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xb-squaredx · 4 years ago

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B-Squared’s Top 10 Games of 2020

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that having something to distract me from the genuine horrors unleashed during 2020 was vital to staying alive, and for me that means a lot of video games! I played…a lot of games last year, but I spent a lot of time playing older games, so I didn’t get a chance to check out a lot of high-profile games that launched this year. Still, I do want to shine a light on the games that managed to resonate with me even a little bit, that somehow managed to launch this year. So let’s get to it!

#10 – No Straight Roads

Rarely have I been struck by a single trailer for a game like I was for No Straight Roads. Produced by industry veterans under a new studio, this is a rare game that’s not quite an indie game from a studio full of newbies, but it’s also not produced with the same kind of budget and resources of a Triple-A project. What do we call this? A Double-A game? Single-A? Regardless, I have to give the team at Metronomik some props for delivering a super stylish game in the midst of a very challenging year. No Straight Roads is a rhythm-based action game where two up-and-coming musicians fight to bring back Rock and Roll to the people of Vinyl City. I absolutely adore this game’s presentation, with each major boss being visually unique and having their own feel that compliments the music they bring to battle. There’s some real energy in these animations with character designs that ooze personality, and being a game about music the soundtrack is great! All that being said though, I have to admit I wasn’t a huge fan of the gameplay when all was said and done. It leans way more on the rhythm side of the equation than I was hoping for, and the action felt very shallow. The fixed camera made some phases of some fights a real problem, and the Switch verison, which I played, is plagued with a lot of issues that really brought the game down for me. If the game interests you at all, give it a shot on PC or PS4; I hear those versions are a lot better. Still, I liked the potential I saw in this game and in this studio, so I can only hope they did well enough to continue on. This definitely feels like the kind of passion project that deserves more recognition.

#9 – Streets of Rage 4

OK, so full disclosure: I didn’t grow up with 2D beat-em-ups. I missed out on all of the greats of the genre back in the day. No Final Fight, no River City Ransom, no Double Dragon, and definitely no Streets of Rage. In more recent years I have tried to dip my toe in the genre, as I did in 2019 with River City Girls. However, I came away from that game a bit disappointed by the overall gameplay and wondered if 2D beat-em-ups were for me. Seeing so much praise heaped onto Streets of Rage 4 had me curious, so I knew I had to try it, if only to broaden my experience in the genre. In many ways, this game is the perfect sequel to a franchise that hasn’t seen any signs of new life in years. It retains what made the series beloved with satisfying combat and challenge, but with a modern touch. The overall art style of the game and music work out pretty well, and I found the act of comboing enemies to be really satisfying. It really doesn’t overstay its welcome either, which is very appreciated in an age of endless timesinks. I also struggled a fair bit with the game, even on Normal, and well after some patches that seemed designed for more casual fans like me. Had this game not had online co-op as an option, I don’t know if I could have beaten the final levels. So my time with this game was pretty rough but despite that I can still see this was a game made with care, and if this game DOES do something for you, there’s plenty of reasons to keep playing on higher difficulties, unlocking more characters and even playing online with friends. Let me put it this way; I’m not all that sure I like the genre and I still liked this game, so I think that counts for something!

#8 – The Wonderful 101: Remastered

…this one is kind of cheating, I’ll admit! I had a lot of trouble thinking up ten games that really stood out to me this year, honestly. That said, I’ll definitely use loopholes to plug one of my favorite games from years ago. Seven years ago, PlatinumGames launched The Wonderful 101 on the ill-fated Wii U, where it bombed harder than just about anything on the system. For those that gave the game a shot, however, they were quick to discover a deep, complex, and charming action game that plays like nothing else out there. Controlling a team of 100 heroes at once, players form weapons out of the various Wonderful One’s bodies, smacking around giant robots and aliens far larger than them with the power of teamwork! How could you not love that, right?! Now, years later, PlatinumGames is aiming to become more independent and their first act was launching a Kickstarter as a way to get this game on newer platforms. While we may never know why Nintendo gave Platinum their blessing to release this game on non-Nintendo platforms (being as this is still, as far as I know, a Nintendo-owned IP), I’m just glad more people can have access to one of the most unique action games I’ve ever touched.

To sell it another way, this game combines the overall aesthetic of Viewtiful Joe with the shape-drawing action of Okami but with a bit of Bayonetta flair on the side. Basically, this is the culmination of everything director Hideki Kamiya has ever worked on. The Remastered version fixes some issues present from the game’s original release, and while I do think they could have gone a bit further with some changes, it is likely the best way to play the game for many. All those sections that made heavy use of the Wii U GamePad are a tad awkward though, but that held true even back on the Wii U anyway…d-don’t worry so much about that, though! I’d still recommend this game to anyone looking for the type of over-the-top action that only Platinum (and occasionally Capcom) can provide! So please consider joining the Wonderful Ones and Unite Up!

#7 – Paper Mario: The Origami King

Discourse around the Paper Mario series is…more than a little rough, honestly! Many fans have been quite vocal about not liking the direction the series has been heading with the last few games, but I went into The Origami King with an open mind and ended up really enjoying the game for the most part! What the game lacked in a developed storyline, it made up for with some really strong character moments and memorable setpieces. Bobby and Olivia are among my favorite partners in ANY of the Mario RPGs, easily, and the entirety of the Great Sea section of the game was a really fun adventure. I love the highly-detailed paper-crafted enemies and locales, and the soundtrack really didn’t have to go as hard as it did. While the battles against common enemies didn’t quite click with me, the boss battles throughout the game constantly surprised me with interesting twists on the ring-based combat and are a real highlight for me. I know this game is pretty divisive amongst Paper Mario fans, but I think the franchise has a pretty bright future ahead of it!

#6 – DOOM Eternal

Fair warning here, but I haven’t quite managed to beat DOOM Eternal at the time of writing this, but what I’ve played so far tells me it definitely belongs here. I think Eternal is hands-down the most intense game I’ve played in a long time. It gets my blood pumping as I dash about, shooting and slicing through demons that are extremely eager to rip and tear me to pieces. I don’t play many shooters in general, so I knew I was going to be in for a rough time, but DOOM Eternal brings it to another level right away. In some respects, I don’t quite agree with various aspects of the core game design that makes the game harder than I think it needs to be at times. The scarcity of ammo, and thus the constant need to use the Chainsaw weapon in order to gain more ammo gets tiring, though that somewhat levels off as more weapons are acquired and players learn of more efficient ways to take out the hordes of Hell. The game’s fantastic soundtrack by Mick Gordon definitely elevates the experience, so it is a huge bummer knowing that he and ID Software had a falling out and he won’t be coming back. I really dig the game’s expansive levels and more focus being put on exploring every nook and cranny for secrets, and certain old-school touches like finding extra lives or cheat codes definitely makes the game feel like it was ripped out of a bygone era and given a modern paintjob at times. Doom is eternal, and with it, so is pulse-pounding shooting action!

#5 – Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition

Compared to the other re-release of an old game on this list, I think this particular title had a lot more time and care put into it…and it also happens to enhance one of my favorite games on Wii as a bonus! Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii was a game that almost passed me by but even years later, I still adored the characters and world it introduced, and I’ve been happy to see what started as game that was almost stuck in Japan eventually grow into a full franchise. I consider the first game to the best in the series, though it was held back by a few issues later games would iron out. Chief among the problems was the visuals, particularly the character models and…wow does ten years make a world of difference. The Definitive Edition does more than just clean up everyone’s faces, it also cleaned up the game’s cluttered UI, made it easier to track quests and materials for said quests, and added some fun optional challenge missions for veterans to tackle. The bow that adorns the top of this package, however, is the epilogue story Future Connected that serves to tie up some loose ends and gives a particular character some great closure. If you love massive worlds to explore, a compelling, at times over-the-top story, and a deep, rewarding combat system, I can’t recommend THIS version of THIS game enough. If you’re going to give the Xenoblade series a try, there’s no better place to start.

#4 – Ghost of Tsushima

When Ghost of Tsushima was first unveiled years ago, I didn’t exactly have a high opinion of it. It seemed like a game that put more emphasis on visuals over gameplay, and I was almost certain it would launch as a PS5 exclusive so why bother getting excited when I probably wasn’t going to be an early adopter of the system? To my great surprise, not only was this game confirmed for PS4, it wound up being one of the prettiest games on the platform and well-optimized to boot, even on my old slim PS4. Playing as lone samurai Jin Sakai, players try to repel the Mongel invasion of Japan, but are forced to adopt less-than-honorable tactics to take on this ruthless enemy. Usually when I play stealth games, I find myself frustrated. I feel weak, or limited, and often the games feel overly harsh. If you get caught once, game over and there’s little salvaging being seen. In Ghost of Tsushima however, there’s a great deal more care put into stealth, and at times I’d argue it’s almost too fun to pass up over the sword play. Very few missions in the game force you to go completely unseen, so stealth just because yet another tool rather than a limitation imposed on you.

Swordplay felt a bit less engaging against common enemies (typically just being Simon Says, switching to the appropriate stance for a given enemy), but the one-on-one duels throughout the game were fantastic and I almost wish the game was all about them instead. I can’t overstate how gorgeous this game is either, with a world that feels like it is breathing, as the wind whips through the tall grass, the moon penetrates fog overtaking a creepy forest, or seeing the smoke from an enemy camp wafting over the distance. Hands-down one of the best-looking games on the PS4, and I’m particularly happy that developer Sucker Punch managed to land a hit with a new IP, as those generally feel more risky as times go on. While I’d argue that Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t really redefine how open-world games should be designed, it is an extremely polished experience and manages to do it well, with plenty of opportunities to grow in a potential sequel.

#3 – Animal Crossing: New Horizons

If there’s any one game that people absolutely needed in 2020, it was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While there are other games of this type, like Stardew Valley or the Harvest Moon (and later, Story of Seasons games), Animal Crossing is one of the few games that gets mainstream attention while simultaneously running counter to most mainstream gaming trends. No conflict, no combat, no overarching story really…just a game that lets you live your live, day by day on your own terms. I tried getting into the series before with New Leaf but just didn’t stick with it, but New Horizons launched at the perfect time in an imperfect world. Being able to escape the uncertainty and dread that enveloped the world as the pandemic spread for even a little while was a necessity, and thankfully New Horizons had plenty to do to keep idle hands busy. Changes like item crafting and eventually limited terraforming of your island paradise give players so much more agency in decorating their homes and building up something they can be proud of.

We all start as nothing but a small tent on a mostly-empty island, but seeing what people were able to do even in the first few weeks or so was nothing short of amazing. We need more unflinchingly wholesome games in the world, and I’m thankful for Animal Crossing for being there when we needed it, and considering how well it sold and how much post-launch content is expected to be added with time, it remains a sanctuary to return to even now. Just…please let us craft in bulk? Pretty please, Nintendo?

#2 – Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Last year, Nintendo released Astral Chain, a game that no one knew about before release, which was revealed and released with very little gaps between them. It was a game I didn’t know I wanted until it was presented to me, and that trend continues this year with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. The first Hyrule Warriors was a fun, surprising spin-off of the main Legend of Zelda series, and Breath of the Wild was a fantastic game that shook up the core of the Zelda franchise, so in hindsight it really does seem like a no-brainer to combine the two into one package. Age of Calamity, for my tastes at least, cuts down on the repetition and overall stressful atmosphere of the first Hyrule Warriors and instead focused on fleshing out it’s core combat and crafting more creative main storyline missions. It helps that the game reimagines iconic locales from Breath of the Wild from before their destruction, and really makes you feel like you’re fighting through actual places rather than just a collection of random keeps that most Warriors games use.

Bringing in aspects like the Sheikiah Slate and Elemental Rods allows players to control the flow of combat more directly on top of letting them be more creative. Freeze enemies standing over water with the Cryonis rune or burn some grass with the Fire Rod to distract certain enemies, among many other things. Each playable character is also very distinct, even in cases where I could have forgiven the developers for reusing some attacks or traits. For one, Link has different movesets for his Sword and Shield, Spear, and Two-Handed weapons, but none of his attack overlap with the other Champions who use similar weapons. Some people might be put off with certain aspects of this game’s story and ultimately not everyone likes the overall structure of the Warriors spinoffs anyway, but for my part, Age of Calamity was one of the best surprises of the year, unveiled right at the end of the year in the nick of time. Of course, there was one game this year that surprised me more than any other.

#1 – Hades

I’ve known of Supergiant Games for quite a while and very recently began looking through their catalogue of games. They’re known for well-crafted narratives and satisfying combat, and yet when I first saw Hades when it was released in Early Access I was tepid on it. It didn’t look bad or anything, but it didn’t exactly blow me away and even now, I think a random screenshot or quick clip of the game might not do the game justice in explaining the appeal. I already wrote about the game at-length (as my only real non-retrospective blog post of the year, oops!), which you can read here if you want more in-depth praise, but to summarize…Hades is the total package for me.

Playing as Prince Zagreus your end-goal is to escape the puts of Hell, and more specifically get away from your overbearing father, Hades. It’s a rogue-lite, meaning you’re expected to finish the game in one shot and if you die you lose any upgrades you picked up along the way and have to start from scratch…to a point. Hades does allow you to keep a fair amount of items you pick up which can towards small, permanent upgrades or even gifts for various NPCs that can deepen your bond with them. Unlike most other games of this type too, the story constantly moves forward, even after death. The game is about dying over and over and then dusting yourself off to try again, all the while other characters remark on your progress or lack thereof. I grew to really enjoy this cast of characters, a fun spin on the Greek pantheon, paired with excellent voice acting for the entire cast. From the imposing, if somewhat sultry Megaera, to the nervous wreck that is the maid, Dusa, to the pompous ass Theseus, I looked forward to each new run just to learn more about this world and those within it. For once, death wasn’t really a punishment, but a reward, and just part of the process.

Of course, incredibly satisfying combat is ALSO part of the process and it just gets…addicting; muttering “one more run” over and over as you try out different weapons and boons, discovering what works well together and what doesn’t. While at first beating the game felt like it would never happen, I grew from my failures, adapted and eventually overcame. Multiple times. If you want the “full” Hades experience, this game can really demand a lot of time out of you but at the same time it stays fresh, so I can’t really complain. With new gameplay mechanics unlocking as time goes on, to the Pacts of Punishment players can trigger if they want a bit more challenge (or a lot more), Hades is that rare game that just keeps giving and giving. Before I knew it, I had dumped well over 50 hours into it, and I STILL need to get back to the game if I want that epilogue.

Compared to every other game that came out this year, Hades is the one game that grabbed me from moment one and would not let go until I hit credits. When I wasn’t playing this game, I was counting down the minutes until I could play it again, and let me tell you that is rare for me these days. At this point, Hades is clearly the breakthrough hit for Supergiant and I couldn’t be happier. The fact that this game got to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with industry titans at The Game Awards is kind of surreal, but I can’t think of many who deserve that recognition more. It helps that Supergiant is a studio that actually takes care of its employees, which is way rarer than it should be. I don’t mean to hype this game up like it’s the cure for COVID or anything, but I mean it with all my heart that this was the best game I played this year, and I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. I couldn’t stop talking about it for months after playing it, just ask my friends! So yeah, it’s pretty OK I guess.

CONCLUSION

I’m sure my Top 10 List looks a lot different from most out there, but that’s what’s great about games! So much variety and so much quality no matter where you look! Every year, without fail, there’s always at least a small handful of games that come out that I don’t get to, and try as I might I’ll never trim that backlog down. I want to keep playing games for as long as I can, trying out so many different experiences and seeing what this wonderful pastime can offer. For a good chunk of 2020 I was more than a little down, not just because of…you know, but a lot of games that were coming out weren’t appealing to me. That said, seeing as this was the year of shadow drops and announcing things at the last minute, I ended up loving a bunch of games I hadn’t already spend months hyping myself up for, which definitely helped to lift me up this year. Already, 2021 has a lot of titles I’m anticipating though, so it’s sure to be an exciting year.

Happy Gaming.

-B

#top ten list #gaming #animal crossing #paper mario #xenoblade chronicles #ghost of tsushima #doom eternal #no straight roads #hades #streets of rage 4 #thewonderful101 #age of calamity

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multimetaverse · 5 years ago

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HSMTMTS 1x05 Review

Homecoming was a historic ep that was a giant leap forwards for rep on Disney and an overall delightful ep. Let’s dig in!

