#because it really highlights that like. yes university is a really good thing. this should not be The Thing though

[violexides]

the American education system needing to be improved and more accessible because as it stands a lot of people lack access to adequate schooling and it has the potential to address really important subjects and provide social support for people

coexists with the idea that societally we should not be trying to pull every piece of information from the American education system because it is not equipped even remotely to address the knowledge that can come from a person's individual lived experience nor provide the information (en masse) that goes against the state that created it.

this is something i thinka bout a lot and try to re-articulate a lot because i am resistant to answering the question "why are you only studying abolition now, through a university?" but i think a lot of things can come out of that line of questioning. because it's not just about academia it's about the people forming those communities to have those dialogues and that is key that is critical. but that doesn't negate the fact that we should have school as a starting place, and a meeting place, for all of that.

[cheolieji]

Dearest Author, I do hope this missive finds thee in most splendid spirits. Might I, your humble subject, entreat Your Highness for the honour of requesting a most exquisite fanfiction?

14th member reader who's the same age as vernon & has a huge, MASSIVE crush on him since green room days and anger to hide it well until carats started noticing the way she looks at him and make vids on it

"Do u like me?" "For 12 years now, thanks for finally noticing :)"

I should be forever in thy debt. With the deepest gratitude and reverence, I remain—your devoted admirer

Penned in secrecy and sealed with affection,

— A Devoted Soul in Waiting 🕊

secret glances pt 1 - chwe hansol

wc: 1,370

warning: none

Idol au

guide for requesting on my page [17] check out the (pink highlighted) texts for my yes and no's

updatee: PART 2 & 3 (SG pt 2 || SG pt3)

A/N : This is a fuckin poem anon, you're insane lmao ily

lmk If you guys want a part two👀

You remember the first time you saw him, really saw him.

It wasn’t during practice or one of those chaotic group evaluations where everyone was too nervous to breathe. It wasn’t even during a recording session. It was in the green room, of all places. Somewhere in between the exhaustion of rehearsals and the sharp nerves of being on camera. You were sitting on the floor, stretching your legs, trying to ground yourself before stepping into the chaos again. Vernon was across the room, headphones on, bobbing his head to a beat only he could hear.

Something about him caught your attention. Maybe it was the calm in his expression, or the way he looked like the noise around him didn’t touch him at all. You didn’t know what to make of it at the time. You just knew that something in your chest shifted a little.

Back then, it was easy to brush it off. You were both still trainees, too young and too focused on debut to even think about feelings. You trained, you practiced, you worked hard every single day to prove yourself. You were just another kid with a dream and shaky confidence, trying to keep up with thirteen other boys. Fourteen, including yourself.

But still. Something about Vernon lingered.

You’ve always been good at hiding things.

Your nerves before a big stage. The exhaustion from hours of dance practice. The way your voice sometimes shakes during interviews when you talk about your journey with seventeen. But nothing, not even your best poker face, can hide the way you look at Vernon.

And now Carats know.

It started small. A few clips here and there from variety shows, behind-the-scenes, fan signs. One in particular from your rookie days when everything still felt surreal. You were sitting next to Vernon on one of those cramped green room couches, your legs barely touching, the camera zooming in at the exact moment you turned to look at him. Not just any look. The look.

Eyes soft. Smile unintentional. That one second became a screenshot, a meme, a freeze-frame moment in dozens of fan edits. Slowed down. Zoomed in. Captioned with sparkly fonts and phrases like, "She looked at him like he was the whole universe."

You told yourself it was just a bad camera angle. Or maybe you were zoning out. Maybe you were looking past him. But deep down, you knew the truth. You had been staring. Because you always stared. When he wasn’t looking, when he was laughing, when he was fidgeting with his rings. Always.

Vernon is your age, but sometimes it feels like he’s a step ahead. He’s always been calm, thoughtful, just a little strange in a way that makes you want to understand him more. You remember being sixteen and standing outside the practice room, listening to his verse in Adore U, and feeling your chest ache for reasons you couldn’t explain. Not nerves. Not fear. Just him.

You figured it would pass. Crushes do. Especially when you’re working as closely as you all do, constantly surrounded by each other. You told yourself it would fade. But it didn’t. If anything, it deepened.

Now it’s second nature. Laughing at his jokes like you would with anyone else. Nudging him during gameshows. Keeping enough space between you during dance formations. Pretending like your heart doesn’t race whenever he stands a little too close.

But sometimes you slip up. Your eyes wander. You forget the camera is still rolling.

And Carats? They notice everything.

One fan tweet reads, “Y/N LOOKS AT VERNON LIKE HE INVENTED LOVE.” Another post shows a slow-motion video of you smiling at him mid-interview, layered with soft piano music and the caption, “She’s so gone.”

You try to laugh it off. You like your privacy, and you’ve worked so hard to keep things professional. But the edits keep coming. TikToks. Photo comparisons. Fan threads analyzing your expressions. There’s even one video titled “Y/N’s secret crush on Vernon: A Timeline,” and it’s alarmingly accurate.

You try to do better. You make sure to engage with other members more. You keep your eyes trained on your cue cards during interviews. You smile at the fans more than you look at him.

But then he laughs at something Mingyu says. The kind of laugh that starts in his chest and spills out without him trying to stop it. You glance over. Just for a moment.

But the fans see it.

Later that night, Seungcheol corners you in the dorm hallway with a knowing look.

“Do you know what’s trending?” he asks, arms crossed.

You groan and cover your face. “Please don’t tell me.”

“Oh, I will,” he says, grinning. “They made an edit of you and Vernon like it’s the trailer to a romance drama. I think someone even added fake subtitles.”

You press your forehead against the wall and mumble, “I’m never showing my face again.”

“It’s kind of cute, honestly,” Seungcheol says. “But if you’re not into him, maybe stop looking at him like he’s the last glass of water in the desert.”

You don’t reply. Because how can you? How can you explain that it’s not something you do on purpose? That something about Vernon draws your gaze like a magnet, like gravity?

So you don’t say anything.

And of course, you never tell Vernon. Why would you? Things are comfortable the way they are. You talk late at night in the studio sometimes. You trade music recommendations. You laugh at the same dumb memes. That’s enough.

Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he never will.

But sometimes, just sometimes, you catch him looking too.

And that alone is enough to keep you wondering.

[velvetvexations]

I've felt since about 2014 or so that a lot of the way we talk about privilege as a concept was a mistake.

One: while I fully understand the need to have an umbrella term for these things because they originate from the same place and sometimes overlap as more of a spectrum than discrete categories, it's a little bit confusing at best that we ALWAYS use the same term to describe advantages NO ONE should have, like the ability to buy your way into any college you want, AND the lack of DISADVANTAGES that no one should suffer, like being presumed dangerous just for walking down the street and potentially getting jumped or shot for it, AND the lack of daily annoyances that serve as a grating, constant reminder that you are Other, like "flesh tone" very conspicuously not even coming close to matching you or romance being presumed M/F by default everywhere. Yes, we need to talk about what all these things have in common, but we ALSO need to be able to talk about how they're different, and honestly, for the sake of outreach and ~optics~, I feel we've gotta be able to present the similarities and differences up front because I have met NO shortage of people who were super on board with trying to improve society somewhat but got really alienated from theory talk by the straight conflation of those categories, ESPECIALLY the latter two. Never mind the decision that the word for this should be something that most people first hear in the context of an extra hour of video games for good behavior or something along those lines.

Two: No category of privilege is granted universally to every member of a privileged group. Few if any men have all aspects of male privilege. In any lavender scare, NO ONE universally and automatically receives cishet privilege. It's even hard to find white people with all aspects of white privilege, and race as an oppressive class was INVENTED to make it easy to use visual markers to determine who's "in" and who's "out". It's also much easier to lose a lot of aspects of privilege than the language gives it credit for - sometimes, just NOT being enough of a bigot is enough to get you treated like a second class citizen.

Three: Every disprivileged group has some privilege over the next in some ways, AND is disprivileged under them in other ways, and the ways in which this manifests get REALLY chaotic once you start looking at the individual level rather than the group level because of the above. Treating "privilege" like a black and white thing that EVERYONE outside a specific highlighted group has makes futile attempts at "scorekeeping" and the bullshit infighting that comes with it almost inevitable. In fact, a lot of the time, the unshared aspects of closely related axes of oppression can intersect in ways that can't fully be dissected without also examining the axis that an exclusionist is trying to "beat" or disprove - for example, I'd go so far as to argue that because oppositional sexism runs so deep in society, every aspect of transandrophobia has a transmisogynistic flip side AND vice-versa; if we talked about privilege and gender in a way that DIDN'T make it so easy for people to think only one of the two can exist and naming the second is therefore a denial of the first, we'd probably be collectively a lot further along in dissecting both.

Four: Systems of privilege and disprivilege cannot be dismantled by treating the privileged as monsters; this only justifies and perpetuates the system by emphasizing the strength and power of the privileged vs. the hopeless, futile struggles of the oppressed, even when it DOESN'T result in "movements" where the oppressed fear losing their identity if they escape their oppression. In the very worst cases it ends up being every bit as classically bigoted as the ideas it calls out - note how many varieties of radfems arrive at a conclusion where they believe the SAME things about men and women as any manosphere redpill chud, they just think the power imbalance that privileges men is a BAD thing instead of a GOOD thing.

Every damned exclusionist cycle just makes me more and more sure of this. I feel like I've been screaming it into the void for over 10 years and yet no one but the teeny tiny choir has ever listened. At least I've seen more people starting to talk about point 1 specifically over this past year...?

Anon, I'll be honest, I love you but this is a bit too long and dense for me to process so I'm going to post this and put it in my #I just work here tag.

[everestgale]

Skeptic for the ask thingy? :D

I'm getting through these so slowly 😭 Sorry for the wait! Time to ramble about everyone's favorite detective bird-

[Send Me a Character and I'll List Ask Game]

favorite thing about them

Weirdly, it's the contrast between how intelligent and logical Skeptic is as a character vs. how absurd and irrational the Construct is. The way Skeptic fights and seeks universal singular truth in a world that, by design, does not have any... which was so masterfully highlighted in the Cage and the new Den. I remember genuinely exclaiming "SKEPTIC NO, STOP-" when the tunnel began collapsing (though in fairness, Hero is the one who started it). And the way Skeptic blamed himself for not "thinking it through," because that's how he thinks the world around him should work:

"Why for the love of everything did I not think about the stability of the tunnels?! I'm supposed to be smarter than this! I'm supposed to have a plan for everything."

And the entire dialogue with Hero following that line, too-

...Long story short, there is something very tragic but incredibly appealing about putting a character, who is all about facts, logic, and deduction, into a world that shifts based on your perception where nothing is certain. Sorry Skeptic, love you Skeptic </3

[What's up with all these asks getting so long... more under the cut </3]

least favorite thing about them

Rewritten and deleted lines from the Prisoner. Hands down. It's one of the few things I dislike about the DLC, and I choose to not accept it as canon. I really, really miss that triumphant "I knew it!" followed by "She couldn't tip her hand to Him. He wouldn't have let us leave." It really highlighted Skeptic's intelligence, along with an innate desire to trust the Prisoner, to think of her as someone with a plan. She wouldn't just cut off her own head like that, and he knew it.

I understand that this was done to make the lead-up to the Cage easier / more natural... but I feel like there were other ways to do it! Hero is right there, and he just watched Prisoner cut her head off, he could be disturbed and panicking about the whole situation and really want to leave, which would feel quite natural too! And then perhaps Skeptic was sure that Prisoner had a plan, but after you choose to leave her behind... he isn't so sure anymore, which could lead to him slowly losing his mind and devolving during the Cage. That would've been perfect, at least in my opinion!

Honorable mention goes to the fact that, even after the Pristine Cut, he still feels a little underutilized to me. I talked about it in my Paranoid character ask, but Deconstructed Damsel -> HEA should've had Skeptic instead of Paranoid (T v T)

favorite line

"You have the attention span of a fly. How are we supposed to unravel the mysteries of this place if you're so easily distracted by empty promises?"

