#and you like sarcastic queer teenagers

[betaphannie]

I'm on episode 6 of dead boy detectives and I am having so much fun this show is incredible

[silver-soul00]

You don't like Wenclair? Absolutely OK, that's all very well, but to call it forced is just a big mistake and I will explain why (the artist of the fan art on Percy and Annabeth is Sethkiel, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram) + Percy Jackson spoilers about his romantic relationship in the books

Enid is in effect an ideal choice as a partner for Wednesday Addams not only because of their obvious character complementarity, but also because of the positive impact a relationship based on their dynamic could have on both personalities.

Various psychological and social studies support the idea that interpersonal relationships based on complementarity and mutual acceptance are more likely to be healthy and long-lasting. Wednesday, with her introverted, cynical and distant character, is balanced by Enid, who stands out for her emotional openness, empathy and desire to connect with others.

This polarity creates a synergy that not only enriches their friendship but could serve as the basis for a meaningful romantic relationship.

One of the key components is the unconditional support Enid offers Wednesday. According to research on the psychology of relationships, emotional support is one of the strongest indicators of relationship satisfaction.

Enid, despite the difficulties Wednesday poses to her, constantly stands by her side, demonstrating a patience and understanding that goes beyond mere friendship.

This type of dynamic is consistent with the findings of Feeney and Collins (2015), who highlight how relationships characterised by a partner who serves as a ‘secure base’ improve resilience and psychological well-being for both parties. For Wednesday, who often shows difficulties in trusting others and expressing her emotions, having a figure like Enid beside her could help her explore deeper aspects of her emotional identity.

Moreover, Enid represents a form of positivity and optimism that counterbalances Wednesday's cynicism. This counterbalance, far from being a hindrance, proves beneficial. Studies conducted by Gable et al. (2006) suggest that relationships in which one partner promotes positive emotions and encourages the other to experience joy and pleasure have a positive impact not only on individual well-being, but also on couple cohesion. Enid's ability to celebrate life's simple moments and accept Wednesday as it is can offer her a safe space in which to lower her defences without feeling judged.

The chance of a queer relationship between Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair is not only coherent with the long history of the Addams Family, but also represents a natural evolution of Wednesday's character.

The Addams Family, since its creation, has been a symbol of rebellion against social norms and celebration of difference.

Charles Addams conceived the family as a parody of traditional American families, overturning their conventional values.

While middle-class American families aspired to normality, the Addams family found pride and beauty in their eccentricity. This attitude made the family an icon for anyone who felt marginalized or different, including queer communities. Their gothic aesthetic, black humour and unqualified acceptance of all forms of strangeness made them symbols of inclusivity, even if this theme was rarely made explicit directly.

Wednesday Addams, in particular, embodies this challenge to social projections. From her earliest appearances, she has been portrayed as an intelligent, sarcastic and deeply independent outsider who rejects imposed social norms. In the films of the 1990s, this nature is clearly expressed: Wednesday, despite being young, is perfectly aware of her identity and interests, refusing any attempt to force her to conform.

An emblematic example is her relationship with Joel Glicker in The Addams Family 2.

Joel, an insecure and nerdy boy, becomes an ally and romantic interest, but the relationship is clearly devoid of the traditional dynamics of teenage romance.

Wednesday shows interest, but expresses it in his own way, with humour and detachment. This episode shows that Wednesday is not ‘immune’ to romance, but lives it according to her own rules.

In the Netflix series Wednesday, the dynamic with Enid Sinclair adds an even greater level of complexity. Enid, with her sunny disposition and expansive nature, is the perfect counterbalance to Wednesday's coldness.

Their relationship is built on a foundation of trust, emotional intimacy and mutual support that far surpasses any other connection Wednesday develops in the series, including those with her male romantic interests, Tyler and Xavier. Psychological studies, such as that of Aron et al. (1997) on interpersonal intimacy, show that the strongest relationships are often based on complementary differences. Wednesday and Enid embody this complementarity: the dark and the light, the rational and the emotional, detachment and empathy.

This kind of dynamic is often the basis of the most memorable romantic relationships in fiction, and it would be only natural for their bond to evolve into something more.

The criticism that a queer relationship between Wednesday and Enid would be a ‘stretch’ often masks prejudices about queer inclusivity. Interestingly, audiences unreservedly accept heterosexual romance in contexts that do not always align perfectly with the characters' personalities.

For instance, in the 1990s films, no one criticised the fact that Wednesday, a deeply cynical and aloof girl, had a romantic moment with Joel. Similarly, in the Netflix series, her interactions with Tyler and Xavier are accepted without particular objection, despite the fact that Wednesday shows very little genuine interest in either of them.

This demonstrates a double standard: heterosexual romance is perceived as ‘natural’ and acceptable, while queer romance must be justified or considered as extraordinary.

Queer representation in the media, as studies by GLAAD (2022) show, is crucial in normalising these relationships and offering positive role models for those who identify outside traditional norms. The relationship between Wednesday and Enid would not only be consistent with the characters, but also an important step towards greater inclusivity. Furthermore, the argument that Wednesday ‘is not made for romance’ is easily disproved by her narrative history. She has never been a traditionally romantic character, but that does not mean she cannot develop genuine and deep connections.

Her emotional openness towards Enid in the series is a clear sign of personal growth and openness towards meaningful relationships.

Finally, it is important to point out that many of the most famous romantic relationships in fiction were born out of deep friendships. From Harry Potter (Ron and Hermione) to Friends (Ross and Rachel), the transition from friendship to romance is a widely accepted narrative trope, especially when it involves heterosexual couples. It is hypocritical to consider it a stretch only in the case of queer relationships. In the case of Wednesday and Enid, their emotional intimacy and mutual support lay a solid foundation for a romantic relationship that would not only be consistent with the Addams Family's history, but would also represent a natural evolution of Wednesday's character, keeping her rebellious and non-conformist essence intact.

Let's take a concrete example to show that the basis of the Wenclair ship is valid?

Percy Jackson.

The relationship between Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase is built in a gradual way and represents a story arc that starts with friendship and grows into romance, making it a perfect example to show that it is not ‘forced’ when a close bond turns into love.

The saga of Percy Jackson and the Gods of Olympus offers an excellent example of how a friendship can develop naturally into a romantic relationship. The dynamic between Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase develops gradually, reflecting a relationship-building model that emphasises mutual growth, respect and trust. Initially, Percy and Annabeth meet in the context of Camp Half-Blood, where significant differences in their characters emerge. Annabeth, rational and strategic, tends to see Percy as an unprepared novice, while Percy perceives Annabeth as distant and authoritarian. Nevertheless, their shared adventures lead to a mutual respect that becomes the basis for a solid friendship.

In later books, such as The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse, their relationship deepens through moments of vulnerability and emotional connection. Annabeth shares with Percy her ambitions and fears, such as the dream of building something lasting or the burden of her loyalty to the gods. Percy, for his part, shows a growing sense of protection towards Annabeth, being willing to risk his life to save her on several occasions. These episodes mark a gradual evolution of their relationship, but without ever abandoning the friendly core that sustains it.

The turning point occurs in the fourth book of the saga, The Battle of the Labyrinth, when Percy begins to acknowledge his romantic feelings for Annabeth. However, the transition does not happen abruptly; both characters, being still teenagers, navigate uncertainly between friendship and love, making their relational development realistic and free of narrative forcing. In later books, such as The Final Clash and especially in the Heroes of Olympus series, Percy and Annabeth consolidate their romantic relationship without ever losing the bond of friendship that characterises them. This balance is particularly evident in The House of Hades, where their mutual support, even in extreme situations, underlines the depth of their bond.

The transition between friendship and love in the case of Percy and Annabeth is an example of a well-constructed narrative, reflecting real dynamics also highlighted by psychological studies. According to Kaplan and Keys (1997), many successful romantic relationships develop from pre-existing friendships due to the presence of trust and emotional intimacy as solid foundations. Moreover, this dynamic is widely accepted by the public, as it reflects common human experiences. The story of Percy and Annabeth demonstrates that the transition from friendship to romance can be organic and believable, especially when constructed with attention to the emotional aspects of the characters.

Applying this perspective to the case of Wednesday and Enid, it becomes clear that such a transition would not be ‘forced’, as is often claimed by some critics. The two girls share a relationship that is based on complementarity and mutual growth: Wednesday is cynical and reserved, while Enid is expansive and empathetic, and together they create a balance similar to that between Percy and Annabeth.

To ignore this possibility is to operate a double standard, considering acceptable for heterosexual couples a dynamic that is labelled as unnatural or artificial in the case of a queer couple. The representation of Wednesday and Enid in a romantic relationship would not only be consistent with traditional narrative dynamics, but could also contribute to greater inclusivity and a richer, more nuanced representation of relationships in pop culture.

[maxdibert]

You took the words out of my mouth. Yes! That is the problem with Marauders stans - they take their OCs, slap a name sticker on them and claim its canon.

Severus becomes the most evil of incels, when he was 9 years old he was already lusting after his first friend, sometimes he is rich, sometimes he is poor - but he always deserves being ganged on 4 on 1 since he was 11, maybe he kicked a puppy in Potter's vicinity, who knows? - sometimes he is even more evil than Voldemort himself (makes you wonder why he wasn’t kicked out of the school already, its not like he is a gryffindor and Dumbledore is protecting him like he did with the Marauders);

James becomes the queer hero (read a fic where he was teaching purebloods in gryffindor about labels and pronouns - Sir, this was the 70s, not 2016), defends the innocent, saving everyone from the evilest of them all: Snape;

Sirius becomes a poor baby, his mother uses the cruciatus curse on him all the time (and somehow he didn’t go mad like the Longbottoms or died) - he goes around with every girl in Hogwarts but the one he really wants is Lupin, look at his puppy eyes.

Lupin, he is brave, he is assertive, he growls, his eyes glow yellow all the time and he acts like the alpha of the group, James and Sirius trust and respect.

Regulus becomes the poor victim (he totally doesn’t have a Voldemort shrine in his room, what are you talking about? XD), he is abused by his mother, by other Slytherins, by Snape, he is prideful and goes against his mother all the time, he is a crybaby in need of a queer hero, he cries himself to sleep thinking of Potter's strong arms.

Peter, he is a cowardly rat, always snickering something evil (you wonder why Potter would ever trust him with the life of his child).

And Lily, hmmm, she a secret lesbian and is going out with Mary/Marlene/Dorcas/Pandora (chose your flavor, its the same either way, she only appears to cheer on the boys) and would absolutely loooooove to carry Jegulus's baby.

Rinse and repeat.

And they come and say they are just "exploring" with the characters - what characters? If you change so many parts of their personality and history are they the same characters?

No. They are just your OCs.