I was blown away by Seblos this ep, I never expected Disney to go this far this soon but what great scenes we got. It was so refreshing to see Carlos and Seb acting like normal teens, just like any straight couple. They have good chemistry and Frankie played Carlos’ nerves when asking Seb to the dance perfectly and his celebration after Seb said yes. I liked when Seb mentioned that homecoming would mean dancing together in front of all the non theatre kids, a little reminder of how much of a safe space the theatre can be. Really powerful to see Carlos tell Mr. Mazzara that he thought he made a mistake asking him to dance with him publicly and to see Carlos be brave enough to go dance on his own. And then when Seb arrived we got the shot we see in every teen movie where the love interest arrives at the big dance and sees the main character and smiles, it’s amazing that we saw that with two guys on a Disney show. Also impressive that Seb apologizing to Carlos was done in just one take as Tim revealed on instagram

Tim Federle has done an amazing job so far and good for him for going right into text. He’s said in interviews that no one from Disney ever asked him to cut any scenes or shy away from certain topics, which doesn’t mean much since he’d be saying that regardless of how much he was being censored, but we can see with our own eyes that he really is telling the truth. Now I do want more development for Carlos and Seb as characters as well as Seblos as a ship and I do think we’ll get that especially since Joe Serafini has been promoted to a series regular for S2, which is a very good sign that Disney is all in with Tim Federle’s plans. What an exciting time, there will soon be two main gay characters on a Disney show played by openly gay actors on a show created by an openly gay man. Tim has spoken of how Disney + is in some ways an open frontier and that he’s willing to take big jumps and I can’t wait to see what the rest of S1 and S2 has in store for us

Things have changed a lot since the High School Musical movies came out. It’s well known that Ryan was meant to be gay even though he could never actually be gay. Lucas Grabeel has spoken of how Kenny Ortega told him that Ryan was a lot like his High School self. In an interview with EW, Tim Federle was asked about the censorship of Ryan’s character and he noted that he wasn’t there for the movies and doesn’t view what he’s now doing on HSMTMTS as making up for anything that the original movies weren’t able to do. Which is fair but regardless in some ways tonight's ep does make up for the censorship of the movies

While reading an article on HSMTMTS I came upon a link to a story from October 2008 about Ryan and how he was clearly being coded as gay that featured some revealing quotes from Gary Marsh, from an interview conducted in summer 2008:

Regarding the fact that there are boyfriend-girlfriend relationships in the HSM movies, Marsh interjected, “Yeah, but that’s not about sex,” as though having two boyfriends equals full-tilt boogie. And as to why there can be boyfriend and girlfriends but not two boyfriends, he could only note, “It’s just not something that we’ve ever had the opportunity to portray. It hasn’t been a place we’ve gone.”

If someone, like Gary Marsh, believes that lgbtq relationships are inherently sexual then that means they don’t believe they’re appropriate for children. It’s no surprise then that it wouldn’t be until 2014 that Disney Channel had two lesbian moms appear on Good Luck Charlie and it wouldn’t be until 2017 that Cyrus came out to Buffy. Clearly Gary has for whatever reasons evolved in his views or there wouldn’t have been any rep on Disney Channel in the past 11 years nor do I think that he would make a comment like that publicly today but he probably does still believe that to an extent and I’d imagine other senior Disney executives do as well

A few things are helping Disney + push boundaries, being more of a PG than a G rated service, not being exclusively targeted towards children, and being a curated service so parents can easily avoid showing their kids shows with lgbtq rep. And perhaps most importantly, the cold hard reality that if Disney + is to become financially viable then it has to appeal to a broad audience and provide the same quality or better than people could find on Netflix or other streaming services so the kind of censorship we see on Disney Channel just can’t fly

There’s been a lot of discourse regarding Seblos and Tyrus and HSMTMTS and Andi Mack and I’ll take the time to say my piece now. It’s not entirely fair to compare the ships and shows since they’re taking place under very different circumstances. Tyrus was a heavily censored ship that was only given permission to canon when the series finale was written whereas Seblos is already canon in the 5th ep. It’s true that TJ was written in a way to subvert gay stereotypes which was important but it’s also true that for most of the audience they didn’t know that he was gay until the bench scene itself so there wasn’t that much trope subversion going on. And who knows how he would have been written if they were actually allowed to have him be openly gay before the series finale

Carlos and Seb may fall into some stereotypes but Tim Federle has spoken of how when he was in High School he would have loved to play a character like Sharpay but wouldn’t have had the confidence to do so and he wrote Seb wanting to play a female role with his own past experiences in mind. He’s also spoken about how Carlos was based off of a close friend of his and he put some of himself into Carlos as well with Carlos telling Mr. Mazzara that he was meant to be on Broadway being something Tim told one of his own teachers in High School. Frankie and Joe have talked about how they see a lot of their own experiences in Carlos and Seb as characters and in Seblos as a relationship. Tim has spoken a lot about how important authenticity is to him and while Carlos and Seb may be stereotypical to some people it shouldn’t be discounted that others can see their lived experiences in those characters

For Andi Mack it’s important to separate Cyrus’ story from the Tyrus story line. It’s unlikely HSMTMTS could have pulled off Cyrus’ coming out story line, the shows are just too different. We’re almost certainly not going to see a One in a Minyan style ep on HSMTMTS but would we have seen such an ep on Andi Mack if they didn’t need to pack all of Cyrus’ S3 story line into one ep? We also can’t forget that 3x11 was written shortly after the cancellation and it was written as a potential end to the gay story line since they didn’t know until months later if they could go with canon Tyrus or not. Even with the limits it faced Andi Mack did a great job with Cyrus’ coming out story line and I think eps like 2x01 and 2x13 and 3x11 will be fondly remembered and will stand the test of time

When it comes to Tyrus though it’s fair to say that the bench scene was a historic and important moment but also an underwhelming one. Andi Mack didn’t live up to the promise that Cyrus was no different but it was never going to be able to with Disney’s restrictions, they were willing to focus on Cyrus as a gay character but not Cyrus as an actively gay character. One thing that will make Seblos go down a lot better than Tyrus is that we aren’t going to see Carlos bearding himself like Cyrus did. It won’t age well at all that Cyrus got to go on dates with Iris and kiss her twice and refer to her as a his girlfriend and even come up with a mashup name for them but Terri probably would have done things very differently if she had known that all Cyrus would be able to do with a boy was hold hands in the series finale. We can also tell that HSMTMTS won’t be facing an increase in censorship later on since Seb will be a main in S2 whereas Disney cracked down hard after S2 for Andi Mack, probably because the story was shifting from Cyrus having a hopeless crush on a straight guy to a reciprocated crush on a gay guy

Since Seblos is textual from the start it will be much easier to write and also much easier to fix things when the writers inevitably make mistakes. I think a lot of the defensiveness coming from certain corners of the Andi Mack fandom is because deep down people know that the bench scene wasn’t enough pay off for the long dragged out Tyrus no burn we got; especially with all of the drama and angst they had. Development is important but it doesn’t take two thirds of the series to set up a silent handhold. I think it’s very unlikely that for HSMTMTS we’ll see the drastic decline in quality that Andi Mack had for most story lines after 3x11. The bench scene would have been better if we hadn’t gotten the worst writing of the series for TJ and Cyrus as characters that did a real disservice to them and to Tyrus as a ship in the eps before the finale. The Tyrus story line was never going to get a great ending with Disney’s restrictions but it is also true that Terri’s choices made things a lot worse than they had to be

It’s insane that they introduced Kira as a homophobic character who was manipulating TJ but also was clearly into him; how do professional writers come up with that? It’s just not a mistake Tim Federle is going to make. Trying to do an external homophobia story line was an obviously bad idea but so was giving TJ an out of nowhere internalized homophobia plot in 3x13 and 3x15 before dropping it in 3x18. Cyrus’ coming out story line helped a lot of people because it showed the correct way for friends to react when someone comes out to you but for TJ they never did anything to help people dealing with internalized or external homophobia, the message was effectively ‘’deal with it on your own kids’’, which is sharp contrast with how openly his dyscalculia plot was handled. I don’t think HSMTMTS would be effectively able to deal with homophobia either but I think Tim probably realizes that and won’t attempt it

There were a lot of little things Terri could have changed that would have helped. Don’t insert Kira into their plot. Don’t have Amber kiss Jonah or say she’s love him so at least she could have pointed to another character who never got to kiss a guy or talk about feelings. Put the Jandi bracelet scene in between the Muffy and Tyrus confession scenes so we don’t go straight from a Muffy kiss and handhold and verbal confession to the bench scene. And just write the bench scene better so it’s more in line with the Tyrus dynamic like how the Muffy and Jandi scenes did a good job capturing their own dynamics. Of course, we’re not going to see Seblos end so subtly so all these problems just won’t arise

Tyrus was important because it happened and may well be the only lgbtq rep we see for middle school characters played by actual teenagers for a very long time. But it’s also true that Andi Mack’s legacy will probably rest a lot more with Cyrus specifically, especially him saying the word gay, whereas HSMTMTS will be remembered more for normalizing lgbtq relationships with Seblos. I’m glad Tyrus happened but I’m also glad that Seblos will be a much smoother story line and will break boundaries for years to come. Anyways that’s my two cents

I really liked the Gina development this ep. Her doesn’t do cash line was interesting, hinting at financial problems? Moving 5 schools in 7 years is rough and I’d like to hear more about that. I’m glad that we got confirmation that she didn’t have an actual plan and was just winging it because her actions really did not make much sense. Tim Federle had said that love triangles will become love squares and it does make more sense to have Gina be into Ricky than EJ since there’s no real drama if she’s into EJ because Nini is totally over him. I do think Gina was being sincere in the scene with Ricky in the car (which Tim said was Big Red’s car that he lent Ricky and that Joshua and Sofia did that scene in just two takes). I also think that she needs Ricky as a friend not a lover and Ricky would not be happy if he ever found out that she was the one who initially stole Nini’s phone

Miss Jenn and Mike Bowen and Benjamin Mazzara love triangle? We do know that Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara spend Thanksgiving trapped together which is obvious set up for feelings to develop. We also got Mr. Mazzara doing a 180 and being nice to Carlos this ep which seems like a ploy to get him on the audiences good side

Loved the friendship moments we got this ep. Big Red and Kourtney are great friends. Ricky taking Big Red to his first dance was sweet and I love that Big Red showed up in a old man suit jacket that looks like it was from the 70s. Ngl I thought Ricky was wearing pajama pants for most of the ep. Glad we got a glimpse into Kourtney and Nini’s past, they’ve been friends at least since the 7th grade. I hope Kourtney stands up to the mean costume designer senior

I liked seeing Nini grappling with her self confidence after finding out that she got the lead role at summer camp because EJ poisoned the original lead. She does have the talent but that kind of revelation would leave most people shook

Glad that Ricky and his dad had a honest convo this ep. It’s just the two of them now so they need to stick by each other

Ashlyn has been an unexpected delight so far, I liked that she was the only one to go and support Carlos and she was rocking that suit

Ricky’s office stare after Gina dumped punch on EJ’s head was too funny

Born to be brave was a great song and the choreography blew me away, such a talented cast and crew they have

All of the costumes looked great this ep, kudos to the costume designers

RIP Seb’s cow

Looking Ahead:

Miss Jenn faces her tribunal, I’m curious to see how much she faked on her resume

We get photos of Seb comforting Carlos which I think comes after he finds out that Miss Jenn is suspended. In the medley trailer there was a clip of Carlos hugging Miss Jenn at a coffee shop so maybe that’s next ep since there’s no need to meet at a coffee shop if she’s not suspended

The cast has talked about how we the audience we’ll be going back and forth on team Ricky vs team EJ all season long which at this point seems like a lie. I’m sure EJ’s redemption arc starts soon and if he’s still going to panic attacks I’d imagine that will soon be brought up but Nini is totally over him and I can’t see her being torn about her feelings for EJ in the final 5 eps of the season

With Seb being a main in S2 that will make things more difficult for the writers to juggle and I hope they are thinking about how to balance the different characters. I also wonder what the long term plan for EJ is since he’s the only senior and if S2 takes place spring semester of his senior year then what are they gonna do with him in S3?

We know that in 1x10 breaking free has EJ, Nini, and Ricky so I wonder if EJ starts off playing Troy for whatever reason before Ricky shows up. Since Ricky thinks Nini is over him I don’t think we’ll be seeing him make a move unless he gets some kind of signal from Nini

Wonder what was up with that Sharpay’s mom credit on imdb, just some random imdb troll? If so, what a coincidence that she picked what happened to be a big Seb ep

I don’t know if this will have impact on the show going forward but this marks the point that Tim Federle took over as showrunner after original showrunner Oliver Goldsmith departed. Oliver wanted to take the show in a more mature direction but Tim disagreed and Disney sided with him over Oliver

Until next week Wildcats

#HSMTMTS #Seblos #Carlos #seb mathew-smith #Ricky Bowen #Gina Porter #Nini Salazar-Roberts #Kourtney #Big Red #Ashlyn #EJ Caswell #Mike Bowen #Miss Jenn #Benjamin Mazzara #HSMTMTS Reviews

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thecandywrites · 5 years ago

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Orctober- Fall Formal

Ok so this was originally meant to be part of orctober. But then I found out about the OKCryptid and I JUST HAD to do that instead but this has been sitting in my drafts and I know it’s two months late but I’m on break for school and I’m catching up with everything and god damn it, this story is so cute and still more or less based on my own life and how I wish I would have had the courage to ask my crush out but I never got the chance so this is my own wish fulfillment and fantasy but with an orc twist and the headcanon that orc culture would take to beads like it’s it’s own subculture and how each bead has LAYERS AND LAYERS of meaning and TRADITIONS on how they’re given and recieved and how they have various styles to suit the recipient and that’s a discourse I will gladly discuss with anyone who will listen to me. Thanks for reading.

Orctober- Fall Formal.

Your name was Brianna Wright and you sat at your lunch table, by yourself, eating and doing homework so you didn’t have to do it at home, listening to the music on your phone through your headphones and drowning out the roar of the other students, most of which were sitting with their partners discussing details of the fall formal and since you were painfully single, you did your best to drown them out while trying to not let it get on your nerves before you took a break and snuck a peek at where your crush usually sat at his table not too far away but he wasn’t sitting there, he must still be going through the lunch line you supposed before you turned back to your homework. It was your first week back to school in your senior year and you noticed how everyone seemed to settle in. Couples had split and come together over summer break and made new friends and lost old ones. Things changed and yet stayed the same.

Your crush was none other than Kihro Soche, an orc who actually worked for your dad along with Kihro’s dad Kidron who was a partner with your Dad’s business and operated his own sister branch downtown, the first to do so several years ago. Hell everyone at Kihro’s table worked for your dad because their dad’s worked for your dad and they were their own father’s apprentices. It’s not that they were mean to you or picked on you, no, far from, they were always polite, both on the job site and in school but that was as far as it went because while all of you were friendly, you just weren’t...friends, or at least you felt they weren’t. Despite your dad’s success and your own younger sister’s popularity, you were surprisingly a loner. You were all business while you were in school and on the job site and you took your own education seriously, which meant you were dream for the teachers who often got you to tutor the jocks, most of which were orcs- to make sure they stayed on their athletic teams, while your teaches handled the trouble makers. Because of this you were neither bullied- nor popular because the only time anyone joined you at your table was when they wanted something from you, usually academic help. You lost count of how many “I owe you one’s” you had with half of all the teams in the school but you were never going to be one to call in those favors.

But despite all this Kihro was special. He wasn’t on any teams and he never asked you for help with anything because he was not only very intelligent himself but he was also more or less the leader of his group. You liked to suppose that if this was a few hundred years ago that Kidron would be an orc cheiftan and Kihro would be the next cheif after his dad stepped down. You had known him for several years as well and he had been to your house when your dad made Kidron a partner in the business and it was your first big “official” meal that you had cooked. Kihro had been with you when you collapsed on a job site this past spring, Kihro was the first one to get to you and actually picked you up and had woken you up and held you as your dad called 911 and he had carried you to the ambulance and his family had visited you in the hospital after that. That’s when your crush on him started, at the tender age of 16 and now that you were 17, it didn’t show any sign of letting up, it just got worse. But while he was always friendly with you and when you had been on the job site together you two worked really really well together but that’s where it appeared to stop and every day you just accepted that you two were just too different and that as much as you fantasized about you two getting together, it was never going to happen. He just wasn’t interested.

