#BUT as subtext or as a joke. yeah sure lets go with that.

[kresnikcest]

We all know that drama cd isn’t canon but I derive so much joy out of Elle recounting Bisley hitting on fem!Ludger and Julius and Victor being like 😐 and then Elle mentions that Fractured Ludger also found fem!Ludger attractive and Victor is like 😑

[tritoch]

the other thing I find very funny about trying to write a canon compliant wol is taking all the wolship hints extremely seriously.

I don't really wolship because I'm just fundamentally not that kind of fan. But I know for those who are, the sheer number of romance hints FFXIV throws at you can be overwhelming to parse in a context where you have a preferred/intended wolship, particularly if you're not attracted to the gender the hints are coming from in the first place (a particular tip of the hat to wlw fans navigating the g'raha of it all). I've seen plenty of people write around them or write them out or be like "no aymeric was for real inviting my wol to a nice platonic zero-subtext dinner," and God bless all of you.

But it's really funny to imagine them all as all-too-real but unreciprocated or perhaps unreciprocatable. The sheer scale of it is comedy. Spoilers for all of FFXIV follow.

Oh God, the Lord Speaker wants to have dinner, just the two of us, at his family estate and not a government building. I hope he doesn't bring up his crush on me. Thal's balls he's about to bring it up—oh thank God there's an emergency. Oh no someone got hurt! Oh no it's the teenage girl with a crush on me.

Your life is a cosmic joke. You watch the Sultana get poisoned and all your friends probably die to save your life and it's kind of all your fault in some ways, I mean at the very least you should've spoken up when they gave the teenager a private army, and then the teenage boy speaks up and is like, "hey, I guess we have at least one ally. What about if we go visit that guy who is really obviously down unbelievably bad for you and wants to lick the sweat off of you." and you have to be like, yeah, Alphinaud. Great idea. Let's do it. I'll call him.

(brief interlude: also haurchefant's DEATH hits so good if you don't reciprocate. It's okay. He gets it. You're going through a lot and even if you had time to sort through your feelings maybe you're just not into him. That would be okay! You can love someone, or the idea of someone, without needing it to be romantically reciprocated. That's chivalric, even. Knightly. So he won't ask you to lie to him and say you love him as he lies dying in your arms. He's not so low as all that. But could you smile for him as you used to? That true hero's smile of yours. And you do, and he dies. And you both know he died for a lie, in a way, or a flight of fancy. And he's okay with that. Are you? Should you be? Should he?)

Then you're into Stormblood and it's like wow, okay. That last part was all high fantasy, of course there were loyal knights and elegant princes. But this is war. Imperialism. Grim business, surely there's no way—oh no BOTH handsome young revolutionary leaders seem to have a special interest in you?! And so does the Crown Prince of the Empire? Come on, man. I should get to do the whole horrors of war thing without having to also deal with this. Gaius sucked and it was weird that he let his foster daughter run around being openly obsessed with him but at least he never made it my problem.

You can't even get away from it across dimensions. Shadowbringers is a horror story about going on a teambuilding camping trip with your work colleagues for some reason except they all suddenly got really hot and they keep touching you affectionately on the shoulder and being like "I care for you and your happiness. Truly." And also you're being stalked for the whole camping trip by two old men who are obsessed with you. The false climax of the story is that the one old man tries to betray you and give a dramatic monologue about how he loves you but the two of you are doomed by the narrative and then the other old man shoots him in the back like "no actually its MY turn to betray them and give a dramatic monologue about how our love is doomed by the narrative." Then the real climax is old man #1 backstabbing old man #2 in the middle of said monologue before old man #2 dies and gives ANOTHER wistful monologue about his doomed love. Then for the patches they're like okay so we have this even CRAZIER old man who's gonna strike when you're weak and give a dramatic monolo—

and that's without even getting into the literal soulmate ghost only you can see

my warrior of light never felt more betrayed than in that scene where Y'shtola is like "haha Alisaie and G'raha have crushes on the warrior of light." Like I thought we were COOL, Y'shtola! I work here! This situation is already in such a delicate balance! Right when I got here I met Alisaie's "friend from work" who was like oh haha so YOU'RE the one she can't stop talking about and we never followed up on that because the woman died horrifically like five minutes later right in front of us! Then when Vauthry got away and we had to do all that shit with the dwarves, G'raha kept pausing every ten minutes to be like oooooh I'm so old I'm gonna die soon...at least I got to spend some time with some people who are really important to me...in fact here's what I'd tell the person who's most important to me...actually u know them really well haha. And I just had to sit there and be like wow, dude, crazy.

even in the face of apocalypse you still gotta go back in time like 12,000 years and there's somewhere there who makes you sit and listen to his story which is that the purpose of his whole godlike immortal life was to be in a throuple with you and old man #2 from the camping trip. and you just gotta sit there the whole time knowing you/your past life is the one who broke up the throuple over politics. He's like come help me harangue the old man into streaking in public, he'll do it if you ask.

then you meet and fight and kill God and you gotta turn to the team and be like hey sorry guys can you give me a sec. I'm gonna call God by her real name because we met one time for like four days and after that the promise of meeting me again was one of the things that sustained her through her millennia of suffering. Not like that but like. Idk. Just gimme a sec!

It's a relief when you finally get to Lahabrea and he's like actually I still don't fuck with your vibe. Like thank GOD.

And my WoL is very obviously dad-shaped so Dawntrail had a very specific energy for me but I understand that for plenty of people your deepening rapport with Wuk Lamat had a romantic subtext (same for Koana depending on how you read a few of his lines). And personally I think it's the height of comedy to be like, noooo, babe, your highness, I know you and your brother the king are in love with me and want me to stick around and support you emotionally through this governmental transition haha. But it's just...the cursed wineglass, babe. I GOTTA go figure out what's up with this cursed wineglass.

It's a running gag in some of the more optional content that people are like "you have an unreasonable number of hobbies and side gigs" to the WoL from time to time. But if every time you tried picking up a new hobby some new elf started baring their soul to you, you too would be like Hey Jessie (or sometimes Krile or Tataru), my good friend who is one of the only people in my life who knows what professional ethics and work-life boundaries are, any chance you need muscle on a gig on the other side of the world? Ideally with only Cid and his ex so all libidinal energy in the room is directed towards machinery or someone who isn't me?

ironically one of the only places you get a break from psychosexual obsession is the nier content

[platonically-loving-alastor]

Aroace Alastor

Hoo boy here we go- This one might make some people mad at me, so I'll preface by saying I do not want to start a fight and as long as you respect my business, I'll respect yours. But let's get this over with-

First off, I genuinely don't understand how some people can see the Ace-In-The-Hole quote and still believe that Alastor is only intended to be asexual and not also aromantic. Yes, the term Rosie used for purpose of the pun was 'ace', but can we look at the context of that moment before jumping to conclusions?

Rosie, motioning to Charlie: "Oh, who's this you brought with you? Come now, Alastor, she's much too young for you! Oh, I'm just kidding. I know you're an ace in the hole!"

Her original statement implies nothing sexual, only that he's involved in a relationship with Charlie, and she follows it up with why she knows that couldn't be because he's an 'ace in the hole'. I don't think you have to read too far between the lines to see that.

