#AND HES SOOOOOO RIGHT FOR THAT. not just for This Kink reasons but in general too. fuck yea man

[gaz-tronautical]

I'd be lying if i said this episode didn't contribute to me Gaining This New Thing.

[belliesandburps]

Followup with MGS4 Peace Walker and 5?

History has a funny way of repeating itself. :P

This one's actually gonna be long, so I'll cap it here to spare those uninterested in non-kink posts the burden of having to scroll past this fanboy rant. 'XD

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

3. It's Okay

Soooooo...not a controversial opinion to say that I don't think MGS4 is GREAT. I adored it when it first game out, and I still enjoy replaying it from time to time. But good lord, so many of the interviews shed light on a LOT of this games problems.

Some backstory is required. Hideo Kojima was done with MGS by this point. He planned to move on and leave the series to the younger generation. But then, there was a lot of internal conflict and struggle to determine what MGS4 should be after Fukushima quit (AND was rumored to have been murdered by the Yakuza...how that rumor started...and became a SERIOUS rumor that millions believe, I do not know...). So Kojima came back, course corrected, and the end result was kind of a giant mess.

I'm not talking story because, there's just way too much to unpack. But as a game, MGS4 can't decide what sort of video game it wants to be. It had a brilliant idea that had never been done before with its Battlefield Stealth, which were the best parts of the game. And then they get dropped two acts in, and what gets replaced in their stead is not nearly as fun.

The game had substantially less boss fights than its predecessor, and a lot of them were mechanically simplistic or just didn't let you get creative with how you fought them. And we later learned there were a lot more bosses planned, more gameplay sequences planned, and an entire other PMC group that got canned in favor of the Scarabs so Shadow Moses could be guarded by machines instead.

There's a lot about MGS4 that I love. I think the first two acts are amazing, ESPECIALLY Act 2. I think the mechanics are great. REX vs RAY is criminally fun. The sheer buffet of insane weapons gives the game a good amount of replay value. And the graphics still hold up to this day!

But what I finally realized is that the game juggles way too many ideas and doesn't give any idea the time they deserve to flourish. Battlefield Stealth could've CARRIED MGS4. But it gets dumped before we can get our moneys worth. A disguise sequence could've been really creative, having to juggle different identities with OctoMask every time one identity is burned. But it's only used once and wasted because it's only used for a terrible tailing mission that doesn't let you actually explore the European City. And too many of the action set pieces are kind of bland except the bosses and piloting Metal Gear.

MGS4 should've been MGS4. Not MGS's "Best Hits."

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

1. LOVED it!

I know this is unpopular to say, but I'll say it. Peace Walker is one of the best Metal Gear games ever made. I adored almost everything about it. The gameplay improves on MGS4 in most ways because it doesn't juggle a billion ideas all at once. It's MGS4 stripped down to stealth action from start to finish, and that's all I wanted. The level design is great. The insane volume of guns changes the entire feel of combat in later post-campaign gameplay. The mission select options mean you can jump into all the parts of the game you enjoy the most. There's TONS of bonus missions that are really inventive and fun to replay. And the story is one of the best in the series. It's straight forward, very tight, characterized well, and is the best iteration of Big Boss to date.

Peace Walker's also the FUNNIEST MGS game by Kojima as well. There's so much more personality and levity to everything, to the point where Big Boss often feels like an MCU character. That might sound bad, but it's really not. That corniness fits MGS PERFECTLY, and I'd argue is tonally spot on for this series. MGS doesn't need to be dark, gory or explicit. It's a silly series that's about giant robots, corny bad ass super agents with an anti-nuke message.

The only downsides to Peace Walker are the QTE's and the boss fights. This was a feature that only ever appeared in this game and for good reason...it was fucking terrible. So basically, you had cutscenes that forced you to do various QTE's or else get dinged on your ratings at the end, even if you played perfectly. Fairly minimal, but then, you get to Strangelove's torture. And this is the single most rage-inducing part of any MGS game ever made. It's an insanely physically painful button mashing sequence that will leave your fingers raw and your PS3 triangle buttons jamming. And the ONLY way you can replay one of the best missions in the game (the prison escape where you have no items) is by redoing that sequence over and over. And the boss fights? While inventive, they're all just grindy bullet sponges with no personality, no stealth tactics, and no room for creativity the way you can get creative with every other MGS game's bosses. This was the biggest disappointment for me because the stealth and combat mechanics of PW are great and would've been SO good against human enemies like what Portable Ops had. Instead, every boss is a mini-Metal Gear all voiced by the VOCALOID AI from the mid 2000's, and each one takes forever to destroy. It sucks because PW had a TON of bosses, but only a few of them are any fun, and that's only if you have weapons that are strong enough that they don't take ages to destroy.

