#because his love for Peg is ESSENTIAL to his character

[youngpettyqueen]

Genuine question alert ! Where you talking about specific characters in your 'bastardize the female character to male the male character gay' post?

yes! I could cite a ton of different instances but that post specifically is about BJ and Peg Hunnicutt, who are very in love and have a healthy relationship and a daughter, but Peg is often shoved aside or otherwise bastardized/villainized to push Hunnihawk as a ship because people really dont want to acknowledge that BJ is married and in love

[emperorcartagia]

where is his emmy

[pruneunfair]

Manhwas except the villainess is the protagonist part 2: The former FL

Groundhog Duchess. Edith

By the time the Edith we know and love shows up, Rhyse has already been suffering from the groundhog effect 12 times now. She's already on guard about Edith and refuses to trust her thinking that she'll just be the same cruel woman out to get her. Meanwhile Edith is confused on why the FL of the novel is acting so distant when she's described as being approachable. When they finally have to meet face-to-face, Edith starts acting unusually nice and though her guard is still up, Rhyse slowly starts to trust her again until the author starts twisting the narrative forcing Edith and Rhyse in dangerous situations with the intention of getting rid of Edith. Protecting her new friend from this invisible force becomes another motivation for Rhyse to escape the authors clutches.

The flowers from another world: Robelia

At first Robelia will be presumed as the antagonist. She humiliates Aisha as revenge for the OG empress and at first glance, you'll think that she must be using some sort of magic to force everyone to bend to her will but it's quickly acknowledged that she also doesn't know why everyone loves her all of a sudden but wants out of it because she finds it a hinderance to her goal of getting Alexandros to divorce her. Humiliating Aisha any further would be kind of stupid since she's the only one willing to help Robelia get divorced and live a comfortable life so despite their reluctance, the two agree to work together.

two birds on a wire: Layla Llewellyn

Similarly to Robelia, it will be assumed that Layla is another typical white lotus who just wants power through being Matthiases lover. During the first act Layla won't actually do or say anything too bad but the other characters will jump the gun that she's suspicious and that Claudine should watch out for her, thereby testing the critical thinking skills of the reader. Layla's situation is similar to the og cry or better yet beg. She is trapped in a abusive relationship with Matthias for her uncles sake but is so used to being hurt in the past that Layla twists her own reality into believing that Matthias does love her since even after the way he treats her, he still makes her feel good by giving her special privileges or even just by complimenting her. Claudine will learn that Layla is not a two faced femme fatale looking to steal her man but a poor girl trapped in an abusive relationship that requires her to gaslight herself just so she doesn't go insane and her new goal will be to not only escape Matthias herself and learn her own worth but also to get Layla out of there before anything worse can happen to her.

The human saintess: Hestia

Hestia is a minor antagonist in this version. She relentlessly mocks Diana for her bad decisions and mistakes. She's constantly looking to get a rise out of Diana even through childish means and proceeds to act like she did nothing wrong when Diana eventually loses it, ironically making her a traditional white lotus woman. Hestia first believes she can do no wrong since she has a morality that's based on Cael's happiness and sees Diana neglecting him and his suicide as actions that are worthy of her being taken down a peg. This doesn't mean Hestia stays like this forever, Cael tells her to knock it off and that harassing his ex over and over is only gonna make it worse and Diana admits to Hestia that she's not wrong, she did make really bad decisions that affected the lives around her but that instead of actually helping said people herself, Hestia would rather continously blame everything on one woman. Essentially this gives Hestia a wakeup call and she starts to focus more on herself and Cael rather then Diana and becomes more mature then she was yesterday.

into the dark forever: Aisha de Elmire

Its mostly the same as the original ITLOA but since this version takes place from Mariannes perspective there will be moments in flashbacks when Aisha/Alisa seems out of character because Marianne is so used to being treated horribly that the one time someone treats her with respect she sees it as a cruel form of teasing on their part. Even though Aisha hates Marianne she still pitties her and offers Marianne one last chance to be better even if it's somewhere like a monastery. Unfortunately Aisha can't get through to Marianne thus the title "into the dark forever."

project Leila: Penelope Eckart

Unlike the original story this Penelope is the OG villainess who initially was very cruel to Yvonne. They both hated eachother at first, in Yvonnes eyes Penelope was just the random girl that took her place after her family gave up on her and Penelope viewed Yvonne as the potential calamity that would have her sent back to poverty or even killed. Leila will use Yvonne's negative feelings of Penelope as another reason to let her fully take control of the body but despite all her negative views on the "fake" daughter, Yvonne never has the heart or bravery to allow that. The true antagonists of this version are the rest of the Eckart family and seeing how poorly they treat Penelope gets Yvonne to realize that her sister is far from the worst person in the manor. The two slowly start to get along and their main goal is to dismantle the cult of Leila once and for all and get rid of the evil spirit residing in Yvonne's body.

the concubines woes: Adelaide Kotrov

Basically the same as the OG story. Adelaide isn't a villian and despite how Diane treats her, she won't view her as a full blown enemy, she'll make it clear that doesn't mean she's going to let Diane do whatever she wants to her but regardless she won't make enemies with a fellow woman hurting because of the same man.

divorcing your husband: Jiwon Kang

Since this is a timeline where Sumin regressed instead of Jiwon, she was still unaware of her best friends true nature and intentions to get with her boyfriend. However Sumin hates Minhwan even more then Jiwon now and instead of actively looking to ruin Jiwons life, Sumin now only sees her as a simple sacrifice to get her revenge on Minhwan. She's still a bit of a pushover and tends to stay out of conflict when she can but when things do go sideways in Sumins plan, she discovers her boyfriend and best friend making out in the car and officially calls it off with both of them. Sumin did try to tell her that she should be grateful that she's willing to save Jiwon from her future murderer but all she gets in response is a disturbed and confused stare. The two stay enemies for the rest of the story but since Sumin is smarter now, she knows better then to harass the same girl who's getting clear attention from their boss so it doesn't esculate like it did in Marry my husband.

Golden cage: Navier Trovi

While Navier can be looked at as heartless for not caring about the slaves and not caring about Rashtas situation, they are all based on her childhoods values and she isn't actively malicious against Rashta, she just can't understand why Rashta is so desperate to never go back to slavery. This doesn't make her oblivious to slavery as a whole, but in Naviers perspective all slaves are criminals so Rashta probably did something that warranted it and her escaping was just gonna damn her further so Rashta should just to back to avoid further punishment for ever day she is illegally free. In general Navier is designed to be a tragic case of women not supporting women and being a bystander. She was encouraged to only have her and the nobles best interests in mind and it doesnt occur to her that maybe this one time, her ladies in waiting are wrong. When she grows older as a mom, she described ignoring what happened as one of her greatest regrets to Lari and encourages her to not ignore another woman suffering.

In black widow, Navier still isn't an antagonist actively out to destroy Krista but she is wary of her since the rest of the Zemensias have been out to kill her.

aim for the throne: Ariande de Mare

The reason Ariande is still enemies with Isabella in the first place in this version is that she still regressed. However Isabella isn't dumbed down in Aim for the throne and actually gives Ariande a hard time by rethinking her strategies and coming up with new schemes to tear her down, schemes that Ariande can't always predict since she only has her past life to help her out. At first Ariande will appear as a weak antagonist who struggles to combat Isabella but with every new scheme Ariande gets the hang of her adversary and progressively becomes more and more of a threat.