Look, it’s not about the characters, it’s not about the Marauders, it’s not Snape, it’s not Regulus—it’s not the people you see in the actual series. Not even Lily is really Lily, because they always portray her as some kind of girlboss feminist icon when Lily Evans was a girl completely alienated by the patriarchal views of her time. I mean, we’re talking about someone who chose to marry a guy who had abused people right in front of her. But not only that—she got married and pregnant as a teenager. She was a very traditional person, just like her sister Petunia, so I don’t know where this whole Gloria Steinem fantasy comes from because she was nothing like that. In fact, she doesn’t even seem to have female friends—the only one vaguely mentioned is Mary McDonald, and the only real friend she has throughout her life is Severus. After that, it's just her boyfriend/husband’s friends. She’s the furthest thing from a feminist icon, but whatever.

They just make up characters who didn’t even attend school with them. Suddenly Barty Crouch, who canonically was three or four years younger, is in their same year. And not only that—he’s portrayed as this super spicy, sarcastic icon, when canonically even the Death Eaters were shocked to find out Barty was a loyal servant of Voldemort because everything indicated he was the kind of guy who tried to blend in and pretend to follow his father’s orders. Dorcas Meadowes was supposedly a pretty powerful witch and only gets two sentences in the books, but that’s enough to infer she not only didn’t go to school with the Marauders, Snape, and Lily, but was significantly older. The McKinnons are mentioned as a family, suggesting Marlene McKinnon was older than the Marauders and probably married with kids. So what the hell are they talking about? Why are all these people suddenly the same age and in the same year? And why are we suddenly in a senseless teen soap opera with a bunch of pop culture references from 2025 in the middle of the 1970s? Why is just saying “David Bowie” and “the Beatles” considered “period accurate” when these characters clearly think with a 2025 mindset? Even if they kept some traits from canon, it would still feel totally off. You have to understand the historical context you're writing in.

James being queer or James being POC is something I’ll never understand because James Potter represents the progressive elite who, despite having socially acceptable views, are still classist, abusive, and discriminatory. James thinks he’s better than other pure-bloods because the only thing he sees as wrong is blood purism—he doesn’t realize he has a deeply classist, possessive, and dominant mindset, and he’s jealous as hell. He bullies a much poorer boy, with no resources or stable family structure, just because that boy is friends with the girl James likes. He blackmails the girl he likes into going out with him. People say Snape couldn’t be Black because it would make his “obsession with Lily” look bad, but James can be? When he literally blackmails her into dating him? When he bullies her friend out of jealousy? Like, another one they portray as a feminist ally (one of the most absurd and vomit-worthy claims I’ve seen) who was canonically a total macho douchebag. He was the average jock in your high school—the guy who bullies people out of boredom, who torments people he knows won’t fight back because there are no consequences, who behaves like a piece of shit. So I don’t get it. I don’t get why they turn him into a golden retriever, why they whitewash his actions like that. I don’t think people realize how terribly problematic that is. James Potter was not a queer ally—James Potter reeked of toxic masculinity and probably would have made the most homophobic comments. He literally gave Severus Snape a nickname referencing his failure to meet conventional standards of masculinity, and people imagine him as some kind of Che Guevara or something? Get out of here.

There’s no proof that Walburga physically abused her children. In fact, Regulus was considered “the golden boy”—Sirius’s own words—because he followed the family ideology. He had posters of Voldemort in his room, his mother spoke well of him—where is the traumatic childhood? Sirius had a really sadistic and cruel side. He tried to commit murder. He used a supposed friend as a weapon. He felt zero remorse for his actions. He was tall, aggressive, girls swooned over him—he had bikini posters in his room, for God’s sake. So where the hell did this image of him as a crying little baby come from?? We’re talking about Sirius Black, whom Rowling explicitly created as the epitome of traditional masculinity. She repeatedly described him as this incredibly handsome man that girls would swoon over. In contrast, Lupin was always described as shy, hiding behind his friends, unable to tell them to stop or speak up when he thought their actions were wrong. They’ve literally killed these characters, mutilated them, annihilated them.

But the thing is—no, that’s not what happened. What happened is they don’t know the characters. They say there’s not enough information about them, but that’s a lie. There is. You just have to read the damn books, not just watch the movies or read fics or watch TikToks. One of the people replying to the post yesterday told me she hadn’t even read the books—then what the hell are you talking about? What characters are you referring to? Because the ones in the movies don’t even match either. Movie Severus Snape is very different from book Snape, same with Remus and Sirius. In the films, we know nothing about their school days because they’re barely shown. Everything we do know, we know from the books—and it’s more than enough to work from canon and come up with headcanons that are respectful to the canon and make sense within it. Which these so-called fans don’t do. Because these so-called fans aren’t fans of the Marauders—they’re fans of a bunch of OCs someone invented and kept developing, and just slapped the names of real characters from an existing lore on them so people would read their fics. That’s it. And they have the audacity not to warn people that the characters are out of character or that the world they’ve made is an AU. And then they complain about lack of tagging? You want to talk about lack of tagging? How about their audacity to pretend something is canon when it’s not, and not tell people that what they’re doing is just an AU or completely OOC. When they respect tagging, then I’ll respect it too.

[lambfawnteeth]

Character Profile: Daniel Frey

(Older picture but whateva)

I will not be brief.

Mentions of SA and domestic abuse

Daniel Frey

Just gonna state the facts, then after I’ll ramble about whatever metaphors and symbolism I write into his character.

Daniel is 19, working as the nurse intern aboard the Tulpar. He’s paired with Anya, and basically acts like her assistant, doing menial tasks regarding the med bay while he completes his own course work. He took up the internship for a few reasons; to get out of the house, probably for some sort of college credit, and/or because his mother insisted it would look good in a resume. 

(Background)

I’ll put this first in order to contextualize some of his behavior. Daniel’s family life is incredibly rocky, his father being a narcissist. Daniel himself is a product of rape, his father assaulted his mother in order to trap her in a marriage, which unfortunately worked. Despite this, Daniel’s mother tried her best, being there for him when he needed, but she wasn’t without her own shortcomings. Daniel was raised with his narcissistic father and codependent mother, and in order to cope with everyday life, he took after his mother. He fawned for his father, walking on eggshells, grew hypervigilant of his mood and tone, etc., all to keep the peace in the household. Submission and obedience were carved into his bones, even as he reached adulthood, his father still ruled their house with an iron fist. Daniel joined the Tulpar crew largely to find an escape for his home life, desperate to break free from the constant cycle of abuse. Daniel is a trans man, pre-op and pre-T, so he’s aware of how he appears to others. He was named Rosalyn at birth, and raised and socialized as a woman. This identity of womanhood also weighed heavily on him as well, as you can imagine, his father didn’t have the most stable or respectful view of women, or queer people. All this being said, Daniel was raised in a very specific environment, one that cultured him into being prone to severe codependency and trauma bonding, because that’s all he knew. 

(Pre-crash)

Weeks into the flight, Daniel had finally started to open up, acting more genuine and confident. His personality is more mellow than Daisuke’s, but he has a good sense of humor, especially at inappropriate times. He’s a pretty stereotypical angsty teenager at times, sarcastic and tired, but that’s all combined with his sense of empathy and people pleasing tendencies. I.e., if you know who April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation is, he acts like her, but a bit more nice. Despite coming out of his shell, he still acts a little strangely from Curly’s pre-crash POV. Spacing out, forgetting things, flinching often , jumping in to try and appease the situation a little too quickly, but Curly being Curly, he doesn’t focus on the warning signs. Possibly the most obvious display of Daniel’s struggles from Curly’s segments would be the party scene, where Jimmy blows up and shouts at him about being laid off. While the others have their own dialogue, Daniel is completely silent, his head bowed, hands in his lap, like a child being scolded. The situation was painfully similar to thing’s he’d dealt with at home, with an angry man yelling over the dinner table. Daniel strives for praise from those around him, especially those in authority, like Curly or Anya, even Jimmy. 

(Relationships)

Curly: Being an intern, I imagine Daniel is maybe a little intimidated by him, as he is with most men older than him. However, he grows to see Curly as well intentioned, but a little ignorant. I have this idea in my head that he’s one of those people who try to be supportive to a trans person, but just end up being awkward about it. Daniel finds it funny.

Jimmy: At this point, Daniel doesn’t exactly like Jimmy that much. He gives him this weird feeling at times, he can sense there’s something about him that isn’t like the others. He can’t exactly put his finger on it now, but later he realizes it’s because Jimmy reminded him of his father, just a little bit. He’s still courteous, but definitely gives him weird looks and avoids talking to him if he looks a little too irritated at the world. This is just me projecting but tbh Jimmy gives me the vibe that he’s passively transphobic, like he’ll call Daniel by his chosen name and masculine pronouns, but only because he doesn’t want the others thinking he’s an asshole, not because he actually cares about Daniel’s feelings or identity.

Anya: He adores Anya, as a mentor and a friend. He likes being able to talk freely with her, they probably share a similar set of values and humor. There’s also the fact that she’s the only woman in a ship full of cis men, so he feels more comfortable being around her anyway. I think I can equate their relationship as a closeted highschool student and their hip English teacher that they spend lunch with. 

Daisuke: Being the two youngest members of the crew, (I think Daisuke is around his age, maybe 19-20), they’re definitely good buddies. They talk about video games and pokemon and things they miss about being on earth, like wifi. Though, I do think if they weren’t forced into proximity and isolation, like if they went to college together, they probably wouldn't really talk. They’re just parts of different crowds. Daisuke is active and outgoing, he plays sports, while Daniel would usually keep to himself on earth, the kind of guy to only really have two or three close friends and no one else.

Swansea: Again, Daniel was initially intimidated by him, a lot, and he still is, but not as much anymore. Mostly it’s because Swansea seems like a decent guy, but Daniel just has a hard time reading him, and that makes him nervous. I think Swansea would see him as (surprisingly) slightly more tolerable than Daisuke, because he’s a bit more level headed and soft spoken. 

(Post-crash)

Daniel changes drastically after the incident, and in the time skip, he’s messily chopped his hair, covered up, and has stopped wearing his binder, and has stopped taking good care of himself in general. He’s lost hope at this point, and is only really going through the motions, because the dynamic between himself, Anya, and Jimmy is the only familiar thing he can grasp onto, even if it’s far from healthy or kind. Daniel’s mellow personality shifts to timidness, depression, and an unwillingness to stand up or speak for himself. He’s grown to be massively pessimistic, acknowledging that he believes that they’re all going to die. He follows Jimmy around like a lost puppy, fawning and appeasing him to keep the tension low. When he isn’t entertaining Jimmy, he heels at Anya’s side like a guard dog, afraid to leave her alone, even losing sleep over it. He bows his head, taking Jimmy’s verbal abuse and comments, but whenever Jimmy directs it towards Anya, he leaps up to defend her, even redirecting Jimmy’s abuse onto himself. He practically begs for comfort and validation, just needing someone to tell him that he’s doing good because he’s so lost and afraid. Essentially, he regressed to the trauma responses of himself at seven years old. 

