#Because this will be valuable in actually defending my ships

[ohmygoly]

ITS STINITZ DAY. MY FAVORITE SHIP. MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE SHIP.

I was channeling my inner Fitz and was in the kitchen all day. (I made cinnamon rolls and peanut butter cookies that both turned out pretty good!) Due to this I don't have much to offer in terms of Stina and Fitz. I love them though, I'll say that much. I remember in seventh grade I was laughing with my friend in the library because we wanted Fitz to date Stina because no one else loved him and because we thought it was a fitting punishment. Then we wanted them to die.

Seven years later and Stina and Fitz are in my top three favorite characters (I love the characters who are accidentally the most complex and morally grey lol, or misunderstood.) They are also my favorite ship in all of Keeper of the Lost Cities, if for no other reason, than because I love both of them individually so I love their ship the best (Tiana comes next for me lol.) Stina is a nerd at heart, she cares about how society views her, she is accepting of those who are cast out by society while simultaneously pushing away the one who maybe resembles her the most (Dex) because she knows that its too close for comfort. Because she's always been insecure in her status. For the record, I do prefer Stinitz over Stinex simply because I like the way their characters are built together more and because I think Dex does a better job as her plot foil without romance involved.

I think Stina must have initially loved Fitz for all the reasons everyone else did. He was perfect. He had a movie star smile. The closest thing to elven royalty, as Sophie noted. Stina, who cared so much what the others thought of her, who pushed most people away who could've cared for her because she knew that, like Dex, they could also shun her. She would shun them out first. This Stina loved the idea that Fitz' status would prevent her from any social judgment. This Stina loved that winning grin, the boyish naivety, and the shiny exterior he presented to the world. Fitz didn't like Stina at all. If nothing else, he thought her gripe against Biana (as I headcanon) as well as potentially Deck (her known rival) was unnecessary, but he also thought her attitude towards the rest of the school was abhorrent and rude.

The only relatively "flawed" side of Fitz Stina got to see would've been in splotching matches. If there was one area Stina was the most relaxed and yet still the most competitive, it was when she got to exercise the skills her father taught her and show everybody else that she was better than them. Fitz would always equal her in competitive rage, so there was never a boring match between the two consistent finalists. The only thing Stina didn't like about Fitz might have been that he always beat her, though she figured she'd try to accept it if they ever really married (fat chance of that).

Even though she wanted him to like her more than others at the school, she couldn't help telling him when he was wrong. He was ignorant, he was dense, "there is no way he actually thinks thats a good idea" -circa around the time of Oblivimyre. In his bias against her, he found this mostly unattractive.

I imagine Stina growing up. We see that she does soften towards Sophie in the later books. I still believe she was friends with her henchmen and some others in a whole other circle of elves, but she didn't have them follow her around as a defensive mechanism and to gang up on Sophie and her friends. All of this allows me to believe that she would also mature in her view of Fitz, in her ability to connect to people, in the way she presents herself. No longer is she as bratty and standoffish. Sure, she's got her rough edges, but she helped birth the alicorns, she cares for animals, she works hard for the Black Swan and demands what she deems right (like Maruca seeing Wylie). In this maturity she sees Fitz as something different. He's not perfect. He's beautiful but not perfect. Everything around him is falling apart, as the girl he liked goes for his best friend, his best friend runs away and makes questionable decisions, and his family is part of a legacy he doesn't want to be a part of. Stina sees that rage and sadness that surrounds him now, as he wants to fight but he's angry at everyone he cares about. Stina understands that. She not only understands all the ways she turned to anger in her dark days, but all the ways Marella was and is turning to bitterness as she deals with her mom, pyrokinesis, and loneliness. The ways Maruca started out colder and bitter, ready to betray a friend, in desperation and insecurity as well. The ways Linh wasn't completely sweet from the start, but the ways she turned sharper as she battled with her brother, partner, and protector leaving to the Neverseen just for her. Because she knows how easy it is to feel ostracized from the world and turn to anger, bitterness, and defensive tactics to cope with it, she can do nothing but see Fitz in a new relatable light. One where he isn't on a pedestal. She approaches him finally, in a way where she doesnt expect him to be perfect.

How refreshing for him. His dad still expects the best, Biana looks up to him, the Lost Cities still wants the elven prince, Sophie wants a supportive friend and wanted the perfect boyfriend, and everyone else just sees "Golden Boy" Fitz as well. Even Keefe might have been so wrapped up in how much better the Vackers were than his own family that he missed a lot of the pressure Fitz was under and was never able to help him ease it as much as he needed. So when Stina comes up to him one day, when they're hosting a Team Valiant meeting at Everglen, to see if he's okay, he lets a little bit of the pressure off. She listens to the tidbits he's willing to give her and tells him that there's no reason why he should think he needs to be perfect in the middle of a war. If Sophie can blow up a Neverseen hideout, then Fitz can even just walk into the meetings a little rougher for wear somedays, if not more. (Maybe use that cane he's been avoiding but definitely needs.)

From here they start talking a bit more as friends. Stina sees his human collection, and being a bit fascinated in humans herself, and having a few friends very interested in the species, she enjoys this very much. He gets to help her take care of the unicorns some afternoons and he realizes how refreshing a workout it is. He also gets to see just how useful she was during the alicorn birth, even though everyone said she did basically nothing. Maybe some days he brings specially baked treats for them, and other days he gets to ride with Stina and family/friends across the Norwegian landscapes on their backs. And he even has his own unicorn at their house now. And Stina has her own mini shelf of books on whatever information she's researching at Everglen, though only most of it is for Team Valiant meetings. He even gets invited to some of the hangouts with the girls, and they all laugh and tease each other and he feels a weight off his shoulders for the first time, that he's starting to feel very determined to keep. Stina is more than just a bully to him. She's a hardworker, a fighter, a lover, a nerd, and insecure in ways he didn't even think about. They both have a lot to learn about not letting others dictate their anger, and not letting society expect perfection out of them, but I think they can get through that together.

Also, maybe they advance from splotching to real goblin training and their kiss moment is Stina finally beating Fitz in a match and everything he came to respect about Stina just collapsed together as she won and her competitive side matched with his and he realized he loved seeing her beat him at something. That she was really cute when she was actually proud of herself. And it was so pure at that moment, unlike most other moments of Stina's life, that Fitz just couldn't get enough, so he kisses her. Fitz loves smart, adventurous women, and didn't he find one in Stina Heks.

I think I might do another post lol, after I'vecleaned up my kitchen. Cause I've saved some aesthetic photos for them on my pinterest board and I might have stinitz excerpts scattered across my KotLC notes app. @doodle-do-wop

Also, like, give me criticism please. Not like just on my writing but on my character analysis and ship pairing. I want to see how wrong I am lol.

[nevadancitizen]

-> TO LIVE ANOTHER DAY (I KNOW I NEVER WILL)

synopsis: you've always known that you're a throwaway -- another friendly kill. but when you're brought to ghost's world, you discover that there's so much more to life than defending democracy.

word count: 5.1k

characters: player! simon "ghost" riley, self-aware helldiver! reader

trigger warnings: mentions of canon-typical violence, reader is obsessed with and idolizes ghost, nudity (but not in a sexual/suggestive context)

notes: wanted to try my hand at a reverse version of the self-aware cod au. also if you're not aquantinced with helldivers 2, it's okay! it has easy-to-understand lore but i recommend watching this lore video (it's just under twelve minutes and gives a pretty good run-down on what's going on). also inspired by "to liberty and beyond" by jt music, which is inspired by helldivers 2 in turn (✿˵•́ ૩•̀˵)৴♡*

You always knew something was… off. 

Numerous ads and training modules state that every Helldiver is valuable to the continued reign of Managed Democracy and Super Earth. And yes, you’ve seen more than enough shock soldiers die for the cause – mostly freshly eighteen-year-olds that didn’t read the fine print that states that the minimum enlistment for a Helldiver is ten years. 

But that’s the thing. They died. You watched their bodies be ripped apart by bullets or torn to shreds by terminids. 

You never… died. Not really, anyway. 

It was always a split second of hot-white, searing pain, then a moment of darkness, then you were strapped into a hellpod, being sent down for another wave. Mentions of gods or other types of divine beings weren’t really heard of or taught about, so you didn’t know who to thank – or to blame – for this phenomenon. 

(You tried to mention this to your assigned Democracy Officer, but she just dismissed it with a threat of being sent to a Reeducation Camp.)

So you kept it to yourself. You have a habit of taking your helmet off and bowing your head (In prayer? You’re not so sure) and just breathing, taking in the cool thrum of your heart. You never thought you’d relate to the fascism-fueled automatons, but you only feel the warmth of… your God? your savior? when in the heat of battle.

You always think like this in between being sent down – wandering thoughts while wandering the halls of the ship. There’s not a lot of this type of time, so you make sure to savor it.

You’re in this position right now, looking down at your helmet and thumbing over the imperfections picked up from battle. The void-black visor shows a reflection of you, warped and stretched-out. Above the visor is a skull etched into the titanium – the lines are all jagged edges and uneven depths. You don’t remember doing this, but it’s there anyway. You don’t remember a lot, actually, but you’re, once again, told by your Democracy Officer not to worry about that.

You pick yourself up from that train of thought before you go too far. Instead, you put your helmet back on and start to walk the halls of the ship. 

Once you’re past the armory and terminal, you start down the steps to the sleeping quarters. (Because yes, despite being supersoldiers, Helldivers need their rest, too.) 

But then, you snipe something out of the corner of your eye. There’s… a door. A door you don’t remember being there. Light seeps through the small gap where the bottom of the door and the floor don’t meet. The sight causes the ashes in your belly that have gone cold to stir once more.

Your boots clunk on the ground as you walk over to it. It creaks open, as if inviting you. Again, you never remember having wooden doors that creak on the ship – they’re all automatic sliding metal doors, and open with faint hisses.

You push it open the rest of the way and die.

It’s that all-consuming pain that feels worse than any other time you’ve died – like your skin is being torn off the same time you’re being tarred and feathered. The black isn’t just a flash this time, but a few seconds you can actually count – twelve seconds. Twelve whole seconds. 

Twelve seconds doesn’t sound like a lot, but for you, it was fucking terrifying. 

You thought you actually died. It was almost laughable – you’ve survived automatons and terminids and being in cryo, but you couldn’t survive some mystery door? And all that effort without meeting your… you don’t even know what to call it. Guardian angel? Tormentor?

You wake up and, for the first time, aren’t in a hellpod – instead, you’re in a bed. You can move your arms and legs freely, but they feel… numb. Disconnected. 

When you start to look around, you notice everything is white and sterile. There’s a distinct sharp scent of disinfectant in the air, contrasting the musky gun oil and sweat that you know well. 

(You haven’t ever been in a real hospital – the closest is a small supply closet on-ship that was converted into a first aid station – but you’re pretty sure this is an actual hospital, like the ones back home on Super Earth.)

Your uniform is set on a chair nearby, your black-and-yellow cape draped over the back of it. Your helmet is on the cushion of the seat, facing you. Every piece is… oddly clean. There’s no dark brown dried bloodstains or sickly green bug oil.

With shaky hands (which have never trembled before – at least, not to this degree) you rip out the IV and brace yourself on the railing of the bed before standing. Your legs wobble a bit, but straighten themselves out after a moment. 

You take off the paper hospital gown and dress yourself in proper clothing. All the metal parts of your uniform click into place, and your under-armor fits like it always does – perfectly flush to your skin. 

Just as you’re about to push open the door, a man opens it. You’re stunned for a second before taking him in. He’s tall with a beard that looks like walrus tusks, and is wearing military fatigues you’ve seen in history modules. 

Looking at him causes a dull thrum in your chest, like your heart is picking up again. But it’s not him – he’s not your savior.

“Civilian,” you greet before pushing past him. You wave over your shoulder politely. “Praise be Democracy.”

The man makes a stunned noise before grabbing your shoulder and spinning you to face him. He opens his mouth to talk, but you interrupt him by holding a hand up. 

“Please, no touching the armor, civilian,” you say. “This is the property of the Ministry of Defense, as am I. If you wish to enlist, don’t talk to me, but the nearest Democracy Officer available.”

The man pauses for a moment before barking, “What in the bloody fuck are you on about, muppet?”

You huff out a laugh and lean closer to him. He’s tall, but with your armor, you’re taller. 

“Okay, civilian.” You smile underneath your helmet and speak in a lower tone. “I understand that you don’t see a lot of us, so if you want a signature, just ask, okay? I can make it out to your kid who wants to be a Helldiver, or whatever. Tell them to put that M2016 Constitution bolt-action rifle to good use.”