Your dad was a plumber by trade, a master plumber at that and he co-owned Wright Plumbing with your Papa, your mom’s dad- Larry Franks and together they ran the biggest- and in your opinion, the best- plumbing business for the west side of the Great Lakes Region. Your dad employed about 75 other plumbers, almost all of them journeymen in their own right and allowed them to bring their own children- the vast majority of them being sons- along with friends and family into the business too as their apprentices. Your dad had hired about a dozen orcs and a half dozen dwarves and other halflings at first, all of them remained and were now running their own branches of the business in the different communities and in the decade since then, the business grew and expanded almost exponentially. Your dad didn’t care what clan these orcs came from either, he employed everyone who was competent and because of this, he was able to hire from all the clans in the area and they all got along for the sake of the business and wore their uniforms with pride and because of the physical nature of the business, orcs, dwarves and halflings also had the intelligence, intuition and strength and stamina needed for the work and they always gave the best results while having high ethics and morals while doing so. Your dad made sure all of them were protected by the union, had very generous wages, large enough to solely and very comfortably- support large families on. The business also had the best health, vision, dental and life insurances the company could get, they got sick leave, maternity leave and even their apprentices made good money- often double minimum wage just to start out and then going to triple with experience, skill and expertise and a lot of these apprentices got headstarts on their own journeyman’s license requirements, many of them getting their liscences once they graduated high school.

To celebrate the business’ success, your dad often hosted company picnics every summer, they had been potluck at first but as the company grew and became successful, the more he could afford to put into them and make them the blow out events they were- that were the highlight of the year for his employees. Your dad had competition BBQ joints come in and cater to the event, roasting hundreds of whole hogs and a couple hundred chickens that got fried and barbequed and got dozens of kegs of different kinds of beer too in addition to it still being a potluck. You had wanted to work up the courage of asking Kihro to dance with you at the company picnic but your dad had you working the grill for most of it, grilling your body weight in steaks over a dozen times over all day, which you actually enjoyed doing because you loved to cook and worked wonders with meat but you just never got the chance to get away long enough to ask Kihro to dance with you and you knew there was no way he was going to ask you to a school dance and at the end of the night you just accepted that it was your fate to be forever alone and so close but so far from what you wanted. And with your health being as bad and as fragile as it was now, you knew there was no way you were going to go into plumbing as a career yourself so the only times you saw Kihro was either at school- which you were going to be graduating early from in a few short months, or at the company picnics or home shows. That was it, so you accepted the fact that eventually you’d drift apart and be strangers at some point and grow out of this silly crush. And you were scared of asking him and him rejecting you or asking in front of his friends and all of them telling their dads who would then report it to your dad. You were stuck and there was little to nothing you could do about it other than accept the situation as what it was.

What you didn’t know is Kihro had been crushing on you hard for the last 5 years. There was a reason he was the first one to you when you collapsed on the work site, because he had been watching you for a long time and knew that something was wrong for months and when you had dropped to the ground, he had dropped what he had been holding and ran like the wind to get to you and he picked you up and cradled you to his chest and would not let you go and it wasn’t until the paramedics came that he finally gave up his hold on you and he had been the one to really push his family to visit you at the hospital and to see you so sick and practically skin and bones and so close to death, had nearly broken him and he had never prayed so much in his life for you to pull through. Swearing to any god that would listen that if you could pull through, he would do whatever it took to take care of you and never have you this close to death or danger again. But his dad forbade him from doing anything about his attraction to you and he made good money and was able to save a small fortune as an apprentice but it wasn’t nearly what he expected your father to demand for a guy like him to be interested in his daughter. Because while your dad was relaxed and easy going at work, he was especially protective of you and your sisters.

Kihro had wanted to ask you to dance at the company picnics for years now too but his dad had shut him down every time and he knew your dad’s rules of not dating while in school but to hear that you were going to be graduating early after first semester, before winter formal- since your dad had casually mentioned it to his dad, he knew his window of opportunity was going to shut forever and if he didn’t ask you to at least one school dance- he felt like he was going to die, hell- he’d dance with you in the middle of this lunchroom if he thought you wouldn’t die of embarrassment. He tried to get as close to you as he could, when in class, he tried to pair up with you when you were in the same classes together and tried to be as friendly and nice to you as he could be without being creepy or causing any suspicion on your part and he just ADORED you. To him, you were already perfect and already the girl of his dreams because you were humble, sweet, kind, intelligent and had a great sense of humor and you could cook like nobody’s business and you were great with your little sisters and fantastic with his younger siblings and you just oozed ‘mom’ vibes which he was really into. One of his teachers had said that with women there were a couple of types- the fun kind that you dated and the marrying kind and to him, you were both. He had questioned his attraction at first, thinking it was only because you were the “boss’ daughter” and “off limits”, things he couldn’t have- according to his father and everyone else who worked for your dad and he had thought that he only wanted you because he couldn’t have you. But the longer this attraction lasted and the more he thought about it and pondered it, the more he realized that he really didn’t care if you were the boss’ daughter or not. Wright Plumbing could go down and out of business tomorrow and that wouldn’t change how he felt about you because you were an amazing person all on your own and it was your own personality’s merits that attracted him so strongly.

But he and the others were just...scared, scared of rejection, scared of your dad, scared of their own dads and any retaliation they might experience if they even tried to ask you out. But Kihro was done being scared and yesterday had been his journeyman’s license exam and he had passed it with flying colors and he was ready and prepared just in case this blew up in his face. Because as a journeyman there were other plumbing companies that would hire him, granted not for as much as your dad offered his journeyman’s plumbers that had been with him for a few years but it would still be a living that he could support himself in case this went south. So here he stood, kind of frozen in fear after getting through the lunch line and so nauseated from his anxiety he couldn’t even look at his food as he looked from his friends who were giving him the thumbs up and nodding over to the table you were sitting on before he forced his feet to move forward, mentally counting down the steps as he mentally rehearsed what he was going to say to you over and over in his head. He really didn’t want to screw this up.

It wasn’t until you noticed movement in your peripheral vision that you looked up and nearly let the food in your mouth fall out as your jaw practically dropped as you realized he was walking towards you before he sat down across from you.

“Hi,” he greeted you and you could tell he was nervous and you started to worry that maybe you were about to be the victim of a prank and he could see the fear in your eyes and it made his anxiety whirl in chest even more.

“Hi…” You answered slowly after you swallowed before you just subconsciously held your breath, waiting for the floor to drop.

“Um, look, I just...I wanted to ask you if you’d like to be my date for the fall formal.” He blurted out so quickly you didn’t really catch it.

“What?” You asked as you leaned forward and tried to focus harder on him over the roar of the other students.

“I wanted to ask you to be my date for the fall formal.” He repeated as you frowned in confusion.

“Uh...is this...some kind of trick or a joke or a dare or did you lose a bet or…?” You asked as you were more confused than anything and looked from him to the other table he usually sat at and saw them all staring before they tried to look away and act casual which for you was a red flag as panic gripped your own chest as you looked from them back to Kihro worriedly.

“No! No, I didn’t lose any bets, this isn’t a dare or a joke or a prank or anything like that, I swear. I would never dream of doing any of that, especially to you. No uh. I just....look, it’s senior year and my dad said that he had overheard your dad say that you were graduating early and so you won’t be in school for the winter formal or prom, otherwise I would be asking you to go with me to that, but um, I know you usually don’t go to the school dances and I know your dad is really strict with you about the whole dating thing but it’s senior year and I’ve chickened out the last few years and if I don’t at least ask you to one dance before you’re gone for good- I’m always going to wonder what might have happened if I just asked or hate myself for never having the guts to ask out the one girl who deserves to have fun the most because you work just as much and just as hard as I do. And please, don’t think I’m asking this, thinking that you’ll put in a good word for me with your dad either and this has nothing to do with the plumbing side of your life, I just...I just wanted to ask you to the dance.” He confessed and you wanted to cry tears of relief and happiness because holy shit, you had to be dreaming, you must have passed out again and hit your head, this had to be a fantasy, there is no way this was real. Any moment now you’re gonna shake your head out of your haze and see that you were indeed still alone at your table and had imagined all of this.

“Really?” You asked, almost afraid you were dreaming as you finally exhaled and took a few deep breaths to catch your breath again.

“Yeah,” He nodded. “So...what do you say?” He asked, both hope and fear clearly on his face as he in turn held his breath.

“Yes.” You agreed.

“Really?” He lit up with the brightest, most excited smile you had ever seen him wear.

“Yes really.” You laughed.

“Ok, thank you, thank you so so so much, oh gods, I was about ready to have a stroke and pass out, that was harder than the journeyman’s license test.” He breathed in relief and held his stomach and put his other hand over his racing heart that had been pounding so hard in his chest he feared it was going to break his ribs as he caught his own breath and finally relaxed.

“And did you pass?” You asked curiously.

“I did, with a 98.” He answered proudly which made you clap in excitement.

“That’s awesome, I’m really happy for you.” You offered.

“Thanks.” He smiled bashfully before he dug into his meal, finally getting his appetite back as did you too before you tried to figure out matching outfits, of course now that you were having this conversation yourself, this kind of thing stopped annoying you as you exchanged phone numbers to stay in touch.

“So if you’ve been wanting to ask me to the school dances for a few years, why is it just now that you’re coming over here and actually talking to me?” You asked as his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“Because I’ve been a scared and gutless piece of shit being too scared of your dad and what he could do to me if it didn’t go well.” He answered honestly as you frowned.

“My dad separates his home life and his business life pretty well, besides, I have absolutely no say in anything to do with Wright Plumbing, I think the worst you’d ever have to face is him giving you the “rules for taking my daughter out” talk. Like that’s it. Now I would worry for you from your clan’s side because if you fuck up bad enough, I know the clan self polices themselves. But from my dad’s side, no, I don’t think you have that much to worry about, not really. I mean, I do, because he’s the head of my family and I live under his roof and he has always tried to control every aspect of my life so please don’t do anything that I would catch grief over but we’re both practically adults, I think we can trust ourselves and each other to behave as such.” You reassured him as he had a look on his face you couldn’t really read.

“Well, then let me reassure you that I would never dream of ever stepping out of line and do anything inappropriate with you so you don’t have anything to worry about from me but you’re not wrong about the clan thing, they would bury my ass in a hill if I ever did anything to jeopardize their position with the plumbing business.” He confessed.

“Well, considering all of that, you’re risking a lot just to ask me to a dance. If our positions were reversed, I don’t know if I would have the guts to do what you just did. I mean it took me nearly dying for my dad to realize that plumbing was not for me and I worry about all the apprentices that work under their fathers because granted plumbing is a good skill and a good trade and something that you can make a really good living off of but I worry that it’s been forced onto you guys like it was forced onto me and how many would leave if they woke up one morning and realized it wasn’t what they wanted to do with their lives but they’re afraid they won’t find anything else that will pay as much as my dad does or maybe if they wanted to be artists or clothing designers or restaurateurs or just..any other profession than their dad’s profession that they won’t get the same support.” You reasoned and Kihro was dumbstruck by how profound your statement was because that was very much an issue a lot of them dealt with, granted he personally didn't, but still. He realized that they were wrong to not socialize with you for fear you'd expose that to either your father or theirs.

“So..what are you going to be doing then?” He asked curiously as he leaned forward to really listen to what you had to say as you mirrored him and leaned forward to and now you felt like you were in kissing distance. But he probably wouldn’t be down for that.

“Medical massage therapy. I’m going to White Heron. That’s just off of Westnidge.” You answered proudly as Kihro’s eyebrows shot up in surprise but a smile bloomed on his face.

“Wow, that’s...not anything like plumbing.” He chuckled.

“I know right? Kind of the point. It was either that or engineering school to design roller coasters.” You shrugged as Kihro barked an amused laugh.

“Well both seem like a lot of work but a lot of fun, would you be comfortable enough to practice your massage on me though?” He asked boldly but hopefully because the thought of having you massage him sounded like heaven, although how he wasn’t going to pop a boner while you did so was going to be the hardest part unless you just needed private homework practice, he’d be all about that.

“Yeah I would, White Heron has a spa so the students can get their required practice hours in, it’ll be a few months before I’m allowed to give massages but they’re only $35 for 50 minutes. But again, both of us will have to be professional during the treatment.” You nodded as your cheeks stained rose while your own smile turned a bit bashful.

“Yeah, I think we can do that.” He grinned with a nod as your grin mirrored his before his grin turned mischievous and he gave you a quick peck on the lips right before the bell rang, blanking your mind of all rational thought and reason.

“Huh…?” You swooned breathelessly as your eyes fluttered back open and Kihro was both smug but also biting his lip because he was kicking himself for not doing that sooner, especially for you to have that reaction to him before he leaned forward and kissed you again, this time, you took a firm hold of his shirt and really kissed him back. Not believing that Kihro was the one to give you your first kiss and what a kiss it was. Unfortunately you don’t have any more classes with him for the rest of the day.

You felt like you floated the rest of the day and got home and started dinner and couldn’t stop smiling.

“Hey Brie, how was school?” Your dad asked when he came home and peeked into what you were cooking.

“It was good, Kihro told me he passed his journeyman’s license yesterday with a 98.” You reported proudly.

“Yeah I know, I put together a sign on package for him that he should be signing this weekend.” He answered.

“Oh good, he’s been a really good employee for how long now?” You tried to ask casually.

“Oh a good five years, now that he’s a journeyman, he’ll probably be Kidron’s second in command of the downtown branch.” Your father predicted.

“Good. So if he asked me to the fall formal, you’d be ok with it then?” You presumed before your father did a complete 180 and nearly snapped his neck whipping his head to the side to look at you incredulously

“He did what?” He asked.

“Kihro, the guy you’ve employed for the last 5 years, who’s father has been working for you for 12, who you’ve known since he was 5, who’s father is one of your most trusted OG’s, from one of the few families who came and visited me in the hospital and it was Kihro who got to me first when I collapsed and it was Kihro who knew something was wrong with me before anyone else did and it was Kihro who carried me to the ambulance himself, asked me to a school dance, I can go with him right?” You repeated.

“You’re too young to date.” Came your father’s reply as his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“I am aware of that rule of no dating while I'm in high school. And this is a dance for one night, there will be chaperones, I’m sure you’ll be demanding that Grace come with me which I’m cool with. You already track where I am on my phone constantly, have I not done enough to earn your trust so that I can use my own judgement on something like this? Hasn’t it been you who has taught me how to read and deal with people and how to be perceptive and use my own concience and insticts. Besides, don’t you think I know that not only would you kill him if he tried anything, but his father and his clan would too if he dared step out of line because I’m “the boss’ daughter” and he actually made a point to say that him asking me to the dance had nothing to do with you or his job or his father’s job or anything like that. It’s just a case of a boy asking a girl to a dance. This shouldn’t be this complicated Dad. Most fathers around here don’t get the luxury of really knowing who is asking their daughters to the dance, you do though and if Kihro has earned your trust and respect enough that you want him working for you and being the second in command at your downtown branch, that should be more than enough. He should have earned enough trust and enough respect that you can trust him with me, for one night at a school dance. That’s all this is right now.” You defended.

“But what if he wants more than that from you? I don’t think you’re aware how different orc culture is compared to our own.” Your father posed and you wanted to scream but today, you were ready to fight.

“You’re right, I don’t know everything about orc culture because all I know is what I’ve witnessed myself. But I’m sure there are others who could teach me about it if Kihro and I started dating. But if you want to play Devil’s advocate, let’s go. Worst case scenerio if you say yes, is I go, he get’s handsy because he manages to smuggle in a whole fifth of tequila or vodka or whatever and he gets hammered drunk and looses all his senses, he wants to be a two pump chump and I say no and he forces me to have sex anyway and rapes me because he’s twice my size and probably ten times my strength, he could do it if he really wanted to. Would that be fair in saying that is the worst case scenario?” You posed as your dad crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t say anything but you could tell that you hit the nail on the head with that one.

“Now, if that were to happen, yes that would be horrible and unforgivable but thankfully they make something called the morning after pill and they make birth control I can get on but just for the sake of argument, if he knocked me up, I have a choice, get an abortion or keep the baby and become a teenage mother. Both are options in that horrible circumstance but that’s the risk any girl takes in having sex. But back to Kihro- you know as well as I do that orcs tend to self police themselves within their respective clans. Do you really think his father would let him continue breathing if that happened or hell his whole clan would hunt him down because in cases like that clans get together and there would be an orc hunt of a scale I can only imagine and there wouldn’t be anywhere Kihro could run and hide that he wouldn’t be found and then they would all let you take the first shot with your shotgun because not only did he just dishonor his family line but he dishonored his clan and he just put the clan’s honor into jeopardy by literally screwing the daughter of one of the few humans who employs a good number of the clan members and gives them more opportunities than most do and is an invaluable ally to every clan around here, and it would put tension on the relationship the Stormbreaker Clan has with all the other clans and would make the clan itself a target. Now, would you say that’s a fair assessment?” You proposed and waited until your father nodded his agreement.

