#but I have only a minimal amount of criticism

[getvalentined]

Every time someone says they watched Akira and didn't like it I want to grab them and physically shove them into the pages of the manga.

Every time someone says they watched Akira and it was the best work of fiction they've ever experienced I also want to grab them and physically shove them into the pages of the manga.

Basically what I'm saying here is that regardless of how high or low your opinion of the film is, the manga is indescribably better. The film is phenomenal, I'm not saying it's not, but the narrative it presents pales to the level of bleached onionskin in comparison to the manga.

[the-travelling-witch]

CUTE THINGS WITH HIM

summary: just some cute things they do in a relationship

pairings: atsumu :: osamu :: suna :: kita :: oikawa :: iwaizumi :: matsukawa:: semi :: akaashi :: kenma :: kuroo :: daichi :: suga :: sakusa :: komori :: futakuchi :: keishin x gn! reader (these characters just started adding themselves, i swear)

warnings: only my undying love for these characters

haikyuu masterlist || tokyo revengers version

Letting you stick your cold feet under his legs (with only minimal complaints) x Miya Atsumu

Atsumu is a whiny complainer at heart, so whenever you creep your frigid feet underneath his thighs while watching a movie, he’s doing exactly that: whine and complain. But he never pushes you away or moves his legs. Instead he drapes the blanket higher over you and tugs it in, his warm palms running up and down your calves caringly. He’s also bought you numerous pairs of fuzzy socks and cosy blankets, worrying aloud about your health and blood flow, especially in winter. Then again, it is a good excuse to pull you in closer and bundle you up in his comfy clothes, so who is he to complain, really?

Offering you his food x Miya Osamu

Osamu takes his food very seriously, still, he offers you the first bite without fail. You’re also his most important critic, always getting to taste test his creations, whether it’s for his shop or just for the two of you. He might roll his eyes playfully when you eye his food after saying you’re not hungry but he’ll still share. After all, seeing the content expression on your face as you chew your (or his) food is one of his favourite things.

Sending you stupid memes x Suna Rintarō

The fact that Suna has a near infinite amount of unflattering candids and other blackmail material of his friends on his phone is something you’re well aware of. So it shouldn’t be surprising either that he is digging up the most cursed reaction pics or posts to send them to you with nothing but ‘u’ following it. But, among all the weird stuff, he sends you cute animals cuddling and tags them with ‘us’. Every time you respond with ‘that could be us but you’re at practice’, his teammates come up to ask what he’s smiling about.

Buying flowers without occasion x Kita Shinsuke

Kita doesn’t believe in letting societally accepted commercial holidays dictate when he buys you flowers or chocolates or takes you out on a date. No, he prefers showing his love for you equally all year round. Oftentimes, that means you coming home to a bouquet of flowers or being told to keep your calendar clear for the weekend. To him, grand shows of affection once a year pale in comparison to a steady stream of adoration. After all, your relationship is built on the small acts of love you share each day.

Taking weird photos with his phone x Oikawa Tōru

There’s no room to argue that Oikawa and you trust each other blindly. Considering the circumstances of his career and the vigour of his adoring fans, you kinda have to. But Oikawa has always been very open and honest with you, even going so far as to outright tell you his phone’s passcode. And you use that knowledge wisely. No, not to go through his texts or social media. Instead you open his camera when he’s not around, taking a myriad of selfies or pictures of random objects near you for him to find later. After a night out with his highschool friends, Tōru might wake up to a pretty set of new wallpapers too.

“Helping” him work out x Iwaizumi Hajime

You’re not sure if you’re really all that helpful as you shuffle around your living room, handing Iwa water or a towel as he powers through his at home workout. Maybe ogling his biceps or the way his tank top clings to the defined pecs and abs underneath is what you contribute to this training session. Well, you’re good at that, anyway. But your time to shine comes as Iwa asks you to hold onto his legs as he does sit-ups, giving you an even better view. All your hard work is rewarded with the kiss he presses to your lips each time he leans up. 

“Is this guy bothering you” x Matsukawa Issei

Whenever you stub your toe on the edge of a drawer or bump your hip into the edge of a table, hissing at the shock and/or pain, Matsukawa is right beside you in seconds. Then, after assessing you’re not actually hurt, he turns towards the offending object with a glare. With his voice lowered by an octave or two, he’ll ask “Is this guy bothering you” before pretending to get ready for a fight with the big bad. It’s corny but you’d lie if you said it didn’t make you laugh.

Shared headphones and playlists x Semi Eita

Music is Semi’s passion, naturally he wants to share that part of his life with you. Not only does he play his own songs for you, he also shares his headphones with you, adding all the songs you like to your shared playlist. You’ve also started making recommendation playlists or playlists with songs that remind you of the other and swap them regularly. Driving with Semi is also the most fun, especially on late summer nights with the windows down, going nowhere in particular.

Understanding each other without words x Kozume Kenma

To outsiders, conversations between Kenma and you might seem a little court or even incomprehensible. He just happens to be the type that lets his actions speak rather than his words, unless he gets really fired up about something. Still, your communication seems to work perfectly - or maybe both of you just share a brain cell. Questions like “Have you seen my…” can just be left hanging like this as you’re already pointing out that his old Nekoma sweatpants are in the wash. But no conversations are clearer than the ones you can hold through eye contact alone. Sometimes rolling your eyes conveys more than a thousand words… or however that saying goes.

Letting you win x Kuroo Tetsurō

Despite his suit and tie career, Kuroo is still a playful guy at heart and he’s carrying that energy into your relationship. He also grew up around Kenma, so making a game out of ordinary stuff is normal to him. That said, even if he challenges you in a board or video game, he’ll let you win on purpose every now and then. Not enough to give himself away, but often enough to see your beaming grin. However, if it’s a physical contest like an arm wrestling match, he will let you win (or rather he won’t let you lose immediately) just to tease you over it. Aw c’mon, he knows you’re stronger than this, sweetheart.

Good morning/ good night texts x Sawamura Daichi

Daichi is a busy guy, often out of the house before you wake up or back in after you go to sleep. Depending on which shift he has to work and how your schedules line up, you might not see much of each other for some time. But that won’t stop him from being the sweetest partner, instead sending you good morning and good night texts as well as updates on his day/night, if he has the time. It’s something that came with the territory of not living together before, but the practice never really retired. Equally, it puts him in a good mood to see you update him on your day as well.

Bragging about you x Sugawara Kōshi

Suga is your number one fan, no doubt about it. Not only is he vocal about that to you but also everybody else, whether you’re there or not. Daichi and Asahi are kind of used to it already, but there is always some new unfortunate soul who gets to experience just how smitten he is with you. He never makes it uncomfortable but weaves his praise for you naturally into a conversation. And if it flusters you, that’s just all the better. Although, lately, the classes he’s teaching have picked up on it and are trying to stall for time by asking questions about you.

Writing notes x Sakusa Kiyoomi

This probably started out as something entirely practical. After moving in together, Sakusa just started labelling stuff, writing grocery shopping lists and sticking them to the fridge, especially on days where he left early for practice. By the time you pointed out he could just text you at any given time, he’d already gotten used to this little habit of his. But his messages had slowly turned from chore-related to reminding you to take care of yourself or informing you he prepped lunch for you to just telling you he loves you. The first time he wrote that last one, he blinked down at the note for a few moments before sticking it to the mug cabinet.

Midnight snack run x Komori Motoya

Obviously, Komori wishes his job wouldn’t pull him away from you as often as it does. Though that being said, it also makes coming home after an away game all that sweeter and he feels like the constant change of pace makes him cherish the moments you do get to spend together more than he already does. And he appreciates that you can indulge him, both in his lifestyle and whenever he gets a sudden burst of energy. So yeah, now you’re bundled up in one of his hoodies as you go on a late night snack run, your hand in his as you walk along the calm streets.

Remembering little things about you x Futakuchi Kenji

Futakuchi comes pre-installed with an attitude, no matter who you are to him, it’s his factory setting. And while he’s a lot softer on you as his partner, he’ll still give you a sarcastic quip or poke some fun at you when you complain about something to him. But he always listens carefully and commits it to memory. You offhandedly mentioned you’re running out of something? He adds it to his shopping list. You rant to him about a coworker who’s giving you trouble? Oh, he remembers everything you told him about that guy before (and he’s ready to drag him to hell and back if it makes you feel better). Whenever your birthday or an anniversary rolls around, he never has trouble picking out a gift for you; Kenji could list so many things you’re into or that you could have use for in your everyday life, it’s not even a challenge.

Getting into your hobbies x Ukai Keishin

Keishin has got to be one of the most supportive partners ever. Whatever you set your mind to or whichever hobby you dive into, he’s there to root for you. But he doesn’t stop there; he reads up on your interests, so he can actively participate in the conversation when you talk about them. Similarly, he also adapts to your lifestyle and tries to show up for you in all walks of life. You, on the other hand, also get involved in his life too; his parents were keen to meet you, considering they hounded Keishin to get married in his 20s already. He’d also be over the moon if you showed interest in his work as a coach and met the Karasuno Volleyball Club.

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[sukirichi]

WHEN I SEE YOU AGAIN | G. SATORU x READER

You’ve been pretending not to see ghosts your whole life in order to blend in perfectly, but you can’t ignore the cute ghost with a bright smile standing in front of your door.

cw. ghost! gojo. fem! reader. minimal fluff. graphic depictions of murder. angst. hurt no comfort. mentions of grief. mentions of being under the influence (alcohol and drugs.) characters with depression. unedited.

notes. wrote a lil something for gojo since it’s been a while since i wrote any jjk fics and i missed it :( also should i open requests again? i miss writing one shots lol

wc. 7k

You met him on the first night of winter.

Eager to get home after a long and tiring day at work, you blow hot air on your freezing palms to keep them warm before stuffing it deep in your coat pockets. The walk home was less than fifteen minutes, and you’ve always refused to buy a car because you enjoyed the journey and wanted to familiarize yourself more with the city. You previously lived in the outskirts, but after a phone call from the main department telling you you were promoted and had to transfer in the city, you found yourself packing up on the weekend and renting a cheap apartment.

Located in the middle of everything – convenience stores, medical facilities, popular bars, and a quaint looking flower shop with a cute florist – you thought your apartment was perfect. It was a little shabby, you had to admit. The plumbing didn’t work well and electricity got cut off at random times in the night that resulted in a headache because you couldn’t send that damn email, but the landlord offered an extremely cheap rent that you couldn’t refuse. Plus, it was only a few minutes walk from your office and your neighbors were peaceful.

Well, most of them anyway.

Your neighbors consisted of mostly old couples who were so silent and desolate that you often forgot they existed, your eyes widening whenever you saw an unfamiliar old lady walking and asking you how your day was before realizing, Oh, she’s Mrs. Oliver, I completely forgot. Save for the married couple who were always throwing pots and pans at each other because darn Ronald couldn’t put the toilet seat back down, your place was placid. The landlord was ecstatic when you saw her poster and inquired for a unit, muttering something about not getting enough tenants to keep the place going because of ‘a traumatic issue.’

You’d really rather not ask what it was.

Besides, you’ve never been curious enough of what the world has to offer, simply because you see things – or rather fragments of people – that you’d rather not see. Ever since you started seeing ghosts at a young age of four, people avoided you like the plague, calling you a ‘freak’ and whatnot. Your family soon moved away to a much smaller place in the city because they couldn’t handle seeing their child who often talked to ghosts and sat in corners alone while laughing by herself be criticized by others. They didn’t believe you, of course, often calling it a ‘lonely child’s imagination.’ They sent you to multiple therapists who always assured you that they would listen to whatever problems you were having to cause you to be this way.

Unfortunately for them, there wasn’t anything wrong with you. You weren’t lonely at all. You saw a dozen ghosts every day who were always ecstatic at finding out you could see them, and they were more than willing to interact. As a child, you always thought ghosts were more interesting than actual people because they had an unlimited amount of time to converse with you, and they have had so many experiences to share with you. 

When you grew older, however, you started to see yourself in other’s eyes, realization dawning on you that on social norms, you are, indeed, a freak.

Determined to fit in more and also sick of being faced with countless counselors who strongly believed you had a traumatic experience when your whole life has been nothing but bland and plain, you started ignoring them. It wasn’t easy at first, though. These ghosts have always kept you company while everyone gave you the side eye without knowing who you really were, and you admit you felt lonely in the beginning and a little guilty when they were convinced you couldn’t see them anymore.

You participated more in school activities and even joined a photography club in high school (you had to quit a month later because ghosts kept appearing on your photos, and you had to burn them in order not to freak anyone out) and with each baby step you took, you started to fit in more. The proud look your parents had on their faces when you had finally become ‘normal’ and even got an award for being an exemplary student was enough to keep you going on this journey, and you ignored the lonely spirits so hard that you eventually started seeing less and less of them.

Until now.

Standing in front of your door was a young man, his back awkwardly bent and long, beautiful fingers fiddling awkwardly with one another. He stood barefoot yet wore a comfy looking blue university hoodie and grey sweatpants, and his silver hair seemed shiny and healthy enough to  not consider him a homeless man who was lost and simply wandering. Tipping your head to the side, you rack your brain to remember if you had any neighbours like him. 

His head snaps in your direction. 

He is definitely not your neighbour. You would have remembered such a cute looking guy.

He had unnaturally ethereal futures, prominent cheekbones becoming more pronounced when you meet his eyes, and you blink to gain control over your body when you realize you’ve been staring too long than what would be considered acceptable. You don’t even deny you’ve been checking him out, although you do ignore the almost puppy-like way his eyes lit up at the sight of you, causing your heart to jump a little. Just a little. You also liked how his hair complimented perfectly with his pale skin – he seemed like an exact embodiment of winter. 

You walk forward, spinning your keys at the end of your pointer finger. Smiling at him politely, you paused in your tracks. He’d been blocking your door. “Hello, is there something I can help you with?”

No matter how cute he was, you wouldn’t hesitate to break his nose if he was a criminal.

His pretty hands come up to his face to cover his mouth falling open, and you take a step back when he does a little jump and starts laughing. “You can see me?”

“Uhm, yes,” you answer. “You’re blocking my door, so yeah, I can very much see you.”

As if realizing just now he stood in the way of you and your comfortable bed, who was calling out to you by now, he mutters a quick apology under his breath before stepping aside, a goofy grin remaining on his face and his childish behavior makes you scoff in amusement. He was still watching you even after you’ve unlocked your door, and you sigh at him. “Is there any reason you’re still standing outside my apartment, or should I call the police?”

Instead of looking worried like you expected him to, his smile only gets bigger. “Actually, I live here, well… I used to.”

You stare at him blankly with a slack expression on your face, watching as his features turn sheepish. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. Looking down on his bare feet, you mumble a curse under your breath when you realize he’s hovering. 

“Not again,” you say to yourself before placing a palm against your forehead. It’s been years since you last saw a ghost, why did you have to see them now out of all times? A new branch is opening up and your superiors have given you the project of making sure the launch goes well, and you didn’t really want a ghost bothering you with your biggest task of all time. You worked hard for this promotion, you didn’t want to take one step forward and two steps back. Glaring at the undeniably attractive ghost who still hovered in your doorway, you decided he wasn’t your problem. 

“Well, goodnight.”

You slam the door on him and trudge towards your bedroom, ignoring his “Wait!” as you unwrap the red scarf around your neck and plop on your bed almost lazily, moaning when your stiff muscles finally relax. The bed was so soft and warm because you’d left the heater on accidentally, and you’re about to be sent to dreamland when a voice beside you speaks up.

“You should take off your makeup before going to bed.”

Opening your eyes and coming face-to-face with the ghost who was resting his chin in both of his hands and laying on your bed, you grab a pillow and throw it at him, and he grins when the object goes past him completely. “Get out of my house, stop bothering me!”

“Technically, darling, this is still my house,” he tells you and starts sitting up before crossing his legs. “The unit was still named after me before you came.”

“Then why wasn’t I informed about that?”

