#but obviously THAT part of fandom is never gonna realize that

[jumpingbellara]

With the description of Davrin coming out, I'm fearing that this will be an excuse for a certain subset of DA fans to trash him. I haven't even met him and I'm fiercely protective of him.

[nhasablogg]

Creeping

Fandom: Stranger Things

Characters: Steve, Robin

Summary: Steve and Robin go camping. Robin turns into a tickle monster.

A/N: Thanks to the person who commissioned this!

Words: 1.3k

Steve felt silly. He knew it was Robin out there, creeping outside of the tent trying to make him nervous. He’d been with her literally five minutes ago, before deciding he needed to get into bed immediately or else he would freeze to death. Robin had stayed to make sure their fire was fully out. He’d never felt like he needed to protect her, and so he didn’t question it. Now he suddenly felt frozen for different reasons. And it was fucking stupid because he knew it was her.

Right?

“Robin.” He tried to not make it sound like a question, to show her he knew what she was up to. “You coming or what?”

No answer. She was doing it on purpose. He could see her rounding the tent in the dying light of the fire. That sound was her stepping on a twig. Her shuffling through the early autumn leaves.

It had been his idea to go camping, to be fair, but she’d been enthusiastic. Both of them needing a break from Hawkins. Never ending conversations about life and their plans. Steve told himself he was just waiting for her to finish high school, then they would move. He told himself a lot of things. Robin usually let him. She was a bigger dreamer than him, after all.

“Our own apartment,” was how her dreams always started. “In a big city with sunlit wooden floors and a bakery on the bottom floor.”

Steve always humored her and never said he dreamed of suburban life, with a big house on a tree-lined street. He didn’t even know if that was his dream or just something he’d once latched on to. A dream he was supposed to have. “Imagine us married,” he’d snorted and Robin had snorted right back and neither of them had mentioned how Robin couldn’t get married to a woman and Steve was kissing boys without talking about it.

“Robin,” he said again, sitting up slightly in his unzipped sleeping bag. “Do you need saving?”

The looming figure suddenly stopped just by the tent’s opening. Steve could see Robin’s coat - a worn, too thin thing she was refusing to part with - and yet he felt his heart skip a beat.

“Robin, you’re not funny.” Did his voice shake? His voice definitely didn’t shake. What a loser.

The figure - Robin - stuck her hand in, and Steve had approximately three seconds of overwhelming panic wash over him before Robin was on top of him, laughing when he screamed. “Got you!”

“Jesus, Robin, you fucking lunatic!”

“Did I scare you?”

“You pounced on me-”

“You’ll live. Won’t you?” She poked his navel of all spots through the sleeping bag, and Steve realized belatedly that it was incredibly hard to stop her when she was straddling him like this. Thankfully his hands were free, not that they helped much. As she poked him again, he found she simply evaded his attempts at pushing her off.

“Earlier,” she said, poking him again, and again. “You told me you weren’t ticklish during truth or dare. You obviously lied.”

“Am I laughing without realizing?” But Steve knew he couldn’t pretend for much longer. Could barely bite back his smile. “Seriously, are we gonna talk about you trying to scare me to death just now?”

“So you were scared? You keep surprising me tonight, Stevie.”

“Don’t call me that- ah!” She had moved towards his hips, somehow making each squeeze through the sleeping bag feel as if it was directly onto skin. He felt his body jerk, and now he was laughing without being able to stop. If Robin was attempting a weird super villain laugh on purpose was beyond him. Much was beyond him now.

“That’s a bad spot, huh?” She did that god awful cackle again and Steve had to remember to tell her not to ever do that shit again once he was out of this situation. He was kinda starting to wonder if she would ever let him go though. Her knees were pressing even tighter around his hips, her hands suddenly moving back to squeeze at his thighs, and his thrashing would surely knock her off only she seemed much stronger than he gave her credit for. He would blame this stupid sleeping bag he was stuck in. It wasn’t even protecting him from the tickles. Useless. Just like his flailing hands.

Robin had asked it so innocently during truth or dare that Steve had heard himself deny it without fully reflecting over it. “Ticklish? Me? Of course not.”

Robin had gone quiet, until Steve had shot the question right back at her and she’d said she hadn’t picked truth yet. Steve should��ve known she wouldn’t have believed him. Steve should’ve been on his guard.

“Rohohobin!”

“Yehehes?”

“I’m going to fucking- god just stop-”

“I haven’t heard a single please or sorry for lying or you’re a goddess come out of that big mouth of yours.”

“And you will hear no such thing- fuck, okay, please! Please stop, Jesus Christ-”

“Hmmm, no.” She returned to his hips. “I don’t think so.”

“You asshole.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

She was suddenly pulling the sleeping bag off of him - it hadn’t been zipped, after all - and the somewhat cool air hit him before she’d shoved her even colder hands up his shirt, latching onto his belly and refusing to move. Whatever she was doing to his belly button, it tickled like hell, and Steve most definitely scared away every monster and murderer with how loudly he screamed. He almost scared himself - he’d never heard that sound leave his mouth before, and he’d fought several monsters in just the past couple of years.

“ROBIN!”

Robin, to her credit, gave him a break, maybe due to how hard she was laughing herself. “Holy shit, what was that sound.”

“I will actually kill you. Get off of me.”

“Uh no, I’m not done.”

Steve shrieked when she latched onto his hips, still beneath his shirt, although luckily for him his pants were somewhat in the way. As she squeezed, over and over, the ticklish shocks going through his body made him jump, over and over. He wasn’t sure which was worse. On one hand, not being able to squirm away at all as she tortured his hips. On the other, the overwhelming panic he’d experienced having his belly button tickled. Maybe his thighs would be best, though he swallowed his words when she reached one hand back to spider over the sensitive skin there. His hands were still useless.

“Was this what you imagined when you were quivering in your boots earlier?” she asked through his laughter.

“I wasn’t quivering- ah!”

She switched her hands quickly, left going from his hips to his thigh, the right one doing the opposite, all the while making a noise as if to scare him with each jolt. A tickle monster, she told him. He would’ve rolled his eyes off had he not been a bit busy.

“You’re the perfect prey,” she said, pausing to let him breathe. “So easy to pin despite being stronger.”

“You’ll have to find your own way home tomorrow,” he replied, panting, smiling all the while without being able to help it. She was smirking down at him, although he could tell she’d not thought that part through. Not that Steve would actually leave her, but now she would have to beg his forgiveness. He was looking forward to it.

The woods around them were quiet - Steve could just imagine what it sounded like had someone walked past their tent. Hearing someone screaming and laughing hysterically in the dark forest was surely spooky. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done, had it been him.

“Have you had enough?”

“I had enough ten fucking minutes ago.”

She snorted and, in a final act of cruelty, pulled up his shirt entirely, pressed her lips to his skin and blew a loud, ridiculous raspberry onto his belly button.

It was safe to say Steve would never go camping with her ever again.

[suzukiblu]

this is a question that is not meant to come off as judgemental, and if it does i apologise and you don’t have to answer

for you, or anyone out there in the world if they see this,

What is the appeal of (the?) Omegaverse?

Ive never quite gotten it? And it might be the big bold orange, blue and white letters spelling out aroace, or being european, younger than most people who are knowledgeable about that particular genre of content (still 18+) and while I did get on the internet at 11, I didn’t start reading fanfic until 14-15

this is a long and rambly ask so I just want to clarify, this is a genuine question I would like an answer to, no matter how short and sweet, or long and convoluted it may be

It's all good, I don't mind getting questions! And, like, I've written a LOT of omegaverse, so it's a thoroughly relevant question to this blog, haha.

. . . and this definitely wound up long and convoluted. So like, yeah, we are SO gonna need a read-more here, friend. 😅

Obviously everyone's gonna have their own reasons for liking the genre, but as another (much older, I'm assuming) aroace, for me the appeal is the opportunity to use the tag "Fantasy Gender Roles". Like, there's other stuff there, def, but "Fantasy Gender Roles" is my favorite part. Omegaverse is a game where the rules are made-up and the points don't matter, and you can interpret and re-interpret the involved sexes and genders however the heck you wanna, and in fact are ENCOURAGED to. I also really like certain tropes that are common to the genre, like pack dynamics and breeding kink and having babies and feral behavior and courting/courting rituals, I just really enjoy playing with and reading about all of those.

Also, the worldbuilding. I get to do ✨GENDER-BASED WORLDBUILDING✨.

And obvi, like, some people are just into omegaverse for the kink/porn factor, which is totally fair, but personally I am here for ✨GENDER-BASED WORLDBUILDING✨. And then also the kink/porn. Generally speaking a recurring comment I've gotten from a lot of readers is "I literally hate omegaverse but I love yours", so a lot of my stuff is allegedly a decent jumping-on point for the genre if you're looking for that. Like, I'm not the only person who writes omegaverse the way I do, obviously, just I'm a pretty accessible one who's written a LOT of it.

( and in the event you DO want any jumping-on omegaverse recs from my stuff, I'mma just pop a few of them from various fandoms here. no DC-related ones 'cuz I don't have any of those currently on AO3, only scattered in my WIP tags, but hopefully something helpful will be in here. )

original fic

to the victor go the spoils - human omega OMC/dragon [ GENDER NOT FOUND ] OMC; 16.7k; explicit Fantasy AU. This one includes porn but honestly the heart of it is just one of those fairy tales where the protagonist is somehow both incredibly genre-savvy in their story and yet still a total fucking idiot about other people's feelings, and especially considering it's original fic, it is honestly one of the most popular things I've ever posted, hah.

