#I’ve genuinely never seen more of myself in a character than I do in Ed

[gilligans-islands]

Sometimes I think back to season 1 of ofmd, during the time when ep 7 and 8 had just come out and we got the “You came back?” “Never left.” scene and it hadn’t been confirmed yet that Ed and Stede were gonna get together.

I just remember how scared so many of us were, how little hope we had that anything would really come of the next episodes besides maybe, hopefully a confession scene.

I look back now amazed because of how openly queer this show is now in its 2nd season. How openly queer it was then too despite many of us being too caught up on being burnt by previous shows to really trust it.

If you had told the me who was avidly waiting for the final eps to air—

No, if you had told the me after the final episodes of s1 aired that in season 2 we’d have the main couple—who is GAY—have a scene where the love of one literally bring the other back to life, have a scene where one confesses his love to the other albeit in a roundabout way, kiss not just once but TWICE within 4 episodes, pretty passionately might I add, AND have SEX?! All the while that’s not even all of the explicitly queer relationships and characters in this season by a great margin??

I really don’t think I would have believed anyone, not even my future self.

I don’t know maybe I’m being overdramatic but it just feels so big. They don’t make it a big deal in the show, everyone is just queer in some way. It’s such casual and yet wholly encapsulating representation.

I’ve never felt more represented and I guess normal than when I watch this show.

[bringthekaos]

Gunna take a break from Arcane for a moment to talk about Our Flag Means Death, because I am extremely disappointed and I have to put these thoughts somewhere. Putting it under a cut, because I myself forgot to filter the OFMD tag while I was working and got it spoiled for me. So ye be warned, OFMD SPOILERS AHEAD.

That ending was genuinely one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time. The only other time I can recall being this sickened and angry about a show’s ending was Game of Thrones. And it’s not because I’m sad or mad or confused by Izzy’s death, yes that’s partly it, but because a character who was experiencing massive change and character growth was ONCE AGAIN rewarded with death. I am so goddamn sick of rooting for people to do better, to be better, and then FINALLY get that catharsis only to have it thrown away for shock value.

What did this add to the story? Narratively, I mean. If this is indeed the end of OFMD, and it doesn’t get renewed, what the absolute FUCK kind of message does that send? Izzy was postured as some kind of obstacle between Ed and Stede in Season 1, but in S2, he was allowed to grow outside of that weird and fucked up love triangle (term used incredibly loosely, because his love was pretty much one-sided, and most of the time it was selfish and toxic). In S2, he went on an incredible journey of coming to terms with the fact that Ed would never be his again, not in the way he wanted. Even if it was never romantic or sexual (I do not see it), he wanted Ed to himself, and he had to accept that it would never happen. And he fucking DID, that’s the pisser. He learned to see the value in Ed’s transformation, the good that Stede was for him. And he learned to appreciate it and even start playing with it and teasing the two of them. And the worst/best part was that he embraced the crew, put them into that hole in his heart that Ed left. His speech to the Prince about them being family, and that you give up your wants and dreams for them, because being a pirate is bigger than any one person alone. GOD, his fucking character growth was incredible and heart-wrenching all at once.

And then to just throw all of that away, for what? To remove him as an obstacle between Ed and Stede? He already did that himself. To make the title of the show mean something (that the flag truly means Death?). That is just so fucking cheap and backhanded. Oh, Our Flag Means Death, but no one has died yet, better kill somebody; quick shoot Izzy Hands. How about you just make the word ‘death’ a symbol for change? The death of who you once were, the death of old biases, the death of toxicity and selfishness.

Because what would have been the problem with making Izzy the new captain of the Revenge, and letting Ed and Stede go off and do their thing? In the grand scheme of the narrative, why did two characters’ happy ending have to come at the cost of another’s?! It cheapens that happy ending, puts an asterisk on it. Especially when Izzy had JUST come to the realization that that crew, those people (no matter how ridiculous and soft they were) were his motherfucking family and he would do anything to protect them. He should have gotten to, and I just… I cannot forgive that. I’m not saying you can’t kill off characters, we shouldn’t expect anyone to have plot armor. But for god’s sake, at least make it make sense, give it a reason beyond shock value.

If OFMD gets a third season, I may or may not watch. It’s more than likely I won’t. And not because I don’t love the Stede/Ed story, or any of the other beautiful ones on that ship, I do. But because I’ve lost faith in the story.

[jaskierx]

Honestly, I really admire (and am thankful for) the way you manage and handle those back and forth with some Izzy stans, I don't think I have the mental strength to entertain them myself.

I wasn't part of the fandom after season 1 aired, I watched it without engaging much and then kind of waited for season 2 to come out, so I had no idea such a divide had happened between Izzy stans and the rest of the fandom (glad I was oblivious to it ngl). All I know is that I hated Izzy’s guts and wanted him to get his just desert.

So yeah, I wasn’t a fan and I struggled forgiving him when season 2 started because the show was trying so hard to make him sympathetic (which I honestly couldn’t give two shits about at first, I wanted revenge), plus you’re right, Izzy got way too much screen time (which gave Izzy stans ammunitions to say “SEE!! Main character!!!”), but I did end up warming up to him by the time he died. I can even say I genuinely liked him.

BUT the journey to that point was sooo conflicting because some Izzy stans were also doing the absolute most in the main tag, painting Izzy as this angel who never did anything wrong and was terrorized by the monster Ed, and I was like????? Did season 1 happen??? Did I dream the whole season??? Did I watch a version from an alternate universe??? I was BAFFLED. I don't know who is that Izzy they're talking about, but it's not the one on my screen, that's for sure.

Then, Izzy died and the hardcore stans lost their shit (you know what I'm talking about) and they have seriously soured me to Izzy again. I want to like the character we had on screen, and I want to like his redemption arc. He was a great antagonist even if I hated him, and we owed him so much for all the shit he pulled in season 1, but the OTT takes and behaviors from stans I’ve seen have made me give up on him, which sucks. Maybe I’ll feel better about him in a few months, but right now, I can’t stand him, and I’ve blocked his tag everywhere (ao3 included, because, truly, fuck fanon Izzy, fuck him).

Hope it’s not too draining for you though, just writing this felt like screaming into the void, so I can’t imagine dealing with this on the daily. Take care!

hi anon i'm so glad you sent this bc i felt very similarly about izzy in s2. i didn't find him sympathetic at all. i didn't give a single shit that he was suffering from ed being in his kraken era bc he's the entire reason ed ended up like that in the first place. izzy was reaping what he sowed. seeing ed feeling so miserable broke my fucking heart and i can't stand any bullshit takes about 'izzy was protecting the crew from ed's abuse' or 'edizzy invented love confirmed' or whatever other nonsense his stans chose to take away from episodes 1-3.

i truly do not see izzy as a victim. i truly do not see ed as an abuser. sometimes i will start reading a post in the ofmd tag that refers to an 'abuser' and a 'victim' and i get halfway through the post and realise that the op has a completely opposite view of who is who than i do.

and as s2 progressed i just felt worse and worse about it like he was getting so much screentime and popping up all over the place and he'd absorbed a load of traits (from other characters that i'd have rather seen more of) bc the writers had to speedrun making him semi-likeable. i still haven't done a proper rewatch since the finale aired and i'm pretty sure i'll feel different watching it knowing he dies in ep8, but when eps 6-7 dropped i fucking hated every scene he was in and felt like he ruined some otherwise really lovely ed/stede moments like their breakfast in bed. izzy being cheered on for wearing drag and singing - the exact acts that caused him to threaten ed - feels exactly like the very common queer experience of seeing the homophobic kid who bullied you for being queer getting loads of support when they come out themselves.

and the takes that were coming out of the canyon at this time were absolutely wild, especially in relation to ed. people absolutely baying for blood, wanting to see him suffer, wanting his relationship with stede to suffer, wanting him to have to crawl across broken glass to repair his relationship with the crew, all while treating izzy as a protagonist who never did anything wrong.

so ngl i was delighted when he died. but mostly i was relieved that it was going to be over. i walked out of my circus tent with my clown makeup on believing that the canyon would yell for a bit and then slowly quiet down as people who claimed they'd be leaving the fandom if izzy died made good on their promise and fucked off.

and if anything they've got louder and more unhinged and are out here reinventing tjlc and harassing the writers and churning out the most rancid racist posts and writing obituaries that caused multiple people on twt to mistakenly think Actual Human Person con o'neill had died.

and on one hand i'm kind of glad that more people know what they're like now but god i really do feel for any izzy fans who have had their enjoyment of him ruined by the canyon. i really do think it's not the character that's polarising, it's the fandom response, in that most people who come in liking izzy end up either aligning with the canyon or getting so fucking fed up of the canyon that they don't like him anymore. and both of those are a shame tbh because he is very well acted and well written, especially in s1, and i wish i could've enjoyed his scenes and felt the emotional payoff of his death

anyway. sorry for writing you 1 billion words. ily ❤️

[omiscurls]

Hello you precious human! I saw you're taking request and I thought of something.. mabye you have an idea for this one, if not just ignore the ask >.< what if diluc and zhongli (seperate) don't know that their s/o is an artist and one day their sweetheart gifts them a full ass beautiful portrait of them. Maybe they had a hard day and you wanna make them feel better and surprise them or it's an anniversary gift idk, go wild with it ♡

Have a nice day ! Ily and thanks!

gift(ed)

a/n: thank you for this absolutely lovely ask! hope you enjoy reading this!

plot: the reader makes the character a portrait of them

contains: diluc, zhongli

warnings: none!

diluc

you know he hates his birthday, for very obvious reason

but what hurts even more when you hear it, is that from what his old friends say, he used to love it, once

it hurts to think that it became one more aspect of himself he has grown to forget

so you decide to do something about it

you know very well he doesn’t want any celebrations to be held, so therefore he also denies any gifts, but you can only hope he’ll accept this one

you work your ass off for a good long while, wanting it to be absolutely perfect, not one flaw on your canvas, worried he’d notice right away

when the time comes to finally gift it to him, you’re stressed beyond reason, sweaty palms probably ruining the nice packaging that covers the result of your relentless efforts. you have arranged to meet with diluc on starsnatch cliff, hoping to do it casually enough for him not to notice it’s a birthday thing, but also sure he will know, he’s far too intelligent to fall for anything like this, after all.

the sun begins to set as you sit down on the edge of the cliff, testing how far away from the stone can you move your foot without starting to feel dizzy.

the grass is already getting cold from the humidity of the night air, and you wonder if you should stand up after all, so not to stain your outfit.

it’s only a call of your boyfriend that rips you away from your train of thought.

“darling?” is what diluc says, voice uncertain as he stands below you “you asked to see me?”

you turn around, a welcoming smile crawling up your lips, and even though he doesn’t know the reason he’s here for yet, he already thinks it was worth it, just to see you, smiling like that in the field of cecilias.

“you’re here!” you exclaim happily, almost making him chuckle, because how could he not if it was you who asked?

you get up, careful not to show him the package behind your back too soon. he takes a big step forward, arm already securing you from the edge, hovering around your waist, but not touching you, still.

“let’s get further away from the edge, shall we?” he asks softly, and although you want to laugh at his endless worries, the love and care in his voice makes you swoon internally. “so?” he asks after making sure for your safety. “what’s with the scenery?”

“well” you grin, looking down at your feet, over the minute he’s been here he already managed to make you forget everything you had on your mind. “don’t take it as a birthday gift, cause it’s not that!” you explain rapidly, shaking your head “the only thing i wanted was to make you smile, or, i don’t know, the thing is, i hope you like it-“

you don’t quite know what to say, but diluc chooses to surprise you with a soft look you so rarely get to see.

“darling, it’s not like i have a phobia for birthday gifts or something” he assures “it just feels a bit weird to celebrate myself on such an anniversary, but i’m honored that you spent your time with me on your mind, i really am”

you feel more confident with that on your mind, and you hand him your gift.

he takes it, raising an eyebrow, slowly untying the ribbon you ornamented the packaging with. as he slowly unwraps the paper, his eyes notice something he genuinely didn’t expect. 

it’s a painting of him, or at least he thinks so, smiling with his eyes closed, hand tilted and resting on his hand, slight blush creeping up his cheeks. he wonders if that’s really him, but the physical resemblance is unquestionable, even though he doesn’t remember the last time he has seen this kind of expression on his face. 

“i-” he attempts to speak up, but stutters “where have you had this ordered?” 

you grin even wider, knowing the biggest surprise is yet to be dawned upon him. 

“i didn’t” you explain “i painted it myself, do you like it?” 

you catch a sparkle shoot through his eyes before he lifts them up from the painting to find yours. 

“no, really?” he asks in shock, quickly going back to admiring the gift. “it’s- you’re- you’re very talented, do you know that? it’s so detailed-” he shakes his head slightly, having a hard time comprehending all that was happening. 

“i managed to sneak a photo of you on our anniversary dinner” you say “i wouldn’t be able to paint this without a reference, plus, i’d like you to know what moment i based this on. if i’m able to make you smile like that from time to time, then i never want to stop.” 

you can swear his eyes glisten with a thin layer of tears forming, but he blinks them back as soon as possible, and you can’t get a good look. instead, he looks at you again, love practically seeping through his gaze. 

“thank you” he says quietly, smiling just how you like it, not even fully aware that he is. he approaches you to wrap an arm around you and press a quick peck to your forehead. “this just might be the best birthday i’ve ever had.” 

zhongli 

you’ve been to someone’s birthday party together 

and it came in the conversation between the two of you that he has never received a proper gift 

offering is not a gift 

it was a whole deal, with choosing the present for that person, wrapping it up, decorating...

and you decided - why not just make him something, with no occasion necessary? maybe he’ll like it, maybe he’ll just acknowledge it’s existence, worth a shot 

so there you are, waiting outside the parlor, gripping on the package in your hands, and waiting for him to come out. 

it feels like ages since the moment you arrived, but can’t be longer than a couple of minutes. zhongli has no liking to material possesions, and you’re aware of that, so you’re hoping he’ll value the effort and thought you’ve put into your gift. you know he’d never hurt your feelings, not on purpose, at the very least, but you’re still kind of worried. 

“hello there” you almost jump out in surprise as you hear a tranquil voice behind you. 

“oh my, you scared me!” you let out a breathy laugh, but he seems to have ignored your comment. 

