#And they're fine. They're okay for I guess character exploration

[fishedeyelenz]

when there's an artist you admire and you like they're OCs of but they suddenly start to develop it into a show and you have a sinking feeling that it won't go over well

[aromanticasterisms]

so no furina story quest 2 :((

[epickiya722]

It's so funny getting this in my "For You" section (being that it is tagged with the fandom tags I do follow... which I haven't actually explored in months to be honest).

Now, I'm not one to take headcanons seriously (though some I have seen rub me the wrong way), especially ones about sexuality.

But a thought came to me.

Why do people insist that Midoriya is straight when anything they say to "prove" that he is could also work for any sexuality?

"He blushes around girls." So does anyone, hello?

Straight people, lesbians would, bisexuals, and so on???

"His moments with Uraraka!" Okay??? Trying to see how this makes him straight??? If you're using the logic that having cute moments with a girl makes a character straight, I guess Toga and Tsu are straight, too.

Wait! No, I have an answer. I think I figured it out as why people have to insist why Midoriya is straight like it would make a difference to the canon story at all.

They just want to make Midoriya more "masculine".

I genuinely doubt sometimes that the people who go "Deku is straight" actually believe it, let alone see it as a headcanon. Especially, when they constantly throw it at anybody and anyone.

They just want to feel right about something. Attach their need to feel "authoritive" over a character they don't really give two shits about by using easiest statement to "prove" to while trying to mask their heteronormative beliefs onto.

Given that Midoriya is the main character, he's the target because forbid for any Shonen male protagonist to break any norms, be it sexuality or gender.

That's why Bakugou doesn't get the "He is straight" treatment. Despite popularity, he isn't the MC (he's a main character, but not the main character) and unlike Midoriya, he doesn't have moments with girls that people will try to use to prove his "straightness".

On top of that, Bakugou acts and looks how most people expect "masculine" boys and men to act.

It's not just "he's obsessed with Midoriya". It's everything else I just mentioned.

That's why he doesn't get the treatment as much as Midoriya, or at all.

Some of these "Deku is straight" people aren't just homophobic, because some aren't. The other reason they say this is to masculate him.

It's crazy to me that people who feminize Midoriya to the extreme gets a lot of heat, which I do get. However! If they're getting heat, so should people who masculate him to the extreme, too.

Balance!

Personally, I find Midoriya the way he is just fine. People who masculate him or even feminize him treat him like he's too feminine or too masculine. He's neither.

To me, Midoriya is someone is comfortable with his gender.

[inawickedlittletown]

Sooo I started to read other articles. I didn't after reading the ones that came out right after the episode that justifiably got everyone upset.

This one from tv insider had Tim saying this:

Moving on to Buck and Tommy’s breakup, talk about your approach to it. Why was Tommy sure that Buck would break his heart?

Tommy’s older and Buck is very new to this, and whether Tommy was correct or not, I think what he felt like was exactly what he said: I’m not your last, I’m your first, which is a special thing to be, but as Tommy says, it doesn’t usually end up being the same thing. And I think based on what we know of Buck, he’s maybe not wrong. Buck’s a little impulsive when he’s feeling a certain kind of way. He’s like, move on in, bring your couch. So I just think because Tommy’s a little older and wiser or maybe at some level he feels like he doesn’t deserve Buck, I don’t know. But I think he accurately diagnosed Buck. Buck’s still figuring himself out, and boy, that would be quite risky to move in with that guy as much as you would love to.

That does seem to be Buck’s go-to, which isn’t the best.

Exactly.

Are we going to see Buck single for a significant period of time now? Is he trying to figure out what he wants really out of a relationship?

Yeah, I think that’s right. As Tommy said, you’re still figuring yourself out, and his options have increased by 50 percent of the population. So knowing Buck, that’s going to be choice overload. He’s got to navigate that with a little self-awareness.

--

So they definitely planned for this. That's what this reads like...they wanted to break them up so that they could send Buck through a period of exploration. Tim says everything Oliver said here in much nicer terms. His view of Buck is so...Idk, it's like he sees Buck as a kid that still doesn't know what he wants. And he decided to put that view right into Tommy's head too. It's a little jarring I guess but this show...has it ever been consistent?

What sucks is that 8x05 was written like they were doing so well. And then right off the back with 8x06 we have warning signs in the date scene with the girl that approaches Buck and how Tommy sort of shrugs off Buck checking her out. I really do wonder where hot waiter fit into this and I'm so glad we didn't see Tommy like checking hot waiter out or something. But I guess that scene was there to sow the seeds. We have Buck spiraling because of the Abby thing and we have Tommy maybe not realizing but reinforcing for himself that he's a stepping stone for Buck and being okay with it in the status quo.

The way that Tim speaks about Buck asking Tommy to move in, he makes it seem like Buck is just barreling in without thought...like if they went through with it Tommy might be proven right. But then what is the point of the scene with Josh where Buck is right on the cusp of an "I love you" just to then be like no actually Tommy knows how this ends and he can read Buck and knows they're not forever. But Tommy is not a mind reader.

Where there is hope is in that Tim doesn't outwardly say anything about Tommy being gone for good. As someone else pointed out the Lou interviews were done by buddie journalists with a bias so there is a question to how much that colored what we got and why they were so determined to close the door fully. Also...why did we get exit interviews in the first place for a character that only had three episodes...it's so odd.

The writers made a point of leaving this open. Do I think we'll get Tommy back any time soon. No. But after the doom and gloom and the time to mourn this a bit I want to be positive and there is really no knowing. Tim says he thinks Buck will be single for a while...okay fine...picture that being the rest of this season.

Buck won't just jump into another relationship...and Oliver gets his Buck slut era 2.0...what if S9 brings back Tommy? What if this is the long game...or at least the thing they can have in their back pocket if Lou is available later on to come back. But that's not something they can promise or that they can commit to and Lou isn't on contract clearly and Oliver wouldn't know if that's the plan...hell even Tim probably doesn't know if they'll do that. Or I'm giving him too much credit because as we've seen this season storylines have been rushed to close up at breakneck speeds so it would be an anomaly for him to prolong something like this.

All this to say, showing the network and Tim that bucktommy matters to a lot of people and that Tommy matters...it may just make a difference.

