#Which it also is but there are fucking layers and idk how to deal w/ it tbh

[everythingwasnormalhere]

…don’t mind me :D

STYLE: 🌺🌷🌲🌳

BUNNY: 🌵🪴🌱🌻

SHIP OF YOUR CHOICE: 💮🍄

Please don’t feel pressured to answer these all, but have fun answering what you choose to!

Style:

🌺- Have they have any comforting or happy stories around their disabilities?

YES ACTUALLY<3 ok so, this is kinda spoilery but also really fucking cute so :3 when kyle got his feeding tube, it included a 1-2 weeks long hospital stay. He was super insecure about it, also worsening his already bad relationship with his scars, which made his mental state pretty fucking shitty... Stan stayed at his since he was let out because he's a codependent bastard, and at one point kyle broke down and told him about what was wrong, and our lovely staniel just. Told him he still found him beautiful and that he was glad Kyle was there and a bunch of super sweet stuff that made kyle feel so much better about himself<33 idk man they're so cute (also im writing the fic that includes this lmao)

🌷- How does being disabled imapct their love life? For example does it impact their date nights, activities they can and can't do as a couple, ect.

First, going to restaurants is a No. Unless they have been previously deemed Safe by Kyle, they will Not have dates there (because they can't know whether a restaurant's food will or not trigger an episode as they haven't made it themselves and all). Also Stan's whole depressive episodes make going out harder, because whenever it's a Bad episode he won't even leave the house so like... but they still manage :)

🌲- How do they accommodate eachother? Do they have a routine that helps with this? Do they do this consciously or subconsciously?

I WILL NEVER NOT TALK ABOUT STAN BEING THE FIRST PERSON WHO KNOWS KYLE'S SAFE FOODS !!! This is something he does almost subconsciously but he will not make anything Kyle has trouble eating, and even when they were younger he remembered to bring to school something Kyle could eat (orange juice usually) just in case his mom packed stuff he had trouble with. Kyle meanwhile knows all the signs Stan is falling back into an episode, and he's slowly learnt the ways to pull him out of it before it gets bad :)

🌳- What would happen if they were to break up and/or loose eachother for any reason? How would this impact any party involved, would this trigger their disability?

Stan is So codependent he'd probably not survive without Kyle. Ever. Like, he tries not to make it obvious because he doesn't wanna trap Kyle in an unhealthy relationship, but he's so bad at dealing with Kylelessness he literally couldn't survive by himself. Kyle too but Maybe not to that level because my boy has a permanent layer of mild dissociation that would maybe protect him from the breakup ;w; (but like, they're both codependent as fuck, they're not breaking up ever 😭)

Bunny:

🌵- If they were to have a date that incorporated their disability what would this be like?

When he's having a bad day, Kenny usually can't even leave his bed (and less home), so as stubborn he is he lets Butters pick their plans for the day because he's so much better at accomodating Kenny than Kenny himself 😭 Usually their dates those days will be cuddling in bed/the couch and watching a movie, playing videogames, reading comics... depends on what they wanna do tbh, but they both like those dates a lot :) Also, honestly all their dates incorporate Butters' sensory issues in some way, either him wearing his headphones when they go to loud places (arcade or the movies) or making the TV quieter and dimmer, they incorporate their disabilities in pretty much everything they do even though they never mention it XD <3

🪴- If they plan on having a family how does being disabled effect this and their decision? Alternatively do they plan on having pets, of so how does being disabled impact their collective decision?

First, SHADOW !!!! Well, she wasn't really in their plans originally... she was more like a "yup she's coming with us alright" kinda split decision, and Lemon and Kafka were just an extra XD But they would've gotten pets either way, Butters is the biggest animal lover and Kenny is close to that position too lmao<3 About having children, this was a harder thing because Kenny wanted to be a foster parent, but realistically they wouldnt be able to care for that many children :( in the end though, they adopted a girl and they aren't the best parents but they're pretty great<3 (this happens in their 30s tho XD)

🌱- If the ship were to get married how would their wedding accommodate their disabilities? Alternatively what would their house/appartment/whatever accommodate them?

"No Ken, we are Not getting a house with stairs" -Butters Stotch (he's learnt after their old appartment, Kenny+stairs aren't the best convo 😭) - Their wedding didn't have that many accomodations, quieter music and not that many people invited (Butters' parents had coming in Forbidden. btw.), not that much but they had a great time still :)

🌻- Do they ever have to deal with ableism in regards to their relationship? How do they deal with it?

Short answer: yes 😭

Sadly, they get ableism both ways ;-; Kenny is the one who's most visibly disabled out of them, so Butters gets a shit ton of "you are sooo inspirational for dealing with this, i could never" (insert confused Butters noises, he doesn't get tf they mean by that 😭) and "are you Sure you want to live with That your whole life?" (yes he does he loves kenny with his whole life fuck off 😔✨), and also obviously a bunch of assholes talking to Butters instead of Kenny whenever he's pushing his wheelchair (insert butters being nonverbal atm so Kenny's the one who gotta do the talking 💀). The opposite way too, mainly the times when Butters is having meltdowns - for example, once they were at a party and Butters got really overwhelmed, and instead of helping a lot of people told Kenny horrible things I'm not repeating, and even though Butters was mid-meltdown he still remembered all that stuff and Kenny had to reassure him so much as soon as they got home :(

Ship of my choice:

💮- If one of the characters in the ship are having a bad disability day how long does it take the other(s) to pick up on the fact that they're struggling? Are they good at picking up on the signs, if not, is there a point that they do notice without being told?

You're getting another bunny answer because they're my beautiful boys<33

Butters picks it up pretty soon, but whether he mentions it or not is another story. When they were in school, in case Kenny didn't skip Butters would not say anything until they got home or at least they were alone, instead sending Kenny disapproving looks every time he lied about why he looked so tired TwT then when Kenny started using aids, Butters (and pretty much anyone who knew him) could tell in what lvl of pain he was in depending on what he was using :3

Kenny has a bit more trouble telling, as a teen he usually had So Much stuff in his head so he couldn't catch the signs (as much as he cares, noticing your friend is having a bad day while you yourself are running on 5 energy drinks and 2 hours of sleep isn't the easiest task 😭), which meant Butters usually had to let him know in some way - tugging at his sleeve most times, as he struggles with speaking on bad days. If Butters didn't do that though, Kenny figured out by seeing how he looked much more anxious and was looking around all the time, and he'd make sure to keep him safe and stay with him till they could get home. As adults, Butters had the whole "being out of a dangerous environment means PTSD gets Bad" era, and it was a lot easier to tell as during bad days he didn't wanna leave their room at all, which most times caused Kenny to stay there too till Butters felt ready to go outside<3

🍄- Free question!: If one of the characters disabilities is a progressive disability how do they plan their future? Does this impact their relationship as a whole?

Aaaand another one for bunny cuz I'm not shutting up about them ever (srsly i need help 💀)

This wasn't something they discussed much, Butters was aware Kenny was getting progressively worse because he's good at noticing that stuff, but it wasn't until they got older (40s-50s) that they had a "it Is getting That Bad" moment. Kenny hadn't been dying for a Long while, so he had no idea what was wrong with him this time till he (finally) went to the doctors - basically, huge spoiler ahead lmao, his deaths had just been speeding up an already existing chronic pain condition, so he probably wouldn't have had the whole dying pains thing if he hadn't had that condition in the first place. This whole thing Fucked Him Up, he hid it from Butters for as long as he could, he would lock himself in his room for days on end, he didn't know how to deal with knowing there was no way to stop it besides permadeath :( as soon as Butters knew, he comforted Kenny, because his worth didn't depend on the stuff he could or couldnt do and his love wasn't affected by Kenny's disability at all (🙌!!), and they did their best to get used to the whole thing and manage it, together<3

[feralkwe]

Character asks: for Thancred, 25 and 8. And 25 for Elidibus as well.

yay! i love doing these! you've poked the stick in the great places here! this got very long, lol, so under a cut it goes!

thancred. my pathetic wet cat. my try-hard disaster bab. my unexpected third leg of my ot3.

8. what's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

i can't think of any trend that i see that really irritates me, though part of that may be the corners of fandom i have tucked myself into. he has a lot of layers that i was too stubborn to acknowledge until well into the better part of shb, and i think sometimes fandom isn't forgiving enough after his growth arc, but honestly i'm really not too fussed because i think he skates through on hot white boy appeal in fandom at large. i think it's possible to appreciate where he started, where he wound up, and how he got there without excusing his many mistakes, but i also think it's important to talk about how he worked through it. so that's my answer: i think fandom is either too easy on him or too hard on him with no room for nuance. i keep saying i'm going to write an essay, but idk if thancred needs me to defend him. maybe someday i'll go feral and do it anyway.