“have you been waiting long?” he asks instead, to which you shake your head slightly. 

“no.” you say immediately, a gentle smile welcoming him as always. he nods and attempts to take your hand, intent to go on a walk in his mind, but stops, surprised as he feels the rectangular object in your hand. 

“oh, are we planning to go to someone’s party again today? i wish you’d included me in the gift picking process this time too, it was entertaining the last we did it” even though he says that, no disappointment shows up behind his eyes as he waits for your response. 

“ah, no, you see-” you take a breath “that’s actually for you” 

his eyebrow rises ever so slightly as he mentally studies what date is today and if he has forgotten about anything. 

“oh” he finally mumbles “and may i ask to what do i owe the pleasure?” 

his talent with words seems to be on his side, and he’s apparently able to talk himself out of the confusion you put him in. 

“to absolutely nothing” you shrug, smile growing bigger, as his mind spins even harder, not getting the point more now. “other than being my amazing person.” you add. 

he feels his heart flutter in a weird pattern, but ignores it as you place the gift in his hands. he just sort of looks at it for a while, and you’re already scared he’s going to say something unexpectable, but instead he starts to unwrap the thing gently and carefully. 

you watch his eyes widen as he sees himself, painted by your hand, the softest of smiles painting his expression in warm colours. to you, that’s just how he looks everyday, but to him?

this is just one of many forms to him. he doesn’t look in mirrors a lot, he doesn’t pay much mind to it, he never studies his appearance how others do. he doesn’t get insecure in a way humans do. 

it feels foreign to look at the picture. it feels as if he’s looking at someone, indoubtly at himself, but through your eyes instead. he never knew his eyes looked this kind, and that the corners of his lips didn’t lift evenly when he smiled, instead having one slightly above the other. 

you notice so many things, he realizes, and he looks up at you, a wandering gaze searching for your eyes, as he struggles to comprehend just how wonderful of a chance he had gotten to meet you. 

he had seen miracles come to life and crumble before him, but never once had he though he’d be one to witness something as beautiful as your love and your affections are. 

meanwhile you wonder if he’s searching for the right words to say you “just shouldn’t have” 

you almost speak up, about how you just felt like doing something like this, and he doesn’t have to keep it, or something, but he manages to comment before you do. 

“your work is gorgeous, dear.” he says blandly, but quickly adds “but you’re the best gift i could ever encounter.”

[finding-the-daylight]

Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot more total-Cullen-defense-posts than usual. What I mean by that is I’ve seen posts excusing racist/problematic/ otherwise inexcusable behaviors exhibited by the Cullen characters. This is very much not okay and I want to explain some things in this post.

First of all, just because you like an actor/find an actor to be attractive, this absolutely does not excuse any of the character’s behavior. The actor and the character are not the same. This is why it’s called acting. I’m sure there are plenty of genuinely great people who’ve played horrible characters. The two can absolutely be separated. For example, I think Peter as vampire is just sexy af. I even use the tag #imalwaysthirstyforcarlisle on my posts of him as Carlisle. But, I will also point out that Carlisle is in fact a colonizer and did in fact steal blood for experiments, among other microaggressions. Just because I think Peter is a very handsome man and like his portrayal of the character, that does not mean I like everything about the character, nor am I willing to defend the character overall. Why? Because the character’s actions are, point-blank, inexcusable and beyond problematic. Let’s create an environment in this fandom where we’re able to look at the media we’re consuming critically and be critical of the characters without trying to justify why “they’re not actually that bad” when they are actually that bad. 

Second, if someone points out something negative about your favorite character, it is not a personal attack on you. As @emmettisapowerbottom has said, “...In real life people you love and look up to are multifaceted. Good people do bad things and bad people do good things.” What this means is that no one is perfect. Everyone has moments where they mess up and moments where they do the right thing. Chances are, we’re all fans of content that is problematic in some way (and I mean this is the Twilight fandom so that’s already one thing right there) and people who are problematic in one way or another. Truthfully, we’re all problematic in our own ways too and we all need to continue to learn and grow and strive to do better every day. However, one of the problems within the Twilight series regarding this is that the characters have no real linear growth after doing something bad (linear growth doesn’t mean you never mess up again after messing up once, it means you’re continually trying to do better and you’re aware/trying to become more aware of your faults). Rather than have some sort of linear growth, or attempt to have linear growth, they continue to do what they’re doing and don’t learn or grow from it (or, in some cases, never even do so much as address it). The reason the characters were written this way is likely due to smeyer’s own racism/sexism/otherwise problematic views being projected onto her characters. Since smeyer hasn’t really acknowledged these problematic perspectives herself, they, in turn, are not acknowledged by her characters. Some great examples of this are: Jasper dropping the fact that he was a conf*derate casually in conversation and never addressing it again, the Cullens continually calling the Quileute characters (who get their namesake from a real indigenous nation) names like dog and mutt which are real life racist slurs, Carlisle colonizing the land next to the Quileutes and causing them to very painfully and at a very young age become shifters, only to later steal blood from an indigenous character for purposes of “experimentation” with no apology or remorse for either, Ed*ard fantasizing about wiping out all of the Quileute characters with no remorse only to continually think of ways he can take them out and later participating in using slurs against them. All of this was kind of just dropped into the story and never addressed. This is why it is so problematic. This is why the Cullen characters are so problematic. 

Third, we’re all here because we enjoy certain aspects of Twilight. Most of us do have Cullen characters we appreciate to some extent. Like I love Emmett and Rosalie, but guess what? They’re still problematic. Rosalie still uses slurs which is disgusting and should never be ignored or excused. I don’t remember Emmett ever doing/saying anything in particular, but he’s complicit at the very least, which is still pretty awful. We do need to discuss the problematic aspects of the series and characters so that people are aware they exist and don’t internalize the problematic aspects of the series as many of us did when we were younger and didn’t yet fully realize just how problematic it is. You can like whatever characters you like. That is fine. Just don’t refuse to acknowledge the problematic aspects of characters/the series because you like said characters and/or the series. You can do both. Both can coexist. You don’t need to defend the problematic aspects of your faves to still appreciate the parts that you like about them. Despite, or perhaps in spite of all of its problems, the series is unique in that beyond being a fun fantasy escapist series, it allows us to examine problems within our own world and educate ourselves. It allows us to consume media more critically and to think about what we’re reading.

I’d like to end this with a disclaimer: as always, my blog is a place of openness and education. I am not here to point the finger at anyone. I am still learning and growing and trying to educate myself too. If any of you have any questions or don’t understand why something in the series is wrong or problematic, I am more than happy to explain it in more detail. We all need to stay humble, keep learning, and be kind. 

[renohasbigtits]

Omg your Iggy mpreg headcanon is so gooooddd! Will you consider to do another Iggy mpreg headcanon which takes place in the true ending?

Mpreg Ignis (Final Fantasy 15: True Ending Version)

AHAAHAHAHAH! I can’t believe that people really like the Mpreg Ignis Headcanon! Thank you so much!

Something you guys have probably noticed by now is that I’m not a huge fan of the true ending.

Not saying it’s bad, I just don’t like how:

•Noct dies

•Iggy is blind

•Ravus dies

I also don’t agree with the assumption that the alternative ending is a “happier ending” because Luna is still dead.

But I digress, I don’t think the ending is bad. it’s just not my favorite ending.

But I will do it. I will give the people what they want!

To make this one different than the Alternative ending this one will have;

•Ignis is Blind :(

•Noctis is dead (also Ravus)

•Ignis has his own restaurant because of course he should!!!

I guess this takes place two years after The light is restored. Idk you change that if ya want to.

Apologies if it’s similar to the Alternative version, I did try my best to make this one different!

Yes it’ll albaby’s are default Female but you can change it if you want to!

Alright alright, less talking, Let’s go!

(this does contain Mpreg =Male Pregnancy. Don’t like? Don’t read!)

•Look

•this man is a lot of things (hotter than satan is one of em.)

•but happy isn’t really one of them rn.

•Just broken up with his long time partner.

•things aren’t going well for him...

•than suddenly he’s getting sick!

• certain smells bother him, he’s throwing up every morning.

•it’s gotten to the point where he can’t really cook anymore at his restaurant. And he now has to supervise.

•not that it’s a huge issue since there are other amazing cooks there to help but Ignis does not like sitting on the sidelines.

•than a female co-worker, Shannon, asks Iggy what’s wrong, he tells her that he has a “strange illness”

•she asks what the symptoms are

•tiredness

•morning sickness

•Smell sensitivity

•Mood swings

•than she starts giggling.

•”Ignis, I’m a chef but I’m also a Mother of 3 kids.”

• “What are you imply, Pray tell?”

•”I think your Pregnant. You have the classic symptoms.”

•Ignis was dumbfounded. 𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘵?

•He made a Doctors appointment.

•After what feels like 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴, The Doctor comes back with the results.

•”Mr Scientia, The results are in. You are Pregnant! Congratulations!”

•Ignis was not one to be speechless but this...

•he wasn’t sure what to do!!

•he wasn’t sure if he was ready for Parenthood.

•He was Blind and he couldn’t never see what his child would look like.

•or, if it was the right time....

•so he turned to his friends, Prompto and Gladiolus, for help.

•Prompto had to ask if Iggy’s joking

•he wasn’t obviously

•Gladio asks if Ignis has tried to get the other parent involved.

•Ignis did tried to do that.

•it didn’t go well...

•the other parent outwardly admitted that they did not want to be in the baby’s life.

•Well Fuck

•Poor Ignis (someone hug him 🥺)

•Prompto and Gladiolus, being the best friends they are decided then and there, that there gonna help Ignis, no matter what decision he makes.

•Shannon, the coworker in question, steps up and offers Ignis tips on pregnancy, since she knows it can be stressful, especially with your first one.

•Ignis really appreciates it.

•she’s also leads when Ignis has a doctors appointment or is too sick to be there.

•8 Weeks: Ignis + Pregnant = Moody Ignis

•Little things bother him more than usual.

•Ignis almost Lashed out Prompto because he did something that annoyed him.

•Shannon assured Prompto that this is just a mood swing and that he didn’t mean it.

•at this point, Ignis and Shannon have started become close due to the fact that she’s basically has become his right hand man (or woman)

•Her helping more also has taken any stress Iggy has had about it off his chest.

•Ignis couldn’t be more greatful.

•12 weeks: a small bump has started to show. So adorable!

•And of course, ya know Prompto is gonna take SO.MANY.PICS of Ignis’s bump growing.

•he’s gonna scrapbook it (rip his sd card tho)

•lris already has started making baby clothes. Girl clothes.

•15 weeks: You thought he was a mom before? Oh you ain’t seen nothing yet!

•he acts real fatherly (or motherly) to the youngest employee at the restaurant.

•good thing to because the poor guy is always a nervous reck.

•he has talent but very little confidence. So Ignis assuring him, helps a lot.

•Shannon is now basically his iggy’s real hand man (or woman)

•she helps, even when Ignis’s there.

•not just in work, but in his pregnancy too (I swear. I did not mean to create a character)

•giving him tips, things to help him, with baby supplies to buy. She’s the real mvp.

•(let’s skip a little)

•20 Weeks: Ignis has already started to feel her move. It 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 his heart. (I’ll see myself out 🚪)

•All joking aside, he was genuinely touched (that wasn’t a pun. I swear!) by feeling her kick.

•At this point, Ignis had already found out it’s a girl. (Again, you can change it if ya want to.)

•much to lris’s delight.

• THATS IT! HE’S MAKING A BUN IN THE OVEN! (>:)

•lord take the wheel....

• he tries to control himself, when it comes to his strange cravings (like pickles with peanut butter?? Wtf???)

•but he gives in when no one’s looking.

•𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘯 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘰

•”I Noticed Ignis.”

•”I don’t know why you are referring to.”

•25-28 weeks: he’s already getting bigger (don’t say that to his face tho.)

•if you think his work is being put on hold while being very pregnant, you clearly have never met Ignis.

•of course, he is being a little more easy on himself. Not walking around as much and Shannon makes a lot more decisions (with iggy’s trust)

•but he is a workaholic, so he’s working til he takes maternity leave.

•(I’m really trying to add Gladio to the story but lol)

•Prompto is already getting a new sd card cause he’s taking SO.MANY.PREGNANCY. PICS.

• “Prompto, if you don’t take any unnecessary pictures, you wouldn’t have to buy another sd car-

•”I AM NOT DELETING ANY OF THIS PICS MR MOM!”

•32 Weeks (I’m trying not to make this boring lol): He’s still working!!

•Ain't nothin' gonna break-a my stride, Nobody gonna slow me down!

•Shannon starts to get a bit worried.

•”Sir. I believe that you should take a break. Please”

•Ignis looked at his right hand and smile. “I should. Thank you Shannon.”

•36 weeks: He feels 𝘵 𝘪 𝘳 𝘦 𝘥

•his poor swollen feet :(

•thankfully, lris is secretly planning a baby shower.

•Everyone is coming.

•Shannon distracting him until she’s called to bring him over.

•when Ignis sees this, he’s tears up.

•"𝘪𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘕𝘰𝘤𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦."

• he gets so many adorable gifts.

•Prompto gets him a Chocobo Plush (classic)

•Gladio gets him a toy dagger. This son of a Bit-

•”Hey, you are never too early to start training!”

•Shannon got him a baby mobile.

•lris gotten him more baby clothes. Yay....(Am I the only one who can’t stand getting clothes as a gift?)

• lris had made an adorable cake. In his mind, Iggy admitted that she was as good as he was.

•this mf still working around the restaurant from his office.

•”Igg-Sir. Can we talk?”

•”Yes Shannon. And you can call me Ignis, were mutuals.”

•”Ignis. Promise me that when you enter in the third trimester, that you’ll take maternity leave. You’ll need to prepare for your baby.”

•Ignis was taken a back a bit. Yes, her concerns were valid but he didn’t wanna put everything on Shannon.

•”Ignis, I know that you don’t wanna put everything on me but...but you need to Focus on your daughter. You need to prepare.”

•”I-“

•”I’ll handle it. I know what I’m doing.” She smiled.

•Ignis chuckled back. “Really?” Getting up from his chair.

•”Well.” She left while looking back. “I have learned from the best.”

•Ignis laughed. He did taught her well. “Alright. I will. Thank you Shannon.”