[queen-schadenfreude]

now that I've finished datv.. i have some first pass thoughts

spolers below

first of all why is this game trying so hard to rehabilitate in-universe controversial aspects? I mean like. Slavery in Tevinter. It's swept under the rug with a few lukewarm platitudes and codices about how it's being addressed off-screen. Previous games have established how horrific it is, but the tevinter we see in veilguard doesn't reflect that at all. it feels dismissive of a lot of major setting and character development. Same with the antivan crows! they were described as a brutal, cruel organization but now they're the underdog protectors? Sure, there was family drama and a few mentions of how cut-throat things HAD been before, but we don't get to *see* any of that. illario was weak as an example of this bc he was the only thing to be shown as bad. There's no tangible impact.

it seems like a feeble attempt to make sure the players understand that the writers do not condone the unsavory aspects of the setting and characters, while making everything a Teachable Moment. honestly half of the game felt like a psa on extremely basic ethics, like surface-level shit children already know.

on top of that, idk why the game is trying so hard to therapize the player via companions' emotional journeys. The extremely basic and direct "your feelings matter and it's okay to feel your feelings! " scenarios were so repetitive and cringe. Sesame street level bullshit. am i crazy for expecting a more mature and nuanced approach to emotional struggle??? I swear previous games were better at this

also fuck all of southern thedas, it's cooked. hope yall didn't care!

Anyway.

ive only played through Neve's romance and i chose her bc she talks and acts like an adult and not a flustered teenager like harding, or a quirky mpdg like bellara. I liked it, it was fine. no strong feelings about it tho.

I didnt consider Taash as a romance option bc they act like a petulant child most of the time and that's just not fun for me.. and I don't love that Taash seems more like a prop for Gender Ideology 101 rather than being a fully complex character who is working through a gender identity crisis. I am not trans and cannot fully speak to this but as someone who knows more than the absolute basics of gender ideology, their story felt patronizing.

the boys are... fine, I guess. I wrecked treviso so I think i got locked out of some Lucanis stuff but his possession just isn't as compelling as previous characters who have been possessed. Davrin is fine, inoffensive. Emmerich is funny I do like him, Manfred is delightful.

I played as an elf bc I hoped it'd be extra relevant to the story, what with the Big Bad(s) being evanuris. it didn't matter at all. the crossroads doesn't even look different for an elf character like it did in Trespasser.

I expected everything to drive torward making Solas out to being a Good Guy Actually, and it kind of did. but super aggravating for have phantom varric to say that after being actually murdered by him like damn!! you are just gonna let that guy walk all over you bc yall were friends for a short while a decade ago. Where was that sympathy for Anders??

varric being a figment of rook's imagination the whole time was a fun reveal, tho.

siiigghhh. but listen. there were things I liked about the game, too. the gameplay is fun. the environments are GORGEOUS. the characters look good, i think the art style is fine actually. the character creator is great (except those qunari fiveheads RIP)

a lot of the banter and jokes did genuinely make me laugh, and i did like exploring maps and interacting with the new companions generally.

I havent given a lot of thought to it but I think a lot of the plot-related issues i have could've been solved by just setting the game like, 100 years in the future. All of the questionable and unsavory aspects of the cultures the game tries SO hard to diminish and write off would've had time to be organically rectified in-universe. I guess.

well. whatever.

[cushfuddled]

I wish I didn't hate Ed and Stede but here we are I guess

I didn't have time to put a section about this in my review (since it would add another ten minutes onto a fifty minute video hhhhh) but I just gotta take a second and vent about how much I dislike Stede and Ed in season two.

When I watched season two for the first time, I assumed I didn't ship Gentlebeard anymore because I'd...I dunno...gotten bored of the ship or whatever. But when I went back to rewatch season one, I was immediately sucked back into the Ed/Stede jet engine. I loved them through the finale, up until around the middle of season two...at which point I became totally disinterested again.

Even going back through season one clips for this review...the chemistry is soooo strong for me. The only time I got that feeling from season two was like, from the mermaid scene and the finger-stacking scene.

And I honestly think my disinterest stems from the fact that I can't stand Ed and Stede as characters anymore. They're dicks in season one, but ANNOYING dicks in season two, and I guess I just...don't ship characters who make me want to tear my hair out.

In season two, Ed behaves like a petulant five year old with a gun. It's so "say sorry to your friend right now!" "I don't wanna! :(" followed by a stint in the time out chair and a mumbled non-apology. For all of season two, Ed behaves like a spoiled brat, and I really can't stand it.

My friend pointed out that Ed is in a position where he needs to reparent himself. His emotional development likely stopped around the time he killed his dad (when he was still a kid). No one modeled healthy behavior and emotional regulation for Ed past the age of...maybe fifteen? So of course he's gonna behave like a kid. It's gonna be a long road for Ed to learn these regulating strategies as an adult, and I guess...hhhhhh.

None of Ed's trauma excuses Ed from torturing and traumatizing his crew. It feels shitty to find a deeply traumatized character's behavior "annoying," but...I mean. I say this as someone who's experienced suicide ideation myself: Ed isn't real, and I'm not Ed's friend, and so I don't really feel obligated to extend patience and understanding to a fictional construct when that construct spends 90% of his screen time behaving like a stuck up, self-obsessed, capricious, whiny, murderous asshole.

Add season-two-Stede to the mix and CHRIST...Stede—like Ed—was always a dick, but the way he encouraged Lucius to divulge his trauma only to react with cartoonish disgust, cower like a cornered animal, and then flee while begging Lucius to be quiet...

Then Stede decides to veto the crew's decision to ban Ed—their abuser—from the ship ("talk it through as a crew" my ass)...? Oh, and gotta love how Stede-"I've been the cause of death. It changes you"-Bonnet sets a guy on fucking fire and laughs, then kills a bunch of English soldiers with nary a backward glance. Okay. Would've loved some kind of exploration re: that major heel turn, but fine. And then Ed and Stede stand over Izzy's grave—the (mutilated) body of their dear friend and crewmate—and their combined eulogy amounts to "He was tense. Very tense." "Yeah, he was a fucking nightmare. What a guy." How endearing. Season two turned these two bastards (affectionate) into bastards (derogatory) for me and I'm still salty about it. God DAMMIT.

[oodlyenough]

So now that you finished the 6 games, Just curious. what is your opinion of Apollo?

(I haven't played SOJ's dlc case yet but I don't even think Apollo is in that one? So...)

