#I’d absolutely not be in character because I don’t know a goddamn thing about them

[tanjir0se]

I don’t mean any offense by this but what do you mean you write in character when you aren’t familiar with the characters at all? How do you know you’re doing anything right? And why do you write for things you don’t know about? No hate I am just curious what you mean or if I misunderstand.

Hi !

So to clarify, I don’t write for characters I’m not at least somewhat familiar with. At most I’ll write (in a fandom I’m already familiar with, like Demon Slayer) something including a character I’m also already at least familiar with but may not know the full backstory of (like Genya and Sanemi).

Using the example of Genya and Sanemi, I’ve seen them both in canon interacting with other characters, we’ve been told a bit about their backstory, their hopes and wants and motivations, and I understand how the show and plot typically works. So even if I don’t know everything about them I consider myself familiar enough to usually be able to write the characters in a way that feels authentic to them no matter what plot happens. Even if the events of canon end up playing out differently, the characters still FEEL in-character (within the little alternate universe plot I’ve created in my own story)

I think I’m doing it right based on feedback I’ve gotten from people who are more familiar than I am (have read the manga, in this example) who say that I did a good job of staying in character. This is one of the more common comments I get on my fics, actually! (My mother is very proud /j)

I write about things I don’t know about because I think it’s fun to speculate on what might happen via writing as an exercise in analyzing/studying the media and the characters itself. Like “wow what is going to happen with X and Y character?? What if it’s this? I’m going to write it!”

That being said I don’t ever write for fandoms I’m unfamiliar with because at that point I’d just write some original fiction and use my own characters lol. And typically if I’m writing a character I am extremely unfamiliar with, they appear as a side character and not main.

To sum up:

1. I am familiar with the characters

2. I know I’m doing it right because I’m familiar enough with the source material and also my commenters seem to think I’m doing it right

3. I don’t lol

_(:3 」∠)_

[cuteniaarts]

Behold, my latest and most enamouring new obsession:

Malina, Lady of the Chief of the Northern Water Tribe. As if Red Lotus child OCs weren’t niche enough

[makelemonade]

straight horny to your request, so basically arranged mirage with neuvillette and wriothesley (separately) BUT! they gain baby fever 😋 write anything you have in mind, thank you 🫡

arranged marriage + baby fever

wrio, Neuvillette - fem + AFAB reader

I suck at titles LOL and it’s kinda short I am so sorry 🙏🏽 this is my first time writing baby fever idk if I did good but WHATEVA

Wriothesley

- I won’t lie to you…I barely know his character LOL uhm…

-like I’m at the part in the archon quest where we just met him

-so I hope this is like…okay

-I’d assume that Neuvillette maybe put you two together, seemingly as a duke needed his duchess. After all his complaining about being an independent man he finally agrees to the marriage.

-at first he’s not really fond of you. Sure, he’s nice to you, but don’t see it as anyrbing more. He still has a job to do.

-but then he really takes into consideration just how sweet you are for him- you’re so obedient and it starts to drive him crazy

-you always have his tea ready for him and he can’t lie when it comes to the fact that maybe he is starting to like you

-and god the way you know how to massage him, whether it be his back, arms, legs, neck- it fucking drives him crazy

-so naturally you start to massage his dick too.

-he loves to make love to you and fuck you- yes they are two completely different things to him. he babbles about how grateful he is to have such a slutty and obedient wife like you

-he LOVES to call you “my wife” when he fucks you, and he loves to think back to when he was so against it and he’ll slap himself because who would not want such a good wife like you?!?

-it means your his, and he loves it.

-what drives him absolutely insane is when he sees you with Sigewinne; you’re so caring, attentative and always so helpful to her that he starts to let his mind wander

-he thinks you’ll look cute with a swollen belly, one he can rub everyday. He imagines what your kids will look like- will they act like you? have your eyes? his hair?

-he needed to fuck a baby into you, and stat.

-he will waste no time in dragging you away to his office or really anywhere in the fortress to breed you…!

“fuuuck baby,” He drawls out his groan, hiking your legs further up his shoulder while also pushing them down as your pushed deeper into his desk.

“so- so goddamn cute, agh! helping Sigewinne and being such a good mommy…”

“Nghh~ oh! Wr-wrio!” You gasp when you feel hot ropes of his cum begin to fill you up, and he makes no move to stop.

He watched the way your tits bounced as he fucked into you, and he moved one hand up to grope at them, imaging how swollen they’d be later in the future, and how he’d get to massage them for you…

“Gonna fuck a baby into you, sweetheart! Needa fill you up…breed you! and you won’t waste anything. Right, you’ll be my good wife…”

Neuvillette

-MY MANNNNNNNNNN

-okay I’d imagine that Furina def arranged this marriage and let me tell u he was NOT AGAINST IT

-why would he be?!? you were gorgeous, adorable, kind, sweet- everything he’d ever imagine for his beloved to be so of course naturally he’s gonna develop these feelings for you

-he watches how you treat people and is so grateful to be able to call you his wife that when he’s talking to other people, he doesn’t even use your name and just tends to say “my wife”

-in full honesty, he also acts like that for another reason; he feels like he owns you with it- that your his

-your his to kiss, find comfort in, talk to, cry to, fuck, make love to, breed- everything! You were his and only his

-and the way you acted with the melusines….how sweet you were to them…his dragon instincts came out insanely.

-you were so kind to them, always helping them with everything and of course with him basically being their dad they start to see you as a mom too 🥺

-one night, he just can’t help it anymore and he’ll force you down in the bed, not letting you move so he can get all of his cum in you.

“Agh! Darling, stay still…” He grunted, pressing a kiss to the love of your ear as he roughly and passionately rolled his hips into yours, his fat cock hitting all the right spots.

“Such a good wife, aren’t you, my dear?”

You couldn’t answer, too fucked out on his cock but also his cum. He’d came multiple times in the last hour and honestly you couldn’t even remember your own name.

“You’ll take it all, right? You’ll let me breed you, fill you up, make you my mate! Hah…”

“Y-yes!” You gasped, holding onto him for dear life. “Breed me…f-fill me up!”

That sentence alone is enough to make him go haywire and he moans as he cums for the nth time, his seed spurring around the edges as he continued to fuck into you.

And when you find a hydro mark embedded on your pelvis, he’ll know you’re officially his mate <3

[millermouth]

𝐦𝐚𝐲

hello angels welcome to another month of fic recs. i'll be honest, it was a bit of a dry month for me reading wise. Between working on requests & a new wip im obsessed with, my reading was severely lacking this month. we finally got some goddamn angst in here, as im trying v hard not to be such a perv and only give you smut lol as always make sure to show these authors some love if you enjoyed their stories!

When It's Your Turn by @stitch-away

javi peña au one shot summary: drabble about javier peña being the father of joel and tommy miller and having a hard time my thoughts: no yeah im sobbing. what a creative idea after watching the ep of tommy & joel's dad :')

The Tides Between Us by @yslgreen

dbf!Joel x reader ongoing series summary: The Millers’ beach house was supposed to be a fun getaway : a week of sun, drinks, and celebration for Joel’s 50th birthday. But after that night with Joel, everything’s suddenly… awkward. Joel is cold and distant, because Joel knows better. He won’t cross that line—not with his best friend’s daughter, not when you’re half his age. He’s made his share of mistakes, but this won’t be one of them. my thoughts: ohhhhhhh my god I need to know what happened between joel and reader and this had be biting my nails every time they were in the room together but also needing to see them in the same room. can't wait for p2!!!

