#and thank you for liking my meta!! 💕 I love making it and it really means a lot to me that you like reading it

[mayasaura]

ntn spoilers ahead

Question!

I appreciate that you champion Harrow's schizophrenia, and I had a thought that I'd like to run by you. It's intended with full respect for anyone with the disorder, and is also related to the neuro-bio-psych elements.

When Nona, Cam, and Crown are visiting the Captain, Nona hears Varun speak through the Captain. Afterward, she references the incident and realizes that neither Cam nor Crown had heard this happen. I was confused *how* Nona-lecto had that sort of experience, but...

If Nona-lecto is in Harrow's body, is it possible that she's experiencing schizophrenia symptoms? I'm not wanting to imply that it's a full hallucination, though perhaps since Harrow's 'meat' is schizophrenic meat, there are effects. Would mental health/illness be tied to the soul? Personality certainly seems to be, and some forms of memory.

Just rolling this around in my head a bit, and have no thoughts more advanced than this. Thank you for all your theorizing and writings about the books 💀 - heedee

I've been wondering how or if Harrow's schizophrenia effected Nona since the cover first dropped, and literally speaking, the way you're wondering about? I'm still not really sure. Brain stuff is complicated, even before souls are part of the equation, and everything about Nona is already so goddamn weird. I do think Nona is thematically schizophrenic, the same way she's thematically intellectually disabled.

Like the scene you're talking about here:

I think you're absolutely onto something, seeing this as related to psychosis. Reading this scene with that framing in mind, Nona's experience is so clearly about hallucinations. She was just trying to change the subject, and fuck. Turns out no one else heard that! Camilla and Crown's reactions, too.

But to your point about neurobiology, and the relationship between soul and body, it doesn't really tell us much. Nona wasn't hallucinating, because it turned out Judith wasn't just screaming. Varun was speaking to Nona through Judith in the language of a murdered planet, a language that sounds like screaming to human ears. Like Nona's uncanny knack for human languages, that's a product of her soul, not her brain.

We get proof of that later when Nona is pretending to be Harrow, and faking being effected by the blue light. She imitates the way Judith screamed, makes her mouth make the same shapes Judith's did, and her words come out in italics; just like Judith's words that Camilla and Crown heard as screams. She calls for help, in the screaming language she'd heard from Judith, with Judith in the room to hear her, and Varun answers by attacking the planet.

To your question about whether schizophrenia would be connected to the soul or to the body in setting, I don't think there's a dichotomy there. Body and soul aren't separate things, even when they're separated.

Lyctorhood, for example. You'd think muscle memory would be a clear cut case of living in the body. It's muscles. But when Ianthe chowed down on Naberius' soul, she got his reflexes with it. His swordsmanship, his stance, his training. The soul brought the body with it. And when Harrow literally cut Gideon out of her brain, it removed Gideon from her memory even when her soul was elsewhere. She spent half that book in the River, but didn't remember Gideon until her skull construct failed and her brain began to heal. So I would say that, just like memory, it's both. Harrow's schizophrenia is tied to both her soul and body, and there's not really much point in trying to separate the two.

[luna-rainbow]

Hey, I don't know if you've already answered this (and this may be a weird question lol) but why did Hydra just let Bucky's hair grow long? Why didn't they just cut it? I've seen you do other metas and stuff like that (which I love, you're a great writer!) So do you have any ideas?

Aww thanks for enjoying the other metas 💕

That is a very interesting question that I’ve never thought much of 😅

From a Doylist perspective, the Winter Soldier arc was published in 2005-6. Ed Brubaker was born 1966. Men having long hair became more acceptable and even fashionable from about the 1970s (ie Brubaker’s formative years), and that style carried over to the late 1990s (or, if you’re like me who was in the JPop fandom, it was still popular for most of the 2000s). Longer hair in men was generally seen as subversive and cool, or untamed and unkempt, which were descriptors that would have fit Bucky’s reappearance in his new persona. It was also a good way of indicating that time has passed and his character has changed significantly. One other thing is, when it comes to 2D art, long hair flows, ie it’s easier to express dynamism, which is why so many superheroes wear capes. I believe (not having read the actual comics) Bucky’s role changed in The Winter Soldier run from a pure sidekick to something closer to an antagonist and partner, so the more distinctive character design reflects that too.

From a Watsonian perspective…I guess men’s short hair can be somewhat high maintenance in that you kind of have to trim it once a month at least. Who knows if the serum affects the speed of hair growth as well, because if it does then maybe he needs more frequent trims and it just gets long if they miss any. Presumably, given his history, he’s also not an easy customer to approach with a sharp implement, especially not that close to his face. And they’re always in such a hurry to pack him back in the cryo tube or to get him prepped for his mission that it just gets missed until it really gets in the way.

The other possibility is that the longer hair also changes his face shape substantially speaking as someone who didn’t recognise Bucky when the mask came off. It makes his face more angular and the shadows deeper. It probably stops his memories triggering as easily when he sees his own reflection. It serves to erase his original identity, along with his new “name” (although we have no evidence that he knew he was called the Winter Soldier while he was still brainwashed), new uniform and the bionic arm.

The third reason is that the long unkempt hair could be used as a psychological tactic. It’s emasculating and demeaning, especially for someone born in the 1910s and normally known to be well-groomed and tidy. It’s an element of control over his bodily autonomy that he cannot change without them allowing it or at least giving him access to implements to cut it. It contrasts him with the other soldiers, including the other “Winter Soldiers” we see in CACW, who are allowed to sport typical masculine haircuts, and serves as a continual reminder that he is “other”, if not considered somewhat subhuman.

So that’s my two boring cents. I wonder if anyone else has other ideas.

[vidavalor]

Hello!

This is random but I remembered your posts regarding The Situation with NG’s involvement in Good Omens when one of my followers on Twitter tweeted a screen cap of an old conversation on bluesky where Neil sorta confirms Amazon had pulled back his influence on production from S1 so there’s a lot of truth in what you said

Hope you’re doing great! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Hi there! 💕 Hope you're doing great yourself. I usually offer snacks but this is a large sherry or Talisker topic so *gets the glasses*...

That's interesting info-- thank you for sharing it. Like I was saying in that original post, I don't know any of that for sure but that was definitely the impression I was getting. One of the several reasons I was getting that impression was due to other, equally unprofessional posts like the one you're talking about here that speak to already-existing conflict with Amazon long before this particular Situation became publicly known.

I'm not sure why he'd be trying to fight the studio publicly like that if there's not something happening behind the scenes. It's just unprofessional. I was shocked when I saw posts like that because it's not like he was being a whistleblower to egregious behavior or something-- he was bitching about his boss and the budgets to fans on Tumblr. It feels like he was trying to use the fanbase as a shield to keep himself from being fired, as a way of saying "you can't get rid of me-- I will tell my fans you are the issue and they will believe me and not you and I have a million of them-- just look at my little Tumblr thing. You'll lose money if you don't back me."

You know what kind of guy does shit like that? The same kind that tells young women that no one is going to believe them because he's a famous, award-winning writer and they're nobody.

If you don't mind, I'm going to use your ask here for a moment to add a bit to what I was saying about Good Omens being a through-and-through Pratchett novel because I think it's important to remember that this story has another author here. I've had some people ask me to expound on that a bit. So, for anyone interested, this is what I mean when I say that Good Omens is a Pratchett novel:

As most of you probably know, most of the posts I write about Good Omens have to do with the use of language in the story. The diction in Good Omens is extremely specific. Its quirky word choice, its "gayer than a monkey on nitrous oxide"- type of wordplay? It's funny on the surface level and it's a whole other level of funny when you dig a bit deeper. The cleverness there is familiar to Pratchett readers, as it's part of the distinctive style of his other novels. As a writer who is a bit obsessed with etymology myself, I spotted his love for it right away in his writing. It's in every. single. one. of his books that I have read and I have read quite a few.

The exact same thing is in Good Omens. It's a really specific way of writing where word-related jokes are the vehicle for the humor and etymology-based diction choices are chosen with great precision and inform the piece on every level. Pratchett's signature style of writing came from the fact that he used etymology as a tool to help him convey the messages in his writing. The thematic connections he was making were supported by the complex histories of the key words around which he was forming his stories.

For example, there's a meta one of you asked me to write about the halo in S2 and, when you look at the etymology of the word, as we're going to do in that meta, you'll see that halo comes from discus and discus is the root of discussion, the root of the word desk, and the ancient sport that is like ring toss. It was also the name of a threshing floor for oxen, which ties both to dancing and to the threshold of a door, like the bookshop entry. By the time we get through looking at this one, key word of halo, we're going to have taken this whole trip-- through other discs-- the magic ring trick, record albums, Velvet Underground cds, etc., through what it means to dance to the ox ribs to what it means to have (or not have) a desk to what it means to talk through your frozen peas to what's up with the invitations into the bookshop. Good Omens is not random. Everything is very specifically chosen to work together to serve an overall story that is structured around using the etymology of words to underpin its meaning.

This is just one example and it's the same thing in the novel and S1. Much of the S2 stuff connects back to S1 & the novel. It's a story that loves words and it's a story that is threaded together, thematically, through being told by using very specific words and their histories. Good Omens is written like a Pratchett novel and feels like a Pratchett novel because it centers word history in exactly the same way as Pratchett does in his other novels.

You know where that halo thru-line that connects everything came from?

Discworld. It comes from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

The same, core themes in his books are being explored, just in a slightly different way, in Good Omens and, often, using the same words in the exploration.

Because that's the thing-- all of these posts I'm writing about wordplay in Good Omens? I could, if I wanted to, also be writing them about any one of Pratchett's other novels, and a lot-- and I mean a lot-- of the specific words being used in a big way in Good Omens actually overlap with Pratchett's other books.

One of you has been waiting patiently for me to write about Mrs. Sandwich and the seamstress-themed language happening in the show and, to do that? We're going to not only talk about her and what she stands for in Good Omens but we're going to talk about the etymology jokes Pratchett was making with The Seamstress Guild in Discworld. Mrs. Sandwich might have been new in S2 but seamstress language is not-- it's baked into Crowley & Aziraphale's speak back in the novel and, as you'll see, there are instances of it in S1 and the novel that only become more apparent once you know to look for them after S2.

