#can you tell ive been extremely gay recently.

[mothbug]

some ocverse wips +new characters to prove I’m still alive

[c1trvswurld]

Politely I need some of you niggas to never talk about your opinion on politics online again and to go in your cave and scribble your most ass and asinine takes there to save us the torture.

[kurozu501]

near as i can tell the sequence of events on social media with gwitch recently is:

-magazine interview where suletta’s va openly states suletta and miorine are a married couple at the end of the show (confirming what the text already made extremely obvious with the rings, them cuddling, and eri calling miorine “sister in law”)

-(btw ever since the show ended the writer okuchi has been on twitter liking sulemio art and tweets where people thanked him for the gay representation)

-this interview causes sulemio to trend on twitter. apparently a lot of people on the jp side still felt it was ambiguous until this explicit statement (lol this really is jp korrasami)

-a week? a few days? later, the digital version of that magazine interview is released and kana’s statement on sulemio being married… has been conspicuously edited out. 

-this causes uproar and backlash on social media

- today the official gwitch twitter released a weak statement of appeasement trying to play both sides and say the relationship is “up to interpretation”

typical homophobic executives meddling and stepping on the work of all the artists that made the show. its so dumb, but i cant say im surprised. ive had some criticisms of gwitch’s queer rep, like how miorine says gay romance is normal in this future yet we never see any other explicit gay pairings, or how the show spent a lot of season 2 keeping the girls separated from each other. but its obvious now the kind of restrictions the anime’s team were operating under when you have suits like this at the top. clearly they had to fight hard to get as much as we did. it sucks, but it doesnt really change my feelings on the show. its over now and the dumb old men at the top cant really change the text of the show even if they want to.

[not-actually-human]

I dont know anything about critical role besides what youve told me but GAY PEOPLE??!!! tell me everything (if you want to ofc)

LEX HEY HELLO!!! tysm :D yes there are gay people!! so many actually!! i think that everyone is either queer or its not been confirmed. orym and his dead husband (rip will) laudna and imogen, fcg and frida. so i guess im just gonna tell you about the gay people :]

Imogen and Laudna

this is the most recent development and ive told you about a lot of it but the basic recap is: they are best friends. laudna has died twice, once before she met imogen and once after. she got better though. also laudna has a dead woman who lives in her brain who was gone for a bit but is back now. imogen is horse girl who can hear other peoples thoughts and has trouble blocking them out, and because of that has anxiety. she is also extremely powerful and her mom is on the bad guys side. anyways yes! they have been best friends for a few years, they knew eachother before the rest of the party met. i have been shipping them since episode one (almost two years ago in our time) and now its real and canon and they have kissed and its amazing :)

Orym and Will

so orym is one of the main characters, he is a simple little guy who works as a bodyguard/soldier for the leader of his city and is very good at what he does. his whole backstory is that he had a husband that he loved a lot and then when their city was attacked his husband and father were killed. he is considered the most stable one by his friends but trust me he is on the verge of losing it. anyways yeah he was confirmed in game to only like men so thats cool :) also he has kinda had a thing with another character named dorian sorta? its complicated and dorian had to leave (guest pc) so we havent gotten anything about that for a long time.

Fresh Cut Grass (Faithful Care Giver) (FCG) and F.R.I.D.A

that motherfucker has a lot of names

so fcg and frida are robots, specifically aeormatons which would take awhile to explain, basically they are ancient magical tech and are super rare. anyways they are both the first one like them the other has met and they bonded about that. and i love them a lot because the way they talk about their relationship and romance reminds me of my own experiences with being aroace which is something i havent really seen so thats really sick :] they are also really adorable and have matching coats

oof this got really long sorry :) anyways yes these are the gay people from my show i love them so much

[raisinchallah]

I felt that book post so much as someone who doesnt really like reading classics or mainstream contemporary stuff its so hard to find other people who share my taste in books or who will have like any idea what I’m talking abt when I bring up the stuff I like reading :( I also always find it funny when people argue about classics vs. YA as if those are the only two types of book in existence