I would also like to say that when Vivienne has spoken about his orientation before, I recall her saying that she didn't want to confirm him being aromantic so that she wouldn't 'ruin anyone's fun', which I just feel like is an odd thing to say if she wasn't already explicitly picturing him as aroace. If she thought he had romantic attraction, why wouldn't she just say that? What fun would that ruin? I also feel like keeping things like this ambiguous just to appease the shippers is a little weird, but I digress-

And to those of you who I know are saying "But aromantic people can be in relationships too!!" *deep inhale* yeah I know. I'm not gonna pretend you're not right about that, but there are also aroace people who have exactly 0 interest in romance or sex at all. This is the part of the post that really is based on how I interpret certain moments, but to me he is absolutely one of those people. I don't really know where people get any vibes of him being interested in that stuff. I have never once looked at him and thought "Yeah I could see him in a romantic relationship with *insert character here*". Even aside from attraction in general, since that's what we'd be talking about at this point anyway, he just seems like the kind of guy who'd rather work and live independently instead of relying on anyone, whether practically or emotionally (which is also probably part of the reason he never joined the Vees, but that's another topic entirely). Hell, I'm pretty sure he's in heavy denial about even developing any kind of care or friendship with the people at the hotel (ie. the episode 8 scene with him and Niffty).

The only ships I see him involved in with people he doesn't hate (so ignoring RadioApple, RadioHusk, and StaticRadio. But to be real, maybe the fact all his main ships are enemies to lovers coded says something about the whole situation, but that's just me-) are Charlastor - which I will not even try to discuss here, people aren't gonna like this post as it is - and RadioRose. Rosie and him would at least be fair, if it weren't for one thing (which is also personal opinion on my end), and I don't know exactly how to word it. I'm tempted to say she has wingwoman vibes? But she knows he's aro, so that's not the right word, but there's vibes of like, she probably did act as a wingwoman before she realized that about him or something.. There's also something about her joking around like "Oh this is the girl? You have a girlfriend and I'm only now meeting her?" is almost giving motherly behavior. Idk man they're just besties to me, I could see them in a QPR though (not that they'd probably label it that way, considering the word queerplatonic is likely just complete gibberish to Alastor lmao).

So to summarize: It feels incredibly likely, if not practically canon, that Alastor was written with aromanticism in mind, even if Vivienne refuses to explicitly state it. Subtext and not-that-subtle implications can say just as much about a character as word of God, especially when that God has explicitly told us why she won't confirm or deny this information. Do I think any of this will stop people from shipping him romantically with literally any other character? No ofc it won't, and that's okay, that's just what fandoms do. I do think there's something to say for the fact the one aroace (or even at the very least asexual) character gets constantly shipped with everyone else in the cast, but this post is long enough I think. The only point of posting this is that I wanted to get information out there in one post to say "Hey, let's look a little bit past the surface for a second before saying there's no proof of him being aromantic"

Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you at least took something away from this

[humanperryfic]

to be honest, i'd rather not have perryshmirtz be actually canon.

like, would it be cool? yeah! has DTVA been teasing it for months? yeah!

...would it also involve the perryshmirtz tag being filled with people going "eW WtF whYYY DisNeY i neEd eYebleAcH" [plaintext: "ew wtf whyyy Disney i need eyebleach] from people who haven't seen the show since they were ten? yes! that is 100% a thing that would happen!

and i don't want that to happen. sure, some people would have their "come to the dark side we have cookies" moment, but how many more won't? how many more will be harassing us for a ship? the pnf community is pretty chill with the whole "don't like don't read/YKINMKATO (Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That's Okay)/curate your space to your comfort and ignore/block what you don't want to see" thing but with the revival it's gonna get to a larger audience, and the larger the audience, the less nuance there is with that sort of thing.

i just want my subtext. let the ones who ship come to us.

Also I want things like

Bi Vanessa (maybe even Stacy/Vanessa??)

Actually all the teens/young adults being bi/queer

More with the whole Baljeet and Buford thing

More with Baljeet and Isabella's heritage

Trans/queer background characters (and even jokes! there are queer jokes that could be really funny!)

Danville Pride/Pride Episode

hell, even Bi Doofenshmirtz having terrible luck with guys too

too, and I think any explicitly canon Perryshmirtz would kinda overshadow that. By a lot. And they all deserve better.

[angelmichelangelo]

(to Mikey gender discussion) not to mention how he keeps cross-dressing and making statements about women in general! My forever favourite moment of his is when they're all stranded on an alien planet, so they have to disguise themselves, and Mikey gets the "girl" outfit. Instead of complaining that it's for girls, he goes "It doesn't go well with my bandana!"

Or in the same episode he lowkey gets SA-ed and beats the shit out of them, someone in the back yells "You go girl!" like it's not even subtext it's JUST text at this point

And when he keeps the grandma costume in their episode with Nobody (one of my favourite episodes all in all, and not just for this moment, it's a good B-team ep too). so many good examples. Mikey truly is so gender. creachur

oh yes to ALL of this !! he's the most gendered turtle to have ever gendered <33 he was just so comfortable in both his gender as well as his sexuality it had to be more than just a joke put in by the writers, y'know? at least that's what i tell myself haha

another part that always has my heart is when mikey vouches for himself to be the maid of honour at april and casey's wedding and it seems like the perfect set up for a joke, but then when the wedding comes around, he IS their maid of honour. no punchline to it. there he is, stepping up and nobody seems to mind at all :) they had to have known what they were doing and boy what i wouldn't GIVE for at least one writer on the 2k3 team to give just a teeny tiny bit of insight into this.

him just being SO comfortable in womans clothing, only worrying about the colour schemes is just such a mikey move. and you recognise that NONE of his brothers ever give him slack for it? not even raph, which again, would seem like it's a good set up for raph to be all sneery like, yeah thats for women!! youre too girly!! like. there really truly is none of that! they just loved and accepted him with all the love they had for each other. no use in being judgy about how you feel about your identity when you're a mutant ninja turtle lol

i think mikey gets neutrally referenced to like 3 times in total? one i mentioned which feels the MOST on purpose which was donnie saying: "that's my sibling" rather than "that's my brother", another time when again i think it's donnie that says: "gentlemen. and mikey" which, im lenient to agree that could be played as a joke because im sure 2012 made the same joke but with raph instead of mikey lol but then also with the crossover movie, mikey says something, and the other turtles say something like: "yeah, they're right." and that's about as close to gender neutral pronouns we get for mike. THEY!! THEY!!! i could scream on the top of a mountain and scream again because THEY!!!!

nothing about it, in my humble opinion, ever feels distasteful. it never feels mocking or mean or like a punchline and i think that's why a lot of people like myself and yourself latch onto this process of thought. it's good representation without it feeling like we're grasping at straws all the time. and like i said, 2003 really tackled some beautiful topics with a lot of grace. i'd like to think this was one of the things that they wanted to include and managed to do so subtly to perhaps skirt around any censors that would have tried to stop them.

same could be said for mikey's sexuality, again. VERY queer coded in a lot of instances that as a queer person, doesn't ever feel like it's just: har har its the 2000s lets add some thinly veiled homophobia in our tmnt show. something about it all just feels very genuine and tender and i just really do love that a lot

2003 mikey the turtle that you are... he paved the way truly for all tmnt queer headcanons <3

[kelpeigh]

To this day my feathers get ruffled when people call Destiel "queerbait" because the thing about Despair. is. I think they (the cast, crew, producers, etc) gave us everything they possibly could have.