“Now, let’s flip the coin and look at the best case scenario. Best case scenario, he comes, picks me up, drives me there, keeps his hands to himself, doesn’t drink, doesn’t do drugs doesn’t do anything dishonorable in any way. And we still manage to have a good time. And he drops me off at home before curfew and that’s that and we just remain friends and he’s still gainfully employed by the end of the night and you separate church and state or in this case personal life from business life and allow me to have a life usually enjoyed by most girls my age in our society. Now let's take this one step further, he asks me out and he wants to have a romantic relationship with me which I am open to, he asks me to be his girlfriend and again, for the sake of argument, I say yes to that but only after I get an education from multiple verified sources about how different you say their culture is from ours because if I was going to enter into a romantic relationship with him, I would want to go into it with my eyes wide open and know what I was getting into, so let’s just say for the sake of this argument, that all that happens and, we date for a while. And either it doesn’t work out and we aren’t a good fit for the other and we part- or if, and I mean if, it does work out, we fall in love and want to get married. Then it’s still up to me if I want to marry him or not. And let’s just say I do marry him. You would then- have a son in law who is in your business and you get to keep the business in the family, not that that would ever be my motivation for saying yes to him because ultimately the business may thrive or die with the seasons but marriage is for life but it would be a perk and you get to have human-orc halflings for grandchildren if my Crohn’s goes into remission and stays in remission long enough for me to pump out a few kids and you just get to deal with my decisions and the consequences of those decisions whether they be positive or negative.” You paused to take a breath as your father listened closely.

“Kihro obviously took a very great risk and leap of faith to even take the chance in asking me to the dance and he has had an interest in me for, apparently, the last few years but his own father has shut that down because of our situation and then when he heard that I'm graduating early he realized that his own window of opportunity to ask me to a dance was closing and that if he didn't ask, he was going to lose the opportunity for good and he would have always wondered "what if" and been upset with himself that he didn't just bite the bullet and ask instead of letting his fear of you and what you could retaliate with or the fear of his own father and what he could retaliate with- stop him. So since he took a great risk, I want to reward that by letting him have the pleasure of taking me to a dance. That's all we're asking for right now. I realize that it’s your job to take care of me and keep me safe and you’ve done an amazing job, just, give me enough rope to hang myself on with this. Please.” You requested.

“Fine, one dance.” Your father begrudgingly agreed.

“Thank you, now if and when you want to invite them over for dinner this weekend so you can lay down the rules and the law, but only if you will assure and reassure Mr. Soche that he gets to keep his job and all the other orcs from the Stormbreaker clan get to keep theirs too because this should never endanger all of that.” You specified. “Does that sound fair to you?” You offered.

“That’s fair.” Your dad decided before he stepped away to make a phone call and you used that opportunity to give Kihro a heads up that he and his dad might possibly be getting a call from your dad to invite them over for dinner to have that “talk” you warned him about as you mentally prepared what you were going to do and what you needed to do to prepare yourself and the house for company. You listened attentively as your dad talked with Kidron and smiled in relief when your father assured and reassured that it was ok with him that Kihro asked you to the dance and that everything would be ok before you got an idea and texted all the orc girls you knew and were friends with and swore them all to secrecy and asked for advice on what to do and how to best please and impress Kidron and his wife Rhiox, all of them were surprised if not excited about the development before they clued you in on more of the orc traditions and customs and the expectations that would be put on you if you and Kihro ever got serious which you found yourself biting your lip to keep your smile from splitting your face in half but you wanted to walk into this with your eyes wide open before you asked for a huge favor that had all your friends squealing in delight before they all eagerly agreed to it.

“And what did they say?” You asked your dad when he got off the phone.

“They’ll be over Saturday at 5.” Your father answered.

“Good, I’ll need to go shopping Thursday then, I’ll have a list and a proposed budget by Wednesday.” You offered.

The next day Kihro had you sit at his table and kept his arm around you possessively but you were happy you were received so well into their fold and then after school your other friends from the other school districts met up with you after school to give you what you asked for. A catalog to show you the different beads and what they meant in the Stormbreaker clan as you quickly looked it over and were amazed at how such a simple thing was entrenched in tradition and had layers and layers of meaning and how there were traditions and rules for the giving and receiving of beads before you had them bring you to an orc bead store. The best one in the area where you tracked down and bought the bead of your choice. And you didn’t get any bead, you got one that had a lot of meaning for you as well. Because if you were only going to get one chance to give something to him, you wanted him to have this, it would just be hard to not give this to him until the time was right and you both hinted at dating but for right now, you just both had to survive the dance and see how that turned out but rumors had already sprung up and suddenly guys seemed to come out of the woodwork to express interest to which you had to albeit, a little regretfully inform them that you weren’t dating him, that he just asked you to the fall formal and that was it and if they had any other questions to ask Kihro which most of them chickened out because Kihro was himself- very intimidating.

By Saturday you were amped up. You were cooking a feast with all the necessary components and Kihro's bead was burning a hole in your pocket. You were nervous but excited and hoped you were getting all of this right.

They arrived and one look at Kihro and he was just as nervous as you were but just having him there, looking at you like you were the moon and had hung up the stars in the heavens was enough for you. You went ahead and poured two beers, one for each of his parents and handed those to them with a warm greeting and welcomed them into your home which both surprised and impressed them before you got to get Kihro a beer too, happy to have the chance and opportunity to touch hands as you passed it over before you all sat down to dinner, Kidron and Rhiox very impressed not just by the portion size but what you cooked. You must have had over a dozen beef femurs split and roasted so that the marrow was easy to get to and Rhiox just kept grinning at you and her husband and Kihro and you could tell she was just tickled by all of this and genuinely happy and excited. Kidron however, you could tell he was biting his tongue and you could just see that he thought all of this was a bad idea and you didn’t know what you could possibly say or do to help assure him that it was actually a good idea.

“Ok, I’d like to address the elephant in the room. I realize that Kihro took a risk in asking me to the dance, which I’m honored that he did and I’m happy to go with him. Is there anything I can do to earn your respect and trust or assure you or even reassure you that by allowing us to do this is the right choice?” You asked and Rhiox damn near started crying and the smile she gave you told you that she was already so happy and moved that you would ask such a thing in such a respectful way and was very impressed as Kidron simply sat there and blinked at you a couple of times as the ghost of a smile almost started to spread on his face.

“We already respect and trust you so don’t worry about that.” Kidron answered with a small but gentle smile.

“Good, I only hope to continue to gain your respect and trust and if there is anything in particular I can do- please tell me.” You nodded and that seemed to be the magic words because after that, all the tension coming from Kidron completely melted.

“Likewise George. If there is anything I can do to continue to earn your respect and trust, just let me know.” Kihro added as he made sure to look your father in the eye saying that as everyone then looked to your father to see what his answer would be.

“Well, I know you are risking quite a bit. And I don’t think I need to explain what the stakes are…”

“No because that would be unnecessary, it’s a dance, there will be chaperones, we will behave, I don’t know what else I can say without beating this dead horse to a pulp here.” You interjected as Kihro smiled appreciatively at you.

“Ok, so, that being said, I still want to make sure we all come to an understanding of what the expectations are, you’ll have her home by ten. Grace is coming with you as a chaperone, no drinking, no drugs, keep your hands to yourself except for dancing and even then, hands at her waist. Understood?” Your father insisted.

“Understood.” Kihro shook your father’s hand as you just wanted to die, you were practically an adult and they were just complicating things. But at the end of the night you got what you wanted- a chance to dance with your crush. As cheesy as that sounded.

Your mother, despite hating to go shopping, did take you out and got a dress that was both beautiful yet modest, tasteful and becoming.

But you never got to wear it.

The night of the fall formal you found yourself in the hospital again, another flare, another near death. But you weren’t alone. Kihro was right there by your side as your family and his went and got something to eat, Kihro not leaving your side though and keeping you company.

“You should be at the dance.” You murmured softly.

“Nope, I’m where I’m supposed to be tonight.” He shook his head as he just squeezed your hand that he was holding a little tighter for a moment as he gave you the softest, most adoring smile.

“I wanted a night with you, that’s exactly what I’m getting.” He added.

“I thought you wanted a dance?” You gently contended, a half smirk at the corner of your mouth, your voice hoarse from vomiting so much.

“Do you think you could stand?” He asked which made you frown.

“I guess?” You answered before he got up and gently helped you get out of bed, your hospital gown hanging off your frame as your robe made sure you were modest from behind too. Kihro was careful to make sure you stayed connected to everything before he got your favorite song to play on his phone and set it down on the bed and wrapped his thick and well muscled arm around your waist to hold you up so that your toes rested on his boots as his arm held you fast to him so that you didn’t have too much weight on your feet as he simply stood by the bed and just swayed to the music with you which you thought was beyond romantic.

“This isn’t the gown I thought I would wear for my first dance with you.” You chuckled as you just let your head rest on his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart and just relaxed in his arms and happily let him hold you up because your strength and stamina had been wiped out.

“Nah, the gown doesn’t really matter, it’s the girl in the gown that does though.” He whispered before kissing the top of your head affectionately as you smiled gratefully.

“When you make it through this, would you want to be my girlfriend?” He asked before you lifted your head.

“Absolutely.” You agreed before he bent down to kiss you softly, his swaying slowing down as your arms wrapped around his neck before his other hand that wasn’t around your waist came up to hold the back of your head as he kissed you earnestly, pouring his soul into it which was sweeter than honey and purer than gold and he still stole your breath away.

The song ended and he helped you get back into bed before you had him get you your purse in one of cupboards before you got a special beaded coinpurse out, one that you got just to house the bead you had gotten him.

“I had wanted to give this to you tonight at the end of the night if it had gone well and if we had both worked up the courage to ask the other out.” You said as you handed it to him and he smiled so brightly and proudly as tears came to his eyes as he realized what bead it was before he was on his knees next to the bed and kissing you again and hugging you tight.

“Thank you Bri, you have no idea how much this means to me.” Kihro thanked you earnestly before he had you put it into the braid in his hair before he presented you with not just one bead- but three because he couldn’t decide on one at the bead store before you had him put it into your hair which he happily brushed and braided exquisitely and just about the time he was done and you settled back into bed, your families came back with food for Kihro and some bone broth for you.

“Hey dad, we’re dating.” You announced weakly but happily as you pointed to your hair and in particular the beads in your hair with a weak but proud smile as Riox practically burst the windows with how loud her cheer was as she enveloped you into a hug and welcomed you into their family and their clan and told you all about it as she urged you to get better as soon as you could as Kidron and your Dad both smirked at each other, figuring this was gonna happen sooner or later.

So it wasn’t the fall formal you wanted, but it was the outcome you had always hoped for. Besides- there was always winter formal...

#Orcs #Modern Orcs #modern orc love story #orc boyfriend #orctober #late orctober #Fall formal #Better late than never #exophilia #monster boyfriend #monster romance #orc romance

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queenofslime · 5 years ago

Note

I would also like to ask you all the quarantine asks! :D

Why, thank you! <3

Animated character that was your gay awakening? If I’m gonna be honest it’s the girl from the 19th amendment song in School House Rock (Sufferin’ for Suffrage). Also Kim Possible.

Grilled cheese or PB&J? Grilled Cheese!!!

What show/YouTube video(s) do you put on in the background when you when you don’t have anything to watch but you want something on? TV show: Cheers. Youtube: Bon Appetit

Your go-to bar order, if you drink? I don’t really drink all that much.

What’s your favorite pair of shoes that you own? Floral Doc Martens I’ve had since I was 15

Top three cuisines? Chinese, Mexican, Indian

What was your first word as a child (that wasn’t a variation of “Mom” or “Dad”)? Hi!

What’s a job that you’ve had that people might be surprised to find out you’ve had? I work for a gay rights lawyer right now

Look up. What’s directly across from you? Toaster oven

Do you own any signed books/memorabilia in general? I had John DiMaggio, voice of Dr Drakken, sign my Kim Possible CD

Preferred way to spend a rainy day? Drinking tea and watching movies

What do you get on your bagels? I’m a monster sometimes I just eat untoasted bagels with nothing on them

What WOULD you get if you had access to anything you wanted? I have no idea at the moment. Probably new clothes so I can commit to a color scheme and an Aesthetic

Brunch or midnight snacks? Midnight snack. Or “dark lunch”, as I call it

Favorite mug you own Little mug from Daiso with a cat playing piano. On one side it says “This beautiful music is being played by the cat” and on the other side it says “Can you play the piano just the way I did it?”

What coffee drink would you describe yourself as? I need a uquiz to tell me based on which Mary Oliver poem makes me want to plant myself in a garden

Pick a song lyric to describe your current mood (and drop the name and artist!) First thing that came to mind: “I thought I was so smart/but I don’t know my heart” I don’t know my heart from pride and prejudice the musical

Fruity or herbal teas? Herbal but I prefer black tea

What’s that one TV show that you’re a little bit embarrassed to watch but you still like nonetheless? Sex and the City is nice for when i don’t want to have to think about anything but i want to see pretty outfits and low-stakes problems, you know?

That book you were forced to read for class but actually ended up enjoying? Catcher in the Rye, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Do you match your socks? If I can

Have you ever been horseback riding? Once or twice

What was your “phase” when you were younger? (i.e., Mythology Nerd, Horse Girl, Space Geek, etc) I went through a like 5-year long Ancient Egypt phase. But I also read Dragonology and D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths cover to cover multiple times

Have you ever been to jail? No i’m sheltered

What’s your opinion on Lazy Susan’s (the spinning tray in the middle of tables)? Is there discourse about this?

Puzzles? I’m pathetic with puzzles. I get frustrated with that kind of stuff so fast. I always lose escape rooms and I don’t even try to solve the murder when i’m watching a mystery show.

You can only have one juice for the rest of your life, what is it? Apple

What section do you immediately head for when you walk into a bookstore? Poetry

What’s one thing you’re trying to learn/relearn in your downtime right now? I bought a pattern and fabric to sew some pajamas but I’ve been putting off starting it

Who’s your go-to musical artist when you’re feeling upbeat? If I’m REALLY upbeat I’ll listen to my Broadway playlist, “Vigorous Jazz Hands”

Where could someone find you in a museum? In the gift shop buying postcards to put on my wall

What’s that one outfit in your closet you never get the chance to wear but want to? I have this absolutely killer brown leather jacket with big-ass shoulders that makes me look like a lesbian park ranger but it’s almost never cold enough where I live to wear it

Rainbows, stars, or sunset colored clouds? Stars :)

If you could own any non-traditional pet (dogs, cats, fish, rodents, etc), what would it be? A fox maybe!

Do you have more art on your walls or more photographs? Art

You have to get one meme tattooed on your body, what meme is it and where does it go? “Bottom Text” on my butt

Pick a superhero sidekick to hang out with Layla from Sky High

Lakes, rivers, or oceans? Ocean

Favorite mid-2000s song What to Do by OK Go (2002)

How do you dress when you’re home alone? Sweatpants and a tshirt. Or sometimes just a bralette and basketball shorts.

Where do you sit in the living room (we all have a preferred spot, and you know it)? Right side of the couch. if my mom is sitting there then the armchair next to the sofa.

Knives or swords? Swords

A song you didn’t think you’d enjoy but ended up loving Orville Peck’s debut album Pony

Pick an old-school Disney Channel Original Movie Twitches!

Are you a “Quote that relates to the photos” caption-er, an “explanation of where I took the photos” caption-er, or a no caption kinda person when you post pictures online? Usually an explanation kinda person, unless i’m posting on my spam Instagram in which case the photo and the caption usually have nothing to do with each other

Name a classic Vine I’m in me mum’s car...broom broom

What’s the freezer food that you stock up on when you go to the grocery store? Bagel bites or bean burritos

How do you top your ice cream? MnMs and whipped cream

Do you like Jello? I could take it or leave it i guess

What’s something that you don’t have a picture of that you wish you did? Let’s get philosophical: the way other people see me (ooooooo)

How are you at climbing trees? I used to be pretty good at it as a kid but I haven’t tried in earnest in years. Hm I need to go try once it stops raining around here

#mel tells #ask #retrauxpunk

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lumaxmayclair · 7 years ago

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100 questions

Tagged by @janes-mike and @mileven-and-contemplation (who tagged me as I’m answering this lol) thank youu for the tag!

1. What is your nickname? Zi

2. How old are you? 22

3. What is your birth month? April

4. What is your zodiac sign? Aries

5. What is your favorite color? Idk I cant think of one right now

6. What’s your lucky number? I love the number 7 but I’m not sure if it’s lucky

7. Do you have any pets? Nope. I wish I do though. Would love to have a cat..

8. Where are you from? Indonesia!

9. How tall are you? Probably like 168cm or something? Idk it’s been literally months since I last measure it and I can’t remember what it was.

