#but I'm sure its fine :'3

[kitten-mitts]

do the ocs have to be yours to request them? the person proficshy has these two characters i really like and wanted to maybe see them in your style

Well I guess not..? I've never considered this before :0

[polin-erospsyche]

This post was inspired by a comment from an anon in my ask box. They mentioned that if the Queen hadn’t interrupted Polin's wedding, they could have had a beautiful wedding night (if you’re the anon and you’re reading this, hi! And also, I know this isn't everything, but I'll touch on the rest. Small disclaimer: this got long and I’m sorry).

I agree, that could have happened. But honestly, I'm really glad it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to see it, but I don’t think it would have been good for them. The intimate scenes we did get tell an overarching story and serve a purpose in the narrative. We’ve been told that these intimate moments are a way for them to communicate, so let’s unpack that.

The first intimate scene is about them discovering each other in a new, intimate way, moving from friendship (which had already started to happen in the carriage) to a lover relationship. This moment is crucial for Penelope's story and character development. From this, she grows in confidence and self-awareness. She expresses this to Colin multiple times, such as when she says, “with the confidence you’ve helped me find this year,” and later, “You’ve taught me to hold my own. You have shown me I’m capable of pleasure beyond imagination.”

From that intimate scene onward, Penelope starts to come into her own power and that includes her sexual power. Colin shows her a level of love and care beyond what she ever thought possible, breaking down the belief system she built around herself. She was ready to sacrifice her dreams of being loved and held for financial stability, a mindset ingrained by Portia. Colin helps her see that this doesn’t have to be the case, chipping away at her long-held beliefs.

Let’s now move to the scene in the alleyway, which links back to anon’s comment. Anon suggests that this is the moment they start repairing their relationship post LW reveal. That following this scene they were in a good enough place to enjoy their wedding night if the Queen hadn’t crashed the party. Yes. And no. 

And oh my god how I’ve longed to discuss this scene but I never quite knew how to approach it. At this point in the show, the narrative is like a tightly wound ball of yarn with so many threads to pull at. So, let’s attempt to pull at them. 

First of all, they’ve entered a whole new playing field. And they’ve entered this playing field while being “the oldest of friends really” so they have ammunition against each other. Pen has hurt Colin by lying (hiding the truth from him time and time again) about her identity. She has let him go on and on about his despise of Lady Whistledown. About his dreams of being an author. These were things he told her in intimacy. Those were things he told his best friend and the person he fell in love with. Not the woman who hides behind her column and has done so much wrong to his family and loved ones. 

There is a separation between the two. For Colin, in that alleyway, there is still just Pen his best friend, Penelope the woman he loves and on the other side of that there is Lady Whistledown, the woman he vowed to destroy. He expresses that when he says “so then you do not need Lady Whistledown anymore”. What he fails to realise at this point, and he cannot be blamed for that, is that Lady Whistledown is an integral part of who Penelope Featherington is as a person. That her alter ego is not just a mask she wears but a crucial aspect of her identity, giving her a sense of power and agency in a world that often limits her as a woman. Something that Pen has slowly come to terms with when she says that she no longer needs to hide behind this alter ego but that does not mean there is no value in it, something that she also explains to him after the Queen has crashed their wedding breakfast. 

Now I say that he cannot be blamed for his refusal of recognizing that they are one and the same because he is still holding onto his misbelief, which is that to be loved and to have a value he must protect what he loves and be useful. Part of that is saving and avenging the people he loves from Whistledown. He has given his word to Eloise, to Marina indirectly, to himself and I’m thinking to Pen silently after what she’s written about herself. He finds himself, due to his misbelief, between a rock and a hard place: “the person he vowed to destroy is, in fact, the person he vowed to protect, and there is no separation between the two” (not me directly quoting myself lol). To this you add all the shame over his writing and his envy of her success and you have a recipe for disaster. 

So essentially, in that alleyway you have Pen who is already well along her character arc and Colin who is still gripping onto his original, unchanged self. This represents a power imbalance. What I love throughout this season, and I might write something about this one day, is that Pen and Colin are never quite on the same level both literally and figuratively. There is always one ahead of the other. This, in the long run, is another recipe for disaster because they are never quite equal. That is UNTIL that butterfly ball when they’ve gone through their character arc respectively. That is the moment they fully come together. They become a unit. They are no longer fighting against each other but with each other and for each other. 

