#but they seem very opinionated so something ELSE similar will probably make me dislike them again

[chemicalarospec]

I follow someone -> they post something about an unimportant topic that I disagree with -> I unfollow -> a few months later I forget why I unfollowed them -> repeat

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! This is a sort of weird question, but I’m writing a sci fi /fantasy book with two disabled main characters:

1. Cove is twelve years old and has something along the lines of Williams syndrome (possibly that, possibly Down syndrome—still deciding). He’s mildly intellectually disabled and has low muscle tone + an unspecified heart problem (which is stable but he still gets regular checkups for it). His power is turning into a giant at will. He might have PTSD for reasons that are potentially triggering, so I won’t go into details ^^’ He really likes the ocean and spicy food, and hates people staring at him or judging him

2. Lucas is sixteen and uses a wheelchair full time due to cerebral palsy. His hands tend to shake a lot too. His power is turning into a Sphynx cat. He’s a trans guy. Idk what he would like or dislike yet tbh, but I picture him dressing in black clothes a lot

My question is this—what are some ways these characters’ powers could like interact with their disabilities? So far I have that overusing his giant power could possibly put strain on Cove’s heart. and if Lucas wants to move around independently in his cat form, he’d probably need one of those animal wheelchairs for his back legs?

Also— is there anything else I need to consider while I write this story?

I’m not trying to get you to do all the brainstorming for me btw! I hope it doesn’t seem like that ^^’ I’m just looking for other people’s thoughts and input-

Hey!

I think that the powers you gave them are very cool. Often with disabled superpowered characters there's the trope of always having the ability be fundamentally connected with their disability. Someone shapeshifting into a cat is awesome.

The concept of Cove's transformation putting pressure on his heart is very realistic (if you can say that about shapeshifting). Both Down and Williams Syndrome come with cardiac problems, so you won't need to change that if you decide to switch the exact disability. I'm thinking that maybe he could try to slowly turn giant, rather than instantaneously? I imagine that turning back to being normal-sized could also cause some issues. I'm unsure if that's a part of your story, but I think that having his family worry about him transforming because of his heart would be realistic as well. Wouldn't really classify it as infantilization because he's twelve, and I know that a lot of parents of children with DS are extremely cautious around the cardiovascular problems (not sure about Williams Syndrome here, but I think it would make sense as well). You mentioned PTSD, and while I don't see anything wrong here from what you said, I would just urge you to not have some weird "PTSD flashback = turns giant and extremely violent" (violent being the key word here) kind of scene. (If you have PTSD yourself then feel free to do whatever you want of course). But I think that him becoming bigger when he feels threatened as a defense mechanism of sorts would make sense.

For Lucas, I think that the idea of shapeshifting from a wheelchair user to a wheelchair using cat goes incredibly hard. As for the ways that it could interact with his cerebral palsy: if he has issues with his arms then he would use the wheelchair a bit differently. In the kitty wheelchair the whole energy comes from the forelimbs, so if his hands shake then he would be much more wobbly as a cat than as a human. I'm not sure whether cerebral palsy in kitties is a thing, but you can look up cats with cerebellar hypoplasia. It's not the same thing but causes some similar symptoms. For example, the lack of balance that Lucas could have due to shaky limbs.

In my opinion your story sounds great. If you have any more questions with more specific details, feel free to send another ask.

Sorry for the late answer,

mod Sasza

[thefandomenchantress]

Heeellloooo again~

What's your opinion on Charturo? It's one of my favorite ships and not many people I know even think of it as a ship.

Hmm. While I’ve read one to two one-shots about it, I’ll admit I don’t think about Charturo too often.

I guess Arturo isn’t really a character I usually ship with most of the other cast members, since a lot of them can’t stand his whole beauty shtick. Veronika is the one character I really like shipping with him, because she actually enjoys being around him. I headcanon her to think that his worldview getting morphed into what it is is very interesting and she likes to analyze it a lot. She constantly just wants to learn more about him so she can see why he is the way he is. (I guess that’s sorta true canonically, too).

But I’m getting off track. This is about Charturo, not Verturo.

I can definitely see the vision. At least in chapter one, Charles and Arturo are pretty similar, what with both of them being extremely condescending towards others, even if it is for different reasons.

Intriguingly, Charles actually respects Arturo at first, because he believes Arturo has a respectable occupation, and someone liking Arturo is interesting to see when everyone else seems to think he’s a creep almost immediately because of his worldview.

Speaking of Arturo’s worldview, him only respecting beautiful people, whether they be models, movie stars, etc. is probably the biggest roadblock for any Arturo ship, not just this one. How is he supposed to gain feelings for the person you ship him with if he’s constantly disgusted by their presence?

Usually the solution is to make him realize that the person you’re shipping him with is…now that he’s actually taking the time to look…really pretty. How did he not see it before? No, no, he’s being ridiculous. This classmate of his wasn’t to be respected in any sense. Yet…He couldn’t help but become entranced. If they let him, he’s sure he could help them be just as beautiful as some of the celebrities he’d worked with, though his classmate was almost on par with them already…

And then go from there. I haven’t read too many Arturo x anyone-besides-Veronika fics, but the ones I have usually do something like that. And I think it’s really fun! And literally every DRDT character is attractive, so it never feels too unrealistic. Maybe I’ll write something like that myself one day.

And this method could potentially work for Charles. Arturo watches him do chemistry stuff or whatever, and notices that wow, if Charles just took off those hideous yellow-tinged glasses (Arturo’s words not mine) and let him fix him up a bit, Charles could be not-ugly. Maybe even attractive.

As for whether Charles would return those feelings if Arturo fell for him…

Well, Charles is more complicated, because he can’t just see a pretty person and immediately start worshipping them. But I could maybe see it. He’s a scientist, and usually scientists possess a pretty hefty amount of curiosity, so he could possibly become curious as to what made Arturo the way he is, like Veronika. Other than that I’m unsure, though.

Maybe it’s because Arturo just doesn’t take up much space in my brain, but I’m struggling to see what Charles would actually…like about him?

Then again this is coming from the person who really likes Aceturo even though Ace would probably despise Arturo canonically. So I really want to hear your reasoning for why you think Charles and Arturo work together (unless you don’t have a reason and you like this ship just because. I totally get that, that’s how I am with some ships).

In conclusion, I don’t really get excited every time I see something about Charturo, but I don’t dislike the ship either. It just kinda exists for me. But I can see why you like it, at least a little bit. I’d love to hear more from you or others about why they ship it!

[torialefay]

Hi Toria, I've sent inboxes to a few blogs, but no one seems to understand and I am just at a loss of what to do or who to talk to. You don't need to post this, I just think you are really kind and would understand, so I guess I just needed to tell someone who could understand where I'm coming from.

Stray Kids new album came out, as I'm sure you know and while I will always support the boys, the 'I Like It' song left me very emotional. I guess it brought up feelings inside of me that I didn't even know that were there based on past 'situationships' I had where that was the mindset. I didn't and still don't fully know why I reacted the way that I did, all I know is that it made me really fucking sad, Toria. I started crying and I didn't even know why, all I knew was that the words hurt, even though everyone else around me was talking about how amazing it was and how they were dancing to it.

The blame isn't on Stray Kids for this obviously, but I feel terrible still. This is the only song that I have ever disliked from them and I feel guilty about it. It also made me feel a bit differently about them and I feel guilty about that too. But I know I cant even say it on my blog because I will get murdered on this app, or called a fake fan, or be called a baby for how it made me feel. I can't help that I feel this way or the experiences I've had.

I don't really know why I'm writing all of this. I am just rambling too much, I have a tendency to do that. Thank you for reading this. Maybe I just needed someone to do it.., someone who I didnt think would judge me. I hope you have a great day, Toria 💕

hi honey, i contemplated posting this just because of what you said at the beginning, but i wanted to make sure that you know i read it and am supporting you from my lil corner of tumblr.

it can be hard to hear songs that get an emotional reaction out of you, and it is only human to do so. i hope you never feel bad about that. just know that it doesn't have to even be through songs. it can be through random things people say, movies, etc.

i'll never forget, one day a group of friends and i were watching a movie together and suddenly one of my friends started to cry uncontrollably. in the plot, there was mention of SA and because none of us had experienced anything like that, we didn't have a sort of emotional reaction. but we learned that day that my friend had been SA'ed and then had those memories flood back in that moment.

although each of us left the movie unaffected (for the most part), i know that movie will always have a negative association in my friend's mind & be remembered as something hurtful. that is absolute NO fault of her own. and for a long time after that, it made me feel very thankful that i'd never had to experience something like that & that i'd be able to go through my life unaffected.

that's a very long-winded way to say: i am so sorry that you've had negative emotions come out of this. and you're right, that has nothing to do with stray kids. i'm sure it is hard to watch people around you love this song while it has brought back bad memories for you. being honest, it also gave me very mixed feelings because of similar reasons. but at the end of the day, i hope you can remember that it is a song and not reality. that may not help at all, and in fact, it probably won't at this moment, BUT hopefully in the future it will be something that can bring you more comfort.

i would genuinely hope that stay wouldn't be upset with you for voicing your opinion & i'm sorry if that's the feedback you've received so far from talking about it. please do not let anyone invalidate your own emotions. it is completely OKAY to dislike a song. and it is completely OKAY for that song to change your views on things. although i do think it is fiction and we should try not to associate people with these fictional scenarios, unfortunately, that's not always how our hearts work.

i'm so sorry for anything you've gone through for these emotions to be brought up. i know it's not an easy thing to go through. you have my support 100%, and PLEASE, if you need anything at all, hop over to my inbox & we can chat some more, okay? ❤️❤️❤️

[sarcasticsciencefictionwriter]

Hi! Rarepair alphabet Helen/ranna A, H, Q and R please : )

Hiiii! Thank you! :)

From this ask game.

