#As anyone whos seen my more recent post can probably guess

[ineffable-romantics]

Some thoughts on why and how I believe Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship would incorporate sex/why I do not read them as wholly asexual:

This is something I've seen the most discourse about in this fandom, and I've had a few thoughts of my own that I really wanted to expand upon in a full meta/character analysis post. I do understand that this can be a contentious topic, so first, let me clarify a few things:

First of all, this is going to be long. Tbh it probably won't be that organized either. I ramble and I'm not very good at editing, so just... you know. Be warned. (*Hi, it's me from 2 days after writing this; I'm really not kidding, it's LONG)

These are all my own thoughts. They might not be hot takes, because recently I've seen more than a few people come to the same conclusions on a lot of these points as I have. But I've also had these notes in my drafts for about a week and a half now, and have been continuously adding to it as things have occurred to me. This post is essentially just somewhere for me to collect the separate but related meta I've been kicking around in my head.

I fully respect anyone who does see and prefer an asexual reading of this relationship. These are my own thoughts and interpretations as someone who is not asexual. I am in the LGBT+ community, so while I do know a few things about the asexuality spectrum, I am by no means an expert.

This is NOT something I expect, need, or even necessarily want the show (or, God forbid, Neil's tumblr ask box) to address. Tonally, it's just not that kind of show. Newt and Anathema's sex scene was very much played for laughs, and it worked for that reason. If the show found a way to address it in a way that was both appropriate for the tone of the show and ultimately satisfying, then great! But there is so much more to this relationship than sex, and I didn't need a kiss to confirm their love, so I certainly don't need a sex scene. As immortal beings (as I assume they'll stay) there is so much of the rest of their lives we'll never get to see. You can headcanon them as asexual and potentially be right. I can headcanon them as not and be equally potentially right. Again, these are just a collection of my own thoughts, because I think the question of sexuality (or lack thereof) is just as interesting a facet of these characters as any other.

Note: Tbh I've been second-guessing this whole post and debated deleting the whole thing several times for being silly or unnecessary, bc I don't want anyone to think that this is the only thing I care about when it comes to this story/characters. But if nothing else, it's inspired me to write in a way that nothing has in a very long time, so I've decided it's worth continuing, if for no other reason than that.

This is going to be a mixed bag of textual reading, subtextual reading, and a full-on reach or two. It's been a while since I've been in an English class, but if my teachers expected me to find a deeper meaning behind blue curtains, you can expect me to read too deeply into the symbolism of a loaded rifle or an ox rib. (This is probably not what my professors had in mind when grading my literary analysis papers but oh well) My point is, if it feels like a reach, I'm as aware of it as you are. I am in no way saying that all (or even any) of my points made were deliberate on the part of Neil or the actors or the writers or the directors. I am no longer the delulu Apple Tree Yard child of my youth, I promise.

If anything said here is in any way offensive or hurtful to anyone in the asexual community, please do not hesitate to message me or comment and let me know exactly what it was. I promise you it is not my intention to do so, and am happy to clarify or outright edit anything that reads that way.

With all that being said, let's talk about why I think Crowley and Aziraphale would absolutely fuck nasty incorporate sex into their relationship.

Note: I am out of practice with essay writing, so I think I'll just go down the bullet points of notes I have been making, and expand on each as best I can

Food

Where better to start than with Aziraphale's introduction to Pleasures Of The Flesh? (Just a heads up, this entire post may feel very Aziraphale-heavy, and with good reason).

This might be the least hot take here. We've all seen the Job minisode. We've all seen That Scene.

Whether this was intentional or not, the symbolism here is off the charts. Eve was tempted by an apple. So why not go a similar route and tempt Aziraphale with another fruit, or cheese, or bread, or literally anything else for his first experience with food? Instead, we go with a huge, glistening slab of fresh meat that he proceeds to absolutely go feral upon, moaning and gasping into his meal while Crowley watches with what definitely doesn't look to be disgust or even satisfaction with a good temptation. There's surprise at the ferocity of Aziraphale's appetite, certainly. But ultimately he looks to be intensely fascinated by it, while the thunder crashes, the music crescendos, and the earth literally shakes around them.

(It's also interesting to note how very little it takes for Crowley to tempt him with the ox rib. One murmured suggestion, a bit of unwavering eye contact, and vavoom Aziraphale immediately meets him in the middle.)

Cut to Aziraphale devouring the rest of the meat with Crowley splayed back on a makeshift bed, drinking wine and continuing to watch him indulge through half-lidded eyes. Outside a thunderstorm rages while they're learning secrets about each other in warm flickering firelight. It's cosy, it's intimate, and if they'd thrown in a bearskin throw blanket, it might as well be a post-coital scene straight out of Game of Thrones.

The next time (chronologically) we see them discuss food is when Aziraphale "tempts" Crowley with oysters in Rome. So Crowley first tempts Aziraphale with meat and then Aziraphale tempts Crowley with what is widely regarded to be an aphrodisiac. Interesting.

And then chronologically after that, the Arrangement begins to form, which has always reeked of a friends with benefits situation. Just to throw that in there.

It's What Humans Do

In the very first episode, we're shown Gabriel's obvious disgust and bewilderment towards Aziraphale eating sushi, calling it "gross matter" and being proud of the fact that he does not sully his body with it. Aziraphale initially tries to defend his own enjoyment in it, before passing it off as something that humans do, as something he simply has to do in order to blend in (which we know very well is not the case).

He does this again in season 2, passing off Nina and Maggie being in love as "something humans do". But it isn't, is it? Angels are beings of love, and can sense it, and understand very well what it is... up to a point. Even romantic love is obviously within their wheelhouse, given what we now know happened between Gabriel and Beelzebub (we'll come back to them).

What the "humans do" that angels wouldn't understand is messy, physical forms of love.

But here's the thing: Aziraphale and Crowley love doing what the humans do. They love drinking, they (or at least Aziraphale) love eating. They love music. Crowley loves driving and sleeping and watching rom-coms and sitcoms. Aziraphale loves reading and doing magic and earning little licenses and certificates for achievement in his various hobbies. They love to playact at being human so much that they've stopped playacting and started building a genuinely human lifestyle for themselves and with each other.

Once together in an unambiguously romantic sense, why do we think they wouldn't also want to explore one of the most prominent, intimate, powerful human expressions of love and desire with each other?

Angels, Demons, & Asexuality

Here's where I really want to clarify that in no way do I mean that sex is necessary for a healthy, fulfilling, and loving romantic relationship, or that the lack of desire for sex makes you any less human. Asexuality is a sexuality as valid and human as any. What I would say is that it is definitely in the human minority compared to allosexuality.

Angels and demons, on the other hand, are predominately asexual. Sexless/genderless unless Making An Effort. (Which, btw, is a concept introduced as early as the original book; why even bring it up as a possibility? Why not keep angels/demons being sexless/asexual as a hard and fast rule, if not to open up the potential for later use? Chekhov's Effort, if you will. And isn't that something that Aziraphale in particular is shown to do time and time again? He makes an effort in French and driving and magic, doesn't he?)

And this is why I don't believe Aziraphale and Crowley necessarily need to be asexual, narratively. There is already a huge amount of ace rep within the angels and demons (and no, not just the horrible ones. Muriel also doesn't "drink the tea" and has no reason or desire thus far to Make An Effort, and there are certainly other angels and demons who aren't horrible like the archangels seem to be who likely wouldn't Make An Effort either).

The central conflict for Aziraphale and Crowley is that they are on their own side, the ones who went native, the ones who are so different in so many ways from their respective hives. It would make sense for them to also break away from traditional angel/demon asexuality.

I say "traditional angel/demon asexuality", because I would also like to note that I would absolutely not rule out demisexuality for either of them. This post is being written to as a response to people who specifically believe that they (like the rest of the angels/demons seem to be) would be sex-averse in a relationship, and that it wouldn't be a factor in their relationship. I could easily read them as demisexual, but I do think there would be no real way of verifying this, because they've never been able to form as close an emotional relationship with anyone else but each other. Certainly not in heaven, and I can't imagine they would be able to form that kind of attachment with any of the humans, who they love and emulate but ultimately regard as the separate species they are. So yes, they could either be allosexual or demisexual, in my opinion.

Then again, now that I think about it, Making An Effort itself could be a great metaphor for demisexuality, since they would be entirely sexless/asexual until they have enough of an emotional connection with someone to consciously manifest otherwise. Since the other angels and demons don't generally form those types of emotional connections with anyone, there hasn't been a precedent for it.

Except...

Brielzebub

We do have a precedent for it now, don't we? Gabriel and Beelzebub fell in love. They are a direct foil for Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship, speedrunning right through their courtship and finding their happily ever after on the other side of things.

For being such a 1 to 1 comparison, it feels deliberate that they did not kiss. They held hands, they were gooey with each other, but they did not kiss. That feels like such a deliberate thing to omit when you know what's to come at the end of the episode between Crowley and Aziraphale.

And going back to the food = sex metaphor for a moment, let's notice how even as they fell in love over the years, even when pints and crisps were there on the table in front of them, they never felt the desire to reach out for them. They didn't need to. It's a date (love story) even if you aren't eating dinner (sleeping together).

Yes, I know Jim liked hot chocolate. No, I am not counting it because I don't consider Jim and Gabriel to be the same person with the same proclivities, and Jim was highly suggestible at the time anyway.

Gabriel and Brielzebub's big happily ever after moment (as of now) was one between two asexual supernatural beings. They did not need to kiss to drive the point home. They showed what Crowley and Aziraphale could have, if they would only acknowledge it.

Crowley & Aziraphale's Dissatisfaction

But they do have that already, don't they? If you really think about it, what do Gabriel and Beelzebub do with each other that Crowley and Aziraphale don't already? They hold hands, they spend time together, they create little rituals, they give gifts, they're visibly and verbally affectionate with each other, etc. They are more or less already in a romantic asexual marriage relationship with each other, aren't they?

And it doesn't seem to be enough for either of them.

At the beginning of the season, Crowley is immediately shown to be unsatisfied with the way things are. Obviously part of it comes from living in his car, but it seems to be more than that (especially since Aziraphale makes it clear that the bookshop is just as much Crowley's as his, implying that he could have been living there the whole time and is choosing not to, for some reason?). You could argue he's feeling unmoored without Hell telling him what to do, but isn't that what he wanted? Isn't that what he still wants, by the end of the season? All season long, he's never indicated the desire for a new job, or a new project. He stopped the apocalypse because he wanted the freedom to openly spend time with Aziraphale, to spend his time on Earth however he sees fit. Until Gabriel arrives, he has exactly that (minus a flat).

So where does the dissatisfaction come from? And if it represents anything to do with his relationship, what does he want out of it that he isn't getting already?

I think Crowley only really comes to the realisation of what he's missing when Nina names it for him, not only putting them in the category of romantic, but physical (outright asking if they are sleeping together). These two posts [1], [2] go into more detail about what I mean, but I think it really pushes him into acknowledging that their relationship is more human than either of them have stopped to consider, and what that might mean as far as everything a human relationship can entail.

After all, Nina and Maggie only advised that he should talk to Aziraphale, make clear his feelings. The decision to kiss him, to tip them over the edge from nonphysical to physical, that was all him. And no, kissing isn't sex, but I wonder how taboo even that might be in the kind of all-encompassing asexuality most angels seem to identify with. (If they're disgusted by food and drink, I can only imagine what they think of snogging, much less sex.)

Aziraphale doesn't have this moment of someone observing their relationship from the outside. He loves Crowley, and as of 1941 probably even knows he's in love with him in a way that Crowley doesn't understand yet. Which makes sense, since love is technically his job, he'd be more likely to recognise it for what it is.