But asides from the bosses, the REST of the game is so damn good that I don't even care because that's just one element to a much larger, grander game. Which is even more impressive when you consider PW was originally on the PSP before the PS3 port. And this game has more content and replay value to it than most games I've played since.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

1. LOVED it!

Hooooooookay...so, I've rambled about my storybook romance with MGSV for YEARS now. (Just ask @twistedtummies2, he's been subjected to my fanboying of this game more than anyone in existence XD) But there's a reason I regard this game as one of my all time favorites and the best MGS game to date.

It's REALLY freakin' fun.

Kojima had been re-energized by the time he got to MGSV. He'd been working on the game around the time he finished Peace Walker in 2010. He KNEW it was his final MGS game and wanted to do something completely different...

...He wanted to make a game where the central focus was on...waaaaait for it...the gameplay...

MGSV was designed to be, what he described, as a toybox. You have these missions that all take place in structurally unique outposts like any level in MGS. And the missions are designed with the structure needed so that they all feel different, but all remain so open ended that you can play them countless different ways.

MGSV's game model is everything GTA SHOULD'VE been. It fully embraces the open world freedom and incorporates that into the missions flawlessly. And it plays in such a way that stealth and combat both feel like they were the primary point. In MGS, combat is usually a last resort. But with MGSV, you can fly into an outpost blasting away on your helicopters mini-gun, shoot up the bad guys, rescue your target, throw them back into the chopper and fly away while "The Final Countdown" blares on your choppers loud speakers.

Every method of gameplay is valid and the controls, the enemy AI responsiveness, it's all, bar none, the best I've experienced in ANY video game. Sneaking around feels tight and tense and combat makes you feel like Jack Bauer on adrenaline. (I mean, he IS the voice of Venom Snake)

And I really like the story for the most part too. Its weaknesses are really glaring. Namely, the "Fun" of MGS is completely devoid in the story (which is really odd since it's FRONT AND CENTER in-game). Venom Snake only has maybe six minutes of dialogue in the entirety of this 30+ hour long game. And the way Skull Face gets completely undercut right at the home stretch is something I have NOT stopped bitching about for almost six years, and my friends can personally attest to that.

That and the ending feels too abrupt.

We know that Kojima got fired by Konami's VP and said VP scorched the entire production company after that and made a series of dickheaded decisions that pissed off a LOT of fans, burning much of the good will Konami IP fans had towards the company. But that had nothing to do with MGSV's abruptness. That was the plan from the start because only Kojima would think to end the entire series on a plot twist like that.

And I think the issue isn't the twist at all. In fact, I LOVE the twist. The issue is that the game should've continued beyond it so Venom Snake could cope with the truth and realize how badly he'd been screwed. I think even people who hated the twist could've been won over if there was a little more to the games epilogue than Episode 46.

Also, the games boss fights were a tad underwhelming. Not the fights themselves, I LOVED all five of the games bosses.

Oh? There were twelve?

No. I meant what I said. Because so many of the games bosses are rematches against the same bosses. All MGSV has is the Skulls, Quiet, Eli, The Man on Fire, and Metal Gear. They're great bosses that do everything the best MGS bosses always did; give you tons of options, incorporate combat AND stealth, have varied attacks AND even have multiple methods to sneak around the boss and avoid the fight completely. But for a game as long as MGS, you need more variety. And frankly, the bosses NEED more personality. Skull Face should've had more XOF assassins acting as the bosses in the game along with the ones we have. Elite assassins like Quiet, with their own powers and specialized weaponry so the fights feel completely different from the ones we have. And oh yeah, SKULL FACE HIMSELF SHOULD'VE HAD A GOD-FUCKING-DAMN BOSS FIGHT!!!!

Buuuuuuut those issues don't even matter if for all the games issues, I still replay it frequently when it's almost six years old.