Remember this show started when Bush Jr was freakin POTUS and salmondean couldn't hold umbrellas because it was too gay. WB and the CW have different stakeholders than the BBC so they couldn't go around pulling Torchwoods wrt representation-- representation wasn't largely talked about yet, let alone profitable enough for big studios to give a shit about even giving nods. sitcoms like New Girl and HIMYM were still routinely making jokes at trans folks expense every other minute. Gay marriage was still legal on a state-by-state basis until Supernatural had just wrapped season 10.

I'm not going to keep going with context because I don't want to look like I'm making excuse because, yeah, plenty more progressive shows came out between 2005 and 2020 but SPN always seemed. like. grandfathered in for being a man's man's show. Supernatural is about TWO DUDES in a classic car fighting MONSTERS it's GRITTY it's DARK and we make meta jokes about the brutthers talking about their feelingz

So even before Despair, SPN never felt like queerbait to me-- not in the sinister sense, anyway-- because the jokes about Dean being Cas's boyfriend felt like the most writers could possibly do to nod to the fans. It's a little-- okay, it's very sad to think of how happy we were to collect breadcrumbs. But Supernatural was always unfortunately in a very tenuous position. Gender contamination was always this big looming threat to stakeholders, I'm sure-- the Fandom was always overwhelmingly female and queer but it was still a widely-known show with casual viewers the networks couldn't deign to upset. The fact that market research was ever done to test the viability of more progressive content is such a huge deal in itself, even if it stalled out.

And okay. Look. That last paragraph was basically going off vibes, I don't actually know the ins and outs of tv production. But. BUT. Point is, SPN got progressively friendlier to its fans. And by the end, in Dabb and Berens's hands, I think we really truly got the most canon deancas we possibly could have in this fucked up hellscape of a society.

I see it all over the confession scene. The way Dean's reaction is obviously cut, as confirmed by Jackles (#releasethetapes). The way it was penned to be the most uplifting thing possible despite Cas being doomed. The rogue translator not being rogue after all.

I really think Dabb and Berens gave a shit and saw that it made sense for the story they inherited and built upon, and gave us every scrap of deancas they could. Having watched the show from the start, I thought we'd get metaphors and subtext to the end. But no, we got "I love you".

So idk. Maybe it is queerbait to you-- that word hasn't actually had one coherent functional definition for years now. But it was earnest and it gave a shit and to joke about the confession scene being paltry in any way is mean and I pity your estranged relationship with joy.

[maybanksbabe]

Ok here are a few thots from my very long list for brat tamer!JJ cuz it’s horny hour for me rn:

Deciding to go brat mode and get on his nerves around the Pogues with a subtlety that is easily mistaken for normal teasing but JJ picks up on the subtext and the sharp warning glare he sends you🥵 he’s like “do that again I dare you”

JJ’s main methods of shutting you up real quick are mocking and humiliation during fun times iykwim

oh yeah and degradation kink goes crazy especially if you got him particularly moody

you trying to ahem tease him once and later than night he’s edging you for hoursss it’s pure torture

now he doesn’t rlly spend too much time on spanking like he doesn’t rlly do it as a separate session much but he does do it during yk with his RINGS on

Another kegger party and you’re seating on JJ’s lap as usual but you’re purposefully shifting around to get him hard and pissed off and so he grabs your jaw, tilting your head to the side and starts whispering in your ear and to everybody else around it looks like you guys are just being an overly affectionate couple but really he’s threatening you with the things he’s gonna do to you if you don’t sit still like a good girl

ok don’t judge me for this but…face slapping. Like not very hard to the point where you’re actually injured and in lots of pain, it’s like in between but holy shiiiii

CHOKING CHOKING CHOKING CHOKING

yeah and dacryphilia kink but obviously not when you’re actually upset

ok but…face fucking

ALSO ALL CONSENSUAL OFC!! I FEEL LIKE HE’D BE VERY HESITANT TO ROUGH YOU UP AT FIRST BUT AFTER MANY MANY DAYS OF ASSURANCE HE GETS MORE COMFY WITH IT

ALSO SAFE WORDS AND AFTERCARE ARE A MUST NO MATTER WHAT

HELP THIS IS PEAK WHORE BEHAVIOR WHAT AM I DOING

I AGREE WITH ALL OF THE ABOVE HOLY SHIT ANON HOLD ON YOU'RE GETTING A FULL RESPONSE IDC

do that again I dare you - sir?? challenge fuckin' accepted you're pushing his buttons aaalllll night until he can get you away

"is it too big baby? are you sure you can take it?" MY BRAIN IS MUSH RN he for sure knows that the quickest way to stop you from running your mouth when he's rocking your shit is to just mock tf outta you LORD -

he doesn't taking teasing lightly you're sO RIGHT! if you even try to rile him up by being a little too close to Pope or JB he's not going to let you cum until he damn well says so

PLEASE SPANKING WITH THE RINGS?? DURING DOGGY!!?!?! HE'S AN ANIMAL AND YOU LOVE THE STING OF THE METAL... He gets a couple of good smacks in before he refocuses on turning you into a boneless mess beneath him

IF YOU DON'T SIT STILL LIKE A GOOD GIRL YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO SIT AT ALL (see point above) he'd make sure you know you fucked up

No judgement here anon whatever floats your boat, but you're definitely right he wouldn't do it overly hard or a lot, but a couple of quick love-taps on the face when you're pinned beneath him really just takes it all up a notch -

HEAVY ON THE CHOKING ARE YOU KIDDING ME??! I feel like that one started as a joke but you both realised you were into it so it gets incorporated quite a lot into your... Sessions ;) bonus points for rings too (the rings stay on during sex ssshhh)

God just picturing the satisfaction on his face seeing you start to get all teary and overwhelmed and overstimulated, barely able to tell him how good you feel, just letting the tears free fall and ruin your makeup. motherfucker would probably lick the tears off your cheek once or twice -

AND YOU'RE SO RIGHT HE WANTS TO BE SURE THAT YOU'RE SURE YOU WANT IT BEFORE HE GOES ROUGHING YOU UP AND FEELS BAD ABOUT IT!!! JJ is all about the pleasure, but he 100% is a king afterwards too, getting you water, helping you clean up, telling you how good you did for him - I'll show myself out

[sickseraph]

Can we talk about familiar Portia (8x15, dog woman) and Dean for a second? Because man, at first you don’t really think this episode includes bi Dean subtext but then - when he’s trying to hit on her at the very end - he says “I like dogs.” And Portia clocks him and says “No, you really don’t.” And it’s not a little quirky quip, the moment is made to look dramatic/emotional as she gets in the car right after and leaves.

She is “dogs.” Dean doesn’t really like dogs. He pretended to. When Portia is alone with Dean he doesn’t hit on her once, but he consistently does in front of Sam and other men, and she picked up on that. She notices that he is enthralled by the cat guy Phillippe in the bar, and that Dean is weirdly hung up on the idea of Portia and James (hot man with authority, btw) having sex. Not Portia herself, it’s the entire idea of them having sex.

When alone with Portia, instead of hitting on her, he asks her what seems to be an actually thoughtful question about if she considers herself more dog or human. She asks if he wants to know because of her and James. Dean says yeah.

Dean knows she’s not into him; she and James have a unique bond between witch and familiar. So… we know he isn’t asking to make sure that he could sleep with her without it being b*stiality. He’s asking purely out of interest about what’s going on in their bedroom.

And, yeah, sure, it is kinda funny. Maybe he’s just curious or having a laugh about the implications of it all? You could say that. But we literally hear Sam tell Dean later, “I’m impressed you haven’t made a single b*stiality joke.” So we know Dean isn’t trying to be a dick or make fun of the situation. He’s genuinely curious.

