#but if i say ‘i find that really funny’ it’s like. there’s humor that’s derivable from whatever it is but in a not totally obvious way

[aeide-thea]

do we think it’s possible to say you ‘find something amusing’ in all sincerity or is a lifted-eyebrow note of wry judgment just unavoidably conveyed by that phrasing

[bicth-and-in-that-order]

Rambling thoughts of various Yuri manga I’ve read

1. Kase-San and Yamada (Morning Glories sequel series) by Hiromi Takashima

notice how Kase’s name is first, which is representative of her being the main one to cause problems in their relationship

If you asked me what my favorite yuri manga was like 2-3 years ago, I’d say Morning Glories and Kase San everytime. Every avid yuri fan has either read or watched Morning Glories because, at the time in 2010, it was groundbreaking, and I stand by the fact that the original series still holds up to this day. It was cute, sweet, wholesome and only had a few obligatory “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” moments. Most of all it wasn’t a pseudo-incest-straight-male-porn-pandering-garbage-fest—also known as “Citrus”. Was it cliche at times? Yes, but they all are lol. Did they add to the dumb ass “blonde femme and dark hair masc” trope? Also yes. But it was adorable and it was my first ever yuri so it holds a special place in my heart.

And it SEEMED like it was only going to get better in Kase San and Yamada, the sequel. The girls would be heading to college and the story could theoretically focus on more mature topics while they navigate their new relationship. Keyword: theoretically. Unfortunately, instead of exploring interesting relationship dynamics and storylines, the plot of each story arc boils down to: Kase is insecure because a man breathed next to Yamada or Kase is being completely insensitive to Yamada’s feelings…again…—> ✨miscommunication drama ✨—>big over dramatic apology scene—>boring makeup sex or other romantic gesture.

Literally that’s how every single plotline goes. Kase is so goddamn dumb and insensitive to Yamada’s feelings and Yamada’s a complete doormat who can only stay mad for 0.2 seconds before getting pussy whipped like a spineless ass bitch. And for all that Yamada sacrifices for Kase; her hometown, her dreams, her apartment, what does she get in return from Kase? Oh that’s right; bare minimum romantic gestures and a neglectful partner who can’t even call her “girlfriend” in front of others:

Like I thought we were over this shit. It’s been THREE years of them together, a whole anime production, and god knows how many irl years and we’re going back to “we love each other but we’re giRLs😳😳😳” WHY???

And then Kase later goes onto bet her entire three year relationship over the ugly bitch in the next panel, so now I’m questioning whether or not Kase even loves Yamada with the amount of bullshit she’s put her through. Which COULD be an interesting plot point, but Kase never gets any consequences for her actions and the creator genuinely thinks this is romantic and full of tension so I’m 10000% positive that this arc, just like all the others, will end with some makeup sex and we’ll be right back to step 1. Sigh.

2. Tamen De Gushi by Tan Jiu

Tamen De Gushi’s problems are interesting but it’s NOT because of the Chinese government💀

So today’s dark haired masc and blonde femme of the day are Sun Jing and Qiu Tong, respectively. Their personalities aren’t anything to write home about, if you read ANY high school yuri romance, then you know exactly what happens in this story beat for beat. But, BUT, however derivative it is, I find their dynamic very endearing and down to earth. Idk maybe it’s just the translation, but other yuri stories often have this very inauthentic “anime” vibe to it. Which is to say the characters act very cutesy, overly dramatic, and have this stilted, caricature-esque acting of how the creator thinks teenage girls are supposed act.

However, I’m happy to report that Tamen De Gushi is a breath of fresh air in this regard. The characters and interactions they have are grounded and feel organic, which makes them feel like real people, not aliens pretending to be human. This really elevates the humor in turn, oh did I mention that Tamen De Gushi is super funny? Because Tamen De Gushi is super funny, here’s one of my favorite panels and it’s all because of Sun Jing’s goofy ahh expression:

Like go girl give us nothing

If you’re wondering why I haven’t spoke much about the actual romantic relationship between the girls, that’s because there isn’t one💀 Which, okay, that’s not a fair assessment, they have a ton of romantic tension and they flirt a lot. It’s certainly building to a great romantic relationship, but it can’t quite get there due to legal/political reasons sadly. 😔

Edit: I received new information in regards to what happened to Tamen De Gushi. While I reached my limit for posting pictures, I want to point out that the Chinese government had nothing to do with Tamen De Gushi getting censored, rather it was a dispute between the author and the publishing company. The prior information I received was false and I prob should’ve looked it up more so sorrrry. The fact still remains though that after their big lesbian kiss towards the middle of the story and maybe a few other moments, that’s just kind of it. You’re stuck waiting for something to develop, but nothing really happens. The comic very quickly becomes a collection of slice of life segments and cute pictures that imply a relationship between the girls, but not really ;) ;).  Now things are just kind of left in purgatory for the foreseeable future and, well, that’s Tamen De Gushi y’all.

Compared to Kase San and Yamada, the characters were much better, which is not saying much, but without an actual romantic storyline, there’s just not a lot for me to comment on to be honest. It’s really pretty though, look at this art :

3. Beauty and the Beast Girl by Neji

my personal favorite and the BEST yuri I ever read

So next on the list is Beauty and the Beast Girl (I’m going to abbreviate to BatBG from here on) , which I already spoiled my feelings on the matter so this will basically be me gushing about this story for several paragraphs straight, enjoy.

Contrary to what the title suggests, it really has nothing to do with Beauty and the Beast’s story except in name. The main girls are Lily Blind, who is actually fucking blind 💀 and Heath the monster girl. Already I’m happy because instead of blonde femme and dark hair butch, it’s blonde femme and of-course-you-have-purple-hair-and-pronouns masc. Lol, all jokes aside, Lily, unlike her blonde femme counterparts is quite assertive and voices her opinions all the time. In fact, she’s the one who pushes Heath to be more open and communicate with her rather than the other way around. This is, in part, due to the story BatBG is trying to tell. I say BatBG is in name only to Beauty and the Beast because Lily isn’t trying to find the “beauty” within Heath or learning to love a beast or whatever, she’s fine just the way she is and her love for Heath is unconditional. Plus the only thing beastly about Heath is her appearance…which I’ll harp on later, but her behavior is in no way different from a regular human except in very rare, specific moments.

At its heart, BatBG is a story about forgiveness (the creator literally says as much) , but it’s also about the cycle of violence that results from being outcasted and deprived of love. BatBG is set in a world of humans and monsters, where the monsters are outcasted and either have to stay away from human society like Heath or assimilate themselves by hiding away their monster like traits, which is a really queer narrative on top of an already queer story. I don’t want to go into too much spoilers, but sometime before the beginning of the story, Heath in-directly hurts Lily before they ever meet. However, it’s not about Lily needing to forgive Heath, or trying to get over the pain she inflicted upon her, rather its Heath learning to forgive herself and in effect, learning to love herself as much as Lily loves her.

Another big aspect of BatBG is disabilities, Lily Blind is in fact Blind lol and while there are times she struggles with her blindness, she never views her disability as something she needs to be ashamed of and never, ever, blames Heath for it or holds it against her unlike what many, many, many, many other stories end up doing. Her blindness isn’t treated like a super power either, it’s a legitimate disability. She just accepts that it’s a part of her and goes onto say that if not for her blindness, she would’ve never met the love of her life, which I found to be an incredibly profound thing to say.

Now that I’ve gotten this far, I suppose I can add a bit of a disclaimer. So BatBG is waaaaay more explicit about the physical affection between the girls than in any of the previous stories I talked about. Heath and Lily are constantly kissing on, hugging, and almost always flirting with each other, and make no mistake, these girls do be fucking. The sex scenes are never perverted or gross, but genuinely super sweet and romantic, which makes it way hotter imo (huh imagine that🤔). And aside from being hot, it also serves a purpose! Lily’s pretty damn horny underneath all her nice girl antics and while it’s not a major part of her character, it does give a slight edge to her personality and, most importantly, balances out the dynamic between Heath and Lily. It would’ve been very easy to fall into that boring trope where Heath is aggressively horny and Lily is the submissive blind girl, but by making Lily be the one to initiate the sexual encounters, it not only compliments Heath’s more reserved nature, but breaks the stereotype that people with disabilities are pure precious being who couldn’t possibly have sex, which is ableist af btw. Many people think the existence of any sex scenes at all is superfluous, but in BatBG, it truly elevates the story, the characters, and the romance in ways that wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying without it.

