#I've been thinking about this since the scene played

[lavernius]

Locus and Lopez vs. dehumanization and seeing your own humanity through someone else

AKA 1.5k words worth of me trying to justify a random pairing I've been trying to sell people on for 5 years. Feat. a lot of my own introspection on both characters, CW for mentions of abuse.

It's kind of easy to assume that Locpez as a ship only exists because Locus is one of the few people who understands Lopez and one of even fewer who has had an actual (off-screen) conversation with him with full mutual fluency, especially since they interact directly, like, twice in canon (Objects In Space and the "Holy shit he's bilingual" scene from The Federal Army of Chorus). To be honest, that was my initial reason for shoving them together whenever I got into RVB and there was literally no content for them because no one was really considering them together in any capacity but a brief, funny passing interaction.

I do think language is an inherent motivator in their relationship with each other. It's a catalyst. Spanish, of course, is perhaps the most obvious thing they share--Locus being a Latino man and Lopez being the same in a convoluted and meta-racist metaphor. Beggars, choosers: anyone who knows how I operate knows I lean into reclaiming their depictions for my own brown person machinations. For Lopez it's the beauty of meeting someone who not only understands him, but isn't going to belittle him for the language he speaks or imply it'd be easier if he learned English. Locus will just listen to him talk and respond without commenting on the language barrier; Lopez isn't exotic or abnormal or "broken" for it, he just speaks Spanish, big deal, Locus speaks it too.

For Locus, it leans more toward reminding him of who he used to be when he was a simpler and kinder person. His culture seems like a forgone part of himself in many ways, but even if only because he's so distant from his humanity that he doesn't remember HOW to embrace his culture, or what the point of cultural pride even is. Lopez is like, reverse culture shock for him, where Locus is very familiar with Spanish as a language--grew up with it, learned it young, whatever, he canonically understands it and given he's Latino it's easy to assume it could be his native language--but has divorced himself from it so much to be malleable to his abusers that hearing someone speak it so unabashedly feels new. It's the lack of it that makes it so foreign, but it's so ingrained into him that it's easy for him to just slip back into it.

And Lopez being so stubbornly proud of what he is plays into that language dynamic, yes--now that there's someone who will listen and not judge, he has room to be adamant and own his monolingualism, and having someone as aggressively, straightforwardly prideful as Lopez forces Locus to recognize the beauty in the language too--but it applies on a grander scale, which is what I suppose the point of this post is: Locus and Lopez don't just share Spanish, but also histories of abuse and dehumanization, of being overlooked as living, thinking things in favor of taking advantage of their skills. And the results of this abuse manifest differently in both of them, but they're alike in just enough ways that their differences stimulate each other into bettering themselves and reflecting on what makes them, dramatic pause, human.

Some of Lopez and Locus's defining personality traits to me are their shared low empathy (forcibly learned on both of their parts) and the way they feel so alien in any group they're a part of. They're people with a lot of potential who don't care how others see them (at their worst, especially in Locus's case), but are limited by someone who only sees them for their usefulness (Sarge, Felix) and doesn't truly see them as a person. Lopez may be a Red, but they don't really care about anything he says, so he's just a wrench to them. Locus has Felix, but he doesn't recognize that Felix has one-sided power over him and is keeping him on a short leash; he's a shield and a weapon. They're tools, they don't have feelings, and if they realize as much it's a fault in their programming, they can and have to be steered back into place.

They're reflective of each other in this way. However, they're not identical in disposition: Locus resigns very easily to what he's told to be. He had more hope once, made attempts to be humanitarian, but was swiftly taught that kindness is suicide and that the point is to survive, no matter the cost. It was easy for Felix to take advantage of him by saying they needed each other when Locus was at his worst, because having kindness ripped out of him gave Locus little else to rely on but his hands. Locus has no room for questions, because a rulebook is absolute. It takes a reminder of what he used to be to make him falter, but even when Santa is showing him one of the inciting incidents of his "soldier" mindset, Locus can't stop himself from resigning to the mindlessness that Felix and the UNSC have already taught him.