Relax, Miller by @arcanefox207

Joel Miller x you one shot Summary: In the Boston Quarantine Zone, you and Joel both find a way to get what you want. my thoughts: no one writes about blowing joel miller enough sorry I said it. I would happily pay this man with my mouth given the chance thank you and goodnight

Honey, Stomach, Mine by @netherfeildren

alpha!joel miller x you 3 part series summary: Existence is a needful thing. Choice is fickle, nature inescapable. Run to the end of the world, Joel, all those things will still find you.  my thoughts: this fic has bewitched me, body and soul. how I wish I could erase my memory and read it again. and then again and again and again. this was the most beautiful thing I think ive ever read in all my 28 years of life. I'm in love, I'm obsessed, I'm utterly ruined by you. I can only pray to be half the writer this author is, because...wow. im forever changed. absolutely gorgeous and delicious all at once.

bétteln by @netherfeildren

qz!joel x reader 2 part series summary: You really want Joel to give you a baby. You don’t really care what he has to say about it. my thoughts: yeeeeeeahhhhhh holy shit. a fic where im obsessed with joel very much like irl? yeah count me tf in. oh! turns out he's also obsessed with ME. even better. obsessed, turned on, licking my fingers clean it was so good.

A Prize I’d Cheat to Win by @whoevenisjavier

harry castillo x assistant!reader ongoing series summary: you fuck your married boss during a late night at the office. my thoughts: the banter!!! came (lmao) for the smut stayed for the writing!!! The details about their work environment and projects!!! I thought this was so so well written as a story and all the character details. And idk the moral dilemma was very intriguing because it wasn’t so black and white. obvi if this isn’t your thing scroll on by !

[see-arcane]

With a total of 1,176 votes tallied, the preferred plushie poll winner with 28.8% of votes is…

What a close one! Jonathan came in with 27.7%, the mysterious Mr. Morse with 24.9% and, delicious irony of ironies, London Dracula with 18.9%. Rest in pieces. Now, what does all this mean going forward?

First, just to reconfirm: I will absolutely be looking into the costs for having more than one plushie character produced at a time. For all that Mina has the top spot if it comes down to a solo run, Nobody Wants to Separate the Gothic Horror Soulmates, even as wee little plushies. It hurts my heart to think of. Mina and Jonathan deserve to sit side by side on everyone’s pillow. Just as Quinn Morse deserves to haunt the pillow next to theirs while casually throttling and carving London Dracula into pieces. For enrichment.

But beyond that, some other key things:

How is this getting done?

Sadly, I was not a cool enough kid for Makeship to greenlight a collaboration with me. Tragique. But while I was sitting around waiting for them to get back to me, I had time to browse around for other options. During that sniffing around I dug up a couple of promising manufacturers—one of which has some really neat options for not only plush toys, but all sorts of bric-a-brac like stationery, shirts, bags, cups, et cetera—and I plan to reach out to them for quotes to start with. Nothing really gets to move forward until I can nail down prices and the amount of X plushies to be made.

I am more than a little hesitant to tell anyone MAKE ME 1000+ PLUSHIES, PLEASE, THE TUMBLR POLL SAID THEY’RE GOOD FOR IT. These aren’t as simple as print/make-on-demand products, so I need to be careful estimating the amount of folks ready and willing to drop money on the little guys. But I will keep everyone updated on the numbers regardless!

Sooo is this a crowdfunding thing or an investment or what?

Don’t know yet. I am still between jobs at the moment—reminder to check out my Ko-Fi if you want to drop me a buck or commission some art!—but if this is something I can safely drop some of my own money in with the guarantee that it will let me do better than break even, I’ll do what I can out of pocket. However, if the cost of making something of good quality turns out too steep, I’ll start looking into stuff like Kickstarter and Backerkit and so on. I want to be sure I’m not gutting anybody’s wallet to pull this off and I want to be double-sure that what we’re paying for isn’t some flimsy throwaway junk. We are all here on the same Dracula book club starving artist site, so It Has to Be Worth It and not a money-sink for anyone.

Got it. Any other info to spare?

For the plushies specifically, this is when I’ll start:

Polishing up the current four designs into cleaner illustrations with different angles to provide for mockup samples with whoever I pick to manufacture with. If I get stuck on something—(which is likely)—I may throw up another poll to bug everyone about palettes and fashion choices. I have a few more designs I haven’t dropped yet for Epilogue Harkers, a non-Bloofer Lucy, and keychains that I’d love to share too!

Eyeballing materials. I’m already picturing a very close-cut cloth for the build and clothes, but I need to decide on filling too. Stiff overstuffing to hold a pose versus softer/lighter plush for floppy cuddleability. 

Poking at other character roughs, ala the Suitor Squad, the Weird Sisters, Van Helsing, Renfield, and Baby Quincey. And if all of those go well…

…maybe some designs for other favorites in the public domain playground. (Looks meaningfully at Clarimonde, Carmilla, Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, the King in Yellow, too many others.) ((But that’s all far-future stuff at the moment.))

Cool! But you also mentioned something about other merch?

I did.

Because goddamn do I want some Dracula-themed stationery. Journals! Memo pads! Pens! Every day we don’t have these things with the Harkers’ mark upon them is a victory for the forces of Count Dracula’s document-destroying evil. Likewise for shirts, totes, mugs, keychains, face masks and other things that could use some novel-flavored goodies. Hell, I’ll probably even get on with making stuff for The Vampyres to link on my website too. Because I am. Maybe behind on that. By several months.

Anyway.

I’ve got to start working on some designs for those too while the plushie process is progressing. Pray that my carpals don’t get tunneled.

Nice! Sounds like your plate is pretty full. So that’s it, right?

:)

Arcane?

:3c

Arcane. I need you to tell me this is all you’re working on.

>:}

Arcane.

Please stand by.

I have a little treat brewing for the Dracula Dailiers and @re-dracula folks in honor of a very special day for our good friend Jonathan Harker.

[stygiansun-totaleclipse]

when i say i audibly gasped looking at the new demo design i MEAN it. it's absolutely gorgeous. this is one of the wips i can replay over and over and read it as if it's my first time, instead of skimming through the sentences because i know them already. your writing, the options for characterization, the way you portray the characters and their relationships with one another, the nuances between mother/tutor and MC and just the overall vibe of the game is so immersive and flawless. i am IN love with stygian sun: total eclipse, it haunts me in the most delicious way. also, your art is SO GODDAMN PRETTY your characters all look so individual while maintaining aspects that relate them to one another/create distinction (depending on their culture/nationality/station). and I'm in awe with the way you write grief and emotions in general (also would die and kill for farah and farwah, my baby sister and my baby serval) just CHEF'S KISS thank you so so much for all your hard work

as a question: are you thinking of adding more weapon choices? currently there's spear, sword, battle-axe and bow. i understand short-range weapons like daggers and even a khopesh wouldn't be as useful in battle, but I've seen mentions of scimitar (if I'm not mistaken) and although it's a sword and i know this choice means we've inherited Castor's sword, if we'll be able to later expand on what kind of sword? or even choose other weapons, like an urumi or something else you might think would work. i can only imagine how much more work adding the variables/flavor text for this would be, so this is in no way criticism or a demand, just really curious!!!