The man stares at you as if you’ve just admitted to secretly being an automaton and are planning to undermine Democracy to institute socialism. He slowly brings his hand away from your shoulder and walks past you. 

“Come with me,” he says simply. 

You follow him after a moment of contemplation. He causes a faint mimic of the warmth, so that’s good, right? And he can’t be dangerous. Maybe a danger to others, but not to you – not with all the armor you’ve got. You keep your hands clasped behind your back to keep from fidgeting as you walk.

“Firstly.” The man holds up a hand, his index finger raised. He doesn’t glance over his shoulder to look at you. “I am not a civilian. I’m a captain – Captain John Price of the SAS.”

“Nonsense,” you scoff. “A captain should always be wearing their armor. A Helldiver is always ready to fight for Democracy.”

You walk a little faster so that you’re not walking behind him, but next to him instead. “And besides, what is the SAS? I’ve never heard of that division, or that ship – whatever it is. I reside on the Dawn of Destruction.”

Price looks at you out of the corner of his eye, his thick brows furrowing. “It’s the Special Air Service. And I’ve never heard of these… Helldivers you’ve been going on about.”

“Good Liberty, that’s nonsense again!” You look over at Price, your eyes trained on him instead of in front of you. “Helldivers are all over the news, the radio sets, the televisions… surely you’re not that shut off? Every colony has some way to communicate with Super Earth.”

“Super Earth?” Price repeats back to you. He then holds up his hand and stops walking. “Nevermind. I don’t want to hear it.”

He gestures to the door he’s stopped in front of. “Go on.”

You glance at Price before opening the door. It’s an interrogation room, like the ones you’ve seen in old-timey movies. 

“Oh, I get it.” You look over your shoulder at Price. “This is like one of those war reenactments, right? You’ve recreated a military base from the original Earth… very impressive!”

Price shoves you into the room (with a surprising amount of strength), leaving you stumbling. You quickly correct yourself and spin around to confront him, but by the time you’re able to do that, he’s closed and locked the door. 

“Ah…” you sigh as you look around the room. It’s all concrete grey with a steel table and two steel chairs in the middle. There’s a mirror taking up the majority of one wall, one which you know is double-sided.

You walk up to it and try to talk to the people on the other side – you know there’s got to be someone there. “This is fun! Which training module is this? I thought I completed every one… is it new? Because I’ve never heard of something like this.”

After half a minute, there’s no response. You wander over to one of the chairs at the table and sit in it. You laugh a little as you rest your hands in the handcuffs chained to the steel.

“I am ready for interrogation!” you announce. “I sure hope no filthy fascist comes in and tries to cleanse me of the beauty of freedom! Because I surely won’t give them a cup of Liber-tea, and I of course won’t deliver it with my fist…!”

You tap your fingers on the table for a minute before slumping back in the chair. This is boring. Most training modules are the type where you’re run-and-gun-ing throughout the whole thing, but interrogation is boring. 

You’re sat like that for a good half hour before you hear the lock click. Your eyes dart to the door as it opens, revealing a man. 

He’s dressed in all black, with a balaclava covering his face. His russet-brown eyes meet yours through your helmet and it’s like you’ve died all over again. 

Heat explodes your chest like you’ve just got a shotgun slug blasted through your belly. The ashes have been blown away, and in its place, a raging bonfire! It roars like a dragon, and it reeks of reverence and prayer.

The man closes the door behind him and someone locks it from the outside. He barely makes it two steps before you stand from the chair, the legs shrieking against the floor.

“My God,” you say softly. 

“Helldiver,” the man greets.

“No, I…” You make your way around the table and stand as close as you can be without feeling like you’re about to catch fire. “Are you…?”

The man nods. “Ghost.”

“That’s it, that’s what you are!” you exclaim. You take a step forward and feel sweat drip down your back. “You’re the… the Ghost. The…”

The one who kept you from experiencing a permanent death? The one who kept you alive just to torment you? The guardian angel who watches your every move? The devil who prods at your ass with a pitchfork? You’re not sure what to say.

You settle on reaching out to him and saying, “You’re my savior.”

Ghost takes a step back. “Savior? I’m not so sure about that.”

“No, but – you are!” You breathe out a laugh and step forward, mirroring his actions. You bend at the knee and the back to make yourself shorter, as if trying to be smaller than him. “I am… I’m a throwaway. Another friendly kill. But you kept me alive! You brought me back after death, I remember dying so many times – y-you don’t get it, you’re my God!”

You strike, quick as a viper, and take his hand. Even though both your gloves and his act as barriers, it feels like your entire arm is engulfed in flame. Still, you keep holding on. 

“You chose me, right? You chose me to fight!” You clutch his hand tighter. “You chose me to spread Democracy, to smite the fascists and… I – I was taught that we are Democracy, not individuals, but you proved me wrong, because you chose me. 

“God chose me.”

A silence engulfs the interrogation room. You’re both frozen in time, living, breathing statues. It’s too hot. Every bone in your hand, wrist, and arm are turning to charcoal. It’s burning. It’s euphoric. 

Ghost starts to pull his hand away, but you bring your free hand to hold it in place, holding yours. “No, please.”

Ghost forcefully yanks his hand away. He drags you forward with the force, and you fall to your knees. The metal kneepads on your legs clang loudly against the concrete floor. 

You can do nothing but look up at Ghost from where you’re kneeling. There’s nothing sexual about it – it’s more like a believer kneeling at the feet of a statue of Christ. Ghost is your God, after all. 

There’s another minute of silence before you bow your head and reach up with shaky hands to remove your helmet. It clanks loudly against the floor as you drop it. 

You can feel Ghost staring at you. The fire burns hotter – the bonfire caught wind and is reaching up into the trees. The branches above are catching, aching to burn.

Tears rim your eyes as you bring your head up to look at him. His stare hardens.

It’s a sight you’ve seen in the mirror many times before. Your face is a mess of unloaded textures, a checkerboard of black and bright purple, with the exception of your eyes and the surrounding skin. But seeing yourself through Ghost’s eyes… 

It’s Rapture. It’s only you and him. A God and his only believer.

“Ghost, please.” A tear slips down your cheek. You don’t think you’ve ever cried before. It’s cool against your too-hot, burning skin. “Let me stay. I want to stay in Heaven, stay with you.”

“This isn’t Heaven,” Ghost says coldly. “And I’m not God.”

“But you are!” you snap. “This is peace and this is comfort and this is you. Don’t send me back to Malevelon Creek, don’t send me back to those godforsaken ion storms and automatons.”

Your voice grows quieter as tears run down your face and drip off your chin. “Don’t send me back to Hell.”

Ghost sighs and casts his gaze to the side. He’s thinking, and it’s plain on the parts of his face you can see. 

You bow your head and wipe your tears away to give him some semblance of privacy. 

“Fine,” he finally decides. “But stop calling me God. You’re starting to seriously piss me off.”

Your head snaps up and you fight back a fresh wave of tears as you nod. “Yes! I’ll – I’ll call you Ghost. No more God-talk, I promise.”

You huff out a wet laugh as you pick up your helmet and fasten it back on your head. “I mean, I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.”

And so it’s like that for a month. Ghost explains the concept of video games (and how you’re from one – but you figured out that much already), introduces you to his team (and forces you to apologize to Price for calling him a civvy), and gives you his blessing to be his guard (even though he doesn’t need one). 

He allows you to tail him around when he’s in a good mood. When he’s not up for it, you sit outside his door like the good soldier you are.

You’re not allowed to have weapons, on account of being… well. Your entire being. The flying spark that could cause a wildfire. The free radical that could split an atom. It’s just better to give you the bare minimum and keep you there.

And you’re more than happy with the bare minimum. You survive on scraps from the mess hall and the moments when Ghost can tolerate you being a little too close. 

But the week-long missions are nothing but pain for you. And yet, every time you meet him on the tarmac, he greets you with a pat on the side of your bicep and asks how you were while he was gone. Maybe he’s doing it to be polite, maybe he actually cares – you don’t know, and you’re willing to keep it that way. 

(In this instance, you’re blissful with your ignorance. Revel in it, actually.)

There’s a faint part of you that thinks that he views you as an abandoned puppy he found on the side of the road that just followed him home. You’re okay with that if it means you can keep being close to him and keep getting away with everything you’ve done so far. 

So you wait, ever so patient, outside his door. You don’t lean against the wall next to it – you’re always standing at attention, even when your back starts to ache from standing so rigid. You don’t know what to do with your hands (on account of having no rifle to hold) so you let them idly hang at your sides, fighting the reflex to fidget. 

There’s a knock from the other side of the door. A sign from Ghost, telling you that you’re welcome to come in.

You knock back with a soft, “Ghost?”

After a few seconds, there’s no response, but you can hear the lock click and unlock. 

You wait for a minute before you open the door and make sure to duck as you enter. (These doors are shorter than the ones back on your ship – they’re not built to accommodate someone wearing Helldiver armor.)

You shut the door behind you and take in Ghost’s room. It’s bare, like yours. Just a desk with a chair, a bed with military-issued bedding, and a closet with a dresser and clothes rod.

As if on instinct, you take your helmet off, leaving yourself vulnerable yet safe. As your time passed here, your skin has become less black-and-purple and more like a normal skin tone – like the color around your eyes has started to seep into the surrounding area. So far, it’s taken over your face and the column of your throat, just barely brushing past your collarbone.

Ghost moves away from where he’s facing his desk in his swivel chair. He takes you in. Takes your new skin in.

You’ve kept your armor clean, just how you both like it. But the upkeep of yourself, as a person, your new hair and new skin, your new nose and lips and beauty marks and imperfections…

Ghost points at you. “Your hair is greasy as hell.”

You comb a hand through your hair and your glove comes away with a bit of grease, just like he mentioned.

“It is.” You look up from your glove to meet his gaze. “What should I do about it?”

“Fucking hell.” Ghost rolls his eyes. “You’re asking me what you should do about it? Take a shower, knobhead.”

“Ah.” You look down at your boots. 

“Have you seriously not been bathing?” Ghost asks. 

“It, um…” You glance up at him, then back down at the floor. “It never occurred to me. Usually I don’t have to.”

“You’ve been here for a bloody month and you haven’t showered once?” he scoffs. 

You shrink into yourself, an embarrassed blush creeping across your face. 

“Christ…” Ghost mumbles. He stands from his chair and points you up-and-down. “Get out of your armor.”

“Excuse me?” A hand flies to the middle of your breastplate, as if cradling it to you like it’s the only thing keeping you decent. 

“You heard me.” Ghost moves over to the door to his bathroom and opens it, then glances over his shoulder at you. “I’m drawing a bath. And you’re going in it.”

You look down at your glove, at the thin sheen of grease covering it. “I… okay.”

Ghost goes into the bathroom to give you some semblance of privacy. You take a breath to calm yourself and exhale with a soft “Sweet Liberty…” 

You carefully lay out your metal armor on Ghost’s bed, leaving yourself in just your under-armor. It’s durable but thin, causing you to shiver as the air conditioning kicks on.

With light steps, you make your way over to the bathroom. Ghost is hunched over the side of the tub, his hands ungloved and sleeves bunched up to his elbows. One of his hands is under the running water, checking the temperature. 

You lean into the doorway and call his name softly. You only lean in a bit, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

Ghost glances over his shoulder at you, then nods at the tub. “Come on. Haven’t got all day.”

You slowly make your way in the bathroom and close the door behind you. It’s a small space, and it just makes everything all the more awkward.

“Well?” Ghost prompts. “Will you be good by yourself?”

“I mean…” You look down at the tile. “I guess.”

Ghost shuts off the faucet, then stands and wipes his hand off on a towel hanging by the bathtub. “I’m off, then.”

“But – wait,” you say softly. “How am I supposed to bathe? It’s not full yet.”

“It’s not meant to be full up,” Ghost says. “You’re acting like you’ve never taken a bath before.”

You shift on your feet, your almost-bare soles making a soft sound against the tile. Your silence tells Ghost all he needs to know.

“Come on then.” He sighs and leans back against the counter, his hands on the lip of the sink. “Strip.”

You shuffle out of your under-armor, fold it neatly, and put it on the counter. You’re nearly shaking from embarrassment, but at least it isn’t as awkward as it would be if your body wasn’t just unloaded textures. Your body below your collarbone is built well, but it’s more like a jacked doll that a kid scribbled a black and purple checkerboard on than an actual human soldier. 

Your eyes meet Ghost’s before you duck your head away in shame. 

“Come on,” he repeats. “Let’s get you washed up, yeah?”

You keep your gaze low as you tentatively dip a few fingers in the water. It’s warm, but not too hot. You slowly hook a leg over the edge of the tub and step in. It feels good – not that you have any prior bathing experiences to compare it to. 