However, Aziraphale's reference for romance and relationships is Jane Austen. It's chaste. It's dancing and dinner and doing sweet things for each other and roses and candles and handholding. He contextualises his love for Crowley in that soft fantasy sort of way, where it's there, it's obviously there, but it's neat and easy and unspoken. Not to quote Glee in this, the year of our lord 2023, but it's all very "the touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets".

Someone should tell that to Aziraphale's face, then.

I'm not going to pretend I know what Michael Sheen's script notes were, but there were definitely some Choices™ made. Because yes, there were plenty of moments in both seasons with Aziraphale looking at Crowley in a sweet, loving, smitten way. And then there were moments that were yearning.

But yearning for what, exactly? All of those sappy Jane Austen tropes already apply to the two of them. So why are there moments where Aziraphale is looking Crowley up and down like the last eclair in the window and licking his lips and visibly exhaling like he's trying to get in control of himself (see: Bastille scene + Crowley telling Muriel to ask him if they have any other questions about love)? Why is Aziraphale not only unconcerned when Crowley shoves him bodily up against a wall in s1, but staring at his lips and a beat too late in noticing Sister Mary's arrival? Why are some of his lines so suggestive? I'm sorry, but the car ride after the church explosion might as well have been the beginning of a Pizza Man porn with a really weird Blitz theme. If even my mother picked up on that vibe, I can't imagine it wasn't intentional on part of both the dialogue and the delivery.

(This section may feel like more of a reach/joke, but I'm really only 20% joking. These are writers and actors who are EXTREMELY good at their jobs; they know what they were doing here.)

More importantly, I don't think Aziraphale is even aware that there is more to what he wants. He lives in the Jane Austen fantasy and it never even occurs to him that he might be interested in anything further. It never even occurs to him that, as an angel, there is anything further to be interested in in the first place. Until Crowley forces it to occur to him. Just like I believe Nina forced Crowley to confront the idea that romantic love is what he's been feeling all along, I believe Crowley forced Aziraphale to confront the idea that physical intimacy is something he's been wanting, without even realising.

Aziraphale's Hedonism

Expanding on Aziraphale for a moment. We talked about his relationship with food, but we all know that Aziraphale is defined by his love of things that Feel Good.

It isn't just that he and Crowley love human things. Aziraphale loves the best of the best, or at least his version of it. He doesn't just love food, he loves going to fancy restaurants. He doesn't just love clothes, he loves soft, cosy, warm, plush clothes, or shiny, flashy, bougie fashion. He loves the warmth of tea and cocoa, loves getting drunk, and sitting in a comfy chair in the sunlight. He doesn't just experience, he indulges.

Given the emphasis put on things that Aziraphale loves just because they Feel Good, it feels narratively strange to assume that he wouldn't enjoy the feeling of being touched, or that he wouldn't be willing to try it, at least once, with someone he cared very deeply for. And just like the ox rib, I think that once he gets the first taste of things, he would absolutely tip over into complete and utter self-indulgence.

Dancing

I also think that dancing could be construed as a huge metaphor here. After all, we're told flat-out that angels don't Dance. Except one.

I would argue that Aziraphale, in fact, Made An Effort to learn how to Dance. He threw himself into the gavotte with delight (at a Victorian gay club; noted) and worked hard to be good at it. He's chomping at the bit to Dance with Crowley, working up the nerve to ask him with undeniably romantic intent and eagerness. So, angels don't Dance... unless they Make An Effort to do so.

We are told that demons, on the other hand, do Dance, but not well. Makes sense, since they're the ones who would want to encourage a deadly sin like lust, but have as little understanding of human love and physical intimacy as the angels. Crowley, however, is shown to be an excellent dancer at the ball, especially in his compatibility with Aziraphale.

(But Aziraphale WandaVisioned the ball so everyone knew how to dance! Yes, he did. However, the rest of the brainwashing doesn't seem to affect Crowley in any way, and they did actually live through the time period where this sort of dancing was a social norm; I'd be surprised if he never needed to learn. After all, the demons can't spell either, and Crowley is at least functionally literate, as far as we know.)

As of today, it's also been confirmed that when Aziraphale asked Crowley to dance, Crowley replied with "you don't dance." Not "WE don't dance". So going along with the metaphor, Crowley is just now discovering that Dancing is something Aziraphale is interested in at all, much less with him, and not denying that he himself is interested in Dancing. In his defense, I believe he was asleep for a few years while Aziraphale was learning the gavotte, so he wasn't exactly aware of Aziraphale's hot girl summer.

Love Languages

I want to expand on that; Crowley and Aziraphale's compatibility. Specifically in regards to their individual love languages.

We all know Crowley's love language is Acts of Service. I don't think there's any debate there. He loves it, Aziraphale loves it, they're both aware of it, we're all aware of it, God and Satan are aware of it, no surprise there.

You may disagree with me, but I believe Aziraphale's love language is Physical Touch, for a number of reasons. One of which being his aforementioned hedonism. Aziraphale likes things that Feel Good, remember? He likes soft clothes, and well-worn books. Neil himself has said that they like holding hands. And any time he is taken by surprise (Brielzebub getting together, the wave of love in Tadfield, etc.) what is the first thing he does? Reaches out for Crowley. He stops him with a hand to the chest in the pub. He leads him by the hand to the dance floor. He guides him by the waist in the graveyard. He reaches out during the entire Brielzebub scene, whether he can reach Crowley or not. Despite his own turmoil, he grasps at Crowley's back during the kiss.

The one time Crowley reaches out for him (not counting the kiss yet; we'll get there), he is aggressively pushed against a wall (by someone he loves and trusts) with a complete and utter lack of concern (and perhaps some interest, depending on how you read it).

And when he isn't reaching out for anyone, or there isn't anyone to reach out to? Well, he's wringing his own hands together, squeezing his own fingers, as if to find that physical comfort in himself.

So. With that theory in mind, we have Aziraphale (Physical Touch) + Crowley (Acts of Service). Throw in 6000+ years of deep love, cherished companionship, and forcibly repressed longing, and there is a very real potential of this combination resulting in fierce sexual compatibility. Where Aziraphale would want to touch and be touched, to indulge in physical pleasure with someone he adores, in the same the way he indulges in every other fine thing in his life. And where Crowley would want to indulge him in return, to give him everything he wants, and to take pleasure in Aziraphale's pleasure, in the same way he enjoys watching him take joy in food everything else.

So Aziraphale is an angel who is insecure about his own less-than-holy desires, who would want to treat Crowley like a luxury to be touched and cherished and adored. And Crowley is a demon who has, over the millennia, been unhappy about how they've been forced to deny even their friendship with each other, who would want Aziraphale to feel comfortable and safe and encouraged to indulge in earthly delights. That sounds like a stunning recipe for sexual compatibility to me.

"You said 'trust me'" / "And you did"

Just like the Job minisode, the Blitz is RIFE with symbolism (intentional or otherwise). This one will be quick, but I did want to touch on it because I thought it was interesting. Maybe I'm reaching at this point, but I'm assuming you read the tin.

First of all, Crowley not wanting to admit to never firing a gun before; comes off as someone who very much does not want to admit to their crush that they're a virgin ("You must have done this lots of times!" / "Umm.... yyyyyeah.")

(You could make the argument that Aziraphale having a firearms license and a Derringer in a hollowed-out book is symbolic of him not being a virgin while Crowley is. I disagree, for reasons I'll go into later, but it's a valid reading. However, I see it more like keeping a condom in your wallet; it's there in case you need it, but the opportunity has not yet risen no pun intended.)

More importantly, the theme of this entire minisode is trust. We already know they trust each other with their lives against the rest of Heaven, Hell, and the world. But specifically, this is about the importance of having complete trust in your partner in a charged, physically vulnerable, intimate moment, where the only danger is between the two of you.

Aziraphale needs to believe Crowley would never hurt him if he can help it. Crowley needs to trust Aziraphale's unwavering blind faith in him. Frankly, it all feels very symbolic of two people deeply in love losing their respective virginities with each other.

The trick is a success, and they share an intimate candlelit dinner in which they reaffirm their faith in each other. Aziraphale also begins to voice his agreement with Crowley, that maybe Heaven's rules shouldn't have to be as black and white as they are, and that there are benefits to... blurring the lines, shades of grey, wink wink (at which point even my mom was like, whoa guys, this is a family show).

Btw also: Can we all agree how much it looked like Crowley was getting ready to get a lapdance in that one scene? You know the one.

Also also: "Aim for my mouth"? Come on.

The Birds & The Bees

Now that I think of it, there's also something to be said for the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale are both obviously familiar with where babies come from (how they're made and how they're born) while the other angels aren't.

Something something Aziraphale and Crowley fundamentally understand sex and reproduction in a way the other angels (and probably demons) very much do not, nor have any desire to.

Probably not important. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

The Kiss™ & Religious Trauma

The Kiss. Where to even begin?

This has definitely been the hardest one to start, because there is so much going on here that I definitely won't be able to cover it all, and will certainly miss a few things here and there.

Aziraphale's reaction to the kiss afterwards is the most interesting to me. And I don't mean directly after, I don't mean the "I forgive you" part. I mean the way he touches his lips when Crowley is no longer in the room and he no longer needs to save face, when he is completely alone. Had it been directly after the kiss, it would have been rightfully read as horror, or disgust, a shield to discourage further action.

It's not. It isn't just a touch, it's a press. As desperate and angry and unexpected and imperfect as the kiss had been, Aziraphale is pressing it into himself, recreating the feeling as best he can. Beneath all the poor timing and shock and hurt from their fight and fallout, I think it's fair to say that it was something he enjoyed. Something he doesn't think he should enjoy, something that Feels Good that he only allows himself to indulge in when completely alone.

Remember, Aziraphale's idea of love is Jane Austen and gentleness and courtship and fantasy. If he'd ever even considered kissing an option, it might have been gentle pecks, cheek kisses, forehead kiss, hand kisses. Soft, safe, chaste affection.

Crowley's kiss turns all of that on its head. He introduces physical intimacy in a very real, very messy, very human way that I don't think Aziraphale ever even considered could apply to them. Considering what other angels are like and what they look down on, even Aziraphale's Jane Austen fantasies probably would have been considered taboo.

So for their first kiss to be rough and desperate and passionate in the way it was, of course he was confused and in shock. It was deeply physical, and as overwhelming and awful as it was in the moment, it Felt Good. Enough that he grasped at Crowley and kissed back, if only just for a moment, before stopping himself. Enough that he actively pressed it into his lips afterwards, in private, to remember.

I adore how Neil has decided to evolve these characters past the first book/season. More so in this season, Aziraphale and Crowley have both become such interesting allegories for queer people on either side of the spectrum of toxic religion. Aziraphale in particular obviously, because he is the side that so desperately wants to believe, to make a difference, and to unlearn all of the propaganda he's been fed over such a long time. Just like so much of organised religion, there is so much that he is told, time and time again, that he should not want, that he is silly or stupid or outright wrong for wanting. It reminds me so much of the severe Catholic guilt one might feel for wanting/engaging in sex for the first time, and the stigma of being queer layered on top of that.

What is so critical to Aziraphale's character is that he goes on wanting, and more than that, actively pursues. He was convinced to go up against Heaven and Hell and stop all of Armageddon because he wanted to go on listening to music and eating lunch and reading books and enjoying the simple company of the person he cares most deeply for, even if that person is supposed to be the enemy.