🥺🥺❤️💕 Thank you so much—that’s such an incredibly sweet and thoughtful message!! I’m really honored you’ve come to love the story that much and that it has that much replay value for you ❤️ I have a few fave IFs/books like that—ones where I just love the story/characters/writing so much I can reread it word for word and so I’m so flattered that my writing has resonated with you that much! I never expected the reactions/support the demo has gotten when I first decided to start writing my own IF 🥺💕 This story and all the characters are literally constantly on rotation in my head like a microwave and I’m glad I’ve been able to infect you all with the brainrot introduce you to them!! :D ❤️ (and yes!! Farah and Farwah are baby certified 👍👍👍 baby sis and kitty cat for the win)

Also thank you!! I really like doing character designs and I’ve had a lot of fun bringing all the characters to life through drawing! :D Originally when I was in my early brainstorming for this story and making the first character designs, I actually was planning on making a VN but I ended up switching to an IF bc it’d have been way too much work to make all the assets for a VN myself and this story will just be way too big for a VN lol. And I can get kinda wordy :P

As for your question, I thought about other weapon types but I ended up going with just four because I’ll have to write variations for fight/spar scenes that take into account how each weapon would be used in a fight and how it measures up against an opponent’s weapon and adding more options/variations would make things too complicated I think. 🤔 I don’t know that I’ll add much variation in the type of sword/axe/etc that mc used either bc those would also come with their own usage differences and adding variations for each weapon would make for a lot of scene variations lol. It will probably be locked in as the same weapon the siblings used, but you can always headcanon it’s a different weapon! And maybe as I’m writing things and I feel I’d like to make any changes to weapons I can always do that later :) But for now I don’t want to overload myself lol :P

Thank you again for reading and thank you so much for your kind ask!! ❤️❤️💕 I really appreciate you taking the time to write it and share your thoughts/questions! It means a lot to me and makes me happy to hear from you! ❤️❤️❤️

( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ )

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Obviously I’m not watching because I’m on vacation but I’ve been keeping up via tumblr in the evenings here and I have thoughts…

Basically my whole issue is that none of this has purpose. I mean it doesn’t surprise me but I’m still disappointed.

Even the Tom/Belle nonsense had some merit as an issue story before they dragged it all out.

I guess this is sort of that mixed with the Nate intro story in terms of the problems it has.

And the thing is, I could tolerate it a lot more if either…

He was still a long lost Sugden but not with Aaron. Instead they let him properly connect with Vic because she is desperate for family. And maybe Aaron’s still involved because he’s wary of him and then it turns out he’s right and he gets to help save the day in the end.

Or, he was with Aaron but he was just a random guy and not Robert’s long lost gay half brother.

I mean I’d still be annoyed with both of these because in the first scenario, I just think it’s an absolute waste of the long lost Sugden concept. If you’re going to bring in a long lost Sugden, it should be in an effort to build the family up again. And this is not that. And in the second scenario, I’d still need them to actually develop the relationship or it would be just as bad.

But with the current scenario, I’m annoyed with the waste of a Sugden thing and the complete lack of development for the relationship aspect, plus with the fact that they’ve gone out of their way to pair Aaron off with Robert’s long lost gay half brother and they’re just doing absolutely nothing with that. As convoluted as it would be, I would rather he be targeting Aaron specifically for whatever ridiculous reason because at least then it would feel purposeful. This all just feels so goddamn lazy and I’m mad about it. Again, not surprised, but still, it’s annoying.

We seemingly just have him as a Sugden because they’re incapable of actually building up a new character and giving them solid well developed connections with people to raise the stakes in a story like this. And then I don’t even feel like his brand of psycho is that particularly interesting? Like he didn’t even purposely kill Nate? Sigh. And half of his saves have just been lucky situations he’s taken advantage of. I just wanted him to be more methodical about it.

I don’t know, he’s still just boring. There’s no point to him being a Sugden. There���s no point to him being with Aaron. There are no real stakes because all of his relationships are seriously underdeveloped.

Whatever they thought they were trying to do, unless they pull something amazing out in the end of all of this, I think they’ve failed spectacularly and it’s a shame.

Okay rant over for now. Back to vacation mode!

[crazylittlejester]

i hope this isn’t weird to say, but can i hear you yap about your fiancée? like the little things you love about them? (you don’t have to if neither of you are comfortable with it! ignore this ask if it makes you uncomfortable)

aldkfkdk dw it’s okay!

for starters, no other mother fucker would say shit like this to me and then ACTUALLY give me an explanation:

fr tho, she’s not just my fiancee she’s my best friend and i love her so so much. if no one’s got my back, i know she does, and i have hers. If i need to yap about something, I know she’ll listen and hype me up, and i absolutely do the same for her. She’s truly one of the kindest, most caring people I’ve ever met in my entire life, and I genuinely get very very sad when she goes out of state for college because i miss her 😭

I can text her about a problem or something I’m upset about and she’ll respond with “NTA, divorce” and it’s genuinely the FUNNIEST fucking thing

We have this thing that she’s not allowed to speak while I’m drinking something or have food in my mouth because she chooses the absolute worst moments to say the funniest things and having water come out your nose HURTS, and a few months ago we were getting coffee and she waited until I took a nice big sip before showing me the stupidest tiktok I’ve ever seen and everyone in the coffee shop had to watch me fight for my fucking life. And yes it is a bit annoying to choke and die every time i eat or drink around her, but I do genuinely love the way this mf looks at me like :3 before showing me a meme. istg she does it on purpose /j

every time we play bg3 together she fucking sits there and waits for me to think she wont do it, and then shoves my fucking character or hits them with a sword and then RUNS AWAY AND I CAN NEVER GET HER BACK BECAUSE SHES TOO FAST 😭

she’s also the one who OFFICIALLY got me into Zelda, so without her I probably wouldn’t have gotten into LU. I’d played the og LOZ before when I was 12, but when we were 18 the two of us when to target and she was like “hey man this seems like something you’d like” and had me play the BOTW demo and now I’m here. She gave me the final push and I’ve been yappin’ here ever since. And I think it’s funny that it was my constant yapping that was the final push for HER to get into HER current hyperfixation, bg3. we cursed each other /j

i also love that i’ll go check to see if she got home okay (because i have her location) or im just curious to see what she’s doing, and then I’ll find her in the middle of a fucking lake out of the goddamn country. It never fails to make me laugh 😭

but yeah she’s great, she’s awesome, she’s the funniest person alive, i love her, she’s my best friend, we’re gonna hang a framed photo of autism creature on our wall once we’re able to get an apartment. and there’s no one else who will continue to say “GO PISS GURL!!!” with me in 2024 🫶

[physalian]

#Writer Problems

Meet the 15th character in this series with a name that starts with A! No one will notice hahaha

Going back and deleting the sighs to shake things up a bit because there’s 120 in the manuscript

*checks notes* whoops you died already, Side Character, my bad

*one paragraph* Perfect. Amazing. Poetic. Profound. *the next paragraph* what is words do?