Your knees practically buckle as you lower yourself into the water. You sit with your knees pressed up against your chest, not wanting to take up too much space even though the tub isn’t all that small. 

“Good?” Ghost asks. 

“Good,” you parrot back. 

Ghost kneels by the side of the tub. “How’s it feel? Too hot?”

“Okay.” You raise your eyes to meet his. “Feels like… when I’m near you.”

He just hums, monotone, in response. He shifts to sit more comfortably, then pats the surface of the water, sending ripples. “Lean forward.”

You do as he asks, bowing your head so that your face is close to the water. “This good?”

“Yes. I’m gonna get some water on you now.” 

You nod. Ghost cups his hand and dips it in the water before running it down your back. You gasp softly at the feeling – it’s unlike anything you’ve experienced before. It’s like Ghost’s molten touch is seeping into your skin, but instead of fire, it’s a pleasant version of sunburn. 

Maybe it feels duller and better because you’ve been so exposed to Ghost over the past month that you’ve gotten used to it, like exposure therapy? And the feeling when you first touched him was just too much, too fast…

You quickly divert your thoughts away from the theoretical and into the now. Because right now, Ghost is doting on you unlike any other. 

Water runs through your hair, and Ghost threads his fingers through the strands to make sure it gets properly wet. Droplets run down your forehead and drip off your nose.

You turn your head just a little and look up at Ghost sideways. “Is this it?”

“No.” He huffs out a laugh. “There’s shampoo, then conditioner. Then you gotta wash your actual body.”

“Oh.”

There’s a moment where the only sound is Ghost gathering a bit of shampoo in his hands and rubbing them together to create a lather. He scrubs it into your hair for about a half minute before washing it out.

You break the silence as he starts to work the conditioner into your hair. “I never got to ask – the engraving on my helmet… what’s that about? I don’t remember doing it.”

“Hm?” Ghost hums. “The skull? Dead daft, ain’t you?”

“I’m… I could only parse parts of that sentence,” you say softly. “But I can tell you’re calling me an idiot.”

“Yes. I am. You’re learning.” Ghost huffs out another laugh. “Go on, guess.”

“If I have to…” You close your eyes and lean into Ghost’s touch. “It’s a representation of your control over me? As a player, I mean. Not in… anything else.” 

You let out a nervous laugh and hope Ghost doesn’t pick up on your double meaning. But of course he does – you can tell in the way his hands pause for a fraction of a second before continuing their work. He’s too observant for his own good.

With an awkward ahem, you continue. “But that’s the same reason my callsign is Deathshead, right? Because you’re Ghost. You – you gave me your insignia.”

(You had to stop yourself from saying ‘Blessed me with your insignia’, because you promised you’d stop with the God-talk.)

“Dead on.” Ghost turns and rubs a bar of soap on a sponge, then hands it to you. “Scrub yourself. I’m not doing it for you.”

“Where?” you ask. “Like, all over?”

Ghost washes the conditioner from his hands in the bathwater and nods. “Mhm.”

You carefully scrub yourself from top to bottom. The sponge is a bit abrasive, but nice. 

(You’d much rather have Ghost wash you up, to cause the fire you’ve contained in a little wooden stove to flare out of the firebox and through the grill… but you keep that to yourself.)

Once you’re done, you wring the sponge out under the bathwater, then above water. You set it on the side of the tub and look up at Ghost, waiting for instructions. 

He meets your gaze and shifts where he’s sitting on the toilet lid. “Just relax, Helldiver.”

“Not used to this.” You pull your knees up to your chest. “Not used to having… downtime. I was always being sent down, or preparing to be sent down. Democracy was always my guide, but…”

You tilt your head towards Ghost, and he understands. 

“You are, now,” you voice the unsaid thought.

“That’s concerning.” Ghost rests his hands on his knees and leans back against the tank. 

“I know.” You look down at the bathwater and the bubbles floating on the surface. “It’s just… I’ve never felt the peace that we preach. I’ve only known fighting, only violence and blood.”

You look up and meet his eyes. “Have you ever had your legs blown apart by an Eagle Cluster Bomb? Ever been burned alive by friendly napalm? Because I have. I’ve felt my spine split because of an Orbital Railcannon Strike. I’ve been mowed down by friendly Gatling Sentries.

“But the worst thing I’ve experienced here is name-calling and weird looks,” you say. “I’ve been sick to my stomach with worry once or twice, but then I remember you’re a soldier, just like me. You’re trained, and you’re okay, and you’ll return fine. 

“I am…” You lean your head back against the tile wall and close your eyes. “I’m at peace here.”

“I get that,” Ghost says. His voice is the softest you’ve ever heard it. “How long were you deployed?”

“As long as I can remember,” you say. 

“Bloody long time, then, yeah?” Ghost says.

“Yes.” You bring your hand up and rub your collarbone, where skin meets undefined polygons. “But you’re making me human. Less Helldiver, less of an expendable piece of resurrected meat. You’re making me softer. More civilian.”

You open your eyes and look up at Ghost. The expression on his face is… conflicted. Like he didn’t know he could bring this out in someone. 

“They always said that when united under the beautiful Liberty flag of Super Earth, nothing will be able to stop or split its glorious peoples,” you say. “But you showed me that it’s better out here. That it’s… fascism, is what it is. But that’s a secret we keep from ourselves.”

You reach your hand out and lay it over where his lays on his knee. You just barely brush your fingertips over the back of his hand before grabbing it. 

(Another log has been added to the fire, and it’s covered in lichen and dried mosses. It crackles and pops, but you make sure to keep it still contained.)

“Would you believe me if I said that I hate Managed Democracy?” You laugh breathlessly. Even saying it causes a sick feeling in your stomach, like you’ll be found out and promptly dismissed. (Read: put up against a wall and executed via firing squad.)

“Yes.” Ghost glances down at where your hand lays on top of his. “A lot of people hate the government, all ‘cross the world. Don’t you know that?”

“And they’re… allowed to?” You bite the inside of your bottom lip to subdue a smile. “Like, openly?”

Ghost laughs. “Yes.”

“This really is Heaven.” You sigh out the words, an unbelieving smile crossing your face. 

“Not Heaven,” Ghost says. “Just Earth.”

He moves his hand slightly, and you take it as a cue to move away. You bring your hand back, dipping it back in the bathwater. 

“Well,” you say softly. “I think I like just Earth.”

“On just Earth, we bathe regularly.” Ghost dips a hand in the water and splashes your knees. “Now, come on. Let’s get you rinsed off.”

[zahri-melitor]

Yeah, thanks for responding and those are some nice recommendations! I'm glad I branched out a while ago when it came to comics because it's a better experience and I personally believe there's just so much out there when it comes to storytelling whether they're comics, films, etc that I don't want to spend so much time angry over what I know I didn't like or it comes from places or writers that if I think for a bit can imagine I won't expect much from it if that makes sense

Plus, I do think there's so much "yelling" without having meaningful conversations about what we find harmful or just plain bad about these works and accept that they exist and move on because I do believe that having conversations about the how or why certain comics are written even when we find them horrible is a valuable experience but fandom does need you to find those people yourself to converse with

I personally don't feel interested in tim/bernard as a ship and never lingered long on bernard's older appearance so I just keep up with what they're doing currently to understand, but I do hope that if any writers choose to write more about the girls that appeared in Tim's older comics that they write them as more than just supportive exes

I agree that the best approach to comics (or any media honestly) is to go find what you enjoy and makes you happy, and read and watch and listen to that. Making yourself miserable following something you're not enjoying is not worth it. This is a hobby. There's no reason to upset yourself or join the outrage cycle just to get mad at something. Getting angry is not a personally fulfilling incentive.

Sometimes that means dropping runs everyone else you know is raving about if they just don't work for you. Sometimes that's choosing not to pick something up because the writer drives you up the wall. Sometimes it's enjoying a run and talking about what you enjoyed in it while everyone else is dunking on it.

I am indeed a huge hypocrite and should take this advice more often myself, but I try to be kind to myself, and started doing my reading reviews as a way to frame what I liked about various runs, even if most of it didn't work for me.

But the other thing about if you read and talk about the things that you like and enjoy, rather than what annoys you and you hate...you'll find others who ALSO like and enjoy those things, and can discuss them with you, or suggest other things to try you might like. Centring your circle on what you like rather than what you hate is just a lot more mentally and emotionally pleasant.

Because yes, of course it's cathartic to dunk on things every now and then. But if you're always just getting outraged together, that's not particularly fun.

And I agree, there's more meaningful conversation potential if you stop for a moment, acknowledge the difficulties in a work, and then move on to your analysis.

For example, I don't find people yelling that Tom King is a bad writer and a bad person because he worked for the CIA and was involved in planning the invasion of Iraq to be a helpful conversation, because so often it simply gets as far as "this makes all of his work bad and I don't like him" and stops there.

What is a very helpful thing when discussing Tom King's work, however, is acknowledging that because of his background working for the CIA and with the military, he is endlessly fascinated with the topics of United States military power, terrorism, the mental toll of warfare and conflict, and defending America's sovereignty, and how that is conveyed in his writing. Talking about Mister Miracle in the framework of war-related PTSD, and Supergirl: The Woman of Tomorrow in the framework of intelligence work cleaning up in the wake of battles (and also PTSD) and the way he uses the media in Wonder Woman as a vehicle to frame the othering of a group as an acceptable target (with analogies to the media's behaviour in the wake of 9/11)? It's the same basic topic, but there's an actual conversation to be had, after everyone has nodded at the fact that King's once again processing his 9/11 work-related trauma.

In terms of the ways writers negotiate discussing Tim's relationships: I get that it's hard for a lot of writers, because due to the fact we have a far more limited canon of bisexual characters who have been in multiple relationships, they're walking a tightrope of worrying about falling into unfortunate stereotypes. I think the reason writers keep having his ex-girlfriends being supportive is that they're worried about having it appear like Steph's the evil harpy that drove Tim off into the arms of men, or that if she's angry at him over the breakup it looks like she's being biphobic. They're worried about if Tim's next partner is a woman it might look like Bernard was just a 'phase', but if it's Bernard forever or the next partner is a man it looks like Tim's secretly gay not bi and all of his earlier relationships weren't meaningful to him. And they're worried about if they upset too many people, the internet will fall on their heads, and Tim's currently Robin, and DC got a lot of media good will and headlines out of Superman Is Bi (Jon) and Robin Is Bi (Tim) that extends well beyond just the group of people who actually buy comics. So they're feeling their way through it, trying not to offend people too much, which inevitably ends up with a tendency to choose the safest, most bland option.

And then on top of that you have the usual way comics stories often hype the current relationship as "I've never felt this way about anyone else before" because the writer wants this one to be special, and they can't think of a subtler way of conveying it.

I would also like to see more depth and nuance in the situation (the lesbians are generally allowed to be messy! And I have to say, if I'm objective about it, the upcoming Secret Six book looks like it is finally going to blow off some of the steam and messiness that has been developing in the Jay-Jon-Nia situation and let the three of them openly have the fight that's been building; I just wish it was not happening in a title named Secret Six and using characters I care about as set dressing).

[autolenaphilia]

Re-reading Auramgold's "The Abuser's Guide to Transmisogyny" and oh boy does it have the pulse on how transmisogyny works, especially the kind common on this website.(as the title might tell you, It's a sarcastic guide to using callout culture to isolate and abuse transfems, so basically all the content warnings.)

I'm not talking about the more explicit kind from outright terfs or nazis, although that is of course bad. I'm talking about the more insidious kind, the kind who has "terfs/nazis dni" in their bio, and who is often (tme) trans themselves. The kind of transmisogynist who openly disavows transmisogyny, but has a growing roster of callout posts about supposed "pedos/freaks" who all happen to be transfems. Really you should read all of it, but like here are some choice selections, things I've seen being done to mutuals like right now.

"The main factor of going for a fast and hard strike is finding some Controversial point to grow a harassment mob around. Maybe your victim said something you can ship-of-Theseus into sounding racist, maybe she chose to associate with someone already considered "problematic", maybe she even just posted about some sort of kink or sexuality and you're gonna bend that into her being a rapist or a pedophile. The last approach works best of all of these, as society is always primed to see trans girls as pedophiles; the TERFs already did the work for you on that front. But even if any sexual allegations aren't your centerpiece seed, they can do wonders as an extra spice, a perfect excuse for "if you support my victim against me, you're supporting pedophilia" attacks."