25. what was your first impression of this character? how about now?

god i cannot stress enough how much i gave absolutely zero shits about him when i first met him. even given what happens with lahabrea, i wasn't really moved. he screamed 'bland white-haired jrpg protagonist' to me and i only cared because for some reason which wasn't clear to me until i read the short stories, minfilia gave a lot of shits about him, actually. and i adore her. i didn't care about his angst in hw, though he grew more personality and by the end of sb i at least went from indifferent to 'fine, i guess he's here, too'. then, like many people, i spent a good deal of shb utterly pissed off at him until it became obvious to me that he was, despite what i think a lot of people believe, trying his best while drowning in an ocean of trauma with almost no tools to handle it. by this time i'd read his short story content, and understood the context better. i was very ride or die for urianger from arr on, and yamisnuffles teased me that he 'comes with a husband' and i was determined to refuse. i couldn't tell you the exact moment, but sometime around going to the moon i suddenly gave a shit enough to select him as the scion who visits you in your suite at the baldesion annex. and, well, fuck off. i discovered i cared a lot, actually.

now i have a pathetic wet cat in my ot3. i affectionately call the eden raids 'kit's family camping trip'.

same question for elidibus. my ultimate angry murder and get murdered husband.

i have to start by saying that the ascians as villains compel me more than almost any villains in any media i've ever consumed. even accounting for recency bias, they utterly fascinate me, and i don't know if i've ever been so moved by villain motivations. the unsundered specifically strike me as so tragic that it makes me feral. even lahabrea, who i really find difficult to like. but that's retrospect after the entire arc of their part in ffxiv. after lahabrea and nabriales, elidibus came in with a different approach, and that intrigued me. of course i had no idea the larger role he'd play later, but the way he attempted to stand on a moral high ground really hit some buttons. again, i was really into urianger from the get-go, and their apparent partnership gave me a lot of OH NOES to latch onto. i think elidibus is the character that allowed me to really give emet-selch consideration beyond 'my bestie loves him' because he gave me an inclination that there was more to the ascians than had been revealed so far.

he piqued my interest, then enraged me because of ardbert, but the more i learned about his past along the way the more invested i became. the shb patches slowly killed me, and by the end of seat of sacrifice i was sobbing for him. he's just a little guy fighting for the all but forgotten souls of his people. he was pivotal in saving the world, driven to madness by it, and in the end, all alone as the last of the unsundered. yet there are characters within the narrative who lie about him and his motivations. i'm choking up a bit right now thinking about it.

suffice to say pandaemonium rewired my dna and entire brain. by the end of it i was devastated and so in love with him as a character it's almost embarrassing. he was kind, thoughtful, and gave of himself wholly to what he believed in. his connection to wol is so beautifully bookended by it, and the ways he winds himself with them throughout the entirety of the game just hits every character button i have. the very tragic wol/elidibus ship with kit wrote itself in my head from the moment you drop into elpis. i spent a lot of time wondering how he got from the careful man we meet to zodiark and beyond, which is what compelled me to write to the edge (and back again). now i kill him at least three times a week. it's fine. i'm fine. i'm very normal about the unsundered, and most normal about elidibus.

thanks for the asks! what a delight to get to talk about these guys!

[tordenvejr]

Hello Vic! How are you doing? 🫰🏼

I need a little help from you - I do not think I have ocd, but I do obsess over washing hands and keeping things hygenic. Tidy? No, my house is always messy, but I wash my hands toooooo often to the point where if strong hand creams didn’t exist I would have shed several skin layers by now 😀 My immediate problem rn is that i am on a vacation with my family - even worse, I am sharing a room w my parents - and let me tell you, their lack of hygiene just get on my nerves. My mom has definitely noticed I struggle w this and it’s kinda easier to voice my anxiety over hygiene with her. My dad on the other hand has no idea and isn’t the most open minded person, I doubt he has even heard that some people struggle w stuff like this. I can ignore some stuff but when after 3 days of being here I hear my dad ask my mom which one was the soap (my mom had lots of other products on counter) I knew I wanted to pass away ! My mom asked “you haven’t washed your hands yet?” Don’t think he even replied which I am afraid means that yeah he hasn’t. Sounds so comical and ridiculous but it is really bothering me.

Thing is, before, I lived w them for 18 years and nothing happened, never occurred to me they wouldn’t even wash hands considering I was tought basic hygiene. So I wish I could just switch my brain to that state but can I.

Idk how I do not lose my mind. I do not think that something bad will happen if I don’t follow these hand washing obsession BUT it just irks me to know somebody is so unhygienic let alone someone who doesn’t wash their hands for so long 🥲🥲🥲 even if I didn’t have this problem it’s natural to be upset about my dad being ultra white person. So idk how to 1. Deal with people I am sharing the room with not being as hygienic as me 2. One of them not even following basic hygiene (would have been better if I had spoken up the 1st time I found out abt this- but I hate confrontation, especially with family I guess)

Vacation ends in 10 days but knowing they have touched my phone and my belongings and that I cannot just exist in a sterile world or in a world aWay from them does not make me happy. I know I have to address the root cause of hand washing obsession but this is the situation I am dealing w atm. So idk how to remain calm, ignore this, because voicing my anxiety and asking them to follow basic hygiene just seems ridiculous. :(

Sorry for such a long text 🫠

hi 🌟 i'm doing good, but i've been sleeping so fucking shit the past days i feel like a little snail around the house zzz

assuming you don't have ocd (you can look into the pure o subtype and reflect a bit over the cycle of obsession > anxiety > compulsion > relief > obsession. sometimes it isn't the belief of something bad happening it can also be an intense discomfort or a "sense" of something being off/wrong/not right); if it's a general annoyance and discomfort of lack of hygiene, keep your belonging on you, get a mini hand sanitizer if you can from a kiosk or store, air out, store your food away from theirs in the fridge and try to handle it yourself. it's up to you if you want to/are ready to express this discomfort/boundary with them, but it isn't ridiculous or unfounded. it's quite a fair request of the people you're in near proximity to, to exercise regular hygiene, such as washing their hands - and you aren't responsible for their reactions, though i understand you will be around them. i hope the next days will be better for you!

[coyoxxtl]

Link's character in BOTW and TOTK is interesting since he's honestly the first time we get much of a sense of Link's actual personality since Wind Waker and the implications in Twilight Princess, since he's never really been able to emote or communicate directly, but in this game, we can infer a LOT from both ludonarrative story (there are some actions Link CAN'T perform, which means that he is willing to do the things he CAN do, given context or motivation) and what the gameplay encourages him to do, and his lines.

So this presents us with a Link who is under a huge amount of stress, but when he's not stressed, he's just a delightfully horrendous goblin. He constantly messes with people, phrases things in odd ways in a whimsical way ("I am he"), deliberately screwing with people for no reason, entirely willing to set himself on fire in the middle of Death Mountain to see what happens when you use a potion this way, and can be very impatient and irritable, but also strangely savvy about the sort of gameplay he has to deal with and being annoyed about fetch quests or no one just helping him when asked.

i was actually surprised when it was stated in game that he is from a noble family and is an ACTUAL knight, because the gameplay, close relationship with the Zora, Gorons and Koroks gave me the assumption that he was actually raised by gorons, spent a lot of time among the koroks and was childhood friends with Mipha, and I think his backstory is vague enough so that this COULD still be true, he was simply adopted into a noble family once it was confirmed he was the incarnation of the Hero, which is one reason he's unhappy and uncomfortable in Hylian high society until Zelda warms up to him

fr i find this Link so fun. people harp on his “emotionlessness” and ig his stone face is only a little jarring in significant cutscenes but i always figured any Lack of reaction is because we’re meant to project onto him. that’s Link’s whole point as a playable protag anyway. so i never really thought abt it like that lol

in totk there was a convo with a girl in hateno and idk how it went exactly but she was like “i cant let you love me you must stay away” and he was like “but i cant stay away!” and u can make him say it like three times after she says no like, what a dork who is this guy. and we Know he’s fucking around because we’re fucking around, it’s fun i love him.

i was surprised by him being a knight bc i don’t recall a Link being a royal knight in other versions. like he’s mostly been a young man, or actual kid, from the backwoods who becomes the Hero as a call to fated action. this Link was like, almost always expected to be that, and w him being Zeldas personal knight it gave their relationship another layer. It’s more intimate than other versions.

Goron raised Link gives a great mental vision though, can explain why he can eat rocks.

[wellnesscard]

apparently mine and my across the hall neighbors heating is linked for our apartments its a 4 unit building and were the two downstairs ones. but she keeps calling our landlord to have him check up or remind us this because she is complaining how hot her apartment is, she and the landlord are apparently convinced we keep our windows open and this is making it drafty so the heat works overtime so her apartment overheats or something? anyways we appeased them again last night and went around making extra sure our windows are closed (it has been -4 all week -20 with windchill theyre not fucking have been opened bro). i like it cold so keep the thermostat at 69 or 70 and some of our windows are only single paned glass so like it is drafty its an old building and we didnt plastic wrap them this winter BUT consider regulating the temperature of your own unit by opening a window instead of going a middle man way to tell us to close ours which never opened?? she also called to tattle on us over the summer (while we were staying at the jobsite an hour away) about a piece of dog poop in the yard that wasnt even from our dog. every house on this block has at least one dog and they really dgaf about picking up after them so like it gets nasty yes however youre in your 30s just knock on our door if u think somethings up we live 3ft away from each other why do i keep getting texts from the landlord about this trivial shitttt. we picked the poopy up anyways btw bc apparently were more mature as perma-wasted 20something dickheads than live laugh love doormat lady. idk im siiick of people acting like that like unwilling to just have normal confrontations as people living in the same building. our upstairs neighbors used to always move our laundry out of the dryer if it was there and done when they wanted to do laundry which weirded me out so i asked them the next time i saw them if they could just knock on my door n ill deal with it and they were like yeah sure. simple as! never happened again! i may be socially retarded but at least im direct and recognize pointless bureaucracy and bullshit. idk im mad now im thinking abt other instances where people make things so many more layers deep than they have to like. this is why we have fucking issues wtfyd if ur living close quarters to people n cant even communicate to them. bruh like freshman year of college in the dorms apparently i kept this girl up all night bc i was having a vodka and chappie and candy night w my friend in my room so she was really pissed at me in the morning. i thought we were quiet enough that she was fine cos she did knock on my door at like midnight but apparently not so i was like shit man im sorry if id known u were still awake i wouldve quieted down more or gone to the basement or something i had no idea u were still kept up. so i wrote all my contact info on a note and slid it under her door so she could contact me in the future w/o having to like get up and knock on my door then she was just going around telling people how "passive aggressive" i was for that???? what the hell