Knocking out a 6k word chapter in an hour/Spending a week on a single transition

*slaps down a shiny new character with zero plan* You don’t know anything about them and neither do I, let’s discover them together

Realistically, there’s gotta be at least one casualty from this fantasy battle so…. *rolls dice* no not you. *rolls dice again* yep. That’ll do. Sorry, pal.

Is this badass or stupid?

Is this hot or cringey?

*checks notes* damn it, plot hole.

Upon this most recent round of edits, you, Cool Side Character, no longer made the cut. Mayhaps you’ll be recycled later.

*checks notes* damn it, I fixed that plot hole by opening another plot hole.

Jesus christ I wrote ‘just’ 308 times across 120k words?

That is definitely not how you spell that

*dreams about my characters in full HD technicolor* awwww yeah, where’s the popcorn? *cannot replicate how cool it was in actual words*

Unes- Unnecs- Unessis- Unnessessarily- Unnecessarily fuck

Do I go with the British grey or the American gray?

*cries* this epic was supposed to be a novella

Well these two were supposed to be having an argument here. But making out is fine. I’d like to see where this goes.

Oops I forgot the straights, here that nameless dude over there isn't confirmed gay, so you can headcanon that he's straight if you want

Oops I forgot that marriage exists uhhh yeah their other parents are all dead or deadbeats

Fuck love triangles here’s a double-helix dodecahedron.

One day my fandom will write so much smut about this guy and I am here for it cause I sure ain’t doing it myself

Oops I forgot people with green eyes exist but brown eyes? I got 20

*describing the writing process* It was the best of times, it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

I. Hate. Chapter. Titles.

Is this profound or pretentious?

*crafts an absolutely banger metaphor* I hope someone notices this. I put a lot of work into it

I didn’t spend 6 months perfecting this masterpiece for you to sass that the curtains are just blue. I’ll write the goddamn essay myself about all the depth behind my color choices, sir.

Picture that Spongebob dehydrated in Sandy’s treehouse meme ‘cause that’s me on round 12 of edits

I gotta be up for work in 4 hours but this monologue is more important

*distills 30 pages of worldbuilding notes into 2 paragraphs of a fluff scene* somebody will appreciate this, won’t they?

*listening to my book playlist* one day when this is adapted I hope this artist is still alive to compose the main theme cause this shit fucks

*cries* this trilogy was supposed to be just one book

If I turn this plot hole into a character flaw, they become the problem while I remain god

*looting themes, monologues, character names, and archetypes off the corpses of my dead WIPs* You won’t miss them anyway.

While it also immortalizes this person’s dickish behavior, yes, I will, in fact, write a whole character’s backstory as a middle-finger to this one bitch from 10 years ago.

*steps back to gaze at all the suffering done unto my deuteragonist* but it was worth it, wasn’t it?

*staring down yet another loathsome action set piece* whyyyyy do I do this to myself?

Nobody’ll notice my author insert if I dice them up and divvy them out in bits to my entire cast, right? Right? It’s like a shell game of what’s author and what’s fiction

These two are going to be a problematic ship one day and I will burn that bridge when I get there

*2am and I am scouring the internet for that one piece of a fort’s defenses because not remembering is the current root of my insomnia*

*Nudging my favorite character who isn’t the protagonist out onto stage* golly I hope the readers like him

Waiting. For. Editors. Takes. So. Long.

Holy butts accidental motif and deep symbolism fucks. I am so pretending I did that on purpose.

To subtext or not to subtext? Nah, to subtext. *laughs maniacally*

Trying to ride that line between so obvious it’s painful but also juuust enough foreshadowing so you slap yourself for not seeing it sooner

TIL that I have been using that word completely wrong for years. How quaint.

No you’re derivative schlock. I’m crowd surfing the books that came before and loving every second of it.

Damn I wasted a really good name on this throwaway character

*checks notes* wait, who's taller? Where does your hair part? Are you left or right-handed?

*musing over a character slated for death* damn, I really like you. Since I am in fact god, you shall live another day. *rewerites the entire finale*

God I hope people like this story

[beavauna]

Carmine Discussion

Okay, I’ve never done this before, but considering there are a lot of Carmine haters on here, I thought I’d give it a try.

I’m getting sick of going online and seeing Carmine portrayed negatively. There’s people calling her racist, sexist, xenophobic, and all around other horrifying things. It’s like I can’t go anywhere without seeing her drawn in a negative lot, and there’s even porn art where she’s portrayed like this, and I thought it’s time someone put a stop to it. (which I stumbled into on accident.)

Look, I get she’s supposed to be protective older sibling character, but people keep treating her like she’s not a character, like a puppet they can throw their problems on.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Bea.” But I do. There have only be three known sibling groups in Pokemon, Carmine and Kieran being one of them.

The best example I can give is Clemont and Bonnie. They’re brother and sister, and of course- they have their issues. Clemont is the older, protective sibling character, while Bonnie is the younger sibling who just wants to be trainer, but is often followed by her brother who wants to protect her and keep her safe.

I get Clemont’s nicer than Carmine is initially, but I’ve NEVER seen any hateful art drawn of him. It could be just because of how popular XYZ was, but like-

There should be people who portray him negatively, but I’ve never seen that.

The XYZ anime was great. Most people consider it the greatest Pokemon series of all time, with all its characters, story, Pokemon, (coughs. Amourshipping.) and much, much more.

If you ask someone, they’ll most likely tell you that their favorite anime is XYZ. And it’s the same with me.

(I’d like to mention I’ve never watched the anime where May and Max came from. I don’t even know the name- shsjsvsh. I’m not forgetting about them, I just have never watched it.)

But my point is; It’s like people automatically think that Carmine was supposed to be the Clemont character and Kieran was supposed to be the Bonnie character.

“Oh my god she’s so mean to Kieran. She doesn’t give a shit about him.”

Because older siblings are like that?? I’m an older sibling to a (currently) 7 year old brother, and our relationship is like this.

When people first saw Carmine, people were in absolute awe of her design. There was fanart galore, discussions, ext ext.

But when the game officially came out, here came the hate.

And to be honest? I hated her too, but after playing the Teal Mask for a while, I started to like her. She reminded me of myself in a way. (Despite me being transmasculine/nonbinary) And for the love of her design to immediately go to ��hey let’s make awful art of her’ makes me sick.

She’s honestly my favorite comfort character. She makes me happy.

And I know there’s awful art of characters in every fandom, but my point is: Why hate on Carmine when she’s simply just the living example of an actual sister and brother relationship? People can change, you know. Like goddamn…

She can go through changes. Plot exists for a reason. Like- can people actually get their act together and realize things aren’t so fucking black and white??

That being said; If you’re a Carmine hater, block me and move on. If you’re a Carmine hater but understand what I’m getting at, feel free to stay around! I’m always happy to spread the word and remove one of my favorite video game characters from a negative light.

~ Bea

[fictionkinfessions]

Jayce here. Again. You know which one.

The ending was… well, it wasn’t perfect by any means. Honestly, I have a lot of complaints especially in regards to how canonized lore has seemingly been tossed to the side, creating a mound of inconsistencies and plot holes that are going to extend to other areas since Riot’s grubby hands cannot possibly fathom not making more money- I mean… making more shows, but it wasn’t all terrible.