Lopez feels trapped and is hyper-aware of it. He'll listen, but only because there's nothing else in the world for him. He's subservient but not in the same way Locus is, because he's angry about his situation: he knows it's not fair, but what can he fucking do about it? He was made to be Red Team's mechanic, and every word he says falls on deaf ears. He carries this self-awareness like a shield, like a threat: he could do something, but there's no point because his nature as a robot defines him. All he has is a sharp tongue and his hands, and the Reds only need one of those things from him. He revels in being able to complain and reminds himself that he's meant for something greater, but he's so fatalistic that he won't take action.

The balance comes from this anger. They're so alike in how they see the world and how much life has mistreated them, but they don't fully understand each other despite it. Locus sees Lopez as privileged for having a team because Locus has never had people to belong with, but he doesn't understand that Red Team isn't a safe place for Lopez. Lopez thinks Locus is misguided for letting himself believe he could ever be reduced to a mindless weapon, because Lopez has only ever been an object and Locus can't comprehend what that's really like. They see each other for their imperfections first and foremost and it frustrates them mutually: "You could've fixed this sooner, you could've escaped the grief, why didn't you try?"

It's this back-and-forth that they both need in order to reflect on themselves. They're harsh people who don't want to be coddled and admonished, but they're not making forward motion on their own because they're both stubborn and tend to decathect before they even recognize they CAN feel. They refuse to see themselves as human, but they can only see the humanity in each other, and they're both so alike that it could make them hypocrites. For a robot, Lopez's anger is so potent that it's alive: Locus sees more feeling in him than he's ever felt in his own life. Locus wants to be a weapon so bad, but he doesn't realize an object doesn't have heart the way he does, doesn't mourn the years it spent under someone's thumb, doesn't want to fix itself.

They're both brutally honest and they both need brutal honesty. They get along WELL by nature of being as similar as they are, but they argue so much because they want to understand each other and don't realize they already do. They're mapping details of their reflections. It's great: Locus is so hurt that he can only see the damage he causes, Lopez is difficult to hurt and notoriously good at fixing things. Lopez wants true accountability and retribution and Locus has cultivated complicity and guilt to perfection.

After Felix, Locus needs room to command his own life and put others in place when they overstep his boundaries, but he's scared of becoming Felix, so he also needs an anchor to keep him grounded in reality and reasonable. Lopez has never had real control over his own life before and would kill to have the power to make small choices and do as he wants, but he's a very private person who also needs a lot of space to work. They balance each other out and know the other's limits so well that they can easily go "You're hurting yourself and I'm not going to let you get away with it."

It's about understanding yourself through someone else and vice versa. Realizing that you share so much that if they deserve good, you do too. Reclaiming pain, experiencing freedom, finding support. They will deconstruct each other to the metal and muscles and rebuild one another over and over again, and they'll never get it perfectly right, but they're both going to learn more and more as they go. Flawless navigation of a road you've driven a million times, forward and back, potholes and all.

[karoiseka]

A secret rendezvous. <3

[foxaoxarts]

BEE KISS TOMORR- *dead* /j

If anyone wants to watch me drawing this like a little victorian child then the timelapse is below the cut 🤣

(FLICKER WARNING. It's all through out so be careful!👍 )

[andromeda3116]

rereading order of the stick (again), and greyiew is only in a few comics so far but man do i love this nihilistic wolf

[igarbagecannoteven]

hi!! just read your cake at the craft store fic and thought I'd introduce myself on here :) you're a talented writer and seem like a lovely person!

oh my gosh thank you so much! that's so sweet of you 🥰i'm so glad you enjoyed my work! (and thank you so much for the lovely comment on ao3!) also love your handles on both ao3 and here, i'm a big fan of herons myself 😊

[icharchivist]

I've seen like two videos of Aerith and Barret from Rebirth and I've been thinking about their relationship ever since and im shambles, like