[snuurge]

abt the demons now ‼️‼️‼️ they have colors assigned to them so I'll go in rainbow order. basically every part of a demon is their specific color(s), from their blood and guts to their hair and eyes

black & white: Ayin (she/her) is the leader and creator of Hell. she's the monarch, the queen, whatever you wanna call her. she's basically like a parental figure to the 7 princes, having brought them to hell and given them new forms (that's why they're all like. paper white when most fallen angels are at least a LITTLE tan)

red: Leviathan (he/him) has a Jirai Kei type personality. He acts sweet but has quite the explosive temper and is very bitter and possessive. His layer of hell is constantly under construction because he never thinks it's good enough and constantly changes his ideas. he has an eel tail, fins for ears, gills, and the inside of his mouth resembles a lamprey mouth with rows of sharp teeth

orange: Satan (he/him) is a mamas boy with a temper (think riddle rosehearts). hes got fox ears n antlers and like three tails that look like lion tails but he won't say what they actually are? bros got a grudge against humanity and angels so his layer is pretty empty. it looks like a warzone littered w broken spears n shit. oh yeah and his teeth r like cat teeth

yellow: Lucifer (he/him) my boy .. he's a fucking frat bro. I'm sorry chat but he's a frat bro. he egosurfs online and constantly bitches that he hasn't won the hell prince popularity poll a single time. he would use "ore-sama" as a personal pronoun if he spoke Japanese. he has shark teeth, horns that curve like uhh. a straight line then a curve then a straight line then a point . it's supposed to look vaguely like a halo. and that along with his multiple wings show that bro is actually very insecure abt the fact he's no longer an angel.

green: Mammon (he/him), the most normal out of them (that's not saying much). he's a businessman who has actually made a deal with god that his sin won't tempt any angels because he doesn't want any fallen in his domain (which is run like a business). bro calls the shots for most of hell's business stuff like building and such. he has ferret ears and a snow leopard tail and short horns that barely poke out of his hair. he has cute little fangs 💖

blue: Asmodeus (he/him) is actually the nicest of the princes but. don't trust him bro. don't. don't do it. he used to date Raphael when he was an angel and never got over him and now he's. hes really fucked up idk how to explain it. he has a scorpion tail (his venom is an aphrodisiac. don't touch him) and a single horn. he has cute fangs too but they're very dull.

purple: Belphegor (he/him), the one who keeps winning the popularity poll by "Luigi wins by doing nothing" rules. he doesn't even rule his own layer it's a democracy. he is chronically fatigued and his muscles are atrophied so he's very weak and can't walk very far. good thing bro prefers playing video games over doing anything else ‼️‼️ yes he's a gamer. he has ram horns and ears but a snake tail and sharp fangs. and venom sacs. his venom is like the boomslang's (look it up please it's so silly)

pink: Beelzebub (he/him) is um. he's. he's eaten other demons before and he will do it again. he's simultaneously manipulative and completely delusional AND childish and brutal . he wants to eat Lucifer's wings. he has goat ears, horns, n eyes and a pig tail, and he also has shark teeth. he gets bored of stuff really quickly and just tosses it aside, but if you decide to try and take what he's gotten rid of even if it's in perfect condition he will get PISSY.

i wanna infodump abt some of my ideas on how angels and god exist and stuff so . this will be expanded on later w the tag "hell of a heaven" or "Luce's bible lore" so wahoo

God uses They/Them pronouns, and We/Us as personal pronouns. They are, of course, the creator of mankind, but They mostly take a backseat. They always intended for mankind to learn of "sin" and "guilt", but Their reasoning as to why is unknown.

angels, having bathed in God's light, are all brown or black. melanin havers even 💖 they can have non-bird traits, but that's uncommon. an angel's halo is white, but a sign of Falling is if the halo is dimming.

fallen angels have paler skin than angels, and it gets paler the longer a fallen spends in hell. they typically have broken, dark halos.

[gayness-and-mayhem]

Just so you all know I am now in love with Kate Duchêne and I regret nothing.

[shiningclown69]

Also replying to @winxdclub about that post

Its v fun to read and reply but also IM SO SORRY that this has led to so much spam 💀😭 Hopefully you don't feel obligated to respond to everything. Ok, now i can respond

Yeah, I am begging for the writers to let Riven NOT be the cause of every single problem. Helia is totally prone to make mistakes on his own, pushing most of the blame to Riven is such a cop-out. Esp when the lesson should be that mistakes don't define Helia's worth as a person at all. If Riven does screw up, let him be apologetic!!! He has shown he has the capability to apologise!!!

Also yessss it would make more sense that the rumour be that Helia was a prodigy who screwed up and left RF. It adds to that layer of mystery Helia has and makes it more rewarding when the rest of the guys grow to trust him

Helia: Maybe Brandon should be leader since he's the ONLY one who hasn't tried to put Riven in a chokehold at least once.

Timmy: But I haven't?

Helia: You would if you could.

I'm sorry to make you hopeful for S6, it WILL be disappointing. But hey, new characters mean new reworks from Rus haha wink wink

Oooo the idea that Brandon's struggle is not rly seen bc of the subtlety of is interesting, tho I wonder abt the logistics of it working in a episodic setting. Istg all these sound v prime for a specialists fanfic or rewrite haha

Yeah Brandon is probably an outlier when it comes to reacting to fuck ups. Tho, I don't think there's much opportunities we see that if i rmb correctly. Only times I can think abt is S4 when mitzi kissed him and he just awkwardly walked away from the argument, some moments from S6 when he confronts Stella, and him apologising solemnly when he breaks up w stella in the comics. And maybe the funniest moment: Him washing dishes when he hasn't resolved things with Stella yet, and there is an unecessary amt of awkward tension. For DISHES.

Brandon bias <3 <3 How he ends up being sexy haha funny man with this kind of backstory + the most serious way of dealing with conflict is a mystery to me.

Hmm I did consider that Erendor prob wouldn't like Sky being friends with Brandon. The only justification I came up with is that (if this info i saw from the magazine canon) Brandon's parents are close to Erendor/Samara, as their advisor/handmaiden respectively. I don't think they respect their courtesans much, but that connection might have given Brandon some leeway to be friends with Sky.

My hc before I knew his family info was q similar to your idea I think? That Brandon was the son of Erendor's longtime bodyguard. The fact that his father could easily train him + similar age + accessible and "acceptable" to let near Sky would prob make Brandon a good candidate

ALSO YES we need to acknowledge more than Nabu was prob left alone with his servants and guards!!! I feel he defo snuck out alot, which is why he learnt invisibility spells and changed his name. Might also explain why he has a tendency to babble sometimes abt things he's interested in (getting trapped in a cage is NOT a good time to talk abt music my man), mans prob happy to be around ppl his age who are willing to hold a conversation with him.

Ok i should have elaborated more. Brandon IS a child soldier, but I was imagining the duration that he's been put under this job. 15 is a good range but I hc he might have started younger at around 10-12? Idk maybe this has smth to do with the S6 thing i mentioned Brandon keeps mentioning "since we were kids" as if it feels rly long ago

Also I didn't know where to put this but I looked back at the S2E14. Brandon going "I've been here before" when the gang are inside Yoshinoya's prison cell?? Brandon what??? Are you ok????? I don't like that implication!!

I think Sky should defend Brandon more. Yknow, as a treat, for both of them.