Honestly I feel you, Hero, I also have the attention span of a fly-

And of course, how can I not mention: "Yes, yes, don't believe a word she says. Just go in, take the knife, and do what you're supposed to. Wink."

brOTP

I already talked about how I really like the Grey Brothers (Skeptic + Smitten) dynamic in Smitten's post, it's very fun to imagine these two as very different people who have very little in common... but who still care about each other.

But I also want to mention Skeptic + Hunted. I liked the idea of them being comfortable in each other's spaces even before the extended Den. And with them working together so well in the Den post-Pristine Cut, I think they would have a pretty close friendship.

Everest trying really hard to explain a dynamic they like, without resorting to just "they cool. me like them"-

OTP

For the record, I HC my Skeptic as aroace (or demiromantic asexual, I haven't fully decided yet). That will not stop my QPR-Skeptunist from completely taking over my brain <3

There is something very appealing about their dynamic - Opportunist is trying to get on Skeptic's "good side" and is interested in how intelligent Skeptic is (and how he could utilize that intelligence for his schemes), while Skeptic is curious about Opportunist and that rat brain of his (/aff), trying to see what's beneath those layers and layers of masks that Oppy likes to wear. In a way, they are both almost trying to outsmart one another, but from a place of curiosity... which could lead them to slowly enjoy each other's company :]

Also, this ship is really funny, and it's hilarious to imagine all the stupid scenarios they find themselves in- OH, and I wrote this on them like a month ago:

"I do genuinely feel like they would, not always but often, enjoy each other's company and yap - we all know that Skeptic is listening to Oppy's endless rambles to understand that gremlin mind of his, but I feel like he would come to like Oppy's weird plans and logic as a sort of 'new perspective' - and Oppy really appreciates someone acknowledging 'his genius,' and maybe in turn, he would also listen to Skeptic's esoteric rambles on stenography (it feels like they would be interesting, and depending on the topic, Oppy could actually be genuinely interested in Skeptic's yap in like a "oh, this would be helpful for my next scheme" kind of way)"

...I like this ship way too much for how little they interact in the game (which is "not at all")

Honorable mention almost goes to ParaSkep, courtesy of @/wintergrofyuri and @/itsonlypolite. It's so close to clicking with me (it feels like a dynamic I would like, I want to like them)... but it's just barely not it, I don't know what exactly, but something is missing / just not quite clicking with me (T v T)

nOTP

Don't think I have any nOTPs for Skeptic! I haven't seen any ship with him that I disliked :]

random headcanon

I already mentioned like 3 headcanons in this post: the fact that my Skeptic is aroace (or demiromantic ace), the fact that my Skeptic knows shorthand (and writes exclusively in it), the fact that Skeptic is actually a yapper who likes to explain and go in-depth on the topics he finds interesting... /silly

Let's add another one! I like the idea of a linguistics nerd Skeptic, who is really into the etymology of words (I talked about it in this post where I talked about voice's hobbies!), sounds like the kind of thing Skeptic would be interested in.

Are any of these HCs based on anything from the game? Nope! These are all entirely based on ✨ vibes ✨.

unpopular opinion

To be honest, I don't know what counts as an "unpopular opinion" for Skeptic. I don't think I have any? At least none that I feel strongly about, most of my opinions about Skeptic are either directly based on the lines from the game OR are completely irrelevant silly HCs based on nothing but my own likes lol

song i associate with them

I very rarely listen to just instrumental music (outside of lo-fi and a couple specific artists)... but none of the songs I listen to really fit Skeptic. And so my first instinct is... the original Objection! theme from Phoenix Wright-

Also Open the Game by Jiro. Not the kind of music I usually listen to, but a friend suggested it to me as "music that fits Skeptic" a while ago, and I agree with my friend, I think it really suits him in terms of musical style :]

favorite picture of them

...I'm going to be honest, I'm currently debating if I should give Skeptic a major re-design (because something about his current design just irks me). But if I had to pick an image for Skeptic that I made, it would be this-

...I don't think I shared this before (I probably will in a doodle dump of "voices in dresses" sometime in the future), but this is Skeptic in Alice in Wonderland's dress. A few friends and I joked too much about how awful of a time Skeptic would have in Wonderland, and so this was born!

[theposhsworld]

How to dress to attract an elite provider gentlemen? Arab women perfected the art of being happy in a marriage but Russian & Slavic women perfected the art of dressing for relationship success. It’s dressing for the position you want.

Shaquanna made a great point that men manipulate when they talk. If they are not your father or brother they are trying to get you into bed for the cheapest price and don’t respect you if you are dumb enough to fall for it. When it comes to your father or brother understand that they mean well but might also have a different taste from the social class you are getting into.

As a married Miss Universe finalist and certified image consultant I learned getting results is about knowing when to cater and knowing when not to give a damn. You need to do both in the right balance which makes dressing an art.

We don’t dress for the individual man because it’s too much catering gives bad energy, pick me energy. We dress for the position of wife of a provider man.

Shaquanna gave an excellent example that broke men were talking how BBL is hot but the problem is they are not providers and are broke, can’t carry a family. Meghan Markle & Candace Owens, Amal Clooney married into the elite and they are all slim no BBL, dress classy though have their personal styles and yes wear some makeup to look hot but not out there drag queen green cut crease. Jools of TikTok gives good advice you can still wear makeup but be demure and cutesy. You can and should have a personal style but don’t wear stage makeup during the day.

Yes you can wear lashes, but if you not on stage get natural looking demure cutesy lashes from Ardel. You can have long nails but Swan rules applies. If people are wondering how you open a can of soda or sparkling water with those nails they are too long.

I would ask myself when dressing- what is my goal? Do I want to attract high value gentlemen? Do I want a raise at work? Do I want a better job.

If you want to be successful and dress for success figure out the position you want and dress for the position you want to have. Look for what men respond to in that position. A wife is the most expensive accessory a man will have and elevates his status among other men.

So dress for the job of wife at the office party or business meeting so that your man can picture introducing you to other men and other men thinking wow he managed to convince HER to marry him, there must be something to him!

We dress for the target market, gender and social class not for the individual man. Now when your husband buys you clothes from outside your allowance it has to be something he likes because he is paying. Your allowance is your money as a housewife. When you are married they stop playing you for the most part and are more honest.

Elite like super models turned First Ladies like Carla Bruni and Melania Trump. I noticed they love when you dress expensive but not logo everywhere like a car racer. They like a little logo or something identifiable as expensive like clovers but not too much like everything logo looks desperate. They love makeup but pick either crazy contour or Smokey eye or red lips. You can go crazy on one thing.

When men say she wears too much makeup they mean Matt obvious and obviously thick foundation with obvious contour. Only wear foundation if you have acne or something horrible. And add a tiny bit of highlight with your foundation to make it dewy. Please no baking.

Men prefer invisible contouring well blended in and hate obvious blush and contouring. Your skin on your face has to look natural. Then you can go crazy either with lashes or bright red lips and just some 50s liner eye makeup.

My videos help a lot like walk up to the line of vulgarity but don’t cross it, Swan Rule, etc.

I think women like to exaggerate and really over do or really under do when actually you are just supposed to have fun and curb anything too crazy.

What men and women say they want in dating usually is different from what they really want so find your demographic and watch what they respond to.

Mainstream media caters to the largest number of people and most people are losers. Mainstream media caters to losers to make the most profit so don’t follow them for dress ideas. Follow the women living the lifestyle you want and find out what men in their circles respond to. Being in Trump’s pageant where half the people who picked us were business men helped me a lot.

Elite provider gentlemen want glamour, sexy and elegance but not too much of each kind.

You should not be so elegant that you are boring and frumpy. You should be glamorous but not glamorous that you look like a drag queen or just won the lottery by dressing like a logo billboard. You should dress sexy but not so sexy that you are not elegant. And not so elegant that you are not sexy. And don’t dress so over glamorous for the barbecue in a ball gown that you are no longer elegant. You see how balancing these three desires of men in a woman gets you the best outfit .

You should not dress so old money that everyone who is not rich thinks you are broke, and not so nouveau rich that people think you are thirsty, desperate, won the lottery and never seen money before. You have to dress bougie, a little nouveau like a logo for middle & lower class people to treat you with respect and if most people treat you with respect elite are humans and follow the herd.

Dress for the class and position not the man.

When it comes to dressing for success it’s about understanding the why and the style rules. For example why don’t we wear mini skirts? So men see you as a human and don’t think of sliding their hand and grabbing you by the kitty cat. It absolutely means you can wear a mini skirt on top of thermal leggings in the winter if you please. It’s not all mini skirts bad .. you need to know why so if you want to wear in the winter you can.

Why are tattoos acceptable on men but not elegant on women? Because you are advertising you put yourself taking a lot of pain to get them so you are a tough strong independent pack donkey. If you are looking for a provider husband telling him how you are a career woman who makes a lot of money or showing your tattoos is counter productive.

You show not show men that you are capable of handling pain. Now you are a delicate flower that they must provide & protect. Secondly a lot of girls who have tattoos have been hurt and not done the inner work & male pick up artists say that in forums that if you see tattoos plus some other signs like approval seeking or excessive attention seeking they are easy to manipulate into bed.

I read in a men’s forum that if she has tattoos and a sexy dress and a bright unnatural hair colour and too much makeup she is probably an approval seeking pick me or a punk who has been hurt and very easy to manipulate into bed. Pick up artists who want to con women into free kitty specifically target hurt women who have not done the inner work which is why Pearl Notes and I specifically say do the inner work.

So no tattoos flies under three rules: 1) don’t show how you are a strong independent pack donkey who can take pain if you want the soft life 2) dress like the soft life you want to have 3) it is a loud signal to predators that a woman has been hurt and easy to take advantage of. Now you see why Kim Kardashian who went to Diddy’s parties said she doesn’t wear tattoos because “why would you want a bumper sticker on a Bentley “ - she did not want to look vulnerable in a shark tank.

Now do you see how dressing for success is about understanding certain rules sort of like aesthetics in architecture especially Islamic or Greek or Japanese floral arrangements or classical art. If you understand why the rules are there you can figure out what the exceptions are and play with that.

An example of knowing why a style rule is there is like “short hair is ugly on women.” You ask why? Short hair is very masculinizing. So if a woman is too feminine in face shape, dress, and body shape like Marylin Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, they can pull off short hair to balance their extreme femininity and makes them elegant but on everyone else we look awful with short hair. If you are extremely pretty and extremely feminine that it’s too much the short hair is the right touch of masculine that prevents it from being too sweet.

If you don’t look like Nefertiti you probably can’t pull off short hair and besides there is another style rule. The rule of eras. People crave what they lack and most women are masculine now so long hair will help you today and being too feminine but in the 1950s, a little masculine touch balancing hyper femininity would have been more attractive because people are attracted to what they don’t have. Coco Chanel was a masculina in a hyper feminine era so men found her incredibly sexy because she dared to be different. Today wearing fur does the trick of standing out and not giving a damn .

So the more you think critically about fashion and understand why things are there, why rules are there and what you goals are you will be able to dress to reach your goals.

Dressing for success isn’t wear this don’t wear that nor dress as you please. It’s rather narcissistic Machiavellian sociopath dressing- dress to achieve your goal while not giving a damn and being unbothered, dressing to also please yourself and feel fabulous.

Dressing for success is a balancing between the Machiavellian and the narcissist. Dress like you embody the position you want is Machiavellian strategic dressing but also it won’t work without some narcissism that you have to make it look like you are dressing to please yourself as you don’t care about other people but in secret really you are dressing to impress people to get something. The narcissism covers up the Machiavellian intentions. Of course we finish it up with sociopathy that you are unbothered what people think about it.

It is a hard balance to dress effectively for what your target demographic responds to in a wife or sugar baby or whatever you are going for while acting like you dress for your yourself and don’t care what he thinks.

