#also didn't mention this in the main post but i do want there to be some part of the story to involve seia having the chance to go home

[turningmad]

@mandalhoerian @bigclownshoes THANK YOU YOU GUYS ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!! because thats another thing I wanted to talk about in my original post but I really didn't think ppl would bother reading it.

Tbh as someone who has also played loads of otome games (yes.. this also includes Diabolik lovers 💀).

I tend to analyse and compare games when I first start off playing them just to see whether it does justice to most otome games or not, and one thing I noticed for LaDs was that during the main story and even the 5 star card stories, I often struggled to 100% immerse myself into this and literally felt like I was an 'observer' rather it being me, and yes just as previously mentioned the game does try to balance both 'strong story telling and it's own protagonist' with 'MC is you immersion' thing, but it's not really doing a "wow" job at it.

And due to this I have been avoiding playing the main story quest after the Sylus arc because I actually am starting to hate MC 💀 (Hot take ik).

Honestly speaking Mystic Messenger will always be the number 1 otome game for me because Cheritz did an absolutely amazing job in making the story immersive for us reader, I mean.... WE COULD CHANGE OUR PFP TO OUR SELFIES?!? And the fact we literally got to make our own choices which altered the direction the story went was like so advanced for a game in 2016 (if only there was a 3D game like LaDS but for MM 🥲)

And I know Twisted Wonderland isn't 100% an otome game but even there you literally can easily immerse yourself into the story

For Obey me, the same could be said but unfortunately the only issue I saw with the game was that our choices literally did not matter in the storyline just like in Love and Deepspace :(.

There is so much more I wanna say but I got hungry so I'm ending it here.

Guys I may be mentally insane but ... Why do I low-key feel jealous of MC when I see clips of the upcoming cards... Especially the Sylus one..

IK SHE'S MEANT TO BE US BUT 😭😭

[quibbs126]

Well I also did this today. Sketches so I could try and figure out that skystar fankid since as mentioned earlier, I’ve been trying to think about him

I’ve been trying to draw other stuff today, but honestly after drawing Jazz, my creative juices have not been flowing as much. I tried to do more color palette drawings, but Megatron’s shoulders give me so much trouble I couldn’t figure them out, and I tried to draw Ironhide but he wasn’t turning out right proportion wise and I realized by them I was kind of just forcing it

But then I was bored and needed something to do creatively, so I tried to at least attempt some amount of designing this kid. Though first I needed to try and draw Starscream and Skyfire’s helms (since that’s on of the main things that don’t rely on alt mode) to see how I could combine them

I mean, I think I did all right. It is very much still a work in progress though

Probably shouldn’t have even posted it, just kept it to myself for future reference, but I have a problem of wanting to share literally everything I make with very few exceptions, so here we are

I have multiple alternate color schemes here as well because I just didn’t know what to pick

Honestly my biggest problem here for me is that Skyfire doesn’t have any design in Transformers One, at least not as far as I can tell. And he doesn’t really appear in much outside of that, so I’m really just stuck with his g1 design to base off of. So most of what I do have to work with comes from Starscream and the other Seekers

So like, I feel like this kid looks too much like Starscream, but I don’t know how to fix it

By the way, while I haven’t settled on a name for him yet, the one floating around for me right now is Overdrive? I don’t really know why, and it unfortunately is already a character’s name, but shush

It may change, but for now, in this post, his name is Overdrive

There’s also the problem of the color scheme for him here. Because like, Skyfire and Starscream technically have almost the same color schemes, just that Starscream also has black/grey and they’re dispersed differently. So I’m trying to find a balance here that works without looking too much like one or the other

I had a brief idea to base Overdrive’s color scheme on the original Jetfire toy, and honestly I do think it could work, with the mainly white with red and black accents, it's just that for whatever reason, I don't like how it looks when I make his middle part red. Maybe I've been watching too much g1, because there's a lot of red Autobots, and characters having white and red on their helms isn't that uncommon either. So I just keep it blue so he looks distinct in my head. I might switch it over to the Jetfire color scheme later though

Also you see that for one of the visors I toyed with him having green eyes (his eye and visor color match btw, the eye's only there so you can see it), because some people decide that pre-betrayal Starscream had non red optics. But I didn't just want to stick with plain blue, and I knew that we see a number of miners with green eyes, so why not green? I changed it because I thought maybe he didn't look Starscream enough, but eh

Oh yeah, I do have a few other notes on his design here, since I'm realizing I've mostly just been complaining

Why did I give him a visor? Eh, why not, Skyfire and Starscream don't have them. But I based it on how it looks on Thundercracker and Skywarp

As for his side vents, I wasn't really sure how to do them, but I didn't want them to be the same as Starscream. I tried to base them off of Slipstream's, but the way the vents folded looked weird to me, and I ended up cutting them off and making his face into what you see in the bottom left there. It didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted in the colored version though, and I think I ended up circling back to Starscream's vent shape. But oh well, things to change later

Oh yeah, pictures of Thundercracker, Skywarp and Slipstream to know what I’m talking about. Or more accurately, this is what I used

Also those things on his sides? They were supposed to be like Skyfire's side cheek things he has in g1, but I also made them puff out for some reason. I don't know why. I'll probably tweak it, but I want to keep some aspect of it I think

*sigh* to be honest, I really don't know what I think of this design. It really isn't finished at all. I'm really not even sure why I'm showing it, other than to say I'm working on it and I didn't just abandon it? But I mean, we'll see how long that lasts

Do I have anything I added on to Overdrive's character at least? Well no, not really. By this afternoon I think I had mostly creatively drained myself, I mostly just wrote what I had originally again

Namely that he came to be after Sentinel's betrayal, and as such Starscream doesn't know he exists and Skyfire thinks Starscream's dead. Overdrive still has his cog, it never got stolen, either because Sentinel hadn't thought of it yet or he didn't have a believable means to have it taken without it being suspicious. All I really know is he's a jet, but isn't outfitted for military work of any kind, his profession probably being closer to Skyfire's

As for Skyfire, I'm stealing his role here from another fanfic I read, where he's a scientist who was trying to figure out the cause of the Energon shortage and the lack of the miners' cogs (unaware that latter part is a lie, but he was growing suspicious with the discouragement of that line of research), though he also races occasionally. So maybe Overdrive's a scientist too? I don't know, I don't think he needs to be, but I don't know what to make him

Also a note that isn't new to me but I don't think I ever mentioned, due to Skyfire's research, he's met the miners plenty of times and was generally considered one of the nicer cogged bots to them. Overdrive has by proxy met them on occasion as well, including D-16. So as it happens, Megatron does in fact know about Overdrive and the fact that he's Starscream's kid (Skyfire probably mentioned his former conjunx at some point), but he doesn't know that Starscream doesn't. So he hasn't told anyone because he assumes everyone already knows

But yeah, I have Overdrive's backstory, but I really don't have anything about his actual job or personality. To be honest, I think some of it's me being paranoid I recreate Locket in some way, since I like seeing stuff on the Locket AU. I suppose I try making him closer to Skyfire's personality? But for whatever reason, my brain can't rectify that in my head. I don't know

Still don't have an answer on his alt mode either. And it gets even trickier now because they don't have Earth alt modes, they're Cybertronian (even if they don't all look the most different from Earth vehicles here). I did learn about the existence of triple engine jets today, and I kind of want to do that, but I don't know if I will. I also don't know how to draw planes yet, or how they entirely translate to robot mode

But yeah, I think I'm done here, just updating you on what I've been up to this latter half of the day

[sulatni-ree]

a tweet on my timeline of a youtube comment on gem's afterlife smp: the movie video made me wonder: what do people think of when they hear "life series"

so,,, in my head, there are two:

~ long post ahead

modded life - mostly empires smp members; one life, xlife, afterlife, new life, sos (honorary, the smp plays with a "life-respawn system" too anyways)

vanilla life - mostly hermitcraft members; third life, last life, double life, limited life, secret life, real life, wild life

my personal minecraft smp pipeline was xlife - empires - hermitcraft - last life (and the rest of the vanilla lifes), then i also watched afterlife and sos as they uploaded. just thought it would be nice to have a label to distinguish the two "flavors" of life series, if you will, in my head.

some stuff i found out after doing some digging on these SMPs and realizations:

it confused me a bit at first how the vanilla lifers managed to have a pretty consistent roster compared to the modded lifers, then it hit that the modded lifes are long-term SMPs that last for months to maybe over a year per "season", while the vanilla lifes are short-term, consistently taking 6 to 8 weeks (or 2 months max) only.

people would prolly consider a life series a,,, "life series" if it has the word "life" in its name. personally, i like to think of a life series as hardcore with a twist which is why i consider sos as an honorary one.

main reason for the "vanilla" and "modded" titles: vanilla lifes mostly try to keep itself vanilla, while modded lifes are usually MODDED with new biomes, mechanics, mobs, etc.

the modded lifes don't actually belong to the same "life series" unlike the vanilla lifes: they're all independent series. i just like to tack the "modded life" label on them for simplicity's sake + the creators involved have becone consistent anyways

limited life & sos are both similar in the sense that technically, there isn't a set number of times you could die compared to other SMPs on the list. your respawns in limited life depend on whether your 24 hours on the server is out, while sos depends on its own "life currency": fate coins. it would be fun to see the CCs play with these kinds of twists where whether you get a chance to respawn has a variable of sorts.

one life (season 1) was first published on May 15, 2016, making it 8 years old as of writing this and the oldest life series in this list

one life also had 3 seasons from May 2016 to March 2019, making it the longest life series

the shortest life series is double life, running for 6 weeks from June to July 2022

if you were to order all the mentioned life series by date started, you'll have: one (2016), x (2019), third (2021), last, afterlife (2022), double, limited (2023), new, secret, sos (2024), real, wild

the only modded lifers that have been in every "season" of the modded lifes are joel smallishbeans, joey graceffa, lizzie ldshadowlady, scott smajor, and shubble

lifers that have been in both modded and vanilla versions are joel, lizzie, jimmy, gem, pearl, scar, & martyn (and oli, if you count his snail appearance on wild life)

with 12 "seasons" between both the modded and vanilla lifes, it's pretty amazing that a concept for a series has only been repeated once: afterlife & new life with the origins mod (didn't they repeat the concept because they wanted to see more origins?)

andddd i think that's all !! feel free to add more thoughts below, or correct me with any misinformation :]]

(this made me want to rewatch cleo's LimLife + finally start jimmy's xlife, shubble's sos, and/or pearl's new life,,, wish me luck o7)

[flying-cat]

people who undermine the importance of izuku and katsuki's relationship throughout bnha because of "annoying shippers" or because they just don't like katsuki are insane because their relationship is literally so? important??? to the entire story???? katsuki is the deuteragonist of bnha. he was one of the first characters to show up. he was the first other person to know about OFA. so much of the manga is spent showing his development. if you deny his character development and relationship development ("relationship" does not always mean romantic relationship) with izuku, you are quite literally denying a massive part of the series. the manga starts with them and ends with them. you're allowed to dislike him but if you dislike him so much that you, in turn, start hating how izuku is a "punching bag" or a "doormat" for the entire series because he doesn't stay angry and vengeful at people even though a massive part of his character is that he's compassionate and kind even to people who aren't to him or used to not be, and you seriously think that that makes him weak, and you just start to dislike the main two characters of the series, i think you should. idk. stop reading, probably. read the revenge fantasy shit that you obviously want to read. there are like seven million manhwa available to you where the character gets the revenge you so desperately want to see.