10. What shoe size are you? 43, I just checked

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own? Just one.

12. Are you random? Randomly yeah. Sometimes I’m randomly random.

13. Last person you texted? Strictly texting: a friend, I told her I might be late cause I just woke up. Any chat-based app: My mom, asking her if she told my other friend that I’m sick.

14. Are you psychic in any way? Nah I don’t think so. Pretty sure I’m as clueless as one can be.

15. Last TV show watched? NCIS, an old classic.

16. Favorite movie? Black Panther!

17. Favorite show from your childhood? Hmm, I’m not sure. Probably Justice League Unlimited? Idk I forgot what I used to watch lol. Wait no I just remember: Avatar: The Last Airbender! The best animated show there ever was.

18. Do you want children? Haven’t really thought about it. Why not though?

19. Do you want a church wedding? Not church but yeah a religious one would be great.

20. What is your religion? Muslim and proud!

21. Have you ever been to the hospital? A few times yeah.

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? Nope. And hopefully never.

23. How is life? Could be better.

24. Baths or showers? Showers

25. What color socks are you wearing? White exclusively.

26. Have you ever been famous? Nah never.

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity? Why not? As long as I get to keep my privacy. I think there’s a lot of things I can do having a big influence.

28. What type of music do you like? Songs that are in my playlist.

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Nope.

30. How many pillows do you sleep with? Three. I’m a hugger.

31. What position do you usually sleep in? Whichever that’s comfortable for me that night.

32. How big is your house? I’m only a student living with two housemates so.. not big.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast? Define breakfast.

34. Have you ever left the country? Currently studying abroad so yeah lol.

35. Have you ever tried archery? Nope. I’m kinda curious tho. Maybe one day..

36. Do you like anyone? Yep.

37. Favorite swear word? O shit.

38. When do you fall asleep? When I shouldn’t be.

39. Do you have any scars? Nah.

40. Sexual orientation? Bi.

41. Are you a good liar? I think so yeah. I try to never lie so that when I do, no one thinks I’m lying.

42. What languages would you like to learn? Spanish and/or ASL. Gotta finish Portugese first though.

43. Top 10 songs? Umm

Nervous - Shawn Mendes

My Mother’s Eyes - Alec Benjamin

The Majestic Tale (Of A Madman In A Box) - Murray Gold

Wakanda - Ludwig Göransson ft. Baaba Maal

I’m Yours - Jason Mraz

Memories - Shawn Mendes

Avengers Infinity War : Musical Tribute (Marvel Mashup) ft. 14 Marvel Music Artists

The Shepherd’s Boy - Murray Gold

Can I Have This Dance - High School Musical

I Don’t Dance or as we know it the gay hsm song - High School Musical

Bonus, cause I’m indecisive as fuck: Avatar State and Series Finale by Jeremy Zuckerman

44. Do you like your country? Yeah even with all her imperfections I will always love my homeland.

45. Do you have friends from the web? I hope so. I’m just so bad at conversations that I never asked lol.

46. What is your personality type? Introvert

47. Hogwarts House? Ravenpuff!

48. Can you curl your tongue? Yeah.

49. Pick one fictional character you can relate to? Online: Stan Uris. Irl: Jonah Beck.

50. Left or right handed? Right.

51. Are you scared of spiders? As far as we’re not touching I’m good.

52. Favorite food? Probably rendang.

53. Favorite foreign food? Asian: sushi. European: spaghetti/pizza. African: wish I knew more.

54. Are you a clean or messy person? Messy.

55. If you could switch your gender for a day, what would you do? Hug them titties.

56. What color underwear? Black, grey, dark blue.

57. How long does it take for you to get ready? 20 minutes when I’m not in a hurry, 5 when I am.

58. Do you have much of an ego? Unfortunately proabably yeah..

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops? Bite. I’m too impatient lmaoo.

60. Do you talk to yourself? Yeah who doesn’t?

61. Do you sing to yourself? Yep.

62. Are you a good singer? I’ll leave it up to the judges.

63. Biggest Fears? Being thought of as annoying or selfish.

64. Are you a gossip? I don’t gossip, but when there’s drama I just have to know more lol.

65. Are you a grammar nazi? Yeah unfortunately.

66. Do you have long or short hair? Short. It’s currently longer than usual though.

67. Can you name all 50 states of America? I used to, thanks to this game but I didn’t keep it up.

68. Favorite school subject? Math and english.

69. Extrovert or Introvert? Introvert ftw.

70. Have you ever been scuba diving? Nope.

71. What makes you nervous? Interacting with people.

72. Are you scared of the dark? Sometimes.

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes? Nah I’m not confident enough.

74. Are you ticklish? Maaaybe..

75. Have you ever started a rumor? Nope.

76. Have you ever been out of your home country? Currently living out of my home country.

77. Have you ever drank underage? Nope, I don’t drink.

78. Have you ever done drugs? Nope, I don’t ever plan on doing drugs.

79. What do you fantasize about? Being able to concentrate for long enough to actually do something productive.

80. How many piercings do you have? None I don’t really like piercings.

81. Can you roll your R’s? Yep that’s how we do it in my native language. (bonus I also can do the english R’s, obviously, as well as the french ones.)

82. How fast can you type? I’d say average.

83. How fast can you run? I’d say less than average. I can sprint pretty fast but no more than a minute lol.

84. What color is your hair? Black.

85. What color are your eyes? Also black. I think.

86. What are you allergic to? Discourse and dust.

87. Do you keep a journal? I wish lmaoo. I tried a few times but I always forgot to write in it after a few weeks.

88. Are you depressed about anything? Probably.

89. Do you like your age? Meh I’m indifferent.

90. What makes you angry? I’m not sure.. Maybe wasting time.

91. Do you like your own name? Meh I’m indifferent.

92. Did you ever get a foreign object up your nose? Almost said never but then I remembered I got a crayon up there once…

93. Do you want a boy or a girl for a child? Meh I’m indifferent.

94. What talents do you have? Procrastinating. I’ve even mastered procrastinating procrastination.

95. Sun or moon? Moon cause my first girfriend turned into the moon.

96. How did you get your name? It’s from this guy! Also my middle name can mean The Nightcomer and I was born just as the sun was set, according to my mom.

97. Are you religious? Yep.

98. Have you ever been to a therapist? Nah I haven’t.

99. Color of your bedspread? Just plain white.

100. Color of your room? Pastel yellow.

Whew finally done. Tagging: @dontfanficanddrivefolks @oioioioioiland @urdearestmom @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold @gay-for-roxane @breakthestrutura @ask-the-deadman @willel or @kirabook @sunsetozier @el-and-hop

I didn’t check so sorry if you’ve done this before!

#this took me literally hours lmaoo #i got distracted really easily #it was pretty fun tho #also #reposting cause the tags didn't work the first time #zi's #tag game

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bpdzai · 7 years ago

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About Me

Cause I love talking about meself, apparently.

Tagged by the super great @momolatch

I’m tagging whoever wants to put info about themselves on the intraweb

Name/nickname: ALRIGHT SO my name’s Junpei (you can call me Jun, Junnie, or variations thereof). I also picked keyan as a fake name once and now key is a nickname too so you can go with that lmao.

Gender: Gender is a FUCK. I don’t know. Kinda a boy???? But I don’t know

Star sign: Capricorn!

Height: 176.5 cm

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Favourite animal(s): Ravens, Foxes, Hedgehogs

Hours of sleep: On a depression day? prob up to 7 hours. On a maniac day? hahaha

Dogs or cats: BOTH

Number of blankets: One.

Dream trip: uhhhhhh Moon

Dream job: Neurosurgeon! (Good luck with that Jun lmao)

Time: 8:45

Favorite Bands: My Chemical Romance, OOR, Monsta X, SF9, Daughter

Favorite Solo Artists: Solange, Frank Ocean, Stromae

Song Stuck In My Head: Maria - Aoyagi Sho

Last Movie I Watched: Crows Explode (still haunted by Iwata’s unexpected appearance and his fuckin look ahdajsdka)

Last Show I Watched: High&Low

When Did I Create My Blog: I made my first blog in 2012, and then had to remake it because of the whole “we’re gonna ban 90% of shit on your dashboard because our algorithms suck”

What Do I Post/Reblog: Uhhhhhh video games, toku, music, and whatever I’m into at the moment.

Last Thing I Googled: “wolfram alpha” aldkjsadkaj (I was doing multivar hw don’t judge me I needed to graph something)

Other Blogs: uh ok so I saved a url once as a joke and then didn’t know what to do with? so I made it into a build sideblog that has more followers than I do. There’s one blog I made to promote my kr server, and this now abandoned (but one day I will return to it) blog I made to make recs of lgbt+ media but with trigger warnings and summaries and stuff.

Do I Get Asks: The most common kind of ask I get is from @all-is-fair-in-kpop-andwar in order to start discourse and call me a furry OR from @the-gible-squad to make fun of my love and support for kiba yuuji.

Why I Choose My URL: I was writing a timeline jumping story back when I was choosing my URL.

Followers: 103

Lucky Number: I don’t have one tbh but I just like the number 11.

Favorite Instrument: Drums because I can actually do something with those unlike the other instruments I like to pretend I can play.

What Am I Wearing: an old competition shirt and jeans

Favorite Food: Ghorme Sabzi

Nationality: Iranian I guess

Favorite Song: Degausser - Brand New (it’s still That song)

Last Book Read: Handmaid’s Tale (current school assignment yay)

Top Three Fictional Universes I’d Like To Join: Is this like, hop in there once for Fun or a permanent joining? Cause if it’s the latter then: Pokemon, Star Trek, and whatever universe will let me study medicine without getting into enormous amounts of debt

#about me

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okd-blr · 7 years ago

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Who is the admin

Basics:

While Im sure most of you can figure out who runs this blog, especially if you visit the OKD home page, for use on this blog go ahead and call me V.

I’m 28 years old, if you are a minor who does not wish for adult interaction please be aware of this.

I am a bisexual pre/non transitioned Trans man and use he/they pronouns

While I do not have a current diagnosis I am not neurotypical, very likely I have ADHD

And if any of this matter to you I’m an Aries, a Slytherin and a Furry

Kintypes:

I have three different types-2 kintypes, a Theriotype and a fictotype.

My first kintype technically falls under a few different labels, but would most easily be described as a Cthonic type divine. My other kintype is that of a vampiric like animal/human shapeshifter. these two kintypes tend to be very fluid and blend together.

My theriotype is that of a melanistic jaguar like is depicted in the blog icon

My Fictotype is that of a specific character portrayed on a canadian TV drama that is an Unseelie Fae

Experience as otherkin and in the community:

I first came to the conclusion that I might, in some way, not be entirely human 16 years ago.

At the time Vampire was the only thing I could really think of-as my grandmother was fully invested in the ideas of the Satanic Panic and had assured me as a child vampires and witches were absolutely real (she was right of course but not in the way she imagined)

At first I dismissed this idea as the imaginings of a lonely, bullied child who wanted to be special and wished for control and power in their life. yes I was pretty quick on the critical thinking train.

However the experiences I had, the feelings I had that lead me to initially suspect being nonhuman did not go away despite my skepticism and so I would explore it in small ways until roughly 2004 when i would stumble across resources for the Real Vampire community and a small-likely now gone-page for the ‘were’ community ( the label used prior to Therianthropy)

I read through these sites-especially the resources on vampirism, very thoroughly-though I did not join the forums as I was not allowed to do that kind of thing because of aforementioned paranoid grandmother.

In high school I had a number of friends who claimed to be vampires, witches, reincarnated angels and such but it was clear pretty much from the beginning that this was just a game to them and they tended to engage in lots of drama and pretty teenage backstabbing and gossip. I largely managed to avoid this by claiming to be a “solitary’ vampire.

There were others I would meet in college who would, for a while, genuinely believe these kinds of things but feel out of it again after a few years-again I was the only one who remained serious about these experiences and identity.

In early 2009 during my third semester of college I would discover the forum TherianWilderness via someones Deviantart signature. Being a now independent adult I signed up, and from there also signed up for Werelist. Mostly at this time I was exploring my theriotype and the shapeshifter kintype.

I would later bring up the subject of incarnated angels on Werelist and be directed to otherkin specific forums such as OtherkinPhenomena and OtherkinAlliance. (Though I ended up with an account on nearly every active Otherkin forum at the time, OKA was where I eventually settled down) from there

I would begin much more serious introspection and personal growth not only related to my being Otherkin but also in relation to the rest of my spirituality. in this facet the older members of these forums were a huge asset to me and I continue to value their input and opinions on the subject-even though the group from those days has largely drifted away from each other. This same group of people would also be active in specific Otherkin circles and groups on Livejournal and then Dreamwidth.

In 2011 I would found Otherkin-Deviants on DeviantArt.com-At the time it was one of the few groups that was not Therian specific and in the ensuing 7 nyears it has become one of the largest Alterhuman related groups on Deviantart at over 350 members.

Also in early 2011 I would create a Tumblr account. At this time there was no Otherkin community here and my main blog was almost entirely Harry Potter related. After some explosive life stuff I would be gone from the internet for a year-when I returned to Tumblr in April 2012 the Otherkin tag on Tumblr was in full swing and already full of drama, misinformation, trolls and a bunch of other ridiculous crap. So of course I rolled up my selves and went to work correcting what i could and attempting to police/moderate a community that inherently can not be moderated on this particular medium. It was all very dramatic, theres was lots of yelling and by 2014 I was sick of it all and decided to take a break from the kin community-aside from a select few people who I enjoyed talking to.

Sometime in early 2016 I decided it was time to end my hiatus and take a peak back into the tags-annnnd it pretty much hadn't changed. but I was much better at handling The Discourse at that point and knew when to disengage.

Sometime not too long after my return I would realize the fae kintype I had been unsure of and questioning for nearly 10 years was, in fact, a fictotype.

And while I had only been gone fro about two years-there didn't seem to be very many kin left in the tags who remembered me so establishing myself as a knowledgeable person within the community was starting over from scratch. I still wouldn't say I’m exactly a go to person when it comes to correcting misinformation-because while I do do that on my personal kin blogs those blogs are mostly for me to log my own personal experiences.

That brings us up to now-where I have created this extension of the OKD deviant art group. This blog has the same purpose as the original group-to showcase community art and creativity and foster a place for open and civil discussion and education. Though this is one of many ‘kin help blogs’ many of the blogs out there that claim to be information or for helping Otherkin/Therian/Fictionkin are FULL of misinformation and the mods of those blogs do not always take well to being corrected.

So, to summarize- I realized I was Otherkin 16 years ago, prior to ever knowing there was a community- and have been an active participant and admin of my own groups for the last close to 9 years-on a verity of different mediums from forums to chats to Tumblr, Amino and Discord.

Who I am otherwise:

I am a freelance artist living in the US with my fiance and our son and cats.

I love TV, films and books-especially the horror, scifi, and fantasy genres. I identify as being somewhere between Punk and Goth and truly love the music from both subcultures-though I also love music from many other different genres. I also greatly enjoy table top gaming and it would be really cool if I actually had time to join a D&D campaign.

I joyfully engage in fandom and shipping and spend probably too much time looking at fanart and reading fanfiction. If you're interested ask me for my fandom blog :3

As mentioned earlier, I am a furry and enjoy the art and interactions of the furry community. As an artist I particularly enjoy how wonderful the furry community is about supporting artists.

Most of my time however is probably spent stressing about pretty typical things like rent, utility bills, car repairs and home maintenance. I may not be human on the inside but rent is rent no matter who, or what, you are.

#otherkin #therian #fictionkin #OKD on tumblr

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kihyunswrath · 7 years ago

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“Unsuccessful” girl idols

I’ve been wanting to break this topic down for years and I feel like I’m still not quite done with my own thought process, but I thought right now could be a good time to at least slightly graze the theme (ok that phrasing sounded awful but you get the idea?? I guess?), what with so many kpop girl groups disbanding and, Idk there’s been a lot of talk about this over the years but no one seems interested enough to search the roots of it.

So here are the two main premises people keep kinda copy-pasting all the time all over the internet: 1) “Girl groups just bore/annoy me to death and they all just twerk their tiny asses in high heels and they are so unoriginal” and 2) “Boy groups do just as sexy stuff as them so stfu, it’s such a hypocritical sexist thing to not support the girl groups too, you only drool after your oppars and forgive all their misbehavior because you hate women”.