A - What made you ship it and why?

This sounds so bad, but I don't really remember the what. 😅 I started shipping them at the end of December/early January, which was a little hectic for me with the holidays and all the fics I was churning out in a race for the end of the year and the ones I was reading too. I *think* it was that I rewatched Pax Romana trying to dig up some lore on Kali and then I was like.... Ranna? 😍

As for the why... Helen and Ranna fit very neatly into the category of characters I always obsess over (middle-aged women for the win!!!!) and putting them together, after I latched on to Ranna's character, was a no brainer.

They're wonderful separate and the real why is because I thought they would be awesome together. And Helen being canonically bisexual was something I wanted to explore and it seemed natural to ship her with a woman she had chemistry with and Ranna is such an untapped character.

Long story short: I saw two characters I was obsessed over and decided to smash them together like dolls.

H - If you were introducing this ship to someone else, what reasons would you give to convince them to consider it?

Hmmm.

I think I would start with saying that they're both awesome, capable women that don't need a partner, but they would find a very good one in each other.

They're in similar positions to one another and would understand the pressure and struggles very well, without having to speak about it.

They also have natural chemistry, in my opinion.

Honestly, I might just try to convince someone by saying two badass women with natural chemistry make for a very interesting pairing.

Q - What do you think were their first impressions of each other? Did their opinions of each other stay the same or change over time? Why do you think that is?

Well, canonically, Ranna kind of hated Helen on sight and Helen wasn't exactly feeling friendly towards Ranna herself. 😆

Though I think both of them probably had thoughts along the lines of 'well, she's hot' in there too.

Their opinions of each other 100% changed over time, going from that initial dislike and grudging respect to admiration and understanding.

The why would be their whole little arc in saving Kanaan and Hollow Earth. They saw each other for more than what they assumed each other to be and admired that instead of being annoyed or jealous. The realization that they understand the positions of power and being pulled at all sides came later (and was probably nudged along by Gregory on both side) and they were able to share that without even speaking.

R - Are there any songs you associate with this ship?

Buzzcut Season by Lorde

So much so that it's my theme for my AU where they're together. Right now, I think it's the only song that I associate with them together and not separately.

This bit is what really did it for me:

The men up on the news They try to tell us that we will lose But it's so easy in this blue Where everything is good

And I'll never go home again (Place the call, feel it start) Favorite friend (And nothing's wrong when nothing's true) I live in a hologram with you We're all the things that we do for fun (And I'll breathe, and it goes) Play along (Make-believe it's hyper-real) But I live in a hologram with you _ Basically, I heard one song, latched on to it and was like "Good enough!"

[crimson-rain-smoked-flower]

I’m really sorry to bother you I genuinely just don’t know where to ask this and you seem pretty knowledgeable on the subject.

Ok so this is a genuine question and I’m not trying to be aggressive. I am very sorry if I come off that way as a lot of this is just what I have been taught/personal experience. I am also kind of bad at communicating my thoughts in words I’m sorry. So recently someone I follow reblogged a big answer you gave about pro shipping and it kind of taught me a lot of things. I’m currently in the process of relearning what some ppl on the internet have taught me. But I do still have personal issues. I still think any form of child porn is disgusting and really shouldn’t be spread. I see that it’s a bit less fucked up when the child is fictional but it still feels extremely fucked up and not okay to me. I still do also find issue with pedophilic ships. Fictional incest also fucks me up but I’m like “that’s fine because it isn’t real and they’re both consenting adults?” I just can’t personally deal. And I really can’t understand the labels proship and anti too. Like I used to be anti I think? But I just didn’t like the idea of fictional characters in child porn. Like I understand reading about child rape in a book to learn “this is a fucked up and bad thing that should not happen but it does and we need to acknowledge it” but I don’t like the idea of people drawing children in a sexual sense to jerk off to. Like those feel like different things to me. Just another fyi I’m very conflicted because I have been very shoved into purity culture for a while and only recently am in a transitional stage of realizing the harm it does. I think what I’m trying to say here is I’m trying to understand what I’m supposed to feel? I still for some reason can’t get behind the “it’s just fiction” on child porn. Whereas I seem to be able to be okay with pretty much everything else?I don’t know I’m sorry. I understand blocking it out which is what I have done, I think I have to come to terms with the fact that it will always exist. But I still cannot see myself being okay with it or supporting people okay with it. And when I say supporting no I don’t mean I’m going to go and harass them. I don’t like that idea I’m more the type of person to pathetically ask why if I were to interact with them haha. Speaking of harassment that has always felt icky to me. What I mean is more like just… being okay with it?

I’m sorry if this is just a jumbled mess of words. I’m really trying to figure things out here and it feels almost like a moral dilemma to me that has been going on for a while. If you see this same ask or something similar elsewhere it is probably me trying to ask for advice or help from other for some kind of peace of mind.

first off, thank you for the question. i'm always down to answer questions asked in good faith, and i'll do my best to answer yours.

there's a few angles i want to come at this from, the initial gut reaction, the difference between different portrayals of something, and the sort of "is this okay to be okay with" bit.

your initial reaction to underage ships is disgust, and honestly that's perfectly okay, there's nothing wrong with that. you seem to already get that there's a difference between something that's disgusting to you personally, and something that's morally wrong, which is something that i don't think most antis get. you're allowed to be disgusted by things, while still acknowledging that they're not actually hurting any real people, and therefore there's nothing morally wrong with them.

(as a side note, the exact definitions of anti and proship will probably vary from person to person, but in my opinion, someone who's proship is just someone who understands that harassing people over fictional things isn't okay, and that the best way to deal with things that make you uncomfortable is to curate your own experience. it doesn't have anything to do with what you personally like or dislike, just your way of dealing with it. not to say you must identify by one of those labels, i think its also totally fine to just mind your own business and do your own thing. "proship" has been around longer than the label, it used to be the default position of fandom, with people mostly abiding by SLAS (ship and let ship) and YKINMKATO (your kink is not my kink and that's okay). that is to say, i would already consider you to be proship, but you don't have to label yourself that way if it makes you uncomfortable.)

i think a potentially helpful way of viewing things might be to consider how you feel about violence depicted in media. you don't mention feeling any specific way about it, so i'm going to assume you share the popular opinion that there's nothing inherently wrong about depicting violence in media. with certain exceptions, like not showing replicable violence in children's media, people generally understand that fictional violence is fine.

in the real world, its not like violence is somehow more okay than sexual assault, both are awful things that can cause lasting trauma, but in a society where sex is generally considered more taboo, depictions of sexual assault are often seen as worse, even when there's no real backing for that as both things are equally fictional.

you mentioned that you're okay with portrayals of underage relationships in the context of dark fiction that's intended to provoke disgust or fear or another negative emotion but less so with portrayals that are intended to be erotic in nature, and while that's a perfectly fine distinction to make for your own comfort, its worth bearing in mind that different people are going to make that distinction in different places. many works, especially ones created by survivors to process their own trauma, aren't going to be that cut and dry. additionally, the authorial intentions aren't always going to line up with how the work is perceived.

at the end of the day people are going to make content that makes you uncomfortable, its the unfortunate truth of this world. you're allowed to be uncomfortable with it, you're allowed to not want anything to do with those people. by curating your own internet experience you're already doing a great job at dealing with that.

i'm not just gonna tell you that you have to be okay with sexual content of underage characters, it's something that can be deeply uncomfortable and gross for a lot of people, myself included. but it is fiction, and the creation of it isn't inherently harmful to another human being, so there's no reason it shouldn't be allowed to exist.

i hope this was helpful for you, if you have any followup questions, or there was something i didn't address well enough, please feel free to ask. and don't worry, you didn't come off as aggressive at all.

[darkerthanblack-666]

I assume that you don't very easily relate to other people or consider things from their point of view. Rather, if someone says that they disagree with you about something or that something you said makes them uncomfortable (like comments about sex or shipping or gore), your instinct is to tell them to fuck off. You also have a little bit of main character syndrome as you always feel the need to comment on everything to make it about you and tell how you feel about the matter, and you prefer talking to listening. You have very strong opinions and tend to always think you are right and have the correct facts, even when you don't. I assume you are not big on self-reflection and tend to blame others every time a conflict happens. Most likely you are going to tell me to fuck off as well.