In their world, why is this something he’s so curious about? Why is them sleeping together any more interesting than the various inter-species relationships he’s been around before (and partaken in, with Anna)?

Is it possibly because it concerns a very attractive man and a very attractive woman?

Let me know what y’all think. :)

[andmaybegayer]

Project “Let’s watch every single Fast & Furious movie”

The series is still finding its feet and not entirely sure what it wants to be. It has however decided that this one should contain a truly incredible amount of homoerotic subtext.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

We check back in with Brian, who is street racing for a living in Miami now that he is no longer a cop. Ludacris, is here, for some reason. The FBI show up and put our boy over a barrel until he helps them investigate another crime ring, with his car.

The cinematography and general visual language is much more mature, they've figured out how to shoot cars driving and in particular races in a way that better conveys relative position, advantage, and speed. No more undercranked footage, much more medium to wide shots of cars weaving past each other, as well as some complicated composited motion shots.

If you look for this movie on Tumblr you mostly find gifs of Devon Aoki in her girlboss pink Honda S2000. And yeah, I get it, this look kicks ass. The leather skirt and thigh highs with garters or whatever that is really screams 2003.

Right, the plot. Even more so than last time, the core plot is extremely mid. Brian is over a barrel, and needs to help the FBI investigate a drug lord, in exchange for them forgetting about him. He doesn't trust a cop to partner with him so he gets them to offer a deal to his old boyfriend Roman, with whom he had a falling out many years ago. The two of them go undercover smuggling money for the drug lord and eventually work through their differences and get the guy. Big whoop.

Far more interesting is how the interpersonal relationship of Brian and Roman is handled. These two feel like a couple who dated all through high school and broke up over a nasty disagreement when they were 19 and never really got over each other. The first time they meet they physically throw down and it looks like this.

Just straight guy things. I made a crack about 2 bi 2 curious in the last post and I was like "someone has to have made this joke before" and a) not really it looks like only a couple tweets but b) it led me to this short video essay on a bisexual reading of 2 Fast 2 Furious. I don't agree with all its finer points and I think the author completely misread some sections of the movie but you'll find far more agreement than disagreement from me with this one.

Carrying on, there's a lot of the awkward "I want to trust you, and I know I should be able to trust you, but I don't trust you" between these two. It's great, if you want to watch two very pretty guys go insane over each other for an hour and a half, this is a movie for you. I'm going to reiterate a lot of what's said in this video because it's all very obvious.

Before we continue, I need to note that what you don't see, oddly, is really any kind of coherent heterosexual romantic subplot. Like, there's one there, they do parts of it, but it's almost homeopathic. It's purely there to check the box. Monica is an undercover cop who's been with the drug lord for like a year and, in theory, Brian is attracted to her. There's discussion of this, he checks her out, they make bedroom eyes at each other, the drug lord gets jealous, it's a whole thing, but mostly you see that Roman is worried that Brian is going to do something stupid because he's attracted to her.

In the above video the author misinterprets one scene as Brian sleeping with Monica but they do not actually fuck! She shows up in the early morning to tell Brian that he's going to be betrayed but they do not, in fact, fuck! This is important to me because man, there's so little of that subplot going on. This subplot barely develops at all, they don't talk to each other much, and when they do it's only the barest flirting.

At one point Brian does a driving stunt to impress Monica and when he's done, Roman pulls up and goes "oh, he did that stunt? He learned that one from me." which. Come on there's no way to read that that doesn't at least suggest that maybe Roman did it to hit on Brian when they were younger.

Speaking of car stunts, those are used to convey character a lot better in this movie. Dishonorable side characters drive in annoying ways in races to make themselves hard to pass, Brian and Roman do a whole elaborate game of one-upsmanship during their driving audition for the drug lord, and a doubles drag race with high stakes serves as a major bonding moment where they learn to trust each other. There's much, much less plot and character going on explicitly but I think the photography and the storytelling are working together more closely in this movie.

The movie seems to care less about the cars themselves though. The Lancer and Eclipse they drive for much of the movie are not particularly attractive nor particularly powerful cars, and the Challenger and Camaro they pick up later are more plot device than eye candy, unless you're really into American Muscle I guess. The initial race includes Suki's S2000 and Brian's Skyline that both very quickly end up sidelined, you don't see much of them again. There is much less time spent in garages and at races here, which is part of why the core plot feels like a lot of other action movies where the protagonist is a criminal helping the cops. I wonder if some of this is down to appealing to a wider audience who may just not give a shit about the finer distinctions between the Honda Civic EF and EX hatch.

There's a beautiful sunset scene where Brian and Roman just talk it out for a few minutes and settle their differences, come to terms, and finally trust each other again. I know I'm pretty much only talking about this one relationship but it's pretty much the only part of the movie with any depth, and the other parts only gain value in their proximity to it.

The final sequence is a huge endurance run across Florida that is a lot of fun to watch and includes a very funny scene where they scramble like, a hundred cars as a distraction to throw the police off. If you watch you can see that they really just grabbed whatever cars they could find to pad out the shot, there's like three or four PT Cruisers hidden in here.

The final run is mostly a show of the reformed trust between these two, it's great, it's a decent culmination of what's been building up through the whole show, they get their freedom, together, and resolve to move on together.

The whole movie really hangs on this relationship, it elevates it from a solid 5/10 "absolutely mid action movie" to a 7/10 "compelling characters you will think about later" type deal.

[ghnosis]

NG47: so like, i think this comes down to a different kind of boy's club, a more liberal boy's club? like, guys who are comfortable with their sexuality so they make jokes about having sex with men, either because they legit want to or because it's like straight man homosocial bonding, and if it's a choice between that and the guys who are straight up homophobic, it's an easy choice 

RJ: so like, Jackass-style queerness? 

NG47: YEAH that's a good way of framing it 

RJ: dope okay I get you 

NG47: and like, i appreciate as a viewer either way because i like to hear men talk about boning down on each other 

RJ: yeah that's a crucial part of life IMO  the queer fandom experience - is that unusual?  

NG47: unusual in what way? 

RJ: let me clarify  when you say you see it filtered through a queer fandom experience, does that mean something like "queer people will read things queerly" or "there is some SUBTEXT going on in HERE, so queer people flock to it"  or a secret third thing 

NG47: i think it's a mix of both? like for all that i like music and fandom i've never been In Bandom other than ghost, but i've been on the periphery of it and seen the way people talk about like, mcr and panic at the disco and sleep token and bts and etc etc, and i think in some cases people are seeing other queer people (even if they're not out at the time and ESPECIALLY if they are) and wanting a piece of that and in some cases people are just like, horny? and they want to mash some handsome men together 

RJ: so in your experience, you'd say Ghost is still that same mix.  not any queerer or any less queer 

NG47: i think it's difficult to quantify, like the fandom experience isn't always connected to the relative like literal real life queerness of a music act 

RJ: for sure 

NG47: i do think ghost intentionally plays into some queer subtext because they're like, subversive dildo band 

RJ: xD 

[mezzy-1]

Valorant Agents and their Comic Books (Headcanons)

A buncha headcanons and comics based on this one illustration.  I wanna make it clear that these are the ALPHA AGENTS’ books.  I got something else planned for the other comics from Omega.  Below is the summary on the back of each imagined book and the headcanons below.  Enjoy!