(Relationships)

Curly: Daniel holds a love hate relationship with him. He hates Curly for putting them in this situation, for not doing anything about Jimmy. Meanwhile, he also deeply understands and relates to him, given that he’s now taken up the mantle of appeasing Jimmy, stepping right in where Curly left. He will linger in the med bay at times and speak to him, just vent about everything and tell him how much he hates him, how sorry he is, how much he hates himself, and he feels guilty taking advantage of the fact that Curly can’t leave or respond or refute anything Daniel says. It’s a vicious cycle, because as much as Daniel is angry at Curly, he’s also angry at himself. They’re much more similar than either care to admit, and maybe they always have been.

Jimmy: Daniel simultaneously despises him and grasps at any bit of praise or attention he offers. Jimmy takes advantage of this. Jimmy essentially treats Daniel like a lap dog, a pet, rather than a human being. He knows he can kick him around, and Daniel will still scurry back for whatever crumbs he gives him. It makes Jimmy feel in control, powerful, important. Daniel is both lost in the toxicity of the relationship and painfully self aware of the hole he’s dug himself into. Sometimes Daniel wishes he could tear his head off, and sometimes he clings to him like a lifeline. This all stems back to Daniel’s background- Jimmy reminds him of his father, not only in his personality, but in his actions, what he did to Anya- and he simply crumpled back into the mold he was pressed into by his family. 

Anya: At times, Daniel is like velcro on her side, refusing to let her out of his sight. He’s too scared of Jimmy, too scared to let something bad happen again, especially because he projects the image of his own mother onto Anya. He feels responsible for protecting her, because of the pregnancy (to which she told him about shortly after the crash), and because of her dynamic with Jimmy, it’s like he’s defending a past version of his own mother from his father. Anya loathes the position she was put into, trying to manage herself, Curly, all while watching Daniel tear himself apart just to try and keep the ship quiet. After all, Daniel is the only other soul on the ship that understands the horror, the fear, the violation of abuse in this capacity, and she’s watching him fall right back into line.

Daisuke: Daniel has all but retracted into himself at this point, neglecting the relationship that he and Daisuke had. Daisuke notices, and it upsets him that the only person he felt like he could relate to is now pretending like he doesn’t exist. 

Swansea: Again, Daniel doesn’t pay much attention to him, or his intern. Of course, Daniel shrinks in his presence, especially given his resurfacing struggles with addiction. Swansea is probably extremely annoyed by how desperately Daniel bends over backwards for approval, especially for a man like Jimmy. Two words to describe Swansea’s feelings about Daniel at this point would be “pity” and “annoyance”. He knows what’s going on, he isn’t blind, or stupid, he simply doesn’t find it in himself to have the knowledge or motivation to fix it. 

(Death)

Daniel’s death (sorta) happens after Anya’s and before Daisuke’s. Seeing Anya’s death shook something in Daniel, broke him, and finally flipped a switch in his brain to act instead of bending infinitely. When Jimmy leaves Daisuke with Swansea, injured and bleeding out, in order to find mouthwash in an attempt to “help”, Daniel wordlessly gets up and begins to follow him. Swansea says nothing, only focusing on Daisuke, because deep down, he knew Daniel was going to do something drastic, and he wasn’t going to convince him otherwise. Daniel swipes one of the hammers from the maintenance room as he silently follows Jimmy to the cargo hold. As Jimmy roots around, Daniel corners him, confronts him, and attacks him. This ends poorly, because despite getting a hit in, Daniel is weaker and smaller than Jimmy, so Jimmy throws him off and takes the hammer. At this point, Jimmy sees Daniel as a threat, and chases after him, as Daniel runs. Daniel flees up the staircase to the upper catwalks in the cargo hold, but Jimmy catches up with him, and they tussle until Jimmy throws Daniel against one of the railings of the catwalk (which are probably damaged from the crash, if not already old and creaky). The railing pops, and leaves Daniel lying across it, halfway suspended over the massive drop to the ground. There’s a tense moment of silence, both afraid to move, but Daniel reaches out a shaky hand, silently asking for help, for Jimmy to not let him fall. Jimmy thinks about it, but he ultimately stays still, and ignores his plea. After a few more moments, Daniel shifts, the last bolt pops, and he falls to the ground. Jimmy continues on, cue the scary ass horse segment, and then finally gets his hands on the mouthwash. When he circles back on the ground floor, he comes across Daniel’s body. He’s broken and bloody, but he’s alive, his breaths wheezing and pained. Daniel snapped his spine, broke several bones, even suffering from globe luxation on his right side (eye popped out of socket from blunt force). He was paralyzed and freezing, and Jimmy delivers a speech that parallels Swansea’s speech to Daisuke before killing him. However, instead of killing Daniel, Jimmy’s idea of mercy is to leave him alive. Daniel was alive for hours, in excruciating pain, until he eventually succumbed to a mix of hypothermia and blood loss. The cargo holds of most aircrafts and ships aren’t exactly kept up to the same living standards/temperatures as the rest of the inhabited areas, and I don’t think Pony Express would shell out the money for the fuel or system to head the massive cargo hold, so it’s probably nearly freezing in there, especially since they’re in the middle of space.

(Symbolism and other rambling) 

OKAY FINALLY I CAN TALK ABOUT THIS. First starting with the big idea, Daniel’s family back home is represented in his relationship with Anya, Jimmy, and Curly. Jimmy represents his father, while both Anya and Curly represent his mother in different ways. Anya symbolizes his mother as a victim, and Curly is his mother as a guardian. As a victim, Daniel heavily empathizes with his mother, he sees himself in her suffering and isolation, it’s the part of his mother he jumped to defend. On the other hand, Daniel is furious with his mother as a guardian, as he is with Curly. His mother stayed with his father, she allowed the abuse to continue for years, decades, she prolonged the cycle, just like how Curly enabled Jimmy. He expected protection, but Curly allowed Jimmy to fester, he allowed him to get away with assaulting Anya, he allowed the very obvious signs that Jimmy was also beginning to target Daniel, grooming him to be an emotional feed, someone to fulfill his desire to feel important. Yet, again, Daniel can’t help but relate to that, being trapped by a narcissist that used him as a feed.

Going back to Jimmy, he treats Daniel almost exactly how his father used to treat him, which is why he so readily fell into that dynamic. When Daniel isn’t fawning over Jimmy, Jimmy despises how much Daniel defends Anya, seeing that relationship as Anya coercing Danny as a pawn, a hint of Jimmy not granting Daniel humanity or autonomy, just a tool, or a pet. Also the familial connection between Anya and Daniel, as well as Curly and Daniel, draws into the fact that Daniel himself was also the product of rape. Anya’s maternal role with Danny connects with her own pregnancy, and Curly representing the unborn fetus (something entirely dependent on Anya to survive), also ties to Daniel. Daniel sees himself in Curly, in the continuance of the cycle of abuse, in being a child conceived from rape. His anger towards Curly loops right back around to being a metaphorical hatred of himself, of his position in the cycle, and his existence as a rape baby. It’s solidified with the position of Jimmy as his metaphorical father, while also being Anya’s rapist. Additionally, “Rosalyn”, Daniel’s dead name, means something along the lines of “gentle” or “tender horse”. “Tender” and “gentle” are both a reference to the identity of a victim being forced on him, as well as being raised a woman, having the stereotypical gender roles of a woman forced onto him as well. The “horse” part also draws back to the horse fetus in the game being a symbol of Anya’s pregnancy, and therefore, tying Daniel again to being a child of rape. Daniel himself feels immense guilt for his own conception, he feels like he ruined his mother’s life, that he’s a walking reminder of cruelty and abuse, and therefore also uses his relationship with Jimmy as a form of punishment for himself. He feels like he needs to atone for existing, for being the outcome of something so awful, so that’s another reason why he hates himself (and Curly by that metaphorical connection) so much.

Another massive part of his symbolism is the image of a dog. His relationship with Jimmy, as described earlier, was that of a pet, a lapdog, something stupidly loyal and desperate for attention and praise. It also tells how Jimmy viewed Daniel not as a person, but as something below him, something to train and direct. He never granted Daniel autonomy or humanity, seeing his actions as either directed from Jimmy himself or Anya’s “coercion”. Then there’s also the position of Daniel being a guard dog for Anya, taking the brunt of Jimmy’s abuse (with varying success) on sheer instinct, because that’s how he was trained. 

There’s also Laika, the soviet space dog, which I’m sure many have heard the story before but I’ll explain it anyway for the sake of continuity. Laika was the first living animal to orbit the earth, but when the scientists sent her up, they never had intentions of getting her back down. She ended up dying in space after two or so orbits, the cabin of the spacecraft overheating, then plummeting back to earth, disintegrating and landing in the ocean. Daniel is tied to this concept of Laika, such as sacrificing himself for a sort of martyrdom, being sent up into space with no real plan for coming back down, since he boarded the Tulpar to escape his house, and didn’t really plan for anything else in the future. I also have the idea that, despite being tied so heavily with the idea of Laika, Curly is the one that receives the name for her (Laika was also called Curly by the scientists), because Daniel was not given the liberty to die with his own name. Those who knew him on earth will not remember him as Daniel, just like despite leaning into Laika’s symbolism, he isn’t granted the identity. 

Daniel’s whole death sequence is supposed to be a metaphor for him trying to break the cycle, to confront his trauma with his own father, but ultimately failing. A lot of Daniel’s character is connected to the concept of cycles, even in his design. The ring necklace being a circle, the ouroboros graphic on his band t-shirt he wears pre-crash, are also references to repeating cycles. That death sequence, if you think about it, is also a circle. He confronts Jimmy on the ground, is chased up the catwalks, only to fall right back down to the ground, where he started. Just like how an abusive relationship circles back around, Daniel reached out to Jimmy again as he was about to fall, about to repeat the cycle of repulsion and attraction, etc. 

In general, I guess I can say that Daniel’s story is a narrative about how refusing to confront his own trauma and fight back against it ultimately lead to him repeating it till death. Also, the concept of Daniel being paralyzed and freezing to death is another reference to his repetition of cycles, he was too cemented, “frozen”, “paralyzed” in his own trauma responses that he never changed at all. 

(More things I can’t think of where to sandwich them)

Daniel changes appearance from pre to post-crash. Covering himself with the boiler suit is a visual cue to him retreating in on himself, guarding himself, including the medical gloves. Also, the uniform doesn’t fit him, it’s too tight, a reference to the constricting feeling of having an identity that doesn’t fit him forced onto him. Also probably says something about how Pony Express did not consider him when providing the uniform.

Daniel wants to be a vet, and is taking a gap year in order to do the internship on the Tulpar.

He has cats, and often misses them.

He draws on Anya’s sticky notes in the med bay, Anya has a love-hate relationship with that habit. She likes his doodles, but she only has so many sticky notes

Daniel is only afraid of Anya when the board games come out.

