as gobliny

They get paid to investigate "mysterious deaths" typically caused by creatures posing as humans. They probably get paid by Travis who's just a human cop who knows that monsters exist and hide among humans and needs a way to get rid of them without seeming like a crazy person. They hunt down said creatures and that's how they meet the others.

They're all innocent but Laura and Max need to scope out their vibes before they can find the things actually repsonsible.

Emma

Emma was the first one I thought of because there's so many hot monster ladies who kill men and she just has that vibe to her, but also I was looking for a real specific energy for the love of my life.

Lamia in Greek mythology are half snake half women who eat kids. They also seduce men and convince them to give them their kids and then kill the men too. They're known to pose as performers to get attention and scope out vulnerable targets and lure them in with their ethereal beauty.

They're basically spicy land mermaids and that's on being hot. Though they're technically a type of demon. Like I said, hot.

Some stories pitch them to have mind control abilities as an alternative to seducing their victims. They can also straight up induce fear to make people leave them alone or just outright scare them to death.

They can shapeshift to change their size to be like an eight feet tall monster snake lady and also shed the snake skin to just be hot human ladies. They can see into the future and they practice witchcraft 😌🤌💕

Emma is just the local beautiful woman™. She definitely still has a YouTube channel or a Tiktok account and sometimes does her scarily accurate tarot card readings. She just lives her life doin whatever because it's pretty easy for her the hide. She travels a lot because she wants to see what the world has to offer but this makes her suspicious to the lil hunting duo who assume she's roaming around leaving bodies behind.

Laura and Max find her minding her own business. Maybe she did kill someone but if Emma was killing anyone, they definitely deserved it.

Abi

For Abi I almost went with something cutesy but I was also leaning towards something ghosty related because of how much contact she has with Eliza in the game. I just wanted her to be powerful but completely unaware of it, like it was something dormant she had to unlock and I actually had two that are basically the same thing but with very different aesthetics.

Banshees are fairy/spirit ladies who appear when you are close to death. If you can hear her wails it means someone you know is going to die or you're going to be in danger sometime soon.

Dullahan's are also fairies and are also omens of death but they're headless (lol) and ride around on horses holding their magic heads that can see massively long distances. Both are rad but I'm sticking with Banshee for now which is also a Teen Wolf thing.

She can disorient you with her scream and deafen you if you're close enough. Tinnitus all around. They also have visions of the future. (blygbank fortune teller duo)

Eventually she works out how to see and talk to ghosts but for most of her life she's just plagued with confusing dreams and gets weird feelings in certain places that later turn out to be haunted, and around certain people who end up dying shortly after.

Abi doesn't know about her powers she just thinks she has the worst luck. Every now and then, she'll go somewhere and she'll see someone get hit by a car or spontaneously have a heart attack. She aimlessly goes for walks and always ends up near where an ambulance is parked in front of someone's house or on the side of the road. Because she's always around the scenes of crimes, Laura and Max think she's their target but they eventually see that's not the case.

She's subconsciously using her powers and I think Laura and Max are the ones who tell her that she's a banshee when they realise that she's clueless and definitely not a serial murderer.

Ryan

For Ryan I was thinking along the lines of mythical creatures who kept to themselves/had some kind of camoflauge or shapeshifting abilities but most of them were tiny chaotic creatures or things that seduced humans to kill them and none of that matches up with Ryan

Then I read about djinn/jinn/genies and they seemed more like what I was looking for.👀

They're typically reclusive, only interacting with humans they deem to be wise/intelligent enough to offer their power to. They're antisocial and picky about their company just like our good good boy.

But more specifically I was thinking Ryan would be a half-djinn. Since Djinn are invisible, wispy beings with god-like powers associated with demons since they can possess humans. But their offspring pass as slender, pretty humans. Which is kinda boring but I think his eyes glow and he gets all these coloured tattoos all over him if he's in his djinn form 😌🤌

Their powers are limited to shapeshifting and psychic-like abilities where they can make humans hallucinate, experience false realities and basically just mess with their minds in general. They can also see into or interfere with humans dreams like Djinn. But Djinn cause sleep paralysis and try to possess sleeping humans.

But since Ryan canonically has one (or two depending on your hc) absent parents. It matches up with a human getting down with a potentially evil being and having a funky magic baby.