[quadrantadvisor]

DP x DC, revenant!Jason Todd

Shortly after meeting, Danny and Jason have a late night conversation about what it means to come back. 1281 words

On AO3

-

Danny woke groggily, in a dark place that he didn't recognize, and took a moment to get his bearings.

He felt the warning ache in his neck that came from being propped up against an arm rest. There were two sources of dim light in the room—the glow of city street lights, muffled behind a curtain, and the green eyes of the man whose lap Danny's feet were propped on.

Right. Danny hadn’t meant to fall asleep on the revenant’s—on Jason’s—couch, but they’d been talking for so long, he must’ve dozed off.

Jason had had so many questions, about ectoplasm, about the zone, about Danny’s own experiences. Danny had done his best to clear up everything he could. A revenant may not be quite the same as he was, but still, it made Danny happy to be able to pass on his hard won knowledge and maybe save someone else a bit of the hurt and confusion that he’d gone through. It was what he’d always wished someone would do for him.

Jason was slumped into the couch, but he didn’t look relaxed. Danny examined his still profile, cast in strange shadows by its own green glow, and wondered how long it had been since he’d moved.

Danny shifted slightly, purposefully producing the fabric sounds of a body against upholstery, to make sure Jason knew he was awake. No reaction. Danny gave him one more moment, then asked, “You okay?”

Jason didn’t look at him when he answered, “You told me I’m basically possessing my own corpse, and I’m supposed to not be upset about that?”

Really, Danny should’ve predicted something like that. How long had he spent, trying to pretend that death hadn’t really touched him? It wasn’t an easy thing to accept.

“What’s the difference between a body and a corpse?” Danny asked.

Jason’s eyes snapped to Danny, their glow intensifying. “I am not dealing with riddle bullshit right now, I swear to-”

“No, I’m being serious,” Danny interrupted, pulling his feet from Jason’s lap and sitting himself up. “There’s one difference between a corpse and a living body, and that’s that someone is living in it. Jason—” he reached out, gripping one of Jason’s hands in his “—you’re alive. That’s what matters. The rest is details.”

Jason’s shoulders bent inwards, his other hand raising to rub at his chest. “You don’t get it,” he said, quiet. “People don’t just come back from what they did to me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“However you died, it’s not-”

Jason huffed an ugly sound, a short and bitter laugh that Danny hurt to hear. “Is it crazy that that isn’t even what I was talking about? I meant after.” The motion on his chest was repetitive, like he was tracing something underneath his shirt, and Danny got the sinking feeling that he knew just what sort of scar it might be. “I was gone, okay? I was gone, and this body was still here. And they took it, and they cut it open and rummaged around inside to figure out what happened. Which is—” he cut off, sniffed, and Danny gripped his hand tighter “—which is stupid, right? It’s not like it wasn’t obvious.” His fingers twitched, and he continued, haltingly, “I mean, I’ve read the report. Pulled it off his stupid files. The smoke inhalation did me in. After everything that happened, it was the smoke.”

Jasons’ hand pulled out of Danny’s, and they both rose to cover his face, cutting off the glow while he curled in on himself even tighter. His voice was slightly muffled when he said, “And then they had to ship me home, right? So they bled me dry and pumped me full of formaldehyde, and they prettied me up so they could pretend I wasn’t just some empty thing, and Bruce held the tiniest most depressing little funeral known to man and put my ass in the ground, and I had to wake up down there.” His words and his breaths were coming too quick, and Danny didn’t know how to help. He didn’t want Jason to stop, not when it seemed like he needed to say all of this, but he could see just how badly the revenant was hurting.

“But you did wake up,” he whispered.

“Woke up in my own mutilated corpse!” Jason snarled. “Everything I’ve forgotten, and that memory is still crystal fucking clear! It stank in there, like death and vinegar and mud, and it was so small, and I couldn’t even try to scream for help because they sewed my fucking mouth shut—!” He broke off into a sob, and Danny couldn’t stand it anymore, had to lean into Jason’s side and wrap an arm around him as he shook with all the emotion he couldn’t reign in.

“Okay,” Danny said. Not you’re okay, just okay. “Okay, so that’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard, and I regularly hang out with a guy who wants to skin me.”

Jason sniffed. “What?”

“Nevermind. It’s just-”

“No, I think we should go back to the skinning thing-”

“I just don’t want you to let it define you,” Danny interrupted. “I did that. I got into my head about it, the whole ‘being dead’ thing, feeling like I was…” Danny gave himself a second, swallowed, “like some sort of freak. A thing that didn’t belong anywhere. But I’m still alive, and you’re alive, and even if we weren’t, it wouldn’t matter, because we’re still here, and as long as you’re here you can find something that’s worth staying for.” Danny rubbed what he hoped was a soothing pattern into Jason’s admittedly impressive bicep.

Jason let out a sigh. “I must really be pathetic if you’ve gotta pep talk me like that, huh?” he said, and Danny pretended not to see him wiping at his eyes. “Sorry,” he added, “about all this. I’ve got some shit I haven’t dealt with, and this ‘revenant’ stuff brought it up pretty bad.”

“I get it,” Danny said, and hoped Jason could tell how much he meant it.

Jason sighed again, heavy, like he was trying to release something else with his breath, and said, “It still doesn’t make any sense. Logically, I can’t be alive. Where did my blood come from?”

Danny shrugged. “Do you have blood?”

“I definitely have blood. I’ve seen a lot of it.”

That gave Danny pause. “Just like, around?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Jason said, deadpan. “I’ve got a surplus, so I like to leave some here and there, make sure everyone gets a chance to appreciate it.”

“I have no idea how much you’re joking and it frightens me,” Danny told him.

“Weak,” Jason replied.

“Anyways, you gotta not think about it too much. The interdimensional goop is already logic-defying, and you’re mixing magic with it with your special soul willpower or something. Your brain will explode if you try to make it make sense.”

Jason huffed a little laugh, bouncing Danny on his shoulder, and this time it made him feel lighter. “Can I just say that I hate that I’m full of interdimensional goop?”

“Valid,” Danny said.

Even without looking at Jason, Danny could tell that he just rolled his eyes by the way the soft green light moved.

Danny had his ear pressed to Jason’s shoulder, feeling his warmth, and if he focused, he could just make out the revenant’s pulse. Personally, Danny thought it was pretty cool to be full of magic and goop and blood. Much cooler than Danny, who was way more science goop than magic goop. They’d have to compare notes on that sometime.

Maybe Jason would come around to it.

[g0ldgauntlet]

Webtoon Readers Are Very Harsh on Black and Brown Female Leads.

I've had this thought for a while, and I'm likely not the first to voice it, but I do want to talk about it. It's certainly not a coincidence to me after seeing it happen multiple times. For you to understand my frustrations, I'm going to focus on comparing the female leads from 3 comics: Let's Play, Late Bloomer, and Brimstone and Roses.

(Quick Warning: Let's Play did not originally market itself as an 18+ comic at the start of its publishing, but it very much turns into one after Season 1. Please read at your own discretion.)

(Image description is in the alt text)

Here are the 3 leads of each Webtoon:

Let's Play stars Sam Young, a 22-year-old White woman.

Late Bloomer stars Mai Rose, a 26-year-old Black woman. (Mai is pronounced as "May")

Brimstone and Roses stars Beatrice "Bea" Rosario, a 24-year-old Mexican-American woman. (According to the author, Bea can be pronounced as "Bee" or "Bay-uh")

Let's start with Let's Play.

As a former reader of Let's Play (I read through all 3 seasons), I did observe how this story was perceived by others. The White main character was constantly coddled by readers in the comments section. I would argue that Sam has stunted mental and emotional growth because of her upbringing, and this stays relatively consistent throughout the comic. Her dynamic with Charles wasn't healthy, nor did it actually lead to any significant growth for Sam's character, and it took 3 seasons for people to even realize that. Sam is heavily dependent on Charles, who is way too possessive over someone who isn't even his girlfriend. Sam even acknowledges that he's too pushy for her liking.

There's also this:

Which is just a visualized way of saying "I can fix him." It's set up like she thinks that she alone can help unpack all of his problems if she just gives him some of her own love and care.

The author wants her audience to believe that Sam is manipulating Charles during some points of the story, as Charles makes that point twice (Although, one of those moments is honestly just the author speaking through him), but Sam is portrayed similarly to that of a naive child who Charles takes care of at the same time:

(Context: She drank Irish Coffee sometime before this scene. She did not ask the waitress to elaborate on what it was, and for some reason the waitress herself didn't even tell her that either when she asked for coffee, not alcohol. Charles was left taking care of an intoxicated Sam from that point forward, and the question of whether he'd accept her offer to sleep with her was Season 2's cliffhanger.)

Sam is 22 and Charles is 26-30 (Confirmed in "Questions and Answers II"). They're both adults, obviously, but the way they act led me to believe that their mental and emotional maturity gap is significantly large (Meaning that I can more realistically buy Charles being 30 instead of 26). Sam is frustratingly naive, but someone who's been portrayed as having less power and awareness in the dynamic is a person who I have a harder time believing as being manipulative, compared to Charles, who is much more experienced than her and knows better. He admitted earlier in the story that their relationship was unprofessional and questionable, yet continued it anyway when he could have firmly said no.