He is afraid of heights.

He tried the mouthwash once, got violently ill, and then immediately wallowed in guilt over the fact that Anya had to use some medical supplies on him. He then vowed to never touch it again.

Radiohead fan. (derogatory)

I have a spotify playlist for him that is 10 hours long

OOhhh my god that took so so so long. Anyway I hope any of this made sense like even a little bit. Comments and questions appreciated if you got this far :3

Anyway, he's my single celled organism that I smash flat with a coffee mug all the time.

[darkcrowprincess]

Controversial httyd movie opinions:

I hate when people downplay Hiccup's feelings in httyd 1 and say that he's a moody teenager and the village has a right to feel that way about him. One that's insulting to teenagers and continues the trope that their feelings don't matter and that it's all over dramatic drama, and two, it doesn't consider how messed up Berk and Stoick treated Hiccup. Hiccup is one of the few(his mom was the first) to try different things and question stuff. Most people of Berk are stubborn, close-minded, and above all else, follow strick tradition. In this story that is not a good thing. In fact it probably added to the war between dragons and humans. There's no progress, there's no trying new things to make things better, theres no one questioning anything. It's just a continuous unnecessary fight against monsters without knowing why. All these years on Berk and only two people( a woman and subtext reading queer and autistic boy) thought hey why do we need to fight dragons? Fighting these dragons just seems to make everything worse? Does no one think about the implications of that? How stunted these vikings were?

Added to that people were implied to be treating Hiccup like shit even way before the movie started. They call him useless, they have no patience for his inventions( and do not give me the bullshit that his inventions always fail and cause disaster, that is the point of inventing and creating. You are going to fail over and over again till you learn from failure and progress. The village never gave him a safe space where he could work on his inventions without causing trouble), they make fun of his body and his personality because he's not like everyone else. No wonder he's so sarcastic against them(honestly, I would be too), no wonder he's so desperate to fit in, and he keeps trying. His desperation to keep trying comes from the loneliness and isolation of being on Berk. They see everything that is good about Hiccup(his creativity, his gentleness towards animals, his need to question things) as flaws. As things that are "unviking" like. As things to shun and gossip and make fun of. And I'm not talking about the kids. I'm talking about the adults. The kids I can forgive because they learned that behavior. Kids copy what they see, and everyone in that village except Gobber(a gay man) treated Hiccup like shit because from the day he was born he was different. Stoick is a different thing entirely and I'll probably do a separate post about him.

Honestly Hiccup's sarcasm feels less like a moody teenager and more like a defense mechanism and the only tool he has to fight back against people bigger and more powerful than him.

[cranberryjuice-posts]

I kissed a girl and liked it

Pairings - teenage Abby anderson X lesbian! Fem! reader

An - abby and reader Are 16/17, this is around a year after Jerry’s death and Owen n abby r still together

Tw - reader smokes, making out, cheating (again don’t cheat on your partners)

Synopsis- Abby is a confused young queer girl who doesn’t know if she likes women or not and you being a good friend help her out

Abby was currently hanging out at owens place. He shared an apartment with a few other rookie soldiers but Abby didn’t mind just as long as she got to hangout with him.

At this point it was 2am and Owen was passed out asleep, Abby however was awake. She just silently walked in circles until she heard a nock at the window.

She moved to the sound and opened it where she found you standing. “Hey hot stuff” You teased which made the blonde blush.

“What are You doing here so late” she chuckled and tucked some hair behind her ear. You hardly saw her with her hair down but when you did you made sure to pay attention.

“What are You doing up so late hm?” You asked Back with a teasing grin. “Well I couldnt Sleep” Abby leaned forward on the window.

“Then I couldnt Sleep either” Abby just rolled her eyes at your response. She then noticed you had your backpack on. “What’s with the bag? Are you going out or something?”

You just shook your head. “Nah I’m going to go smoke”

“Smoke? Y/n isn’t it to early for that” she slightly criticized but you just gave her a sarcastic look. “Really? I’m 16 abs I think infected or a scar will kill me before smoking some weed”

“I meant its 2am”

“Oh..”

There was some awkward silence before you just rolled your eyes. “So are you gonna come with me or not”

Abby shook her head “not unfortunately, owens asleep and I’d feel bad leaving him”

“Fuck Owen dude, come hang out with me it’ll be a hundred times better I swear” you spoke with a clear distaste for Owen, abby could never figure out why you hated him so much.

After a few moments abby looked back at her sleeping boyfriend before nodding. “Allright you win” You jumped excited and helped the blonde out of the window and onto the stair case.

Normally Both of you walked down and into the city bellow, it helped that the rookies homes was stationed in an old apartment complex inside the WLF QZ and super close to the stadium so whenever you felt like skipping out you were able to just explore the abandoned city.

This time however you started to go up the fire escape. “Where are you going” Abby yelled after you while pulling her hair back into a braid.

“You’ll see!” You shouted back and continued to climb, Abby of course had no choice but to follow.

Soon you two were up at the roof. You set your bag down and laid out a few blankets some snacks you stole and two rolled joints as-well as your water canister.

Abby took a seat beside you, enjoying the cold breeze the light from the full moon and just the comfortable silence.. the starts were bright and Abby couldn’t help but stare at them wondering if old world had ever gotten to see the stars like this.

You leaned over and pointed to a constellation. “See that constellation there, that’s Hercules and there riiighhhht above it that’s Lyra” looking over you saw Abby’s smile and you gave a content sigh before moving back.

“So.. how’s that book about greek myths you found going?” She asked as you light the blunt. You nodded excitedly and smiled. “Great actually! I can’t believe people were able to think of stories like these”

The two of you continued to talk and pass the blunt around. Abby loved being around you, she would even think more than she liked being around Owen but she would never admit it. She studied how you looked under the moonlight with your cute pj pants sports bra and jacket, the way your hair complimented your face and skin tone and your lips… she looked away embarrassed but you took note.

You softly stopped laughing and put up a face of concern wondering if you had said something wrong “What’s wrong abs?” her cheeks were a soft red. There was some silence and you grew more worried, leaning forward more towards her. “Hey, you can talk to me” you touched her hand with a certain comfort that Abby couldn’t take it anymore

She breathed out gently and leaned on her arm. “Your like into women right”

Confused and taken back you nodded “uh yeah I’m really only into women men just don’t do it for me” Abby took in the information.

“Right.. well I mean I’m with Owen so I wouldn’t know but what’s it like, being with a girl?” She finally looked over at you. You were still confused but decided to humor Her, you moved your hand away and placed it on your thigh. “Uh it’s nice… I mean there’s this certian understanding between both of you that you could never find with a guy, I mean girls are soft gentle you both just want to be loved unconditionally so it’s easier to show that with them… plus it’s funner to kiss them” You threw in the final joke but Abby just nodded.

“Ok..” was all she spoke, Abby looked back to the scenery down bellow.. you gave her a suspicious look before chuckling.

“Abby do you want to kiss a girl?” You teased but Abby shook her head a little to quickly. You laughed and moved to face her better. “It’s ok, your pretty cute so if you really really wanted to someone would”

She just rolled her eyes but eventually made eye contact with you. There was silence.. neither of you made a move but it was clear both wanted to. After a moment both reached forward and kissed each other.

You stood in your knees with your hands in Abby hair. Inhaling she took in your subtle perfume and the cherry chapstick you always wore. Abby grabbed your waist and pulled you into her as you both kissed.

It was different from when she kissed Owen, you followed Abby’s lead and worked with her to make the entire kiss enjoyable. The way your hands ran through her braided hair and caressed her cheek. Abby ran her hands up and down your back with subtle shy touches to your butt which made you laugh in the kiss.

She hated how wrong it was but shit did it feel right. Your soft lips on hers, the way you started to kiss down her jaw and eventually landing on her neck.

Abby gasped once you started to lightly suck on her neck, your new position was laying in-between Abby’s legs with your hands tracing her body. She gently tucked some hair behind your ear while you kissed her and leaned back to give you more room.

——

You two laid on your backs, your head was laying on Abby’s chest and her arm was around you. Neither daring to speak of what you two had just done. Would owen be mad if he found out you two made out yes, yes he would but if he didn’t know then there’s no way he would mind right.. right.

You felt Abby pull you closer and you just chuckled.. sitting up you kissed her cheek before her lips softly. “Common, let’s get you back before your sucky boyfriend wakes up” you joked and started to pack up, mainly you wanted to leave because you knew you loved Abby but there was no way she would love you back.

You dropped Abby back off and helped her into the window.. silently looking at each-other you finally turned and left to go back to your place, Abby gripped the window seal and watched as you walked away, she wished she could regret what you two had done but deep down she knew that was the best kiss she ever had..

The following day at training you avoided Abby not wanting to make things awkward even though you knew that was the last thing to do to not make shit awakard.

Abby sat down exhausted and Owen followed. He tried to lean over and kiss her but she just pulled back putting a hand on his chest and giving a small smile. Owen rolled his eyes playfully and looked down confused.

“Where’d you get that” he touched her neck gently rubbing the hickey you accidently left.. Abby paniced and cleared her throat.

“Oh uh it’s just a bruise, some kid was throwing rocks and it hit me in the throat” Abby lied, Owen however put on a more serious look. “Damn.. just be more careful ok”

“Yeah ok” Abby reassured him. He kissed her cheek but little did he know she was looking behind him and at you.

——

A week later Abby broke up with Owen.

Abby - *kisses y/n*

Abby -I’m a homosexual.. IM A HOMOSEXUAL😢

—

[tayfabe75]

Did Taylor and Matty meet on Myspace? (And other early coincidences!)

Early on in their careers, Taylor and Matty both utilized Myspace as a way to promote their music. Taylor, specifically, would message with other teenagers on Myspace:

"I'd post my songs on my MySpace and, yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn't have anyone singing from their perspective."

Matty, too, described himself as "King of Myspace" when he was fifteen. But he brought it up more recently on the Ion Pack Podcast, even mentioning his age as seventeen at the time. And here's a retro clip of Taylor talking about how she wasn't some corporate entity on Myspace, if you messaged her account, you were talking to her! She also filled out her profile in her own words.

She has some things in her profile that might've caught Matty's eye, a fellow teenage country fan and fan of American music specifically, that might've emboldened him to message her:

"I love people who like my music. I love people who are nice to me. I like people who are excitable. I think it's endearing when people cry when they're happy. I'm pretty excitable too. Guys don't ask me out because they know I'll write songs about them. But I'm also the girl who still believes prince charming exists somewhere out there -- fully equipped with great hair and an immature sense of humor. I'm fascinated by black and white pictures. I like people who can be sarcastic and laugh about tense situations. I'm a fan of fans."

Say whatever you will about Matty, but that man is a genuine fan of Taylor's music. When he became a fan is open for discussion, but let's just pretend, for fun, that he found her via Myspace early on in her career.