So yeah! There's the massive rant you totally didn't ask for! :D

[kewltie]

YEAR END FIC REVIEW

This year I wrote: 

biological imperative 

wings of icarus

war of the roses

sugar, we’re going down

you are cordially invited...

garden of eden

your kiss tastes so red

hana to ryuu 

a demolition boy & his cryptid bf

the fox’s bride

when dandelion roars

hope is a four letter word

butterfly pinned under glass

the devil and the deep blue sea

vol 1: goodbye halcyon days

papa said to knock you out

my boy builds coffin

love meme, hate meme

interlude: paper darling

in rouge

at the feet of the world

that’s 21 stories (124k words!!!) and that’s discounting all the random fic snippets that i wrote only on tumblr so far. 

Overall thoughts

My actual writing year didn’t really start until like in May which mean the bulk of my writing was in the last half of the year. I spent most of the first half reposting and moving my eunhae fic over to ao3 so I didn’t actually have any new fic to post (even tho i was prob still writing away with random fic ideas anyway but no actual completed fic to post) until I wrote BI for bakudeku and that pretty much sealed the deal for me. New fandom, new pairing, and new obsession. Honestly coming in I was worry how slow I was writing and how I didn’t get much done but looking at my fic list and my wordcounts and HOW I DID IT ALL IN HALF A YEAR... im pretty impress with myself :D.

Also, I think it’s a good time as any to finally realize and accept when you finally  move on to a new fandom. So thank you v v v v much to my old fandom for nurturing me and helping me grow as i writer these past five years. You made every eunhae fic worth it, thank you again!!!!

My best story of the year

“A demolition boy & his cryptid bf” if all the kudoes that keep on coming tell me. Here’s a random tidbit about it: i wrote it all in like 2-3 days in some sort of mad spur. social media style fic was something i did for eunhae before so it wasn’t new to me so i guess that’s why it came easy enough LOL but this was little more intensive just bc i wanted it look even better but im sooooo glad ppl were so accepting of it despite the style of the fic and the way it was format. you guys rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gave me enough confident to start “love meme, hate meme” even tho im pretty sure i was going to do it anyway lol. 

My favorite story of the year

“love meme, hate meme,” only bc it is my masterpiece in term of how fucking damn pretty it is and how much blood, sweat, and tears i poured into it just to get that damn FONT COLOR RIGHT. 

Most fun story to write

“papa said to knock you out” aka kasumi ‘verse only bc she literally wrote herself. her voice come clear and true to me and i had such a fun time writing in her pov!! it also plays into my dumb romcom trope that i always love bc royalty au? CHECK? single parents? CHECK CHECK? past secret love affair? CHEEEEEEEECK. it’s just all so damn cliche and it’s me to T and i fucking love it. 

Story with the single sexiest moment

“In Rouge” played with a lot of things i love where it borders on sexy/intimate without crossing the line. like im 90% sure bakudeku were going to bang in the restroom but the fact that it’s THE RESTROOM IN THEIR SCHOOL and katsuki is damn good bf and wouldn’t want their first time in that shitty place so yea hands to themselves. but honestly i don’t do smut/nsfw but i always tread the water with it lol with my kink fics bc i am kinky v v v much so but i do in a way that is comfortable with me without dealing with explicit sex and im really glad i get to show off that in my fic bc sexy doesn’t alway have to lead up to sex ya know???? 

Most "holy crap, that's wrong, even for you" story

"my boy builds coffin” a katsuki that kill sends shiver down to spine but man writing it and thinking what push him over the edge was exciting only bc i love my fluff in general but i highkey love dark and edgy stuff too esp super dysfunctional relationship, yo. 

Story that shifted my own perception of the characters

"My boy builds coffin” for sure. Only because I wanted to stretch how Katsuki would fall and understand the length he would go to ensure a future where izuku is alive and thriving and I THOUGHT man if your future bf who is this scarred and traumatized individual person come back in time to protect you by killing every fucking thing that hurt you and instead of freaking the fuck out you’re like “um, IM SO JEALOUS OF MY FUTURE SELF TO HAVE THIS PERSON DEDICATE THEIR LIFE TO THEM” and im like fuck bc that’s the kind of fucked upness that i love. 

Hardest story to write

if it isn’t “love meme, hate meme” than THIS IS YEAR IS FUCKING CANCEL. the formatting,juggling a gazillion of usernames, the font color and text, THE FANFIC ARCHIVE etc everything i have to carefully format and code even tho i have extremely and bullshit knowledge of it. 