"Many communities have self-ascribed "anti-pedophile crusaders," and these are a valuable resource considering how easy it is to make someone see a trans girl as a sex criminal. Recruit them by leaning into a narrative of how your victim "protects pedophiles in <community>," which works especially well in fandom spaces with the presence of their "anti" faction. If you construct a narrative of your victim puppeting the community from behind the scenes, you can lean right into the fascist playbook of portraying your vulnerable victim as the puppetmaster."

"Of course, you don't even need even a made-up "victim" to accuse your trans girl victim of sexual impropriety. If your victim is into any sexuality at all, she's likely to have some kink or another that is vaguely Controversial enough to accuse her on. Never mind that it's between consenting adults, if you frame it as thoughtcrime, if you frame it as sin, it's very difficult for your victim to actually defend against it. One particularly effective mode to attack with is any caregiver/little dynamics your victim might be into, as it is very easy to twist "your victim likes diapers" into "your victim likes fucking children" as a ship-of-Theseus argument. Targeting littleness works especially well because it is a kink that usually comes from parental abuse that manifests into fawn trauma, and you can take advantage of your victim's trauma making her try to appease anyone that hurts her to neutralize any ability she has to fight back.

While littleness is one of the best targets to base accusations of sexual abuse on, basically any kink can work well enough for that. If she draws CNC you can call her a "secret rapist," if she's into petplay you can call her a "zoophile", if she's into gore or sadomasochism you can claim she's physically abusive. Hell, you can get the antis on your side if she merely ships the wrong characters together or likes a "bad" character, as they're all too willing to join at the hint of anything like that they can attack someone for. Literally any kink or sexuality can be twisted into a slight against your victim, and this works very well for your attacks so that they may pull at the groundwork the fascists already set out for you."

[caliburn-not-calculator]

I’m not really sure how unpopular of an opinion this is in the fandom since it’s honestly not discussed a lot, but since it’s mentioned rather often on the pod I’ll go ahead a say it. I don’t like Dani/Davion. It feels remarkably forced. 

Before I get any further, I really don’t want this to come off as shading any one who does like this ship. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, and there are even a few circumstances where I can see the appeal. Everyone’s allowed to like whatever they want to like. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea, which I’m about to explain why, but if it’s yours, go nuts and have fun. That’s what fandom is for. 

Anyways, I don’t like Dani/ Davion as a couple. It feels very hetero/amatonnormative to me. Oh a guy and a girl are bickering, that must mean they like each other and are secretly pining inside. I’m quite bored of this. Obviously this is a popular troupe for a reason, and I can…*understand* the appeal. I’m just… tired of it. 

What I *can* say is I do like Dani & Davion. As like, frenemies would be the word I guess. They’re very funny. I like that they bring out sides of each other that we don’t really see otherwise. Bad sides, they’re catty bitches and it’s great. I think the dynamic of having two people who constantly, *genuinely!!!* what to rip out the other’s throat, but also, to one degree or another, trust each other is very compelling and entertaining. I genuinely liked the moment in 5.6 when Dani asked Davion to defend Brass because she couldn’t be there. As much as she rags on him, deep down she does actually trust him. 

What I don’t like is when this dynamic is turned fully, cleanly romantic. It feels like it just flattens it down a lot. Perhaps this really is just an issue I’m having because of my particular experience being aroacespec. I find a lot of character dynamics far less interesting when they get cleanly slotted into the “romantic” category instead of all the messy facets and feelings that can exist in nebulous platonic/queerplatonic spaces getting to be explored (This is true of any gender parting btw). 

Rolling with difficulty is a show I enjoy so much largely because of the vast variety of relationships in it. There are so many different relationship smoothies with different amounts of platonic or familial or alterous love blended in. Each of them have distinct tastes even if they have similar ingredients to another paring. None of the platonic bonds are treated as less valuable than the romantic ones, none are treated like they need to turn romantic in order to deepen or obtain true value. (Shoutout to aromantic Kyana and her bestie Ione, I loved their convo in 5.6 too.) 

None of them, I feel… except for Dani & Davion. 

I know really all the Davani teases have been out of character by the players, but I actually think that’s why it bothers me. It’s literally out of character. It’s forced. Organically, without outside forces like players’ out of character preferences (which of course have a place in ttrpg settings, I’m speaking solely from an in universe perspective/preference) I really don’t think either Dani or Davion would ever see the other as a romantic partner. It just doesn’t fit. I could see them growing very close, continuing with the dynamic they currently have— tearing into each other like wild dogs anytime they meet, but under the surface, the trust growing and maybe after a while even respect too. And that’s the dynamic I like. 

I think the TL;DR here is something adjacent to: I’m not a fan of romantic relationships being treated as a better version of platonic ones, and, although in general RWD is very good about not falling into that hole, I feel like to a certain degree Davani (as a romantic relationship) does.

So sorry for the essay, but I’ve kind of been stewing on this for a while and it feels kinda good to get it all out in words. (Reiterating no shade if you like this ship, this is just my personal opinion! :D)

Oh this is very fair, I have to say I agree with you. It was kinda funny but yeah it never felt compelling to me, more like a joke than anything.

You put this incredibly well so I’m not sure I can say much that builds upon other than, yes, I get that.

[saintsenara]

For the Love Your Fandom Asks 3 and 4 please!

thank you very much for the ask, anon. lovely choices from the love your fandom ask game...

3. who is a character that fandom has helped you appreciate?

sigh. i can hear @whinlatter cackling from here.

ginny weasley.

i've never found ginny a hugely interesting character in her canon form - nor hinny a hugely interesting canon ship - not because i think there's anything particularly wrong with either but because ginny feels so underdone within the narrative and i don't find the fact that all of her major character development happens offscreen particularly compelling.

and i've also always had a wee bit of beef with ginny's treatment in fan spaces - i don't like the way she's treated by lots of fics which want to break her and harry up [which just make her a sort of raving, gold-digging harpy], of course, but i also don't like the fact that so much writing about her turns her into either a #girlboss who hates her mam or into a bang-maid who exists only as a tool for harry's self-actualisation. but, y'know, in a twee way.

but there's - as there is with everyone in the books - some really interesting stuff which i have always been aware lurks in ginny's character arc - especially her slightly vindictive streak and, given my interests, what she actually thinks of tom riddle - but which i'd never taken the time to particularly care about.

enter whinlatter, who is a paid-up defender of ginny, but - crucially - a paid-up defender of ginny as a bit of a flop. her takes on her as a character - especially her inability to open up and her tendency to deflect questions about what she's feeling - and on her various relationships - especially the fact that she's one of the few hinny fans i've seen really dig into the fact that harry's "protection" of ginny isn't romantic but intensely paternalistic [and also her defence of the legend that is molly weasley] - are things i find really valuable to think and to talk about and to integrate into my own writing and worldbuilding.

she's also unfailingly generous intellectually - there's lots she and i continue to disagree on when it comes to her girl, but I've never found her anything other than delighted to bicker about these things - and i will never stop doing an evil little chuckle when i see myself quoted in the author's notes for beasts.

4. say something nice about a ship you don't ship

at their cores, every single ship - no matter how implausible; no matter how beholden to fanon; no matter how out-of-character - comes down to the same thing: that love [platonic or romantic] and desire [platonic or sexual] and human connection is strange and unpredictable, that it may look very different to very different people, and that it is universal.

i dislike numerous ships because i think they're rarely done in ways i find interesting - things like jegulus, wolfstar, dramione, and harmony chief among them - but i respect that they have this fundamental basis in the baffling power of love.

and that they also recognise that fandom is meant to be fun - and that making two hotties kiss in a way they wouldn't do in canon is a time-honoured way of having that fun. shipping really shouldn't be deep, and - despite the reputation the harry potter fandom has for endless beefing over shipping preferences - i am delighted by the sheer number of my fandom friends who think the same way.

[other answers from this ask game]

[dearweirdme]

I love the point you made on hereronormativity earlier on the plushie and how people feel about two men sharing it.

That's funny because it reminds me of this thought I've been having recently :I actually understand the notion of not shipping real people together because it will make them uncomfortable or whatever and at first I failed to get along with this statement because I think taekook is real and the fact that I couldn't enjoy anything related to them without some mfs reminding me that they are friends...

But anyway. I think people in the fandom do not think like that. At least not recently. It started off as something about moral and the members respect and it went down the road as a thing of heteronormativity borderline homophobic.

Because why were people writing EVERYWHERE (even some shippers) that jungkook has a girlfriend(also the weird stereotype) because he has a hello kitty plushie????? Like it really blows my mind up how it was sooo normal for everyone to assume this one bit and nobody saw anything weird in this. It's like having a car key and my family members assumung right away that I have a boyfriend because boys love cars. See how stupid it sounds???? It's sooo crazy to me.

But I sat there and observe because I didn't think my word could have had much effect against 200k likes on tiktok.

And now we are in the present, Taehyung and Jungkook happens to have the same damn plushie and its considered a bro thing.. I don't want to exaggerate about anything but the moment the fandom open their eyes and understand that those fads going around shoving the hetero thing down our throat and then acting blind when it happens to be about two men or homosexuality in general, they'll also understand that homophobic people thrive in this fandom and they think they have a place there because who's gonna complain about Anna who thinks Jungkook has a girlfriend because of his tattoos and it doesn't make sense if its not the case?

Hi anon!

Oh.. heteronormative thinking is ingrained in so many people still. Let me go on a bit of a rant here 😁.

It starts as soon as someone is pregnant.. and it intensifies when a child is born. I live in a so called progressive and openminded country.. and yet to my ex it was extra special that our kid was a boy. Thoughts of playing football (soccer) and other ‘boy activities’ went through his mind. People gave us blue clothes and car toys. When my kid got older it became clear that he has what would be considered a ‘soft’ side. He’d choose rainbow colored mermaid plushies and unicorns to play with alongside his car toys.. and people found that odd. Kids don’t actually see a difference.. they just like stuff and colors and it’s the reaction of adults that makes them feel a certain way about it. My kid is a bit older now and I have constant conversations with him about that it’s okay to let his hair grow out if he likes it, that boys can love boys and that girls can love girls (i always say stuff like ‘when you’re older and have a boyfriend or girlfriend’). I was a member of an inclusive bookclub for kids for a while, and people got uncomfortable about the topics.. which was basically that love is love and that people are diverse. I am a big believer that if people start being inclusive in the language they use.. it will make a difference.

A lot of people aren’t even aware that it’s something they’re doing. I still catch myself at times.. but I make it a learning experience.

Fandom absolutely treats heteronormative ways of thinking different than queerness. The many times we see people defending members from queer allegations is insane and it shows that queerness is seen as something less valuable/weird/abnormal 😡.

I have always seen Jk as a soft guy (which has nothing to do with his sexuality). Straight men can be soft, queer men can be tough. Tattoos say nothing about what someone is like.. I have tattoos and I’m all sorts of things none of which would have anything to do with my tattoos. My tattoos are an expression of what’s going on in my mind while for someone else it could be that they just like the look of it.

I think Jk is queer because he is attracted to men (Tae) it’s as simple as that really.

[annimator]

SO. THAT NEW EPISODE HUH

(blah blah blah, reaction’s under the cut. Y’know this already)

• THE FUCK IS THAT THUMBNAIL. THIS IS LIKE THE 5TH DC THUMBNAIL TO HAVE TWO GUYS KISSING EACH OTHER IF YA INCLUDE THE TOMJAKE SPINOFF

• OFC THE SCENE WHERE DEREK’S APPLAUDS TREVOR DURING THE CHALLENGE DEMO PLAYS OVER HIM TALKING ABOUT LAST EPISODE’S CHALLENGE

• STOP REMINDING ME THAT ALESSIO’S FUCKING GONE

• WAIT DON’T PLAY THE INTRO, HE’S LITERALLY THE FIRST CONTESTANT WE SEE IN IT

• “Look poker’s very skilled based, but I’m realizing i need to play with more poignancy” Bro idk what the actual fuck you do to play poker, so I can see where he’s probably coming from

• Idk if Lynda sounds like she’s lying or not, but I immediately got blindsided over Ted mentioning his wife AND son. Fucking plot twist right there lmao

• There’s smth pretty sweet about Ted & Lynda bonding about their kids going through puberty lmao

• Uh oh new alliance droppped

• GET HER ASS ANASTASIA. PICK ON HER BITCHASS FOR DECIDING TO ELIMINATE ALESSIO

• “Ted told me Alessio was bringing the boys together. He was a quiet mastermind.” BULLSHIT

• MF HE WAS ONLY HERE TO GET ARTISTIC ENLIGHTENMENT. KEEP MY KIN’S NAME OUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH

• Isabel’s being sillyyyy- WAIT LOGAN’S STARING AT ONE OF ALESSIO’S PAINTINGS WITH A SAD FACE. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP

• “Got a thing for fine-wine italians?” LMAO NATALIA

• AWWW LOGAN’S DEFENDING ALESSIO

• “Logan’s a sweet kid” Damn right

• WAIT THEY ACTUALLY SAID THE WORD. NATALIA MENTIONED HER BEING TRANS STRAIGHT UP HELL YEA

• Caught in 4K lol

• Oooooo Amelie’s getting suspicions

• Ofc Jade tells Spencer about her idol hint. Hmmmm, she doesn’t mention how she ACTUALLY got it tho…

• What kind of distraction does Jade want Spence to make?