Now, here is the old Myspace page for The 1975 back when they were known as 'Drive Like I Do' in 2008. Note the James Taylor in the list of Influences! (as well as the Jamie Squire in the top 8! How sweet, I'm sobbing!)

Taylor was a bit of a firecracker on Myspace (and not just there, there's a whole conspiracy theory she used to troll 4Chan!). A few of her comments were screenshotted and you can find them around the internet. Here are some. The one from October 31st, 2005 about a queer fellow ("I'm sorry that I'm kinda queer, it's not as weird as it appears") with a Sex van ("take your shoes off in the back of my van") really caught my eye, anyway…

"Listen my queer fellow. I thinketh we shall hangeth out sometime soon, eh? yes, I do believe I am growing fond of this idea. drive over in your sex van and come pick me up, farewell knave."

Notice the spelling here, too. Thinketh? Hangeth? Knave? Feels a little bit Shakespearean, at least for say, a fifteen-going-on-sixteen-year-old girl (as we would later discover, Love Story and Robbers were both inspired by Romeo and Juliet, both written around the same time so far as I know, but it's hard to find exact dates!)

Matty, by the way, used to refer to himself as the "Prince of the Tyne". He's also got some old Drive Like I Do lyrics from 'We Are the Streetfighters' that are suspicious to me: "Well in four thousand miles we'll meet you" (The nearest airport to Macclesfield is in Manchester, and the distance between Manchester and Nashville? Roughly 4000 miles)

Two months later on December 21st, 2005, just after turning 16, Taylor says she's in England.

Did they meet? Who knows! But there's enough weirdness there to make me wonder. Speaking of weirdness… we're going to go on a side tangent about Fearless, but that's part of the puzzle, so bear with me…

I don't know about anyone else, but when I saw Matty's Fearless Love Gaze™, I was rocked to my core! Men do not look at women like that, but especially not brand-new flings. They're too concerned with trying to look cool and unaffected. For most men (stereotypically), romance and love are "dumb" and "stupid" and perceived as a "woman thing" that men can't be bothered with. But not Matty. Matty was utterly transfixed by her. Something about that touch of mischief in the lip bite when she says the bit about "absentmindedly making me want you", the way he just barely mouths along to the words at the end of the clip, well… sirens started going off for me. So, I followed my intuition and started researching all of this.

Now, Taylor wrote the song 'Fearless' sometime in 2006. The hidden message liner note for Fearless? "I loved you before I met you". Taylor describes 'Fearless' as a song she wrote about a perfect first date she hadn't had yet, about something she didn't have but dreamt of. She debuted it for the first time on April 6th, 2007 in Reading, PA (if you don't already know it, that's two days before Matty's 18th birthday). At this show, she debuted 'Sparks Fly' (yes, in 2007! Original lyrics were brown eyes rather than green eyes, by the way) and 'Tied Together With A Smile'. She also played a cover of John Waite's song 'Missing You' which seems to be about a long-distance relationship: "And it's my heart that's breakin' down this long distance line tonight"

Speaking of Matty's birthday, the release of Fearless TV happened to coincide with Matty's birthday! She dropped a sneak peek of Fearless on his birthday in 2021, and the album would release one day later on the ninth (perhaps because albums release on Fridays and that's as close as she could get?)

Taylor describes the Fearless album as her diary from when she was seventeen (misplaced my source on that quote, d'oh!) That said, 'Love Story' interests me as well. There are some interesting facts about Love Story:

Hidden message: Someday, I'll find this. Taylor wrote this song in a very short amount of time after her parents had told her that she couldn't be with the person she wanted to be with. And in her own words:

"'Love Story' is actually about a guy that I almost dated. But when I introduced him to my family and my friends, they all said they didn't like him. All of them! For the first time, I could relate to that Romeo-and-Juliet situation where the only people who wanted them to be together were them. That's the most romantic song I've written, and it's not even about a person I really dated."

Taylor's UK television debut (like first time ever performing on TV in the UK) was on Loose Women (Matty's mother's show). Now, Denise was not there during this period as a host, but she had been before that and would be afterward, so maybe there's some significance? Maybe not. But if Taylor and Matty knew each other, he would definitely get to be in the audience to see her if he wanted to. The song she chose to perform was 'Love Story'.

Now, 'Robbers' is also based on Romeo and Juliet (and also written circa 2007), and Matty describes that here in a fan video from 2015. We'd see Romeo and Juliet imagery pop up again in 2014, both in Taylor's video for Blank Space (where she's on a balcony looking down at her lover) and in November where she stood up on a balcony at Matty's show as he serenaded her with Fallingforyou (visual comparisons here)

Blank Space, too, might reference Fallingforyou. There's a scene where she rides bikes with her lover inside her enormous house, perhaps reminiscent of Matty's lyric: "All we need's my bike and your enormous house":

Matty even dresses a bit like the lover from 'Love Story' music video at the 2017 BRITs:

When you fall down the Myspace rabbit hole, you start noticing other strange similarities in their lyrics - like Matty referring to a "girl on the screen" in 'If You're Too Shy', which perhaps parallels Taylor's "guy on the screen" in 'Karma'. In 'The 1' (another song that lyrically parallels 'Robbers'), Taylor imagines "the 1 that got away" meeting a woman on the internet and taking her home, which might be another reference to Matty, perhaps lyrically paralleling The 1975's 'Playing On My Mind'. This theory, of course, makes the entire album 'A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships' suspect, especially given that 'Be My Mistake' is a song Matty wrote "about Nashville", the striking similarities between 'Sincerity is Scary' and 'Me!', a song called 'Mine' that references the year 2009, and the inclusion of a Drive Like I Do track Matty wrote when he was just fifteen years old, '102' (the same age he was when he was "King of Myspace"). Considering 'Love Story' was written for someone who Taylor's parents disapproved of, it makes this lyric all the more striking:

"I hope this song will remind you I'm not half as bad as what you've been told."

Lastly, if Matty is the confirmed 'Cardigan' muse and if 'Willow' is the continuation of 'Cardigan' (based on where the music video begins), the scene where she gazes into the water at her lover could perhaps represent a visual metaphor for looking through a screen, no?

Back to the NYU commencement speech! I recommend listening to the FULL clip. She talks about: feeling lonely, chatting with other teenage country fans on Myspace, and then segues into her motivation behind protecting her private life:

"Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely."

All of this seems correlated to me (also why it's hard for me to reconcile this whole football charade! But for me, it's easier to believe Taylor here about privacy being important to her, and not assume that some boyfriend kept her locked away in a dungeon against her will or something)

Now, to tie this all into a very nice bow, here's a quote where Taylor talks about how she uses easter eggs:

"Easter eggs can be left on clothing or jewelry. This is one of my favorite ways to do this, because you wear something that foreshadows something else, and people don't usually find out this one immediately, but they know you're probably sending a message. They'll figure it out in time."

What shirt was she wearing during her pap walk with Matty? Think of the "He lets her Bejeweled" meme… She had on an NYU sweatshirt.

Now, could be just a giant coincidence, trust me, I know, I get it. However… maybe she's really hinting about an old Myspace pal that she has protected fiercely. I mean, she did seem to use that speech to easter egg/foreshadow YOYOK & Labyrinth lyrics…

Speaking of 'Bejeweled'… On July 15th, 2023 Taylor flubbed the lyrics: "Sapphire tears on Myspace", and then she giggled. Freudian slip, perhaps? But this is the woman who assures us that "nothing is accidental"... and in a song that mentions a "Top 5", no less! (reminiscent of a Top 8, perhaps?)

Maybe James and Betty were involved in a "teenage love triangle" for a reason, and maybe TTPD references "teenage petulance" for that same reason… or maybe it's nothing but a bunch of eerie coincidences! Who knows! In the meantime, I'll keep on clownin'! 🤡

[everywherenothere]

okay, so a couple of days ago i saw on the clock app this video of a jock and a obviously queer man living together and my brain went STEVE AND EDDIE OMG I NEED A FIC OF THIS and i know there is somewhere in the internet but i need to put into words so here it goes:

Robin loves Steve. And Steve loves Robin. They have been attatched to the hip since the mysterious accident that have burned the gigantic new mall and, subsocuently, the ice cream shop where they used to work. They have been living together since before Robin went to a college out of the little town they used to live (we all know Steve's parents were shit and probably being a teenager living alone, Robin's parents practically adopted him) and Steve without anything holding him back followed her.

Now, a couple years later, partners and one-night-stands came and went from their apartment because you cannot convince me those two dont have some kind of rizz. Steve with his bitchy attitude and jock alike body and Robin with her nerdy and charismatic energy have definetly bagged some people. One of them being the now-and-Robin-hope-for-a-very-long-time Robin's new girlfriend who the last two months has been living with them. And for sometime it was good, great even, but feeling like a third wheel most of the time Steve decided to move.

Apartment hunting was hard. Most places were way out of his budget or too small for a human to actually live comfortable and host dinners like he used to do when the now-not-so-kids visited him on the summer. So, he decided to search for a roomate. It was a little bit easier but to find someone who wasnt crazy and actually just mind their bussiness was a full job.

That's how he met Eddie. A nerdy metalhead who can and will up his bitchy attitude with a flirtatious response. And Steve absolutely loves it. At the beggining he tries so hard to convince himself that is just because he reminds him of Robin. That is just because both of them are a little bit smaller than him and nerdy. That is just because of the manerisms and the way they dont even flinch at his sarcastic and mean-girl-type of comments. That is just because both of them talked with passion about what they had been invested in the last couple of days.

But then is also the way Eddie always dress to impress and has a varierity of responses (and even actions) when people call him slurs without even letting those comments affect him.

And the way his eyes glows and do a little dance when he finally got one bridge right on a really difficult song that has been practicing the last couple of weeks.

And the way that he isnt a morning person but still wakes up earlier than Steve to make breakfast because he has learn that Steve bearly takes care of himself without a pressure of someone being dissapointed of him.

And the way both (Steve and Eddie) are on the couch on a Saturday evening watching nothing on the TV when Eddie starts talking his thoughts out. And of course, Steve being Steve cant help but tease him about something he said wrong and then it started: a back and forth of teasing and getting close as trying to prove a point. And when both are a hand away of breathing the same air, Steve realized. And Eddie purposly looked at Steve lips and get just a molecule closer just to see how Steve gets all red and backs down, of course Eddie laughs teasingly and walks to his room for a dictionary, leaving Steve all confused about wtf has happened. But Eddie's laugh continues to live on his ears and oh the way Eddie laughs.

Steve is pretty sure he is fucked up when he realized that he would do anything to make him laugh. And then Steve is also pretty sure that the friendship he has with Robin is one thing and the thing he has (or hope he has) with Eddie is another.

But that is one thought for another time, one existential crisis at the time, please.