[nebulaleaf]

day six of playing royal... or more like the 6th time i’ve opened the game lol.

madarame broke down yadda yadda makoto’s following us who cares about plot im just gonna list out the random things i took note of

-MEMENTOS HAS DIFFERENT MUSIC? I HEARD THIS WAS A THING BUT WOW. IT’S... WEIRD. the new track is nice but it doesn’t feel... fitting. it feels kinda unfinished. maybe it’s one of those tracks that get more layers as you go on? idk. the vibes feel way more aggressive and ominious than the regular mementos track -DARTS. BILLARDS. YES YES YES YES. KICHIOJI IS SO COOL AND FUN I LOVE ALL THE SHOPS AND NEW SHIT. AND JAZZ JIN! LET ME SEE . AKECHI. IM SO CLOSE TO MEETING HIM AUAUAUAUUGUHUH -makoto follows you way more in royal. i like that it’s funny -falling in love w/ ryuji again. he’s so sweet and excited to hang around akira it makes me so [various squishy custom emotes i use on discord] -the clean up event. i love the mini scenes with the thieves... ann impressing other students with her know-how; ryuji trying to do the right thing, akira getting vagued right in front of his salad, haru and mishima interacting. super cute! maruki’s little stint was also amusing. -s so we met kasumi in full finally. and i am......... so upset genuinely kasumi seems like a cool character with mildly interesting traits and vibes. she’s sweet about apologizing and thanking akira, kinda funny, excited to teach about gymnastics and other things, but GOOD LORD ITS SO HARD TO LIKE HER WITH THE GAMES WRITING / PUSHING HER IN YOUR FACE CONSTANTLY. JUST PICK ONE THING TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD ABOUT HER . OR FIND IMPRESSIVE. YOU JUST NEED ONE. EVERY TIME YOU ADD ANOTHER I GET LESS HOOKED. like. my jaw hit the floor when she FUCKING SUMMERSAULTED OFF OF A BENCH AND LEAPED IN THE AIR TO CATCH A. BALLOON??????????????????????? I KNOW YOU NEED TO PUT FRONT AND CENTER THAT SHE’S A GOOD GYMNAST BUT . JESUS CHRIST. THAT WAS NOT NECESSARY. i love all the p5 girls but kasumi is so unbearable with all the shilling around her. She’s So Quirky UwU. sharing your umbrella... hiding behind akira’s back... not wanting to be treated specially....all the rumors about how ooooh she’s so perfect and so cool and how the game at that moment wants you to feel bad like she has it rough. being put on a pedestal and outcasted like that does suck i won’t lie. but ohhh the scene just feels so tasteless for her to complain about it while akira, ceo of bad rumors, is just sitting there. and like, none of these scenes are Her fault, it’s just the bad writing regarding trying to shove her into a story that HAS NO ROOM FOR HER !! its just. she feels so cookie cutter. quirky athletic girl who’s different. i bet she has a comically large appetite too. i bet we’re gonna take her out somewhere and shes gonna eat like triple the amount that akira does and the game is gonna make a big deal out of it and i’m gonna hate it. i swear to god i’m trying to keep an open mind and like her but every time i start to think “you know? she’s not so bad!” the game pulls something that makes me want to punt her into a game that has room for her to breathe. and it’s only going to get worse! on the cusp of the kaneshiro arc is when the thieves character arcs start to get cramped and . idk when kasumi becomes a thief but i assume its closer to endgame (probably sae’s palace i bet. im gonna bet on that because it’s the worst fucking palace for her to join in on so ofc that’s the one she’ll join on) which is going to muddle it even worse. at least she has 3rd sem to get her development since... i assume that’s going to relate to her heavily due to both being royal’s poster child. but it just puts a bad taste in my mouth. im sure the other thieves will get some development in 3rd sem also but i just man i don’t trust this shit at least strikers adds onto the arcs nicely.

[wishful-soda]

OKAY GIRL I REEMPHASISE: THE CHAPTER WAS PERFECT

Obviously don’t answer this too soon re: spoilers

my overall thought is that it PERFECTLY showed the progression in how they feel/think about each other without being too explicit like you just subtly showed it in actions/words and that’s what made it SO chefs kiss my GOD

my quick summary is to share the 3 moments where i went from smiling so wide while reading to jaw dropped on the floor:

1. you’re harder to hate than you think you are- DID HE RLY JUST ADMIT THAT TO HER imo that’s one step from him admitting to himself he loves her like my GOD

2. CHRISTIAN HORNER. TEAM PRINCIPAL. Ma’am i CACKLED i cannot BELIEVE u did this it’s the best thing to ever happen to me i SWEAR

3. Alright there’s a new purpose now…. THEY WAY HE JUST CHANGED THE TONE SUCCESSFULLY AND MADE IT SIGNIFICANT I DIED. how did you successfully craft this transition it was too perfect

THOSE ARE MY ABSOLUTE FAVE MOMENTS

Other thoughts are:

THE FACT CHARLES WAS LIKE OH I KNOW WHO WILL MAKE HER FEEL BETTER like. 6 months ago people would have made them avoid each other to not get more pissed off but NOW they’re so damn OBVIOUS (i mean charles knows they’re fucking but to know they will bring each other a better MOOD is just SO MUCH SKSKSKS)

I know we saw the ~more obsessed with her than i am~ line in the WIP game but it still hit. SO. hard.

i laughed out loud at “that they’re a shit couple and no one thinks they’re good together” and max’s response was so max like i could HEAR it in his voice

i also snorted at daniel “it’s pretty big” at the hickey…. cocky son of a bitch… actually just that whole scene is cocky son of a bitch… and i LOVED IT esp w the whole backwards hat image going on

daniel is literally INCAPABLE of paying attention to anything but charles hands and movements like this is a NEW level of jealousy…. i wish him good luck in the coming chapters sksksks. But it hurts my physically the way he just loses all anger when she smiles at him like JESUS he is in so deep he’s gotta admit that to himself (more on this later but he pretty much has admitted it he just hasn’t SAID it to himself he is SO close to figuring it out and i for one can’t wait)

AND MAX FINALLY USED HIS EYES AND FINALLY REALISED DANIEL IS ATTRACTED TO HER!!! good on ya max :)

trying not to over comment here but i love every bit of it jsyk why i can’t stop

ok we carry on:

“you don’t need to remind me that you hate me” :(((((((((((( i cry

the WAY they’re just. chatting in the alleyway just HOLDING each other. and they’re gonna tell me they’re not in love? IDIOTS I HATE THEM I LOVE THEM

THEY TRUST EACH OTHER. that’s a HUGE deal maam i love that u included that 😭😭😭😭😭

using the blow job idea for a reassurance thing…… absolute GENIUS my GOD it was perfection

“angry rough and manly revenge fyck” IS THE FUNNIEST LINE EVER daniel laughing and giving up is so in character i love them.

THE INTERLACING FINGERS MOTIF STRIKES AGAIN AND IT HITS EVERY TIME

and lastly he ADMITTED he is trying to get her to like him…. which is admitting basically that he already likes her (not just doesn’t hate her) ITS RLY HAPPENING HERE!!! and i DIED my heart was POUNDING at this moment

ANYWAYS, final thoughts:

the way she was using their enemy start as a barrier and now he took down the first layer (their meeting) there are LESS REASONS TO NOT BE IN LOVE NOW!!!! you are perfectly stripping down the layers of the walls between them until it will be undeniable for them and that’s why you’re the best fic author on this site! i said what i said!


thanks for another AMAZING chapter i cannot WAIT for more!!!!! you are BEYOND appreciated i hope you know that 🥹😭🤘🏼

GIRL.

Okay listen; I fucked around with the moment where he pivots the purpose of the moment for SO LONG and I literally was so anxious about it, like I felt it was too...idk meh. So when you tell me that I pulled it off? STOP I'LL CRY 😭

Also I love that you mentioned Max's response to Daniel's "They're a shit couple" comment because I stg I HEARD Max's voice in my head as I wrote that, like his laugh and the way he says 'mate', it was literally just an audio in my brain so so I'm so glad that it came across the way I was hearing it.

AND YES. Max finally opened his damn eyes. I feel like Daniel doesn't even realize how obvious he's being now, he thinks he's still playing it lowkey and that he's got everyone fooled and in reality the only person he's got fooled is himself 😏

Listen I've come to grips that girly pop just expresses lots of her emotions with blowjobs ok? She's all about that 🙇‍♀️

ALSO; when he breaks and starts laughing and gives up, omg I felt like it was so Daniel so I love that you caught that too!

Y'all are gonna get tired and fed up with the hold holding I swear because I'm obsessed with it.

"the way she was using their enemy start as a barrier and now he took down the first layer (their meeting) there are LESS REASONS TO NOT BE IN LOVE NOW!!!!" BESTIE YOU'VE GOT IT NAILED. Homegirl knows that as soon as there's no more reasons to hate him she's going to fall HARD and she's flipping the fuck out.

THANK YOU SO MUCH BBY!!! I seriously look forward to your thoughts and comments every time I post and get super stoked when I see you in my notifications. I LOVE YOU AND APPRECIATE YOU MORE THAN YOU KNOW 😭😘😘🥰🥰

[rigelmejo]

Also. I think dmbj is faster for me to read in chinese. Yes, even when I look every fucking word up.

You have no idea how godawfully slow I read the official English translation, when I don't like writing/etc choices it's like pulling my feet thru steel trying to continue. I remember that like 150 page English translation took me a month. And I was reading it daily. -.-;

Book 2 in official English translation took me like 2 weeks and I did nothing but Try to read it when I wasn't working :/

Shout out to Merebear Translations, who's done the later untranslated books, and who's translations are such a smoother easier read, and is now translating the old books 1-6 and again... merebears translations are just much easier to read.

The Chinese I think partly reads faster for me than the official English translation, because the work done of changing phrases/words/casual speech to an English equivalent I don't need. I know what these basic things are when I read them in chinese already. So reading them in rhe official translation was like an extra step that gave room for awkwardness in reading maybe. I know that's bound to be an issue in any translation. But with dmbjs really simple direct writing style, the more that changes the more layers get Added. (Versus lets say modu where edanglarstranslarions is translating already very complex descriptive language so it feels equivalent to read as far as sentence pacing/complexity of phrasing in descriptions etc). Idk... I haven't read the English versions in forever. They just did not vibe w me. I only got thru 2 ;-; only part I remember was xiaoge as old man Zhang gushing over wu xie in book 2 and proving to me he is a sociable sweetie pie who wanted to compiment wu xie and try to make a friend/connection (and apparently has some alternate identities he uses) which was just lol such a fun scene showing his less cool quiet mysterious side and showing wu xies judgy side as he shit talked old man Zhang mentally nonstop lol. Other than that I remember... very little of the English versions, safe maybe wu xie waxing poetic on Zhang qilings fingers. But now with my current chinese read it... doesnr seem as Intense of a deal as it felt in English send.