“I was murdered here four years ago,” he deadpans, soft voice flitting into a murmur as he plays with his fingers again, refusing to look at you. “That’s why I never left. Judging from what you said earlier, you can see ghosts, and you know exactly why we’re still here.”

Swallowing a lump in your throat, you stumble over your words. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know and–”

“It’s quite alright,” he shrugs. 

Silence soon joins the two of you; the ghost playing with the ends of your blanket with a far-off look in his face while you study his features, and something tugs at your heart. The reason why ghosts remain here instead of passing on like they were supposed to was because it meant someone was still holding on to them and absolutely refused to let go, or if they had unfinished business that needed to be resolved before they could go in peace. You’ve met ghosts like him who were murdered, and all of them remained with a seething rage and insatiable need for revenge, unable to accept that there wasn’t much they could do in their state. 

As for the one sitting in your ghost, a small smile tugs at the end of his pink lips as he takes in your bedroom, amusement dancing in his eyes at the amount of stuffed animals you had and some framed photos of you as a child. 

“You decorate much better than me, and you’re a lot more organized, too. This place was such a mess back when I was still alive.”

There was an unmissable hint of sadness behind his voice, and you can’t help but ask his name. “I’m Satoru,” he grins, “and for the record, I’ve always been here, just floating through time and space, but not the afterworld yet. For some reason, ever since you arrived, I just appeared back where I left off.”

You nod and take in his words, noticing how he clears his throat and sends a sheepish look your way. “If it’s not too much of a bother, can I ask for your help?”

“What is it?”

He stands up and heads toward your desk, although you supposed it was his since the furniture had already been here before you came. You didn’t think too much about it back then and only felt grateful that you had one less piece of furniture to buy, especially since it was empty. Apparently not, because Satoru keeps digging around through your files with his tongue peeking out his lips, and you vaguely recall that ghosts are able to touch things after feeding off of energy from living beings.

Letting out an ‘aha!’ when his hand finally lands on what he’s looking for, he tenderly places a photo on your outstretched palm with a shy smile. Inside the photo was a beautiful man, probably in his mid twenties, his hair up in a messy bun as he grinned at the camera. Beside him, Satoru’s eyes are closed with his head thrown back in laughter, relishing the feeling of that warm sunny day, and you unconsciously frown at it.

“His name’s Suguru,” he began, his eyes turning glossy at the sight of the polaroid. “He was my best friend before I died.”

Pursing your lips and feeling the tension thicken the room, you ask him, “Why are you telling me this?”

“He’s the reason why I can’t go,” he admits, shoulders dropping while his eyes remain trained on her. “He blames himself for everything and refuses to accept that I’m gone, that’s why I’m still here.”

You remain silent and take a deep breath, your head pounding at the situation. It was a beautiful first night of winter, the perfect weather for you to do your work from home while nestling a cup of hot cocoa in your hands, yet it seems your plans changed and you have to help this ghost out. A part of you wants to reach out and embrace him in a hug, but you know you’ll only end up stumbling on your own feet and clearly, Satoru wants to move on to the next chapter of his journey.

“Can you please tell him I’m okay now?”

When he looks at you like that, shoulders hanging low and an almost shy smile decorating his innocent features, it’s hard to say no.

“I will.”

Through the past few weeks since you’ve met Satoru, your life seemed to light up like a Christmas tree without you noticing. He was a funny guy and often pulled pranks on you, like slamming the cabinets open and closed or leaving your window open in the middle of the night, laughing when you shout at him as your teeth chatter and you slam your windows shut. 

“I could have died from the cold, you idiot!”

He keeps laughing as if he didn’t nearly kill you with hypothermia, “Well, if you die, I guess we’ll be together then,” and even has the audacity to wiggle his eyebrows. You scowl at him and pull your jacket closer to your body, asking what he wants from you because he never goes this far to demand for your attention unless he wants something from you.

“What do you want this time?”

“I wanted to finish that series we were watching the other day,” he pouts rather childishly, “You always tell me not to watch it without you.”

On a particular weekend where you felt like your brains were about to explode from exhaustion due to your work piling up, you refused to wake up until noon, and you felt thankful Satoru knew how tired you were and let you have your much needed rest. When you woke up, a bowl of cereal was already waiting for you in your kitchen island, meaning the reason you felt tired even after that long slumber was because he fed off your energy to give you food.

Feeling thankful for the simple, sweet action, you munched on it happily. It wasn’t anything special and the corn flakes had gone too crusty for your liking, but Satoru’s happiness at you appreciating what he prepared was worth it. After breakfast, you dumped the bowl into the sink and planned to wash it later, opting to flick through Netflix for a good show. Satoru had excitedly pointed at one title that he said he’s always wanted to watch, and the two of you became hooked on it soon enough. Lunch and dinner were both forgotten as you two sat beside each other, your leg against his. Although you couldn’t exactly feel him, his presence was warm.

You and Satoru had been so immersed in the show and unexpected turn of events that time flew by and it was already half past three. He was the first to notice and he jumped from his seat, his hands waving worriedly in a comical manner. “I’m so sorry I made you skip your meals! Aren’t you hungry, you should have some pizza delivered or something.”

Glancing at the clock, you hummed when you realized it was indeed late. You weren’t feeling hungry since you were mostly abeyant, and nothing was open to deliver food around this time anyway. “It’s okay,” you shrug, “I’m not really hungry, and that show is addicting. Oh, and don’t watch it without me! I know you always go ahead when I’m not home!”

Satoru huffs and plops down next to you dramatically, rolling his eyes and taunting you. “Then don’t go to work, Little Miss Manager.”

You poke your finger with his forehead but it only passes through and he laughs, “I need money to survive, idiot.”

“Whatever,” he dismisses and points to your bedroom. “You’ve still got to edit your final draft, so you have to wake up early. Go to bed, don’t worry about the dish, I’ll handle it.”

“Liar, you’ll only feed from my energy so you can play video games!”

“Hey, you can’t blame me!” He counters back as he proceeds to your sink and pumps out soap to the sponge, “You were the one who bought me that console!”

“Only because you kept whining to me how much you wanted it,” you retorted before yawning, and his eyes softened at the sight of you. He rarely gets to see you dressed so comfortably in a loose shirt, cardigan and pajama pants since you were such a busy woman whose fashion sense monotonously consisted of pearl white button-up blouses and knee-length pencil skirts. Prudish and preppy, he thought, but it suits you just fine.  

“You should sleep now,” he reminds you with a nod of his head back to your bedroom, and you obey, simply because your eyes were sore and tired from binge watching. You’re in the process of cocooning yourself under the covers when he calls out in a sing-song voice, “Thank you for the console, by the way. I knew you couldn’t resist me.”

“Shut up!” You scream, and his rambunctious laugh was the last thing you heard before your body wholeheartedly welcomed sleep. 

You’ve been thinking about that day ever since, the moment replaying over and over again in your head, successfully distracting you from focusing on your work. Even your co-workers have noticed that you’re lusterlacking lately, but how could you focus on anything else when you had a charming yet lonely ghost who was waiting for you at home?

For days on end, you can only think about the cheerful and carefree sound of his laugh as if he had so much happiness in his lithe body that he couldn’t contain. Your heart always got tugged in its heartstrings whenever you had trouble falling asleep and he sat beside you in your bed, singing you lullabies and caressing your cheek. You started to feel him now – the gush of air in your skin meant he was pressing onto you, and the more you got attached to him, the more you got confused with your feelings.

He never told you how he was murdered and you never asked, figuring it would be too sensitive for him, and your hands balled into fists each time you remembered he was dead. Satoru is such a precious person who only has too much love to give, and it was completely unfair and outrageous that his life was taken away from him in a single flash. You’ve done your research at work, and only a few articles came up regarding his death. The case remains a mystery and still unsolved until it was completely closed due to lack of leads or suspects, but the police force highly suspected someone had broken in and committed homicide without theft, since not a single belonging of him got touched. They concluded that the murderer was drunk and lost, because he was a well-loved person in their campus, and they couldn’t find anyone who could possibly harbor abhorrence for the sweet boy.

But most of all, a part of you wants him to stay. He frequently asks you if you’ve talked to Suguru, and you always denied it, making up an excuse about how he was hard to find because he graduated years ago. ‘He’s hard to find,’ you would tell him one day, and ‘He doesn’t have social media,’ the next. Even though he told you he majored in Forensics, you couldn’t find anyone in the city. 

It’s a half lie. You never found Suguru, because you never looked for him in the first place.

You know it’s selfish of you to be this way, because you know Satoru wants to move on. He doesn’t say anything about it and keeps laughing instead, but sometimes when he thinks you’re too immersed in your work to notice him, you look at him. Being around you only reminds him of what he no longer has, and one look at him has you knowing he was someone who loved life. Satoru loved to travel with his friends, and he still had so many dreams left unfulfilled that made him feel empty yet desperate to be in the afterworld.

However, it is hard for you to let him go. 

No matter how much you try to fit in, deep inside, you know you will always be too different from the rest. You still struggled with socializing and didn’t have a single friend yet a hundred acquaintances, and you never realized how lonely you were until he came. His smile lit up the whole room and his laugh was melodious, and you don’t think you’ve ever met anyone who cared so much for you. He liked to play games and pull pranks on you quite often, but underneath all that lies a kind heart.

Satoru knows exactly when his jokes go too far and apologizes right away, promising not to do something to upset you again and always doing something entirely new to cheer you up. On nights where you’re feeling absolutely drained or you carried home your anger at your co-workers, you go to sleep without taking off your makeup. When you wake, there’s used wipes in the bin, the hovering boy in your apartment proud of his work. Sometimes you forget to cover yourself in blankets too, plopping on top of the sheets almost lifelessly. It’s in those times that he shows how much he cares for you, and you soon wake up feeling warm surrounded by heavy blankets and freshly cooked breakfast.

As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you were falling for him. It made interacting with him difficult, because you knew you had to let him go, yet you couldn’t.

He watches you carefully and gauges your reaction, waiting to see if you’ll finish the series with him or not. It’s a Wednesday night, or more accurately an early morning on Thursday and the launch happens in less than a week. Logically, it is much better to go back to sleep and refuse, but he is rocking his weight on his heels back and forth, and you realize perhaps he has been lonely since his death too.

“Fine,” you agree, and now he’s bouncing excitedly next to you on your couch as he keeps pressing buttons in your remote.

“You’re the best, you know that?” 

You only hum in response, and Satoru soon becomes lost in the show. Your eyes aren’t focused on the screen – on him rather. Placed on top of your fist lies your cheek as you study his side profile, trying to memorize the slope of his nose and the snow-white hair that keeps falling onto his eyes that makes him flip it to the side every now and then to watch the show. His right leg keeps bouncing up and down, a habit he had when he was anxiously anticipating something, and then stopping before his left leg went bouncing instead, meaning he didn’t like the situation.

Tearing your eyes away from him, you smile sadly when you realize his favorite character had been betrayed. “Did you see that? That freaking woman, he only loved her and she snitched him out like that?!”

Shrugging one shoulder and feeling your eyes become droopy, you reply, “Well, he’s a grave robber, Satoru, he was only nice to her because he liked her. She had every right to mislead him.”

“I don’t understand, but okay,” he relents and leans back, eyes closing before he intertwines his hands behind his neck and murmurs, “I hated the ending.”

“Not everyone gets happy endings,” you add grimly, watching the muscles underneath his hoodie flex at your comment. The two of you remain silent for a few minutes, and plucking up the courage, you breathe in sharply before slowly lowering yourself until your head is on his shoulder. 

You keep yourself still in order not to fall, and your eyes remain fixated on his hand, silently yearning to be able to touch him. If he was alive, would his skin be as warm as his presence? His hand flexes and trails from his lap until it’s beside yours, and you hear him swallow audibly before locking your fingers with his.

A tear falls down your face. You could feel him. 

Satoru hums a familiar tune, and you chuckle happily when you recognize it’s the song he always sings to you to make you sleep, his fingers rubbing soothing circles on your knuckles.

His other hand tilts your chin upwards until you’re looking directly at his eyes. You hold in your breath, his lips only a centimeter away from yours. If you lean forward, you could kiss him… but you don’t. 

“Why are you crying?”

Because I don’t want you to go.

“Nothing,” you lie and offer a forced smile which he notices, but doesn’t comment about it. “I just feel happy.”

He nods slowly before leaning forward, and he gets so close that you can faintly see his freckles that dot across his cheeks lovingly, and your eyes flutter shut when his lips press against yours. Satoru sighs as if he’s been waiting too long to do that, and he is pushing against you so softly, so tenderly, that it almost fits the same atmosphere your heart creates. He is soft in everything he does, from his innocent features and smile that puts the stars to shame, to how he holds you and caresses you. His hand trails from your neck to pull you closer, and you moan when his tongue peeks out and playfully coaxes yours out to play. Tears are streaming down your face when you kiss him back slowly, tongues moving in sync as they danced harmoniously instead of battling each other for dominance. Caressing your face that fits perfectly in his hand, he brushes away your tears with the pad of his thumbs. 

A moment passes before you two are breathing heavily with your foreheads pressed against each other, and the silence is broken when he speaks, his voice coming out raspy and out of breath. 

“Suguru… has been struggling long before I died.”

“What?”

“My best friend… he got into a rough patch. Had troubles with his parents, went down the wrong path, and met dangerous people. I’d heard rumors he was going around skipping class and talking to people I’ve never seen before, but I chose to ignore it. Suguru would’ve told me everything once he was ready. And I was stupid, you know? I saw it. I saw how he stopped smiling, how he’d lost weight. How his eyes no longer looked happy,” Satoru’s hands trembled, the blue of his eyes hauntingly dark. “One night, I overheard him talking to someone on the phone. I’ve never heard him that angry, and I got worried. I wanted to stop him from whatever he’ll end up doing so I invited him over but… Next thing I know, he came over here, drunk and high, and stabbed me until I bled to death.”

You gasp and shudder as you imagine the scene, Satoru lying on his bed as he waited anxiously for his friend. You see him smiling at Suguru excitedly because he’d actually come, but fear replaces it when his friend succumbs to the madness. The image of Satoru drowning in his own pool of blood made you clench your jaw.

“There had to be evidence left.”

Satoru smiles sadly as if to tell you it doesn’t bother him anymore, but you can’t shake it off. How can a man be so blinded in his own misery that he could take his own best friend’s life? “He was a forensics major; he knew how to cover up his crime.”

A pregnant pause fills the room as you furrow your brows, the sound of the cold wind tapping against your windows as you rack your head to make a decision. Now that you knew the truth, you had to tell the police about it, but how would they believe you if there was no evidence found? And if the case was cleared, and Suguru had finally moved on, that means...

“You can ask me to stay.”

“What?” You breathe out, looking at his eyes with sadness pooling in them. He’s smiling, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You pull away from him completely until he’s at an arm’s length away. He doesn’t look hurt by your action but he sighs, reaching out for you and pausing with his hand mid-air when you raise a palm to stop him.

He must’ve known you’re in love with him. Just as he also knows that once he leaves, you’ll be hurt, and he doesn’t want you to feel that.

You shake your head and stand up harshly. The tears now uncontrollable as you slam your bedroom door to his face. You’re slightly thankful he doesn’t come after you and leaves you alone instead. You needed time. Time to think, time to put his needs over yours - time to forget him. Rummaging through the documents on your desk, you keep looking for it until the polaroid is clutched between your fingers, and you silently place it in your handbag.

Tomorrow, you would set things straight.

Suguru Geto was a hard man to find. He’d fled from the spotlight as one of the  best students of his university after Satoru Gojo’s death. The image of his best friend, who was always in high spirits and laughed without a care in the world, covered in his own blood was a sight that scarred him for the rest of her life. 

But there was one more person who hadn’t moved on from that night.

Ieri Shoko, the woman who ran first at the hospital when Satoru’s parents were away for a business trip. She didn’t want to believe it at first. Satoru had always seemed so full of life, so in love with what the world had to offer. He’d been so young – it just couldn’t be. They had to be lying, right?