But to arrive to this moment they need to do it separately. They need to be able to work on themselves before they can fully be able to work on their marriage. Genevieve says it well “there is no such thing as true love without first embracing your true self”. For Penelope that is becoming Penelope Bridgerton, an amalgam of the best parts of Whistledown and Penelope Featherington. For Colin that is deconstructing his hero complex and fully believing that he is enough just by being exactly who he is. And that has not happened in that alleyway. Truthfully the surface has barely been scraped in that scene because she essentially shuts down his demons for an instant by saying that she loves him. However, the issues remain. 

So yes, we can speculate all we want. If the Queen had not interrupted their wedding, they might have had a wedding night and they might have had a talk about everything afterward. However, the lack of acceptance of their true selves would have driven them up a wall at the next problem, which was how to handle Cressida.

And I think that is why Polin season is actually so beautiful. It is not just about Polin. It is about marriage and how hard it can get, and how you have to work on yourself to fit around the person you love without sacrificing yourself in the process. It is about choosing each other every day, through the ugly as well as the beautiful, through the hard parts as well as the easy ones. It’s choosing to have faith that you’ll work and figure it out without an assurance that it actually will, but if the love is there, then it just might. That is the story they chose to tell through Penelope and Colin.

First gif made by my bestie @polinsated 💕

[kuromi-hoemie]

i love looking down or catching my reflection in a window and being like oh i forgot I'm hot today

[youssefguedira]

wrote this instead of doing any of my actual tasks <3 tw for brief mention of animal death (by hunting)

Yusuf has been dreading this since the moment they left for Akkala. He had made as many excuses as he could to stay in Goron City for as long as he could, but every one had run out in the end, and he could no longer put off the inevitable. 

The first time he had walked this road, his father had accompanied him with a platoon of guards, still cautious, still reeling from the attack that had taken Yusuf's mother. The second time there had been fewer, but still many. 

In the years after that, the number of people sent with him had decreased even further until it was only two or three guards, enough to keep him safe. His father stopped accompanying him on these journeys after he turned fourteen and there had been no sign of their worth. 

Now, only Nicolò. 

He follows, keeping a respectful distance away from Yusuf, but closer than he had walked before they had gone to meet Nile, to ask for her help. He doesn't ever ask to stop, or to slow down, letting Yusuf set the pace. He keeps a hand on the hilt of his sword and does not speak. 

What is there to be said? Nicolò knows what lies at the end of this road, even if he does not know what it will mean for Yusuf. 

Yusuf can feel Nicolò's eyes on his back. It is bad enough that the whole kingdom knows he is a failure: he does not need Nicolò to watch him fail and say nothing. 

The sun is low, casting the landscape in burnt orange. It would be beautiful were it not so horribly familiar. There is a cabin nearby, and not far from it, the Spring. They will stay in the cabin tonight; they will leave for the Spring in the morning and spend three days there, then return to Goron City and after that, the castle. 

Yusuf thinks about returning, about his father's inevitable disappointment, and feels sick. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says, sounding uncertain. He is not yet used to calling Yusuf by his name. “We are not far, yes?” 

Yusuf had forgotten that Nicolò does not know every cursed inch of this road the way Yusuf does. “No, not far. In a moment you'll see the cabin.” 

Nicolò says nothing. Yusuf glances back just long enough to meet his eyes before looking away. 

What is Nicolò thinking? Yusuf can never tell. 

Yusuf catches sight of the cabin a moment later. Dread sits like a stone in his stomach. 

When they get closer, Nicolò takes hold of his elbow, gentle. It startles Yusuf all the same - he hadn't realised Nicolò was that close to him. 

“Let me go first,” Nicolò says. “To check. But stay close.” 

Yusuf nods, and lingers barely a handspan from Nicolò's back while he surveys first the outside, then the inside, of the cabin. Once he's satisfied, he gestures for Yusuf to enter. 

“You should rest,” he says, and he is being so gentle with Yusuf it almost hurts. Perhaps Andromache has told him what this will mean for him: she has accompanied him before. 

Yusuf shakes his head, because sleep means dreams, and dreams will be worse. “What are you going to do?” 