Ryan mainly uses his powers to avoid people. He's not out looking to make people go crazy by breaking their brains, he just doesn't want to be cornered into a conversation with an acquaintance when he's trying to do his grocery shopping. So he'll do some minor mind-fucking to make them forget they saw him.

It also makes it SUPER hard for Laura and Max to find him. The first time one of them try to approach him, he instinctively makes them forget him because he's too shy to talk to strangers and then they have to start from square one again. Then they come back and accuse him of messing with their brain and he gets nervous, so he messes with their brains again.

Djinn also have the silver weakness and can be killed or trapped inside anything made of silver. So there's something in common with Laura and Max. Also it's super funny to think about them trying to get proof that he's a djinn by using silver while trying to not touch it themselves.

Dylan

I really wanted something intelligence or music related for my sweet boy and as I was searching GUESS WHAT I LEARNT

Sirens! Were originally! depicted as half-BIRD MEN! Who hung out on big rocks in the middle of the ocean and sang or played music. The stories varied between them doing it to cause mischief and get sailors killed or lost at sea. Or singing to warn sailors travelling through fog that were was stuff to hit their boat on or that a storm was coming. Then later they added lady sirens (or stories with lady sirens got more popular) and stories of them exclusively trying to lure sailors in with their voices to kill them started up. Then they changed it to fish people, then some boring asshole decided that it was just female sirens who lured men to their death. Probably some lame ass who didn't want to be lured to his death by a hot man. But I'm not a coward so I'm going with the OG lore.

The idea of Dylan with wings does in fact, make me go feral. Maybe he just has wings or maybe he gets feathers on his arms and bird feet when he's not in human form but either way he's ethereal. He has super soft hair. Beautiful bird boy.

He uses his charm powers mostly for his own gain, occasionally to help his friends out. If he gets lonely he'll go somewhere and hum or whistle a song and people will immediately come over to him and talk to him 🥰 He makes music and anyone who hears it feels compelled to reach out to him in some way. He has used it to get money many times and he'll do it again. But he doesn't make people fall in love with him because that's where his morals kick in. He doesn't use his powers to kill people, he just likes the attention. Because you can't convince me that if Dylan had the ability to make people pay attention to him, he wouldn't abuse the hell out of it.

I imagine that creatures with mind control-esq abilities are immune to his charm and he gets real mopey about it. Not because he's run into a potentially dangerous creature but because he got rejected and he's not used to that.

I think he singles out Max and lures him in because he's smart and figured out Max and Laura were tracking him. Cue Laura going to save her bf and her and Dylan recreating that picture of the cat with the shit-eating grin surrounded by knives (Laura's holding the knives)

I have another similar one for Dylan but Sirens are more noteable so I went with that.

Kaitlyn

I wasn't sure about Kaitlyn. My only prerequisite was that it had to be dope. I wanted to find some way to make her a dragon then I remembered wyverns were a thing and I saw stars.

The difference between dragons and wyverns is that wyverns are smaller and bipedal. They still walk on their hands and feet but they have hand claws instead of four legs. Some of them breathe fire, others have some kind of poison smog breath or spit acid. I can see Kaitlyn's bite and claws being poison when she's not in human form.

She has three forms. A human form, a half wyvern lady form and a full on wyvern. They're smart and like collecting/hoarding things. They're independent but inquisitive and like learning about human things which works with their interest in mechanics and engineering 😌🤌

She minds her own business and rarely goes into creature mode. She's a human 99.9% of the time because she's a responsible, tax paying member of society who doesn't feel the need to randomly use her powers for any reason. But when she does use it you better make sure you're on her side because she'll whoop your ass.

I'm also obsessed with Kaitlyn and Dylan being winged buddies. I think they met from Dylan luring her in when he was bored and once it wore off, she decided he was funny and harmless enough to not immediately kill. Now they're besties, They have to be besties in every au, I don't make the rules.

Laura and Max are real careful with tracking her because they know how tough she is and I'm debating whether they even tried to do so or not. Kaitlyn could definitely immediately tell they're werewolves and vice versa. Their animal instincts clocked each other right away. I think Kaitlyn went to them to find out why they were following her and then probably helped them find the real culprits after she scares the shit out of them.

Nick

I wanted SOMEONE to be a water dwelling creature and I had good arguments for most of them. I almost made Ryan the merman but I eventually settled on Nick.

My final decision was ultimately based on Nick being an adorable Australian shark merman since Australians are all about the beautiful beaches and swimming and the coral reef and all that good stuff.