All this to say that if angels are as generally asexual/sex-averse as I believe them to be, narratively speaking, it would make sense for Aziraphale to be singular in that regard as well. Mirroring his first experience with food, it would make sense for Crowley to be the one to first introduce this new messy, physical, human dynamic between them, for Aziraphale to hesitate (obviously we are at the Hesitation phase at the moment), and then (eventually) for him to dive in wholeheartedly, to absolutely glut himself on this new thing that Feels Good. It would make sense for his character development to show him overcoming his metaphorical Catholic guilt and pursuing the sexual intimacy most (if not all) of the other angels would scorn.

(I can't help but remember that plot idea Neil described from the unwritten sequel, with Aziraphale in a hotel room trying to watch a full porno by way of the free 2-minute teaser clips so he wasn't technically sinning by paying for it. I so hope this is used in season 3, because gosh, I wonder why Aziraphale would suddenly be so interested in observing human physical intimacy after 6,000 years. Lonely and doing a little surreptitious research there, angel?)

Crowley, on the other hand, is the queer person who has broken free from his toxic religion. He prides himself on being his own person, on their his own side. He doesn't have the hang-ups Aziraphale does. He doesn't worry that he's going to be judged or cast aside for wanting things he's not supposed to. So it only makes sense for him to be the first one to suggest/initiate physical intimacy. It makes sense for him to be the one who "goes too fast" (another fantastic example of this dynamic beginning as early as s1; what is that conversation in the car meant to represent, if not Aziraphale being overwhelmed by the intensity of their relationship, and his fear of succumbing to it when he believes he shouldn't? It's also interesting that this is the first conversation to take place in Soho, just after watching Aziraphale realise he's caught feelings for a demon, with the red glow of lust serving as the backdrop).

Do I think the kiss in and of itself was sexual? No. I think it was a passionate and devastating last-ditch effort on Crowley's part to convey the way he feels for Aziraphale. Not just that he loves him, but that he loves him in the most human way possible. But I do think that the kiss represents how they can move forward from here, and what they might want to explore with each other once they feel free enough to do so.

In Conclusion

I am sure, deep in my bones (unless we are explicitly told otherwise), that this was both of their first kisses no, I'm not counting the gavotte, and that neither of them have ever thought to do anything else physical with the humans while they have been on Earth. Like I said before, they adore the human race and lifestyle in general, but ultimately view them as a separate species altogether, and they seem mostly happy to keep to themselves and each other, unless otherwise necessary. I just can't see either of them being drawn enough to a human to pursue anything close to sex. If Crowley in particular has had anything to do with sex in the context of temptations, I'm positive he would be inciting lust amongst the humans themselves, not involving himself directly. At least not that directly.

So, like every other human experience they've had on Earth, sex is something new that they could explore together, just the two of them, on their own side. A deeply intimate, tangible declaration of their love and everything they've gone through to earn it. A visceral finger to give both Heaven and Hell. A renewed appreciation for their corporations and for each other's. A enjoyable method for immortal beings to simply pass the time in each other's company. A new and exciting way to Feel Good, and all the variations that come with it.

You might agree with this post, or you might not. Whether this is something that is ever addressed or not, it doesn't matter to me. This is a brilliant love story either way, and I genuinely feel so privileged to witness it.

But I just can't find it in myself to imagine, given everything we know about these two characters, that sex isn't an experience they would both consume with wholehearted enthusiasm, curiosity, and profound, ineffable adoration.

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Bonus feature: the very silly notes I made to myself that inspired this post

[thefandomenchantress]

I think it’s interesting that sometimes, when I write Ace in a non-killing game AU, he seems to be more closely characterized to chapter 2 Ace than chapter 1 Ace. It’s like seeing what he can become in a hostile environment like the killing game sort of makes me retroactively see him as way more…grumpy, would maybe be the right word?

I suppose what I mean is that in chapter 2, Ace’s cowardice, among other traits, begin to take a backseat to his anger. Evidence of this can be most obviously found in the fact that, when Ace got new sprites for chapter two, the DRDTdev didn’t bother remaking any neutral or happy sprites. There are still some scared ones, of course, but most of them have him angry or at least a little grumpy/irritated.

(A few examples of sprites that were never remade/only have angrier alternatives now. (Happy punching Ace sprite my beloved…We‘ll probably never see you again…)).

You could make the argument he was quite aggressive even before the killing game really started, as seen during his introduction, (though you could also argue that maybe he wouldn’t have been so aggressive if he hadn’t just been kidnapped and in a new place he knew nothing about, but I digress). And yeah, you’d be right. He was already pretty antagonistic towards others in chapter 1.

But like…Recently I was thinking about my Ace characterization in some of my fics, and I realized that, since chapter 2 came out and he started being way more mean and angry…Sometimes I accidentally make him a lot grumpier than he actually was.

In chapter 1, it’s easy to forget that Ace seemed to actually be pretty easily excited/riled up about little things. And sometimes I have to remind myself that no, it is not out of character if I make him happy or excited sometimes, he doesn’t always have to be grumpy or scared. I mean, he’s grumpy or scared a lot, but not 100% of the time. Especially once he befriends Levi and feels a little safer, I think almost every happy sprite gets most of its use in the elevator scene with the two of them.

I guess the main thesis of this post is, since Ace’s chapter 2 self is somehow even more extreme and attention-grabbing than chapter 1 Ace, it’s easy to forget that Ace has emotions besides angry and scared that he used to show. Such as neutral or excited. And sometimes, it’s easy to feel like making him happy or somewhat non-angry/grumpy in a fic is too out of character, since chapter 2 Ace can stick in your mind a little more.

So I just wanted to make a post saying that, given the circumstances of your fic(or art) allow it, don’t be afraid to make Ace happy and excited over stupid things!!! Especially over stupid things actually!!!! Letting him be happy or passionate about something is not a characterization-crime. This man is not perpetually grumpy/mad all the time, even if he is easily aggravated.

This post was partially made for myself, so I can encourage myself and my happy Ace agenda. But I also wanted to encourage anyone else who likes writing him as happy sometimes but felt as though it wasn’t close enough to canon. Sometimes I’d feel a little…uh…I guess the best word for it would be ‘cringe’ for making Ace all >:D in my fics, and I realized lately I’ve been making him more grumpy because of that. But making Ace easily excited isn’t the most out of character thing ever, and even if it was, fics are made for fun and if you like making him happy then fucking go for it!!!!

TL;DR, Ace was, in fact, able to be happy/excited before people started killing each other, and showing that your writing (or art etc.) is not a crime! If you like making him smile then do it!

[woobifykamukura]

ghdsfkjghdsf is that a common thing?

I don't really get how he'd be misdiagnosed anyway; it would need brain scans, especially since it's so rare at his age, and if anything it would have been misdiagnosed as other conditions for a while. Only going off cry-stars here- I have no expertise myself- but she's said that can happen and there was a recent case in Japan where a young guy's dementia was mistaken for depression for ages.

If we doubt Komaeda's FTD it can only be via doubting his honesty imo (but I still think he's telling the truth). I also love seeing analyses of him through the lenses of other disorders as comorbid instead of alternative diagnoses- especially autism, but I've seen interesting takes wrt OCD and BPD too- but canonically I feel like bvFTD, extreme post-traumatic stress and political radicalisation adequately explain his issues.

TO BE FAIR it probably isnt As common as i think it is, i just saw one reddit post thst explicitly claimed the FTD was a misdiagnosis and that it totally makes way more sense for komaeda to have autism and bpd, and a surprisung number of people... agreed? for some reason??

which i need to state for the record a) i am autistic myself and b) have absolutely zero problems with headcanons, even if they arent ones i ascribe to personally

what i DO have a problem with is people erasing canon neurodivergencies and/or erasing traits CENTRAL to a character in order to square-peg-round-hole the headcanon THEY have as the most correct one

"nagito has ftd and was autistic before that?" cool! neat! seeing how those two disorders being comorbid with each other could be really interesting!

"nagito does NOT have ftd, the devs were wrong, they actually wrote an autistic character and didnt realize it" stop talking.

this is very like, misanthropic i guess but after SO MUCH SHIT ive seen it just speaks to an unwillingness to empathize with or relate to anyone that isnt exactly like you. and you cant just headcanon real people around you with Misdiagnosed Autistic (most.... times....) so this pops up in fiction

like. i am autistic! i also have two (2) personality disorders, and neither is bpd. this has led to a non negligible amount of autistic people completely stereotyping my other disorders as evil in order to prop themselves up ("i thought i was a narcissist/sociopath, which wouldve been awful, but really i was just autistic! phew!!" with implicit, sometimes EXPLICIT value judgements being made)

i have had a friend i had in real life, to my face, say he didn't believe i had either personality disorder and really i was secretly just autistic

...if we had been better friends, maybe he would've known me well enough to know that that's almost... comically untrue. lol

so in my opinion there do exist a certain minority of autistic people who see autism as the only neurodivergency that Matters, or at least the one that matters the most. and the only way they can feel any sympathy for anyone else is if they are also autistic

and i know this is a minority! and i just see it a lot because i am an autist in fandom and a lot of other autistic people are also in fandom! AND that this is a mindset prone to ANY minority- most people think their Problem is the Worst Problem, it just... happens. however i am just as irrational and prone to biases as anyone else and ive chosen this as my completely irrelevant hill to die on

that one reddit post made me so goddamn mad bc of All This PLUS its double insulting when someone says "i have a special interest in psychology!" as a way to say theyre extremely knowledgable, and doing genuine analysis with the lens of "i am looking at the text and trying to make an objective diagnosis" and then STILL DO THIS!!! because they have this veneer of "im just a guy asking questions" before diving right into a weirdly consspiratory subset of "everyones an idiot about mental health except for ME"

...which tbf i dont think that about myself. i am very good at writing a wide variety of mental illness due to a combination of research and life experience BUT i could really only tell you like. actual non-surface level FACTS about aspd and to a lesser extent, npd. because thats what i chose to focus on. there are far and away lots more people that know more about me about other things, and im fine wit that

i am however also aware of this extremely hyperspecific social phenominon. and thus it is my burden to bear. my mountainous molehill.

also r/danganronpa just fucking sucks like in general. every time i see a kokichi opinion there i get a little closer to pulling the trigger. i think the real moral here is reddit is garbage and should not be used for anything other than product reviews

(also fwiw i agree w ur personal take at the end, with a lil bit of ocd tendencies that like, started off manageable and nowhere near diagnostic level badness, since things he might do to manage his cycle and even the constant thinking about it are very much reminiscent of obsessions and compulsions. but ftd in of itself can cause ocd symptoms so after that it got... worse. thats my personal take on it ^^)

[yolatirra]

Okay, with all the Game Informer information I'm going to take a stab at some speculation for where the story is going & what's going to happen.

This turned out to be... a very long post.

---The Evanuris---

First of all, I was right that the male figure is Elgar'nan! Not that it was an uncommon theory, but I still haven't seen anyone else pointing out that his symbol is an eclipse, so I'm still running with my Elgar'nan - God of Darkness/Eclipses theory. But I'm still not sure exactly what to say about it other than that.

We can now make a pretty solid guess that the final voice in the Thedas Calls teaser trailer is Elgar'nan. His dialogue suggests that he's trying conquer the world, which makes sense. He was the leader of the elven pantheon, and likely kind of a tyrant. Ghilan'nain, on the other hand, I suspect cares more about doing her weird experimental stuff than ruling the world. I suspect each one will be causing different problems for us.

-Ghilan'nain-

Ghilan'nain might be attacking places and/or sending monsters to attack for her, in order to collect material for her experiments, meaning people, animals, lyrium, red lyrium, and other stuff. She may have particular interest in Seheron, Par Vollen, and Rivain, because of the Qunari presence in those places. There's also the tentacle monster we see over Rivain in the Thedas Calls trailer, and the voice associated with Rivain saying "Glory to the risen gods, they come to deliver this world".