When NG said that, back in the day, he and Pratchett decided that Aziraphale should have a halo that was like a ring toss-- no.

Pratchett decided that.

The idea comes from the wordplay that is literally *in the title* of his own book series. Aziraphale's halo is related to why Pratchett's series is the Discworld. It's the same ideas. NG has fuck all to do with it.

Think about how I was just saying that all this love of etymology that is in Good Omens is also throughout Pratchett's books and is the driver of his word choice in all of them.

Now? Ask yourself who came up with Crowley and Aziraphale's secret language. Whose idea was it that it be so punny and etymology-based?

Probably the guy who wrote all of those etymology-based, other books.

Who invented the rules for that language?

Probably the guy who wrote all of those etymology-based other books.

If Pratchett wrote basically nothing but intentionally, lovingly, word-nerdy books... and if Good Omens is, soup-to-nuts, a love letter to etymology to a point that its main characters have a secret language built around it, then Terry Pratchett is who really wrote Good Omens. He's the true author of the book.

There are even interviews that show they had much different takes on how the process for the book happened. Pratchett, in one of the ones I read, said he wrote more than 2/3rds of the books straight up on his own and that he'd have phone calls with NG before NG wrote his bits of it and something politely vague to the effective of 'editing over' when writing the next chapter. In the same paragraph where he said he wrote more than 2/3rds of the book, he also said with all that discussion happening "who can say" who really wrote what-- yeah, exactly. It sounded a bit like NG needed the phone call to be told what to write on his end and then Pratchett edited it/rewrote bits of it before he wrote the next bit.

It comes off sounding like this book was like a partnered school project where Pratchett was the diligent one who did all the work himself so it would get done and be actually good and then assigned a bit of it to NG to do that he then had to go and fix so they'd get a decent grade. I wasn't there so I don't know but that's a bit like what the Pratchett interviews about it sound like to me and I'm much more inclined to believe Pratchett's view on their process than I am NG's take.

All I know is that Good Omens was successful when it was first published and any even moderately successful book makes publishing houses jump up and say "MORE NOW" and if you were those publishing houses? And you had a popular project with two writers? And one of the writers became tragically ill? You know what you'd do?

You'd eventually ask the other writer to finish the series.

It is known that a trilogy was planned from the start, which makes sense because most books are planned that way. You actually have to rough outline the entire story arc and then divide it amongst the books first. The story already existed in full when Pratchett began to get sick. Never-- in over two decades-- did anyone ever go to NG and ask him to both honor Pratchett and make them some cash by writing the rest of the trilogy?

Not even with how popular this book is?

That seems pretty suspicious to me.

Like a 'they know NG didn't really write it' kind of suspicious.

When both the publishing houses and the tv studios seem to be doing handstands to minimize his involvement with it, I'm thinking it's not too wild to infer there that it's because he never really wrote much, if any of it, in the first place.

More to the point? They know he's incapable of emulating it.

Because he's no Terry Pratchett.

[sherlockig]

Hello my little grieving friends (aka my CREW!)

I just want to talk about how much our flag means death has given me. I have not had internet friends since i were a teenager. They all kind of disapeared over time in the same way as high school classmates went away. I have been on this blog on tumblr since 2010 and i have never experienced what ofmd has given me. Not even in my very derranged ca 5 year long sherlock-era did i get to befriend and know this many amazing people who live in my phone. Some of you have come and gone and that is life, but some of you are still here and I hope I get to keep you here for a very long time. Max can not stop us and I want to be here with you until tumblr is put down like the beloved rabid pet it is.

I think we are all taking the news very hard and I think it's important to remember what it is all about really. It's about love and family and above all else the crew so i just want to show some love for my beloved mutuals. And i hope maybe some of you will be inspired to do the same because its what we need in these dark times. We need to be a lighthouse guiding each other to shore.

First of all @gentlebeard - Ella💕 my beloved honey 🍯 I can not explain properly or even believe how lucky I am that I found you and that I get a little good morning from you every day. We have been talking every single day since the first message over a year ago and I don't remember or want to remember how i survived before that. I will treasure the time i spent drinking pina coladas on your balcony in the sun forever and i hope i will get some more time on that balcony this summer. I have found a pirate bar in Sweden so we can continue our expensive pirate drinks theme that we started in Berlin. There is no one else i want to spend 6-8 hours talking to over the phone.💕My partner in crime, lasagna partner and floor person or whatever nicknames we have come up with during this time. You are not just the perfect friend to have, you are also funny, sweet, smart and a expert at making fanvideos that make me cry my heart out and laugh my lungs up - sometimes at the same time 💕💕

@blakbonnet - Meow my darling💕 you were the first one i really started to talk to in the fandom and i am so glad i did. You brighten my days and i love talking to you you brilliant humanbeing (i often find myself thinking i have listened to much to cabin pressure because i struggle to use any other word than brilliant to explain things.. the Arthur runs deep in me) also thank you for being my personal skincare guide in life!! Your fics, your art, your edits, your gifs, your meta the whole you make my dash a better place and we are all happy to have you! There is nothing you are not good at and i am both a bit jealus and impressed by you. Its Meows fandom we all just live in it 💕💕

@youshouldseemeinadeerstalker - Nes my dear💕 We may not be talking very often but I know I always have you there. I loved our vacation together and we had so much to talk about that we didn't even realize that the same song kept playing in my car so long that it messed up my spotify wrapped. It was amazing taking naps with you outside ruins of castles and in botanical gardens and living together in the worlds smallest hotel room. I hope we can get lost together in more cities than Hamburg and Copenhagen. (preferably without rain and sickness and maybe with a map) 💕💕

@darkinerry - Marlena 💕 its a pleasure getting weather and work updates from you and i am always interested in knowing what you have been up to and what you have to say. It brightens my day, please never stop!! Your videos and gifsets can make any day better and you are always kind and funny which are two things i appreciate hugely in my friends!! 💕💕 + You have the coolest haircut out of all my mutuals 😌

@aha-my-villainous-thoughts - Ash my wife💕 my love💕Nothing can make me scream, blush and giggle as much as your fanart. You have this style of everything you make from fanart to dolls to interior design that is so special and breathtaking. One day we will drink so many lattes in a cosy cafe and then sniff lush products for the rest of the day. 💕 You are always there for me - as a online shoulder to cry on or to motivate me with the smuttiest wips ever. I am happy to be mutual married to you 💕💕

@bizarrelittlemew - Ida 💕- my thirsting for rhys brother in arms. I can not imagine tumblr without your gifs or your posts. I love screaming with you over a picture of rhys darbys bicep. I am so happy i got to meet you this summer and i really hope it will happen again. We are not that far from each other, just some miles and a stupid bridge; we can make it. You are always a sweetheart and an incredible friend who write the hottest fanfiction ever💕💕

@dickfuckk - josh 💕 (who I also thought for a long time was called tyler) I dont know where the fandom would be without your bts blog! its a international treasure and a service to humanity. i don't know how you do it. 💕You always have everything i have ever been looking for and as a bonus you are witty and funny like no one else. I am so happy i got to meet you and spend a whole day in your company! 💕

@izzy-b-hands - Holden my absolute darling!💕 I am so glad I got the chance to get to know you! You are smart, funny and kind and my izzy mutual tm. You are always there for me with kind words and I am still forever shipping izzy and the third badminton brother which I think is the best headcanon I have ever helped coming up with. 💕

@funforahermit - Kristina 💕 Your love for Rhys and your gifs are a staple on tumblr and my dash. I know where to go when i need someone to understand how hot Steve is (even if we have agreed that he is yours and Murray is mine which i still think is a fine deal). I very often make or see a picture of Rhys and my first thought is "I NEED TO SHOW KRISTINA THIS" so you live rentfree in my brain 💕

@rainbowcrowley - Addi 💕If i ever start playing wow again you bet i am gonna be talking your ear off about my little frost mages progress but in the meantime i am happy to have you on my dash and even if we don't talk that much are you a beloved part of my dash and brighten it daily.💕💕

@fandomsmeantheworldtome - Maria💕 You were one of the very first people i found in this fandom and your gifs might have helped my rhys obession taking form. You might be into many things I have never heard of but its a pleasure seeing your excitement over everything. You are always a ray of sunshine and i love that so much💕💕

@tabbystardust - Tabby dear💕 You are the kindest person I know who I always get the strongest need to hug and hold close. Your fanart is beyond this world and i adore it like nothing else. Its always both hot and soft in the best way ever💕 I am always excited to get kitty updates and to hear about your ramen receipts. I hope we can still meet at the con next year! I am game if you are!! 💕💕

@hummingbee-o0o - Humming 💕 (i dont know your name sorry) I am always excited to hear your thoughts and metas about everything ofmd related as well as your beautiful art. 💕 it was a pleasure to scream about season 2 after every watched episode!💕

@xoxoemynn - Emy 💕💕 i am so happy to be mutual with you! 💕You always bring joy to the people who get to be around you and fill my dash with the same. We might not talk often but i know you got my back! That is the kind of person you are!💕

@saltpepperbeard - Jodi💕 No one write tags on tumblr dot com like you. There is nothing that can cheer me up more than see that one of my posts has gotten a whole ass novel written in the tags and then i instinctively know that its you who have left your wonderful mark. You are always excited and such a lovely human to be mutual with. 💕 And on top of that you make incredible gifs that make my heart stop!!! 💕💕

@autumnbois - Kai 💕💕 I hope you are doing okay. We might not talk much right now but you were there for me when i needed it most and you are a good friend to have living in my phone.💕💕 I will think of you whenever i see something related to scream and your love for piccrew always make me smile💕

@edsbacktattoo - Jams, jams jams! 💕 We are never online at the same time because of the damn time differences *shakes fist* but you are a staple in this fandom. Your art is incredible and you are the sweetest cookie in the jar. You are funny and always spread good energy to everyone around you and I love that with my whole heart💕💕

@kiwistede - Sam 💕 Your love for stede and rhys is unmet and i love you for that. You are always a good source for some rhys darby insanity and we all know that is what i treausure most here in life! 💕💕