The dragon arrived early in the morning, and by noon the entire village was in a panic in the town hall. No one in the village knew anything about dragons, aside from what they’d heard in fairy tales and stories, and the plans for dealing with it were about that level of sophisticated.

“We’re not sacrificing a virgin to the dragon,” Viktor said in exasperation.

“Well what would YOU do?!” the mayor demanded.

“I’m going to go talk to it,” Viktor said reasonably, and got up from his seat and went to do just that.

.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

does the pain feel better when I'm around? - beta!Sokka/omega!Zuko, beta!Sokka/beta!Suki, past alpha!Mai/omega!Zuko, polyamory; 3k; teen Societal dynamics-focused fic. Zuko goes into heat at the Western Air Temple immediately after the Boiling Rock happens and goes off to den down alone and stay out of everyone's way without realizing that the local betas are gonna lose their ever-lovin' MINDS about that.

“Cool,” he says. “You realize we’ve been looking for you for, like, two HOURS, right?”

“Why?” Zuko asks, sounding confused, which is kind of sad.

“Because the world is full of people who wanna kill you and you didn’t bother telling anyone where you were going?” Sokka says. “Obviously?”

“Oh.” Zuko falls silent. Sokka glances moonwards in supplication. Yue save him from dumb, dumb firebenders.

every act of communication is a miracle of translation - alpha!Mai/omega!Zuko; 5.7k; teen Post-series fic where Mai and Zuko are about to spend their first cycle together and they're both really awkward about working out how it should go. Not actually a sequel to "does the pain feel better when I'm around?", but you could definitely draw a relationship between 'em.

They leave the office, Mai pretending that all her senses aren’t full of Zuko’s warm, spicy scent, and he keeps looking worried. She wonders if it’s THIS he’s worried about, now that she’s thinking about it. They agreed they’d share their next cycles together, but again, they haven’t really talked about it.

They can talk about it now, Mai thinks.

Unfortunately, that means now they actually have to talk about it.

.

Overwatch

even if I do I don't, even if I could I won't - omega!Genji/beta!the-character-who-was-at-the-time-I-wrote-this-fic-known-as-McCree; 5.1k; explicit Blackwatch-era fic where Genji did not fill out his heat partner designation forms and "Fuck or Suffer Unspecified Health Consequences" is gonna make that a problem. Worldbuilding, assisted negotiation, a touch of workplace-influenced pack dynamics, and porn.

“Yeah, you’re hilarious, kid,” Gabe says. “Get back to work. And Shimada, call your heat partner and we’ll see you next week.”

Shimada’s shoulders tense. Gabe . . . pauses.

“Shimada,” he says slowly. “PLEASE tell me you have a heat partner on base.”

“I have a heat partner on base,” Shimada lies. Gabe and Jesse both stare at him, then Gabe calls up his file, takes one look at it, and starts cursing.

don't, don't, don't let's start (I've got a weak heart) - alpha!Genji/omega!the-character-who-was-at-the-time-I-wrote-this-fic-known-as-McCree; 17.3k; explicit Blackwatch-era fic about Genji and the character formerly known as McCree dealing with their complicated feelings about each other and also the cybernetics and trauma and physical disabilities that are fucking up their sex life, including ED.

“You busy?” he asks. Genji stares at him in bemusement, which is fair. Genji’s only ever busy when they’re on a mission or he’s in the middle of an upgrade. “Dumb question. My heat’s coming on, wanna do me a favor?”

“What favor?” Genji asks, still looking mystified. Jesse tries not to laugh at him.

“The obvious one,” he says meaningfully, tipping his hat back and raising his eyebrows at him. Genji looks no less mystified for a moment, then startles. “THERE we go."

.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

come hang (let's go out with a bang) - omega!Darcy Lewis/omega!Johnny Storm; 5k; teen Darcy almost dies again, tries to figure out which omega buys the courting gifts in an omega/omega relationship, and has her first date with a super-hot superhero.

“Was there traffic?” Jane asks.

“I have a date with Johnny Storm,” Darcy says.

“What?” Jane says.

“Oh, and I almost died again,” Darcy says, pulling out Jane’s papers for her. “But that’s kind of secondary.”

“WHAT?!”

pack up, don't stray (oh say say say) - alpha!Natasha + polyamory; 3.4k; teen Natasha collects a harem pack and Captain America is fucking difficult about it.

Natasha is an alpha on a mission, and that mission is simple and clear.

I said you're holding back, she said shut up and dance with me - alpha!Peggy/omega!Steve/omega!Bucky; 10.3k; mature Alternate timeline where Steve and Bucky don't "die" and they all run away from the States to get married and start a family. Illegal adoption and biokids and lowkey pack dynamics involving figuring out how to fold pups into their lives, oh my!! And also, they all get to dance.

“One alpha mating two omegas? Really, Steve?” Peggy asks, mouth quirking wryly. “What WOULD the newsreels say?”

“We’ll go to France,” Steve says. “No one will care in France.”

“I do love France,” she muses.

oh don't you dare hold back, just keep your eyes on me - alpha!Darcy/omega!Bucky, polyamory; 187.4k; explicit MY MAGNUM OPUS, MY WHITE WHALE, THE LITERAL REASON OMEGAVERSE TOOK OVER HALF MY BLOG FOR HALF MY STINT IN MCU FANDOM. I wanted a goddamn female alpha and I wanted that female alpha to be Darcy Lewis, and Bucky was my fave blorbo at the time so the inevitable happened. The inevitable happened for three and a half years and 187,430 words, to be more precise.

Darcy is thirty feet out of Stark-cum-Avengers Tower when she starts craving cinnamon rolls--the sticky-sweet iced-up old-fashioned kind, yummy and messy and dripping gooshy icing all over your mouth and hands and down your yuuuup, yup, that is a super, super fertile omega that she is smelling, holy SHIT is it ever.

“Jesus Christ,” she groans in frustration, then follows her alpha instincts (and, more easily and importantly, her NOSE) to go track them down. They’re in the middle of New York City; middle of the day or not, not checking on somebody who smells like THAT is, like, the ultimate dick move.

.

OKAY SELF THAT'S ENOUGH LINKS, WE MOVE ON NOW, haha.

I will also say, if you're interested in, like, gender-exploratory AU concepts, apiary genders might be more your thing and more easily accessible for you? It's a MUCH newer thing than omegaverse and really only has a few fics around, some of which are linked in the "inspired by" of that AO3 primer linked above, but the concept is a bit more strongly "hive"-based than a lot of omegaverse is "pack"-based, and also there's no physical differences from baseline. I've got a WIP or two going about apiary myself, actually, but I haven't gotten too far into them yet, alas. The only one I've posted anything from is this one Superbat one.

[onbearfeet]

Kat watches Moon Knight

Okay, so with the encouragement of several people on here and the emotional support of my roommate, I have finally (in February 2024) started watching Moon Knight, a show whose basic concept scares the shit out of me.

Context: I had an adopted older brother with DID. Note that I said "had". That's past tense because life treated him so appallingly poorly that he died (horribly, in prison) when I was 19. Part of that abuse was enabled by pop-culture depictions of DID in the 1980s and 90s that convinced everyone who knew about his condition (including the court system) that he was a walking time bomb.

One of my earliest memories is of my brother as a young adult, playing Super Mario Bros with my toddler self. Another is of him patiently teaching me how to make friends with a large dog. I never met any of his alters, afaik; I was small and cute and safe for him to be himself with, so he probably didn't need them around me. He was a profoundly gentle man when he was allowed, and it hurt like hell to see him turned into a monster in movies and on TV. I've turned off a lot of "psychological thrillers" in sorrow and disgust.

Ironically, I loved Moon Knight comics as a kid in the 90s, BEFORE he was retconned to have DID circa the mid-2000s. Because those comics came out right after my brother died in 2002 and leaned HARD into making people with DID seem like violently unstable monsters (for reference, see the cover of Moon Knight: God and Country), I stopped reading them around 2008, when I couldn't take being poked in the trauma by a comfort character anymore.

But I do love Werewolf By Night, and there's been a lot of good fic mashing Jack up with Moon Knight without dehumanizing anyone, and several people have encouraged me to try the show. So this post will be a place for my thoughts as I try to work my way through with my Essential Editions in one hand and my memories of my brother in the other. I'll add to it as I watch.

If this entertains the Moon Knight fandom or provides useful fic reference, so be it. Just don't be jerks on my post.

Also, anyone who chooses to be shitty about my brother will be eaten by bears. I don't make the rules.

Episode 1

Okay, we open with Steven as our POV character, and he's...convinced he's a sleepwalker. All right, not terrible. Steven is now a bumbling nerd, which is probably an improvement; good luck making a billionaire playboy sympathetic in the 2020s. Jake would be the logical everyman POV from the comics, but I understand from fic that he's got a different role now. I'm confused about the accent, but it's only episode 1, and Steven clearly doesn't yet know who Khonshu is, or that Marc exists, so obviously there's a ways to go here. (Is Marc ... undercover inside Steven? Ugh, this is a trope I have seen and do not like.)