“I am going to find something for dinner,” Nicolò says. 

“Let me come with you,” Yusuf says. Anything is better than sitting in this cabin alone with his thoughts.

Nicolò looks at him for a long moment. Perhaps he takes pity on Yusuf, or perhaps he thinks that it will be easier to keep Yusuf safe if he stays with Nicolò. Either way, he nods. “All right.”

----------

Finding something for dinner means that Nicolò leads Yusuf a little way into the woods, far enough that the foliage and the dying sunlight makes it difficult to see, and bids him hide beneath a tree, in a space formed by the roots, while Nicolò crouches beside him with his bow, nocking an arrow in one smooth, seamless motion. From his vantage point, Yusuf can see a small clearing with a few fallen trees.

“Do not move,” Nicolò instructs him in a whisper, “and do not make a sound.”

Yusuf rests his head against the tree and watches the leaves move in the breeze. It is quiet enough that all he can hear is their rustling, the sounds of birds and animals calling to each other, the rushing of the stream nearby. After a moment, and with nothing else to watch, Yusuf begins to watch Nicolò. 

He has gone as still and as quiet as the trees around them, barely breathing, his shoulders rising and falling only slightly, like he has become a part of the forest. Faron Woods is much further south from here, but Yusuf supposes that this forest must be somewhat similar to where Nicolò grew up. He wonders who taught him to hunt; who taught him to be so comfortable in this place. Why he left it behind to travel to the castle and work for the king.

There are a lot of things Yusuf wonders about him. He cannot tell if Nicolò is aware of Yusuf’s watching; he must be. Still, Yusuf cannot help but watch.

It happens faster than Yusuf can track. Nicolò goes entirely still, and draws his bow swiftly, silently. Yusuf holds his breath and so does the forest.

Nicolò lets the arrow fly.

Yusuf doesn’t see whether it finds its mark, but Nicolò looks for a moment and then stands. “Wait here,” he says to Yusuf, and then heads for the clearing. When he returns he’s carrying something behind his back, the arrow in his other hand. Blood drips onto the grass. 

“You can wait inside while I prepare it, if you prefer,” Nicolò says haltingly. Yusuf shakes his head, and so he sits on a log outside while Nicolò skins the rabbit, arms wrapped around his knees and chin drawn up to his chest. Nicolò keeps his back to Yusuf, shielding most of it from view. 

Who taught him this? Yusuf wonders. It is a part of Nicolò he has never seen before.

When it is done, he takes it back inside to cook over the fire, and they eat it alongside the bread and cheese they brought from Goron City, across from each other at the cabin’s little table.

“When do you want to leave, tomorrow?” Nicolò asks softly. 

“I don’t,” Yusuf says before he can stop himself, and then adds, “I don’t know. Early, probably.” The thought bursts the little bubble he’s been in since they arrived. He doesn’t want to leave, could stay here for the three days they’ve been allocated and return to his father without even having tried and it would change nothing. 

“Just after sunrise, then,” Nicolò says. “It is not far, you said?”

Yusuf shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Not far.”

----------

The water is freezing.

It has always been freezing. But Yusuf knows well enough that if he stands in it for long enough, it will start to warm. It reaches to around halfway up his thigh; when he was younger, it felt deeper. 

The stone in front of him offers nothing. No sign, no indication that anything is listening to him except for the water and Nicolò, who has been standing at the gate of the Spring for however long he has been in here. Has he been listening? Has he heard Yusuf pleading for something, anything, dreading the moment he returns to the castle and his father looks down at his left hand and sees nothing there? 

What does Nicolò think of him now? If he did not see a failure before, does he see one now? 

His legs may be going numb. They tremble beneath him, struggling to hold his weight. How long has he been standing here? 

“Tell me what I am doing wrong,” he begs the stone. His voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else. “I know I am not the one you wanted, but I am trying. I am trying. I have given everything. I do not know how much more I have left.”

The stone says nothing.

Nicolò says, “Yusuf.”

Yusuf hears him without listening, falls to his knees in the water and does not even feel the chill. 

“Please,” he pleads. “I cannot return – I cannot give anymore.”