(Comic Title ->, Back of Comic Summary ->, Headcanons)

Solar Strike: Series X

A young teen, Sol, struggles to control their powers, generated from the ancient evil called the Demonheart, while fighting against evil forces that threaten their world.  Their team of friends battle against aliens using Chi powers learned from a ninja master’s scroll.  The Demonheart threatens to overtake Sol, can they stave it off and prevent it from costing them their friends?  Find out what happens next in this new chapter!

Let’s be clear, this is what Neon is reading in the illustration and yeah it’s probably her fav

She likes the fights and the protag, she kinda relates to it now more because of the whole controlling powers subtext

Neon’s definitely a fan and loves the flashy action and inner turmoil the character has bearing a lot of unstable powers

Her, Jett, Phoenix, Yoru, and Gekko have watch parties for the anime adaptation.  They also lowkey want to cosplay at a con when given the opportunity

During training, Neon called some duelists over and did the famous Kami Blast move using her lighting as a joke

It was pretty funny but Reyna walked in and commented on how effective it was, not hearing Neon beforehand

That’s how Neon started using the finger gun to aim her powers

The series has been going nearly forever, and is peak shonen in terms of being milked by the publishers but it still maintains a strong fanbase

Sova used to read them at his babushka’s when he was a little, and was confused when he saw that it had continued for 10+ years.  He’s so behind he isn’t even gonna try to pick it back up

Astra likes the comic too, mostly because of the cosmic level threats are so laughable to her but also because she likes how fun it is and maybe relatable because of her own responsibility

Ribbon

Private middle schools are prestigious, but the Blue Ribbon Boarding School is the most high class of all.  Anya is a delinquent who won a lottery to go, but has no manners or aspirations.  Still, she goes to the school to dominate the sports and because she may be developing a slight crush on almost all of the students.

Jett reads this religiously, and debates with Neon over if it’s better than Neon’s fav

Anya’s take no shit attitude and general punk nature is something Jett got into as a teen which helped to be more assertive

The MC being bisexual was pretty much what made Jett realize her own sexuality, but for the longest time she thought she was just really into the character’s story

The drama is for sure complex, and Jett, Neon, Raze, Killjoy, and for some reason Sage will speculate on who will get with who 

Recapping all of the relationship tension as well as the results of sports events or festivals is like a never ending net of betrayals and broken hearts

Reading is guaranteed to result in gasps of surprise, and the author is great at making twists and turns to keep readers engaged

Reyna will occasionally borrow a copy from Jett to read to Lucia

Compound Fracture

A man with an incredible debt is forced into fights against other indebted people in underground fights.  Bloody combat against a bracket of trained killers and martial artists is inevitable, but each kill is a step closer to freedom.  Will he die in debt or survive and become the world’s most dangerous man?  

Yoru loves this manga, mostly because he likes to see how brutal the fights can get and the Yakuza stuff inside it

It may also have something to do with the fact that the artist is also from his province too and because he gets them in the original Japanese

Sova and Sage also got a little into it, mostly because Sage likes that real martial arts terms are incorporates and Sova just likes the story

A copy somehow made its way to Breach and he got pretty into it, mostly because he liked how it really went crazy with the violence and how it was about getting free of restrictions

Jorgio’s Strangest Battles (On Part 19, Land of Luck)

A family with ties to an ancient power fights for humanity against hordes of clever villains using wits and supernatural beings summoned from their fighting spirit.  Each member has a journey that pits them against pure evil, but their resolve to bring justice to the wicked is unbreakable.  This week, the crew in Hawaii faces off against an onslaught of mythical felines attempting to steal a precious piece of lava rock!  TO BE CONTINUED!

Breach loves this manga, as does Harbor and Skye.  Buff people like this series because of the art and poses are *fabulously majestic*

The three will strike a pose from time to time or reference a line, the references are a little much but usually result in a small laugh

Breach once pointed out that Deadlock’s wire was similar to a protag’s (from the 6th part) and she had no idea what he meant

Then she read up on it and completely agrees

Chamber also likes it because of the references to classic Western art and the high fashion design.  Pure fabulosity

Each fight is absolute rollercoaster of back and forth outsmarting, but for whatever reason Deadlock can guess the next move

Hearts in the Heat of Battle

The nations of Nauz and Phrena war with each other, each using armies and mages to destroy each other.  Unbeknownst to the feuding states, their generals have met at a masquerade dance and fallen for each other.   If lovers continue, they may be executed but it may be the only chance for love they have. Love may make things complicated, but it may be the only route to peace.

Killjoy and Phoenix follow this one pretty closely, and is common ground for each of them.  The theatre kid loves the dramatic stuff and the nerd likes the fantasy (and romance between two gals)

Cypher has a few copies stored at an old safehouse near Rabat, he still likes to hear about the series doing well

It was his daughter’s favorite

Jett loves the series and is beyond invested at this point, but supports the exact opposite ships as Killjoy and they have very serious debates over this

Reyna loathes this series, mostly because ‘Estas chicas necesitan besar y seguir sus vidas’  She’s in support of the main relationship but not the delay in getting there

Horrorscope

Written by talented author Stephanie Queen and illustrated by a randomly selected artist, Horrorscope is a monthly anthology of stories that chill to the bone.  Beware reader, for the contents within will leave you changed and for some, twisted.  Enjoy what lurks in the dark…

Reyna reads through it from time to time if she’s bored, same with Viper.  Viper likes Queen’s writing and has bookshelf at home full of Queen’s novels.

Fade will look one over when she can, but mostly because horror is kind of her territory and she likes the art

Astra follows it from time to time and loves the more messed up stories that have really campy horror tropes.  She enjoys how over the top some of them go but Harbor cannot do horror at all

Omen tried to get into them but just found them entertaining rather than scary, the man’s a living shadow of a man so horror doesn’t work as well on him

Deadlock has read a few and it was one of the few times her ‘unshakable’ nature was actually tested a bit. It got to her

Stargunner Crosshair

A bounty hunter and a criminal with a massive bounty on them have to team up to avoid the criminal having their bounty claimed by a mob boss.  Set in a space-faring world, the duo have to navigate other bounty hunters, hitmen, and wild planets.  The greatest danger?  The two are beginning to enjoy each other’s company!

All the younger agents love this series

Fade tried to get into it because Phoenix thought ‘hey bounty hunter, here’s a story about your job’ and she gave it a try

The next day she told him that it wasn’t for her and that she’ll probably stick to reading from her bookshelf

Neon got into it though, and it didn’t help that the bounty hunter character looks like Fade but a little older and with a futuristic gun

Most of the older agents don’t mind it too much and glance over the pages if someone nearby is reading it

Neon got bored one day and styled her hair like the criminal protag and Fade caught her doing it

She decided to stay and help and the two talked about the comic for a while

Fade still denies she reads it, but in her room there is a number of those comics on her bookshelf that she exclusively lends to Neon

They’re both fans, and read it together and is one of Fade's secrets now

Titanic Drop

A crew of soldiers in giant mechs try to get home after being stranded far behind enemy lines in a deadly solar system.  Fighting giant space beasts called Leviathans, other hostile Mechas, and weathering deadly planets is their only way out.  Return or die, these mech pilots won’t stop until they destroy every obstacle in their way.  