I mean… Okay, I didn’t have the best approach the first time, but considering everything I went through (which… gods I’m happy they showed because I thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t find the words to describe the absolute wasteland I’d been stuck in for months and what it did to me, but not important right now) I think it makes sense why I was a little off my rocker. For what it’s worth, Viktor was… unwilling to listen. I tried talking, tried getting him to see my perspective while in the hexgate’s depths previous to the war, but we’re all familiar with how that went. I’m sorry for my err… brash decision, but I truly thought there was no other option. That talking wouldn’t work, after all he wouldn’t listen and his uh… mind… control wasn’t an option just yet.

Regardless— to see him so… possessive of me is… wow. Not going to get into it, but wow. Anyway. To have my face pressed to his, his hand rubbing my arm soothingly, my fingers toying with the ends of his hair. For them to have me proclaim my love for every single thing about him, including what he himself cannot see as beautiful or wonderful (in their own ways) or admire as a part of him, something I’d been trying to make people realize and understand about me as a character for nearly three goddamn years? That’s insanely validating. For them to have me apologize to Mel, for me to state that I don’t doubt her? Gods that feels good. It feels like I did good.

I hate that it got to the point it did for things to be made better, but knowing he saved my mother and I, knowing I passed that knowledge onto him, and in turn saved him, that we’re intertwined cosmically with eachother…. I don’t have the words. Viktor has been my everything, will always be my everything, snd they couldn’t have done a better job portraying how much I adore that man. I love him. It’s written across the stars, time, the fabric of the universe itself. My soul carries a piece of him with me everywhere and I know its the dame for him.

My thoughts are a mess and so is this confession, but gods, I only hope they bring us back in the future. After all, he still needs to build his son (Blitzcrank) and there’s so much more we can do to help the world. — Jayce Talis (#💉☀️)

[spacerhapsody]

It has recently come to light that my deepest, darkest (Digimon) fandom secret is that I didn’t always ship Taito, and @hazelestelle was kind/curious enough to ask the following question in that shipping ask game:

18. A ship you never thought you would ship but do.

Buckle up, kids, because it’s time for a (long) trip down memory lane.

The year is 2002, and after about a year of exploring the internet via small guestbooks and messaging boards, someone finally pointed me towards the central German anime site. And while I think I had seen a couple of people publishing their own stories online and had written one or two myself, I hadn’t realized before that the concept of fanfic was a whole thing, let alone how much of it there was out there.

I also didn’t know yet that you could properly ship things that aren’t canon. Back then, I thought Yamto and Sora were really cute together (probably I mostly thought Yamato was the coolest person ever and was using Sora to heavily project onto), and apparently so did other people, because I easily found and read quite a few stories about them.

Now what you have to remember is that tags or any kind of useful sorting system just wasn’t a thing back then, which is how I ended up with a sliiightly different story, but I didn’t know that yet.

The fic was labeled with all kinds of warning – but I had absolutely no idea what any of those words meant. I’d only just discovered that Taichi and Yamato were Tai and Matt’s Japanese/actual names and just figured “Taito” and “Yamachi” were other (nick)names for them, and since it was popular to just throw random Japanese words into your fic at the time, and half of the time people didn't even use them right, I didn’t bother to look up what “Shounen-Ai” and “Yaoi” meant.

So I had no idea what I was getting into when I started reading, and after a couple of chapters I might have found it a bit weird that Sora was so little in it, but apparently I’ve also always enjoyed a good slow-burn, so I kept on reading. I don’t even remember when I realized that there was something going on between Yamato and Taichi, but I do remember that I was fascinated, and that I couldn’t stop reading, especially once it became obvious/something actually happened between them.  

(Why do I care so much about queer people, says queer person years before she figures out she’s queer herself, etc.)

Anyways, the story was long (and my internet time limited), so it took days, if not weeks of surreal summer evenings until I was done, but I read the whole thing.

And for whatever reason… I took this as my sign to start shipping Daisuke and Ken (and a variety of DBZ characters). XD

I’ve absolutely no idea why that was what I took away from the whole thing, it’s not even that I disliked the ship (yet), I always kind of understood why people were shipping them, maybe it was simply because Digimon 02 was much more present in my mind than the first season at the time?

But then I started looking for Daisuke/Ken stories (again, without a lot of help from the websites themselves), and it was an absolute nightmare.

You simply couldn’t find anything that didn’t have Yamato/Taichi as the main ship instead, that didn’t feature them as the reason Daisuke and Ken were figuring themselves out, or didn’t have them as the “older, wiser” couple at least one of them went to for advice, and I was steadily growing more and more annoyed by them.

And it was like this for years. I think it got even worse (Adventure, and thus Yamato/Taichi, has always been more popular than any of the 02 characters, and even more so after they lost their momentum).

They just were everywhere, in every goddamn fic, no matter what other pairing you were actually looking for. I was once reading some football RPS, and when the guys in that story were listening to the radio, the host mentioned someone had called in and asked to play the previous song, from Yamato to Taichi (or the other way round) – you can’t even make that shit up.

At this point they just annoyed me so much that I made a point of not shipping them, and I think I’d also reached a point where I was a bit tired of the whole “they’re rivals/always beating each other up, so they obviously are in love” trope.

I also discovered Taichi/Koushiro (which I still think is an amazing ship that at least the German fandom has always been completely sleeping on), so I had even more reason to not ship Yamato/Taichi.

And I honestly think it would always have been this way, but then tri. happened. And hit me with full force. Because they were older, and somewhat calmer/less aggressive around each other, but still very much themselves, and most of all so blatantly obvious.

I was still in denial during most of part 1, but I already knew when Mimi shoved them into a Ferris wheel cabin and declared the group had brought them together that I was fighting a losing battle, and by part 2 with the entire onsen visit and the bickering afterwards, it was over.

Look. I get it. They’re really it. They work so well together, there’s so much there, they’re the blueprint for so many anime ships, they give me way too many feelings. (Help.)

I still don’t really ship them pre!tri., though. Partly probably because of my history with the ship, but also because I like their dynamic so much better now, and because I simply like the idea of people getting together later in life, or at the very least after they’ve at least finished high school.

TL;DR: I never, ever thought I’d fall into Taito hell, and yet here I am, in the year 2k24, absolutely obsessed with them once again. Thank you, Digimon, you’re the gift that keeps on giving.

[cartoonedin]

my live thoughts on legendary summer circa yesterday: an extremely unwieldy 1.8k word long notes app ramble. lots of spoilers below the read more!!!

Disclaimer this review contains many stupid questions and zero smart answers. It’s a kids’ cartoon and it’s not that serious and let me live ok

LEGENDARY SUMMER HAVING ABOUT 58-59 MINUTES OF THE ACTUAL SHOW YES GOD AMEN

Someone get Ava friends who won’t stress her tf out 😭 

She looks so good though. Like maybe it’s just my deteriorating eyesight but I think Legendary Summer really shines in terms of lighting and the Grimorian(?) materials 

Audibly gasped at Glacier being the scariest thing anything can be—white

LAYLA VOICEOVER WHEN I TELL YOU IM WINNING IM WINNING

Like I do wonder why the writers didn’t go with making Legendary Summer Valentina’s special and Winter Solstice Layla’s especially since Valentina was given a bigger role in the previous season but hey! I can’t complain a voiceover is more internal monologue than Isabel got. For whatever reason 😭

Layla representing all the dumbass nerds in STEM I love her so much ��🤮😍🤓🥰 like that wasn’t obvious 😭🤮😍🤓🥰

SPARKLEBOOK LADY’S NAME IS FARADAY?? LIKE MY SCHOOL HOUSE?? 