Biggest disappointment

nothing???? i love ALL MY BABIES. but no really that fucking mad max au im writing and was supposed to be posted yest.... DAMN YOU. 

Biggest surprise

Uh, “demolition boy” and probably “kasumi verse” only bc i never intend for either of them to happen :P. 

Most unintentionally telling story

the vampire fic my entire reason for writing it is so I CAN PROCRASTINATE ON THE ACTUAL FI IM SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING. i wrote it all in one sitting passed waaaay into the AMs. that’s... some dedication to my procrastination. 

Story I haven't written yet, but intend to

the age gap abo childhood friends au i have been working on the side :S.

Goals for this year: 

Finished all my major projects (kasumi ‘verse, wedding verse, social media au, stepbro au)

hopefully i can get started on gasoline verse aka the post zombie fest where bakudeku tried to survived it by building the most codependent fucked up relationship possible :D; it’s letting your bf become a ‘zombie’ just bc you can’t live without him 

WRITE AT LEAST ONE TODODEKUBAKU FIC!!!!!

thank you soooooo much for putting up with this year!!!! i know im really bad at replying/commenting and interacting with you guys but i want you to all know i feel incredibly blessed and humble by all your kindness and support. you all treated me so well last year and this year I hope to return your kind gesture by giving you more stories to read in 2019!!! :D

[frenchiestan]

14x01 Reactions

I couldn’t get any livestreams to work last night but I really REALLY wanted to liveblog it so I’m just gonna make a post about it instead. If i like this i’ll probably do it whenever i miss an episode airing! Anyhoo, enjoy watching me die slowly in text form

First shot Sam driving Baby??!? Are you kidding me?? r u d e

also bearded Sam *drooling*

i never knew what Muslim prayers said before and they’re super close to Catholic ones. i love that. it makes sense i just never knew 

Jensen speaking other languages was not a kink i knew i had...

JENSEN IS SUCH A GOOD ACTOR I’M YELLING

I’m literally terrified of him this is amazing

and that vOICE

peace and love *cries*

anyways new favorite antagonist alert 

THE TITLE CARD

so reminiscent of season 9 i love it

hippy hunter guy is a snack i ain’t gonne lie...don’t judge me 

girl same 

god i am never gonna get over bearded Sam

FAMILY HUG FAMILY HUG FAMILY HUG

Sammy it’s okay everything always works out...sort of??!?

do you think Sam is jealous of hippy hunter’s hair and beard and that’s the real reason he’s not shaving??

teach her to do it!

also i love Maggie, i hope she sticks around

you are not good Samuel, go sleep!

Jack and Bobby boxing is officially the most pure thing

his hair is so fluffy. i love my soft son

Bobby always speaking words of wisdom :’))))

i already hate this guy...even if his shoes are nice

CAS ORDERED WATER!!! JENSEN WAS RIGHT ASDFGSFBBZABK

Cas looks soooooo good

wow a fashionable demon...wild

this demon knows what’s up lmao

cas and dean are definitely joined at the everything ;)))))

“your life” 

“i’ll speak slower”

sassy cassy coming out but not to play

oh damn oh damn

kick all their asses baby i’ll hold your trenchcoat

STOP HURTING CAS 2K18

I. SAID. STOP.

DANNEEL *a million heart eyes emojis*

dude we got a view of true form.....niiiiiiiiiiice

“oh god” “people keep calling me that” yas i love him

I love the lighting in this scene

the way he said pretty...

if Anael wants love I volunteer

i’m still curious how this whole “not many angels left” thing is going to play

they are worth saving shut your face

hey can i uh....get some jack and cas interactions please

sammy and jackie :’))

yup still not over the beard

get Jack a tv in his room or something

or just decorate it in general it’s so drab

uuuummmmmm who the fuc kis that

what the hell??!?

Nick!?!? wtf

why???????????????

oh wow i’m so torn bc on the one hand this is intriguing but on the other....

how is he alive tho. seriously how is that possible

Nick asking the questions we all have

that explanation seems...thin

idk i’m sure it’ll be useful for the show

even when beat up and bleeding Cas just oozes with “I’m done with your shit”

i like the new gang

Maggie wearing overalls oh boy oh boy be still my gay heart

JACK!?!?! He wants to save his Dad 

he just wants to help and prove he’s still useful even without his powers both to others and to himself and i can’t wait to see him learn he’s not just useful as a weapon but as a part of the family to thanks for coming to my ted talk

I feel like Sam is going into warrior/leader mode to not lose anyone else

i don’t give a shit about your backstory demon dude...just get stabby stabbed already

Sam shush she needs to believe it’s going to be okay too

can we please just have our little family back together again please??