@stedesearring - Kaitlin💕 You are the sweetest and kindest soul out here always spreading joy and love like the sun of my dash. 💕 I always love seeing you and i am happy to have the pleasure to have you as a friend in my phone! 💕💕

@stedebonnets - Ara 💕 Where would we be without your gifs?? without your joy?? without your blog?? without you?? No one knows! I am so happy to call you a mutual and friend and you always bring a smile to my face. Always!!💕💕

@appleteeth - Liz 💕 No one is quite as normal about rhys darby as you and it a pleasure to watch! Speaking of pleasure.. your fic the slightest touch is an all time favorite of mine and i would be embarrassed to tell you how many times i have read it... you are one of my mutuals that i am baffled that they want to follow me. Its a privilege! 💕

@as-a-creww - Caroline dear 💕 You are a beloved mutual and your blog are a permanent part of my dash and i want to keep it like that! you are the friendliest of the friendliest and what is more important than that?? 💕💕

@nandorisms - Ed dear💕 Your shameless reblogs makes the world go around. You are always sweet and a much needed wwdits addition to my life. I count you as a dear friend living in my heart!💕

@londonlock - Londie! 💕💕 The only sherlock mutual i have left and i am very happy to have kept you! 💕 I might have left those days behind me but you know as well as i that sherlock lives in my soul and seeing some sherlock and john love on a daily basis keep me grounded and on top of that are you such a romantic and beautiful human being! 💕💕

@follovver - Tanya 💕 My fellow Swedish ofmd fan! I am very happy to have found you! its nice to be able do discuss it in my mother tongue and i hope we one day can do it live! its to bad we never met when we went to the same uni (or maybe we did but didn't know) Du är fantastisk!! 💕

@wastingyourgum - Al💕(which i always read in my head as artificial intelligence and giggle because it make me feel like you are a robot) My fellow rhys friend. You bring me doses of darby when its most needed and your blog is always on fleek 💕💕

@xray-vex - Xray 💕 100 % one of my funniest mutuals!💕💕 You make hilarious posts that no one else could even dream of coming up with! Always top tier blog content and what more can a girl ask for??💕

@jellybeanium124 - Nina💕 I can not imagine my blog without you! Your posts are always a delight and you are so nice and sweet and funny and incredible (even when you make math mistakes kisses kisses) You bring a honest joy into the fandom that we could not live without! 💕💕

@thunderwingdoomslayer - Nellie 💕 My official rhys darby gif provider who I come to as if i needed a new hit of an illegal substance. I salute you and thank you for your service!💕💕

@forestofsprites - Green my dear 💕You might have gone from ofmd to be the supernatural provider of my dash but that does not stop you from being the kindest forest spirit i know. Your presence is calming in a way i can not explain and i am glad to have you and your love for meg here.💕💕

@cheersmequeers - Kate💕💕 A big puzzle piece to bring my dash together. Always filling it with my favorite gay pirates and i love having you here. Always friendly and full of love.💕💕

@sugashook - Sugaaa💕💕 You know i am in love with your art! Your art is always on top and it bring me back to life every time. I keep the dress i bought from you on the outside of my closet so every morning its the first thing i see and it sets the day right!💕💕 I wear your art on my tshirt to the gym as often as i can hoping to lure in a ofmd fan between the weights but that has not happened yet sadly!! Never stop making your art!! The world would be at loss if that happened 💕💕

@lacefuneral - Jay 💕(should be called YAY because that is what i say when i see a new selfie or fashion post from you) You are a fantastic friend and i love your love for stede and you are always kind and patient in a way that makes me comfortable to ask you questions about something i might not be familiar with. You are forever my moth mutual in my mind 💕💕

@meanmisscharles - Charles 💕 In my head i call you charles but i don't think that is your name but i hope its okay with you! Always friendly and sweet but ready to fight the bullshit the other spread! and such a source for good music recommendations!! 💕💕

@forpiratereasons - Darcy 💕literary no one does it like Darcy! Aways bringing the best ofmd posts to my dash and ensuring i don't miss anything! You are incredible! 💕💕

@blackbeardskneebrace - Miles my dear 💕 You make incredible art both the cute and amazing ofmd art but also the gorgeous historical art you post. Its a pleasure to see you talk about history but also about our beloved gay pirates. Your snoopy ofmd art will live in my heart forever and i think it might be healing me a bit. Maybe even watering my crops and clearing my skin! And those valentine ofmd arts from last year. I am 100 % gonna bring them back this February like beloved decorations you store in the attic. 💕💕💕

@awkward-fallen-angel - Heather 💕 You are one of the sweetest people i have had the pleasure to come across. You bring a big excitement and attention to the things you like and it moves along to everyone near. I mean i have watched long critical role videos just because you spoke so warmly about them and i wanted to know what it meant. I love having you here. 💕💕

@mxmollusca - Mx 💕 (dont know your name so i am just calling you that) I mean you are an incredible writer. I have only managed to read ifwts once because i cried so much that i am scared to open it again because i might just never stop crying. You are creative and funny and absolutely totally normal about rhys darby which in my book is a very good thing to be. And besides that you are a very friendly and nice mutual who is always a pleasure to interact with. 💕💕

@poisonintopositivity - Lilias💕 We have not talked much but we have been mutuals for a very long time and i hope you know that i appreciate you greatly as a mutual and you always but the best posts on my dash!💕💕

@glam-hutchence - Birb 💕💕my dear bird lover! You are a sweet potatoe and i love reading about your love for music and the concerts you go to.💕 Its so nice to take a little part of your life. You are always there for me and i always get happy when i talk to you. You are like a little happy pill! 💕💕

@turtles-on-turts - Turts 💕 Whenever i see a turtle i think about you. Its your brand! You make amazing art! and the ones on canvas always blow me away. 💕💕 Its incredible. You are also so very pretty and i have that picture of you in your depression robe with all the pigeons imprinted in my mind because it such a cute one. You are always very friendly and i love reading your personal posts as well. 💕💕

@vonlipwig - Franky 💕 You bring me lots of normality about rhys darby but these days also a huge bunch of normality about david tennant which i appreciate a lot. You are very nice and i stand by my assesment that you have a very cool aura!💕💕

@haeva - Mar my beloved💕 You bring me my wifes emily and valkyrie and a bunch of amazing posts about everything i can imagine. You are loving and sweet and good at maths which i am always very impressed by. I love being your mutual and doing ask games with you is a pleasure!💕💕

@mykonossalome - Myko💕 When i see moomin i think of you because i know how much you love it. We dont talk as much as i would like but the interactions we have had has meant a lot to me and i love seeing you posting about the things you love! 💕💕

@cottoncandiescupcakes - Cupcake 💕 I love that you are always so excited over our boy the swede and its a pleasure to compare language with you. We can continue fighting if the swede belong to the dutch or the swedes but that is a pleasure!💕💕

@mister-brightside - Andrea my dear💕. Your art is always perfect and whenever i see a picture of izzy giving the middle finger i think about you! Its your brand and its your picture now and no one can change that. You are sweet and caring and a lovely mutual to have. thank you!💕💕

@merryfinches - Kylie 💕 What can i say more than that i ADORE your fanart. The colours the style the softness of it all is exactly what we all need in these times. Every single time it shows up on my dash it makes my heart grows softer and my love grow stronger! I love it so so much. 💕

@ofmd-ann - Ann 💕 You glorious glorious gifmaker! Your gifs are always beautiful and these last days you have saved me with your wrecked edits. As a supplier of rhys darby gifs i love you forever. You are a hero love. 💕💕

@usersukuna - Bia 💕You are a gif magician. Your gifs are perfect and you are also very kind and sweet and i am so glad i can call you a mutual! You light up tumblr like no one else and i am always happy to see you on my dash.💕💕

If you are not in this list it does not mean that i dont love you or have forgotten about you it means that tumblr has put a limit to how many people you can tag which sucks. But if i follow you then it means i love and appreciate you. 💕💕💕 And you know what? We will make it through this hard and trying times of greedy streaming services putting an end to our gay pirates show. I love you all and you know what??

We will make it through as A CREW!

[kindestofkings]

nepobaby²

elijah hewson x pop singer! reader

authors note: reader is matty healy's lil sister cause I loovvvee connecting my two fav bands.

ENJOY THIS EVERYONEEE, happy holidays <33

yourusername

liked by charli_xcx and others

yourusername thank you thank you THANK YOU everyone for all the love and support over this album !! it was the product of heartbreak but now its the thing bringing me all the joys <33 tour continues next week cant wait to see all you sexy beings :))

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yourfan1 where is the deluxe version of the deluxe version?? i need it now

yourfan2 thank u for giving us this 

charli_xcx the QUEEN of pop

yourusername are you kidding?? have you seen yourself?

denise_welch so so proud of you my darling girl !

yourusername mumma<333

denise_welch

liked by trumanblack and others

denise_welch my eldest and my youngest. having a fab time on our summer holidays 💕💕

tagged: trumanblack and yourusername

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bedfordanes75 yourusername you look rightly fed up

yourusername is it that obvious?? rass75 what were you arguing about trumanblack think this was just after she told me to stop using the word meta yourusername literally no need to hear its so much, what is meta in mallocra matthew ?? trumanblack who needs to say slay so much? sorry for having a developed vocabulary denise_welch kids... yourusername sorry mum trumanblack sorry mum

1975fan1 i love that they are normal siblings even tho they're killing it in the music industry

yourusername posted on their story!

my mother and my mother?? confused but continue

bedfordanes75 charli is v upset she thought she was mother ↳ I can explain..... taylorswift hahha stop it shes the best! can't wait for you to join us on tour 🕺 yourfan1 I love you all

ynfanupdates

liked by yourfan1 and others

ynfanupdates guys omg I was just at the 1975 gig with my sister and yn was their special guest😭😭😭 best. day. EVER.

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1975fan1 I died when matty said its annoying being the least talented singer in the family

ynfanupdates did he lie tho she sounded inCREDIBLE, had the whole place hoppin

yourfan1 omg what did she sing??