I’m gonna be so for real I thought her name was Verde and Layla just pronounced it weirdly because. Idk Canadians. Sorry for doubting you Queen

I’m so tethered to this random cartoon character Lord help me

Layla’s swimsuit is so cute! The same cannot be said for Valentina based on the other clips online but like. Idk maybe she just knew anything she brought would stage Layla up so she just got a shirt and shorts off some driftwood

 I’m still not over Sophia wearing an off sleeve sweater to the beach she’s gonna get heat stroke. Honestly I wouldn’t be opposed to that arc

Who brought the duck floatie and do they know about Rory’s duck trauma

IsaVAL ❤️💙

The unicorns’ power scaling will never make sense to me and you know what. They don’t have to 😇

The way Layla pushes up her glasses 😍🥹🤩🥳 

God help me all these emojis are ironic 

So like is Mr Tansy paying her

AVA MOMS CANON 🌈🌈🌈

I love Glacier and Layla am

Background people 🤯🤯🤯

Pre-riding outfits!!! Hope they got washed!!!

Sophia initiating positive interactions with other people 🤯🤯🤯

OVERPRODUCED POP SONG FROM MY QUEEN ❤️❤️❤️ I’m winning so bad rn

WHAT DO YOU MEAN NONE OF THE OTHER TEACHERS R THERE 😭 WHERE ELSE CAN THEY GO WITH THEIR UNICORN RIDING DEGREES

Which is a problem most magical school fiction has but like. Idk is nobody concerned about the island’s main guardians being senior citizens, their magical horses, and a bunch of tiny servants we know might betray them 

Moving on I love you and your Rivers Cuomo ass haircut Mr Tansy

This Roblox ass smirk 😭😭😭

Layla’s so real for being disappointed with cataloging because I would kill myself before doing another assignment related to the Dewey decimal system

Layla you don’t want to do research either I’d kill myself before doing another assignment related to research too

I feel like everyone’s had a turn saying Ava 🙄 LMAO

Two dumb bitches telling each other exactlyyy ❤️

SHE DID THTE THING SHE DID THE ERM ACTUALLY UAND I SWEAR

We’re not correcting typos here I’m live blogging a kids’ show life is too undignified already

Omg they’re actually using the unicorns’ new powers

Grimoria just sitting there like 😭

Goddamn what’s the Winklewash stock market like

God save Ava from this suffering what did she do 😭 her friends pass around the spirit of (Evil) Evel Knievel like a hot potato

Ravenzella Pride Rock 😭

“I never expected Ravenzella to come from somewhere so pretty” @/skyberrypie your turn to explain why actually she could absolutely come from somewhere even prettier

These vines look so edible……

I feel like I never got to appreciate just how detailed the stables are like what do you mean each stall gets its own custom stained glass art

How long is that goddamn cruise #ComeBackMrsandMrsBanji2025

Mr Tansy I love you but like most male adults you are so stupid

Layla I love you but like most female teenagers you are so stupid. Like as a plant the freezing could change its chemical makeup 😭

Glacier :(

Where tf are Primrose and the dwerpins like is nobody noticing this……

Wildstar being dragged in someone’s shit again someone save her too 😭

Layla x Sparklebook is the only valid ship in anything ever ❤️

Guitarist Sophia… DJ Neigh Neigh… Beatboxer Ava… the band AU is coming together…

The world’s magic??

Ava 😭

LAYLA 😭

Someone call Samuel/the cowboy who used to ride Glacier get her OUT and get Layla in THERAPY for ANXIETY and OTHER REASONS TOO

Does Layla know that like every other scientist in history is the worst person ever

Does Mr Tansy have a bed 😭

Ravenzella crew return!!!

Italian Ravenzella canon?

Layla’s “Mum I frew up…” ass walk I love her

Girl don’t hold it up to her jail cell and its ridiculously thin bars

Layla is so cute when she’s dooming everyone to eternal magical death or whatever 🥰🥰🥰

Goddamn not this Hallmark ass scene you had your time now get twink dad off my screen 😭

And why is he still wearing that flannel like Sophia didn’t sit on it while, in turn, on horse shit for all the first episode. Please can we have some self respect

HER HAIR HASNT FADED….. What do the parents of the kids from non-rider families say about the dye jobs???

Ginger tea this old woman 😭

He dgaf about his other child for REAL 😭

Not the fairy tattling on Layla…..

They don’t even check whether the two kids at school follow curfew lmao

Layla just WALK use your LONG AS HELL LEGS to WALK

Mrs and Mrs Banji mentioned again 🌈🌈🌈

Oh now Primrose and the dwerpins gaf 😭

MR TANSY FIRST NAME REVEAL!

Mr Tansy stupid as hell. Just give him a pension and let him rest

I know that sounds like I hate him I don’t. Love you Theodore Tansy even if you’re stupid as hell ❤️

TaBADDIEtha 💜

Leaf the GOAT for real. Not for real because she’s a unicorn but you know

All the Grimorians are so hot…..

Sorry Glacier that was insensitive

Layla sad song NOW?

No not yet 💔

This hand choreography goes crazy

Ava not being able to pronounce Tabaditha she’s so real for that

Ava getting to yell at her friends for not asking for help should happen every season she deserves it ❤️

Everyone gets to cry in their specials we love an emotionally open cast. Waiting for Rory’s turn tho

That fairy just flopping 😭

Can Storm and Cinder just burn everything. We can move to the Bermuda babes it’s fine

Primrose now is not the time to show off your body even if it is admittedly entirely tea 

Them strutting in all at once with their smug smiles did they choreograph that 😭

Lowkey though if I were Layla and all my dorm mates came back to see how I nearly killed everything on our very special island and got dumped by my unicorn (sort of?? I mean Layla’s hair didn’t change) you would NOT see me again. Like I’m becoming stone and throwing myself to the bottom of the lake that shit’s worse than napping in the common room

Rory once again having the most normal reaction in the face of danger (see also Isaval flirting while a temple nearly crushed their friends to death)

Lord let this character development for Sophia be permanent 🙏

Ok actually it’s really embarrassing for Isabel if Glacier still likes Layla enough to keep the dye job and being unable to undo it isn’t just a consequence of her losing her magic 😭

Primrose call on the seniors wtf are you teaching them for 😭 

Omg it’s the other Mendoza child

Ok so we don’t have a backup magic generator love that for them

Love you old white man ❤️

LAYLA SAD SONG NOW!

YEAH!