You are NEVER dressing for just one man. You are dressing to make his friends jealous. You are dressing for leverage that if he is rude or cheating you will divorce him to marry his friend.

The problem is individual men can be manipulative and like you to be overweight so no other man can have you like Rihanna’s jealous Arab billionaire ex. Once she figured what he was up to, Riri dumped him.

Don’t be an American feminist “I don’t listen or cater to men” because they wind up becoming desperate Pickmeishas who are doormats to abusive men. Don’t be naive to men’s manipulation either. Shaquanna & Pearl brought a great point that gentlemen are manipulative because they have 15 times our testosterone. Your father and brothers won’t manipulate you but all other men will try or you won’t like a male pick me looking for a sugar mama protector provider. However as Shaquanna pointed out the lifestyle your father provided your mother as both of them struggled might not be what you are looking for, so see what married elite men respond to in wives and mistresses.

I was telling a male client that success isn’t to listen to what women say but figure out the different demographics of women and what they respond to. Swiftie lover girls respond to negs, push pull but hypergamous women respond to gentlemen. Made him over, he is doing great and a total beast. It’s the same game for women.

Understand dressing for success is NOT dressing to be liked and picked by your date but dressing strategically that requires a lot of thought, critical thinking and asking why. Like why can’t I wear tattoos.

As for looking natural- men think a black Smokey eye with false lashes looks natural but a thick or Matt foundation is too much makeup. Go figure! Men think natural means no green cut crease during the day. But if you have acne you are busy mixing highlighter in your foundation, maybe having a bb cream and concealer. Baking under the eyes is called unnatural too much makeup but men think neon red lipstick or black raccoon Smokey eye is natural.

When it comes to lashes, the video Jools made on being demure, the first one, men don’t understand she has liner and lashes and see that as a natural look. At Ardel & MAC the lashes that say they are natural looking or demure or whatever.. men can’t tell they are not your lashes.

Men love a little makeup, glamour and sophistication but that would be considered elegant in Italy not like drag queen stuff. They can say they don’t it but then another man will give him a thumbs up good job he did well with that woman and suddenly makeup isn’t a problem.

Now if you are blonde and fair men prefer less makeup than on a brunette. You have to wear the makeup that suits you.

So look at most successful wives, mistresses and sugar babies, figure what your demographic of men respond to and why then dress accordingly for the position you want to have.

Credit Maria Al Masani

[lacunammmm]

I love Dabi/Touya but honestly your post about him had me nodding my head in agreement 😭 but hey Dabi had to be a disaster to someone because let's face it - at best he was a small thorn in his abusers path of "redemption" because well it's not like anyone even gave a shit about Enji being an abuser, the civilians were just pissed he did a poor job at stopping Shigaraki in the first war and about Dabi's kills but they don't give two shits about him being a domestic abuser, all the "heroes" don't give two hoots about it either because he cried a lil, changed and is good at his job 😒 like literally has his sidekicks still beside him and hawks is his little cheerleader and well hey he's apparently going to be "atoning" for the rest of his life but hey that falls flat when we learn kids STILL want to be like him in the future!

Real talk. Imagine a universe where Overhaul is a hero and was found to be experimenting on Eri. Let's say a young Kai Chisaki was found by All Might and raised as his son, but then All Might getting hurt by AFO drove him a bit mad. He heals All Might but gets obsessed about "solving" crime by removing people's powers and putting the tools in the hands of heroes to take quirks from villains at will. During a raid on a yakuza base, he finds Eri and The Boss' notes about her power, and he gets some ideas. He takes the kid in as his foster daughter and then her life becomes hell. To the people, he's a famous hero scientist and healer. But behind closed doors, he's an abuser.

The guy could have just done an apology and they'd have forgiven him. "Sorry, I needed to torture that girl because quirk erasing bullets would ensure a society of JUSTICE! But I realize now what I did was wrong and I'm trying to atone." Imagine if this also got leaked during the first war arc, so we've got Endeavor, Hawks and Overhaul all addressing the crowd's complaints at the press conference. But then the only thing people ask Overhaul is "Will you continue to use your quirk to heal us?" And "Will you fix the roads and the damaged buildings using your power?" And he says yes, and they're appeased. None of the good guy characters have an issue with what he did, suddenly, even if they really should. Oh, but it's fine because Eri forgave him, right? An extreme example, but given how no one even thought twice about forgiving Aoyama when he got outed as the traitor and the characters don't even discuss the controversy with Hawks and Endeavor's actions? We had what, a brief conversation when Tokoyami rescued Hawks where Tokoyami told him he did the right thing? And nothing else. The good guys just don't engage if another good guy does something morally dubious. I believe this is entirely on brand for this series. It was pure plot armor and dumb luck that no one ever died as a result of Aoyama leaking information. Imagine if Moonfish had successfully skewered Shoji's heart and then ate him. Imagine if Mustard had gunned down both Kendo and Tetsutetsu and they died from their injuries. What about if the League successfully kidnapped both Bakugo and Tokoyami, but Shigaraki decided he only wanted Bakugo, so he films himself turning Tokoyami to dust so he can send the video to the heroes and news stations to highlight their failures to protect kids? That was entirely outside of Aoyama's control but his classmates didn't care that they all only continue to exist because the villains were thankfully too incompetent to kill them. The crimes of heroes just don't matter. These people allegedly enforce the law but only when a villain is the one doing the law breaking. Heroes are allowed to make mistakes and get forgiven.

[violettimeaya]

I don't know if is just me but... Behind all fun things Gon and Killua does, ther relationship is actually really damn sad. Is a long yap.

They are eachother first friends so they experimenting on each other, while both of them have have greater emotional intelegece the others kids in this universe would have. They bonded over isolation and loneness they both had. Yes Killua had Canary and Alluka, Gon had Noko, Mito, his grandmother and the womans that he dated with. Do you kinda see the pattern? The good times they spend bonding and learning bonds was always with woman's. Maybe is not as strong for Killua's case since there's is a lot of influence of his parents and brothers - but this one is mostly negative, while in retrospect he acts like regular kid with Alluka and Canary. But to even make the circle smaller - with people around ther age, there where only woman. Shood out to any Canary/Killua and Gon/Noko shippers, Killugon fans shoud accept and ambrace u all (and I'm obbsesed about Killugon)

Back to boys, they also bounded quickly creating alliance and having nodge of rivalry in it too. I kinda see it as two kids that where bullied finally notice each other and relate to eachother pain. First time in ther life. Probably so rapid because of ther age, but I think gender is important in it too. Where they doomed from the start because of that? I don't really know. They start to drive eachother, Gon knowing would never find his dad without Killua. Killua just aprecatioing that Gon is his friend and he never is bored - yet he lacks greater goal.

They somewhat projected each other in chimera ants with Killua having way better arc while Gon seems so incomplete. And I mean it. It was rushed with Pittou fight with only few highlights, the contions for transformation was kinda out of ass, AND FUCKING KITE. We need to headcanon to understand how much Gon romatices Kite since TOGASHI GIVES US ALMOST NOTHING AND EXPECT US TO UNDERSTAND GON'S PAIN. We can say "Oh is his first exposure to greef" well is pretty badly written let me tell you.

1. Not enough Kite, he should be exposed as much as Ging in the background if you want his death make important.

2. Gon is more emotionally mature than people think so, and i think his rage could be slight character assassination of his since the build up is way to drasticall. If we had more hits, Gon talking more about Kite to Killua to tell him what inspire him. It was so missed out.

Ignoring the bad writing of Hunter x Hunter the thing you probably imagined when i said that ther bond is sad is - them separating. Is that only bad things that happened to them? Not really, i think Togashi could explore more that they have problems but... Shonen manga isn't about creating good bonds but guys getting stronger and better. Maybe if Gon acually died the ending would be better contrition wise - and trust me it hurts me to say that I want my favorite child to die out of his mistake. But Allukas revival makes it pointless to, uh is so painful. Let's go back to separation, because it reminds me of like how a friend moves out kinda situation, shit changed so bad off screen that both of them decided to leave eachother alone - did we ever got this convo? I think not! GON AND KILLUA DONT TALK ABOUT IMPORTANT THINGS THAT'S WHY IS SO SAD TO ME. I just want them to sit down and have heart to heart covo like "you are the light scene". Fuck geting stronger physically, I want psychological development among them. BUT NO WE HAVE TO HEADCANON, HXH COMUNTY IS CARRYING SO HARD IS UNREAL.

I ended up feeling more pissed out than sad. I am huge Killugon shipper yet I fucking hate and love Hunter x Hunter - so that's how passion feels right?

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

re: years of labor

I do wonder if she would’ve been able to let go of the relationship earlier if the narrative around Joe wasn’t “the worst thing happened to me but it doesn’t matter because I found The One.” That’s the thesis of rep, basically. His love redeemed all her pain and loss.

Except that it didn’t really! Ending it wasn’t just ending it but also admitting what happened in 2016 wasn’t erased by him. Handcuffed to the spell she was under etc

That’s super interesting and I think I follow what you’re saying!

As someone who doesn’t know her and isn’t in her head, I don’t think that I’d feel qualified to make any definitive statements on that beyond speculation from what she’s written.

Most of the time I think that the very basic long and short of it is that she loved him, and that and the memories of when things were good kept her going through the bad spells, along with some determination to beat what she thought were her “Bolter” tendencies (and not maybe her gut trying to tell her their problems were more serious than anxiety).

I think there are probably a lot of what ifs around it, and I mean, from an outside perspective it seems like she maybe should have called it quits by the time she wrote YLM because it was clear things were very bad. But then it comes down to, it seems like she tried to leave and thought it was going to kill her, so maybe the real moral of the story is that she couldn’t leave for good until she absolutely had to, like she knew that there wasn’t a shred of hope that things were going to change.

And yes, I think now she understands that a lot of their relationship was tied into what happened in 2016, which again is why she revisits it in new depths on TTPD. Because coming to terms with some of the key traumas of her adulthood finally explained why she sought what she sought and coped in the ways she had over the years.

Almost like, his love in 2016 wasn’t the redemption or silver lining she thought it was, but more of a temporary tonic that staved off dealing with the actual trauma underneath. Hiding behind the bravado of rep (fuck you, you got yours but I’m going to get the last word, and in the end it doesn’t matter because at least I found my soulmate and he loves me for me) helped her deal in private, but it also painted over the severity of a lot of it it seems, and once she started clawing her way out of that and the trauma responses she’d developed, it seems like it might have started highlighting how different their outlooks were on life.

Like, I always took “handcuffed to the spell I was under” as more about the “one hour of sunshine” of it all: meaning, the rarer and rarer good times when everything felt like they did in the beginning were spurring her to stay because when things had been good they were GOOD and felt like an elixir. And she was clinging to the dreams they’d shared earlier on. But the idea that the spell is actually the fantasy about how he’s the thing that saved her from 2016 is such an interesting one and kind of falls in the same universe but a different facet of it.

[bluedalahorse]

In additional support of weird for YR fandom (weird looks a number of ways!)

Yes, I am super in support of @enjoythesilentworld’s post about how 2025 YR fandom should invest itself in weird fic.

I’d like to take that idea and elaborate on it and argue that “weird” fic (meant in the most complimentary way) doesn’t always have to be synonymous with crack fic or humor. It certainly can be, and at the same time, there’s also lots of other moods and genres a “weird” fic can take on. So I mean this in an encouraging way for those of you who don’t write crack or humor: you too can write “weird” in your own way!

Some of my favorite fics in fandoms before YR (I have been in many fandoms over the years) were the ones that made me go “I didn’t know I wanted to read a fic about this, but this story got me interested anyway.” They’re often ones that poke at the boundaries of commonly established and well-liked fanon, or took a deep dive into less-written-about characters in ways I didn’t expect. And then the author might choose an odd bit to commit to, but they commit to it nonetheless.