First of all, a trigger warning to you anon, because you clearly don't like when I talk about myself, but you sent a detailed message with assumptions about me, so it's just a response to it:

I tell to fuck off (tbh I probably should tell you that, because that last sentence is a guilt tripping attempt, not a very healthy way to communicate) to someone who either doesn't tell me directly what's up (I don't know how to deal with vague messages, they seem dishonest to me), or when I feel it might be disguised prejudice (there are certain kinds of ideologies that give red flags and if I feel like someone might support one of them, I'm rude on purpose, because such things don't deserve any debate on my side, so I'm unwilling to discuss that, I already see enough prejudiced comments in my country's local politics and minority stress already affects me enough... so I don't want to deal with similar kind of thought patterns, because I know some people can't be reasoned with no matter how hard you try and I'm tired of having debates with people who have bigoted views... if you don't know what I'm talking about, double check which country I'm from). tl;dr - if I suspect someone might be an anti/homophobe/purist I don't want to have a discussion, because local politics already makes me feel like crap, I don't need more of that in fandom spaces

As for making people uncomfortable, it's only easy to make everyone happy if someone either likes only "safe" things, or when they're having a private conversation and that person in particular wants to avoid something (and they communicate it, because no one can read minds). Otherwise, someone at some point will always dislike something and it's not possible to please everyone. Even when I try to be nice and accommodating, I accidentally say something that offends another person. Believe me, I've tried to work on it and I used to be even worse than I currently am. I just struggle with social cues a lot and I'm desensitized to most things. Sometimes an innocent comment in my mind is a big deal to someone else and I don't understand it. But people are just very different from each other and communication goes in two ways. If only one side communicates, it's never going to function well. tl;dr - in places with too many different people your stuff will always bother someone and it's hard to tell what it might be, I also don't understand social cues

So about my feelings... yeah, I know what's going on in my head and only that. Making serious assumptions about other people is very invasive and I expect the other person will fill that empty slot instead of assuming I'll read their mind. That's because I only know what I think, I can only speak for myself. So yes, I do talk a lot about my feelings, but not for the reason you assumed about me. I just think it's not nice to decide for other person who they are, what they're like, and I honestly have no idea what people think until they tell me, because my perception of them will always be distorted by my own thought patterns. So my expectation is clear communication, I don't understand non-verbal cues and vague messages. If we've ever had a problem like that, perhaps you need to re-think your communication methods? tl;dr - making serious assumptions is rude in my opinion, so I expect the other person to share their mindset and feelings with me instead of expecting I'd guess, and that's why I explain what's in my head

I do talk a lot on here, yes. That's because in the real life I hardly talk to my family and I just want to socialize, even if it's just dumping my thoughts and emotions. In the real life I'm not always allowed to express them, so I don't know how to do it in a healthy way. Perhaps it's sometimes excessive. Emotional dysregulation is an issue that I don't know how to handle it. It's not fun when regular activities (music, fandoms, etc) don't help. tl;dr - tumblr is often my only way to socialize, so I talk here a lot

Main character syndrome - it's not even an insult, because I always say it about myself. Though don't get me wrong, I'm not arrogant, I just get excited easily, need to chat, and I think my comments are funny and enjoyable. If something clearly is a joke, I just want to be entertaining and I think it makes people happy! (and it often does, my humor is not for everyone though, I know it)

Do I think I always have the correct facts? No. Quite the opposite, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't always want to discuss something, though. Depends on my mood. When it's bad it really is better to just leave me be until I'm better. But really, everything me or you think is distorted by our own thought patterns. No one ever knows all the facts and there's always more than one truth.

Also, I already blame myself too much for everything. So outside it might seem like I blame others. I used to be that kind of a person who always apologized, for everything. I'm trying to be different, to stop feeling guilty every damn time. I constantly say something, then delete it because I get anxious.

In general, your assumptions only scratched the surface. I don't think you know me well, I'm more complex than this. I do struggle with handling many situations, that's true. But that's not on purpose, I just don't know what the fuck I'm doing 😅. I also forget things 0,5 second later. My attention span is non-existent unless I'm emotional/passionate about something.

I'll end it with good old guilt tripping as a payback for yours: but you don't really care, do you? After all, there's always more than one truth.

[fnvbennygecko]

🍒 🚨 ✂️ ?

🍒 (cherries) - Does your character have a best friend? How long have they known each other? What do they like most about each other? How did they meet?

a best friend! yep that's arcade. like at the very end of fnv? probably at most half a year. clover loves that arcade is apart of the followers of the apocalypse and is like YAY!!! ANOTHER GAY PERSON!!! i win. they also love how he's sort of a bitch about everything. and they want him to be a yapper but he tries so hard to not be. they also have kind of similar backstories in a sense but i think clover's is far more tragic but they both come from groups that they dislike. they're pretty similar in ways. i think arcade enjoys clover's silliness and also is like oh my god!!!! a scientist. yay. so i think they both like to talk about whatever science shit idk. i think they could both reasonably talk about chemistry w each other i think they both like that. oh and im just going with how it is in game where clover just ended up seeing arcade at the old mormon fort and was like hey you seem awesome. and pretty. join me and my dog (ed-e) that you hate (for reasons)

🚨 (siren) - What’s your character’s relationship with the law? Have they ever been arrested? What for? What are their opinions on law enforcement?

well hmmm. there's not a lot of law in fallout. there's the ncr but they're in pretty good standing with the ncr. or . they were in good standing with them until the second battle of hoover dam and they completely kicked the ncr out of mojave. anyways they dont like the military they dont like police ignore the fact that they have a robot army THEY DONT WANT TO USE IT LIKE AN ARMY!!!! or at least. ugh it's so complicated. obviously they have to use securitrons for any sort of rule enforcement and to try to maintain some sort of order since all of the major factions in the mojave get kicked out at the end of fnv (at least in my playthrough) but they dont want the securitrons to just start maiming people ift hey do something wrongggg. they dont like violence like that. the only other thing i can say is that they think the brotherhood of steel's rules are stupid and they would regularly get in trouble because of those i think.

✂️ (scissors) - Has your character ever cut their own hair? What about someone else’s? How did it turn out?

i think clover probably cuts their own hair. they're not too bad at it but they dont go for any kind of crazy hairstyle they just sort of make their hair really choppy and go okay that's fine. clover begged benny to let them cut his hair and eventually he was like.... okay....... <- extremely scared about it. i think they did the minimal amount possible because both of them were scared about the whole thing and benny ended up fine. but i think clover mostly trims his hair for him lalalala ^_^

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

i don’t know if anyone else has asked you this, but besides disliking Malleus, what other TWST characters do you not like? :0

I did a tier list a while back so you can refer to that for my general likes and dislikes (I’ll admit that it is slightly outdated, but for the most part my thoughts have remained unchanged). I can give a brief explanation in this post about why I dislike the other characters that I do (though some I dislike more than others, so they aren’t all to the same level of “dislike”).

Please keep in mind that these are just my opinions and my intention is not to come at anyone who does enjoy these characters. I would also like to note that while I may not personally like these characters, I still like writing them especially if it’s to bully my friends that do like them 😈

Cater — In general, too flashy, too gaudy. I don’t like his haircut, nor the whole “social media star” thing or him being overly familiar to people (nicknaming, taking unsolicited selfies, etc.). I do sympathize with him on having to hide his real self and put on a more personable mask for the public, but his facade is just not something I enjoy.

Vil — He’s the type of person I can respect, but I don’t enjoy how he looks aesthetically. It’s too visually overwhelming for me, if that makes sense. He also has a very determined, confident, strong-willed personality, which I can appreciate, but sometimes that, too, can be overwhelming. His being a celebrity is also a big turn-off; I don’t enjoy characters that are in the spotlight too much.

Azul — This one’s funny considering he used to be my favorite 😂 Essentially, I stopped liking Azul after his backstory reveal in chapter 3. That’s not to say that I dislike his backstory or think that it’s nonsensical, but it’s more like it hit too close to home and made me realize just how similar Azul and I really are. I get that a lot of people find relatability to a character appealing, but it has the opposite effect on me and makes me just leap a billion yards away from that character.

Idia — This is another one I dislike because the relatability is too high. I won’t go into further detail, but just know that the relatability here extends further than just hobbies and interests. I’m also personally not a fan of his long hair. (I’ll admit that chapter 6 has made him grow on me a little more though.)

Leona — Chapter 2. Literally just chapter 2 alone ruined Leona. I don’t mind him for the most part outside of chapter 2 even if his personality makes me want to punch his stupid pretty face. Sometimes his angsting gets to be too much for me to handle too.

Vargas — Too muscular and vain. Just not my type. (He seems like he’d be a fun uncle though!)

Epel — I’m not really a fan of how he acts out or of his country-isms (they’re just hard to read and it’s grating on the ears as well). There’s also not much that I find interesting about him.

Trey — Okay, so nothing against Trey but he’s here because I find him boring in isolation. He works great as a straightman in a comedy duo, especially with Rook or Cater, or someone that has a strongly contrasting personality to him. However, by himself????? Trey’s just your everyday Normal Dude, and in my eyes, being boring is the biggest crime you can commit in fiction.

Jack — Purely aesthetic reasons. Jack’s too muscular for my liking, and that haircut is also not appealing to me. Other than that, he’s a very good boy.

Trein — He honestly sounds like a great dad and grandad, but he’s kind of dull lore-wise. It doesn’t help that he’s always holding a cat, which he has to hold his own against 24/7. (Yes, this is me saying I much prefer Lucius to most of the dorm leaders.)

Malleus — I think you probably know why by now.