There is a splash behind him, and then there is Nicolò, pulling him to his feet, pulling him from the water. Yusuf tries to hold fast - he cannot leave now or it will have been three days in the Spring with nothing to show for it. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says again. His grip is gentle but unrelenting, and he is warm. Yusuf, shivering as he is, can’t help but lean into it. “You are exhausted. You are going to freeze. Come with me.”

“I can’t,” Yusuf says, even as he lets Nicolò take his weight, lets him guide Yusuf out of the Spring. “I can’t.”

There is a small paved area where their camp is set up. Nicolò has kept the fire going, or restarted it, while Yusuf was in there, and he half-carries Yusuf over to it now. Yusuf’s legs buckle under him the moment Nicolò lets him go, and he sinks onto something soft laid over the paving stones. He blinks, and there is a bowl in his hands, warming even if he does not really taste it. 

“It was never supposed to be me,” Yusuf says without really meaning to. 

From across the fire, Nicolò watches him.

“It was supposed to be my mother,” Yusuf whispers. The only sound between them is the crackling of the fire. Yusuf is so, so tired. He has never said this to anybody else, not even Andromache, but he cannot keep the words from rushing out of him now.

“It came to her when she was nineteen,” he says, “and that’s how they knew it would happen in her lifetime. So she trained, and she mastered it, and we were ready. And then she was killed, and because I was the oldest, it came to me.”

He does not like thinking about this. He has not thought about this in years. They do not speak of it anymore.

Nicolò is still watching him.

“I was asleep when it happened,” Yusuf continues. “I dreamt it as it happened, but I didn’t know until later. The moment she died, I woke up screaming. They told me afterwards that I was– I was glowing, bright enough that nobody could look at me for long or get close enough to see what was happening to me. They just had to wait until I came out of it. It felt like I was burning.” If he closes his eyes, he is there again, twelve years old and terrified.

“That’s how we know it should be me,” he says after a moment. “Who can do it. Because I did, once, but never again, despite all of this.” He waves at the Spring, the water, the stone. 

Exhaustion tugs at him. His eyes will not stay open, but he cannot let himself fall asleep, not yet.

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” he tells Nicolò. “There’s still time.” It cannot be late yet; the sun has gone down, but it is not quite dark. “Don’t let me.”

“You have to rest,” Nicolò says. It is the first thing he has said to Yusuf since he pulled him from the Spring, and Yusuf cannot tell what he is thinking. 

“I can’t fall asleep,” Yusuf insists.

“At least let yourself warm up first,” Nicolò says. There is a pile of dry clothes in his hands - where did he get them?

Nicolò convinces him to change and to sit back down, to rest a little while longer. This time he  steers Yusuf to sit down on his bedroll instead, and Yusuf’s grip on his arm goes tight.

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” he says again. 

“You cannot go on like this,” Nicolò says. “Sleep, and I will wake you in a few hours’ time.”

Yes, a few hours. That, Yusuf can afford. “Promise me,” Yusuf says, but his eyes are already closing unbidden. 

Nicolò says nothing.

----------

When Yusuf wakes, it is still dark outside, and there is a cloak that is not his own draped over him. Nicolò is crouched over the fire only a short distance away. He catches Yusuf’s eye, but doesn’t say a word.

It all comes crashing back at once: the water, the stone, Nicolò. Yusuf sits up.

“You didn’t wake me,” he says.

Nicolò watches him for a long moment. “You needed the rest,” he says finally. 

Suddenly his consideration stings. “That wasn’t your decision to make. What time is it?”

Nicolò glances at the sky. “It will be sunrise soon.”

Yusuf’s heart sinks. Sunrise means return, means return to the castle and his father with nothing. He gets up, pushes Nicolò’s cloak aside. “You should have woken me.”

Unexpectedly, Nicolò pushes back. “You would have only made yourself ill. You were barely conscious. I would not have done it if–” “That was not your decision to make,” Yusuf snaps. “I am not a child, Nicolò. I am capable of handling myself. I have lost hours.”

Nicolò does not say anything. Yusuf almost wishes he would keep pushing, but he does not. He simply folds himself back into the same blank expression he always carries, and again, Yusuf cannot read him.

“If the sun will rise soon, there is not much use in staying here for much longer,” Nicolò says eventually, quiet. He doesn’t meet Yusuf’s eyes. Guilt twists his stomach. 