Sam also is shown to leave her apartment door unlocked twice, despite knowing that a stranger could walk in. The first time Sam did it, she did it because Charles was coming over and she was going to take a shower, so she told him to let himself in once he got there. The second time was also because she expected Charles to show up, and she was relaxing in her bed while she was waiting for him.

Aside from Sam's character consistently being this glorified portrayal of innocence (seen through the lamb symbolism she has and how much Charles fawns over her because of it), she also isn't really relatable, something that the author tried to portray her as (given that she wanted a relatable and realistic story). Sam's dad is the founder and CEO of a software development company called Young Technologies, and her mom is a world-renowned model and actress. Sam herself is supposed to be a struggling game developer, but she also works at her dad's company as Charles's assistant. From a design standpoint, Sam is conventionally attractive just like her two friends, Angela and Vikki, with all three of them (and most of the women in this comic, honestly) having hourglass figures.

I'm not saying that pretty people can't be insecure or have problems, but every trait added together showcases that Sam, in comparison to most of her friends (Especially Dee, for example. Dee is a dark-skinned, plus-sized Black lesbian, and she works at a coffee shop), is insanely privileged. Given that she comes from a rich family that also has a high social status, with a dad who doesn't even take much convincing to do something when asked by his wife or daughter, Sam has no shortage of money to fund her game and can easily find help with marketing it as well (I'm aware that part of the story's conflict is that Sam doesn't want to take over her dad's business and wants to pursue a career in game development instead, but her dad's backbone is so non-existent that I doubt it would be that hard for her or her mom to get him to contribute towards Sam's games).

Next is Late Bloomer.

I read this comic before Let's Play was first published, so seeing the feedback between that comic and this one was like constantly being given whiplash. Mai works at a place called Galivoyage Travel Services. As the comic goes on, readers referred to her as lazy, spoiled, whiny, unsympathetic, desperate, inconsiderate, and horrible at her job (She is actually bad at her job, but I'll get back to that later). She was called shallow in Episode 8 for turning down Zander, a guy who admitted that he got himself arrested for attempted robbery at a pet store because of his fish obsession (she was also accused of hypocrisy for being put off by Zander's habits, since she has a trait that causes a rose bud to grow on her stomach).

Before this, Mai dated a blind guy in episodes 5 and 6. Because of what happened in Episode 6, readers later accused her of having a judgemental streak for turning down both Zander and this blind guy, claiming that she rejected the latter just because he was blind.

That was not the reason why Mai declined on taking the relationship further. The date was a bust, as neither parties were being fully honest with one another (Mai didn't even know that the guy was blind because he kept that information from her). The blind guy took her to a candlelit dinner that was pitch black, and he had his friend coaching him the whole time. Mai picked up on how sketchy he was acting, and things started to escalate. Her outfit caught on fire because the blind guy accidentally knocked over a candle, and Mai was drenched in water that was thrown at her via a bucket to put it out. Mai did not blame the guy for anything and even acknowledged that her friend, Flora, lied about things on Mai's dating profile while creating it. Mai simply wanted to forget that the night happened and hoped all parties would put it all behind them, but as she's leaving, the blind dude reveals his true colors: He's an asshole. He gets mad at her for leaving and insults her appearance, then proceeds to victimize himself by blaming her rejection on his blindness.

Readers were asking for Mai's character development by Episode 10. At the time of when I read this story (2017), I remembered readers also threatening to drop the comic if development didn't happen after this point in the story. Those comments may have been removed by now, but there are still others who say that they find it hard to like the comic with such a frustrating main character.

Onto Brimstone and Roses.

I'll admit that I'm a new reader for this comic. I'd heard that it featured a bisexual woman of color as a main lead, and the story deals with her personal struggles alongside a demon that she summoned. Bea is a very flawed character, and I appreciate that about her. She has flaws that revolve around the career she wanted to pursue, her complicated family life, and her romantic relationships - Aside from her having a demon, there was nothing really out of the ordinary all things considered.

What shocked me was that it only took 8 episodes for the readers to completely turn on Bea (though negative reception already had quickly built up to that point) and call her all types of names. The readers deemed her unlikeable, selfish, petty, stupid, childish, and a pathological liar. One person stated that they were now only reading the comic for Lazareth, the demon that Bea summoned. Others stressed that they wanted to see character development from Bea as soon as possible.

We are 8 episodes into the Webtoon. That was all it took.

Are you seeing the problem yet?

I need to stress that I'm not saying that Mai and Bea are above criticism just because the former is Black and the latter is a brown Hispanic woman. Far from it, actually.

Mai's work ethic is, like I mentioned earlier, not great. She prioritizes dating over her job, and consistently gets bad reviews from her clients. She and Flora are called out on this multiple times, and are both implied to be dragging the rest of their team down.

Bea, on the other hand, is desperate, selfish, and jealous of her ex-girlfriend despite pretending that it's the opposite. Lazareth calls her out on her behavior, and she comes to accept very early on that he is right. Now she has to deal with the consequences of summoning a demon for petty reasons.

These two leads being called out for their actions isn't the issue. The problem is that Sam constantly gets passes from readers despite having glaring flaws and little to no actual character growth, yet she is praised for having an "empowering" and "relatable" story. There is nothing relatable about a daughter of a CEO and model who has three conventionally attractive male love interests, and whose initial story about becoming a game developer is sidelined after Season 1 in favor of her pursuing her horny, BDSM-loving boss (No shade to anyone who likes BDSM, it's not inherently a bad thing. Charles is just very unprofessional and his unhealthy sex habits are part of the reason as to why). Sam's "empowerment" comes from her changing herself to please a man. Everything that Charles tells her, from how she should act to how she should dress (Wearing revealing or skintight clothing does not automatically make you a more confident person), is based on what he personally likes. Sam even bases some of her own choices on what she thinks Charles would like as well, rather than what she likes.

Sam does not learn much of value from Charles despite her initially claiming that he is the only one who's helped her improve. Her development is mostly stagnant until Monica and Marshall are around, as they're the only ones in the comic who give Sam actually decent advice (I'd count Olivia as well, but she hasn't been relevant in so long that I forgot she even existed). Sam's flaws are usually glossed over, and when she is called out, it's not for the right reasons (i.e. victim blaming, as she is somehow the real manipulator and not Charles).

Mai and Bea are much more heavily scrutinized in comparison, and in Mai's case, not all of it is for the right reasons either. As stated before, Mai did not leave her blind date because he was blind, and the guy's friend even calls out his behavior. The friend states that, because of him, Mai nearly received burn injuries and had her entire appearance ruined when the fire was put out. All she wanted was to go home, and she was within her right to do so. Again, Mai also acknowledged that she and her date weren't completely honest with one another about their identities. However, even though what happened was an accident, the blind guy's lies and planning caused more harm towards Mai compared to vice versa.

Mai was also within her right to turn down Zander. There's nothing wrong with him dressing up as a fish if that's an interest of his, but robbery and crimes are a dealbreaker for multiple people in the dating scene. It's not her job to help him through what's clearly a deep-rooted problem - as readers had claimed she should - since they'd only been on the second date thus far. None of this makes her shallow or picky, and it baffles me that the author of Late Bloomer was shamed by readers for writing this.

Sam's arc and initial plot can remain mostly static and many readers won't complain, but they turned on Mai and Bea because their character arcs weren't moving fast enough for them. Why is Sam's character allowed to move so slowly for multiple seasons, while Mai and Bea have a time limit of about 8 to 10 episodes to receive character growth before readers get bored or angry? If their arcs had moved that fast or been completed in that amount of time, their stories would be rushed.

It's explained later on in Late Bloomer that the reason why Mai is bad at her job is because she never received proper training, and Joune (Pronounced as "June"), a manager at a different branch in the company, shows her what's she's supposed to be doing. The audience is also shown that Flora is one of the main reasons why Mai continues to be distracted from her work. Flora is the one who came up with most of the dating plans for Mai, and constantly has her running around with her to go places. Mai obviously can say no to her, but Flora is characterized as being pushy and dragging multiple people into her antics. Readers knew that Flora was a bad influence and still put most of the blame on Mai anyway.

Eprille (Pronounced as "April"), Mai's boss, is one of two characters who chew Mai out for her unprofessionalism and bad work ethic, but he's shown to be a hypocrite throughout the story since he's just as unprofessional as Mai is, if not more. Eprille is insanely petty, using work as a means of getting back at his ex, Marche (Pronounced as "March"). Both Joune and Cloud (Joune and Eprille's friend) call Eprille out on this, and he's also playing favorites with Mai at work. It's later revealed that the reason why he was so interested in Mai, and the only reason why she didn't get fired from her job sooner, is because he's been fetishizing her rose bud. That bud is part of a process that Late Bloomer calls "Botanical Development." Mai's family line on her mother's side has a symbiotic relationship with a plant in their body, which grows more when it detects their destined partner. If the person chooses to sleep with that partner, the fully grown plant will fall off. Eprille knew about people with this trait, and he had been pursuing Mai solely so that he could have sex with her to see if her plant would detach (assuming that he's her chosen partner). By this point in time, Mai had also found out that Eprille had hooked back up with Marche, but Eprille didn't tell her as he had been pursuing her. He then proceeds to blame her for flirting with him despite him leading her on the whole time.

It was also Eprille's responsibility to train his employees, but he never did. The irony of him chastising Mai for not being a good worker is that her being that way is his own fault, because she improves significantly after Joune shows her the ropes.

Eprille is later demoted from his position by his grandmother (the founder of Galivoyage) for his consistently bad management, and Marche is also fired for being irresponsible at work and causing drops in sales.

As for Bea, I've heard plenty about how her character gets better and even more interesting as the story goes on. Although I haven't read much myself, I consider the author to be very talented for being able to get me hooked after 6 episodes while setting up the trajectory of Bea's journey towards healing as a person. That leaves plenty of time to carefully unpack her baggage and tackle her emotional instability instead of rushing through it just to get to an ending.

I focused on just 3 comics for examples, but I could have mentioned more, such as Haxor and Lookism. Some readers of Let's Play have actually referred to Haxor in the comments as a series where you can find "sjws,"-

oh man if you guys wanna find the Tumblr sjws just read big jo or haxor. the comments on the 1st ep of the latter is YIKES

-which I suspect is because of Iso, the comic's Black female lead. The "yikes" comments being referenced were part of a conversation that happened because non-black readers didn't understand why some people were genuinely ecstatic about seeing a Black girl as a main character in a comic. As a result, Black women ended up having to explain to White people why this was personally important to them, and the author himself was glad that Black women were enjoying his comic.