Barret didn't know Aerith before they officially met, and first he heard of her it was during a life or death situation where his babygirl was in danger but Barret had to be on the frontlines to try to keep everyone safe

And he had left Marlene back at Tifa's bar and then Cloud and Tifa come to find him after days where they had disappeared and Cloud was thought dead,

And They tell him that they left Marlene in the care of someone they trust but was a perfect stranger for Barret

And he doesn't even have time to freak out because he has to make sure the Turks don't blow up the pillar holding the plate but he can't have been at ease with this

And then when he officially sees Aerith for the first time she has been kidnapped by the Turks and Tseng is brutalizing her, Cloud and Tifa panics, and yet this girl that Barret didn't know, who was being hit in front of him, just takes the hurried time she has reassuring Tifa that she brought Marlene somewhere safe.

Like for Barret it was a total stranger who got in danger to protect his daughter, and while now this stranger was in danger and in pain, her full concern was on making sure everyone knew Marlene was safe while also dropping hints of where she was for Cloud to bring the squad back to Aerith's house

She was a total stranger who didn't hesitate to put herself in danger to protect Barret's daughter and make it her priority over anything that happened to her

No wonder then Barret is totally with Tifa and Cloud when it's time to rescue her, and i think Barret and Aerith should interract more after that

I don't recall any scenes that aren't group scenes with them but tbh i saw their linked attack from Rebirth where they're both dorka and it made me cry on the spot it's so soft

[britneyshakespeare]

this barbie saw the barbie movie

[storm-and-starlight]

having a mild freakout over forgetting a major canon event that actually influences literally everything about the character whose POV I am not only writing in but whose character arc is literally the driving factor of this entire goddamn fic

[longagoitwastuesday]

I love Christian.

[paleblackout]

I think I wanna draw some scenes next

[bloomingbluebell]

i'm scared i'll be called out if i talk about having OCD because i don't have a diagnosis and have no plans to get one (i cannot figure out where the first place to go to for a diagnosis is and i don't want treatment for it since it seems like the primary form of OCD treatment is exposure therapy which is a hell no for me) but at the same time i feel like it would be helpful to a lot of people (which is why i usually talk about being audhd because i want to help people)

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

fun fact: I actually have not 1, not 2, but 3 dedicated playlists of OST-style music for my various Guild Wars 2 AUs, and... that, of all ways, is the closest I get to "outlining" my stories. every sequence has a dedicated track that I picked out according to what I'd imagine playing in-game if it was an actual playable story arc in Guild Wars 2.

Regrowth's playlist has 59 songs and Flourish has 28.

then the Tideturners have one too, with a grand total of 22.

......... I don't have a problem,

[demilypyro]

So I've seen a few too many people on twitter talking about The Kiss Scene from the new Scott Pilgrim anime. People saying it's fetishistic and indulgent, people calling it male gazey, etc. And while the kiss itself is certainly a bit exaggerated, I felt like writing a bit about why I disagree, and why context is important, like it always is. But it basically turned into an extended analysis on the metatextual treatment of Roxie Richter. So bear with me. It's a long post.

What really matters about this scene is not the kiss itself, but what precedes it. Not even just the fight scene just before it, but what precedes the whole anime series, really. And that's the Scott Pilgrim comic book, and the live action movie. Because in both, Roxie is a punchline.

She's a joke. Her character starts and ends with "one of the exes is actually a girl, I bet you didn't expect that." Jokes are made about Ramona's latent bisexuality, the movie especially treating it as funny and absurd, and her validity as a romantic interest is entirely written off by Ramona as being "just a phase." There's a fight scene, she's defeated by a man giving her an orgasm which implicitly calls her sexuality into question (come on), and the movie just moves on. It sucks. It really, really sucks.