But when she finally saw her friend��s bloodied corpse on that cold hospital bed, she’d fallen apart.

She went to sleep crying to herself every night, regretting and blaming everything on herself. Her instinct told her it was Suguru who had done this to him. She barged into his dorm room, screaming and flailing, punching the taller man and effectively breaking his nose as she dragged him down by the collar. Suguru was already questioned by the police after Satoru’s murder, but his alibi of being in a bar was factual, and they had proven his innocence after checking surveillance cameras. He was only gone for a few minutes before he appeared on the dance floor all over again, and they believed him when he said he only disappeared to go to the restroom.

Presumably to wash the blood off his hands.

Shoko didn’t believe it. “Tell me you didn’t kill him, tell me!”

Suguru growls, frustrated at her for even accusing him of doing such a horrendous thing, and he feigns his innocence as he pries her hands away from his collar. “I didn’t do it, Ieri, I was at a bar!”

“Bullshit!” She screams, slamming a vase onto the floor and dropping down to the floor as sobs wrecked through her body. “I smelled your perfume the moment I walked in. I know it was you…”

His eyes widened, but he remained silent because she had always been smart and too observant for her own good. He shrugs his collar back into place and goes back to his bedroom, but not before darkly muttering, “I didn’t do it, I didn’t kill him…”

Four years later, and you’re sitting in front of Officer Kento, an intimidating man with empty eyes staring at you hardly, his face devoid of any emotion. He’d been the same officer who worked on Satoru’s case before it was closed. “And why should I believe you? Ghosts don’t exist.”

You snap your head up from your lap to him and scowl, “I just want to help you here, Officer.  You need to re-open this case.”

He abruptly stands up and slams his palm harshly against the desk, his eyes filled with rage as he stares down at you. “You don’t think I haven’t tried before?!”

“Well then, try harder!” You fumed, standing up. “If you don’t resolve this case, he’s going to remain here forever, lost and nowhere to go. Do you really want him to suffer even after his death?”

“How am I supposed to believe everything you say is true?”

Plucking out their polaroid from your bag and shoving it to his chest, you watch as he crumbles piece by piece. He holds the photo tentatively before cradling it to his chest, and what you presumed was a cold-hearted man was actually just a lost person.

“I don’t know why you closed that case, but it isn’t over. He’s still here, and he needs our help.”

You turn away from him to give him peace and wrap your fingers around the doorknob, “Suguru Geto is out there walking freely. You can still make a difference, Sir. It’s not too late.”

Happiness was a concept you believed to be fleeting.

One moment, you are giggling with the ghosts who tell you funny stories and whisper mischievously in your ear the correct answers in your pre-school days, and the next moment you are pressing a hand against your car windows, watching as the only people you considered friends are witnessing you leave without a goodbye.

That feeling comes back again and again, from little moments such as eating lunch with your high school friends and making empty promises to keep in touch after graduation, giggling when a cute boy comes by and asks for your number. But like any other moment in your life where you feel happy, that feeling dissipates as fast as it came.

The bell attached to the door chimes to signal a customer, and the cute florist you met on the first day you moved to this city, Choso, looks up from the pot he’s currently watering. Bowing politely, he sends a pleased smile upon the sight of you.

You tuck a stray hair behind your ear and return the smile back, his musky perfume blending in well with the sweet aroma of flowers as he stops in front of you. “Hi, I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“I’m sorry,” you apologize sheepishly, “Our latest branch just opened downtown, so I was a bit busy with that.”

“Oh, you work for that bookshop everyone’s been talking about non-stop?” You nod and laugh at his question, proud of yourself that the new opening had been successful. The state campus was only three bus rides away, and with the extensive amount of books your bookstore offered, along with its affordable prices, everyone’s been talking about it. “I’m proud of you, it was a success,” he commends, rubbing his dirties hands on his apron before opening the door for you. What can I get you?”

Personally, you thought Choso was a bit too rugged to be working in a floral shop. He always seemed to carry himself in such an awkward manner and had an authoritative yet welcoming aura to him, his shy smiles the highlights of your day. “I want to give it to my friend. Today’s their special day.”

“I see,” Choso’s eyes are already scanning the plethora of flowers he has in his shop, his brows pinching together in thought. “Can you tell me a little bit about them? It’d help to make their bouquet more personal.”

A smile makes its way to your face. “They’re… bright, carefree, innocent, and pure. They almost seem like an angel, if you ask me. I was also thinking about something that represents young love, and… new beginnings?”

You have absolutely no idea what you’re saying. The words coming out of your mouth are beyond your control. You’re sure you’re making a fool out of yourself, but Choso nods understandingly, frows burrowed before he snaps his fingers and turns to you. “White roses describe all of those, but if you want, I can whip up more flowers for you.”

He makes a move to get his scissors and starts listing off flowers with the same meanings, but you run up to him and not so accidentally wrap your hands around his to get him to stop. His eyes widen at your close proximity. You clear your throat and take a step backward, fighting the urge to smile when his cheeks are dusted a fine pink. “White roses itself are fine, thank you.”

He gulps and heads towards the back door, coming out later with a bouquet of white roses. You reach for your wallet before his arm wraps around your wris, his smile wobbly and hesitant. “It’s on the house. You can pay me back with a cup of coffee next time.”

Eyebrows rising at his smoothness, you gratefully accept the flowers and cradle it near to your chest. “A cup of coffee it is.”

Choso chuckles shyly and ducks his head, and you leave the shop with a wave of your hand before walking further and further. Your surroundings shift from the high-rise building and busy streets to a hill covered in trees sprawled out everywhere, flowers blooming and withering at every corner. Sitting down on the soil with your legs crossed, you place the bouquet in front of his headstone, his framed polaroid with Suguru standing in front of you. 

It’s been exactly seven days since you last saw Satoru.

After countless sleepless nights of phone calls from Officer Kento, he’d finally cracked the case with your help. Suguru Geto was found. He’d confessed to all his crimes, his handsome face weary yet relieved. It seemed he’d never once forgotten about that night when he betrayed his friend, and just before he was ushered behind bars, he turned to you. You wished you felt anger towards him for what he did, but there was only sadness. Only regret in his eyes. He looked so tired, so hopeless.

“Thank you,” he said softly, “Thank you for finding me.”

A nod was all you could give. Suguru felt so familiar, yet so strange. You’ve heard tons of stories about him from Satoru, all about their happiest moments together. He’d been his closest friend, the one he shared so many dreams with, and the one who knew him the most. Maybe he knew Satoru wouldn’t fight back once his demons consumed him. Maybe when Suguru was holding his friend’s bloodied hand in the night, he knew – Satoru was never mad at him. He only wanted to save his friend. Maybe he knew Satoru wasn’t completely dead yet, not when he lived in everyone’s heart, and most especially yours.

That night when you returned home, the apartment felt colder than ever. Normally, it would mean a ghost lingered. But there was no longer the sound of Satoru’s humming, and the dishes were left half-washed in your sink. And for the first time in your life, you hated your eyes and how it gave you the ability to see the traces he left behind. 

Because you wished you had enough time to say goodbye. You wish you had told him everything, but the thought of being another tether to the living realm weighed down on you. You couldn’t do that to him. He had to go. For Satoru to truly move into the next life, you had to close your heart and forget him. Just as Suguru’s forgiven himself, and just as Shoko’s accepted her friend’s death - you too had to say goodbye. 

Tears clouded your vision.

The white remnants of his soul sparkled in your apartment. For the last time, you watched as the blue of his hoodie finally disappeared, his hands scrubbing your dishes away fading into nothingness. The plate drops and breaks. Satoru stood, his legs vanishing bit by bit as he saw the running water through his hands. He’d wanted to return your apartment to the way it was before he’d met you, but he knew – his time was running out. He didn’t have energy left to turn everything off.

The water floods your apartment. The new series he’d dearly loved still plays on the TV. 

But he was here – hugged by the earth and decorated with flowers, smiling at you from far away even when you could no longer see him. Placing the bouquet of white roses down at his grave, you smiled at the photo they’d taken months before he died. He still looked just as beautiful – all wide smiles, kind eyes, and soft hands.

To you, he was still alive in your heart.

“I’ll see you around, Satoru.”

[saphronethaleph]

Fascist, Thus Inefficient

“As you can see, my young apprentice, your friends have failed,” the Emperor said, triumph in his tone. “Now, witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!”

Luke looked at him in shock.

“Fire at will, Commander!” the Emperor said.

Fourteen months previously…

“Shipment IL-214-73 arriving,” a petty officer reported.

“Thank goodness,” muttered one of the technicians. “After the delays we’ve been having, we need to get those Khyber crystals into the third main focusing array. It’s been on the critical path for a week.”

He brought up the display, frowning. “All right, I think we can make up a bit of time if we just get them straight to cutting and installation.”

“Don’t we need to run them through the testing process first?” a more junior technician asked. “That’s on the list.”

“I know it’s on the list,” the senior tech replied. “But the list was written when they didn’t expect there’d be rebel attacks hitting our supply lines.”

He waved at the screen. “The testing process means heating each individual crystal up to eighteen hundred, even though we know Khyber can all handle temperatures of up to forty-seven-fifty. The cutting process doesn’t rely on heat tolerance either. Any crystalline flaws will come out in cutting, and we can just junk them. It means cutting takes a bit longer, but by going straight to cutting we can save at several hours on the overall process. And you know how much time we’ve lost already.”

The junior tech looked worried, then shook his head.

“All right,” he replied. “I guess so.”

“You need to learn how things are done in practice,” the senior tech said. “No big deal.”

Eleven months previously...

“I’m quite sure Rothana Heavy Engineering’s XJ-15 hypermatter feed systems will meet your needs better than the alternatives,” the Rothana representative said, as Admiral Jerjerrod examined the datasheet.

He wasn’t so sure. The newer units had better specifications, certainly, but they weren’t proven, and they were also somewhat more expensive.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily the case,” he said, out loud. “While I appreciate Rothana’s position, the Sienar alternative has similar flow rates and more proven applications.”

The Rothana representative nodded, sagely.

“I understand entirely,” he said. “However, I must point out that Rothana has some important additional information to present.”

He held out a credit chip, which Jerjerrod took and inspected.

“Owing to the XJ-15’s protracted development, we are willing to provide our test units at cost,” the representative went on. “That is in addition to having a higher production rate than our competitors and a less committed production output.”

Jerjerrod hesitated, then pocketed the credit chip.

“That all seems in order,” he said. “The XJ-15 it is.”

“Marvellous,” the representative declared.

Nine months previously...

“I’ve examined the records that exist from the first Death Star,” a senior technician said. “The amount of strain that was placed on the flash suppression systems was minimal to nonexistent. Even with the full firing that destroyed Alderaan, surviving records indicate that the flash suppressors had no more than a five percent load placed on them – an amount that can be handled by untreated durasteel.”

The other men and women in the meeting looked at the data on the screen behind their colleague.

“You’re suggesting we forego the duratemp treatment on the flash protection systems?” one of the women asked, cautiously. “I can see the advantages, but the downsides seem significant. I’d even say potentially destructive.”

“It is my position that the cost of including the duratemp treatment is unacceptable,” the tech replied. “It takes time and effort, including supervisory attention which cuts into the available man-hours on the project. We only have so much experienced manpower.”

That drew winces, though none of the humans in the room drew attention to the fact that they were spending a lot of that time in interminable meetings.

“In the following presentation, I’ll discuss my proposal and how it could shave as much as one week off the final completion timetable,” the senior tech continued, flicking to the next screen of his presentation. “This model shows how the flash suppression systems are built around the main weapon…”

Six months previously…

“There simply isn’t an option,” the head of personnel replied. “Our existing system is not providing enough technicians and operators.”

“This was quite sufficient for the first Death Star,” Jerjerrod protested.

“The first Death Star was a project that took decades,” the manager replied, shrugging. “It didn’t come up at first, sir – for that I apologize – but if we are going to redress the problem, we need to act now. There is no alternative.”

Jerjerrod rubbed his temples, thinking about the problem.

The fully functional Death Star was going to need hundreds of thousands of qualified technicians and operators, familiar with the systems of the vast battle station, and so many of the men who knew much about the Death Star at the moment were busy building it.

There hadn’t been many left after the destruction of the first battle station, because most of them had been working on it at the time.

“All right,” he said. “So your proposal is…?”

“We keep the same number of trainers for now, but abbreviate the course,” the manager answered. “Two months – at most. Then we have the new graduates train the next batch for two months, and so on. Exponential growth. At twenty students per instructor and a hundred instructors to start with, we’ll end up with eight hundred thousand in six months.”

That was extremely tempting… they wouldn’t be anything like the equal of what they should be, but they could learn on the job.

“All right,” Jerjerrod said. “Approved – see to it.”

One month previously…

“Next item on the checklist?” Commander Jaskier asked.

“Step one hundred and seven,” Technician Mils replied. “Self test.”

She pressed the self-test button, and the computer system clicked and flickered as it ran through the diagnostics.

Data results and readouts went up on the screen, and Jaskier and all the others in the control station watched the results.

None of them had any comment to make about the numbers. The checklist said to run the self test, so that was what they were doing.

“Step one hundred and eight,” Mils went on. “Sign off on results.”

She did that, as well, and Jaskier nodded.

“Good,” he said. “And I believe we’ve finished that half an hour ahead of schedule! Good work, everyone.”

Now.

The firing commands flashed out through the Death Star’s systems, triggering a cascade of further commands, and the whole massive battle station’s main superlaser woke for the first time.

Fifty XJ-15 hypermatter flow regulators controlled the flow of energy from the power core into the power collectors, and the energy being channelled into the system surged rapidly – rising to one hundred and eighteen percent of nominal, above what would have been anticipated, and greater than the one hundred and two percent that the older, more proven Sienar systems would have generated.

Thousands of high powered beams were generated, controlled and focused through an enormous array of Khyber crystals… a small but measurable fraction of which were cheap industrially grown diamonds instead, added to the shipments by subcontractors eager to stretch out their production from the strip-mined planet of Ilum without running so late on their deliveries that financial penalties were imposed.

None of the technicians who were in a position to spot the problem at this stage were actually capable of doing so. Their necessarily abbreviated training had mostly been on what buttons to push, and nobody had the deeper knowledge of the systems to recognize that the system was in an anomalous state.

Then some of the diamonds shattered under the load, allowing the beams free to damage adjacent systems, and in moments the whole of the energy drawn from the hypermatter core was unleashed.

The flash suppression systems were wholly, and fatally, inadequate.

“Watch yourself, Wedge!” Lando called, his head on a swivel, and banked the Falcon around so his ventral turret gunner could clear off one of the TIEs attacking Red Leader. “We’ve got to-”

Then there was a sudden blinding flash, and Lando did a double-take.

The Death Star’s protective shield was instantly, and dramatically, visible – because the entire inside of it was full of plasma and flame, lighting it up as clearly as Ackbar’s briefing had done back before the operation was launched in the first place. Then something blew up on the surface of the forest moon as the plasma followed the funnel of the shield, and the explosive force was no longer contained but began to drift out into space.

“...the kriff?” Lando asked, eventually. “What just happened?”

“Ow,” Darth Vader said, indistinctly, reaching up to feel his helmet, which had been crushed in by an impact with the ceiling.

The Emperor’s throne room seemed to mostly be intact, though there was an Emperor-shaped hole in the window nearest his throne, and Luke had his hands out to either side as he stood on the wall.

“Father, are you all right?” the younger Skywalker asked.

“What happened?” Vader replied. “I remember the Emperor ordering that the Death Star should fire…”

“I don’t know, it exploded just after he said that,” Luke answered. “It turns out that overconfidence was his weakness… do you have any idea where the nearest spaceship is? Keeping the atmosphere in is tiring me out a bit.”