And honestly that’s where the discussion mostly ends. I haven’t heard or seen anyone talk much more about the topic even though I feel like that’s just about 0.5% of the whole discourse that should be brought to daylight. This whole phenomenon is strongly linked to Korean popular culture and how Korean music companies treats their employees and how they, as a moneymaking Korean-made industry, wants to be represented in front of the foreign audience... and it should be pretty clear how important it is to understand the details and the whole picture of this big system, if you really want to tackle down issues such as sexism and misogyny in it.

Idk but it feels so weird to me how few fans have actually realized how sexist kpop music industry is by nature, by the very definition, and how it has its roots deep in Korean conservative political ideology, heck, even Confucianism itself. And like... if you call yourself a feminist or anywhere close that term, you should be actively resisting pretty much everything both kpop and kdramas has to offer.

Kpop is capitalist and conservationist as hell, and that’s p much my main statement here.

The point in these idol groups is to market and rebrand South Korea as a fresh, young, talented, clean, nicely organized, sexy, vibrant and colourful country fully capable of taking the global trade into its own hands. It sells the capitalist ideology where wealthy, beautiful and racially/economically/socially/religiously homogeneous people work together to create welfare. Intl fans typically only see the surface of it, aka the music videos and the dramas themselves, but the fact is that all idols do much more than that - they’re the ambassadors of their own country, selling products after products with their own names and faces printed on them. Cars, phones, cosmetics, plastic surgery, laptops, games, toys, food, beverages, you name it. And of course they sell their own products, too.

They’re not there to challenge any status quos, to break down any hegemonies. Korean men wearing makeup and showing their flawless skin may seem “radical” to western people who are used to cavemen-like masculinity ideals at first glance, but silky, pale skin has always been just a sign of wealth, health and cleanliness in Korea (and many other Asian country), and there’s nothing more groundbreaking in that. Korean same-sex friends showing skinship has never had anything to do with gay culture and Korean groups being aware of this eroticization of their friendships still has nothing to do with gay culture. It’s just a clever marketing tactic that stems from the problematic fact that fans (mostly straight people idolizing someone from opposite sex) rather see their favourite idols with their same-sex bandmember than live in acceptance with the fact that their crushes would end up with someone else than the fans themselves. That feels less like a “betrayal” to you if they end up being gay and having a relationship with the bandmember you most likely also admire, than choosing someone random you can have no control over. And yes, as a sidenote, these groups and their companies are fully aware of skinship and mildly homosexual (but still not quite) content being a factor that creates them more fans and more money. For the same reason, since day one Korean culture has divided performance and entertainment groups by their sex - women and men have always performed separately, throughout history, because it’s presumably easier to avoid actual romantic relationships that way. Homoerotic stuff kinda doesn’t count, at least not officially. Also, kpop groups are strictly divided because the industry really treats them as separate entities, separate ranks, much like a sex binary itself.

So, Korean ideals and standards are literally ingrained into Korean popular culture. They’re not any less sexist than any other capitalist industry you have ever met before. In fact, they’re blatantly much more sexist than many others, just because it sells in so many audiences who consume this kind of stuff. Did you know, that there was a research done in the countries that consume kpop and kdrama the most (many of them are East-Asian, Middle-Eastern, South-Asian and African countries, like India, Iran etc.), and a common reason for them to stay as fans was basically because “kdramas uphold the traditional familial values, just with fashionable rebranding - like men are treating women so nicely and still were so hot and masculine”? So if you think Korean idol groups should be treated more equally among the fans, you’re asking for something that was never even supposed to be there.

Let’s face it: kpop girl groups are given half-assed songs, half-assed choreographies, half-assed concepts, half-assed attention and effort, and neither the fans nor the girl group members themselves are to be blamed. And if not everything they do is half-assed, about 60% is. Compared to the about 40-50% of boy groups’ half-assed stuff, because we all know kpop is also based on unoriginal mass-copying of the same stuff. Mass production, repetition and weak-willed composing is not only part of the capitalist ideology, but also the way to Korean soft power to work their way through; because of the Confucian tradition, you’re not supposed to present new ideas but just follow what your employers tell you to do.

So girl groups are given shitty and weak concepts with either overtly cute and infantilizing clothing and choreographies, or overtly sexy stuff. Why? Because they’re treated as objects and children. They’re supposed to stand cutely in front of you, letting you have a peek on their long, smooth legs while they wear the smallest mini-skirts ever seen.

They’re sex objects for pedophiles. Just look at Production 101 Pick me up song and see 101 girls wearing school uniforms while they, without real identities or visible personalities, dance sexily to the audience. They did have the same concept with boys, one year later, which was maybe the first time ever such objectification was also projected on males, but those boys at least didn’t let anyone have see what was under their skirts.

Girl group choreographies look bland to many fans because they’re not supposed to show great talent or skill (even though all these beautiful, hardworking women could slay us with all their personal talents) - they’re just supposed to look pretty and do cutesy movements in front of the cameras. It took me a long time to realize why there was such a huge difference in difficulty when you compared boy group choreographies to girl group choreographies. It wasn’t just my imagination and it wasn’t just because me, as a straight person grown up under patriarchal society, was more inclined to recognize men’s talent and ignore everything women did. They do assume I do just that, though. They do assume male and female gaze are different, and that makes them believe boy groups not only are able, but have to perform more difficult things. Girls can focus on singing and shaking their butts - that’s the stereotype. Girls “can’t” do the same stuff, because they’re “weaker” and “less talented in general”, but they can show their butt more, because oh don’t the male fans just love it. Girls are of course also given backlash because of that, but in the end it doesn’t really matter, because sex, porn, eroticism and traditionally feminine assets sell. With all of their connotations of feminine weakness, fragility (skinny bodies) and submissiveness.

Yes, I do acknowledge that in kpop, male bodies are also very much objectified, and I do know that some girl groups are also sharing their stances on female empowerment, and even feminism.

But when these boy groups are already in position of power, their actions are deemed worthy nonetheless. Girl groups, on the other hand, not only face the sexist double standard, also have to fight with the fact that they are not given as much space, opportunities, attention and, what’s relevant in this topic, effort as the boy groups.

So when some fans complain about girl groups, they might mean that they in general have internalized the misogyny and don’t want to acknowledge anything these talented, hard-working female idols have done. But they might, perhaps unknowingly, also protest and dislike the idea where these girls are deemed less worthy, are flattened to mere sex objects spreading their legs in front of the cameras, doing it much more often and in much more concepts/music videos than boy groups altogether. Because it’s true.

And that’s not because these girls haven’t worked just as hard as any other boy idol. But it’s because they are not given the chance to show their real capabilities, their real competence, their actual wide variety of skills.

So yes, so many of the girl group music videos I watch only remind me of how cheaply Korean music industry treats these wonderful women. Watching them is not pleasurable, because it also reminds me of how tight are the standards I should be able to fit into to please this so-called male gaze. It reminds me of my own oppression as a woman.

___

Ok so that was all for today, maybe I’ll talk about it more someday. I don’t feel like checking this for typos and other pathetic non-English speaker mistakes but I hope the main point gets through.

#kpop #girl groups #kdrama #korean music industry #korea #text #gif not mine

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wholitzukoonfire · 8 years ago

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Modern/YouTubers AU Klance Pride Headcanon [Part 1]

So this is from a hc convo I was having with my klance shipping buddy @destielschild

So basically klance meet at a Pride parade and these are also my general Voltron gang Pride headcanons.

So the voltron team is split into 2 friendship groups Lance’s friendship group (Hunk, Hunk’s moms, Shay, and Lance’s lesbian sister - Elena)

Hunk

Hunk in this au is the lovable straight ally - he’s been to Pride every year since he was a child because of his Moms, it’s a thing they do - a tradition.

He and Shay are dating they are the most adorable couple

He’s wearing his “I <3 my moms” rainbow shirt and its so wholesome

He once got shouted at by an angry gay for being there and not being LGBTQ+, but Mom Ana tore the guy a new one telling him how supportive and amazing her beautiful son is.

This year he’s holding a sign that says “You know it’s bad when a straight guy is marching” - you know the one

He and Shay have a YouTube cooking channel called Hunkalicious and PassTheShay cook things - They’re pretty well known and do lots of collabs with Lance.

Their YouTube name is Hunk-A-love-&-A-Pinch-A-Shay

(They have so many Shay is Salt memes bc she can be sALTY AF when needed)

Hunk also has a side gaming/sciene-y things channel (How he met Pidge)

Shay

Shay is bisexual

The two of them are so in love and sometimes they sit in coffee shops and admire pretty girls together (Shay always adds on ‘Of course she’s not nearly as pretty as you.’ Hunk is the prettiest boy fight me on this. he giggles every time and blushes)

She’s wearing a ‘bisexu-whale’ top Hunk got her bc she majors in marine bio and she ADORES whales.

Lance

Lance is tagging along with Hunk’s crew - He hasn’t been out for long (his family are v Catholic and traditionally Cuban - his dad didn’t speak to him for a month after he came out) and it’s his first EVER Pride.

He’s super nervous although he’s literally been adopted into the Garrett family he feels like hes intruding tagging along on their traditional Pride march.

Shay notices INSTANTLY and makes him feel right at home in the bi community.

“Lance, I know you haven’t been out for long, but you are a valid bisexual, no matter what anyone says, your sexuality is yours to define and nobody else’s. You belong here.”

(This is why we love Shay) Lance cries for five minutes and is enveloped in a group hug.

Shay paints Bi hearts onto Lance’s cheeks (one gets smudged but he doesn't care)

He does his make up (he hardly every wears make up, but he loves doing it) - Purple to pink to blue eyeshadow, and a touch of eyeliner.

Of course he also sprinkles a fuckton of pink glitter over himself, the Moms, Hunk and Shay

Lance is a pretty well known YouTuber - SirLancelot (he does mostly Vlogs, make-up tutorials, random funnies, relatables videos, occasional gaming sessions and he also pops up frequently on Hunk and Shay’s channel - it’s adorable and when Lance is involved they’re always “w/ the bestie” videos) And he decided to Vlog the whole thing - telling his subscribers in a mini vid that he’d be going to his first Pride and uploading a Vlog of it the following day.

When he first get’s there there are so many people and it’s all so much he thinks he might just faint, but as soon the Parade starts, Lance is on cloud nine. Hunk is manning the Vlog camera (he offered to as it’s Lances first one and he wants Lance to enjoy it)and captures Lance grinning and chanting and waving his “AIN’T NO LIE BABY, BI BI BI” sign with gusto.

He turns to grin at Hunk who is literally internally screaming and shaking Shay gushing to the camera about “LOOK AT HIM! HE’S SO HAPPY AND ADORABLE!!! HE LOOKS SO CUTE, LOOK AT HIM SHAY- MY BEST FRIEND!! I’M SO PROUD!”

Lance is wearing a “my BI-FI signal is strong” shirt that the moms got him.

Elena

Lance’s sister, they’re the same age - her mom is actually Lance’s Aunt, but the pregnancy was accidental and Camille never wanted children, so at aged 5 when Camille finally told her mother to stuff it and that she did not want children - Rosa took Elena in as one of her own

From then on the two of them were permanently joined at the hip (Elena is just as goofy and just as stubborn as Lance - and both of them are strong willed and will Fight You about womens rights, POC rights and LGBT+ rights)

She is a Lesbian™

She came out when she was 15 - she had a massive crush on her best friend Lucy and told mom and Lance first (their other siblings found out through evesdropping and general sneakiness) and told dad a few days before her Quinces. He didn’t show up so when the father-daughter dance came up Lance was the one who calmly got up - as if it were meant to be him up there with her and danced with her as she tried not to cry. And the first person Lance told he might be Bi was Elena. (She always kinda knew)

She regularly features in Lance’s videos (she sort of half lives at his and Hunk’s place - crashes on the couch every other night) known (early on) in Lance’s post-moving-in-with-Hunk videos as That Cuban Lesbian™ who always interrupts Lance’s videos to complain or yell at him in Spanish. Ofc anyone who’s a real Lancelot fan knows who she is.

She was in his Coming Out video where he told the world he was Bi - and they called mom together, for support, and then told Hunk. (Hunk cried many tears)

She had a Very Gay™ crush on Shay when they first met and it’s a running joke that Hunk got to Shay first and that Elena is Bitter about this.

She has a mini lesbian flag tattooed onto her shoulder blade - Lance went with her to get it.

Keith’s friendship group (Pidge, Shiro, Matt, Allura, Coran and Alfor)

Pidge

Pidge is Nonbinary They/Them or occasionally She/Her pronouns

They identify as an Ace Lesbian (just hear me out - cute dates where Pidge is all flustered bc Pretty Girl!!! And just talking about Science Stuff™ and blushing aaraarrrrrrrgggghhhh)

Pidge is also a YouTuber but like an actual Big Time™ YouTuber - They used to be HackerKatie but then they came out and changed their name so now they’re HackerPidge (If you’ve ever watched MilesChronicals that is what Pidge’s Channel is like - also a Gaming Channel - for Gaming)

They live in a space-y flat with Keith, Shiro and Matt but they’re like never there??? (Once they straight up disappeared for a week and one morning Keith walked into the kitchen to just see Pidge sat on top of the fridge eating a bowl of Lucky Charms™)

One time they pulled a massive prank on Shiro (which they ofc recorded and put on YouTube) and when Shiro found out he banned them from YouTube and all Social Media for two weeks. Turns out that was a Bad Idea™ because Pidge fans (Hacklets) started Major Discourse on Twitter and Tumblr bc they didn’t get updates and there was nothing on Pidge’s social media (there was a theory that Pidge was dead). Shiro allowed Pidge back on YouTube and stuff and Pidge made a video explaining with Shiro in the back of the video holding one of those Shame Signs that said “I banned my child from social media for two weeks and accidentally started an internet war”

wait wasn’t this supposed to be about Pride???

help

Pidge is wearing a top that says “Male/Female/Don’t worry about it” - their galaxy backpack is littered with buttons about gender (e.g. ‘ask me about my pronouns’, and the nonbinary flag) and their sexuality (e.g. ‘beautiful day to love girls’, ‘girls, girls, girls’ etc.)

They have the nb flag and the lesbian flag painted on their cheeks and THEY/THEM painted in block capitals on their forehead.

NEXT PERSON

Shiro and Matt

Shiro is a very Bi Dad Brother and he is Very Tired™

Matt is the Gayest being you will ever meet.

He and Matt have been dating since High school, they were best friends until Matt blurted at Prom to the entire student body that he’d been in love with Shiro since middle school

Shiro felt the same and they started dating (The entire school was relieved - there were betting pools on when one or the other was finally going to fess up)

They have a joint YouTube channel (GaysInSpace - Matt-Man and SpaceDad) Its mostly a fitness/yoga and some make-up videos (they did the Boyfriend Does My Make-up - it was horrendous) He did a galaxy make-up tutorial ONCE because he and Matt had just got into loads of space shows/films and was forever named SpaceDad because of it.

They mostly do couples yoga and fitness videos which generally turn into shenanigans after the first like ten minutes - they are the power couple of space and their fans named themselves the ‘Gaybies’

Shiro and Matt have matching shirts and hoodies

Hoodies: Matt - If found return to Shiro / Shiro: Keep him.

T Shirts: Matt - My Boyfriend is Bi-Lingual (bc Shiro can speak fluent Japanese) / Shiro - My boyfriend’s gay, but I’m not.

They have their flags painted on their faces - Gay for Matt and Bi for Shiro.

Matt bought a giant gay flag at the start of the parade and has since tied it around his shoulders

Shiro’s holding a sign that on the front says “God said Adam and Eve so I did both” but on the back has a message that Matt hasn’t seen “My boyfriend has no clue I’m going to propose today.”

Shiro proposes halfway through the parade (Lance’s group was actually just a little behind them and he and Hunk caught the entire thing on camera). The music from the parade cut out and all of their closes high school friends, Shiro’s dad and Matt’s parents emerge from the crowd whilst a song they both adore (“Marry Me” by Jessica Smith - when Lance uploads the video he makes sure to link the song in the description to credit the artist) starts to play, Shiro gets passed a mic and he starts to sing (his voice isn’t perfect but it’s damn good) When the chorus (May All Recognise Real love Yours and mine Make all love Equal) comes on the friends and family members hold up the lyrics to spell out MARRY ME. Matt is completely stunned (the gay flag cape had been stolen by Keith earlier so at least he didn’t look like a complete idiot) Then Shiro’s getting down on one knee and opening a box with a ring in it at Matt’s crying.

“What do you say, Cadet? Wanna get hitched?”

“Oh for christ- Just put the ring on my finger and kiss me idiot!”

Matt’s still crying as Shiro slides the band onto Matt’s finger and swoops up for a kiss, before turning around to yell “HE SAID YES!”