Did Nicolò know? Did Andromache warn him? Or was he just worried?

Yusuf nods. 

They pack up their camp in silence, side by side. By the time they set off on the road back towards Goron City, the sun has risen, and the early light turns the world around them to gold.

Yusuf walks, and Nicolò follows behind him, as always.

[katsona-the-katsequel]

Just the little hints of the human experimentation the Kirijo Group did that we get from Strega and Sho (ESPECIALLY SHO) are terrifying...

[energyscarf]

i tend to be kind of defensive of staff because like... i'm a software dev, i know how absurdly expensive and complex a web service of this size is. plus they're looking at the site on the scale of tens of millions of users, whereas my sample of a couple hundred at most is not nearly representative. plus i'm really grateful that they've kept tumblr friendly to 3rd-party developers (i.e., xkit rewritten, tumblr api)

but i think many of the changes over the past few months have seriously damaged user trust and that's an extremely serious problem that needs to be corrected

anyways, submit your feedback to staff here. please keep in mind that these changes are almost certainly coming from the top, not whoever will be reading your comments or doing the actual programming

[sehtoast]

Tell me about the transphobia rhetoric this season

Let’s start with a foundation.  For social commentary, political commentary, any real world commentary to not feel hamfisted– meaning that it was just shoved in there for the sake of it– it has to connect to the narrative of the media that is employing it to at least some capacity.  There must be some degree of relevance; otherwise, why is it there? If it has no roots, viewers will often cock their heads to the side and wonder what the point was.  Such was the case with myself and apparently a lot of other trans viewers throughout season 4 of The Boys.  Unfortunately, it stirred more than confusion.

I have no desire to go back and pull verbatim dialogue, but there were (off the top of my head) roughly three instances where there was political commentary on conservative talking points about transgender people.  The first lines come from Firecracker and they're to some degree or another about “transgender mind virus/corrupting our kids/boys are boys/girls are girls/etc” any time she opens her mouth about it.  Homelander spouts two, one being about nonbinary people to a massive crowd during the reveal of Sage and Firecracker joining The Seven, and the other is a bunch of buzzwords he says to a room of politicians whose backing he wants for the coup.

Now I haven’t watched s1-3 in roughly 1.5-2 years, give or take. Other than in Gen V, there isn’t trans rep or characters besides maybe Doppelganger if they’re to be interpreted as genderfluid.  This means there is no interaction with trans people on Homelander’s end besides Doppelganger, who was killed off two seasons ago.  It comes off as random, especially since he didn’t say these things in prior seasons. Firecracker, as she establishes, just says whatever to incite outrage to unify otherwise lonely, aimless masses.  She uses transphobia as a talking point, but its relevance starts and ends there.  Its foundation to stand on exists only as far as that aspect was carried, but this apparent self awareness of what she does, and how much of it she even believes, was dropped as quickly as it appeared.  In that sole instance, it was the one time this commentary worked because it points out the grift behind the landslide of it we see in real life.  

Next, we’re going to talk about Kairos. The direct definition from Google is “a propitious moment for decision or action.”  In short: right place, right time. 

Right now, transgender people in America (and, frankly, all over the planet) are seeing an absolutely goliath-sized effort to strip away their healthcare, rights, and criminalize their existence in public spaces. Trans people are being labeled as sexual deviants and inherent predators by those who wish us harm, such as LibsOfTikTok who regularly engages in stochastic terrorism to proxy up a bunch of bomb threats to locations in the event they accommodate trans folks.  The public is gradually becoming aware of this rhetoric in particular, especially after the elevation of transphobia on popular social media sites like Twitter and Facebook/Instagram where protections are minute or, in the case of Twitter, completely nonexistent. This is often the primary commentary people see about us due to algorithmic decisions in regards to post popularity and, consequently, they start to believe it because there's typically nothing contrasting it. If you make a fresh Twitter account, you will be fed transphobia both on your feed and directly in your phone notifications until the algorithms learn that you aren’t interested– this happened to me first hand.  Because the idea that trans people are dangerous is growing, more of us are being attacked and/or killed.  People cheer for our deaths.  People celebrate it, even when the victims are children.  Right now, there is a serious epidemic of transphobia instilling devastating levels of fear in trans people around the globe.  