Tldr thank fuck these are easier to read now

My phones almost dead I could just. Go read my chinese print copies. -.-;

Also maybe? It's because the novels are wu xies pov??? In chinese his pov feels to the point and like the wu xie I expect. In English he feels just a bit to the left of himself... just like he does in some of the dramas where they sort of goody-too-shoes-ify him into a bit more than he acts/thinks. Idk those English translations are Not fresh in my head. I do think from the first 2 chapters I read of dmbj book 1 that merebear has translated tho, merebears version reads much closer to how I pictured these chapters when reading in chinese.

[maschotch]

in that case, favorite emily eps (including the ones where shes in red :p) that dont have to deal with racism/homophobia? im on minimal loss rn - i think she really shines in cases with kids and the way she reacts to people getting physical with her makes so much more sense with her lauren backstory instead of having been in the midwest bureau offices.

hmm its kinda hard to list fav fav emily eps… you’ve already seen a lot of them lol (including minimal loss what a fucking iconic episode). i just think every episode is a good emily episode aksjdhfgl idk i’ll just try to list the ones to avoid and the ones to definitely watch bc idk how many eps you were planning on watching

4x09 is a great emily episode—i love her relationship w jordan and this ep (and the one before it) definitely delivers

4x10 don’t watch lmao its just cop stuff and nothing funny even happens :/

4x13 one of the more problematic cm episodes but with a great hotch/emily interrogation scene that i love

4x14 another problematic ep. idek what to tell you to avoid specifically bc i don’t ever watch it

4x17 a blessing and a curse because it is a good emily episode but also a lot of the things you mentioned not liking about her become very relevant. and religion episodes are always annoying it does add another layer to her backstory tho which sorta shifts ur perspective a little

4x20 i mean its criminal minds the whole fucking thing is ableist but this one especially

4x21 definitely some copaganda moments but they’re so dramatically overdone it feels like a parody. worth the watch but be warned

5x01/5x02 very very fun emily moments in these episodes like ik they’re supposed to be ab hotch but she really just takes the spotlight for me

5x07 ugh. i guess this is technically a good emily episode i just dont like it personally

5x11 great emily episode. hit by a truck

5x16, 5x17, 5x18 aren’t technically emily centric episode but they’re good eps and i like emily in them lol so its an emily ep for me

5x19 avoid this one.

ah.. it really is hard to figure out what to suggest/avoid. it’d help if you gave specific things you don’t want to see, especially for s6 bc there are a lot of amazing emily centric episodes but they all have to do with her past.

[rosewinelonging]

mm thinkin bout projohn. i know its not ur cup of tea but its just fun to think about, sburb is the thing that matures john- much too fast and when he wasnt at an age ready for it. it was a force of nature, something he could not at all understand or ask questions about beyond what he was told.

bro gives him the same maturity, but with a layer of humanity. john is a lot more like jane than anyone recognizes, he puts a wall between himself and what greatly effects him- he just doesnt break it like jane does.

with bro, john gets that humanity- though also cruel and harsh john knows its a purrson, and can accept what is given much easier,

bro is a systematic purrson, he keeps everything in a specific corner of his mind and refuses to let it down- like dirk. but john as a breath player, changes the flow of things. bro never wants to settle down, he wants to keep going and with someone who both goes with and changes the flow at will- it puts that control in jeopardy- possibly relating to a... ehem "dominance issue" that puts him both in control and out of it. johns no pushover, he wants what's right and he will scheme to get it. bro- even as a aplinter of dirk- misjudges such action.

anyeewayz sorry for the ramble and thanks 4 ur thyme, '^u^

mannn i like brojohn i think ive made a few posts abt them but yea i dont talk as much since i wasnt sure if my followers liked it lol

BUT YES!!! holy shit anon i loveeee thinking abt things like this and doin all analysis like with dynamics and god u hit every mark

honestly ive been thinkin abt john a lot these past couple days. hes a passive player who causes so much change even to those who dont realize it. he goes alongs with things bc he doesnt have the time to think abt stuff and bc of this his outward expression to ppl is. hes easy! hes simple and he listens bc thats whats expected of him, he doesnt have the chance to say no to anything though thats not the reality

as an heir of breath, freedom is his whole deal. he naturally falls into the into the inability to be tied down and in the future as things progress AFTER he begins to process things is when he starts doing things his way, a surprise to people around him who thought him simply passive [ie. refusing to give vriska the ring, beating caliborn up, etc etc]

and combined with the fact of, as you said, the wall of forced repression it very much leads a lot of people, specifically people who pride themselves on 'manipulation' or just crave dominance by understanding others, to misunderstand him severely. which is very VERY good. its such a thing i love with characters and the dynamic possibilities are endless

which is why i rlly like john paired with characters like bro [or even vriska, condy, etc THOSE types of characters] cause you get that misunderstanding and struggle of power. and yes he would misjudge johns actions or intentions which honestly can be funny as fuck

im less confident abt my uhhh perception? i guess of. all striders really i have a version in my mind but idk how close to canon it really is but for me i see bro as a more extreme version of dirk. he would set everything up in his head and it WILL go the way he thinks it will. views the world as more um i guess the best way to explain is in boxes. everything has a set purpose and he compartmentalizes things so it all works in a well oiled machine

so when it comes to john- they would meet, forces him into maturity in anyway you can imagine, and of course this isnt some mystical force from the universe. its a person which WOULD make things easier to understand leading to less passivity once he gets his thoughts together. OR you could say bro had already formed an opinion on john by observing his actions with say like dave! or possibly even rose since she the one he listens to most w/o question

either way it comes to a point that john is likely to fight back or act in a way that goes against the predetermined expectations. john would let him do whatever he wants before suddenly turning around and deciding. he doesnt want to do something and so he simply will not. its a complete toss up that will leave bro stumbling

of course at this point i want to point out that this is what makes dirkjohn fundamentally different from brojohn. dirk and john are on pretty equal footing bc of age which makes the expected power struggle an either-or situation where it could go both ways

while bro has a much larger advantage bc of age [assuming john is 13 - 16] and general appearance [sorry. short john propaganda i cant see him as anything over 5'5 lol]

so naturally bro would still get that control but it means nothing with the fundamental misunderstanding of john. its like he would take simple actions to the extreme [believing he has planned things out when it was really spur of the moment] or any scheming he does as not planned bc he wouldnt get WHY he would that and bc he doesnt understand why he would do something it means he wouldnt have done it

but yea anon you managed to hit exactly why i like thinking abt them. i love love love the idea of their relationship being built on bro just. not understanding how john works. which i explore a lot in royalty au's lol its fun to do court scheming and political drama

bros playing 3d chess while johns playing checkers

ummmm so yea! i like john a whole lot hes one of my favorites to think abt an brojohn less bc of the ship an more bc of that specific flavor i get from it

WAIT! ok before i forget. the only thing ive really been thinking abt these past couple days is john with women vs john with men. essentially boils down to if a woman asked he would be on his knees in an instant. you say jump he asks how high etc etc hed act out enough to get attention but not really to destablize the power dynamic

but he just absolutely refuses to willingly sub for a man. or if he does it doesnt end like he wants it to. so the only way to get him to submit is by harsh force and even then hes a brat till the end. takes pleasure in making bros life just that much harder

ok anyway back to ending notes. yea i like them! i like pretty much any m/m ship as long as johns in it LOL like if youre worried abt me not bein into something remember this:

any girl with any other girl? yes. im literally in the middle of making a doc of every dynamic between all human and troll girls whether they have a canon one or not

any girl with any guy? this is a toss up. if i like / post a lot abt the girl in the ship then yea id prob like it. i dont mind any of the human guys. i dont care for any of the troll guys. well. i like eridan most times, hes fun and im an aquarius and tavros in certain moods.

any guy with any guy? if one of them is john the answer is probably yes. hes my little darling and he surpasses gender. my Only issue with june is that i dont like the name change bc i cant get used to it lol but basically theres no difference in my mind with them when it comes to gender fuckery. an also i switch genitals based on mood so i guess thats something but yea i love him lots esp when it comes to stuff like this where u analyze his character <3

despite my content. i Would say that john is my unanimous favorite character

ALSO im literally writing a long fic where brojohn is the main focus lol well that and davejohn but he literally only gets sex scenes w bro sooooo

but yea go ahead an ramble in my askbox i rlly enjoy it cause i get to ramble back <33

[happikattwuzheere]

was gonna try and do multiple characters in one post but nope! i have too much to say. also the pictures are all different sizes so its rly hard to get the photoset to look appealing, so we’re starting w/ blue. and also a colored pic of what adam looks like when he’s not a deer. boy’s tryin not to stand out. which goes great up for him right up until it doesn’t. lmao. i’ll talk a bit about him too w/ stuff that didnt get mentioned in the starter post about him and gansey, but this is mostly gonna be about blue. 