[grassbreads]

I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

[salemcantupdate]

Ok

Baldurs Gate shipping and who I am actively in love with

SO, currently romancing Gale because Astarion rejected me, full one said “I don’t wanna have sex with you, UGH, EW, imagine.” But Gale is so cute??? I don’t get whenever I see hate for him, especially cause we had astral projection sex which was absolutely fantastic. Wyll kissed me but I said “haha nah Gale” and I think I accidentally romanced Karlach??? I don’t know. Oh I also hugged the Guardian love him.

Now for shipping

SHADOWHEART AND LAE’ZEL IS SO FUCKING REAL TO ME OH MY GOD THEY GOTTA GET DOWN RIGHT NOW

They ARE rivals to lovers

Wyll and Karlach… they’re best friends. I’m sorry but all the women look like absolutely lesbians to me and I love that for them

But Wyll is so sweet and so cute and I do adore him, he’s so fun, but I built him so badly haha. Anyways, he is a WHORE, he flirts with EVERYONE, SLUT BOY, and he needs a happy ending. Don’t know with who though. And Karlach needs a short woman to peg.

Astarion is 100% asexual and I love him cause he’s just like me frfr which means he needs to be with me and only me. But also genuinely I think Astarion can only be happy with a redeemed Durge??? Like I think that’s the best path for him. Two monsters learning to be good together… GAH ITS SO CUTE. Either way, he’d need to be with someone who isn’t overly horny

Also once again I absolutely adore Gale. Gale is so good and so loving and he also absolutely loves body worship like he is hozier he was on his knees and worshipping his Goddess Mystra, loving her and now HE CHOOSES YOU IN HIS ROMANCE. HE BDKDCJKWHCISJDKWJD. I love him, so who should he be with? He’s more on the basic side overall, easy to get approval from, but also extremely romantic and loving, and autistic just like me frfr. So… actually maybe Wyll??? Wyll has some self worth issues especially after going all devil and Wyll is also a romantic? But ehhh… I dunno, it just doesn’t feel right.

Anyways, Halsin. I love the daddy bear man like YES he is absolutely fantastic and I love him so so so so much I want him carnally. But also I can’t really see him with most people haha. Maybe Gale though, imagine the astral projection scene but then Halsin is a bear, that’d be hilarious. But nah, I honestly like Halsin/Astarion/Reformed Durge Throuple. Essentially, finishing Astarion’s personal quest before initiation with Halsin will ensure that Astarion doesn’t get any self doubt. They are all on different parts of their journey for improvement, both Halsin and Astarion have severe issues with self doubt along with sexual trauma, and all of them have a “beast” inside. Durge with the Urge, Astarion being a vampire, and Halsin with his difficult-to-control wild shape. Plus Halsin to me is one of the most respectful and consent-focused characters, which I think would work well with what Astarion needs.

Ok so I wanna ship Karlach with some cute bard girl or something, someone just as fun and nice as she is. And you know what? Wyll and Gale is starting to grow on me. They’re both characters who try to “woo” Tav before doing anything, Gale with the Weave and Wyll with his dance.

Imagine, Gale teaching Wyll the secrets of the weave, likely Wyll has never interacted with it properly as his magic comes from a devil. This could help unlock Wyll and on some level separate him from Mizora. Oh wow, both these men have been manipulated and abused by extremely powerful non-humanoid women. They’re both self sacrificing gits who want to be the hero, both sacrificed much for power. I think it would start when Mizora first appears in camp, maybe. Gale would go to comfort Wyll over the transformation, maybe even compliment his horns. During the night of celebration Gale would see Wyll by the beach and offer to show him something magical, aka the Weave scene. They make some jokes and Wyll mentions the dancing, Gale prods, and Wyll says maybe another time.

GAH

I FEEL LIKE A FUCKING GENIUS

Alright, so, summary

Lae’zel and Shadowheart

Karlach and cute girl (if Alfira survived Durge I’d choose her but oh well)

Durge, Astarion, and Halsin

Gale and Wyll

EDIT: This post is no longer accurate to my views or feelings on the matter! I will write another one eventually since I actually know the characters a lot better. This was legit written before I even got to act 2 and I barely did anything in act 1

[entropyvoid]

HKVH Fic Recs List

I had such a stupid amount of tabs full of HKVH fics open that I was reluctant to close, that I decided to just bite the bullet and compile a list of fic recs. And I figured if I was going to do that, I may as well share them. Unorganized and in no particular order.

every good intention (is interpolation)

A month after Alhaitham has gone missing, Kaveh finds a journal when rumaging through his things. The journal is encrypted in an ancient script that few know, and the only reason Kaveh does,
is because Alhaitham had him learn it during their shared project in the Akademiya.

Below are the transcripts.

Alhaitham character study, angsty with a happy ending, might come for your kneecaps if you’ve got autism feels™

Flower Language, Sickly Sweet

It would not happen. Not ever. Not with the way they always fight, nor the way Haitham subtly knocks his ego down a peg, nor the way Haitham ignores his presence altogether when he doesn't feel like entertaining Kaveh’s whims. It’s not the actions of a man in love. Kaveh would know. He’s been in love for years.

He’d only just recently accepted it, but it is true, undeniably so, and a sick sort of dread had crept up his stomach ever since he figured it out. Not the fluttering butterflies of an innocent crush, but the weight of knowledge that can never be shared.

Boundaries. He reminds himself. Essential for a healthy bond.

Kaveh starts coughing up Padisarah petals just as his life starts turning around—of course this would happen, with his luck.

Hanahaki fic with a happy ending.

Spend A Little Too Much Time Together

Kaveh finds a young Rtawahist scholar breaking down in the corner of Lambad's, and makes the best mistake of his life: adopting her with Alhaitham.

Found family fluff with some funny moments.

truck, barter, and trade

People keep coming up to Kaveh to congratulate him. Kaveh doesn’t really know why, and he’s a little too scared to ask at this point, so he heads back home, content if not a little bemused.

He is, unfortunately, reminded of it the very next day, when the door slams open and Al-Haitham stalks in. “Mind telling me why everyone was congratulating me today?” he demands. “About your pregnancy?"

Or: Al-Haitham is, without a doubt, the most annoying person Kaveh knows. Maybe the world’s second-most annoying person can help Kaveh figure him out.

Another comedic and fluffy found family fic with Kaveh and Alhaitham accidentally adopting someone, but this time the child is Wanderer.

hemlock lovers

He pulls out his cards, and then Kaveh watches as Alhaitham pauses for a second, blinking quickly. Like trying to focus his eyesight. He had only had two glasses, hadn’t he? Surely Alhaitham wasn’t already feeling the alcohol. He was not a lightweight like Kaveh was.

A night in the Tavern goes awry, fast.

Sickfic, Alhaitham gets poisoned.

…and they were roommates

Kaveh is looking for his keys. Al Haitham is a brat. And Nahida? Well, Nahida knows her things. In words of General Mahamatra: being roommates always meant somehing more interesting.