I've always suspected she has some connection to the Qunari, because they seem to be a created race, and she's the most likely candidate for having created them. If a Tevinter magister was responsible for creating the Qunari, it may have been the Augur of Mystery, aka the high priest of Razikale, who is almost certainly either Ghilan'nain herself or a dragon who is closely connected to her.

There are also the thaigs. In Horror of Hormak, we learn that there were 12 mountains that (probably) Ghilan'nain sent elven prisoners to. There were also 12 great Dwarven thaigs. With the creepy lyrium pool in Hormak destroyed, that leaves the 3 currently inhabited thaigs, Orzammar, Kal-Sharok, and Kal-Hirol (which was only recently reclaimed). Of these, Kal-Sharok I think is the most likely for us to visit, since it's furthest north and we've heard of vague weird stuff happening there. So I suspect Ghilan'nain will be up to some shit over there.

I'm also wondering now if the lyrium pools are directly powered by titans in some way, which would explain why they are seemingly in the same places as the thaigs. Or maybe they just need to be built near titans for better access to lyrium.

There's also the Scaled Ones. If they end up being relevant, they're probably connected to Ghilan'nain.

-Elgar'nan-

I have fewer guesses about Elgar'nan, but I expect he'll go after Tevinter. He might kill the Archon or the Black Divine, or both. I could see him convincing many magisters to follow him, just by offering them power. The Venatori in particular would probably be happy to follow Elgar'nan, since they're already familiar with red lyrium, and Elgar'nan probably knows how to use red lyrium far more effectively than anyone else in Thedas. I wouldn't be surprised if Elgar'nan fully takes control of Tevinter at some point in the game.

---Locations & Companions---

-Seheron & Par Vollen-

We don't have any confirmation or even strong hints that we'll be visiting these places, but it wouldn't surprise me if we do. We should at least be learning a lot more about them. I think with Ghilan'nain in the picture, we may even learn where the Qunari actually came from, or at least get some clearer hints about it. It would be cool to finally learn what the Fog Warriors are.

We've been hearing about the Qunari less than I expected in recent news, but they may just be choosing to focus on Solas and the Evanuris for now.

-Rivain-

Taash is probably from Rivain, going by her being a Lord of Fortune and her location in the reveal trailer, so that's one connection. There's also the "glory to the risen gods" voice from the Thedas Calls teaser, which is probably either a Qunari leader or a Rivaini spiritual leader of some kind. Or, if the Lords of Fortune have a leader, that's another option.

-Antiva-

The "the crows rule Antiva" voice from the Thedas Calls teaser is probably a leader of the Crows. I'm going to guess this is Caterina Dellamorte, grandmother of Lucanis. It would make sense that we have some connection to her through Lucanis. Either he gets us access to Caterina, or Lucanis joins us because we talk to Caterina. That said, the world seems to think Lucanis is dead according to "The Wake", and something weird is going on with him, with all the weird purple eyes and wings symbolism, so who knows.

-The Anderfells/Weishaupt-

I'd love to see more of the Anderfells besides Weishaupt, but I'm guessing Weishaupt will be a very important location in this game. I suspect the blighted forest we see Davrin in in the reveal trailer is either south-east of Weishaupt in the foothills of the Hunterhorn mountains, or north in the Donarks.

Really hoping we go to the shore of the Volca Sea at some point, but there's no particular evidence for that.

I think Weishaupt is going to be pretty much destroyed in this game, and we may visit it more than once.

-Nevarra-

The Necropolis is going to be important somehow, but I can't even guess at how. Maybe there's some old artifact buried in its depths and we have to find it? Maybe there's a particular spirit living down there we need to talk to? Maybe, like much of Thedas, the Necropolis is actually Old As Fuck and there's elven stuff at the bottom.

Emmrich, of course, will be our guide.

-The South-

I doubt we'll be going anywhere we've been before. Skyhold seems to have gotten its farewell in Callback, so as much as I'd love to see it updated in pretty graphics, I don't think we'll go there. Though maybe we could see it in a flashback, and find out why it's called Tarasyl'an Te'las. I could also see a quick visit to Val Royeux to talk to the Divine or whoever is on the throne, but I think it's more likely they'd come to us in the north or we'll just talk to them via letters or through the Inquisitor.

-Tevinter-

Okay, I think there are going to be some BIG changes to Tevinter by the end of this game. I expect Elgar'nan to kill most of its existing leadership, so by the time we take down Elgar'nan, Tevinter will need a completely new government.

I think the Tevinter-Qunari war will be resolved in the first half of the game, because both sides are going to be taken over or destroyed by the Evanuris. "Peace" via conquering.

---Plot---

-Prologue Predictions-

Here's my guess for "where the hell is Varric when Rook & the others are in the fade?"

While I, like most people, agree that Varric's death has been HEAVILLY foreshadowed, I don't think he dies this early on in the game. The devs and the community council members keep saying he's a major character, and I don't think they would keep emphasizing that if he dies a few hours into the game. At least a couple community council people have even said they do not know Varric's fate, and they've played a good bit further than the Game Informer article described. I do, however, think Varric will die at some point in the game, either at the midpoint or sometime during the second half. I doubt all the foreshadowing is purely a red herring.

I also think a part of the ritual site scene was cut out of the gameplay trailer. After Solas blows away the statue, I think Varric tries to take the dagger away from him while he's distracted, and probably succeeds. Either Varric has the dagger, or he gets it away from Solas and it falls off the platform (which I think is more likely). He then falls down the stairs, which is why we maybe see him in the background in that one shot. I doubt Solas attacked him or hurt him intentionally, but he may have used magic to pin him in place, which would explain the green glow & why the blurry figure seems to try to get up, but can't.

What I'm not sure about is how Rook's blood gets mixed in with the ritual. Maybe Rook helps Varric get the blade away from Solas, and ends up getting cut by it? Maybe there's some kind of fight between Solas and the Evanuris and Rook gets caught in the middle?

Moving on past the gameplay trailer, I don't think Varric gets sucked into the fade with the others. Either he manages to hide from Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan, or they dismiss his presence as unworthy of their attention and leave without hurting him. A few things could happen after that.

Varric goes back through the eluvian and arrives back in Tevinter as expected. He goes to the Inquisitor or to Dorian, seeking help from old friends because he has no idea what happened to Rook, Neve, Harding, and Solas.

Varric goes back through the eluvian, but it takes him somewhere else, because it's not working right with Solas stuck in the fade. From there Varric still finds his way back to the Inquisitor or Dorian, or he ends up lost somewhere.

Varric gets picked up by other Veil Jumpers, and we meet up with him soon after the quest with Bellara. This could also happen if he tries going through the eluvian and it doesn't work.

If Varric ends up lost somewhere but isn't picked up by the Veil Jumpers, I think he'll end up back with the Inquisitor or Dorian regardless. I doubt we'll spend multiple missions trailing after Varric.

While the idea of Varric getting stuck in the fade with Solas is funny, I doubt it would actually happen. One, I don't know if anyone but an Evanuris could survive the fade prison Solas has created. Two, it seems like a waste of Varric as a character. Presumably he wouldn't be able to communicate with Rook the way Solas can, so he'd just be absent from the story until he and Solas are freed. That doesn't line up with him being a "major character".

Could the Evanuris capture him? I guess, but... why? These are elven gods, and we know the ancient elves didn't really see the dwarves as people ("witless, soulless"). What information would they expect to get from him? They likely wouldn't consider using him as a bargaining tool either. They'd be more likely to kill him than capture him, but even that I think is unlikely. I think they'd just ignore him, or not even notice him.

When Rook leaves the Lighthouse and ends up meeting Bellara, they're trying to get back to the ritual site. Why would it be important to return there? Two reasons. One, figure out where Varric is and if he's dead or not, and two, retrieve the ritual dagger. I doubt it ended up in the fade with Rook, because that would be way too easy. We'll have to search for it. That'll be the first big goal of the game.

If we meet up with Varric after the quest with Bellara, either he has the dagger or he doesn't. If he does, cool, we have it now. If he doesn't, we have to keep looking for it. I suspect he wouldn't have it.

From here, Bellara acts as a guide to get us back to the ritual site. The dagger is likely still here, and I suspect that recovering it will allow us to travel through the eluvians accurately. It's possible we'll have to keep searching for the dagger, but if I'm right about it acting as something like a key for the eluvians, we'll probably have access to it pretty early.

At this point, if we haven't met up with Varric yet, we'll probably seek him out. I would assume Harding knows how to get in touch with him and/or the Inquisitor, so this may be where the Inquisitor gets introduced. It seems a little early to introduce the Inquisitor, but maybe the pacing of it works out. Besides, I don't think Rook at this point would feel they have the authority to start giving orders or leading people on missions. They aren't a leader yet, so they're going to seek out leadership.

I kind of doubt we'll have a full dual-protagonist thing with Rook and the Inquisitor, but the Inquisitor may be playable for specific story sequences. The possible specializations for the Inquisitor are mostly not present in this game, so trying to transfer their abilities and playstyle to Veilguard wouldn't make much sense. They could have a very simplified playstyle in comparison to Rook, but I think it's more likely the Inquisitor just won't be playable in combat. They could join the party as a guest though, like Varric does in the gameplay trailer.

So, we might meet with Varric and/or the Inquisitor here, and this might be where our group gets the Veilguard name. Together we decide on our next mission.

With Bellara, Neve, and Harding in the party, we need a warrior, meaning we'll probably go to Rivain or Weishaupt next. I think, considering that darkspawn showed up in the Arlathan Forest during Bellara's intro mission, Weishaupt is more likely. Either we hear of something going on there, or we choose to seek out the wardens for help/advice/information.

It's also possible we meet Davrin somewhere else and go to Weishaupt later on, but if so I can't really predict where. Maybe Varric or the Inquisitor are already aware of Davrin and introduce us before we head over to Weishaupt.

-Major Plot Threads-

I think we'll have three major plot threads through the story.

Elgar'nan conquering and Ghilain'nain experimenting

Solas being trapped and us finding a way to free him (if we choose to)

The Tevinter-Qunari war & conflict between Qunari factions

There may also be a fourth one involving the titans but it's hard to guess at that with how little we know about them.

-Misc. Guesses & Theories-

From here it's a lot harder to speculate about anything specific, so here's a list of my guesses for future events:

If I were to guess about the order the rest of our companions will join in, I'd say Lucanis > Taash > Emmrich, mostly just because of their classes. I could see them joining in any order though.

Bellara manages to repair the housing for the archive spirit that we find in the veil bubble during her intro quest. It ends up living in the Lighthouse and either acts as our crafting/upgrade person or is a source of elven history.

Elgar'nan will fully take over Tevinter at some point.

The big circular building hovering over Minrathous will be involved in the final conflict somehow, though I doubt it's where the final battle will be. It might even crash down on the city at some point, leveling a good chunk of Minrathous.

Final battle will be in the black city.

Over the course of the game, Solas will try to convince us to free him. We might be able to choose whether or not to listen to him.

We are able to free Solas in the last 3rd of the game. Or, something happens that results in Solas being freed. The Inquisitor is present for this event and this is when their reunion happens.

Dorian & Maevaris show up in the story when some shit goes down with the Magisterium, maybe Elgar'nan convincing the other magisters to join him.

Either we meet the Inquisitor first and hear the Dorian's voice for the first time over their communication crystal thing, or vice versa.

Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are both against us, but not necessarily working together. They may even end up fighting each other. We know the Evanuris often fought amongst themselves, after all.