I think my feelings on Apollo are a resounding... "he's okay". Lmao. Which sounds harsh? I don't dislike him, and I found him pretty enjoyable to play in AA4 and AA6.

What sucks for Apollo as a character is that 4 sets up a lot of potentially interesting relationships for him (the betrayal of Kristoph as his mentor, awkward half-mentor half-resenting relationship with Phoenix, his friendship and secret siblinghood with Trucy, whatever is going on with him and Klavier) and then 5 and 6 have no interest in any of those. Phoenix and Apollo's relationship just gets watered down into, I don't know, whatever they're going for tbh -- some kind of straightforward hero worship, which is boring and a disservice to both, and Trucy and Klavier basically cease to exist as characters in 5-6. So then both DD and SOJ have to reinvent the wheel with new characters/relationships for Apollo, to differing degrees of success.

I think AA5 Apollo was the worst, not even that I was like ... mad at him or anything, just that I felt his characterization was so bizarre and his story was so underwritten and it detracted from the game's main character, which should have been Athena. Clay was the weakest attempt at making the audience emotional over a relationship they never saw and a character who never had a line of dialogue. "I'm fine" is just not that emotionally resonant a catchphrase to begin with. If we're going to explore a cynical Apollo, we could've done that based on the events of AA4, Kristoph and Phoenix both, not the death of Clay.png

But AA6 Apollo's backstory was more interesting to me. I thought the relationship with Dhurke was surprisingly well done by sequel trilogy standards, lol, I liked that Apollo had quite a prickly reception to begin with and the slower rebuild of trust there was interesting. As justifications for a retcon go, him being so bitter and hurt about the abandonment that he hasn't wanted to think or care about Dhurke or Nahyuta for years works pretty well. I think fandom probably doesn't like the ending of Apollo leaving the WAA to be with characters they don't like much (Nahyuta and Rayfa), but frankly after those three games I think Apollo striking off on his own is for the best, lmao.

So I guess I feel he's enjoyable moment to moment, but across his so-called trilogy his character work is patchy, and you're left more with a build-a-character outline for headcanons and fanon. I can see why that appeals to people. I like him but he's not a character I want to spend hours fleshing out where canon did not, through fic etc. For me there are just too many other characters in the franchise who interest me more and make me more inclined to put that work in.

[ipreferfiction]

hey so for the character asks thing, what lead to your characterisation of cassus fett? also what got you interested in him initially?

oh BOY you have activated the Cassus Thoughts that are perpetually about half a millimeter below the surface of my brain. congrats! i never stop thinking about him!!! read-more because it got. um. long.

initially, he just kind of came to be because Revan needed an enemy to focus on that wasn't Mandalore himself, because i didn't want Revan and Mandalore meeting on the battlefield before, well, Malachor. honestly, a lot of his early characterization came from me looking at what Canderous said about the war in kotor (and k2 i guess. but i didn't play k2 until later lol) and going "...okay, this is a guy who's going to believe the same things, but he's also a strategist of Revan's caliber, and he's going to spend the entire war setting traps for her."

Mandalorian honor has always been the central part of his character for me! and the fun part was making all the war crimes fit within that framework. there's only one thing my Cassus holds more sacred than his honor, and that's his mand'alor, which creates some FASCINATING interactions with Revan when... he can order entire cities to be bombed, he can give the commands on Cathar and Serroco, he can and will use Alek to lure Revan into an impossible situation so she'll sacrifice her own men to save him! that's all fine! because, by the standards of the Mandalorians of his time, absolutely none of that is dishonorable!

he and Revan are very very much the same in many ways. and he knows this, and spends the entire three years of the war trying to get Revan to acknowledge it. and she does! finally! on Malachor, where she kills him in the first version of my kotor canon. a lot of that came from me talking with @azems-familiar; our Cassuses are effectively identical, and a lot of that early characterization came from me writing him as he is in my mando wars fic, and then Lee writing their mando wars fic and developing him even more, and it just kind of snowballed from there. they made him the initial Revan foil; my fic didn't quite get that far! (first draft, at least. it will be much more obvious when i edit it)

the second main aspect of his characterization is the loyalty, for which i entirely blame @tarrevizsla. they invented the initial characterization for Mandalore the Ultimate and it all went downhill from there, by which i mean they went "cassus/te ani'la" and the collective old republic hell server braincell activated to cement that forever into our worldview. it wasn't even on the horizon of my thoughts when i wrote bright burning. which is so funny to me now, because... it's so central to how i write Cassus! that loyalty is just as important, perhaps moreso, to him than his honor. in my timeline, he was twenty on Cathar, thirty-three at Malachor; he's spent most of his adult life in this war serving Mandalore, and most of that time as Field Marshal - and canonically, he was not only a genius tactician but hugely responsible for some of the most important changes the Mandalorians underwent at this point. and to do any of that, he had to have Mandalore's trust.

it's just so fascinating to me to explore this character who is barely mentioned in kotor (is he mentioned at all outside the flavor text of his armor and blaster??) but who had to have such a huge hand in shaping the war. he has some more appearances in the kotor comics, but the kotor comics are.... bad. they're very bad, and i ignore most of them. in that regard, his rank in my fics is a little different in practice to how it appeared in the comics; he is part of high command, but he's the only field marshal, not one of several (because... look. nothing about the ranks makes sense in canon, canon is fake, and Mandalore just handing out the position of marshal to a bunch of people to keep the piece makes no sense!!!).

that wasn't a deliberate rewriting of the comics, though. i figured out all the rank stuff for my universe way before i even touched the comics, which is why so much of my Mandalorian worldbuilding is just... vastly different. anything important i got from wookieepedia. again: the comics are fake, and if i don't look at them they don't exist. the sole exceptions are, like, three panels that live rent-free in my head. that's it.

uh. that went longer than i thought! hope that answered your question, and thank you so much for the ask! i'm so normal about him.