•”don’t thank me si- Ignis. I’m just doing my job.”

•honestly Shannon has been a great support system for Ignis. Not just because she knows a thing or two or three about pregnancy, but she really has stepped up.

•Ignis considers her a great friend.

37 weeks: 9 months. He now has to get ready.

•it’s his last day at the restaurant. For awhile anyways.

•it’s actually really emotional. The employees are sad that they won’t see him for awhile but are happy that he’s taking time to be ready on fatherhood (**cough cough Motherhood cough cough**)

•To Ignis, There like a family, a family he gained when he lost so much.

•his eyesight

• and Noct

•After they’ve closed, they celebrate.

•Ignis and Shannon smiling at everyone.

•”I’m proud of you Sir.”

•Ignis smiled back. “Really?”

•”Yeah. Your the bravest person I’ve met.”

•”How, Pray tell?”

•”You may be blind but you certainly don’t act like it. You 𝗡𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 let it stop you. I’m- I’m really proud of you.” She choked up. 

•Ignis looked at her with his Emerald eyes and she looked back.

•”And I’m proud of you to, Shannon.”

•(let’s cut to the chase. Oooo. Foreshadowing.)•

•38 weeks: Ignis wonders how much his blindness will affect his daughter.

•he wasn’t lying when he said that his senses have grown. He basically doesn’t need any help.

•not that he wouldn’t have either way, but he doesn’t wanna be a burden on anyone. Including his daughter.

•Sometime during the day, Iggy starts feeling pain down his back.

•it wasn’t too bad, so he went on with his day.

•but the pain got worse.

•so bad that he started doing his deep breath’s.

•(y’all what it is!!)

•(weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee woooooooooooooooo 🚑)

•(that will never get old xD)

•The midwife tells him to get to the hospital, NOW!

•This is it.

•he has to be cut open....

• She was here.

•Ignis holding his daughter for the first time. Well, he broke down.

•he couldn’t see her but he was there to her hold her. He is there for her.

•”Hi Darling. I’m your Father.”

•she suddenly stopped crying and stared at his bad eye.

•After a week, hes able to take her home.

•And oh, If you thought Prompto took too many photos of Ignis’s pregnancy belly....oh boy.

•he immediately starts taking many, MANY MANY, Photos of her.

•she actually looked confused.

• Gladio joking said “so, when are we going to train her?”

•Ignis later made his food cold, on purpose later that night.

•Shannon got to hold her and fell in love with her immediately.

•”feels like holding my son for the first, all over again.” She said teared up.

•Over the years, She has grown to being a shy and a adorable little girl.

•She’s so helpful during work and is popular with the staff. They treat her like they’re siblings.

•She always tries to help Ignis’s blindness. Guiding him around.

•”Watch where your going Daddy.”

•Even tho, he can get around just fine. It warms his heart that she tries to help him.

•Of course, Ignis wishes that Noct could have Met her. Even once.

•but somehow, he believes that Noct is watching her in heaven.

•Noctis is so proud of his friend.

Wow! So long! Well I hoped ya like it. I hope the true ending version is just as good as the alternative version.

I thought it would be cute that he would have a restaurant. ^~^ Gladio got the right idea 💡

Also I did not mean to create a new character, Shannon, but eh why not? I grew attached to her over the story (she sounds like a like Karen but she’s a good Karen. I promise.) and who knows? She might show up in other Headcanons 😉

Also whether you ship her with Ignis, is up to you. Hehehe. I don’t blame you tho.

Anyways, I hoped who requested this, liked it 💙💜

[peachymess]

I'm honestly so perplexed by that last Freddy Krueger anon. Like.. you don't owe anyone an intrinsic explanation about why you like the fictional villains that you like in order to appease people. If someone feels unsafe on your blog, the block and unfollow buttons are free. It never fails to surprise me how entitled some people feel to demand explanation for everything, when they are in full control of who they follow at any given time and can easily unfollow if they see something that makes them uncomfortable. It's not about "protecting" people either, the motive is always to find an excuse to incite harassment, which is is honestly terrifying.

I won’t venture to claim what the other anon’s intentions are on their behalf. We definitely live in an age that over-encourages individuals to speak with a misplaced authority of the collective’s needs and opinions - and that hasn’t always worked to society’s benefit. A recent example I can think of, is Demi Lovato reprimanding a local froyo shop for selling sugar free products (claiming it to be harmful diet culture) - not realizing that what is disliked by her, is actually appreciated by others (people who can’t have sugar, etc). That’s an example of an individual, instead of speaking from a place of their own experience, taking on the voice of a whole group (she wanted to help other ED-recoverers as well as later saying she wanted to help the whole world). In her case, as with so many others, it would be much more beneficial to just approach it from your own POV. “I am an ED-recovered and having to pass this stance in order to pay, triggered me. I know it would help me if you moved that section to the other side of the pay desk, so maybe others would appreciate it too”.

Yes, sometimes approaching something from your own POV is just better. It strips away that claim of authority that people will disagree with - where your message gets lost under the weight of “I am speaking for one and all”, because of its impossibility by nature.

So I’m not saying the other anon was out to scold me, but you’re right that there is a difference between coming to me as a person with a need of clarity, and of coming to me as an authority telling me I need to accommodate a group or else. Because you’re right, I don’t owe anyone an explanation. It’s not a crime to have a positive relation to the Nightmare in Elm street franchise, and it doesn’t make me a bad person.

And I have to admit that some of the words that anon used, made me feel as though I was being told I “better have a good explanation for this, or else you are bad”. Especially when the anon said “us/we” rather than just coming to me as themselves with their own experience of how my post made them want to reach out for clarity.

But here’s the thing: I chose to approached the ask as if this was one individual telling me that due to their own experience, they felt unsure of what to make of my interest. I asked myself “what if this is a mutual?” I don’t want to lose them if it’s due to an issue that can be cleared up by communicating rather than blocking. I appreciate the chance to assure them I’m safe (although I deliberately did not say “I am a safe space for CSA-survivors”, because it’s not up to me to claim what feels safe to them; all I can do is provide my stance and then they can determine if that feels comfortable to them or not. I sure hope I feel safe, and I know my intentions are good, but I can’t demand anyone to feel comfortable with me if they aren’t). I appreciate that chance to set everything straight, instead of being instantly assumed to be this or that, and blocked without the chance to remedy a misunderstanding. Anon’s intentions being this or that; either way, I got the chance to elaborate on something that seemed to upset at least one person, and so it might upset more people as well.

And even if I do not need to preface certain content with “I do not condone what the character portrays”, when it comes to certain heavy topics, I do feel as though some extra consideration from my side would not be a bad idea. Especially this. That’s why I’m happy to tag Freddy from now on.

And even if they’re not a mutual - even if they’re just someone who followed me yesterday - hey... I swore to myself to be as honest and authentic as I can in every situation. Here’s the truth: I want to be liked. I’m surely not alone in that, but it’s hard to admit, because it feels like an admission of fakery. That isn’t the case; I am true to myself. But I also want to explain why I believe myself to be a generally good person (flawed to the fingertips, and definitively have my bad days, but I strive for good none the less), when I feel as though that is questioned. If I were blocked without the chance to explain, I’d feel... I’d feel that weight of someone’s judgement for a bit. It would nag at me. Now, I’d move on. For sure. I honestly mean it when I say blocking me is fine if that’s what you want (“you” being anyone in this case), but I will always prefer the chance to hear why - in case there is some misunderstanding I can clear up. I don’t like the feeling of people disliking me. I definitely work on handling that, of course, because opinions will always vary if you do anything at all. But yeah... if I’ve made anyone uncomfortable, I genuinely like to try and rectify that. Both for me and for them. And if they don’t actually need it but just want to call me out, then just for me.

Just as a digression, I’ve thought about it, and I think that the reason this new generation of needing disclaimers around topics like these - people wanting you to clarify why you enjoy this or that problematic character - has a cause: it is no longer taken for granted that you do not condone/support what they stand for on a deeper level. I’m gonna be a bit of a grandpa right now and say that “back in my day”, I remember it was much more taken for granted. That underneath the “hell yeah awesome movie”, there was an unspoken “duh!”-ness to the fact that you did not support robbing casinos or racing cars over the speed limit or killing etc. I can’t tell you why it’s no longer taken for granted that people have their real life morals in shape. But knowing that it isn’t seen as a given anymore, I don’t really blame the younger generation for needing disclaimers. They’re literally being taught by their own feedback loops that they need to be vigilant of what people’s interests say about them on a deep, deep level. And maybe that’s justified, I can’t really be the authority to say. But at least it’s understandable. And anyone who’s genuine in their pursuit for clarification, is fine to get it from me.

Morality harassment, as you talk about, is not ok though. The anon hasn’t come back to say my relationship with A nightmare on elm street wasn’t up to their moral demands yet, though, so for now I choose to see it as a possibly poorly worded genuine ask. And I’m happy to elaborate to people like that.

Thank you for this ask, anon. I enjoyed getting that out. I’m not blind to the issue of morality policing and I was happy to get to elaborate on why I answered the anon anyways.

[epochofbelief]

Breath Control, Chapter Thirteen

An A Court of Mist and Fury College Swim Team AU

All characters belong to SJ Maas!

Feysand and Elriel

Warnings: Mentions of terminal cancer, alcohol use

Author’s Note: I DID NOT THINK THIS WOULD HAPPEN TODAY BUT I DID IT. IT WAS WRITTEN IN A FRENZY.

MASTERLIST LINK

Please enjoy:)