Now, with as much praise I gave BatBG, there is one criticism I have, but it’s a quibble really, and it can be explained in a single image:

There is a dissonance between the story and the art, the story says: “Heath is a big, ugly scary monster”

The art says:

And like yes, it can be argued that Heath is simply regurgitating the things bigoted people have said to her, but at no point in the story is this ever challenged or brought up in any meaningful way. Lily is blind so she doesn’t know what the hell she looks like and the other characters aren’t any help either. It’s not a big deal or anything, it just would’ve elevated the story if Heath was actually kinda ugly/more monstrous and not incredibly beautiful because right now it’s giving skinny girl who calls herself fat all the time, and it’s like, babe, who tf are you fooling? 😭

Other than that, BatBG is incredibly profound despite its premise being so deceptively simple and I love it to pieces so …yeah! READ IT.

4. Superwomen in Love! Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit by sometime

Well, at least there are no blondes

So imma just abbreviate to SiL btw

Alright, let’s get started. The premise is that a villainess falls for the super hero girl and then that plotline is dropped in about 16 pages. I’m not even joking, the villainess falls for the hero, loses her job as a villain and then joins the hero all in one chapter. The REAL plot is actually about a council of evil alien-humans who want to destroy humanity because of generic super villain reason #434: the leader of the aliens is sad and misunderstood :( I’m not even going to lie, I had 0 interest in “X” (the generic ass name of the main villain) and her band of useless lesbians. They did literally nothing in the story except be a nuisance and contribute to X’s incel breakdown at the end. Their inclusion actively made SiL worse because the story has this weird tonal problem where in one breath the villains are portrayed as complete jokes and then you turn the page and now they’re shooting children like girl what💀 And these useless lesbians hog sooooo much of SiL that desperately needed to be given to Honey trap and Hayate to develop their relationship.

When the story DOES actually focus on Honey Trap and Hayate, it’s pretty good, even cute at times, there just wasn’t enough time given to them to flesh their relationship out. As it stands, Honey Trap and Hayate don’t have much of a dynamic, or personality for that matter. Honey Trap’s main gimmick is that she’s extremely horny for Hayate and delulu:

Aside from that, she’s a great value version of Heath, but even a watered down character is better than, like, nothing. All I really know about Hayate is that she’s nice, heroic, likes wearing tacky clothes and ….that’s it. She loves Honey Trap because…………they fought together a few times so why not🤷‍♀️ I’d say at least that’s better than Tamen De Gushi, but actually it’s not because these grown ass women don’t even kiss , all we get is a love confession and their gremlin love child and that’s supposed to be satisfying I guess.

And the worst part is that SiL has the audacity to pretend the romance was something that it clearly wasn’t:

Girl…yall were “””enemies””” for 10 panels.

Now, it’s stated they have been rivals for a while, but I guess Honey Trap forgot all of that because the moment she sees Hayate’s face, my good sis is pussy whipped for life. And that’s in spite of apparently being the evilest one out of the evil group because Honey Trap has no grudge or baggage toward Hayate. She immediately turns good with no issues and Hayate is only distrustful of Honey Trap for 1 or 2 speech bubbles and then she’s not. Anything else that happened was off screen, which means it didn’t happen. Ironically, the very next entry on this list will do a MUCH better job at an ex-villain love story, but for SiL, there’s just not much going on.

Another reading of this story is to call it a “parody” but…no, it isn’t. SiL isn’t a comedy, yes there are comedic moments that poke fun of the genre, but the rest of the story genuinely wants you to take it seriously. Except it can’t. X and her league of dimwits are boring as piss and they oscillate between Saturday morning cartoon villains and child murderers seemingly on a whim. So I can neither be endeared to them nor take them as a serious threat. Honey Trap and Hayate are there, but I lament on all the potential lost from what could’ve been an amazing relationship.

5. Yamujiburo/Kianamaiart’s Hanamusa webcomic

This one is kind of cheating, but I also don’t care let me talk about hot MILFs💀

So the final entry on this list is a webcomic series by one of my fave artist: kianamaiart! And it’s right here on tumblr so check it out!

I stumbled upon this webcomic a few weeks ago, fell in love and now I want to talk about it. This yuri pair thankfully has no blonde femme in sight and instead features two popular Pokémon characters: Jessie from Team Rocket and Delia Ketchum, Ash Ketchum’s mom. What I love about this ship and the world Kiana creates around them is that it’s a very unconventional pairing. There’s just not many romances where a single mom falls in love with an ex gang member and the best part is, Delia being a mom is a big part of her character and she doesn’t ignore Ash in favor of her new relationship with Jessie. She has time for both and doesn’t prioritize one over the other, which many ppl fail to do even irl so good on you Delia!

Now, as for the romance it self, Jessie and Delia are a unique pair. Jessie’s overconfident, brash, drama queen personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “dominant” role and Delia’s sweet, motherly personality doesn’t automatically put her in the “submissive” role. Their dynamic in the webcomic actually plays out in the reverse, Jessie is the one who gets easily flustered and Delia’s…intense, to say the least:

(But Tbf if Delia looked at me like that I’d be at her beck and call too💀)

This subversion of these tropes creates a fun dynamic for the couple and it’s super adorable to see how their energies bounce off each other in each new situation Kiana puts them in. I also love how both Jessie and Delia inspire each other to live out their dreams and they become better versions of themselves by being together.

And one last thing, I don’t have any smart commentary to go along with this, I just really like this drawing of Jessie:

no thoughts, head empty

Final Thoughts

Soooo yeah, that’s the end of my dissertation on yuri comics. I know I ended up dragging a lot of popular yuri, but it wasn’t my intention to make you guys hate any of things I talked about. These were just my thoughts as an avid yuri fan, so let me know your thoughts as well, especially if you read any of the yuri I talked about. And even though I’m super picky about the type of yuri I read, I’d still love to hear any recommendations. Who knows, it might dethrone the undefeated champ that is Beauty and the Beast Girl.

[ripplestitchskein]

I know it’s just a four minute short Stolas isn’t even in, but I think the now running theme of Blitz being “bad” at sex, at least oral, being somewhat confirmed, really ties into what I find most appealing about them. We see in The Circus that Stolas is the one who laughs at his jokes, it’s a running thing, Blitz being unfunny, we see it in flashbacks, in comments made by other characters, by the audience in Seeing Stars, with Stolas always being the notable exception. And Stolas is genuine in his laughter, he truly finds Blitz funny when at large he apparently isn’t. Blitz still presents himself as someone who is though, he sticks to the clown schtick, and despite the failures he keeps trying with increasing desperation, just like he kept trying with the balloon horse and the crystal. This contrast of everyone’s reaction vs Stolas’s is so important that one of the ways Blitz realizes Stolas is truly angry and means what he says is that Stolas didn’t laugh.

The bad at sex gag reads the exact same way to me. We have this idea that because of how Blitz presents himself, that he is considered generally attractive, that he is an asshole but he can throw down in the bedroom so people still give it a shot. But we have several comments that imply his dick game was not what was bringing them in. Verosika is the presenter of this information initially so it could just be from her perspective or even just spite based, at least that was true until we account for the new short which seems to confirm her statements. It is the same contrast of Blitz presenting himself one way, and even expressing that he can try harder if the other party is displeased, and us learning that the world at large is not into it but Stolas is. He like sings about it, he was excited about it, and that’s not down to experience or him not knowing better, he genuinely was into it. He derived pleasure from it and found it attractive. Even in Full Moon he blushes and hesitates when Blitz pushes his legs apart. Sex and humor are bimodal in the way that if you aren’t enjoying it you might give it a go a few more times before deciding it isn’t for you, or that you like some aspects and not others. Stolas is very clearly on the Blitz side for both of these. And he is an exception, if Verosika is the narrative proxy for the feelings of the Anti Blitz party attendees as a whole, which I think she is - stabbing his dick and saying no one wants it anyway - that this is a general opinion held by many, just like Blitz being not funny, that Stolas stands in contrast to.

The other thread tying them together in the narrative is Blitz’s performance anxiety itself. In the past for the humor we see him either failing completely in black and white flashbacks with no relief because Stolas wasn’t there, or we see him failing initially and Stolas reassuring him and giving him his confidence back by laughing. Now that we have additional information that Blitz is, on the whole, maybe not everyone’s cup of sexual tea It could be argued that Stolas’s over the top simping and outward showing of lust is the same as him laughing. Blitz certainly derived confidence from sexual performance when it came to Stolas, he had a lot of bravado about it and he put in a fuck ton of effort to the point where he thinks it’s all he has of value to him. Stolas expresses his appreciation loudly and outwardly. Blitz doesn’t trust it though, just as he doesn’t trust that Stolas is laughing at his jokes for real. Slowly over time Stolas stopped making those comments, and gave him outs on their arrangement. And then he stops laughing too. Blitz had no issue with the crystal when he was performing for Stolas but in Antarctica he freezes up and implies it’s been an ongoing off screen struggle. Just like he seemed to have no problem with performing oral when it was for Stolas. Millie tries to encourage him but Moxxie has to physically step in and show him. Blitz doesnt fix it himself. His confidence is still where it was when he was failing, they were just able to get home because Moxxie stepped in. Blitz has some new information but he didn’t suddenly develop confidence, not like he has in the past when Stolas was there to laugh or flirt. This really highlighted the consequences of what happens when Blitz doesn’t have Stolas to help his confidence both with sex and humor.