[deadbeat-motel]

ᑕᕼEᖇᖇIᗷOᗰᗷ ᗩᑎᗪ ᔕIᖇᑭEᑎTIOᑌᔕ ᖇEᗪEᔕIGᑎ

The last two designs for the main cast. With these two done, I can finally work on miscellaneous characters that I've been eyeing the most.

Again, thoughts below the cut:

My issues with their Original designs:

Sir Pentious:

I thought I would only have one thing to say about him (the unnecessary eyes) since he was my favorite in the entire original cast but having taken a closer look at him for this, I saw a lot of things that bothers me.

Too many eyes. specifically the lower half of his body has too many eyes and it seems detrimental to him. It's kind of painful to think about it since I do not think we ever see those eyes close. Is he just slithering on the ground with those exposed eyes? That's got to be irritating at best and damaged at worst as he continuously slithers on them.

There are eyes on the bowtie and the hat? There are already 4 extra eyes on his hood, so why have even more? I get that the original Pentious design was basically a monsterous amalgamation of eyes but the eye thing could have been scrapped altogether.

While his palette was the least red out of the cast (More so composed of yellows), it still blends in with the rest of the reds.

The claws are an unnecessary repeating design trait (Alastor and Vox notably have them too). I don't think it would've been too big of a difference to just keep his fingers fully black.

The stripes on his suit are too thick. It's called pinstripes for a reason.

I don't like how the hat is shaped to fit the head, It's awkward.

not a point, but I just wanted to say how the blue color palette works really well with him in that last episode.

CherriBomb:

She's not that bad of a design (She's sort of bland in my opinion) but it's the little small details about her that makes her so simple and also so complicated at the same time. There are so many batches of freckles scattered everywhere, little explosion lines on her skirt as well as the X on her chest, the tattoos are a jamble of random loops and bombs, and her tattering doesn't have an easy shape to consistently draw.

The thought process for these two:

Mx. Pentious:

Pentious goes by both Sir/Miss/Mx. but uses she/they pronouns.

Minimized the actual amount of eyes on her, I kept it only to her actual eyes and those on her hood.

Gave her a butterfly-shaped hood. It's nothing deep since it stems from the fact the notches in Sir Pentious' hood almost looked like one to my bad eyesight. I decided to play more into that idea.

I read some posts where people talk about how Sir Pentious should have a snout and while I understand why and fully support people giving him one, I really didn't want to add the snout to this design. It drove me crazy since I'm not a big fan of it. I tried a compromise where her head was shaped more like Phineas.

Kept the tophat but removed its eye and mouth. If I remember correctly, Viv took that from one of her co-workers from the pilot. I decided to just have it as a regular tophat.

It doesn't have all the colors, but her design does have the Neptunic flag.

I'm not sure if this even is a real snake but I based Mx. Pentious' design on this:

CherriBomb:

Scraped most of her features in exchange for a sukeban theme. I personally have zero knowledge about the punk scene in Australia.

A majority of the suggestions I received for her rough draft had something to do with the skirt. I elongated it and gave it a slit in which the magenta from the inside is able to pop out.

Thought it would be a cute detail to have her hair explode if she's angry.

----

Apologies this took too long to be posted, Life got in the way as well as the fact I was feeling shitty about Pentious' first draft. Her skin was an awkward and ugly shade of green and seeing some posts critical of Pentious' design got me to think a little bit more about what direction I'd like to move her redesign.

You could see this in the earlier rough sketches but this was how Pentious' first redesign looked like

[tommycorriander]

Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, And Disability

I am disabled. This is something I've talked about a handful of times on this blog and on my Twitter, and anyone who knows me knows I am a disabled man. As a result, while I do enjoy dissecting media and politics, the need to be an advocate for disability issues would have fallen on me to some extent regardless. Disabled folks are often left out of conversations regarding diversity in media, in a continued oversight from able bodied peers.

What does this have to do with the Hellaverse?

Both shows contain at least some small amount of disability representation; specifically, they both have characters that are physically disabled. In Hazbin Hotel this is Vaggie, as she is missing an eye and prior to the finale had lost her wings. In Helluva Boss, the characters would be Fizzarolli, a quad amputee, and the unnamed deaf child in the special. The only character I ever see talked about in regards to their disability by the wider fanbase is the unnamed child, and on a smaller scale in critical spaces I occasionally see remarks on Fizzarolli's disability.

This is a problem.

For as much as fans of one or both shows would love to claim diversity in their shows, the lack of disability representation and the lackluster portrayal of the minimal representation is poor. And I haven't seen any of my fellow critics discuss this, which I feel is an oversight, though I don't fault them for this as there are many problems with both shows and they tend to have their hands full. However, this angle of viewing the shows has been overlooked, which is why I wish to discuss it today.

Firstly, I'd like to specify what I mean when I discuss disability. While the conversation regarding the Hellaverse is primarily centered around physical disability as this is the only form of disability portrayed in the shows, coded or otherwise, disability comes in many different forms. Intellectual disabilities and mental disabilities are just as important for representation in the media as physical disabilities. Among physical disabilities, there's also a difference in visible and invisible disabilities, the latter of which is hardly ever shown in media compared to the former. Ideally all forms of disability would be portrayed equally and with respect, but unfortunately this isn't the case. I also don't expect every show to tackle every demographic at once; this isn't a reasonable request, and to be very clear, my issue with the representation in HH/HB does not come from every single unique experience with disability not being covered, but rather with the narrative the creatives behind the show and the show's fans continue to push: that both shows are diverse and are, in some way, more progressive than other shows.

This isn't the case for many reasons. Fellow critics have gone into depth about the show's lack of representation of women in nuanced roles, the lack of queer women, the racist ways in which the very few characters of colour are presented, the lack of trans representation, and even the way sex and sexuality is presented being rather conservative at times. That isn't the focus of this essay, but I would implore anyone who is reading this who is somehow unaware of the previous issues to seek out essays that talk about those points; Cassidy Whiskey on YouTube has a three-part series that covers a multitude of topics, not just issues of representation, and I would have recommended helluvareceipts on Twitter, but her account has sadly been deactivated. I'm sure there are others, but I'll lose focus if I try to name every single person to go to. If you're willing to trawl through general pettiness in the critical tag (which, let's be real, that is probably how you found this post) you'll find well-worded critiques as well.

Back to the topic at hand. The lack of representation of people with disabilities is already frustrating, but there isn't a complete drought: Vaggie, Fizzarolli, and the unnamed imp child do exist, after all. However, their representation is not just flawed, but even exploitative in some ways.

First we have Vaggie. Aside from the visual of her missing eye and seeing the incident in which she lost that eye, nothing comes of it. She never has to contend with the difficulties that come with impaired sight, and it's never brought up by other characters. In the training scene between her and Carmilla, it's not a factor: instead, her greater flaw in the physical realm when it comes to combat is having longer hair. This is an extreme oversight, which I believe shows that Vivienne and the various writers for the show never actually take into consideration what should be a major element of a character, that being her impaired vision. Furthermore, the loss of her wings isn't even considered at all, with her somehow gaining them back at the end of her training montage with Carmilla. This could have been an excellent vector to discuss physical disability in a coded form, with her wings being a stand in for more traditional forms of limb loss. Still not ideal, as I believe it's better to have forthright depictions of disability over metaphors, but it would have been something. Instead, it's never a factor, and worse, it's effectively cured. As far as representation goes, Vaggie might as well not even count.

That's all that exists for Hazbin Hotel. In Helluva Boss, we have two characters, and I will save the unnamed child for last, because that is where the real issue with the representation is on full display.

So, Fizzarolli. He is a quad amputee and potentially hearing impaired, though the latter is speculated on due to a single scene which I discuss later. Since that scene is the only time it ever comes up, I will focus on his amputee status. He lost his limbs in a fire, something we see on screen. I will disagree with some of my fellow critics in that this scene should have been more detailed; I feel that had the scene shown more of the damage dealt to Fizz's body it would have come across in poor taste, and focusing on the tragic aspect of disability usually ends up feeling like trauma porn in the hands of poor writers, which Vivienne most certainly is. I do not trust her to handle a more detailed scene with grace, especially given her track record (more on that later). It is ultimately for the best that the scene is mostly brushed over, even if it would have been better in the hands of someone with the maturity and sensitivity to cover such a topic for more to be shown in regards to his injuries.

Otherwise, Fizzarolli is mostly fine. He's shown not just surviving but thriving, he has a loving partner (criticisms of the portrayal of said relationship not withstanding) and generally sees success in his life while still having to grapple with the realities of his disability when it comes to his prosthetics being prone to damage and potentially shutting down. I would, in the hands of anyone else, like to see more of this character and what his daily routine looks like as a disabled man.

Unfortunately all the good will built with Fizz comes crashing down when we get to the unnamed imp child in the Fizzarolli special episode. This child is the poster child for virtue signalling. Frankly, it's disgusting how a majority of the fandom seemed to ignore how fetishistic this portrayal was. This is where the real meat of the essay comes in to play.

This unnamed child is given a single scene, and is then promptly forgotten about and never mentioned again. They are introduced as being a fan of Fizz here to view the competition, there is a brief exchange between the two, and then we all move on. And yet this scene was championed as somehow revolutionary or a sign of the top-tier diversity and progressiveness in Helluva, when in reality this type of scene has been done to death. This is tokenism.

One major stumbling block many of the people championing this scene seem to get tripped up on is a very simple question: why was this child a child to begin with? Really, this seems like a simple question, it shouldn't have much thought. Sometimes characters are kids. But within the episode it's clearly shown through multiple different avenues that this is an adult show. The performances are dripping with sexuality, several of the fans of Fizzarolli are there because Mammon sells sex robots of the guy, there is no mistaking that this is something no child should be at, let alone by themselves.

So why was this child a child? Simple: brownie points.

It's a lot more difficult for people to share clips of a wholesome moment from your show if the person Fizz was interacting with was an adult. People are ableist, this is pretty par for the course; as a disabled person I find it generally safer to assume people are ableist before proven otherwise. I can guarantee if this scene were to be between Fizzarolli and a deaf adult fan as opposed to a young child, it would not have been championed as this amazing representation by mostly able bodied fans. And that is by design: if Vivienne genuinely cared about representation, if she truly wanted to show something meaningful to her adult fans in her adult show, she would have had the interaction be with an adult. But that doesn't get her clip shared around on social media. That doesn't get her brownie points for inclusion. It's safe, it's palatable, it's sickeningly wholesome, and it's insulting for that. This is a show for adults, something Vivienne and company is adamant on, and yet they treat their audience like children. As a fan, you should be insulted to have this key-jingling one minute clip presented to you. You should demand more, demand better.

Unfortunately I do not see ever getting better from Vivienne. She has made it very clear she truly does not care about creating art, she really only stumbled into being championed as a paragon for animation because her majority white and able bodied fans saw the inclusion of primarily gay men and thought that was good enough. She does not give a damn about disabled people, and she never will. To expect good disabled representation from her is like expecting good queer representation from a Marvel movie; she is in it for the money, and it just so happens that the inclusion of that scene makes money.

Addendum thoughts that were too long to put into the tags: I would like to make it clear that disability, because it presents very differently, is experienced very differently by many different people. If you felt seen or represented by the disability representation in either show, that's fine, and I don't want you to feel bad for feeling seen. Ultimately disabled people are largely given scraps; I have not once seen someone with my particular physical disability portrayed in media. Sometimes we latch onto things that are subpar or lacking; my criticism of reception to this scene is targeted primarily at able bodied audience members who may be lacking in this perspective and to also champion fellow disabled people to rightfully demand and expect better. Thank you for your time.

[pastellieria]

The latest round of AO3 comment discourse crossing my dash made me suddenly realize that people are just taking it as a given that AO3 is a "fandom community website". AO3 is often directly compared to Livejournal and other older fandom hubs amidst laments about how "no one cares about participating in their community anymore".

But AO3 is not a "community" website. It's not social media. It's a fanfic archive that was designed to center the fics first and foremost. There is no space on the site for general, casual fandom discussion. You can't even DM other users. The site was designed this way on purpose to protect writers, because its creators were familiar with the ways in which writers have been harassed on other sites and wanted to minimize direct access to writers as much as possible, but that decision comes with the tradeoff of limiting the amount of communication and discussion between fans that is possible on the site.

This is, to be clear, not a criticism of AO3. It accomplishes its goal of being an archive very well. I don't particularly want DMs or larger discussion forums on the site, and I enjoy how it centers the writing it hosts. But as it exists now, it is simply not built to be a "community" and does not function as one. Unlike sites like Livejournal where fic posting and general interpersonal fandom interactions all took place in the same space, fics are posted to AO3 while the "community" for any given fandom now largely takes place on Twitter, Tumblr, Discord, or another site, depending on the fandom.

You're free to personally dislike those spaces and voice valid criticisms about how they function as communities, but they are undeniably where the actual "community" parts of most fandoms currently reside. These sites, not AO3, are where most fans talk to one another, form friendships, and express themselves. It's not impossible to do these things on AO3, but it is not the norm because the site simply is not designed that way.

The latest posts I have seen about commenting culture have gotten this dynamic exactly backwards. If readers are discussing a fic amongst themselves on Twitter or Discord, they're characterized as antisocial and accused of "not participating in the fandom community". But Twitter and Discord are the fandom community sites! The "bookclub" servers and Twitter threads are where the community bonds are being forged between fans! These spaces are the modern analogue to the old Livejournal groups and web rings, not the comments section of any one individual fanfic on AO3.

If an author's only interaction with their fandom is to post fics to AO3 and passively wait to be found, and they aren't seeking out their fellow fans in these other spaces and interacting with them... they are the ones who are "not participating" as much as the readers that are so readily being cast in so much of this discussion as "selfish" or deliberately spiteful for not commenting "enough".

I understand why many of my fellow writers feel this way. I too often find socialization on sites like Twitter and Discord draining and difficult. It takes time and effort to build friendships organically, discuss ideas and share snippets to pique people's interest in a fic before it is posted, and provide reciprocal effort when it comes to everyone else's ideas and snippets and stories, and there are many days when I just don't have the energy for it all. At the same time, I'm also very curious about my readers' thoughts on my stories, and if I learned that they were being discussed in a server I couldn't access, I would want to know what was being said. It's a natural impulse to feel curiosity like this when it comes to one's creative work. And of course, I also love getting comments on my own fics and I'm not immune to feeling disappointed when a fic seems to "flop".

However, it's not fair to take out feelings of disappointment and frustration on readers for participating in their fandom in the spaces where their fandom's community actually exists. If you find out that fandom discussions are happening in a place where you are not present, you have a choice in what action you will take. You can either make the effort to join the discussion, or you can knowingly distance yourself from it. Neither of these choices are objectively correct for every single individual's situation, but you, the AO3 denizen, are the one who needs to choose whether or not to engage with your fandom's community, because AO3 is not where the community lives.

If you choose not to join your fellow fans in their actual community hubs because of low social battery, annoying features, or a site culture you dislike, that's perfectly fine and a valid choice... but you shouldn't be surprised when the author who is participating in their fandom outside of AO3 gets more comments on their fics. And you certainly don't have the right to project your own social withdrawal onto your readers and accuse them of maliciously withholding "community" from you.

Comments are wonderful, and positively encouraging people to leave comments on the fics they enjoy is completely fine, but comments are not community. AO3 is not a community website and in fact is designed to put us writers behind a wall for our own protection. We are the ones who need to choose whether or not to venture out from behind the wall and join our communities, instead of getting angry that the community isn't spontaneously appearing in our comments sections.