[getosboobies]

reasons i think matchablossom is or has been canon!

once again, i have become overly obsessive and have throughly analysed each and every kaoru & kojiro scene that we currently have. i indulged and created my own list of “ are they besties or are they banging or both “ but i have decided to share it all with you :))

( keep in mind, i’m a reacher and these are just my interpretations. i will go to any extent to prove myself correct - no matter how unlikely )

so first of all, we have the fact cherry is the only one we have yet to see at joe’s restaurant after hours. this immediately shows that they are extremely comfortable with each other and spend a lot of time together even when they’re not skating. it also potentially suggests cherry is waiting for joe to go home, maybe a habit they’ve developed over time. before these scenes, the producers always show an image of the restaurants front door which states closed. by showing this frame, it obviously gives the impression it’s important for us to know that it is closed and therefore showings us that joe and cherry’s relationship is more than just some rivalry banta and that they have an established friendship built on trust and time. the creators could have just not shown that it was closed and had us assume that’s they were just good friends who spent time together but they went a whole step further and showed us these two men’s personal lives are somewhat intertwined with one another, showing us that they don’t have large boundaries for each other which would be considered strange in contrast to the “ arguing “ we had previously seen between them. if this isn’t enough for you, in these scenes we also see joes uniform unbuttoned so i take this as even more evidence of how comfortable they are around each other. also ! restaurants tend to close quite late ( avg. 8pm-12pm ) and on all the shots of the closed door, it has been dark outside. why wouldn’t cherry be home at this time settling down or something??? or maybe cherry has a lot of love for joe if he’s willing to wait that long for him to finish work... just sayin’. more on this, i analysed the restaurants design and noticed that the plug in the wall is really low down to the ground. maybe this is just one of joes odd design techniques or maybe it was specifically placed for cherry to charge carla, the concept of which, makes me very happy

keeping on the point of joe’s restaurant, whenever we have seen cherry inside he always sits right in front of the kitchen, this is pretty normal unless you think about 1) how much time he spends there 2) how busy restaurants get 3) he came there while he was with a colleague. we’ve already seen that cherry doesn’t mind coming after hours so why did he come during the day if he knew joe would be busy? this is similar to the fact he came in with his colleague in episode 2 - he obviously wasn’t expecting to be able to talk with joe while he was out for a work meal, so why on earth would he sit right in front of where joe would be, which is situated in a considerably inconvenient table for work meal? what i’ve interpreted from this is that cherry’s must enjoy being in joes presence. cherry canonically having anxiety would explain why he likes being close to someone who he knows well, and that cares for him. being able to see and hear joe so close is perhaps very relaxing for cherry.

now when i watched sk8 for the first time, i gather the impression that joe was a forgive and forget kinda guy when it came to someone who did him wrong. when we’re introduced to adam it’s evident there is some hostility within joe but this does not nearly compare to the anger cherry showed. when suggesting a beef their intentions seem to be completely different. cherry outrightly admitting to his grudge and anger for adam whereas joe seems to just want to prove a point to adam by winning against him ( i mean look at the image above, their facial expressions show it all ). but i noticed that as cherry would speak about adam, joe’s intentions slowly shifted and became far more serious and full of anger. “ there’s someone i’d like to punch “ is a sentence said by joe in episode 8. this is quite different to what we had seen in earlier episodes of him just wanting to make a point. i think this shift was predominantly when joe found cherry at the ocean view. joe knew how cherry was feeling towards adam BEFORE this scene because he knew where to find him, but the realisation that cherry was standing there, alone, and reliving some of his saddest memories probably hit joe that cherry couldn’t do this alone. therefore stepped up his game and met cherry’s loathing so they could do it together. as far as things go, this is one of the most important things they have done for each other because it shows clearly how devoted they are to each other.

this is one of the most confusing lines in this show thus far. i’m sure it’ll make sense in the oncoming episodes but i have come to two conclusions. so either adam has created this false reality of what happened and has told himself his evil ways stemmed from joe and cherry or, the more likely in my opinion, adam always felt like he was in need of a partner, a rival but also someone to love. this is displayed in the show in his predatory ways, aka, he wants his own ‘eve’. now there’s no ruling whatsoever that a skater needs any sort of dedicated rival, or skate partner, so i believe adam probably got this want from his peers, for example, joe and cherry. adam seems to believe you need to love your ‘eve’ and it gives me the idea that maybe he saw joe and cherry -in love- and decided that was what he wanted, but then as we know he went about it in an extremely toxic way. the “was it so“ was really hard to interpret, he’s clearly quite smug by the way he shrugs and smiles and shows that he’s very confident about what he’s saying but the question is short and leaves a lot unknown, which suggests why cherry and joe don’t respond. either they are as confused as i am, or they have a slight idea what adam could be suggesting and they feel guilty. we all know cherry and joe aren’t bad hearted people but as adam is insinuating ‘no, you guys parted ways from me first’ it could suggest that joe and cherry had perhaps become closer in high school and had developed a stronger bond than they had with adam and this left adam feeling lost and alone. this is more of a canon compliant headcanon that would make sense rather than a fact but it’s certainly something to think about.

one of the most obvious factors in their relationship is how they always know what the other is thinking or planning. we’ve seen in recent episodes that when cherry was racing, joe knew exactly what his motive was even without discussing it, thats enough information to show how well they truly know each other and how connected they really are. it’s also shown with cherry. when joe is racing, and is going extremely fast towards the corner, we see a frame of miya and shadow being worried for him, but then it shifts to cherry watching and there’s not a spec of worry on his face because he KNOWS what joe is planning and knows he will be fine. they know each other’s techniques better than anyone and it shows they don’t doubt each other’s choices one bit.

we learn right from the beginning that cherry and joe like to argue and fight, at first we think this is because they dislike each other but we learn that they are best friends. so when watching back you notice that none of the insults are ever actually insulting. let’s think about it, the most common insults they use are gorilla, dimwit and four-eyes. now to me, none of these actually seem insulting whatsoever and even if they do like to argue a lot it’s obvious they never ever mean any harm to one another.

from analysing the scenes one of the things i’ve noticed the most is how cherry and joe turn up and leave together. when the cops came during the langa x adam skate they both started to run off together leaving everyone else behind. as we know, they spend a lot of their personal lives together but leaving and turning up together every single time we’ve see them there seems like they’re a bit more attached than i originally thought. there’s a chance they meet before hand but why always that late at night? why aren’t they ever at home alone? unless...they live together. i mean it’s a perfectly valid suspicion right now as we’ve never seen either of their homes and we’ve never seen either of them turn up anywhere alone but either way it confirms they spend an awful lot of time together in general life. going back to my original point of them not only turning up and leaving together but they also never leave each other’s sides. there’s a heap of frames that you can see them standing together watching a beef or even just them talking. they’re literally attached at the hip and nothing makes me happier.

the creators of the show have made countless points to show that joe and cherry have a lot of history. from the school references to the fact they have TRAVELLED THE WORLD TOGETHER. they could have just shown one or two so we know that as a general fact they’ve known each other a long time but they bring it up an awful lot for it to be just a general fact. this being shown so much let’s us know that this is important information and that they’ve obviously wanting to lay down a foundation to bring something crucial up. so far they have mentioned their social studies trip, a school excursion, joes love for haunted houses, holiday to La and the Paris bar they went to. now you might be thinking, oh they were in the same school they probably just went on a trip together nothing confirms they were close, well i am here to prove that statement false. joe said he found cherry’s wallet, this not only shows that joe was close to cherry when he lost it but also that he knew where to find it, showing how well he knew cherry. another point is that legal age to drink in Paris is 18 so unless they had fake ID it’s safe to say this is a trip they’ve done since becoming adults and leaving school. it’s also canon that have gone together, so the fact they’ve been travelling as adults together is quite interesting. same with the restaurant in LA, sounds kinda like a date.

over the course of the episodes we’ve seen so far there has been a few comments they have made to each other that suggest a little bit of jealousy. for cherry, these comments are made in episode 6 in the hot spring. cherry brings up joes love for haunted houses and then joe agrees and says it’s because “chicks get scared and grab onto me” * with a smirk *. now what’s interesting about this is cherry’s response. “you really are a scumbag” this insult feels a lot more insulting than usual and the response itself surprised me. at this moment cherry looks away from joe which is an action people tend to do when they’re hurt or pissed off. either works in this scenario but neither make much sense as we know cherry’s already aware of joes status with girls. so why was he mad? well this was obviously a fond memory of cherry’s and joe replying with a statement about girls probably made him a bit angry because that was supposed to be their memory. but joes smirk with the comment makes me rethink, did he state that on purpose to make cherry jealous? obviously we can’t be sure but the entire encounter left me a bit confused. now onto joes jealousy, in episode 2 dub joe says “dude, you’re talking to a machine?” now in context this seems like joe is partially bewildered by the fact cherry is casually talking to his AI skateboard but he also seems slightly jealous that cherry is talking to carla instead of talking to him. this is one of the only scenes where joes facial expressions actually seem insulted rather than just having a bit of fun. he follows this up with “figured you’d give your board a girls name seeing as you can’t get a real one!” why can’t he get a real one? we hear tonnes of girls screaming compliments at cherry when he turns up so he definitely could get a girlfriend if he wanted, and joe no doubt knows this too, so why would he use it as an insult? i’m not sure what to make of this but it’s got to be a factor somewhere.

more on the haunted mansion chit chat, the line about chicks grabbing onto joe is quite funny when you look at the entire scene, because as soon as they get jumped they grabbed onto each other in fear. seems a little ironic if i do say so myself.