The last thing we want to do is be reminded and hear all of these things thrown back at us in any capacity when it is so current and volatile. The wound is extremely fresh.  In fact, the knife is literally still inside. To fling it around without solid contextual foundations in the show is to fling it at the viewer who has nowhere else to put it and therefore must hold on to it. There’s no connection from A, the delivery of the line, to B, where the line is meant to travel.  Without relevance, it’s hamfisted.  Without a relevance, it’s not landing where it’s supposed to within the confines of the show, and those who do not initially understand the struggles of marginalized people have no familiar in-show connections to draw upon to relate it back to the real world for the eureka moment this kind of commentary strives to create.  

The goal of political/social commentary is not to hurt the viewers you’re trying to represent.  Unfortunately, that’s what happened in season 4.  I feel the writers did not have a deep enough understanding of the social issue they’re trying to critique, and I especially feel like there was likely a lack of trans writers in the room because I do believe someone would have spoken up about the lack of relevance. All it did, for myself and many others who agreed, was slap us in the face and remind us of the knife that is currently twisting in our guts.

[deer-with-a-stick]

if netflix makes Luo Ji non-chinese I'm going to throw myself off a fucking cliff

[can-of-slorgs]

Big congrats on finishing your stamp pages! Also split grundos are one of my fave pets of all time so plz tell Volks that I love him. :')

He's thankful to say the list.

[stlamb]

i know no family is "normal" but omg i'm looking over the ruins of this post-holiday family get together like what a mess lol

[sysig]

I hope you blink before I do (Patreon)

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent game related things .. hrmm...

[cattywampers]

its not like a perceived sensation of rejection or responsibility for loss (or just loss Normal) isnt the underlying factor in almost every single non-dying loop or anything. surely that wouldnt be the case right. Haha

[maystea]

— i may be heartless, but you're naive.

[bobzora]

finally beat the first kingdom in p5t the other day and it was truly flabbergasting the way marie fuckin. dissolved. and morgana was like well that shouldn't have caused a mental shutdown... but i don't know for sure! and then moved on. LIKE HUH. WHY ARE NONE OF THE THIEVES. ACKNOWLEDGING THIS. LMAO?

[youssefguedira]

ALSO necromancy ? (diabolik) what is thattttttt

my necromancy diabolik fic is the result of me listening to ballata dell'amore cieco (o dalla vanità) one too many times in a day and brainstorming a fic that is, essentially, what it says on the tin, i.e. the highly canon non-compliant scenario that diabolik Dies on a heist and eva goes slightly off the rails trying to necromance him back to life. fun to think about but i think i need to rework it a bit because the situation itself is very. non-diaboliky.

anyway here's a snippet i wrote when it was consuming my brain entirely:

She doesn’t believe them when they come back two days later and tell her he is dead, that they will kill her too if they do not get what they want. No, instead she laughs and laughs and laughs, because he cannot be killed, she has seen him escape death more times than she can count. Black spots swim across her vision: one of them says something about reducing her dose, waking her up, she’s no use to us like this. She keeps laughing, even when they leave.

They’d taken the cuffs off him to lead him away. That was their first mistake.

She doesn’t believe them even after they stop giving her whatever they’d been using to keep her calm, shivers through the withdrawals for days and shakes her head whenever they tell her he is dead, nobody is coming for you, don’t you understand? He’s dead. You’re alone. Tell us what we want to know.

She doesn’t believe them when they show her the pictures, either. She knows well enough how easy it can be to fake someone’s dead body for photos. The two of them have done it countless times before.

She doesn’t believe them when they take her to see him two days after they tell her he’s dead, not even when she looks at his eyes, staring sightlessly up into nothingness. There is blood everywhere: creative, but slightly too much to be convincing, she thinks. The drugs haven’t quite left her mind completely: she’s dizzy when she stands, when she walks.

She doesn’t believe them until they let her touch the body. She knows well enough how to tell the masks from skin – they’re almost indistinguishable, save for a few tiny details. She knows when she touches the body’s face, brushes its hair back from its forehead where the blood has dried, and her heart stops.

Only then does she believe them. 

She is silent for one terrible minute, unable to tear her eyes away from the body in front of her.

Then she starts screaming, and doesn’t stop.