#anyways i didnt even think of her in any romantic interest way at first but after a while i just really started liking her personality and

[13eyond13]

Once I went to pick up a friend from his work and his workmates asked him if I was his girlfriend the following day. That's how he came out at the workplace, after years. By just saying "oh, no. I'm not really into girls". Maybe you could "create" a somewhat similar situation? Good luck!

hahah thats normally how i like to do it, i want it to come up naturally because i feel super awkward trying to conjure up a situation to tell people! I will cross my fingers for that kind of a reason to bring it up

[yarrayora]

Idk how to explain properly, but I’m a really big fan of the dynamic you portray between Marcille and Falin. I’ve always loved . idk how to say.. divorce? trouble-in-paradise? arcs/portrayals that look at problems in otp, and yours is super interesting. Sorry if this is weird just wanted to say :)

not weird at all! im flattered, thanks!

i wasnt really into farcille at first, mostly i was just impressed an f/f ship managed to be the fandom's no1, basically proving that when two female characters in a mostly male dominated cast are allowed to bond with each others and be their own characters people will latch on to them

mostly though aro touden siblings is still my no1 and even back then i didnt care about shipping because any type of romantic relationship in dunmeshi is less interesting than the potential of political intrigue the worldbuilding set up (yes, even chilchuck's failing marriage is less interesting to me than how living in the dungeon was safer for the orcs than being neighbors to human civilization) (shocking, i know)

but it all changed when i saw the daydream hour about marcille thinking falin looks cute in feminine clothing while falin herself is obviously uncomfortable with it

i can't sleep. i have to think about this. i have to think about how it's their first love and their first relationship and one is going in blind while the other set up her expectations based on a harlequin romance novel. they are NOT in the same wavelength at all and neither of them are particularly good at communicating their intention, with falin who grew up a convenient kid because she thought it was the least she could do for her family and marcille who frankly speaking was used to being treated as someone superior back at the magic school

thank god kabru exists because who else is going to give them a real advice for their very real relationship? chilchuck will be like "okay just break up" while not seeing the mirror to his own relationship with his runaway wife. senshi, wise as he is, is never in a romantic relationship. laios would be like :((( you guys are fighting? and gets stressed out on his own which makes it even more stressful to the girls. namari is like. "i, uh, please talk to kabru."

anyway theres also the bonus comic about falin inviting marcille to watch daltian clan's opera adaptation and while there is something to say about marcille thinking the humans playing elves doesn't fit her aesthetic (and the difference of societal expectations of dressing up as a different race in dunmeshi universe compared to in ours) all i can think of is that in modern day au where daltian clan has a movie adaptation marcille has a tumblr blog where she posts Hate on the daltian clan movie tag and calling it criticism which it is but also not the place, girl, go to rotten tomatoes for that

falin also has a tumblr and she and marcille had no idea the other is a tumblr user. falin made a post like "just watched daltian clan with my gf i get why shes really obsessed with it now" and marcille, against her better judgement replies to the post like "really sorry that you were misled by your girlfriend like that, you should read the novels instead, it's way better."

laios who sees falin looking shocked at her phone asks whats up and then after receiving the answer says "wow sounds like a real jerk! just block them"

anyway thats my modern day farcille when there's no high fantasy problems involved

[kyleiskoool]

massive rod family/heritage headcanon dump:

okay so i kind-of feel like rod is french canadian. i really love making people french canadian gang... so yeah rod can speak french pretty fluently. also the canadian part purely bc of mgwlic. so it makes sense for him to say that he had a girlfriend in canada. (because rod isnt dumb, he wouldve thought it out a little bit guys) but yeah i loveeee making it so people can speak french.

okay but dont get me wrong, french is a romantic language but when rod speaks it he is the least romantic peraon ever. he speaks really direct bc all of the times he spoke french it was yelling at his parents (just wait ill expand on it). but when he gets mad he starts spouting shit off in french (nicky has picked up a few new phrases). but yeah he spoke french from birth and learnt english a bit at home and went to an english speaking school.

parental wise? i love rod so he's getting the lesbian mum treatment (me applying the fact my mum left- dw half of this isnt what happened in my life).

okay so rod grew up in a right winged family (thats why hes republican) in french canada. he has an older brother (but he is ALOT older like 11yrs older so he never rly knew her) and mum and dad. and then other relatives that r irrelevant. everything was pretty typical. he never really spoke to his brother but he was at christmas and stuff.

trauma time 😜

rods mum up and left at like 9 years old to go live with a lesbian lover. rods dad is PISSED bc theyre like highly conservative. even though he was homophobic before this CEMENTS that ideology in his mind. he doubles down and drills it into rods head that being gay is bad and he is nothing if he was gay. he never saw his mother after she left.

this is why he is so scared to come out. hes scared that everyone thinks this way and theyre all out to get him and abandon him. so he also doubts it when he feels it because he doesnt want to be bad. but yeah :( thats why he bonded with nicky so much because he secretly thought nicky was rly brave for supporting the lgbtq but he was still scared that somehow his dad would find out.

this goes into more that rods dad refused to let him do anything 'feminine'. he trued to get rod to play a sport but he couldn't for the life of him so he took up an instrument (the clarinet) instead. he always wanted to do the musical and sing, but once again, it wasnt seen as 'manly' enough. thats why he loves going to shows and is so wowed when be sees nicky in shows.

his brother definitely started talking to him a bit more when rod was in college. rod reached out first asking for advice. his brother pretty much said 'study, dont get kept up in emotional things and find a roommate with the same interests as you'. after that, his brother kept tabs on him as he moved on with life. he tries to help princeton in the same way his brother helped him.

his brother heard about his mum and didnt really care. he was definitely never that homophobic or conservative (thats why he moved out so quickly) so he never really cared about his mum being lesbian.

okay wait im just gonna do this here. this is a yap abt how rod and nicky became friends bc like why not.

okay so rod was majoring business or something i cant be fucked to care. anyways, he usually studied in the library or the caf at night. and he saw alot of faces but nickys just stood out to him for some reason. he eventually figured out he was a theatre major and that his name was an n name. he keeps mentioning this guy to his business major friends and they have no clue who he is. they try to ask around too and find little info except for his name (nicky) and the fact he was in the last musical

anyways, as rod really loves theatre, he usually goes to the theatreclubs shows if he has any spare money. he buys a ticket to a show and notices that THAT GUY that he always sees around is the LEAD. rod has to do a double take and in the intermission he buys a program. rod spends the rest of the show just looking at him and just fawning over his singing and acting.

the show finishes and mostly everyone leaves. rod sticks around, looking at his headshot just making sure that he knows what guy it is. nicky ends up coming out, smiling but ultimately looking tired. rod doesnt see anyone approach him and nicky is streamlining it to the door. rod ends up running over and just complimenting his performance. nicky lights up so much and thanks him over and over.

rod mentions that he's seen him around. nicky perks up and says that he thinks one of his friends is in his class. he goes 'youre ryan.. right?' and rod just laughs and goes 'haha, no im rod' and nicky is like 'YEP THATS RIGHT! i was so close'. rod just smiles and is like 'ill see you around, you got any more shows?' nicky tells him they have like 3 more shows and rod asks if he's got any classes. nicky says that he doesnt but he has a test the next day and needs to study. rod suggests that they study together because he also has a test soon.

nicky agrees and they plan on seeing each other the next day. and their friendship is born!

anyways, nicky is so flustered bc the guy he lowkey had a hallway crush on had invited him to study and rod was like 'YAYYAYAYAYYAYAYA I TALKED TO THE GUY I WANTED TO BE FRIENDS WITH'

okay guys thats the end of a very VERY big yap. i hope you guys enjoyed my stupid headcanon rant about rod because i have very big feelings about this. i very much want to write a oneshot about college rodnicky. (theatrekid nicky is my number one headcanon) !!! also desperate want to draw rods family !!!

okay gang leave a #thumbs up and subscribe if you enjoyed the video. see you in the next one!