I try to take this approach in my own YR fics. I don’t have the comedic timing to be a good crackfic writer, and my particular brand of humor more often involves highlighting the absurdity of social norms. I tend to think my writing niche is bittersweet—sometimes leaning bitter, sometimes leaning sweet. The “weird” premises I like are less along the lines of putting the characters in a strange new world or situation and more just asking what I can do that’s a little outside the ordinary for fandom. Or, to put it another way, the ideas that feel less safe or marketable, or like they aren’t going to have an audience at all.

For instance, Five Times Felice Ehrencrona Was A Bad Friend was written during a time when a lot of fandom was praising Felice for being a good friend. Which she is! But I said to myself, surely Felice isn’t patient and kind with all of her friends all of the time? Maybe a fic about that wouldn’t be fascinating to other people, because Felice’s good friend status is a thing people enjoy about her, but it’s fascinating to me. So I committed to the bit and wrote it. I’m glad I did.

Or take Makes the Medicine Go Down. Ew, a story where Vincent like, gets straight married and reproduces and divorces and tries to be a good dad in spite of all this? Ew ew Blue, you’re going to take Vincent’s feelings seriously? So weird, right? But the idea wouldn’t leave me alone, and it gave me the big feelings, and I committed to the bit and wrote it. I’m glad I did.

August continues to grow in a positive direction after canon and deepens his friendship with Nils in university while Kristina tries to use August to make up for past mistakes? Swell the Numbers. Glad I committed to the bit because I really liked writing that fic.

None of these fics are weird in the sense that they are crack, but they are “weird” in the sense that they don’t feel super “safe” or “marketable” to YR fandom. Maybe they are safe after all, but I didn’t feel they were while working on them.

I spend a lot of time craving fic that pushes past the usual fandom archetypes, and focuses on characters who aren’t written about as often. Like, what if Felice doesn’t want to be a good friend and a listening ear all the time? What if Rosh has a day when she isn’t confident and sporty, and completely forgets how to talk in front of a pretty girl? What if Ayub loses his patience and gets into a big fight with Simon? Does Sara feel occasional waves of jealousy toward her friends, even after her transformative first year at Hillerska, and what do those waves of jealousy look like? What would it look like for August, as crown prince, to get a pet he ends up feeling really attached to and soft about? What’s the shy side of Maddie’s personality like? We know she’s brash and daring in English but so shy about Swedish she won’t speak it. What if Hillerska reopens without the main five, and Alexander and Henry and Walter are the new third year boys now, and they’re having serious conversations about what the way forward is? Do they rebuild the old system or try to push forward with a new one, and do they even agree on what leadership looks like?

You could write these ideas as crack/humor, or you could also dive into them as a more serious story. Maybe it’s a stretch to call these “weird” ideas, and maybe for a lot of people weird only means crack. But I wanna argue that weird can also just mean unusual, and unusual can mean deepening a character in unexpected ways that you’re worried no one is going to like. Well. I think we should all lean into “unusual” in 2025 too. Maybe more people will like it than we think!

[crystaldust]

HIGHLIGHTS FROM “What Am I?”

[session 13 of “Keys to the ultimate freedom” by Lester Levenson]

♡ The ultimate goal of every being is total and complete happiness with no taint of sorrow whatsoever. 

♡ “Attention! You have spent many lifetimes looking in the wrong direction! Stop looking without and look ye within! Only there will ye find that which ye have spent lifetime after lifetime seeking!” And then you meet someone like Lester: who tells you, “Seek ye your very own Self. Therein lies your complete happiness. Stop looking for happiness in people and things. Here you merely eliminate the pain of the desire for something, and the relief you get you call pleasure. And the pleasure is short-lived because the desire is not eliminated and is still there, and therefore the pain of it continues to gnaw at you.“

♡ Accept nothing unless you can prove it yourself. Prove it and it is yours. Prove it and then you can use it.

♡ The intellect does not avail it to us. The intellect can get us in the right direction to find it. The right direction is turning within, stilling the mind and experiencing this truth, this knowledge. And only by experience can we get to know it.

♡ Methods are many, but the very highest is the method that everyone uses in the final end, and that method is finding the answer to “What am I?” This quest should be kept up all the time, not only in meditation, but during the day. While we're working, no matter what we're doing, in the back of our mind we can always keep that question posed: “What am I?” until the answer makes itself obvious to us.

♡ Now, any answer the mind can give us must necessarily not be it because the mind is an instrument of limitation. All thoughts are qualified; all thoughts are limited. So any answer the mind gives cannot be right. The way the answer comes is simply by getting out of our own way - removing the blindness that we have imposed upon ourselves by assuming thoughts that we are a thinking mind body.

♡ So, the way is to pose the question “What am I?” and quietly await the answer. Other thoughts will come in, and the biggest difficulty is quieting these thoughts. When other thoughts come in, if we pose the question, “To whom are these thoughts?” the answer naturally is, “To me.” Then, “What am I?” puts us right back.

♡ In addition to posing this question until we get the answer, it is good practice in our daily life to be not the doer, be not the agent. Just be the witness! Acquire the “It is not I but the Father who worketh through me” attitude. 

♡ So, there are two things I'm suggesting, one is the quest “What am I?” and the second is, in life itself, be not the doer; be the witness. Let things happen; allow life to be. That's the way we are in the top state, and the best behavior in life is that which is characteristic of the top state.

♡ the greatest aid is to be not the doer, but be the witness.

♡ When we attain this top state, we are not zombies, but we are all-knowing and everywhere present. Everything falls perfectly into line. We move in the world just like anyone else moves, but the difference is that we see the world entirely different from the way everyone else sees it. We see our body and every other body equally as our Self. Likewise, every animal and every thing as our Self. Seeing everything as “I,” gives us that singular Oneness throughout the universe which is called God, or the Self. We watch our body moving through life like an automaton. We let it go its way. And since we are not really that body, nothing that happens to that body can effect us. Even if it were crushed, it wouldn't mean much to us because we fully know that we are not that body. We know our eternal Beingness and we remain That! So, one who has attained the top state is difficult to distinguish from anyone else. He wiII go through the same motions of life and whatever he was doing before, he might continue to do. But his outlook on life is entirely different. He is completely egoless; he has no concern for his own body. He is interested in others and not in himself, he is interested in all humanity. Whatever he does has absolutely no ego motivation. His body will continue to live its normal span and usually goes out, in the eyes of the unknowing, the same way most bodies go out, via so-called death and coffin. But the one who was originally connected with that body never sees any of this death. He sees this entire world and body as an illusion that was created mentally just as we create scenes, cities and worlds in our night dreams. When we awaken, we realize there never was such a thing. And in the same way, when we awaken from this waking state, we see that the whole thing was a dream and never really was. That the only thing that ever was, was my Being, the absolute Reality, being all beingness, infinite, all perfect, all knowing, all powerful, omnipresent.

♡ Q: To not be the doer, don't you plan? Don't you do everything normally? Lester: No, the right way is not to plan. Let it happen. Let go and you'll be guided intuitively. Instead of planning with thought, you'll do the exactly right thing, perfectly at the right moment, from moment to moment.

♡ Q: There is a situation where someone might take a position of that kind when he hasn't really felt it; for example, he will say, “I'll just stay in bed until I'm moved.” Meantime his rent isn't paid. Lester: So, he'll have to move! If we assume that we are there and are not, we are soon awakened to the fact that we are not there, see. Bob, I'm talking from a higher level now, the perfect state, where everything is in absolute harmony every moment. There you never think, and at every moment you know from within just the right thing to do. You're guided intuitively each and every moment and everything falls perfectly into line. Now, if you're not there, of course you have to think; you have to plan.

♡ Q: Well, in practice then, in the beginning, it's probably a combination of the two where things go very easily, and then there's a hump in which you have to plan. Lester: Definitely yes! In the top state you do by knowing; you just know from moment to moment. One feels “I know it!” That's just the way it feels and there's no thinking to it, only “I know it!” Q: I know from my own experience, I slip back and lay out a plan, but sometimes that plan comes very easily and quickly to me and sometimes I have to struggle like the devil to work it out, step by step and I don't know what's going to happen. Other times I just layout a plan and I know what's going to happen and I have no difficulty with it.

♡ Lester: The word “know” as you use it is the key. You know how that word feels when you say “I know it!” There's no doubt, not one iota of doubt there. And it happens. That's the key. That's the realm of knowingness. Make that all the time. Keep working for it until it comes and stays. The quickness with which we attain this is determined by the intensity of the desire for it. The more we desire this top state the sooner it comes. Everyone makes it eventually.

♡ Because of the state of affairs today, man is relatively low. We are very strongly convinced that we are a limited body and by long habit we are trying to hold onto it. So it's not easy to let go of this body, and because of that we need the grace of the Great Ones who in our eyes have passed on, but in their eyes, they're still here. When we recognize that they are still here, we can see them and talk to them the way we talk to each other. If we accept them partially, we can talk to them in a dream or a vision. The way we meet with them is determined by our acceptance of them. If anyone of us believed that he could go down to a restaurant and have a snack with Jesus, the way you believe you could do it with me, - if you had that much acceptance then you could do it..

♡ But the way He comes to us is determined by our acceptance of Him.

♡ The greatest humility is through surrender: not I but thou; it is not I, but the Father who worketh through me; everything I do is God's work, I am not the doer. It is surrender of the ego, the ego being a sense of separate individuality.

♡ The only thing that should concern us is what we do. For me, it matters not what your attitude is toward me. You could hate me with every cell in your body. But it's of extreme importance what my attitude is toward you. While you're hating me I should love you fully and completely.

♡ When we love, and only love, we are using the most formidable power in the universe. No one and no thing can harm us. We can never ever be hurt or unhappy if we would only just love without any hate.

♡ When you love fully you understand the other one fully. Love is understanding. It's identifying with the other one, being the other one. Coming down a step, it's wanting the other one to have what the other one wants, loving the other one, the way the other one is.

♡ Q: Then who is our enemy? Lester: In reality we have only one enemy and that's ourself. No one can do anything to us; no one can do anything for us. Someday you'll see this, that we in our consciousness determine everything that happens to us.

♡ Q: Then it is our idea of ourselves which is incorrect? Lester: Right. And that could be made better!

♡ Q: When you say understanding, do you mean understanding in a logical sense, or do you mean acceptance of them without question of the reason why they're doing things, good or bad; just acceptance of whatever they are in an entirety.

Lester: It's acceptance in an entirety. But the real understanding requires knowledge of what the universe and the world are. When we see someone doing wrong, we have to know that this is a god-being, misguided. He's looking for God in the wrong place. He's looking for happiness the way he sees it.

♡ Now this doesn't mean approving of his program, it doesn't. But whether we approve or not of his program, loving and hating are two different things than not approving of his program. So we love everyone, see them as misguided beings, forgive them for they know not what they do. They're like children, misguided. Attain the highest state of loving everyone equally as Christ did!

[the-blind-assassin-12]

INTRODUCING: TERRIFIC TWOSDAY because what's better than one rec? that's right, two.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! ... Or should I say TWOSDAY? In an effort to get through my TBR list and to shout about things I've been meaning to shout about for far too (two) long, I am going to be turning every Tuesday into Two Recs Day. I'll be highlighting two works in each category that I loved and that I know you'll love, too (2)! Check them out, and remember to show some love to the creators!!

Two Series Recs: This week, I am going with two series that are currently in progress. I know that finished works often get a lot of focus. As they should! I can tell you first hand that seeing a whole series through to the end is a TALL ORDER. But you know what is also very freaking cool? Hopping on board while the train is still in motion, catching up with previous chapters and waiting excitedly to see where the train is taking you! So without further ado, here are the two trains that I recommend you all hop on this week.