Killjoy loves this and has loved it since she was a kid.  It may have helped inspire a few of the early designs she made

She tried to convince Kayo to allow a few modifications based on the comic, mainly the Mega Sword thing that she wanted to emulate by extending his ZERO//point  knife

It was a no, but Kayo will scan through the comic just to see what KJ is planning to ask next

Brimstone has seen a few pages of it and doesn’t really vibe with it but does think the mechs look cool

Gekko, Neon, and Raze bought some models from a comic store to build and paint.  They spent a few hours on it while Sage and Omen occasionally helped out

By the end, Raze’s was absolutely covered in stickers and spray paint patterns.  Not really canon but still striking

The Dark Crusader

Mortham City has fallen from grace.  Filth clogs the streets and gangs of supervillains prowl the streets looking for an easy mark.  The superhero known as Captain Quasar lost his powers long ago, allowing corruption to take hold.  Now, he returns to Mortham as Nocturne, a man with no powers but a lifetime of knowhow in fighting villains.  Evil will learn to fear the dark.

Brimstone used to read the old Captain Quasar comic back when it was popular, when he was a still a kid

It was all of the generic superhero comics but it had charm and a main character that had some decent moments

The Dark Crusader was a reboot after the Quasar was ‘killed’ saving the world from a doomsday weapon

When Gekko and Phoenix told him about the reboot, Brim was skeptical

Turns out the writers knew what they were doing and created a grizzled character that still managed to be interesting without being overly edgy

Brim doesn’t read up a lot on the comic, but Phoenix, Yoru, and Gekko are all over it and even rented a copy of the movie to watch with him

Dead to Rites

Emerging from the grave after being booted from the Underworld, an ex-detective, Victor, finds himself on the other side of life.  Able to solve supernatural crimes now, Vic seeks to find out the mystery of his own death while investigating strange crimes.  Demons, spirits, and undead are as sinister as the living, but Vic’s keen eye leaves no tombstone unturned.

Omen has a stack of these in his room, he got them because he thought it looked cool but he kind of fell in love with the story

Viper has read through Omen’s stash just so she can make conversation, but was surprised at how well the mysteries could be laid out

Also the Frankenstein homages are Viper’s favorite because she loved that book as a kid 

Fade thinks the writing isn’t as good as her books at times, but at least likes all of the mythology incorporated into the stories

Cypher pages through the books if nobody is going to play chess with him, along with whatever else he can read when he’s in the common room

(I spoofed a lot of comics like Hellboy and Dragon Ball Z to come up with these, I’m guessing you lot can figure out which is which.  Genre spoofing is the best :)

[alloutofgoddesses]

PJO TV Thoughts

S1,E6

(There will be book mentions/spoilers)

Can’t lie to y’all im on my second week of this semester and already just so eepy

Okay the first line does tell you exactly what’s happening in this dream but I was so confused by it being Percy’s headmaster from Yancy

Anyway omg I swear you can see Luke in the reflection like it’s gonna be so obvious it’s not Clarisse on rewatches

WE GOT “Little Hero”

Cracker Barrel! What o would give to eat at a Restaurant rn

A SECOND SEAWEED BRAIN HAS HIT THE PERCABETH TOWERS

(I am aware others have made that joke)

Omg hi Luke

Good not being sus Luke

ARREST HER?!?! Percy wtf

Luke I’m positive you would know what Ares is like

OOP if Luke picks up on it IMMEDIATELY…

The episode is titled “A Zebra Takes Us To Vegas” AND WE INLY GET A SECOND OF A ZEBRA ON SCREEN?!?!

Anybody else see the Geia fashion billboard or just me

Way to be obvious about it

“I had a premonition that we fell into a rhythm/where the music don’t stop for life” I think that Levitating was chosen WITH INTENTION for these lyrics only

ODYSSEY MENTION

Graphic novels do count

ODYSSEUS MENTION

Oh besties… the lotus eaters have upgraded darlings

WISE GIRL WISE GIRL WEE WOO WEE WOO IT’S HAPPENING EVERYONE STAY CALM

The fact that they haven’t shown Grover eating garbage yet… cowards. COWARDS.

I do think that them knowing takes tension out of it but they think that it’s okay unless they eat something

CASTELLAN LORE ALREADY

A Saytr?? I’m saying that TV screen image is a sun so APOLLO MENTION

A gay satyr?!!! The subtext

Oh? I’m compelled certainly what kind of magic does the Lotus have to convince satyrs Pan is there

DREAM TALK

Like you can see extras wearing dated clothes but it’s just not the same

Also I’m waiting for others to find the di Angelos, I know I’m not gonna be able to find anything

(If they cut it out I will lose it)

Are the employees also under the spell? I would have to assume so

Uh oh Grover is forgetting

HE’S HERE

The way his face fell… I’m afraid LMM is eating as Hermes

BTW I saw someone say LMM was a bad choice as Hermes because canonically Hermes has the most children and they don’t think LMM is sexy enough for that… girlie do you not remember what happened when Hamilton came out be SO FOR REAL

At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to seperate actor from character but he’s doing such a good job that’s Hermes I’m sorry (no I’m not)

ORPHEUS MENTION (I’ve helped others [get into the Underworld] before)

Are the fields Italy? Once again folks I’m not gonna be able to find it so I’m reaching out to

Someone looks back I’m guessing

Oh babey the lore the tension

HEY WHAT WAS THAT

My guess is something to do with Gabe or as one brilliant Twitter user said, Percy’s first time at boarding school

YEAH ANNABETH MOVE BABY YOU DON’T DESERVE THAT

(Also how the fuck can Hermes do that)

Sure buddy see you next season

“This was all just a waste of time. We don’t have time to waste.” Oh Annabeth I’m so sorry for what you’re about to learn

I love all the helmets and stuff really lets you know what’s going on

Oh noooooo oh boy oh buddy oh wow that hurt

Sorry he’s making Hermes feel so empathetic which is exactly how he is in the books. He’s good!

OOP

Were those the di Angelos? They were brunette and small (still reaching)

Oh so that’s why they mentioned days earlier I see

HIS KEYS?

Are George and Martha on there are they wondering what’s happening

CENTRAL AIR BABEY

Oh no Percy’s forgetting too

Just rip him out and leave besties

Oh geez they’re never leaving at this rate

Damn there’s that fatal flaw again Percy

RIP Grover playing a human hunter game I will never forget you

Annabeth it was good it really was but you’re right. He is the god of thieves.

Oh boy now we know why they let him drive though

Me when I first started learning how to drive standard

Just in case you forgot Percy is a New Yorker

Oh NO bestie got distracted looking at the princess (his words not mine though I agree) next to him

NO DON’T TURN OFF THE LIGHT I WON’T BE ABLE TO SEE ANYTHING

What did I just say. What is happening on screen

Oh boyyyyyy

He’s just three apples tall

Oh it’s so much worse underwater

SEAWEED HAIR

Wait… were AFTER the summer solstice? WHY

Exactly Percy you gotta finish it

YEEAHHHHHHH

Four?!?! What about ‘you will fail to save what matters most in the end?’ He better lose one I stg

Next ep trailer

Okay so who’s eye is in the credits what do we think

Crusty’s!

Desert and terrible forest?

Okay yeah he definitely loses one or uses one to trick someone or something he said said “you guys leave with my mom”

Oh wait what if he uses it on Crusty… Disney let Percy actually be violent

SWORD FIGHT NEXT EP? At least the beginning

HOLD FAST MOM OHHHHHHHHH OUCH

BONUS: Hermes in cat form

[hard-core-super-star]

half happy and half overwhelmed?? lmao I thought the emoji was because you would be melting with happiness 😭 well, that's still progress, it's always about the result and not how long it took you or what you did to get there, the order of the factors doesn't change the results. you still have the right to be annoyed about it tho. and because of nine sentences you didn't write 19 sentences- thank you, it demand a lot from my only braincell.