[catgirlkirito]

theres something interesting abt how kirito thinks of asuna in volume 1 i think... theres like, no real point where he seems to fall in love with her. he clearly had a crush on her already but thats sort of it, right? and he seemed to have no plans to actually do anything about that bc it was just dumb attraction and not necessarily any actual emotional attachment, or at least not in any sense different from any other fellow player he's worked with several times and respects and whose company he likes

so its really bizarre that he goes from 'asuna is a really famous player, shes competent and also really really pretty' to 'asuna is the light of my life, my north, the one thing tethering me to my humanity' in the span of like a week without it seemingly really registering how his feelings have changed

maybe this will be cleared up when i read more and it'll turn out that he actually always had such strong emotions for her and they just didnt come accross in the narration at first, but so far it reads like kirito just thinks that having a crush is the same as being in love so he doesnt really process the difference when it happens

incidentally im also not convinced whether he actually was romantically in love with her by the time he kissed her. like, dont get me wrong at that moment he already had a lot of emotions about her and she was an extremely important person to him, but i think its just as likely that he just had a very strong emotional bond to her and Also was attracted to her, and those things just kinda overlapped into the idea that he should kiss her to get accross his very many emotions when she was having that breakdown. If thats even a distinction that makes sense

Anyways i am pretty convinced that asuna on the other hand already really liked him since before the rabbit meat incident mostly because thats the only way to explain everything shes said and done in this volume so far lol

[where-is-your-boy-t0night]

very rough and incomplete bullet points from aizas perspective of the story

feliks and aiza were childhood friends, they even survived the transition to secondary school!

however since beginning secondary school, aiza found just about any and every reason to dislike herself. shes insecure, like most young girls of her age, and being shoved into the 'cool' crowd didnt help. everyone is so judgy these days, right? at least she still has feliks.

aiza makes some really good friends. shes got an established close friend group now, actually, which is awesome. her main girls are noa, sabrina, evie and samara. nice.

aiza compares herself to everybody. literally everybody. she overthinks a lot and she perceives herself to be lagging behind, or something like that. she makes many an attempt to ensure that nobody else can think the same.

once she and feliks were about 14 they were closer than ever. romantic, even, which was new. aiza was extremely nervous to mess this up, but she was so excited to have a boyfriend, and especially for that boyfriend to be someone she already knows is great. their relationship is perfect, for a time.

feliks is being weird with her... for some reason. aiza tries not to overthink it, for once. its not like hes avoiding her. noa tells her that hes probably just also nervous because, after all, this whole intimacy thing might be new for him too. aiza doubts that it is, but at the same time maybe her bff has a point.

out of the blue, she spent almost the whole october week break no contact with feliks. at first, its whatever. hes probably just busy with homework or something. this was, however, an unlikely scenario. feliks hates homework. aiza becomes worried for him and catches up with him at school once they return. why isnt he explaining himself..?

"i cant go out with you anymore." or something along those lines. oh god. aizas whole world crumbled in front of her eyes right then. why? what changed? what did she do to deserve radio silence? not a single clue, but it must have been her fault. oh god.

aiza felt like every insecurity she had before had been magnified by about 500 times. what if all of her other friends secretly couldnt stand her and wanted her to leave them alone? what if noa thought she was boring and bland, unfunny and embarrassing? she must want a different best friend. she should pick sabrina or evie, they were so much more interesting and way cooler than aiza. she felt sick.

she tried to put on a brave face. if her friends asked her where feliks had went (she had no idea herself) she would tell them that he was just being a huge jerk and she didnt want anything to do with him anymore. she wished that were true.

noa would come to hear almost everything aiza had to say about feliks. 'almost' meaning just her anger, not her sadness. aizas sadness was private, for when she was alone. like when she felt like crying into her pillow at night.

her anger manifested in her throwing things at her bedroom walls, or feeling the need to walk right up to feliks and scream in his face. she hated him she hated him so so so much. what the hell made him think he could do this to her? after all their years of friendship?

at the same time, she didnt really hate him. she didnt understand how she felt, actually. he lingered on her mind much more than he deserved to.

she found out that enzo was friends with feliks now, which she found from the oh so trustworthy source of information which was karim, obviously. she didnt know enzo that well. anyway, she found him on the yard after she heard of this, and mildly confronted him. feliks is not someone you want to get close to, you know. she couldnt tell what enzo thought about her. was that skepticism in his expression? wanker.

aiza didnt hear much more from or about feliks at all, he had stopped talking to all of his other friends too, it seemed. this didnt make aiza feel any better, but at least it wasnt just her. she spoke to izak privately about it. he was feliks' best friend, the two of them could relate to each other on that. he didnt know much. their conversation became deep, though. aiza misread the situation and kissed izak... oops. he was not happy about that.

maybe aiza shouldve felt worse about what she did, especially since izak had a girlfriend already, who was evie, who was one of her closest friends. but she didnt feel that bad. she kind of didnt like evie that much anymore, anyway. (she felt terrible and scared, mostly in case noa or sabrina reacted badly to this... if they were to find out.)

once evie found out, there was a big argument in the refectionary. the perfect place to shout about something if you want the entire year to also hear about it. even feliks heard about it.

...who is nikita?

[butchtwelfthdoctor]

i got peer reviewed on this post by @pikechris (sorry for the tag hope you dont mind) but still had way more thoughts hehe anyways i was gonna leave tags but it got pretty long sooo those tags and the rest of my Thoughts under the cut cos damn this did get really really long

i looked in the replies of that post & people you're not getting it he didnt kiss rory with romantic feeling behind rory was just there and eleven got excited about something else and rory visibly looks weirded out afterwards. it was practically eleven kissing as stimming. like when he kissed jenny. it wasnt out of romantic feelings at all he knows madame vastra would kill him & he isnt interested he was just happy to be able to move after the crimson horror thingy. kissing rory was also played as a joke it was a funny haha yknow. i also dont remember eleven kissing the james corden character but like whatever i cant imagine that being meaningful in any way either.

OH in the same way that nardole having a crush on twelve (canon btw nardole practically says as much is played as a joke. like with the post i mention above, like thats played as a joke because can you imagine the cool very beautiful twelfth doctor having romantic or sexual feelings towards nardole, who is literally, as missy puts it, comic relief? i dont think that its queer is a part of that but idk it might be.

but in any case. the doctor hasnt kissed or been kissed by a man with romantic intent onscreen since 2005. we COULD have had a thirteen and yaz kiss but we didnt which is i think why? people forget? about them? doctor was confimred queer she had lesbian attraction but nothing really. happened about it. so yeah. also apparently a lot of people didnt watch thirteen like cmonnnnnnnnnnn it really isnt as bad as people make it out to be.

twelve kissed missy who was probably the only person he would have kissed at that point. he's horrified when she kisses him before he knows who she is but then the very next episode he kisses her in a... if not exactly romantic a very emotionally charged way. and she knows that. we dont see them kiss again even as their relationship grows more and more romantically inclined (which i actually support any amount of canon thoschei conventional romance would probably be. bad and kill the appeal immediately) because like i said. she turns every dead body on earth into a cyberman then lies about where gallifrey is then fakes her own death then tries to get the doctor to kill clara then he leaves her on skaro iirc then he is supposed to kill her but doesnt and instead locks her in a vault for ~70 years but its okay cos they have takeaway food in there together sometimes. and then world enough and time / the doctor falls happens which i cant even start talking about or i'll never stop & thirteen was 1) aroace and 2) too emotionally repressed to even get close to kissing Anyone, let alone the master after all the timeless child stuff, even though she probably?? wanted to kiss yaz?? a bit??? at least?? yaz wanted to kiss her but there was too much emotional repression going on on both sides but mainly the doctor Which Brings Me To My Point.