In summary I just love the idea that they are compatible on both of these levels in opposition to what seems to be mainstream opinion. That Blitz, the circus clown, has a captive and supportive audience in Stolas in all areas, his humor, his abilities, his business, and his sexual performance.

[cho-aaacho]

(Don't) Tease Me!

Masterlist

Tags : Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Comedy, Pranks, Kissing, Surprise Kisses, French Kiss, Teasing, Silly Geto, Mischievous Geto, Please pinch Geto's cheeks.

Summary : Aggressively exploited, with a fondness full of weak points, that's what he did.

Some may consider you foolish, but Suguru is foolishness. 

You've never engaged in a serious argument with him. Because he is really annoying when he jumps into the argument. He effortlessly prevails, always striking you with a brilliant sentence that flows freely through his mind.

His sweet talking abilities, along with his beautiful features, are comparable to the sweet cotton candy that makes you lose in an argument with him. Probably a true master of manipulation since day one.

How many angels had he tricked, or how many poor souls had he manipulated, until this time? 

You can't even count. 

Suguru loved it when they fell from his tricks; the pleasure he derived from the agony of those poor souls was overwhelming. He would love to dance under their agonies in their twilight of despair.

His brain was always used for complex and strained thoughts, pouring forth mysterious ideas that transformed into poetic words under his warm palm.

One night, he was monologuing about his work and casually declaring it to the ceiling. 

"Satoru will be surprised if he finds out about this."

"I'll make a big surprise for my old friend, Satoru. He will see..."

"Uh, do you think Satoru will have a good expression when I come to Jujutsu High?"

And you were yelling at him. "Stop talking about Gojo-san. I thought you and him were enemies. Do you still care about that man? Funny."

Or you'll say.

"Next time, Suguru-kun. If you say something ridiculous again, I will make sure you won't wake up the next morning."

He responded playfully. "Oh, that's just my work project. Why are you so angry? Are you jealous?"

Of course, you are annoyed by his attitude. You hate his inconsistency irks. Although he promises to stop (monologue to the ceiling), he is still doing that whenever your eyes catch him. 

You try to calm yourself, keeping your revenge to yourself and your flame of anger against his behaviors.

Sometimes he responds to your criticism by placing a coupled cheek-pinching when Miguel is around, which makes him roll his eyes.

He found it interesting when he heard you scowl aggressively. He'll chuckle pleasantly, making you feel embarrassed when he says it. "I find you cute. Don't you dare show this to anyone else, okay?"

You want to punch him or teach him a good lesson because of his actions. Perhaps he simply enjoys witnessing your reaction, which amuses him more than the reactions of his followers.

Is there a chance you may defeat him in this game? Who knows.

Today, Suguru summoned you to the meeting room. He mentioned that he had something essential to convey. You always found the meeting room with the other members, like the twins. But this time, you only find Suguru.

Instead of telling you about the upcoming mission, he began telling jokes. Which makes you frustrated because it's unnecessary.

"Alright, I understand about the jokes. So, Suguru-kun, what should I do? You summoned me for the next mission."

He gave you an inviting glance and giggled. "Nothing. I just want to see your face."

"Do I sense a concern?"

He smiled. "We always have diverse perspectives. How about we conclude—"

"Oh, you're suggesting I get out of your group? Fine. I'll be out!"

"You've been so sensitive since morning; did I neglect your usual morning kiss?"

How can he say those words with a straight face? This guy needs a reality check! So ridiculous. You almost can't believe he's the special-grade sorcerer, and all of the sorcerers are afraid of him.

You sighed in frustration, hinting that you were done with him. But you have another idea: take revenge. Maybe... a little tease. It wouldn't hurt him.

"Suguru-kun, I'm sorry. But I need to do something."

You grab his collar into your grasp and kiss him, feeling his textured lips on yours, feeling his breath against your face, and smelling his peppermint from his mouth. 

Actually, it wasn't a forced kiss; it was a gentle kiss, but it was enough to make him gasp for air. He reached your shoulder and shut his eyes, trying to deepen the kiss as he pinned you on the floor.

His tongue enters your mouth, dancing sensually with yours. He counts your teeth, biting your lips gently. A smirk curls on his face, and you swiftly let go. 

You can hear Miguel laughing from outside, along with the twin's protests, and there is an unpleasant silence between you and Suguru, as well as a scarlet blush on his face.

"Oh. I didn't know you were a good kisser. What is that for? If it's a present to get me to stop talking, sorry, but that didn't work!"

[olderthannetfic]

/728286197798076416/ - this is me. Before tumblr the sites I hung out in are socmed sites that have a friend system and not a follow one. I got a bunch of friends through those sites forums and seeing how some people interact with their mutuals here reminded me of those times so I thought that's how they become "friends" on this site when there's no friend system (and by that I meant like an online acquaintance you'd interact with a lot and not actual friend-friend unless you two actually got close).

It's also just been at least a year since they followed back. I have interacted with their posts with mostly likes and some reblogs (sometimes with added commentary since I like their posts) but aside from a like or two when they followed back, they haven't done anything else. A random follower who hasn't liked or reblogged anything from me even from the start doesn't bother me but I've seen people here make a big deal of being "mutuals" with someone and some of them have made posts about how their mutuals are important to them/their friends which fits how they talk to their other mutuals on posts but doesn't apply to me. It's what confuses and bothers me about why they decide to follow back cause it doesn't make sense based from these stuff.

I read the replies on my original ask and I guess I really just shouldn't think much about this. It's just so strange to me so it bothers me.

--

...

Nonnie, I was there for the whole Livejournal era, starting in 2002 before most of fandom was even on it.

I can say with certainty that calling the following function "friends" led to plenty of wank but no actual increase in how much it meant that you were a friendly acquaintance.

Some people have always used sites this way. Some just follow you because they meant to keep track of your account and go check it later. Did they actually go check it later? Questionable.

Most likely, these people talking about "mutuals" in that manner don't derive the friendship from being mutuals. They follow back people they're already friends with for other reasons. They may also be thinking only of the mutuals who talk to them a lot in ways they find amusing or notable.

One thing we cannot control is whether other people like our writing.

I get more than the usual share of replies. Some commenters stand out to me because I like how they phrase things. It's usually the people who sound like they read a wide variety of genres and as though they have a similar vibe to mine. I'll usually notice the Spanish speakers (if they mention it) because that's of interest to me, but I'll still probably only click with the ones who are pretty good at English in a way that sounds nice to my ear. Honestly, that's hard to quantify because it's different form how native someone's grammar is. I have a bunch of regular rebloggers coming from a variety of languages who are a pleasure to read despite copious grammatical errors because they're funny or sound colloquial despite that or because their content is so interesting. Some people sound stiff or convoluted despite having zero technical errors. (And that's true regardless of native language.)

If I find you painful to read for EFL reasons or bad writing skill reasons or humor that reads as tryhard instead of funny to me or excessive hostility or some other thing, we won't click.

Neither I nor the other person has any significant control over those reactions.

Now, I haven't observed your mutuals and have no idea what kinds of things you guys post, but I have observed a common pattern, both on tumblr and back in the day on LJ, where someone interacts a little but not enough and their comments are okay but nothing special. If the people they're interacting with are busy or already have a zillion friends, sometimes, they just get missed.

I also think performative posts about ~my mutuals~ tend to be hollow bragging about being popular. When they aren't, there's an implicit sense that they're talking about a particular subset of mutuals.

There's not really that much of a contradiction here. You were just taking those posts at face value, and you shouldn't.

[tisorridalamor]

OC-tober Day 12 & 13: Future & Memes

Choosing to interpret these themes as: What do I consider the future for my OCs to be and what do my OCs think of memes lol

Future

I have a few things in store for my OCs in the short term. For one, I'm in the process of moving all of my OC documents over from google docs to Joplin, so I'm recompiling their info so it's better to read / access. I've also been thinking about them so much this month I have parts I want to rewrite or update while I'm messing around with the docs. I also want to improve my drawing capabilities, because if I can get half decent art of them I can far more easily commission further art. I have several commissioned pieces of Rook already, it sure helps when an OC is from a game with a character creator lol.