GIRL HIT THE BOOKS STOP SINGING EVERYWHERE

SLIDING DOWN THE WALL EVEN ISABEL WASNT THIS DRAMATIC

AT LEAST ISABEL HAD A DREAM MONTAGE THAT SORT OF MADE SENSE LAYLA IS JUST WALKING

DONT VISIT YOUR SMELLY ASS ROOM

DONT SLEEP

Ok really I think this song was good enough and less robotic sounding but the fact it’s called Guiding Light and Sophia’s is called There’s A Light and Isabel’s is….. Better Than Two?? Ok sure whatever you say 

DAMN 😭

TaBADDIEtha 😍😍😍

LAYLA CAN YOU READ

This bitch don’t know nothing about the scientific method goddamn

“Blue is so not your colour” oh so blue is WHOSE colour 😚

CLOUD BOY 😭

GROSS TREE SQUID 

Valentina’s dialogue is genuinely such a delight omg

Not Ava basically having a daycare’s worth of baby unicorns attached to her now….. the next Sophiava divorce is going to end with Sophia getting her fuckass off sleeve sweaters ripped apart by their horns amen

Tabaditha’s intonation is just 😍

Ok I see you Walter Layla White

GUIDING LIGHT REPRISE!!!!!!

This video game ass battle

ISABEL MENTIONING BASKETBALL WHEN IVE BEEN WRITING A THEM PLAYING BASKETBALL FIC….. I CANT STOP WINNING

That loud ass gasp

LAYLA WITH POWERS!!!!!

Ok superhero landing

I feel like everyone’s said stay away from my friends at some point but hey. Layla doing an Akira slide on her knees idgaf about anything else

Valentina how I have missed your snark

Isabel how I have missed your corny one liners

Sophia’s taunt being rosebud to Rory’s walking cabbage…. girl stand up do you have a little brother to bully or not

LAYLA WALK FASTER

Whatever girl at least Glacier looks great

Oh right she could do that 😭

Ok that’s fun. Are they gonna burn her alive or

Well. Sort of! Good job a Queen hope you enjoyed ruining everyone’s summer vacation

Wait how tf did the kids get there without the boats. Did they row there like Danny. Did they hop on the cruise with Ava’s mums

WAIT AND WHY COULDNT PRIMROSE MAKE THE TEACHERS ROW THERE OR SEND THEM A BOAT OR SOMETHING JUST GIVE THEM OVERTIME PAY. UNDER THE FAIRY MOON CAUSING PLOT HOLES A WHOLE SEASON AFTER ITS RELEASE PLSSS 😭

Who’s laughing that hard at Rory getting a concussion. Love that for them tho

Layla FLETCHER ❤️

Girl stop talking to the dead you’re worse than Sophia

The end ❤️ 

In conclusion someone teach Layla breathing exercises and someone teach Primrose how consequences work bc wdym my girl has to do community service while Sophia who literally brought the evil island of evil magic containing tons of evil strangers back can just chill in California with her nuclear family. Love her for that tho ❤️

[ciaossu-imagines]

Could you do answer the questions to prompt nine for the ADA?

C

Of course I can! Thank you so much for the request and I hope you’ll enjoy my thoughts 😊

Send me a fandom and I’ll tell you…

The first character I first fell in love with

Dazai – he’s what really got me into the manga in the first place. I’ll go into that a little bit further down in this post, but he was the character in the ADA that I first fell in love with, which is probably a rather universal experience when it comes to manga/show, haha.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now

Atsushi! Atsushi so goddamn much. I liked him well enough at the start of the manga. He was a cute character, he hit the right buttons, but I found him a little bland at the beginning. As we’ve gotten to see more of Atsushi’s character, as we’ve seen him grow, as we’ve been exposed to more of his personal life and emotional struggles, he’s easily become my favourite ADA member. The whole thing with Atsushi’s trauma and the orphanage director? I cried. I legit bawled because it had me that emotional. Something about him just strikes a chord in me that has endeared him to me.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t

The incest siblings, full stop. I don’t actively dislike them. They have their moments where they’re badass, like when Naomi and Kirako were trying to escape the Guild and we got to see that Naomi can be really quite smart, or when Jun’ichirou fights seriously. There are moments where they make me laugh. I will say I like Jun’ichirou a bit more than Naomi, and when they’re not actively being the incest siblings I love them, but those moments make them my least liked ADA members.

The character I love that everyone else hates

I don’t really see a lot of hate in the BSD fandom, at least as far as I’ve seen. I’m sure it exists and that I’ve just been really lucky to not have it shoved in my face. But for the most part, in my personal experience with the fandom, none of the ADA character’s I like have a lot of blatant hatred. I will say that I think maybe some of the fandom is kind of sleeping on how great Katai is. I know he’s technically an ex-member of the ADA, so it’s kind of a cheat answer, but I think he’s frigging great. I wish we saw more of him, both in canon and in fanon.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer

This one is a hard question, because it’s not that I don’t love him anymore. After careful consideration though, it’s probably Dazai. I remember that I was all in on Dazai right from the beginning chapter and at one point, he was the reason I was reading it and my absolute favourite. However, as things progressed in the story and we got to see more of the other ADA character’s, I found that I gained a lot more interest in them. I was charmed by them, intrigued by what we were being shown. I got equally attached to most of them and my all-consuming love for Dazai kind of simmered away. I still adore him and think he’s great, but he’s pretty on par with a lot of the other characters at this point.

The character I would totally smooch

Fukuzawa, Ranpo, Akiko…the list is pretty long. Those are the main three though, all for different reasons.

The character I’d want to be like

Fuck, Akiko is so badass and I love her so much. So very, very much. She’s a really strong woman who has been through a lot. While she did allow a lot of it to really get to her and to keep her down for a while, she found the motivation to keep living and to truly start living in a way that she enjoys. She doesn’t apologize for taking up space, for the way she chooses to live her life, or for what she wants. I would love to be like her like her in several ways. I also have a lot of respect for Kunikida and I do feel some kinship with some points of his character. One area I do wish I was more like him was that we do see that Kunikida can change his opinions and can admit when he was wrong about something and I wish I was more easily able to do that.

The character I’d slap

While I adore all the ADA members and wouldn’t like to think I’d slap any of them, because I like to think I know myself pretty well, I’ll admit that, taking a realistic view of the matter, I’d get fed up at points or pissed off enough that I might slap Naomi, Ranpo, or Dazai. There would be moments where Ranpo’s ego, Naomi’s…grossness…, or Dazai’s shitty suicide attempts would just get on my last nerve. While I try not to be a violent person anymore, there might be moments where I’d crack.

A pairing that I love

I don’t really ship any of the ADA members together. There’s a lot of the relationships between the members that I enjoy and I find the bonds between them interesting, but they don’t tend to be romantic ships. I love the relationship between Fukuzawa and Ranpo and the bond they share. It’s very found family to me and it really makes me happy to read about it, to see the times it’s shown. I like Akiko and Ranpo’s friendship. I love seeing Ranpo and Dazai moments, where they both understand and respect each other and they just make each other better in a lot of ways. I like the relationship between Dazai and Kunikida, where they’re such opposites but at the same time, even as they snipe at each other, you can tell there’s an underlying bond of mutual respect there. I could continue to ramble for hours, because a good part of the ADA’s appeal isn’t in just their cool powers for me, but in the bonds we see established between everyone, but that would take me over the word limit. Just know that there’s not a bad relationship, aside from the answer below, and I enjoy almost all the relationship moments in between everyone.

A pairing that I despise

Oh god, the incest siblings. Plain out, it’s the incest siblings. I get that’s their whole shtick but it always makes me feel just uncomfortable every time it comes up. If other people enjoy it, all the better for them and I’m glad they can. They should be allowed to fill their boots, make fan content for the ship and do whatever they want, but my god, I just really don’t want to see it at all.