Fifteen is the most, shall we say, flirty doctor we've had for a while, and Ncuti is also the first openly queer actor to play the doctor on tv, and while of course everyone on tumblr is Very familiar with all of the ways the doctor is queer (and neurodivergent) without any need for the show to specifically say so, it is really really great that a) the doctor is played by a gay actor b) there are more queer characters and c) we got an actual episode where The Doctor Is Gay With A Man. especially after the. somewhat odd. way yaz & thirteen's relationship was dealt with at the end of thirteen's run, which even though was a queer relationship was like....... not really. shown. they just talked about it. and had icecream. okayyy i guesssssssssss

BUt NOW fifteen gets an entire episode where his mutual attraction to another male character (assuming the doctor is actually a man, pretty sure i read somewhere Ncuti was he/they-ing the doctor but he might have meant the doctor in general, not just fifteen) is a Main Focus of the episode. its the main tension, the main drama, the main interest - you pretty much know from the 'okay we'll teleport the chuldur away' that thats whats going to happen, and i for one went 'oh my god rouge is going to get teleported' from the moment the doctor fixed it to carry six. the Main Focus is now their flirting, their dynamic, the way Those Two Interact, their almost kiss (which the doctor was so ready to duck out of as soon at the thing beeped, but you can tell by the look on rouge's face that he's for sure trying that again later). the doctor showing actual episode-arc spanning romantic interest in a character, let alone a specifically queer one... that doesnt happen a lot.

(the girl in the fireplace has a lot of superficial similarities, though you could also argue that madame de pompadour was far more romantically into ten than he was into her. thirteen's characteristically very awkward attempt at flirting towards yaz in the sea devils special didnt have nearly as much focus on it)

but really the point is the doctor was kissed! for the first time on tv in ten years!!!! and it was a queer kiss!! and that romance was The Major Part of the episode!! the doctor doctorwho was gay kissing a man on out television screens after a genuinely quite good build up!!!!!!!!!!! it would of of course be amazing if rouge makes another appearance (i think he will, most likely in a later season instead of the next 2 eps), and even better if we had a longer arc of that romance, but we got it!!! actual canonical queer romance for the doctor!! their first canon kiss in like at least a couple hundred years of their life, and while i am an aspec doctor who believer there are 100% time when he feels attraction and this was for sure one if them. and it was really beautiful & emotional & the flirting was fun & rouge was a good character & their dynamic was really good and yay!!!!

[goth-oatmilk-latte]

this is gonna be a long rant but it's bothered me for a while

(non-ed related)

and any thoughts are welcome but it's mostly a rant

so basically i dont have a lot of girlfriends. i never have, all the ones i got close to generally either betrayed me in the worst ways or we moved and lost touch. (betrayal backstories is a whole other rant, but it's nauseating the way ive been treated by women who claimed to love me) so most of my friends are dudes, in fact, both of my true besties are.

anyway, i have really one solid girlfriend and shes a good bit younger than me. she also dont have a lot of friends in general, she has me and a small handful of others. she regards me as her bestie, i kind of guess shes mine but like...idk. i view her more like a younger sister, i guess.

so basically, she copies EVERYTHING i fucking do, within her means. like, before her and i were close, she just dressed pretty normal, no notable flavor or style. but now shes trying so hard to be goth bc i am. she cut her hair how mine used to be, dyed it black bc mine is, got all of the same piercings as me, yall get it. i wish i was exaggerating but im really not. even her mom messaged me to tell me she bases her style off me and shes glad im not a "greasy goth" (lol??)

but it's infuriating. i know i didnt invent goth. im not the first to have the piercings, hair, outfits, and interests i do...but it's really annoying to have someone base their entire style and interests off of me bc i have worked hard to curate myself as a person. i work hard for my aesthetic, im pretty thoughtful in my planning for outfits, how i decorated my home, everything, but especially bc these are genuine interests ive had since i was a preteen...and it's just so irksome to have someone try to imitate it as closely as possible every single day without any real, concrete interest in any of it, outside of prob just tryna be relatable to me

and a few weeks ago we got on the topic of sexuality and how im pan and have had gfs etc now shes magically also bisexual. she told me she got "tricked" by a straight girl recently but caught an attitude with me bc i told her if there wasnt clear intentions by both parties, she wasnt tricked, bc there was no flirting/romantic intent and that being bi/pan talking to straight women (or even other bi/pan wonen) doesn't automatically garner a romantic response. she didnt like that and got really snappy with me, but im not wrong. she tried to say she thought she was going on a date, but she was literally going to another friend's house to watch rupaul, and the other girl was also coming over, she sent me screenshots of the convo and like.....yeah, no, 1000% on her for thinking anything of it. she just picked said girl bc she was friends with her other friend and I guess it was an easy shot, but she also overlooked homegirl having a whole man too so like????? bro hello.

and i dont necessarily wanna be super confrontational about the aesthetic thing bc that just feels so middle school drama sToP cOpYiNg Me energy but it grates my skin...especially too bc like she also gets a little grumpy when she asks where my clothes are from and a lot of places i shop dont carry her size (shes a 3X or a 4X; ive never really looked or cared to see who carries what size bc im an xs so why would i??) and thats somehow my fault bc she cant buy the same shit i wear...or she complains she cant afford the docs or demonias etc like i have and its like okay curate your own damn style that you can afford bc like???? im not your fucking barbie doll mannequin?????

[yellowbluemoonshine]

Wish there was more Shiggy/Toga stuff. :)

ShigaToga; Great Compatibility

Sure but first, i would like to say that i wasnt shipping them at first or expected to ship them because well, to me, Shigaraki was always redeemable villain and Toga was crazy yandere girl. I used to not pay attention to their relationship or any other league relationship before MVA arc. And honestly, it was hard to imagine Shigaraki having romantic partner or involving any romance but biggest reason is their age. At beginning, we didnt know their age so i thought Shigaraki was like 23-24 at least and Toga is high school girl so lol but then he turned out 20 years old, a lot younger than i expected. He is the one who has closest age to Toga in league, 3 years age difference isnt actually much, if it was 4 or more, it would be but 3 years age difference depends. Especially in Shigaraki and Toga's case, since they are not your usual 20 years old or 17 years old. Shigaraki is literally Afo's hostage since he was 5 years old and Toga is living in streets since her middle school so yeah. And 'average 20 years old would have to take care of Shigaraki and average 17 years old could easiely take advantage of someone like Toga too. (And the thing is; I am pretty sure that people wouldnt mind shipping Twice with Toga, if Twice was 20 years old but suddenly its a problem because it is Shigaraki, even though, it should be other way around and Shigaraki isnt really big brother to her, yeah). I think its not a problematic ship. I think it is very good ship with potential and also, there is kinda set up but well, i wish we get more lov interactions.

Also, i would like to say that the only reason i ship is because i truly believe that Shigaraki and Toga can actually develop healthy romantic relationship. And honestly, its hard not to ship after realizing their canon interaction, Toga's character and how much Toga is fond of him. Anyway, lets continue.

It is even more interesting since they are written to be compatible with each other. Their dynamic is like murderous couple, not in a way 'we make each other worse' but in a way 'we make each other better'.

Their characterization is inspired by Joker and Harley Quinn. All it takes is one bad day. Though, Shigaraki is opposite of Joker. He is not Toga's abuser. He is her healer.

They have the opposite attracts energy.

When i think about those two together, I realize how healthy and compatible their relationship would be.

Since they are both murderers and since they both became like this despite being good people/they tried their best until reaching breaking point, they wouldn't judge each other for this. Their life has been destroyed both causes of their quirk and environment so they would understand each other.