[spitblaze]

Tumblr fucking sucks ass and I'm not joking. I think I might hate this place actually. I hate the shitty circular queer discourse that ALWAYS assumes malice or disgust and nobody is given the benefit of the doubt and if they do are also presumed guilty, I hate that every single statement needs to be couched in qualifiers and conditions and speaking on One Topic about One Group is not fucking allowed, I hate that this website has built a transphobic surveillance culture around itself, I hate that people will see ONE POST that sucks and spend the next several months publicly ruminating over it and extending the discourse long after it's run its course and assuming the worst about everyone involved, I hate that seven out of ten posts about feminism are made by the terfs who run rampant on this site and have nothing better to do than spew vitriol and hate because they don't care to develop the emotional maturity to see anything from a point of view other than their own, I hate that the moment a transgender person dares to have sexual wants and desires outside of the vanilla ideal you’re a freak and a deviant and a pedophile somehow, I hate that for SO LONG we let depressed anti-recovery teenagers dominate the attitude regarding mental health and self-improvement here and it has had lasting effects TO THIS DAY, I hate that as the internet has gotten meaner and crueller and less accommodating that the place that loves to pat itself on the back for its openness and tolerance has 100000% followed suit, I hate that every single fucking topic is dominated by overconfident white shutins who do not talk to other people irl let alone queer ones, I hate how every interesting and important topic of social justice is co-opted and bastardized into an unrecognizable cudgel that only further enforces the status quo rather than challenging it as they're meant to, I hate how often the gender binary is re-invented and deviations from it are punished, I hate that we love to say shit like 'be cringe be free uwu' but the second a member of the cringe queers du jour makes something twee or says something stupid everyone jumps on the dogpile to talk about how that entire group should be prevented from speaking or making art or associating with REAL queers, I hate that making points about double standards and discrimination always involves using people we should be in solidarity with as a gotcha if not throwing them directly under the bus, I hate that for all the talk about engagement with fandom we have nobody ever decides to actually examine their engagement thereof and how so much of it is still a cesspool to this day, I hate how everyone makes such huge generalizations and expects everyone to agree (guilty but I'm pissed), I hate how people take fucking everything personally (including myself), I hate that people are going to read this and get mad at me because everyone here has worse reading comprehension than the average fifth grader, I hate that people cannot self-express without other people getting indignant because they didn't see themselves in it, I hate that the only other regularly inhabited parts of the internet anymore are fifty times worse about ALL of this, I hate how much of a fucking nightmare for my mental health this has become, I hate that people are probably gonna give me sarcastic or smug 'yeah you should probably just log off king's in the comments or to me personally, I hate how much of this I personally am guilty of, and I especially hate that I'm still fucking here.

[silly-little-gooses]

what are some other straight ships like averyjameson which do not totally suck pls i need to read some non-toxic book tropes

ofc! and I completely understand your other message abt not being homophobic, that’s not how I interpreted the original message anyway. you’re all good, I understand :)

here’s some straight couples in books that I simply ADORE, some are like averyjameson, others not so much but I still love them

kaz and inej (six of crows) they’re not very averyjameson but if you’re looking for the “I have childhood trauma and I’m scared to love you but also ilysm” kinda trope, this is IT

nina and matthias (six of crows) again, they’re not super averyjameson, but they’re a wonderful enemies to lovers pairing. it’s forced proximity and grumpy x sunshine if you’re into that too!

scarlett and julian (caraval) I haven’t read this book in a while, but I remember I loved it! these two are somewhat averyjameson. scarlett is facing an arranged marriage with a man she’s never met so she goes to caraval, an epic dangerous game for the elite where you have to solve riddles to win, with julian, a sailor who took her there. the fake dating trope is used with them during their time at caraval, where they pretend to be engaged.

jude and cardan (the cruel prince) if you like averyjameson, you will love them. another fantasy enemies to lovers!!! they love each other, but REALLY don’t like it, often comparing hate to love as the same thing.

ravi and pip (a good girls guide to murder) I haven’t actually read this book (YET) but I know that this couple is totally adorable. ya murder mystery book abt a teenage girl trying to solve a local murder case. I can’t provide any tropes for this bc I haven’t read it, but there are many other people in here who probably can!

percy and annabeth (pjo) a classic! I love them sooooo much! in my opinion, avery and jameson are just grown up percabeth. at first, they don’t really get along. they grow to become good friends and are completely oblivious to each others feelings for the other. they eventually become lovers! percy is very sarcastic and silly, yet also very clever when the time calls for it (similar to jameson or xander). annabeth is a badass smart girl who knows everything about mythology, battle, etc. (very much avery-like)

if you guys want a version of this but with queer couples, I’d be happy to do it!

if you want to learn more about these couples and more, I recommend tvtropes.org, which provides tropes for movies, tv shows, books, and more! it also blurs out spoilers and by clicking on them, you can see the spoiler! would totally recommend. bye my loves! <3

[flameswallower]

Briar's Favorite First Time Reads of 2023!

I read sixty or so books (start to finish) for the first time this year, which is pretty average for me. I liked most of them pretty well, since if I dislike a book I usually won't finish it. But there were some stand outs, which I'm going to list here.

First up: NOVELS!

Pseudotooth, by Verity Holloway (2017) is the first portal fantasy coming of age novel I've read in a long, long time that I found genuinely charming. It has a very dark Gothic edge to it, with shades of Gormenghast and Edward Gorey making for a uniquely unsettling and bleak fantasy world. The novel also deals frankly and seriously with themes of ableism, eugenics, medical abuse, xenophobia, socio-economic class, rape/sexual abuse, and the psychic fallout of rape/sexual abuse. But it's got a lot of whimsical absurdist humor to it, too, and a deep humanist compassion for its characters. The three young adults at the center of the story are all quite likeable, and though they are involved in a kind of love triangle, I found the particulars of it refreshingly queer, strange, and not the primary focus of the story.

The Marigold, by Andrew F. Sullivan (2023) is a pitch-dark, stone cold bummer that is also frequently hilarious and emotionally moving in tender ways that took me by surprise. In this dystopian satire, a bunch of down-and-out relatable characters and one horrible rich guy struggle to survive as near-future Toronto is engulfed by "the Wet"-- a sapient mold-based hive mind accidentally created by the depravity and greed of big business. The residents of the titular condominium/apartment complex feature in short vignettes that demonstrate the despair and alienation people suffer under late stage capitalism, and the way the Wet calls to these people, lures them in, hunts them.

The Open Curtain, by Brian Evenson (2006) is a harrowing nightmare about madness, violence, possession, Mormonism, and the destabilization of one's known reality (well, see also "madness"). It's a type of story that could easily feel shlocky and exploitative of people with certain mental disorders, or just predictable (there are some plot twists you'll guess very quickly if you've ever like...read books or seen movies before...), but Evenson's unornamented yet masterful prose, his meticulous attention to detail, and his non-condescending empathy for both victims of violence and people struggling with delusions, violent impulses, etc. make it rise above those potential problems. At least in my opinion! This one's very disturbing, will definitely leave you feeling like shit.

Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff VanderMeer (2021) is very emotionally moving and a suspenseful, well-plotted eco-noir page turner! Also a bummer, but leaves one feeling awe and hope and determination as well as mourning the devastating loss of life that climate change has wrought. The protagonist is great, a truly unusual and unlikely detective. I loved her voice-- like any good noir hero, she can throw off a legitimately funny sarcastic quip with the best of them, but she's also prone to astute social observations and flights of breathtaking lyricism.

How to Get Over the End Of the World, by Hal Schrieve (2023) is a TRAGICALLY under-promoted and underrated punk rock magical realist YA masterpiece about trans high schoolers, and their dysfunctional adult mentors, putting on a rock opera to save their community center. This one, unlike most of what I read, is NOT EVEN KIND OF A BUMMER. It's delightful and hilarious from start to finish, though it's definitely not saccharine-sweet or afraid of conflict. In fact, it deals quite bluntly and refreshingly with topics ranging from the relationship one character has with his violent, abusive father, to sexual relationships between teenagers, to the ever-looming awareness of climate change. Every major character is trans! Every single one!! This is kind of a spoiler, but, like, not really lol

Sudden Glory, by Hal Johnson (2023) just goes to show that guys named Hal can really write comic novels. This book has perhaps the highest joke-to-paragraph ratio of anything I’ve ever read, and also probably the most varied types of joke: a person whose sense of humor runs to preposterous situation comedy, slapstick, and lowbrow sexual humor will find a lot to like here, and so will someone whose sense of humor runs to moderately esoteric literary/historical references, social satire, five-layer wordplay, and Wildean bon mots. Since it’s set in the New York City of 2003, there’s even room for a few 9/11 jokes, which could not have appeared without controversy in a book actually published in 2003. This slightly "politically incorrect" edge comes off as good-natured and in keeping with Johnson's commitment to absurdism-- there's never a "laughing at" vibe, more one of "laughing with" human folly, futility, pretensions, etc. At base, this is a story about a person who feels he can't tell the truth or be himself for fear of social rejection, and all the trouble that gets him into.

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke (2020) is fucking gorgeous, probably one of my favorite books of all time now, this hole was made for me, etc. I can't reasonably expect that most others will have as intense a response to it as I did-- I felt it perfectly conveyed some very important and difficult to articulate things about, like, my personal experience of consciousness, and my experience as a person with certain types of neurological/cognitive/developmental disability navigating the world, through a kind of fabulist prism. But it got great reviews, so, you know, give it a shot! I think it's better not to know anything about it going in, but let me just say, if you're into weird, massive labyrinthine buildings, this hole might also have been made for you.

Devil House, by John Darnielle (2022) is exactly the novel you'd expect "the Mountain Goats guy" to write, in all the best possible ways. It's a story that elevates the inner lives of neurodivergent outsider teens to the mythic heights they deserve. It's a story that brutally critiques the true crime industry. It's a story about the problems of defining people exclusively by their victimhood, or exclusively by the worst thing they ever did. It's a story about the importance of having a little space to oneself, a shelter from the demands and threats of an often cruel world, and the lengths to which a person will go to defend such a shelter if it's broached. Also, there's a long, nauseating section about how it's actually really difficult and gross to chop up a human corpse for disposal.

[hamliet]

Hello, Hamliet.... is it true that the Bible said homosexuals should be punish in new testament? If I'm not wrong remembered (yes, I'm from christian household) is it not that king david have 'special feelings' for jonathan?

My mother has really strong belief in religion (christianity) and she is an anti-LGBTQ+. But do you believe that her brother (my uncle) who is definitely a queer (wear make up, dresses really feminely, and sometimes called himself as she, never married until he's in sixties), my mother said he is normal ?????

That's why I want to know more about LGBTQ+ (eventhough in my country it is still a taboo topic).

Do you think it's weird Hamliet, if I prefer to read mlm & wlw instead of het romance? I just felt fed up with reading or watching het romance (wlm)....

Thanks to you Hamliet, I know more about myself, eventhough there are still a bit if feeling guilty every time I read or watch LGBTQ+ contents....