Jshsjkak I just confirmed what you said 👀 I mean, I don't really mind, but I'd still like to see you complete the sentences. okay, you won and it was a very smart move, I'm still shocked that you just turned it against me 😔

wait, I'm still swallowing this fact, it's really crazy that your life basically revolves around this number and that's so cool at the same time. don't hold back from saying that something else involving 19 happened, it would be cool to know.

do you have a favorite character that you like to play? I have a love-hate relationship with TikTok and yes, I agree, and most of the time it's without any supervision. talking about things like that about 10/11 kids makes me realize that I'm getting old 🫠

that was indeed a funny joke, so I guess you're right. hmmm you may be right once again, because this person is cool and in fact seems to have a great sense of judgment, maybe I'll let that person know that.

these are the best! It's so good sometimes to just turn off your brain and watch something without thinking too much. so on top of that you are also an analyst? interesting. OKAY- you got me on that one jhdjwwkja. but hey, gayer is better. THAT'S SUPPOSED TO RELIEVE WHAT YOU SAID BEFORE??? LMFAOO. i know i know i know 😌

– 🌟

i mean, yeah sometimes that's accurate. i usually melt when i reread them later and i’m like,”wow, this actually wasn't that bad.” stop, i’m stealing this and putting it on my wall. lmao, should i try to make all my headcanon sets 19 sentences afkdkksafkd. your one brain cell works very hard.

askdkkssk yeah? and what did that confirmation get you? 👀 imagine what would happen if i did complete them, i’m already getting people calling me out in my inbox. we’d have complete chaos. glad to hear i still manage to surprise you ☺️

i don't think it's that cool i think i just have issues lmao. but i appreciate it. honestly, the list is kind of stupid but i will say there was a livestream on october 19th last year and tegan quinn herself replied to my comment out loud. so, i have a video of tegan saying my [real] name.

is it too predictable if i say the flash? 😶 green arrow too. and sometimes superman. same, i technically have a TikTok account but i barely ever go on it. i feel so old sometimes, especially when i go on rants like these lmao. like i’m not that old but some of my opinions make me sound like a grandma.

“i guess” i’ll that as a win lmao. i think i’m incredibly right so you shouldn't be shy and let the person know 😄

i agree, although sometimes i still think about subtext and stuff because that's the way my brain is wired. [Ocean’s 8 is a great example of this] i mean, i’d call myself more of an overthinker than an analyst but sure. aksjdjsj i agree, gayer is always better. YES!!!??? IS IT NOT ENOUGH??? i- was that- did you just- 🥹

[theymightbegeorge]

ok FINE I'll post a scene from the dnf fic draft I'm working on to try and give myself motivation to finish the damn thing

September 2022

Sapnap let out an exhale when the dial tone gave way to Dream’s voice. He was sane enough to pick up at least.

“Nick? What’s up?” Dream sounded bright but confused. They didn’t often phone each other, even when one of them was away. They were used to giving each other space and tended to seek each other out more passively by playing games in the living room where the other could come and join them, or sitting in a discord voice chat until someone else popped in.

“Do I need to come home right now?” Sapnap was only half joking.

“What do you mean? George doesn’t get here for like, a week”.

“Oh, so it is about George”.

Why had he bothered to even consider an alternative under the circumstances?

“You’re gonna have to be more specific Nick, I am tired and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

‘More specific’ he says. As if the man has ten different George related thoughts at any given time. Sapnap doesn’t want to think about the truth of that or that the content of those thoughts may be. Instead of answering, Sapnap sends a screenshot of his twitter mentions.

@ sapnap I think someone let your dog out, go and get him!!

@ sapnap u at home rn? I think dream has lost it lmao

George is gonna get to florida and @ sapnap will have to explain that dream got blown away by a fucking hurricane.

There were also clips of Dream’s recently ended twitter space amongst the concerned and amused tweets; soundbytes of Dream frolicking outside in the hurricane talking about nothing in particular. But to Sapnap, and a portion of the audience if the more jubilant posts were any thing to be believed, the subtext was glaring.

A ping and a hum came from the other end of the line as Dream received the screenshot and took it in.

“Yeah my mom wasn’t too impressed with me running around outside either.”

Sapnap hummed, he should have expected this level of deliriousness. George getting his visa signified more for Dream than just getting a new roommate. Or even finally having his best friend in the same country, state, and house like they had been planning and hoping for for years now. Sapnap himself can hardly believe it some days although he’s pretty sure his ears are still ringing from the screams when he picked up the call from George and Dream.

Those past echoes are drowned out by a rumble on the other end of the line. Could’ve have been thunder, could’ve been gale force winds, it was too hard to tell over the phone.

“Are you outside again?”

“Just sitting at the patio doors.”

They sat there in intermittent silence for a while trading the clacking and clicking of keyboard and mouse for the steady patter of rain against the side of the house that would soon be home to a third person. One of them would pipe up from time to time with a question about something being ready for George or to suggest a place for them all to go together once he was here. The ebb and flow of the hurricane continued in the background and at times it seemed to be roaring at Dream to push him back inside.

At the moment, Dream didn’t seem worried about any possible danger but Sapnap knew better. Both himself and George were the type to get caught up in the thrill of the moment and be struck by the unease of potential consequences once they were safe and sound. Although George would probably say that it would have been epic to get decapitated, if someone had caught it on camera.

Not Dream though. His brain would have thought of every eventuality; a tree uprooting and slamming into their house, him slipping and falling on the slabs outside and the various injuries that could result from that, an open door being torn from it’s hinges and leaving the inhabitants exposed and vulnerable for the foreseeable future.

He'd obviously decided that the wild excitement, the exhilaration, was worth it.

[agnesandhilda]

okay. full breakdown of these pairings and which one I think should win

rinsagi:

rin HATES isagi post u-20

rin makes the most straightforward death threats out of any character in this manga, and they're directed at isagi (not counting the cannibalism stuff because the distinction between bizarre inexplicably homoerotic claims of "devouring" the opponent and actual threats can be ambiguous)

on the other hand I just think they're kind of boring

rin hates isagi's guts and yeah it's passionate and obsessive but isagi doesn't return that level of focus or vitriol so I can't really get on board with it

rin's particular case of isagi brain worms is exceptionally funny though

nagireo/reonagi:

I had to include them because every other nagireo blogger makes jokes about them being toxic yaoi and I knew I'd get questions about it if they weren't in the poll

I don't think they should win though

like yeah their relationship is super messy but in a poll with guys who cannot stop talking about how badly they want to eat each other etc I think it'd be silly if the male u-haul lesbians won

do I want them to break up? yes

do I think they're the most toxic on this list? no lmao

rin/nanase:

very recent

but rin verbatim told nanase "you are my property" which counts for something I think

I'm basing their presence here off their one (1) major scene together but in my defense it was a really crazy scene

"I'll do anything you want!" "obey my instructions" "if surviving means sacrificing myself to you..." girl do you even hear yourself

kainess:

kaiser was looking for someone emotionally vulnerable to make into his satellite (he refers to this as being his "dog" in-canon, which sure is a choice) because he fundamentally doesn't know how to have a relationship with an equal, and he found that person in ness

kaiser is canonically depicted studying psychology to find the best way to make someone emotionally dependent on him, and targeted ness with this in mind

kaiser is regularly physically aggressive/demeaning to ness, pulling him around by the hair and splashing his drinks on him when he gets frustrated

ness, for his part... is fine with this and never complains

kaiser ignores ness to brood over isagi (more about this later) and talks about how he wants to destroy and dominate isagi (...in football. again more on this later) and ness' response is INTENSE jealousy that kaiser is paying more attention to someone else than to him. the fact that that attention is negative isn't relevant to him!