1975fan1 she sang cruel summer coming out and then she sang she lays down with matty! usually the boys leave the stage when they have a special guest but they all stayed and played for her it was ADORBS ynfanupdates one thing the boys of the 1975 are gonna be is overly proud of yourusername

yourusername thank you so much for all the love guys I was SO NERVOUS lol

ynfanupdates omg hiii no we would have NEVER KNOWN, you were so good yourusername 💕💕

yourusername

liked by elijahhewson and others

yourusername the 1975 family you really know how to make a girl feel welcome ! thank you for singing so loudly and embracing your inner pop girlie with me. sorry big bro for making you cry and getting all the talent in the family 😬

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trumanblack oi I just did a nice thing dont come for me

yourusername sorry cant hear you through all your tears?? what did you say? rass75 how did we end up with the uncool healy? trumanblack mate youre meant to be MY bestfriend

1975fan1 fav sibling duo

inhalerfan1 oh hello eli in the likes??

inhalerfan2 I ALWAYS notice him omg imagine they dated

denis_welch proud as always watching you two doing what you do best never gets old!

yourusername

liked by bobbyskeetz and others

yourusername like paris in 45' 🕺😏

city of love has me feeling all kinds of things, would I lose my job if I wrote songs about being in love instead of heartbreak??

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yourfan1 MOTHER id listen to anything you release

inhalerfan1 not the inhaler lyric and discussions of LOVE

inhalerfan2 being delulu and obsessing over how hot of a couple yn and eli would be inhalerfan1 girl me toooo yourfan2 she's never this secretive of boyfriends tho inhalerfan2 shusshhhh

bedfordanes75 we have a WHOLE song called paris that you could've used....

taylorswift me too :(( trumanblack she's too busy fancying bonos son to care yourusername im gonna kill you charli_xcx ratty youre an idiot

inhalerfan1 HEHEHEH LOOK AT MATTY'S COMMENT

yourusername

liked by elijahhewson and others

yourusername not me curating the most perfect of perfect soft launches for my IDIOT brother to ruin it all. well I tell you I wont let a manchild who writes quotes about crappy coffee and boys ruin this for me ! you dont know who that is got it? GOT IT?

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trumanblack I NEVER SAID THAT QUOTE

bedfordanes75 life's too short to drink crappy coffee ☕️☕️ rass75 and cry over boys 😭😭🙍🏻‍♂️ yourusername who dont care 🤷‍♂️🙅‍♂️🙅🏻‍♀️💅 1975fan ahahahhahahahah boom roasted

bobbyskeetz he clearly doesnt know how scary you are over this subject...

yourusername !!!!!

inhalerfan1 I am so so happy right not

yourusername and why miss inhaler fan would that be?? I suggest you reread that caption hmmhmm inhalerfan1 truly terrifying but im sorry the third picture is my proof yourusername i give up it was just too cute to leave out

bbcradio

liked by yourusername and others

bbcradio we had the fabulous yn healy come visit us in in the bbc live lounge ! Follow the link in our bio to see this pop queen's cover of jeff buckley's lover, you should've come over 🥹

tagged: yourusername

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yourusername had SO MUCH FUN !!

inhalerfan1 respecting your soft launch mother but this has me gagged teehee

yourfan1 I beg of you to release this on spotify its a NEED

bobbyskeetz huh interesting song choice

ryanmacmahon_15 wonder if theres a deeper meaning to this selection joshjenkinson_ theres someone who kinda looks like him, isnt there? yourusername I dont know what you're implying... who even are you three???? inhalerfan1 heheh not you pretending not to know them while following all three of them

deuxmoi

liked by ynfan1 and others

deuxmoi theres a hot new couple on the block

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ynfan1 I hate this account so much like respect their privacy

inhalerfan1 holy fuck it's true then

inhalerfan2 wow are we gonna talk about that letter

ynfan2 who do you think wrote it ? inhalerfan1 its giving Eli vibes to me ynfan3 could not be theirs ...

yninhalerstan why is no one talking about the contents of the letter?!?! man literally wrote you fill my head with sweetness and you fill my head with YOU

inhalerfan1 sleeping on the motorway tonight ynfan1 I am sooo single it hurts

bobbyskeetz stay out of it like

yourusername damn having my very own alexa chung moment rn

yourusername

liked by elijahhewson and others

yourusername to answer the burning question: yes we met at the daycare for nepobabies 😏

also the last pic is for the nosey bastards at deuxmoi !

tagged: elijahhewson

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elijahhewson still waiting for my love letter...

yourusername alri I dont know if I can be the alex to your alexa, what about a few love songs? elijahhewson yeah guess that'll do yourusername get ready pretty boy inhalerfan1 PRETTY BOY ynfan1 damn we lost her

bobbyskeetz THANK GOD this has been awful to keep in

ynfan2 damnn can believe I lost the love of my life to an irish boy

yourusername a very pretty irish boy that makes me v happy, does that help or make it worse? ynfan2 really 😭😭 really 😭😭 happy for you 😭😭

inhalerfan2 nepobaby²!!

trumanblack you promised me you wouldn't date until you were at least 35..

yourusername 👁👄👁 we're just friends..

denis_welch both so gorgeous! great to see you so happy

ynfan2 damn he makes her happy 😭 😭

yourusername

liked by trumanblack and others

yourusername surprise! my next album fuck, I'm in love is gonna be yours next month <33

cause im in a giving mood I thought I'd give you a look at the covers AND the a sneak peak at the tracklist mwah xx

1. lover 2. mastermind 3. nonsense 4. the archer 5. dress 6. gorgeous 7. bad for business 8. false god 9. good in bed 10. your power

(please listen even tho they're happy )

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yourusername also big shout out to bedfordanes and miss xcx for help with the production xxx

bedfordanes sick songs but also so very disturbing that the littlest healy is thinking like this charli_xcx such a baby ! songs are just as hot as you girl 🔥🔥

inhalerfan1 those song titles...

ynfan1 oh MY GOD good in bed ?? LOVER is this a dont listen around your parents album??

yourusername well tracks 3,4 and 9 are off limits for my brother and mum if that tells you anything ynfan1 mwhahahha miss girl you're iconic

ryanmcmahon_15 oh he's gonna be unbearable after this

joshjenkinson_ like he isn't already bad enough he's dating one of the biggest popstars rn inhalerfan1 lol eli in his wag era elijahhewson and proud of it 💅💅

ynfanupdates

liked by ynfan1 and others

ynfanupdates BEST DAY EVERRRR guys I got invited to yn's secret show in london tonight and it was the best thing to ever happen to me 😭 it was such an intimate show with only a handful of fans there and she sang the entire new album. also her brother matty came on and played guitar for your power, which had me SOBBING

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ynfan1 wow im sooo envious was it just fans?

ynfanupdates no it was like for all her friends and family ! ynfan1 sooooo was he there? ynfanupdates who do you think shes smiling to?? he was ofc there and the rest of inhaler

ynfan2 what are the songs like ? can you remember any lyrics??

ynfanupdates not really I was so in the moment and I'm gonna gatekeep them cause you will enjoy them more next friday! ynfanupdates but ill tell you what she said before the archer! said that it was written about her brother (matty) and how since she's always looked up to him, and she can't believe that he isn't more assured in himself or something ynfan2 ahhh I cannot wait

inhalerfan1 what was your favourite??

ynfanupdates soooo hard to choose but i think gorgeous or mastermind ! she was so clearly happy singing them <3

yourusername I too cry at the sight of my brother I dont blame you ! thank you for coming and thank you thank you for not leaking any lyrics <33

ynfanupdates my pleasure 💕💕💕💕

liked by elijahhewson and others

yourusername wow releasing an album just before silly season was HECTIC. but I wouldnt change it for the world! thank you for all the love for fuck, im in love the first couple shows have been INSANE.

got up to some other fun aswell as doing shows, I mean it is silly season after all !

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taylorswift tis the damn season !

elijahhewson fuck that first pic..

yourusername yeah? im too busy looking at the hottie in the second pic... bobbyskeetz you both make me SICK trumanblack agreed you should both break up rn yourusername as IF you weren't the one throwing a hissy fit over the fact he's not coming for christmas

joshjennkinson_ seems like an unfair pic to choose ...

ryanmcmahon_15 done so dirty yourusername but you all look soooo tall!

denis_welch can't wait to have you back for christmas !! enjoy Ireland first

yourusername me too! I'll be home on the 23rd :)) inhalerfan1 ahh shes going to eli's!!

yourusername just added to their story!

replies:

trumanblack and why in gods name do you always us this pic

↳ yourusername its the definition of socially awkwardness hahaha

bobbyskeetz get ready for the worst hangover ever afterwards

↳ yourusername terrified on multiple levels

elijahhewson hahahha you've met them so much it's grand

yourusername

liked by trumanblack and others

yourusername if im just a girl how am I now a homeowner??

another amazing thing to finish of this AMAZING year 💘

comments have been limited

trumanblack STOP GROWING UP

denis_welch I agree with matthew

elijahhewson woohoo homeowners next step dogowners ?

yourusername we have not got it in us to be parents in any capacity babyyy elijahhewson :((((

Check out part two here xxx

[gilded-sunrays]

(meta talk) Your characterization of Yoriichi is probably the best I've ever come across, like to the point that when I read your scenarios I get the exact same frustrated sensation of love and care for him that I do with him in the canon media (y'know the: "goddamnit Yoriichi you're so sweet and kind yet seem to think so little of yourself please I'm begging you to love yourself" type of frustration 🥲) Kudos on the accuracy fr (and if you want to answer some questions:) Are there are notable points or traits that you try to either highlight or keep in mind about his character, that maybe other interpretations tend to get wrong about him in your opinion? I know that fandoms in general tend to infantilize kind characters which is frustrating, but alongside that do any other points come to mind?

[OOC: UVSUGh Thank you so much for the kind words.. You won't believe it, but reading this made me so happy. I'm so glad you liked it!! 😭😭💕💕 I try my best to keep Yoriichi true to his character as much as possible, including his speech and actions (considering the translation nuances), so I'm really happy you think so!! 🥺💕

Oh, absolutely! I'm more than happy to answer any questions! I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, but I don't want to make this post too lengthy 😂. So, I'll just share one point that I believe many fans often misunderstand about him—and it's that he's not as sweet as the fanon portrays him. There’s nothing wrong with that portrayal though, and you can definitely see him that way; but he’s more than just a wholesome, goody two shoes type of character.