[kakerutori]

Alright, I’ve had this happen three times now in my TikTok comments, and I wanted to write things down here if not addressed there. Here’s the three-time happening, in short: ‘why are you, as a girl, so obsessed with a gay mlm ship?’

And, oh boy. Look. Yes, I am a cisgender woman. Yes, I primarily ship Byler (cisgender males) over all other ships in Stranger Things. But do you realize how objective that is? I am more than my gender. So are the characters portrayed in film and media and thus Stranger Things. I think that there are indeed underlying issues and reasons for genders that are more praised in film and media and whatnot, but I think that that’s a large oversimplification of what’s going on, here.

Guess what? Two cisgender men created Stranger Things. Do you think it’s easy for cisgender men to write in the shoes of cisgender women and just automatically know the nuances and be comfortable writing for them? No. That’s why we have an opening of the show with our four main characters, four boys. Because this story is one of the Duffers’ love letter to being nerdy as once nerdy boys themselves. However, I think that the Duffers have created great opportunities for discourse on the issues that women face through Nancy and her struggles, especially in season 3, and if you want to talk about women and discrimination, please do! But I’m just here trying to ship my ship. I talk about inter-relational issues, not gender issues. Are gender issues important? Absolutely, but I clearly don’t talk about them on my page. Maybe I can be more clear about that. I’m currently considering saying this in reply to the people who asked. I get it. There are no rules on my page, so it’s an open book.

But what I take issue with and what makes me passionate enough to write all of this is that the comments were clearly made to break me down and question, in essence, why I’m shipping males as a female. Well, to answer that, when I went into shipping Byler, I thought about what was happening in front of me as a story whole: two best friends, one lost and then found, empathetically and lovingly sticking by each other and being honest to each other through blood, sweat, and tears, facing an emotional and then physical rift, rejoining and rekindling their love, and finally deciding to stand by each other in the face of the world crumbling before them. No. Gender. Attached.

Byler are simply written as male characters and I’d take no issue if they were females and I think I’d still ship them the same if they were. But at the end of they day, they weren’t. They are males. And that’s not why I like talking about them. I like their character traits, not their goddamn DNA. But all that being said, I also won’t hide it, I do ship women, too. I like Ronance. God, I really like Ronance. Even if they very likely won’t be canon, I adore their moments in season 4 and love me a good sun-and-moon dynamic. I also like Elmax. I think that those two genuinely make each other happy which I find plain adorable. I even have a friend who has convinced me to see the light of comphet Joyce and Karen having a grade school fling before ultimately marrying heteronormatively.

Thing is, there are far less women featured as main characters in Stranger Things than there are men. And so that is just how it goes around here. And I didn’t have a problem with that to talk about it until it was presented as one.

Also, side note, I just started watching Grey’s Anatomy, and my current favorite relationship is between Meredith and Cristina, who are - guess what? - women. So, okay. Here it is. Bare bones down to gender, yeah, I actually do like sapphic wlw ships, too.

At the end of the day, this is my cry: please don’t assume that my fixation on Byler is because I - as a girl - like talking about boys.

That stung, a little, as someone who wrestled with her own sexuality for years and rarely had crushes and never really properly liked boys at all. I think that I feel like I need to make a video stating my sexuality because of this, and that makes me a little uncomfortable. But I’m putting it out here because I feel just a little safer. So let me be clear. I am aromantic-asexual.

So please just trust me. This is not about Byler being boys.

[lovestuckyhatemarvel]

What? Am I finally rewatching season 3 of Stranger things? And is this me watching s3e1? Yes, yes it is. Why did I take so much time between seasons 2 and 3? Broken brain, innit?

1.) I understand they must have done so much work for the opening sequence of the Russian scientists turning the keys and starting up the thing that spins and does electric shit and opens a portal but I’m mostly focused on how there’s a noticeable difference between the portals and tentacles/vines between each season. Like really obvious if you’re watching them as closely together as I have been lately.

2.) I forgot the machine fucking explodes after failing to hold a gate open and they slow mo a bunch of randos dying.

3.) I also forgot how absolutely cartoonish the Russians are in this. That soldier went full Darth Vader on a random scientist for no fucking reason. God, the Duffers are boring.

4.) Oh yeah, this is the season when Hopper becomes annoying.

5.) Steve is adorable in his cute little Scoops Ahoy outfit. His shorts are longer than the kids’ shorts are. How do people think those shorts are slutty? Literally even Mike is wearing shorter shorts than Steve.

6.) I forgot there’s a power outage to the mall in episode 1. IDK how since Steve flipping the light switch a bunch and Robin calling him dingus for the first time in the show is referenced by like so many steddie writers.

7.) I forgot that dirt moving on its own is a plot point here.

8.) ‘Let there be light’. Steve Harrington is a dweeb.

9.) Will’s spidey senses are tingling

10.) I never noticed that Mike and Will have almost the same hair this season.

11.) Oh yeah, the beginnings of the duffers not actually understanding feminism because they don’t understand the intersection of sexism and classism.

12.) I forgot Dustin gets back episode 1. Maybe it’s because steddie fics space things out differently, but I thought I remembered it being like, episode 2 or something.

13.) I forgot all of Dustin’s toys lure him out thanks to El and it causes Dustin to spray Lucas in the eyes with hairspray for like a full 15 seconds.

14.) I want to force feed Billy Hargrove his own goddamn hair. Karen Wheeler, I still think you probably have really shitty politics but you deserve better than Billy.

15.) Hopper seems to have forgotten literally all his character development from season 2 just so Duffers can do the overprotective dad bit. Like what the fuck do you mean Hopper doesn’t know what a heart to heart is? I’ve seen the flashbacks to how he interacted with Sara. I saw the goddamn time he contacted El over the radio to apologize for being a shithead at the end of season 2!!!!!!!! Please stop acting like this grown ass man doesn’t understand what an apology is at this point.

16.) I love Max with all my heart

17.) Steve really is so bad at flirting. I would die for him.

18.) I really hate that suddenly Joyce has to teach Hopper, the guy who has comforted and sweet talked his way into literal government facilities, how to fucking talk to people nicely. Like DID THEY WATCH THEIR OWN SHOW? THIS MAKES NO SENSE. This characterization only works if you literally forget seasons 1 & 2.

19.) So many rats. So many really obviously fake rats. That’s not to say I’d want the exploding rats to be real, but something about the lighting on them or something is off.

20.) Will just wanted to play D&D but this season he’s Foreshadowing instead.

21.) Joyce is so goddamn sad and I would be too. RIP Bob Newby.

22.) Hopper really is a cartoon character of himself this season. Also why is he still in his work uniform this late at home?????? WHY CAN HE NO LONGER TALK TO CHILDREN AT ALL????? Suddenly he’s lying about a child’s grandma.

23.) Okay but Max is a genius and is super pretty.

24.) I think Will constantly asking for D&D and everyone blowing him off is why they think he’s the DM even though he isn’t

25.) IDK if I noticed before that the Russian code is literally translated in the subtitles

26.) I’m still shocked the fandom loves Billy as much as they do since he’s obnoxious, racist, and definitely up for being a cheater, and usually at least one of those things is a dealbreaker for people on tumblr to think he’s fuckable. Usually the ‘fucks married women’ part.