I didn't get very far with Haxor, but from what I did read, the audience would point out that Iso has a huge ego, and that she needed to be humbled. While being too confident is certainly a character flaw that is acknowledged during the story, as I was reading, I couldn't help but wonder if some readers would be this critical if Iso was White, since many White characters who have her traits are praised for being who they are unapologetically. Iso canonically is a young prodigy in the story, and several people depend on her for support. Obviously she isn't perfect, but it's easy to understand where her overconfidence comes from.

Lookism was a completely different case, featuring Park Hyung-Seok - known as "Daniel Park" in English - the comic's light-skinned Korean male lead. Daniel, for all intents and purposes, is a pathetic and unlikeable (though somewhat sympathetic) character when he is introduced to the audience. He disrespected his mom in the very first episode, as well as Episode 2, because he couldn't bring himself to admit to her that he was getting bullied and also prioritized how he was being perceived by his female classmates (who he repeatedly objectifies). Daniel did this while knowing that his mom was working hard at her job to provide for him, and also knowing that she was trying to defend him against his bullies. Despite this, Lookism is one of the most popular Webtoon comics, as many people kept reading and got the chance to see Daniel grow as a person. Daniel is referred to by readers as having a "great personality" (which I agree with, his character development is great).

If these readers have White and light-skinned characters with similar flaws and circumstances to that of some Black and brown characters as their favorites, but they react more negatively to the Black and brown ones, then they need to ask themselves why.

Why did they dismiss Late Bloomer's Black female lead as just lazy without knowing the full story? Why did they shame the comic's Black female author for not having her character settle for the first two men that she went on dates with?

Why is Brimstone and Roses's author not allowed to let Bea take her time to grow? People with her issues don't change in a day, or even a few. Why are readers less patient with her in comparison to White or lighter-skinned Webtoon leads who are just as flawed?

I am asking Webtoon readers to please give these characters the same grace and patience that you would your favorite White and light-skinned characters. If the story or characters aren't for you, that's ok. I've dropped plenty of media that I wasn't interested in after watching a few episodes of a show, or reading a few chapters of a book. However, when it's the very beginning of someone's story, you very well could be missing out on something great if you're disproportionately judging these women of color far too quickly, especially when many of you will sit through Webtoons that contain hundreds of episodes in them (As for the Let's Play fans, many of you guys sat there seeing nothing wrong with what was going on with Sam and Charles's entire dynamic until the second to last episode in Season 3, when Charles searches through her phone when he thinks Sam is asleep).

I'm not even saying that these stories are perfect, either! I had plenty of criticisms surrounding Late Bloomer as I was reading it, but I still love it despite its flaws. I'm saying that if you can enjoy flawed stories with heavily flawed White and light-skinned leads, you can do the same for flawed Black and brown female leads as well.

[pikasetism]

hi, if this doesn't bother you, what are your pikase headcanons?

do you have au with them?

also i love the blog idea, it's so cute have a place were the pikase fans can talk about them 💖

hiiiii anon i did not realize how much i would have to say about this ive been writing this reply for hours sorry long post inkoming lmfao

my funny little general headcanons can fluctuate for whatever i wanna do but the solid ones are that fukase is disabled and does tech support and piko is a robot and does a lot of programming stuff, they join forces to build silly little robots together and theyre always looking out for each other

more random ones are stuff like the height i draw fukase with fluctuates but hes never taller than piko, both of them are some flavor of transgender (i personally like unlabeled piko and intersex fukase), piko is mikis sibling and shes dating miku append, both of them are robots and id love to draw a double date at some point, i dont really have any mikippend headcanons but i love them sm too omg and i like to draw piko with funny little hologram windows he can acess the internet from and i think thats just kind of a robot thing robots can do :]

the only thing i can consider an au that i have with them is what i call "memesquad from the mirror dimension" or "seriousquad" which is this note on my phone where i wrote every single personality trait i could think of from talkloids i saw around 2018-2020 and reversed them heres what i wrote for fukase and piko

also AWWW TYYY thats so sweet yeaaaaaaah shipping vocaloids is all fun and games until you realize that unless your otp is from crypton you cant find SHIT about them, id love to have my blog seen as a little hub where all of us can sit around a campfire and chat about our silly ship omg 🥺

pikase being a rarepair baffles me specifically because of the memesquad, idk why but at least on my time on that side of the fandom some years ago it was always super hard to find any pikase stuff which always confused me since they're both In The Deam Memesquad. PERFECTLY good gay couple in there guys. why does no one see the vision. i vividly remember this one time i was like 13 reading a crack ask fic on wattpad and the only time pikase was even hinted at it was played off as a complete Joke and it made me so upset lmao

i only have around 40 followers here but it makes me so happy to see so many people that share my love for this ship, the rarepairness of it always made me feel so alone, back when i only used twitter there was 1 artist that Sometimes posted pikase stuff and that was all i had, genuenly i am willing to bet that im currently one of the only active pikase artist out there lmao, i say this in my bio but i made this blog to just get me to draw them more and be more shameless about MY FUCKING OTP and i genuenly never expected to see more than like 5 people on my notes, even if someone just silently likes and reblogs a drawing with no comment attached it still always makes me so warm inside even, ive gotten at least 2 people saying "OH MY GOD AN ACTIVE PIKASE BLOG" on my notes and i share the sentiment deeply. hell yeah. theres more of us out there >:D

[muninnhuginn]

kinda neat how media can be used as a jumping off point to learn about new things. there are the obvious things like documentaries, but then there are all sorts of other things. when 'hamilton' first got big, you ended up with people learning about aaron burr and the new york water system and various trivia from usa history around that era which wasn't even featured in the musical itself.

when 'mr bates vs the post office' came out recently over here (UK), a whole lot of people were able to appreciate the impact the whole horizon/post office affair had on its victims. sure, the story has been in the news for a few years now, but it's the first time it's been a story actively discussed in daily life. and people learning more about it has actively pushed the government to consider speeding up compensation or mass exonerations.

and even aside from these obvious instances, there are a lot that don't tell you up front and you realise as you're watching. when shows and films and books reference real life events through the veneer of fiction. suzume, referencing the tohoku earthquake of 2011 (something I imagine pretty much every japanese citizen is aware of - suzume's own age is very deliberate in how she lost her mother to the quake. she was very young at the time it happened, but it still had a huge impact on her and many others). link click, referencing the 2008 sichuan earthquake (and deliberately having the arc revolve around school-age children in a run-down old building when irl one of the reasons the casualties were so high was because of poor construction of school buildings). various kdramas referencing generational SK disasters: imf financial crisis (explored in 'reborn rich', but I imagine many other shows), sampoong department store collapse (referenced in 'move to heaven', but again, once I knew the history, it made a lot of sense why so many corrupt villains in kdramas were specifically involved in construction).

it's a mix of how, if you know the events being referenced, they'll impact you more. but if you don't know the events, then it gives you a reason to learn. I personally had very very vague memories of the 2008 earthquake, just in terms of some clips on the news at the time. I had no idea about the various factors that made the disaster so much worse until I realised what was being referenced when watching the show and decided to read up on it.

I have somewhat conflicted feelings on how fictional (or dramatised in the case of mr bates) media approaches specifically *disasters*, as opposed to other historical events, but I think the shows I've mentioned here at least take a victim-first approach.

[plantenjoyer]

I SWEAR I KEEP TRYING TO DO ART BUT THEN SOMETHING GETS IN THE WAY AND THEN I PROCRASTINATE AND THEN SIX MONTHS PASS

[potatoesandsunshine]

sometimes the unhappy marriage of the rulers of ferelden.... is something that can be so personal

[starcrossedmusings]

Pretty Hands

Pairing: best friend!Yunho x f!reader WC: 3.2k Warnings: eventual smut, reader has a thing for Yunho's hands (who doesn't??), swearing, fingering, choking, a little bit of degradation (he compares her to a whore literally once), PRAISE so much praise, Yunho talks reader through it (you're welcome), pov is kinda all over the place just let it be, Yunho is absolutely WHIPPED for reader teehee, probably some other things that I missed (let me know)

Summary: You and Yunho have been friends for years, and you tell each other everything. He suddenly takes a much more vested interest in your love life when you can't stop mentioning your newest interest.

A/N: This is entirely self indulgent and also I just wanted to get something full posted. The Phantom fic is turning out to be much longer than I originally anticipated (and so did this one once I started writing it). Let me know what you think♡

Stepping into Yunho's apartment had always felt like coming home, and today was no exception. You take your shoes off in the tiled entryway and pad your way through the main living area, calling out to him as you walk.

"Yun? I'm here!"

His muffled response flows down from the end of the hall, "Bedroom!"

You make your way through the back hallway and enter his room, finding him exactly where you thought he would be, focused in on his computer. There's a selection of empty drink cans and snack wrappers scattered around his desk, which tells you that whatever he's currently building on Minecraft has probably occupied the majority of his day so far. He pauses the game and turns his chair to face you.

"Whats up?"

"Got bored at home and my roommate isn't even trying to muffle her pornstar moans for her new boy toy."

Yunho barks out a laugh, "Does she seriously sound--"

"Just like it Yun I can't make this shit up. I'm starting to think maybe they're recording themselves in there."

Yunho wiggles his eyebrows as he stretches his arms up and over his head, leaning back in his chair. "Well, if I ever see your living room on Pornhub I'll be sure to let you know"

You crinkle your nose. "Ew. I do NOT need to know that."

"Whatever, don't act like you haven't been talking to me for weeks about how horny you are. If I have to hear about your vibrator dying one more time I'm gonna buy you a new one myself."

"You try getting unintentionally edged three nights in a row with a full charge, it's some bullshit Yun. Besides, I'm allowed to complain about my dry spell."

Yunho scoffs, tone playful and lighthearted. "Dry spell? It's been what? Two months?"

"It's been three thank you very much." You move to sit on his bed.

"Well some of us haven't had sex in much longer."

"Oh, please, that girl that San was messing around with was all over you at his birthday party last month, don't tell me you didn't take that opportunity."

Yunho raises his eyebrows in shock, leaning forward in his chair. "Wait, really?"

"Oh my GOD Yun you are so oblivious. Yes really. She was all giggly and twirling her hair and shit. That's like...girl flirting basics."