Did Marc kill Steven's fish? Did Khonshu kill Steven's fish? I'm baffled by the fish. Which is a nice break from the larger anxiety. I'm gonna try to worry more about the fish.

The bits with Steven losing time and finding himself in odd situations were distressingly close to the old tropes, but both of those happened to my brother, so I'm not going to bitch about them quite yet. I want to be as fair as I can.

Oh, hey, I recognize Harrow from the comics. What up, dude. How's the cult biz treating you?

The end of the episode, with the jackal thing chasing Steven into the bathroom, came RIGHT up to the line for me. I realized that what I was most afraid of was that the story would assign "good" and "bad" labels to the alters--make Steven the sweet, innocent one and Marc (or maybe Jake, I guess) the monstrous killer. The early flashes of Steven covered in blood didn't really help allay that anxiety. And now Marc is demanding that Steven let him have control in a pretty threatening manner. But so far, it seems like the contrast between Marc and Steven is one of competence--Marc is better at fighting and Steven is better at ... panicking? Unclear. At least Oscar Isaac is playing the protagonist, so his character(s) might remain sympathetic. Nobody has been monsterized quite yet.

I finished the episode with every muscle in my body locked up, waiting for the emotional punch in the face. But I did finish it, and I think I'm gonna try episode two.

[twwings]

so I spent the last few months just marathoning The Magnus Archives??? I was curious and I have a long-ish commute that I need to fill with audio, so I went for it. I was somewhat spoiled by fanart I saw randomly over the years but not entirely spoiled, and I quite enjoyed it. Some thoughts (both positive and negative thoughts below) because I wanted to write them down as I chew over the show. Also my ramblings might be pleasurable to folks who are big fans and enjoy hearing about people listening to their thing for the first time?

Spoilers for all of TMA, but as I haven't listened to The Magnus Protocol yet (I'm sure I will) no spoilers for that.

thoughts in no particular order:

didn't know that my trypophobia could be activated aurally! thanks, season one. it's good to learn about yourself

because I had seen lots of fanarts around, I knew that Jon/Martin would eventually be a canon thing, so I just spent the early episodes making fun of Jon whenever he was mean about Martin. Jon would be like "ugh, Martin, amirite?" and I'd yell at the car speakers like "lol you're gonna MARRY that guy"

sometimes I found the show a little boring or too expositiony (like the episode where Leitner shows up) and it made me think a lot about the conditions of production, like, having fans who were super into the show and red stringing it up clearly made them want to explain things sometimes in a way not necessary to the story - or, at least, it didn't feel necessary to me as a casual listener who was coming in after the fact and not part of the fandom. maybe it felt necessary for other folks, or to the cast and crew at the time.

relatedly, oh god, I did not keep up with all the plotlines and stuff. like it took me a WHILE to realize that the show was not just gonna be standalone/anthology stuff and would have an overarching plot so I did not pay attention early on to repeated names or plots. and because I was listening on my commute I was like "welp, can't google it, gonna let it go" and I did. I'm here to tell you that the magnus archives is still enjoyable even if you don't care that much about what's going on

when I did really start to care was the end of season four/season five. absolutely love that they went there with the end of season four (I thought it'd just be a buffy-style "now we fight a BIGGER big bad at the end of this season" escalation forever, but no, they unleashed hell on earth, baller move, A+, loved it

so I was spoiled that Martin (and Jon? I wasn't sure) died at some point, though I didn't really know where or how. I also saw someone post something like "oh TMA, great show, too bad it ends after five minutes into episode 160" so from that I kind of extrapolated that Martin died in episode 160? so my experience of listening to that one was REALLY on tenterhooks because the first five minutes was Martin going for a nice walk! and then Jon getting taken over by the statement! so while listening to the middle bit of 160 I was convinced that when Martin came back from his walk Jon was gonna kill him (while possessed, obviously) as part of the ritual thing. so really the following 40 episodes of Martin being alive were pretty sweet to me. Every episode after that when Martin was alive I was like, score, bonus, love it, I'm glad Jon didn't stab him three seconds after they got into a relationship

kept listening for a physical description of Jon to match all the fanart and never got one? I guess the fanon of what Jon looks like is just super consistent for some reason?

hated Tim, I can't disguise it, I hated Tim and I was glad when he died and I was glad he didn't come back, sorry Tim fans, live your truth and I will live mine

wish there weren't so many cops on this show, tho the show did seem to recognize that a little in S5 and try to do some things about it

I'm just a huge sucker for every genre experiment in S5. omg I loved it. Terminus gets a coroner's report, The Unknowing gets slam poetry, The Flesh gets a gardening manual?????? mwah. it made me excited for the format of the statements again when they'd gotten stale. so many smart and interesting genre experiments in S5! and I, like Jon, don't even like poetry (just write some prose! I've never identified with a character more), so you know I'm impressed when I'm exclaiming about some poem

seriously! the genre experiments!!! so good

"queer couple navigate their new relationship and also The Hellscapes" = amazing, ty, also ty for doing it twice

somehow I managed not to notice the line about Jon being asexual at first and then I saw some tumblr post about it and I was like, wait what? my brain had gone pretty far down into some non-asexual fanfiction stories before I got that bit of canon and had to record-scratch freeze-frame. anyway I am pleased by the ace rep and hope to go read some non-sexual D/s for them in the future, please tell me if you know some good stuff

please also tell me if you know about fanfictions where Martin consensually feeds Jon his own memories and it's weird and intense

saw a cute fluffy domestic fanart where Jon was blind (ie had blinded himself to escape the eye) and I laughed and laughed that this is a fandom in which the happy fluffy AUs are the ones where the characters have violently blinded themselves. not to say I'm not gonna read the fluffy AUs where they've violently blinded themselves, I am, I'm sure they're lovely, it's just funny

don't think I wasn't thinking about Crowley and Aziraphale in the episode where Jon is like "what if we ran away together" in season four. When Jon is like "What if we ran away together, you and me, we could do it, what if we did" and he absolutely knows that Martin is not gonna say yes and maybe he doesn't want Martin to say yes but he wants to ask him anyway, he wants to try it anyway, because the fantasy of escape, together, is overpowering. anyway don't think I didn't think about Crowley

also laughed and laughed at the like four episodes at the end where Jon is like "maybe I should . . . . . . . . . . . become the Torment Nexus? From the classic scifi novel, Don't Become the Torment Nexus?" and first Martin and then everyone else is like "Jon, don't become the Torment Nexus" and it's really clear that you should not become the Torment Nexus but then later Jon says fuck it and becomes the Torment Nexus

I say it's really clear but the idea that you should strand and isolate and burn out the powers is not a bad one. I did like that the second to last episode was just a debate on morality with no clear resolution. that's a lovely way to send off your characters. tho it didn't matter a lot to the end plot? but still.

Jon "I think I'll just become the Torment Nexus" Simms, istg

THE TORMENT NEXUS

Sue Simms' voice is incredibly hot, Gertrude Robinson is absolutely deadass smokin, love how the Legend of Gertrude just built up over the seasons until by the end she was this like powerful callous avenging angel, no notes, might build a shrine in the woods with pictures of Gertrude in little jars

Gerry and Jurgen were both madly in love with her and she didn't notice or care because she was too busy kicking ass, no notes AT ALL

I really like the bit at the beginning of S5 where Jon is depression-listening to old archives tapes, like it's really effective to do the birthday party flashback just there when the world's just been apocalypsed, but I can't stop thinking about how Jon is listening to that tape and, in retrospect, being like "did Elias/Jonah use his all-powerful knowledge and vision to find out that there was cake in the office?" idk it really feels like Elias's motives in that flashback are like "eat cake" and no one else realizes that he's used his monstrous evil eye power to locate cake. anyway I imagine that Jon had all of these thoughts during his depression

Basira made me laugh ALL THE TIME, the voice acting was so good and she was so over everyone's shit. but at the same time there's this real softness to her at the end of S5 after she's killed Daisy, like she's still tough and grounded in her own perspective but suddenly more compassionate or sympathetic. she has such a good journey over the show

were Basira and Daisy a thing? I could not tell. maybe I should not ask. maybe I am not meant to know. maybe even asking shows how little I know, because their intense and murderous bond exceeds traditional relationship categories

I had a really nice time!!!

I will need to read fanfictions

I will need to watch animatics

I will need to seek out fanarts

the end

[localemofreak]

I’m sorry (not really) but this needs to be said in the MCR fandom- I love every single member, no matter where you come from, but seriously I think this needs to be told.

‼️WARNING: SMALL RANT ABOUT MCR AND THE LONG LIVE THE BLACK PARADE TOUR‼️

I’m sorry but like, I have seen SO MANY people complain and be so ungrateful about this new MCR tour, and it’s genuinely driving me nuts.

(Btw this is copied and pasted from a little rant I made on discord)

Tbh I have seen A LOT of people complaining about the pricing of the tour tickets, and I understand that they were definitely super expensive but like, idk if people realize that literally MCR does not control the prices of tickets, at all- literally the venues do, so they have zero say in the prices- and none of the money goes to them anyway, it goes to the greedy ass venues, and the only money they get is from merch, it’s literally the same with every band- small or big, they get NO money from the tickets, only merch- that’s why bands are always like “please buy merch” bc that’s where they get their money from.. also MCR isn’t a small band anymore like they were back in the day- tickets are obviously gonna be pricey, that’s sadly how the world and economy works.