• Benji’s eepy

• “It’s for the game” I KNOW WHERE THIS IS FUCKING GOINGGGGGGG

• NO WAY HE’S TRYING TO FLIRT WITH HIM

• Bro’s rizz is worse than a certain bald cubito I know

• Pretty nice Diencer crumbs tho. I saw someone call them “studyguide” & I think that’s an AMAZING ship name. I’m using that for them from here on out >:D

• YEA SHE GOT THE IDOL!

• Aw her backstory ;-;

• She got picked on for her skin condition, but her moms were still supportive of her :’D

• YEA JADE YOU GO GIRL. FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS

• Group yoga :D

• YEA VIBE TRIBE TRIO BONDING. I LOVE THEM

• Love me some Zaivy crumbs. There’s gotta be a cool ship name out there that mixes culinary & performing arts together

• “I have Spencer on my radar. Him and Diego are getting tight” YEA I CAN SEE WHERE YOU’RE COMING FROM IVY >:3

• HANNAH ILY. But yea Diego’s kinda right, y’all better not get cocky

• “Haha, cock” I felt this with my soul. Especially everyone getting weirded by Benji saying this. IT’S THE GIVING HEAD THING FROM EP 1 ALL OVER AGAIN

• “Running into traffic would be safer than having you as a lawyer.” HOLY SHIT SHE FUCKING KILLED YOU DUDE

• BENJI’S A FUCKING DORK. I LOVE HIM

• “I want to win to win this show. So I can quit law, and start a new life. Maybe figure out actual goals for myself.” BRO I’M ROOTING FOR SO MANY PEOPLE IN THIS SHOW WTF. LIKE AT FIRST, I WAS JUST ROOTING FOR TRISTAN & HANNAH BECAUSE I COULD SEE A PART OF MYSELF IN THEM AS A NON-BINARY FILIPINO-CANADIAN, BUT BASICALLY EVERYONE IS SO INTRIGUING IN A WAY. AND THIS INCLUDES ALESSIO

• Why was everyone expecting Alessio getting the boot- WAIT DON’T SAY THAT IN FRONT OF LOGAN HE’S GETTING SAD

• “M’lady.” DEREK HELPING UP TREVOR ONTO THE TRAIN CART???? AND THEN THEY HAVE FUCKING SPARKLES IN THEIR EYES??? I NEED TO BE SEDATED

• Ooo truth or dare challenge involving the contestants’ fears? Does that mean Logan has some internalized homophobia considering the thumbnail?

• Oh damn, Emily looks like she’ll have fun giving out the truths & dares

• Why would Amelie be up in arms about reading- oh wait there’s bad reviews on that paper, that makes sense

• “Marissa! Answer this; rank your team from most valuable to least” Lemme guess, Anastasia’s the most valuable on her list

• ANASTASIA ENCOURAGING HER TO DO SO IS PROVING MY POINT

• Ooooo they peeking :> Tristan’s face look rlly cute :D

• Yeah I can see why her team’s laughing at the insults from her bad reviews

• Marissa opting out of ranking her teammates honestly makes sense when she wants her team to be unified in some kind of way

• Lynda shut the fuck up.

• SEE NATALIA AGREES WITH ME- and ofc Ted’s siding with Lynda after the convo we saw between them

• YEA MORE ANARISSA CRUMBS >:D

• “I believe in english you refer to that as a… meatrider!” LMAOOOOO YEA

• Oh nice they’re besties now!

• wait this reminds me of something…

• TWO STARS? HANNAH DESERVES 5 WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

• “Describe the worst dish you ever made” Zaid it can’t be that bad bro, what’s with the shocked face

• “Bro, you’re like… you’re like Gordon Ramsay! Who cares if ya made an undercooked steak once, y’know? C’mon just tell her!” YEA TRISTAN! >:D

• Oh yeah, it can be that bad. Who the fuck cooks KOALA

• DIEGO’S HOLDING ONTO SPENCER

• Also, plz don’t puke again bro

• Oh so it was for money, and he didn’t know he was gonna cook that. AIght makes sense

• “Tell that to PETA” LMAOOOOO

• DIEGO’S STILL HOLDING ONTO SPECNER WHILE THEY’RE LEAVING THE TRAIN CART

• Richard, you only have two strands of hair on your head, it’ll be fineeee

• See? He accepted it- wait nvm

• BRO WE CANNOT TELL IF YA SHAVED YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HAT ON. RELAX

• Oh noooo, Ivy had to eat a worm. At least Zaid’s there to comfort her

• It’s just a cold bath, why’s Ted scared of that- anddd he’s uhh… is he dead

• LOGAN’S FIREMAN CARRYING HIS BODY LMAO

• Ngl I used to be scared of dogs when I was a toddler I can see where Lynda’s coming from

• WAIT BENJI’S JOTARO COSPLAY LOOKS AWESOME. WHY IS EVERYONE LAUGHING AT HIM OVER THAT

• Aw, Tristan’s there to comfort Benji :D

• I feel like I could solve the math question Jade got. Proud that she got it right! :D

• NAT HAS TO DO PUSHUPS OVER A BUNCH OF FUCKING MOUSE TRAPS?!

• Aw, Isabel’s praying for her :D

• “It’s just one question. How hard can it be.” I can see Apollo’s gift of prophecy hitting her like a dodgeball

• told ya. Then again, I am kinda intrigued about how Isabel converted to catholicism after she mentioned her parents weren’t catholic

• YOU GOT THIS TRISTAN!

• “I’m feeling left out. Ted got an ice bath, and Benji got to show off some dope cosplays! Where’s my moment in the spotlight, ya know?” I LOVE HOW TRISTAN’S ANIMATION LOOKS SO BOUNCY DURING THIS. THEY LOOK SO CONFIDENT & HAPPY

• “Sorry to interrupt!” I JUST WANNA SEE TRISTAN MAN WTF

• Also fun fact, apparently the guy encouraging you to support ONC is actually Connor’s VA! Small world, huh?

• Either way, please go support Disventure Camp, and ONC at large. This whole Toon Boom thing really hit them hard, but any kind of support will help them out!

• Tristan has to punch someone in the face? What’s wrong with that?

• Oh yeah that’s right, Tristan’s here for a good time and thinks being friends with others’ll help them get further in the game. I still like going back to their audition tape from time to time :>

• “Uh… how hard?” “Strong enough to hurt! Weak enough to not cause a lawsuit.” LMAOOOOOO

• Zaid volunteers as tribute

• Makes sense since they were upset about the koala taco thing

• Ivy cheering Tristan to deck Zaid in the face reminds me on this one “YES SONIC! SPLIT IT WIDE OPEN!” comment I saw in a Sonic Frontiers vid. The vid was basically just the song that played when you fought the Knight boss (dope song btw, It’s called “Find Your Flame”)

• OH DAMN, BRO’S IN A FIGHTING STANCE & EVERYTHING- they missed Zaid’s face and punched his chest instead

• Part of me isn’t surprised considering how their fight with Richard went last episode

• “Pretend I’m your worst enemy.” “I ain’t got one of those!” Mood

• I didn’t know why Tristan got upset over Zaid calling them Marilyn Manson, but one google search later, and yeah I can see why Tristan decked him in the face

• Tristan’s so sweet i love them :D They immediately apologized to Zaid after punching him

• TRISTAN BACKSTORY HELL YEA

• “The world keeps spinning regardless if you’re frowning or smiling, so I guess I choose to keep smiling.” PRECH IT TRISTAN ILY. WE HAVE THE EXACT SAME MINDSET

• Wait we don’t hear Isabel’s entire backstory? Just the end of it? damnit >:|

• NAH DIEGO HAS TO FIGHT A CHICKEN- wait was that the fucking minecraft chicken sound effect

• “Go! Diego, go!” that has to be an intentional reference

• AW SPENCER’S NONVERBALLY CHEERING FOR HIM :D

• DAMN HE’S GETTING CLOCKED BY THAT CHICKEN

• Richard stop saying that “it’s just hair” when you’re bitchass was sobbing over losing two fucking strands from your head

• Ngl Anastasia’s design is really growing on me. No wonder Marissa called her pretty :>

• Also her whole “Men only see me for my looks” thing is not helping her beat the lesbian allegations

• Oh shit, why’s Spencer afraid to talk about his previous relationship. WHY’S HE LYING????????

• BRO DIEGO COMFORTING AND TELLING HIM TO HOLD ONTO HIM HAS GOTTA BE A PARALLEL TO DIEGO HOLDING ONTO SPENCER DURING EPISODE 1’S ROLLER COASTER CHALLENGE

• “Your dare is… to kiss a model we brought backstage.” Oh…. OH

• “Helloooo gorgeous- A DUDE! THAT’S A DUDE!” Is this internalized homophobia? (plz picture the “is that a pigeon” meme while ur reading this. I might look kinda rude-)

• “Just picture he’s Alessio!” LMAOOOOOO

• Oh damn he’s enjoying that- BITCH THE FOOTPOP??

• Blue team walking into a Trevek shoulder grasp lmao

• “This kiss was fine I guess…” I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE

• Oh I am DREADING this elimination. EVERYONE IN IT IS LIKEABLE AND/OR INTRIGUING. ESPECIALLY TRISTAN & HANNAH

• “Hannah’s been really helpful with mending bridges. It’s… not an awful idea listening to her.” DAMN RIGHT! >:D

• Yeah Jade’s suspicious about Amelie.

• Oh damn, trios & groups are being set in stone in red team; there’s Diego, Jade, & Spencer, the vibe tribe, and Hannah, Amelie, & Benji by the looks of it

• DIEGO CALLED HIM “SPENCE”. THEY’RE ON A NICKNAME BASIS

• SHOULDER GRASP. WE GOT ANOTHER STUDYGUIDE SHOULDER GRASP

• Oh shit we got some TENSION

• Hannah listening in on Tristan wanting to vote out Amelie. Call that tristannah crumbs (I’m getting delusional atp)

• SPENCER OR AMELIE MIGHT GET OUT?! WTF I LIKE BOTH OF THEM

• At least it’s not Benji ig. HE SURVIVES TO LIVE ANOTHER DAY! WHO CHEERED

• “Why was I not consulted by Spencer? Am I that lame?” Bro did you forget what happened during the challenge. he was LAUGHING at your cosplays

• Aw, Hannah’s upset ;-; but her putting her head in her hands reminds me of that shinji chair meme lmao

• HANNAH TALKED TO TRISTAN OFF-SCREEN LET’S GOOOOO

• Oh shit, the votes are in vibe tribe’s hands

• Trevek’s rubbing off of each other. I LOVE IT

• Tristan pondering their vote by tapping the pen on their head honestly feels in character

• Oh god, I think I know where this is going…

• BENJI GOT DISTRACTED BY A FLY AGAIN LMAO

• …

• I mean… they probably want to continue the studyguide plotline, and Amelie did paint a target on her back by being a dick. So… yeah, I’m not that surprised over her elimination

• this is an actually heartfelt goodbye- WAIT TREVEK’S JUST LOOKING AT HER WITH BLANK ASS EXPRESSIONS LMAO

• “Thank you all… for being good teammates. I know I was harsh with some of you, but… that was only because I wanted us to win. Hope it’s not personal.” ONC’S FUCKING ME UP TWO ELIMINATIONS IN A ROW. I DIDN’T ASK FOR SEVERE EMOTIONAL PAIN

• AW HANNAH WENT IN TO HUG HER

• Oh shit, she left with a sad look on her face. That honestly hits different when ya remember that Alessio left with a smile

• So yeah, all in all, pretty great episode! Shipping crumbs were great as always (especially for studyguide :>), it’s nice to see Logan… well… y’know, and NOW I’M SAD OVER TWO ELIMINATIONS-

[mistkisbiggestfan]

Pidge x reader | White Lion - Part I |

A/N: Okay so this has parts of dialogue of "Dangerously Yours", it'll have a part 2, and btw my requests are open! Word count: 2k

You were not ready for failure of any kind. As a white paladin of Voltron your soul mission was to protect other paladins and people around you. A medic was what you were, a brute by nature and a pacifist by force, all you could do was save, even if you tried to charge into battle you were quickly pushed off – back to the sidelines. “Y/N! Get out of here! It’s not a place for a medic!” They yelled. Voltron was fine by itself, no medic was required, you were a so-called “Plan B”, you were useless, healing pods were more handy than a medic. Everyone neglected you, not as a friend of course, but as a valuable fighter and defender of the universe. 