Who Toga really is was ignored her whole life, and that's why in the end, Toga controlled her all relationship. She always stalks people, having side relationships to have absolute control. Even with her relationship with Twice, she has more control over her relationships. So what Toga needs to do is give control to her partner too, she shouldn't try to control their life. She should be letting that person s taking decisions too. Shigaraki is the opposite. His life was always controlled by others. He didn't make decisions in his life so he needs to take control of his own life. Shigaraki needs to make decisions in his relationships too. Shigaraki wants to be a leader in the group while Toga has no interest in being a leader, she is ok with being a helper. Shigaraki became a villain cause of pain, and hate. His life is full of pain, this is why he needs to see good things in life. Toga became a villain cause of pleasure and love. Her life is full of pleasure but she shouldn't ignore the pain of life. They are both equal children, this is why they would be equal in a relationship, they could learn how to deal with life and grow together. Toga is living in her world, she doesn't see people, only she is there. Meanwhile, Shigaraki only sees other people, he doesn't see himself, even in his memories.

Normally, Toga acts close to other people but in reality, she is too cold and acts logically cause she wasn't loved. Meanwhile, Shigaraki normally seems too cold and cautious but actually, he is very warm and emotional. when someone pushes him, he acts emotionally, unlike Toga who acts logically. And even though, Toga is more emotionally intelligence than Shigaraki (and many other characters), Shigaraki is a lot better at socially interacting with others and making friends. Again, since Toga was never really loved, she would afraid of being loved, hugged, being touched, at first. While Shigaraki lost his family with his own hands, he would afraid of loving, hugging, and touching someone. Shigaraki has always had a relationship with someone but since his all relationship is abusive towards him, he has no interest in having a partner, also he is like asexual. While Toga never had a relationship with someone, all she wants is to have a partner, also she is like bisexual. Shigaraki has no one in his life as his lover while Toga has many lovers in her mind. Shigaraki is always being chased after, and controlled by people while Toga always stalks people. All Toga want is to be accepted by someone, and belonging to somewhere. While Tenko’s hero dream is literally about giving a place to outcasts like Toga.

Toga always sees people as things but she needs to see people as people. Meanwhile, Shigaraki was treated as a thing his whole life, he needs to see himself as a human being, not a thing. Toga needs to see worth in other people while Shigaraki needs to see worth in his life. Shigaraki needs someone who will be beside him, loyal to him, someone who will fight beside him, even against the whole world. Toga needs loyalty towards someone, a person who will inspire her and since she heals with Shigaraki’s kindness, she would fight beside him, even against the whole world, since they are both outcasts as equals. Shigaraki needs support, and Toga needs inspiration, just like their foils Deku and Uraraka. Shigaraki is very destructive and he always hurts himself he needs to learn to care about his life. Toga enjoys someone’s bleeding, and getting hurt, she needs to care about other people’s pain.

Toga likes spicy food, and Shigaraki likes sweet things, kinda funny. Both Shigaraki and Toga don't want anyone to do their thing, Toga cause she wants to choose what she wants on her own, for Shigaraki, he doesn't want to be a payer to someone.

Shigaraki is youngest child of his family, he has that kinda spoiled kid energy and very codependant and he always needs a babysitter to take care of him while Toga (and Dabi) is oldest child of her family, she is very independent girl. Even though, she is the youngest in league, she tends to take care of people around her too and she is living in streets on her own since middle school.

I am sure that there is more. They are written to oppose each other in every way but also in a good way and it is really entertaining. They have murderous couple energy with amazing chemistry but at the same time, its is unexpectedly very stable for them. This post is actually kinda old but whatever, it is fun to think about it.

[loopy777]

thoughts on the way MHA ended? Lots of people absolutely pissed that izuku x uraraka was sunk rather decisively(im as well, but thats more because i now know sitting through 428 chapters of their boring ass romance was an objective waste of time) just so Kohei didnt have to deal with an ending that actually had ships sail, and the fandom reaction to that.

For me, i am absolutely gonna use Uraraka's canon wishywashyness to the bitter end, not having the guts to confess for 8 years after the final battle, to shit on her mercilessly in my own stories XD

Wow, harsh. Deku could have asked her to dinner some time in 8 years! What's a girl to think when a guy doesn't go on a single date from age 14 to 22? XD

Anyway, shipping aside, I am quite pleased with the ending. I thought we got good resolutions for more characters than I expected, and I really like not just that last-second twist but how it's done. All Might's eyes are freaky-looking, though.

Since I'm not really a MHA shipper, I thought it odd that we don't get a single romantic confirmation, but I think it's left open enough that there could be romance going on with whatever pairing a reader wants. Perhaps that was a deliberate, cynical choice. I do think there's a lack of payoff in the romances, as we have Deku, Uraraka, Kaminari, maybe Kirishima, and Yaoyorozu all having crushes that provide inspiration at critical character-growth moments, but none of them take the next step. It feels like all those subplots just stop before any climax. We don't even have Kaminari asking Jiro on a date and getting shot down. It feels like there's something missing in terms of the shape of the story.

However, I recognize that Romance is always awkward with these epic coming-of-age tales, especially one in a 'modern' setting like MHA. For something like AtLA, in an 'old' fantasy setting where older teenagers are considered full adults, especially one without formal schooling, I can buy someone marrying a love interest they meet at age 14. For something like MHA, though, it feels more unrealistic since most of us do not know someone who married their first high school sweetheart.

So, normally, I wouldn't dock MHA many points for these no-payoff romances. It could have done a lot worse by attempting the payoffs and fumbling them.

Unfortunately, in the wider context of the MHA, I think this is a fatal flaw that makes me unable to recommend the series to anyone.

No exaggeration. Explanation below the cut.

So, how many actual romantic relationships are there in this story, including the adults? Not that many, if we go by what's on screen. I mean, we had to get out-of-story clarification that Deku's father is still married to his mother. And of the relationships we actually see, how many of them are alive and functional and not something awful like Todoroki's backstory?

Bakugo's parents

Gentle Criminal and La Brava

???

That's all I can think of.

And then I've noted that none of the student crushes get any payoff. We're very clearly shown that these kids have attractions to each other, but at best it becomes a kind of unspoken courtly love. What's up with that?

Well, you could argue that MHA's intended audience is 12-year-old boys who don't want to see kissy romances. And normally, I'd consider that an acceptable answer. It's all over shonen anime/manga: feints towards romance (because boys like the idea of attracting pretty girls) without any actual depiction or fulfillment that could turn off squeamish immature boys. Some of this may be influenced by Japanese society overall, as my understanding is that displays of physical affections overall are rarer there, but I don't think that's the primary factor. Certainly, there are shonen stories where a boy and girl have an actual ongoing romantic relationship, and sometimes there's even kissing.

MHA doesn't have that, though. It has broken relationships, comedic relationships, and unfulfilled crushes. Even among adults.

What else does it have?

Fan-service outfits. Sexual assault played for laughs. Several instances of leering teenage female nudity.

Yeah, I've talked before about how Mineta is the worst part of the show because of how much fun the story tries to make them, and you don't have to go far on the internet to find people who think MHA's depiction of female teenagers is pretty gross, but pair this with the overall story's notable lack of any actual serious romance. That is not a great look. It says the only interest MHA has in romance is for the sex.

Now, I don't know that this reflects Horikoshi's actual feelings or psychology. Maybe this is an unfortunate mix of a juvenile sense of humor with a cynical ploy to avoid ticking off any shippers. But, thanks to the Death Of The Author, the overall message of MHA is that romantic love is equally powerful but less fulfilling than molesting your female classmates. Remember, Kaminari may have found his motivation to help take down some villains thanks to his love for Jiro, but Mineta found the strength and strategy to ace his practical exam thanks to his horny obsession with Midnight.