And I’m aware most of the rage was from the fact of bots buying and reselling tickets for thousands of bucks- is there things they could have done to prevent lots of bots from buying tickets? Most likely, but still- no matter what, it was going to sell out asap, and tickets were gonna be expensive no matter what- MCR cannot control that, it is not their fault. They are a big band, with millions of fans worldwide- they are going to take the easier route obviously with selling tickets, but I’m not denying that you can’t be upset- you have every right to be, but bots buying tickets is NOT the bands fault, so don’t blame them for something they literally can’t control.

And people saying they keep “teasing mcr5 but don’t give any mcr5 shit”, I’m sorry- but they have literally NEVER teased mcr5.. we just have fun as fans and suspect something new and out of the usual MCR related automatically equals MCR5.. but literally the band has never even mentioned, spoke, hinted, teased- ANYTHING about a new album..

And I’m sorry but I dislike these people who are like “if they aren’t gonna do a full tour for ALL fans, they might as well not do a tour at all-“ IM SORRY BUT I WANT TO SEE THEM.. I’m sorry for the fans overseas, but literally- there is people in North America that want to see them, so just because YOU can’t see them.. doesn’t mean the American and Canadian fans shouldn’t get the opportunities to see them. This will be my first ever MCR show I have ever seen and I’ve been a fan for YEARS- and i am so grateful and lucky to be able to see them, but just because they chose to do one section of planet earth (and they will definitely tour more after this, come on- just look at Gerard at WWWY.. is that really the face of a man who never wants to tour again??- MCR is going to do more tours.) doesn’t mean that those people shouldn’t get the opportunity to see them, y’all will still get your clips, y’all will get your photos- even if it was only a European tour, I wouldn’t be complaining about not being able to go, them touring only a small part of one continent in my opinion is better than no tour at all.

All I can really say is, let’s just let it cook- obviously they have things in store for us all, let’s keep the complaining down yk?- because I’m just happy that they are touring once again, no matter where the tour is. I’m just happy we get to see them again.

“They should have given people more time to prepare to buy tickets” Yeah 100% I agree, they should have definitely gave us a warning to save money up, but the people complaining about the tour in its entirety.. like, maybe they want to stay in North America to be close to family??- maybe they have other projects??.. and also maybe it is probably something to bring up the American people after everything went to fucking shit obviously with the election- I think people just need to be glad they are actually doing something instead of complaining and saying they shouldn’t tour at all, because no matter where they tour- fans are not gonna be able to see them, and some fans are, that’s how the world works- and complaining isn’t going to fix anything, in fact- it could cause MCR to either pause or stop the tour altogether in fear of being cancelled or controversy, literally they do not control the prices of tickets or what people do with the tickets- including bots, so don’t go blaming them for something they literally CANT CONTROL.

And honestly, I’m sorry but people shouldn’t be complaining about it being a basically only United States tour- like with everything going on in this country, it was the perfect time- because literally I think a lot of people needed a distraction from all the fucked up shit that’s happening over here.. and MCR is an American band with American members, so it’s obviously effecting them as well- so I really think this is a perfect and good thing for American MCR fans rn.

ALSO people saying “they don’t care” um.. they literally have enough money to retire and live the rest of their lives without doing shit if they wanted too.. they are literally taking time out of THEIR LIVES instead to go tour around and preform for fans, when they could literally just stay at home and raise their kids. THEY DONT HAVE TO DO THIS, this is literally a blessing that they are still touring, because they literally don’t have too, but they CHOOSE TO PERFORM- because they care about the fans, new and old. They want people to be able to experience seeing them live, because they are aware of the impact they make on people’s lives- and tbh, I think they are still VERY humble people compared to their level of fame- they still take pics with fans when asked, sign autographs, all that shit when literally they don’t have too- they still stay down to earth and give fans stuff when they literally don’t have too. So just because they aren’t going to your country, or you can’t get tickets- doesn’t mean nobody else is allowed to have fun and see them. And it’s obvious, they literally have more in store for us all- so people shouldn’t rush to conclusions and be like “oh but they are leaving out the rest of the fans!” No they aren’t.. trust me- they aren’t, they remember you guys, but right now they are doing this- and that’s completely fine, because it’s THEIR BAND, THEIR SONGS, AND THEIR TIME.

So right now, all I can say is- let’s just please stop complaining, because it won’t fix anything.. let’s just be happy that we are actually getting something from them. Please. You are allowed to be upset, but half of the things people are upset about- are completely out of the band’s control.. so don’t go blaming them- when genuinely, don’t they have to do jackshit.

And you guys are 100% allowed to be upset, sad, frustrated, angry- FEEL WHATEVER U WANT TO FEEL.. but literally my chemical romance owes nobody ANYTHING.. they are choosing to do this tour for the fans, when literally they don’t have too. So let’s just be grateful for what we are getting.

(Btw I am not saying that people are ‘too broke’ or hating, or anything like that- I’m just saying, instead of complaining because it literally won’t do anything- I’m just being honest here, we should be happy that MCR is at least still around touring, giving updates, things like that etc- when they literally don’t have too.)

[kaxtwenty]

Star Wars Rebels is one of my favorite shows. I can still remember back when it was just a planned project I'd occasionally hear about either online or in a commercial on Disney XD. I found it a bit funny at the time, because I remembered wondering what they were gonna name the next show after The Clone Wars--because obviously there was gonna be a show after The Clone Wars--and lo and behold I got my answer; Star Wars Rebels (way better than Star Wars Galactic Civil War). I caught the trailers, interviews and the character profile videos online and even managed to catch the shorts during the months leading up to the premiere. Little eleven year old me was optimistic that somehow this show would help fill the Clone Wars shaped hole in my heart.

And boy did it. I remember watching the premiere sitting on the floor, loving every second of it. I especially felt connected to Ezra, who, at that point, was the Star Wars protagonist that I was the closest to in age. Next thing I knew, three and a half years had gone by and the Rebels finale ended up being one of the most emotionally distressing episodes of television that I had ever viewed. At first I didn't like the epilogue funnily enough, but soon came to realize that it was perfect.

This show means a lot to me. It was never the most popular in the fandom, honestly it felt like a good chunk of TCW fans just wish it didn't exist, still bitter about Clone War's cancellation and blaming Rebels for it. The show was chided as childish and silly (this is a Star Wars show we're talking about btw), the animation was cheaper than the later few seasons of Clone Wars, the lower rating meant that it couldn't get away with the same level of violence as Clone Wars and the only things about it that were universally praised were the elements and characters that related to Clone Wars. It felt like Rebels, like many of its own characters, just couldn't escape the shadow of The Clone Wars. But those of us who watched and kept up with it, grew to love its characters, its art, its music and its story--we knew that Rebels was special in its own way. I honestly believe now that Rebels surpasses The Clone Wars in many regards and it's been exceedingly vindicating to see Rebels increase in popularity and become well-respected by the community at large.

Rebels still one of the only pieces of media to really make me engage with fandom at a deeper level, for better or worse. I definitely wouldn't have made this tumblr account last year if it weren't for me rewatching the show with my family and getting back into the swing of things. And I probably wouldn't have found the courage to try and get into art earlier this year if it weren't for that either. So...I owe this show a lot and I got more to say but...I don't think I'll ever find the words that could properly convey what this show means to me.

Happy 10th anniversary Star Wars Rebels, I'm thankful for the decade we've had together. I wish I had more to show my appreciation, but for now I suppose this study/redraw of some concept art I did for art class will do.

Shoutouts to Rebels Recon, y'all were an indelible part of the experience that more of the newer fans need to check out.

Star Wars Rebels Appreciation Week: Day #1 - Favorite Character

Ezra Bridger

[chelledoggo]

Okay, you've been going on this for 5 days now. I think that's enough "milking" this subject. You are so focused on it that you are falling again into the old pitfalls that you swore you would try and avoid. You've done this a lot on Twitter and you're doing the same thing again here and I know you're cross-platforming this stuff for attention at this point for more validation. And while I can understand wanting to seek it? This is the same cycle I saw you do a lot and you kinda need to take it down a few notches because here:

-You post something -You get negative feedback -You have a meltdown, declaring you’ll never post XYZ again because everyone hates you/etc. -You start to spiral into self-loathing -You start to say your worthless, evil, disgusting, etc. -You get anons from people to validate your emotions -You beat yourself for being this way -You start posting again until the next breakdown. You've done this for years now Chelle. Come on. Your seriously telling us you still haven't worked on yourself to handle these situations better? You're just going to keep doing this all then every time something negative happens? Where is the help you said you were getting for these responses and minding yourself more online or in fandom spaces? I'm not gonna beat around the bush and baby you like everyone else here. You're an adult. Already posting online? You're gonna find people who don't like what you draw. That's just it. No matter how wholesome of sfw your hypno art is? Not all people aren't going to be comfortable with it all. Some people like it, some people don't. Maybe for you it's something you like because it shows someone can relax and be vulnerable or whatever with someone? Others might see it as a submissive mind space because it takes a lot of trust to be into that. There are a lot of nuances to subjects be they Kink/fetish/hyperfixations/etc. That's just it. Art is an exploration of all these sorts of elements be you sfw or a nsfw artist. Fandom space or otherwise. In general? Hypno art toes a lot of lines that just it. How people respond to art is on them and you can't control it. There's nothing wrong if you're into whatever at whatever level. That being said, Chelle you need to just move on from this. There's nothing proactive or good if you keep repeating these same downward spirals every time "something" happens. You can feel upset about the "DNI" person or the one "fetish" commenter but in the end? You still got a lot of positive comments about your art and support so I don't see why you continue to keep talking about this subject that you've obviously gotten support for. I'm bringing this up though because as I said this is a cycle with you. IDK how many people followed you from Twitter to Tumblr to come out and say it besides me, but I've watched you enough to recognize this same pattern with you now and a part of me does wonder if you actually plan to get better at handling stuff or is just going to be something you don't grow out of every time "something" happens. I don't want to personally doubt you, but again it's a pattern you've done constantly and I would hope by bringing this up you realize you need to get out of this cycle, move on, and find better ways to be proactive. Again I'm not invalidating your feelings, but dwelling and going into negative spirals is not going to help you in the long run.