The only one treating you fairly was your love, Pidge. She actually appreciated any kind of help she got from you during and out of battle, that was, to your dismay, cut short. As war with Galra raged on, everyone forgot about any other struggles disregarding the threat across the universe. Soon, Pidge began to share the view about you with other paladins, bit by bit. – You should be more careful! – She said, but quickly, those words turned into. – Just stay out of this Y/N! We don’t have time to waste!

Waste? You thought. Waste? Is that what they see my effort as? A waste..? And like that, the overthinking pursued. No one even noticed you staying out of conversations, blindly following orders, no one noticed because it was making everything easier – Who would have thought that disregarding your feelings would be so convenient? Nobody, that’s why no one realized something was wrong. 

And there you were, in the middle of the ashes of a once proud planet, now left dying and naked of its natural beauty and resources. While the other paladins were fighting a Galra ship, basically above, you were left to seek refugees and help them. People shied away, some openly running out of your sight. You left your weapons hidden, leaving only a red, cross marking on your armor standing out. You looked forward, a camp stood out of the dead surrounding, a medical camp. You quickened your pace, rushing into the tent. 

– Hello? – Everyone sulking in silence suddenly looked up at you in horror, some closing their eyes, as if you were there to collect their soul and send it away from this world. – I saw the crosses on the tent, do you need help? I’m a medic and—-- You were cut off by a few people gasping at your confession. An old, wise looking alien granny rushed over to your side and guided you inside. – We’re glad you came here, indeed we are, but there’s no time! We need to act quick, please, help us. – She looked at you with hope in her eyes, the medical staff, consisting of three other aliens, gazed at you. You just nodded in agreement. 

– Y/N? What’s happening there? – You heard the confused voice of Pidge on your intercom, you muted your mic and popped off your helmet, pushing it into the corner of the medical camp. – Alright, let’s get to work. – You said quietly, no one said a word, they just led you into the other part of the tent. 

In the next hour you operated on at least four people, crushed, stabbed, or just dying in general. You sighed and washed off the sweat from your forehead, you turned to another patient but before that, a middle-aged woman grabbed you by your shoulders. – Please, god, save her. I can’t do it without her, please, you kind people are the only hope we have left. Not even Voltron is here to guard us. – She said breaking down in front of you. – Where were they when we were dying? – She asked, and like that she fell to her knees as one of the other people inside took her away from the place you were operating in. You looked at the girl in front of you, her life was in your hands now. She turned to you and whispered – Don’t blame yourself if I don’t make it, if I- I actually won’t wake up tomorrow, tell that girl that I will watch above her… – She closed her eyes as you ran to save her. 

The battle outside died down, you were sitting under a dimly lit light with a cup of strange coffee in front of you. And like that your mind wandered off. Your helmet beeping obnoxiously. 

Beep. Voltron just missed this place? While they were fighting in the sky, innocent people were dying on land. We could have stopped this, they could have stopped this. Beep. What kind of heroes are we if we can’t even save the people we’re fighting for? Beep. What’s the point in this? Today, I helped more people than I ever did in Voltron… Did they even notice I was gone? Beep. Lord, all of those people had families, lovers, children, lifes to come back to after the war. Beep. You looked up, the beeping seemed to be more frequent then before, you sighed annoyed and turned your intercoms on. You heard a few familiar voices echoing through the mic, your tired and beaten down gaze softened. 

– Y/N? Y/N? Are you there? – You heard the soft voice of Pidge, you smiled for a second at the thought of her. – Ugh, Pidge, come for your food! – Lance shouted in the background. 

– Um, sure, just let me make this one message and—--

– Pidge! Come on, you know how the Mx. Lone Medic Wolf acts like, they’ll be back, please, what’s the worst that could’ve happened? They were on land, no battles you know. 

– I- I guess you’re right, I’m just a bit worried.

– Have you forgotten? They’re not a fighter, it’s not like they could be hurt doing a pointless check up on land.

– Yeah… It doesn’t sit right with me though, the whole “creating a pointless task to get Y/N out of battle” thing, you know?

The rest of the conversation was muffled, you couldn’t keep up with the words leaving their mouths, the sentence left you numb to your surroundings. You heard Pidge shuffle around, presumably standing up and getting out of her room to get food. You stood there frozen, shocked, sitting still and aimlessly staring at the dark abyss in front of you. You felt tears flowing down your face, but you made no noise. Everything was too loud and too quiet at once. You silently took off your helmet and put it in front of you, sitting in the dimly lit room, with cold coffee as your company. Is that what they think about me? You thought. 

Suddenly, someone walked in, their feet shuffling on the floor, you didn’t move, still staring numbly forward. – A- am I interrupting something? – You heard the person say, it was one of the medical staff you worked with today. You stiffened and spoke up. – No, not at all, but I must ask, why are you here? – You grabbed your mug and relaxed into your chair, the person walked in and sat slightly on the table in the small room. 

– I just wanted to thank you for today, many great people were saved because of you. – The seemingly way older woman told you. Your head dropped to the table as you hid your face with your palms. She looked at you, worried.

– But too many were lost, tell me, what was this effort for? What did I change? – You said, your voice cracking. She walked over to you and put her hand on your shoulder. 

– You saved lifes. – She said.

– Did I? How sure can I be that they’re going to make it to see the daylight? 

– You can’t be sure, all you can do is wait. – That left you speechless, not out of rudeness, just purely out of things to say. It seemed like all the words you could muster out were said, but then, she spoke up again.

– I’m sorry but I came here to ask you something… – She said quietly, you nodded for her to go on. – Are you, by any chance, part of team Voltron?

– I- I’m, yeah, yeah I’m part of Voltron… – You said, almost ashamed. But why? You thought. 

– I saw your reaction to that young lady breaking down in front of you, and I wanted to tell you that you shouldn’t go hard on yourself. – She said, almost like an older sister giving you great advice. 

– What are you trying to tell me..? – You almost cried out, looking at her with your bloodshot eyes, gazing at her through the gaps between your fingers. 

– There’s really no way of winning this, you know. You can't fight woth yourself forever. – She said, taking her hand off your shoulder, bitterly smiling at you, with such sympathy you haven’t seen in a while. – Take your time, kid. 

The door shut behind you, the ear-splitting silence was killing you, your breathing stopped for a second when you heard Pidge’s voice on the intercom. I didn’t turn off my mic. 

– Y/N..? – You heard heartbroken Pidge on the other side of the mic. – Y/N please… I know you’re there. 

– Have you heard everything? – You asked, feeling drops of sweat rolling down your back, awaiting for an answer. 

– I- I did, and did you..? – She asked with hope that you didn’t, your answer crushed the little hope she had left.

– Yes, I did. 

– Look, Y/N, I’m sorry, please just listen, I- can explain—-

– No! I can read you like a book now, you're not so wise after all.

– You don’t know what you’re saying Y/N! 

– You never loved me did you? You knew that I loved you and you used that!

– Y/N please, just listen to me!

– No! I'm done, you saw me as an useless waste of space, didn't you? – The silence after your sentence was deafening. You sighed tiredly into the intercom. – You want my heart to constrict with agony?  My hands to shake? You want me to plead for my place in Voltron, you want to hear me beg for a chance to be useless trash laying around again? You want that so you can make a generous gesture and spare me..? – Your tone shifted drastically. – Sorry Pidge, I don’t seem to be in a mood for prayers tonight. – You bitterly smiled to yourself. 

– I used to think that I was a Paladin just like you all, but now, the mere thought of it makes me ashamed. I should wish you good luck, shouldn't I, huh? I guess, this is a goodbye, isn't it Pidge..? – You said sadly, sighing once again. You brought your hand up and rested it on the mute button. – I- No, I don't have anything else to say. Don't look for me, Voltron won't be us welcomed here as you wish it to be.

– Y/N just please, wait! —- The conversation ended. You took a sip of your cold coffee and closed your eyes to recollect yourself. You rested your head on your hands and cried quietly, sobbing stopped only after you passed out from exhaustion that finally caught up to you.

[variousqueerthings]

For the Ask Thing, simply because we talked about it today, Cobra Kai please!

also @pigtailedgirl

oh how the mighty have fallen.......

my favorite female character ok in cobra kai (vs miyagi-verse generally) my favourite female character is tory nichols. absolute shocker (generally it's kumiko). she's literally given a whole arc that is soooooooo deserving of better trappings, but i will take it! she shines in this whole affair, she's brash, she's angry, she's definitely a lesbian! i thank cobra kai for giving me tory nichols. honestly, i thank cobra kai for giving me many women i can gnaw on, even though it's all just scraps. it's fine, we'll take it from here!

my favorite male character i think it was as-of s5 i kinda went "alright shockingly i am more interested in the teenagers than the adults officially in this show" and then i got halfway through this sentence and remembered john kreese. unhinged mf'er, the worst man in the world, would be a fantastic exploration of every worst american nationalist hyper-masculine impulse with a fascinating queer undertone, and... that's what he is actually, don't even come at me (i say like i'm not in the unhinged old men fandom) but of the kids, miguel. miguel needs to be saved from this narrative. miguel has nothing good to learn from these people. miguel is daniel larusso's successor in that he's put in these fucking Situations because of other peoples fucking business, and he did have some beautiful growth in terms of almost almost being lured into all of it, but then he got himself out. literally do not think johnny has taught him a single valuable life lesson. not a one. miguel. i see you (if it were all of miyagi-verse, then miyagi!)

my favorite book/season/etc s1-3. you understand. (hon mention to every silver scene in s4 though, silver you keep me coming back and idk whether to hate you or love you for that)

my favorite episode (if its a tv show) lol, s4ep1. tsilver intro episode. also, finale s2, the last time i could accept these bonkers fights happening in the story

my favorite cast member my beautiful marty kooooooooooveeeeeeee (obvs) and mary mouser, every little punky Look of hers is Iconique

my favorite ship as a usually bringing an aroace vibe to the party that fandom doesn't appreciate, this is my big exception. everyone is gay and alloromantic and allosexual is2g (i kid, there are some absolutely Amazing aro and/or ace reads and fics out there!) gonna give this one to sam/tory and every girl they pulled into their Nonsense. also aisha/the girl in this one fic @mimsyaf wrote in which aisha is Out (as in Out of the karate drama and also Out as a lesbian and Out of the narrative having lesbian sex. this too could be you if you got Out). sam. i know you're butch. i know it. sam, pspspspspsss sam listen! hon mention to kreese/silver. most awful men in the world ❤

a character I’d die defending miguel! sam! daniel! listen, in this fandom, we're all defending someone aren't we, and i respect all of said defences. kenny and shawn payne deserve more screentime, esp in which they're not treated abominably, miguel deserves to have more focused narrative and not have his thematic identity as Literally The Next Karate Kid From Day One distorted, robby.... oh robby..... goodness gracious robby...... you know. if you're in this fandom, you know!!! and of course, the larussos, the eternally Wrong Gender Performers according to straight men across the world. i see you (i also See You 👀 in a gay way) and johnny... i know what the point was with you. i will fistfight the writers for that one. i know this isn't you johnny 😭😭😭

a character I just can’t sympathize with stingray. sry. the actor seemed lovely. and i did kinda like that he ended up slightly (slightly) more serious, but. it should have been a Warning when he was more than in a couple of episodes i also don't hate yasmin and moon, but i think everything interesting about them is fanon

a character I grew to love youknow, i really like the characters of this show? genuinely the thing that keeps me coming back is wanting better narrative for them, because they're actually Interesting (except for above) there's so much in all of the mains that deserves 10000 fics (esp fix-its) not because they're bad, but because things keep getting presented that are Interesting and then dropped immediately. so yeah. i was into them all pretty much from the start

my anti otp lol is there a straight pairing that works in this????? other than amanda/daniel (but you know how bisexual that is)

[fourleafclovxr]

Hi!

I really love reading the SGE writing you publish on here, and I enjoy when you mention August Sader. I think he deserved more attention in the actual series and I'm so sad we don't hear more of him in Canon.

What do you think about Callis and August (as a pairing), and how did you get inspiration for the Rafal/August writing you did? It's an interesting relationship I don't see too often.