LIMINALITY by @something-tofightfor

Frankie Morales x F!Reader

Wolf AU + “forbidden romance”

9 Parts in so far (plus extras + POV switches)

Thrills. Chills. Swoons. Moons. This story is brimming with excitement and adrenaline… not to mention the heat. (Frankie is a whole entire menace, as he should be.) All the guys are here (yes, that does include Tom 🙄) and they are all captured so perfectly, as is their friendship with one another and with Frankie. It features a very confident, brave, badass reader, ancient lore, supernatural elements, family business, and one heck of a connection between our main characters. Every chapter flies by and leaves you wanting - needing - more, and now is an excellent time to let yourself get hooked on this one, because the action is only ramping up from here!

PASSENGER by @whatsnewalycat

Din Djarin x OFC!Charlie

Modern Trucker AU + dog Grogu

6 Parts in so far

Are you looking for a new OC to fall in love with and want to protect with your life? How about a morally gray long-hauler who moonlights as a bounty hunter? Well you’re in luck because this story has BOTH. It’s also got incredibly high stakes juxtaposed with really sweet, human moments. Charlie is one of the most charming OCs I’ve ever met (which happens to be one of her rules to live by- all of which are good advice for anyone to follow, IMO) and Din’s characterization is so very well done - as is Grogu’s. The theme of delivering the bounty vs doing what’s right is very present and extremely well done, and watching these characters warm up to each other and blur the lines is truly a treat. Get caught up and hitch a ride for the rest of the journey, because I know it’s only going to get better from here!

Two One Shot Recs:

GREATEST OF ALL TIME by @gnpwdrnwhiskey

Dieter Bravo x OFC!Ava

Meet cute + “Do you believe in aliens?”

Dieter needs a break from work and the hullabaloo that comes along with it, and has enlisted the help of his assistant to book him a solo getaway so he can just relax, reset and revive the vibes. Sounds great, right? It is, until he gets turned around and off the beaten track in the middle of the desert and meets the enigmatic Ava and her faithful pal Goat… who might be more than your average Great Dane. After a misunderstanding about where he’s supposed to be, Dieter realizes that the airstream desert oasis under the stars is exactly where he’s meant to be.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTERS by @sixhours

Joel & Ellie

Part of an existing universe

Even though I’ve not yet read the series that this one shot takes place in, it’s immediately gone on my list due to this little interlude. This is such a good character study of Joel and of Ellie - of what they’ve been through, what they want for each other, and how their relationship has grown and changed. It’s got some really beautiful lines and heartwarming/heartbreaking feelings. I love these two forever and ever, and this little slice of life shows just how much they love each other, too. Joel Miller is Dad of the century. Period. The end.

Two Art Recs:

Ezra & Cee Jammin’ by @thekawaiifruitworld

Literally every time this artist draws these two, my heart grows ten sizes to accommodate how much more I love them. JUST LOOK AT THEM! So goofy, so happy, so whole and healthy and and and..!

Joel Strummin’ by @nic0o-o

I whimpered when I first saw this masterpiece, and you will, too. Just go. Just go look. Look at his beauty. I dare you not to be in your feelings about this man after seeing this piece.

[becomingpart2]

It really bothers me how people inadvertently end up shitting on Skyler when the praise they send Kim's direction seems to rely on how good of a female character she is and by extension how relieved they are that we finally have a good one on the same level of the male characters. There's always this underlying tone that this universe finally has a complex female character worth talking about and getting invested into. And yes I agree that she is an interesting character but the underlying tone that seems to accompany that praise is a sense of putting down Skyler for being just "the wife" or, mostly, the battered housewife. It seems people are only ever interested in talking about her when they want to (rightfully) defend her from the misogynistic attacks she's suffered over the years or to talk about how much she suffered in universe. Not much about her as a character on her own, not much about how she's complex and interesting on her own.

I understand the need to highlight her suffering and how she was victim in all of Walt's bullshit (and unfortunately that is still needed) but I also think it's hypocritical and condescending (and a touch misogynistic on its own) to only ever see her as a victim and thus less of a character than someone like kim, that gets to be maker of her own ruin.

Skyler is not just the good loving mother that wants to protect her children from their father and the criminal world he inserted them into. She's also smart and funny and quick on her feet. She's able navigate and adapt to different environments and she does it well. She's proactive, she comes up with plans on her own; sometimes against Walt (ted, the pool incident), sometimes to help him and them (the carwash) and sometimes to help herself (the IRS thing or when she evades police by pretending to be in labor). She's also flawed like all good characters are.

There's a lof of the talk about how Kim has more agency, and while I think that's true and good on its own, it can often fall prey to the point of view that the only way for a female character to be a good character is if she dominates predominantly male spaces and make those her own. As if the only way to be interesting is if you do it in the same way men do. It's a little diminishing towards women that don't do that or aren't interested in doing that (I'd also call into question how effective is that agency when It's conveniently one that doesn't go against what the male partner wants).

It's interesting how I have seen people say that the reason some might not like Kim is because she's a woman that exhibits traits usually associated with men and how she's the one who "wears the pants" in her relationship with Jimmy. That's true but I think it's important to remember that misogyny doesn't make those kind of distinctions and while she might be hated because of that, more "traditional" female characters are hated just the same, if not more.

In fact, I'd argue that Kim is hated significantly less than Skyler ever was. A lot of the male viewers like her and most of the analysis you see of the show regards her as one of the best characters in television history.

It's also funny because that comment seems to imply that Skyler is the "traditional female character" archetype, the housewife that's only there to take the abuse and that's not true at all to Skyler or how she was received by audiences. A lot of the reason she was hated as much as she was (is?) is precisely because she didn't fit into the expectations of what a "good wife" should be like. Because she didn't bow down and take Walter's side, because she was too independent and didn't support "her man" when he needed, because she couldn't see where he was coming from (which, strangely enough, it's something Kim always does, regardless of why you think she does it, the fact is that she's always by Jimmy's side).

This is not an attempt to shit on Kim but rather to highlight how often the conversation surrounding her character seems to veer in the direction of inadvertantly putting down Skyler as "less" of a good female character when I would say both have strengths and weaknesses from a feminist standpoint.

[aangarchy]

Netflix atla live action review ep 7-8

Home stretch baby. I figured since i love the source material i should just be able to enjoy it, or at least be entertained by it somewhat. But even that was just not possible. I pirated it after the first three episodes just bc i didn't want to give netflix the satisfaction of a view.

It's not so much the acting, the costumes or even the bad/mediocre cgi, it's the writing. It's an absolute shitshow, a mess of the highest caliber. For someone who claims to love the source material, it really seems like Albert Kim didn't understand why a lot of the things in the original worked the way they did. Things that are important for character growth got removed, and lore that we normally don't see til later on in the show (or even in a completely different story within this universe!!) got crammed in. For no good reason too bc it doesn't really add anything, just gives us another obstacle or useless exposition that's supposed to explain another useless thing they added.

Both of the last episodes take place in the north pole. This makes sense somewhat because in the original all three of the last episodes took place there. The reason they did this in the original is to have room for all of the stories that still need to take place (pakku, zuko, spirit world, koh, waterbending training, sokka and yue etc.) However in this version, even though minutes wise we have more time, we have less story. Like way less. Also episode 7 proportionally is much shorter than 8 and it really gives issues with pacing.

Let's start with what annoyed me most. Where is the waterbending training? Where is it? The season's title is Water and Aang bent ZERO water this entire season unless he was in the avatar state. Katara "trains" yes, but it's mostly practicing moves she found on the scroll (which gran gran just gave to her? Why didn't this woman give it to her sooner???). She gets NO guidance from anyone, and the way she gets better at bending each time is because a BOY told her encouraging things. A BOY. In the OG we get Pakku saying "raw talent alone is not enough", which makes sense because bending in this universe is an extension of martial arts, and you have to train to become good at martial arts. This LA show however treated bending like a magic power, basically giving some mumbo jumbo about balance and a clear head and think of the people you love to become a better bender. And while yes, your mental headspace also is important (as highlighted in the original where zuko couldn't bend anymore bc he had no aggression left) it wasn't the only factor, it wasn't even the main factor.

When we arrive at the North Pole, Pakku and the chief of the North both expect Aang to help with battle strategy in order to stop the attack bc they're already aware it's coming. Aang tells them he doesn't really know how (wtf were they even expecting it mean that is a whole 12yr old) and they turn away going "guess we can't count on the avatar" like? Dude?? If they have such good intel that they already know the fire nation is preparing an attack, and that the Avatar is alive, how tf did you not hear that the Avatar is also 12 years old and far from a master of the four elements? Idk this weirded me out.

They removed the deserter episode, which means Aang doesn't renounce firebending, which means we get no storyline of Aang dealing with his conflicted feelings surrounding firebending because fire gives life, not just destruction. Katara also doesn't find out she can heal naturally. We just get told that healing is just a thing all waterbenders can do if they train for it. Katara's necklace has no significance at all in the story currently. Yugoda doesn't recognize that Katara is Kanna's granddaughter. Katara's gran gran being from the north originally doesn't play part in the story at all. Katara doesn't even once utter the words "this necklace used to be my mother's". Idk why that bothers me so much but it does. They also removed her rage at not being allowed to fight. Sure this show's Katara also goes to fight Pakku, but literally everytime she speaks she just sounds reasonable. She fights him not because she's So Enraged at not being allowed to become the master she's meant to be, but because the script demands it. She says it so matter of factly too. She's like a mellowed out shell of who Katara is supposed to be. I feel like this overall for her character in this show btw. I don't blame Kiawentiio bc i saw clips of her performance in other works (anne with an e notably) and she's good. This genuinely just seems like poor writing and directing. They removed all of Katara's passion. She's not warm, she's not feisty, she's not angry, she's not nurturing, she's also not flawed at all. I hate to say it but in this version she's giving Mary Sue, especially bc she just learns waterbending on her own, and then gets called a master out of nowhere. That's not how that's supposed to work. You're supposed to earn the term master.

Let's talk about Yue. Amber Midthunder is a great actress, but damn, that wig. Their budget was over 100 million dollars and yet they couldn't give my girl a lace front? Her wig was so structured and stiff, and if it were any other context like cosplay or a drag show this would have been perfect. Now it just looked really unnatural and instead of the hair being platinum it was gray. Yue's character got given more to do here. They changed the story to have her break her own engagement, but it's implied that the reason she did this is bc she met Sokka in the spirit world and... fell in love? Idk it was a bit weird. Both Suki and Yue were inexplicably entranced with Sokka. In the OG it's implied that Yue likes Sokka bc he's so different from the boys in the north, kind of like a city girl falling in love with a country boy. But here it feels different, he doesn't stand out at all compared to the other boys, and Hahn isn't a dickhead like the OG. I will say i like that Yue is a stronger character here. She takes charge of her own destiny and she is the one to realize that she can save the moon spirit, and wasn't told by someone else that she could do it. I am confused by them making her a waterbender, but i'm not mad at that change per se. I liked her sacrifice scene, her own acting was great. Sokka however... i genuinely burst out laughing, like so loud. The zoom in on his face, the expression, it was too much and too little at once. Overall, Yue's story was okay. Was it better than the original? Debatable. But it wasn't bad and that's a win.

We get Avatar Kuruk way earlier than we originally got him. I'm still kind of confused about the whole "you can talk to past Avatars but only in their shrine with their statue" thing, because if that's the case how in the hell is Aang ever gonna ask advice from Roku (or Kyoshi, since the writers clearly have a bias towards her and want to make her the main Avatar guide ig) without having to travel all the way to the shrine? Can they only talk in the one specific shrine or can we take a miniature set of Avatar action figures with us just in case we ever need advice? Also this lore abt the shrines and statues is flawed at best bc later on Kuruk shows up for Aang during the fight, while they're not present at the shrine. Either way, Kuruk was far from the go with the flow Avatar he was characterized as in the original. I know that we got some insight into Kuruk's story in the Kyoshi novels, and turns out it's a lot darker than expected, but Kuruk never let that change his character. He always remained chill, or at least kept up the facade, and i don't think OG Kuruk would be the type of man that is angry about how his life turned out. In this version, Kuruk is this scared, mean, bitter man who is really unsatisfied with his destiny, which he lashed out at Aang for. He seemed really angry at Aang to for no good reason. We're also not supposed to know this part about Kuruk's life yet. It's too much information and de waste time learning about his life story, the only reason we learn it in the first place is to explain the Special Spirit Killing Knife. Also the actor for Kuruk.... yikes bro. Idk which hallmark movie they pulled him from but he and his stupid polar bear hat looked like ass the whole time.