The old gods Lusacan and Razikale are to Elgar'nan and Ghilain'nain, respectively, what Corypheus's red lyrium dragon was to him. In Trespasser Solas says Corypheus "discovered the secret of effective immortality". Since the Evanuris were already immortal, I would assume this refers to them coming back from being killed, as Mythal can.

Lusacan and Razikale are ancient great dragons, not just high dragons, and are thus incredibly difficult to kill in their own right. They are also more intelligent, possibly capable of speech.

Elgar'nan is the one who murdered Mythal.

Mythal shows up in dragon form toward the end and fucking wrecks Elgar'nan, maybe saving Solas from dying/sacrificing himself in the process (okay this one's less of a prediction and more "what if!" but still)

I think the Titans and Sandal will be relevant to the story but I can't even guess at what their roles will be at this point.

And that's a long enough post. I'm sure I'll have more theories as we learn more.

[orionsangel86]

You know, I thought we were done with the ageism in fandom thinking that its purely for teenagers? Because it doesn't help anyone to have the attitude of this (now blocked) anon. People don't stop having passions and being fans of things just because they get older. Fandoms thrive BECAUSE older people put in the effort to MAKE them thrive. Do you really think that 100k word perfectly written epic fanfic that you adore so much was written by a 16 year old? Because I guarantee it was more likely to be written by a 35 year old mother of 2.

That amazing cosplay of your fave character you saw at a recent comic con that took phenomenal skill and probably a good deal of expense to look perfect wasn't put together by a 17 year old high schooler, it was perfected through years of passion into a hobby that more than likely required a full time job and a savings account to afford.

That amazing fanartist who has the BEST art of your OTP that captures their likeness in a really gorgeous style? They weren't born with that talent. It takes years to develop a personal art style, and capturing a persons likeness in art is a skill that has to be nurtured. The best artists are the ones who've had years to develop their skills. They aren't school kids. I have had mutuals on this site for a decade now and I have seen how much their art has improved and become absolutely beloved. These are people who at their youngest are in their late 20s now. Most of my mutuals are in their 30s, some of the best fanfiction writers I know are in their 40s and 50s. The meta writers I know are also in my age group. Hell, do you think teenagers run AO3? You'll be surprised just how many "old people" make the best fanworks. If you removed them from fandom spaces, I guarantee you would remove most of the talent, because no offence to you kids, but that talent is something that is nurtured over time, and time and aging go hand in hand i'm afraid.

The people who make fandoms what it is, the ones running events, pouring themselves into analytical posts, providing the best fanart, coming up with the amusing memes and textposts that go viral? Do you REALLY think they are all school kids? Fandoms are made up of PEOPLE, and newsflash assholes, people AGE.

This attitude always amazes me. There isn't an age limit in fandom. This isn't fucking Logan's Run (bet you the kids won't understand that reference) and honestly if these kids genuinely think they need to give it up and quit at a certain point in their future I just pity them.

Fandom thrives because of the older people that have nurtured it for years and carved out a space where younger people can enter in comfort and safety. Which are only possible BECAUSE older people built online fandoms and continued to put in the work to keep them going. If we all had to stop caring and leave fandom at some specific cut off date, the fandom landscape would be a vastly different space - and probably a lot worse for being predominantly run by hormonal teenagers - heh, I guess it would be a lot more like TikTok and we all know how dreadful TikTok has been for fandom so far. If nothing else that alone proves my point.

At the end of the day, no one can stop the passing of time. Even the horrible children who send adults nasty anons. Eventually, they will be the "fandom elders" and receiving their own anon hate from a future generation of brats, I personally can't wait to be the very old lady laughing at them when that day inevitably comes.

[tastytoastz]

I just want to say that the most recent chapter, at the time of writing this, of your fic (where Pac and Mike travel back in time to a 2b Fit, forgive me for forgetting the name) had me so enthralled. I've said this before but I don't think there are nearly enough fics that thoroughly explore the absolute internalised homophobia a man would develop in a place like 2b, so to have a fic like yours properly portray it is like a dream. That chapter has been stuck in my mind since I first read it, and I've reread it a couple of times.

I can't get over how well you showed that he wasn't just angry, but genuinely terrified. I love the emphasis on him being above all just so fucking scared of that information existing out loud. It's such a good angle. And he's not completely dead shocked by the revelation, and jumps straight into denial, which makes it come across - to me, anyway - as if he has already been aware of this fact about himself for a while, like he knows, and he actively works to hide it everyday. There's so much implied in what isn't said . It leaves you wondering how long he's known, how much he thinks about it, if anyone else in his life has ever known, if he has witnessed first hand what happens to people like him (has he ever watched someone get killed for that while having slurs and horribly vulgar and vivid insults thrown at them, and tried his hardest not to picture himself in that position, as the victim?) ... And most of all you wonder what the aftermath of the interaction looks like on his end. Is he panicking silently up in that room, expecting a mob at his door by morning? What is he thinking, what's running through his head? What does he expect to happen now?

I just love the angle you took and how it was written, and that you decided to pick up the heavy subject matter and write it where a lot of other writers seem hesitant. It's so intriguing .

Thank you so much for this ask!!! I could go crazy over this chapter as well and point out so many details, I'm gonna get into some here, but not all (since I wanna keep some stuff ambigitous/secret still and cuz if i mentioned it all it would be a long post, but I will probably go deeper into some more things once the fic is over cuz I have so many things and smaller details I wan't to get into!!! ) (Also I guess if you want to keep thing ambigious and not 'peek behind the curtain' about some things with this fic don't keep reading)

I have seen some people say Fit's reaction to Mike's comment is with self-denial but honestly it's a lot closer to just being him denying Mike and Pac's words. He's not lying to himself, he's strictly lying to Pac and Mike, and I'm glad I was able to make that clear and people are picking up on it!

Not gonna go to much into it right now ( that's for later in the fic 🤫), but he's very aware he is gay.

As a queer person myself homophobia is sadly not something i'm unfamiliar with. I have experinced it directed towards me and I have seen it happen to other people. Meanwhile i've also done research about internalised homophobia as best I can. I know it's a heavy subject matter (and the fic has a lot of violence/gore as well, it's rated M for a reason) so I'm glad so many people are intrigued by the fic despite it (however I fully understand if someone would not like the themes and cuz of that won't read it). I'm hoping to portray it and handle the themes as best i can.

I also think it would just makes sense from a character perspective, you have a man who has been on 2b2t for years, surrounded by slurs for all lgbtq memebers and wathcing people get specially targeted for stuff like that, and that would fuck with you as a closeted gay person. Not only bring you fear of being "found out", but also adapting homophobi language to look less like "one of them" while also just ingraning it in yourself.

Fit's been told the person he is bad, and knows that if people find out he's gay there will be a lot of negative consequnces, so he hides it. And then here comes Mike, not only saying that he knows he's gay but also that "it's obvious" that he likes Pac. For Mike and Pac it's a factual thing they know, while they also know is dangerous to Fit in the wrong hands. They also think it's obvious Fit likes Pac beacuse they know what to look for.

For Fit it sounds like these random guys, despite his best efforts, knows he's gay, the other says he has photo evidence he's gay, and then said he is awful at hiding it. These two people could ruin his life and have him killed so easily. That's what Fit heard and that is terrifying.

This is also one of the reason this fic is only from Pac's POV becuase I want it to be as unclear for the reader what Fit is thinking as it is for Pac. You don't know how Fit thinks in the past, what ideas he has or how he looks at thing which I think it both intruging for readers but also terrifying. You never know what Fit's next move is going to be.

Once again, thank you so much for the ask! I love talking about my fics so thank you for giving me a reason to!

[kriize]

Hi so idk if you wanna interact with anyone right now but I wanna ask you for advice regarding stanning riize

I am fairly new to the fandom and even hearing these news made me feel so devastated so to imagine how briize who have been there for a long time omg they must feel 100 time worse.

But yeah I don’t know if I should just be more on the sideline now or just completely shut down my fan pages.

I can’t support a company that treat their artists like trash

Am I being too dramatic?

no you’re not being dramatic in the slightest!

but ive been a briize since siren/predebut & even back during sm rookies & is also an nctzen since shotaro & sungchan were in nct. so i guess you can say that ive been here from the get go.

ive said this in one of my other spam posts that ive posted today, but id completely understand if you felt the need to step back from riize.

like i said, it’s obvious that the members wanted him there & was devastated at the airport when they knew that he’d decided to not return after all.

mainly sohee (since the two were honestly like two peas in a pod) who was seen crying & wonbin (who recently stood up for seunghan after he returned via a weverse post that has since been deleted by sm from his weverse acc) who couldn’t even hold his head up while walking through the airport.

so i can confidently say that the members are definitely not the problem, they wanted him to be there. seunghan & wonbin said so themselves.

the problem is k/cbriizes & sm.

sm failed to protect him. he walked past all those wreaths outside of of sm’ building (which imo should’ve been taken down IMMEDIATELY!), which probably made him really reconsider returning to riize.

i don’t want to be apart of a fandom that drove a innocent man away from his friends & dreams, either. but it is a little harder to just completely unstan when ive followed their journey for so long.

whatever decision you make is ultimately up to you, your opinion on this matter is completely valid.

[firebug-mother-nicknamed-me-this]

✨️Welcome to my Grian HeadCannon rant✨️

Hi, so I'm writing this on my phone while watching Hermitcraft. Lol. These are thoughts that have been bouncing around my head for a while.

-Grian's wings-

I think they shapshift. Think about it. We, the audience and the artists, are constantly making different variations of Grian. Either through the art itself or through headcannons. "Cannon" wise, we are the Watchers, and We gave Grian his wings.

There's Parrot Grian, which is pretty much default Grian at this point. Then there's white winged Grian, which could either be a dove or a chicken. Theres the desert birb Grian because of Life series Desert-Duo. There's the recent King Fisher Grian because of his fishing addiction this season. Then there's his Watcher form, which usually ends up being biblical accurate angel. Which I think the multiple wings are the different kinds of bird avian hybrid We make Grian into. (This will probably be the only "original" thought that's been going through my head. The rest of this is me compiling HCs I've heard/seen/watched and have been brimming full to talk and analyze, tho the analyzing will probably be a different post lol)

-Grian's Family-

There's a lot of HCs when it comes to family connects to Grian. There's YHS background that left him as an abandoned kid in Japan. Nadia225 gave Grian adopted Mafia parents, which is really cool, and you should watch their videos because they're really talented. And they gave Grian Bio-parents where one is a Water and the other is a Listener. And they're royalty. There's HCs of him being adopted by Philza (which honestly makes no sense to me because I think Grian is older than Philza. Character wise too.) And then He gets adopted by Xisuma. So parental figure-wise, there are a few to choose from.

Sibling wise... that's even bigger. There's the classic Jimmy and Pearl. There was one of Scar and Pearl being sibs to Grian. (The sibling dance animation that I can't remember the youtubers name to credit) There's Etho, through choice, with Nadia225 (or that's how I've interpreted their interactions lol). And then there's Martyn who gets thrown in, too. (But this just might be me.) Back to parent Philza, Grian gains Wilbur, Techno, Tommy, and occasionally Tubbo as younger brothers. I guess We see Grian as a big Family dude. (^○^)

Extended family tho... I have yet to see anything about aunts and uncles, not even grandparents, and my brain isn't coming up with anything.

Parent Grian always ends up adopting Tommy, but I think I've seen at least 2 fanfics where it was Tubbo instead.

-Watcher Relationships-

It's so weird. Like. Do We have a Feral Sibling relationship with Grian. Or are We mortal enemies. Is he traumatized by Us, or has he fully accepted being a Watcher. Like, I love the angst fics as much as the next Watcher, BUT PLEASE, I NEED MORE POSITIVE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN US, would love any fic recs anyone has, lol.