.

[stvrpst]

The amusing part about the whole “shipwar” issue was how bummy shippers painted buddie shippers as these nasty individuals who had no business being upset or furious.

Like any other fandom, I acknowledge that there are people in this one who are utterly repulsive and say questionable things, but what bothers me about the bummies, is how they exaggerated the situation. Because, in my opinion, what I saw when the shit was going down was actually very mild.

Like I genuinely have seen worse.

Now, personally, I never liked Tommy and was never neutral about him. I've been here since the beginning of the show, and I've seen that little dick behave like a racist, misogynistic jerk. So, no, I've never cared for him and never will.

Obviously, my natural reaction to other people's displeasure with Tommy's set-up was not to be upset. Because, as I previously stated, he has treated members of the 118 with such contempt. I thought it was very understandable that people disliked him.

But the way the bummies made it seem like not liking Tommy was a forbidden sin, and then couldn’t comprehend why people viewed liking Tommy—again, a racist/misogynistic man—as a bad thing was wild.

Of course people are gonna think you’re a weirdo for liking him, SOLEY because he kissed Buck, and then dismissing his shitty behavior- behavior that is sadly a lot of women and people of colors reality that they have to deal with everyday.

I was not surprised to find out that the vast majority of people justifying Tommy’s behavior were white people, cuz they LOVEEE dismissing shit like this for no reason. As long as it’s not an issue that affects them.

It is weird and bad that you would want Buck to be with a racist and sexist man with no redeeming qualities, just to satisfy your mlm desire. But, nah, let's be furious at the ones who have legitimate reasons to despise that dick.

And then making it seem like we didn't care about bucks bisexuality because we didn't agree with the idea of that dick stick being bucks LI? We didn't want Buck with that dick because we care deeply about his bisexuality and believe he deserves to explore himself with someone other than a huge fat bitch.

Somehow they managed to twist it and accuse us of homophobia.

I have never understood, and I never will, the pressure on others to like Tommy. That, in particular, was the most perplexing thing to me, and it helped me to realize that not everyone can think rationally.

Because there are valid reasons for people to detest a character, how are you going to get upset and start saying stupid shit just because people don’t like Tommy, because he engaged in behaviors that women and people of color experience in real life?

But all they had to say was

(1). “Y’all don’t care about bucks bisexuality”

(2). “Buddies are homophobic”

(3). “Let people ship who they want!”

(4). “Let us enjoy this!”

Over some asshole too.

They actually acted as if others were jumping them for no reason. They genuinely couldn't get how jumping ship because your favorite dude kissed a racist, misogynistic man and not exhibiting ANY concern that he kissed a RACIST, MISOGYNIST MAN just because Buck got to kiss a man is fetishistic as fuck.

They acted like the victims the entire time because people refused to tolerate it. So they altered their argument to "we jumped ship because of buddies behavior," and to this day I'm still trying to figure out what behavior they claimed was so terrible other than the fact that people were calling all their asses for being so fucking odd.

They were apart of the buddie shipper fandom weeks ago. They were apart of the group that “ran Oliver off twitter.” They were apart of the group that “ran the women off the show.” Crazy how when they were apart of the fandom, they didn’t speak up about the shit they’re not pulling out of their asses.

But now that they’ve jumped ship, oh it’s a big issue now.

And it’s so funny because they constantly tell on themselves all the time😭 the jokes be writing themselves.

“I didn’t jump ship because Buck kissed a man, I jumped because he was finally happy.” But when I go on your tumblr, Bree, to go see some of the support you showed when Buck was with Taylor since he was happy then too, I don’t see it? Why is that? So you just pick and choose when bucks happy right? As long as it fits your narrative right?

“Buck and Eddie are not co parents” but when I scroll down 5 months ago, everybody and their moms was calling Chris Bucks son and Buck a dad/second father figure.

“Eddies not a good dad/person” but you have Buckleydiaz as your username?

“We didn’t like Bucks other LI because they had no chemistry or build” but when Tommy pulled up out of ass crack with zero chemistry or build up, y’all still folded.

“Eddies a bad friend!” Yet, when I scrolled down your profile, all your asses were buddie shippers regardless.

“We didn’t like Taylor because she was bad.” Yet, tommy has treated members of the 118 like shit just like Taylor, in fact, maybe even worse. They both have treated members on the 118 horribly, interesting how they’re only excusing one of them tho. I wonder why.

They’re a bunch of losers I swear, and the vast majority of them are a bunch of old hags beefing with minors/young adults online over a damn fictional ship. Shits embarrassing. (No offense to all the good older people in the fandom, ily<3)

That weirdo Bree literally has kids and she’s out here triflin over a ship and going at it with literal teenagers. Get your shit together and maybe start putting food on your kids table because I know they’re hungry. you’re a whole grown ass messing with teens/young adults whose frontal lobes aren’t even fully developed while your kids are starving at home.

They would be so much more bearable if they literally didn’t try to dismantle every single dynamic between Buck and Eddie every single day.

And for no reason at all too. They want bucktommy endgame because they’re a bunch of fetishistic weirdos, and we want buddie for Actual LOGICAL reasons that makes sense and has substance.

Not only that, let’s not forget how

(1.) when Ryan Guzman did that podcast, talking about is mental health and past suicidal thoughts, a bunch of them were in the comments saying they wished he would’ve went through with killing himself.

You don’t have to be a fan of Ryan, and it’s 100% understandable if you’re not, but to fucking wish death upon a real living fucking person is disgusting, and suicide at that.

(2.) they decided to justify Tommy’s behavior by calling us ableist and claiming he’s autistic. I cannot even put into words how weird and nasty that is. Like you actually have to be dumb as fuck to go that low and justify an assholes obvious disinterest and behavior and double it down to “autism.”

Even if he was autistic—which he’s not—that doesn’t justify anything? You can be autistic and still be racist and misogynistic. That’s the shit y’all love to pull. The first time, they said Tommy’s behavior was justified because he was a closeted gay. When they realized people weren’t falling for that shit, they tried to switch it over and call us ableist and claim he was autistic.

It’s actually funny cuz it’s the complete opposite, cuz to associate shitty behavior to be autistic is so unbelievably ignorant.

(3.) They decided to contact and invade Tim’s privacy multiple times to the point Tim had to make it known that he only responds to not be rude.

(4.) They started bullying Oliver stark for not posting about bucktommy to the point that Oliver ended up allegedly blocking someone who asked why he wasn’t talking about it. (Which proves they were the mfs who ran Oliver off twitter)

(5.) They started to actually ship Lou and Oliver, two real life people.

(6.) They told people not to participate or donate to a charity event that was helping the people in Gaza just because one the mods in the server didn’t like bucktommy.

(7.) They thought it was okay to speak on Ryan and his characters identity claiming he was white and doubling him down to just that, while trying to erase his Mexican identity saying he wasn’t Mexican(he is.)

(8.) They started harassing journalists because they only mainly talked about buddie when they have stated multiple times that they’re buddie shippers, always have been even before tommy showed up and Oliver and Ryan have no issues discussing buddie anyways.

(9.) Completely dismissed the idea of having an openly queer MEXICAN character for other Latino/hispanic people to relate to because it would get in the way of their ship.

(10.) Called fans/stans of Eddie Diaz—a main Mexican character— “beanstalks.”

I’m still so shocked about this one because it was so unbelievably racist, and the person who came up with it is disgusting.

I’m sorry to any Mexican fans who had to witness that.

(If you’re confused, just to clarify, there is a slur used against Mexicans that starts with bean and ends with an er. Since Eddie is Mexican, they thought it would be funny to give Eddie fans an extremely racist under-toned nickname, hence “beanstalks” :/ )

(11.) They love to weaponize Ryan’s past actions as a way to deflect from the fact that Lous ass is just as fucking bad, but in reality don’t actually give a shit about what Ryan did or said and are only bringing it up to use Ryan’s past shitty behavior to deflect Lous shitty ass. Which is literally insane and stupid.

The list goes on. Yet buddie shippers are the bad ones, okay.

[skeren]

So like! I was tagging a cute post which I will state for the record has nothing to do with anything here and promptly leaped off the deep end all about my personal interpretation of ABO in the SVSSS universe. I quickly (after about ten long explainy tags) realized that these had nothing to do with the post at hand, so here I am, sharing with all of you instead.