The comic fares a little better. It never veers into outright homophobia like the movie does, and while the line about Ramona having gone through a phase remains, Roxie actually gets one over on Scott when Ramona briefly gets back with Roxie. But Roxie is still only barely a character. Like all the other evil exes, she's just a stepping stone towards the male protagonist's development. She barely even gets any screentime before she's defeated by Scott's "power of love." But Roxie stands out, since she's the only villain who is queer, or at least had been confirmed queer at that point (hi Todd). In a series that champions multiple gay men in the supporting cast, the single undeniable lesbian in the story is a villain. She's labeled as evil, made fun of, pushed aside in favor of the men, and then discarded. Her screentime was never about her, or her feelings for Ramona. It was about the straight, male protagonist needing to overcome her. And that was Roxie Richter. An unfortunate victim of the 2010s.

Fast forward to current year, and the new anime series is announced. Everybody sits down to watch the new series expecting another retelling of the same story, and.... hang on, that straight male protagonist I mentioned just died in the first episode. And now it's humanizing the villains from the original story. And there's Roxie, introduced alongside the other evil exes in the second episode, and she's being played entirely straight, without a punchline in sight. No jokes are made about her gender, no questions are made of her validity as one of Ramona's romantic interests. The narrative considers her important. In one episode, she already gets more respect than she did in either of the previous iterations of Scott Pilgrim. And this isn't even her focus episode yet... which happens to be the very next one.

The anime series goes to great lengths to flesh out the original story's villains and to have Ramona reconcile with them. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Roxie gets to go first. While Matthew Patel gets his development in episode 2, Roxie is the first to directly confront Ramona, now our main protagonist. This is notable too because it's the only time the exes are encountered out of order. Roxie is supposed to be number 4, but she's first in line, and later on you realize that she's the only one who's out of sequence. She's the one who sets the precedent for the villains being redeemed. She's the most important character for Ramona to reconcile with.

What follows is probably the most extensive, elaborate 1 on 1 fight scene in the whole show. Roxie fights like a wounded animal, her motions are desperate and pained. Ramona can only barely fight back against her onslaught. Different set-pieces fly by at breakneck speed as Roxie relentlessly lays her feelings at Ramona's feet through her attacks and her distraught shouts. And unlike the comic or the movie, Ramona acknowledges them, and sincerely apologizes. And the two end up just laying there, exhausted, reminiscing about when they were together.

Only after this, after all of this, does the kiss scene happen. Roxie has been vindicated, she has reconciled with the person who hurt her, the narrative has deemed that her anger is justified and has redeemed her character. And she gets her victory lap by making the nearest other hot girl question her heterosexuality, sharing a sloppy kiss with her as the music triumphantly crescendos.

It's... a little self-congratulatory, honestly. But it's good. It's redemption for a character who had been mistreated for over a decade. And she punctuates the moment by being very, very gay where everyone can see it, no men anywhere in sight. Because this is her moment. And then she leaves the plot, on her own accord this time, while humming the hampster dance. What a legend. How could anything be wrong with this.

[foone]

AAA games? Pfft. Indie games? Double pfft.

I only play games from the alternate history where Hillary Clinton was elected in 2008 and banned all video games. You can only imagine how weird their underground gaming scene is. People like to call unlicensed games "bootlegs" but they've got actual bootlegged games! I've played games about helping your grandmother in hospice care realize she's a lesbian by reading Sappho to her, at 2am in a speakeasy in Baltimore. The cops raided it the next night, hundreds of Gamers were arrested. They posted pictures all over Friendster of the Baltimore PD destroying the arcades with axes.

I nearly got busted once because I was imaging old disks from a 386 and someone tipped off the gaming cops that there was a copy of Commander Keen in there. I had to prove that I didn't know it, I was imaging the disks blind and then indexing them later, and I would of course turn over any contraband to the proper authorities.

I was already on a watch list because I'd been known to have some gamedev-related activities pre-ban. They can't arrest me for making games back in 2007 when it was still legal, but they do want to keep an eye on me since I have the skills to break the law.

Anyway that universe's bootlegs are mainly PC games. Can't really have console games if there hasn't been a console release since the Wii/PS3/360 era. At one point Nintendo threatened to release the Wii SDK so game devs in the US could make unlicensed games, but that didn't happen as there were quickly no functional Wiis left in the US, except for very rare holdouts that never move. PC games are easy to distribute samizdat and hide on a USB stick or CD-R labeled "nickelback".