Short and comedic.

Like This

Alhaitham wakes and recognizes not the maroon of his wine nor the crimson cover of tonight’s text, but the garnet of irises near enough to his own that he can clearly see the flicks of obsidian within them. This is the common room, he realizes. He has fallen asleep here while reading often enough for that thought to come easily. All others, unfortunately, ping uselessly against his consciousness like water droplets sliding over oiled skin. How can he think, in this situation? He has lifted a gaze blurred with sleep only to find Kaveh leaning over him — a hand braced somewhere on the back of the divan and a knee pressed into the cushion between Alhaitham’s thighs.

Or, in which Kaveh crosses the line between them and Alhaitham does not let him take it back.

fast as you can

“I returned to the tavern after I brought you home, found the man whose name you told me and punched him square in the face. Are you happy now?” Alhaitham leaned closer towards Kaveh. “Do you believe me?” There was a strange intensity to his eyes.
The unexpected honesty had Kaveh utterly confused. For a moment, he was quiet as he ran his fingers over his temples.
“I don't understand why you would do this for me. Is it to put me in even more debt? Don't I owe you enough already? Tighnari is convinced you did it for my sake.” He let out a dry laugh. “Unless you're like, secretly in love with me, there'd be no-” Kaveh's words, uttered without much thought, got stuck in his throat when for the shortest of moments, a conflicted expression ghosted over Alhaitham's face. Kaveh felt like the air was being pushed out of his lungs.
“W- what was that?!”

A Quiet Thing

Alhaitham cursed, clawing at the creature whose jaws were still firmly affixed around the delicate bones of his wing. He felt warm liquid rush down his hand as he pushed at the creature’s face, heart rate spiking as he realized it must be blood.

Then, a noise that would stick with him for the rest of his life.

Alhaitham obtains a grievous injury during an investigation, and learns to deal with the aftermath. Kaveh is there to help, but the road to recovery is not a smooth one.

Wingfic, injury/recovery and getting together, a bit on the longer side.

Scarlet Sands and Crimson Eyes

Inspired by the movies Hush (2016) and Revenge (2017)

During a mission out into the desert to round-up an extremist group being led by one of the former Sages, Alhaitham's headphones are destroyed. He decides to stay behind through the night to fix them, but gets ambushed by leftovers of the Eremites and dragged across the desert. He gets nearly assaulted, thrown off a cliff, impaled on a tree, stabbed, and shot, and all the while can't stop thinking about Kaveh. It must be because he didn't want to die while Kaveh was still living under his roof, right?

Deaf!Alhaitham fic, dude goes through it but it a badass. Pretty long but will have you on the edge of your seat the whole time.

Appeal to Stone, Ascend to the Skies

“So much for solidarity,” Alhaitham said.

“You’re not even on your own side, you harpy,” Kaveh grumbled in reply.

Alhaitham unexpectedly wakes up with wings, and must learn to come to terms with absurdity.

12 chapter wingfic, a bit of a character study for both of them (but mostly focusing on Alhaitham.)

Wine Red

A scene has been on replay in Al-Haitham's head for the past two weeks, so vivid that it only seemed like yesterday that it happened.

It began like this: Kaveh was absolutely hammered at the bar, and although Al-Haitham had reservations about bringing him home with him, the tavern owner begged him to take his roommate home. And so, Al-Haitham had an arm slung over his shoulder, supporting Kaveh as he stumbled like a newborn foal, quiet and dazed.

“Pretty.”

And with that one tiny, drunkenly made compliment from Kaveh, his daily routine was thrown into disarray.

OR: Al-Haitham has feelings, disregards them, but is forced to confront them anyways. How lovely it is to be in love with your roommate. Hurrah.

testing, testing

When Kaveh discovers that Alhaitham has been reading a book about human sexuality and kinks, he generously offers to assist Alhaitham with some sexual exploration. It’s a risky proposal, and one that could end very badly—thanks to their falling-out years ago, the two of them have trust issues galore.

But it turns out that Kaveh and Alhaitham are surprisingly good at trust and communication when it comes to sex…which raises some questions about the nature of their relationship, and where exactly this whole experiment is leading them.

“Look,” Kaveh says, “if you’re going to approach sexual pleasure like an experiment, most potential partners won’t take too kindly to the idea of you having sex with them for science. Therefore, to spare all the poor people you’d inevitably insult in your quest for data, I am willing to be that person.”

“How charitable of you,” Alhaitham says.

“And I assume that you’re somewhat comfortable with the idea of having sex with me,” Kaveh adds, “or else you wouldn’t have been so willing to have my fingers in your mouth just now.”

but what would you do if I went to touch you now?

Al Haitham directs half-lidded eyes at Kaveh, his wet hair sticking to his forehead, his sweater stretching over the planes of his torso as he raises his arms to lay his head on his hands. Kaveh finds the charcoal and resists the urgent need to tell Al Haitham to stay still so he can capture him like this, made up of shadows and comfort. “I suppose having a rope doing the work for me would be best for the mental and physical effort of it. I commend you for thinking of that.”

“Don’t flatter me now,” Kaveh half-heartedly protests, wincing slightly. It’s so odd when Al Haitham does that; as much as Kaveh complains about him being rude, there’s nothing more off-putting than Al Haitham’s backhanded idea of compliments. Finally pulling out the cotton rope, Kaveh sighs and makes eye contact with him, shaking the item in his hand. “You might hate this.”

“I might like it,” Al Haitham refutes, raising an eyebrow. Kaveh struggles to justify the little jolt from his heart at the idea.

-------------------------

In which Al Haitham (rather charitably) allows Kaveh to use him as a model for his art projects, Kaveh has an idea, and it all spirals from there.

The Dragon Rises in Wartime

The anonymous complaints confessions of a long-suffering Sumeru resident regarding his horrible roommate and his one-man war against said horrible roommate's purchase of the ugliest bed in all of Teyvat.

Although really, the most important question here probably is:

Why are you sleeping in your roommate's bed?

A really funny reddit-post style fic, with a little bit of explicit recordings on the side.

[itsashowtime]

Hiii!! So I saw your art of Yona Yona and he looks so fucking cool 😍😍😍 I'm desperately curious and noisy af so I hope it's okay if I ask a couple questions?

Like he's the one who made the fake vongola rings (love how you filled that plothole (?) btw that's awesome) so is he a jewellry maker? (is that even a word? I don't have to vocab for this, just blacksmith but for jewellery?)

Also you said he's a menace to society, so I assume he's chaotic? On scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being an angel that would do no wrong and 10 being "I've blown up a city block and I would do it again" what would you rate him chaos wise?

sorry for just randomly sliding into your inbox 😂 but I couldn't help myself 👉🏼👈🏼

Omg, thank you for taking interest in my skrunkly little man!

For context: I am the CEO of (moon) Bunny x (sun) Lion Oc x Canon ships and because Xanxus is out there with his Lion/Liger box weapon, I was like: "he needs a bunny boyfriend to knock him down a few hundred pegs"

Hence, Mr Yona Yona here. I thought it'd be cute to have a Y motif/name character for the X motif character too LOL.