SO. 

there’s this fey entity, right? i don’t have a name for them, but they’re not...they didnt START the fey/human conflict, but they are benefiting from it, politically speaking? and when maura was younger, despite other witches being like “girl dont choose sides, we’re witches, we guard boundaries but we don’t choose sides,” was hotheaded and brash and went “ok but fuck that though” and one thing led to another and she ended up getting a curse on her firstborn. Oops. that’s where the kissing curse comes from, here; i’ll get into that much later in a text post probably but gansey’s survivor’s guilt thing doesnt come from him actually dying in this au it’s from something Else, but blue will still kill him if she kisses him, just, for different reasons, it’s an actual curse this time and not something to do with the nature of who they both are. 

her father’s still a tree light, but like, she actually knows that from the outset? because. they live in cabeswater. the tree lights are all around and accept her as one of their own even if she can’t turn into a tree, and as a result of that, she’s got some cool perks. 

a) extremely resistant and/or outright immune to a Lot of fey bullshit 

b) still boosts psychic energies and magical powers like in canon

c) the absolute safest person to be traveling in cabeswater ever, because the forest itself loves her, and also if you mess with her within the borders of cabeswater a bunch of tree lights will physically manifest and be like “hey buddy wanna think twice about that”

but she can’t use magic herself, still, which actually works in the favor of herself and the coven--witchcraft is in a sort of weird spot, culturally, where it’s both feared and often hated, but also understood to at times be necessary, especially by rural peoples like those of the village. im taking a very discworld spin on the witchcraft, because i love discworld and you can’t stop me, and so the attitude is, like. its frightening ancient magic and the church hates it but when there’s an emergency and someone’s on the border between life and death, or something is trying to pass into this world from another, etc etc etc, then you gotta suck it up and call on a witch because they’re the only ones who can deal with those things. so. the coven is tolerated, both because it’s too big and powerful to actually fight but also because it’s extremely needed when you live in a village right next door to fey lands. you NEED someone watching the border. however that doesn’t mean anyone wants to be seen publicly talking to a witch--but blue’s not a witch. she’s a witch’s daughter, but she’s not a witch herself, which is a step removed enough that she can go into town and run errands and also people will maybe pull her discretely aside and tell her if something’s coming up that the coven should know about, and it all works very neatly with her acting as a sort of liaison. very important role she plays, which is why gansey tries talking to her after his initial attempt to speak with the coven directly fails. 

speaking of the coven itself: i’ve been calling it the fox way coven, even tho it probably wouldn’t be called that because there’s no road called fox way that the coven is built on, it’s a big magic house out in the fairy forest, BUT they do have a fox theme because i love foxes and this is a gift i have been given. if people have familiars in this coven, they’re foxes rather than cats, because as wonderful as cats are u cant have them and foxes in the same house that will go bad. but also there’s a v small number of them, like maybe three or four total out of the much higher number of women living there, who are fey blooded like adam, but who become foxes rather than adam’s deer. persephone is one of these! (it’s worth noting the reason why they become the same animal is because of a combination of coincidence, intentional theming, and mostly just because like, virtually all of the residents there aside from persephone are related to either maura or calla) 

anyway the point is, because of this, blue’d seen enough feyblood transformations that when, one day when she was 9 or 10, on a visit to town, she saw the most distressed, disoriented fawn wobbling around frantically and was able to very quickly recognize that that was, in fact, a person who had probably turned into a deer for the first time, and responded by very calmly informing him that she knew who could help and leading him home. this is where those last two pictures come from, and how adam’s apprenticeship started. 

like, there was a lot of arguing from the witches immediately--of course we’re going to teach him how to become human again but we aren’t really going to take him on in the coven are we? he’s a boy, he’s some local kid we know nothing about, what happened to keeping it in the family, he’s the wrong animal and we’ve got a whole thing going on--at which point persephone parted everyone like the red sea, took one look at adam, went “mine now” and despite a lot of grumbling that was the end of it. she took him on a bit of a tour of cabeswater a few days later, after he’d had time to think it over, and he felt so drawn to the forest that he agreed to the apprenticeship.

so he’s technically persephone’s apprentice but like in actual practice he’s being taught by the entire coven lmao, ANYWAY

adam being adam also had a backup plan for trying to get out of the village--even at ten he figured witchcraft might be a first way out of there, he was already thinking about it, but by thirteen when the good ole abuse started (and at which point the last whispers of dissent died out very quickly amongst the coven, nope, adam is one of us now, do you want us to very threateningly hang out in your front yard sometime because we can do that--what do you mean no, let us do this,) he was also like. i dont think this is a guarantee of getting out of here i need a second job. and the thing is, as was mentioned in the original post, the fey blood also means adam’s got issues with iron; it’ll poison him if he’s stabbed with it but it also reacts to his skin touching it like a hot stove. he’s fine if there’s a layer between his skin and the iron, but if he touches it directly, it’s Bad. so ofc this headstrong idiot takes an open spot a t a metalworker’s in the village because adam is the king of making bad decisions. the witches have a betting pool on how long it’ll take him to out himself. “its fine i’ll wear gloves,” he says. “it’s the perfect disguise no one will expect someone with fey connections to work near so much iron,” he says. “i have everything perfectly under control,” he says.

anyway he totally forgets to wear gloves before grabbing an iron tool while his dad and his boss are both in the store and in clear view of him and that’s why he was getting chased by hunters when gansey rescued him 

also he and blue tried dating when they were like 13-14 and it ended about as badly as in canon and they made up later and by the time the story starts they’ve settled into very much being weird siblings. adam starts hanging out with gansey initially to try and basically spy on him, figure out why he’s here, but ends up rly liking the guy and deciding his reasons are sincerely to try and help people, and he tells this to blue who starts immediately accusing him of having a crush on the lordling and being a class traitor, because she does NOT like gansey at this point and really the nobility all prefer wizards to witches which is a stupid idiot decision and frankly the fact that this lordling is apparently enamored by some random deer is hilarious to her, but even moreso is the fact that adam actually defends the lordling to her, like, “wow adam its hilarious that the lordling’s friend thinks that you have charmed the lordling because from my perspective it looks the other way around” “shut uuuup you’re not listening im serious, like, yeah ok he put his foot in his mouth really hard when he talked to you but im telling you i dont think the whole i-wanna-understand thing is an act” “idk if i can trust you through those rose tinted glasses buddy. tell me again about that time he called you princely?” “oh my god” 

this is turning into rambling but. thats the gist of the witches and blue esp thank u for coming if u made it this far here’s a bonus persephone fox 

[tfw-no-tennis]

animorphs!!!

ok I read animorphs when I was 10 or 11 I think? and I only read it once, along w/the spinoffs and stuff, and I've always meant to revisit it...SO HERE I AM....

and oh MAN I forgot how good this series is. like I knew it was good but some things from your childhood don't hold up yknow? especially books aimed at younger audiences

but oh boy does animorphs hold up. they're easy to read and perfectly balance the line between dark/adult topics and more kid-friendly lessons. excellent 

so yeah I'm loving it so far. I forgot how fast some stuff happens lmao, like I forgot that tobias gets trapped as a bird in the FIRST BOOK 

also I just adore how realistically disorganized/confused the animorphs are. like, they got the elevator pitch version of the conflict from elfangor before my mans got eaten, and also they're middle schoolers. of course they’re always just like ‘wtf do we even do’ 

so like...their plans mostly don't work. and even when planning they run into tons of logistical issues w/morphing, traveling, communicating etc. 

and I love how they clearly need to maintain their normal lives as well in order not to raise any suspicion 

and I like the little details like them not spending all their time together at school because they didn’t before so that would be suspicious

oh man and I love the different family dynamics in the series. you have jake, whose family seems pretty normal until we find out that tom is a controller, and rachel, whose parents are divorced, and who has to deal w/the complications of that. and then cassie, who is an only child (I like that we have a mix, with rachel and jake having siblings), and of course marco...

iirc marco was one of my favs (if not my fav, but its hard to choose) back in the day, and I forgot how reluctant he was to participate in the animorphs thing...and the fact that he was about to quit the team and then runs into visser 1.....

another fucked up little moment I liked - when they morphed dolphin and marco had to morph back to human bc he gets injured and he was like ‘I cant swim, and my mom drowned, I don't want to die like she did’ I was like oooof

also on that topic I adore how little the animorphs know about how anything works. like they once wondered if there's a limit to how many morphs they can acquire and they were basically like ‘idk guess we’ll find out’ 

and then when marco got injured as a dolphin and they were like ‘morph back I guess and hopefully you'll be okay?’ like damn luckily that worked 

basically these books do The Most Excellent Job showing that these are just kids. like they're literally in jr high which is 90s speak for middle school....they're like 13???? at most???

and the narrative reflects that perfectly!! all of them, even rachel who is pretty much the most gung-ho about fighting and stuff, have nightmares and all these terrible experiences bc they don't have basically any guidance 

and even with ax, it’s immediately obvious that he’s also just a kid, even though he’s this deadly alien....

also oh mannnn I love so much how we’re introduced to the andalites as this heroic race and how that slowly changes over the course of the story 

like, when elfangor introduces himself as ‘prince’ you assume he’s part of the andalite monarchy - but later we find out that ‘prince’ is a military rank, and the andalites are a lot more militaristic than we would assume at the beginning 

its so fantastic how it starts off as a fairly black and white conflict of andalites = good guy aliens and yeerks = bad guy aliens

and you even have some background stuff going on w/the taxxons being controllers by choice, and the hork-bajir being enslaved 

but as the story goes on, all of those lines get blurred in different ways...