So the end result is that MHA is decidedly icky about this, and while it's a great superhero story and shonen, IMO, I couldn't recommend it to anyone without a major warning about this aspect of it.

[deafeninggardenerpanda]

franflam (they are not sisters)

ahahahahaHAHA this is exactly what i was expecting people to send in when i said "controversial ships". no one is ready for one of my signature franflam tangents

under the cut:

you know the last time i did this ship bingo thing someone asked me about franflam too and i just flat out refused to respond because i didnt want to touch the discourse with a ten foot pole. either me putting my opinions here will get me cancelled or it will summon some people hopefully sane about this discourse. i love gambling

to preface, my honest opinions on the matter are that whatever the hell those two got going on in canon is queerbaiting. i say this as someone who bought star allies on a whim at gamestop as their very first kirb game like two years after it released, not even knowing kirby still made games at that time, and thus played the game with zero biases towards anything but yeah those two were written with a weird attachment to each other and it would be stupid to outright deny that. do i think franflam is canon though?: absolutely not and also i hate everyone who claims that with a passion. you could make a claim with a reasonable amount of evidence for either side of the argument and the fact that its even remotely possible both could be true at once, along with kumazaki himself either refusing to elaborate or confirm, or giving even More support to Either side is absolute bullshit and any sort of grey area here is totally his and the writers faults so hey can we all stop arguing about what the "correct" answer is when there literally isnt really one

anyways with that out of the way, heres all of the reasons i hate franflam without mentioning "potential incest" as a concern even once

their dynamic in canon is stereotypical angry black woman is overprotective of stereotypical dainty elegant white woman. hate that. gives me bad vibes. the whole "to show one character is in love with the other, they talk about their love interest nonstop every half second" trope is absolutely HANDS DOWN my absolute least favorite romance trope EVER. it drives me absolutely insane. thats the #1 way to get me to hate both of the characters and their relationship the fastest. holy shit shut up and focus on the story and whats happening around you instead of shoehorning mention of the other person into your words nonstop. hate that. i also hate the "person a is overprotective of their love interest" trope too, esp when it extends into jealously of the other person hanging out with others (sparkling pupupu world does this, for example). feels gross. can feel infantizing. if people see that as romantic good for you but i can not see it ever. its overly possessive. i think having a trio of mages and having two of them being separated and off fucking around on their own all the time as their "happy ending" is bad writing, especially when it comes to zans character being so heavily affected by her isolation from others and how hyness treated her AND YOU JUST GO AND SEPERATE THEM INTO FRAN+FLAM AND ZAN+HYNESS ALL THE TIME FOR SOME REASON HELLO. JUST MAKE ONE MAGE CHARACTER IN THAT CASE IF TWO OF THE TRIO HAVE NO DEVELOPMENT OR PURPOSE OTHER THAN TO FUCK OFF BY THEMSELVES. and then people who ship franflam also often end up shipping hynzan cause of that EWWWWWW GROSSSSSSS. also fran+flam being more close because the jambacult is a broken family that needs to heal Or them being more close because flam is an overprotective older sibling are INFINITELY more interesting to me as concepts than: "fran+flam are closer to each other and not zan because theyre dating and thus inherently dont care about zan as much because platonic relationships are always secondary to romantic". hate that. and the fandom. oh my God as people might be able to tell by all of the arrows on the bingo sheet i have fucking FEELINGS about this this needs a whole new paragraph

okay so. so 😍. i have this thing i call "red flag ships" where the ships are fine as a concept on paper but for some reason the shippers are just absolutely Rancid and that throws me off from liking the ship in its entirely and i get really sussed out by anyone who ships it. franflam is a red flag ship. i think the shippers have gotten so used to being yelled at by people who think theyre siblings that theyve pavlov'd themselves into being insanely hostile and aggressive to anyone who doesn't ship them. at least thats what i can tell from anyone whos Open and remotely loud about shipping them. istg i am not joking in the slightest when i say 95% of my interactions with people who Happen to be big or even decently into shipping franflam have been godawful. the convos dont even have to be around franflam i just think the ship inherently attracts awful people because its only aggressive toxic people who arent scared about shipping it openly. is that generalizing?: Yeah but thats just my personal experience. i have never met someone loud about liking franflam or who makes content for it that wasnt an awful asshole or yikes person in some way

that said, people who really like the ship but are quiet or lowkey about it usually end up being super chill and cool. its just the goddamn Fandom i have an issue with really. so anyone whos normal about it i am so sorry for you lmao

in a somewhat unrelated manner, i used to be somewhat close with someone who had franflam as their ultimate otp and God they fucking sucked. apart from redirecting every convo ever to be about franflam, they were also insanely nasty to anyone who even remotely saw them as siblings because they inherently saw it as an attack against franflam, so theyd always be making comments like "can you believe anyones stupid enough to see them as siblings" and "kinda misogynistic and lesbiophobic that metadede and marxolor are more popular than franflam when franflam is so blatantly canon" and yadayadayada they would say that shit completely unironically even right in front of me when they knew i hc'd them as siblings. i could complain up enough of a storm about that person and all of the insane things they said and did to fill up another 10 paragraphs but in general they were awful and really awful to me and multiple friends and you know what. i fucking hate the ship because of that too. sue me i cant stand seeing it around and i get grossed out by it.

on another note if i see anyone trying to push franflam as canon i will kick your ass. it might seem like im complaining about a problem that doesnt exist since tumblr is very anti-franflam, but on other sites its the opposite and if i had a nickel for every stupid "franflam is definitely canon and the only canon option and here's why" argument ive ever heard and could Easily debunk i could buy a fucking mansion. how to tell franflam shipppers its Okay if their ship isnt canon challenge: impossible (generalizing ofc, this whole rant is generalizing. take with a grain of salt. man i hate franflam)

[homophyte]

okay im going to be vulnerable and admit though ive owned house of leaves for a few months i was spurred to start reading it the other day after watching that video on myhouse.wad . no one make fun of me. that being said.

im not necessarily going though it super in depth and more just trying to unravel some stuff for funsies with some various help from old forums and what strikes me as sometimes glaringly missing from discussions on the book is the way it relates to women. like the fact that the house itself is treated as though it has a female identity will get talked about but theres not rlly discussions about the ramifications of that--how will and holloways posturing--named as explicitly about 'male dominance'--is essentially a fight over who gets to get the girl. wills early venture into the house is literally likened to karen kissing wax, like theyre BOTH infidelities, and thats not nearly the first time karen herself treats the situation like the house is her romantic rival or at least rival for wills attention (im not far enough in to have too solid a grasp on the implications of the name delial--but lets just say i have a suspicion?).

anyway whats maybe even more interesting than that is the way its kinda ALL about gender--its men who keep entering the house desperate to know what its about, its men driven to write about it and uncover its secret knowledge, and it drives them fucking crazy. like...you can read that--VERY EASILY--as men 'discovering' the ""hidden"" interiority of women, like, the very idea that women are complex people with their own ideas and emotions and inner worlds. the fact that the house has a secret inside is huge fucking news and just about every man in the novel reacts to it as such, but the reactions from women are like...not that. idk im not done with it by any means but the similarity between the conversations between karen & wax at the end ch VII and johnny & thumper at the end of VIII really apparent. when thumper is listening to johnny, seeking to understand him, being really invested and interested and not reacting with annoyance or disdain or boredom like he expects, it genuinely really knocks him out to the point he nearly cries--and then he bottles it up, writes it off, even when she echoes karens exact words flirting with wax he doesnt register it.