[missfreija]

You have to love the hypocrisy of the show acting as though being a pimp is so much better than being a slave owner; like it isn't still human trafficking, and as though in that time and place, black women wouldn't have suffered the most from it. It's a seriously disgusting thing to pretend that it's this cutesy, morally fine thing to do: if they're fine with Louis being a sex trader, than they should have been fine with portraying the actual story of the books - he's meant to be a passively bad person. The story is about evil deserving empathy. It would be different if they used the fact that he's a pimp to explore the fact that he's always profited off of human lives and was passively evil in life, that would have been different (though that's exactly what the books do, so it still would have worked with the original story and then the show might have been good), but it was used as a way to make Louis a morally fine uwu baby. I fucking hate it. It's disgusting for the show runners to pretend sex trading is okay and doesn't harm people, it's dishonest to pretend the show is a discussion about the legacy of race in America without actually discussing the way in which black women suffered as a result of misogynoir and how they were sexualised and their sexual exploitation was ignored (but we all know how the show feels about black women given what they did to Claudia), and it's ridiculous to pretend that it's a gothic story when it veers away from the moral complexities inherent to the gothic genre. It's a poorly written, malicious, badly developed show with subpar actors, and I hate how popular it's become. It feel as though it's defiling the legacy of the books. And apparently Marius is a pimp now too. I hate even engaging with it, but I had to vent. I hope it gets cancelled as soon as possible and the fan base dies down, in the meantime, I'll try to enjoy the books and the circle of book fabs that remain here. Of which your blog is a wonderful example. Love to you, hate to AMC.

I absolutely agree with every single word lol. As a woman and as a iwtv fan i am disgusted by the treatment of women in this show, but apparently the show writers and the majority of audience don't care about women representation, neither black nor white. Also the fact that they portrayed the sex workers (in the few scenes where they appear) as 'relaxed' women that seem to have a friendly attitude towards Louis (who in this show possesses a strong ambition for business) is weird and gives to the viewer a distorted view of reality. The narrative focused a lot on the issue of racism, so why not showing briefly the suffering of black prostitutes? Because the male gaze doesn't want to recognize it? I don't know. And don't get me started on the other female characters.

What happened to Claudia was completely avoidable and unnecessary and still rj opted for this version and said that the r4pe was 'a horrible thing that happened to her, but it has toughened her up'. I guess it is a self-explanatory sentence. I can't even imagine how SA victims felt while hearing him say it. It completely downplays the trauma of SA and implies that women get something positive out of it. I felt that episode and the scene in one of the first episodes where Louis burns the tapes of the '70 interview (the book….) were disgustingly disrespectful towards Anne Rice and her fans.

Last year I got into a heated argument with some show fans on twitter because they kept reiterating that 'at least prostitution gives more freedom to women/people than slavery', 'louis is a good pimp, he treats his girls with respect', 'he defends the prostitutes from cruel men' , 'at least he didn't enslave my ancestors unlike book louis', it was annoying and i was astonished of reading all their statements, very misogynistic.

Regarding pimp Louis: not only this is a way to avoid probing into the character's psyche/moral (and not include one of the most important themes of the novel), but it is a way of de responsabilize (and deny) the past. Louis is a man of his time and, with an accurate work of writing, it would have made sense to contestualize his privileged position and explain what it meant for him to be in charge of a plantation, it would have been interesting to show what it meant to be a landowner and slave owner at the time and the consequences of his actions reflected on his slaves, maybe introducing some of them into the narrative in a more concrete way (or do the same with the pimp/brothel storyline in the show, because it's equally evil), since it is a topic basically not explored in the book. But the showrunner decided that nowadays one should not represent these issues on tv and you have to disregard the past. It is extremely hypocritical.

And it's awful that for this reason they chose another historical setting, changing century and not addressing the fact that there were just as many issues in 1910/20 as well; apparently for the writers the XX century was a historical period with minor social problems where no difficulties existed (aside from racism, it was pretty much the most prominent theme in s1). And I doubt that the reconstruction of the New Orleans society of the time is faithful lol (and where is the voodoo?). All this imo denotes great laziness in the writing.

And clearly this series does not belong to the gothic genre, it's more a teen drama. Beyond the surface level thrills, the gothic literature holds a profound mirror to the complexities of human psychology that here are totally absent. I also doubt that the show writers did extensive research on the figure of the vampire in literature.

We were all eagerly waiting for the cancellation of this garbage that is NOT iwtv/tvc and the immediate disappearance of the show fandom ahahah but unfortunately it has been renewed for s3 😔

Thank you for the compliments mwah! hugs!

[lotusarchon]

rules for writing + lmk:

⋆ always like the rule page before making a request. you don't need to be off anon, but i need to know people are reading my rules before making any requests because some people are hard of hearing

⋆ i am a multifandom blog. i will write for things i'm interested in. currently, i am glued to the lego monkie kid and black myth wukong fandom, and it will be subjected to change.

⋆ i write for any of the lego monkie kid characters, however, the only ones that i don't feel comfortable writing any nsfw/romantic scenarios with are; sandy, pigsy, lady bone demon's host (bai he), and yellowtusk. depending on if there's a season six, there'll be more characters added.

⋆ please be specific when requesting. remember i'm not a mind reader so if you ask for an x reader without specifying much i can't write it the way you want it. furthermore, don't write an entire plot in my requests. if you can think of a whole plot, you can write your own story. remember i am doing x readers, not an oc story for you.

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⋆ i write nsfw/smut, suggestive, romance, fluff, platonic, angst, yandere, etc. i'm a writer, i want to explore my writing, you can request anything, just do be mindful that i will not take requests for horror/dead dove esque themes. those are things i'll write on my own. otherwise everything else is on the table.

⋆ my readers are bottoms/subs. i don't feel comfortable writing for dominant readers nor do i like reading them just because i am a sub myself (aroace lesbian so idk how tf that counts). there are several writers i'm sure that writes for dominant readers, you can find them there.

⋆ i don't approve of certain topics that i write. some of them might be a bit kinky or whatever (yandere) but no, i don't approve of them. i don't find such behavior in real life as okay, and i also don't approve of anyone acting like it. it doesn't matter to me about your appearances, respect people's boundaries.

⋆ nsfw/smut wise, i guess anything is fine?? i'm not aware of much sex shit or kinks, so uh, i don't know what is what. don't make any requests about stepcest, incest, pe*ophilia, r*pe, um bodily fluids (?) kinks? idk what else there are so i'll update this when i can. but yeah, don't make any request about shit like this. it's gross and i'll punch you.

⋆ if you're a minor, i don't advise you staying on my account. furthermore, i'm not particularly sure i feel to comfortable with any minors making requests, even if it's strictly sfw. my acc is 18+ only so, nuh uh, go away, if i catch you, i'm blocking you, because i am not censoring myself for you. understand that i'm doing this for both of our comforts, and as an adult i don't feel comfortable with minors around my content.

other;

⋆ i'm a human being like you. don't act like four fuck and six bitch and hide behind a server to talk shit about me. say it to my face, and i'm willing to see if i'm wrong or right.