also ooof the poor hork-bajir. I always felt so bad for them. it’s crazy that even in the first book, the animorphs are killing their enemies - at least I inferred that in book 1, but it becomes way more overt later on...the tough situation of them knowing that the hork-bajir are unwilling hosts but that they’re so dangerous that not killing them could be fatal to the good guys

and ngl this time around I have a lot more sympathy for the yeerks, even tho they don't really deserve it (at least in the early parts of the story where I am rn)

like...they're just these blind helpless slug creatures, but they're also fully sentient and intelligent? like, that's so fucked up. imagine yourself as you are now, but you're just a sensory deprived slug swimming in a pool. that's pretty fucked. and then the fact that the yeerks are biologically made to be parasites...its kinda no wonder that they ended up the way they are (and it also makes stuff like the yeerk peace movement really compelling)

also wow I kinda forgot about all the body horror w/the morphing. like ik that's one of the things that animorphs is known for but like. I forgot how much it happens and how creative the horrifying descriptions are. I love it

and omfg so when I first read this series the ellimist stuff confused me a lot bc I didn't read the books That closely (I mostly wanted to see what would happen next) but I loooove time travel bullshit so I’m really enjoying it so far

even tho tbh I think even if I had paid more attention as a 10 yr old I still would've been confused bc the ellimist stuff is kinda just inherently confusing lmao 

ok and I just love the characters,,,I love that the books switch perspectives, and KAA did such a masterful job of portraying differing and realistic reactions to their situation....like, all the animorphs react so differently to their circumstances, but their reactions are all so grounded in realism and also their personalities 

like man I love rachel. she was one of my favs as a kid too bc I always loved female characters and she was just so cool. and she still is, and so excellently written too 

liiiike the fact that even though she’s so tough and brave, she’s still a kid and has plenty of moments when she’s scared or uncertain...

and I just really like the fact that she out of all of them is the one who’s tough and loves to fight...and the fact that she also unapologetically loves shopping and stuff like that...its about the multifaced characters

just like how marco is the ‘funny guy’ but they make it very clear from the beginning that this is his way of coping w/shit like his family falling apart, and then alien BS 

and also marco is really smart? I kinda forgot abt that (sorry marco) but I like that bc that's uncommon to see with ‘funny’ characters

oh mannnn and ax. I love ax. I forgot a whole bunch about the early stuff w/him and how conflicted he was w/keeping secrets from the other animorphs

KAA did such a fantastic job w/ax - he really comes across as the perfect mix of ‘fish out of water alien’ and ‘young teen/tween’ and ‘alien from a strict militaristic society who is in training to become a soldier like his famous older brother’ 

n that was so sad n fucked up when he called the andalite home world and had to tell everyone (including his parents) that elfangor died, and then the elders or w/e forced ax to take blame for elfangor breaking their laws in order to preserve elfangor’s postmortem reputation, even at the cost of ax’s career/life :( 

and man I loved the part where ax is like ‘well, we didn't help the hork-bajir even tho we could have and now they're all enslaved. I'm not letting that happen to the humans’ and the council or w/e is like ‘well you should let it happen, don't interfere’ and ax basically realizes oh shit sometimes adults are wrong 

basically I love the conflict there, where the andalites are the ones who gave the yeerks the technology that led to them spreading across the galaxy like a disease, and now fight to stop them due to their guilt, but also refuse to directly help the less advanced species who are being invaded by the yeerks for fear of making a similar mistake like w/the yeerks....

ooooof and the part where ax is like ‘guess I have to go fight visser 3 and die’ :( he’s just a babyyyy

and augh when alloran asks them to kill him....geeeez there’s so much fucked up stuff already and I'm not even in the double digits yet 

oh my god and the brutally awful fact that any freed controller will just get tracked down by the yeerks and murdered so the secret invasion stays secret...and the animorphs think that by destroying the kandrona they've freed a bunch of controllers but really they just signed their death warrants - what a catch 22

oh and I love how even early on the yeerks aren't a completely unified force - we have the obvious rivalry w/visser 1 and visser 3, with visser 1 even arranging the animorphs release from visser 3′s prison bc of this, and that yeerk who told ax where to find visser 3 because he was pissed that his yeerk gf got killed by visser 3 - even though the reason she was killed was due to kandrona rationing, which was caused by the animorphs...i love the layers 

ok what else. oh yeah I love tobias sm, he was one of my favs as a kid too, his whole story is so deeply tragic but also interesting and we haven't even gotten into all the stuff w/his parents yet

the part where he’s freaking out as a hawk and he’s gonna fly into the windows even tho he knows it’ll probably kill him...christttt

also tobias and rachel are so romance aughhhh

ok also jake - he was never my favorite when I was younger bc I felt like he had Basic Protag Man Syndrome but now I can appreciate his character a lot more. like, he basically got elected the leader and he’s kinda like ‘guess I have to do this now.’ and that of course ends up fucking him up majorly in the long run bc even tho he’s more serious and responsible, he’s still just a kid too

and I loooove the horror of finding out that tom is a controller, and jake having to contend w/the fact that it’s very likely that he’ll have to fight and/or kill his brother someday 

also the book where jake gets infested w/a yeerk was one of my favs and still is. so fucked up and interesting. the fact that that yeerk was previously tom’s made it even more fucked, w/the yeerk taunting jake the whole time

and then the yeerk dying in jakes head...so messed up

omg and cassie too. I love cassie. I didn't appreciate her as much when I was younger bc I was a straightforward kid who liked action, and cassie is all about pacifism when possible and compassion, which I love a lot now that I Get it more. 

cassie being such a gentle person but still fighting in this fucked up war bc doing nothing would be worse is super compelling. plus the conflicts with her having to figure out where she and humanity fit in the circle of life and whatnot is great

I loved the contrast of her being very aware of how nature works bc of working w/her parents and all these injured animals, but also being so compassionate that it still bothers her to see death and especially participate in it 

like her feeling awful about killing the termite queen even tho its��‘just a bug’ and stuff

basically what makes the series great isn't that it’s got all these fucked up moments and horror elements and is overall quite dark - it’s that all of it comes together to make the point that war is hell, and child soldiers are gonna end up traumatized pretty much no matter what happens

it’s a very strong message, and the story never feels like it’s being dark just for the sake of being dark, but rather never letting the reader forget how awful things are

TL;DR: anirmorphs is to the YA genre what hunter x hunter is to the shounen genre

in animorphs, the heroes of the story are kids who get cool powers and get to fight aliens - in any other YA story they would have a bunch of fun adventures and come out on top most/all the time - things might get darker towards the end, but good would prevail. the evil yeerks would be stopped, and the main couples would get married and have kids and live happily ever after. 

however, war isn't like that, especially when the soldiers are kids. so instead we get animorphs, and it’s brutally realistic. they barely ever get to enjoy their powers - on the rare occasion that they get to, something usually goes horribly wrong

compare to hxh - it seems like a regular shounen story about kids participating in a fantastical mostly-adult world and being able to match the adults bc they're Special - but as the story wears on it becomes clear that the kids are just very traumatized. this all leads to gon’s berserker collapse in the chimera ant arc, which is led up to masterfully w/a bunch of adults treating gon as an adult even though he’s a child.

essentially the same thing happens in animorphs - with jake being shoved into the leader role and becoming a military general as a kid, which leads to him committing horrific war crimes because he’s been put in a position no child should ever have to be in

similarly, kurapika has what would be a very straightforward revenge plotline in any other story - but this is hxh, so the bad guys aren't just 2-dimensional evil caricatures, and the road to revenge just leads kurapika to ruin. we root for kurapika to win bc they’re a character we like, but it becomes clearer and clearer as the story goes on that getting revenge is not the path kurapika should be taking

nothing is ever as straightforward as we want it to be, basically. and the same applies to animorphs. so many times they're faced with conflicts that seem to have an obvious answer, only for it to be revealed later that the choices they made led to other unforeseen awful consequences

ok i need to stop rambling this is already super long. basically: animorphs good. I’ll probably do another post like this semi-soon as I continue reading (I'm partway thru book 10 now)

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #433

“i really wish that you could help, but my head is like a carousel: i’m going ‘round in circles”