[cringefaecompilation]

DORIAN STORM, ROBBIE DAYMOND, AND THE CRITICAL ROLE FANDOM

because some people don’t know how to act when a piece of collaborative media they like starts getting people of color to add to it. a good amount of this are things I’ve already discussed on my blog, so if you’ve been following me for a while, consider this a more polished version of my complaining. obvious content warnings for racism, with explicit focus on whitewashing, pinkwashing, and cultural assimilation.

quick note before we start: we’re talking about racism, not how annoying you think xyz white character is or how much you want to punt all xyz shippers into a fire. keep your comments focused on dorian himself; it feels counterproductive when conversations about the racism experienced by actors of color and the fictional characters they play snowballs into shitting on fictional white characters and completely ignoring the former.

with all that said, let’s begin.

if you’re reading this, there’s a strong possibility that you already know who dorian storm is, but just in case if you don’t, i’ll give you a quick rundown.

dorian storm is an air genasi bard from campaign 3 of critical role. he made his debut a few months before the third campaign official started in what was meant to be an anthology series on the channel: exandria unlimited. after eight episodes in that series, a short 14 episode run establishing the new campaign, and two more episodes in a sequel to the first anthology, dorian remained largely out of focus for the remainder of the campaign up until episode 92 whereupon he returned and rejoined his party for the third act climax.

while he’s generally beloved, most of his fans haven’t seen or acknowledged his debut, and have only watched the main series campaign. it’s a shame, given how little he’s given to do in the main campaign asides reconnect with his elder brother cyrus. most of his characterization is found in the anthologies and gets built upon when he comes back, so the fandom’s aversion to watching it means they’re missing out on a lot of what robbie’s established for dorian. the more i thought about this aversion, the more it hit me as to why people might be put off it. for such a beloved fandom character, most fans have completely forgotten that exandria unlimited was largely dorian’s story, with opal picking up the slack whenever he took a break from being in the spotlight. by comparison, fearne, orym, and dariax had minimal screentime and vaguer backstory setup. 

dorian and opal taking up the vast swath of story in makes sense for two reasons: robbie and aimee were completely new to the hobby! let the new guys have their fun instead of letting the professionals try to backseat drive the story! the second reason is that ashley johnson, liam o’brien, and matthew mercer are 100% going to return to critical role. it’s their jobs! so they can stand to fight over the same 15 minutes of screentime where aimee and robbie have their fun in the spotlight. even not-so-new kid anjali bhimani got a massive swath of her storyline and backstory established despite only appearing for half the first mini-series!

the same thing happened with calamity, where the plot was primarily moved by aabria and luis. sadly, lou did not get to add as much as them (or the rest of the cast imo) but brennan understood not to give marisha, travis, and sam special attention because they’re always there.

and if we’re talking about calamity, there’s another thing we’ve got to talk about. why is the pre-campaign three series that is predominantly played and dm’d by people of color, treated as more expendable than the pre-history avalir series despite involving three fandom-beloved characters and two fandom-beloved ships? how come people complained about an episode and a half being dm’d by aabria because “they weren’t warned ahead of time” but were fine with brennan taking over critical role for an entire month when there was equally zero “warning” for him to do so? and thinking harder, i suppose i came up with our thesis question.

do people even really like dorian?

DORIAN/ROBBIE BASHING

edit: robbie pulled a pro gamer move and this section is now somewhat inaccurate. see here for an explanation.

since dorian’s vocal haters aren’t as numerous as his vocal fans, i’ll go through this part quickly.

i understand that any character can be grating to anyone for any reason, but some of their insults and insistences about dorian and robbie tend to get a bit loaded. we’re not racist! we just think robbie daymond is just uniquely annoying with crosstalk and his character’s backstory doesn’t mesh with the story the campaign is trying to tell! he’s not a real member of the group because he wasn’t there for all their important moments! he should just die offscreen so they’ll shut up about him already! the only reason people want him back is because they’re rabid liam o’brien fangirls that want him to kiss a man with tongue on-screen!

we’ll touch on that last bit later, but there’s always a weird pit in my stomach whenever someone insists that dorian doesn’t work with bell’s hells. the watsonian side of me wants to argue that a runaway/disguised noble is a perfectly common npc type. but the doylist side of me wonders if they think it’s because robbie does not fit in as a person with the cast of critical role because there’s just something too different about him. i wonder if you can tell what it is.

and this last one is more of a nitpick, but a few people joked about how robbie, christian, and utkarsh were all interchangeable or sound or look the same. don’t do that.

in full fairness, i don’t think it makes someone a racist automatically if they dislike a fictional person of color. after all, you can say “i think finn was underutilized in the star wars trilogy and had an unsatisfying character arc, so i cannot bring myself to like him” and still acknowledge that there was bigotry in the writer’s room that led to said poor character arc.

unfortunately, someone might agree with only the first part of your complaint and then add on that they fantasize about blowing up john boyega with their mind so that rey and kylo can have their perfect aryan babies in peace. not only that, but the insistence that a person of color having a minimal role compared to the white people in the story to explain why you can’t be a fan of them goes from explanation to excuse rapidly when you realize how many white background characters are given their own sub-fandoms built solely upon headcanons.

which leads us to our next point.

DOUBLE STANDARDS AND WHITEWASHING

this fandom seems to have a massive problem with headcanons, but it’s not for the reasons you’d think. they have to act as though the person is only making up headcanons to spite either the rest of the fanbase or the human actor themselves. i’ve no such compunctions about headcanons. give pike glasses! make laudna viet! say that caduceus is a cane user! but there comes a problem when you insist that your angsty trauma headcanons are more genuine than someone who has legitimately gone through the same in canon.

what do i mean by that? let’s pivot a bit to a comparison between two seemingly unrelated characters that made the rounds about a year ago: essek thelyss and bor’dor dog’son. don’t worry, this ties into dorian, i swear.

both men were jaded by religion and religious people in their lives and were led down dark paths when martinet ludinus da’leth entered their lives and attempted to sway them into his anti-god cult. bor’dor was fully sucked into the cogs of his killing machine and offed by bell’s hells, but essek fled into hiding after giving ludinus a holy item that belonged to his people, realizing too little too late the weight of his actions.

according to fandom, essek was manipulated emotionally into a bigoted movement and just needed to be deradicalized because he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong. the fictional man of color, bor’dor dog’son, as portrayed by the real-life man of color, utkarsh ambhukdar, for some reason is not given this grace at all. in fact, he’s been compared to delilah briarwood of all people because both of them were villainous sorcerers that felt slighted by someone, despite this comparison falling flat outside of the aesthetic where she is a broken bird crying out for her husband rather than a conniving unrepentant villain. or perhaps they see him as just as evil as her for harming and deceiving the white player characters.

it seems fandom is more comfortable with the illusion of a person of color as voiced by a white man, filtered through a fantasy species canonically discriminated against, and further filtered through headcanons, fanart, and fanfiction by their choice rather than having to interact with the indian man on screen staring back at them.

and if bor’dor is demonized for being a person of color, then dorian is liked for… being a person of color… that the fandom can pretend he isn’t because his skin is blue and not brown.

dorian is literally a person of color with his blue skin and hair, but he’s still also an actual person of color because of his player. compare him to sam nightingale and katja cleaver, despite having powder blue skin and olive-green skin and being fantasy creatures (triton and orc), they wasted no time in telling brennan lee mulligan that there would be no “carmelinda” nonsense; they were a black transfeminine woman and an indian woman just the same as them.

and if you’re going to say, “okay but assuming a person of color has to play a character that’s the same race/ethnicity as they are makes you the real bigot!”

again, must i refer to sam nightingale and katja cleaver. they made the active decision to depict their characters the same as themselves. they consented to it. this was not some sort of shallow corporate-driven plot to force two women of color into portraying diverse characters to capitalize off their identities.

and likewise, the same can be said for robbie and dorian. robbie daymond identifies as multiracial and is part apache. that’s straight from his twitter, so it’s very easily accessible to anybody that would be curious.

so going back to critical role, dorian comes from a nomadic people who keep mostly to themselves and provide wisdom to its diasporic people that come to them for guidance. they’re extremely secretive and even more so distrustful of outsiders, resorting to violence as a last-ditch effort to ensure their secrecy. they can’t risk anything about their people or their culture falling into the wrong hands and warn their children to be wary of the outside world. dorian and his brother reject being called princes a lot of times, and cyrus only picks it up because he likes the sound of it!

if you aren’t from the united states of america you might not know (and even if you are, you still might not know) apache tribes are known for being nomadic. being diasporic and wary of outside forces attempting to harm one's culture only further bolsters the coding. dorian’s backstory appears to be robbie attempting to reconnect with his culture, and good on him! but for some reason, the fandom hasn’t picked up on that. look, i love fanart that emphasizes robbie’s culture, but the number of times i’ve seen people reblog/retweet it without a second thought and then go back to ignoring the exact same cultural coding in canon is… something else.

if vandran can somehow have an accent (and fjord can mimic it) from the southern united states of america off the coast of a continent based on eastern europe, if byroden is somehow comparable with the real-life city of laredo, texas despite being smack dab in the middle of a continent based on western europe, if the air ashari’s culture is a weird mishmash of samoan, irish celtic, and pan-east asian (by way of avatar the last airbender) cultures, then i don’t think it’s an unreasonable thought that the silken squall would not have to be a one-to-one recreation to be coded as such, laurel crowns be damned.

this lack of attention to this detail in fandom is a bit strange, as usually every other (usually male) character has their backstories and everything that their players intended for them memorized to a t by the fandom. it’s almost a running gag at this point where if someone makes a headcanon that bends canon the slightest millimeter and begins to gain traction, you’ll have someone more popular than them instantly vagueing “crazy entitled fans” who “think they know better than canon”. so what makes robbie’s unstated intentions for dorian (outside his affection for his friends and possible romantic crushes) completely fly under the radar? doesn’t anybody think that’s weird? does he need to say out loud that dorian is coded as native so people will realize it?

but even this erasure isn’t the worst of bigotry with his character, that’s saved for the next part.

STEREOTYPES

the irony of dorian’s backstory being whitewashed but his role in fandom still heavily conforming to racist stereotypes about native americans is not lost on me. it’s like there’s a veil keeping them from fully realizing it, but it’s thin enough for them to latch onto unconscious prejudices. there are a lot of caricatures of native americans in media, both within and outside of north america, but only two of them apply to dorian’s treatment in fandom. the magical indian and the noble savage.

the magical indian, much like the magical negro and the magical asian, is nothing more than a paragon of perfection that exists only to prop up the white characters. they give sage advice and mentorship, but have little to no aspirations of their own or even a life outside their relationship with their white protégé. they may die heroically to spur the white characters into action and mourn how kind and perfect they were.

the noble savage gives similar bolstering to the white characters, but carries even worse implications. at the very least the former is seen as something resembling a person, deified and lacking all depth as they may be. the noble savage is treated like an entirely alien species, and a violent and dangerous one at that. he is handsome, in an exotic, othered way, but violent and unable to be reasoned with and only ever sated for a time. despite being “one of the good ones” he still needs to be “civilized” completely out of his culture or murdered to avoid tainting white culture.

obviously nothing in this fandom gets that bad, but the parallels are there. prior to dorian’s return, the vast majority of fan content that detailed his return made him into the de facto therapist for bell’s hells. because obviously dorian wasn’t going through anything himself with the solstice, magic backfiring, and opal being corrupted! he’d be happy to be nothing more than a shoulder to cry on without any traumas or tribulations of his own to worry about! they all got solved and dealt with offscreen, honest. and after his return, people who were either on the fence about him or disliked him entirely began to come around once he positively interacted with and bonded with the other white characters they liked.

the complaint of “i dislike that dorian is never allowed to exist outside of his friends” gets misinterpreted as “it’s out of character for dorian to care so much about his friends” either by well-meaning or willful ignorance, but at the end of the day, it’s ignorance either way. this would be different if he was an npc, but he has hours of content that doesn’t focus solely on his relationships with other people. yes, it is a massive part of his characterization that he will do anything for his loved ones, but why are we focusing on them and not him?

then again, maybe fandom shouldn’t focus on other parts of his backstory.

any mention of the silken squall that isn’t reskinning it to be a generic fantasy keep tends to make it a living hell. sure, the bits and pieces we’ve heard from it make it extremely clear they’re unhealthily secretive, strict, and a bit full of themselves, but it’s not as if they’re evil aristocrats that kick puppies for fun. the tale of a young man that’s going against tradition is hardly one that belongs to a single culture, but i’ve found people find it the most digestible when they strip it of all nuances. it’s the “no, dad, i’m my own man! individualism for life, baby!” power fantasy everyone’s always dreamed of where you can up and leave a situation and leave everything you’ve ever known behind.

so the silken squall is just homophobic, transphobic, and fantasy racist. dorian should completely abandon it and all its ways to go off gallivanting with the hells in perpetuity, which is the correct option. never mind that matt himself said that lgbtphobia in exandria is not the same or is far less common than it is in our world. never mind that in the previous campaign there was a massive story hook about prejudice and xenophobia that humans enacted on species they viewed as “monsters”. because why should the silken squall be anything more than a hive of bigotry and cruelty with no grey areas? everyone knows every flying city in exandria was pure evil and should be nuked from orbit! it’s true, brennan lee mulligan told me so!

i suppose i was wrong for expecting better. if two disney films meant to sell dolls to little girls that more or less looked directly into the camera and said “sometimes people do bad stuff because they were hurt real bad in the past, but that doesn’t make them bad people! racism is still gross!” could both get misinterpreted with zero nuance as being about an abusive matriarch forcing her family into impossible perfection, then i should’ve figured that people would do the same with a piece of adult media.

SHIPPING CONTENT

let’s finally get this out of the way. there is a very intentional reason i’ve been dancing around the subject of shipping with dorian.

i do not have anything against dorym as a ship. i do think that they like each other! they’ve got a lot of really sweet moments together! they just have a lot of personal things they have to work through to get there.

to say that it’s forced, or they’re “trying too hard” to make it seem like they’re about to confess their mutual love, or has had zero buildup can feel at times like a “gotcha” to mock its fans for being pushy. they’re both clearly trying to get back into the swing of things now that robbie’s returned and they can move forward with developing their relationship. i wouldn’t be surprised if it’ll be like late game beauyasha, which had a similar problem with not having a lot of content for it due to one member of the ship being absent from the table because scheduling despite being beloved by fandom until we got into the mid-100s.

that all being said, there is a tendency for dorian to be treated poorly in the ship by the shippers. all my complaints about it hinge solely on the fans. now, i don’t think all dorym fans are like this; i would be making the same complaints if dorian/laudna, dorian/imogen, fearne/dorian, doomstorm, or greystorm shippers did this as well. but since dorym is the most popular out of all of them, i will be discussing it primarily.

small mercies that dorian’s coding is largely ignored because that means nobody's making pocahontas aus with the dorym ship. (and if they are, please don’t tell me. we know its racist. you don’t need to show it to me to confirm that it is, indeed, racist. i don’t frequent ao3 for a reason). even without that, dorym still falls victim to the ship dynamic of the delicate white person and the strong person of color.

i’m already uncomfortable with how orym’s trauma is viewed by a vast majority of the fandom, but adding in the “dorian has no feelings outside his own and is only a machine to deposit in trauma coins until sex comes out” situation i described earlier, it gets bad really quick. often times dorian’s whole worldview is warped to focus only on orym and orym’s feelings. he certainly trusts and looks to him as a leader, but the constant insistence that orym is the only thing that matters in his life, orym is the only person he would trust unconditionally, orym is the only one he would ever truly be in love with, he must be the one to fix orym’s trauma and make him whole with no work from orym’s side at all and orym orym orym orym orym-

yeah it’s bad.

and now we come to braius doomseed, the newest bull on the block. sam riegel introduced his new character as an over-comedic flirt who went after everybody with a pulse... and laudna! provided you’re able to take a joke, a lot of people had fun cracking remarks about how braius confirmed that bell’s hells were just another basement away from having a real orgy instead of a fake. but then there were those who did not like the joke, and by that i mean, people who genuinely wished death upon sam, braius and the shippers ironic and genuine for daring to get in the way of dorym. because dorian is orym’s man, not braius’ man!

do i really need to say why it’s wrong to say or imply a white person owns a person of color? do you need an explanation for that? it’s bad! very bad!

i must reiterate: i don’t think every single dorym shipper acts like this or has never spoken out about this trend. i follow a good number of people that like the ship and a lot of them have no problem with shipping them with other people and treating them as their own characters on equal footing. it’s okay to like the ship and it’s okay to not like the ship.

or if you don’t like the ship, you could always make nazi jokes.

would you believe that this post actually made me want to make this one? there is a score of perfectly good reasons to dislike dorym as a ship as stated previously, but you made a joke about how a white guy is getting denied of his rightful claim to a relationship by a native guy? i take it back, maybe people do need things explained to them. you certainly don’t see laura/marisha pc shippers speak about aabria or erika this way.

speaking of, that makes for a terrific segue!

imodna tends to be bashed by both ashrym and dorym shippers in equal measures, partially due to misogyny and lesbophobia usually rampant in m/m shipping spaces, and partially because people still have lingering wounds from entitled beaujes shippers from campaign two. i think it’s safe to assume that a vast swath of the holdover from campaign two abandoned ship (heh) following episode 34, as that’s when i remember seeing a lot of angry imodna shippers complaining about how orym should have died instead of laudna and ragequitting the campaign. but what does this have to do with dorian, you ask?

well, i haven’t seen any fanfiction or aus where dorian is laudna’s abusive boyfriend that imogen must save with her sapphic mind powers (again, if it does exist, keep that shit to yourself because we know it’s racist) but i have seen some imodna fans utterly despise orym and anything that has to do with him. and if they hate anything that has to do with him, that includes dorian.

most of the “dorian is a useless character that doesn’t need to exist/only exists for crazy fangirls/should die offscreen” comments as stated all the way back there come from imodna shippers sniping back at a lot of the people being crappy about their ship. or in fanfic/fanart they’ll overemphasize his snottier or selfish aspects or make him out to be an impulsive dimwit as a “joke.” long story short, they aim at the white guy and dorian gets gored with the shrapnel.