I am rewatching KHR with two friends and when the fake Vongola rings got brought up, I was sat there wondering WHO THE FUCK could've made perfect replicas? I was already thinking of making an OC so I had the idea of filling that plot hole.

At the moment, Yona has the mist/cloud flames attribute. Regardless, he has the ability to essentially copy and paste any solid object with his mallet/hammer. (he can't copy/paste living things though like humans and animals) It just costs a LOT of energy depending on how intricate the object is.

Eg. Duplicating money isn't much of an issue , that's mostly how he gets by. But if he tried to duplicate something like the rings or the ten year bazooka, he'd be out for a few hours / or days.

I need to brush up on my KHR flame lore (looks at shimon arc's flames and ugly cries at my memory) but I am the rabbit/moon OC maker ever so I've been trying to cook up a Moon Flame for him to possess too. Maybe it's a branch of flame of night or something idk, I really need to study the flames again HAHA

As for being a menace- He 'TRIES' to be lowkey because the mafia crowd are after him to take advantage of his ability. Cause imagine being able to perfectly duplicate deadly weapons. Yikes. But he also hates the mafia so if he is cornered and he gets the chance, yeah, he'd cause problems ON PURPOSE and make things worse for them and himself out of sheer pettiness LOL

So I think on the scale it'd be like an 8. He'd blow up a city if it means he could make the mafia that are after him groan in despair.

ALSO I should add, his backstory is that: he was involved in the same experiment Mukuro, Ken and Chikusa were in and as a result, he ended up with this copy/paste ability. They were basically using him to mass produce possession bullets until one day he just copy/pasted the master keys of the lab and made a run for it.

He's been on the run since and has BEEF with Xanxus after the whole fake vongola ring incident. He's kinda on the hit list because he's potential danger anyways but he doesn't pass up the chance to mock the Varia w

SORRY FOR THIS DUMP , I hope it's coherent . . .

[puppypeter]

I know that the whole idol/super fan dynamic is like, a core component of what makes RoyJamie so delicious, but I CANNOT escape the hilarity potential of famous!Jamie/chronically offline!Roy.

Like, in this au, Roy wouldn't be a footballer (which is also intriguing to me because that's such a key facet of his character, so I'd be interested to hear from you what other careers Roy might have!!) and it is essential that he is also chronically offline, like near hermit levels of sheltered from pop-culture.

Roy would then obviously meet Jamie for some contrived fanfic reason (my running idea is that they meet maybe in a late season two/season three timeline when Jamie is doing his self-motivated 4am training. Jamie motivated for Zava reasons and Roy motivated to avoid crowds/the heat). Roy would have his wattpad 'im not like other girls' moment when Jamie approaches him, obviously assuming Roy will recognise him, which Roy does not.

Of course this leads to Jamie fixating on this grumpy old twat whose buttons Jamie can soo easily press and who seems to have no fucking clue who he is. Roy will become like, Jamie's yoga mums, especially because at this point in time Jamie would still be pretty infamous what with everything going on with his career, so I think having someone who doesn't have a preexisting idea of who he is would be extremely refreshing for Jamie.

This of course leads to a slow burn strangers to lovers situation with the obvious angst potential of a civilian/celebrity fic (paparazzi, privacy, 'oh our worlds are so different, how could this ever work', etc).

ALTERNATIVELY, Roy could actually know who Jamie Tartt is, but for whatever reason he finds him annoying and when they meet he just pretends not to know who he is just to knock him down a peg. This version of the au has the fun potential of the whole 'i know who you are' reveal, but I'm undecided on which direction it should go.

Anyways, thanks for letting me word dump in your inbox, I LOVE your blog and your RoyJamie posts!! 💕💕

i love people word dumping about royjamie in my inbox ❤💙

I also love the famous/non famous. There's not many AUs in this fandom as being a footballer is such a core part of who they are it is difficult to imagine otherwise but coming from other fandoms I have so many ideas (take capitan america/stucky having many AUs and many capitan america/modern bucky barnes too)

I love the idea of Roy not knowing who Jamie is at all. I do have a think for the non-famous person having the most random normal jobs ever like

working the till at the grocey store (I wrote a post once about them meeting at 6am when roy starts work and jamie is stopping for water cause I'd seen a Tesco guy that looked like roy from far away lol) (funnily i often picture step dad simon in this job and that's how him and georgie met and they've actually known each other since jamie was a baby but it took him many years to ask her out)

grocery delivery guy (quiet, peaceful, listens to audiobooks while driving)

park ranger (again can meet at 5am, kudos if jamie sneaks into richmond park and roy fucking hates him for it until he gives up and lets him do it)

classics like baker, coffee shop, bookshop, mechanic etc

I do love the grumpy roy thinking jamie is a pretentious early morning running twat whose colourful atrocious shoes are blinding him. Like he doesn't know Jamie has a legit reason to do all that aka his career.

And of course the angst that would come from stepping into Jamie's world. I did see a post not long ago about a Jamie that is more bashful around dating (and also more protective of his privacy as he was in canon with Keeley). But also would be cute him bringing his fit older boyfriend to the charity gala.

Or what if he knew him from Lust Conquers All that he watched with the yoga mums and had no idea he was a footballer? Then he thinks Jamie is a very superficial guy, a cheater who only cares about his looks etc before Jamie annoys him day after day and he slowly falls for him.

Ok what if he and the yoga mums worked together somehow? He is the maintenance guy or the grumpy receptionist at the yoga gym / massage place or the grumpy delivery guy at the diner who covers the night shift at the counter so he can prep stuff and restock etc and jamie is there at 5am every morning for eggs and a chat and like the first 5 times it's just Jamie yapping on and on with a lot of sighs from Roy. Maybe it's the post-return to Richmond Jamie who is still very lonely, away from his family, no agent, no keeley, no team friends yet (remember how he kept going to keeley to talk and she took him to dr sharon? that didn't happen and he just decided roy would do.. and tbf he does tip well at least ahah)

I have sooooo manyyyyy thoughts!!!😊😊😊😊

[direwombat]

Hi! I hope you’re doing good! I got a couple questions for you!