Further out... I've been following a lot of indie visual novels and I have to say I am intrigued by vn development. In particular one vn jam from earlier this year was "Only one of any asset", where rules stated only 1000 words, only one background, one piece of music, one pose, etc. (highly recommend WHO WANTS TO BE THE EMPEROR as an example of what one of those looks like). I have a lot of smaller scale stories than the ones I've focused on here that could fit well in a short vn (though probably longer than 1000 words lol). I'd love to give it a try sometime!

Memes

Main girls:

Lark: Likes memes a lot, not exactly on the cutting edge of what's trending but would be familiar with common ones and their derivatives. She would be more likely to repost without credit rather than make any herself

Cadence: Knows mainstream memes but doesn't really follow them or make any. Not very online.

Kama: Would be familiar with popular memes and would share appropriate ones with friends and family group chats. She probably really likes wholesome memes about nature, animals, etc.

Micha: She doesn't have time for such stupid things

Delta: Isn't really into memes or familiar with internet culture. Usually laughs politely at ones she's shown but every once in a while vibes with one

GG: Meme queen who would get into really specific subcultures and tap into their sense of humor, racking up likes / followers / upvotes for her hilarious and unique posts. Then she'd get bored and ghost the community, finding something else more interesting to grace with her presence in few months

Rook: Due to an under developed sense of humor, literal way of thinking, and lack of experience, she doesn't really "get" memes (and jokes in general). I imagine Yelv and Lin try for ages to explain the concept to her but it takes a while to set in. As she grows she starts to understand the concept more and becomes better at identifying and reacting to humor

Splat OCs:

Captain 3: Thinks a lot of memes are kind of stupid, mostly sincerely but also because she's trying to maintain a mature image. As she gets older she gets less uptight, so I'd imagine she'd enjoy them once in a while especially with friends

4: Loves memes and in-jokes, makes her own and every once in a while one is pretty good. Not on the cutting edge but usually knows what is popular and people are talking about cause she's probably on that phone a lot lol

8: Didn't really have memes in the Underground so they're a bit of a new concept for her, but she loves them. Thinks old memes are really funny and often shares ones she finds with Pearl and Marina, who are supportive of her but usually think they're pretty lame. Makes her own and their quality slowly improves

Neo 3: Casual meme enjoyer who sees a lot of mainstream memes or ones related to her interests. I like to imagine her scrolling through her shellphone with Little Buddy as they look at social media together <3

[riddlerosehearts]

watched kung fu panda 3 last night, and monsters vs aliens this morning. i've seen kfp 3 before but don't remember ever seeing monsters vs aliens before.

honestly don't feel like writing a super detailed post on kfp 3 but i will say, i always thought it never really reached the heights of the first two movies, though i do still enjoy it and i just can't bring myself to put it in a lower tier than the first two. i love po's character arc all throughout the trilogy, he's just such a great protagonist. and mr. ping gets some really nice focus here through his worries about losing po and his dynamic with po's birth father. also, the art and animation are just as stunning as i'd expect a kung fu panda movie to be.

as for monsters vs aliens, this is a movie that i was really expecting to dislike lol but it was surprisingly... okay? idk, i didn't love it but i really didn't think it was bad either. i'll probably put it under C tier on my list, but i actually thought it was pretty decent plotwise and i enjoyed susan's character growth and the friendships the monsters had with her and each other! i think the movie looks really ugly tbh but i also think maybe it was stylized that way on purpose? because how to train your dragon came out just a year after this and looks amazing. one problem i do have with this movie is that almost none of the parts that seemed like they were supposed to be funny got even a chuckle out of me--dreamworks just has extremely hit or miss humor for me lol. but yeah, overall it was definitely better than i was expecting. tbh i feel like it kind of did what home was trying to do with its "human and alien (or group of aliens in this case) who are lonely and feel out of place find a family in each other" thing better because the characters were better, and also a full 6 years earlier, and without feeling derivative of another way better movie like home did? also, i really like the quote "we could save every city on the planet and they'd treat us the same way they've always treated us: like monsters".

[beesandwasps]

You’re just a grumpy english major. 😛

Well, okay, not exactly. Shakespeare may not be totally without merit as some people like to claim, but he is definitely overhyped to an unhealthy degree. (Same can be said of, among others: the Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Bob Dylan.) “People spend their careers analyzing X” does not mean and never has meant “X is deep/meaningful/important”. There has been an astonishing amount of mathematical analysis of Rubik’s Cubes.

Furthermore, scholars have had and still have this tendency to assume that Shakespeare created absolutely everything he wrote down which doesn’t appear elsewhere, but precisely because he came from a lower-class background at a time when most literature and poetry came from people who were upper-class and heavily educated the chances are good that a lot of his neologisms were reasonably standard among people who weren’t upper class. We already know that the English upper classes were perfectly capable of having their own incestuous hermetically-sealed versions of culture; look at the Prioress of the Canterbury Tales: “the French of Paris was to her unknown”. Or see Afferbeck Lauder’s works on Fraffly — which are humorous but the premise is not actually wrong. (By the justifications used by the UK to suppress Gaelic and Scots, Received Pronunciation should be stamped out in favor of the accents of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. But I digress.)

This sort of thing has demonstrably happened in more modern times. For example: the Marx Brothers started off in vaudeville. They were apparently really good at vaudeville comedy, but not totally ground-breaking. They eventually made enough money to put together a scripted “respectable” show, I’ll Say She Is, but even after it was a financial success, the gatekeepers to culture refused to go, because obviously vaudeville slapstick comedy couldn’t possibly be any good. One day, after I’ll Say She Is was already a success, some highbrow first-night (I forget the title and producer, but the information is available somewhere) got cancelled at the last minute and a few critics left without anything else to do showed up. They were stunned to find out that the show was hilariously funny and went and wrote rave reviews, and suddenly intellectually-respectable New York discovered that the Marx Brothers were really good performers, which led to their next stage play and eventually their dozen or so films and Groucho’s long radio career. But I have read — I forget where, but from somebody who actually did go to vaudeville theaters — that a lot of the elements in I’ll Say She Is (and later) were just standard vaudeville fare; we give the Marx Brothers credit for inventing them because there are relatively few sustained records of pre-film American vaudeville comedy and academics didn’t consider it respectable enough to write anything down. Imagine if the only music which got permanent, distributed recordings was classical, except for a tiny handful of performers, and one of those performers not only was significantly more talented than the others but had massive upper-class backing. Future academics would think they practically invented pop music, no matter how derivative they actually might be — if they were the only one to incorporate rap, they’d definitely be considered the inventor of rap music. (Heck, we already kind of have this problem — look up Rosetta Tharpe.)

And this problem is likely to get worse rather than better — as language drifts more and more, Shakespeare’s plays are going to become more and more archaic and require more explanation just to be comprehensible, and people will forget that Shakespeare ever was a representative of the language and ideas of commoners, causing them to overestimate the degree to which he was trained in advance and assume deliberation where the truth is just coincidence.

maybe i'm just a grumpy english major but i feel like a lot of the "lol people think shakespeare is pretentious but actually his plays are just dick jokes and swordfighting" posting can verge into "lol what if the curtains are just blue" territory. yes shakespeare plays are full of those things AND they are also profound and complex and thematically rich. people spend their careers analyzing them for a reason, actually. it's not just dick jokes all the way down. and sometimes people spend their careers analyzing the dick jokes. stop trying to pick one side of the dichotomy between high and low culture. it's both. it can be both.

[itszerothree]

Well I’m eagerly anticipating it.

Also I’m curious, is there any analog horror which you don’t like?

I find most of it to just be okay at the least.

I’d say very little of it is actually bad save for the really derivative low effort stuff.

Idk.

I’m not an expert in the genre, I’ll admit that much.

I will say that I like how the genre has been giving way to more comedic elements and even shitpost horror.