 In fact, i would say he is quite ruthless. Sure, he is a kind and gentle soul, but when any threat arises that is ready to harm his family or the innocent—he is merciless. Under his gentle and calm disposition lies a fierce warrior. Sometimes, I feel like some fans think he’s just like Tanjiro—personally, I'd say he's far from it😭. He is more like Sumiyoshi than anyone else.

Unlike Tanjiro, who empathises with demons and whose literal motive is to save his demon turned sister, Yoriichi is the exact opposite. He shows no mercy, even when he is faced against the person he truly cares about—like his brother. Sure, he shed tears for him, but he did not hesitate to end him.

In fact, if Yoriichi was in the place of Tanjiro, then Demon slayer wouldn't have even taken place—and I don't just mean it in the way that he would've killed Muzan—but in the way that he would have also ended Nezuko right then and there.]

[laylaeelfaouly]

Edit (29/09/23): This is now closed but THANK YOU SO SO MUCH to everyone who took the time to interact, like, reblog, share, and respond!!! I really appreciate it 💕🤧

Did you make goncharov (1973) content? Well then i've got the perfect survey for you :)

Hey! I'm a library & information science masters student writing my disso on the information creation process of goncharov (1973) and need participants for a survey.

Here are some reasons to participate:

Because it's Goncharov (1973)

Because surveys are fun

Force my university to read approx 20k on our gay little film which I bet none of them have even seen!!

Shouldn't take more than 10 minutes (5 if you're quick)

Help expand a widely ignored academic domain (fan studies)

Please??

The only requirements are that you're 18 or older and have made some kind of Goncharov (1973) content - even if it's just one meta post about Mr JWHJ0715. The survey is completely anonymous and does not collect your IP address. 

Link to the survey:

Please add as much detail as possible. Reblogs are loved and appreciated <3

[discluded]

My Top 10 memorable 2022 MileApo moments 💚💛

In no particular order,

Mile defending Apo and telling him he's not weird. Mile Phakphum #1 apocolleague #1 Apo defender #1 Apo protector 😖

2. Whatever they put in the water that day at the XBlush shoot 🥴

3. The Moon Represents My Heart at KPWT Taipei (curse you one video per post Tumblr limit). The audible gasp and excitement from the audience when they realized what song it was!!!

4. MileApo at the Vogue Thailand Gala. Everything about them and how beautiful they were... Mile had just gotten out of COVID isolation #2 and now they had a Vogue spread and were mingling with the movers and shakers of the Thai ent industry. Also specifically these boyfriend soft launch selfies 😖

5. Paper Mile at the KPWT send off. This one was bittersweet and making the best of a bad situation... Apo was doing his best to have Mile be included but even Apo was not his usual sparkly self. The appearance of paper Mile per the request of quarantined Mile really put the smile back on his face.

6. Sharing dessert and water in the Red Sea Film Festival IGL

7. Apo taking this sexy photo of Mile in Phuket and immediately being exposed as the photographer. Thank you @ apovision for God's work and thank you @/may for exposing them.

8. Mile replying to this tweet. Yeah it's a tweet. Yeah he interacts with many fan tweets. But trust me, this is the one that made all of us deranged. It's the reason why I'm deranged now. I think about this all the time.

9. Mile and Apo kissing live at KPWT Bangkok. I'm just going to make peace with the fact that we're likely never gonna see another live kiss at a KPWT show again. But we got this one.

10. Holding up the pride flag together at KPWT Taipei. Wasn't Taipei beautiful!?! 😭 It was a beautiful moment for the entire cast and the audience, since it was Pride Week in Taipei 🌈

Bonus: 11. Meeting all of you 🥰💕 Yeah I'm sappy as heck, what are you gonna do about it.

If you've ever sent me an anon or liked or reblogged one of my posts or followed me or stalk my blog but don't have a Tumblr or written fic or drawn fanart or written meta or made gifs or made edits or trended for MileApo, thank you for making fandom a fun place. If you've learned anything new about yourself or the world or changed your perspective in life because of anything I reblogged, I'm glad something I said or did affected you 🥰

We often talk about about when being in fandom is annoying, but really, it's a community. If you've stayed, thanks for embracing respecting each other and loving KinnPorsche and loving Mile and Apo and the people in their lives (which includes all of us!)

Maybe the real MileApo was the friends we made along the way 🥹🥹🥹 (Mile would agree because he is equally sappy like me).

Many other beautiful memories I wanted to include... but I loved these so much. It was hard picking favorites, but I'm gonna 😤

Bonus runners up:

Looking like a royal couple at their first fan meet

KPWT Seoul date (are you going to give us the video or not BOC...)

Apo lifting Mile in the KPWT Taipei behind the scenes video

Mile discretely rubbing Apo's waist underneath his suit jacket at the D7 event 🤭🤭🤭

KPWT Taipei goodbye (x2)

(alright no more for real or else I'm gonna be here all day)

[nachosncheezies]

💋🎉🥰🤲

For this ask game.

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

A fact about me, which may seem counterintuitive given my posting, is that... I'm actually not that much into shipping. I appreciate it, when done well, but it's not really the romance per se that draws me to things or drives my interactions with a piece of media. I don't really love OR hate first kiss fics; I suppose I would put them in the same category I put whump: if it's well done, and has some kind of plot or deeper introspection or something around it, something that helps the characters develop in some way, that's great! But just for its own sake? Meh.

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

It's cliche, but feedback, especially comments. One of the best I ever got was on the first fic I posted, where I'd put a stereotypical "I'm not a writer, please be nice" sort of nonsense at the top. I got a comment from a complete stranger that started with, "okay, 'not a writer,'" and rode those four words straight into the next two stories I wrote. If I've made someone feel something enough that they've taken the time to say so, that's pure gold, and a definite win.

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

I LOVE questions about them!! I love chatting about my shows in general, but tbh writing meta sometimes hurts my brain. My fics are almost all canon-compliant and usually express a headcanon or an interpretation of canon events. Sometimes I'm demonstrating why some part of canon that folks seem to hate or think makes no sense actually makes perfect sense to me. It's always so fun to chat about blorbos, I guess I'm just better at showing my thoughts on some things through fic than I am at explaining. :D

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Bless you 💕 every time you do this you force me to look at another bit I've not worked on for a while and it sets my brain on fire with ideas for how to improve or expand on them. :D How about one not from season 8? Set in the reduxes, a scene I drafted ages ago for Scully and Bill Junior. I was delighted to later discover it has a lot in common with the deleted scene from I think it was memento mori? (also delighted that the deleted scene can't be considered canon, because what did air has him not aware of her cancer until much later, so my version could still stand :D I'll post it someday, probably)

"You're being rude," she stated. "I'm just looking out for you." "I know that you believe that, but you're also being rude." "Dana, I know-" he started, but she cut him off with a look. "I asked to speak to you, I would like you to listen," she said, and tipped her head toward the chair beside her bed. "Sit." His jaw flexed, but he acquiesced. "Look, I'm not going to ask you to like him-" "Good, because I don't," he interrupted petulantly. She gave him a quelling look. "I am not going to ask you to like him," she repeated, pausing between each word for emphasis, "and I'm not going to ask that you understand him. But I need you to respect me. We aren't kids anymore Bill, I'm a grown woman; I can make my own decisions. Please don't belittle that by assuming that I'm somehow being..." she searched for the right word, "manipulated."

thank you thank you thank you, a million times thank you for asking 💕💕💕

[ametrictonofaudacity]

Hey! I love your writing, you have quickly become one of my favorite blogs on this site! I was wondering if you could do more yandere Superman stuff. There isn't alot of it on tumblr and your other ones have been awesome! As for ideas maybe one about the reader having powers or a mental illness similar to gaps? No matter what you decide to write I look forward to it reading it though! 🤗

Thank you so much 💕💕💕! You have no idea how flattered I am, agshshd.

Since you didn’t specify, I’ll do a platonic yandere, since I am much better at writing those 😅. Enjoy!

The standard warnings in all my works (really only implications of stalking in this case) apply here! Reader is a meta, with a teleporting ability!

One would think that being able to teleport at a moments notice made life easier. You would be able to go to work, go to school, save money on gas money, all at the drop of a hat whenever you decided to use your ability.

It did not. In fact, it made your life actively harder with all the criminals that routinely tried to extort, blackmail, or manipulate you into using their powers for them.

“Listen, if we’re going to do the whole song and dance of you threatening me, can you at least be creative about it?” You drawl, absolutely exhausted. The man in front of you is dangerous, sure, but no more dangerous than a common criminal and you were already late for work. “I have dealt with this more times than I can count, can you maybe just like, not?”

“Listen, I don’t know what kind of death wish you have to be talking to me like that, but I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you.” He threatens, brandishing the gun in your direction. You huff. He was hardly as threatening as he liked to think he was.

“You’re holding the gun wrong.” You point out, and he blinks, adjusting his flimsy grip on the gun. He was still holding it wrong.

“Shut up! Listen, just come with me, and no one gets hurt.”

“That’s not going to happen.” A strong voice echoes from the alley way, and you tilt your head, recognizing it. Your attacker does to, and he pales, turning his gun toward the speaker frantically before dropping it. You hiss out a curse. He was lucky the thing didn’t cook off when he dropped it.

“Superman! I was just- we were just-!”

“You were just going down to the police station to turn yourself in. Unless of course you’d like me to help you get there?” A raised brow, challenging the man, who shakes his head frantically. Given that the police station wasn’t very far, you were curious as to which option Superman would go with.

“I’m not sure I believe you.” There’s not even a blur, and he is behind the man, lifting him up by the back of his jacket.

He turns to you, and his eyes soften.

“Why don’t you head on to work? And stay out of any dark alleys, yeah?” He jokes gently, and you snort, nodding. “Once I have this guy sorted out, I’ll join you.”