1. What is your favorite part about writing

2. What’s your favorite bit of OC lore

3. Adelaide, Joey, or Butch Jacob, who’s strap game comes out on top?

one of these days i'll be better about responding to asks in a timely manner orz i'm so sorry

hello!!!!! sorry it's taken me so long to respond! I'm doing quite alright, thank you for asking! i hope you're doing well yourself! and oooooooh these are such fun questions!

my favorite part about writing will always and forever be the plotting process. the only thing i love more than thinking about my character's actions is the consequences of those actions. i tend to view anything i write as an elaborate domino design or rube goldberg machine where all it takes is a little push to get things chain reacting. i love figuring out where little details can become incredibly plot relevant later on; for example: in katc, the first time jacob captures syb, he has a tracking chip implanted under her skin (without her knowledge) so he can keep track of her, and later on that tracking chip leads him to her after she gets shot with a bliss arrow but is swept away by the henbane before the chosen can take her in. i love figuring out how each scene builds off the next and figuring out how they fit together like a puzzle. the unfortunate part about this is that i tend to throw myself into outlining so hard that i lose steam to work on a project because...well...i've essentially told the story to myself...sometimes it's hard to actually put it into words in a cohesive way lol

and omg. ok. so. it has absolutely zero bearing on her story whatsoever, but i always imagined that syb would have loved sailor moon. she had a hard time making friends during her school years, and while she would have been 11 when it started airing in the united states. she wouldn't have been allowed to watch it at home, but i feel like she probably had at least one friend who tape the broadcast so they could watch it together. baby syb probably took one look at haruka and was like "i wanna be like her!" without completely understanding why. also i think she fantasized about having superpowers so she could defeat the villain in her life (her father) and craved the strength and connection of having a group of friends (rather than the one or two she had.

and 3 is going under the cut because of nsfw headcanoning :)

hilarious question. i'm obsessed with it. but i'm gonna say, in order of best to worst it's

adelaide. she has decades worth of sex and orgies under her harness. she for sure knows her way around a strap. and knows how to make her partner feel good using one. she's 100% pegging xander so good that the single braincell he has is rendered completely useless.

joey. what she lacks in adelaide's experience she makes up for with technique. she is all about precision and trying to find the spot that makes her partner's eyes roll back into their skull. it's maybe a little awkward to begin with; some trial and error while she's experimenting with different angles and depths, but once she finds the spot that makes her partner's moans go up an octave, she is fucking them so good that their legs start trembling.

(cis) butch jakey. sorry, but i'm a jakey (jackie?) is bad at sex truther. she understands the mechanics of it well enough (the dick goes in a hole) but her technique is. mmm. well...it's befitting. it's either all long, rough, hard strokes with little regard to her partner (because that's how men do it right?) OR she's just laying back and having her partner do everything while she just watches ("c'mon honey, if you want it so bad you're gonna have to work for it"). it's a dominance thing but also. she's a lazy domme. she wields the strap with the finesse of a club :/

sidenote: ngl i love thinking about butch4butch jakesyb because tbh? absolutely nothing about their dynamic and very little about their sex life would change <3 (same applies for t4t jakesyb)

[ahamkara-apologist]

3, 4, and 10 for Marcie and Aeris on the character asks?

The siblings!!! Love my sun and moon siblings

3. What is your OC's financial status? Are they just scraping by, making enough to live comfortably, or wealthy? Has there ever been a drastic change in their status? If so, what happened?

-Well, since Aeris and Marcie both share a glimmer bank and have the same weakness to going moneyblind when something they really want becomes available...the answer is 'it depends', but usually not a lot. Both of them really really want to save up as much glimmer as they can, but then a new gun comes up at Xur, or a pretty ship or ghost shell, and then ooo, there it goes again...

Amusingly, they're the two that you'd expect to have all the money, since Marcie is a Crucible champion and Aeris is the literal Young Wolf, but between Aeris's paranoia/FOMO and Marcie's love for fun ornaments, ships, and ghost shells- well. Let's just say that there's a reason why Aeris is so fucking sick of spicy ramen, and it's not because he abused that lifelong ticket of his willingly XD

4. Does your OC have a failed friendship or relationship they still think about? What happened? Is it an unresolved regret or is there a chance for reconciliation?

-Apart from the incident with exposing Petrichor to their memories in the Deep Stone Crypt, Aeris just has the typical woes of being autistic and fitting into society about as well as a square peg in a round hole, but Marcie's would be Cayde and Amanda. For Cayde, it's more that she never really got to say goodbye + was so stricken with grief that she had to send Aeris to hunt Uldren down (something that she still feels guilty/weak about), but for Amanda, it's entirely because of the whole debacle over Crow. Marcie may be a spitfire, but she understood that Crow =/= Uldren from the get-go, as well as the fact that Cayde never would have wanted Crow to take the blame for a dead man, so she was one of the first to vouch for him after Aeris brought him home from the Tangled Shore. Unfortunately, when Amanda found out who Crow used to be, she'd gotten pretty fond of the fucker, so it led to a huge blowout fight between the two of them. Neither of them were on speaking terms when Amanda got herself blown up because both were too stubborn/prideful to admit they were wrong, and it's something that Marcie regrets deeply

10. Is your OC sentimental or pragmatic? Do they keep mementos or only what they need to survive? Have they always been this way or did something happen to make them change?

-Aeris is very pragmatic, and really only keeps his work items: aka, armour, weapons, and a couple of sparrows/jumpships. He has a few items that he's very attached to, but they're pretty much just his bows or a couple of knives- him buying new guns is more of a nervous habit than actually wanting them, and he'll turn around and dismantle them just as quick. Marcie is the much more sentimental one, and the differences between their apartments is honestly pretty staggering. As for whether or not that's in their nature: for Marcie, it's most certainly an inherent trait, whereas Aeris's is more of a holdover from his time with his father pre-rezzing that became such a habit that it carried over even after his memories got wiped. Yusef used to be very fond of reminding him that he only survived because he was generous and kind enough to take him in and care for him, so to spite his father, Aeris used to just...not keep anything. It kept Yusef from having another means of controlling him by reminding him that everything he owned technically belonged to his father, which eventually just manifested into Aeris only growing attached to either bare essentials that he could justify needing via his work, or small things that he could easily hide in his clothes/gear

Send me OC asks!

[gremoria411]

Alright then. So we have another Witch from Mercury episode that hits like a goddamn truck.

Heavy spoilers follow for Witch from Mercury Episode 14 (and 13). Sorta a mix of feelings and predictions.

Not gonna lie, really loving the new season so far, basically because both episodes have been pretty jam-packed. Like, there’s a lot going on with expansion and character development to a lotta people. Standouts include Chuchu, Nika and Lady Prospera.

I did absolutely love how Lauda has this big dramatic speech and genuinely guns it for Suletta, but then gets absolutely stomped. I feel like things are probably gonna end badly for him, if only because Guel’s more interesting. Still, watching Pettra and Chuchu defend him was nice, everyone has someone that cares about them.

There was also a small bit of development for Elan…… five? (I really should’ve rewatched this prior, oh well). Like, he doesn’t step in to ruin Shaddiq’s plans, and he expresses fear when faced with dire odds. Like, I guess Elan Four was about necessity, whereas Elan Five is about cowardice? Its a neat contrast, or perhaps how Elan Four influences Elan Five?

I love how we’re finally getting some insight into Lady Prospera’s actions though. I mean, episode 14 confirms a lotta theories some people have been having, which is rad, but I’m honestly just here to see what the heck she’s up to. So, Quiet Zero, I’m guessing it’s some sort of shutdown weapon? GUND-ARM System suits are shown to be able to totally overpower any non-Gundam suit (“only a Gundam can defeat a Gundam” thanks, Elan Four), so presumably their only threat would be another GUND-ARM system suit, which quiet zero focuses on taking over/shutting down? Though having written that down, it sounds like something too small-scale for what Prospera’s talking about.

EDIT: I have remembered that the Gundam Schwarzette is a thing. Given that that mobile suit literally has a zero on its face design, it’s possible that it mounts the “Quiet Zero” system in question. It’s also possible that the quiet zero is somehow connected to the ms-style GUND-bits that the Lfrith’s were using.