"I am not oblivious, I am actually quite observant. I could tell you things about yourself you don't even know. I just have my sights set on someone and that someone is not her."

You shoot him an incredulous look and snort out a laugh, leaning back to lay down completely on his bed, legs dangling off the edge. "Sure Yun, whatever makes you feel better."

You hear Yunho stand from his chair and feel his weight shift onto the mattress. He appears in your vision, a challenging playful sparkle in his eyes as he peers down at you. "Okay, fine. I can tell that you're trying out a new perfume, you just went shopping because your leggings are a different brand than you usually wear, and I know that you washed your hair last night because you're wearing it all the way down today."

You do your best to ignore the way your stomach summersaults at his attention to detail about you and your routines. You roll onto your side and prop your head up on your elbow, matching his challenging gaze. "Okay Sherlock Holmes. What kind of underwear am I wearing then?"

Yunho pauses to consider before responding "a thong, probably black." You grin triumphantly and lean in just a bit closer.

"Wrong. I'm not wearing any. You lose!" You stick your tongue out playfully at him and he swats your shoulder, falling back onto his mattress.

"You set me up!"

"Face it Yun, I'm just better than you."

"Yeah yeah, whatever" Yunho pouts, voice hightening slightly from surprise. He can feel a slight redness creeping up his ears and prays his hair has grown long enough to cover it. 'I'm not wearing any.' He clears his throat. "So why go commando? You finally planning to seduce your new conquest?"

"He is not a new conquest, he doesn't even know I like him."

"He will once he knows you aren't wearing any underwear for him" Yunho jokes, smiling cheekily. You smack at his chest.

"I didn't want to do laundry last night, asshole. Get your mind out of the gutter!"

"You're one to talk" he mutters under his breath.

You sit up fully and reach for one of the pillows at the top of his bed, slamming it down on his face. "Jeong Yunho I swear to god!" On your second swing, he manages to catch the pillow with one hand and pry it from your grasp, but not before giving you an entirely unhelpful image of his long fingers gripping the plush material.

"What?? All I ever hear you talk about lately is how tall and handsome this dude is and how much his hands make you drool."

"You sound jealous."

"I'm not jealous, I'm pissed that I have to hear all about him and don't even get to know what the dude's name is."

"I told you, I'm gatekeeping this time. You run your mouth too much."

"I do not!"

"Do too."

"Ugh FINE whatever," Yunho chucks the pillow back towards you and you dodge it, leaving both pillows on one side of the headboard, "You're so agitating."

"You know you love me Yun. But just for the attitude," You adjust both pillows and shuffle your way back until you're leaned against both of them, "no pillow for you for tonights doomscrolling session."

He huffs a laugh and scoots up to meet you, pulling out his phone and settling in against the headboard.

An hour later you get up to go to the bathroom, and when you get back Yunho has stolen both of his pillows. You frown and cross your arms. "Hey, asshole, those were mine!"

"Yeah?" He taunts playfully, "Well they were mine to begin with, and my back is killing me. So deal." You roll your eyes and cross back over to the bed, crawling over the side you've been sitting on and curling yourself into Yunho's side to rest your head against his chest. You feel him tense slightly underneath you before he moves one of his arms around your shoulders to let you lay more comfortably.

"There's no way in hell I'm sitting up against that cold ass metal frame you call a headboard." You mutter as you begin scrolling. Yunho's chuckle rumbles through his chest and tickles your cheek. You both sit in silence for a while, content to scroll on your phones. Eventually, you turn to look up at him from his chest.

"I meant to ask how your new project has been going. Whatever you were building when I came in looked pretty intense." You can see the faint tinge of red trail up his ears and neck--a telltale sign that whatever you caught him building makes him embarrassed. You sit up, propping your weight on your elbow and placing a hand on his chest to shove him slightly. "Ooooo now you have to tell me what it is!"

"It's embarrassing..."

"Tell me tell me tell me tell me--"

"Okay fine, fuck. I'll tell you if you promise not to laugh--"

"I won't I swear!"

"Pinky promise?" He holds his pinky out to you, and you raise a hand from his chest. Before you can lace your pinky in his, he pulls his hand up above his head. "I'm serious, Y/N, if you laugh I'll have no choice but to tickle you to death."

He's definitely not stalling because he has to come up with a reply, because he certainly hasn't been building a treehouse for you in what he hopes will one day be a shared server. Yunho thinks to himself that he would rather die than let you find out.

You scoff, "I won't laugh...and even if I did I'm not ticklish so your threat is a moot point."

Yunho drops his hand down onto the mattress. "Bullshit."

"It's not. I don't have a ticklish bone in my body."

"Liar."

You shake your head, and Yunho takes the opportunity to gently press the pads of his fingers into the sides of your ribs. The sensation hits you almost immediately, and you feel the tight feeling in your chest as he begins tickling you. You squeal and thrash around in his grasp, trying desperately to get away from his assault.

"Yun stop it--"

"Not until you admit you're a liar!" You begin to giggle and manage to roll away from him, but Yunho is quick to follow. He swings a long leg over your hips and pins you beneath him, a single large hand trapping both of your wrists above your head while the other dances across your ribs. "Admit it," He sings out.

"Okay! Okay fine I'm a liar!" You gasp out between laughter. Yunho beams down at you and immediately stops tickling your sides, leaving you panting underneath him--

Oh fuck...you're panting underneath him.

He can almost feel the shift in the air as he stares down at you. He knows he should move, just roll off of you and make up some bullshit lie about what he was building. You like someone else, and he clearly wasn't getting out of the friend zone any time soon. He's just making a fool of himself...and yet he just can't bring himself to stop memorizing the way you look splayed out beneath his hips. Eventually he forces himself to stop staring at the way your chest rises and falls or the sliver of your tummy that's poking out from underneath your shirt that's riding up. He locks eyes with you.

Your voice comes out softer than he's ever heard you speak before. "Hey Yun?"

"Yeah?"

"You know that mystery guy I've been telling you about? The one with the pretty hands?"

A twinge of annoyance flairs in his stomach and he can't help but grumble out his reply. "Yeah?"

"I'll give you a hint. He's got me pinned to the mattress right now."

Yunho feels his heart drop deep into the pit of his stomach.

"Like...like right now he does?"

You laugh lightly. "Yeah, right now, Yun."

Yunho swallows thickly as his head starts spinning. He leans down much slower than he would have liked to, giving you plenty of time to take it back--to laugh at him and tell him you got him good. He feels like his whole body lights ablaze when you close the final gap between your lips, and suddenly he is kissing you.

In almost any circumstance that you had seen Yunho kissing someone, he was always fast-paced--hot and heavy petting in the corner of a darkened bar, dares in drunken party circles--which is why you were floored at the reverence he was kissing you with now. His mouth was steady and intense against yours, his hands roaming slowly across the expanse of your torso like he was memorizing the feel of something priceless. You gently pull your hands from his grasp and tangle them in his hair, pulling him closer and matching his intensity with your fervor. You feel his hands make their way to the lower hem of your shirt, and your skin erupts in goosebumps as you feel his fingers ghost along the sliver of skin there. He breaks the kiss and you feel his breath fan across your face as he pants. His hands gently make their way to rest just under your shirt, not quite pushing the fabric up. He locks eyes with you.

"Is this okay?"

You chuckle gently. "Yes, Yun, you can touch me. I want you to touch me." You watch his eyes darken and his hands start running up your torso, pulling your shirt up with them.

"Where do you want me to touch you, baby?"

You exhale heavily and arch your back into his touch. "Anywhere...everywhere...I don't care."

Yunho smirks and feels his ego inflate. "You don't care? Hmm..." He starts planting kisses along your jaw and down the side of your neck. Slow. Teasing. "If I remember correctly, you seemed pretty keen about having my hands in some specific places baby. Can you refresh my memory?"

The low whine that escapes your throat nearly sends him spiraling. "You know where...don't make me say it."

He does know, but there's nothing he wants to hear more right now than to hear you say it. He brings one hand up to your chest, cupping one of your boobs and squeezing gently as he continues peppering your neck with kisses. "Was it here? Or..." His hand trails back down and grips your hip possessively, "Here, maybe?" He hears you huff and feels your hand wrap around his wrist. You try to tug it up, and he chuckles softly but allows you to move his hand. He nips your earlobe and asks lowly, "Where do you need my hands baby?" He feels his cock twitch in his sweats when you wrap his fingers around your throat, guiding him to squeeze the sides gently. Your hands run down his chest and drop to your sides as he squeezes a little harder. "Fuck, look at you. So pretty with my hand around your neck."

You whine and buck your hips up, desperately looking for friction. Yunho coos as he looks down at you, wanting to have the image burned into his memory. He adjusts his position so he's sat on one side of you and brings his free hand to your thighs, squeezing the flesh there and watching the way you spread your legs for him. "Pretty girl, I need you to use your words. Spreading your legs like a whore isn't gonna get you what you want." He revels in the way you throw your head back onto the mattress and close your eyes, frustration evident already on your face.

"Need your fingers, Yun. Please."

Holy shit, he could combust right then and there. He smiles and traces his hands along the inside of your clothed thighs. "Good girl. So polite for me." He hooks his fingers in the waistband of your leggings and pulls them down and off, leaving you bare from the waist down. "Sit up for me baby. I want you between my legs."

Yunho sits on the edge of the mattress and allows you time to sit up, moving to sit in between his thighs. He hooks your legs over his, leaving you spread and completely at his mercy. A shiver runs down your spine as the pads of his fingers run across your thighs and you gasp as they brush against your core. He presses kisses into your neck and chuckles, "You're already soaking wet, what's got you all bothered hmm? I've barely touched you..." Yunho hums and teases your entrance with this middle finger. He can feel you clenching. "Do you like my hands that much baby? All it takes is a little choking and you're putty for me." He pushes two fingers inside, pumping slowly and curling back to find your sweet spot. He feels pride flare through his chest at the noise you make, a mix between a whine and a moan that eggs him on.

Your toes curl as Yunho almost immediately finds your g-spot. The pace he sets is almost perfect, and when he begins rubbing tight circles on your clit your eyes roll back into your head. The pleasure is a building wave, and it's all you can do to keep yourself remotely still as he continues pumping his thick fingers in and out. "Oh my god, Yun, please don't stop!" You clench helplessly around his fingers and let your head roll back to rest on his shoulder.