-Martyns cannon-

I still need to actually research this one, but at the end of Evo (Grian pov) it is /heavily/ implied that Grian joins the Watchers, seemingly by choice. Then I moved on to hermitcraft 6-9 and binge watched that. So if there's any Martyn Cannon that can be added on plus his "headcannons" feel free to do so!

Other Hermit HCs on the way. :]

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Almlaeni

Here are the results for this week's bestiaryposting; as always, anyone who doesn't know what that's about can see all previous posts here: https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting.

This one, I think, really illustrated to me how differently one perceives these entries when one knows what animal is being described. There was a particular detail in this week's entry that I thought was an absolute dead giveaway as to the identity of the animal, but most of the commentary I've seen from the artists indicates that they didn't see it as obvious, which was a relief -- I think the harder it is to guess, the more fun this whole thing is. (Yes, you're not supposed to try and guess it at all, but on the more obvious ones like the Gligglae I see a lot of comments along the lines of "I'm pretty sure I know what this is", so there are indicators whether people know.) It probably helps that it was a longer entry, so there's a lot going on. I just think it's worth noting because of the conversation recently going around regarding what's obvious to the author vs. what's obvious to the reader.

The entry we're working from can be found here:

Art is below the cut in roughly chronological order.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) started with the thought that an example of an animal with strong jaws is an ant. But given the description of manes and fur, this is probably a mammal, so we get an "ant-lion" that they describe as looking "like he should be an alien pet in a sci-fi movie or game", which I think is spot-on. Good design for a weird alien pet. I really like the execution of the "ant's head but mammalian" concept, and the coloring of the mane looks really cool. Some more detail on design decisions can be found in the linked post.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here) does note that she thinks she knows what this animal is -- but, in the spirit of the thing, intentionally avoided drawing that -- so we'll have to see how identifiable it is at the end of this post. She's also provided her own alt text, thanks for that. I find this design really charming -- the blend of porcine and feline makes for a good silhouette in my opinion, the pose looks cool, and the rainbow mane is quite pretty. I particularly like that the tuft of hair the entry says is a love charm is drawn to resemble a heart.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has drawn a rather frightening-looking beast, here shown nipping its own paw after accidentally stepping on a twig. (They also provided alt text, thank you.) There's a lot of interesting design choices here -- explained in some detail in the linked post, check that out. We can see a stocky, muscular head and chest, showing that this animal has the strength in its jaws and chest mentioned by the entry, paired with kangaroo-like legs and tail to give it the leaping capabilities mentioned. Also, this picture shows an Ethiopian Almlaeni in summer, which is why it is bald except for a bit of fur on its mane and tail. The shining eyes, I think, are what really gives this animal an unsettling appearance.

Cheapsweets also would like to note that they're "on the lookout for some good resources for animal anatomy and musculature", so if anyone has any suggestions, please send those their way!

@pomrania (link to post here) has given us this creature that is very much A Mammal but it's hard to pin down anything more specific than that -- it makes me think of the sort of old engravings that archaeologists just kind of give up on categorizing as specific animals and end up just calling them something like "the [culture/location] Beast". It's kind of feline, kind of equine, and it has what Pomrania (accurately) characterizes as a greyhound-like build. This impression is aided by the pose and the line work -- I don't know, there's just something about it that makes me think "this should be on the wall of an old tomb somewhere." I like the vibe, is what I'm saying. Very good beast.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has selected a couple of the elements in the description that stand out and taken them to their most dramatic interpretation. The Almlaeni can jump in such a way that it seems to fly, and it can live on the wind -- what if it has bat-like wings it can glide on? (Someone else noted "live on the wind" as possibly suggesting flight depending on how you interpret the ambiguity of the phrase, but discarded the idea; here we're running with it.) The result is quite a fearsome beast; that face is downright scary. We can also see here sensory organs adapted to hunting at night, and strength concentrated in the front of its body (which probably helps with those wings). And of course the stylization is excellent as always -- the linework is very convincingly medieval and I swear I've seen illuminations with that exact style of starry background. The linked post describes the design decisions in a bit more detail. (Also thank you for providing your own alt text.)

@strixcattus (link to post here) put this up after I drafted the rest of this post, and from the text of their post I think they guessed the nature of the animal, so take all references to it being more difficult to identify than I thought with a grain of salt. They also describe it as "a little freak (affectionate)" which is definitely an accurate description of the creature they've drawn. I really like the combination of different types of animal you can see here. The pose comes from a pretty reasonable interpretation of a couple points in the original entry: they can leap really well, but most of their strength is in the front half of their body. Therefore, obviously, they must use their front legs to jump and to propel themselves for rapid motion. Excellent direction to take that, I think. As usual, I strongly recommend clicking that above link and seeing the details Strixcattus writes up for their beasts.

And now, the Aberdeen Bestiary version.

As you can probably gather from this image, this week's animal is the wolf. And I think it's an interesting peek into the medieval imagination to see how fierce that wolf looks. The shaggy fur, the fangs, the eyes -- it's striking. That looks like a fairy-tale illustrator decided to draw the Big Bad Wolf in such a way as to frighten children. All the best wishes to our heroic little dog up there.

I also like the interestingly-symbolic depiction of the sheepfold: it kind of looks like our sleeping shepherd keeps his flock in a TARDIS. And, of course, look at that lovely Stylized Tree in the background.

So yeah, it was the bit about them sneaking up on sheepfolds that I thought made it Too Obvious that the Almlaeni was a wolf. Glad that didn't turn out to be as much of a tip-off as I thought.

As for the Ethiopian wolves mentioned: damned if I know what they were thinking of. Jackals and African wild dogs can be pretty colorful, so there might be something there, but I wouldn't describe them as having manes. My best guess is that the original animal being described was a black-backed jackal, but it's hard to be sure what, if anything, the grain of truth is here. (There is an animal we call the "Ethiopian wolf", but it looks more like a coyote than anything, so I'm not seeing the "colorful mane" thing.)

The thing about this is that medieval authors were very much ignorant of that part of the world. "Ethiopia" to them was much like "India" -- to the modern ear, those are countries we're aware of with a defined location, and we can go read about them if we want. To medieval Europeans, both were just kind of vague geographical blobs: they knew these places existed because they heard about them from classical sources and/or from trading partners, but there was virtually no direct contact or reliable information. These were distant and mysterious lands to them, and as a result they were willing to believe just about anything regarding what those places were like. (Also, if you see "Ethiopia" in a medieval text, don't necessarily think the region we now call by that name -- it tends to just be an umbrella term for "sub-Saharan Africa".) So, leaping maned wolves? May or may not be based on anything real, and if it was, it's been Telephoned to death by this point.

[foodfightnovelization]

My Foodfight! Collection: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Foodfight!

So here it is, here's my Foodfight! collection. Since I've been writing this blog for over a year now, I thought it was worth finally showing off all the merchandise I've collected during that time, as well as talking about the relationship I've developed with the movie over the course of my many posts. But first, the collection- from left to right, we have the Cinnamon Sleuth cereal box (yes it's fanmade but I still think it looks cool enough to be included), the Junior Novelization that started it all, a Daredevil Dan plush, a Dex Dogtective plush, a copy of the movie on DVD, the Deluxe Sound Storybook, a Polar Penguin Plush, and 18 inches of Cheazel T. Weasel.

The plush toys are especially interesting- I don't think I've really discussed this before, but they all have a tag on the back stating they're not to be sold at retail... I guess these were only intended for arcades and carnivals as prizes, which is where they ultimately ended up, but I've heard at least one person who worked on the movie claim these were being sold in stores as well. So... chalk that up to another unsolved mystery, even if it's not a particularly interesting one. If I had to guess, the Playmates action figures and more detailed plush toys I talked about a while ago were meant to sold in stores, but the deal fell through and somehow these cheaper Nanco plush toys ended up there instead, on top of arcades and carnivals as originally intended. Maybe Nanco just produced so much stock, anticipating the movie to be a big hit, then when it got delayed time and time again they had to sell them off however they could. I know these Nanco plush toys come in a BUNCH of different sizes- for instance, I have an 18 inch Cheazel, but there are smaller variants that show up on eBay every now and then. Speaking of Cheazel by the way...

About 10 years ago, a small child in Nebraska got stuck in a claw machine trying to win a Cheazel plush, with the incident even making the local news. You can read all about it in the above link- thankfully he was fine and nobody was injured, but it's just crazy to me that something Foodfight!-related was picked up by the news media and that there was a kid out there who wanted a Cheazel plush so bad he was willing to crawl into a machine for it. It's also a testament to how, after the movie came out, these plush toys were EVERYWHERE- there are so many stories of people finding them at local carnivals, and it's why a lot of them are still showing up on eBay to this day. I wonder if the Cheazel plush I have now is the same one this child tried to win many years ago...? Probably not, but it's certainly a possibility.

One more thing about the toys while I'm still on the topic- I know I've mentioned it before, but a bunch of concept art and prototype images for the Playmates plush toys and figures were found among the recently shared files from the Foodfight! tie-in game, and I just thought I'd share them here for anyone who hasn't seen them yet. While I love the idea of Dex Dogtective's Price Gun and the Daredevil Dan Crash N' Spin Plane, I've gotta say.... the plush toys we actually ended up with are WAY cuter. I know they're just prototypes, but look at how bulbous Cheazel's eyeballs are, it's just offputting. Granted, the character is equally if not more offputting in the actual movie, but when you compare it to the Nanco plush...

I mean just look at him, he's adorable!! How could you not like him, how could anybody like him? The tongue sticking out, the dopey expression on his face...he's just a rascal, a scamp, a mischief maker. I think in general the Nanco plush toys are by far the most visually appealing versions of the characters, partly because they're soft and huggable, but also because they all look really friendly and gentle in a way the designs never really did onscreen, even in the early footage.

Anyway, as for the rest of my collection, there's not a whole lot TO say about it that I haven't already said- I've already discussed the novelization and Deluxe Sound Storybook at length, I made the Cinnamon Sleuth box myself, and the only notable thing about the DVD is that one of the Chapter Select options takes you straight to the end credits. And so I instead wanted to take this time to talk about how Foodfight! has affected me over the past year.

When I first found the novelization on eBay, I just KNEW I had to write about it. Nobody else was talking about it, it was the only copy available for purchase anywhere, there was no other mention of it on the entire internet, and it seemed like no-one else even knew it existed. I was inspired by Ryan North's B To The F blog, in which he reviews the similarly obscure Back To The Future novelization, feeling this could be my very own "B To The F" moment. That kind of moment only comes along once in a lifetime, and so even though I was in the middle of an incredibly stressful move at the time, I bit the bullet and started my blog anyway. Ever since then... it's like Foodfight! exploded, all over the internet. A large part of that was of course thanks to Ziggy Cashmere's incredible work on ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight, but it still made me feel like writing about the novelization opened a Pandora's Box of Foodfight! material across the world, or like I was living through an ARG designed just for me. I made a fangame, interviewed a cast member, I even got a speaking line in the aforementioned ROTTEN, and the more I wrote the more Foodfight! news seemed to come out. Every time I thought we'd found everything there was left to find, something new would come up and I'd be pulled right back into it. And through all that...god help me, I actually started to like Foodfight!.