The crowd goes wild

Allura

Allura is a beautiful Lesbian and she and Elena get on swimmingly (Elena has the biggest crush on her and she and Lance cry about how beautiful she is from her videos)

Her user is PrincessOfAltea she does beauty tips and tricks as well as a gaming channel - she’s surprisingly good and is one of The Best players in a game called Altea (It’s an RPG Quest series) - her subscribers love how amazing she is and she usually plays with Matt, Pidge, and Shiro - Keith sometimes joins in and he’s surprisingly good.

She’s Alfor and Coran’s daughter (Alfor’s biologically - they got a surrogate mother - who they still keep in contact with - she’s Ace/Aro and also goes to Pride with them but she couldn’t make it this year)

(Coran is wearing this )

She met Shiro through working out at the same gym - He mad a mini bi crush on her and gushed to Matt about the Pretty Girl at the gym for weeks

(Matt didn’t get too jealous - as soon as he lent over and pressed a kiss to Shiro’s lips, he would generally shut up about Pretty Girl and think about Pretty Boyfriend instead)

Allura is covered head-to-foot in glitter (as are Coran and Alfor) because of an incident that happened at Shiro’s flat with Pidge, a pop-tart and glitter Allura was opening to dab on her face.

She has the lesbian flag painted like war paint on her cheeks and a pastel top with two girls kissing on it that says “Girls like Girls like Boys Do” on it.

She’s also parading around with a sign that says “I love my emo gay son” with a picture of Keith’s face on it.

Keith

Keith has been out for years. Literally since he was thirteen.

(He came out via a dinner conversation, when Matt was over for dinner at the Shirogane Household one evening. Matt had been talking about how all teenage boys are supposed to be obsessed with girls and wanting to date girls etc. and Keith had simply said “Well I don’t like any girls but I was in calculus the other day with Jared and I thought he looked cute. I wouldn’t mind being his boyfriend.” A bug eyed Papa Shirogane had asked “Keith are you gAY?” - Keith had asked what that meant and after Shiro had explained “B-boys who l-like other b-boys... romantically.” Keith had shrugged dismissively and said “Well I guess then, yeah, I am.”)

He’d also been watching SirLancelot’s videos since Lance had begun YouTubing (at first they’d just been braces-Lance and Hunk prank videos and relatables middle schoolers version) And has pretty much been In Love since.

However, this was Keith’s first ever Pride - the only reason he’d actually agreed to go was because he knew Shiro planned to propose and he didn’t want to miss that, despite the overwhelming threat of an large-crowd-induced anxiety attacks.

He’d gone with a simple gay outfit, black shorts, ratty converse, flannel around his waist, rainbow suspenders and a tank top Shiro had gotten him especially (that said Too Gay For This World)

At first Keith had refused to wear it (he secretly adores this top and Shiro Knows)

He has his own YouTube channel which isn't isn’t nearly as popular as Lance’s - but he has a solid fanbase

His user is CryptidKeith and his channel is called The Keith-Files - Conspiracy Theories

His fans are called his Cryptids and he is continuously referred to as “The Wild Keef” due to a comment Pidge once made in one of their Conspiracy collabs

Of course Hunk and Pidge have done many collabs and when its mentioned that most going are YouTubers they decide to meet up and introduce their friendship groups - Lance decides to vlog it all as he is anyway - First Pride.

[Part 1]/[Part 2]

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paceunknown · 8 years ago

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Not to start hsm discourse but as much as I loved Troy and Gabriella, you have to admit sharpays anger with them is a little justified. She's been working her whole life to be in musicals and has put in a lot of her time and energy into school plays, just to have 2 randoms who never sang in their life take her spot. Also bop to the top would've won over breaking free if the whole school hadn't of shown up for Troy and Gabriella

sharpay’s anger isn’t justifiable. understandable, of course, but not at all justifiable. she’s a bratty teen who’s had everything handed to her and just isn’t used to “losing”. I was only in my high school’s theater program for junior and senior year, but in those two years I saw roles go to long-standing members of the club just because of that: they were long-standing members who thought they deserved something because of all their own ~blood, sweat, and tears~ they put into the program, and would sometimes resort to crying to their parents to get the directors to change their minds. does this not sound like something she would do, especially considering how rich and powerful her parents are and how loud mouthed she is who wouldn’t wanna just give her parts to shut her up.

in any case the fact that darbus was so ready to give troy and gabriella that callback (and, ultimately, choose them for twinkle towne) just tells me that they were genuinely talented and she was ready for her theater to have some fresh faces. no one forced her to listen in on them singing the Correct version of what I’ve been looking for, no one forced her to end up getting out her seat and dance to breaking free. if she wanted sharpay she would’ve ignored them completely and just given everything to her as per usual. and if we know nothing else about her she’s a headstrong lady where her craft is concerned with a lot of respect for tradition, and in theater tradition means everyone gets a shot (see: first auditions. clearly she was waiting for ryan and sharpay to come save it but she did sit there and allow everyone their moment, and even called for last minute sign ups at the end. she’s always on the prowl for new talent; she just didn’t know there was any because, as kelsi said, no one bothers to go up against sharpay and her brother, if the latter bothers to include him). now I’m also not saying definitively that sharpay was a child that did what I said above about being a long-standing member, nor is she untalented. she got to where she was not Just because of her loud mouth and deceit, I’m not trying to take her abilities away from her. but you can’t sit there and say her bullying reputation keeping others away from even looking at the stage didn’t help her along in becoming ~queen bee of the EHS theater~. hell, she even duped darbus several times; if she can fool By The Book Theater Herself, what can’t that girl do where lies and cons are concerned. and like look at the rest of the movies lmao she literally planned and plotted to throw her brother under the bus, break troy and gabriella up, make gabriella leave to cali just so she could have yet another leading role because her part was a Smidge smaller than gabriella’s. the girl asked ryan to ask kelsi to prom jus so she could get a song she’s not a nice girl and I don’t understand why people overlook this just because she’s a lovable character. don’t get me wrong I love sharpay, I think she’s fun and she produces bop after bop but if she were a real person she’d be that popular girl in school everyone calls a bitch and they wouldn’t be wrong.

and the whole “two randoms” thing, I see that argument a lot and like I kinda mentioned before, that mindset goes against the essence of theater. I may have seen long-standing members essentially bully their way into the limelight in high school, but I also saw nobodies creep out of nowhere and get the part/s they deserved because they were genuinely talented (one of which was a very very close friend of mine). people who are talented, regardless of if their lives are dedicated to the art, deserve a chance, too. they deserve to get on that stage and rock it just as much as people who’ve been acting and singing since they were in diapers. and in troy and gabriella’s case, they weren’t ever really afforded the opportunity to thoroughly explore that side of them until darbus gave them the callback: gabriella had awful stage fright and was freaky genius girl, and troy was lunkhead basketball man and nothing else. but in the end troy ended up //loving// theater so much he chose to go to college for it and gabriella overcame her insecurities and became stronger like how can anyone be upset with them busting onto the scene if self-discovery was the outcome? were they just supposed to stay in their “roles” and do nothing else? there was a whole dance number in the cafeteria about that, sis, we got past that thinking in the first damn movie.

as for bop to the top like I said no one forced darbus up outta her seat, no one forced her to give them the part. she’s way too smart and headstrong for that. in my humble opinion she saw kelsi’s original vision come to life (twice over) as opposed to whatever jazzed-up nonsense ryan and sharpay’s pianist kept coming up with and decided that was what she wanted the musical to be. theater isn’t all about who can be the most glitzy and show stopping. more often it’s about taking direction and doing a show justice. kelsi’s twinkle towne wasn’t the upbeat mess the twins turned it into because that’s how They wanted it to be; darbus saw that — hell, she was elated to see someone finally stick it to them — and decided on what was best for the show and the program. no fault in that.

#ask #anon #hsm #hsm discourse is always welcome on this blog who do you think I am

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transssexualheart · 8 years ago

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Hey b I know you like asks so answer all 200 because I'm just that nice :^)

FUCK THATS SO MANY

200: my crush’s name is:as if you all don’t know at this point. it’s sarah

199: i was born in:2002

198: i am really:gay

197: my cellphone company is: i’m so fuckin stupid i’m not sure what the question is asking

196: my eye color is: brown

195: my shoe size is:eight and a half/nine

194: my ring size is:i don’t wear rings

193: my height is:5′5

192: i am allergic to:nothing

191: my first car was:never had a car

190: my first job was:never had a job

189: last book you read:hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy

188: my bed is:small

187: my pet:is a beautiful orange cat named danny and i love her

186: my best friend:is lovely

185: my favorite shampoo is:i don’t care

184: xbox or ps3:i’ve never played a ps3 so i guess xbox

183: piggy banks are:ok??? why are we trying to start piggy bank discourse

182: in my pockets:are trash

181: on my calendar:i don’t use a calendar

180: marriage is:alright?? i’d get married if my partner wanted to

179: spongebob can:?? exist??

178: my mom:is not very nice

177: the last three songs i bought were?uhhh i havent bought music in a while idk

176: last yt video i watched:for him.

175: how many cousins do you have?fuck dude. so many. i don’t know.

174: do you have any siblings?two, a brother and a sister

173: are your parents divorced?well my parents tried to get divorced but my dad died before it actually got worked out and my mom and my stepdad aren’t married and have never been so

172: are you taller than your mom?i believe so

171: do you play an instrument?yeah, piano

170: what did you do yesterday?not much, just sat around and then walked in circles around my house for hours and then hung out with my siblings in the yard

[do you believe in]

169: love at first site:no, what if that pretty girl u saw on the street is an asshole?? what if she’s racist and homophobic dude u don’t know her

168: luck:sure

167: fate:yeah i guess

166: yourself:haha no

165: aliens:ya

164: heaven:idk

163: hell:idk

162: god:idk!!

161: horoscopes:idk they’re fun to look at

160: soul mates: i’d like to believe in soul mates

159: ghosts:idk

158: gay marriage:gay marriage isn’t a fuckinhg cryptid, yes i believe in it i’m gay and i’m gonna probably get married

157: war:god fuck i don’t know

156: orbs:??????????

155: magic:could be real, might not be, who knows

[this or that]

154: hugs or kisses:kisses

153: drunk or high:never been either so

152: phone or online:phone, can text my friends whom i lov

151: red heads or black haired:black haired i guess

150: blondes or brunettes:someone’s gonna get sad when i answer this but brunettes

149: hot or cold:i don’t know actually

148: summer or winter:summer, it’s better than having seasonal depression added onto my normal depression

147: autumn or spring: spring

146: chocolate or vanilla:vanilla

145: night or day:night

144: oranges or apples:apples

143: curly or straight hair:curly!!!!!!!!!!!!!

142: mcdonalds or burger king:don’t really eat at either but if i had to choose, mcdonalds

141: white chocolate or milk chocolate?white chocolate

140: mac or pc:pc

139: flip flops or high heels:high heels

138: ugly and rich OR sweet and poor:wtf

137: coke or pepsi:don’t really drink soda

136: hillary or obama:man i don’t know too much about politics all i know is that i’d choose hillary over trump any day

135: buried or cremated:man i’m not sure,, i guess i’d prefer to be cremated Please Rid The World Of My Horrible Body

134: singing or dancing:singing

133: coach or chanel:i have like fifty cents do you think i can afford that shit

132: kat mcphee or taylor hicks:who

131: small town or big city:i love the city, maybe that’s because i live in a small town but i love the city

130: wal mart or target:target

129: ben stiller or adam sandler: idk

128: manicure or pedicure:well i don’t want anyone touching my feet i don’t even like taking my socks off around friends unless i very much trust them

127: east coast or west coast:well i live on the east coast so

126: your birthday or christmas:my bday bc we go on vacation for it bc it’s over the summer

125: chocolate or flowers:flowers

124: disney or six flags:never been to disney so six flags

123: yankees or red sox:sport???

[here’s what i think about]

122: war:didn’t another question p much ask the same thing

121: george bush:idk??

120: gay marriage:p much already been asked bud

119: the presidential election:not my president can’t believe u fuckers let trump win

118: abortion:if someone wants an abortion, they should be able to get it. no one else should have a monopoly over that, not even the father, because their body does not belong to him.

117: myspace:never used it

116: reality tv:eh

115: parents:some are good, mine i am not fans of

114: back stabbers:i don’t think i’ve ever really been backstabbed

113: ebay:it’s ok?

112: facebook:don’t really use it

111: work:don’t have a job

110: my neighbors:i don’t talk to them much but everytime we go near their dogs on the otherside of the fence they call the dogs back or pull them away one of the kids went “haha you can’t touch our dogs” and?? idk why??

109: gas prices:i don’t drive

108: designer clothes:can’t afford them

107: college:haven’t been

106: sports:Throw Ball

105: my family:my sister is lovely, my brother is really mean, and my parents are also p mean like i don’t realize sometimes until i tell something they said and they’re like “??? that’s really not ok??”

104: the future:hasn’t happened yet how would i know

[last time i]

103: hugged someone:earlier today i hugged my aunt because she’s over for easter

102: last time you ate:just ate a tootsie roll a lil bit ago

101: saw someone i haven’t seen in a while:i guess the only person i haven’t seen very recently is spence and the last time i saw him was a few weeks ago

100: cried in front of someone:long time ago

99: went to a movie theater: went to see beauty and the beast a while back but i don’t remember exactly when that was

98: took a vacation: last summer

97: swam in a pool:last summer at my aunt’s probably

96: changed a diaper:many years

95: got my nails done:i painted a clear coat on them a lil while back does that count

94: went to a wedding:year or so ago?

93: broke a bone:never broken any bones

92: got a piercing:when i was like five

91: broke the law:idk

90: texted:a few mins ago

[misc]

89: who makes you laugh the most:hahah. u

88: something i will really miss when i leave home is:oh man. all my friends, hubbard hall, the school playground, as much as i wanna leave this town i’ll probably cry leaving it behind

87: the last movie i saw:moana!

86: the thing that i’m looking forward to the most:death

85: the thing i’m not looking forward to:school starting again

83: the most difficult thing to do is:tell someone you’re in love with them

82: i have gotten a speeding ticket:never??

81: my zodiac sign is:leo

80: the first person i talked to today was:probably my mom

79: first time you had a crush:seventh grade

78: the one person u can’t hide anything from:apparently you because u always figure me out

77: last time someone said something you were thinking: yesterday, spence was talking about how his bf had big hands and i said “u know what they say” and i was about to say “big gloves” but he beat me to it

76: right now i am talking to:i’m not talking i’m typing

75: what are you going to do when you grow up:idk

74: i have/will get a job:i don’t?? know??

73: tomorrow:is easter

72: today:is not easter

71: next summer:??

70: next weekend:idk man??

69: i have these pets:one cat, two fish

68: the worst sound in the world:chEWING

67: the person that makes me cry the most is:haha

66: people that make you happy:my friends

65: last time i cried:about a month ago

64: my friends are:the best!!!

63: my computer is:alright

62: my school:is the fucking worse

61: my car:is non existent

60: i lose all respect for people who:support trump

59: the movie i cried at was:i cried over the shitty mario movie when i was seven

58: your hair color is: dark brown

57: tv shows you watch:i don’t really watch tv

56: fav website:i dont kno

55: your dream vacation:to go to the beach with friends

54: the worst pain i was ever in was:emotional

53: how do you like your steak cooked:well not burnt

52: my room is:alright

51: my fav celebrity is:does dan avidan count? he still holds a special place in my heart

50: where would you like to be:my answers for these kinds of qs are always so gay

49: do you want children:used to not want them, but i guess depending on the person i’d have them with i MIGHT

48: ever been in love:ya

47: who’s your best friend:asdgkjgf

46: more guy friends or more girl friends:many of us are nb

45: one thing that makes you feel great is:being loved

44: one person you wish you could see right now:u know, u all know who

43: do you have a five year plan:???????

42: have you made a list of the things to do before u die:1. kiss a girlthat’s it

41: have you prenamed your children:no

40: last person i got mad at:probably my brother

39: i would like to move to:nyc

38: i wish i was a professional:animator

[my favs]

37: candy:sweedish fish and jolly ranchers

36: vehicle:idk

35: president:i only remember obama

34: state visited:idk

33: cellphone provider:also idk

32: athlete:don’t pay attention to sports

31: actor:i don’t freakin know

30: actress:well,

29: singer:wELL,,

28: band:not sure

27: clothing store:idk

26: grocery store:hannaford??

25: tv show:no idea

24: movie:so many good movies

23: website:i think this was already asked??