Bonus! This, in many ways, fits very well with my whole Liu Mingyan is Liu Qingge's nascent soul and Ning Yingying is Yue Qingyuan's whole dealio that I made a post about a couple weeks ago. I will now explain.

First up, a little vocabulary for those who haven't gone researching the intricacies of ABO terminology in other languages. I'm gonna say though, I like the meanings of the ABO terms in Chinese better okay? So, quicklike, this is what me and my friend found when we went looking:

乾元 qianyuan = alpha 中庸 zhongyong = beta 坤泽 kunze = omega

I also linked the literal translations of the characters used for them for the curious. I do not, in fact, speak Chinese, before anyone comes for me. But back to the matter at hand now that everyone's on the same page! Sort of!

I already had my own ABO system but the version I went 'hey universe feel free to use this' is more of a general use case that I based initially on Marvel. My version for SVSSS has some similarities but I threw down some changes because, well, Shen Jiu.

I will explain. Basically, I do a crazy amount of RP in this fandom. I don't actually post much fic or anything for it, but I do a lot of stuff okay? It means me and my bestie have experimented. We've settled on some baseline stuff. One, PIDW is (most often) actually ABO from the get go because Airplane thought it was hilarious to get one over on his audience, since everyone has dicks. Everyone. All the genders have dicks. Male and female in this version of things only really exists for animals or the odd really unusual kind of demon.

Airplane just has a lot of really busty people with dicks, because while everyone has dicks, they also have the other half of that too. Everyone also has a vagina. See? Easy for him to play his readers if he just never mentions the dicks.

Anyway, Shen Jiu. In this nebulous situation we have a lot of overly elaborate backstory that's vaguely horrifying for Shen Jiu, because we love him and yadda yadda, things. Basically, he's a qianyuan who is 100% convinced he's a kunze because he had a baby (all those flowers that let ANYONE have babies still exist) but said baby very quickly died, in part because he really really didn't have any of the properly working infrastructure for that to actually produce a healthy child. The other half being that just because he was pregnant didn't mean he was treated any better. Thanks for nothing Qiu Jianluo, you are an awful awful person.

What did Qiu Jianluo do in this situation? Basically, our ABO folks don't actually get labeled with a gender officially until puberty. They can't. They have a facsimile of everything they need to be any of the three genders, after all, you can't just tell by looking! You have to wait!

Side note: People often do not wait and then get mad when their perfect son turns out to be a kunze, or their perfect daughter turns out to be a qianyuan. How dare you not conform to what I need for an heir/political marriage/whatever the heck other social plans some idiot might have wanted!! Also note, because of things like this there's a whole system in place for marrying off your foot bound qianyuan to a battle trained kunze to maintain an heirship in the intended line and stuff. It's awful but it is what it is.

Side to the side note: Three person relationships are considered the ideal, one of each sex, but harems still exist, obviously. It's PIDW.

Back to the point though! Qiu Jianluo, being unwilling to wait and risk -gasp- Shen Jiu possibly being a qianyuan, got his hands on some plants that would force a presentation. Namely, he wanted to put a baby in that and did his best to make Shen Jiu's body conform. It only worked... kinda. He sure looked more girly and things did their best.

Trauma all around.

But years later, this whole situation means that Shen Qingqiu is convinced his ruts (utterly debilitating, leaves him laid out and utterly completely miserable for days in horrible pain which is not normal for anyone) are heats. He is always jealous of kunze whose heats come and go just being overheated and sweaty, honestly. He always thinks he's going to die. Due to Reasons, in verses like this he often spends these with Shang Qinghua (who by our default is actually basically always Airplane with wildly divergent System/memory issues) who he at least trusts not to try anything. Up until he's mad at him for never trying anything. You're a healthy zhongyong! Disrespect him!

Spoiler: Shang Qinghua very rarely in these verses ever disrespects him without outside intervention. Does this cause problems with Mobei-jun?! No, not really, since to him Shen Qingqiu is a perfectly normal (if extreme) qianyuan for his zhongyong and he's a healthy kunze. That seems very balanced and fortuitous to him. (He's less pleased when some other kunze swoops in and steals march on him though.)

So, that's the Shen Jiu side. Which let me tell you, is hilarious when Shen Yuan comes in to take over and be Shen Qingqiu because that guy doesn't even notice he's got a vagina for... a while, typically. And once he does he's just 'huh, this explains so much' and just assumes what he's got in his pants is the weird stuff. However, this also makes Binghe's life both easier and harder at least because Shen Yuan's forever misogyny at least works with him for once. Kinda. Vaguely. In an awkwardly 'I want to shake Shizun' kind of way.

Which brings me to Binghe! Oh Binghe, you early bloomer you. We make him a kunze. Because he's a half demon kunze, however, his day to day bodily presentation is more masculine. Demons have that whole 'the girls are bigger than the boys' thing going on like birds do. They guard the home territory while the qianyuan go out and fight things. Kunze are supposed to be bigger and have a better body for carrying babies after all. Gonna fight real good. Also, big dicks to subdue a rowdy qianyuan putting up a fuss about this or that so that the kunze in question can get their way? Perfectly sensible.

Anyway, little Bunhe starts having heats at twelve, and due to him being ten when his mom died, did not actually get a proper explanation on how he can tell what the heck is going on. Ning Yingying is the one who finds him and explains, and then proceeds to keep it a secret because she only ended up on this peak at all because Shizun's last kunze student was sent off to Qian Cao by the sect leader. No, she has no idea why. She was a Smol.

Everyone knows about it though. Shizun was very upset and it's how he got Ning Yingying in trade, after all. Which relates back to the Yue Qingyuan Nascent Soul thing because he put her on his Xiao Jiu's peak at the first opportunity and look! He kept her! (Nevermind how possessive this man is. He'd keep anything and fight for it too whether he liked it or not.)

Anyway, so Ning Yingying, liking Binghe very much, kept this a secret. Bunhe didn't realize the woodshed had scent suppressors from his Shizun's time there (generational trauma for everyone) but he did know that it sure the heck felt safer than trying and failing to sleep in either of the dorms.

Though, it got increasingly rankling when years later Ning Yingying started coming around on his heat days to try to get him to let her in. What with her being a qianyuan and all. He was Not Amused. He wanted to marry Shizun and he didn't care if it made him super gay! (It would not but it's not like he had any reason to know that).

Anyway, years later, Sha Hualing does her thing! Sha Hualing is very quintessentially a demon qianyuan! Pretty, flashy, light on her feet, smaller and faster than a kunze would be! She wants very much to impress all the pretty kunzes! She's got the spirit but doesn't realize most of the people she thinks are kunze are human qianyuan. She's a demon used to demons, she'll figure it out eventually.

Side note about that: A lot of the reasons demons seem to kidnap men so often is because they think they're kunze. there is a lot of confusion and rancor on both sides about all of this. Also, zhongyong are the most highly prized among demons as they don't really have many. That's mostly a human thing.

Of course, the other 'qianyuan' she fights is Liu Mingyan! Who is... actually a kunze, so sorry, you'll figure that out eventually too, dear sweet confused demon girl. All in all, a very big day for a young demon Saintess.

It should be noted that due to how gender and sex works in this situation, and the inability to tell the sex of a child who might go to Xian Shu, people there are less 'all kunze' so much as 'all feminine.' You will commit to the lifestyle or you don't get to live on that peak! Be pretty, be fabulous, be graceful, and above all, learn the feminine arts! Have issues growing a nice bosom? We'll teach you how to dress to hide that and fill it out.

Anyway.

Circling around and around again to that Nascent soul thing. Thought I forgot didn't you? Liu Mingyan is a kunze. So, well, doesn't it just track that by that logic so is Liu Qingge? Which means that he's a pretty slender person who mostly bounces off to the wilderness so that everyone continues to assume he's a qianyuan and doesn't try to stick him in a box and guard him like they keep trying to do to Shen Qingqiu. Noooo thank you very much. He'll never have a heat where any of you people will hear about it, that's for damn sure.

But, you know, all in all, just some thoughts, nothing detailed, about my take on SVSSS ABO. Questions, comments, additions? I'm curious.

[leagueofidiots]

Why I think BNHA 427 was a bunch of bullshit

I am going to leave my personal opinions on characters out of this because that's a whole seperate issue, I want to focus on how this chapter pissed me off from a story standpoint

I think Horikoshi has seriously lost track of what the original point of this story was supposed to be. In general, I have found that the ending (up until now at least, I'm gonna hang in there) has gone completely against the themes originally present in the rest of the story, honestly since All for One's reveal that he orchestrated Tomura's birth.

My Hero Academia has always been about how there is no real black and white, good or evil, just a whole lot of grey area. The heroes are not all good people, and the system itself is corrupt. Most of the villains have been put in situations where they were nearly forced into the lives they lead, even though they're still terrorists. From the get-go, this story was set up to be about A.) fixing hero society, and B.) saving the villains while not dismissing the fact that they're literal terrorists.