He’s gone. You leave the alley, leaving the gun on the dirty floor. He would come back to collect it, you knew, and you had no desire to touch a firearm that had been pointed at your face.

It takes him less than five minutes to catch up to you. You know by then he had already gotten the gun to the police, talked to the officers, and dropped off your would be kidnapper.

“That’s the second time this week you showed up, you know.” You comment. He flies alongside you, the cape rustling with the wind. “You’re starting to make a habit of it.”

“This is also the second time this week you’ve been held at gun point, and it’s not even Friday.” He points out, and there’s a concerned frown on his face. “Why didn’t you teleport away?”

“He would have gone to my house instead. Better to keep him occupied until I could come up with a plan.” You shrug, and he only frowns more, eyebrows furrowing. You sigh, pushing your hair back from your forehead. Your hands were shaking, now, from the excess adrenaline.

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with criminals constantly hunting you for your ability.” A warm hand on your shoulder, and you smile, a little bitter, a little sad.

“Not much that can be done about it. People see a power, and they want it, and a lot of the times they don’t care about whether that power is attached to a person or not. It’s how the world works.”

You had been dealing with this since you were a child, when your powers first manifested, and sure it didn’t exactly make for a stable childhood or a well-adjusted adult, but you knew how to handle it. You knew what to do.

“It doesn’t have to be. You know that, right?” He looks… so hopeful. Earnest. You wonder how he can keep that up when he sees and fights the worst things humanity has to offer. When humanity doesn’t even like him because he was strange and other, even though he had saved the world so many times you had lost count.

Maybe it was different for you. You had been young when the Justice League formed, had been even younger when Superman became a known hero, maybe you just grew up with it.

“I do.” The relieved smile he sends you lights up his entire face, and your stomach swoops low with a strange sort of anxiety. You weren’t used to this level of… transparency. Everything he did seemed written on his face like a book, and it was new and strange.

“I’m glad. I, uh, wanted to give you something. Here.” He holds up a small item, and you take it, curiously.

It was a watch. Silver, and blue, your favorite colors although he couldn’t have known that. A strap made of some undetermined fabric, the wrong texture to be leather but to thick to be anything else.

“It’s basically a panic button.” He explains, rubbing at the back of his neck with a sheepish smile. “Press the dial used to adjust the time and it will emit a frequency only I can hear, so I can come and help.”

He takes it gently, affixing the strap to your wrist with gentle hands. It was strange to think those same hands could bend steel, that you had seen them bend steel.

“I… thank you. I really appreciate it.”

It was a strange level of care, your new watch, but it makes your chest warm. You had never had anyone show this much concern over you before.

“Well, with everything that’s happened, I figured you could use a direct line just in case, you know? I don’t want you to get hurt. And since I tend to only give them to civilians who are my friend..”

You laugh, grinning.

“Is this you asking to be my friend? I would think we were a bit past that after the fourth rescue.”

“I didn’t want to assume.” He defends, hands up in mock surrender, laughing. You both stop. You’re at the door to your work, and he smiles.

By now, it’s almost routine to wish him goodbye, and while the warm and quick hug surprises you just a bit, it’s pleasant enough that you don’t simply teleport out of his grasp in surprise.

There’s a faint smile on your face the whole day as you work. It was nice to have a friend after having been alone for so long.

[augustjustice]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers! Spread the self-love 💞

Thank you so much for this, buddy! 💕Such a sweet, fun ask.

you wanna feel how it feels (let's exchange the experience)

This is my latest baby the Steddie bodyswap fic, and even though it's far from finished, it's really a situation where I've let myself just indulge in what in my heart of hearts I really wanted to write, which is always a great time.

Living Dead Boy

Also recent, this one got pretty experimental for me, as it's more of a sort of horror second person prose poem from Steve's point of view. I enjoyed getting to explore some of the tropes and meta narrative's here, and was glad it came together as well as it did, as I really wasn't certain I would be able to pull it off at first!

Got You By My Side

This is very quintessential 'Steve takes care of Eddie and also sort of asks him out in the hospital after the bats' fic and is canon to me lol. I always like writing kind of semi-canon adjacent stuff, and I thought I was able to tap into the boys' voices and banter pretty well here.

Got Your Mother in a Whirl (She's Not Sure If You're a Boy or a Girl)

This is the first Stranger Things fic I ever started writing, way back in Season 2! I didn't end up picking it back up until Season 4 started, but I remain pretty proud of how it turned out. No romance in this one beyond implied hints, this fic is very much just a story of Stevie exploring his gender identity as someone who is genderfluid, and then eventually she comes out to Dustin who is able to offer lots of support and brotherly love. This fic began long before I realized I had some complex gender feelingsTM myself, so it holds a special place in my heart. I also really got to emphasize one of my favorite aspects of Stranger Things in it as well--close friendships, particularly the one between Steve and Dustin.

The Rules of Engagement

This fic is from my Nygmobblepot days, and I played around with things I often don't in fic here, like established relationship. I really enjoyed writing these characters as middle aged in a post-canon future, and with this one I felt like I did a nice job of balancing sentimentality and fluff alongside the more vitriolic aspects of these characters' temperaments. Ultimately, I think of this one as a love story about two people choosing to be together and make it work despite their flaws, and there's not much that's more romantic than that it my eyes.

[sevensoulmates]

I really appreciate you making the buddie meta post for 7x4, taking that many hours of your time just to write it and sharing it with us. I'm really grateful, I was literally giggling and kicking my feet while reading your post 💕

What a wonderful episode, it still feels like an out of body experience and I'm so happy Buck is finally free (I'm still in disbelief they gave us bi Buck in such a beautiful way).

I really wonder how they will give us the Eddie coming out arc. ¿Do you have any theories at the moment? Also why does it feels like Marisol will be kicking rocks sooner than expected? 👀

Thank you again ❤️

Thank you so much!! I mean I always have so many thoughts going round and round in my head about this show at all times so at least this gives me a place to put em.

I was beyond happy with everything we got in this episode. 10/10 no notes. I'm getting the feeling next episode is gonna be similar but is also gonna have some plot twists as well. The possibility of a double date has me V~I~B~R~A~T~I~N~G especially if Eddie doesn't realize the entire time that BuckTommy are on a date. Eddie and his queer blinders runs so deep and I want to see the way his face changes when he realizes.

I loved how they handled Buck having this discovery and I'm beyond happy they're not going the "gay for you" route with Buck (and I hope not with Eddie either). I'm glad Buck can exist in the world as a bisexual man outside of his relationships, but also in conjunction with them. They're all a part of him and he deserves to finally be settled in that aspect of who he is.

I do get the feeling that Buck's gonna be so swept up in the euphoria of figuring out his sexuality that he's likely going to be attributing a lot of those feelings to Tommy where he actually isn't wholly the cause. Don't get me wrong, I do think Buck is genuinely interested and attracted to Tommy, and I'm excited to see where that goes, but we're already getting some hints about potential issues with their relationship and I'm very intrigued about where that will go.

My prediction for Buck is that he's going to dive headfirst into whatever he has with Tommy and start seeking out the feelings/connection he has with Eddie, but in Tommy. I think the date will have some hints at Buck and Tommy trying to connect in certain ways and Buck in the back of his head finding *something* missing.

As for Eddie....HOO boy. I think that he's gonna be in for an interesting time. There's a chance he might break up with Marisol in 7x05, or I was also seeing spec about breaking up in 7x07, etc. IDK ANYMORE!! As much as I PERSONALLY would like to see them break up next episode, I think it would also be interesting to extend that relationship out a bit more just to show Eddie's sexual struggles and have her as a foil.

I'll give you what I would LIKE to see instead of what I speculate might happen because at this point the information we do know is confusing.

I would like to see Eddie feeling visibly weird about Buck dating Tommy. The reasons for him feeling that way can be nebulous at the start. I want this to cause some issues with Marisol, but I want his primary issues with Marisol explored separately from BuckTommy as well.

I would love to see more of his incompatibility with Marisol explored, whether that's in terms of how they act on a date, how they talk to each other, maybe even sexually (?). I want Eddie to genuinely start questioning why once again he's not feeling anything in a relationship with a woman. Like Ana could've been a fluke, but now Marisol too? I want him to think about why he just forces these relationships into something full-blown when most people would be able to recognize they're not attracted/into someone after the first few dates and end it.

I would love to see him possibly being dissatisfied with sex (if they go the demi route) and being really confused about if it's the sex itself, or the woman he's having sex with. I want some definitive building blocks for Eddie being like "I don't understand why I don't feel attraction to her" leading to an eventual "I don't feel attraction to women" realization. I think that Eddie's queer realization arc deserves more nuance and time put into it and a slow unveiling. I think it can still overlap with BuckTommy, with his feelings regarding them confusing him even more.

Buck getting kissed once by a man, understanding and accepting his sexuality right away, and being excited about it makes sense for his character. Eddie on the other hand I think is gonna struggle with it a lot more. I would like to see those struggles highlighted. Bring in more of his family (parents, sisters, etc) and show him struggling with heteronormativity around them. Show Eddie struggling to act "normal" in his interaction with BuckTommy when they're around him as a pair.

I would love it if a surprise kiss in the heat of the moment came in somewhere. Whether Buck is/isn't with Tommy and Eddie is/isn't with Marisol, would provide different ramifications. But I don't want the kiss to immediately lead to them getting together. I want them to have to sit with it, and maybe Eddie can then deconstruct his feelings about men, his sexuality, and his feelings for Buck at the same time. I wouldn't mind this struggle continuing over the hiatus and into the season 8 opener, or having this be a season 8 storyline altogether.

Either way, I do firmly believe Eddie's queer arc is coming down the line, and what we're seeing now is going to be the foundation for him to work up to it. As we know, Eddie doesn't really have sudden realizations. He kind of lets things build and build until it explodes and he is forced to sit down and think about it.