Mary is so worried about him...me too girl

the demon that gets to pat down Sam got the best gig. do you think they drew straws to see who got to do it?

“the shoulders. the hair” same guy same

sex hair cas alert hey-oh

Sam TOWERS over Kip goddamn

DON’T HURT JACK

“what do you want” should’ve been the title 

“i don’t care” so much sass in this episode i love it

“i want the crowley deal” bro you are NOT WORTHY

“you’re not crowley” THANK YOU SAM

also i love that the boys are just the unspoken leaders of hunters 

like they get all the deals with the expectation that all other hunters will follow suit or something

pls demon you’re weak get outta town

you should be afraid of him homie

i want sammy to just straight up punch this dude in the face

wait is maggie in overalls AND camo?? she’s gay. sorry guys i don’t make the rules

i love my parents storming in to save the day

i knew it was coming and i still yelled when they burst in

all the slow mos are so aesthetic

like yes please give me Mary slowly smashing a glass into that demons head. it is very important. for science.

Jack don’t bring on confrontation you’re not ready!!!!

Maggie is gonna be a badass hunter by the end it’s gonna be awesome

Mary and Bobby have such different teaching styles. 

Bobby: learning takes time, don’t rush into things, *insert words of wisdom here*

Mary: here take this, you totally know how to use it right? now go kill something and have fun!

yay the demon got stabby stabbed!!!

anyone else super turned on by sam telling all those demons what’s up?

boyking!sam back in action

a beer is no an icepack sam

casually talking to Ketch on the phone...how things change

Sastiel moment :’)

they’re both so hot...it’s distracting

he’s do anything!! 

Bobby called her sunshine!!! 

one: awww so cute

two: where have we heard that before?? hmmmmmm??

CAS AND JACK INTERACTING THANK YOU

“to be fair we all got punched in the face” !!!! i’m crying he’s the funniest angel in the garrison dsdfvbnmsf 

Cas has matured emotionally so much it makes me cry

Jack, being a weapon is not you’re only use!!!

“i have nothing” “you have me” these aren’t tears i’m just sweating from my eyes

i was denied a hug in that scene and i’m bitter

lol sam had a silver money clip....john mulaney would be proud

dude he recognized her voice so quickly

Michael’s eyes are just devoid of all emotion...it’s crazy how does jensen even do that??

this episode be like “angels and demons and vampires oh my”

[artemissarrows]

Sweet Combat: Gender-bending, delightful, and queer-adjacent, but not actually queer 🥊🥊🥊

So aside from BTS, another K-pop/C-pop celebrity I love is Luhan, formerly of K-pop group EXO. (If you want to learn about why he left, I recommend the Contract Disputes episode of the podcast “Ask Me About Kpop,” I love digging into those details and such!) He’s now an independent artist/actor/general celebrity promoting in China.

Luhan stars alongside his real-life girlfriend Guan Xiaotong in Sweet Combat, a sweet rom-com centered around a school that trains women in MMA. Luhan’s character is the first male to attend and he ends up being trained by three seniors—including Guan who is the best fighter at the school--as a first-year. I really loved it and totally miss it now that I’ve binged through all of the episodes. Some mild spoilers, but nothing related to the last few episodes, and also this is a rom-com, it’s pretty easy to decipher who will end up with who after the first few episodes ^_^

This show has such a good heart, and celebrates gender diversity.

By and large, this show comes down on the right side of things: people should help each other, bullying is bad, manipulating people is bad, and celebrates chosen family. Luhan’s character is poor, has to take care of his two small siblings though he’s still only college-age himself, and has to work 2 jobs to support them while he’s in school. His friends all pitch in to help make sure he’s OK and his kids are OK when he has MMA practice and cook him food. It’s super sweet! We also see one character who starts off bullying Luhan begin to change for the better and understand that bullying people to hide your own insecurities isn’t the way to be truly strong.