So there's this weird part about Kuruk having a Special Knife that is able to kill spirits. Idk if this is a thing from the Kyoshi novels that also made it into this show bc truth be told i haven't made it far into those novels yet at all, but it was strange to me. Somehow Zhao has this knife. We don't know how he ended up getting it (did the fire sage give it to him? I didn't see it but i might have missed it) and we pretend that this is the Only Thing that can kill spirits even when the spirits are mortal. Doesn't that negate the fact that the spirits are mortal, if they can only be killed by a Special Knife? Also there's this weird convoluted part about how the spirits actually live in the spirit world and only cross to the physical world once every ice moon to know what it feels like to be "mortal" and choose a different "mortal" form each time and this time they happened to be fish. But still, they can Only Be Killed By The Special Knife. Huh? What's the purpose of this added extra lore? I saw someone say the underlying point is that it shouldn't be this easy to kill spirits but.... that's the whole idea behind the Ocean and Moon spirits having permanent mortal forms? Them being mortal and choosing a form as insignificant as a fish, constantly circling each other to represent the precarious balance between Ocean and Moon, a balance that can be thrown off very easily. The whole point was that they're fragile so why add all this extra exposition for no reason? Why make the spirits harder to kill if in the end you're still just gonna have a guy stabbing a wet bag and not some rough spirit killing battle?

Zhao also just gets told by the fire sage that killing the moon is a thing he can do. I don't like what this changes about Zhao's character. Zhao is supposed to be this cunning man. He's scary, determined, strategically inclined, but alas overconfident and willing to go too far which ends up being his downfall. His ambition is what led him to do his own research by visiting a spirit library to find any weakness he could potentially exploit, and that's precisely what he found. In the original, Zhao always fought for his own career. His own accomplishments got him the tools to try and beat Zuko in the Avatar race. But in this version, Zhao just keeps getting handed things. He's a slippery snake that plays friends with Zuko and then tries to steal the glory from under his nose. He gets handed the archers, he gets handed the information on the moon spirit, he gets handed a war balloon (which completely ruins the surprise of the fire nation suddenly having air power at the invasion), and he gets helped by Azula of all people. It makes him look a bit chumpy in this story, and it really worsens his villain qualities.

On a completely other note, this LA seems to have a thing for making adults yell at a 12yr old Avatar for leaving the world behind, and it doesn't make any sense, because in this story Aang left on Appa for a joyride to clear his head. Aang didn't purposely leave. He had every intention of returning after an hour. Yet every adult in this show, even the past Avatars that know damn well Aang didn't flee from his responsibilities, yells at him bc he accidentally got encased in ice. And somehow this Aang gets made to feel worse about it than OG Aang even though he deserves it way less bc this Aang didn't actually run away! I don't like what this changes about Aang's character. In the OG, Aang has one fatal character flaw and that's avoiding responsibility. He runs away, and has problems with taking accountability for what his actions cost the world. He goofs around, plays games and likes to have fun to avoid having to face his destiny, all while carrying the guilt and blame for the century war. It's a huge part of Aang's character journey. The guilt he feels isn't misplaced bc Aang knows he ran off, and he knows that the world is in its current state because of his decision. In the end he takes responsibility by showing up to the fight with Ozai alone. In this LA, even though by all means Aang shouldn't feel responsible, he ends up taking responsibility right away. He goes to Kyoshi Island, not to goof around and ride giant koi, but because he knows he can talk to Kyoshi there. Kyoshi yells at him for leaving (again, why? She knows he didn't run away) and gives him a vision about the watertribe getting destroyed. Instead of panicking about it (like OG Aang did after finding out abt the comet) he just accepts that he needs to go and help. And while this Aang does get to have fun moments (i especially loved how in the first episode he sees playing watertribe children and immediately joins them, that was quintessential Aang), he just seems very down and serious a lot of the time. He's scared of people getting hurt and is very worried abt the safety of his friends to the point where he agrees with Pakku and tells Katara she shouldn't fight. It's not Aang at all bc OG Aang was rooting for Katara when she fought Pakku. To sum it up: i think the casting for Aang was perfect. A cute southeast asian skater kid that loves to have fun and genuinely just looked the part? Brilliant! I am genuinely not upset at Gordon's performance at all (although sometimes i wish he'd enunciate a bit better). But the writing messed up the character so much that i couldn't even feel the joy for having the perfect looking Aang. I will say Koifish Godzilla (Koizilla if you will) looked dope. What did confuse me abt the Koizilla scenes is that sometimes there was no music (which is a choice i often like bc it gives the scene extra gravitas) and then sometimes there was a majestic score playing in the back, like they couldn't choose how they were gonna execute it and just picked both. I know that's nitpicky but it bothered me nonetheless.

Speaking of Koizilla. Wtf was that thing they added about Aang "succumbing" to the ocean spirit and being "lost"? They didn't even explain it at all, but both Yue and Iroh talked about how Aang would be lost forever now. We don't get a why, we don't get a how. And "lost" is such a vague word for it too. Like would his spirit be lost and only his body remain? Would he be completely swallowed up by the ocean? Would he remain Koizilla, forever rampaging at the ice wall? They added this for extra tension i guess, but it doesn't really work when only minutes later Aang is able to return no problem bc Katara talked him out of it, so we don't even get to find out what "he'll be lost forever" means. Also: the scene with Katara talking Aang out of it was cute, but the execution was weird. Originally Katara gives this speech when Aang goes Avatar state at the southern airtemple. I like that they still kept Katara's speech to Aang bc it highlights their bond which is especially important for later on in the show, but I don't like how now Katara had to give this really heartfelt emotional speech to Aang in front of everyone else at the northern watertribe. It's supposed to be quite an intimate moment between her, Sokka and Aang as a new family, they're supposed to promise they won't let anyone harm him, which eventually calms him down. Here though Katara's just yelling these words at him in front of everyone and all the intimacy is gone. It also doesn't work as well bc we barely got any time of the gaang bonding. They spend episode 3-6 apart most of the time, so really they shouldn't feel this bond towards each other just yet. Because this LA removed a lot of the side adventures, we don't get the feeling that these kids have known each other for months.

Another thing they removed is Appa and Momo as characters. In the original they each get their own moments, we even got one whole episode with Appa as the main character (which won an award btw). Here though, Appa is solely used as a transportation animal and Momo... honestly i don't even remember what he does but i think it's mostly a small comedic bit? Also he hands the acorn to one of the characters. This is a bad change bc in these episodes Momo gets hurt so bad he nearly dies, and it has no emotional impact at all bc he's just an accessory in this story. I felt no emotional attachment to Momo and he just has no personality. I wonder how this choice is gonna play out when we get the kidnapped Appa story bc so far it's not looking good.

Anyway, for positives. I warmed up on Dallas's performance a lot, i wasn't that mad at Ian Ousley's performance and there were moments where he genuinely made me laugh. The cgi for the creatures was decent, but for the backgrounds it looked horrible. I liked that they showed how devastating the Seige of the North ended up being, with the unnamed kid and Hahn both dying. I liked the effect showing those two had on our main characters. I liked when Aang, Sokka and Katara all worked together taking out that one firenation ship. I liked the way they showed Sokka and Yue bonding. I really warmed up to the costumes as well, i still wish they dirtied it up a little to make them look less new.

There's probably some more positives but they're really minor compared to the negatives and also my brain is just done atp. I'm never gonna rewatch it for more analysis either bc i don't think i'll survive it lol. I might make another post abt my opinion on the show as a whole? Like an overall summary? Bc this shit is VERY long and i do apologize. If you made it this far, uhm. Thanks for caring abt my opinion so much that you sat down for like 10 minutes to read my angry yapping? I appreciate it.

Anyway bye

[branwendaughterofllyr]

Thank you for answering my previous ask! :D I have some thoughts on "a poison tree" that I wanted to share, so I couldn't help but write another one lol. So already going into it I love the backstory you gave Larys! His confession about his upbringing was such a haunting and memorable moment, especially through the lens of little Alyssa (who shouldn't be anywhere near him tbh). The way you portrayed her perspective as a child feels so real and... sad, somehow? Her disappointment with the limited life she can have as a woman in such a stratified and sexist society was really poignant, and her desperate search for someone to fill the void her mother left were highlights that resonated deeply within me (along with Larys' struggles as a disabled person in Westeros, since I'm disabled myself). Alyssa and Oldgon not only fit perfectly into the original story but also enriched it in ways that F&B and HOTD lack. This is so rare in fanfiction today and requires a tremendous amount of work and research, be it into the original work's lore or actual history. I'm really grateful for you sharing such a passionate and dedicated story with us.

On a side note, I apologize in advance because I have so many questions! Will "a poison tree" feature another character's POV besides Alyssa and Oldgon? Do you watch or read any analyses of HOTD/ASOIAF? If so, which ones? I think you would really enjoy the YT channel Hill's Alive. Lastly, could you recommend some of your favorite fanfictions for HOTD/ASOIAF? Bonus points if they're long fics!

Oh my gosh, I just about started giggling and kicking my feet when I saw this ask. Thank you so much for giving me the space to talk endlessly about my fic!

I saw Matthew Needham’s interview where he talks about his headcanons for Larys’ backstory, and it basically came down to his mother dying in childbirth and to be honest… I thought that was pretty lame because every mom dies in childbirth in this universe haha (even though I did it myself with Elinor lol). It’s just very lackluster to me, and I was already coming up with my own backstory for the Strongs at the time. Larys to me is a very… underutilized character, especially in fics. Many of the characters in F&B serve as parallels to characters in the main series, I think there’s a lot to Larys as a basically a caricature of Tyrion through the lens of history, an evil disabled man with unknown motives, who exists only to be the villainous traitorous wildcard. It’s very hard to get a handle on Larys in F&B because he’s really a character that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense based on what little we know about him, and while I thinks it’s worthwhile to consider him in the light of how Tyrion is viewed by a society that pre-judged him and will allow him no lenience, it’s deeply annoying to me that the show chose to do very little with him (especially in s1) and just make him a cackling villain who kills his own family just because. And this is not to say that I think Larys is a good guy, not at all, but I think there’s room to explore why he is the way he is.

And I think that I wanted to approach it through the eyes of a child, who might not have absorbed quite all the biases yet, or at least doesn’t understand the nuances of it. That’s why I wrote that bit where Larys expects Alyssa to ask him about his foot when she’s staring, and then is surprised when she asks about the ghost thing, and this entire thing goes completely over Alyssa’s head. I actually do kind of like the show take that Larys is seeking out people similar to him in Alicent and then Aegon, lonely damaged people that are isolated. But yes, Larys should not be allowed around children, especially ones that will straight up ask whatever questions on their minds. I think Larys’ confession was half-malicious, half-intended to be helpful, much like some of Cersei’s conversations with Sansa. Better to be traumatized early and learn that the world sucks. Really, he’s doing her a favour here!

One thing I tend to find…. Very heavy handed in most fics is how heavy handed the sexism can be, and how “modern” the sensibilities of the female characters. I think there’s a lot to be explored in the more insidious and underlying aspects, as well as the more obvious and in your face ones. Like, she’s grown up around men (of noble birth) who have been able to make their own ways in the world on paths simply not open to women, and as a child she doesn’t understand precisely why she can’t do the same.