Japan's games industry is still going, so the later Nintendo and Sony consoles still exist, but Microsoft got out of the business of course. They sold the franchise to Sega who were hoping to release the 360 successor (the Xbox One in our universe) as the Sega Phoenix but it never materialized, either through their own financial incompetence or because of pressure from the US. There's a lot of international treaties that the US has pushed "and this aid only goes through if you ban games" clauses into. That would have been an official UN resolution if the USSR hadn't vetoed it. For once, thank God for the security council, eh?

I mainly get my gaming news through Japanese gaming sites (through a set of VPNs, since they're blocked at the border firewall), and some tor onion site run by a weird guy in Minnesota who is obsessed with documenting all the underground US games.

There's a lot being worked on, but it's always a tricky trade off. Too much attention and the police might be able to track down the creators, and it's basically impossible to fund underground games, as the VISA/PayPal etc funds get seized immediately. There's a whole task force for that.

Anyway one of the weirdest differences between our two time lines is that they've gone back and edited out gaming from a bunch of movies. Those that they can, of course. War games was just banned because they couldn't remove the tic tac toe ending. The Net just removed the scene at the beginning where she's playing Wolfenstein 3D, by recording some new screen footage and a new voice over. She's fixing a spreadsheet in the new edition.

(Yes, I've seen The Net from this alternate timeline. On Laserdisc, of course. I'm just that kind of person!)

They even edited Star Wars. You know that scene where R2-D2 is playing holochess with Chewie? They edited it to be a board game instead of holograms, because that made it too "video gamey".

Technically it's not illegal to show gaming in a movie, but it needs to be an 18+ film and you have to show the deleterious effects of gaming and/or the gamesters coming to a bad end.

This has affected films less than you'd think, to be honest. They were never great about showing video games even before they banned them.

Anyway, go have fun playing your AAA games with hundred-million-dollar budgets. I only play indie games made by people under a constant threat of arrest for their art.

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

"Weird Al" Yankovic - White & Nerdy 2006

"White & Nerdy" parodies the song "Ridin'" by Chamillionaire and Krayzie Bone. It both satirizes and celebrates nerd culture, and includes many references to activities stereotypically associated with nerds and white people, such as collecting comic books and action figures, editing Wikipedia and playing Dungeons & Dragons. The music video features Seth Green, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Repeated scenes shows Yankovic along with Donny Osmond (the "whitest guy I could think of", according to Yankovic) dancing in front of the Schrödinger equation.

The song became Yankovic's first career Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. It peaked at #9, beating his previous #12 peak for 1984's "Eat It". This was also his first Top 40 single since 1992's "Smells Like Nirvana". Both "White & Nerdy" and Straight Outta Lynwood were certified gold, and later platinum, by the RIAA. This marks the first time any one of Yankovic's singles has been certified platinum. Total yes votes are 67,3%!

If you like Yankovic, make sure to also watch the totally historically accurate 2022 film about him; Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

[heich0e]

"are you like... into that?"

you tear your eyes away from the screen a few seconds after rintarou says it, too rapt by what's unfolding in the movie scene to look away too soon.

"what do you mean?" you ask, glancing over to the other end of the sofa where he's seated. he's slumped down in the corner of the sofa, nestled right into the valley between the cushions where he always sits—which has resulted in a permanent sort of vaguely rintarou-shaped indentation that you hide using throw pillows when company comes over.

he's watching you very intently from his side of the sofa, too intently almost. you'd thought you'd felt his eyes on you while you were watching the movie, but you aren't exactly sure how long he's been staring, and now it leaves you wondering what exactly he's up to.

rintarou nods towards the television on the other side of the room, you look back at the screen once more and see the male lead still at the centre of the scene. he'd just gotten into a fight—shirtless, glistening with perspiration, and a strangely erotic trickle of blood trailing down his philtrum. you swallow a little as you become engrossed in the movie again, forgetting momentarily that you were ever asked a question at all.