THIRTEEN

~~~Feyre~~~

In order to keep things as comfortable as possible, Mor helped me move on the last day of Christmas training before I went home. Rhys had left a day earlier to visit his father in London. Student-athletes who were recruited from outside the country got a few extra days over Christmas break in order to travel the long distance home. The rest of us were forced to wait the full extra six days before we could go home, training for about five hours a day and sleeping the other nineteen. 

Exhausted after an early Christmas training practice on the Tuesday before Christmas, we managed to move me out of my place and into hers in under four hours. A remarkable feat. I hugged Mor goodbye outside the house.

“It’s going to be weird living with Rhys. Is this stupid?”

Mor pulled away. “I’d prefer you here with my cousin and me than with those two assholes. You have a whole floor to yourself! Rhys and I on the top, you’re two whole floors away from him. But don’t think for a second that I won’t be traveling to ground level to visit you, like, all the time.” 

I smiled. “Thanks Mor. For everything.” I meant for more than just letting me move in. Being my friend, looking out for me, being supportive even with all the drama between Rhys and me. 

Her nod told me she understood. 

She pulled me in for one last hug and then flounced into her car without a glance backward. I’d really lucked out with Mor. 

As Mor pulled away, I shifted to face the house. My new house. Two new roommates, one of them my ex. If I wasn’t before, now I had to be verifiably out of my mind.

 I shrugged even though there was no one around. Fuck it. Better than Tamlin, right?

Three and a half hours later, I had run out of music and podcasts to listen to. I couldn’t forget that the last time I’d driven home, he’d been with me. How had my love life gotten so screwed up? While my swimming had improved, and my major change was forthcoming, the romance area of my life was still an utter disaster. 

Unfortunately, one of the classic rock songs Rhys had selected on our past drive chose that moment to click on. As the lyrics filled the car, instead of turning the volume down, I blasted it as loud as it could go. Rolled my windows down. And let myself wallow the rest of the way home. 

It was already seven o’clock by the time I made it to my place. I burst through the front door, weighed down by my suitcase, bags of gifts, and swim bag (I’d be training with my old team while home for the break). 

“Feyre!” Elain’s voice floated to me from the living area to my left. I dumped all my things right inside the door to hug her. What with finals and my Christmas training, I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks. While she hugged me, I glanced over my shoulder and had to force my mouth to remain shut. 

Damn. I’d forgotten Azriel was coming for Christmas. I loved Azriel, and I was so glad Elain had him (I repeated to myself for the thousandth time) but he was just another painful reminder that I was alone, and that both of my past boyfriends had chosen other, hotter, crazier girls over me. 

But I smiled and hugged Azriel tightly. Then Nesta, a little less tightly. And finally my father. Dad and I had spoken on the phone a couple of times since Thanksgiving. I think hearing about how upset I was over Rhys (I was sure Elain had told him a few things) made him worried over me, and he’d made a big effort to call this past month. I was genuinely happy to see him. 

“We just finished eating half an hour ago. We made a plate for you. It’s in the microwave.”

“Thanks, Dad.” 

“I’ll come with you,” Elain said, leaving Azriel behind.

As I sat at the table eating my dinner, Elain chattered away about how glad she was that Azriel was here, about how her finals had all gone really well, about how she was already looking forward to next semester, about how Dad and Azriel got along really well. I’d never heard her speak so much about herself in one go. It brought me so much joy for her that I thought I’d burst. I’d worried she wouldn’t find someone else, wouldn’t find purpose in her passion for nursing, for a much longer time after what Greyson did to her. 

Finally, she paused to draw breath. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been talking all about me for the past twenty minutes. How are you?” She probably didn’t notice, but her voice grew hushed when she asked how I was. Was this how Elain had felt after her breakup with Greyson? Everyone walking on eggshells around her, making sure they didn’t say anything to remind her too painfully of her ex?

I waved my hand, standing up to rinse my plate and place it in the dishwasher. “Oh, I’m fine. Four-point-oh again, and I just finished all my Gen Eds. Next semester I’ll start taking classes for whatever new major I choose.”

Elain frowned. “Okay, but you know I wasn’t asking about how school is going--even though I’m really proud of you for your grades and for having the courage to change your major. How was the move? Did you have to see him?”

I shook my head. “Move was fine. Mor was great. Haven’t spoken to Rhys since I ran into him at the Astrid Oaks leasing office.” I’d texted Elain the night that had occurred, including every detail of our encounter. Like Mor, Elain  insisted there was an explanation for Rhys’s behavior. I maintained that I wouldn’t be the one begging to hear that explanation, if it even existed. 

“Okay. You don’t want to talk about it. That’s fine. You know I just want you to be happy, though, right? Do whatever’s best for you?”

I nodded. “I know. Thanks Elain. And I expect to hear more about you and Azriel later.”

The grin that split her face was so bright it was blinding. “Later. Right now, I think everyone’s waiting for us to watch Star Wars or something with them.” 

------

At eleven o’clock that night, I sat next to my window at the top of the house, watching the snow fall. It was the first snow of the year, just in time for Christmas. I’d been worried it wouldn’t snow at all this year. 

It had been a nice rest of the evening with my family. We’d watched two Star Wars movies, pigging out on junk food the whole time. I’d had to almost crawl my way up all the staircases to my room when the end credits of our second movie had rolled. I’d merely shot Elain a suspicious look as she escorted Azriel very loudly into his separate bedroom. It was so painfully obvious, I was almost sure my father knew and was just letting us girls go to unnecessary great lengths to fruitlessly keep him out of the loop. 

My phone buzzed. A text from Mor. 

Mor: Feyre?

Me: Mor?

Mor: Do you trust me?

Me: Uh… yeah?

Mor: I need you to have an open mind for the next thirty minutes. 

Me: Okay. Why?

Mor: Look out your window. Love ya

It took me a second to process Mor’s text, realize that she really did want me to look out the window I was sitting next to, and then slowly turn my head to gaze into the black, snowy night outside.

Only I couldn’t see the black, snowy night anymore.

What I did see had me scrambling backwards, falling off the window seat and backing up five feet before I realized that the man crouched outside the window was Rhys.

I stood slowly as he jerked his head at the window latch, one of his eyebrows cocked in question. Shaking my head, I inched forward and eased the window open.

“We’re three stories up!” I hissed as Rhys stumbled onto the blue cushion of the window seat, tracking in snow as he did so. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” 

Rhys turned to close the window, then locked his gaze with mine. “I am out of my fucking mind, Feyre. Out of my mind for going this long without explaining why everything happened. Out of my mind for going this long without telling you I’m in love with you.”

Each of his words hit me like a blow. My first instinct was to speak. . . Say something, anything. But I held back. This was his rodeo. He was the one who needed to do the explaining. 

He looked at me as though expecting me to speak.

I placed my hands on my hips, widening my stance as I stared back at him. 

He took a deep breath and plunged on. “I’m out of my mind for not doing everything I could to be able to tell you why I couldn’t tell you why what happened even happened!”

“What?” I said.

He slumped onto the cushion. “Yeah, you’re right that didn’t make any fucking sense. Let me start at the beginning.”

“Okay.”

His head jerked up again, as though surprised I was acquiescing so easily.  But I was nothing if not true to what I’d been telling myself for the past month. I wasn’t gonna come crawling. He could do that. And he had.

I led him over to the fireplace, tossing him a blanket so he could warm up. Settling myself into one of my plush armchairs, I waited. 

“So, uh, the beginning. Right. Guess I’ll take the plunge.” 

And he did.

“I liked you as soon as I met you on that recruiting trip two years ago. You were so confident, sure of yourself, even if you didn’t think you were. You had fun at that party the upperclassmen decided to take the recruits to without falling prey to a bunch of older, ‘cooler’, students. I just… Tamlin himself wanted to hook up with you at that party. And hooking up with recruits is obviously a big no-no. And you stared him down in front of everyone at that party and told him to hit the road. 

“I’d just gotten out of a shitty relationship with… Amarantha… and had lost my sister,” his voice faltered for a moment and I had to restrain myself from reaching for him, “only a few months prior. Seeing how good you were, how strong, in an incredibly daunting situation. . . It blew my mind. My favorite girl in the world had just died, and my least favorite girl in the world was the only one I’d ever really dated. I’d lost all hope and there you were, right in front of me. 

“You didn’t glance at me twice the whole night, but during the few conversations we had I knew you were intelligent, and well-rounded, and not an empty-headed athlete that some are. 

“And so I spent the whole year forgetting about you. I didn’t date anyone my freshman year. Not because I was obsessive or anything--I’m not a creep, I swear--but because I had never met someone like you before. Someone so sure of their values. I couldn’t compare you to anyone… Amarantha especially. I couldn’t get the idea of you, a seventeen-year-old girl having the guts to party with a bunch of college kids and not bow down to peer pressure. You know I disapprove of a lot of the shit that goes on with the team during the season--especially all the sleeping around and not worrying about who it could hurt. I’m just not built to do things like that. 

“And when you arrived a year later, you jumped straight into that relationship with Tamlin. I was so thrown off. I couldn’t understand why you could be with someone like that. I do now,” he added quickly, seeing my expression. “But I was nineteen! I was dumb--couldn’t figure it out. I know he was what you needed at the time. 

“Anyways. Moving past that. 

“It was when I saw you train from across the pool, never backing down, putting up with Tamlin and Ianthe’s shit, day after day… It was then that I started to love you.”

I couldn’t prevent the sharp intake of breath I took when he said that. 

And when I realized I wanted to repeat those same words back to him. To Rhys, who’d loved me for so long without ever pushing himself on me, without trying to force me into anything I wasn’t ready for, who’d encouraged me through one of the darkest times of my life.

“And ever since the beginning of this year, when something shifted between you and your friends, I’ve been worried sick about you. Finally worked up the courage to talk to you at the Halloween party, offer to drive you home, get you the hell away from the cheating bastard. 

“And then Amarantha happened.” His hands twisted in his lap. He was staring straight into the fire now. 

“I’ve never told anyone this… At least, I hadn’t told anyone else this until about two hours ago. Remember how I said everyone thought I dated Amarantha to get through my sister’s cancer?” He glanced at me.

I nodded.

“I dated her because… because she knew something, and insisted I stay with her if I didn’t want anyone to find out.”

I glanced up sharply.

“I went on one date with Amarantha before I knew we weren’t compatible. One date. After that date, I was ready to tell her I wasn’t interested, kind of let it work itself out into nothing, you know? 

“And then. . .” He trailed off. 

“Rhys?”

“Right before I drove here, I told Mor everything I am about to tell you right now. I want you to know she gave me full consent to say all of this to you.”

Ah, so this explained her texts. I nodded. “Okay.”

“Mor’s gay, Feyre.”

I blinked. 

“She’s not out, isn’t ready. She didn’t even know I knew until two hours ago. But back in high school, right before Amarantha and I started going out, Amarantha spied Mor making out with another girl in a car, at a mall twenty miles outside of town. Amarantha told me as much after I told her I didn’t things would work out between us. 

“And I knew that if Mor hadn’t told me, she didn’t want anyone to know. No one at school knew. Her family didn’t know. ”

My vision blurred. I blinked rapidly.

“So when Amarantha insinuated that she’d spill Mor’s secret if I broke things off with her, I realized I had no choice.” 

And now I could see that he was crying, too. His hands twisting faster and faster in his lap. He hadn’t looked at me for at least the past five minutes.

“I couldn’t let that happen to Mor. Mor, who was so happy, all the time, always lifting people up. The girl everyone thought was the height of confidence. That girl didn’t feel comfortable enough to share something that was such a big part of her identity. And that’s always her choice, of course, and I would never want her to come out before she was ready. And that’s why I stayed with Amarantha. 

“I won’t go into detail about everything that happened,” he swiped at the smattering of tears he’d let fall. “Amarantha broke up with me the day after my sister died. And for some reason that didn’t even feel like a weight off my chest. It was supposed to, but coupled with burying my sister a few days after that… I’d never felt so alone. And Amarantha loved that by leaving me at the worst point in my life, she’d be ensuring the fact that I would feel so alone.” 

“So when I arrived home at Thanksgiving, with you, both of us happy to be together, and Amarantha saw it. . . Her personality could not allow her to just let me be happy, let me be with another girl. So while we were at the club--she was sober, by the way, and I was definitely not, if that counts for anything--she brought it all back up. Told me she’d walk in there and tell all Mor’s friends the truth if I didn’t give it one more go with her.”

A few more tears slid down his face and I knelt on the carpet in front of him, placing one hand on his knee. 

“And it’s not an excuse Feyre. But I had no idea what to do. I would never, ever cheat on you for my own sick kind of pleasure or something. And what I did was wrong. I was too intoxicated to think clearly, to find some sort of other solution. I didn’t want to ambush Mor and tell her I knew the truth. I didn’t think it would be fair. And apparently that was stupid of me, too, because when I told her tonight she bawled her eyes out and told me she would’ve come out to the whole high school over the intercom if she’d known what Amarantha was doing to me. So I’m just an idiot, but I’m an idiot who loves you, and if there’s anything I can do to convince you to believe me, to, gods forbid, to forgive me--”

Restraint was impossible now, and I flung myself at him, straddling his hips with my legs. And he went still as death as I kissed every one of his tears away. 

When I finished doing that, I pressed a kiss to his forehead, my hands resting on his shoulders. His thumbs lightly, so lightly, slid just underneath my shirt to rest on the skin above the waistband of my pajama shorts. “I love you too, you idiot,” I whispered.

My words unleashed him. His touch went from light to firm, his hands gripping my waist and pulling me as close to him as possible. His mouth found mine and our tears mingled as his tongue swept across mine. 

“You really--” He broke off as I covered his mouth with mine again, unwilling to be separated from him for a moment longer. He pulled back. “You believe me?”

I brought my hands up to cup his cheeks, slide them down his shoulders to his chest. “Of course I do.” 

He stood up swiftly then, his mouth locking against mine, his hands gripping my ass. I could feel him hard against me as he strode for the bed, laying me softly on top of it. He stood there for a second, looking at me. Smiling. 

“Let’s not waste time,” I hissed, grabbing the neck of his t-shirt and pulling him down on top of me. 

And later, when he paused to ask me, “Are you sure?” as he hovered above me, both sets of our clothing in piles on the floor around the bed, I nodded. “Yes,” I breathed. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

--------------------

TAGS

@queen-of-glass​ @aknymph​ @sleeping-and-books​ @fabfire​ 

[meangirlsx]

I hope this isn’t too personal but as a bi/ace person, how did you realize you were bi? As an ace folk I feel like my perception of attraction is all f-ed up and I can’t figure out if I just think girls are pretty or if I’m actually into girls? It doesn’t really matter cause I’ll only ever really be able to date guys bc of my family but I want to know for me

No, not too personal at all! I’m actually really glad you asked because it’s something I struggled with a lot and it’s nice to know I’m not the only one. I just apologize in advance for the essay I’m writing to give you as much context and information as possible for how I figured it out. (Also I basically wrote an essay on the guys I’ve thought I loved, so it’s only right for me to write an essay like this.)

I’m totally with you, I feel like my perception of attraction is about as reliable as a broken clock: maybe right occasionally but otherwise not much help.

I never questioned whether or not I was interested in guys. It was expected and assumed. I never really understood things people would talk about or show in media, like people just not being able to control themselves or people getting excited over events like Broadway Bares, but I never doubted my interest in guys.

In that same vein, despite going to an alternative high school where we talked a lot about LGBTQIA+ topics and I had a lot of friends who were out, it never occurred to me that I could be interested in anyone other than guys. I can look back now at a lot of situations growing up and see the times I mistook interest in a girl for admiration or just thinking she was insanely cool.