"Awe baby I'm not gonna stop. Not until I see how pretty you look cumming all over me. Will you do that for me, sweetheart?" he coos, bringing his other hand back up to your throat and squeezing lightly. "Will you cum all over my fingers? I bet you want to right? Wanna come on my fingers while I squeeze this pretty neck of yours?"

You whine and preen at his words and arch your back. Your legs begin to shake as Yunho's circling on your clit quickens pace just slightly, the thrusts of his fingers audible from the squelching between your thighs. Your breath quickens.

"My pretty girl, you're such a mess for me, aren't you? Can you hear how wet you are? All soaked for me? I bet your hands don't feel as good as mine hmm?"

You shake your head no violently, whining as he continues to talk lowly into your ear. Your orgasm builds quickly, and at this point you have no faith in your ability to speak coherently.

"No, they don't do they? I want you to show me how good my hands feel baby. Let go for me, sweetheart."

Your breath catches in your throat as you tip over the edge, and the feeling of your release washes over you. Your whole body jolts in his grasp as he continues pumping his fingers. You feel him squeeze your throat gently, just enough pressure to remind you that he's got you.

"Atta girl, look at you! Doing so good for me." You whine and buck your hips, orgasm still riding through your body. Yunho nips at your neck lightly and slows his pumping to a stop as you continue to shake. "That's it baby, just grind on them for me." The final aftershock of your orgasm finishes, and you go limp in his arms, leaning all of your weight back into his chest and breathing heavily.

Yunho pulls his fingers out and admires the mess you made on them before popping them into his mouth. He's still rock hard, and the taste of you on his fingers makes him twitch again. He'll definitely need your help with that later. He uses the hand around your neck to brush a stray hair from out of your face. "How are you feeling?"

You huff out a breathless laugh and turn your face to nuzzle into his neck. "How do you think I feel? That was...wow."

He can't help the goofy smile that crosses his face. "Oh really? Tell me more, I'd like a full report." He jokes, pulling the two of you down to snuggle on his bed. He grabs a throw blanket from your side and pulls it over the two of you and nearly melts when you curl closer to him, burying your face into his chest.

"Give me a few minutes to recover and I'll show you exactly how I'm feeling right now." Yunho rubs a hand up and down your back.

"I look forward to that."

"And then afterwards you're going to show me what you've been building."

Yunho chuckles and kisses the top of your head. No way in hell.

[renthony]

There's a post going around right now about women being allowed to wear pants, and the way that relates to discussions on gender nonconformity, etc.. There's a long thread of folks talking about how women very much do not have absolute freedom to dress masculine, and a few other posts that have spawned off the main discussion.

And I haven't added onto that main post because I didn't feel like I had much to add, but now it's been a couple days and I can't stop thinking about how I was forced to wear a dress to my high school graduation in small-town Mississippi. I'm not a woman, but I didn't know that yet, so it's a relevant story.

The school administration threatened every single girl with the punishment of being banned from walking across the stage if we wore pants beneath our graduation robes. We got an entire lecture about how it was inappropriate for us to wear pants to such an important formal event.

My school had a strict uniform policy, and the graduating seniors being allowed to wear our own clothes to graduation was seen as a huge fucking deal. We'd spent four years not being allowed to wear our own clothes or accessories, and graduation was supposed to be our time to finally wear what we wanted. This was a bigger deal than it might have been otherwise, because my school also refused to allow us to decorate our graduation caps. We were not allowed to display any customization at all. One girl put her name on hers so her family could find her from the crowded stands, and the school administration made her throw her hat away and buy a new one or else she wouldn't be allowed in the event hall.

The school, knowing how excited many of us were about picking our outfits, gave us a strict dress code. Our outfits wouldn't be seen until after we took off the graduation robes to go home, but still, we had a nightmarishly strict guide for what we were allowed to wear beneath them. They had to be formal outfits, they had to fit a certain color scheme, they had to adhere to the school policy about skirt length and skin visibility, and, naturally, they were extra harsh on the girls, as dress code policies always are.

One guy joked that he was going to go naked underneath in solidarity with all the girls who were upset about the dress requirement. He got pulled aside by an administrator and told that if he made that joke again, he wouldn't be given his diploma. Which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but it was still the threat that got made.

Everyone was pissed, several people were livid because they had already bought an outfit they were now not allowed to wear, because the administration had actively misled us for weeks into believing we would be allowed to wear what we wanted. There had been no mention of dress code requirements until they dropped them on us at rehearsal the morning of graduation, less than 12 hours before the event.

We had no power to override the school administration. We were given a strict lecture at rehearsal about how flouting dress codes is unprofessional and if we gave that kind of attitude to people over dress codes in the workplace, we'd be fired.

We were ultimately told that, "if it's not appropriate for church, it's not appropriate for graduation." Those of us who asked "what if we aren't Christian and don't even go to church" were told "you still know what kind of clothes church clothes are, so stop being rude."

This happened in May of 2011.

[hard-core-super-star]

losing focus [W.Maximoff + N.Romanoff]

pairing: dom!wanda maximoff x sub!reader x dom!natasha romanoff

summary: as unexpected as it is, you become a permanent part of wanda and natasha's relationship.

warnings: SMUT, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT -> porn with very little plot but many feelings; mommy + daddy kink; implied dom/sub dynamics; mentions of petplay; fingering [R receiving]; cunnilingus [R receiving]; overstimulation; nipple play; so many petnames; wanda and nat being competitive; badly proofread

wordcount: 3.7k

a/n: hi again! so, i was originally supposed to post a bishova fic today buuuut i got too attached and wrote a part two of "push me on the counter, call me princess" because i could. i hope you enjoy <3

* * * * * * *

It's difficult to define what your relationship with the witch and her grumpy assassin girlfriend has turned into. 

You know you're not really a part of their relationship, at least not officially, but you're not a mere observer either. Your main connection is with Wanda, which Natasha doesn't seem to mind, but the three of you are well aware of the way you simply started...joining them...all the time.

It started with small things. With Wanda inviting you to sit on her lap during movie nights. With Natasha begrudgingly letting the witch tie you down on their shared bed. With both of them holding you close at night, each of them murmuring some excuse about why they needed the physical contact.

You didn't mind. What kind of fool would mind being sandwiched between two of the most fearsome and beautiful Avengers?

But it very quickly stopped being enough for you.

You didn't want to be greedy, you knew your connection with Wanda wasn't right in the first place. You should have never allowed her to enchant you to the point of weaseling your way into her relationship.

And yet here you are.

Tucked under Wanda's arm while you watch her favorite sitcom.

A part you of you wants to be unhappy. To act like you don't want to be part of this.

But the truth is you do.

You really like this.

"You're thinking too much, detka." There's no judgement in the witch's tone, just the soothing sound of her accent. "Do you want to talk about it?"

You shake your head, instantly feeling overwhelmed from the mere thought of sharing your worries with her. You're not even sure why you're worried. Why there's a part of you that can't seem to settle, despite how warm and comfortable the older woman's embrace is.

"I'm fine," you mumble.

Wanda hates it when you mumble, but you can't help it. You also can't help the way you turn toward her, your face finding refuge in the crook of her neck.

She allows it for it now. Clearly, she doesn't need to read your thoughts to know how much you're struggling with them.

You want to feel embarrassed about it, but it's hard to feel anything except her palm pressing into your side. Her fingers slip under the hem of your (well...Natasha's) shirt and she draws small circles against your skin.

The two of you stay like that for a while. Wanda watches her show and you catch glimpses of it whenever you gather the courage to peak your head up and out of the comfort of her neck.

You've practically settled into the comfort when the door opens and your bubble of safety is popped.

Your shoulders tense until you hear the telltale sound of Natasha's sigh. There's an edge of annoyance to the sound that you've grown to associate with her. "Wanda, if you wanted a pet, we could have just gotten a cat."

Her words make the witch chuckle despite herself. She knew, no matter how cold the other woman acted, she was simply pretending. It was always easier for her to put her walls back up when she was unsure of something instead of going with the flow.

"Hello to you too, sweetheart."

Wanda gives your side a small pinch, not to hurt you but to encourage you to say hi. You don't really want to, you're still not sure how to act around the older woman, but you do it anyway.

"Hi, Nat."

The redhead rolls her eyes, but the corners of her lips quirk up into the smallest of smiles. "Hello, kitten. Have you been behaving?"

It's a small thing but it's a start. A reminder that she doesn't actually dislike you and she's not mad at the way things have turned out.

That maybe...she's softer than she looks.

"Yes, Daddy," you reply, a soft blush coating your cheeks as you address Natasha by her title. "I listened to Mommy all day."

The small smile on the redhead's face grows at your words. As tough as she looks, she completely adores the way you instantly submit to her without any objections. The way it all seems so natural. So weirdly right.

"Without pouting?" She asks, raising her eyebrow in the way that makes you tremble.

The idea of lying crosses your mind but you know better than that. Plus, there's no use in lying when you're sitting next to a literal mind reader.

"Well...no. But it wasn't my fault!"

Natasha doesn't seem convinced, although she does seem amused. Her eyes drift to Wanda, who can't seem to wipe the proud grin off her face. "It wasn't?"

"It wasn't," the witch replies. "She just got pouty because I told her we had to wait for you before we could play."

"Oh, I see. So, you didn't get pouty, you got needy, is that right?"

You nod, her tone making your head swim in an all too familiar way.

Natasha crawls into bed and shifts herself until she's laying down between your spread legs. The flimsy material of your shorts does little to keep your arousal hidden away from the older woman.

"Come here, detka," Wanda murmurs as her hands grip your hips.

She effortlessly lifts you up until you're sitting between her legs, your back pressed firmly against her front. It's a subtle show of dominance, a reminder that despite Natasha's stubbornness, Wanda's the one in charge. The one you actually belong to.

But there's also a soft side to it. A reminder that she's right there in case things get too overwhelming. That you can back out at any moment and they won't be upset.

It's far too late for that, though. Far too late to act like you don't want them both. Like you don't need them.

Natasha's hands bring you back. Her fingers trail a teasing path up your thighs until they reach the waistband of your shorts.

There's a wordless question in her gaze. One that makes your heart skip a beat.

You nod in response and she wastes no time in getting rid of the garments in the way.

Her eyes take in every inch of exposed skin, the softness in her smile turning slightly predatory. It's a sight you're growing very used to seeing.