"so?"

your eyes snap back to rintarou—who's still focused only on you, but with a slightly more disapproving look this time.

"what?" you ask him, a bit huffily. you're still not even sure what he'd been asking you in the first place.

"you've been ogling that guy since he got the shit kicked out of him," rintarou says pointedly, lifting a hand and gesturing towards the television. "you into that or something?"

there's something kind of accusatory in his tone.

"wha—hu—no," you stumble over your words in your haste to defend yourself. "i've told you i'm not into hardcore stuff. and that would constitute like... doctorate level BDSM."

rintarou's lips purse slightly. "do you think that guy's hot?"

"i mean... yeah," you answer after contemplating it for a moment. "i didn't really think so before but he's kinda sexy in this scene."

"he just got the shit kicked out of him," the boy at the other end of the sofa responds flatly.

"so you've pointed out," you answer. you turn back to the screen, watching as the battered male lead winds a roll of bandages around his ribs, then drags his knuckles roughly across his lips to clear away some of the blood that clings to them. your tongue peeks out to moisten your own unconsciously. "don't you think there's something kind of hot about a guy with a bit of blood on him?"

"is this a trick question?"

you look back at rintarou again, and find him still fixated on you rather than the film. he's pouting a bit, and it kind of makes you want to laugh. instead, you push yourself up from your own little nest at the opposite end of the sofa, crawling down towards him.

"rintarou, are you jealous because i called the bloody guy sexy?" you ask him as you pause at his side, resting back on your haunches.

he nibbles on the inside of his cheek—a habit he's had as long as you've known him—and for the first time in possibly the entire 54 minutes this movie has been playing, he averts his eyes from you.

"...no."

you do laugh then, swinging one leg over his lap to perch yourself atop him.

"you're being silly," you say to him as you balance yourself with your hands on his shoulders. his own come slithering up to settle at your waist, and his grip is a little tighter than you expect. he's still sulking though, refusing to look at you.

there's a loud crash in the film playing on the screen behind you, but you don't turn to look at it—you doubt that would help the situation at hand very much.

"rin," you coax him, making your voice as sweet as possible.

he doesn't look at you, but he does seem to bite the inside of his cheek a little harder now.

you dip down close to him, your mouth hovering over his and your eyes level. "rin-ta-rou."

he finally looks at you, his lips parting in surprise at your sudden nearness. you're so close that your mouths brush slightly thanks to that subtle movement, and he leans into the warmth of your lips to kiss you properly after getting such a small taste of it.

rintarou pulls away after one long, deep kiss, slouching back into the sofa again—but this time pulling you down with him into his little him-shaped indentation—holding you tightly to his chest as he gets you both comfortable. you let him maneuver you however he wants to, placating him with your docility to make him feel better, and keeping any comment about his jealousy to yourself—at least for now.

the two of you eventually find a comfortable way to rest, entwined together on his end of the sofa but both with a clear view to the screen to resume your spectating of the movie.

"what's so hot about a guy with a nosebleed anyway? i used to get them all the time when i was a kid," rintarou mumbles bitterly after a few moments, and you feel the words reverberate through his chest as you rest with your head upon it.

you laugh lightly, and your boyfriend's arms tighten around your waist.

he pipes up again after a few moments more pass in the film.

"you don't want me to start fighting or anything, do you?" he asks you skeptically.

you've effectively lost track of the movie's plot now, but you don't really care that much.

"no, rintarou, i don't want you to start fighting," you reply, patting his chest reassuringly. "you'd get your ass kicked anyway."

"well, apparently you're into that," he mutters.

"will you be quiet and just watch the movie, nosebleed boy?"

(a week later, rintarou sends you a photo from practice—having gracefully taken one of motoya's receives to the face—with an angry red welt on his cheek, blood dripping from his nose, and an obnoxious smirk on his lips. unfortunately, you are kinda into that.)