The first time I ever questioned being straight, I think I was 14 and I was doing a Romeo and Juliet balcony scene project with a friend who actually was going to come out as a trans man the next year. (The only reason I’m sharing that is because I don’t want to misgender him now but it’s obviously relevant that I didn’t know yet that he’s a man.) When I was watching the footage back to edit, I caught a sweet gesture in his Romeo monologue to me that gave me total butterflies and I found myself watching it over and over. I decided by the end of the week that I wasn’t actually interested in him, and then proceeded to convince myself I was straight again until I was 21.

I was at a regional theatre convention with my college department and we’d seen one of the schools perform a show earlier in the day. The girl who played the lead was absolutely incredible. Later in the day, I was on a bus waiting to go back to the hotel, and I saw that school in line to also board the bus, including the girl. I thought I was just a little starstruck, but my head was spinning as they all got on and she made her way toward the back of the bus where I was to let people continue to get on. She asked if she could sit next to me and I thought my heart was going to explode it was beating so fast.

Normally, when people sit next to me who I don’t know, we both do things on our phones so we don’t have to talk to a stranger. I had absolutely no intention of picking up my phone if there was any chance she wanted to talk to me. And she did. And I truly about died. It turned out that she’d had a rehearsal during a class I attended that she’d wanted to go to, and I’d taken extreme notes, so I offered to send them to her and gave her my phone to give me her email, but I didn’t clarify that. She put in her number. I did not shut up about her for the last two days of the trip or the following week.

Being in a very liberal college theatre group, of course my friends were all super excited and supportive, and one of the adults on the trip with us is bisexual and she was actually a big help and encouragement as I settled into the realization that I wasn’t just starstruck by this girl.

I didn’t have my first full-on crush on a girl until a little later into the year with a new girl in the department. I don’t even remember realizing I liked her. Just all of a sudden, every time I was around her, all those reactions started happening again. And we were in the same friend group, so we were around each other a lot.

She would enter the same room as me and I would have trouble focusing. She would smile at me or laugh at a joke I made and I would almost short-circuit. I had to pin her into this weird top for a costume and I would get a little shaky every time. She would text the group chat and I would just stare at my phone. One time, she hugged me and kept her hands on my waist as we pulled back and she just met my eyes and smiled at me and I am genuinely not sure I have ever short-circuited so hard over a crush.

So that’s how I’ve learned to recognize the signs for myself. I had the same kind of reactions that I had with guys I liked. My head spun, my heart raced, my brain would either never shut up or totally shut down, I found myself going out of my way to spend time with her or just be in the same room as her. I’d see her and I’d get that cheesy warm, fuzzy feeling. I’d get really nervous in a way I never got around other friends. 

That being said, my feelings for the girl on the bus and my friend felt so different from what I’d felt before. With my friend, in particular, I’ve never been more sure of a crush. I felt everything more strongly. I’m a pro at finding reasons to stop liking someone so much, and I couldn’t find a single one with her. I could talk myself out of wanting to pursue any crush in college, but the only reasons I had for not telling her how I felt were that the thought completely terrifies me with anyone, I wasn’t sure how she felt and didn’t want to mess up the friendship, and I was about to graduate while she would still be in college for a long time. All outside things. Nothing to do with her.

And it did take me a while to understand it. I think I actually more typically get crushes on guys, so that made it even harder to figure out. Honestly, talking about it helped me a lot. It was easier to make sense of it when I had friends getting excited with me and freaking out over how they hadn’t seen me like that about a crush before.

Being on here helped me, too. I was still scared to talk to friends out loud, so it helped to see what people on here said and find things I could relate to. Actually, one of the first signs I just didn’t realize was that I was starting to read and even write female character x reader fics and trying to convince myself it was for curiosity and expanding my writing.

The one other thing I can think of that helped me was overthinking things the way I always do. It made me try to analyze my own feelings in a way I never had before. I tried to imagine dating this girl. The thought scared me, but because I was starting to realize that dating anyone intimidated me and was an entirely separate problem. Also, being ace does add a new layer of navigation. But when I was first really trying to figure out if I liked her, I imagined how I would feel if she liked me. I realized I would feel a kind of excitement I wasn’t sure I’d ever even felt before, and that was my answer.

It doesn’t have to be any of my business how your family feels, but if you want to talk about that, I’m here. I totally understand that it’s SUCH a difficult situation to be in, but if this is who you are, no one has the right to tell you otherwise or how to live your life. I know that’s a lot easier said than done. But you don’t have to live your whole life the way your family wants.

I can’t speak from experience not having a supportive family. I told my mom as soon as I got home from the theatre convention. But it’s been 3 years, now, and I haven’t told my brother or my dad. I know they’ll be incredibly supportive. I know it won’t cause problems. But the thought still scares me. The idea of anything having to change scares me. The thought of actually physically having the conversation terrifies me.

So I don’t mean to make it sound like I understand having an unsupportive family. I’m so sorry if that’s your situation. I do understand being scared, though, and feeling like you have to cut yourself off from pursuing something for the sake of not having to deal with it. I can’t preach about living as your most honest, authentic self when I’m not there yet, either. But I’m here with you if you want a friend while you navigate this potential new territory.

The last thing I’ll say is this: once I got over my initial shock and set aside other influences so that I could just focus on myself first, I felt so happy. I felt excited. And I felt free. It kind of felt like a rebirth. Things made sense that never had before. I felt like I’d just opened up a new world for myself. Obviously, we live in a world where it’s not simple and easy and automatically accepted by everyone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find all the good there is.

[pebblysand]

OF CRYSTAL ROSES (EXTENDED AUTHOR’S NOTE OF CHAPTER VI. OF CASTLES)

-- TO READ THE CHAPTER ITSELF, SEE HERE ON AO3 --

well, well, well. here we are. spoiler alert, gryffindors make plans they don’t stick to, lolz. all the good intentions in the world, i had. study, i said i would. yet, here were find ourselves, eighteen thousand words later. this appears to be how i roll. slept about five hours last night, too, so apologies if i’m slightly non-sensical/rambly. this chapter ought to be sponsored by deliveroo and teapigs tea, a brand of tea that appeared in my local supermarket a few moths ago and that i steadily refused to buy because - can tea really be worth this much? low and behold, once you’ve tried it once, it appears to be addictive. i’ve, while writing this chapter, worked my way through about four packs of their different teas - they are just this good. i have a job interview tomorrow so wish me luck in gaining employment which will hopefully fund my expensive habits.

now, before we get into the nitty gritty of the chapter, itself, i just needed to say this: i cannot thank everyone enough for the incredible response on last chapter. i’d kind of grown accustomed to getting a couple of reviews for each of them and to writing in my little corner of the internet but boy, you guys are bloody legends! i am so overwhelmed with gratitude for everyone who commented, kudo-ed and generally gave love to this fic in general. i really didn’t expect such a response and it’s meant the world to me. i think it’s probably also the reason why i’m posting so early because i kept being like, god, i can’t leave this many people waiting in this cliffhanger hell. i think this chapter ends on a more positive note (although, i’ll let you judge), one that might be more conducive of a few weeks’ wait (more on that below), haha.

this being said, as i explained on here before, i come from very tiny fandoms where basically everyone knows each other and the number of people reading would usually fit in my flat. the fact that over 80 people are now subscribed to this fic just blows my fucking mind. you’re all magnificent and i love you. i try to respond to all the comments so let’s keep chatting if you feel like it (although, no pressure - comment if you want to, but do know that it makes me very happy when you do :)). you’re all fabulous and i wish you all the best!

anyway, spoilers for castles, chapter vi under the cut.

guys, guys, guys, i am so tired. i’ve spent four days editing almost 20,000 words and my brain is fried. but, we are officially at the halfway point of this story, yaaaay!!! my plan, at this point, is that we’ll have six chapters on each side but even if i do end up splitting this one later (more on this below) i’ll end up with seven chapters on each side so either way - yay to the end of act 1!

i think that’s also why i tried to turn this chapter around this quickly. to me, i always kind of saw this fic as having two parts. part 1: the immediate post-war aftermath with the heartache and the love-fast/burn-fast start to harry/ginny. part 2: a slow and actually healthy rebuild of their relationship, and of the world around them. i have genuinely been writing towards that last harry/ginny scene in this chapter for months. it feels like such a relief to finally have that weight off my shoulders. and i actually do think it’ll allow me to focus on study later. act one is finished, and act two can wait a bit, i suppose.

now, obviously, given that i already apologised last time, part of me still wants to apologise for the length of this chapter, even more so, actually. it sits at about 18,000 words which, by nanowrimo’s standards, is over a third of a full book, wtf. yet, you guys also said last time that you didn’t actually mind long chapters, so perhaps i shouldn’t beat myself up too much?

as i said in the a/n, this is a little bit of different set up than chapter v. though. i know exactly where to split this. as you’ve probably seen by now, there’s a very natural split point after harry has his breakdown on the couch with ginny, before Christmas properly "starts." the reason i didn’t split this one there, though is: a) selfish: i needed to get this out. stop working on it. i need to study. when it’s out, i’m not thinking about it anymore. it would have been a bit non sensical to split this just for the sake of it and post two chapters at once, which means i probably would have held onto the second part for another couple of weeks, and fuck that. additionally, b) you may not have noticed this but: the chapter titles rhyme. why did i bring this additional difficulty upon myself, i do not fucking know. especially because i will soon run out of one-word construction materials to draw from, lol. as a result, though, i need an even number of chapters to close out this story and because i’m sort of planning six chapters from now to the end (more on that below) i can’t really split this one right now. like, if i end up with another overlong chapter in the next few months, i probably will take that opportunity and go back and split this one, just for readability. but at this stage, at this stage, because i don’t know how many chapters i’ll have for act two (six or seven), i’m keeping this chapter like this for the time being. i kind of hope i end up with seven chapters on the other side and am able to split this one down the line, but we will see. in the meantime, my most sincere apologies to the folks who read fanfiction before bed and it’s now 4 am by the time you’ve finished this. i’ve been there before, believe me.

from a personal standpoint, though, i have to say, this chapter (compared to the last one) was incredibly easy to write. i think i’d spent so much time imagining and writing these scenes in my head as kind of a culminating point for the first half of the story, that it quite simply poured out. i did have a little bit of an everything is shit crisis yesterday and today, but sure look, that always happens. overall, i am quite happy - i think - with the end result.

now, when i say "easy to write" i mean, technically, easy to find words to write down what was in my head. i do not mean: easy to write on an emotional level. oh boy. i’m generally not a crier. i have been asked, a number of times, by people who said my writing made them cry: do you cry when you write, too? and my answer was always ‘no’. i don’t judge, but i’m just not that kind of person. i know people who cry every day but personally, we are in the middle of a pandemic, my father recently passed away, i’ve lost my job and am studying for an exam my life is pretty dependent upon, and i haven’t cried in months. yet, i swear, there were a couple of times, both writing this and editing it, when i had to step away from the screen because i could feel a lump in my throat. that had never happened to me before. i didn’t, like, bawl or anything but god i felt it. i don’t know if it’s because it’s my first time killing an oc, someone who was really mine but boy. giulia. i kept trying to find ways not to kill her, or apologising to her. to me, she’s tom’s last victim and that really, fucking hurts. if you’re hurting too, i don’t really know what to tell you. i’m sorry, i suppose. her death was needed for … plot purposes, lol. god, i’m the worst haha.

re:harry/ginny: i must say i really like where they end up, at the end of this. i had planned this to a certain extent. i was always under the impression that they would talk over christmas, but not get back together. however, the reason why they weren’t getting back together, in my head, was initially quite different. i initially didn’t have ginny dating someone else. i think i mentioned i was toying with the idea in the a/n for last chapter, but at the time i wasn’t truly sold on it. then, i ended up writing the scene i’d originally planned for them and it didn’t quite fit. what i’d planned, at the time, felt rather ooc for ginny when actually on paper. on the other hand, harry, under my fingertips, kept trying to kiss her and i kept hitting the delete button. i swear, i know it sounds weird to people who might not be writers but sometimes, your characters really do seem to have their own agendas. when i caved, let him kiss her, then the scene took on a different meaning, and, i hope, a better one. i think something clicked there and it feels like a good place for act one to end. obviously, they’ll get back together cause this follows cannon so you know, not much suspense there. it’s more about the how than the what, to me.

re:ginny’s letters: this idea came to me a while ago, actually. i was thinking that they’d need to talk about what happened last year, but i was kind of struggling on the how. having character a tell a story to character b is always a bit difficult, in writing, because it can quickly end up being boring. like, when ginny tells harry about christmas last year and lupin, in this chapter, telling that in dialogue is already rather long an laborious, and it’s overall such a short story. for harry, it’s easy. i’m in his head so he can just say ‘he told her about the hallows’ and the dialogue can be about their reaction, rather than the events itself. but ginny, she needs to share facts, as well as feelings. and doing that through long monologues just didn’t appeal. first, it’s quickly boring and second, it’s also kind of ooc. she’s not giulia, you see.

i did entertain the idea of completely skimming past it. ‘she told him about last year and he was horrified.’ - moving on. but, i don’t know, that didn’t feel quite right either, because i think they need to exchange, and talk, and that just felt like a copout. also, to be honest, it’s a very difficult story to tell. like, i’ve seen people in fics being like ‘so, harry sat down all of the weasleys and told them everything the trio did in seventh year,’ and i’m like that’s so difficult, though. sitting someone down and telling them all about your trauma, with little preamble, just setting it all out there, i can’t imagine ginny (or, frankly, most people) actually doing that, you know? we reveal bits of ourselves bit by bit, not all at once.

then, it hit me: she’s a writer, isn’t she? at least, she is canonically in first year, with not only the diary but also the poems, then writing for the prophet. obviously, the diary thing would have riled her up a bit but i do think in the end, she would probably have been like: no, i won’t let him take writing away from me, you know? so yeah, letters. daily letters. you won’t see all of them in next chapter, but probably quotes from the most important ones, things that harry reads. that’s where he gets his facts about her story last year, and then they can focus on their feelings about it. fab! something to look forward to, haha.

now, re: the future. as i said, we are entering act two. act two will gradually become more "fun" and fluffy, i suppose, but i won’t lie, we will be keeping the same happy/sad vibe that a lot of you have commented on with this fic. it exists for a reason (as i said, life is about sex, but it’s also about funerals). as i said before, this fic is, above all, an exploration of what ‘all was well’ actually means.

this being said, this isn’t an 8th year fic. there is a very specific future pov from which this fic is being narrated, and that’s in october 2027 (i know, precise). obviously i have 28 years to get through in act two so that will affect the way that the timeline is designed. it will obviously be more spread out, especially in the later chapters. this being said, while i have about a million of ideas for all the space in between and a very clear view of what the last chapter will be, the exact layout of each chapter is still slightly blurry. i haven’t sat down to put all my ideas in chronological order yet, as well as into some sort of chapter structure, which is also why i can’t really tell if it’ll be six or seven chapters in the end. all of this to say, there’s still quite a bit of work to be done.