the text displays a consciousness around gendered expectations here, particularly bc thumper is a sex worker, that she cant be expected to intellectually engage w it, but she can and does...and then johnny doenst know what to DO about it, how to engage w a real moment of understanding between the sexes or whatever so he very consciously falls back on gender expectations for men and refuses to feel that connection, severing the tie he inadvertently built w her and consigning the moment to unknowable blackness. the void is invented by people determined to treat it as foreign--which often means treating it as hostile (holloways gun, johnnys suspicions when thumper didnt call him back).

that she ends with the comment 'you just need to get out of the house' is like...almost laughably on the nose especially w the way chauvanist culture has proliferated on the internet. like in the book too, dont get me wrong, its just so startlingly accurate to whats going on it seems like she really must UNDERSTAND in a way johnny fails to capture in his narration but still comes through due to her being kinda fucking great--sorry i REALLY like thumper in this actually she may be my favorite. its sort of difficult for me to look at the line and divorce it in my head from the phenomenon of the incel--read a certain way, you have johnny ranting and raving about how he just cant ever figure out what the collective 'woman' is thinking and all this time hes spent driving himself crazy about it, and thumper listening and understanding and very sympathetically and honestly saying 'that wouldnt be a big deal if you interacted w women instead of holing up inside trying to theorize about it.'

i dont necessarily think its a mistake that johnny is the kind of person he is, a partying womanizer or whatever, bc sex becomes his only interaction w women (his failure to talk abt the book w kyrie in favor or fucking her) just as entering the house becomes wills only interaction w it (or at least he rages when he cant have that interaction, he values it above others). the book is pretty clear about both of these acting as forms of penetration. as johnny gets more invested in the text he interacts more and more w the women zampano used as interpreters and comes more and more into contact w women and less and less able to deny their interiority.

the reaction from men that women are people is simple and plain disbelief, followed by disconnected, invasive, rigorous study, study that is likened to war, to surgery, to expedition--anything but understanding. its kind of baffling idk maybe im just not looking in the right place to see people talking about it but this sorta feels like...the point. hell even earlier in ch VII on page 91 you get will and holloway excitedly talking about calling the press about their huge discovery that no one will believe...and then just, karen, living her life, treated like an enigma. i literally have this written in my notes as "men discover women have internality; their wives decline to comment"

[goremet-chef]

i love polyamory 🗣‼ life changing for real like. IDK i think a lot of my disconnect to things directly comes from autism so to ik to a lot of people they CANNOT imagine such a thing but its pretty easy for me? like its just a bigger relationship its great, i work better in groups anyways thats why like all of my self inserts are inserted into polyam relationships. if its not virginia and kelvin, its link and sidon, papyrus and mettaton LIKE. SHIT LIKE THAT its just second nature for me.

(didnt mean to ramble so hard but welcome back to dominics yapping club today we're going to be yapping about my connection with romantic vs platonic love because its my tumblr and im here to YAP)

i guess that disconnect honestly. i STILL really have no idea if im actually aromantic or not. like i do a lot of yearning but am i REALLY yearning? i cant read myself so i have no idea like genuinely it is a FULL mystery who knows!!!! i think maybe like. okay it falls on bpd and how that affected my relationships, when i think back to it i can tell everyone ive ever been in relationship with, they were my FP so maybe i did love them? but i know i was also obsessed like.... listen looking back on younger me clueless to what bpd even was, having a mental breakdown in middleschool cuz yr online girlfriend made matching icons with HER AND HER FRIENDS FURSONAS..... like genuinely i was SO CRUSHED i thought it was over and done and i was like what about all that we had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO DRAMATIC OKAY... i dont blame younger me cuz he couldnt have known but like... the signs have always been there KSFS im a lot more. managed now, at least i try my best to be and from what i can tell in my 'recent' relationship adventures, one of them i was ONLY obsessed with for a little while cuz he gave me attention even tho he sucked a little and then the obsession like.. faded. it was over and i said goodbye and that was that (which. IK IT SOUNDS AWFUL but it was one of those sexual interest things and outside of that attention, he was very manipulative and honestly a little rude so. i did the right thing idk why i keep losing the relationship lottery)

i guess i just get nervous about that happening again, but like. im slowly realizing i can be obsessed with someone yes, but i can also love them. i think i spent a while there like.. discrediting any of the love i felt for anyone because it was accompanied with obsession, but thats not true!! i did love them, i loved her and i loved him and it all like. idk its a lie, ive been lying to myself and saying im only capable of brutal obsession when its not true, i can love too. i love all the time!!!!! i love my pets i love my friends like. im a lover!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is honestly the first time im really realizing that tbh but. its the truth even if theres a lot of bitterness and anger and pain inside of me, there is also love

i think my problem is i just dont understand romantic relationship? like on an autism level cuz to me like. whats the difference between a partner and a friend? LIKE GENUINELY cuz im about as affectionate with a friend as how i should be with a partner SO WHERES THE LINE? to me there just is no line like idk i really cant see it! i think if yr dating someone, they SHOULD be yr friend because what................. like how could you get with someone whos not yr friend already yknow what i mean where did you find that guy!!!! and where has he BEEEN put him back bro.....

and even then i think i hear a lot of people describe their relationships as like 'dating their best friend' yes im sure but that just makes it murkier like. i think that romance isnt real guys i think its made up and its just a word, theres this like. this elevation of romantic love in comparison to platonic love and i do not understand why because its the same thing for me? i love my friends just as hard as id love a partner because thats what they DESERVE, so like idk i think in my head i dont see it either way its just love? the lines are too blurry for me to process so i just disregard them completely, somethin like that.

interesting to think about but it. like no one else feels that way so its very. if i did have a partner, could i give them what they need? i could love them til the very end, but like. what do they want from me............... like is there some unspoken rules that i need to have spoken to me or something, is it wrong for me to love my friends like that? is it wrong for me to love my partner like that? like i genuinely cant tell. i know people say ohh when you fall in love its this connection youve never had before its so special and new and different from yr other relationships and to that??? you must just not have very close friends!!! id do anything for my friends id lay my life down for them id eat them out id DO ORGANIZED CRIME AND BECOME A MAFIA BOSS i let them PEER PRESSURE ME INTO DRUGS AND ALCOHOL (lie), id go out on FRIEND DATES BASICALLY its so cute we all go out together and just hang around and shop and eat together like i love it and i would sit in their beds and just. be quiet because we dont need to be talking !!!!!!!!!!! ill sleep with them ill let them touch me even which says a lot cuz i REALLY dont like to be touched!!!!!! its love so deep it makes my brain fuzzy like im giggling right now teehee i love all my friends so much i give every single one of them a little kiss

my POINT IS i jsut dont see the need for like. the labels i guess? because to me there is no difference between romantic and platonic love, its all just LOVE i think thats whats made me feel so. STRANGE all the time, everyone always describes sparks and shit and i just dont understand cuz i spark with everyone i love, i wouldnt love them if i didnt!!!!!! grining

so am i aromantic? i do not know because i dont believe in romantic love/???? like. i dont think its that im lacking romantic attraction i think its just that romantic attraction and platonic attraction are the same thing for me basically like its just RAW LOVE AND ADORATION and i can extend that to anyone

OKAY i know this is so long this is literally me just. im like self mediating myself rn okay im HELPING MYSELF UNDERSTAND ME BETTER cuz i really have no idea whats going on at all

[janghoefett]

I don't think it was, because she was rude as hell the whole episode, dismissive, and din barely even agnowledged her beyond giving his gratitude and paying respect when she talked about her father. I didnt get romance at all i got din recognizes bo katan is a useful companion for this kind of quest but does not care to engage with her as a person.

Like you could read his interactions with Boba Fett as romantic more then her. Those two despite vastly different views on being Mandalorian had full trust and respect for one another and clearly enjoyed the others company.