It also does generally deviate from strict male/female gender norms, and appropriately punish characters who don’t approve of people crossing gender norms. That being said, it does all of those things within a decidedly heterosexual context, where actual queer relationships are seen as outside the bounds of “normal” society (ie, we don’t see any). If this were a real girls’ fighting school, I can guarantee you that there would be a LOT of queers there.

Fang Yu, the lead female character, was forced to be a boy before her brother was born by her grandfather. Grandpa’s also a sexist jerkwad, and we all see it.

Fang Yu comes from a wealthy family, and her parents died when she was very young (absent parents is definitely a theme here). Her family owns a big corporation, and her grandfather is extremely concerned with succession. To that end, he forced Fang Yu to wear boy’s clothes and to be a boy before her brother was born—and then made her switch back once her younger brother came into the family (Fang Zhou is one of my fave characters in the series!) When she came back to school as a girl, all of the other kids in school called her a monster, which deeply scarred her. She also recalls looking at girls’ clothes longingly and not being able to wear them.

This whole situation is super interesting to me, although I wish I knew more about the cultural context under which it operates. Grandpa is clearly so concerned with who’s going to take over the company, and it must be a boy—how could a girl be as good at business???? We really sympathize with Fang Yu and her desire to prove herself through her MMA. She’s better than most of the boys, and she knows it. It’s also an interesting twist on the enforcement of gender norms. Instead of forcing her to be ultra-girly or something like that, Grandpa forced her to be a boy—thereby show that he knows she can be good at business, but only through the performance of masculinity. Wow, dude’s got some issues.

There’s another rich kid and business partner of the Fang family who tries to woo Fang Yu, and he was one of the kids who called her a monster as a child, and still thinks she is one (he literally said so). I have to wonder if that’s connected to her prowess in MMA, which is less common as a pursuit for girls, stereotypically.

Luhan (uh, Ming Tian, I guess) exudes positive, non-heirarchical masculinity.

Luhan’s character is a really positive version of what masculinity can be, in strong juxtaposition to Fang Yu’s grandfather, who uses his power to abuse and bully others (bullying’s a strong theme here, which is cute). Luhan and his two little siblings’ parents are gone, but he is so tender toward the little ones and takes care of them so well. 

He’s perfectly content for three senior women to coach him in MMA. He’s also just a kind person who doesn’t want to hurt anyone, sees the best in others, and is extremely smart though people sometimes underestimate him. He turns into the senior women’s coaches as the show goes on, and excels in both his analytical approach to improving their skills, as well as that balance of supporting and pushing.

And he always considers Fang Yu his equal (if not his superior in martial arts!) and treats her as an equal co-partner in their relationship. He’s perfectly willing for his feelings to be squished on her behalf and I sometimes wished he would be more honest about his desires—although this *is* a rom-com so if everyone were honest about their feelings we’d have no more show. Anyway.

I find it so telling that folks were criticizing him for being too feminine after seeing the show trailers. Absolutely not, he’s an upstanding dude…..even if he occasionally wears his own Luhan Studio merch on the show, I can forgive him.

Fang Yu’s best friend is butch AF and she’s soooooo hot

Fang Yu’s best friend is Cheng Yanan, the head of the boxing club at their university and all-around badass. She’s also butch as hell, and everyone’s 100% accepting of it in the show. Literally no one says anything. This makes me incredibly happy! 

She’s not gay, though. There are straight butch women for sure—and her love interest is incredibly sweet and another character I really like—but that’s maybe a bit unrealistic. But there is a scene where a girl at her school writes her a love note after seeing her on a run which is played for laughs….but seriously, Yanan is the shit.

Ugh, stop.

Queer adjacent thing 1: absent parents and chosen families

This isn’t an exclusively queer things, but felt like it was getting close. There’s a distinct lack of two-parent families in this show—we actually don’t see any on screen at least. Everyone has at least one parent who is absent or deceased. Instead, the friends all rely on each other for support, childcare, and general camaraderie. It’s also a college age thing I suppose, but also feels like a queer thing. Queer young people learn to rely on one another when our families don’t accept us—or even if they do, we recognize and support members of our community.

Queer adjacent thing 2: Sun Hao buys a suit from a gay store

Sun Hao, the second male student in the MMA school after Luhan, accidentally buys a suit from a gay kink store—it’s very flamboyant and played for laughs. I’m a bit sad about that, but so it goes. Gender diversity is apparently OK but sexual diversity isn’t? Or also, it’s fine when women are butch because masculinity is better, but when men act femme they’re stepping down in the world so why would they do that. Sigh.