No thanks to The House in the Ocean. (*THE BUSHES ARE AMBUSHED*, that bit was hilariously funny and terrifying at the same time)

the stuff URBANSPOOK makes. thats one that i really dont like.

it doesnt have any actual defining qualities like the others have, focusing entirely on shocking the viewer with disturbingly detailed descriptions and images. in the actual story the videos are meant to be vhs tapes from a police department (iirc), but would they really be that detailed if that were so? (and the paintings used in the series were originally inktober prompts, so thats just low effort there)

theres also some more...inappropriate details in its story. i cant talk about it much here, but this video goes into better detail: https://youtu.be/K4WEDRQQ27o

sorry for the rambling, i just really dont like it

and besides that? not many i can think of, besides the low effort stuff like you said

and shitpost humor in the analog horror genre is pretty great! it relieves me, somewhat

a good example of this is JESUS IN VIETNAM, from nixonverse. when that video came out i couldnt comprehend it, nor the rest of the community

[grazer-razor]

the funny part is,

most of undertale is PG. granted, flowey’s first appearance might catch players off-guard, but it’s still very PG. the “suggestive humor” is also relatively PG, and the alcohol/tobacco references are PG(burgerpants is just smoking a cig because oh cool emoji, and the dog treats are parodying cigs as well. either way, it’s all for shiggles), as is the language.

i’d even say that even omega flowey is PG, as well- aside from the flashing faces on the monitor, omega flowey’s appearance is like a pikmin monster. to me, it’s one of those things that derives it’s scariness from unexpected chaos, and not, well, actual scariness. and let’s be real. flowey destroying your save file and fighting you is no different than perfect chaos destroying station square and facing off against sonic.

even genocide run is relatively PG. yeah, you’re killing an entire race of monsters, but it feels more glum than nightmarish. mostly it’s just the game shaming you for killing all of the monsters through the rest of the monsters’ actions. heck, even the original T rating didn’t have a regular “blood”, “animated blood”, or “blood and gore” descriptor(i know this because a rating’s descriptors are in alphabetical order, and “fantasy violence” was the first descriptor).

and let’s be real here. sans’ blood is KETCHUP. 

and the true lab is PG, as well. aside from certain aspects that we’ll get to later, most of the amalgamates are these strange-looking monsters. E10 games aren’t really any stranger to containing somewhat scary things- mario odyssey is a good example.

however, there are some aspects of undertale that aren’t as PG. as previously mentioned, there are the flashing faces, and the face flowey made as he absorbed the chaos emeralds infinity stones pure hearts human souls. and there’s the end of the genocide run, where flowey is repeatedly hacked in half. and then there’s the time reaper bird forced a bunch of moths to eat everyman’s head.

but the most problematic part of undertale might be the storyline. not as much the fact that asgore has been killing humans to try and find a way out of the underground, as much as the fact that THERE ARE LITERALLY 4 SUICIDES IN THE GAME’S TIMELINES.

in the end, undertale is one of those games that somehow manages to be equal parts PG and T at the same time. and as a result, i’m not so sure what to rate it. do we rate it E10 because that’s what the game is like most of the time, or do we rate it T because that’s the extent of the inappropriate content, even though it comprises a small amount of the game?

honestly, rating it T is overkill, and rating it E10 is underkill. truly, undertale is one of the hardest-to-rate games of all time.

[vidavalor]

I could not agree with your post more and would like it a thousand times if I could @tenroses07

I honestly think anyone who has ever read works by both Pratchett and Gaiman can tell that Good Omens is an extremely Pratchett novel. That would be why it is a wonderful story-- because Terry Pratchett was an excellent writer. Neil Gaiman is not.

Just because an author is popular doesn't actually make them a very good writer. Neil Gaiman's solo work is pretty derivative. There isn't actually a lot of originality or even that fresh a spin on things. If you list out everything you like about Good Omens, I can guarantee you that all of the elements you're talking about you'll also find in other works by Terry Pratchett-- and in an unique and charming and entertaining way. Neil Gaiman's solo works, though? To say they are overrated is putting it mildly.

I've read almost every single thing Gaiman has ever written, in large part to try to understand why so many consider him some kind of writing god. I came away feeling like his biggest talent was knowing-- in a very cold way-- that if you write a lot about supernatural things, a lot of queer people will buy your books and so, if you toss in some rainbow themes, you'll probably sell more of them. He knows that if you posture a bit on the socials for their causes, you'll probably sell even more. There's a chilly, mercenary feel to Gaiman's approach to craft and audience engagement that I've always found off-putting. That is a feeling that I've never felt for a second watching Terry Pratchett interviews or reading the stories he has written. It is not a chill I feel reading or watching Good Omens or engaging in this community because the humor and warmth that is coming through is all Pratchett-y, all the time.

Gaiman's solo work lacks conviction and authenticity. It feels calculated and manufactured to sell in the worst way. Yes, storytelling is a business and you want your works to sell. There is a way to do that, though, that is honest and not dripping with the pretentious obnoxiousness of someone like Gaiman. It starts with genuine love of story, not with a genuine love of how crafting a story that might sell could make you famous and feed your shriveled up ego, which is that vibe around Gaiman that is so pervasive that you feel like you can actually smell it.

Some people write because they need to, it's such a passion for them; other people say they write like that but writing is really only a job for them and a way to satisfy their own insecurities by sitting their egos atop a little kingdom of worship of their work that they've built for themselves.

Terry Pratchett-- in every interview ever-- came across as a thoughtful, funny guy for whom writing was a true passion. Neil Gaiman-- in every interview ever-- absolutely reeks of being the type of guy who began his writing career not with a story he felt compelled to write rattling around in his mind that he thought might amuse and inspire others but with an idea of how fame from writing could give him an identity. He is an imitative poser who, with the help of a good agent, had branded himself as a legendary story innovator.

Well, a good agent and the fact that, in our world, a white Englishman could get a sneeze published and win a Pulitzer for it, but that's a whole other thing...

A beloved book has a soul to it-- that is what sets it apart. Good Omens is beloved. We all feel that-- that's why we're here. There is not a soul at the core of Gaiman's solo stories, though. There is only a kind of emptiness. There is, however, a really delightful and very original soul at the center of every Pratchett work, just as there is with his Good Omens.

I don't even really know to what aspects of Good Omens Gaiman actually contributed at this point because the story is so. very. Pratchett-- its themes, its motifs, its tone and humor and diction and the use of wordplay in its overall language... so, the entire fucking story, really... are all in the style of Pratchett's other writings. A lot of the word choice and wordplay even overlaps with those other novels. Even what I've seen of Gaiman's *own* recountings in interviews of writing Good Omens make it sound like Pratchett did most of the work... which seems evident just by reading the novel.

S1 of the tv show is the Pratchett co-authored book put to screen but, despite Gaiman's presence, S2 of the show? Required four, other writers... all of whom picked up the tone, the characterization, and the wordplay and rhythms of the language effortlessly. John Finnemore is also credited with writing all of S2 (not just the brilliant and story-pivotal Job minisode) and, if memory serves me correctly, there's an interview in which Gaiman himself even said that it was Finnemore who figured out the story arc of the season and where and how to end S2 to best set up S3.

That is the entire fucking writing process of a tv show.

Breaking story and writing episodes is writing television. There's every indication that the guy who was really doing all that work in S2 was John Finnemore.

Amazon took one look at a S2 of Good Omens that would not be based on already-written-by-Pratchett material and their response was *not*: oh, thank Frances McDormand, we have the brilliant wordsmith Neil Gaiman to see us through the next two seasons of this popular series with the very popular leads and the big fanbase! We have complete confidence in his ability to write as well as Pratchett, stick this landing without pissing off the entire fanbase, and getting through all of that before a couple of these seven thousand women go public with the fact that he's a raging dirtbag!

It was more like: His name is on this series because it was on the book but we actually want him to write as little of it as possible because everyone knows he's kinda shit and man, we wish the other author wasn't dead as the one still kicking is a fucking nightmare but dammit the story is decades-old-fandom popular so we wanna make it because people will buy our dumbass streaming service to watch David Tennant slink around in those tight pants but also they really fucking love this thing and will be very, very loud if it sucks so we better make room in the budget for new writers... not just some guest writers like any show would have to shake things up and make for a more diverse writing staff... no, we're going to shell out and pay *a whole other head writer salary to this other guy* to "co-write" the entire season and by that, we mean, he's going to really write the whole season...

Gaiman's own words prove he is actually largely unnecessary to the process. You could even argue that Amazon knew all along that he is a massive liability... which is likely why they shelled out for more writers, despite the fact that the season is only six episodes and Neil Gaiman-- whose name is on the original source material lol-- is literally a writer by trade and had written screenplays prior to Good Omens.

We're sweating all of this but Amazon probably isn't. If they decide to continue with S3, they already spent S2 road-testing four writers, with one basically in a head writer position. We had nothing but praise for those episodes. If you liked S2, you liked what John Finnemore is credited with writing. If you worry about what GO would look like without Gaiman, can I just remind you that "Nazi Zombie Flesheaters" was written by an one-off writing team? It's the only bit of GO they've ever written. It was a pivotal minisode and it was flawless.