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⋆ don't interact with me if you're a proshipper, stepcest liker (yeah, fuck you), pedo, racist, anti lgbtq, childish excuse for adults (you know what i'm referring to). i'll update this when i can.

[palmtreepalmtree]

Alright my friends - the twinkly lights are up, the house smells like pine, you've got every manner of red-green-and-gold wrapping paper shoved in a corner - without a doubt it's that time of year: Christmas. As you know, I've been disappointed to see so few entries into the Christmas rom-com genre this year from Netflix, so I've started to explore further afield to find something ripe for your enjoyment.

And now, I'm pleased to present...

The Worst Movies on HBO/MAX/Discovery+/HGTV??? (idefk), Right Now!

As it turns out sometime last year Discovery+ teamed up with MarVista to produce some Christmas romance content with random tie-ins to their FoodNetwork/HGTV network stars. This has created some really... oh, let's just call it interesting content.

I mean... you gotta know from the outset that there's no way these will be good. NO fucking WAY.

FIRST, as a whole, I don't think these movies know what their purpose is. Are they supposed to promote the reality shows of their cameo stars? Are they supposed to give their reality stars an opportunity to flex some acting muscle!? Are they supposed to be *GASP* good stories? NOBODY KNOWS!

SECOND, it's possible that the point of these movies is just to promote the reality show format as like... a concept. But the thing is -- NOT TO FORESHADOW OR ANYTHING -- that comes with some very weird baggage. LIKE SUPER WEIRD.

Let's break these down in round-up style.

The first movie that apparently created the mold* was Candy Coated Christmas (2021) - *pun intended. This vehicle cameos Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, who gets about two minutes of screen time which apparently warrants her this kind of promotional one-sheet placement:

...like okay.

A shocking number of these stories involve people who are in financial peril. In this one, a hotel heiress finds herself on the brink of bankruptcy, and, on daddy's orders, she heads to a small town to evict the peppermint farmer tenants at her family's property who are, you guessed it, on the brink of bankruptcy.

In this movie, the spirit of Christmas (or spearmint gum in this case), is a plan to rescue these two financial catastrophes, oh, and they fall in love. Sure. Why not.

This movie is an empty candy-coated shell of a romance that I can best describe as serviceable. But apparently it was enough of a hit that the rest of the movies followed. So we can blame this candy cane for the Christmas rogering that followed in 2022.

Continuing from worst to most egregious...

A Gingerbread Christmas (2022) - This one cameos that Ace of Cakes dude (no idea his name and not interested in looking it up) who is judging a gingerbread competition that the main character desperately needs to win to save her dead mom's foundering bakery - YES another fucking business in peril.

Her love interest is the general contractor/baker/single dad who has taken up daily residence in the bakery where he is apparently simultaneously working on fixing the place up and also doing all of the baking........?

Yeah, it makes little sense, and yet somehow this is not the worst of the four entries this year.

Both of these actors are people you'll recognize and will have you thinking heyyyyy where is she/he from? (Let me help you out: The Good Place/Reacher). They're fine.

This is fine.

It's just... not going to leave you feeling much of anything. And that's the exact opposite of what these movies are supposed to do. You're not killing me, you're just boring me. There's nothing spicy in this gingerbread, baby! ZING! Nailed 'em.

There's a kind of nice subplot about a new immigrant entering the contest as well, but maybe I have a soft spot in my heart for that. This definitely does not seem like it's going for the same audience as some of the Hallmark movies, but it's also only gesturing at substantive things rather than really delivering anything of substance. Hey guys, did you know that immigrant Muslims can celebrate Christmas too!?

MOVING ON.....

One Delicious Christmas (2022) - Alright... where do I even start here??? Continuing on our theme of struggling businesses, this one slightly breaks the pattern by telling us a story of the owner of a boutique inn who needs to find a new chef for her family business so that she can bring on a financial partner to help ease the strain of her sole ownership.

The cameo in this one is Bobby Flay who comes in as a restaurant critic to comment on the food. Sigh. I know. Look I'm just reporting here, don't harm the messenger.

Alright there are three things here that just drove me completely batty: First, and I hate calling this shit out, but I gotta say the lead actress here has some partial vocal fry thing going on with her voice that is just impossible to watch for an hour and a half. I just wanted to shake her and be like BREATHE THROUGH YOUR CHEST. Fucking hell. It's a trial being me sometimes.

Second, obviously the theme here is cooking, but the whole story is based around the fact that the chef is doing new and risky recipes that the inn owner is nervous her people won't like... but like... the recipes are super basic? Like scalloped potatoes instead of mashed? Lobster bisque!? None of the new menu items read as dangerous or cutting edge -- especially if you watch the Food Network -- SO WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT1?!? Argh, okay.

Last, and this is just a weird thing that probably only I noticed, but like all these movies seemed to go out of their way to do mixed racial castings, which is a good thing, but then they also seem to have not made any adjustments for that in terms of story.

In this one, the love interest/chef is played by a Canadian actor of Filipino ancestry -- but his character name is Preston Weaver. Preston. PRESTON. PRESTON. There are also repeated references in the story to cooking for and with his grandmother, but no mention, not even one, that maybe her cooking wasn't American-style food? I mean, it is perfectly possible for a person to have their family immigrant story have happened so long ago, that even their grandparent doesn't make traditional foods from their country of ethnic origin, but it also seems WEIRD. Like some sort of weird white washing??? idk. Jury is still out on this I guess. I just don't think it would have killed them to reference one Filipino recipe or technique, especially since that's a pretty rich food culture. You know, as compared with making a main plot point that the fucking LOBSTER BISQUE keeps selling out.

(Is there a whiter word than bisque? I don't fucking think so).

I HAVE GONE ON TOO LONG. THE NEXT ONE.

Designing Christmas (2022) - Alright, I'm running out of steam and so I'm gonna make this one quick. This one cameos that dark haired lady from Love it or List it not sure her name not looking it up (Hilary???). This one is about a couple who work as a designer/contractor pair on a reality show and in order to save their failing show they decide their last show of the season will be a restoration of her family's old home that she just purchased and SURPRISE TO NO ONE WHO WATCHES THESE SHOWS there's a crack in the foundation blahblahblah WHO CARES!?