SO NOW WHAT?

i think it’s pretty obvious where to go from here. do better. watch exandria unlimited and exandria unlimited kymal! acknowledge the story that robbie is trying to tell.  be respectful and ask questions if people are willing to give answers. and if you don’t find dorian enjoyable or interesting as a character, think about why you don’t and ask yourself if you’d extend that same indifference to a white character. it’s not that hard to simply say that a ship or a character just isn’t your thing without being bigoted about it!

hopefully this post helped people see things they may have overlooked in their analyses of dorian and thanks to @bam-monsterhospital, @fear-ne and a bunch of anons for adding their input!

[oleander-nin]

Horrortober Day 23- Pretend(Yandere Rise Raph x Reader)

A/N, not important: Any criticism is welcome, constructive or not. This is supposed to be a gender neutral reader, so if I screwed up somewhere, please tell me.

-Ollie

CW: loss of will to live, dark themes, yan themes

Words: 877

Summary: Raph finally broke you down

Your smaller arms move with Raph’s hand, a small smile on his face while he positions you on his bed. You were nested in his room, the piles of stuffed animals and pillows nearly drowning you from the sheer amount. Your eyes were glassy, doll-like and vacant. Whatever love for life you once had was gone, Raph’s suppressive hold smothering the light you once had. Raph didn’t mind, his smile widening while your head lolls to the side and you breathe out slowly. You were perfect now, so sweet and compliant to whatever he wanted.

Your heart didn’t quicken when Raph came near anymore, nor when he lost his temper and raised his voice. You didn’t even cry anymore when he touched you, now just sinking into the only comfort you were allowed with acceptance. Raph appreciated your new attitude, proud of himself for breaking you down. This was what he wanted, for you to be safe and happy with him. He can’t help but be pleased with how well his plan went, especially since he didn’t even need to ask his brothers for help. He kept you all on his own.

Raph shifts the blankets on top of you, smiling as he watches you struggle to keep your glassy eyes open. Watching you doze off was always a pleasure, something he had for himself that he'd never have to share. Your nose twitches as you breathe, your breath the only thing that separates you from the dolls and stuffies that surround you. You're completely still, only moving when Raph directs you.

Raph watches you for a moment more, smiling softly as you start to doze. He notices your cracked lips, the way your breath is slightly wheezy. His smile turns to a frown, his hands rubbing his wrists raw as he exits the room to make for the kitchen. He barely greets his brothers as he passes them, his brow line etched into the proclaimed “Raph Chasm”. He wasn’t sure the last time you drank water, especially since you didn’t ask for things anymore. It was the only downside he could find to your new personality. He missed your voice, even when all you used to do was yell.

Raph enters the kitchen, nodding a hello to his youngest brother while he cooks. The smell of the kitchen makes Raph’s mouth water, the soup simmering on the stove making his stomach rumble. Raph shakes himself out of the food trance, directing his attention back to the cabinet as he grabs a glass. He fills it up with ice and water from the sink, listening to the ice crack in the cup while the warmer water lands on it.

“How are they?” Mikey asks, still stirring his soup and making sure it didn't burn. Raph hums, grinning.

“They’re good. Just getting them some water.” Raph replies, his eyes glued to the rising water level of the cup. He turns off the sink, pulling the glass back and starts to walk out, taking careful steps to not spill the water. Mikey laughs as he watches his giant brother, the way he was trying to tiptoe through the kitchen making more of a mess than if he walked normally. Raph makes it back to his room with minimal spilling, his face twisted in regret from filling the water so high.

As he sets the glass of water down on the bedside table, Raph frowns when he looks at you. The way you were sitting, the way your eyes were closed and how you sank into the plushies around you. He was no longer able to tell the difference between you, and the stuffed animals lining his bed. You were still in the same position he left you, your eyes closed and face pale, sweat gathering on your brow. 

Raph brings his hand to your forehead, expecting it to be hot, but it was normal. You weren’t sick from what Raph could tell. He shakes you softly, watching your big, glassy eyes open with a smile. He helps you sit up, your limbs rubber and limp. His touch is gentle, lifting your chin easily like it would crack if he was too harsh. He lifted the water to your lips, letting you drink from the cup. Your hands move on their own for the first time, instinct kicking in as water dribbles from your mouth at the clumsy assistance. You take the cup and finish drinking, wiping the excess liquid from your mouth. Raph ruffles your hair as he takes the cup away from you, putting it back on the table. He’d have to start bringing you more, not wanting you to wither away on him.

You settle back down while Raph sits on the edge of the bed, his hand on yours as you tilt back and your eyes close again. You blend in with the other dolls, still, calm, and quiet. Your breathing is so still it seems to have stopped, Raph only comforted in your life by the feel of your heart beat below the skin of your wrist. Raph closes his eyes, a pang of guilt flowing through him for just a moment. He misses when you didn’t have to pretend that you were still alive.

[elkyralt]

@anonymous-dentist's SPIDERBIT WEEK! Day 1 but a bit late cause I thought it started on a Monday not a Sunday, perdón😔 I used the prompt Coffee :]

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Cellbit's vision is undoubtedly, unfortunately, not holding up to the level of activity his brain seems to be promoting. It's in the haphazard scrambling with flung out thoughts and half-baked theories that only make sense if he squints where he realises this investigation is beginning it's downward arc. it's the restless yet consistent energy, like gears turning in time with each other in a way the mechanism isn't oiled for. He distantly recognises this as a symptom of his constant fatigue and insomnia, but did he really care?

He was on a roll though, and had been for the last however many hours. The surrounding world fades into something unimportant and small, an option appearing for him to render it into his conscious or not. His ear flicks, goggles long since strewn across the table's corner by the dried ink blot where his pens sit, and he thinks about how all he can fixate on is the computer screen and the keyboard his fingers dance across.

He would be remorseful, truly would be if the circumstances and stakes were different. He's sure he would regret that crick in his back, the pounding ache of his spinal chord, that knee-deep layer of quicksand his body is suddenly trapped under - he's positive complaints would flow out of his mouth just as willingly as he chooses to subject himself to this in the first place.

Though the stakes are far higher than merely a few pains and aches here and there blooming across his body - the weight of friend's lives rest on his mind, so might as well tough out however long this nightmare will last. After all, this is far from anything compared to where he grew up. He can handle this, easy.

Cramped fingers reach for a black coffee cup, painted to resemble the Ordo's eye on the front. He's pale, as reflected by his skin against the mug, but he doesn't bother to spend braincells trying to think about that, instead feeding off the jolt of consciousness at the cold of the ceramic against his palm. There's…a liquid sloshing about inside, strange looking and smelling, something he once claimed was 'coffee'.

To his defence, he thinks to himself as he scrunches his nose and lifts to take a sip, he's never been bad at making or rating coffee. In fact, he would dare to call himself an expert on the drink. It's his obsession, his hobby, to the point that Felps liked to joke that half his bloodstream is made up of the substance. He grimaces at the reminder.

Cellbit chugs the minimal amount left, robotically putting down the mug onto a worn coaster sitting on his right. He's just so over the effort it takes to make genuinely good coffee that's up to his critical standard - no doubt effort and energy that cannot be spent on something so meaningless right now. He has a job to do, and he better do it well.

His rosetted tail curls from where it's hanging off the wooden chair, he scratches at his leg with the heel of his shoe. Ah, but here he is, getting sidetracked and lost in the restraints of his own mind.

Again.

He needs to get himself together, urgently.

Fatigued and lifeless blue eyes, like shards of ice under moonlight haul themselves off the painted mug and back onto the piercing display of his monitor. The pixels must be seared into his gaze permanently, the light must haunt his visage after countless days spent down here with nothing but the device as his companion.

There's a document displayed, he knows because he opened it twenty minutes ago, yet his brain is uncooperative and doesn't allow him to read it properly. The effort of translating is sapping mental strength from reserves he doesn't have, and generally tonight was going great until his vision gave out right under his nose.

Well. Actually it had been going downhill for a long time now.

He squints at the paper-white colour of the backing, carefully tracing the black imprints of letters on the page. He thinks he can read what it's saying, but as soon as that thought forms it slips away from his hands like a fish flashing past in a fast moving stream.

His pen taps against the edge of his notebook, harsh ceiling light drilling a needle further into his aching cranium.

The islanders needs him. They do.

He'll allow himself to just wish, at the least, that he could get better coffee. Though Cellbit's wished a lot in his life, and he can confidently conclude it does jack all. Wishing on a lucky star won't bring His warm laugh back will it.

His entire body flinches and soul startles into the tangible when he hears the sound of an elevator working, hissing sound causing jarring spontaneous panic to slam against his chest.

His heart beats against his ribs as the first outline of said intruder appears, leaving Cellbit frozen down to his position from the chair.

Black hair, exercised, same height-

It's not…..it isn't…that thing. He hates how quickly his mind stills at the conclusion. He blinks.

Cellbit releases a large breath as the familiar almond light of Roier's eyes catch his. The ocelot's hand instinctively clutches his chest, shoulders loosening and tail relaxing as the Mexican steps out from the teletransporter and further into the light of his office. "Que susto porra!" He exclaims, feeding off panic that's no longer present simply to pester.

He marvels in how much lighter his body feels at the familiarity and normalness of Roier's presence. He's like a sun, and here Cellbit is soaking up the light.

"Perdón, perdón, no queria asustarte." Roier laughs, smiling, fondly. It's not the splitting ear to ear grin that the man usually easily sports, something more melancholic and weak present about it. There are bags under his eyes, something unusual about the way his subsidiary spider features are cracked open. The arachnid still has overalls on, the same ones that-

Cellbit smiles back, just as soft with no one but them in audience, all pretend fear forgotten. He leans back on his chair and takes his hands off the keyboard, waiting for Roier to gather himself and begin speaking. He's totally not admiring how pretty the man is under the light of his office. Nope. His ears perk up.

"I heard you were working yourself to death, and Forever is asleep, so I decided if I can't get you to stop I'll at least help. So, I brought this." Roier proudly presents- a…white mug? It's steaming, wonderful aroma of ground coffee beans emanating from the top as any questions he may have had slip right out of his grasp. Cellbit has already lost any remaining interest in even considering his computer screen. His vision goes crystal clear if only for the mug.

"Qué es?" He tries to put as much enthusiasm as he can cram into the words, watching the Mexican's features light up at Cellbit's curiosity as he places the steaming plain white mug on the coaster and removes the black one.

The Mexican's face scrunches in a manner the Brazilian can only describe as cute when he peers into the contents of the black mug. Naturally, the chanting in Cellbit's head is unanimously saying 'fofo' on loop. For the first time, he can't exactly disagree. He pointedly ignores the flutter in his stomach.

"Qué es esto wey? What are you drinking man! Parece cemento!?" Roier's half gloved hands wiggle the mug back and forth, brows furrowed as his gaze slides back to Cellbit's face. The Brazilian smothers a laugh and nods seriously. "Yeah, you know the machine ran out so…had to get some from outside. Quick snack." He shrugs innocently, watching Roier's mouth open and his extra eyes widen.

"QUÉ-" Cellbit begins to laugh at the comical reaction, cutting the Mexican off as he too snorts in return. "Pendejo." Roier mutters, before moving away from Cellbit's desk, taking the painted mug and placing it on the glass coffee table across. Cellbit wonders why he feels a pang of disappointment at the lost proximity.

Roier flops down on the couch opposite his desk, halfheartedly rubbing at his face. Cellbit's still smiling, he knows, because this position for his features to assume for this long is unnatural and foreign to him, yet he doesn't quite find it in him to care.

"Ok, culero, drink while it's hot, I'm tired." The comment is light hearted as Roier motions from his sprawled out position towards the mug sitting on the coaster, yet Cellbit feels there's more truth to that statement than the man is letting on. He can literally see the lines of fatigue traced on the once pure-spirited visage, but remorsefully he shuts out his detective brain. He doesn't want to overstep where he's not welcome, especially after what happened to the man's literal son. Later he'd have to check up on the guy, make sure there's at least something he can provide to ease that buried hurt.

Cellbit quickly shifts his attention down to the mug, and immediately gawks at it. He can hear Roier's satisfied smirk, but-

Not only does it smell angelic, there's marshmallows scattered on the top and what he can definitely tell is cinnamon powdered on. Oh what was he even doing before Roier came in again? He looks back at the arachnid, who's grinning proudly, and takes the mug into his hands.

"This…thank you guapito?" Cellbit stutters out. "You put cinnamon, great call, by the way." He compliments, feigning obliviousness at the way triumph shines in Roier's gaze.

"Obvio, it's the best way to do it. Anyone that doesn't agree is a pendejo." Cellbit chuckles in assent and goes in for a swing.

He's not directly looking at Roier, but he can tell the man is carefully observing his reaction. He tamps down a smile as a thought occurs to him. The mug is warm in his hands, and he's regretful to let go of it but places it back on the coaster anyway.

Clearly, it's some of the most heavily shit he's tasted in years, and the fact that he's schooled his expression into such neutrality is an achievement in of itself. The cinnamon sits just right on his tongue with the bitterness of no sugar and the mildest hint of milk in the background, making it all balance so perfectly and Cellbit might as well be dead on the spot with how much sticky, honey-like warmth drips in his chest.

"Like a six out of ten." Cellbit says casually, cracking his fingers with the most practiced look of neutrality plastered on his features.

"QUÉ? Nah culero, ya me voy en chinguiza. Si me odias tanto-"

"É uma brincadeira! Broma!" Cellbit cackles at the genuine ire drawn on Roier's face before it instantaneously fades as he observes the Brazilian's laughter.

"Desculpe, I had to do it." He laughs out, watching Roier roll his eyes and laugh into his hand. It's a welcome sound, something unfiltered and so casually Roier.

"Órale! If you don't hate me, rate it, Caffellbit."

"Caffellbit?" Cellbit quirks up an eyebrow, amused grin staying on his face. Roier only nods genuinely at him, arms laying crossed against his chest. Cellbit does not pause on the muscle there for more than one second. He doesn't.

"Well. The cinnamon works really well, and there's no sugar as far as I can tell which is usually something people hate but I really love," he begins, noting the open curiosity in that deep brown stare across him. "it's like, perfect. At least a nine. Genuinely caters to my tastes so well- wait."