they both seem very secluded about their personal lives. cherry more specifically does not like the use of his skate name in his personal life or vice versa. joe is the only one we have seen to be aware or use cherry’s real name. the way joe slips up and calls cherry ‘kaoru’ at “S” shows how close they are and how much time they spend together to be able to accidentally mix up the two parts of their lives. this is just an extra point on how conjoined their lives must really be. in the photo above we see how cherry easily calms joe down when he starts to get annoyed. joe is the only one who knows fully about cherry’s life as emotions and cherry is the same for joe.

now one of the most heart wrenching matcha blossom scenes is when joe finds cherry at the ocean view. i have a lot to say about this so let’s start at the beginning. first of all, joe noticed cherry was missing. it’s not like cherry was there for a massive amount of time, so joe noticing that cherry was gone for even as much as an hour or two really says a lot about the placement they have in each other’s lives. there was really no reason for joe to worry about where cherry was considering they’re grown adults but he continued to go out and find him anyways. this is also set in the late afternoon judging by the sky, whereas the previous scene had been set at night at “s”, so this is suggesting the ocean view scene is on a completely different normal day for them (another factor showing how much time they spend together). next, the fact joe knew exactly where to find cherry. this truly shows how much they know and how connected they are to each other but also how well they understand the others coping mechanisms. cherry was dwelling on memories from 7 years ago and yet joe still knew exactly what he was doing and what he was thinking about. plus cherry didn’t even seem surprised when joe turns up. but one thing i noticed is that in this scene is the way they (in this case, didn’t) hold eye contact. while cherry is faced away, joe is staring at him but as soon as cherry meets joes eyes, joe turns away. either joe didn’t want to be caught staring or joe realised something crucial in that moment. i’ll let your mind decide what that is.

obviously, miyas comment about joe and cherry being his parents is a light hearted joke just to ruin joes chances of flirting with girls but it also implies that the group can tell that joe and cherry are respectively closer than anyone originally thought and they perhaps have caught on that the tension between them is a little bit too gay to be just a bit of banta. obviously in this scene we then see joe looking at cherry’s legs while a blush clearly intensifies on his face. yeah no, this is self explanatory.

one of the things i like about joe and cherry’s relationship is the fact that within that joe also has a somewhat dynamic with carla. although carla is non-living, there has been several interactions between them. for example the beginning of episode 6 on the boat joe recognises carlas voice immediately. i mean straight off i think it’s suspicious as hell that they all happened to be going there at the same time but the fact joe realised cherry must be there because of the sound of an AI skateboard? that’s impressive. also, at the beginning of the series carla is aware of who joe is when calling joe an imbecile, this shows that cherry has obviously had this modified to specifically refer to joe as joe rather than just refer to him as a general person.

there was a popular tiktok i saw the other day (if anyone has the username of the person please tell me so i can credit them!!) and it showed the two images above. in these photos it shows joes skateboard and his odd looking wheels. the creator of this video further analysed that these reflect the general outlook of a cherry blossom flower. though the actual wheels in real life don’t look as similar to a flower as they do in the show. but now if this is what they’re meant to look like, this is a really sentimental fact and shows how highly joe thinks of cherry in his skating career. but what about his personal life? well that’s where my analysing comes in. i noticed in the dessert joe makes in episode 5 he had a range of fruits displayed on the top as well as a single flower. this flower looks identical to a cherry blossom. once again the reflection of cherry within joes life makes an appearance. we’ve seen that flowers actually mean something in this show (toxic example but adam’s red roses for langa) so it would make sense for this to actually mean something about their relationship. i studied a range of Japanese desserts and, although every chef works differently, most of the dishes tend to only have a display of fruits and no flowers. so i have come to the conclusion that this dish certainly had some symbolism to cherry in joes life, some way or another.

so overall, their dynamic already shows that they have a very thin and mistakable line between very close best friends and potential lovers. although some of this was based off personal interpretation the majority is cinematic displays and general facts. so take this and use it however you like. let me know your opinions and other factors you have! for all i know i could be completely disproven with the next few episodes but surely if this many people see a bit more than just a friendship there’s got to be a reason for it.

if we can have one lgbt+ character... why not two more?

[in-my-feels-probably]

Hii! Congratulations for your 500 followers! I already took part in your 400 followers celebration and I loved it so really congrats for reaching another milestone so quickly! <3

I’d like to take part in your event again, this time could I please request a matchup with a character from House of the dragon?

my pronouns are she/her and I’m asexual biromantic so any gender is fine. I’m an ESFJ and a Gemini. I have green eyes and short black hair. I dress with fairy core/ fairy grunge clothes. I wear lots of rings and love to exchange them with others.

I’m the mom friend of the group, always there for everyone and my friends say that I’m really good at comforting people. I’m also calm and responsible, I usually am the one that takes care of other people. I’m very optimistic, I always try to see the good in everything and I often put other’s needs before my own, I would do everything for the people I care about and sometimes I’ve been told that I’m too kind for my own good. I have a sarcastic humor and I love making others laugh to lighten the situation.

I don’t like when people tell me what to do and I’m not afraid to stand up for myself or for someone else. I also dislike when someone is too serious and really can’t take a joke as I tend to use humor as my coping mechanism.

All my friends tell me I’m very smart. I’m also very ambitious, I always try to achieve my goals. My love languages are physical touch and words of affirmation.

I absolutely love listening to music, it helps me relax and I really like reading. I also love watching horror movies even though it’s impossible to scare me. I also play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends anytime I can. also, I absolutely love musicals and I’m definitely a theatre kid.

I really hope I did this right, have a great day :)

hi :)

i remember you from last time, thanks for participating again, hope you like it!

you sound so cool! we have a lot of similar interests, i think we’d get along well, and you also sound like you’re a really good friend to have.

---

i ship you with aemond, i think he would agree.

i think just aesthetically, he’d be into you. idk if you’ve read the books, or if you know who alys is, but you kinda remind me of her physicality, and she’s one of his lovers. beyond that, i think your calm demeanor would attract him. he’s not a man of many words, but i think he’d enjoy your company, and either you could just sit in comfortable silence, or he could listen to you tell him about your day. i also think you’d make him feel comfortable enough to tell you about his day, i think you’d bring a lot of his personality out. you’d probably make him smile or laugh, which is kinda rare for him, but i think around you he’d be an entirely different person. you’d just be a really interesting person to him, fun and friendly, but easy to be around if he ever needed you to be near him, but quiet. honestly, i think you’d argue a bit over him saying overly cruel or rude to someone, make one of rhaenyras boys. you’d scold him like he’s a child, and he’s probably get embarrassed, but i think he’d respect you enough to take your opinion seriously. i think he’d value your ambition, but also you humbleness, and he would try his best not to be an asshole around you. i think he’d appreciate knowing that he’d always have someone to stand by his side, since you’d always stand up for what you thought was right. you seem like you wouldn’t take shit from anyone, and i feel like if you were around aemond a lot, either him or you would take shit for it. aegon would probably say something trying to bother aemond, and aemond would know that you wouldn’t take any shit from aegon.

you’d be walking the halls together, or maybe somewhere in the courtyard, and aegon would walk by.

“aemond. my lady. how are you two love birds today? enjoying your walk?”

aemond would roll his eyes, and you’d spare you all from a more unpleasant conversation. you’d bite your tongue, taking a calming breath. “we’re fine, my prince, thank you for asking.”

he’d smirk, turning to you. “when you get bored of my brother here, you know where to find me…i’m sure we could come up with something more interesting to do together than going for a walk.”

aemond would stiffen, taking a step towards aegon, but you’d hold your arm out, blocking him from stepping any closer. he’d stop in his tracks, looking to you, his jaw clenched. you’d know he wasn’t going to try anything further, but still, you’d move your hand back from blocking him, and instead place it on his arm. he’d relax as you held onto him, turning your attention back towards aegon.

“thank you for your concern, but that won’t be necessary. i’m quite content where i am. i think your brother and i will be off now. i’m sure there’s somewhere you’d rather be, anyways, my prince. fleabottom, perhaps? you seem better suited for there than strolling in the courtyard. or your chambers, im surprised you’re up this early. happy to see you before the afternoon has rolled by. well, i don’t want to bore you anyhow. if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way.”

aegons face had soured, but he nodded, tightly smiling. he looked to his brother once more, before nodding, walking away from you both.

you hummed, turning back towards aemond. “shall we go?”

a small smile set on his face, and he linked his arm, the one you had set your hand upon, with yours. he looked at you, amused. “i’m never letting him live that down. yes, my love, we shall. where would you like to go?”

you furrowed your brows, pondering the thought. “hmm…fleabottom?”

“shut up.”

---

i’ve decided to ship you with rhaenyra, too, since you said any gender is ok. 

i think she’d like you for similar reasons to aemond, only she’d be a lot more talkative. aemond can stand up for himself, but he enjoys letting you do it for him. rhaenyra on the other hand, she takes no shit from anyone, and she certainly wouldn’t let anyone talk down to you. i think you’d get along very well, and she’d enjoy having someone around who was similar to her, and easy to be around. i like what you said about the rings, that’s cute. and reading. i don’t think rhaenyra would enjoy sitting and reading. not that she doesn’t like to read or doesn’t read much, she just has better things to do with her time that she would enjoy more. like be around you. you, however, would still make time for reading, and she’d be content to just sit with you while you read.

you’d be sitting at the foot of her bed, nose in a book. suddenly, you’d feel her reach for your hand, fiddling for your fingers. you’d let her do whatever it was she was doing, still reading your book.

you’d feel her slip your ring off your finger, and that would make you look up. “what are you doing, love?”

she wouldn’t answer, slipping one of her rings off her finger. she’d slip it onto yours, and then put your ring on her finger. she’d finally look up, squeezing your hand.