NO ONE.

This one really suffers from the fact that the male lead is just boring.

Honestly, that's a theme throughout these movies. The male leads are super weak and boring. Tepid. Just absolutely forgettable characters played by actors who are deciding whether the fuck to fire their agents.

What's weird about this one is the way that the production really styles it after a reality show -- even including those restoration classic before and after reveals. But that is nothing on the last one......

A Christmas Open House (2022) -- Alright the cameos in this one are that Hometown Whatever couple who have been "restoring" houses in their hometown in someplace in the south and by restoring, I mean flipping but under the guise of home restoration.

ANYHOW - the plot is that this big city house stager teams up with a realtor to sell her family home to make sure her mom gets the best purchase price on the sale. It's just like those old Christmas classics that really capture the Christmas spirit - A Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life. You know. Really in that anti-capitalist vein.

Deeeeeeeep sigh.

So... I don't even know how to say this. But this movie involves a Christmas miracle.

See, it turns out the house stager accidentally gave the furniture company the wrong credit card number, so the day before the showing ON CHRISTMAS the furniture people came and took back all of the perfectly staged furniture and GASP knocked down the (fake) Christmas tree! WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO1?!? HOW ARE THEY EVER GONNA SELL THE HOUSE ON CHRISTMAS NOW!?$!

BUT IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

The whole town shows up to bring them furniture that they can use to stage the house before the potential buyers arrive. Like... they show up with their odds and ends so that the house can be staged. SO THAT THE HOUSE CAN BE STAGED FOR SALE. Are... are you guys with me here? The miracle that the whole town rallied behind was bringing FURNITURE to STAGE A HOUSE. FOR SALE.

I just... I am walking away.

We are so fucking far from Dickens here we might as well be in a new fucking holiday.

And we are.

Because that's the whole point of all of these movies.

It's not Christmas.

It's American Christmas.

For all the shit that the nostalgic, small-town worshipping Christmas movies get this time of year, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say these movies are more insidious. Instead of blatantly trying to valorize the small town spirit, the support of family and friends, and getting back to your roots, these movies are like the Scooby Doo villain of Christmas movies. Rip off the mask at the end for the big reveal:

IT WAS CAPITALISM ALL ALONG!?!?

Anyhow, I don't know who was supposed to read these scripts before they became movies, but everyone involved will probably be laughing all the way to the bank.

Don't watch these. They're not funny enough to be worth the soul-gutting feeling of realizing what these movies are for.

Nothing.

Empty.

Spiritless.

Candy-coated capitalism.

[certifieduruihater]

So you noticed it too? That Raph and Leo are so similar. That’s why I find the Leo and Raph fights annoying because they are both alike they should be agreeing with each other more

honestly i kind of just want to see a version where leo and raph just...get along with little to no major issues. actually, make them best friends. why not? 2012 was so close to doing this, but imo they fumbled the bag.

i guess i just dont understand why raph and leo fighting HAS to be a staple of every tmnt iteration. these iterations often dont even do anything interesting with their conflicts. we dont see their characters explored or expanded on a deeper level. in several iterations it's hard to call their conflicts two sided as it often boils down to raph throwing a tantrum about one thing or another and leo getting caught in the crossfire, which does nothing for anyone. ill try to explain what i mean by complaining about 2012 (a series i love, but man do i get frustrated with sometimes)

i remember watching tmnt 2012 s4 ep 18 mutant gangland and being absolutely appalled at raph in this episode

the episode starts out with him being angry for no discernible reason and then taking it out on leo during training with sudden brutality and aggression against him.

first he says he's angry that no one takes training seriously, which is not true, because we've never seen leo not taking training seriously against you?? and he's not doing it right now?

then raph accuses splinter of favoritism, which...no? not once in the show have i ever seen evidence of favoritism? what is bro on?? splinter doesnt "stick up for leo" here, he ends a fight that got too aggressive, reinforces their brotherly relationship in an effort to stop raph from killing his brothers, and reiterates the purpose of training, which raph seems to have forgotten. favoritism where??

this is not the first time in the series raph has gone off at leo during training by the way.

in s2 when raph meets casey (the good the bad and casey jones), raph strikes leo from behind after leo wins their fight.

it's not like splinter stopped raph from hitting leo then. he doesnt even yell at raph here. once again, i ask, where's the favoritism?

raph takes no personal responsibility for his anger, which would be fine, only this never gets resolved by the end of the series. he STILL has this mindset by the end of the show. like was that s1 turtle temper episode in which raph supposedly learned to control his temper not enough??? what are we still doing here??

this also ties into a general issue with 2012 where instead of creating new conflicts for the characters they start to repeat old ones. actually, one could argue that s4 raph actually gets WORSE. at least in s2 raph was somewhat remorseful, even though he quickly buried it in denial soon after.

back to the s4 example. then raph out of nowhere drags donnie into the conflict? ive never claimed to be a donnie fan, but this was uncalled for. bro was literally sitting there and drinking juice. i'll admit donnie did escalate the conflict unnecessarily, but hey, raph was the one to bring up the nonexistent favoritism thing in the first place.

like am i supposed to be on raph's side here? to me it just looks like he blew up for no reason. i have no idea what this guys is thinking!

we are at SEASON 4 and practically almost at the end of the series, and raph is STILL causing issues like this. this is some season 1 behavior. frankly, this is just embarrassing. season 4 was where raph's character as a whole really just went downhill for me. his "conflict" with leo is one example.

raph's running off leads to donnie getting captured. he must be feeling guilty. maybe we'll get some insight as to what his deal is.

that's...it? nothing else? ...okay, maybe they're saving it for the end of the episode. this is an action show after all, and we've got some action to cover.

raph frees donnie...and then fights together with the mutanimals instead of fighting with his team??

but wouldnt it have been better for raph to actually fight WITH his team to...you know...solidify his loyalty to his team? (a loyalty that really shouldnt have to be questioned by now because we're at the END OF THE SERIES???)

by the end of the episode, they apologize, but no one actually talks about anything. raph doesnt explain WHY he got so intense. he doesnt talk to leo or splinter about anything. also, raph NEVER apologizes to donnie for the shuriken nonsense he pulled at the start. huh??