He snaps his gaze back to Roier's eyes. "Did you talk to Pac..?"

"Si, I in fact did. Tengo que cuidarte como si fueras un bebé , no puedes hacer ni madres solo." Cellbit grumbles at the remark as Roier's eyes sparkle with mirth.

"Alright no I see how it is." Cellbit rolls his eyes pretending he doesn't feel heat rush to his cheeks at the simple way in which Roier says it.

All he can think of is warmth, warmth, warmth. And not just because of the mug sitting atop the coaster.

Warmth and a touch of cinnamon.

--------

A day late, once again sorry lmfaoo 😭. I really need more writing practice

[seyaryminamoto]

Do you have any particular thoughts on Netflix Avatar Season 1? I haven't watched it myself but I would be curious to hear what you have to say.

I do indeed! I didn't watch it right away, but I have watched it indeed. I think there are merits to certain changes they did, I can see the sense in many of them, that doesn't mean EVERYTHING they changed was good, but it does feel like they were engaging with the original content in a far more creative way than a lot of people are willing to acknowledge or try themselves. No, it isn't a perfect remake of ATLA, but being the critic that I have been of the original show, nobody could ever convince me that the original was perfect, just as this new show isn't perfect.

I want to make a big post on the subject one day and try to get to everything it brought up... once I have more time on my hands, I'll try to do that. But, to give you a bit to chew on... I'll try to do one good vs. one bad on my part, of whatever I can remember right now.

GOOD: I actually do not mind the multiple prologues in the first episode, even though I don't think the changes were handled perfectly. I do believe that showing the genocide is not nearly as bad a choice as a lot of people pretend it is (the way it was portrayed is questionable mostly from a tactical point of view but that's just me being a freak about that... studying basic warfare really fucks up your suspension of disbelief when it comes to war scenes). Mainly, I think it IS important to show it due to the amount of people who are still convinced that Aang didn't suffer nearly as much as most other popular characters did -- that soooo many people have made these claims without a care in the world throughout the twenty years since ATLA first aired proves that the genocide was not treated with the severity it should have been by the OG show. I'm not even sorry to say it. It doesn't feel like a trivialization of violence, it feels like actually setting straight the degree of violence a genocide entails. People asking for a less intense version of genocide basically appear to be asking for the actual gravity of such events to be sanitized so they can chew on them more easily... and that's exactly what leads to it being trivialized, minimized and not taken seriously, if you ask me.

BAD: I don't particularly like the way Fire Lords are so... casual with commoners. Both Ozai and Sozin stood on the same level as a rebel/spy right before setting them on fire, no doubt it's meant to be some sort of flex, but... men of their ideologies and pride would not want to be up close and personal with anyone they consider that far beneath them. Odd choice there, imo.

MOSTLY GOOD: Aang does feel way more serious and has much more dramatic gravitas in everything he does. And this is not a bad choice, in essence. I don't particularly love that they tried to lessen it with occasional "Aang's a silly kid!" verbal reminders that don't actually have any proper visual evidence, because most the silly things he's up for are things the two older kids (Sokka and Katara) are perfectly fine with doing too, hence, he doesn't feel childish at all and it comes off out of place for him to talk about being more childish than he actually is. So... they really didn't need dialogue to try to emphasize his childhood if they weren't going to write him being a goofball. It's fine if he isn't one. He always could be a more serious character, it's only a problem when there's no further substance to him than just brooding (which is what I remember from the Shyamalan movie...).

WEIRD: Aang and Katara both had weird scenes of standing around doing nothing but smiling at their hometowns in episode 1. Maybe it was done as a parallel between them, but it felt a bit... overly theatric? If that makes sense? Like... I know we need to see their daily lives and the context in which they've lived... but it doesn't feel entirely logical for that to happen with them just standing in place and smiling fondly at their world. Most people do not do that in their daily lives...?

GOOD: ... Contrary to what a lot of the fandom seems to think, I actually like the suuuuuper slowburn Kataang here because any potential romantic payoff those two might get isn't nearly as in-your-face as it was in canon. The way their friendship is growing feels far more organic. And some of my favorite character moments in the show were actually between them. Which is not something I'd EVER say about the original show. There's a different sense of maturity for the characters here, and I like that.

BAD: I... do not like Sokka's changes. No, it's not about the sexism. It makes sense to me that this aspect of his character would be changed, updated in a sense: you can even still read him as sexist in some regards! It just isn't as simplistic and straightforward as it was before. But that's... not what bugs me the most. The show genuinely surprised me by taking him far more seriously as a character than I anticipated they would, but they absolutely picked weird choices with him in stuff like his family issues (... the Hakoda changes are just straight-up cringe for me, there's no justification for making him some sort of bitchy soccer mom who congratulates his son but then shits on him behind his back??), his insecurities as a warrior and the frequent remarks about how maybe that's not his path in life even though he does just fine at it, and... his romantic relationships. It's wild, because I actually think they did Sukka a thousand times better than it is in canon, and yet in doing so, they absolutely deadlocked themselves into a whole other problem: Sokka bonding that much with Suki and then hitting on a random Fire Nation soldier like two episodes later?? Then having the romance of his lifetime with Yue by the end of the season?? Ngl, it feels like we're watching one of those sitcoms where characters switch love interests in the blink of an eye. Changing this element of his character this way, when Suki's romance in particular was given new qualities and way more substance... may not have been a great call since it makes him come off insanely shallow, ready to get with any girl he comes across, and frankly, he didn't feel like that in the original show to me. He's also not really funny when he's supposed to be? Part of what made Sokka funny originally was his role as a voice of reason while everyone else ignored him. They occasionally tried to mimic that here... but in ways that didn't really work? Also, the Ron-Weasley-In-HP-Movies brand of comedy of "watch this guy scream, it's soooo funny" is... so trite at this point. Please, don't. Personally, this really feels like a whole other character who isn't Sokka. And some people might think that's great... I'm not one of them. Maybe I'm just experiencing the crisis a lot of people are over Katara with Sokka? But where changes with her do seem to go for things I actually wasn't fond of in her character, I don't really feel like they did better with Sokka in the least.

GOOD: ... "Katara learned waterbending too fast", they say: she did in canon too. A month of training under Pakku is not nearly enough time to justify her being deemed a master in canon. Complaining about how she didn't get that training at all here and still got deemed a master gets a "meh" out of me because I frankly do not see it being remotely as different from what canon did as people want to think it is. Katara was fighting Pakku with way too much power in the OG show for a kid who never got formal training to begin with, and somehow nobody minds that. I don't think someone who was on that level of power in the OG show was nearly as inferior to a seasoned master as a bunch of people want to believe. So... outrage about how they sped up her learning process when we in fact see a LOT more internal growth for Katara, and a lot more depth to her bending source here, makes no sense to me.

Along with that: bending has always been connected with a bender's internal energy, which is related to their peace of mind and internal balance. This show did not invent that. Firebenders are the ones who are most explicitly shown to be connected to their feelings that way, sure, but if you needed ATLA or LOK to non-stop feature characters talking about how a person's chakras had to be cleansed and their hearts clear and their every spiritual thread cleaned up in order to reach their best possible shapes as benders? You probably have bigger problems in analyzing this show than just whining over whatever the liveaction did. A straightforward connection for Katara with her emotions and bending isn't a negative choice in the slightest to me, more so with a character who has constantly been characterized as deeply connected to her emotions: it makes sense that her bending works and evolves the way it does in the liveaction to me. Sorry not sorry.

BAD: Zhao. Uh... I've seen people say they like him here? I felt like I was watching a con artist. It's not the actor's fault, clearly he was given this concept to work with and he did the best he could with it, but the idea of removing Zhao from all prior connection to the Royal Family, making him a total unknown who came out of nowhere and rises to prominence through conniving and scheming feels like they decided to merge him with Long Feng, maybe? And it might even backfire if they DO have Long Feng next season (... they should???) and he has a very similar profile to what they did with Zhao. I didn't enjoy his characterization at all, he was just... weird. So, not a change I was big on.

GOOD: Iroh. My god. I hate the fact that I'm saying this. But I will say it was insanely cathartic to watch that EK soldier beating him up. And that's not all: Iroh actually seems to be struggling actively with right and wrong here, showing hesitation over the war, and most importantly... HAVING A PERSONAL DYNAMIC WITH AANG??!!! I never imagined I would be that happy to see that, but I was. The few moments those two had together were damn solid, some of the best in the show (and the best for Iroh, sorry not sorry, I have never ever been an Iroh-Zuko obsessive fan and I genuinely find myself more intrigued by Iroh's potential bonding with other people, never thought about it with Aang but this show 100% blindsided me with it in a good way). It seriously made me mad that the OG basically never gave them that chance besides... that one scene in the catacombs that was very much just Iroh being a fortune cookie? Aang actually being an element that basically waters the seeds of doubt in Iroh's head is a GREAT change. I said it and I'll stand by it.

BAD: Hahn and not because of the usual reasons: their characterization rework of Hahn was fine. More than fine. The actor they cast was also very pretty! All of which makes it EXTREMELY questionable that Yue somehow has this perfectly decent guy and... uh... chooses the reworked Sokka instead? Like, I know that's how the OG story went, but when you turn Hahn from an opportunistic dick to a perfectly admirable warrior and individual, and feature Yue saying he's great but he's "not the boy of her dreams" (you... dreamt about him ONE TIME?? He's never been in the Spirit World besides that, so wuuuut...??), it makes her choice in romantic interests feel extremely questionable and weird. I'm all for Yue being given more to work with, but this seriously feels like she's... a little crazy. Hahn comes off waaaaaaay too decent for her not to be interested in him... ofc, as long as she's someone attracted to men, which, considering she picked ANOTHER GUY, it's to be assumed that she is?? Ergo nothing makes sense to me. Come to think of it, a lesbian Yue rejecting Hahn is probably the only way her rejection of Hahn would make sense... and it would also not cast such a questionable light on reworked Sokka if he and Yue weren't romantic at all, right after he had that big connection with Suki back when the show began?? So, heh, maybe lesbian Yue is the only thing that would've made sense if Hahn gets reworked for the better like this, sorry not sorry....

GOOD: The full-blown, outright display of Ozai's abuse on Azula rather than subtleties and insinuations. Again, much like in Aang's case with the genocide: PEOPLE DENY AZULA WAS A VICTIM OF ABUSE ALL THE TIME. People pretend Ozai actually loved her on some weird level or that she FELT loved, ergo she was fine and Zuko's the one who was abused. This is not new. We've been dealing with people barking that kind of nonsense since almost twenty years ago. And the backlash from that exact crowd when this show made it evident proves that they refuse to accept Azula as a victim of abuse to this day. Ergo, sorry not sorry: I'm glad they handled it as they did here because it makes it undeniable that Ozai is pushing Azula to extremes and she's pressured to deliver and become the weapon he wants her to be.

BAD: ... the Mother of Faces. That may have been the most egregious offensive and bullshit moments in the entire show. I was so mad when she was brought up at all. It was awful. I hated it. It really must be my most hated moment in the whole thing. UGH.

GOOD: Katara apologized to Sokka once. You know. One time. That, I think, marks the single time in any official Avatar content where she has done that. Call me a salty asshole, but I'm genuinely impressed that they did that, so they get a point for it.

BAD: Bumi. I know some people think the rework for Bumi is great... I could not disagree more. His treatment of Aang is really unacceptable, his behavior is very irresponsible but this time in a vindictive way... I was even reasoning with the fact that he knows Aang is the Avatar, which ALSO happens in the OG, without having known it in the past! The difference? It feels too arbitrary and random that he'd know that here, whereas in the OG show, he IS random and arbitrary, yet somewhere amid so many nonsensical ramblings, he shows insight and intelligence that makes you think there's more to him than meets the eye. I may need to rewatch episode 5 of the OG show in order to confirm this, but I also think that most of the implications there regarding his challenges is that they were actually harmless even if it doesn't look that way all along. Here? They're not harmless at all, he's basically vindictively trying to get Aang to either die for his "sins" or get himself killed through him and neither thing sits well with me at all with this character.

GOOD: Gyatso, expanding on his character and making him a much more straightforward equivalent to Iroh for Aang actually is really helpful, it makes him less of a "stock character" victim to the Fire Nation, it gave him more depth and it makes Aang's bond with him feel much more real. I am very sorry to all OG apologists, but I continue to believe Aang's cheerful behavior was written primarily to appeal to the children demographic that Nickelodeon was aiming for as their audience, which meant he could not be particularly human and truly grieve for everything he had lost. This show doesn't hide that pain at all, and it's particularly good that it does that by showing what a constant presence Gyatso was in Aang's life and by letting them have a manner of final farewell in that episode (... even if I didn't particularly like the episode, but still, it wasn't a bad idea to do that).

BAD: ... call me a consistency freak if you will, but I did not spend all these years obsessively trying to make sense out of the wobbly worldbuilding of the Avatarverse to be told that the entrance to the Cave of Two Lovers is within Omashu and that it leads into the arena within Bumi's Palace. Sorry. I can't accept that. I can't. I legit laughed throughout that whole situation because that's not where the cave of two lovers was, the badgermoles would be causing earthquakes non-stop through the city, and the sewers system would not even work because they'd constantly get fucked up by the creatures (as we know, there's a scene in Book 2 of the kids climbing out of the sewers, so either they won't do the pentapox or they'll forget about the badgermoles conveniently by then...). So. No. Sorry but no. Also, why did they kill Oma??? I know they turned both lovers into women, but... precisely because they did that, why exactly was there any need to change which one died?? Either one you kill is a woman now anyway so... what's the difference? WHY the difference?? Odd.

GOOD: ... Zuko keeps a notebook on his research and investigations into the Avatar. There were many changes to his character but that's the one that stood out the most to me. He actually seems a little bit more methodical, if not smarter, but you know? Kinda smarter anyway for at LEAST thinking that keeping a book with the results of his investigations could help?? Feels like he's actually trying rather than just whining about how rude the world is and how hard he has it. Which, in the end, might ALSO come down to him actually having some hope that Ozai didn't hate him irremediably... which, too, is a good change. I've talked about it before, other people have too: a firstborn firebending male prince has no business being discarded because of incompetence unless he's just THAT pathetic, and even in canon, Zuko wasn't as bad as to justify pushing him out and treating him as shittily as Ozai did without an actual, THOROUGH, exploration of Ozai's motives. You can elaborate, but the show never really did it, and if anything, it offered a bunch of conflictive information about why Zuko thought his father liked him. Here, it makes more sense that he thinks Ozai isn't as much of a bitch as he really is: the Agni Kai is a lot more interesting because they merged both Zuko vs. Zhao and Zuko vs. Ozai into one. The fact that Ozai actually burns Zuko and defeats him BECAUSE he was punishing him for not taking advantage of an enemy's weakness? It's a million times more telling about Zuko's character than what we saw in canon, where he was down to fight an old man out of hybris and then shat himself as soon as his father stepped up instead. So... I don't like this Zuko, which tells you they're doing him right anyway x'DDDD but I find there are a few elements about him that make him at LEAST a little more respectable than he was in the OG show. Among them? He's not constantly ranting about honor but actually lashing out at dishonorable choices out of principle, which makes it sound like he has a WAY better grasp on that concept than he does in canon :'D sue me. This is a Zuko rework too, and fortunately, not ONLY geared towards sanitizing him (even though there IS a fair amount of sanitizing too... which annoys me, but what else could we expect in the era of political correction).

BAD: ... Why the fuck did they decide the way to fix Iroh harassing June was to make her horny for him? Please? Of all things??? All they had to do was just... not make any romantic/sexual implications there. At all. Was that so hard to achieve? This is probably the second worst thing for me in the entire show, ngl. I do not understand the need for it at all. Most of all when they CLEARLY changed it due to knowing Iroh absolutely was a bastard in the OG with his behavior towards her. Isn't it easier to just NOT put any implications of attraction in there? I mean, I should be happy June didn't fully harass Iroh but the way they presented it, it felt like he wasn't even comfortable with it either! This... is not the way you take revenge for a character sexually harassing another one. Bad, bad take, I don't know what made them do this but they absolutely did not "fix" this, they overcorrected it and made it gross as fuck to me anyhow, most of all with the context of knowing that Iroh was the one being inappropriate as fuck back in the OG.