Would you rather visit Rome or Spain? Rome. Do you really care what’s going on in celebrities' lives? Depends on the person. If I have a big interest in them, like Mark, then yes, because I care about that person and want to know they're well. Have you ever broke a plate/bowl? Accidentally. Has anyone ever drunk called/texted you? I don't think so. Can you do a backwards London bridges? Hell no, I'd bust my ass and spine. Are any of your pets “overweight”? Why the quotations? But anyway, no. Has anyone ever bought you a ring? Yeah. What has been the most traumatic experience of your life? Does it still bother you? The breakup with my first real bf. And well yeah, it resulted in PTSD. It sounds so overdramatic, I know, but I'm not even remotely exaggerating. Live a day in my head and tell me it's not actual trauma. If you knew you had the right person, would you marry them today? God no, not right now. I am not in a position to be married right now. Think back to your most important relationship, was it all your fault it’s over? My damaged side wants to say yes, but I know to be realistic, we both failed in unique areas. He didn't communicate, and I just put too much weight on him. What was your first alcoholic drink? A Mike's Hard Lemonade. What were the first lessons you ever took? Ummm I want to say choir? Did you ever go to a mental hospital? Multiple times. Do you believe that weed should be legalized? Yes. Have you ever had a significant other with a mental disorder? Yes. If you could transform into something, what would that something be? Uhhh idk. Maybe a cat? Out of 10, (10 being really shy) how shy are you? Oh, easily a 10. When was the first moment you discovered love? I actually don't really know the moment I realized I was in love w/ Jason. It was a gradual thing, so no one occasion stands out. What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made? Well, I suppose accepting Jason's Facebook friend request because I thought he was a different Jason. I can't think of many good mistakes I've made... Even the one I mentioned, it's debatable how good that one was. I really do wonder how different my life would be if I declined it. What do you think of frogs? I love frogs! They're so cute and derpy. :') Who did you last worry about and why? My cat, because he was apparently hiding somewhere and Mom couldn't find him. Who did you last feel sorry for and why? Sara, because of health stuff she's dealing with. Is there a name that you can’t stand but it’s the name of a loved one? It sucks, I feel like this burning in my stomach a lot of the time when I hear "Ashley" because that was Jason's girlfriend after me. But I have a sister with the same name. Are you currently looking for a new place to live? I'm not, and I don't think Mom actively is, though we both want to move. When did you last make up a baby’s bottle? I don't think I ever have. Well... maybe once? idr Do you believe there’s a devil? No. Have you ever felt an earthquake? No. Have you ever been on an island? Yes, actually. Did you watch the last presidential inauguration? I've never watched one. Have you ever been a fan of The Killers? I don't consider myself a true "fan," no. I only like two songs that I know. Do you have your own lighter (why or why not)? No, because I don't need one? Do you believe in miracles (why or why not)? No. I just don't. Everything has the have a cause and reason. How often do you sleep naked? Never. Are you looking forward to your prom? If you already went, how was it? I went twice, and it was fun. I especially loved having the pictures taken that I regret wiping from the face of the earth. Prom itself was pretty bland each time, like you can't hear shit and they just play awful music, but still. I was a teenager with a very fairytale outlook on love and wanted to just feel like I was in one I guess. Do you prefer Quizno's or Subway and why? I don't think I've ever tried Quizno's, actually. What’s one of your best memories from during a rain storm? I don't know. Why did you need your most recent x-ray and what were the results? It was to see if I broke my foot, I think? If that's the one, then no. I also had my legs x-rayed at some point to see if they could find any damage there because of my extreme weakness in them, but there wasn't. Do people more often mistake you as being younger or older than you are? I actually don't know. Have you ever made out with someone you weren’t dating? No. Do you know anybody who was abused? Yes. Have you ever touched an elephant? No. How many siblings do you have? I have five I "count," but I do have another half-sister on my dad's side that I don't know. I want to, but yeah... it just hasn't happened. Do you get bored of your girlfriend/boyfriend easily? I've never gotten bored of any s/o I've had. Who do you want for president? I voted for Biden. Do you think abortions are horrible? No. Forcing someone to undergo what can easily be considered a traumatic experience is horrible. Do you enjoy drama? Ugh, no. Have you ever had a guinea pig for a pet? I've had a few. Were you/are you popular in school? No. I was very much under the radar and mostly stuck to myself and a small group of friends. What brand clothing do you wear the most? No clue. Have you ever studied any new age or occult religions such as Wicca? Yes, actually, when I was leaning towards Neo-Paganism. I did research into some of its branches, such as Wicca. Are you a wrestling fan? Not at all. I honestly think it's dumb. What’s the longest movie you’ve ever watched? I want to say Troy? It never felt THAT long to me though because I love it. Have you ever been on a subway? No. Do you think spending a ridiculously large amount of money on one designer item is stupid? It sure as hell isn't for me; I lean towards people can spend their hard-earned money on whatever they want, BUT I do feel that they could still spend their money on more important things. Do you find baths relaxing? No, they gross me out. Do you have any hats? I probably still have the hat Dad got me at a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game somewhere, but idk where. Has any part of your house ever been flooded? Not on the interior, no. Have you ever been interested in learning about murderers or murder cases? Not especially. Is there anyone that you’re worried about right now? Who and why? I'm just about praying Sara's new med for her POTS helps. I think me worrying how Jason is doing after his mother's death is gonna be a permanent fixture in the back of my head... If you won a lot of money, would you donate any of it? To what organization would you donate it? Oh, absolutely. I'd have to do some research first, but the Trevor Project comes to mind immediately, as well as ones that protect wildlife, help the mentally ill, fight cancer... Are you a competitive person? What are you most competitive about? Not really, no. I have my areas where I'm more likely to feel it than others, but it's generally mild. I'm not too sure what I'm most competitive about, but maybe outdoing other hunters in WoW since that's my main class that I've played religiously for years. Have you ever adopted a stray animal? Yes. What do you appreciate most about your parent(s)? The fact they somehow still support me even though I'm like... this. I feel like I should've exhausted their faith by now. Do you believe America should legalize drugs? If you think they should legalize only some drugs, which drugs do you think they should legalize? I only support the legalization of weed. What is your biggest turn-off of a person (besides physically)? Arrogance, probably. Or being aggressive/explosive. What song cover do you like better than the original? "Sound of Silence" by Disturbed, for one. That one's easy. If you could find one long-lost friend of the past, who would it be? Megan. I want her to know I forgive her and miss her friendship. What holiday do you enjoy the most? Christmas. (: Were you born in the state you live in? Yep. Have you ever lived in a house that has been broken into? No, but almost. Who do you know that watches the most sports? Probably my dad? Idk. Do you like South Park? Not really. Are you good at bowling? No. Made out for more than 3 minutes? Three minutes is nothin' lmao. Have you ever gone snorkeling or scuba diving? If yes, what’s the coolest thing you’ve seen? No, but I'd love to. What’s your favorite filling in chocolates? Caramel. What do you remember from sex ed class when you were younger? Abstinence was the only option. Heteronormativity. What’s the first instrument you ever played? Ha, a recorder back in elementary school. Have you ever had a friend break up with a bf/gf for you? Essentially. We didn't date, but that's why he broke up with her, because he wanted me instead. Do you see a bright light at the end of your tunnel? I don't like thinking about this. I can only hope there is, but I doubt it a lot. Have you ever waited in line overnight for something? No. Is there such a thing as being too rich or too poor? "Too poor" is very obviously a thing??? "Too rich" is more complicated to me, as I can see both sides to it. Like it's your hard-earned money, but at the same time, is it really necessary at a certain point? Like start donating regularly or something. Do something good. Do you think having an expensive phone is a good investment? Depends on how expensive, I suppose, and what you use it for. What’s your largest bill? Electric, gas, phone, etc. I don't have any of my own bills. It's embarrassing by this age. Do you like your job? I'd like to even have a job... What is your favorite song and why? "False Flags" by Massive Attack, because it's so poetically haunting in its message of how fucked up politics are. Its monotonous tone also adds another layer of sadness to it, like a reminder of how "normal" and bland and unsurprising everything is, no matter how horrible... I could honestly probably write an essay on how I interpret the song, especially if you add in the incredible symbolism of such a simplistic music video. Are you introverted or extroverted? I am very introverted. If you’re married and your spouse cheated on you, would you forgive them? Nope, byeeeee~ Who knows the real you the most? Sara, really. How old is the oldest person you’ve had sexual relations with? He'd be 27 now. Have you been upset the past few days? My PTSD has been kinda vicious the past couple days, especially today. Then earlier at my nephew's b-day party I had to nearly bite my fucking tongue off with that family's political bullshit. My anger really flared up a few times hearing despicable shit, but I think I concealed it fine by just not saying a word. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever thought of doing for a job? Nothing "crazy," really... Who was your first celebrity crush? Jesse McCartney had my young heart, ha ha. When did you last see or speak to someone you dislike? Why do you dislike this person? Today, at my nephew's aforementioned b-day party. I in specific don't like my sister's husband because he's sexist, racist, homophobic, bigoted... I could go on and on. We don't just have "different opinions," we have different morals entirely. When you listen to music, do you generally sing along, or just listen? I almost always just listen. I don't sing a lot. Can you remember the last time you felt emotional? What was the reason? Today. PTSD is a bitch. What if you were told that your life has to stay exactly as it is right now, and nothing will ever change? How would you feel about that? Quite honestly, I don't think I would want to live anymore. Have you ever been to the hospital for something really serious? I'd consider an OD on cold medicine to be serious, but then again, I experienced almost no effects from it. Idk if I just got fluids fast enough or what, but whatever it was, I'm thankful for. Are you excited for winter? UGGGHHHH BRING IT ONNNNNNN. Have you ever had a moment with someone you like that seemed like a movie moment? Many. What are you listening to right now? "Down In The Park" by Marilyn Manson. What’s your favourite flavour of iced tea? Tea is gross. Have you ever been to a casino? If so, which one(s)? No. Have you ever visited a sex shop? I haven't. Have you ever ridden a bicycle through a busy city? NOOOOOOOO. I could never do that. What’s your favourite place to get pizza? Literally Domino's, lmao. I am so basic. Do you have a lock number or pattern for your phone? No. There sure isn't anything important on it. What’s the most number of people you’ve ever lived with? Five.