Hello, gay panic!

 Non-queer thing I also loved: Sun Hao and his mom

Sun Hao’s mom runs a noodle stall, and she and he have a really wonderful and close relationship—they talk all the time and support one another. It’s extra-cute and I love it.

My only gripes: anime-styling in live-action & copious Adidas product placement

This show is apparently based on a manhwa or Korean comic, and unfortunately it shows sometimes and not in a good way. The director can never decide whether to make the MMA realistic or whether its magical realism MMA/normal life + magic, and it switches back and forth between things that look very naturalistic and weird-looking SFX. There are also some characters who are a little too stereotypically anime-y (looking at you, Song Xiaomi!) But since these moments were occasional and not all the time, I could live with it.

Also they must have signed something that says that Luhan always has to wear something with the Adidas logo on it….because he literally always does. Okay, we get it.

But those are small potatoes. This show is great, go watch it for its cuteness, great character relationships, and enjoy that it’s reasonably progressive on gender stuff.

[littlehollyleaf]

💚,💙,💩,💣,👎?

Ship that you secretly like

Heh, I’m usually pretty open about the ships I ship. Um... I don’t think I mention all that much that I’m not adverse to the idea of spn Bobby/Crowley? Kinda have a vague headcanon that at least ~something happened between them once...

Had a bit of a dirty fling with the idea of nasty Sam/Lucifer in the cage for a while that occasionally resurfaces - that’s probably my biggest secret ‘like’ when it comes to ships.

Ship that you used to have as an OTP

clex from Smallville - aaah, nostalgia... 

I guess Phoebe/Cole from Charmed fits this too, though I was not involved in fandom when I was obsessing over that show, so I didn’t know about concepts like OTPs - I wanted them together soooooo badly though, so in hindsight, I would say my feelings about the ship fit the OTP category, yes.

Ship that you find disgusting

I don’t think there’s any ship that gives me a gut feeling of actual DISGUST. Ones with very underage characters paired with much older ones would come closest, probably, but even then I’d generally shrug, leave the shippers to it and move on.

Back in the day I might have said incest ships - certainly wincest squicked me out early on. But, uh, well, that’s just not true anymore! The longer you are in fandom, the less anything REALLY freaks you out I think :p (because you start to discover weirdass kinks of your own and realise you are in no position to judge...) 

Ship that pisses you off

Clark/Lana, Smallville

Doctor/Rose, Doctor Who

just don’t get me started...

Ship that you can never see happening 

Ok, now... this is kinda ambiguous - as in ‘never see happening... IN CANON’ or as in ‘cannot even conceive of a scenario where the two characters could end up together’? because if it’s the LATTER, well... the imagination is a VAST THING, so I’m pretty sure that no matter the characters I could ALWAYS envision some kind of situation in which they get together in some fashion, even if it’s AU or sex pollen or whatever :p 

also - there are plenty of ships I can TOTALLY SEE ways in which they would 100% work as an actual, explicit couple within the actual canon of a show... but which I can simultaneously NEVER SEE actually happening for various RL reasons, such as actor availability or (more typically) the social climate when it comes to same-sex relationships preventing writers/showrunners/producers/TPTB from putting certain ships into their story.

SO. If we’re talking ‘can never see the show/writers actually writing the characters as an explicitly romantic/sexual couple within the story they exist in’ -

deancas - because as any long-time spn follower will know, I have NEVER believed the show will make them an ‘actual couple,’ and I still don’t (much to my own heartache)

...right now it’s touch and go with nygmobblepot fitting into this category for me as well, which is esp. gutting because many of the ways I can see them getting together fit within the canon of Gotham actually much easier than I find ideas of explicit deancas fitting within spn canon sometimes (prob because one half of nygmobblepot, unlike either of Dean or Cas, is ACTUALLY EXPLICITLY QUEER)... woes... (as an fyi if anyone cares, it’s Cory who’s my sticking point - seems to me he still very much interprets Eddie as STRAIGHT, and while it doesn’t mean there’s no possibility for otherwise in the future ofc because actors aren’t showrunners... still, it troubles me...)

Can’t think of any other ships off hand I’d call impossible...