ALRIGHT. I know there's bound to be more, and I probably could think of more soon but I think I'm giving you this for now or else I'll end up making my major post here x'D

All in all, I don't think this show is unwatchable, I absolutely understand people who think it was fun, I also understand people who couldn't get used to the changes and outright dropped it. What I can't understand/accept is either pretending this show is the greatest thing ever (much like I don't think the OG ATLA is...), or pretending that it's the worst one either. This show engaged with a lot of elements in different ways than the original did: not all of it was a miss, not all of it was a hit. And I feel like it's a matter of fundamental, human decency and respect not to go completely berserk taking a ten-ton dump on this show, which to this date is the biggest production in Hollywood with a primarily Asian cast and crew of all time, from what I know, by pretending it has destroyed this franchise completely and that any support for it must come from brainwashed idiots or "not true fans". The gate-keepy attitude comes as absolutely no surprise in this fandom, ofc, but it's still disgusting to see. You CAN be critical of this show with dignity. You CAN do it while respecting other people who enjoyed it completely. It's not too much to ask. I may have learned that lesson the hard way with the ATLA comics, but even then, it wasn't my M.O. to jump into every single comics-positive post to tell people why they sucked and how dumb they were for enjoying them.

That's what I've got for the time being :'D hope it's enough for now.

[aestariiwilderness]

Acolyte Spoilers #1

Okay so -- of the many, many, MANY things about SW canon that are both hilarious and horrifying in light of episode 1 of the Acolyte, this is the one that's sticking out to me now: So, apparently, in canon, Anakin and his "unorthodox" training that everybody in the Temple yelled at him for has officially now saved Ahsoka's life approximately 1033 times over instead of just 1032. Why? Because Osha out here, Jedi dropout, working for the Trade Federation on a case-by-case basis (who are talking over comms about how disposable she is!) because, and I quote/near-quote: the Jedi skills aren't transferable. And apparently, they don't really teach you anything else, not officially. If you don't have a master who cares about that kind of thing, maybe you don't get any kind of training that way at all. AND, evidently, if you leave or get kicked out, they don't give you any kind of job training, stipend, or post-Order care, as we saw with both Ahsoka and Osha. So that particular fun little fanon sop to the Jedi just died a lonely death LOL. So Anakin, by teaching Ahsoka an actual, marketable trade (mechanics) (why is that the only trade in Star Wars?? Guys, learn some basket-weaving) absolutely saved her life. (Again.) So, to recap: You're taken to the main government-sponsored (literally, from what I can see) cult, the Jedi Order, often as a baby so you have no say in it. There are laser swords, telekinetic space monks who have lived in power for centuries, a planet-city full of corruption, and absolutely no child endangerment or child labor laws. Your "brethren" can and literally do invade people's minds and control them without asking if it's convenient. You are ostracized for forming any kind of attachment; apparently, if you blink in vague confusion while a fascist green lady asks you if you're down with murdering your young former padawan for political convenience, you're too attached. (AND that is a whole hilarious post on its own). Key salient details will be left out of your file to aid in a coverup about your origins. The minimal amount of critical thinking will be done at all times, if you're lucky. And then, of course, if you dare to leave or get kicked out of this utterly Benevolent Cult in which you had no choice in spending your entire life, you...will have no resources, no job training, and be left to sink or swim. And then at any point the Jedi will have free rein to pop back into the life you've shakily managed to construct for yourself, arrest you immediately on the testimony of one (1) (non-human guy who might not be able to tell the difference between one human and the next!), and then get you crashlanded onto an icy death planet and hunt you down, laser swords out and ready to slice and dice you to death. Yep. Sounds about right. (Wait till you get to the human clones manufactured to die, Osha! That'll be fun.) Sooo -- any sane person's reaction to the Jedi Cult here should be:

@clawedandcute

[kouhaiofcolor]

Dunno who needs to hear this (nah who am I kidding? I know exactly who I’m talking to & about, & y’all do too 😉),

but if your “Black friend(s)” are only Black males who are indifferent, entertained by or silent in the face of misogynoir, Black fetishism, colorism, antiblackness in general, & esp you using the n word as a non black — you do not have Black friends. I’m sorry. You’re simply friends with Black enablers who pander to & exceptionalize your ignorance bc they either hate themselves, their people or their culture (If not all of the above; & usually, it’s all if not most of the above). That’s what that is. At its core & in depth. The “Black People” you conveniently bring up to defend yourself when your humanity is brought into question or criticized online or irl, are just enabling your shitty behavior. And that is the purpose & function you comfortably reduce them to — whether either of you realize it or not.

They’re there for your convenience as apologists. I notice a lot of the time when y’all say or act on something antiblack, y’all reach vehemently for the minimal amount of Black “People” you actually know personally just to validate or excuse antiblack behavior, opinions or notions. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these Black “friends” are always always totally fine w y’all mishandling them or things unique to our culture, either. It’s more birds of a desperate ass feather than anything else. Stop looking to these friends to protect, back and validate your prejudice, bc trust & believe actual Black People w self & cultural respect don’t & wouldn’t fw them anyhow. Y’all could be like, “BlAcK pEoPLe DoNt Go To CoLLeGe,” — and reference the all of 0.3 Black People you interact w on an even semi-regular basis as a representative for the entire diaspora just bc they coon ass agrees to save face in front of you. 😂 Be ffr.

Y’all are never acquainted w Black People who even have the balls to put you in your place “friend to friend” for the ways in which y’all make them look stupid. Please stop it. Also, not that it’s a secret at all, but Black men are pretty notorious for mistreating their own ppl the same way non blacks do so. 👀While it’s not all of them, they’re certainly not the most ideal group to testify for y’all, just saying. Them be y’all picks tho. Consistently. Y’all ain’t never friends w/ Black Women who don’t play that shit. Or even just a healthy mix of Black men and Black Women who even agree w y’all. 😂 Odd af. Y’all definitely cherry pick y’all dancing monkeys for testimony and line of defense — and they never fail to perform, I’ll give you that. You do not have Black friends tho. Tell your enablers to shut up since they’re so comfortable being silenced anyhow until you need ‘em.

Thank you for coming to my TED. ✌🏽😊

[scarrletmoon]

it's izzy hands it's kylo ren it's billy from stranger things it's snape it's draco it's loki circa 2012-2014 it's a REPEATED PATTERN throughout all of fandom of an antagonistic white guy getting a devoted fanbase that is both disproportionate to his importance in the story and also misunderstands the white guy's role as an antagonist. they think their mean little guy is a misunderstood victim and they base their entire fandom experience around him. and then in season 2 ofmd went and redeemed izzy before killing him off to further ed's arc, something that is a solid choice from a technical writing standpoint but from a fandom perspective it built the izzy fans up into thinking they were right about how izzy has never been homophobic, izzy is a poor downtrodden abuse victim, and from day one izzy has been a protector and the only competent guy around and a loyal and dutiful first mate. and possibly the most significant part is that so many izzy fans have accidentally and unknowingly tricked themselves into thinking that izzy is a main character bc their fandom engagement revolves so heavily around izzy that they forgot the actual show itself doesn't, so they were completely blindsided by a death that has been foreshadowed since season one ("im not dying, not for that twat and not for you" and "only retirement we get is death" and the whole "plumb the depths, man" sequence where izzy was talking to stede through a death shroud ffs). and i want so bad to just ignore it but we literally got a queer romcom centered around an interracial couple and an incredibly diverse cast and an indigenous main character and a diverse writer's room and the season ended on a happy note and it's all about queer joy AND YET. soooooooo much of the post-season discussion has to center around the white side character!!! even in death izzy hands takes up a disproportionate amount of the fandom conversation and im exhausted. it's every fandom! every fucking time!! this isnt anything new this is the same time-honored fandom tradition of white man favoritism YET A-FUCKING-GAIN and im SO FUCKING TIRED OF IT!!!!!!!!!

(i get so scared when i turn on anon bc i’ve consistently gotten such shitty, cowardly messages through it but i’m glad this isn’t one of them lmao)

i know i’ve said this 374748 times but the last time i made the kylo ren/snape/white villain connection on twitter (i mean that’s on me, it’s twitter) i had people legit furious with me for calling them nazis which………..i literally never said

and i get the frustration. trust me, I GET IT. the white villain problem smashes right into white fragility and makes it almost impossible to talk about any of it. it means, like you said, that we’re talking about a fucking white side character in cast of amazing, nonwhite talent, because some people can’t handle confronting the fact that whiteness insulates them from the realities of racism, and that their ignorance and hostility makes them active participants in white supremacy

(and it’s really hard to explain this to people who’ve been taught that racism is when slurs and white klan hoods, because then they’ll say and do the most vile shit and CRY or fight you when you gently try to explain the racist shit they just did)

and because fandom is very queer as well as very white, we also have to contend with the kinds of white people who think that queerness somehow negates their whiteness. that they can’t express their privilege in contexts involving POC. that we’re making shit up to be victims and to minimize their pain on purpose. and time and time again, i have had my queerness erased by white people, so they feel comfortable ignoring criticism i only ever shared bc i was hoping for something better

i’ve said it again and again and again and AGAIN that it’s ESPECIALLY depressing seeing white people close ranks in ofmd fandom especially BECAUSE it has such a diverse cast and doesn’t shy away from discussing racism in all the ways it manifests. like, most of the racism in the show isn’t even subtle and y’all STILL elected to ignore it? do y’all not feel ANY shame about that?

and some of them don’t! bc they think we’re infiltrators. bc they’re only a few steps removed from “they will not replace us” as they see more POC try to join fannish spaces. and they’ll pretend they’re not trying to push us out bc they’re marginalized in other ways — deliberately ignoring the fact that they’re also crushing their fellow queer, disabled and marginalized community

so you’re tired? yeah. me the fuck too. we deserve so much better

[avpdvoidspace]

How do I know if it's social anxiety + low self-esteem or avpd?

So I'll start with the low self esteem, because I think that can be a confusing thing for someone not in the weeds of avpd to understand, but the self image issues faced with avpd are kind of deeper than self esteem. Personality disorders across the board come with issues of an unstable sense of self, and with the case of avpd, you can feel like you are uniquely inferior and inept compared to everyone around you. There's something so fundementally inferior about you that no one esle could be as much of a failure/loser/bad person as you. Granted, I sometimes don't feel this way if I'm trying to be conscious about it, but it's always background noise in my brain. That's so overwhelming that it can be intensely painful to be exposed to anything that you could even possibly interpret as personal criticism, so you might avoid any social situation without an absolute guarantee that you'll be liked and supported. You might dip out of any relationship or social situation where you feel like someone isn't too keen on you, even if it seems to be going well and nothing is outwardly wrong. So possibly a lot of ghosting, especially early on in a friendship or social group. You might even have a hard time getting or keeping a job because of this fear of social situations where you might be judged, criticized, ridiculed or shame. Even when I was keeping a job, I would often find myself in levels of anxiety that were almost unbearable. Even in jobs with very minimal contact with people, the nature of wage work is that you are inevitably coerced to interact with somene, even if only your superior, and that's really difficult becuase it's exposing you to personal criticism. And again, because of the unstable sense of self and feelings of unique inferiority, personal criticism or shame can be devastating (in a similar way to people with NPD, actually. This is one of the ways I feel we have a decent amount of overlap) And then even with close relationships, you are restraining yourself constantly because you're worried about how the other person will see you and feeling deep shame. Even in your closest relationships, you might have a very hard time opening up about things, even if you've pushed yourself to open up in the past. I find myself feeling this way in my very long term relationship--I struggle immensely to tell my partner about my feelings, and I often have to find strategies to get the information to him while working around my deep, deep shame. I think most people with social anxiety but without avpd do start to feel comfortable in long term friendships and relationships that those of us with avpd never can, even if we are happy in said relationship. These are some kind of expanded explanations of the DSM criteria based on personal experience. I think it's possible to have some of this without actually having avpd, but these are some of the things that distinguish it from social anxiety and low self esteem. I hope that was helpful!

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

ok so i was actually kinda surprised to find that looking at the ao3 stats and adjusting for how long ofmd’s existed (a year and a half) vs how long the stucky fandom’s been around (coming up on a decade), not only is gentlebeard on par with stucky but it actually beats stucky for amount of fics written. but i’m making a prediction now just based on how i’ve observed fandoms to work: i do think the gentlebeard popularity will peter out faster than stucky did

i’m not saying bc i think gentlebeard is worse or the ofmd fandom is weak or anything, i’m saying this bc in fandom it seems like the white masc queerbait ships* have like, an absurd amount of longevity that goes way beyond the general fandom surrounding whatever media said white masc queerbait ship hails from. im thinking abt the protagonist/rival ship from the TERF wizard series that nobody decent talks about in public anymore. before we all cut jkr out of our lives, people were still churning out fics abt the main character and that racist blond kid pretty regularly. and another example, we have those scientists from pacific rim that are more popular than any of the main characters from that movie. it’s been years and the newt/hermann fandom is still going strong.

and i say “newt/hermann fandom” intentionally, bc that’s the thing that i think actually gives these ships their longevity: when there are fans who are primarily invested in a piece of media because of a noncanonical masc4masc queerbait ship, they’re not really fans of the media itself. i mean, some of them might be, but if they are then that’s in addition to being fans of this alternate queer interpretation of the media in question. they’re a fan of the fandom mass hallucination that the fans collectively and collaboratively invented of a romantic/sexual/homoerotic relationship between two guys who on-screen might hug like once or twice (or sometimes even never)

and i’m pretty sure the reason this sort of fandom phenomenon tends to have so much longevity is bc the fans have already created this whole extensive romantic storyline using what is often some pretty minimal canonical material to work with. so when the movie franchise or the tv show ends and the shippers no longer have any new canonical material to work with, they can keep going for years because really, they were already making shit up from the start.

so compared to that, gentlebeard is way different bc everything the fans might have invented on our own the show pretty much already did for us, and anything the show didn’t do yet is probably coming for us this season (or in s3, fingers crossed). i’ve mentioned before how a lot of fanfiction seems to fall on a spectrum between “fix” and “expand,” and by the end of ofmd i doubt there’s gonna be a whole lot that gentlebeard fans feel like they need to “fix.” versus stucky, where there’s so much that needs to be fixed that you might as well just throw the whole canon out.

i don't really mean any of this as a criticism or an attack on fans of queerbait ships like this, im just pointing out fandom trends that i've noticed. i myself have been deeply invested in stucky, newmann, and the gay wizard boys at different points in my life. like there is something very fun abt putting on slash goggles and making queer content out of nothing. personally though, now that we're in an age where we're getting canon queer content, im not so engaged in a lot of the ships i used to care so much about, but i don't think it's inherently wrong** for people to still enjoy some classic fandom queerbait ships. it's just a very different thing from enjoying canonical queer ships like gentlebeard

*im using “queerbait ships” loosely to include popular gay ships in media that was never in a million years going to make these characters gay.

**a clarifying point: i don't think it's inherently wrong, however there are a lot of problematic elements to this kind of fandom activity, namely the way a lot of these queerbait ships will dominate a fandom while other characters who are important in canon get completely sidelined (and yes, the sidelined characters are often women/poc). also, less importantly, when people's primary media consumption revolves around strip mining canon for shipping content, this absolutely destroys their media literacy and critical thinking. again, im not saying this to attack ppl who engage in fandom primarily through fic/art of noncanonical gay ships, i myself have done the same thing. but i think ppl who do should also make a conscious effort to also engage with fan content that centers women/poc, or at the very least need to be aware of the issues around this kind of fandom activity.