Also I don't believe Tim Minear about his "spur of the moment idea to have them kiss". What a liar. They were filming the scene with Buck, Tommy, and Eddie at the helicopter hangar back in January. That was a whole 3 months ago. Oliver literally said it was his first day back on set. You can't tell me you filmed that without knowing how the episode was gonna end, Tim. What a lying liar who lies. I do believe him that bringing Tommy in to replace Lucy probably meant they could streamline the queer Buck storyline faster in the season, but I firmly believe he knew they were planning to get to it at some point. There's no way Tim could've gotten the green light for it from ABC that fast without major lengthy discussions, both with TPTB and the writer's room. People take a long fucking time to respond to emails, Tim. Get better at lying.

[ariaste]

Hello hello! If it’s all right with you, I would like to vent for a moment: Back in the day, I used to be really into BBC Sherlock. I know it was bad, but it was “Be Gay (solve) Crimes” and I couldn’t resit. One of my favorite parts of the fandom was reading fan metas. I enjoyed reading your ridiculously long meta! I am not very clever and I enjoy reading people noticing things that I can’t. It’s fun watching people passionately pick up clues and put them together.

I don’t think I’m the only one getting superwholock flashbacks lately. Sherlock also tried an unreliable narrator in S4 and it was an absolute shit show. People thought thought the finale was fake, it was so bad. TBH, the entire show was a dumpster fire that thought it was more clever than it was. Moffat was a good writer for single episodes for DW, but a garbage show runner. And they called us crazy for picking up what they were putting down.

But Good Omens gives me a spark of hope. It is unashamedly queer, fun, drinks its respecting women juice, and, unlike moffatiss, I think Neil and the crew may actually be clever enough to pull something big off. I adore the Discworld series and Sir Terry, and I have faith Neil will to do right by him.

Good Omens is restoring my faith in nerdy queer fiction and reminding me why I love fandom so much. Please keep up the crackhead theories. I love them 💕

Thank you, that's very kind!

(Ended up writing a very long reply about the response to my essay and also about queerness in media. Idk why i am writing such long posts these days SORRY LOL. Anyway I'm putting it all beneath the cut so I can tag it without clogging people's dash or the tag pages)

It does make me sigh a little when I see people scornfully comparing my long essay to The Johnlock Conspiracy or saying that they're having Sherlock flashbacks, because the both the contexts of the shows and the methodology of the theorizing are VERY different. To my mind, a more direct comparison of methodology would be the Gravity Falls fandom's "Stan Has A Secret Twin" theory. Writers and showrunners DO like being sneaky and clever from time to time, and many of them are much better at it than Moffat is.

But whether or not my theory is right or not is... kind of irrelevant to me? I wasn't out to force anyone to agree with me, AND writing it was a really fun way to spend a weekend, AND I'm proud of the work I did and the story I told, AND it felt good to have a satisfying workout at the Brain Gym. So even if I'm proven utterly and completely wrong, I won't feel like I wasted my time. :)

Good Omens is a great show, and I am SO HAPPY to see it (and other shows!) embracing queerness, sharing the fans' enthusiasm for the story, and honoring and respecting the fans' love rather than punishing them for it. As more and more time goes on, I think we're going to see more and more shows like that, because some of the people who grew up reading tumblr discourse are going to be showrunners themselves one day, and they'll have learned serious lessons about what it feels like when the audience is met with love rather than disgust and disdain. In fact, we're ALREADY seeing more shows like that than we had 10 years ago! There is so much canonical queerness on-screen these days that the me of 10-15 years ago is ASTONISHED and feels wealthy beyond counting. Of course, there is so much further to go, but man... when i was a kid, we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to see two dudes making sustained emotional eye contact, and we were grateful for it. (Jokes but also.... kind of real tho)

We've seen the exact same thing happen in scifi/fantasy publishing in the last seven or eight years, too! (Went off on a long tangent about Queerness In Media from an insider perspective, continuing below a cut so I don't clutter everyone's dash)

Even as recently as 2013--ten years ago--you might not have even been able to get your book published if it was openly gay. Hell, you might not have been able to get an agent to represent it, even. It would have been labeled "unmarketable" and passed over; if it DID get published, the queerness would have been camouflaged and downplayed and hidden in the marketing as much as possible--you wouldn't have known by looking at the cover that it was queer, you wouldn't have been able to tell by reading the back cover that it was queer. In literally 2016, seven years ago, a few months before I got my first book deal, I remember having a conversation with a friend and being very very worried that if I wrote books as queer as I wanted them to be, I would be "pigeonholed" as "ONLY writing Gay Books", that I would be passed over for any of the publisher's marketing budget and publicity efforts, that I would be sidelined and ignored... In 2016, I thought I was facing a choice of writing stories with more "mainstream appeal" OR writing the books I wanted to write and potentially undermining the rest of my career.

That didn't happen, thankfully, because in the next couple years there was this incredible explosion of queer scifi/fantasy. You see, ten to fifteen years ago, a truly stunning percentage of my colleagues -- writers, editors, publicists -- were writing and reading fanfic, and they carried their tastes and story-hungers with them as they grew up and got Real Adult Jobs at publishing companies. And suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a lot of us came of age all at once and there was this absolutely enormous wave of queer SFF that in my opinion has brought us into a new golden age of the genre: The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, The Chorus of Dragons series by Jenn Lyons, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, The Tensorate series by Neon Yang, Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders, the Birdverse books by RB Lemberg, The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, Reforged by Seth Haddon, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson, Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell, The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin -- and these only the ones I could remember off the top of my head in 30 seconds, and I have a flavor of ADHD that makes my brain go blank when people ask me to think of specific examples of things! It is harder for me to think of a SFF book published in the last 7 years that ISN'T queer.

And then almost exactly a year ago, my book A Taste of Gold and Iron came out with THIS COVER:

Which. Is not so much a step forward in openly queer SFF as it is a fucking gauntlet thrown down in challenge. I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how much I would not have gotten this cover 10 years ago, and that's if the book was even accepted for publication in the first place. This cover SCREAMS gay fantasy romance. There is no attempt to hide it or camouflage it. It is advertising exactly what it is, right up front.

I got the absolute privilege and honor of having this cover--and I do consider it an incredible honor--because of the work that all my colleagues put in with their own work. Each queer book that got published wedged the door a little wider for the next one, and then a little wider still for the next one, until finally someone could get their foot in the door and squeeze across the threshold, which opened it a little wider again. So when I look at this image, I don't just see a beautiful cover that I am delighted to have on my books--I see an entire history of slow, steady progress by so many incredible writers who risked damaging their careers just to drag us to a point where a book as gay as this one could get a cover as gay as that one and STILL get the full and enthusiastic support of both the publisher and the audience. And the most incredible honor and the most humbling privilege out of all of this is the fact that the success of this book meant that the door was wedged open another little bit, that I got to contribute in this small way to the efforts of everyone who came before me, so that ones who come after us will find the door flung wide -- or that there's no door left at all to block the way, because we've collectively torn it down.

So yes, @eyona, I think that having your faith restored little by little is a very good thing, and I am delighted that Good Omens is doing that for all of us. And what's even better is that even if Good Omens doesn't play out exactly how we want it to, that's... kind of okay? Because there is always the next one, and at the very very least, Good Omens is wedging the door open further so that the next one can have an easier time of it. We don't have to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to get a moment of emotionally charged eye contact anymore. We don't have to starve anymore, not like we used to back in the bad old days. And that alone is a wonderful thing. :D

[vidavalor]

Hello! I love your posts about the Ineffable Husbands coded speech so I wanted to ask if you caught the double meaning of the word “clue”! It is one which we hear the first time after the pub and jealous Crowley. The word “Clue” has a double meaning as it is slang for “developing an erection”. Didn’t know if you already caught it, but wanted to share that with you! 😂

Allo allo allo @the-apology-dance! 💕I'm glad you're enjoying reading my wordy rambles. Thanks for the reminder of modern use of "clue." I did think it euphemistic in S2 and why relates to a few other words, so, a shiny little bit o' meta for you on clue, investigate, appearance, suspicion, trace, Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, and goo in Ineffable Husbands Speak.

Like you pointed out, in our modern times, clue is used euphemistically for getting/having an erection. In slang terms, it's not that old by comparison to other euphemisms for the same thing-- one of which is, of course, "pitching a tent", which the canopy-themed season didn't ignore, as we looked at in another meta how it's one of the words produced by homophony in Aziraphale's French. The thing that's funny about Aziraphale's euphemistic use of clue in S2 is that it's part of their wordplay for reasons different from how we use it so it winds up not really mattering if they know the reason why the rest of us do or not.

A clue as euphemistic for an erection in our world originated around 2006/2007 off of it being used that way in an episode of South Park. Crowley & Aziraphale don't need to know that or even be remotely aware of it for clue to be euphemistic already in Ineffable Husbands Speak because of the etymology of the word. (And, as with everything, it's also possible that they are-- unintentionally or otherwise-- actually the origin of it.)

Clue-- in the sense of a piece of information that helps or could help in solving a mystery-- is a respelling of the Middle English/Germanic words clew/clewe and the French cleue, all of which mean a ball of yarn or thread. It's a really neat origin for a word because of its built-in metaphor-- getting a clue is pulling on threads to unravel a mystery. It also evolved into having a nautical meaning... and we know these two and the sea.

A clue with relation to seafaring is to raise a sail up through use of the cluelines/clewlines on the ship. So, ah, as you can see lol... we're already at an erection euphemism pretty easily without them having the first clue about South Park, right? Clue is tied to both the sea and to thread/yarn, which is seamstress work, which is part of the colors & clothing-themed euphemisms that they have going on as well. There are some of the colors and clothing stuff in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings and also it's part of the shades of grey convo in 1941, etc.. [I've other Asks related to Mrs. Sandwich/seamstress & the shades of grey convos so more on those soon.] But it's the element of a sense of mystery involved in clue, along with everything else, that makes Aziraphale so hot for the word.

If one of the metas you read was the one about Tip Top, Thank You & Ticketyboo, then you saw a couple of examples of wordplay around the verb to come. The long and short of it is that we humans, as you know, refer to having an orgasm as having come and, within that, is this implicit sense of travel, right?