rin/shidou:

I added this one because I know it's floating around out there in the blogosphere but honestly I don't want it to win

are they toxic? yes. do they antagonize each other in an interesting way? yes. do they do any of this in a way that makes me think they're attracted to each other? no.

it's got to be yaoi to qualify as toxic yaoi idk what to tell you

they have to be intentionally separated because they'll physically fight if they're on the same field at the same time, which is hilarious, but there's no extra edge to it

where's the obsession. where's the bizarre homoerotic smack talk. what are we doing here. these guys just hate each other platonically

also shidou hits on rin's brother out loud (not subtext) which counts for something I think

barousagi:

the idea of "devouring" a rival was coined to describe their dynamic, and they talk about it all the time

like a lot. even when everyone else has let it go already. they talk about how they're totally gonna hunt down and eat each other (in soccer guys they're talking about soccer) from midway through the second arc and then it comes back when barou is introduced for the nel, when "devouring" has been out of fashion since the u-20 arc

drooling when you see another man? kinda gay

if barou had the same anime bishie design as the rest of the cast this would be way more popular than it is. prove me wrong

they're just really funny and I want to see them get their flowers for being blue lock's og toxic yaoi rivalry

you have to join me in voting for them we cannot let kainess win just because kaiser canonically called that german boy "puppy" a bunch of times or whatever (this is me propagandizing)

kaisagi:

this one's my actual favorite

they're remarkably similar to each other and they both fucking hate it. it's delicious

kaiser's on-page introduction is him telling isagi to kneel before him—in a language isagi doesn't even understand, so you know he was saying that just because

he then proceeds to grab isagi's chin bring their faces reeaaaaaal close and tell him that if he's come all the way here then isagi had better make it worth his while by being an obstacle in his life. and then when isagi does exactly that he gets pissed

they continue to have a very vitriolic physically-touchy rivalry thing going on until midway through the manshine game kaiser redirects a shot that was "meant" for isagi (debatable) and isagi gets so mad he says out loud in front of god and everybody on international tv that he's going to kill kaiser

kaiser responds to this by asking if that's how isagi says "I love you"

I hate them so much. what were they doing all of that for.

kaiser sits in their team's AV room with every screen set to a different video of isagi playing soccer and broods, surrounded by the image of his rival. he canonically does this on a semi-regular basis at least. for normal reasons

during one particular instance of this he goes on a villain monologue about how isagi is "finally big enough to eat." ostensibly it's meant in the same "domination in the sport" way the rest of the cannibalistic smack talk in this manga is but it's a real haymaker of a line even when read in context

AND isagi's obsessed with kaiser too! he's a lot less showy about it but it's still evident in his narration. he hates kaiser but still accepts him as his ideal for what a player should be like without question. which results in lots of fun mid-match monologues about how kaiser is "perfect" and how he's obviously got the goofy ass shounen sports manga power he made an executive decision exists. because how else could he play at that caliber?

isagi's coach asks him what his ultimate goal for the match is and to be "logical" about it and isagi's immediate response is that he wants to "destroy" kaiser

they hate each other yes but they hate each other obsessively and with roughly equal levels of intensity. they're both putting the same amount of effort into the relationship which is a good sign I think

additionally:

as soon as I published this poll I had a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten to add a ship that ought to be included under the "some other guys I forgot to mention" category, but I couldn't recall what it was so I figured it probably wasn't important. that ship was egonoa

[temporoom]

“La galette des rois”

It is I, one of the honorary french persons in this fandom (as I spend time here I notice how many of us they are and I wonder... Pourquoi on parle juste pas français entre nous?), here to explain to you a New Year tradition in France while August is ending and we are slowly approaching the marvelous and amazing... Toussaint. Joking I’m talking about Halloween. Though I can talk about Toussaint as well if the occasion presents itself. But this is the not the subject of this post, as I have an all-mighty need to talk to you about the “galette des rois” and all the traditions surrounding it in France so I can explain to you how it relates to Vanitas No Carte, as always.

Unlike some of my other posts about french culture and/or language, this post will end up more shippy than usual for reasons you shall quickly understand. Without further ado, let me tell you about a little omake that was released back in February 2019:

Original translation post here

It’s all very fun and interesting, and I’m glad MochiJun brought it up. Though as I read it, as a french person, a question remainted in the back of my mind... “If Vanitas became the kind, who is the queen?” You may think it’s a weird thing to ask yourself, and yet... Hidden in a corner of the french wikipedia page, and left unmentioned in the english one... Part of the tradition is missing.

You see, the Galette des Rois can indeed be taken as some kind of New Year’s punishment game, but for other reasons than being congratulated. Here is how the holiday is spent:

It’s a single day, the 6th of January, during which people either prepare or buy a “galette”, in it is hidden a “fève”. The person who finds the fève is crowned kind or queen of the day. As to be fair and not cheat on whoever can get the fève, the youngest person in the group gathered goes under the table and decides in which order they are served, once everyone has their piece of galette, they go out from under the table and everyone starts to eat to see who gets the fève. Once we know who got the fève, this person is given a paper crown... and now here is the interesting part:

They have to choose a king/queen.

You see, when the galette is usually bought, there is one paper crown furnished with it, and you can keep it for next year to have two crowns, one of the king/queen and one for the person they decided to choose as their queen/king. But if you only have one crown, the person who has the fève keeps the fève, and gives the crown to the person they decided was their king/queen. (It can vary from family to family for that though)

This is why it can be a New year’s punishment game: basically, it means you are forced to choose either your favorite person or your crush.

NOW HERE IS THE THING. So as a french person, I think it’s weird the omake stops there, because there is a step missing. But as I scroll through twitter, I find this... interesting tweet, by MochiJun, which works as an addition to this omake:

Original tweet

If you are not french, or if you don’t celebrate this kind of holiday, for you, it looks like this: Vanitas is giving up his “king” title to Noé... and I think this what MochiJun intended to represent. But the thing is: if you want to give up your title as king/queen, you don’t give the crown: you give the fève.

SO WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THIS--

For me, used to the whole “king/queen chooses queen/king” ordeal, this is Vanitas choosing Noé as his king/queen for the day. He is basically claiming Noé as his favorite person. (Btw, if you read the comments under it, you can find one french comment saying “Noé is his queen!”, which means I’m not making up stuff)

So yeah, how to make romantic subtext with a holiday that has absolutely nothing to do with romance in the first place.

Though I have to add some stuff to this: the whole thing about making sure the youngest is under the table while we serve everyone is actually so we can serve the youngest the piece with the fève if we find it. And if not, the king/queen can choose to crown the youngest either way as to give him something... Kids just want the crown, the glory, and the cake, and adults want peace. So this picture could very well be Vanitas doing the same thing.

As for what happens when we have our king/queen and queen/king for the day... Nothing. We just finish the galette and do our stuff. Maybe if you are with friends they will question why the kind/queen choose a certain person as their queen/king, a bit of teasing, but then that’s it. 

Anyway, I’m happy. I hope you all have a nice day. Thank you for reading until the end!