one could argue that raph's issues are a matter of perspective, but it's hard for me to feel any sympathy when i can see objectively that the guy is just plain wrong.

leo and raph's conflict + raph's angst is often written in an incredibly shallow manner that often makes me end up disliking raph more because they never bother to flesh out his end of it. and im sorry to be mean, but raph almost never has a point when he says anything. he's just wrong. this episode is a prime example. unfocused conflicts like this end up feeling like unnecessary drama to me. im just not interested in this sort of thing.

id be okay with conflict between raph and leo if it was interesting, but i just keep seeing the same things over and over again with little to no exploration, so at this point im honestly just tired of it and would rather it not be included.

them being alike doesnt necessarily mean they have to agree with each other, and i dont mind them fighting, but can we have a balance or something? i like the understanding 03 leo and raph seem to have for one another. the way raph silently supported leo in forging his swords when leo was down on his confidence. when leo has an outburst at the team during s4 for not taking things seriously (havent gotten there yet. i saw a clip but idk the context so i could be wrong) raph actually appears to be the first one who agrees with him. this stuff is nice.

like do people think them getting along and not hating each other takes away the fundamentals of their characters? is it really that ingrained for leo and raph to just never get along? ive mentioned this before but i think tmnt has this thing where parts of characters are references to past material, which while may have worked in the past, just doesnt work for the version their writing for and ends up feeling hastily slapped on.

[slveepyscwrs]

You want ACTUALLY obscure ship dynamics inspired by small fandoms WITH prompts for each of them to help you write? I got you bestie:

I get the frustration. You want to explore a new ship dynamic to practice your romance writing skills, but you can't find anything aside from the same old.

If that sounds like something you struggle with, here are some ship dynamics that are criminally underused because I've either seen it in a fandom that's teeny-tiny, or I thought of them myself and I haven't been able to see it anywhere.

(Disclaimer: Some of these MIGHT be slightly popular already, so don't go saying "erm actually I've already seen this trope used a bunch of times." I'm not saying that these ideas haven't been used at all, I'm just saying that their popularity is very less compared to some other tropes. I'm also not trying to judge anyone who likes popular tropes.)

Be sure to tag me if you use any of the prompts included here!

Teacher x Teacher. Blame Mr. Ajayi x Mr. Farouk from Heartstopper for my obsession with this. I know, Heartstopper itself isn't a small fandom, but this shipping trope is. Student x Student has already been done a gazillion times. Student x Teacher... uh... not everyone's cup of tea. Teacher x Teacher has a lot of opportunities for fluff and angst, and is also good practice for writing older characters.

(+ Bonus Points if the students notice and try to get them together and/or just sit there confused because how the hell did we get here?)

Prompt Ideas:

"It's 10:00 P.M., and you're still grading tests? Nope, I'll handle them, and you need to go home and rest."

"This is the third time this week that you've been crying in the teacher's lounge. That's it, tell me the names of the kids that I need to give a piece of my mind and extra homework to."

2. Childhood Enemies to Lovers. Before you say, "Wouldn't that just count as enemies to lovers?," the vast majority of enemies to lovers that I've seen involve A and B meeting when they're already teens/young adults.

We love childhood friends to lovers. We love enemies to lovers. Why not have both?

The media that I got this trope from is a BL drama called "We Best Love." If I gushed about how much I love this series and how it lives rent-free in my head, this post would last forever.

(+ Bonus Points If they realise that they never really actually hated each other, it was just a silent lie they were telling each other throughout their childhood.)

Prompt Ideas:

"You couldn't even let me have the slide for five seconds when we were kids. Why are you doing all this for me only now?"

"Wait, don't tell me you're still holding grudges from when we were literally in diapers?"

3. Okay guys today we've gathered to come up with a plan to get these two gosh darn idiots together. I don't really know how to describe it other than that. I also don't recall seeing it any of my fandoms, mostly from my OC stories.

However, I don't know if it's just me, but I LOVE seeing the ship's friends getting involved in having the ship sail successfully. We Stan supportive friends, and the comedy that comes with such situations is a surefire way to keep readers hooked.

(+Bonus Points if two of the friends slowly realise their feelings for each other WHILE doing their shenanigans to try and get the main ship together. Extra Chaos.)

Prompt Ideas:

"What are you suddenly doing here?" "[Friend] sent me." "That's weird, [Friend] sent me too." "Wait..."

"You're telling me that they still didn't realise they have feelings for each other? Ugh, fine, I guess it's time for Plan B..."

I have a lot more of these, but this post is getting too long. If you want to hear more about lesser known tropes, please show some love to this post!

Love,

Your Gay Writing Bestie

[self-indulgent-paw-patrol]

hey lary!! since you run so many askblogs for paw patrol, what are your opinons of humanized AU’s of the pups? in your opinion, are they cool or too out of character for you?

and if you do think they’re cool, do you have any headcanons on what the pups would look like?

Hooooo man ahsuahshahsha okay let me see

PERSONALLY I am not a big fan of this kind of AU, but that's probably because I prefer animals to people (I'm not a people hater). Besides I always liked more the way how animals can be so expressive, use a lot of body language and you don't need to guess if they're in a good mood or if they'll try to bite or kick you - they make it evident. I'm absolutely AWFUL to understand human body language or social cues, it got me in so much deep trouble several times I literally avoid staying around a bunch of my relatives because of that - and that's because I love them, imagine how it would go if I disliked or hated them???

Also I tend to gravitate towards animals the most because they're sincere and won't lie to you on how they feel. And about cartoons/movies/etc, animals usually represent fantasy, a fantastic different world, another point of view I live for and love to explore. They're an escape for my mind to take a break from our chaotic real world and just... Go back to our roots, y'know? All those jokes like "When I was a child my only worries were my school grades, what we would have for dessert and to finish homework in time for watching my favorite cartoons on TV, I was happy and I didn't know it", like now I have too many "adult worries" such as monthly bills expiring, being unemployed, spending hours at the supermarket doing maths to buy the most I can with little money... Being a freelancer artist is hard as hell, I can barely make a living for my parents and little brother and my pets (I've gone hungry to bed several times before bc I spent my last savings on cat food instead of dinner for myself, also my cat and dog share the cat food bc dog food is more expensive and thank God they eat the cheapest kibble just fine). Right now it's been three weeks I'm staying at my friend Pablo's home to recover from a crisis of malnutrition. I am literally here to be properly fed and regain weight and strength. I think I can go back home next week.