this means that, as i said in the a/n, i don’t think you’ll get next chapter until at least, may. please don’t think that this means i’ll be abandoning this fic or anything, it’s just that i’ll be doing work you probably won’t see. i’m probably going to take the rest of march off writing to study (bar maybe a roar-series Harry&Hermione friendship one shot? maybe) then take april to plan and write as much of the next chapters i possibly can. ideally, by the end of april i can have a first draft of the whole thing. i desperately want to write as much as i can now that I’m jobless in the hopes that when i do find a job (again, interview tomorrow, pray for me), i can just have editing to do at the weekends. but we all know i relate to harry on a very deep level when he says ‘when have our plans ever worked, anyway?’ so we will see, haha.

anyway, these were all the thoughts off the top of my head, re: this chapter. if you have any questions or other things you’d like me to ramble about, feel free to send in questions, my ask box is always open. i know i probably think about this fic (and hp) way too much but i’m an extrovert and my hobbies used to include travelling, pints at the pub, dating and, well, there’s none of that anymore, is there, lol? the uk has stolen our vaccines (fucking brexit) so here’s to being obsessed with fictional worlds i wish i could live in for a while longer,

i will now go and endlessly refresh my email for reviews and kudos, like the attention seeking basic bitch i am haha.

have a fab evening, everyone!

[purplesurveys]

1149

A

What is your age? 22, but there’s less than a month to go before I turn 23.

What annoys you? Literally every single person who still supports the government at this point. For context, we are back to square one and we’re under the exact same quarantine imposed in March 2020 because of the surge in cases. Nothing has changed and nothing has been done in the last 365 days while people are getting hungrier and poorer. I’m done feeling hopeful for this country and I cannot wait to abandon it forever.

Do you have any allergies? Apparently, grass. Can’t be exposed to it for too long otherwise the skin on my thighs turn red and occasionally even get rashes.

B

Do you know anyone named Billy? Kind of, but they’re girls with their name spelled as Billie.

When is your birthday? April 21st and spending it in quarantine once again this year...

Who is your best friend(s)? Angela and Andi.

C

What's your favorite candy? I like gummy bears and worms. As for sweets, I really like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Butterfinger, Twix, and the Hershey’s Cookies and Creme bar.

When was the last time you cried? Maybe a day or two ago while watching a snippet from Caught in Providence.

Have you been out of the country? Yes.

D

Do you daydream? Not so much these days. I’ve been better at keeping my focus at work.

What's your favorite kind of dog? I love alllllll dogs, but I’d usually be wary of smaller dogs because 87% of the times I’ve met some, they’re aggressive or a bit moody. I don’t like stereotyping dogs as much as possible but because I’ve had direct experiences to back it up anyway, *shrug*

What day of the week is it? It’s a Sunday.

E

How do you like your eggs? Scrambled, poached, or an omelette with lots of fillings. Balut is also great.

Have you ever been in the emergency room? Only when I was born, I’m guessing.

What's the easiest thing ever to do? Idk, what comes easy to me might not be the same for others. But my answer would be to smile, regardless if it were genuine or otherwise.

F

Have you ever flown in a plane? Yeah, many times. The child-like excitement I get whenever I get on one will probably never go away, either.

Do you use fly swatters? No, my mom usually uses old shoebox covers or rolled-up scratch papers we have lying around to swat them.

Have you ever used a foghorn?: Only in video games lol, never in real life.

G

Have you pet a goat? I don’t think I have. I’ve pet lots of animals before but I don’t think a goat has been one of them yet.

Are you a giver or a taker? Giver, but I’ve been allowing myself to take more these days.

Do you like gummy candies? Love them.

H

How are you? We’ve entered summer weather now, so I feel hot and miserable. It’s also Sunday and I am stuck at home, which doesn’t make me the happiest camper.

What's your height? 5′1″ or a tiny tiny tiny bit taller than that.

What color is your hair? It’s black but on extremely rare occasions I’ll catch a single light brown strand when I play with my hair.

I

What's your favorite ice cream? Cookies and cream and chocolate chip cookie dough. My friend Leigh actually started her own ice cream shop recently and I bought her coffee crumble ice cream, and it is sooooooooo fuckinggggggggg good??????? It’s so rare to find coffee ice cream where I live period, so I’m fucking stoked to have a close friend who makes literally the best one and in generous servings too.

Have you ever ice skated? Many times as a kid. I was never formally trained, but it was something I wanted to try from watching other kids play in mall ice skating rinks; and when I did give it a shot, I ended up enjoying it. Luckily my mom was encouraging and actually frequently dropped me off at a rink so I can practice gliding and all for a few hours while she ran errands.

Have you cheated the IRS? That’s like an American tax thingy, right? We don’t have that here and my employer handles my TIN.

J

What's your favorite jelly bean? Not a big fan but if I had to have Jelly Belly, I obviously would want to get the pleasant-tasting ones.

Do you tell jokes? Yes.

Do you wear nice jewelry? Only on special occasions.

K

Do you want to kill anybody? I don’t want to kill anybody but I certainly wish a good number of public officials would finally die.

Do you want to have kids? Yes. I really wish I could still have a future with them. Thanks for the trauma, my real asshole of an ex.

Where did you have kindergarten? Somewhere.

L

Are you laidback? I doubt my friends would use this to describe me. I for sure lean more towards the uptight side of the spectrum.

Do you lie? Eh, occasionally.

When is the last time you sent a hand-written letter? I have no idea. Christmas 2019 maybe?

M

Ever talked in a microphone? Sure. Many times.

Do you still watch Disney Movies? I very rarely get in the mood for them if I’m by myself, but yes, I’d gladly sit down and watch should an opportunity come.

Do you like mangoes? No.

N

Do you have a nickname? 99% of people call me Robyn while my family calls me Byn, but there are a select few friends who’ve stayed long enough with me to catch other names I’ve gotten over the years, which have since become inside jokes/nicknames. There’s Reben and Rolayn, and literally just yesterday ‘Roby’ happened when I ordered food for lunch so that will probably catch on as well.

What’s your favorite number? 4.

Do you prefer night over day? Absolutely.

O

Are you an only child? No, I’m two siblings away from that status.

Do you wish this was over? I haven’t felt that way, no.

What is the closet orange object near you? An orange tumbler my Kuya gave me as a Christmas gift in 2019. There is also orange tape wrapped around the charger adaptor of my company laptop.

P

What one fear are you most paranoid about? Waking up in the middle of surgery and being unable to speak nor move.

Do you play any instruments? Nope.

Do you think you are pretty? Some days.

Q

Are you quick to judge people? No, unless they are already blatantly showing their character like being rude towards service staff, tossing their trash to the ground, or cutting in queues. Whenever those things happen I give myself the space and freedom to guiltlessly judge.

What do you keep quiet about? How dysfunctional my family really is, and the things I really want to say about Gabie.

Do you have any quirks? Food-wise, I like peeling off the breading from fried chicken and placing them on the side of my plate so I can eat them last, because they’re my favorite part.

R

What’s a good reason to cry? Frustration. Crying can be really helpful in lessening stress.

Do you think you're always right? No.

Do you watch reality TV? Not religiously, but I love watching snippets of reality shows on Facebook because they’re all so embarrassing and it’s hilarious to watch hahahahah. Literally last night I was watching clips of Big Ed on 90 Day Fiance.

S

Are you a social person? More so now than I was years ago.

What states have you lived in? I lived in Manila briefly but it didn’t take long till we transferred to another city for a more peaceful life in the suburbs.

What is your favorite season? I wanna say winter because of what I’ve seen from it in movies and shows, but I’ve never actually experienced it before.

T

When did you last sleep in a tent? Sometime in March or April last year.

Do you like tomatoes? Mostly in diced form. Tomato sauce is fine but I don’t really like it in my pasta. Bloody Mary also tastes rather awful.

What time did you wake up? 8:30 AM.

U

Do you have an umbrella in your car? I think so, yeah. I finally placed one in there lmao.

Do listen to Usher? Eh, not really. 2000s R&B isn’t my thing, save for Beyoncé.

Describe the underwear your wearing? It’s light blue.

V

What’s the worst veggie? I never learned to like pechay. I’d still eat it, but only because I like cleaning up my entire plate.

Do you like movies with violence? Some. Like I hate action movies but I enjoyed A Clockwork Orange and Scream lol.

Where do you want to go on vacation? I recently bookmarked an Airbnb in Zambales and the accommodation is basically this super cute line of tipi-styled huts by the beach. I'd love to have a solo trip push through once this Covid mess subsides.

W

Ever been on a wave runner? No.

Where do you work? I work in a PR company.

Do you wish on stars? Just sometimes.

X

Have you ever had an x-ray? Only for mandatory medical exams.

Do you own a xylophone? I think I had a toy one as a kid, but it’s not with me anymore.

Have you watched the x-games? No, not interested.

Y

What did you do yesterday? I stayed at home; ordered food for Angela as a surprise; debated if I should buy a pair of Air Maxes – and ultimately decided I’ve already spent too much this month to deserve a new pair of shows lol; and just settled to buy a new night lamp for my bedroom. I also watched the newest episode of 2 Days 1 Night and ate more of Leigh’s ice cream while doing work.

Do you like the color yellow? Only in mustard yellow. I also like the song Yellow, heh.

What year were you born?: 1998.

Z

Do you believe in the zodiac? No.

Has your bank account been at zero? No. I remember when I was first opening my own account at the bank and the clerk told me to make sure I don’t go below P2,000, and my intensely by-the-book ass has been following the rule ever since, even though my dad has told me it’s absolutely fine to go below it so long as I have P2,000 back in the account after a month hahaha.

Ever been to the zoo? A few.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I thought about every episode of The Owl House Season 1 (Part 2/2)

Part two, sukers! Let’s do this. Click here to read part one.

“Senses and Insensitivity”: The B-plot in this episode is outstanding. It shows the audience more about Eda and Lilith's love for each other as sisters, which actually gets a lot more heartbreaking, given what happens in "Agony of a Witch." I loved every minute of it...which is why it makes it weird that it's just the B-plot. Because while the main story is ok, I could do without it. It makes King look like a jerk, and in no way does it feel like he means it when he apologizes. Plus, the fact that Luz and King get saved by Dana's self-insert and don't even do anything to stop Piniet just doesn't sit right with me. Although, I do find the jokes about fandom mentality to be pretty funny. If it wasn't for Eda's storyline with Lilith, "Senses and Insensitivity" might just be a C+ of an episode. As is, I'll be kind enough to give it a B-.

“Adventures in the Elements'': And here it is. The episode that everyone saw months beforehand because some jackhole decided to leak it to the internet. And what an episode it is. We get some great mentor/motherly moments from Eda. Some perfect course correction from Ed and Em going from unlikable antagonists to decent supporting characters. Having Luz learn a second spell, and having the growth between her and Amity's relationship. And a semi-enjoyable B-plot with King and an army of stuffed animals (which is just as funny as it sounds). My problem? Pacing. While King's subplot about an army of stuffed animals is fun, I feel like more time should have been dedicated to Luz getting trained by Eda. That way, it’ll feel natural to see as Luz reaches her breaking point due to going nowhere with Eda's training, which would feel justified rather than making Luz come across as kind of whiney in the episode (at least to me, she does). Another issue I have is with how Luz and Amity's relationship is presented in this episode. It genuinely feels like we skipped an episode because Amity went from "thinking about it" to getting distracted by waving at her bestie. Now keep in mind, I'm the first one to say "who cares" when people bring up the poor pacing in Luz and Amity's relationship due to Disney having little to nothing in terms of LGBTQ+ representation in children's animation. But the thing is, their relationship feels more properly paced in future episodes, but it's not the case here. So it's gonna have to be another B- in that regard.

(And seriously, don't ever leak episodes from a show, even if it's your favorite. Because not only does it ruin the experience for fans who want to support it the right way, but it also hurts the show itself. Because if people stop watching episodes, guess what? They'll stop making them. And nobody wants that.)

“The First Day”: Is it odd that I like an episode that's clearly not great? Because there's so much about "The First Day" that I enjoy. I like the entirety of the detention track and the fact that they're not typical troublemakers. I like the message about how it's unfair to force children to learn something they're not interested in because it's for a "better education." And I would frickin' take a bullet for Puddles. Unfortunately, this episode has some of the worst pacing in the series. Let's look at what this episode has to accomplish: It has to force Luz into a track and explain why it's a poor fit for her. It has to have Luz be interested in another track and get in trouble due to being too curious. It has to establish a connection between Luz and the detention track so they can have a heartbreaking third-act breakup. It has to set up, then introduce, a monster that will try to destroy Hexide. And finally, defeating the creature has to tie into why it's a good idea for students to mix tracks. That is a lot to do in under twenty-two minutes, and it makes the episode feels like it’s on fast foward at times. I'd say the solution would be to cut King's substitute teacher subplot (which only has value with one good joke), but that would only give "The First Day" a couple of extra seconds. So, really, the only way to "fix" the episode is to probably give it a few minutes by making it a forty-five-minute special. I'm sure fans wouldn't mind that. They love Luz and her journey enough that I'm sure they would be more than ok to see a more lengthy experience through the halls of Hexide. But that's not what we got, so it's gonna have to be a D+ episode. I don't hate it, but I don't blame others who do.

“Really Small Problems”: "Ugh, it's the cliche--" WE'VE! BEEN! OVER THIS! Does this episode have a cliche storyline? Yes. Is this pretty much the first filler episode of the series? Of course. But is it still entertaining? Without a doubt. There are great jokes, adorable moments with Luz and King's friendship, and little moments that I love. Like the fact that it was an accident that King shrunk Willow and Gus, and how Luz treated the situation calmly and rationally instead of blowing her stack. "Really Small Problems" may not be high up on my favorites list, but it's at least a fun B episode that was well worth a single viewing.

“Understanding Willow”: You wanna know what impresses me the most about The Owl House? The fact that Dana and her writers knew what the fans exactly want before they even started asking for it. The fans wanted to know what happened between Willow and Amity, and so the staff showed us. Fans wanted to see what Mr. and Mrs. Blight are really like, and the staff showed us. Fans wanted a Luz and Amity centric adventure, and the staff gave it to us. And because they've been working on the first season long before fan input started coming out, that means that we were going to get what we want before even having to ask. Most shows would save content in "Understanding Willow" for a second and even third season, so it amazes me that the writers waste no time in giving us the good stuff. Add that with a great "I'm sorry" speech from Amity, cute moments between her and Luz, Luz being an understanding friend, and Eda's bell dance, and you've got yourself an A+ of an episode.

As I said, I've already reviewed the last four episodes. But if you're interested in what I have to say, here are the condensed versions of my thoughts. Click the episode titles if you want to see the full review: 

“Enchanted Grom Fright”: Speaking of giving the fans what they want, the fans have been obsessed over Lumity damn near since the beginning, myself included. So now you're gonna give us a prom episode filled with flirting in the hallway, a dope dance sequence, and the reveal that Amity has a crush on Luz? All while showing more of Luz's relationship with her mother and the fear Luz has of telling Camila the truth?! Then consider this an A+ episode that might just be a crucial moment in Disney's history!

“Wing it Like Witches”: This is a fantastic episode. And no, it's not because of Amity's gay panic attacks towards Luz...ok, it's partially because of that. But it's also because this episode shows how far characters come developmental wise. Willow became more confident, and Amity is actually part of the group now. It all comes together when the most developed characters team up against one who'll most likely get little development. It's a solid A of an episode that always leaves me smiling when I watch it.

“Agony of a Witch”: Yup. The single image of Luz crying is still enough to tear me up inside. And man, what an episode. The tension, the drama, the REVEAL! Lilith admitting she cursed Eda still shocks me because it could not have been farther from what I expected. Especially given the sisterly bond that we've seen in past episodes. So yeah, this is another A+ for sure.