Anyways, reading your writing almost every day here makes my day, especially after stressful ones. You really bring the characters and stories to life!

thank you!! i'm glad you like whatever i have going on haha

i don't mind august/callis as a pairing (i shipped it for a while!), but i personally view them as having more of a (queer)platonic relationship. not friends, not lovers, but a secret third thing, so to speak. i imagine august has an odd relationship with the concept of romance, but that will have to be another post because it would make this answer WAY too long and it already is long.

in the canon world, i always see them as having this layer of distance yet odd connection between them - they're coparenting agatha (i firmly believe in father figure!sader), they were coworkers for an unspecified period of time (okay soman's timeline is kind of wack but i also firmly believe in the professor coworker dynamics), callis is a character in the most important lesson/tale sader will ever tell... it's like something ties them together. they play the same role in the narrative from opposite sides. sort of. that parallel is something i really, really like!

in modern AUs, or any other AU where they don't have that complicated bit of history behind them, i prefer to think of them as close friends/best friends/secret third thing... two people who mesh together really well, who care for each other. i don't think it has to be romantic but i can definitely see how it could be!

as for rafal/august: oh gosh. okay. unfortunately, i sometimes have a soft spot for toxic mlm relationships... this particular one came about when i was writing an Evil!sader AU a few years ago that i eventually scrapped. in the AU, rafal was interested in the concept of a Seer who was Evil specifically, but that idea stuck with me because, yeah, why wouldn't rafal be interested in him anyway? isn't august's Sight eminently valuable to him and his ambitions? even canonically? from there it extended to rafal being interested in august, as a person, as far as my characterisation of august separates his personhood from him being a Seer. (that is to say: very little. whoops) like. it doesn't have to be romantic, again, but it has to be INCREDIBLY toxic.

one thing i like about the rafal/august dynamic, i believe that august is one of the few people who is genuinely on rafal's level in any sense at all, because of his Sight. in my head this is like: no one knows who rafal is except for august... no one knows what rafal's plans are except for august... and no one, not even rafal, knows how he's going to die (the first time) except for august, because he's going to kill him...

there are a few lines from AWWP that contributed a LOT to my august/rafal truthing - i think there's just something about the sense of familiarity between them, the private meeting where rafal supposedly kept himself distant (this might be wrong please correct me), rafal almost defending august against his sister even when she's insisting august will kill him (and the part about 'swear on my life' to link to that)... yeah.

[fountainpenguin]

do you mayhaps have anything regarding the biology of yugopotamians in ur lore notes, or anything else related?

I do, and I hold my Yugopotamian biology post fondly since it was one of my first big lore posts.

I do consider these posts outdated due to terminology I used back in the day (not to mention, I've changed things in my final lore), so take them with a grain of salt.

I plan to write new Yugopotamian lore posts with up-to-date lore and language when I'm closer to posting Mark and Vicky's arc in the 130 Prompts. Here are the existing ones:

Yugopotamian Biology

Yugopotamian Technology

Yugopotamian Name Culture

Related:

The Green Train story arc will explore Yugopotamia as well, once we reach that point in the timeline.

A post dedicated to screenshots of Mark being ridiculous - Interesting to see how his culture shows in his character

OG script of "Spaced Out" - Yugopotamia has 3 moons

OG script of "Scary Godparents" - Yugopotamians have 4 hearts

Yugopotamian calendar shown in this post - I think it's really funny that the king's birthday is a holiday (But specifically, it's not even his actual birthday- it's just observed).

The OG script of "Foul Balled" where Mark visited future Vicky in the nursing home - I just think it's neat he was still in squid form, since we know from "New Squid In Town" that Mark seems to assume he'll be welcomed in alien form and Timmy has to prompt him to go into hiding.

The bloopers reel for "School's Out - The Musical" suggests Mark knows H.P., since he calls him by name. I have some questions.

Here are two posts (Post 1, Post 2) that aren't technically about Yugopotamian culture, but capture my vision of Mark's relationship with Vicky really well.

Here's a post I made contrasting Mark and Vicky's relationship to Jane Eyre, which I was reading at the time and losing my mind over how toxic Jane's relationship with Rochester was despite my teacher being confused about why I thought they were toxic. It's not entirely about culture, but it's cool to look back on years later to see where my thoughts were and how I read Mark's character. I still hold by much of this.

My very first FOP post was about Mark and his relationship with Earth, and that's cool enough to toss on here, I think! Just an analysis of how he was interacting with the world and human culture.

Boudacian Biology & Society - Not about Yugopotamia, but Mandie's close, right?

Please enjoy them, but again - These posts are 7 or 8 years old, and some contain outdated lore and terms I no longer use today.

I look forward to delving more into Fairy World's relationship with Yugopotamia. Here are more things related to that:

- The Fae Wars - The early part discusses aliens engaged in war. Supposedly, the Snobulacs (from Season 9) kidnapped the ancestors of modern Fairies and Anti-Fairies and forced them into war. - Yugopotamians nearly wiped the Fae ancestors out multiple times, but they were defended by the Snobulacs. To this day, the Snobulacs demand tribute from Fairy World every year (on December 31st), which my 'fics reference on rare occasion (Ex: H.P. wanted to be part of the ships delivering tribute when he was young). - As time went on, Yugopotamians began a cautious friendship with Fairy World. They have trade relations under the Quadrant Pact and they're on okay terms... Tensions spiked a little with Cosmo and Wanda kidnapping Mark in Season 1 ("Spaced Out"), and Mark blowing up Fairy World in Season 5 ("The Five Days of F.L.A.R.G.") - Yugopotamians are one of the threats to Anti-Fairies. Anti-Fairies are sometimes captured by various aliens, who take their tongues because they're valuable in many societies (due to a belief that they improve fertility and luckiness in love). - The Fairy World port city Serentip - often referenced in my 'fics; its name translates to "Edge of the stars" - welcomes many alien trade vessels. There are a lot of strange goods in that area and you might run into aliens. Anti-Fairies give it a wide berth. - Here's a "Wishology" meme I made that still cracks me up

Thanks for asking!

[dino-burger]

I'm just going to make this a post of all my opinions on things so folks can just decide if they want to interact or not. I think some of these points probably aren't worth re-iterating.

""Pro-shipping"" - not a big fan of the label itself. I can't make an assertion about the morality of the person using it, but I feel like it's a dishonest and ambiguous identifier mostly used for deflection, at least as it stands in current use.

The vague concept of defending ideas from criticism as opposed to legitimately supporting and showing kinship with certain groups, and the act itself of creating shocking material - regardless of whether or not it enforces status quo and stands to exploit the vulnerable - as something worth defending doesn't sit well with me.

Art is dialogue, and if you can't so much as handle being asked "why" you would approach it a certain way, you probably aren't mature enough to address sensitive subjects in a thoughtful manner.

This applies to any number of these sorts of nonsensical identifiers that just mean in essence the same thing - the want to be "challenging", in some superficial sense, but never be challenged in kind. Frankly I think this sort of hypocrisy is at the core of what most people dislike about it, and I'd rather respect the wishes of someone who doesn't want to engage with it than engage someone who wants to set this kind of one-sided boundary.

I am fairly sex and kink positive, though. I don't think frank discussions about sex can be had with blanket labels, either. One does one's best to have clear intentions.

I don't really believe in asserting identity labels as the be-all and end-all. A lot of what we understand as gender is culturally dependent - not that it isn't valuable to some, but that everyone should have the opportunity to determine their own values.

Queer happens to be acceptable as a descriptor where I live, I like being queer and I like feeling connected to the community as such. The moment I start adding a million micro-labels, it can less feel like I'm connected to a community and more like I'm being clinically studied like an animal. If people insist I have to assign myself different labels that don't make me comfortable, it starts to become a violating experience. I'm not a fan of that.

You don't have to ID as queer, but I'm not tagging it as a slur nor redefining myself for your comfort. You can decide your own values.

Ditto with Aspec, Mspec, so on and so forth. I do not know what your experiences and your values are, so I will not dictate them to you. Mad respect for my dykefag-fagdyke sister-brothers and brother-sisters.

That being said, I would be careful about taking labels from cultures you actually don't belong to. While the gender binary is hegemonically enforced on everyone, it isn't fair to bastardise being two-spirit or multi-spirit if that's not a culture you have any connection to. Same with using intersex-specific terms.

I'm going to try to limit my engagement with any discourse around ""trans mens' rights activists""

I think it's completely fair to call out TMEs on being transmisogynistic, as much as it's fair to call them out on being transmedicalist or what have you.

Personally, though, I feel like calling trans-men ""TMRAs"", making them out to be whiny and entitled and the general animosity is... not really warranted and kind of mean-spirited. I don't think anyone likes being painted as the "wrong kind of trans person". A lot of it also makes my hair stand on end a little because it sounds too much in the same vein of "if you want to be a real man, you should take a beating like one" and these kinds of sentiments. It just feels... really bogus, unproductive and distressing. I do not really want to engage with these sorts of things.

I'm not a big fan of Zionism.

not really big on, you know, actual anti-semitism either.

copy-right is nonsense

AI being used to exhaust our planet's resources for jobs people actually like doing for fun and entertainment is horrible. I think right now it's so exploitative, so much of a black box and so much of a marketing buzzword it's hard to defend case-use practical applications. Which is also a shame.

I'm not going to be defending anyone using ChatGPT instead of their brain either for trivial shit like c'mon.

[baelpenrose]

Project Praetorian: Stand to Battle Part III

The battle drags on, and the kids board the ship, exhaustion taking its toll. A captured computer yields valuable intelligence about the enemy, and the kids commit some more war crimes. Not like in the funny "ha ha favorite war criminal" tumblr way, no like. Actual, "these kids are war criminals from this battle onward" way. Oh also unsubtle historical references to IRL imperialism/colonialism and race science, bonus points if you figure out which specific 19th century empire the aliens' policies reference. TW for gun violence, gore, and probably the closest thing to a subtle historical reference I'm capable of. Beta-read as always by @canyouhearthelight

Mark

Casey was pale, and Xavier was stumbling after the things they’d done in the fight outside. Hell, he wasn’t holding up the best - that steel whirlwind with the mortars had taken a lot out of him. Jonathan seemed fine, and even if Vergil was remaining outside to keep helping with the mop up, he was amazed that Verg wasn’t exhausted from all of this. Molly had been shaking and her voice hoarse by the time they’d stacked up to breach the ship.

Echo and Jonathan alone looked more or less fine, Echo because she hadn’t had to use her powers yet and had been near the back of the advance, and Jonathan because his endurance was genuinely superhuman.

The ship was surprisingly limited in occupants - either it had turned out most of what it had brought to defend it, or they were holing up further in. One door was still locked, and as different teams fanned out to clear the ship, Mark signaled the Praetorians to surround that one, signaling Xavier to get out a concussion grenade. In a normal person’s hands, this would have been disorienting. In Xavier’s…

Jonathan tore the door off its hinges. Xavier threw the grenade and Jonathan slammed the door back over the hatch, then opened it after the brutal whump that came from the other side. Xavier sprayed the room with the P90, but it wasn’t necessary - the grenade would have, with Xavier exaggerating its effect, ruptured the organs of almost anything inside an enclosed space within it. 

Two Spikes and four Croaks were dead inside the room, which seemed to be some sort of spare weapons locker - it had a handful of the strange, wrist-mounted blasters and a few of the larger plasma carbines. 

As Xavier reloaded, Mark gave him a quick fist-bump. “Good job, man. How many more you got?”

“Grenades or times doing that?”

“Whichever is fewer?”

“Concussion grenades I can use to kill every motherfucker in a room with my powers: two. I also have two frags that I don’t need to do anything with.”

“Can you enhance both the remaining concussion grenades?”

“Yeah.” Xavier’s voice was slightly haggard. “You?”

“Used all my grenades up on the way in.” Mark admitted. They came to another room, surprisingly unopposed - he was beginning to wonder if the enemy were afraid at how badly this initial attempt had gone. 

“Jonathan!” 

Xavier got a frag out as Mark watched, and winced in sympathy as Jonathan tore the door open. Xavier threw the grenade inside and this time there were screams. Casey stepped around and blasted a few targets with buckshot, and Mark stepped around and saw a handful of aliens he didn’t recognize, hulking beasts that looked almost like an ox and an ape, ones that soaked up rifle rounds but went down almost quiet, thrashing in panic as they fell. 

There were still Croaks in the room, dead ones, and a Spike who’d had its chest blown open, but the new arrivals were the object of curiosity. “What are these…?”

“Shock unit maybe? Or livestock? Maybe specialized labor? Lab will figure it out.” 

“They weren’t armed.” Casey said, quietly.

Had they been? He thought about it. They hadn’t been. 

Interesting. 