22: animal:not sure

21: theme park:only ever been to like one

20: holiday:xmas

19: sport to watch:uhh i guess soccer?? i’ll actually understand whats happening so

18: sport to play:also soccer

17: magazine:don’t read them

16: book:carry on

15: day of the week:saturday

14: beach:no specific one i just like the beach

13: concert attended:only ever been to one, it was a top concert

12: thing to cook:grilled cheese

11: food:not sure

10: restaurant:idk

9: radio station:don’t really listen to the radio

8: yankee candle scent:??? idk???

7: perfume:don’t really wear it

6: flower:roses or tiger lillies

5: color:blue

4: talk show host:i don’t know??

3: comedian:bo burnham

2: dog breed:shiba inu

1: did you answer all of these truthfully?ya

i didn’t move the whole time i answered all 200 help me

#ask tag

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playthatthing · 8 years ago

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Get to Know Me

Rules: Tag blogs you want to know better Tagged by: @caressyouintodarkness and @thetwoofusagainstthequaternary Name: Zsófi Nickname(s): bb, cec Gender: female Star Sign: Sagittarius but there are 13 star signs and I’m actually Ophiuchus the snake-holder!! i don’t know what kind of made-up personality i’m supposed to have any more!!! halp! Height: 6′1″ or 185 cm Sexual Orientation: hetero and i kind of hate heteros. if demisexuality was anything but an entirely unremarkable minor feature of someone’s personality that people try to glorify into a marginalized orientation instead of fighting the actual problem of rape culture (sorry not sorry) then i’d be that (i edited this bc the original wording was imprecise and abrasive. still abrasive bc i think it’s kind of my place as a cishet demi to raise my objections against shitty demi discourse) Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw Time Right Now: 11:23 Average Hours of Sleep: I wake up at 7:30 and I’m supposed to go to bed at 11pm but it usually doesn’t happen. I would prefer to sleep 10 hours and stay in bed late if I didn’t have to do all this adulting Lucky Number: i like 4, 7 and 23 but none, really Last thing I googled: Ophiuchus (wanted to see if it has a generally agreed-upon list of personality traits) Blankets I sleep with: a feather-stuffed one and a plaid wool one on top. also, cats. Fav. Artist/Band: if the Nobel committeee decides to give another literature prize to a musician during my lifetime, i firmly believe it should go to Joanna Newsom. she is the greatest in every way. u can spy my last.fm for my faves. Dream Job: fully funded high school/uni debate coach or something where i can just hike in the hills all day Dream Trip: i'm lucky to have seen quite a lot of the US but i would love to go back for more. coast to coast or a trip around the southern states. also Iceland and national parks in the UK. When did you make this blog: 2010 and i’m pretty sure i’ve set some sort of record for the longevity/lack of popularity ratio What do you post about: politics, feminism, memes, pop music, my photos and other people’s art Follower Count: 155 Do you get asks often: i’ve got maybe like 4 ever. i’ve never had anon turned on and i don’t want to. Why did You choose your URL: it’s the title of a book by Roddy Doyle and I chose it back when I thought this blog would consist of me posting music

tagging @egyfulunyul @pleaseinsertacoin @iparizsirszalonna @hdfjhfwhfdhskjdfhgay @szankbolkilogabanan @igybeszelunke @b8horpet @szevaszlujzi but as usual do not feel obliged

#meme

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faraday-cage · 8 years ago

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Ask Meme

I was tagged by @goat-gardener <3

Rules: tag people you would like to know better by having them complete this ask meme themselves!

Nicknames: Cal

Star sign: Taurus

Height: 5′4″

Last thing I googled: "Trump 2020 campaign slogan ripped from The Purge Sequel” (I shit you not)

Fave music artist: Halsey

The song stuck in my head: In The Hall of the Mountain King

Last movie I watched: Fritz Lang’s M, 1931 (Why else would In The Hall of the Mountain King be stuck in my head? It’s an unmistakable whistle)

The last television show(s) I watched: Humans and Westworld (notice a theme?)

What are you wearing right now?: An old t-shirt from high school and loose sweat pants. (Pajamas)

When did you create your blog?: 2013

What kind of stuff do you post?: Cute animals, political unrest, fandom, funny vines, whatever comes across my dash that I find cool or interesting.

Do you have any other blogs? Sure do. I have a blog per interest, pretty much. Sometimes a post doesn’t fit on my main blog so I reblog it to say a fandom blog instead.

Do you get asks regularly? Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha. No. I think I’ve only ever gotten one ask, and it was essentially discourse baiting me. I don’t try to deter people from asking me stuff. If you want to ask me something, feel free. Depending on what the ask is about though, I might not answer.

Why/How did you choose your URL?: I wanted something that wouldn’t be immediately dated or something that I might grow out of like some fandom related URLs. Plus I didn’t want to feel like I was locked into one subject matter. So off to science references it is!

Gender: Oh-ho boy how do I even begin

Hogwarts house: Ravenclaw/Slytherin cusp (although the former seems more characteristic of me, if I do say so myself)

Pokemon Team: I’ve been putzing around trying to keep up 19 different pokemon to have consistent levels as I play through Moon for the first time. My current team is Decidueye, Lurantis, Metang, Milotic, Pelipper, and Deino.

Favorite Color: Purple, then red

Average hours of sleep: 7hr 16min for this week (lol wouldn’t know that if it weren’t for my fitbit)

Lucky Number: 13

Favorite characters: Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Brienne of Tarth, Arya Stark, Maeve Millay, Spock, Rey, Felicity Smoak, Kara Zor-El, Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, K-2SO, Loki, Garnet, Itachi, Major (Ghost in a Shell), Mystique, Iron Bull, Krem, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Heimdall, Pain (FFX-2), Lito & Hernando, Amanita & Nomi, Sun (Sense8), Olivia Pope, Jake Ballard, I think that’s more than enough for now.

How many blankets do you sleep with?: 3 or 4

Dream job: Director/Screen Writer/Producer/Concept Artist for film or television, Novelist or Video Game writing (conceptual, character or plot)

How many blogs do you follow?: 210

With no obligation or expectation to complete the ask meme themselves, I’ll tag @hedgehog-horticulturist @bittentothequick @rawrlexiibkrazii @remington-zero @ms-meredith-milton

#ask meme #me #faraday talks #about me

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prixmiumarchive · 8 years ago

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So, Shadowhunters is good, then? I've thought about watching it but have also thought that it looked like it was kind of over dramatic.

***VERY PERSONAL SHADOWHUNTERS DISCOURSE TO FOLLOW***

Cut for length and to avoid annoying people.

My tl;dr answer is: yes, with caveats, a lot of baggage, and a “it is a Freeform show” disclaimer. So, good music, pretty people, pretty lighting, engaging character chemistry… All there. Melodramatic? Maybe, but really, what were you signing up for?

I got into Shadowhunters because my friend @thethirteenthhouse showed me an episode, and I’m still only like five episodes in with her? I enjoy it, though. At the time that she first showed it to me, I hadn’t really made the full connection that it was another attempt at making a film adaptation of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Cla(i)re.

I realized pretty quickly, though, because they resolve the City of Bones stuff pretty quickly, which was the name of the first TMI book which I had been very, very dimly aware of in high school I guess. I had been put off TMI and Cassandra Cla(i)re (hereafter CC) not by its own content but because of the controversy surrounding CC’s presence in Harry Potter fandom.

I have only recently started to work my way through the Harry Potter series. My parents are not really ax-crazy conservatives, but they occasionally listen to said breed of conservatives, so when I was in the Harry Potter generation, I was denied access to Harry Potter because my parents didn’t want me opening my mind to Dark Magic or something. I mean, we can get into that, but it’s really another story, and I love my parents, and they’re very not-bad-as-parents-go-if-you’re-anything-but-a-heterosexual-vanilla-delight-of-a-human. Anyway, so, Harry Potter is pretty new to me as a person, though I did go through my childhood with a kind of indirect exposure to it. I just didn’t really get to delve in? My parents let up on most of those such edicts after a while, and I did read a few (the first three?) Harry Potter books when I was really into reading in high school. However, I wasn’t really engaging with anyone about it, because I was kind of embarrassed that I was so ‘behind’ compared to my peers who had basically learned to read on Harry Potter. Then, I got sucked into PJO (the first few books of that).

But even though I, personally, was not a Potter kid, my childhood best friend definitely was. She and I had overlapping interests and diverging interests, and she LOVED Harry Potter with no parental chagrin. We used to sit side by side on an office chair and scroll through fansites related to things we liked (GeoCities! Angelfire! Wow.) and eventually got turned onto fanfiction.net as being a thing and other, more restrictive and selective and focused groups and fic archives that existed in the days of yore.

I’m explaining all of that to say that I was actually aware of the Draco Trilogy before all of it was published and when it was popular without a real whiff of controversy having been brought to anyone’s (or at least my childhood best friend’s) attention. If you don’t know about the whole Draco Trilogy mess and want me to do a short fact-finding mission, send me another ask, but I’ll wait in interest of expediency. TVtropes and fanlore websites both have links and information if you just search for “the Draco Trilogy.”

I read excerpts of the Draco Trilogy that had particularly pithy dialogue, funny, or sexy overtones that my childhood best friend wanted to share. I also seem to think that we read a fair bit of Draco/Hermione fic in this manner, which I do not know if CC ever wrote but which I bring up because I was sorely disappointed to find out that Draco/Hermione dynamic that I imagined based on these fics (inspired, in part, by a certain fanon-hopeful interpretation of Draco popularized, at least, if not completely and solely originated by CC) was totally not what I got the impression of as an undercurrent from the films. Basically, the fact that Draco was not as CC imagined him which I had developed a conception of through being-in-internet-fandom-if-not-very-into-Harry-Potter was a major disappointment and probably one of the reasons that HP was not high up on my list of Things To Make Happen when my teenage rebellious ingenuity was at its fullest swing to read Parentally Discouraged Books. And, you see, THAT IS THE THING about CC, The Mortal Instruments, why I kind of like Shadowhunters, and why I will probably never stomach delving further behind the curtain than the Shadowhunters TV series itself, though I know there are loads of people who have done so in ignorance/innocence.

This is a serious case of “I can enjoy a thing while being super-critical of, like, everything about it on a meta level.”

Co-opting some descriptive terms from things I’ve read about the Draco Trilogy, a short summary of its impact on its fandom at the time was, apparently, that it was a fanfiction of such phenomenon that some people began to prefer the Draco Trilogy to the direction canon itself was going. And, as fanfiction power goes, that is like the Holy Grail. It is the Goal when canon is in any way disappointing you and your fellow fans. It’s incredible, it’s impressive, and I’m still sitting here impressed that no matter what hellfire CC has had rained down upon her that there was something in her work that resonated with people to a point that there are many willing to forgive unrepentant and repeated acts of plagiarism and bullying in order to resolve the cognitive dissonance of really loving something that was written by and born from a generally jerkish person.

I say that, consciously, as a person who accepts Moffat Who for the most part in spite of all of the Discourse in that direction, too.

The issue with CC’s Draco Triology was certainly not its plotting, its craftsmanship (in terms of its parts making a whole), its characterization, or anything else that would make it a bad fic. I have yet to revisit the texts, though I have procured them as a funny and fanlore matter of interest for my Harry Potter reading log blog @100privetdrive (which tumblr doesn’t wanna link right now), as someone who knows the controversy, and I never read them in full, but I am led to believe that there are many fans who would still like to revisit the texts but feel bad about doing so because they are tainted with plagiarism and a lot of ugliness that followed. CC’s dedication to her work certainly led her to produce a completed trilogy of interconnected longfics, not to mention her one-shots that she produced for the Harry Potter fandom during her stay. Most of them have vanished into the realm of myth when she retreated from fandom life upon getting her book deal (and upon ducking away from those who were out with pitchforks in the fandom at the time), but the Draco Trilogy was of such renown that it has (for now) escaped permanent erasure from record in spite of CC’s attempts.

What I’m telling you is that people like(d) the Draco Trilogy.

CC’s characterizations of the Harry Potter cast were not necessarily consistent with canon, but they were consistent within what she imagined at the time could be or wished was. It is certainly not the case that her fanfiction and the story she quilted together was devoid of original thought or emotional investment in her characters and what she was writing. The problem was, someone discovered that she was essentially lifting word-for-word passages from some quality-but-then-out-of-print fantasy books for sizeable portions of plot-heavy parts of her story, in addition to much of her pithy, interesting dialogue being straight-lifted from popular television of the time such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Honestly, for the latter, few people would call her out for that. She did credit that she borrowed some dialogue from shows she liked, and when trying to defend herself against accusations of plagiarism, she mentioned a kind of in-joke, intertextual referential humor she shared with her fandom friends. Basically, she was doing the same thing as all those incorrect[series]quotes tumblrs that are pretty popular right now, and she did admit it. The issue was what she would not admit when someone found her out and the bullying and war and response that followed.

There is far better documentation on this situation than I can give you, because the entire thing about this drama is interesting hearsay for my part. Again, if you ask, I’ll go on a brief fishing expedition for you, but it will involve a series of search terms you could just as easily google yourself. If any of my recollection is fuzzy, it is because it is solely recollection of things I’ve read about and become aware of as a fandom resident for more-than-the-past-decade.

Getting back to Shadowhunters, the thing about it is, I never really wanted to like anything CC had anything to do with for a long time for all of these reasons. I didn’t really feel good about supporting someone who made the transition from fan-to-creator in a way that felt a lot like she didn’t care who she hurt in the process. I also felt, a little, like it was a betrayal of the spirit of transformative and fandom work to completely remove oneself from the process (by deleting as much as you could of your fandom contributions) when you achieved success. I know of a lot of active fandom writers who don’t do that if and when they become published. However, those people also don’t plagiarize their own work.

Again, this is a-thing-I-read-about because I have not read the Draco Trilogy in anything close to full or ANY of TMI series except screencaps of pages I’ve seen on tumblr. That said, Jace Wayland is CC’s Draco. Clary Fray is CC’s Ginny Weasley. Alec Lightwood is CC’s Harry Potter.

So here is my complicated relationship with kind of liking and getting into the Shadowhunters tv series at this particular juncture in time, space, and my personal history and observation of fandom: I think it is really cool when works influence and can relate to each other. TMI is a far better example of this than 50 Shades, no doubt. However, there is the load of baggage surrounding CC’s success, unapologetic or deflective attitude toward anything she ever does wrong, and so on. But, then again, Shadowhunters is based on her work. Another recent example that might be similar is the CW’s The 100.

The 100 is another show that I genuinely like-what-I-have-seen-of, though I’m behind the point when some people got mad and wrote it off. It is also based on a YA lit book of the same title. However, its similarities with the book diverge sharply after the first few episodes, and it, as an adaptation, is doing its own thing, unrepentantly. I have been told that Shadowhunters is also doing this, and I think that it is an aesthetically pleasing show. It also has interesting concepts at play in its worldbuilding which I will say to my mind are unique in spite of the myriad parallels to a darker-teenier-edgier Harry Potter that will never go away. I also appreciate that the Shadowhunters showrunners are said to care about how their representation of LGBT people plays. It is not an exclusively-white show. It has pretty music. I like the actors’ enthusiasm for the characters they play and the journeys they seem to be taking. I think parabatai is a pretty neat concept. It’s pretty standard as far as what runes themselves are, but the rune usage and tattoos are pretty cool.

There are a lot of things to like about this show. There are a lot of things about them that, without evidence, I am sure are the brain children of CC. I wish that I could just full on and without equivocation go “kudos” to someone who made such an incredible transformative leap from one fandom into her own worldbuilding. However, the divorce of Shadowhunters/TMI/pretty much any of CC’s work feels incomplete and disingenuous on a certain level, no matter how much I am simply enjoying a tv show with-my-criticisms. I feel that a denial of is direct relationship to fanfiction, fandom itself, Harry Potter, and CC’s own past is just an effort to flatten out cognitive dissonance that comes from liking-what-is-intriguing-about-it that simply doesn’t come that easily.

I am enjoying the show in part because it seems really interesting on some kind of fandom-sociological level. I also like it for all the good-things I mentioned above. I like it because my some of my friends love it with an untainted and genuine enthusiasm. However, I’ve got to say, that I actually find watching the Shadowhunters series with my friend feels non-icky in a way that pledging any kind of allegiance to CC’s little empire that actually benefited it in any way does not.

I enjoy Shadowhunters as, basically, the biggest budget AU fanfic I have ever seen, but I think that on some level it has its own soul, too. But I’d be a lot more willing to credit the cast and crew and the Harry Potter fandom of the early-00s with that than I would CC on her own.

#shadowhunters #long post #shadowhunters meta #anti cassandra clare #fanwank #maybe fanwank #my opinions #Anonymous #answered

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