So, sometimes I just... Don't want to worry. And then I go for animals. Their only worries are when I'll feed them, if we can play together now or in five minutes, and if I'll sleep next to them in the living room that night or not (they can't sleep in the bedroom XD). Their life is so much more simple and I like that kind of simplicity.

Also I draw animals better than humans too LOL (even if my mom will disagree with me on that, she says my humans are just as good nowadays)

With all that being said, I also find humanized AUs interesting in their own way when they're well written. Sometimes it's hard to adapt things, a lot of stuff that works with animals won't work with humans just as well or will be viewed as weird. I like to come up with furry AUs sometimes, they're sort of humanized, but still retaining their animal traits. But when people do their research, pour their love and soul in it, work on the little things to make it all click together, a nice carefully written human AU will appeal to me almost as much as the original source any day.

As for appearance headcanons? Oh well XD I'm not sure I can answer that so quickly - I like to take my time and do a lot of research, try sketching stuff to see if it works well or not... I'll owe you the answer for now, alright? I'll show up someday with another post listing my headcanons for a human AU on the pups.

After I do the same for a furry AU, as a warm up XD

[hupla222]

Episode 64: Some Thoughts

Such delicious, tasty Explorers lore in this episode. I was feasting from beginning to end. Let's talk about that. And of course feel free to share your own thoughts as well.

So it seems we we're all correct and the Explorers are not unified. It was cracked before but now they are really breaking apart. Spinel and Chalce have separated themselves into a group with Spinel at the head. They kinda seemed that way in episode34 but now they really are a duo. Amethio is his own group but he always has been. And then there's Sidian and Coral (thanks end of the episode for giving me that yummy shot of him btw). They appear to be doing what Spinel does at the moment but I'm not sure he told them the full reason why they're here. And they don't seem to pleased about listening to him either. In addition, the both of them do seem mad at him in the preview so I don't think they're on his side. I'm not sure they're on Amethio's side either since Coral doesn't seem to like him much and who knows what Sidian thinks of him.

Amethio get curb stomped by Spinel was kinda fun to see as well as that brief moment where Liko was styling on him.

Also it has been confirmed that the other Explorers do know that Amethio is Gibeon's grandson. Which makes Sidian's odd reaction to Coral calling him spoiled in episode 44 all the odder. Why was he so pressed?

Holy hell Spinel is thoroughly messed up isn't he. Not only was he perfectly okay with practically torturing his poor Umbreon, he just wants to straight up kill Amethio (although the preview kinda spoiled he'd get out just fine, unless of course that's just a flashback). And I thought he was messed up before. This dude is just a psychopath. Why is Chalce so loyal to him?

I find Chalce's line about blood ties making things messy to be very interesting. What does she mean by that? Does she too have blood ties with another character? If so, who? Do we even know them yet? Combine that with her "some things should remain unsolved" and I get a bleak picture of her past. Damn it show, just give me some backstory for this woman already.

As for Terapagos, I find myself dead wrong. Here I was thinking the Rakurium was what was helping it recover memories and strength. But I guess it really hecking hates the stuff instead. It also really, really, really hates Amethio. What the hell did Gibeon do? Is this why all of Lucius's Pokémon are so angry at first but then they give the Rakurium mist stuff away to Terapagos who nullifies it?

Anyway enough rambling from me. See you all next time when Liko and Amethio talk (and probably get saved by someone, who knows who. I know I have some ideas) and the other two kids get their butts saved by Grusha (disappointing)

[gatormeister]

Gundam Reconguista in G

I liked it, but please, please slow down from time to time. The whole third movie was rushing like it was trying to tun a marathon in record time, I could barely keep track of what was going on in that movie. Thankfully movies four and five were much much better paced.

The mobile suits were an absolute treat all throughout, it's such a shame the rest of the high grade line doesn't get reprinted outside of the G-Self right now. There's so many I'd love to build. The environmental design in G-Reco is also just absolutely fantastic, alongside the character designs. The ost was average for most of it, but I really enjoyed some of the tracks in the last two movies.

We have the Megafauna, Capital Guard, Capital Army, Ameria, Towasanga, and the Venus Globe as the main factions in this series. The capital guard is split up between the Megafauna and Capital Army relatively quickly. The Capital Army and Amerian Army go to war over photon batteries. The Megafauna is unofficially aligned with the Amerian Army, but has the ability to act semi-independently as "space pirates." Towasanga... I'm not sure what Towasanga is anymore. I thought they were the ones producing the photon batteries at first, but then the Venus Globe ended up being that, and now Towasanga is just sort of... a random space colony that survived the Universal Century I guess? And as mentioned the Venus Globe makes and ships the Photon Batteries that everyone relies on, but at the cost of its residents (At least the ones that are long lived I think?) deteriorating as a result of loving in space.

That's a lot of factions, and I don't think a single one of them actually gets fleshed out enough to leave a massive impact save for the Megafauna. The Capital Army and Amerian forces come close, but that's only really because we have characters like Klim Nick and Luin to sometimes follow around. Towasanga felt completely wasted since you barely get to see any of it or its inner workings. The Capital Guard splits between the Capital Army and Megafauna. And the Venus Globe actually does get some exploration, but it's really only to show the characters why life in space really isn't the shining future they think it is.

As for characters, they're good, but there's just way too many for them all to be properly developed by the end. Bellri and Aida are mostly fine, Luin is okay it starts out looking like he's gonna be fighting for the Kuntala cause at first, but then he's kind of just a generic villain with an evil laugh and everything for most of it up until he decides Bellri's a future dictator waiting to happen at the very end, Manny is actually pretty good even if her arc revolves around becoming a better pilot and stronger person for Luin, Raraiya was horribly underutilized and minimized in importance after she gets her memories back, and the rest of the secondary cast does their jobs well enough.

Overall though the pacing really did kill a lot of the fun. The first movie felt like it was a little weirdly quick, but was fine. The second movie definitely started to feel it picking up from like a fast walk to a jog. And then movie three was like a full on sprint. Movies four and five felt a lot better, but by then the damage was already done. If G-Witch needed just maybe two to three more episodes to better explore a small handful of things, G-Reco needed at least a couple more movies worth of runtime to explore everything it wanted to show.

That said, it was still a fun enough ride, and the next time I jump into a Gundam series it will be with After War Gundam X.