"Look at you," she coos, although her tone is far more teasing than sweet. "You're already so wet for us. Mommy's left you needy for too long, huh?"

"I'm not the bad guy here," Wanda says with a chuckle. "It wasn't my idea."

Natasha rolls her eyes but your attention is captured by the witch and her warm hands that slip under your shirt. Her fingers make their way up your torso, her nails dragging against your skin and making your back arch in response.

"Don't listen to her, detka, she's just jealous."

You nod along to the redhead's words even though they don't fully register in your mind. All you know is you're stuck between them as they engage in yet another unnecessary competition.

Wanda notices first, far too used to the subtle cues that give away your growing dependence on them. Your growing need to let go and let them take over.

"There you go, sweetheart, doesn't that feel nice?" Her voice is soft and sweet in your ear, a constant lullaby that allows you to sink deeper against her.

"Mhmm," you hum, your hands reaching out for Natasha as her lips join her fingers in exploring your skin.

The witch is quick to stop you before you get too carried away. Her hands wrap around your wrists and she holds them down, allowing her girlfriend to keep teasing you. "Just relax, baby, Nat knows what to do."

You don't doubt her words for a second, but you also don't doubt the teasing mood the redhead seems to be in. You would complain if you weren't so busy trying to keep yourself still.

It's easier said than done, though, and Natasha quickly tightens her grip on your thighs, keeping you exposed to her gaze and completely still. "Come on, detka, don't you want to show Mommy what a good girl you are?"

Her words make your hips buck, but instead of teasing you for it, she sives right into the main event. Her breath ghosts the most sensitive part of your body before her lips wrap around your swollen clit.

The sensation borders on far too much far too quickly and yet the pleasure seems to overwhelm your body before the sensitivity hits you. Your head falls back against Wanda's shoulder as your lips part in a long moan.

The witch takes advantage of your change in position and attaches her lips to your neck, switching back and forth between gentle kisses and harsh nips. "There you go, isn't that better? Don't think, darling, just let us take over."

The answer is more than obvious considering how far gone your mind is. All you can fully focus on is the soft fuziness feeling your head and the pleasure you're drowing under.

"Daddy," you whine under your breath, your hips shifting against Natasha's mouth.

The redhead simply hums, lapping at your arousal like a woman starved. She doesn't want to admit it but hearing you call her that does things to her that she can't explain. There's a certain type of satisfaction she's never felt with Wanda, even when her girlfriend is in a more submissive mood.

It's what draws her closer to you despite how hard she tries to pretend like she doesn't care. And maybe she doesn't care, but the way she commits herself to making you fall apart, completely overwhelmed by pleasure tells another story.

Wanda's quick to notice how fuzzy you are by now, how perfectly pliable you've become with just a few soft strokes of Natasha's tongue against your throbbing clit. She lets go of your hands, trusting you not to move, before her fingers slip under your shirt again, trailing up until she reaches your breasts.

"Such a good girl for us," she murmurs, as her fingers find your nipples. "Such a pretty little pet."

You're stuck between wanting to arch your back and buck your hips. Ultimately, you end up doing nothing which is exactly what they like. It allows them to please you and use you in whatever way they want.

It's a little surprising how devoted Natasha seems to be to just pleasuring you, but your head is far too fuzy for you to try and think about that. The implications themselves aren't lost on you, though, and they only add to the growing coil in settled in your stomach.

"Don't tell me you're getting ahead of yourself, kotenok." The redhead leans back just enough to look up at you, dark green eyes drinking in every inch of your face. "Good girls don't act like greedy sluts, do they?"

"No, Daddy."

Your instant response makes her smirk and she rewards you by sinking two fingers into your wet cunt.

A gasp slips out of your parted lips and Wanda takes the opportunity to pinch and pull at your hardened nipples. The stinging pain mixes perfectly with the sudden pleasure and you can't stop your body from trembling under their expert hands.

"Please," you whine. "Can I cum?"

"Already?" Wanda chuckles. "Did I leave you too needy earlier?"

"Mhmm, so needy." You don't fully know what you're saying, you just know you can't hold back anymore and the last thing you need is to earn yourself a punishment. "Please."

Your words only seem to spur Natasha on and, instead of giving you mercy like you're asking for, she starts thrusting her fingers in and out of you, groaning as she feels your walls clenching around the digits. "Fuck, such a messy pet."

"I think she's about to get even messier."

The way they talk about you like you're not even there only adds fuel to your desperate arousal. There's nothing more for you to do besides wait for Natasha to decide to give you the mercy you're begging for.

You half-expect her to not give it to you just so she can punish you for it later. It certainly wouldn't be the first time, and you're certain she's only gotten more obssesed with the idea since then.

"Yeah? Is Mommy right, detka? Are you going to make a mess for us?" You know Natsha's teasing you and yet you don't feel the usual flush of humilation. Instead, the warmth that floods you is exactly the same one you feel when Wanda uses her sweetly condescing tone on you.

They're such different tones, such different people, and yet you can't deny the way you feel about them. The way every part of you begs for them.

"Yes, please-" Natasha steals your words by curling her fingers inside your wet heat, your thighs shaking from the force of holding back your orgasm. "Wanna cum, please-"

Wanda shushes you, knowing exactly how to soothe you when you need it most. She doesn't give you the permission you need, though, and in your desperation, you miss the silent conversation the two lovers have.

The seconds seem to stretch into hours until finally, Natasha gives in. "Go ahead, detka, cum for us."

She dives back in, her tongue drawing circles on your sensitive cit as her fingers move in and out of your cunt. The pleasure builds and builds, spurred on by Wanda's fingers playing with your nipples.

All it takes is the witch pinching your hardened peaks once more for you to fall over the edge for them.

Your mouth falls open in a loud moan, your whole body shaking as the waves of pleasure overtake your senses. Even as you lose control of yourself, the two women don't relent or give you a second to catch your breath.

As much as you'd love to complain about it, you can't when all you can think about is the electric sensations coursing through your body.

You cry out as Natasha continues her assault on your oversensitive clit, your hips shaking as you try to move away from her. Instead of scolding you for moving so much, she groans against you, causing your walls to clench around her in response.

"Don't fight it, sweetheart," Wanda mumbles, her lips grazing your jaw. "Just let Daddy make you feel good. It's what you wanted, right? Now take it like a good girl."

"Uh-huh, fu-" Your attempts at words turn into needy sounds that spur the redhead on.

"One more, detka, do it for me, yeah?"

Despite your initial complaints, your body gives in to the pleasure almost instantly. It's not fully surprising but it's certainly overwhelming and it sends you deeper into the fuziness filling your mind.

Natasha does her best to hold you down even as your hips buck desperately into her face. She works a third finger inside you and it takes all your self-restraint to not fall apart at the feeling.

"Please!" You gasp. "Can I cum?"

This time, the witch takes over and gently guides you toward your orgasm. "Go ahead, angel, you've been so good for us, just let go."

So, you do.

You give up control and let go.

You're not sure what happens, all you know is your whole body tenses as the coil in your stomach snaps free. You're too far gone to realize what a mess you make of yourself and the sheets beneath you, but the satisfaction in Natasha's movements isn't lost on you.

She works you through the seemingly never-ending aftershocks, easing herself away from your clit and slowly pulling her fingers out of your cunt. "So fucking beautful..."

Your body finally goes limp and you practically melt against Wanda. Her arms wrap around your waist while she places soft kisses to every inch of your face she can reach. "Good girl. You did so well."

You hum in response, barely registering Natasha's movements as she does her best to clean you up.

The bed shifts when the redhead finishes and you instantly know she's moving away from both of you. You try to complain but the words don't seem to form.

"Shhh, just rest, kotenok, you need it."

You want to argue and assure her you feel fine, but you can't seem to find the strength to open your eyes. All you manage to do is whine, earning yourself a chuckle from Wanda.

"Don't pout, baby. You're my good girl, right?"

You wait for Natasha to correct her. To jump in and say you're their good girl.

But she doesn't.

And the longer the silence goes on, the more it hurts your feelings.

"Mommy..." You whisper.

She presses a soft kiss to your temple as her hands go back to caressing your sides. "I know. We'll figure it out later, just sleep for now."

There's little for you to do besides give in and let sleep overcome you.

* * *

When you wake up, you instantly notice the lack of warmth against you. Your head's still a little fuzzy but you feel slightly more in control now. You're also still pretty drowsy, though.

You attempt to blink the sleepiness out of your eyes as you lift your head, your eyes searching around the room for Wanda.

Instead of the witch, you find her girlfriend curled up in the reading chair in the corner of the room. There's a certain tension in her form that tells you far more than she'd like.

"Maria called," Natasha says, her voice colder than you've heard it in a while. "Wanda had to go. It sounded like she'll be gone for a few weeks."

Oh.

At least that explains why the redhead looks so...vulnerable and...lost.

Their relationship has always been a bit of a mystery to you. Despite the many nights you've listened to Wanda complain about the assassin's shitty coping mechanisms, you don't know many details about their connection.

You just know that somehow...they work. Despite their traumas and their pain, they understand each other.

And then there's you.

You're even less sure of where you fit in.

Of how Natasha feels about you.

"You can at least pretend to be happy to spend time with me," she says, effectively cutting off your thoughts.

"I am," you reply without skipping a beat. "I just...didn't think you'd be thrilled about it."

"Why? Because I'm the big bad girlfriend who has no feelings? Who doesn't give a shit about anyone?"

Despite her attempts to sound mad, her tone gives away how hurt she is. How terrified she is that you see her like that. That you think she's half as bad as the stories you've heard about her.

"No, I just...well, I know you and Wanda had that arrangement and everything but you didn't ask for this. I thought you just saw me as her annoying pet."

The corners of her mouth twitch a little as she tries to hold in her smile. "I did at first. It's nothing personal, hearing Wanda say she wanted you was...a little hard to deal with."

"Yeah, I figured." You sit up with your back against the headrest, your eyes absentmindedly admiring Natasha's features. Even with the distance between you, she looks stunning. "It wasn't easy for me either, y'know? I felt really guilty about it."

"That didn't stop you from sleeping with her the first time, though."

"Well, no but...in my defense, you can't exactly say no to Wanda when her mind is made up."

That earns you a quiet chuckle. "Yeah, you can say that again. Why do you think you're here? Wanda didn't want to let you go after the first time."