Besides painting her as a romantic interest is a mistake because even IF she gets a redemption arc it doesn't take away that she as a person just goes against so much of who Din as a person stands for. That and the extended universe fans know her backstory and trying to excuse it for romance would be an insane misstep by the writiers.

This is reassuring that you didn’t think it was supposed to be interpreted that way! Because I also don’t want it haha. It really was just that one scene talking about her father and then her turning to say “what are you looking at?” to the baby that made me clutch my pearls.

I really appreciate this show having a male lead not pursuing romance (contrary to what I write lol), especially since he’s also just being a single dad, which makes it cooler somehow. I want it to stay that way. I’m wondering if they feel like they have to keep sprinkling in “vibes” for a certain sect of viewers, because I also got a weird feeling when he met Ahsoka and she was like “there’s a first time for everything 😏”

Anyways, yes, that would be a terrible pairing considering Din is such a considerate and respectful person. I go a little crazy any time I hear Bo-Karan described as “a strong female character” because you👏don’t👏have👏to👏be👏a👏bitch👏to👏be👏a👏strong👏female

———

[mouseratz]

venom: the mace.....well. I WAS happy to see beck & the undergrounders again, except this particular iteration feels any characterization from "the madness" was entirely forgotten. like the characters are just written very weirdly and it doesn't jive with the other series At All to me, even though the ground base of the plot sounds fun. I love the concept of exploring how Eddie & venom's peculiar set of morals interact with what actually protecting the people of the underground means; except this particular iteration is both somewhat incomprehensible and joyless.

the conflict of this version of venom is that they want to help people, but they're both stupid and reckless, and don't actually want to sit down and think about what the ramifications of any given action are. this makes sense as beck's frustration with them, but I think the whole romantic angle kind of....ruins it, because now the comic is more concerned with showing Eddie as a Viable Love Interest instead of dealing with any of this; her criticizing him has to be framed as further romantic rejection, instead of a request for self awareness, for less obliviousness...(which could still be viewed as a kind of rejection! but it doesn't feel genuine because of the following point)

and Eddie can't be stupid; he has to actually be Cool and Masculine (so Beck will think he's sexy) instead of the self aware writing we had in lp where it's clear that both Eddie and venom have misguided senses of self and the story pokes fun at it. It knows both the writer and audience know that venom and Eddie are woefully off-track, but we want to see where they go anyway. Mace wants you to see them as not just sympathetic, but cool in that dark, edgy way. which is exactly why I liked the first venom story: it didnt try that.

they're oblivious to the destruction they cause, but utterly gleeful while doing so; they do all of this wholly sincerely. the story may poke at irony, but venom and Eddie do not. & As I've learned with superheroes and all related stories, that is ALWAYS at conflict with coolness. being cool AND sincere is apparently an impossible feat for any writer, and they will always choose having their main dude "seeming cool" over having consistent characterization. (I would also say this sincerity is why venom is not a full villain and they even get to live in the underground in lp at all. because they sincerely believe they're doing good, even with massive destruction and death in their wake. so to have it weirdly down-played, to have them just kind of be a Solemn Brooding Hero-Type With A Genuine Miscommunication......is very, very strange.)

anyway. so. didn't love it. it was bad

[aroace-poly-show]

follow up to my last oc rant: im gonna cover weiss and jex here since im brain rotting about them again sigh

also i tried my best with the sort of worldbuilding dont come for me if its not great this was for fun

jex’s illness specifically was inspired by this fictional disease thing i saw on pinterest and im so sad bc i didnt save it so i cant link it FUCK anyway specifically it was heavily inspired by the ink cough one. essentially jex’s body pretty much starts to slowly fail on them. throughout the life of one affected by this, they’ll slowly become weaker and weaker, getting sick much more easily (and those sicknesses tend to affect them much worse), having more and more violent coughing fits, being unable to heal very quickly/properly/more prone to infections, and blood from any injuries gets darker overtime, eventually becoming black. a lot of people often become eventually paralyzed. nearly everyone who has it has their expected lifespan cut incredibly short. those rare people that live longer spend their last days pretty much suffering. (no one really knows what causes it, theres rumors that it was a curse from an old dead god, placed upon the world in their final breath.. 👀 hehe)

stress tends to trigger jex’s cough but its not ink its like blackened blood. while they do tend to cough occasionally just in general, stressful situations will trigger a really really bad coughing fit, its worse depending how distressing it is to jex.

oh, and i forgot to mention!! weiss also has a sort of condition!! basically whenever they have an injury that draws blood, flowers will bloom from them. these flowers often help the wound to heal faster than if they weren’t there!! weiss was always fascinated by this, and (!!!possible tw: sh!!!) !!!sometimes would get hurt on purpose to draw blood and see the flowers bloom. its pretty cool having basically blood flowers that help you heal faster...until its like an internal injury then theyre an absolutely fucking pain in the ass to deal with.

so, weiss and jex were childhood best friends. they’ve been best friends foreverrr (and now romantic partners <3) since the one time jex fell out of a tree like a foot away from where weiss was messing with mechanical stuff. how fun!! jex had pretty much hopped out the window of their house after their caretaker left their room for like 2 seconds to grab their tea (which they absolutely fucking despise). before weiss can even say anything jex is just like “OOOOO WHATS THAT OMG” and just. fucking grabs the lil mechanical thing weiss was messing with.

weiss got pissed off at first bc “hey who are you why are you touching my stuff??” but then was overjoyed at the opportunity to infodump about her machines and stuff. boom now theyre besties. weiss used to help jex sneak out all the time. jex absolutely loved weiss for this, she was helping them live their childhood and god they’d do anything for her already.

weiss learned why jex had to stay inside all the time but it never really hit her until she actually witnessed one of their coughing fits. jex’s parents flipped the fuck out and weiss saw the amount of panic from them. jex had always played it off as it not being a big deal but seeing them struggle to just fucking breathe really shook weiss. the next time weiss saw them she made a promise that she’d find a way to help her, no matter what.

jex just kind of went along with that promise not thinking it was gonna be a serious thing, but weiss took that promise very seriously. she started focusing less on her interest in mechanical things and focused entirely on studying to help jex out. unfortunately…it resulted in them starting to drifting apart. jex was kept at home more especially since there wasn’t anyone to help them sneak out. eventually weiss hears about this group working towards learning more about their world, pretty much just scientists. she hears about one of their goals to help heal those illness that keep taking lives and she immediately fucking joins. goddamn shes excited!!! she can finally help her best friends!!! if only she read the fine print…sigh

so the group she joins, fucking sucks. very unethical experiments and projects but uh oh!! it seems theyre working with the shitty corrupt people that have wayyy too much power for anyone to do anything major about. so uh oh!!! no one’s coming to sue their asses!!! how sad for these (non)human lab rats :(

weiss had no idea about it at the beginning until shes offered a higher position in an important project, and she takes it bc she was told theyre working on the exact illness that jex has!! so of course shes gonna take that opportunity!! but unfortunately shes gonna be even busier, and jex wasnt happy about it. they already barely get to se weiss, and now they might not see them at all? theyre kind of hurt, and feel like shes treating them the same as their parents did. not letting them live the life they do have, just focusing on trying to extend it. it results in an argument between them, with weiss storming out. weiss didnt really get it, why would jex be upset??? shes trying to save them??? the fuck is their problem??? but she brushes it off and goes to start her new project, yay...

shes totally having a great time until she finds out just how far theyre willing to go “for research” (theyre really just pretentious fucking assholes who are basically torturing people and using “but science!!!” as an excuse). girl witnesses them recruiting fucking CHILDREN for these experiments and nopes the fuck out. and steals a child in the process. oopsies!! (she returned that kid to their parents and told them to get the fuck outta here) unfortunately!! they dont take kindly to people who know too much leaving their little group!! especially ones that also steal their lab rats!! uh oh!!