It doesn't take much to see where the story is going and what a Pratchett-y ending would be. It shouldn't be that the legacy of the talented and decent, late author gets unjustly dragged down with that of the "co-author" whose fingerprints on it are barely visible. Gaiman's egregious behavior must see consequences determined by police and the courts. Amazon needs to cut him loose from Good Omens. It is not respectful to Terry Pratchett or to the other cast and crew of Good Omens to say that it should just all be sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor because of one overrated and super-replaceable creep.

Okay I lied I do have something else to say about the neil gaiman allegations

Do NOT drag Terry Prachett into this. I haven’t seen anyone do so myself yet, but I’m sure someone probably will and it disgusts me.

And also, stop giving neil all the credit for everything. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that the GO fandom gives neil WAY too much credit. I’m even guilty of this. But it isn’t right and it absolutely isn’t fair to Terry Prachett or anyone else who was worked so hard on the show. People only give neil so much credit because he is alive to answer questions about GO and talk about how it was written while Terry Prachett unfortunately no longer can.

Sorry that this isn’t very well articulated it just was something that came to mind and made me very upset. Hope this makes sense.

[gaming]

Indie Game Spotlight: Stratospiel

We're exploring the colorful and mysterious world of Stratospiel in this week's Indie Game Spotlight! Stratospiel is an upcoming turn-based RPG that follows the journey of a child who awakens on a strange planet with no memories and is faced with a vast array of enemies and the choice to either destroy or befriend them. The choices you make will impact the tone and outcome of this story. We caught up with Stratospiel's designer, writer, programmer, and composer, Vaughn Haynes, to learn more.

Stratospiel is reminiscent of other turn-based RPGs like Earthbound and Undertale—was Stratospiel inspired by either? Were there any other games that inspired you during the development process?

It's funny—I've been told by my friends that the game has a lot of Earthbound vibes, but I've never actually played any of the Mother games. I'll definitely have to as soon as I'm finished making this game :) I can say with confidence that this was very much inspired by Undertale, though. I played that for the first time on my Switch back in February 2020 and was absolutely blown away. I've wanted to make a video game forever but always backed down when I saw how much of an undertaking it is. Once I found out that Undertale was primarily made by one guy, I was like, "yeah, I can do this," and finally got to work learning how to code and all that fun stuff. Undertale has a huge influence on Stratospiel, with its defining mechanic—acting/sparing the monsters—being implemented here. In a broader sense, though, I'd say the Mario & Luigi RPG series has had the biggest influence. I played Bowser's Inside Story as a kid, and I loved how fast-paced the battles were without losing that feeling of RPG strategy. I also liked how the items you used in battle were also used to manipulate the overworld. Stratospiel's battle system is a happy marriage between those two games' battle systems. Other games that influenced Stratospiel are the WarioWare and Ace Attorney games—absurd humor is my favorite, and that has definitely worked its way into Stratospiel.

What made you choose pixel art as the art style for Stratospiel?

Because it's the cheapest! Also, because it complements the tone of the game as well. A lot of the humor in Stratospiel is derived from fun visual gags. The further away you are from the uncanny valley, the less likely it is that your brain will get weirded out and go, "Hey, this isn't real!" and will be more accepting of the silly things happening onscreen and hopefully laugh along with the game. The same goes for the more serious moments, too. By having a simple art style, you're forced to make each character as distinct as possible, which helps people form closer bonds with them, which is great for eliciting a powerful emotional response.

What types of enemies can we expect to see in the game? Can you tell us a little about the main antagonist and how they fit into the game’s narrative?

I’m really happy with the enemies. I think, aside from composing the music, designing the enemies has been my favorite part of making the game. The enemies you fight can range from cute, to silly, to fearsome. They’re all unique, with their own wants, needs, goals, likes, dislikes, etc. You’ll meet a cast of fun characters along the way who accompany you on your adventure, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. As for the main antagonist? You’ll have to solve the mystery to find out who that is :)

In what way will players’ choices impact the story of Stratospiel? Will the game have multiple endings?

Your choices impact two big things in the game: the plot and the tone. In terms of plot, I can’t really say too much because of spoilers, but the basic idea is that if you defeat someone in battle, then they’re dead. They’re out of the picture forever now. Their friends' and family’s lives have been forever changed. But if you befriend them, then they’ll contribute their skills and resources, and that just may take you to different places. The same goes for tone—killing people is pretty dark, I would say. And of COURSE, the game will have multiple endings!!! I love it when games do that, so you bet I’ll implement that here :) You can see a little bit of that in the demo right now.

What do you hope players will take away from Stratospiel?

I hope players take away an appreciation for the themes that are in there. Each character and area has a central idea baked into them, and how you as a player interact with them determines their direction and arc. Like I said earlier, the game is very personal to me and is sort of like my own “shout into the void.” With everything going on in the world today, it can be hard to feel heard, getting drowned out in all the terrible things happening. Everyone has something to say, and this is my way of doing so. Choices in video games are nothing new, but having players think about the consequences of choices is something that I think games really excel at, and Stratospiel is no different. I can guarantee that fans familiar with the genre will be surprised with how things turn out!

Stratospiel will be available on Steam for Mac and Windows in Fall 2023. Follow @stratospiel for updates and other announcements, and check out the Kickstarter here!

This interview has been edited for clarity.

[lowpolyshadow]

i wouldnt be a sonic fan in general without archie (like literally bc i got intro’d with it blah blah) but i feel like the shadow page i redrew/the issue its from is… actually the reason why i still hold him up and say hes neat and that i like him bfksjfdk (i still think hes funny nowadays tho i just. u know. different kind of humor. different depth. if i only knew current shadow i would Not like him for the same reasons)

it really sold me on his whole character …. plus just felt . So much seeing him have to witness the person he loves and misses the most just disintegrate in front of his eyes, and he basically just has to relive maria dying. like. man. that page has stuck with me for years. ill never be able to forget him saying “i can’t leave maria Again” ….

and the issue . of course i have to like it it gave me my knuckles and shadow agenda + shadow admitting that he’s a being made of love… slaps this hedgehog this bad boy can fit so many problems but they all derive from the fact that he just Cares. Way Too Much. it just depends on what it’s about (enacting maria’s “last wish” (both the fake one and the real one), finding out who he is, then that beautiful moment of 06 where it genuinely feels like hes about to be at peace with both and find a balance … now its. beating sonic ig)

[thimbil]

Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

[citrina-posts]

au where sokka, not their mother, is the one who sacrifices himself for katara (inspired by this post about sokka looking like his mom)

Sokka and katara are together in their house when the southern raiders attack

Their parents are out when the soldier yon rha breaks into their home

He knows that the north only trains boys in waterbending... he thinks the south is the same way

The kids are cornered by yon rha, who tells them

“I won’t hurt you kids if you tell me who in your village is the last waterbender”

Katara is terrified and knows he’s come for her

Sokka looks at his sister and thinks it’s up to me to protect her

So he says “it’s me. I’m the last waterbender of the southern tribe.”

Yon rha was planning to kill the last waterbender, but it’s only a child... he decides to kidnap sokka instead

Katara watches as her brother is dragged away, unable to stop the man as he takes sokka from her

All that’s left of sokka is his beloved boomerang

Yon rha takes sokka to a fire nation prison far inland in the earth kingdom colonies, even though he’s the only child there. Without a master or water around, he reasons, sokka is no threat.

Katara still has both parents, but she’s lost her brother and best friend and feels that it’s her fault

Sokka grows up in prison, learning how to fight when he’s smaller and weaker but cleverer than his fellow prisoners

As the only child in the prison, sokka has to play up his role as a harmless and agreeable kid. He’s funny and the other prisoners derive amusement from it, which means they’ll keep him around

He never forgets his water tribe roots though, or his family

Katara grows up lonely and determined, learning to hunt with the boomerang and a spear and waterbending all together. She’s not the caretaker role now, but the angry rebel daughter, brave but rash and proud and desperate to prove herself

One day she’s out hunting alone when she discovers a very special iceberg. Curious, she breaks it open immediately (bc let’s be real sokka is 95% of her impulse control in canon)

When sokka is fifteen, he successfully escapes from prison and makes his way west to the coast

He gets ambushed in the forest one day, and almost gets killed by a boy with hooked swords who accuses him of being fire nation (his prison shirt is red)

Sokka argues “no! I’m water tribe!” jet doesn’t believe it at first, but the blue of his eyes doesn’t lie

Jet is impressed by sokka’s fighting-dirty style and great aim and invites him to stay

Sokka joins the freedom fighters but is disgusted when he learns about jet’s distorted sense of justice. He starts planning a way to overthrow jet from the inside

Meanwhile, katara and aang travel north to find a waterbending master, and they just so happen to run into jet while flying over a forest

When they get to the treehouses, they run into a skinny, scrappy dark-skinned boy whose jaw drops when he sees katara

She doesn’t recognize him at first, and then all at once she does

“SOKKA?” “Katara, is that really you?”