Specifically he's a tiger shark, they have stripes down their sides, they're a little stupid and they're entirely food motivated. Like they'll swim through disaster weather just on the off-chance they'll find dead things to eat when every other species of shark swims away from the area for safety.

There's a bunch of different stories about merfolk and what they're capable of in terms of shapeshifting but I'm going with the style where they can either have the half fish body or human legs whenever they want. They can live on land for as long as they want without it affecting them physically but they do feel an urge to be near water. Which is why I think Nick is a lifeguard in his spare time. He just has the vibe of those handsome, charming lifeguards.

There are stories about how merfolk would innocently try to take humans they liked to their underwater kingdoms, which resulted in the humans drowning or their lungs crushing from the sudden change in pressure because they swim down so fast. Which is so bimbo/himbo of them tbh but it makes sense they wouldn't know humans can't breathe in both air and water like they can. But that's why Nick's a lifeguard because he's well aware these humans are fragile and they need a lot of taking care of.

They can read minds which is how they talk underwater but Nick knows not to pry. He's polite. Living on land gave him human etiquette.

He has a set of human teeth and a set of pointy shark teeth that he can retract and he's real strong. Similar to the werewolves, he can smell blood and it can potentially send him into a bit of a frenzy if he's hungry or you just catch him on a bad day mentally. Luckily he's a generally happy boy and doesn't have a lot of bad days but when he has a bad day, it's a real bad day. (Future cryptid friend group HC is that Dylan or Emma have to calm him down by charming him before he goes rabid and tried to eat someone. Same with the werewolves.)

Laura and Max absolutely hate this job because it's entirely water based. The dude is constantly in and out of water and covered in water. In the end, Max literally just walks up to Nick and chats to him about the weird deaths in the area and Nick is SO friendly and helpful and after half a conversation with him they know he's not the culprit but they DO wanna hang out with him.

Jacob

I was at a loss for Jacob, I truly just had no idea he could be. We don't have any info about his family dynamics or his interests that could spawn some train of inspiration in my head like the others do and this was sixty percent of the reason it took me so long to write this.

He has a similar energy to Abi where he just doesn't know what's going on most of the time so I played off that. Eventually I decided on him being a mythical creature by proxy. As in, he's possessed by something that turns him into a monster.

Y'all heard of a show called Teen Wolf?/sarcasm

There's a being called the Kanima which is a South American myth that involves a shapeshifter in the form of a were-jaguar. It's known as a demonic spirit that brings misfortune to everyone it's near. If you're out in the woods and you keep experiencing bad luck; tripping, stuff from trees falling on you, getting attacked by animals, it's a sign that the Kanima is after you.

It has the power to posses humans or animals and it's stare can drive the recipient insane. They have a paralyzing poisonIt can't fully suppress the consciousness of the one they're possessing unless they're asleep or knocked out. The spirit is only released if the one they're possessing dies and I think this is the final chapter in this little cryptid hunting story.

Jacob went out for a walk one day, was even more unlucky than usual and didn't come home. Kaitlyn and him are definitely still friends in this universe and she started getting concerned/suspicious when Jacob popped up the next morning acting like he didn't know what happened the previous night.

Her instincts are telling her something's wrong, she calls Laura and Max and they also can't do anything. When the Kanima reveals itself they can't get close to it because if the stare and the poison. Not only that, everything goes wrong, their car breaks down, they hurt themselves in ridiculous ways, all because of the Kanima. Kaitlyn can fight him but her poison doesn't work on him and the stare would make her go crazy.

They end up calling all their new friends to see if any of them can help. Abi's new to this, she might be able to help but she's not ready for combat. Nicks strong enough to fight it and would love to help but one look from the Kanima would make Nick go into a frenzy. Dylan could pacify and lure him in but he absolutely does not want to get close to it because he'd get messed up by the poison and the stare.

At the end of the day Emma and Ryan are also demon-esq and they're the only ones immune to the poison and insanity stare. Emma pacifys him while Ryan roots around in his mind to essentially disable the Kanima so it can't take control of Jacob anymore.

Now Jacob just has the strength and speed of the Kanima. In Teen Wolf it's like a gross lizard thing but when I look up were-jaguars, they're just these big ol' hell-demon-cats so that's what he can turn into because that's sick. Parkour time for this lad.