For one, I think it is unbelievably fucking stupid that Tomura has been established to have done nothing wrong at this point, that he apparently has never made a decision in his life and is free of all guilt. I won't bother with how stupid it is as a character thing for him, his family, and All for One, because at the end of the day it is a shounen. Whatever. But all along, the theme of the entire league is that they did have a choice at the end of the day. Dabi's life was a living hell, but he still chose to join the LoV. Toga was discriminated against for her quirk, but she still chose to become a serial killer. Twice had the shittiest luck in the world and no support system, but he still formed a self-made gang. Spinner is a victim of quirkism, but he chose to follow in Stain's, and later Tomura's footsteps. While Tomura has always been raised in All for One's shadow, let's be honest. Even after All for One was arrested, and after he realized he had been groomed, he did far worse things than he did under All for One's wing. Part of this is obviously the fact that he was raised to be like All for One, but the level of sadism and power-hungriness he shows is something extremely brushed off by the fandom. The villains are sympathetic, yes, but at the end of the day they are still bad people. Removing Tomura's agency takes away from the whole common thread set up in the MLA arc, that all it takes is one bad day to make a villain. It was obviously just so Horikoshi could take the lazy route in his redemption.

To follow this, Tomura, from a story standpoint, should not be dead. Especially as the main villain, and the main one basically the entire cast was fighting to save. He was met with apologies and understanding, so there is at least a level of closure there (more on that later), but it defeats the whole point of the story if Tomura is dead. Horikoshi can obviously do whatever he wants with his own story, but the whole plot seemed to be setting up that the main three villains would live, be held accountable, and considered "saved" when they could live on with at least some sort of happiness and dignity. Tomura will not be held accountable in any tangible way, nor will he get to be at peace. It's extremely unfulfilling from a narrative standpoint.

The next thing I've been seeing a lot of is an absolutely baffling amount of Izuku hate. I have seen people (even canon now!!!) call him a murderer. I have even seen people go so far as to accuse him of mind-raping Tomura. The fandom is one thing, but the fact that Horikoshi seems to want us to agree with this statement, is actually fucking insane. I think that's what really made this chapter especially shitty for me. And I say this as a Spinner fan! It's about the way it's written. From Spinner's perspective, obviously he is going to be on Tomura's side. The narrative seems to want us to be on Tomura's side too, and honestly, I am not. Izuku went above and beyond to not only see Tomura's side of things, but to reach out and acknowledge his pain. Tomura got the only semi-satisfying ending (so far) out of any of the villains, except Overhaul for some reason. Dabi's chapter last week was absolutely sickening as an ending to his story. Now Spinner's arc has been completely written off in favor of serving Tomura (for the billionth time). Toga hasn't even been seen since her fight. Jin's death was pointless. Sako's sacrifice was pointless. Kurogiri's death was the most infuriating shit I have ever had to read. Tomura got acknowledgement from the heroes and the villains, he got apologies from several people, he got to watch All for One die not once but twice, and he got to go out on his own terms. The fact that anyone faults Izuku for A.) fighting a terrorist who was killing dozens of people at a time, B.) not treating him like an innocent little baby, and C.) not being able to help a man who didn't want help is beyond me. Again, the fact that this chapter seems to want us to agree with Spinner about even the people on TV is just honestly unrealistic. He was a terrorist. Obviously people won't care that much that he was traumatized.

BNHA 427 was the latest chapter in a long string of characters being completely ignored for the sake of Tomura's development. Every fight was cut shorter than it could have been all so we could see more of him mindlessly killing characters who don't even have names, and beating the shit out of Deku. A certain level of this is understandable, he is again the main villain, but some of it is just honestly dismissive of other characters.

I'll stick to Spinner since he's the only one relevant to this chapter, but I think his is perhaps the worst case aside from Kurogiri's. Since the MLA arc, the fandom and canon itself have brushed off Spinner as an extension of Tomura, a lense to show compassion towards him and nothing else. With very little development, we are suddenly supposed to believe that he completely abandoned his/Stain's ideals in favor of the complete opposite. Their entire relationship is 100% one-sided until flashbacks during the final war arc about nothing but League of Legends. Tomura claims he fights for Spinner by saying things we have never heard Spinner even mention, nonetheless support (destroying Mt. Fuji, world destruction in general). He is used as a tool in the final war arc to the point where he can barely form sentences, his points about quirkism are ignored, he can't process any sympathy shown to him, and he is immediately written off as soon as he gets to Kurogiri (another character used as a prop for Tomura's development). Even now, all he talks about is Tomura, all that is brought up to him is Tomura. Nothing about the rest of the league, next to nothing about his own physical condition, nothing acknowledging his trauma or the changes that need to be made to society. Spinner's whole character arc is about being empty, about finding himself by acting as someone he admires. His whole character conflict is that he has no identity of his own. So his arc is wrapped up by making everything about him relevant to Tomura? He's going to spend years writing a book about Tomura??? And nothing else for him?????

I don't know what else to say. The story has been going downhill for a while, it's just especially rubbing me the wrong way recently. I'm running out of faith that the next three chapters will be any good, but it's too late to quit now ig

[lover-of-mine]

https://www.tumblr.com/lemotmo/755647949462274048/i-think-parts-of-that-fandom-are-kind-of-in-a

So this is a post from a blog that’s part of the BT fandom but with the twist (how sad this is considered a twist these days 😭) that the blog owner the anon popped the post from understands Tommy’s role as a plot device for Buddie and as such never allowed Lou’s cameos to influence their view of things which has obviously ruffled some of the more dedicated bt shippers feathers. But it’s just such a well balanced and logically thought out response.

And then this was a follow up they had to that lovely think piece above

https://www.tumblr.com/lemotmo/755657295451521024/i-would-like-to-thank-the-official-911

Which again, well thought out and logical. And extremely true of the situation.

Clickable link to the posts here and here.

Those posts are very well written. I think the hype surrounding the excitement that Buck is bi has died down and numbers are stopping being inflated because the people who were on the fence seem to be back leaning towards buddie. Which was bound to happen anyway, buddie is the relationship that's being set up for a while and they didn't really try with Tommy, so it's hard to keep going to war for him if you stop to think about it, settling for rep for the sake of rep with buddie is right there and ready is hard to justify when they keep making T look worse. I know the scene technically doesn't count as canon, but it is another way to show they are writing T in a very dismissive way, we all know that now having Hen's approval is a bad sign. I think Lou was told to stop the cameos, but I go back and forth on whether I think it was his own team telling him to shut it once things started to get out of control or if it was the 911 team once they realized he had created an actual problem to their marketing because he was literally selling a story that doesn't align with what the show is doing. Things really got out of control because it all led to the way a portion of the fandom is treating Oliver because he's not feeding into what they want. Like the op said, obviously, if it comes down to it Oliver and Ryan get a say, Lou is not even invited to the conversation. Lou was very clearly brought in to make one half of buddie queer so that buddie could get with each other. It has always been about Buck's identity not the relationship, so whatever makes Oliver more comfortable is what goes. Enjoying the relationship for what it is is fine. But the level things reached is not it. It got to a point where they're ignoring Buck and Buck is the only thing that matters in that ship, he's the one the general audience loves, he's the one the creators care about. And the fact that they got fed this narrative by Lou really pushed Buck to the background. This is not what anyone wants. And we're finally seeing that in action, because we're organically making enough noise to drown them out, and we will continue to show the production that we are still in it waiting for buddie and that's what was always gonna happen because we've been in it for years and no one showed me a reason to believe Buck and Eddie aren't meant to be. On the contrary, they made a season that made it seem they are going canon eventually.

[anarchictemptation]

So, I've had a bit of an emotional journey when it came down to getting these trolls uploaded and, uh.I'm sort of in a venty mode, so I'm doing a read more cut just so I don't bother people (TW for Drug Abuse and Suicidal Thoughts mentioned)

It became less of "lol, look at all these trolls I've had over the years, let's sell them" to a bit of a crippling "I did this to cope with what was happening to me and this is the financial repercussions of that"

When I joined the Homestuck fandom, I was 16. A long ago ex-friend had gotten me into it because he was an obsessive fan and I REALLY liked astrology at the time, so obviously what was gonna stop me from getting into this silly little webcomic? (Nepeta my BELOVED! Leo's for life!!!)

I've never really shared this with anyone outside of my CLOSEST of close friends, but I was in a really nasty situation. My parents were on drugs, deeply into it at the time of me joining Homestuck, and were basically nonexistent at that point of my life. They'd disappear for days at a time with no sign of them coming back anytime soon, so, while looking after my little brother, I'd get lost in this fandom and obtaining fantrolls was my own sick little kick

I wasn't creative at the time to really make my own, I'd just use sprite bases and all my own guys were basic as hell, but, when I found out troll adopts were a thing, I was OBSESSED

Some oldies might remember me being EVERYWHERE back in the day on DA under the unusualKitten alias. I was on every single page I could find trying to get at least ONE fantroll that someone had posted newly in the groups. It was amazing! I could drown myself in these guys I was getting and bury myself in art of them so that I could avoid the world that I was stuck in

Honestly, without that "distraction", I probably would've killed myself years ago

It was all I had in a shit world, it even led me making a short-time friend in my final year of high school, but it was fun

And then I grew up

Some things happened that involved me being the fucking savior of my family by dragging them out of that hell with my own two broken hands only for the sake of my brother. My mom got clean, my dad died because he couldn't get clean, I had been working a job in which case they'd have stolen my money almost every time I got it (like THAT was anything new), and we were just sort of stuck in limbo for a long time after that

I was still a part of Homestuck, but I wasn't A part of it anymore, if that makes any sense. Most I done was win a spot in the For Fans By Fans design contest with my Heir's Tears submission (Only 1 or 2 people bought the shirt and, two those people, I FUCKING LOVE YOUUUU, y'all are so cool), but I was pretty much dead in the water

Until I reconnected with my bestest friend

She helped me to regain the love again, as we'd rp a lot with all our different versions of canon characters bc we're maniacs (Which will ALL be featured in MSCOTT once I get back on the ball for writing it!)