There’s much crying and hugging and “how are you here?”

Sokka explains his plan to katara and aang, and they know not to trust jet

Jet’s plan is foiled by sokka and gaoling is never flooded

Katara gives sokka back his boomerang (“You kept it all this time?” “Of course. I’m probably better at it than you are, now.” “No way!!”)

They fly north. Katara has to relearn her brother, relearn his mannerisms and his personality. She’s surprised by how little he’s changed, even though he’s been through so much

Sokka is a harder version of himself, sharper and more cautious. But he still has his sense of humor and his clever plans, his same hairstyle and bright blue eyes.

[yanderenightmare]

You made me fall in love with fear, it's all just fascinating. The way you write is an aesthetic in itself! It's so beautiful and thought-provoking. If your requests are open, I would love to see your volume one Yanderes with a clumsy s/o. Like, she is accident prone, always injuring herself, etc. I wonder how they would react with such fragility? Thanks! Have a wonderful day! :D

yandere ! BNHA headcannons

TIP-JAR

goodiebag WARNINGS: yandere, dumbification, abuse, manipulation, ableism, anxiety, death, murder, drugs, drugging, kidnapping

BAKUGO KATSUKI - KACHAN

He knew fragile things existed in the world.

And he knows that the world was designed to chew such powerless things up then spit them out again.

And he knows he isn’t one of those frail things.

As a child he thought it was fair for the strong to conquer the weak.

And hell… he still thinks it’s fair.

Her brittle nature provides him with such a great excuse too, such a perfect explanation for him to justify taking her.

To justify keeping her in soft frilly clothes, locked inside a room devoid of walls where they have been replaced by cushions and pillows and blankets and furs and stuffed-animals and all things soft, soft, soft against the bruises and scrapes on her knees and ankles and elbows and chin. Keeping her all cozy and clumsy where she’s unable to keep her footing on the plushie asylum floor, reduced to vertigo, especially with that fluffy pink ankle-cuff chaining her down.

Sometimes she’ll hide when hearing Bakugo’s footsteps coming thundering from behind her door. She’ll wrap herself up in all those soft things she’s grown to hate, pray under the covers only to hear the cracking predatory humor of Bakugo’s laugh once he spots where the chain trails to.

He'll drag her out of hiding like a puppy on a leash, all for him to punish, all with that splitting frenzied grin on his face, the one that makes her head dizzy on the sight of seeing how sharp those canines of his are, knowing how they’re going to find her neck as though she’s some chew-toy.

He’ll always make it sound as though that’s what she wanted, that punishment is what her weakness begged him for, as though weakness is synonymous with wanting pain or needing pain.

He’ll sleep there with her most of the time, in the room he’s made so painstakingly clear was her home. She’s coming more and more gradually to the understanding that nothing in reality is hers anymore. Not the room, not the clothes, not her body.

She’s too weak to be allowed to be in charge of anything, better for her to just find comfort in knowing how she has no responsibilities, better for her to just be grateful Bakugo wanted her as his pet rather than his prey. Better for her to listen and believe him when he tells her that she’s safe, instead of thinking of all those crippling reasons as to why she is far from being safe.

TODOROKI SHOTO

Clumsy prey is a sport Shoto always believed to be too mediocre and boring, given how easily the dexterity of the predator can win the chase.

He didn't think he could achieve stimulation without a challenge.

But, he’s now finding that chasing someone who’s barely able to keep her own footing is a game he rather enjoys quite salaciously. Understanding now that it’s less about the quest, less about actually catching his prize, and more about the experience, those funny little moments leading up to it.

The amount of hungry pleasure he derives from seeing her stagger away from him is bottomless.

He doesn’t know why, but it’s the outmost endearing and lovable and precious and cute thing he can think of.

Seeing her stumble and fall, all in the product of mixing her clumsiness with her wild manic fear. Watching those beautiful swivel-eyes spiral as she looks up at him through the thick darkness of the poorly lit hallways, hearing nothing but Shoto’s inhumanly sadistic snickering and her own heavy panting as she tries desperately to drag herself further away. Yet, knowing and awaiting his massive biting cold hand to grip around her ankle to drag her across the marble-floor back into her dungeon, back into the soft bed, so that they can do everything again.

Most chases end up with her hurting herself and eventually aiding her own capture.

She’ll always wake up with bruises she has no recollection of when or how she got, yet looking at them she can tell that they’re way too mellow to be something given to her by Shoto.

It's funny, where he hurts her, he actually ends up saving her more times than most. Where her sporadic escape has almost led her to go tumbling down the stairwell, where were it not for Shoto catching her in her fall, things could have gotten really ugly.

He wouldn’t want her to actually break her legs after all, no matter how many times he might tease and threaten her with the thought. Broken legs would mean no more games, and Shoto doesn’t want that to end any time soon.

But, there are softer aspects to her silliness too.

She can be just as dopey and awkward with her rambling thoughts as him, where her inelegance with her mobility seeps into her skillfulness with words too.

If she’s proper blissed-out she can talk up storms of complete and utter nonsense, rambling on about her dreams and what animal the shape of Shoto’s scars resemble and how pretty his eyes are and how much her body is tingling in the aftershocks of what fun Shoto exercised on her skin.

MIDORIYA IZUKU - DEKU

Naivety really is bliss, isn’t it?

Not just for herself, but for him too.

To watch her, in all her clumsy glory, fall on her face, time and time again, never learning her lesson.

That’s the definition of insanity, you know?

Doing the same thing over and over again expecting things to go differently.

But, no matter how many times she tries to escape, no matter how many times she runs, or screams or cries or swears she hates him until her lungs burn, she’ll always end up right where she started off, right where she belongs, right in his arms, under his thumb, under him.

He doesn’t even have to put any effort in to prevent it.

He just needs to sit back and enjoy the show as she fails so spectacularly all by her very own, then pick her up off the floor and coo and hush and shush and tsk at her to calm down or else she might end up hurting herself all over again.

How has such fickle featherbrained maladroit messes managed to survive? How hasn’t evolution wiped them from existence yet?

Perhaps because other more evolved creatures found them to be such a perfect source for blowing off steam. Entertainment is important after all. Small little escapes through the day where you can forget what nasty troubles you’ll eventually have to deal with and simply just play with your silly little pet.

He saves the world every now and again, the world can allow him this much, to have his very own swivel-eyed toy. He deserves it. 

Besides, she needs him. If he hadn’t stepped in and helped her, saved her from her own mistakes, evolution would have done its job and she’d be dead already.

But, he doesn’t expect her bumbling brainless little head to understand that, she’d just get a headache from thinking about it too hard.

No, better for her to focus on other things… like how to entertain him before he decides to show her just how small a foolish little thing she is.

He’ll often play with her, make her turn all shades of hopeless because she’s too forgetful and too soft-natured to comprehend what’s happened.

He’ll give her things, small little trinkets as presents for her good behavior, mostly accessories such as hair-bows, necklaces, anything he can easily slip off her without her noticing, then pretend to be disappointed, scolding her as though she’s some child who’s unable to take care of her things, punish her and kiss her on that scared foolish little face as she splutters out her apologies, having not a single clue she’s right where he wants her, completely clueless to the fact that she’s perfect in every which way imaginable.

DABI - TODOROKI TOUYA

It feels so unexplainably good to hold something infinitely helpless and vulnerable and dainty in his destructive hands without it shattering like glass.

It feels so insurmountably meaningful and purposeful and godsend to save someone for once, even if it’s from themselves.

It’s nice being in the presence of true chaos, the true absence of order, a great real heap of a total clusterfuck. It makes him believe that even life requires a little death to scare them into safety, that even light requires darkness, that even love needs darkness, that even love desires darkness.

He used to think small things such as her were made up of cotton and all things soft like dandelion-fluff, but now he knows they’re made of breakable brittle things such as autumn-leaves, in desperate need of being wrapped up, suffocated, drowned in safety. He’s the one who needs to be soft like cotton, he’s the one who needs to be gentle and soft so she not crumble like the sweet pastry she is.

It’s cute. She’s cute. Unbelievably so too sometimes.

He feels like half the time he spends with her he’s teaching her how to walk properly, catching her when she falls or helping her up from the ground, dusting her off, wiping tears away from her face, patching up small scrapes and gashes, kissing her forehead, letting her know how it’s all okay, making sure she knows she’s no such thing as a burden, though not letting her in on the fact that he loves seeing her fail only for him to save the day.