“Young Blood, Old Souls”: I've heard some people say that the season finale is underwhelming, and I think I know why? You see, this has what I like to call Infinity War to Endgame syndrome. Part one does a great job of setting up the tension and stakes, that part two seems to pale in comparison in an attempt to relieve some of that tension. Because since part one ended, people have been hyping themselves up for part two to be such an epic conclusion that it couldn't have completely lived up to the ridiculously high standards. It's the same reason why I never felt disappointed with either Avengers: Endgame or "Young Blood, Old Souls." I had high expectations, sure, but I also reminded myself that there is a chance that either might be unenjoyable. And guess what? I consider Avengers: Endgame an A+ movie and "Young Blood, Old Souls" an A+ episode. Is either story perfect? No, but here's the thing. I could list all the nitpicks I have, or I could keep my big mouth shut and just enjoy it for the parts that are perfect.

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And that's it! That's what I think about every single episode of The Owl House so far. As for my thoughts on the show itself, I think it's incredible. It has a nice balance of comedy and drama with specific episodes, has an intriguing story, and includes some of the best representation that Disney has had in decades. But that doesn't mean the show is perfect. Pacing can be a bit off at times, some B-plots are just unnecessary to pad out the time, and not every joke can land. But to be fair, this is season one. Dana Terrace and her crew have more than enough time to polish out the rough parts for what is hoped to be a better season two. And I still can’t to see what they have in store for us.

[sekoui]

@librarikay replied to your post “i can’t wait for yasmina’s season bc she’s genuinely the most...”

ah i just wonder. what relates you to her? i’ve seen someone mention how yasmina’s probably the least of the sana’s to get a lot of screen time so i’m curious! if you want to explain it of course

so there’s a few things i think i’d touch on when it comes to yasmina’s relatability, especially during s3 and despite lack of screen time sorry this got long 1. the way she answers/fields questions about her faith yasmina doesn’t carry this “i need to explain/defend islam” albatross with her at all times. the other sanas, in my opinion, seem oddly defensive often and that comes off like they always think they’re under attack. perhaps it was on purpose but it does rub me the wrong way and i think there’s a better way to approach questions, no matter how much they might be off putting to you, and yasmina captures that. during the scene where robbe asks about homosexuality and islam, yasmina doesn’t try to waste her time saying “islam thinks it’s fine” or “islam is about loving people” because the truth is, traditional islam is not accepting of homosexuality and most “major” abrahamic religions aren’t. what i liked about her answer was that she took what robbe said he believed in and tried to show him that it doesn’t matter what the fundamentals say, what matters is how you practice. her argument was that “evolution” doesn’t condone homosexuality as it doesn’t allow for reproduction, but people are gay and she supports them anyway because the fundamentals don’t dictate every decision she makes, the same way evolution wouldn’t dictate someone’s entire belief system and then afterwards, when she apologizes for her response in that moment. robbe asks her what islam says, again, and if there have been any updates. the sanas i’ve seen so far have kind of reiterated that islam says “what it’s always said,” that people are to be loved/respected/all are equal blah blah blah. yasmina on the other hand kind of rolls her eyes and smiles and shrugs. a very “who cares?” kind of answer because her islam is how she practices it. for me, this was the most relatable answer, not some cheesy cop-out answer that attempts to make islam look better than it is. i love my faith but i can acknowledge its flaws. 2. her very realistic, natural approach to the party scene i think the actress herself asked not to have yasmina in parties (?) but i’m not sure where i heard that. anyway, yasmina isn’t shown in party scenes often, especially when drinking is involved. i found myself often avoiding social situations with a lot of co-ed mixing or drinking, so to see her show up at a social event (the party early on in the season) and excuse herself before the party got bigger/more exciting seemed relatable. it just matched my own experiences, where i’d show up for a little bit and once the drinking started/got heavy, i’d leave. 3. her demeanor yasmina is navigating in a society where hijab is allowed in some places and not in others. so she is catering her identity to the rules but will also throw on a hoodie here or there at school. she embraces her faith in a way that fits for her. 4. the weed thing yasmina wasn’t involved with the weed thing because she was never at the party at the start. that to me was a major moment of relatability (i watched wtfock before og/skamfr etc. so i never realized it was her character that ended up with the drugs). she seems to be really mindful of where she is and how she interacts with people + what potential social situations could pressure her in ways she isn’t comfortable with. again, relatable! i didn’t smell weed until i was in college lmao 5. her friendships yasmina is authentic and warm and loving. when she’s confronted by amber, she doesn’t overly defend islam or arab culture/misconceptions, she kind of looks at amber like she’s the wild one for even thinking those things applied to her (ie the honor killing comment). her friendships with the girls are rich and genuine and not on this basis of “i need to show you that i’m like you,” and instead fits somewhere between genuine respect and understanding. it’s the same with robbe. her friendship with robbe is so real and soft and gentle. it’s understanding and respectful. they agree but they do so in a way that fits their personalities. when she sees he’s struggling with the entire sander situation (which, btw, i love that she was involved/in the know/there for him despite her friendship with britt. i believe other sanas were not?), she offered to do his part of the homework to help him out. she serves as someone who reminds him of things, gently and often (like with the stickers) without making robbe feel like an ass for forgetting. she really helped him out there and to me, that was such a powerful characteristic on her part. she’s also observant! the gift she gets moyo during the xmas exchange is so cute and sweet. 6. girl power in the party scene, when she’s leaving, she doesn’t shyly ask the boys to move or make space for her. aaron and moyo are given a look and the queen parts them like the read sea and moves through, then smiles at robbe on her way out. she is feminine and commanding (a lot like imane from skamfr tbh) and i love that about her. it makes her super relatable. she takes leadership head on. 7. she doesn’t sacrifice who she is just to “fit in” i mentioned this a little bit earlier but really, yasmina doesn’t have to cut out aspects of her muslim upbringing to be with everyone. she also doesn’t hold tightly to traditional aspects of islam that are outdated and frankly ignorant. she is friends with robbe for who he is and is affirming of who he is. she attends christmas parties and you don’t see this weird push/pull between her and belgian society the way you do with some of the other characters and their teachers. that was a writing choice that made yasmina feel more relatable to me, that she’s not constantly the target of something when the subtle shift between her hijab/non hijab moments are enough to comment on the push/pull between her muslim identity and her belgian identity. sorry this was probably longer than you expected sklnfslkfdn but i think that’s everything  

[mashkaroom]

This isn’t related to anything, but frozen 2 was actually...pretty good of a movie, and you can literally see the disney profit model holding it back. firstly, the music was really good -- i was really impressed with the writing team and with the vocal performances, especially by idina menzel. the songs that didn’t make it in because the plot was rearranged were also excellent. wrt to the visuals, i’m not the biggest fan of this specific animation style, but it’s clear it’s very well done -- i’ve no choice but to be impressed. the plot was whatever (also they fully put a couple of trolls in charge of the kindom for a bit -- is there no fucking line of succession in this goddamn kingdom?? maybe the plot of the movie should have been establishing a functional bureaucracy) and they really yada-yada-ed the magic system, which was basically of the central conceit of the movie so...why did they not put more effort into it? the explanation, such as it was, of the magic system was both confusing and ultimately pretty meaningless -- it added next to nothing of value to the lore or theme or worldbuilding. the themes were clearly meant for a more mature audience (which is i guess what you get for waiting 7 years to make a sequel [which btw just wrenched out a memory out of me that frozen 1 came up literally constantly in my 7th grade latin class -- i cannot emphasize enough how bizarre of an experience learning a dead language throughout the entirety of your teenage years along with 400 more of your cohort is]) -- but anyway, they establish all these themes and then don’t commit to them. Like, the central plot conflict of the movie is literally colonialism lmao. it’s such a strange place to discuss it. My suspicion is that they decided right away to go with a “connecting with mother” storyline, since the “women in the same family connecting with each other” bit worked so well in the first movie; then they were like “is this too basic?” and decided that they should wrap that into a “reckoning with ancestry” thread to cash into that “young leftist with white guilt” market. Then they had somebody on the writing staff who was like “what if we made this about colonialism?” So re: those elements, first of all the mother plotline is boring as shit. Like it doesn’t ring true even to losing a loved one early, but it especially rings soooo hollow wrt the actual relationship that is portrayed in the first movie between elsa and her parents. like we see the parents be so misguided it borders on abusive. and that’s a really interesting dynamic, story-wise, bc the parents are dead and can’t redeem themselves but the baggage they left behind is still there, so the burden of processing that falls exclusively on the daughters. i dare say this is something probably relatable to many of us, bc it’s my sense that most people grow up with pretty misguided parents! (lowkey i feel like the best parenting i’ve seen in my circle are parents who basically went off of vibes rather than idk a philosophy or whatever) i actually would have loved to see a children’s movie address dealing with parents in a nuanced way that isn’t just “one of us is right and the other is wrong” but rather addresses what responsibilities parents and children have to each other, how to navigate intent versus effect, what the value (or lack thereof) of forgiveness is, how to uncover your identity when your entire life was shaped by societal and parental expectations, etc. And the Frozen premise is ideally suited for this! Moreover, a lot of these beats actually DO happen in the movie! Into the unknown is basically elsa trying and failing to convince herself that she wants the life she has and any thoughts to the contrary should be dismissed (and it’s gay as hell, but we’ll get to that later). The climax of show yourself literally says that it was the truth about herself rather than her mother that will bring her peace. But all of these beats are facilitated supernaturally rather than by the very fitting preexisting character background, which makes it lack the satisfaction you’d expect in such a resolution. it never features any reckoning with what made her feel the way she did in the first place -- a projection of the mother’s face singing the climactic realization literally undercuts the entire plotline. like here you can see how basically being propaganda for the american lifestyle (in this case the nuclear family e.g.) undercuts their message. this predictably only gets more egregious when they attempt to tackle colonialism. so quick summary of this plotline: anna and elsa’s grandfather basically genocided an indigenous people -- the northuldra -- after tricking them into building a dam that stifles the power of the forest or something. also their mother was actually northuldra. also magic comes from the northuldra forest? it would probably be pretty problematic re: the magical native stereotype if it was clearer what was going on lmao. at the end, anna breaks the dam even though it’ll flood Arendelle; however, elsa (who was literally frozen because of the sins of the past) swoops in at the last moment and freezes the wave so it causes no damage. However, in an earlier version of the story, the wave actually DOES destroy Arendelle and then they rebuild it with a mix of Arendellian and Northuldran architectural styles. this version actually proposed a genuine vision for how to deal with the impacts of colonialism instead of the final movie where sisterly love absolves everyone of consequences. 

ok, so about the gay: i know people read a coming out into let it go, and maybe this is just cause i watched frozen 1 when i was still straight, but i didn’t really see it. but the lyrics in frozen 2 elsa’s songs match up so well with the coming out experience, i have difficulty imagining the song-writers weren’t aware of it, especially since people were already calling for elsa to be gay. Like let’s take a look at these songs -- into the unknown first. She sings

“Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls I've had my adventure, I don't need something new I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you”

This idea of having being afraid of ruining relationships even (and especially) with the people you love most by coming out is something that a lot of queer people can relate to. Then she sings:

“Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake? Or are you someone out there who's a little bit like me? Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be? Every day's a little harder as I feel your power grow Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go”

How much do i need to explain this? (like all my 7 followers are some form of queer anyway lol) But again this battle of trying to hide but knowing deep down that you can’t, longing for “someone a little bit like me” --  it’s classic queer. Then she sings a bridge-type thing:

“Are you out there? Do you know me? Can you feel me? Can you show me?”

I mean, again, what is this but longing for community. Then in the climactic song “show yourself”, she sings this:

“Something is familiar Like a dream, I can reach but not quite hold I can sense you there Like a friend I've always known”

this is literally just about reading stone butch blues.

The climactic lyric is  “You are the one you've been waiting for all your life” (sung to her rather than by her) and i mean again, this is about finally giving yourself permission to live as your true self. And not gonna lie, i dug that shit. it felt quite authentic. obviously they didn’t actually make her gay, bc of course, but she is gay in my heart!

Ok, so what would have made the movie live up to its full potential?

1) fixing that stuff i already said about the parents; it felt like such bs that anna and elsa were dealing with ancestral sins but also their parents were saints whose love fixed everything? how much more interesting would it have been if reckoning with their parents’ impacts on them led them to reckoning with the impacts of their entire ancestry and in turn their society? if reckoning with their personal responsibilities to each other led them to consider their society’s responsibility to fix the past wrongs that allowed it to flourish? this wouldn’t even be counter to disney’s individualism, but it allows for a slight reconceptualization of it that i think would feel fresh.

2) having actual consequences for the colonialism and genocide

3) either cutting all the new magic system stuff or developing it in a way that in turn helps develop the themes. frankly, the “sometimes people are born with magic” that was implied in movie one was enough.

4) making elsa gay, and i say this not just because i want gay characters but because that genuinely makes sense within the story

5) basically, the central theme should have been “i have all this baggage and i can’t resolve it by looking for answers only within my society; in order to be fully at peace with myself, i must work to right the wrongs of my society that obscured the different ways of knowledge that could help people like me; sometimes you must go into the unknown in order to understand the known” which is a message i think very well suited for the united states!

[crusherthedoctor]

The Lutrudis Hadeer Design Concept Masterpost

Every now and then, I get the occasional question about my very own Lutrudis, which I'm always gladly willing to answer. Yet for all the times I've answered such questions, it seems some folks are still a bit left in the dark as to how Trudy came to be. So I figured I could make one big post all about the creation process. Maybe not every single detail per say, but at least everything that I think is worth mentioning in a post of this sort.

I'm aware that fellow pal @benignmilitancy​ covered this subject herself recently, but I might as well do my part to back up what she said.

1. When did Lutrudis become an idea?

The basic idea for Lutrudis - and indeed, the setting of Viridonia and Beyond the Stars itself as a story - was thought up as early as 2014. When I say basic idea however, I really do mean it, as aside from the general concept of her being the latest Friend of the Week helping Sonic and Co fight evil on her home island, very little else about Trudy was set up, including her name and species. While some aspects of her personality were already set in stone by that point, I focused on the design first when I decided to go ahead and make her and Beyond the Stars a real thing. The idea being to use what personality traits I had in mind to create a mental image, then use that mental image to help figure out the rest of her traits, as a design can often help out with working out a personality.

So basically, I scratched my back, so that I could scratch it again. Made sense to me.

2. Why a horse? Is it because friendship is magic?

Maybe...