And, as I sit here today, looking back on everything that happened 11 years ago, I've realized that things are a lot different now. I'm no longer the heavily traumatized kid I was back then, I have a life outside of the fantrolls I've hoarded over the years

And, yeah, it hurts seeing a lot of these guys go, it feels like a bit of myself is leaving with them, but that's not a part of my life anymore, that was a part of HER life

Don't get me wrong, I STILL love fantrolls and still have a handful of my own that I'll fight ANYONE over, but. I think it's time to let go of a past that I don't really want to be haunted by anymore

(But I hope this explains why I generate a LOT of fantrolls and then suddenly they're being given up as soon as something's done with them, hha, old habits die hard)

Thanks for readingggg, time to go cry a bittt!

[lamialamia]

MOTA ep 8 rewatch thought

Trying to fight off jet lag by catching up to my fandom duty.

Anyway here are my thoughts on this episode:

I'm going to say sth controversial here. But... this episode is kinda boring

Besides the small action sequence of the B51, I find the rest of it quite forgettable.

It's the same ol' problem of MOTA: building up to some trouble and then do not follow up on it. Macon points out how the aircraft doesn't have enough gas for the mission. We sees one of the planes struggle to take off its tanks, presumably conserving the fuel, but that's it. The problem is solve. And then the planes goes down so the problem of fuel doesn't matter anyway.

The first half of the episode is the building up to D-Day from Crosby's perspective. Upon rewatch, this part becomes so tedious because I already know he's gonna miss out on it. And then I realize that Sandra's part (where she is spying around on the tram and then on the street and then delivers some intel etc) is exactly the same. That part never get an adequate climatic turning point at all either! So it's a dual story lines of things that don't pay off!

Well at least the Buckys were scissoring for the whole damn stalag to see.

Bucky is doing so badly. I do love his "genuine" smile when he's say he's fine tho. Man is doing so well everyone beside the Germans with the guns and barking dogs stay the hell away from him, sending out his boy best friend to handle him, and even then. Like at this point Bucky is outright saying he would rather die in so many words.

I feel like, in a way, MOTA is afraid of conflicts. Of confrontations and tackling the difficult topics that arise. They want to have the Tuskegee Airmen but afraid to talk about the racial tension between the american white pilots and the black pilots when that should be the real source of conflict. They just have the nazis interrogator conveniently bear the brunt of the tension because obviously, we have the perfect antagonists to shoulder this problem.

When Crosby is like: "What if it not the same?" 😩😒

My brother. You did some questionable stuff and what the show give you is a scene or two of asking some sort of hard questions and then immediately instead of having to face it yourself, you get a verbal hug from your best friend who tells you: war sucks, you gotta to do what you gotta to do. And boom, brother, things are absolved and finished hoo ray! we never have to go into the "why" to your question, why do you think it wouldn't be the same anymore. Just use the war in general to be an umbrella answer to everything.

So yeah :|

[victoriansnakearts]

So was a pretty decent episode, but I guess cause it wasn't focusing on the...'romance' part. I figured though this was just gonna be like Truth Seekers honestly....S2 seems to be doing everything to rewrite S1, despite that's not how a show should be written. I get it's one thing to maybe tweak a few things, but THIS? Seems a bit much considering you can chuck S1 out the window.

I will say though anyway, finally some Millie content even if it was....just showing her as she always was and not feeling insecure or what have you. Which that's fine, give me more action Millie, that's how she's always been and I like that for her character! Not to say she can't have anything else to her mind you, I just didn't feel what they were going for in Unhappy Campers.

But also with regards to that flashback. Maybe I'm the minority on this? But thanks to that flashback and Blitz n Millie's relationship within the rest of the show....

I ship them? Not the current iterations mind you, I realize obviously that Millie n Moxxie are married, I do like them as a couple.

But flashback Mercenary Blitz and flashback Mercenary Millie? I could jive with them being in a relationship. Alternate Universe, why not right? Comics do it all the time! Plus honestly, this fandom seems to pair Moxxie with EVERYONE in the show already.

Frankly the flashback really seemed to push them together, which I get it's more like being a best friends thing and I really understand that.

But part of my brain could see them as a pretty awesome, asskicking AU couple.

Didn't mean to go on a rant, my mind is a buzz with this AU coupling.

I’m glad we got Millie content, that’s probably the highlight of this episode and it goes to show that helluva boss can still be fun when it doesn’t have melodramatic owl content.

Yeah a good majority of season two either retreads season one or just wants to retcon it and I can’t understand why (season one is flawed but it’s still a fun watch why are they changing everything??? I just want a silly show about imps killing not a soap opera 😭)

Also blitz x Millie does sound like a fun AU ship! I never really shipped Millie with anyone besides moxie since she was kinda a nothing character but this episode does make me see the appeal!

[a-canceled-stamp]

20 Questions for Writers

Thank you @motleyfam, @crows-murder and @selkienight60 for the tags! ^.^

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

22

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

157,488

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly DC, but Star Wars, Marvel, Malevolent (Podcast), Good Omens, and MHA make appearances too.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Long Way Down (To The Bottom Of The River)

Then Came the Morning

A Leap of Faith

Talk To Me

There Are Softer Oak Trees

5. Do you respond to comments?

I used to respond to every comment fairly quickly but recently I just haven't had the time :(( I appreciate every single comment though, they bring me such joy 🥹

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That would be cardboard box - the first (sort of) hurt no comfort I've written >:D

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably There Are Softer Oak Trees :)))

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not yet

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do!!!! Or...I'm giving it a shot at least. Not for DC, but for Malevolent. Might post something real soon :3

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nope!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I didn't even know this was a thing before today. That being said, I don't think so??

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I would love to collab sometime :3

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I cannot pick one because I don't really have A favorite. But Stucky (Marvel), DinLuke (Star Wars), Merthur (Merlin), SuperBat (DC), TimKon (DC) and Science Girlfriends (Orphan Black) are all ships I enjoy.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

Dying Is Easy, Living Is Harder. I have many ideas for it but unfortunately, I'm not obsessed enough about the characters to fulfill them lmao. Also An Unexpected Visit bc similar to the previous one I have a lot of ideas, but I just don't think I am talented enough to actually write those ideas.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've rewritten this answer 10 times, but no version felt right. At one point, I decided I was just gonna skip it. BUT NO. I'm gonna stop worrying about other peepz opinions and just say what I actually believe. And here it is.

I know how to make my writing more immersive with various details like sounds, smells, sensations etc. (and I LOVE doing this. The only issue is I sometimes do it either too much or too little ahdjkhsd)

I am VERY nitpicky. This can seem more like a flaw (and it is), but it has also helped me grow and understand what I like and dislike about my writing. It also means I spend a lot of time editing which makes posting SO much more satisfying (tho sometimes I gotta get those shorter fics out there for the instant serotonin boost lol)

I'm not a huge fan of characters who say/do things that don't make sense considering the genre/plot. Spending more time on this is challenging since I both dislike and SUCK at writing dialogue (why is English so HARD??), but it is also a lot of fun bc I think I am getting better at it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Well, that part about being nitpicky is obviously a lie bc I didn't realize question 17 was gone ahdjshdkj. But I was the one who noticed it first among my friends so...maybe? Nope lol

English grammar. I have to double check every time I write a message to online friends to make sure what I've written is actually a sentence that makes sense.The thing is - I think I'm pretty good, but I actually suck. One time, I wrote mold wine instead of mulled wine in a fic. Never living that down. This is I think why it takes me so long to edit lmao.

Being too harsh on myself and not allowing myself to feel proud about my accomplishments/comparing my writing to other people. Yes, compared to other fantastic writers I suck, and it will always be like that. It's something I'm still struggling to accept, but I'm getting there!

Writing quickly. Like shutting off my brain and just writing doesn't work for me. I have to be there and edit every single sentence that I don't like, and I think this is why it takes so long for me to finish the first draft. Def gotta work on this!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Hmm. Instinctively, I think it makes more sense to write something like, "Person A said something in a language I didn't understand" than to write in that language. It's more fun that way. And if both the pov character and I don't understand what Person A saying it makes me sympathize with the pov character more.

That being said, if I ever see someone writing in Swedish in a fic, I will be immensely happy (and horrified)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Rise of the Guardians on ffn. The fic is still there and is still hot garbage, but I did have a lot of fun writing it.

20. Favourite fic you've written?

I know what my LEAST favorite one is hjkahdsjk. Nah but for real, I love all my fics for very specific reasons. Like I have a sort of emotional connection with all of them depending on where I was in life, how I was feeling emotionally at the time, etc.

My top 3 would probably be Long Way Down (To The Bottom Of The River) bc it was the first fic I put a lot of thought and effort into, There Are Softer Oak Trees bc it makes me soft and fuzzy when I think about it, and cardboard box bc the comments made me fkn cackle.

It feels impossible to tag people who haven't been tagged yet but imma go with @miles2g0, @lurkinglurkerwholurks, @they-reap-what-we-sow, @liverobinreaction, and @bonesbuckleup. No pressure ofc!