It’s also entirely plausible that every word she says to Miorine is a lie. I don’t think she’s lying when she talks with Belmeria, that sounds like what she actually believes. But there she’s with an old friend who she holds a lot of power over. Miorine is different, so I’m less inclined to trust anything she says to her. It is interesting that while talking with Miorine, she steps out of the darkness and into the light, so it’s possible that these are her original, noble goals, that have slowly been twisted into things she’d go to terrible lengths over? Things to ponder.

Shaddiq’s been…. Interesting, to say the least. Since I just spent a whole two paragraphs talking about Prospera’s possible goals (and honestly, I might write more later), it’s good to see the show’s other resident Char Clone stepping up to the plate (The Elan’s have too much other baggage for me to weigh in on them, and we don’t really know what’s going on with Guel yet). Shaddiq’s essentially plotting a coup from under his own father, and is straight up financing terrorist operations. It’s unclear how this is going to end for him, since it’s being repeatedly proven that he isn’t quite as smart as he thinks he is, so I feel like he’s going to go down a couple pegs at some point. I honestly don’t have a clue on where he’s going from here, so I’m very much looking forward to it. Grassley defence systems seems to have a monopoly on non-aerial Gundam tech, so I’m betting that they’ve been supplying Dawn of Fold with the Lfrith’s and GUND-bits.

Alright, guess I can’t really avoid talking about it any more can I?

Sophie Pulone gets a really nice focus episode, then dies attempting to take down Suletta in the Aerial. I genuinely wasn’t expecting her to bite it so soon, and it’s only made me more interested in seeing what the whole deal is with her and Norea du Noc. It’s quite interesting because Sophie is essentially a Gender-swapped (and perhaps slightly more childish) Mikazuki Augus, from Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans. She fights because that is her choice, for the things she wants in life, because that is what she is good at. I just find it really neat how she’s basically a takedown of the protagonist from the last show, showing what would happen were they actually overpowered. It also loops back to earlier, her death being the thing that breaks Norea’s emotionless composure and shows how these Gundam pilots view Suletta - as a terrifying monster.

It has greater implications too, since for all Sophie’s combat ability and credentials as a mobile suit pilot, she dies fairly quickly, as a pawn in someone else’s (in this case Shaddiq’s) plan. It sends the message that it isn’t the characters with raw power and deadly mobile suits that are dangerous, but the movers and shakers behind the scenes. Like Shaddiq. Like Prospera.

[cosmicjoke]

I don't know if you've seen the character relationship chart for the new SnK final season, but In terms of Levi's relationship with Eren, Levi sees him as someone who needs to be strictly disciplined, while Levi's relationship with Jean, Sasha and Connie is written as "trust them". Apart from them and Hange, there is nothing about Levi's relationship with Mikasa and Armin and that surprised me to be honest lol. After all, most people (myself included) have always felt that Levi has always been closely associated with the EMA and they have always seen him as a kind of father figure for them, someone who looks after them or reassures them because he thinks they are important for the future and someone said something like: "Levi trust Jean, Connie and Sasha because he knows how easily Armin and Mikasa are attracted to Eren." I think that's more descriptive.

I haven't seen that, but that is interesting.

Levi had Eren pegged from the first moment he saw him. He called him a monster, or said something to the effect of Eren having a monstrous will, and that he couldn't be controlled. That if anyone tried to cage him, he would break out of it. Levi specifically requested to be put in charge of Eren, then, because he knew he was the only one who likely could control him, who could kill him if the need arose. Levi knew from the start that Eren was dangerous. Of course, he couldn't have known in what manner Eren's monstrosity would manifest. He couldn't have known that Eren would actually end up trying to destroy the very thing the SC was sworn to protect, that is, humanity. I think Levi believed Eren's wish to fight for humanity against the titans was sincere, and that Eren, because of his ability to turn into a titan, was an indispensable weapon for humanity, one they couldn't afford not to utilize, but he also knew that Eren had the potential to go off the rails and out of control, and that he needed to, as it says in the character chart, be disciplined, put on a leash so he wouldn't end up causing more harm than good. Levi was, from the start, willing to kill Eren if it came down to it. It's actually really interesting, how that parallels what eventually comes to pass. Levi leads Mikasa toward that final blow. He creates the opening for her to kill Eren, and it's Levi's leadership and command that gives them the opportunity to kill Eren. So in the end, Levi was right. He was the only one who could stop Eren, basically. While Mikasa delivered the killing blow, Levi was the one who made it possible.

Amrin and Mikasa are, for sure, blinded somewhat by their loyalty and love for Eren, so it doesn't surprise me that it lists Connie, Jean and Sasha as people Levi can trust, while saying nothing about Armin and Mikasa. That person saying what they did about Armin and Mikasa being attracted to Eren is true. They fail to see what type of person Eren really is, up until the point they simply can't deny it. Even after he starts the Rumbling, Mikasa and Armin are still trying to find ways to "save" him and give him the benefit of the doubt. It's only when the situation becomes totally untenable, and Levi has to TELL them that they have to kill Eren, in fact he has to essentially order it, that they finally accept it. Mikasa herself risked the SC's missions more than once over her blind loyalty to Eren, something Levi has born witness to personally. Mikasa nearly killed him in her blind loyalty to Eren. So I think, as Levi was always aware of the type of person Eren was, he was also always aware that Mikasa and Armin's own ability to make judgements regarding him would be skewed and not fully trustworthy. They were simply too close to Eren to judge him objectively.

[transthadymacdermot]

🍒, ⭐ and 🍐for any character you want! — @coarsely

Doing this for Charles from RRL, because I've drawn him many many many times but haven't iirc discussed his personality much

🍒 What kind of things do they expect from their relationships? Does this differ between platonic relationships and romantic ones? Is your OC “demanding” or a door mat? What kinds of things do people expect from them in a relationship?

He's not afraid to stand up for himself if need be but he's naturally a very easygoing person so I would say that in terms of romantic relationships he's really not very demanding, he tends to go with whatever the other person wants or needs from him. His platonic relationships always tend to be more intense than romantic so he's more demanding when it comes to them but not to a degree where it's terribly noteworthy. As for what he expects... wrt romantic relationships it's kind of complicated because he usually wants romance AND NOTHING ELSE from one person (usually someone socially acceptable like someone he's courting or, eventually, a wife) and a more physical relationship with another (someone less socially acceptable, rn it's Sarah). In platonic relationships he wants actual companionship and someone he can actually talk to. In short I rlly pity whatever poor person eventually has to marry him I truly do

⭐ What is your OC afraid of? Any crippling phobias or some such? How do they act when scared and what helps them calm down? Does anyone ever find your OC scary? Why?

He doesn't have many very strong fears, though it's less in a him being brave way and more in a him being a British aristocrat who hasn't quite got his head round the fact that he can in fact be killed just yet. Probably his most notable fear is his nervousness around water because he nearly drowned as a young boy but even that's not terribly strong. He also has a less serious completely irrational phobia of the french language in that if you are not another aristocrat and you speak french in his presence he will immediately peg you as a terrorist and try to create a government file on you. Most people do not find him scary because he's actually a really nice guy wrt personality etc and doesn't take himself too seriously; but then some people find him scarier BECAUSE he acts like this while also essentially running the Ministry of Peasant Killing.