No, it doesn't say it should be punished in the New Testament.

It does get mentioned once, arguably three times, but really for certain once, and that context has nothing to do with punishment.

I'm going to give a very bare bones explanation of my understanding of it below! There are also lots of theology papers on it and I'm like, skimming the surface here.

The arguable ones lists a word that is often translated as "homosexuality" in a list of sins that "won't inherit the kingdom of God." However, the two words that get translated as such need more looking at.

One is always translated literally as "softness," but is always used in reference to prostitution. Most likely (given the letters it appears to and the communities they were a part of and the prevalence of temple prostitution there) temple prostitution (which should not be thought of as largely consensual in this context, either). There are also some fair arguments based on the words used and the known history of these cities that it's referring to ritual p*do abuse of children.

The other of the Greek words that gets translated as such is extremely unusual. So unusual that it's never seen elsewhere.

Yeah. It's a made-up word.

Now, the word arsenokoitēs certainly had meaning to the specific community to which the letter it appears in is addressed, but it's not like a word that can be translated with 100% certainty. What we do know for certain is that parts of the word are taken from words that refer to "men" and "bed/sex." So I see why people translate it that way. The thing is, though, it occurs in two lists, and these lists consist of issues concerning idolatry and slave dealers. Hence, the context strongly indicates that it's condemning some form of exploitation involving men who have sex with males.

The larger historical/cultural context also indicates this. If you read ancient Greek texts, like, say, Plato's Symposium, you'll get a very distinct view of exactly which same-sex relationships were normalized in those days, and you'll also be somewhat horrified. Basically the idea was that mentors (adult men) would mentor teenager boys, and the teen boys would be receptive to the adult man having sex with them. Does it sound creepy and exploitative? Because it is!

Yes, even for the time period. It isn't unique. Julius Caesar--yes, THE Julius Caesar--had to deal with rumors that he was one of those boys to an older mentee (Nicomedes). Because clearly, being on the receiving end of male-male sex means that you're actually a woman, which as everyone knows is the WORST thing you could possibly be (sarcastic). Anyways, this type of exploitative bs was extremely common, and even back in those days, it was known to be somewhat, y'know, f*cked up.

The other time it's talked about in the NT is in Romans 1, during which the main theme of the passage is that giving yourself over to lust is a bad thing. Paul cites women having sex with women and men with men as examples of overabundance of lust. I think most Christians, even sex-positive ones like myself, would agree that being consumed with lust (or with anything) to where it controls you and you start losing control of your life is unhealthy.

Now, that said, you can make an argument that Paul's view seems to be that homosexual tendencies stem from over abundance. But we know that's not true nowadays. And that gets into how you read the Bible as a whole.

I love the Bible. I see it as God's word to humanity, divinely inspired. I also think that to truly see it as God's word, you have to acknowledge what it is.

It's literature.

That doesn't mean it's fiction or whatever. It just means that God chose literature as a means to communicate with human beings, and that means that God knew that the whole point of literature is that people wrestle with the concepts and debate the themes. It enhances my respect of Scripture and my love of God to do precisely this, to dig into the text and its historical context and discover the timeless themes. To call it "inerrant" where every word can be taken out of context and seen as a command does a disservice to the writers God used to craft poetry, histories, stories, measurements, and letters to friends. To view the Bible as God when the Bible itself says that Jesus is the Word of God personified misses the forest for the trees, the spirit of the law for the letter.

The other really cool thing that genuinely excites me about Christianity is that God works with human beings. Individuals, yes, but also communities. He works within cultures, too. Despite modern evangelicals claiming "No Compromise!" Scripture is FULL of God compromising with humans, bargaining with them, accepting that they are flawed and working with us. He worked within human limits so much he became one to save us from death; it's kinda the premise!

So, God working to deliver his very message to us through human writers of literature is kind of amazing to me, awe-inspiring. But that also means human beings are limited by what we know and our own time periods, our own cultures. And, that's okay. Yes, keep working to do better, but it means that we can have grace for ourselves and one another. Even now, when we know a lot more about the world as a whole, we are still very limited by our own experiences, cultures, and time period. There's this attitude that modernity has reached the stage of ultimate enlightenment and boy have we not.

Hence, yeah, Paul's writing in Romans 1 especially might be kinda homophobic by today's standards. The ultimate premise--don't let yourself be under anything else's control--is a good one, but him using homosexuality as an example as if potentially all of it emerges from lust is not exactly woke, but also not necessarily abnormal for his time period and his culture. He's a flawed human being, after all, but God himself still worked with him to do some pretty great stuff, and to write some pretty cool letters that still have beautiful resonance today (the love passage in Corinthians? That's him!)

(Also, funnily enough, people--even the strictest evangelicals--actually do accept this about Paul and culture when he's writing about slavery. Because Paul doesn't endorse slavery and instructs masters to be kind to their slaves and treat them well, but he doesn't outright say "you're sinning by owning slaves" whereas today we'd definitely think that. Funny how that doesn't apply to gay people though.)

Lastly, your mom sounds like my mom. She claims she thinks it's a sin because she believes the Bible says so, but she genuinely is happy for friends who are gay and happily married and wishes them well. It's like she feels she has to believe it, not that she actually does in her core. And of course that's not an excuse, and I would never tell a gay person they should not be upset with her. Even within our modern cultures, it can be hard to unlearn things too especially if you grew up in such environments.

But reading mlm or wlw stories is actually a great tool for helping people empathize with others. Fiction absolutely helped me leave the cult I was raised in. I don't think it's inherently weird at all; curiosity exists, empathy exists, good stories exist, and also there's something to be said about people who exist in cultures that are very non-accepting seeing themselves in stories where a relationship that might often be condemned is accepted. Even if the person is straight and cis, they might have parts of themselves they see as something society would hate, and so they see themselves in the characters.

Oh actually, the real last lastly. Jonathan and David. Er... yeah. I mean, yes, people do have extremely close, extremely intimate, brotherly platonic friendships, even between men. But their relationship is certainly up for interpretation considering they literally refer to each other as having love for them that is "better than that of women." The words and phrasing used mirror those used in like, the Iliad to describe Achilles and Patroclus, and Gilgamesh between Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

David also married Jonathan's sister and didn't treat her very well, but did go out of his way to protect Jonathan's own children. Also, there are several other passages where the ancient Hebrew used could contain sexual nuances, although it doesn't necessarily have to. You can't definitively state either way what it is--the writers clearly wrote in plausible deniability. Still, there's enough to raise eyebrows even within that old ancient context that, whether or not it was ever physical, Jonathan and David were not platonic.

(Personally? David invented the Disaster Bisexual archetype.)

[gloriousmonsters]

@whittertwitter the key to happy relationships is to find two people roughly as morally bankrupt and mentally ill as you (and, most importantly, as hot as you) and enable/check each other's issues to the extent where you all function remarkably well, considering how all your other relationships went! Agreed on the rough timeline thing, her dying in the 00s sounds right for sure (assuming that the show starts around where the pilot was released, that gives her a bit of time in Hell but still makes her obnoxiously new on the scene compared to other Overlords).

That said, a summation of Vox and Val's daddy issues (cw for abuse, suicide mentioned)

Vox:

I still need to flesh out details/timeline of Vox's childhood, but I know that his dad was distant to the point of seeming to forget about his existence, sarcastic and emotionally cruel--primarily to Vox's mother, but the kid would occasionally come in for some--when he did remember he lived with other people, and was overall just an. intensely negative person, like sucks-all-the-energy-out-of-a-room vibes. (vox's mom was also emotionally neglectful and uncaring, but not ''''abusive-abusive''', if you get my point). He then proceeded to have an 'accident while cleaning a gun' when Vox was a young teenager, which Vox overheard his mother talking about the truth of--that it was suicide--with a friend. probably with a side helping of 'i can't believe he would be so weak/do something that shameful'.

I think his mother probably remarried very quickly, and Vox developed some auxiliary issues around not being able to become Man of the House when he was like, fourteen (although he would have hated it, he and his mom just did not like each other lol). But his relationship with the new guy was more just teeth-gritted tolerance, helping Vox build up his fake-ass geniality--his dad left him with some of the deep shit. Always be on guard, always control what you can. Power is cruel--and it might make people hate you, so hide it behind a smile, but even so it's better to be hated than weak. Being ignored is starvation, being judged and found wanting is a gut wound.

this mainly manifests in the intense desire to be needed and appreciated and affirmed in image whilst having behavioral patterns that mean only people who don't know you will like you

also there's just like, the bigotry and sexism he soaked up, but that's on his surrounding environment as much as his dad

Valentino (his mom is also heavily involved in Issues, so this is partly about her)

extremely physically and verbally abusive father, solely focused on his mother when Val was very young, but turning to include Val the moment he got old enough you could look at him and go 'something vaguely queer about this kid' + he could be judged as not being sufficiently cowed and respectful, which only got worse over time bc Val could not avoid making him angry and so usually gave up on even trying

his mother only managed to get away when Val was around 13, partly spurred to desperation by his father injuring him badly enough she was terrified Val might actually get killed if she stayed any longer (said event caused a concussion that left Val with vision/memory problems and headaches his entire life)

due to things getting that bad and the health issues that were clearly left over from it, his mom was intensely guilty for not being able to protect him/get out sooner, and compensated by investing herself completely in him; babying him physically and emotionally, never setting proper boundaries, taking his side in literally everything, etc etc. this lasted until she finally hit a limit and tried to point out he had anger issues (Kind Of Like Someone We Knew) when he was in his mid-20s

output: mother is cruel? mother is unyielding? i must leave for California i can no longer thrive in this environment

but seriously, anger issues + downplaying of said issues because he's not like his dad, he gets angry for legitimate reasons, and he can be so nice! all he wants is unconditional love, loyalty and commitment that doesn't waver or END like SOME PEOPLE who are apparently just waiting to ABANDON YOU

[ifyouknowmenahyoudontt]

canon sucks in the sense that there should be more characters of color than we can count on our fingers, more canonically queer characters, more disabled or neurodivergent characters. not everyone should be cishet, white, and neurotypical. ( and the "erm but actually dumbledore was gay and hermione was black!" bullshit doesn't satisfy this ) and i applaud the old fans for getting over the old faceclaims ( aaron taylor johnson, andrew garfield, ben barnes... i salute the many edits of them ) and the new age fandom for keeping up the poc headcanons!!

canon sucks in the sense that while we can have complex characters, morally grey leaning dark characters, those characters should not try to be slotted into "good or bad." those characters shouldn't have very brief redemptions that suddenly make them heroes and epic good guys after entire books of assholery and even bigotry. two guesses as to who i'm talking about here!

canon does not suck in the "my favorite character may have maybe a sentence of plot relevance doesn't get enough attention, so i'm going to ignore all the canon things that point to them being a bigot and instead woobify them and try to make them more important than they actually were" way.