I actually wanted to make Oldgon, for as much as he loves his daughter, still submerged in misogyny that he’s not really questioned much. Like, nice and/or smart people are not immune to the biases of their society! And Oldgon certainly isn’t, even if he has more fondness and respect for women due to his upbringing by Alysanne than other men, and he still expects his daughter to obey most of the rules for women even if he thinks education and curiosity are virtues for both the sexes.

I’m very glad that Alyssa has come off as a sort of melancholy character, especially since I think there’s an inherent cheerfulness to Oldgon even though he’s had a lot of tragedy in life. I wrote much of Alyssa I during the wintertime, when I suffer from pretty bad seasonal affective disorder, and I think that the pre-Dance Red Keep is a pretty disordered and lonely place to grow up in, even though it’s full of people. The severed emotional ties, the inherent distance between family members, all contribute to that. I also wanted to give her a really complex relationship with motherhood, that I will continue explore as the fic goes on!

I don’t currently plan to have any other character PoVs for Poison, it was always going to be just Alyssa and Oldgon in my head. But I have been making plans to do much more extensive fake F&B excerpts for events neither of them are present for. You may have noticed that I’ve introduced a new source for my version of F&B, Perkin Gaunt, who will survive the Dance (spoiler lol) and write his own history of it. Writing the F&B bits is actually really hard, but I like thinking about how the history got recorded, by who and why and to what end.

I actually don’t like watching ASOIAF YouTube videos or listening to related podcasts at all, a lot of the really popular ones have opinions I deeply disagree with or just find really annoying, and I’ve disliked the ASOIAF fan industrial complex since the days of GoT, and my opinion has only sunk lower as HoTD started airing. I’ve seen a few of Hills Alive’s videos, as one of my friends sent them to me, and I think she’s got some decent takes overall.

For ASOIAF fics, I like iron fears the rot by @undeniablespice which is a genderbent Theon Greyjoy AU. I’m currently still mad at the most recent chapter for making me feel things about the deaths of the older Greyjoy sons. I also love any work by just_a_dram but I’ll recommend their most recent finished work, which is a Jonsa space opera AU titled Lupum Luna

In the F&B/HoTD realm, I’m always recommending @aifsaath’s series The Sky is Always Red Above Valyria (great title that I am insanely jealous of) and their other series, co-written with @gwenllian-in-the-abbey Our Fathers Clad in Red which is a book canon AU, where Aegon II marries Baela after the Dance. I also like solitariusvirtus’ Aegon III/Jaehaera fics, and I’ll recommend every tomb, every sea, spit the bones from your teeth as a good one shot starter. This next one is probably not for everyone, but I have been fascinated by glory days by behemoth for a while, which is a pre-canon fic exploring Viserys’ enmeshed relationships with his father and Daemon, with plenty of uncomfortable moments, but it’s heavily informed some of my own headcanons about the family for my fic purposes lol.

Anyway, feel free to ask any questions, and I will spill more of my ramblings!

[widowed-mistress]

Okay! As per my last post, things I think people should add to their Steven Universe and Gravity Falls stories.

Grown Up Steven during Events of Gravity Falls

Steven does not need to be in every adventure

Yes, I want him to cultivate a relationship with the twins, BUT I want him to have his own life

I don't just want him to be their protector because they need to learn lessons on their own too

Give. Him friends!!! Wendy and hee group could potentially be friends with him since they're similar to the Cool Kids, BUT u like the Cool Kids, Wendy and her friends doesn't really *think* ahead about other people

For an example of a stark contrast, the Cool Kids take seat belt safety seriously AND grilled the gems for being too hard on Steven. "He's just a kid!" One of the few times an adult stood up for him.

Meanwhile Wendy, who I love very much so, took advantage of Mabel to get an afternoon off from work with full pay after trashing the Mystery Shack with her friends. The Cool Kids have responsibilities and passions they take seriously and realize the sacrifices of them. That doesn't mean they don't act like teenagers and hurt people while being selfish, but they take more accountable. I imagen Steven trying to befriend them only to realize this and back away, making friends with Soos and Stan since their accountability standards are higher.

Stan knowing Steven is "weird" and entrusting him with keeping the kids safe

For a few monsters, Steven's powers are useless, but to make him defenseless against Bill? C'mon now. He SUBCONSCIOUS uses these powers and we see that when he does do things on purpose, he is GOOD at it. His gem is a gem whose main powers revolve around creations and destruction of things dead of alive. I'm not saying make him OP, since that is not fun, but I feel like he gets nerfed too much in these stories. Which is why I emphasize, don't let him go on every adventure

It would be nice for him and Connie to be used as a good example of a healthy relationship for Mabel. She tends to just throw herself to relationship, so her learning indirectly what makes a good relationship could be sweet.

Him and McGucket as friends. Please. Hand and knees, need this.

Even though Mabel and Dipper don't appose each other like Ford and Stan do, their differences are highlighted once Ford arrives, Steven would be a good meadeator between them

Steven could be the PERFECT obstacle during Weirdmaggedon, I'm talking Bill purposefully curropting him obstacle.

I'm talking building up a relationship between the adults in the show and having THEM take care of it. While I loved Future's ending (cried a lot). I also feel like nobody really acknowledged that many of Steven's problems arrived from adults putting their problems on him. It was mostly people saying they WOULD support him now

Grown Up Steven after Events of Gravity Falls

At least ONE person not fully trusting him

The family thinks he's trying to hide that he's "weird," he is not. He is VERY happy that he gets treated like a human while not hiding that he is a gem, actually

Make him friends with the woodland creatures

Can Fall in Either Category

Good adult figures in his life

Normally these stories focus on him being human in Gravity Falls. No! Well not completely. He probably arrives wanting it to start out that way but as he realizes how normalized weirdness is here, he begins to finally embrace both halves of himself. Existing as both gem and human without separating the other. Using his gem abilities but not for life saving events. Let him have his own fountain/garden in Gravity Falls

Stan slowly learning how Steven lived before (van life, eating bits for free at the Fry shop, cooking eggs using a waffle pan, nobody forgot that the only reason baby Steven and Greg didn't freeze when he was a baby was because Vedalia was out of town right?) And they bond over i

[fountainpenguin]

Been bingeing T.U.F.F. Puppy and Bunsen Is a Beast while I've been sick. Here's a liveblog of highlights I enjoyed:

Every line of dialogue in these shows is fantastic...

- "You don't need to breathe- You just need to obey my every command." - "In the interest of our friendship, which is way more important to me than anything in the world... I'm taking the speedboat. Think about it- You don't want the hassle of owning a speedboat!" - "I've been nice this year. And by 'Nice,' I mean I've kept my more sinister acts on the downlow through deception, deceit, and occasionally framing others." - "This is the greatest moment of my brief life!" - "Anywho, Santa... You're looking buff! Have you been hitting the gym~?" / "Are we seriously doing this?" - "To protect my standing on the nice list, can you please refer to me as Marsha during this particular evil mission?" - "You guys have to save Christmas! ... I would, but I'm in a box and I'm 5." - "You don't need to know the laws when you're a criminal. Or a baby! Just a little fun fact I thought I'd throw out there." - "I know you are lying to me... Your status says I'm lying to The Chameleon." - "You voluntarily touched me in an affectionate way!" - "I love our new crib! It was an impulse buy. (Gasp)- We should steal a baby to put in it!" - "If I'm so dumb, how come I've been getting away with slowly poisoning you?" - "You're going down for armed robbery!" / "They're not armed." / "Are you kidding me? Have you seen this man's guns?" - "Let me leave! I'm not even helpful!" / "I'm never helpful and I'm still here." - Okay... Such good animatic redraw material.

- So many silly characters, many of whom look like cinnamon rolls but would actually kill you. I love them. I should finish my 'fic WIPs. Dudley's later flanderization-characterization still makes me sad... He cared so much about working in Season 1 that he couldn't settle down on vacation. He'd explore, he'd volunteer for things, he obsessed about paperwork... That's who he is... He was good at his job. I miss him.

- Who do you think has the higher kill count: Chameleon eating [confirmed sentient] bugs his whole life, or Keswick wiping out his home dimension? ... I guess it would HAVE to be Keswick because he would've killed the bugs too, huh?

- I really love the worldbuilding vibe of "You're allowed to kill other creatures, but if the ambulance is called, everyone is treated equally." Yeah, we sell flea collars and body spray. Yes, the Chief got incredibly sick when Dudley wore a flea collar into work; that is a thing that happened.

- Making one of the main characters a flea was pretty fantastic in itself, let's be honest. How many anthro shows have a bug main character (unless the show is all about bugs), and how many of them have a special mobility aid thing that magnifies their appearance, keeps them off the floor, gives them extra strength, etc... It's great.

- I love the Chief's monitor cart:

Why does it sit in chairs? How can he use the hands? Outrageous.

- It's heavily implied that even the creatures that look and act feral are actually sentient, which just makes Kitty bringing the Chief dead mice as a form of affection so much darker...

[cnt'd]

- How on earth did The Chameleon get invited to career day to speak to little kids about being a super villain? Whose idea was that?

- I love "Guard Dog"- It's probably my favorite episode. So many good quotes, such a goofy set-up, you get to travel outside Petropolis, it delves into some of the in-universe witness protection lore... It's great.

- I love Chameleon snuggling with Dudley because they're handcuffed together and he's cold-blooded. I like the end when Kitty is handcuffed to 5 people at once, but Dudley leaving her that way feels justified because she left him for the entire ride to Petsburg.

- I particularly enjoy Kitty only having 4 limbs, so Larry and Francesco are both chained to the same leg. I feel like they could very easily rip that off, especially with how often Francesco tries to eat stuff.

- I wanna talk about Chameleon's side hustle of going on dates with people who ask him to shapeshift into their dream person.

- Wannabee was forced out of the auditorium halfway through his evil scheme so the students could have play rehearsal.

- I will never be over Wannabee gushing over how cool he thinks it is that he can make honey and that he will outright tell you he makes it mouth to mouth. They could've given us bees passing the honey by hand, but no... No, we get to see them do it mouth to mouth and Wannabee brags about it. Hilarious.

- My adoration for Birdbrain is also growing. What do you mean he's lonely and cloning himself to save his species? What do you mean he can just walk into T.U.F.F. headquarters and shred their files for his nest material because he's endangered and they can't hurt him? That's hilarious.

- I think I said this years ago, but I really like how there's no romance between Birdbrain and Zippy. He hates her equally to all his other henchmen. Everyone he works with is useless, so he leaves them in the car with the window cracked instead of bringing them to heists. Man wants a partner and kids so bad, he puts up with the most annoying people you've ever seen... He hates them so much...

I can't stop thinking about the B-plot in "Pup In the Air" of Birdbrain trying to keep his deposit on the house he rented, but his henchmen just keep making terrible choices-

- Every time I think about how Owl's name is Terry, it just cracks me up. I don't think Birdbrain knows Owl and Bat have first names because the only two things they ever say are "Who?" and "Where?" so they can't communicate who they are as people.

- Also, shout-out to the commitment to Bat being blind. Unclear if he uses echolocation... He just kinda runs around. Why on earth does he have a gun?

Bonus screenshot to highlight Bat's gorgeous wing design:

- Why don't Owl and Birdbrain get feathered wings? DO they have feathered wings? I assume they don't, because Owl flies like this:

And we know Birdbrain can't fly, but his arms don't become wings either:

- Obsessed with Snaptrap having the power to erase minds and the only time he uses it is when wiping the minds of critics who were mean to his dancing clone.

- Some of these hero-villain relationships are so good... Dudley broke The Chameleon out of the holding cell so they can enter a two-person contest. Dudley pretends he's been poisoned and The Chameleon just goes along with it because it makes him look like a cool villain. Kitty gets dance lessons from Snaptrap... Dudley and Snaptrap were roommates... Snaptrap dated Dudley's mom... Dudley dated Birdbrain... They are so goofy.