“is this ok?” she’d murmur.

you’d smile, nodding, going back to your book. she’d grin, fiddling with your free hand again, twisting her ring around your finger.

---

thank you again for participating, i hope these were ok. and thank you for supporting my account :)

[everkait]

about nick clark and troy otto

just to get this clear, i love troy and i love nick. i love them both individually but i also love them together and i love this really weird thing that they have going on between them. be it a friendship or whatever, i love it. they had so much potential together and i still can't believe they killed troy just like that.

in the beginning they disliked each other. nick may have even hated troy because of what he did to luciana and that's okay, he had every right to. i think troy disliked nick because he wasn't with his family and for troy the ranch and his family were everything for him. so the thought that nick had left his family on his own volition was very alien to troy. it's not something he would've ever done so he judged and disliked nick because of it and didn't want him on the ranch.

but even though nick heavily disliked troy, he didn't kill him. he had two chances to do so and in the second situation he could've actually gotten away with it but he still didn't kill troy. and troy wasn't even mad at nick for threatening him. he just took it in stride like it was a normal tuesday, he even encouraged nick to do it and later on said that they now could be friends after nick destroyed his notebook. i think that was some kind of turning point for both of them but more so for troy. he didn't necessarily start to like nick after that but his opinion about him wasn't as negative as it was before. nick on the other hand started to tolerate troy a little more after that. he still probably disliked him and thought he was rather dangerous but he wasn't as averse to him as before.

then luciana left and nick stayed. shortly afterwards nick and troy have this little talk down in the pantry and troy tells nick "it's just good you didn't take off after her", and i really loved it when he said that. i think he was being genuine and it shows that he has come to accept nick as part of the community. he doesn't necessarily like him but he accepts him. nick on the other hand is still a little defensive and wary of troy. it shows at the end of the episode when madison tells everyone that walker killed the trimbols and nick confronts her afterwards and tells her not to forget what troy is.

in the next episode while alicia is with walker, nick joins the militia. troy asks nick if he's got permission from madison which shows that he still doesn't really like nick. he accepts him but doesn't seem to want to be around him more than he has to. nick later tells madison that part of the reason he joined the militia is to keep troy, an enemy, close, although madison doesn't completely believe him. later in the episode comes one of my favourite scenes when troy asks nick "you feeling blue, nicky?", he then tells nick to "go kamikaze another day", which to me shows that he genuinely doesn't want nick dead. i don't particularly know why he didn't want nick to die at that moment but i don't think it was for madison's sake as he couldn't have cared less for nick at the beginning even though he is madison's son, whom he seemed to like almost instantly.

nick and troy are now in the militia together and do some bonding, like the poet talk or when they share their experiences and feelings about their father's deaths. around that time somewhere was a turning point for nick when he realized that he didn't actually want troy to die or maybe started caring for him in some capacity. he actually contemplated telling troy that he was the one that killed jeremiah even though madison thinks that troy would kill him for that but nick's not so sure. then comes the highlight of the episode when troy refuses to give up his weapons and nick actually stays back with him. he could've gone out with the others but he stays inside with troy because he wants to. he chooses to do so. because he knows troy, he knows that this will end bloody but he doesn't want that, he doesn't want troy to die. he himself even almost dies because of it when crazy dog gets the drop on him but troy is there and saves him although he gets hurt in the process. he doesn't want nick to die either which we already saw as he didn't want to shoot nick when he was standing between him and the rest and asked him to get out of the way. although troy doesn't want nick dead he still doesn't seem to have realized that nick cares about him as he asks nick why he would care what happens to him. furthermore it comes as a surprise to troy that nick stays with him and he tells him as much but also thanks him for keeping him company. nick then tries everything to get troy to back off, he even tells troy that he doesn't want him to die but troy doesn't listen. only when he confesses that jeremiah didn't commit suicide but that he actually killed him troy finally backs off. and he doesn't seem to be angry at nick.

i think that for troy the thought that his dad would commit suicide and leave them all behind was unbearable. he just couldn't accept it and that's why hearing nick's confession was such a relief for him and made him stop. doesn't matter that nick killed him because he at least didn't kill himself as that's not something that jeremiah would ever do and it's also not something that troy can live with.

now that troy knows that nick killed jeremiah i think he starts to see him in a new light. he later accuses madison for not being the one to kill his father but to let her son do the job and feels like she wronged him somehow by not killing his father. he thought she was like him but now he's not so sure about her anymore and seems to divert his attention even more towards nick. also something worth mentioning is that other than at the beginning troy never tried to kill nick again while he did contemplate killing madison after her cruel words about his mother.

up next comes something that i really can't wrap my head around, which is nick's hallucination of troy. how did his subconscious come up with troy of all people? why did he hallucinate that troy saved him? why? i don't understand. i love the hallucination and i love the fact that he hallucinated troy but i still don't really get why. maybe it's supposed to show us that nick feels safe around troy or that he trusts that troy would save him if he had the chance?

troy's now gone from the ranch but nick still seems to worry about him and alicia calls him out on it. she tells him that he doesn't owe troy anything but likes him and nick never refutes that. alicia also says that they "share the same self-destruction", to which nick replies "maybe i'm as sick as he is", and i love that. he admits that he thinks they might be similar and for me this whole talk just again proves that nick really does care about troy. what makes the whole talk even better is that not even five minutes later troy shows up at nick's to warn him from the horde. he was exiled but he sneaks back in just to warn nick of something that he himself is responsible for. he still doesn't seem to believe that nick cares about him though because when nick says, "it's good you're alive", he answers with "i don't think you believe that". and that's just sad. that after everything nick's done for him troy still can't believe that nick cares about him. what i also love is when troy says, "but you saved me in your own way", and that he'd like to return the favour. i'm not entirely sure what troy means here though. does he mean that nick stopped him from going kamikaze and saved his life or does he mean something different? if he'd simply told nick that nick saved him then i'd have an easier time believing it but he also says "in your own way", and i can't wrap my head around that. it just feels like he means something else with that than just nick saving his life.

another thing about their nightly talk that i love is that nick doesn't even think to rat troy out, not for a second. he says he can hide him or he has to sneak out, these are the only options.

the next day nick and jake then go out together to search for troy and find out what he meant with his warning. on the road jake's intentions regarding his brother are made clear when he takes out his gun and tells nick the story about the rabbit. when they finally reach troy nick again tries to talk him down but to no avail. troy doesn't plan on surviving this one and nothing nick could say can change that. jake then finally attacks troy and nearly kills him but is stopped by nick which results in jake's death. again, nick stands by troy and doesn't want him to die. even though troy just led the horde towards the ranch and literally destroyed everything that they had built there and nick knows it. but he still can't give up on troy and jake has to pay for it.

almost everything troy does from now on in my opinion he does for nick. nick wants him to help save the ranch so troy helps him. not because he wants to or cares about anyone there but because nick wants him to help. so he does. and those couple scenes really are everything. troy has fun doing what he does and nick has fun too. they're both being crazy together and they are loving it. when they are saved by madison, strand and walker nick covers for troy and lies about the horde. he knows that if he'd tell what had really happened someone would snap and troy would most likely end up dead and nick can't have that so he lies. even though a couple episodes back he wasn't happy with madison when she did the exact same thing when lying about the trimbols.

i also couldn't miss the fact that when alicia says everyone deserves to carve something out for themselves in this life troy and nick exchange a very quick glance. it could mean nothing but you can't deny that they looked at each other when she said that. and then when they have their talk in the car comes troy's most famous line: "all right, you stayed at the ranch because you love me." i think it's meant as a joke but again, nick doesn't refute troy's statement and they both just chuckle. like nick admitted to alicia that he and troy may be similar, troy says the same to nick now. and like before, nick doesn't say anything against it. it's not just troy who thinks like that, nick himself already came to the same conclusion.

at the bazaar we then come to some of the most bizarre scenes ever when nick and troy get high together. this is another thing that troy does just for nick. he doesn't really want to get high and seems to be rather uncomfortable at the beginning but he still does it because of nick. nick does have to remind him though that he saved troy's life but in the end troy does it for nick. again. surrounded by the infected nick then confesses to troy that he doesn't want to go back with madison and troy comforts him and hugs him. he hugs him! this scene as well as the couple ones before when they were staggering around together, arms slung around each other's shoulder, are everything. they are definitely friends by now, rather close ones actually, genuinely care for each other, and i really love the place that their relationship is at in that moment.

the next day nick then informs madison that he and troy plan to stay at the bazaar. we don't know troy's opinion on this but i think he only stayed there because of nick but i'll talk about this later on.

when troy hears that the proctors plan to attack the dam he is the one to yank nick out of his stupor. i'm not entirely sure if he wants to help madison for nick's sake or because he still kinda likes her. but it is worth mentioning that back when nick joined the militia troy asked nick: "is madison okay with this?", while now he tells nick "your mother's in trouble". back then he says 'madison' while he now says 'your mother' which kinda strikes me as odd. to say 'your mother' is more personal and it feels like troy acknowledges the fact that madison is nick's mother and that's why they should go and save her. so he might be doing this for nick's sake because even though nick doesn't want to stay with madison she's still his mother and he still loves her so troy might wanna save her for nick. still, i'm not entirely sure.