so weiss goes to see jex in the middle of the night, scares the everloving shit out of them, scares them EVEN MORE after she explains her situation, and they make up really quick and go on the run together!! how sweet!! (they make up properly later, weiss said sorry like a million times <3)

nowadays they travel around under new identities (their current names are the new identities btw i just refer to them in the past with the same name for simplicity [*cough* i didnt come up with previous names.. *cough*]). they visit bars and jex often does little perfomances and magic tricks there! if anyone's up to it, jex'll have a little spar with someone as well. they get by asking for tips for their performances. they often move from town to town, but they're fairly happy together <3 weiss is still looking around for any leads on possible solutions to jex's condition though, its how she got to know dorian. they crossed paths once and dorian was more than happy to help with her goal!! jex is here mostly to just enjoy themselves with their beloved. <3

notes:

jex fucking LOVES spicy food. doesn't matter how spicy it is, doesn't care how much they always end up coughing afterward, they will eat any kind of spicy food they'll see at any restaurant. (weiss has to beg them not to eat too much otherwise they'll be coughing for hours)

i think about them alot to "if i could ride a bike" - park bird/chevy , specifically in a modern setting. i love them dearly

i ended up writing...way more.. than i thought i had oh my god?? pls i originally did them first bc i thought they had a lot less but..jesus fucking christ man;;

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Ludwig II — Glanz und Ende eines Königs (1955) [Ludwig II — Lustre and End of a King]

Honestly, this might be my favorite so far. Which I guess isnt great because while Elisabeth does play a fairly large role, this is hardly what I would call a Sissi-film. If you're wondering why this film was even on my list, when I was looking for all the media I was going to watch, I started on wikipedia which listed this film and when I briefly skimmed the summary, I determined that it had enough Elisabeth in it to make the cut. There are a few other pieces of media like Der Engel mit der Posaune (1948) where I skimmed the summary and determined there wasnt enough of either her or Rudolf in it, its kinda arbitrary if Im being honest, but yeah. hope you enjoyed this little look behind the curtain.

Anyway, I liked this movie a lot and it didnt even have a One Big Issue like Mayerling (1936) did. I will admit, a big part of it is that it was just very refreshing seeing a movie about a different kind of mentally ill man (who also didnt have a lot going on in the romance department, thank god) after all these Rudolf-movies, but I promise that's not the only reason I like it so much

It's kind of hard to give a plot summary because this film is essentially just a series of vignettes from when Ludwig was 25 (?) up to his death, but despite having no real overarching 'plot' like Elisabeth von Österreich (1931), it doesnt suffer from any of the same issues, like the vignettes feeling disconnected and random, because it's actually a really good character study. But anyway, in lieu of writing a summary, Im just gonna describe my four favorite moments:

When Bavaria is set to go to war, his ministers want him to give a speech to his soldiers and he refuses by giving this sortof mock-speech where he's like "you're going to war where you will kill your brothers who are now your enemies and be killed by your enemies that were once your brothers. to those of you who will be killed, may your death be quick at least", its a lot longer than that and Im doing a bad job paraphrasing it but hes basically conveying that if he's forced to give a speech to the soldiers that he didnt want to send off to war in the first place, he'll say a bunch of shit that will crush their morale, so the ministers leave him alone. I think this scene does a good job showing the audience some of Ludwig's depth and that he's not just a romantic, and the way O. W. Fischer delivered that whole monologue was really great too

After getting engaged to Sophie, he takes her to see an opera but when they actually get there and sit down in their box, she sees that the opera house is completely empty save for the musicians. Ludwig set it up like this so he could show her the loneliness he feels all the time and the disconnect from other people and what she would have to endure if she married him, she finds it absolutely horrible and spoiler alert, but they break off the engagement and dont talk to each other for the rest of the film after this. I find this scene very interesting and I can just imagine how mortifying it would be to be completely alone in this giant opera building, but I feel like they couldve done a better job conveying what Ludwig and Sophie feel through the filmmaking

After the first major timeskip of the film, Elisabeth visits Ludwig (this is during that time period where she traveled around a lot and was difficult to get a hold of) and they just talk for a bit, I find it difficult to summarize because theyre not really talking about one specific thing that you can just name, but I think it gives her and their relationship a lot of depth, and its the scene that made me really like Ruth Leuwerik as Elisabeth, I wasnt sure if I would like her at the start and while she's not my favorite, I thought she was good

Ludwig is supposed to greet the crown prince of Prussia whos arriving in Bavaria but he refuses, then his younger brother Otto comes in to try and comvince him as well and he starts by telling him about what it felt like to be there as this new country "Germany" was founded, but he ends up having what appears to be a ptsd-flashback from the loud music being played outside and Ludwig tries to comfort him but he ends up collapsing. I cannot stop thinking about this scene, its so heart-wrenching and upsetting and O. W. Fischer and Klaus Kinski's performances are both absolutely phenomenal. And then Ludwig calls over a psychiatrist/doctor to check on him, but all of his ministers are bothering him trying to get him to greet the crown prince, and throughout all of this theres still this cheerful/triumphant music blaring outside, I think it does such a good conveying the disconnect between Ludwig as a person and his duties and what's being expected of him

Also, and this isnt just one scene the way the other things I mentioned are so I didnt want to put it in the list above, but theres this short plotline at the start of the film where Ludwig basically picks composer Richard Wagner out of poverty and showers him with a bunch of money because he admires him so much, and I just wanted to say that theres such a strong homoerotic tension between those two. Like, the scene where they meet in person for the first time is so unbelievably intense, its this long moment of silence that gets broken by Richard and then Ludwig tells him something so incredibly poetic and beautiful, I dont remember what exactly it was but it made my jaw drop a little, and then he kisses him on the cheek ?? and yes, men kissing each other on the cheek was normal at the time, Ludwig even kissed Franz Joseph earlier in the film, but I swear its different when he kisses Richard, its so intimate and full of love and the music swells and everything, I was not expecting that at all

I mean, to be fair, most of the scenes where he interacts positively with someone else are full of a kind of tension-filled love, but still

Anyway, Ive already talked about how great O. W. Fischer was as Ludwig, but I just really need to highlight it again; he was so charismatic towards the beginning, but I also think he did a wonderful job portraying Ludwig's nuances and him slowly unraveling over the course of the film. Also, he reminds me of the actor who played Freder in Metropolis (1927), especially for that beginning section where he doesnt have facial hair yet, they both have this babygirlishness that I really love in a man. Now, unfortunately I do think he loses that as the film goes on, but thats mainly because I dont like facial hair, Im sure plenty of you guys can still appreciate his babygirlishness during the later sections as well

Other than that, I thought the sets looked really beautiful and apparently they did film a lot of the scenes on-location which is really cool. However, I cant talk about the sets without talking about this one scene where Ludwig and Elisabeth talk in the mirror hall in Neuschwanstein because it looks so bad. I'm 99.9% sure they used an old-timey greenscreen-thing for it (I forgot the actual name but I think it was either whitescreen or lightscreen), presumably because actually filming in a big room full of mirrors without having the cameras show would have been really hard, but god. They also used it for an earlier scene where Ludwig and Elisabeth went horseriding together, and it looks comically bad as well

So yeah, this is a very good film, it makes me excited for the other Ludwig/Elisabeth film I have on my list, and it genuinely makes me want to seek out more films about Ludwig II (if there are any more lol) but Im kinda busy rn so that'll have to wait.

Now for the two small things I couldnt fit into the rest of the post:

I found the austrian dialects everyone had very charming, which technically applies to every austrian talkie Ive seen so far and not just this one, but Ive never mentioned it so I figured I might as well do it now

I couldnt help but notice a lot of the male character's wonderful silhouettes and I have but one thing to say: bring back slut waists for guys