It's not necessarily news considering how things went down after the first time, but you can't act like your heart doesn't skip a beat at her words. The confirmation that the witch wanted you is one thing, but you're still not sure how Natasha feels. Something that's not surprising considering how closed off she is.

"And you?" You ask, hoping you sound less nervous than you feel.

It takes Natasha a few seconds to form her response. You can't exactly blame her but the silence makes your skin crawl. The fear that she doesn't want you, that she doesn't care, rises up within you the longer it drags on.

Finally, she eases your mind.

"Let's just say you've grown on me, kitten."

It's not much and yet it's more than enough for you. It reinforces the connection you've started feeling with her. The bond that demands to be nurtured despite how unusual it is.

Then again, wanting unsual things is kind of your thing at this point.

"You've grown on me too," you mutter, doing your best to ignore the warmth that spreads along your face.

"That doesn't mean you're not still our pet, though," she clarifies. "...if you want, that is. It can stay casual or we can turn it into more. We can train you. I can train you, if you want to be our submissive."

It takes a second for the words to fully sink in.

You nod before you even know what you're doing. You don't need to think about it, though, it's what you want. You want them. And all the little nuances that come with them.

Natasha watches you for a moment, her eyes studying you as if she's waiting for you to realize what you're doing and back out instantly. You can't exactly put your reasons into words to ease her mind. All you know is you've never wanted anything the way you want them.

Despite not being a mindreader like her girlfriend, the assasin is quick to move toward you once the thought of being fully theirs crosses your mind.

"You sure you've got what it takes, kitten?" She asks as she settles onto your lap. "I'm a lot to handle."

"I can take it," you reply, your hands landing on her waist without a second thought. "I want you."

Finally, your words are enough to break through her defenses. 

It doesn't feel like enough and yet it's exactly what she had wanted to hear. What she was afraid you wouldn't want.

"Then you have me," she says, her voice far softer than you've ever heard it.

There's so much you want to say, but words don't seem to be enough right now. So, instead, you lean forward and press your lips to hers.

You're not completely sure how you ended up here but you wouldn't trade it for the world.

[underwhelmingalchemist]

So apparently the version of the "Isn't It Bromantic" interview that gets passed around isn't the full thing

So after seeing a tumblr post I can't find, about two and half hours of intensive internet digging, and one purchase from a sketchy second-hand site later (full story under the cut, I promise it's interesting, but also long), I got the physical magazine and scanned it

So here you go: the full "Isn't It Bromantic?" TV guide interview with Robert Sean Leonard and Hugh Laurie

Feel free to repost wherever you want- I want people to be able to find the full thing

SO, as for how I found it:

I saw this tumblr post forever ago that I can't find anymore because tumblr is just Like That with a cropped screenshot of an interview with Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard. In the interview, they're asked about the "bromance" between their two characters. Leonard makes an annoyed comment about how "everyone [is] obsessed with homosexuality", followed by the interview apologizing and Laurie immediately jumping in with, "No, no, let's talk about it. Wilson and House have an unusual relationship so you have to explore…" and the screenshot cuts off there. Cue funny comment from the OP about the interaction, roll credits.

Except, as these things tend to do, it ended up becoming a bit of a brain worm, and I wanted to find it again. But I couldn't find the tumblr post. I looked absolutely everywhere, and in the process of looking everywhere, I found what I thought was the original interview- a blog post with the full quote from the actor. I didn't think too much about it, I figured it was just a short quote given to a popular blog in 2008. There's a magazine cover above it, but I don't think too much about it, because I'm focusing on the quotes in the article instead of the rest of it.

So I send screenshots to a couple friends to make jokes, and it probably should have died there.

However, late at night I end up thinking about that interview again, because of course I did. I start to think about how it's weirdly formatted for, what I assumed at first reading, was just an entertainment news blog reaching out for comment and getting a response. So I pull up the screenshots of the article (because weirdly enough, the old-ass blog only loads on mobile) and look at it again.

This is when I realize that this isn't an original piece from a blog interviewing these two after reaching out for comment. This is a blog post quoting and commenting on a full interview from a magazine, which I had originally thought had just been the inspiration for the piece.

So naturally, I go looking for the magazine.

Luckily, the name of the magazine is displayed on the cover, and so is the title of its main piece. This should be easy to find, right?

Wrong.

This is an interview in a physical magazine. From 2008. October 13th, 2008, to be exact.

I know this exact date because searching the article title and magazine name leads me to an archive on the TV Guide website.

Of covers.

And nothing but covers.

I spend like forty-five minutes searching everywhere I can think of on the web. Internet Archive, the TV Guide website, any search result that comes up when I search any combination of the words "House" "Interview" "Bromantic" "Bromance" "TV Guide" "Archive" etc. Over and over, all that's coming up are that original blog post and the cover from the official gallery.

The only things I could find online were:

The cover and date of the issue on the TV Guide website

The original blog post that was screenshotted in the original tumblr post

Another blog post that had a much shorter version of the quote, references something Leonard says from later in the article, and makes a comment on the nature of his reaction to the term "bromance"

An entry on Leonard's IMDB page's "interview" list mentioning it in title only

And:

5. A single listing for the issue on what seemed to be a second-hand site that looked like it hadn't had its UI updated since the mid 2000's, with a listing with no date or additional information besides what issue it is.

This is the only listing anywhere. I checked every other second-hand site I could think of, and then some that only came up through google searches. There's not a single listing for that issue on any of them. There were plenty of listings of TV guide magazines, including one that seemed promising because it included issues from that year, but it was missing all of October.

It seemed like the only listing for this issue on the entire internet was this one copy on this one obscure website. For all I know, this was listed in 2008 and abandoned, and just never got marked inactive. It could also be a complete scam.

A few quick google searches show that that website seemed to be legit, albeit a bit loose on quality control (which makes sense, this website seemed like the kind of thing you'd have to use the Way Back Machine to access). It also had an option to pay via PayPal, which meant I could file a chargeback if need be.

It was $11.50 when you include shipping.

So at about half past midnight, I bought the listing.

Naturally, about an hour later, I manage to actually find a scan of the interview. I had to follow a link in the comments of a post on FanPop, taking me to an old wordpress blog, and I'm sitting in front of the damn interview at last.

But something doesn't make sense. Why would their cover story only be two pages of text that aren't even full pages, and why would it cut off so strangely? There was no concluding sentence or paragraph, even though it started with a fairly long lead-in. It also led right up to the edge of the page, which felt like there should be more to it. There were more images in the interview than text, and the fact that there are so many of them and they clearly did a whole photoshoot indicated that they had them on hand for a while. The silly string one, for instance, I imagine probably had to require a couple takes, which means cleaning off Wilson's hair and face, adjusting makeup, etc. for it. Meanwhile, the conversation itself seems like it could have taken ten minutes total. I could have been totally wrong and that was where the article ended, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there might be more.

So I hold tight. A couple days pass with no update, and then the PayPal purchase gets updated with a tracking number. Promising, but it could still be a scam. Whether or not I get the actual magazine becomes a source of anxiety for the next week.

Until today, when I get told it was delivered. And when I opened the envelope it was sent in: there it was.

When I tell you I was happy stimming in my bedroom just holding the damn issue in my own hands... And then opening it and finding out that I was right, there was a missing page... I was elated. I still am, just typing this.

So I spent half an hour getting my scanner to work, and I give you the above issues.

Like I said above, feel free to repost however and wherever you want. I want all this to mean something.

In the meantime, I have two more House-themed TV Guide magazines coming to try and get articles from.

[atalana]

also as a further addendum to my bill made a huge mistake underestimating stan post - i was recently listening to the commentary for sock opera

and like everyone and their mother can draw the parallels between ford/dipper and stan/mabel, it's one of the major themes of the show

bill gets the first half of the equation just fine - he thinks dipper can be manipulated in exactly the same way as ford, and while dipper will grow past that by the end of the show, in this episode, he's right. the best ways to get dipper to do what he wants, are to tempt him with all the secrets of the universe, and to remind him that he doesn't owe mabel anything, when mabel's done nothing but hold him back and cause trouble for him. it's probably exactly how he talked about stan to ford back in the day, who was still nursing those grudges and wanted to be the one to discover things no one else had

but the fun thing alex hirsch mentions in the commentary for that episode, is that bill doesn't see mabel as a parallel to stan (bc lbr he barely even recognises stan as a person). he sees mabel as a parallel to himself. yeah dipper and mabel are a good team together, but ultimately when it comes down to it, mabel is a powerful creature of chaos who would choose her own happiness over anyone who relied on her. (alex hirsch at this point jumps into bill's voice to say "how about instead of doing something lame, you do something fun, and crush whoever you want in the process!", and that bill genuinely thinks that is going to work, because it would work on him)

he doesn't expect mabel to destroy all her hard work and crush her own dreams just to help dipper. when he says "who would sacrifice everything they worked for just for their dumb sibling?", he's speaking from experience. he wouldn't. ford didn't. given the type of people bill considers worth talking to, i doubt he's ever come across that type of loyalty before

but the audience has, plenty of times, and will see it even harder by not what he seems. because while mabel does have some of the anarchy and selfishness bill sees in her, that kind of loyalty is a huge part of what she shares with stan

and like in a lot of the commentaries the writers say they weren't sure at first if bill would be the big bad, or how exactly the ending would come together, but in retrospect it never could have been anyone else, and there never could have been anyone but stan to defeat him

because so much of this show is about the relationships between family (including found family), what you would or wouldn't give up for them, but then how much better your life is when you value those relationships over temporary personal gain

so of course the main villain is someone so incapable of understanding that that he is utterly blindsided by the person who embodies it the most

[kianamaiart]

Damn I've also been working on a magical girl story for a while, but didn't post much! Even my main character doesn't want to be a magical girl.. It's a coincidence I promise 😖 here's an old piece from 2021 👉👈

Hahaha no worries! This is such a cute character~

I started working on this story and characters knowing that it wasn't a particularly original idea. "Refusal of the Call" and "Reluctant Hero" are both pretty common tropes and that's okay. I feel like people get hung up on not wanting to do something that's already been done before or something "overdone".

I mentioned it somewhere else before but I strongly believe that no matter how much a trope or concept has been explored, each person will bring their own unique POV to a premise, resulting in vastly different stories. Even if you give two artists the same premise to work with, chances are, what comes out will be really different. At the end of the day I think the execution of an idea is ultimately more important than the initial idea itself