He’ll take her outside more because of her ditzy nature, knowing how she’s far too dopey to ever manage an escape without pulling out a near miss unintentional suicide attempt, where which after a number of rescues from him she forgets why she was even running in the first place, now too caught up with being close to him instead, with feeling safe, feeling protected.

He’ll save her from wandering off into traffic, protect her when she says the wrong idiotic thing to the wrong batch of people, fight for her when her cuteness lures and pulls and ensnares other predators.

It’s symbiosis, if he thinks about it, if he tries justifying it.

She needs him and he needs to feel needed. She needs to be taken care of, he wants to take care of her, she needs protection from herself, he wants her dependence, he wants the safety of knowing how she cannot survive without him.

SHIGARAKI TOMURA

It’s hilarious.

She’ll break her own legs for him at this rate.

He wonders how many braincells could possibly be left in that thick skull of hers, with how much she trips and walks into walls and rolls out of bed, bumping her head on every possible thing, he can’t count how many times she’s head-butted him, whether it’s been on purpose or not. 

He wonders if she might just be blind.

If maybe she needs glasses…

Well… that’s too bad if that’s the case, no chance he’s giving up watching her agonize over every misstep that leads to her falling on the floor by his feet, her head tipping to look up at him with that ridiculous expression, that dumbfounded adorable confusion.

It probably doesn’t help that he keeps the room so dark.

It probably doesn’t help that he leaves things on the floor in hopes of her foot catching on them.

But, can you blame him for wanting to see her all cute and flushed? Watching her frustrate over herself, too caught up in being mad with her own inadequacy to bother being mad at him. So preciously hopeless as she tries to pick herself up off the floor, her hair always in a mess and bruises and scrapes littering her otherwise soft skin.

Pretty and stupid isn’t usually the type he fawns over, in fact: pretty and stupid is usually the type that disgust him, pretty stupid bitches that never spare him a second glance, pretty stupid bitches that are only worth one fuck before he dusts them.

But pretty stupid and sweet? 

That’s the perfect cocktail.

So stupid and sweet she doesn’t even know how pretty she is. So stupid and sweet that she’s surprised he gave her a second glance.

He wonders if he as well would be this careless and reckless if he hadn’t been gifted with that destructive quirk of his.

He wonders if she had been born with a heart made less up of honeycombs and more daggers like his, if she would also second-guess touching things as opposed to making it her mission to bump into every single thing in her path.

If she would be less trusting and more cynical like him.

He’s grateful she wasn’t.

He’s grateful that the only type of death she’ll ever get the chance to taste is him, that as far as she’s concerned… he is death.

TAKAMI KEIGO - HAWKS

Most of the time it’s cute.

Most of the time he loves watching her fall prey to her own absentmindedness. Watch her trip on nothing but her own poor footing.

After all, he does love catching her before she hits the ground. He loves being her hero, seeing that shocked expression on her face, that cute blush of embarrassment as he smirks down upon her jumpy skittish person.

Then of course there’s the less salvageable moments, yet still no less cute, where she’ll drop dinner plates or her glass or the wine bottle or the remote-controller, where she’ll get so frustrated with herself and her stubby fingers, her feet always needing bandaging where she always manages to step in her own mess of glass-shards.

Those times where she fucks up and fears Keigo’s temperance so much she’ll turn into a timid little ball of apologies and gratitude, where she’ll fear that any more screw ups will cost her his understanding attitude and awake something livid inside him.

She’ll be so sweet with fear as opposed to when she’ll jerk away from his touch.

So yeah, most of the time it’s cute, most of the time it’s beneficial.

But that habit she has of not thinking before speaking or acting gets her into a whole lot of trouble too.

Especially when she pushes him away or calls him something unsavory. When she acts like a brat, forgetting who’s in charge.

Keigo feels the need to teach her a thing or two about being a bit more careful and a little less brainless. 

He’ll pose her in the middle of the living room, with only red lace adorning her tiny frame, looking cold but not so much to be the reason to her shivers, he knows better as he can smell the fear laced in the air.

On top of her head he’ll put a perfect plump red apple and tell her to stand as still and picture-perfect as possible.

She’s pretty good at it too, at being still and quiet and pretty, speaking only when spoken to, at least until he starts sending knife-sharp feathers in her directions, creating her silhouette in the wall as the feathers fly just short of nicking her skin, where if she moves only a slight mere inch, the crimson edges will slice open her skin.

And if the apple should fall, well… if she can be sweet and apologize and show him just how sorry she is, he’ll think about making the punishment enjoyable.

SHINSO HITOSHI

Hitoshi can’t manifest how much awe he has for that ditzy nature of hers.

So forgetful, so clueless, so cute.

She’s like a little girl, a child, a baby in a cradle, yet with the ability to get lost, wandering off at every slight distraction.

He’s tempted to put a bell around her neck if only to be alerted off when her curiosity has taken her out of his eyesight. She would look adorable with a little golden jingle bell around her throat, hanging on a velvet choker.

But then again… he wouldn’t have the joy of finding her all tousled and knotted up in her newest little fuck up.

Little Miss Forgetful forgetting all her lessons, all those rules Hitoshi’s taught her, forgetting her manners, forgetting her chores, forgetting how to be his good little girl or else suffer the consequences of being punished and becoming Master’s little puppet on strings.

Little Miss Messy making a total clutter in the kitchen when trying her best to get her hand on a knife, but only managing to bump into everything, shards of glass painting the crime scene with the culprit displayed and trapped all perfectly in the middle of her own mess, all for Hitoshi to come and catch red-handed.

Little Miss Bump with new bruises and scratches as she’s fallen yet again on the floor in the midst of her newest escape attempt.

He could go on all day about his sweet little Miss Silly, his little Miss Scatterbrain, his little Miss Stupid, who’s always getting into trouble, constantly needing Hitoshi to come to her rescue.

But, when he’s not home, he can get anxious.

Scared that she might actually hurt herself just a bit too much and he’ll arrive just a bit too late.

It should take a lifetime to die, yet she’s on the verge of death nearly every day, it only takes an instant and it’s over.

He’ll check in on her at home more times than he probably should throughout the day, praying before he unlocks the door and steps inside the quiet stillness of their house, picturing her having cracked her skull open when slipping or accidently managing to hang herself off of something or drowning in the tub after having fallen asleep, there’s no end to what horrors he can picture.

His anxiety only satiated when finding her still asleep on the bed, soft untroubled snores hanging off the walls. 

It makes sense with how much melatonin he slipped in her drink before she dozed off…

Just a little safety measure.

CHISAKI KAI - OVERHAUL

It manages to surprise him each and every time… just how much danger such a little thing is able to wrap herself up in.

It’s as though she chases the trouble, as though she wants the punishment that follows.

He doubts she ever really thinks anything thoroughly through.

She’s reckless, ruthless in her disregard for safety. Hare-brained and untrustworthy and in desperate need of his protection and his correction, or else she might just accidentally kill herself one day or worse… end up in the wrong set of hands.

It’s come to the point where he’s stopped gifting her with jewelry, because he gets so hysterically uneasy whenever she’s gotten her hands on anything sharp.

Before he’d get angry when she threatened him, wrathful, raging because she doesn’t listen, her foolish little brain unable to follow the simplest of directions. 

Now though, he gets scared because she’s unable to understand what’s best for her, because the only thing she'll ever manage to hurt with those sharp trinkets is herself.

And if she hurts herself, if she risks getting bacteria in her bloodstream, infections in her wounds, scarring and marring that beautiful body, he’ll have no choice, he’ll see no other option but to make sure she can never manage such a thing ever again.

He often humors the idea of simply tying her to the bed and feeding her with a silver spoon, only liquids so she not choke when she forgets how to chew properly.

He’ll act as though she’s a nuisance, but it will be a lie most of the time, while actually finding an inane amount of reassurance and relief in her whimsy, in her gracelessness. Where yes, she is a danger, but she’s far from deadly.

And besides, it’s nice getting a little break from all formalities, someone he can finally be a little rough around the edges with, someone he can let himself enjoy soft pleasures with, someone he can smile or even laugh with when the occasion calls for it. 

Sometimes he’ll place her in high-heels, only to watch her stumble around awkwardly like a little deer skating on ice.

She’s so determined too, determined to prove she isn’t a klutz, how she too can be elegant enough for a dance fit for the ballroom.

He’ll humor that fantasy, but she’ll always throw her heels off in favor of standing on top of his surgically white sneakers and letting herself get floated and swayed with how swiftly and precisely Kai has the established proper poise to enact.

He’ll smile then, when those flirty bubbling giggles erupt from her as she holds onto him, telling how him wonderful flying feels like.

TIP-JAR