like, fanon regulus black my ABHORRED. while he wasn't abused himself, was canonically the favorite of his parents because he aligned with their ideals, it's interesting to explore sirius' complicated thoughts on his little brother. one that many mistreated and abused older siblings have when it comes to their younger- could i have done more, could i have saved him, changed him, etc. but acting like regulus wouldn't have hated his guts and wanted sirius dead, literally became a death eater and fully agreed with voldemort's ideals?? did we read the same books?

and canon does not suck in the "i'm going to take these cool complex characters and dumb them down to a single personality trait or stereotype, and pretend they're not a complex person with flaws" way.

like, i love james and sirius, literally my favorite characters! they were not always the good guys. canonically, even if he turned out to be an exponentially worse person, they were the villains in someone's story. they used to be bullies, just for the sake of it. they used to be asshole teenage boys with big egos and privilege ( both coming from wealthy pureblood households ). and they don't have to use that privilege AGAINST anyone! they obviously wouldn't, both of them are considered "blood traitors" for a reason ( james marrying a muggleborn and sirius even associating with james and lily and remus ).

it's so much more interesting to explore how they would have been as privileged little dickheads in the 70s in the midst of war, rather than "sunshine himbo james" and "femboy twink sirius" ( or if we wanna go back to old fandom shit, "sexy, lady-killer, has fucked everyone and their mom sirius" ). i also just hate "big sexy strict alpha remus," i can stand him being sarcastic because it's funny but i can't with people who take away his shyness and kindness. give us quiet bookworm remus back PLEASSEEE

even peter, and i used to be a victim of this as well- THEY LIKED HIM! peter was a marauder, he was part of the group, he was their best friend too. i understand people who try to erase him altogether just out of hating him, but those who pretend that james, sirius, and remus didn't care for him are just wrong. it's okay to not like a character, but don't rewrite canon in a way that fully fucks up the story. peter's betrayal sucked from all angles, because he was their friend too.

and reading what you and multiple other people have said about lily is so right, she gets the "jealous straight girl that wants james but HATES REGULUS for stealing jamie!!" treatment, or is just cast out altogether. like, sorry, who did harry get his striking green eyes from? who brought him into the goddamn world? james sure as hell didn't do it alone, and last i checked, regulus was dead by then if we wanna be real about it.

this turned out to be an insane rant, SO sorry, but hp is my special interest and i LOVE the marauders era just as much as i love the golden trio era. they're interesting to explore as characters, ESPECIALLY james, in the same way a lot of people like rose quartz from steven universe? he's spoken about as this infamous, talented, really good dude who died protecting his wife and son and helped bring upon the savior of the wizarding world. but he was also like a huge asshole when he was in school, and harry probably would have hated to meet james and sirius from back then! but people dumb all of them down in the marauders era works just because we don't get explicit descriptions or tellings of what they were like. and it's so annoying!!

i strongly agree with this.

tbh regulus being one of the most popular character speaks a lot about this fandom. bigotry is a broad term and those who criticize JKR (rightfully tho) but go on again to do that to women? or the poc? hypocritical

and the fanon remus thing pisses me off so bad because the point of his character was that he was a soft and sensitive person contrasting with his “condition”!!!! he was human!!!!!!

i agree w this sm

[narcissusbrokenmirror]

Alex Mercer + catholic trauma really does something for me, i like reading fanfics abt it cuz it feels like home. shout out to all the projecting Alex writers out there.But i think its funny how inaccurate it is. not in a bad way ofc. But i have thoughts about 90's gay teen Alex. I need to get them out. But i think its funny how inaccurate it is. not in a bad way ofc. But i have thoughts about 90's gay teen Alex. I need to get them out.

I mean its the 90's, religion is not the only thing making people homophobic there, besides toxic masculinity being pretty much a thing, there was also the post aids moment, so despite the 90's not being the most homophobic era ever, gay people were like, a presence, on the social groups, especially on the art/acting/music scene. so, for me, it makes sense when Kenny Ortega says Alex was a proud character of his identity as a gay young man.

doesn't add up to me tho, being gay + proud + christian + in the 90's. like, you dont grow up proud of being queer if u spend your life hearing negative rhetoric about it. so i, personally, don't think Alex's family was religious.

Alex's family doesn't look religious and Alex doesn't seem into it, as well. Alex being confident, proud, relaxed and sarcastic brings me to think that he came from a very liberal family that was also homophobic. picture this with me.

the grunge/rock scene is full of people trying to make into a club that only people who look a certain way can be there, they're full of toxic masculinity behavior there. Alex's not like it, he knows better that rock is much more about expressing yourself through music and feeling with others, rather than how you look, you knows its bullshit. and im only mentioning this bc Alex doesn't dress like alt ppl usually do, he's always in this relaxed outfit, the same black sweatpants and different soft colored shirts and jackets, he doesn't put an effort to how he looks, he just wants to be comfortable. and not caring how you look as long as ur comfortable? rock behavior ig

Alex being confident and proud tells us about the background he came from. If his family considered him trustworthy and let Alex make his own choices without interfering even if they don't like it, certainly he did NOT came from a religious household.

Alex is a drummer, that shit expensive for you to just have a whole kit hanging around, so his parents probably got it for him, they supported his band and let him have his friends around, they were warm and loving, helping into building Alex's sense of self worth, which is very nice.

so we don't have anything concrete abt Alex's past relationships, but i guess he first came out to his band and then his parents, Luke says Alex never had a boyfriend, but Alex being so certain that he was having a mutual connection with Willie would feel weird if it was the first time Alex flirted with a guy. nah. He probably did met other gay boys on clubs and concerts, flirted, made out once or twice, maybe even gone on dates, you know, teenager things.

the shit happened when he came out to his parents and they gave him the cold shoulder and silence treatment. because they had reasons to not want their son to be gay. Gay people were seen as dirty, sick, perverted, pedophiles, promiscuous and also a target for violence. As a parent, they wouldn't want his son that they loved and supported so much to be associated with such a marginalized group. But it's their son, after all, they couldn't throw him away. So they didn't locked Alex away from his friends, wasn't thrown out of his house, wasn't forced to get that "fixed up". Because Alex was their son, but they didn't want that part of him there, they didn't wanted to know about it.

Alex having his friends over would always click a question on his parents' mind for what if they aren't just friends, what can they be doing together when they're not looking (bc you know, gay people dont have feelings or connections, its all about the sex), what else could Alex's dad think when he sees Luke sneaking out of Alex's room wearing his shirt? and the problem is centered around it happening near to them, whatever Alex does outside their roof is his business, but his homosexuality is not welcome on the Mercer's house. Although, they didn't felt comfortable around Alex anyway, bc inside their heads, they knew that he couldn't keep his homosexuality off when they were together. they couldn't process that their son would be a homosexual, they couldn't love that, they could love their son, but not that.

Alex probably knew that, probably thought that it would eventually stop and they would be normal, warm and loving again, that they would support him again, probably because he didn't had his parents' love hold against some condition, as if he had to earn it. (As it is pretty common in religious households) It doesn't mean he wouldn't get hurt from it, he did and it was a lot, the lack of love, attention and support that he got from his came out, after a life of being given proper dosis of love and being allowed to be who he was. By the way Alex deals with changes, that shit was probably getting to his head.

Alex knew he deserved better than being treated like that, he knew he deserved his family to love him bc they always did and that they shouldn't define him by one element that would always be a part of him, he knew he deserved it to be a part of his life, deserved to bring a nice guy he met home to meet his parents instead of sneaking them in and out like he had to live it secretly. He didn't wanted that, it wasn't fair to him. He shouldn't have to feel ashamed enough to hide it from his dad bc his dad shouldn't want him to be ashamed of himself.

Alex was decided to stop caring about his parents thought of him, even if it meant them not being a part of his life, not that he wanted it this way, bc he didn't. But if they could change once, they could change again.

[stabbyfoxandrew]

Ok book recommendation. Not sure if this is something you'll like but it's one of my favourite series and I need more people to know about it.

The set up is basically: Atlantis is real and sometime in 1960s (I think) some astronaut saw Atlantis which was previously hidden from humans by magic. Humans obviously went to war with them and won. So now all the people of Atlantis have moved to Nantucket.

The governing class is a group of the most powerful magic users who all have sort of courts i guess with a bunch of lesser houses under them. They are all named after figures in a tarot deck (or rather the decks are named after them) so we have the tower, the fool, the lovers etc

For us the most important court is the Sun Court. The main character Rune and his best friend/bodyguard who have known each other since they were literal babies are from the sun court which was raided and fell when they were teenagers. Rune and Brand are in their 30s now.

Now they are sort of detectives for hire have been hired to find a missing person. While they also have to deal with some unexpected developments from a sanctioned raid they took part in.

Another thing worth noting about Brand (who is human) and Rune (who is an Atlantian) is that they share an emotional bond like they can literally feel each others emotions. It's an old Atlantian tradition that is explained in the books. Their relationship is so special to me. They have the best banter. And are so protective of each other.

Rune one of those characters that are both simultaneously so smart and badass while also being such a dumbass like he definitely laughs at dumb puns and thinks he's so funny. He is resourceful with his magic which he has to be and knows all about politics because he has to he was basically a prince before his court fell. He also has this quirk that I love where when he feels awkward in a situation he reverts back to being overly formal.

And Brand is that sarcastic, so over it bodyguard who will snipe at you but he is also so protective and caring (if you know where to look) (and Rune knows where to look and because it's from his pov you will hear all about it) and is the type of only I am allowed to make fun of him character. He will make you respect his people.

There is also an intricate magic system. Which i won't go into too much detail about but you basically have to charge these special objects with a spell you want to use in order to use magic.

The world is also so queer. Like it is stated multiple times that attraction to only one gender and monogamy are not the norm in this society.

The books are part of an ongoing series currently three of the planned nine books are out but the author also has published a bunch of free extra stories for in between the books.

The series is called The Tarot Sequence and the first book is called The Last Sun. By K.D. Edwards.

I would recommend looking at the trigger warnings though you should probably be fine seeing as you are in the aftg fandom.

(One of the opening lines is: "I am, before anything else, a survivor [...]" though so)

Sorry for writing this entire essay lol. I just really really love these books especially the relationships between the characters no matter if they're platonic, romantic or familial they all love and care for each other so much. They are some of the best interpersonal relationships i have read and I think about all of the characters so much. Sometimes I just have to stop and go oh randomly in my day to day when I think about another devastating thing about them (both positive and heartbreaking)

Oh one last thing before I finally shut up they don't know who lead the raid on their court so that is an underlying mystery throughout the series

oh my god anon thanks for this! like i have to admit i was on the fence when you mentioned atlantis, BUT the rest of your lil essay (cutie i love when people are passionate about their interests!) has convinced me to add these to my list!!! :D

also! when i looked it up on goodreads i was like 'ohhhhh' because i've seen the cover somewhere before? but yes! added! :) when i get to it i'll have to make a post!