He forced himself to focus. We still have a job to - he thought he saw something moving, and he snapped his weapon in that direction, barely managing to not fire only because of the drilling from Curtis about fire control. Fortunately a shout came, “Hold fire, friendlies!”

Other troopers. Mark lowered the weapon, and started shaking. “Anyone found the bridge? We’re struggling to find enemy contact…”

“They’re concentrated in a zone inside the ship, where there’s more room. Bunch of Spikes holed up there, looks like. Weird weapons, not the plasma this time. Like they’ve got something to use inside ships if they get boarded so they don’t cook their own systems. We lost a couple guys to it - some fucked up weapon that shoots a ton of tiny needles at a fucked up velocity and rate of fire.”

Mark shuddered. “Got it. At least it’s something the body armor might do something about with the ricochets, I guess?”

Echo laughed. “That’s a bad day, if that’s what we’re taking as a silver lining.”

“Take us there.” 

Mark took a breath, and Xavier grimly loaded the grenade launcher. Casey loaded her last few fireball loads into the shotgun. Mark looked around at the troopers gathered up in front of the big doors, counting. “Hang on, where’s everyone else?”

“Still fanning out, clearing out the rest of the ship. We’re having a hard time contacting them - most of the comms got fried during the fighting outside, and a lot of the ship is interfering with signal for what we’ve got left.” 

Mark could have sworn that hitting a concentrated enemy position with less than your available force was a profoundly stupid thing to do and that Curtis had drilled him about that repeatedly when he’d been doing tactical exercises. Trying to fix the problem, though, meant that the enemy might be able to escape and start picking off the elements of Imperator troopers moving around the ship. 

“Okay. Set up some sentry guns here to keep them from moving if we’ve got them. If we don’t, just have your squad machine gunners lay in and light up anything that tries to come out. Where the fuck are all the officers that are supposed to be in here, anyway?” 

“Captain Reynolds, Lieutenant Richards, and Lieutenant Pranav are all KIA. Sgt Curtis and Sgt Stacker are here, but they’re moving around the ship, and currently out of contact.” 

“Got it,” Mark wanted to curse. “Okay, fuck this. Yeah. Set up SGs in front of these doors, shoot anything that tries to come out. I don’t think we should split up if they try to break out and start picking us off, but I don’t want to wind up pinned between hammer and anvil if any of the aliens trapped throughout the ship decide they want to try to rendezvous here, either. Our best bet….”

Jonathan suddenly unlimbered his weapon and let off a crackle of fire down the corridor, and Mark saw a few Croaks explode, limbs torn off thrashing bodies, and a few pulped organs blown out of their abdomens. 

“Point proven. We have to take this thing, now. Get shaped charges on the door, let’s fucking breach. Everyone, ready up!”

The trooper looked at him. “You sure you got this?”

Echo and Xavier flanked him. “Do what he says.” Xavier nodded. 

A few guys began placing the shaped charges, and Mark took a breath. What he was about to do was either going to win the battle or it was going to get him and his team all killed.

Then, stepping back, and pulling down the hall, they blew a hole in the door and let the storm of fire follow through it as the aliens attempted to suppress. Xavier launched a grenade into the room and Casey blasted flames, even as a hail of brutal flechettes flew out of the breach.

Casey screamed, clutching a bloodied arm, and Shiloh dragged her to the side. Xavier clutched the side of his head, where a flying needle had torn his ear halfway off. Shiloh could barely keep their feet when Casey got back up, and they slowly slumped against the wall when Xavier’s ear was reattached. 

Xavier fired another grenade and slowly slumped as the blast tore again, and then Casey forced herself up, blasting into the room, to more screams, and dove to the side. 

Flechettes tore through the breach again and another man dropped, Shiloh crawling over to start working on repairing his guts, Jonathan laid suppressing fire into the room, firing at an enemy they could barely see, when Mark suddenly noticed the sparks from the damage - between Casey’s blasts and Xavier’s, there were exposed electronics. Mark slammed himself against the bulkhead and started focusing again, just for a moment, and pushed himself to focus into the metal, grabbing the power surging into the air, from the ship’s wiring, from its power systems.

Then he forced the electrons in the other room to align into the abundance of spilled blood that some of the enemy troops were already standing in. And he heard more screaming. 

A few troopers threw grenades through the breach, and abruptly, charged. 

Mark was barely standing as the rush occurred, and he almost blacked out after the mass electrocution he’d just done.

Echo

Echo followed Jonathan and the other troopers into the room, firing her carbine at every alien that moved, but she was fully aware that she wasn’t really the primary threat.

Jonathan charged into the room, along with the common troopers, lighting up Spikes, Croaks, and a handful of aliens that primarily seemed to be cowering behind controls, looking somehow both avian and vulpine. When his machine gun finally ran dry, he tossed it aside and whipped out an entrenchment tool, delivering savage blows that shattered bones and split flesh.

A Spike drew some sort of ax-like close combat weapon and attempted to challenge Jonathan but found its weapon swatted aside - where it buried itself in the wall - and then found itself beheaded a moment later. Echo half emptied her rifle into a Spike that looked like it was taking aim at his back - and then, as a few of the troopers were finally declaring the room clear, she took a look around. The center of the massive room - which seemed to be the ship’s control room - was a mass of burned briquettes that had once been bodies before Casey had carbonized them. Many others were horrifically mangled by Xavier’s grenades, and still others lay horribly contorted, wracked with signs of electric burns.

She found herself struggling to breathe, even as Jonathan tore the doors the rest of the way off, and the bodies were slowly hauled out. Casey’s blasts had consumed a lot of the oxygen in the room - maybe it had done damage to this knot’s ability to defend themselves.

Echo took a breath. The bird-fox things, another species. They had seemed almost depressingly physically inept, and had crumbled easily. She wondered what their autopsies would reveal. 

She took a breath, and then looked at the computers, hoping they’d be useful, even as the men started carrying the wounded out. She placed a hand on the terminal and took a breath, looking at her exhausted friends. They’d worked so hard to get here, to push this hard. To capture this ship. Now, it was her turn.

Jonathan stood behind her, taking up a position to keep anything off her back, then she focused on the computer. 

The alien computer chirped and whirred as she forced her way in, a sensation that repelled her as much as it excited her. The first thing she forced was the language map that she’d already created with her experiments with the other one, and then began looking for ship sensors. 

Once found, she looked for announcements - and began guiding the remaining troopers through. Helping them find each other. Helping them concentrate their forces to deal with the last few pockets of resistance. This was going to have to be a more frequent part of ship storming, if they were going to do it - find a terminal she could do this from….

Focus, focus.

More and more troopers were coming in, loading the wounded into transports, pulling wounded or exhausted Praetorians off…

As long as she was here, before Imperator got a crack at it, she wanted a shot at getting a word in with the alien ship. An idea of the colonizing system that was coming for her homeworld.

Ascendency was the first word she found. The Ascendency - an empire that…five species. None of those words translated, but images did. She recognized them. Spikes, soldiers. The big things, laborers. The bird-fox things…Pilots, explorers. Found on a low gravity world, used to flying. Few in number. Given rewards for mapping the stars. The Croaks - innumerable, whatever was needed, the lowest of the low. There was another species, tall, slender, and angular, one that they hadn’t seen yet, far more specialized in labor, and seemed to be a leader caste, but…

This was an advanced ship, one meant to be converted to a military base.

What was wanted from humans? Extermination, or assimilation?

The answer was complicated - she saw records, garbled. Spikes and the tall skinny things had fought, Spikes winning at first until the skinny things had blasted them from orbit and the Spikes had conceded. The Croaks had yielded almost immediately to the disciplined  and ruthless Spikes, and the big things had needed no convincing to join with a growing empire that gave them resources that made their labors easier - they’d been…medieval-ish? When contacted. The flying things, mercenaries, maybe? The language model she was imposing either wasn’t as complete as it could be or there were a lot of concepts the Ascendency had that Echo’s language and culture had no equivalent for. Probably both, if she was being honest with herself. 

There were other things now extinct, though, because they met the Ascendency and refused to yield. 

The message was clear. If they were wanted, if they were useful, and if they surrendered fast enough, they might be allowed to be given a caste and a use in the Ascendency - and not permitted to stray from it. 

No. 

Echo swore to herself right then. Her species was not going to be enslaved by these things.

There was more, but…the humming, the spiking headaches…

She disconnected. She’d interrogate the damn thing more later. “Jonathan. You okay?”

His armor was still ragged, but he looked good. “Yeah. You good?”

“Yeah. Thanks for watching my back. Let’s go see the others. I have a lot to tell them.”

AFTER ACTION REPORT: Operation: Landing Denied Personnel Engaged: 800 Imperator Legion Troopers, forty-six APCs, twenty-two last-generation Blackhawks, and eight VTOL airborne Personnel carriers.  8 Praetorians.  Allied Forces Involved: One Company, South Dakota National Guard. Personnel Lost: 232 dead,  82 Wounded. 21 Missing Presumed Dead. Six Helicopters and eighteen APCs destroyed, additional twenty APCs damaged but repairable. Allied Casualties still counting. Enemy Casualties inflicted: Total Loss. Enemy Dead, confirmed: 4200 Croaks, 423 Spikes, 215 Bulks and 28 Fliers. Possibility of additional dead Spikes and dead Croaks - battlefield sanitization ongoing. Enemy Captured: 5 Bulks, 2 Fliers, 19 Spikes (wounded) and 43 Croaks. Destroyed enemy main battle tank equivalent: 6, captured 1.

[laverrez]

i know not to let randos on the internet bother me, but the whole thing about trying to say blake hasnt been made into a relationship accessory just for the sake of defending your uwu bees really bugs me.

blake has been a character ive deeply related to from the beginning. a lot of what we've been given of her are crumbs, but the points stand; she's the victim of abuse and prejudice, she's quiet and shy, she likes fairytales, she likes reading in general, she likes seafood, she doesnt like dogs, she has sensitive hearing, she worries excessively about hurting those around her, and when overwhelmed or uncomfortable her first reaction is to flee. she feels so close to me that my intro to roleplaying was blake, and i do occasionally still roleplay her. (with a yang. as bees.)

it is profoundly hurtful that she hasnt had any time to really develop, she hasnt had time to really heal from past relationship trauma, and be independent from a partner. it's hurtful because ive also spent most of my life as an accessory for my partners, only there to look pretty and be supportive. it doesnt feel good that a character ive related to so strongly isnt going to get to experience being her own person and finding her own voice. she deserves it as much as i do, but seeing people say otherwise makes me feel like i also deserve it less, and that, like blake, im most valuable to others when im just there to be supportive and pretty and romantic.

when you ignore the valid criticisms people have about the way blake has been treated by the writers, youre hurting actual people who have experienced the same thing blake is. think about that, just for a moment, while youre defending your stupid problematic ship.

[1lostsoul0fishbowl]

Giving my own self some props here for finishing a gigantic beast of a fic that I poured my entire heart, mind, and soul into for eight months straight.

With a Little Help From My Friends has technically 79 chapters (it says 83 but one is literally just a picture of my cat, and three are now just links to artwork which is now here on my tumblr) so there’s a lot to chew on but may I present my top ten favorites:

Chapter 5, “crazy for this girl” - Corroded Coffin wins second place in a Battle of the Bands, and Chrissy and Eddie get engaged! Yay Hellcheer!

Chapter 8, “weirdos make great superheroes”. Robin helps Eddie through a Very Bad Day, and in return Eddie proves himself a valuable wingman.

Chapter 14, “what if i say i will never surrender”. Erica actually needs Eddie’s help for a change, and he delivers in a big way.

Chapter 31, “do we break another rule, part two: six months later”. Max discovers El and Gareth are crushing on each other. The origin of Eleverson!

Chapter 37, “that i would be good”. Eddie faces his fears about starting antidepressants.

Chapter 41, “i walk alone”. Take a deep dive into Steve struggling to figure out who he is compared to what his parents expect him to be.

Chapter 55, “the eleventh day of christmas”. El has a super cute schmoopy holiday with Gareth’s family.

Chapter 62, “this i promise you”. Wayne Munson and Claudia Henderson get married!!! Wahey!!!

The entire Phoenix series, chapters 65-70, but particularly chapter 69, “phoenix, part five: i have risen from the flames”. El stands up for herself, defends a friend, and claims her autonomy. Girlfriend has wings.

Chapter 83, “maybe someday when my ship comes in”. The Hellcheer wedding!!! Also the title is a pun, because yes it’s Billy Joel lyrics, but also “my ship” can be a nudge and a wink to the Hellcheer fandom.

If you like found family, excessively soft characters, and happy endings, maybe you’ll find something in Little Help that you love too. I hope you’ll take a peek sometime!