🍐 What is your OC’s mentality? Are they overall positive? Negative? A bit of both? Describe their thought patterns and reasoning behind their choice making!

I would say he's an overall positive person, very confident, very accommodating to others, always upbeat... he can be compared to both the human incarnation of golden retriever and that 1 coworker who always greets you in their most cheerful voice while looking as though they have been awake and doing things for hours at 7 on a monday morning. He's a hard worker who believes things will always turn out ok in the end. However, his thought pattern is also largely ruled by his firm belief in his own superiority and his love of imperialism. His defining traits apart from his peppiness and personal gentlemanly conduct are his Scrooge-like belief in the virtues of prisons and workhouses and the genuineness with which he believes that the sun never sets on the British Empire. These contradictions serve a thematic role (i.e. Charles Coloniser is a great guy apart from the fact that his actions lead to untold suffering but is still undeniably in the wrong because being nice to people still does not absolve one of wrongdoing in such a situation) and also make him incredibly disturbing imo because I don't think he even realises that some might consider them contradictions :(

Ask game

[cairoscene]

bruce / talia for the ship ask game? also. ghostbat?

oooh excellent ones anon

brutalia: i don't ship it

1. Why don’t you ship it? mostly because when i ship characters, i like to think about them being together, happy, fulfilled, and in a state of contentment, or i think about the ways they get there. i don't really see bruce and talia being that for each other romantically or sexually, but i like to think about them being allies and co-parents and friends

2. What would have made you like it? if a comic writer could write talia in a way that isn't racist and misogynist, where she's allowed to be a complex person with feelings and wants and needs, rather than a devious sockpuppet for ra's. that version of her does exist in my head and she's super sexy and also mommy and i treasure her

3. Do you have anything positive to say about it? yeah i think they would be such an amazing power couple and also she would peg him as god intended

ghostbat: i definitely ship it. it does feel a certain way that i ship ghostbat and not brutalia when they are very similar and tbh bruce does have two hands. that being said: toxic old gay rivals

1. What made you ship it? batman: the knight is a huuuuuge reason why i'm obsessed with them. it's 10 issues of ghostbat fanfic, impeccably written and extremely homoerotic with great art and a young sensitive bruce wayne who cries at the drop of a hat, it was essentially designed in a lab to snipe my dick off.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship? i love the way ghost-maker challenges and pushes and fights batman while minhkhoa consistently supports and protects and loves bruce. khoa himself is such an interesting character to me, a man who so often proclaims he's a psychopath and non-empathetic person who still deeply cares about bruce, even though he tries to protect himself by pushing bruce away (aka trying to kill him lol). and bruce so clearly sees khoa as this amazing, captivating, impressive person whose goals are never going to fully align with his but who he can trust to have his back. hhhhhoughhhhhhghhgh i love them

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? i don't know if i have any unpopular opinions but i think i do tend to think of them more domestically/happily than what i see discussed a lot in the fandom. i'm not interested in the tragedy of them, i'm interested in thinking about the ways they make it work

ship game

[period-dramallama]

Review: Legacy by Susan Kay, Prologue-2.1

So Legacy is a big book so rather than keep y’all waiting while I drown in notes, I’m going to read a third of the book, review it, then read the next third and review that, and so on.

Let’s go girls.

If I were to theorise, I would say that I think Susan Kay is a perfectionist. She has written 2 novels, both award winning, and the second one was 32 years ago. I don’t think it’s the case that she had only one novel in her and never had ideas again. I imagine that she’s had ideas since Phantom but they’re not brilliant enough in her eyes to be worthy of penning. I could be completely wrong. There is something alluringly mysterious about dropping 2 award winning books in 6 years and then vanishing from the public eye. Not even twitter. Well done, Ms Kay. Well done. What a legend.

I wonder if she knew she would only write one Tudor novel, because there’s so many ideas squashed in here. It’s like a compilation of Every Idea About The Tudor Period I Have Ever Had. Lots of ideas here that would make for interesting novellas or novelettes, like Henry’s relationship with Elizabeth.

There’s an exchange when Elizabeth says Mary had freedom of conscience under Edward and Mary is like “yeah because I’m right and I would have died for it” SOMEBODY was watching Elizabeth R episode 1 lmao.

Characterisation

The relationship between Henry and Elizabeth is slightly mesmerising. He hates and fears her, she’s defiant, but he also wishes she were his son- that his son and heir had her personality. No evidence that Henry was ever disappointed with Edward- why would he be? He’s an impressive kid!

John Dudley’s lack of sentiment regarding his father’s fate and his own career makes an interesting contrast with Robin and Elizabeth who really can’t escape the shadows of their parents. There’s emphasis on the trauma of Katherine Howard’s execution and the necessity of Ashley at her side.

Tom Seymour is well-characterised. He’s a snob. There’s an element of punishment in his harassment of Elizabeth: the desire to essentially ‘take her down a peg’. There’s jealousy and anger fuelling his actions: anger at Elizabeth for rejecting him and thereby revealing him as an old has-been, not as his ego image. He’s jealous of her charming younger people, but he’s also hypocritical in his jealousy. He claims women are possessive, but he’s angry at her flirting with others. Elizabeth beats him with a pillow and tries to kick him- an excuse for a release of the repressed anger and helplessness she feels- ‘socially unacceptable emotions’ as well as resentment of him. Her pent up rage is better captured than in BE. The narrative keeps calling him her lover (SHUT UP ABOUT THE LORD ADMIRAL! SHUT UP ABOUT THE LORD ADMIRAL!) but it’s obvious there’s no love for her at all. He blames her for tempting him, slaps her, calls her a bitch: “the girl’s a natural guttersnipe at heart.” He describes his past girlfriends as “an enchanting but decidedly inferior breed.” He can’t handle how Elizabeth makes him feel emasculated.

I like Ned Seymour’s haunting scene with Elizabeth even if ‘remember me when you are queen” is a bit unrealistic. More useful to Elizabeth’s arc than whatever their relationship was in BE, which was similar, but not as punchy. Here we get a clear lesson that she can take from Eddie S. Cecil’s bond with Elizabeth is also pretty neat.

Justice for Amy! They’re such dicks to her. At least Kay acknowledges Elizabeth’s bitchier side, and she and Robert are still interesting characters, so I wouldn’t say it detracts from the overall story. We get a sense of Elizabeth’s magnetism. I like her compulsive need to lie to Mary out of mental one up-manship.

A little bit too much credit to Simon Renard as Mary’s evil genius. Like he’s the one that suggests bringing back burning…girl, you KNOW as queen you can change the law back. I do like the very very dark comedy of “murdering  Elizabeth wouldn’t be murder, it would be exorcism.”

Tone

Elizabeth vomiting on Mary’s litter out of SPITE. I live for this kind of thing. A good depiction of Elizabeth’s anguish upon entering the Tower. Proof that you don’t need first person POV to get close to the characters if you can write emotion well. (And showing her fear rather than saying “I was terrified” is much more effective.)