Actually, I wanted a species that hadn't been used before, at least in the games, its continuity being the one Beyond the Stars takes place in. But at the same time, I also wanted to go with a fairly mundane species rather than anything rare, extinct, or extravagant, as I felt that the latter would undermine the story arc that I had in mind for this particular character. Compared to the likes of Sonic, Shadow, or Blaze, Lutrudis is more akin to Amy in the sense that she's ordinary by comparison, despite her living conditions and the magical brand of ammo she eventually decides to use. To have the arc of a “normal” lady becoming a hero in her own right be represented by a T-rex or a dragon wouldn't really land the same impact in the context of this universe.

Already, I was quickly warming up to making her a horse because of this. But then I realised that many of Trudy's personality traits - her loyalty, her passion, her elegance - were ALSO commonly attributed to horses in real life. And if you're not aware, I'm a big fan of letting Sonic and Co have character tics representative of their species, and a horse in particular had plenty of potential to have some funny and cute moments by letting their horsiness show itself. This additional thought helped make my decision on the matter final.

...Well, that and I wanted Trudy to have longer hair than the average Sonic female due to how, IMO, short hair wouldn't work as well for her. Obviously horses have manes, so that made it easier to get away with than it would have if she were a hedgehog, though it also helps that Trudy's hair is never any more detailed than the rest of her, meaning her hair actually looks like her own rather than her wearing an overly detailed wig to appease a certain disgraced comic writer, one of whom I will probably have the entirety of Beyond the Stars uploaded by the time he actually does something with his echidna libido-fueled comic at this rate... Looking forward to it in 2030.

As for what kind of horse she is, I decided to go with an English Thoroughbred, if only to further justify Trudy's English accent, which is nonetheless fairly mild compared to everyone else in Viridonia, who sound as though they jumped out of a 90's Rareware title.

3. “THIS IS WHO I AM... But who am I?”

Believe it or not, but even by 2016, I still hadn't decided on what to call my little pony. I had already figured that whatever I was going to call her, it would abide by the same naming convention as Amy Rose, Miles Prower, and Ivo Robotnik, to help further add to the aforementioned notion that she's an ordinary lady who wasn't born with any superpowers. That, and because “___ the Horse” doesn't have the same ring to it as “___ the Hedgehog” or “___ the Echidna”.

So what did I do?

I looked up a list of female names for baby girls. Duh.

Well, it worked out, because I stumbled across “Lutrudis”, which was German for “strength of the village”. The more I repeated it in my head, the more it appealed to me. Sometimes, you can have various names that mean the same thing, yet one in particular will just have that perfect sound to it. That was me with this name. This horse being named Lutrudis felt right to me, even if I perfectly understood that it was perhaps a bit more exotic than your usual Sonic anthro name.

Not that it mattered too much, since I was quick to think of “Trudy” as a nickname for her, since in addition to being less of a mouthful, that name - also German in origin - had a similar meaning, “universal strength”. Fit her character and arc just as well.

So that was the first name sorted, but what about the surname? Well, when looking at a selection of appropriate words, I stumbled on “Hadeer”, and while the Arabic meaning of the name is slightly unclear - some sources say “adventurous”, others say “sound of the water falls” - I felt that the meanings associated with it were all equally appropriate regardless. Then I combined it with the first name, said the full name over and over again in my head, and thought “Yeah... this sounds correct.”

I realise the irony of a part-German, part-Arabic name being associated with an English character, but considering this is the same universe where a man who is presumably not Polish is given a Polish term for a name (Robotnik), I think we can let it slide.

4. “You guys know what EDS is, right?”

It's no secret that another friend of mine, @greenyvertekins​, has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which has a lot of unfortunate complications to it, but in laymen's terms basically means your body is more fragile than that of the average person's. This condition is rather rare, so much so that a majority of people have never heard of it. Sure enough, I was one of those people, until I became friends with Verte.

After hearing Verte talk about her EDS and what she's had to go through, along with doing my own research on the condition, not only was I considerably more informed on it, but I also felt very sympathetic to not only my friend, but everyone else who has had to experience it, particularly with how ignorant other people continue to react to it due to lack of public awareness. It made me want to do something in dedication, and in the process, a certain pony eventually crossed my mind.

This wasn't done for the sake of appeasing blue checkmarks on Twitter. I genuinely wanted to help raise awareness of EDS however I could, and I considered that perhaps its inclusion in my story would help do that, so long as it didn't sacrifice everything else about the story or forget that it was still a Sonic the Hedgehog story. Yes, it's a fanfic, and thus not as well known as a Hollywood blockbuster or a bestselling novel, but if even a few people were to end up learning about EDS through Lutrudis, I would be happy.

However, I was well aware that the idea of a Sonic character having EDS might be seen as a bit jarring, and if done badly, could potentially be accidentally insulting. So I made sure to consult Verte about it, saying that I would only go through with it if she was comfortable with me doing so, and made it very clear that I would try to make its representation as tasteful and as faithful as I can, despite the inherent nature of the Sonic universe that Trudy is part of.

By the way, horses in real life can fall victim to very similar disorders, so that was yet another reason why I went with that choice.

5. “Hey Benign, I'm shite at art, please help.”

I can't remember the exact conversation that led to it, but after I talked to @benignmilitancy​ about Lutrudis, she offered to bring the character's design to life through her mad art skillz. Initially I was hesitant to take up the offer, since I felt guilty about having to rely on someone else to show people what my own character looks like, but I was giddily honored by the offer and decided to agree as long as she was willing. Luckily for her, she wasn't working with a blank canvas so to speak, as I had a relatively complete image in my mind regarding what Trudy would look like, having already reasoned to myself why this or that would apply.

When putting my vision into words to Benign, I mentioned that...

- Since Trudy is the same age as Rouge, logically that should mean she's given a similar mature build as the latter, as opposed to the pipe limbs you see with the other female characters. Since Trudy spends a lot of time with Amy and Cream and has a lot of motherly interactions with the latter in particular, it helps signify that she's older than them.

- Being a horse, she would have two slits for nostrils rather than the usual dot nose that most characters have. Similarly, though you don't see them most of the time anyway, her feet are grey hooves, but they abide by the usual Sonic-style feet rather than being more realistic ala Clove's hooves, if only because the latter didn't look right for this character IMO.

- To add to her gentle warmth, her eyes would be a honey shade of brown. Just like how Cream has brown eyes. Again, it's like poetry, they sort of, they rhyme. Every stanza kinda rhymes with the last one. *shrug* Hopefully it'll work.

- Since EDS tends to apply several subtle physical traits to those who have it, at least some of them should logically apply to Trudy as well. Those with EDS often have a bluish-grey tint to their sclera, and they also tend to have paler skin than most, so Trudy would have those qualities too.

- To emphasize her love for Mother Nature and all its amazing sights, and also to contrast with Amy and Cream's colour schemes, Trudy herself would be green, albeit a more gentler green rather than the brighter tones of Vector and Jet, while her clothes would be blue, with slightly different shades depending on the clothing to prevent her from looking like a drab curtain. After a few initial sketches, Benign eventually suggested that some of her clothing could be changed to brown to balance out her overall colour scheme, as well as to further add to the subtle nature motif by having brown (trees) go along with blue (water) and green (grass). Needless to say, I wholeheartedly approved of this idea, and decided that the best placement for the brown sections would be for her leggings and glove cuffs.

- Speaking of, as a nod to her equine status, she would wear leggings that could pass off as Equestrian jodhpurs. (Not that she has an aversion to wearing skirts or dresses, since she's girly and tomboyish in pretty much equal measures, compared to how Sonic females usually lean towards one or the other.)

- People with EDS are unable to wear heels since they can hurt their feet, so heels were out of the equation for this little horsie. But I also figured that regular shoes or sandals wouldn't mesh well with the rest of Trudy's clothing, so I went with boots that were flat at the heels. They can allude to her adventurous streak AND allude to how there's a lady willing to kick ass behind that quiet, mellow, introverted demeanour. Plus, much like how being stomped by a real horse's hoof would be very painful to put it mildly, so too would being stomped by this horse's boot.

- Seeing how Trudy's arms have permanent scars on them - permanent scars being another common effect of EDS - she would wear elbow-length gloves over them, since she wouldn't be comfortable with showing them publicly. Note however that she would still wear long gloves even if she didn't have those scars, since they genuinely happen to appeal to her fashion tastes as well. Covering the scars up is just a bonus. And since long gloves are often associated with royalty and high class, they're also suiting for a lady who lives in a fancy castle (despite not being royalty).

- Her hair is kept in a big bouncy ponytail, not unlike Coco Bandicoot or Shantae, since it's both cute and tomboyish... that and because the visual pun of a horse with a ponytail was too good to resist, let alone it humorously mirroring the general shape of her actual tail.

- To contrast with Sonic's spiky quills, a lot of Trudy's design is emphasized to have a round quality, such as her tail, her ponytail, and her sloped ears. To add to this design philosophy, she would wear a headscarf similar to Wave's. Me and Benign contemplated on whether Trudy's muzzle should be more blocky like that of a real horse, before we agreed that the softer muzzle fit both the round aesthetic and her general character better.

- Trudy has trouble breathing in colder temperatures, and she also has a sensitive nose that reacts strongly to heavy scents. As such, she would have a bandanna that she could cover over her mouth and nose to help out with either of those things whenever the situation called for it, or any other scenario where she deems it appropriate. It helps that a bandanna suits a horse anthro anyway.

Truth be told, I was worried that I was coming off as too demanding. But Benign assured me that giving all these details helped rather than hindered. In any case, I was more than pleased with the final result, as it was precisely spot on to what I had in my head, although even her initial sketches during the work in progress were great stuff.

6. If Amy uses a hammer, then Lutrudis uses...

Trudy has surprising arm and leg strength despite her appearance, which is mainly due to her horsie genes. But since she's still got EDS, it's still wise for her to equip herself with a weapon or two to even the odds. I contemplated a few ideas in this case, including a quarterstaff, but ultimately I decided that the following would be a little more interesting, while still remaining appropriate for the character in question.

I thought to myself “What's stopping her from having two weapons, one for short-range, the other for long-range?” I decided on the long-range weapon first: bow and arrows, the latter of which would eventually include the Ethereal Zone-powered crystals inside the cavern below her castle. Goes without saying that a bow suits her elegance and how it can be used from a stealthy distance, and the use of the crystals and their different abilities also helps to keep the reader guessing on what exactly is the nature of the elusive Ethereal Zone itself. I also reasoned that Trudy using a bow was a nice contrast to Amy's hammer, although I'm aware that Amy herself used a bow in the Fleetway comics. But no one uses a bow in the games (yet), so it's fine, right?

As for her short-range weapon, I thought it'd be funny if she had a whip that resembled a riding crop. Not only would it be used to give Eggman's robots the Simon Belmont treatment, it could also extend up to a certain distance to help grapple onto things and allow her to overcome areas that would otherwise cause complications for her body. Is it a bit ludicrous? Maybe, but so is a blue hedgehog fighting a Roosevelt lookalike. You just kind of have to live with it.

So there you have it! Everything you need to know about how Lutrudis Hadeer's name, species, design, and EDS came to be finalised. Now when you turn her into a monkey without my knowledge or permission for the sake of dunking on her because you don't approve of me making fun of Kingdom Hearts rejects, at least you'll have a better idea on what you're actually talking about. :^)

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Yama no Susume, Season 1

It can be hard to accurately judge short anime sometimes. The difference between what can be accomplished in 24-minute episodes, 12-minute episodes, 6-minute episodes and 3-minute episodes is so extraordinary that it’s unfair to hold one to another’s standards. But because most anime are 24-minute episodes, you tend to have far less context for judging the quality of shows shorter episode lengths. I have not seen very many short anime, least of all anime with episodes as short as the first season of Yama no Susume. So I don’t really have much to compare it against at its level. All I can do it take it on its own terms and appreciate what it gives me. And on that level, I’m glad to say that I really enjoyed this show. At three minutes an episode, there’s only so much it can get done, but it makes each and every one of those minutes count. If this is the quality I can look forward to when the following seasons trade up for 12 minutes an episode, I think I’m gonna be in very good hands.

The story follows Aoi and Hinata, childhood friends back in elementary school who separated for a few years before finding each other again in high school. Hinata’s big into mountain climbing, and her dad used to take her and Aoi on hikes back when they were kids. In typical cute girls fashion, they made a promise that someday, they would climb a mountain together by themselves. But then Aoi broke her leg by falling off a tall place, leaving her with an intense fear of heights and turning her into a much more introverted person. Now, she’s big into solo activities like cooking and crafts, things she can enjoy on her own without having to risk the mortifying ordeal of social interaction. But Hinata hasn’t forgotten their promise for a second. She’s gonna take Aoi mountain climbing even if she has to drag her along to do it. And despite Aoi’s protestations, she can’t help but enjoy getting swept up in her friend’s passion all over again.

Thus, the stage is set for cute comedy and wholesome bonding moments, and Yama no Susue has them aplenty. You can tell the writers did their research on mountain climbing; there’s a lot of detailed information on what equipment the characters use, what you can expect from different mountains, all the considerations that go in to embarking upon a hike. But the information never gets too dense that it overwhelms the characters. Aoi and Hinata have fantastic chemistry, and it was around episode 4 that I realized I was once again watching Yuka Iguchi play a shy girl who’s best friends with a more energetic, playful doofus. And then I realized that the show’s ED is near identical to the ED from the Symphogear OVAs, and god dammit I don’t care how much of an easy mark I am. That said, Aoi’s a more sarcastic character than Miku, and the way her banter with Hinata naturally segues from bickering to one-upsmanship to comfy companionship is endlessly charming. The whole show feels very much like a precursor to Yuru Camp, balancing character-driven gags with a genuine love for outdoor activities. You feel like you’re learning how you could enjoy mountain climbing by watching Aoi and Hinata go about it. I should also shout out the production from 8-Bit, because they do such a good job selling the moments of beautiful whimsy and snappy goofs alike. This is a damn good-looking show no matter what angle you look at it from.

But I think the real heart of this show is how it handles Aoi’s social anxiety. As a socially awkward introvert myself, I’ve seen too many shows that make alone time out to be some crippling social defect that needs to be “fixed” rather than a natural part of human interaction (looking at you, Uzaki-chan). But Yama no Susume never shames Aoi for her alone-time activities. It’s totally cool that she’s in to cooking and arts and crafts. Her journey isn’t about leaving introversion behind, it’s about learning to be more comfortable in social situations. And it’s really sweet watching her slowly break out of her shell. For such short episodes, the show packs a lot of character development into the cracks. You can actually feel Aoi become more comfortable talking to other people as the show goes on, each new experience adding new confidence to her soft-spoken voice. By the time it’s over, you can’t help but feel proud at the progress she’s made. And that’s from less than an hour of show. That, folks, is talent.

So while I’m still waiting to really fall in love with Yama no Susume, it’s definitely made a very strong first impression. I love the characters, I like the comedy, I appreciate learning about mountain climbing, and it just puts me in a very good mood. Therefore, I give the first season a score of:

7/10

And now to look forward to what future seasons will bring. See you next time!