To be clear, I still think it's a bad movie. As a matter of fact, it's one of the worst movies ever made. BUT...it's the greatest movie STORY ever told. Everything that went on behind the scenes, all the scrapped tie-in products, videogames, crazy anecdotes about the director, it all coalesces into something much greater than itself. In the same way, it felt like writing about Foodfight! allowed me to be a part of something greater than myself too. I got involved with a community of like-minded fans, was lucky enough to able to share previously lost media with the entire world, connected to the internet in a way I hadn't in years, and did something nobody else had done before and will likely never do again. Maybe THAT'S the real Foodfight!...no, I really mean it. When you dedicate enough time and passion towards something forgotten and obscure, it takes you on this special kind of journey that's hard to describe, but you come out the other end with this genuine appreciation for it you couldn't have found anywhere else. Like if you didn't care so much then maybe you would never have got it, but you did and so you you really DO understand. Like at the end of Be Kind Rewind, when Jerry and Mike can't save the video store but it doesn't matter because through making their movies they brought the community together and shared a story in the way only they could. Maybe that's what this was for me, sharing a story in a way only I could. To date, not a single other copy of the novelization has surfaced anywhere... it really does feel like it was my destiny to write about it. Even if I stop updating this blog someday, I'll never forget about everything I went through writing about Foodfight! The Junior Novelization...but for now, here's to another year.

[grimmweepers]

hi ryu!! i hope you don’t mind me stopping by with a selfship ask about you and alhaitham :] i seen your lovely post in your pinned about your relationship being very much slow burn - friends to lovers - mutual pining!

but i was wondering when it was that you felt that switch between you both? when was the moment that you realised you wanted to be more than friends , was there a certain instance? ( for both you and alhaitham ) if you’re comfortable talking about it that is 💓 i hope you’re having a great day!

omg thank you so much stopping by, vana 🥺🤍 welcome welcome, i give you a cookie 🍪

sorry it’s taken me so long to answer. i changed my entire ryuhaitham lore very recently so coming up with new details takes a bit more brain power. it means a lot that you’re asking, i’m always okay with yapping about us !! p.s i may have yapped a little too hard so i wholeheartedly apologise for the length of this 😭

we came to terms with our feelings at completely different times—him first, and me much, much later. as you can probably guess, it was a slow snowball effect. one realisation led to another until suddenly, we were thinking about each other in ways that friends definitely don’t.

it all started because we ended up in the same darshan, which meant we’d occasionally study together. we know he’s a promoter of self learning/study and pretty much marches to the beat of his own drum so at first, it was mostly out of obligation. you know, me being “that girl who isn’t from teyvat” may have nudged alhaitham (aloof as he is) to lend a hand, especially since he’s a top student and the akademiya probably gave him some gentle encouragement to help the odd outsider. over time tho, what started as polite study sessions grew into an actual friendship!

for alhaitham, the shift happened when he stopped viewing me as just this anomaly and saw how different i was from his initial impression. being thrown into an unfamiliar world made me cautious and reserved, but his refusal to treat me like some tragedy made me feel more at ease. since i’m more talkative in one-on-one settings, my personality eventually started bleeding through—flaws and all. and once he realised i wasn’t quiet but actually dramatic, sassy, comical, and maybe a little weird, he found it… endearing. he had one of those, “i don’t have a type, but…” moments. the rest, as they say, is history.

for me? erm… i’m embarrassingly slow on the uptake. i didn’t realise my feelings until after we graduated. in my defence, getting isekai’d into another world kind of messes with your sense of permanence, so romance was low on my priority list. but then one day, it hit me—alhaitham had been showing his affection in his subtle, alhaitham-esque ways all along, and our moments together always felt just a little deeper than with anyone else.

this isn’t to say he was painfully pining for me the entire time. alhaitham’s approach to his feelings very matter-of-fact. he enjoyed my company and found me pleasant to be around. if i didn’t feel the same, it wasn’t going to ruin his life.

the chaos started once i realised i had a crush on him. you can imagine how that went. i couldn’t even look at him without overthinking everything, while he was just… blissfully unaware of my revelation and internal spiral. there were definitely signs over the years that something was brewing between us, but we’re the king and queen of brushing things off in the name of logic. so yeah, it was slow!!!! but when things finally clicked, i suppose it was worth every agonising, awkward moment 🙄🤍

[agentnico]

Agatha All Along - season 1 (2024) review

Down down, down the road, down the Witches Road…

Plot: A spell-bound Agatha Harkness regains freedom thanks to a teen's help. Intrigued by his plea, she embarks on the Witches' Road trials to reclaim her powers and discover the teen's motivations.

I’m not going to waffle about my complaints with the current state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’ve already rambled on a substantial amount in my previous reviews regarding this subject matter, so let’s leave it at the fact that my opinion and thoughts have not changed. That being said, WandaVision was one of the few enjoyable projects in the post-Endgame MCU era, as it had that original and unique flavour with messing with different television formats, and additionally was interesting in how that show explored the effects of trauma and grief. Naturally due to its success, Disney being Disney and Marvel being Marvel meant a sequel or a spin-off was inevitable. In this case it’s Agatha Harkness, who was played with a lot of funky energy by Kathryn Hahn in WandaVision. As enjoyable as she was, I never considered her to need her own show. I guess really anyone can get their own Disney+ series these days!

Kathryn Hahn is the primary reason to watch Agatha All Along. She’s as enjoyable as ever, cackling and wincing her way through each episode, and it was entertaining to constantly question her moral code, if she’s a villain or if she was turning to the good side. Hahn is great, and I am so glad she’s getting the recognition snd good roles now. As for other cast members, they are okay. Joe Locke as the teen came off a little pretentious, and Patti LuPone was the only witch I actually cared about. Aubrey Plaza as the mysterious Rio ends up being exactly what you expect her to be, and though Plaza nails the sarcasm, it’s nothing you haven’t seen her do before.

In regard to the series’ style, it’s really campy. The trailers in my opinion promised more horror aspects which were not present in the final product, but my main complaint is with the show’s look. It feels cheap. From the costumes to the sets, the whole thing is reminiscent of a CW or SyFy show, and you can tell Disney is probably tightening their budgets following the backlash of recent releases. But with something like Marvel you still expect to see something of visually interesting style, especially as they are sourcing a lot of narratives from comics and graphic novels, which one would assume would inspire more colourful and memorable set pieces. Unfortunately this show doesn’t offer any of that. The best you get is some rip-off witch costumes from other Disney projects, which I felt was more so for Disney to show-off how much Hollywood they own.

As for the narrative, for the most part this show is dull. It’s a very repetitive concept where in every episode our witches take on yet another trial, and though some trials do stand out more than others (episode 7 where a character time-jumps using tarot cards was particularly memorable) as a combined package it meant that catching up every week with a new episode was at times a chore. The other infuriating factor was the endless foreshadowing. This show consistently would bash you over the head with clues of what’s to come, but the clues were so predictable that when the reveals finally did pay-off they were not surprising even remotely. Reminded me a little of that Walk Hard segment where the kid says “ain’t nothing bad gonna happen today” only for him to get spliced in two 5 minutes later.

Superhero fatigue is real everyone! It’s happening! I’m kidding of course, I’m still holding out hope that Marvel and DC will get back to their former glory, but evidently there is still a long ways to go. Agatha All Along didn’t do it for me, however I do admit that Witches Road song is a banger and has been stuck in my head ever since!

Overall score: 4/10

[hanasnx]

Okay I was curious about something and it would be a great help if you had the answers for it (if not you can just ignore it, don't worry)

So I was scrolling through Tumblr and I found a post with the ethnicity percentages of each member of the Batfam. I already knew due to the canon comics that Cass was East Asian, Duke is black, Damian is Romani and that Tim is at least half Arabic. But Jason's one actually surprised me because I haven't read it anywhere else (I guess it is a headcanon)

In some fics I have read he calls reader Arabic pet mames because they claim that his father/mother could have been Arabic too. But other people portray him as at quart or half Latino 🤔

Idk I wanted to know if it was canon or a fandom opinion, Google didn't have the answer and you are probably the Tumblr user who knows more about the Batfam that I know. Ohh and btw if it is not canon what are your personal thoughts about it?

That's all, sorry for bothering, don't really have to answer if you don't want to. Hope you have a good day🫶🏼

Riley 🍒

of course i cant ignore this, it’s far too interesting! i was thrilled to receive a message like this bcos most of my life has centered around batman and co so let’s get into it.

i’ll start with this: it’s entirely up to interpretation! there aren’t wrong answers here.

i’ve only ever found eurocentric ties for jason todd on google (i actually looked this up pretty recently bcos i was devising my personal niche fancasts for jason todd and dick grayson) so i think he should be anything in anyone’s mind. projection is entirely encouraged. arabic or latino or whatever, anyone can headcanon him different than white and i’m sure one day we’ll have some definitive representation of a marginalized group within him from a comic book writer/artist that felt seen. an example i adore is terry mcginnis from batman beyond (1999) was never confirmed to be any ethnicity, for the most part he was considered wonder bread white until a guy by the name of sean gordon murphy had interpreted him to be wasian when first watching the show and then confirmed it later on by writing it into his series batman: beyond the white knight.

i have actually seen the posts you’re talking about regarding jason todd being arabic and speaking the language and i adored it. <33 i had no idea what the source was so it led me to believe the author just came up with it and that’s what fanfic is all about! writing your interests, indulging yourself, and projecting.

so yes, jason todd may not have a confirmed ethnicity, and he may look wonder bread white sometimes, which is all the more reason to project. he’s a blank slate, so give him some flavor.

[autogyne-redacted]

tbh, your recent post about transandrophobia synthesizes my thoughts about it very well, and im surprised you're getting backlash. the only additions i would make is that the gender/sex binary in the west was originally very explicitly a white supremacist creation, even down to the categories of male/female, and lionizing any aspect of that tends to get really racist really fast no matter how feminist or well intentioned. i guess you'd call me a trandandrobro bc i hang out in the tag and sometimes use the word for specific things (like when the lab threw out my cervical cancer test cells bc the cup was labelled M) but, i genuinely don't disagree with a single one of your points. i've been getting uncomfortable with the increasingly reactionary nature of the conversation on transandrophobia and i appreciate your take a lot.

Rambling about transandrophobia

Tbh It's been really surprising to see transandrophobia types interacting with that post all around.

And mostly it boils down to me having had windows into transandrophobia discourse that makes it seem bad*. And other ppl treating these aspects as exceptions to a discourse they see as basically good.

And I recognize that in part this is just how polarized internet discourses work. Like, if my windows into transandrophobia are largely when something egregious gets said and passed around in my circles, that's gonna give a way different impression then if ppl are part of the discourse and curating a slice they agree with.

And the consistent overall harassment of any attempt to talk about transmisogyny and constant bad faith engagements (eg attacks on agab and cagab language, cafab attempts to ID as trans women and as direct targets of transmisogyny) mean few of us are still in a position to assume good faith with internet strangers we run into who identify with a discourse that very much seems to have a massive transmisogyny problem.

.

My slightly more extended position on transandrophobia, since I've been thinking about it the past few days is:

1) I'm broadly supportive of ppl talking about their experiences and trying to find common ground even around shared ~privilege~, so long as it's done with a commitment to broader, collective liberation. (Eg cis men getting together from a feminist perspective to talk about patriarchy = good, cis men doing so with no specific opposition to normative masculinity = fashy).

2) the general attitude I've seen from transandrophobia world is to say: this has nothing to do with anyone other than trans mascs ppl other than trans mascs aren't welcome as part of this discourse: it's by us for us. Intentionally creating an insulated discourse especially around a point of (partial) privilege has a terrible track record. But regardless of relative positionality insulated discourses are just going to be more limited. They can create theory that's empowering for the creator group but it's probably not gonna get much mileage beyond and it's easy for it to be actively harmful.