A coming is an arrival and to come means that you arrived. It implies a journey was undertaken-- that you went somewhere and eventually got to a destination. Humans do this linguistically with other mind-body experiences as well-- you "go to" sleep; you can have "a bad trip" on drugs, etc.. In addition to this, there is a never-ending list of travel-related euphemisms for sex in support of the verb to come. A ride, for example, can be had in a car, on a horse or with your partner. Relevant to what you're talking about with clue, though, is what else that the verb to come deals with and that's appearances and disappearances.

To come also means to appear-- as in, to come into view. This is amusing to Crowley & Aziraphale since, ya know... they can appear and disappear at will. 😄 They're magical beings who can miracle themselves places and pop up in each other's presence. Sometimes, this is part of whatever they're playing at in the moment, like in 1793:

Other times, it's in reference to a mystery, which is often centered around a disappearance. As a result of to come meaning to appear, there are a series of other words related to disappearance that show up in their wordplay. Two of them-- suspicion and trace-- pop up in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings. Crowley buried the word pish (which has ties to nightingales, fish, and peas, as we looked at in another meta) in the middle of "suspicious" while tying it to Aziraphale's ears in the entry. Among the other bits of wordplay in there is that one definition of suspicion is that it is the barest trace of something and to trace also means to lightly outline with touch.

Additionally? Something that "seems fishy" is something that is suspicious.

The word investigate-- what one does with a mystery-- is from the Latin in (in this case, meaning into) and vestigare (which means to trace). So Crowley's use of suspicious in Demon's Guide and Aziraphale's use of investigate in S2 are playing at the same root word of trace-- a word related to disappearance/appearance/to come that isn't just an action one might take to track clues in a case but is also how one might touch their partner when feeling a bit amorous.

But investigate is also funny to Crowley & Aziraphale for another reason: the words inside the word.

Investigate: IN. VEST... 😂 A day hasn't gone by in, like, at least three hundred plus years that either of them hasn't been wearing a vest and Aziraphale has a clue and he's thinking he might take the car that he's made into an on-going sexual metaphor for Crowley and he wants to go do some investigating...

...and it would seem that this has something to do with why this description of Aziraphale's planned trip involves him pushing his tongue against the inside of his cheek in the time-honored, traditional, non-verbal sign for indicating a desire to give a blowjob. Aziraphale plans to thoroughly follow all possible leads but his hope is that following the clues in this in.vest.igation will lead him on a path south of Snake Belt.

It's also hilarious that Aziraphale tells Crowley that he got his clue from Gabriel 😄-- who was singing to Aziraphale in the house this morning.

Additionally, investigate includes the words gate and ate, right?

Ate obviously relates to their constant theme of food. The word gate originally meant not a door but a hole or to breach a hole and also the eye of a needle... so, we're also back to our ball of yarn/thread in our seamstress-y word of clue. Among its original spellings were geat (so, containing eat) and geatu (containing eat + u lol). As if that weren't enough? The word gate is also found in a French word that is pronounced somewhat similarly to geatu, which is gateau.

A gateau is a rich, French sponge cake that has layers of icing, cream and/or fruit. In Good Omens: Lockdown, Aziraphale is sharing what he's baked during Lockdown but everything that he's baked is euphemistic for fantasies he's been having to get himself off, the content of which he's sharing by way of describing them as kinds of cake. He tells Crowley that he has baked (and "has baked") a Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, which is almost a Black Forest Gateau but for one, key difference: by definition, it contains alcohol.

Crowley is the embodiment of an elegant and sexy Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte-- a rich chocolate sponge cake layered with and topped with whipped cream and cherries. In Germany, it is actually illegal to refer to a Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte as such unless it contains kirschwasser, which is a cherry brandy made from regional cherries. If it doesn't have that, it's a chocolate cake or, depending on how its made, a Black Forest Gateau.

Alcohol refers to sex and, while it appears to be a generalized word for it as well, it also phonetically kind of spells out what it is: alcohol is "all-co-hol." A hol is a hole or a hollow in several different languages and it's Dutch slang for anus/arsehole/the ass as a whole. Making things funnier? It's also apparently the Dutch word for a cargo hold on a ship. Alcohol is then sex featuring equal hol opportunity for both of them and for Aziraphale to have baked a Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte is to have gotten himself there fantasizing about having some alcohol with his "whipped-cream"-covered, cherry-topped, black forest gateau.

You'll notice that while they eat chocolate, Aziraphale does not ever eat or bake-- and definitely has never had any desire to "bake"-- a Devil's Food Cake. That would just be offensive. You might also notice that Aziraphale said the name of another kind of cake "incorrectly" in Lockdown-- it's called Angel Food Cake. Aziraphale calls it Angel's Food Cake... verbal italics and apostrophe emphasis included. 😉

Anyway... back to clue... in the South Park episode that started the euphemism, there's actually a second one that developed as a result, too, as you likely know, and that's clue goo-- which is euphemistic, as you might suspect, for semen. Goo is a word that Crowley actually uses twice in the series-- once in the show itself and it's one of the words that shows up in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings.

When Crowley proposes that they run off together in the bandstand disaster scene, he's using a bunch of sexual euphemisms in the process, largely because he knows that Aziraphale is going to reject him. He also is because of language overlap with Armageddon and destruction with sex. In the bandstand scene, he uses "a puddle of burning goo" to describe the end of the Earth as a result of Armageddon but it's also probably an accurate description of Crowley himself after sex. Self-descriptive as well, probably lol.

Because goo is a sticky or, well, gooey, substance but it's also sappy, mushy, romantic sentiment. When Crowley uses the word in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings, both of those meanings are present, with the idea that what he's writing is total goo (and it is) but he doesn't care. Additionally, he is also referencing its homophone-- gu, the root of the word guru.

Gu is a Sanskrit word that means, among other things: to go (similar in travel theme to to come), water, earth. Guru itself means "worthy of respect." A guru is an expert and guide who dispels spiritual darkness and is one of several references in Demon's Guide where both Crowley and Aziraphale use words relating to healers, the ecclesiastical and other forms of ministry to describe one another, all in a way that relates love and sex in their eyes to a form of spirituality.

Crowley uses guru for Aziraphale and, also, the-erotic-as-religion theme appears to be one of the reasons behind his choice for Aziraphale of the word bishop... one meaning of which is one who, ahem, oversees the actions and spiritual needs of other clergy...

...while Aziraphale goes full throttle on the blasphemy as he always delightfully does and refers to Crowley as a god... several of them.

Finally, if you're looking for words within words, you probably noticed that the word appear has a rather familiar one in it: pear.

But, that's for next time. 😉

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hi! Just wanted to say your analysis of OotP really helped me sort my feelings out about it. It's always been my second least favorite (after DH), but I could never understand why because usually I'm a sucker for beaten down main characters getting to be pissed at everyone and go off the rails a little.

The reason it isn't a fun experience for me is actually because of Harry's helplessness. Especially because I read it as a young child going through a period of big change, I think Harry's struggles and frustrations always felt a little to real for me. OotP is basically Harry being stuck dealing with an endless slew of corrupt and/or unreasonable authority figures and being forced to just take a lot of it, regardless of how furious it makes him. He finds ways to rebel like doing the DA, but he still has to just shut up and deal with Dumbledore's crypticness and Fudge trying to convict him on the regular. It's just really painful for me to read about because of how unfair it all feels (and how unfortunately realistic it can be). Especially since I primarily read fiction as escapism.

I think I actually like Harry's angst, it's just the lack of catharsis that bothers me, and your explanation really helped me verbalize that. Thanks.

(I also really love reading your other metas. They're so interesting).

Thank you so much! 💕

I'm glad I helped you sort out your feelings about it. I agree OotP has some of the most 'realistic' struggles Harry has to go through. I mean, corrupt governments and situations in which your hands are mostly tied are too common in our real world, unfortunately.

I personally love it, but I get what you're saying.

I hope you're having a better time now than back when you first read it!

[dujour13]

Philautia 5, Ludus 2 and Agape 3 for Woljif please 😁💕

Sphinx! 💕💕 Thank you! Well-chosen...

Philautia 5

Has your OC always had the same opinion of themselves or has this changed over time? Have they learned to love themselves - perhaps with the help of others - as their journey progressed? Or have the consequences of their actions only served to erode their sense of self-worth?

Aw 🥺 My boy is such a bundle of insecurities, the worst of which I think is his meta-insecurity that those insecurities will show – because if they do you can bet someone’ll use them against him. What he finds out over the course of the Crusades is that he’s valued. He sits on two of the Commander’s councils and makes himself useful in the field, notably by coordinating under-the-table supply chains. In my fic he even creates a Midnight Council to smooth out friction between the Thieflings and the Fellows of the Crusade in Drezen. People are skeptical at first, but he succeeds in avoiding a turf war, and people in the underground start to look up to him. The sense of having worth in people’s eyes is new and highly gratifying for someone like Woljif, who despite himself puts a lot of stock in others’ perception of him. And of course, learning he’s loved and most of all, that he deserves to be loved, is a turning point. So his self-esteem grows immensely over the course of the story, and there’s a risk that it could go to his head, but Woljif’s too down-to-earth, smart and cautious to get overly cocky.

Ludus 2

Is your OC particularly skilled at flirting? Have they had to practice this or does it just happen naturally?

He will certainly claim to be a world-class flirt and knows all kinds of lines that are guaranteed to have them swooning at his feet… but I think when he really tries, which is rare, his insincerity is so obvious it immediately puts people off. And that’s in the case he does succeed in using a smooth line or two, because in the Ten Thousand Delights he gets tongue-tied meeting a certain succubus. Short answer—he’s terrible at it. With Siavash the situation is different because they’re friends, and Woljif’s already implicitly aware that his feelings are way beyond the pick-up line stage anyway. In fact instead of flirting he’s consciously trying to hide his interest, with more or less success, and as I wrote about before when he does make up his mind to confess it’s the accidental sincerity that wins.

Agape 3

To what extent does your OC believe in the value (or even existence) of true altruism? Do they see an unselfish concern for the welfare of others as being naïve or foolish? Or as a moral quality to which people should aspire?

Going for the throat with this one. OK so obviously caring about other people’s welfare is a scam. People will try to convince you friends and family look out for each other, the easier to fleece you when your back’s turned. Right? Right chief?