while nick is questioned by daniel troy tries to reconnect with madison, at least it seems to me like that's what he's doing. like i said before i think that troy only stayed at the bazaar because of nick. and here's the reason why: he tells madison that the bazaar wasn't a good place for him and nick. he probably already realized that after the first night because how could he not but he still decided to stay there, all because of nick. so again, he did that for nick. he then confirms to madison that he and nick are indeed friends and to troy they are actually closer than friends, like brothers, and that he genuinely likes nick. when troy asks madison if they're good she says they are but i didn't believe her, not for a second. she needed too long for her answer and was too quick in changing the topic. at the same time daniel questions nick and again, nick lies for troy and covers him. but this is a different situation, this is daniel. nick knows what daniel can do but he still lies to protect troy.

in the end it's all for nothing though because madison is the one that finally kills him after finding out that he was the one who led the horde to the ranch. nick did everything he could to protect troy and then madison, nick's mother, is the one to actually take troy's life. nick does look horrified when she does it but i feel like he could've been a little more shocked. he just looks horrified, turns around and walks out of the room, and after that i was a little disappointed in him for not showing more emotions. later when nick and madison are hiding he then starts arguing with her about it but the argument was more about the fact that madison can just callously kill someone and not necessarily about her having killed troy. although when madison says she killed him for her kids, she made that call for them, nick tells her "not for me!", and i really liked hearing him say that because he seemed angry but also sad and hurt so he's obviously not okay with what she did. later when john asks him about troy and he says that troy's dead and his mom killed him he also sounds a bit accusing which i also loved to hear. the way john asked, "is your friend here, nick?", i loved that as well. it again solidifies that nick and troy were friends because nick answers the question without refuting the statement and saying that they weren't friends or something like that. so at least troy and nick both acknowledged that they were friends.

but of course we also cannot forget nick's suicide note. i really love the fact that he called it his 'suicide note' because that was a reference all the way back to his talk with troy and the rest of the militia when troy didn't want him to go all kamikaze on them. i see it as nick kinda honouring his friendship with troy when he calls it his 'suicide note' because nobody knows the story behind it but it's obvious what it means. i've heard people say that now that troy's gone nick's all suicidal and troy's not there to stop him like he did before. but i'm not sure. you can certainly interpret it as that because nick does seem to be rather disillusioned and he's definitely still grieving troy. there is however no other option at the moment if he wants his mom and sister as well as strand to survive so i don't think he's just suicidal because troy's gone. to me it seems like he's accepted his fate and made his peace with the fact that he would die and i think it would've been a great end for nick if they'd actually let him die there.

i will definitely miss them though because their dynamic was great and i really do think that nick could've helped troy become a better person. he'd never be a good person but he could've gotten better, if they had just given him a chance. as i said before, i really think that most of the things troy did after the horde he did for nick so i genuinely believe nick could've helped him be a better person.

[oldwebmlp]

From: https://www.oocities.org/cloverflowerfields/Main.html

Text from page below the cut:

You are eventually joined in your ramblings over the fields by a pretty yellow pony whose face is dotted with cheerful freckles. Her hair is pink with a green streak in her mane, and her symbol looks rather like an olive branch. She falls into step beside you, matching your stride. She does not speak a single word, and yet she seems to bring with her a feeling of great peace and harmony. Finally, you stop short and turn to face her. Smiling at you, she does the same. "Hello," she says with a slight bow of her head. "I am known as Tact, and you have found the home of my campaign."

This calm, peaceful little pony is the leader of a campaign?

"Yes," she nods. "I certainly am. If you've spent some time in CloverFlower Fields, you've probably noticed that it is a very peaceful place most of the time. Lady Minty works hard to make sure that everyone gets along. Most ponies are by nature very peaceful creatures, and Minty gets upset when things get out of hand and tempers flare up. She keeps the peace around here, and we all get along quite well.

"However, this is not always the case in the rest of Dream Valley and all of Ponyland. Sometimes ponies act in ways that are irresponsible (according to Minty), and their words and actions can greatly hurt the other ponies. Minty loves a fair debate and mature disagreement, but "fair" and "mature" don't always have a place in peoples' opinions.

"That's why Minty asked me to form the TACT Campaign as a part of CloverFlower Fields. She and I have been friends forever, and she felt that I would be the best pony for the job. Minty in no way wants to stop ponies from forming and expressing their opinions. She just believes that with that right should also come a moral and ethical responsibility. In other words...

"Just because you can say something in a certain way, doesn't mean you have to.

"For example, let's say someone wanted to express their dislike of the new MLPs (since that's the most firey issue among ponies at the moment).

"They could say: I don't like the new line of MLPs. I don't think they're as well-designed or as pretty as the originals. I don't include them in my collection.

"Or they could say: The new so-called MLPs are ugly anorexic little donkeys! They look like druggies and I hate 'em! I wish we could have a big bonfire an toss 'em all in! They stink and they're not worth the plastic they're manufactured from, so there!

"Please understand that neither of these are my opinion, nor are they Lady Minty's! But the difference is, the first one is more tactful; it states an opinion while still respecting and caring about the opinions of those who might like the line. The second one is tactless and kind of nasty. These were both hypothetical examples, of course, but I've seen similar rants in real life.

"Another example: Suppose someone wanted to disagree with the opinion expressed by another.

"They could keep an open mind and try their best to understand why the pony holds the opinion, even if they don't agree.

"Or they could call the other pony names.

"Which do you think is the best method to use?

"The basic point is that we at CloverFlower Fields feel that the most responsible way to state an opinion is through the use of tact. This is true on both sides of this particular debate, and applies whether the speaker is talking about ponies or people. Another part of the concept is -- if someone else stoops to name-calling or other tactless measures, it is equally tactless and degrading to stoop to their level and flame back.

"If you'd like more information on the campaign, here's a brochure which outlines the specifics." Tact hands you a folded piece of mint-green paper which reads:

The campaign is known as T.A.C.T. which is short for:

T: Truth -- stating your true opinion. I'm not in any way trying to squash opinions.

A: Appreciation -- keeping in mind that other people have other opinions, and appreciating and keeping an open mind toward those opinions even when you strongly disagree.

C: Care -- caring enough about others to value their feelings over your emotions about a toy.

T: Tact -- the actual stating of your opinion using tact. Tact is defined as "a keen sense of what to do or say (or in this case, how to say it!) in order to maintain good relations with others." I don't think that's such an objectionable goal.

Yes, we're talking about toys, but when people are as involved with a line as many collectors are about MLPs, flaming a particular portion of the line (or whatever -- just using the new MLPs as an example again) can be very hurtful. Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is.

Overall, we're just trying to promote peace and happiness in the pony community, and one way to do that is to avoid the unneccessary hurting of feelings.

[jypbae7]

Im Changkyun - Natal Chart

- requested by @jookyunz

Can’t remember if you wanted the 18+ section so I included it at the bottom and marked it incase you wanna skip it ❤️

(Not claiming to be an expert this is just for fun please don’t take anything too seriously!) Hope this is helpful and that you enjoy it 🥰❤️

Personality: Aquarius Sun, Aries Moon, Capricorn Mercury, Aquarius Mars

Aquarius Sun comes with lots of intrigue and lots of complexity - like the other air signs Aquarius is very adaptable and tends to prefer an “exciting life” (though earth signs tend to see this lifestyle as pure chaos lmao)

Aquarians tend to be intrigued by mystical things due to their very logical view of the world, this logical side can often lend to them coming off as cold or aloof but it’s less about that and more about their need to rule with the head and not the heart in order to avoid being thrown off the balance that they like (Aqua is a fixed sign) also they do NOT want to be hurt by people so the guard they have up towards the world is basically an iron curtain till they develop enough trust with you

Aries Moon is equally as spontaneous and adaptable but for a different motivation - Aries is bold and wants the most out of life and you can bet your bottom dollars they’ll do WHATEVER necessary to gain the lifestyle and goals they set for themselves.

But since they are naturally social butterflies and genuinely just want to have fun and encourage the people they love to reach for their dreams and have fun doing it, they tend to succeed rather easily since people are drawn to them. - All about confidence, bold styles, working hard because they NEED to be the best at whatever they do, but they definitely play hard too (as does every fire sign lmao)

As much as Aries and Aquarius like change and excitement - Capricorn Mercury does NOT. This adds a LOT of grounding and “tradition” to quick moving Aries and unconventional Asquarius.

Capricorn Mercurys are known to speak slow, quite monotonous and precise which I definitely have always felt about Changkyun. You’re not getting too much fluff or extra words from them because Capricorn finds it a waste of energy. They say what they mean when they mean it and not much else more. But this means they are good listeners and are very comfortable and unreliant on “attention” or “being in the spotlight” giving them added levels of independence. I also feel that this is why they are sooooo unbothered by other people’s opinions and friendship.

Aquarians straight up rather be alone than around fake people. They don’t care if they “fit in” with general norms because they don’t want to be like anyone else anyway lmao and they are interesting enough to keep themselves entertained. While Capricorn and Aries have places to go, people to see, and goals to crush so why the hell be worried about others???