3) I've thought for ages that trans masc experience seems ~under theorized~ and that transphobia is rly under theorized too. And it'd be really cool to see this addressed in a way that isn't rife with transmisogyny. It does seem like transandrophobia discourse is addressing a real hole, it's just doing in a way that rly sketches me out.

4) really I think gender discourse overall is just not in a great place rn. It was 1990 when Judith Butler questioned whether it makes sense for women to be the sole/primary subject of feminism, and we had major interventions that I'd say reached a peak in the early to mid 2010's (criticisms of white feminism, of cis feminism, intersectionality becoming a dominant framework).

There's a strong tendency to say that we're basically in a post gender world, or that race is just a more fundamental framework (which I strongly disagree with)** and I do think we really need a rebuilt gender theory that has teeth to it. Trying to build theory around transmisogyny I've found it necessary to do a lot of general theory building around gender. How normative masculinity and femininity work, how gender is policed. I don't think we're gonna be able to make a clean break from identity politics until we can have a strong theory framework that lets us talk about this shit from outside identity politics.

5) this is v rambly but I'm inclined to engage with transandrophobia discourse a little more than lots of my circles in part because I really want there to be more good theory building going on around gender, from different positions and across positions. One day, maybe.

*full of transmisogyny/denials of transmisogyny, trans masc exceptionalism and a failure to recognize and be in solidarity around shared issues with trans fems and cis men.

**getting back to the part of your ask about the history of gender and white supremacy, there's a huge entanglement between gender and race, gender and civilization. Normative gender differentiation has been a classic way the civilized set themselves apart from those they deem savage.

Broad claims like the one you make in your ask anon get messy tho. Like, a largely binary model of gender is older than history but you can also talk about the modern binary having really only come about over the past couple centuries (and obviously it's heavily contested and changing rn). Similarly you could say the modern concept of whiteness came about through the trans Atlantic slave trade (and then has been constantly shifting and getting redefined ever since) but there's obviously much older histories it's building off of.

I'm realizing now that maybe you meant the binary divide between sex vs gender as opposed to the male vs female binary but I can't tell which. Either way, my position here is mostly that it's really really messy to make big historical claims. It's such a high level view you can tell a lot of different stories with the available historical evidence. Ideas about gender and race have a heavily entangled history tho and it's certainly gonna go poorly if you treat either as natural.

[sburbian-sage]

Hey so ive been watching your posts quite a bit and you seem pretty knowledgeable so i had a question

I was wondering what other species have been run into out in sburb?

I have a coplayer this session whos is a smith of heart who is some kind of plant creature? Shes made of vines or something

Tried finding info on the web and could find nothing but clearly made up rumors after a day or two of searching

Shes cool enough but has a habit of trying to pet my hair which like, no fuck off ive been through 4 sessions now thank you very much im not a child (although I am fine with her cooking because God damn I don't know how she does it but she makes that shit taste way better than it should)

Shes a fucking whizz with the alchemiter as well, making shit i can barely comprehend

Ive also never seen her kill an imp but according to grist torrent she has grist in the quadrillions which should be completely fucking impossible since we have only been in session for about 2 weeks

Currently shes building a 'ath based quantum code entangled communications array' which was about the only bit i understood other than the fact it somehow uses the furthest ring to send messages long distances? Which i dont understand the point of since we can communicate instantly anyway

Just wondering if anyone else has encountered them before, i asked for like a species name and she just rustled a bunch and changed the subject

Oh yeah, there are other guys out there. Humanity and Trollkind seem to be the most common (technically Trolls propogate more as a species across universes, but Humans tend to have more successful SBURB sessions and thus are over-represented among the Replayernet), but there are four other "well-known" species. Not to imply they're at all common, in fact I'd say all of them combined, there's probably less than 200 of them in the Replayernet. Less than 100, potentially.

Cherubs. Skull-faced, seemingly solitary, prone to doing solo sessions, and with a weird split personality thing going on. I recently got into drama with one of them. Technically one half of them. Keep up!

Hobs. Furry dinosaur things with prehensile tails (and sometimes arm-gliders). Evidently they frequently come into contact with Trolls (as in, they get conquered by them and tend to resent this). Known to be inordinately gregarious, making them pretty good networkers. Probably the "most common" of the rare species.

Birdbros. Big intelligent parrots with two-meter wingspans that tend to form technocratic societies. They have trouble walking on flat surfaces, but they can also fly so cry about it I guess. If you have a Birdbro coplayer, you can pretty much give up on navigating their houses unless you ask them to build accommodations, gain flight, or get really good at balancing on horizontal poles.

Hoofdogs. Technical bipeds, but they prefer four-legging it. Natural telepaths, but it's left their spoken and written language rather atrophied. If you want to hold a conversation, either get ready for a not-quadruped to get inside your brain, or get ready to start drawing pictures (and figuring out what they're drawing). In fact, they have a Pesterchum/Trollian equivalent called Expressfriend where you can only draw.

I can't say I have heard of a plant Player Species though. I tend not to think of them in general due to their rarity, but still, you may have actually come across an as-of-yet undocumented Playeroid. Assuming she isn't just a human who got heavily mutated, somehow. That might explain the evasiveness concerning her species.

Some notes, questions for you, and questions for her. Documentation appreciated, as always.

The fact that she can communicate seamlessly with you is quite notable. Some Player Species can communicate with each other mostly fine (Human English and whatever language the Trolls speak are kind of identical but with different alphabets and some goofy terminology, the Trolls get around like I mentioned earlier which may explain why Hobs and Cherubs can also communicate well), but the Birdbro language is mostly whistling and trilling, and the Hoofdogs barely even have a language. Either it's a hell of a coincidence (but not a conspicuous one), or the errant "she's actually a human" conspiracy theory I came up with on the cuff is holding up.

~ATH is a universal factor, nothing worth raising suspicion over.

SBURB's mythology and trappings vary wildly depending on the species making up the session. Alchemy is a universal, so it makes sense that she would have prior experience. But ask her what differences she notices between your (assumedly mostly-human) Session and her plant-based Session. In particular, if the Carapacians were physiologically/psychologically/culturally similar to her, if the Battlefield's chess metaphor was replaced with something else, if God Tier or other mechanics were different, stuff like that.

Related, while the game does have different "localizations", in a mixed-species Session it will actually partially localize itself in proportion to the different species present, and their proportion, in an attempt to create a maximally accessible Session. So you might be able to notice slight differences between this Session and a "Human Session" which clue you in to the more severe changes you'd see in her Session.

While you're at it, try to learn as much of her culture as you can. Do they have a fucked up romance thing going on? Was her attempts at tousling your hair a sort of mating ritual?

Extortion is a tool that must be used with discretion. If she can't provide a name for her species, you have free reign to make up something goofy like "Vineys" or "Verdancies" or "Seedrians" and make that the de-facto common terminology among the Replayernet.

This is your duty as a SBURB documentarian. It is also your duty to put to rest the "new species or a weird human" allegations. As well as, now that I am thinking about it, maybe keeping an eye on her. The phat Grist stockpile is pretty suspicious, and the communications array seems very odd. If it's actually a cover for her sending a signal to her home base so they can descend upon your Session and drain it of its resources, don't worry about it. Not only is any home base she had destroyed (SBURB Moment), but she ain't doing shit with the Furthest Ring unless she stakes her soul on it. But still, better to know than to not know.

[gerardpilled]

literally stop being an mcr fan then! why can you forgive gerard but not lynz? everyone will pretend they support the idea of allowing someone to learn and grow and change but then they'll see a woman and go oh no not her she's irredeemable like? the double standards are ridiculous

It’s so crazy… I’ve seen countless people say that she needs to explicitly apologize for her actions and yeah I guess that would be nice. I just think it's a more complicated and nuanced situation than it might seem. Her apologizing for being in msi and participating in complicit racism would implement a lot of people and make them guilty by association. It would imply everyone including the sound guys who worked shows would then be connected to "having worked for a racist band" and could seriously complicate relationships - both working and not.

Also, I sometimes really don't understand why this is a discussion worthy of so much time other than reflecting on the atmosphere that allowed such a band to rise within the scene? (I think there's a real meaningful conversation to be had about the excusing of racism from a lot of people within the alt music scene even today.)The band hasn’t toured since 2014? Acts like Marilyn Manson - who among all his other crimes also used racial slurs as shock value - is actively touring. And for the double standards - Frank fucking toured with msi in 2013 like why not cancel him for that LOL!!! Or god forbid, Gerard for working with Jimmy Urine in 2018.

Even forgiving Gerard for saying he’s Japanese while dogpiling Lindsey for saying she’s partially Indian when she doesn’t even know her birth dad is wild to me. The tweets are very similar to each other - and neither of them have apologized? I've seen people start excusing Gerard's tweet, extrapolating info like "he must have taken a DNA test" well, there's no proof of that, and why not extend that benefit of the doubt to Lindsey? Like yes, she shouldn’t have said it but Gerard shouldn’t have either! I also just can't help but think there are more important issues oh my god!!! I've seen people - both Indian and East Asian alike - express discomfort with both Lindsey's and Gerard's actions, and I completely understand that! I just only ever see Lindsey's held to such irredeemable levels, and that's usually by white people who I personally feel are overstepping their role. I just can't help but think some white people do not have meaningful, real life, conversations with the demographics they are supposedly advocating for.

I am definitely not the person to absolve her of her sins or excuse anything she’s done and people she’s hurt, but do people (and I mean primarily other white people who - from my experience - are mainly the ones posting hate about her) realize she has probably been the most clear and explicit about her anti-racist learning curve? Out of anyone even remotely connected to mcr, she has posted and done more direct funding and outreach for Black organizations than anyone. Yes, that’s Twitter activism and doesn’t exactly amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but if people who hate her judge her off of her internet footprint, why not use the same to realize maybe she has learned?

I recently tried to see if she had acknowledged any of her faults publicly- and to my shock - she has!

I’m not saying this is the best response to every thing but I also never saw this mentioned ever before.

I truly think some of the worst stuff she’s done is publicly support Jimmy Urine after the allegations came out but again everyone who just spreads that as a fact completely misses the context of her ex friend spreading unhinged rumors about her for like a year before those allegations came out. Jessicka Adams accused Gerard of sexual misconduct and started claiming that Lindsey was in cahoots with a man who accused Jessicka of sleeping with him when he was underage. Truly unhinged stuff.

If I was Lindsey and my ex-friend was doing that, purposefully targeting people close to me, I also might immediately assume she was behind those against the lead singer of my old band! She should NOT have voiced her suspicions publicly, and I do think that was wrong, but it’s not like she doubled down on it since? I know a lot of people would like to think they would act differently if they were in her shoes, but really think about it! If allegations that arose online came out against a man you called a friend - who you let watch your daughter - would you immediately publicly turn against him? She should have apologized when it became clear the allegations were not unfounded, but even when the news first broke she was liking tweets which better explained her mindset. Also last I heard, they are no longer friends at all.

Again with the double standards though. I've seen no noise around Mikey’s wife publicly defending wife abuser Johnny Depp (a person she does not even know) when he won his trial? Or the fact that Gerard was also very good friend with Jimmy and most likely shares a similar opinion as his wife?

I've also seen people say things like "well she should have known because of all the signs" I think this a dangerous oversimplification. What about the band No Devotion? Everyone loves them here. They formed after their old lead singer was exposed as rapist with multiple situations of him sleeping with young girls on tour. Why didn't those guys know about it?

I also just feel like using this case a justification to hate her alongside stuff like "she made a mikey hate blog!!" (she didn't) just feels so wrong to me. It’s like people are happy this happened to a woman because it gives justification to hate Lindsey. I see no attempts to support this Jane Doe with tweets of support or some kind of fundraiser. It's always just rooted in hatred of another woman.