Endlessly cynical Elizabeth + children= fun combination. She calls a child ‘a nasty little turd’ which made me laugh even though I shouldn’t. Very dark comedy with the boy (He’s 5!) asked what’s in the flowers (meaning smuggled letters) and he answers “mostly bluebells”. A good moment to establish how paranoid the world is at this point. A literal toddler is being interrogated. It’s nice when the narrative takes a segue into other characters’ perspectives. I like Bridges too, and how Elizabeth’s life is literally saved by his own personal priorities, even though he himself is just a regular official. It gives a sense of mutability and insecurity without spelling it out.

Pacing

The opening can be a little finger-tapping. At times it feels both rushed and slow. Nevertheless we get set up for the court politics. The pacing improves over the course of the first part. She has a challenge on her hands: cover Elizabeth’s whole story in 650 pages. I think she can pull it off, just. Interested to see what she chooses to focus on in the next parts.  

History

C’mon Susan. Susie baby. Charles V is Mary’s COUSIN not her UNCLE. Anne portrayed as a malign influence on Henry, which is unfair IMHO, but I think it works with the theme of haunting.

Anne of Cleves is ugly, Katherine Howard is wanton, Edward is delicate, Catherine Parr is a nurse, Anne Stanhope is evil incarnate. Also Edward is messed-up as evidenced by his chronicle. Also there’s torches on the walls? I’m not sure that’s an effective way to light a hall.

John Dudley proposed to divorce his wife and marry Elizabeth (page 132) “together we will take the throne” WHAT is happening I am SO confused. Is this made up??? Is it an old myth?? It feels like a big deal? And it’s mention off-hand by Susan? I’m getting soo much whiplash. You can’t drop that bombshell on me and then run away into the sunset Susan! Explain yourself!

“Who in this largely Protestant land would support a catholic claimant?” BECAUSE THEY AREN’T PROTESTANT YET THAT WAS WHY THEY RIOTED OVER THE PRAYER BOOK.

There is a sweet friendship between Elizabeth and her servant Isabelle Markham. We have at least moved away from Elizabeth the hater of other girls.

Good use of historical events woven into narrative, and some good points made. Anne fears divorce not death, her marriage is annulled so she can’t even be guilty of adultery. Seymour brothers quarrelling in front of Elizabeth: good detail. The kitchen crashing by the Countess of Lennox is deftly weaved into the story: not just to annoy Elizabeth but deliberately to agitate her until she makes a mistake. A weapon of psychological warfare. I also like how Robert’s relationship with Elizabeth is woven into the greater story: Dudley fails BECAUSE he sent Robert to capture Mary and Robert is too young and inexperienced to pull it off. But he has to send Robert BECAUSE he can’t send Robert to capture Elizabeth instead. And he can’t send Robert to capture Elizabeth BECAUSE he knows Robert won’t stand for harming her.

Again Elizabeth hates Cranmer but Remnarc the Coward was quite a clever dig and a nice way to weave in Robert being in the Tower and their burgeoning relationship.

Prose

“That look of hers would see through lead”

Henry is “afraid of a shadow in the sun” I saw what you did there, Susan. “Eyes that see inside your head” or you could say…make a window into your soul…

“The dreadful trusting smile of a little girl” “and when you were paid to take care of a child, the worst thing you could do was to give your heart- you never got it back intact.” Susan Kay was a teacher IIRC, I wonder if that line has significance to her career. Anne Stanhope “like a crocodile sinking beneath the surface of a lake”. The word ‘crybaby’ felt out of place, but the prose is generally competent, with moments of flair. There’s very little scene- setting, but honestly given how much story we have to get through, I get it.

Time to read the second third of the book!

[allaglow]

I have so many thoughts on Cinderella today...I’d love to know yours! Some are below, but I’m apt to have more if you’d like to strike up a ball in our IM’s 🤍🤍🤍

Writing within the universe of Cinderella is such a fascinating balance to try and peg. On one hand, it’s so lifelike- Cinderella has one of the realistic body types of any of the princesses, most of the animation was done through rotoscoping, the depiction of the very real ramifications of the Tremaines squandering the family inheritance and the disrepair of the chateau, you can definitely feel the weight of her story in a very personal way and her struggles are so familiar to us...but on the other hand, there are talking mice and pumpkin carriages and, in this version, it’s specified that her name was always Cinderella- this was even consistent in the novelizations Disney released in conjunction with the original premiere, and they made sure to always explain it as having to do with Cinderella coming from “the magical land of make-believe.” So, on one hand, you do want to humanize the characters and explain everything in a plausible way, but you also have to keep the enchantment of the atmosphere and the magic. It’s endlessly intriguing to me because, even in the film, there are multiple times when it becomes meta. Cinderella’s, “Oh, then you must be my Fairy Godmother!” and the way the Duke continually points out to the King how slim the possibility is of love at first sight and how that really only exists in the fairytales...and this is a fairytale! Perhaps it’s a commentary of how much magic is around us, in our own world, and how we discount it because we choose to be world-weary and pessimistic and intentionally unromantic skeptics in the name of “intellectualism.” After all, just as the Duke is pretending to have the intellectual upper hand and laugh in the face of romance, Cinderella and her Prince are beginning to court right underneath the royal balcony.

I’m just getting so misty-eyed thinking of how close Cinderella had been with her Father and how she personally, even as a little girl, made sure to accommodate all the preparations for his long journeys for business and whatnot. Also, I think she was able to form so many connections and bonds with the house-staff that they did have, and I think she was able to reenact that, to a certain point, with the mice later on.

The fact that Cinderella was so competent, like with being the one to oversee any preparations for her Father’s journeys and business travels, must’ve really struck a nerve with her Stepmother. The complex thing about Lady Tremaine is that she’s so highly intelligent and she is able to manipulate in a way that’s unparalleled and generally holds her own in mind games, and through this she was definitely able to attain a higher standard of life and achieve more than she ever would’ve otherwise...but in terms of hard skills that would make her employable or just make her someone who actually knows how to do things, Lady Tremaine falls short. She has no actual skill in this extent, and her entire childhood was spent digesting messages of “this is too much, reel it back” or “this is too little, amp it up.” She essentially only knows how to play to her audience and she’s able to use her resources to get the most she possibly can, but she’ll always be dependent on others. The fact that Cinderella is capable of overseeing so many things, even at such a young age, and generally being someone who seems like they could fend for themselves, must’ve been one of the first things to make Cinderella a target. I think when it comes to the preparations, especially- Cinderella was the only one who could’ve done those things, as it was just her and her Father prior to the Tremaines, but Lady Tremaine still viewed it as her second husband’s daughter occupying a space that should’ve been hers. She played on this though- smiling coyly and saying, since little Cinderella was so specialized in this, perhaps she’d be able to help with other areas in the house. I wonder when the firing of the house-staff happened- because I’m not entirely sure it would’ve been before or after the Father’s death. I honestly could see an instance in which the Tremaines fired them and told the Father it was because he would now have three more women to dress and feed and, besides, Cinderella could backfill all those various positions. She thought she’d burn her stepdaughter out, but it only made Cinderella more and more resilient and independent as is often the case when you try to inflict hardship upon someone.