Mixed with the other 2 placements it’s likely that his home is a serious sanctuary for him that he takes seriously. When he’s out in the world doing his busy schedules and chaotic traveling and work he’s happy and really feeding into the air and fire energy. But when he gets home it’s his Capricorn Mercury that is being nurtured and stimulated. He’s going to wanna hibernate there for a while without leaving especially if he’s been gone a long time. Could be either unbelievably messy or unbelievably neat but likely no inbetween with these placements lmao.

Aquarius Mars.... reminder that Aquarius is a fixed sign so this in Mars could mean one HELL of a temper or at least rage once he’s set off. But thankfully the Airy nature of Aqua means you’d really have to mess with him to get that kind of reaction because they generally really dislike being upset. They prefer staying content and neutral rather than having extreme feelings of any kind or it makes them veryyyyy edgy. If you can disagree with respect and if you provide logic instead of ego as your argument you’re likely to get a much better reaction from Aquarius

Relationships:

Non-Romantic Relationships & overall communication style: Aquarius Sun, Aries Moon, Capricorn Mercury, Aquarius Mars

Boy oh boyyyyyy he takes a LONG time to open up to people - 2 Aquarius placements and a Capricorn placement screamssssss trust issues and vulnerability issues

Capricorn doesn’t wanna sulk and talk about their problems so IF they trust you enough to come to you with an issue they want solutions and practical help and support

Is really cheered up by acts of service and quality time - watching a great movie even in complete silence just near each other on the couch in sweats tucked under cozy blankets or getting surprised with their favorite dinner can boost their mood instantly

Aries Moon as I said before is a natural in social situations and tends to draw attention even when they aren’t trying so he’s bound to come off a lot more open and friendly than he actually is. The deep stuff won’t come out till he REALLY knows and trusts you and even then… in SMALL increments

That said he’s a super fun friend to have - down for adventures, actually thinks about and puts effort into doing cool stuff with friends and loved ones

When it comes to friendships he shows care through quality time and acts of service

When he buys gifts for people he cares about they are BOMB - cool as fuck and either one or a combination of the following: one of a kind, meaningful as fuck, and/ or super expensive - most likely fashion, jewelry, something music related, or super cool stuff from his travels

Romantic relationships and preferences : Pisces Venus, Aquarius Mars, Aquarius Juno, Aries Eros

Lmao even MORE Aquarius and Aries energy

Ok into the main meat - these four placements are particularly interesting combo: 2 fixed air (Aqua), 1 mutable water (Pisces) and 1 Cardinal Fire (Aries)

Aqua Juno - generally hints at a pretty unconventional relationship and this can come in manyyyyy forms for the very unique and varied Aquarians (partnership without legal marriage, mixed race/culture couple, could even mean choosing a bachelor lifestyle over any normal type of relationship, etc.) - given that Changkyun seems quite close with his parents and his interest in kids I’d say he’s unlikely to choose the bachelor route.

For a lot of Aquarians unconventional can also come in the form of a very stimulating partner, they enjoy learning and expanding their minds and experiences which is why they tend to run towards challenges that others would run from. I think someone who shares similar passions but varied skills and/or background would fulfil that for him. Aquarius, Pisces and Aries like to be stimulated A LOT.

Pisces in Venus is a tricky placement - can be pretty hot and cold, lots of mixed signals, you should be ready to be stood up or flaked on atleast once in the beginning🙄) BUT if you actually manage to earn their trust and dedication they make very caring partners.

Pisces in Venus is art gallery and museum dates, binge watching documentaries especially murder mystery, and spending most of the summer near the closest body of water.

Aries Eros fantasizes about being in a partnership that others look at as a power couple but they’ll never admit it - they dream of a partner who is in awe of them and their accomplishments but has their own big goals and successes to cater to as well. They like people they can grow with as individuals and as a couple. Push and pull works really well with Aries (and the other two fire signs too honestly) they like the cat and mouse thing and they like to have time to miss & yearn for their partner especially the men - absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Love languages in order from most to least: quality time, physical touch, acts of service, gift giving

Aries is a strong sign and they want and need a real partner who respects and supports their independence and boss energy but also can nurture their softer more vulnerable side and be the strong one for them when they need it

***** 18+ Preferences ****

Ooof this should honestly come as a surprise to NO ONE but damn placements do NOT lie...Im Changkyun is one freaky ass boy

I mean ARIES EROS???? Let me spell that out for y’all: fucks you like he absolutely fucking hates you or ties you up like a present and edges you for hours till you’re crying

LOVES, let me repeat LOVES jealousy sex - whether it’s you being jealous of all the screaming thirsting fans he has or him being jealous of guys getting too close too you for his comfort - he is allllllllll about taking that energy directly into the bedroom ASAP (or a bathroom or even closet if it locks 🤐)

Could and WOULD makeout for hours on end - especially if he’s been drinking

The more you switch it up the more excited he is - with all them Aquarius placements it should be pretttyyyyyy often

Different positions, lingerie, role play - any and all of it excite him

With a partner he actually trusts and has feelings for I can see him being extremely open minded to trying things (though obviously EVERYONE has limits and boundaries)

Toys, blindfolds, handcuffs, whip cream, hot wax, spanking - all a STRONG yes

Get the strong feeling he has strong preference to use his mouth often - lots of kissing (passionate, needy, messy - sometimes more aggressive) , likes to give and receive hickeys, wants to kiss all over his partner’s body and LOVES oral both receiving and giving (and I get the feeling he’s TOO good at that 👀)

More willing to let his partner take control than you might think - he’s not a switch but he just doesn’t think you initiating or “being in control” makes him any less dominant. In fact it’s probably the opposite; you showing your desire to that point actually makes him feel MORE dominant and masculine

Literally could find anyone and everyone beautiful - is more attracted to people’s minds, spirit and energy than physical looks (BIG Pisces and Aquarian thing)

Gets turned on every single time he sees you in the crowd at one of his shows - makes him feel like you are the only two people in the world (drives his Aries Eros INSANE - gets a kick out of the slight power play of being on stage in front of so many people, as well as the secrecy and raw passionate energy of it all)

Tattoos, piercings, colorful wigs, or even just interesting jewelry paired with the right lingerie or outfit will have him 🤯- think short black see-through lace robe with nothing on underneath except a sparkling body chain dripping from your body....yep he’ll eat you like a main dish in .00000000023 seconds

Hope you enjoyed! 💕

[vickyvicarious]

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

[chidoroki]

Black Clover ch341

Land of the Sun has not been kind to Asta one bit. Poor lad is getting himself beat up by almost everyone here. Clearly the Ryuzen Seven are no joke, but we knew that after meeting Ichika.

While we still haven’t met the rest of the seven, I will say I quite like Imari so far. Judging by the tiny sparks near her while beating up Asta and bolt-shaped pieces of hair I’m gonna assume she has some sort of lightning quality to her, so naturally I’d love to see her fight against Luck. They're both pretty energetic and would probably have a great time. Speaking of old friends, seems Asta is thinking about Noelle & Mimosa with those hair colors. Makes me curious about what color Imari chose to dye her hair. My little guess is blonde, to keep up with the typical electric color scheme, but for some reason a real light blue also pops into mind? Dunno why but we’ll find out eventually I’m sure.

She reminds me so much of Bnha’s Camie in the way they both speak and their energy and I kinda love that? Especially when everyone else here seems so traditional and formal. She’s just real cute and stands out way more than the other two men we were just introduced to, so sorry to say but I really don’t have any opinion on them so far.

So Asta continues his training, takes a bunch of hits and tries to further understand the many ways people can use zetten. It honestly all goes over my head. If he’s clueless and overwhelmed by it then so am I. I do find humor that the Land of the Sun is cloudy though.. and i really hoped that him briefly thinking about everyone else would’ve made us jump back to Clover to check on them but nope, didn’t get that lucky.

We learn instead that Ichika is older than she appears and thankfully our boy quickly defuses any tension by his innocent comments. Knowing that she’s so close to Yami in age (because he’s what, 30? 31 since Asta’s 18 now? somewhere around there), it kinda rules out the possibility that maybe she was born after Yami washed up in Clover and that’s why he never spoke of her, but that’s not the case, as we find out a bit later he obviously was apart of her life.

She can get quite passionate about the people she looks up to, surprisingly. And loud. Maybe her and Asta have some similarities after all.

But aww, what a soft expression. It’s like the first time we see her not look totally annoyed and angry at everything. I bet she has a great smile and I dunno if we’ll ever see one from her, but I’m hoping for it.

That sweet little moment doesn’t last long however once Asta gets his chance to toss Yami a bunch of praise because Ichika clearly wants to hear none of it. With the flashback we see at the very end, I have no doubt she knows Yami pretty well Asta. but could you imagine if the shipwreck story was a lie this entire time?

For weeks I firmly assumed that Ichika’s dislike towards Yami was due to him leaving his home and family behind, but I certainly wasn’t expecting THIS! What do you mean he wiped out your entire clan? How?? Do we have another Uchiha massacre situation on our hands here? Hello??

Like dude, how would Yami even accomplish that? He had to be younger than 15 since he didn’t even have his grimoire yet, so could he really have been that powerful even way back then? Unless it was all done by mistake? I mean, he is quite destructive. I can’t see him doing something on purpose but aah, who knows.

It even looks like he’s about to go fishing, so perhaps the whole shipwreck story wasn’t a total lie and maybe something happened during that trip that caused the clan to perish and this young man to wash up in a completely different country all at once. Oh boy. So many questions.. and now so much time for us to wait for any answers.