- Speaking of Dudley dating Birdbrain, that episode cracks me up for many reasons, but one of them is definitely "Dudley getting in the way and being a pain even when he's trying to do his best job being sweet and helpful." "I'm blowing kisses~ And now they're hitting you~" /starts jabbing his fingers all over Birdbrain while Birdbrain's driving

- Can't stop thinking about how much I love Larry. Him and the evil crew he pulled by being a silly brother-in-law <3 I wish they would've delved into the Larry & Snaptrap are brothers-in-law thing in-show (It was only confirmed in outside trivia iirc), but... them.

He sit:

This would make a great "Draw the squad" meme, actually.

Oh, I just looked it up to see if I could find a source (because it was years ago that I read this fact and I suddenly worried it wasn't real). No direct source link, but here's what I found on the Wiki:

I've always assumed that means he's married to Pat since she's the only confirmed sister Snaptrap has-

But like, I think about this all the time... The Snaptraps are canonically a crime family, so did Larry know what he was getting into? Are they on good terms? They're not divorced. Is it a forbidden love? I still want a huge rivalry between the rats and the shrews... It would be so funny...

We know Snaptrap and Francesco share a bunk bed (or at minimum, a room with bunkbeds in it). I assume Larry goes home to see his wife, right? We know she's an actual successful criminal who thinks her brother is a failure, so, like... why does she let her husband hang out there where he's being tormented daily?

I watched the episode where Snaptrap gripes that Larry's face scares off girls, but like... that's so funny. Is it because he's married? Some of the other members of D.O.O.M. - like Ollie - are sad that girls don't talk to them, but Larry doesn't, like... ever discuss that. I wish he would've bragged about being married. I think it would drive Snaptrap up the wall. Maybe he does. I really wish we would've seen Larry at the Snaptrap family reunion. Larry, your wife...

I doodled Larry with his Murray hair because it's cute when he ties it back :)

- It will never not be funny that when Larry defected and founded his own league of villains, he broke the entire crimefighting system by refusing to call in advance to tell T.U.F.F. what he was about to steal. Overnight sensation. Everybody hates him for that.

- Once upon a time, I joked that Larry probably worked with his brother-in-law instead of his wife because Snaptrap's crimes are smaller, so Larry probably gets out of jail sooner and can spend more time with the kids, house, etc. Knowing what we know about what a meticulous planner he is when he takes over, I think that sounds about right. It's all one big, elaborate thing... That's very Larry.

- There are so many little moments of the Snaptrap-Larry hatred I enjoy, like how they play word games together and Larry just gets in his face about it. Larry rarely communicates directly with T.U.F.F. (barring the episode he's his own villain), but in "Girlfriend or Foe," he jumps on the call just to brag about how he's beating Snaptrap in the game and I think that's fantastic. Even back in "Share-a-Lair," they were playing word games.

- In the truth syrup episode, Snaptrap admits he doesn't actually hate Larry, but he's hard on him because he thinks Larry has the most potential to be evil... but Larry straight-up confirms that he's been putting black widows in Snaptrap's gym bag. It's so funny to me... Snaptrap is mean in predictable ways, but do not mess with Larry. He'll get you back.

- I like how they went on a gameshow where Snaptrap had to guess Larry's secret desire, and it was-

The reason they lost out on their free vacation to Maui was because Larry stuck a rattlesnake in Snaptrap's pants at the airport and they couldn't get on the plane. He just can't help himself... He hates him so much. I just love them. He sit...

Why does Larry just have access to rattlesnakes and cobras? What does he do in his spare time?

- I like when Snaptrap breaks out of the holding cell to get snacks and then he goes back. That's always great.

- I love how committed Mikey is to being president of the Beast welcoming community. He has ONE JOB and he's going to do it. He loves his gift baskets. What do you mean Muckledunk's biggest export is silent whistles and they sell 9 per year? What.

- Everything Mikey says is fascinating to me. Also, within the first ~60 seconds of knowing him as a character in Episode 1, you get so much... He's an extravert, he does his research, he knows his town history, he plans ahead, he gets excited when he doesn't mess up his prepared speech, he's savage for no reason... It's great. Flawless character introduction.

- Like... Just the entire dynamic of "Bunsen is the first Beast to come to human school - and he's a member of a species known for eating humans - and it's on Mikey to make him feel welcome, not just as a fellow student but as an authority figure" is really interesting to me. Most of Bunsen's friends throughout the series are Beasts, which makes sense- Bunsen's actually pretty shy. Like... you wouldn't guess it by looking at him and his role as comic relief, but he's definitely less social than Mikey.

This screenshot just tells you the whole series dynamic:

It's Mikey and Amanda at each other's throats and Bunsen anxious in the background. SO funny. I also watched "My Gym Partner's a Monkey" years ago (and a little bit of "Squirrel Boy"), and both those shows lean into the "human is the comedic straight man and the non-human is the wild one" vibes.

But no... not Bunsen Is a Beast. It's Mikey who's the energetic, off-the-wall wild card. Bunsen just lives here. He's straight-up just a nerd who got sent to human school. Love that for him. Mikey's driving this car, but Bunsen keeps him from plowing into buildings and lakes.

Literally your best defense against Mikey is that when he gets too excited, he faints. This happens in multiple episodes.

Bunsen has such incredible "Perfectionist, told he's mature for his age" vibes... In Episode 1 when he almost eats Mikey, he whimpers, "Sorry, Mikey... I failed to co-mingle..." Everything in Bunsen's plot line comes back to "If you screw up, we can kick your whole species underground again." That's so much for a little guy. Ugh. My heart. I think he'd get along fantastically with Hazel. Mikey would be a lot for her.

- Every time Mikey and Bunsen try to say something in sync, but fail to do so, it's funny to me...

Your honor, this is a show about friends and kindness...

- I totally forgot the person Amanda invited to school for the "someone you wouldn't normally hang out with" event was someone with a restraining order against her. That's objectively hilarious.

- Cracking up at Mikey asking Amanda for break-up advice. Also, Bunsen warned him that if he tried to have a break-up talk with Willa, she might just eat him, and Mikey did it anyway. There is one thing this boy will not compromise on and it is "I am not comfortable with this. Stop coming onto me." Love that for him.

- I forgot Mikey got invited to a dance by Bunsen's cousin and he was so terrified he stopped breathing.

- "Extremely horny rich girl" & "Guy who will lure her in with promises of kisses and then dodge at the last second so something horrible happens to her" is such a funny combo. Mikey-Amanda rivalry, you will always be famous to me... You cannot get Mikey to accept her flirtations... He would sooner chew his arm off, I think.

- I can't believe Mikey threw Amanda off Santa's sleigh. Flying above the city. Really high. On purpose. Of course he would.

- I always forget Bunsen's house was just, like... built in the middle of the decorative roundabout piece.

- Mikey sending his own clone to run his conspiracy club is still one of the funniest plot set-ups I've ever seen. I didn't see it coming because Mikey was bringing in clones for every club he's in, but... yep. I can see how this went wrong. Mikey is such a terrible dad to his clones; it's so funny. He just dunks on them every time he sees them.

- I like how Nerd Mikey is equally as unhinged as regular Mikey. Logically he would be - He's a clone - but what is going on inside his head... Sir, you can't just leave school property to go back in time...

- What do you mean Mikey is in the "Amanda Stares at Mikey and Makes Tiger Growl Sounds" club. I mean, by default he kind of has to be there, but that's so funny...

- Totally forgot Mikey wants to write a song called "Hey Mom- Get Out of My Room." His hatred for his clingy parents plagues him constantly.

- Amanda- "I'm going to watch Munroe change his shirt. Raowr." / Mikey, screaming- "I will DIE in this shirt!"

- It is SO funny that even if you ask him directly, Bunsen will avoid questions about whether he eats people, but his first instinct to smelling Mikey covered in barbecue sauce is to tell him he smells delicious, and his first response to his BFF Wolfie suggesting they eat Mikey on a plate of noodles is "That does sound good." Hey. what.

And Wolfie knows Bunsen's hesitant about it, because he blatantly calls Mikey delicious, removes Bunsen's eyes, and tries to eat Mikey while Bunsen's looking for his eyeballs. Later he actually does get him in his mouth. And Amanda. omfg Wolfie...

We literally get to see a health class short film that's like "Let's talk about people-eating urges and feelings of guilt that come with it!" omg. Bunsen, why is that in your house? Why was that already on your person? Do you wanna talk about it?

I wonder if BiaB would've done better if it had been played with Invader Zim vibes. These shows have similar energy, but Zim has the colors and music to match its dark vibe. BiaB also gets pretty dark, but the colors and music make it so peppy and cheery... I think that's silly. You can tell it's got FOP energy (Sweet on top, horrifying underneath).

- Bunsen has so much anxiety about following rules even when they're in direct conflict to his happiness... He is doing his best...

- Forgot Bunsen is personally offended to learn that humans don't give Santa gifts, because Beasts give gifts to their present-giver. He just has such a strong sense of personal justice and loyalty...

- I cannot get over Bob slowly fading from the timeline, but continuing to report the news anyway. He's flickering, gradually losing his legs, but he acts like nothing's wrong.

They brought him a stool because his legs got disintegrated... They throw things through his head..

- I can't believe Amanda almost put a kitten in a woodchipper.

- Mikey's parents are so overprotective, distant, and weird about him, they canonically have not given him The Talk about where babies come from. He doesn't know his middle name.

- I LOVE how Mikey's relationship with his parents is just, like... him screaming that he wants them to back off and let him grow up. They just spy on him with a drone. "Stalked by his parents" is such a silly thing to do with your main character.

- They leave him at home to fend for himself, but still micromanage what he's allowed to do (Ex: He can own a llama and a scary praying mantis, but not a dog). Heavily implied they avoid their son because germs. There is no doubt in my mind they will continue spying on him when he's an adult. That's rough, buddy.

- Is Mikey a kleptomaniac? He just steals things... Amanda's dog. A shopping cart. He took some guy's lamp for no reason. He just took it on his way out.

- It's not like "Mikey is a massive guilt-tripper" was new to me, but it's still SO funny to watch him blatantly take advantage of Cosmo and Wanda even after Timmy repeatedly asked him to stop wishing. Timmy gave him an inch and he fought for a mile.

- Perfect depiction of the Mikey-Timmy relationship:

Mikey, please stop running Cosmo and Wanda ragged- / I totally hear you. No <3

- Mikey is older, but Timmy is unquestionably the more sensible and responsible one of this duo. Which is horrifying.

iirc, the "Beast of Friends" crossover took place when Season 10 was airing, though it's probably pre-Chloe since she wasn't there. Consider: Timmy resisted Chloe as a godsister because Mikey had already turned him off to the idea of sharing fairies.

- I totally forgot Mikey got sent to the future once. I can use this...

- Timmy calls Mikey "kid who's older than me" because Mikey didn't like him just saying "kid"

- Mikey adored the crossover. I think Timmy's glad he didn't have to hang out with Mikey any longer than he did. Just in August, I scrapped my "Best. Day. Ever." prompt for the 130 which was about Mikey running Timmy ragged, but... I kinda want to bring it back. Mikey is exhausting. He will break you down.

- I like how Mikey was excited by everything Timmy showed him, but Timmy was uneasy about Bunsen's house; it's Timmy who took charge of trying to explain things as realistic to his confused dad. Mikey literally did not care if people were put off.

- I still think it would be funny if Mikey and Dev switched drones for a day. Also, you'll see this in my Dale character profile on the sideblog, but my headcanon is that Mikey grew up and went into security with a pinch of robotics on the side (taking after his parents), so he just, like... bothers Dale. They met as kids when Mikey tagged along on an installation trip for the Dimmadomes, playing into my long-time headcanon that all the rich people in Dimmsdale have wild security systems because of Mikey's parents. Dale does not like him. Mikey's been mailing Dale Waffle House coupons for 20 years. There are no Waffle Houses in California.

- Mikey would snap Peri like a toothpick. He's just a lot and I cannot imagine a world where Peri has the patience for him.

Anyway, thanks for reading my liveblog. Silly, silly...