yeah i mean i do mean classics in like an extremely broad sense like more in the sense u will see say the same 5 books recommended within certain genres or subgenres like this book is a classic of sad haunted house fiction or pretentious sci fi read by specific types of nerds or whatever like the fact that even when u find really niche communities each little group has their 5-10 always recommended books that can often be quite good you know important interesting books for really specific genres or whatever but its like surely people know about more than those and then like of the moment contemporary releases which tbh are often things that get forgotten about once people sit around with it for a bit like ive always been the type of person to simply wait and see what sounds good after the hype dies down rather than jump to read or watch something when everyones talking about it i like to let stuff sit see if its good or not... yeah those conversations are sooo funny like literally there are things other than classics and ya there are literally endless amounts of books nobody is even talking about... it also really sucks cuz books that get kinda forgotten that are say 20+ years old also can often be out of print and simply not even in the consciousness idk i feel like im simply sitting around wondering about all the books out there people have simply forgotten like i went to this lgbt library with my bestie when i visited them and literally the kinds of books they had like stuff put out by niche gay presses that had very little circulation people writing like lesbian james bond parody romance novels in the 90s and insanely long self published gay vampire novels with weird photoshopped covers that their friends wrote blurbs about how it might be the next great american novel and like complex gay elf wizard relationship drama in a 5 book fantasy epic involving gay music festivals or whatever im like damn we have literally only scratched the surface of books u think exist... wait anon tell me an interesting book u have read recently or idk whats ur book taste :3 oh idk if u are interested in sci fi or not but i think this got a bit into my head also from reading a really cool passage from this book on someones blog they just posted it and then beign like damn whats this book i have to read it hmm my library doesnt have it oh hmm its been out of print for years but this looks super cool anyways the books the fortunate fall by raphael carter idk if i will like it or not but idk its really interesting so many people acting like idk they are inventing writing weird gay and trans sci fi now but people have been doing this for years its just often out of print or forgotten about and idk i feel like its cool discovering weird books like that anyways its on the internet archive apologies if u hate it or anything but idk ok anyways <3

[ooglywooglies]

so yesterday i had a fucking epiphany when i was talking about how transmascs dont have eggs as much as transfems do and so transfems adopt male characters as transfem all the time and i was like hmm i wonder if i have any male ocs that are kinda eggy/i could see transitioning later in life (it helps that the majority of my ocs are in high school bc these projects started when i was a teenager and are frozen in time)

thank god i recently made portraits for all of them too

first one i immediately thought of was michaels:

a lot of the plot of tww revolves around him developing a crush on a new male teacher (its more of a plot device than anything theres no shippy stuff involved with that at all dw) and it kicking off some other social conflicts with the other kids around him because hes going through like a sexual discovery phase and all his friends are trying to be supportive in the most pushy/invasive way possible

and his background is hes very much The Good One out of this entire group of friends. he comes from a well off family with big expectations for him hes an honor student and hes the one that usually talks them out of trouble, hes obviously DEEPLY insecure as a result.

people do question his masculinity a lot, not in a way that usually bothers him, mostly the fact that hes kind of a later bloomer and short (canonically he gets a lot taller basically right after all this -- hes currently in tww barely just turned 16) but he does care about coming off as "the right kind of person" rejecting his attraction to men and keeping his gay best friend at a distance around other people, ive actually been really unsure about what his real sexuality is supposed to be

i originally made him as my own personal whitewashed self insert when i was 13, he was kind of a spinoff of an "alter ego" i had on deviantart where i "lied" about being a boy, ive since disconnected from him A LOT and i think when you reevaluate him as his own person he doesnt really have a lot of transmasc vibes left over

i feel like itd make a lot of sense for him to finally have his first puberty come and hit him like a fucking truck and yknow, its the exact opposite of a relief. i can imagine his family being excited that hes growing into a man and stuff and, honestly anything that makes his family proud has got to feel like getting shot in a way.

kitkat i feel like could also easily be transfem but i dont know that its because he comes off as someone who has a lot of insecurity to grapple with

kitkat is michaels' extremely social neighbor and childhood friend, hes friends with everyone, he loves to be involved in everyones drama but its because he wants to be supportive and help everyone live their best lives. kitkat finds out michaels has a crush on someone as soon as he enters the story and makes it his lifes mission to help, but michaels wont tell him who his crush is on so he goes from thinking its a girl called maddie (because michaels lies about it), pestering her about it so bad that michaels has to admit he lied but then refuses to say who the real person is, to i think he either figures it must be either him or loren (i forget, it may very well be both at different points) and switching full gear into helping him accept his sexuality (he finds out the truth near the end and i forget how he responds to that ill have to read the script again)

meanwhile the entire time its painfully obvious that kitkat is so obsessed with this because he definitely has feelings for michaels himself

and i think i have it as basically canon that once michaels moves on from his teacher crush and settles he realizes he has feelings for kitkat as well and they reunite after a couple years after michaels' family moves him to italy or something for boarding school + maybe uni idk (this is mostly for semi plot reasons in a different story but its also definitely a punishment for spending too much time with the local out and proud gay troublemaker loren)

anyway i think it could easily be that they meet again as women, or one is already transitioned and influences the other to or whatever

i think honestly they could be EITHER bi or lesbians like i think when i look back on it their confused feelings about liking each other/liking unobtainable men isnt specifically about liking MEN its about being queer in general so theres no real conflict there

something i went through as well where i had a big phase of everyone thinking im a lesbian and trying to be like "its okay if you are", just for me to turn out to be trans and gay (for men only)

winter is kind of a weird story, one that ive played with a bit before and i bring her up because i think she can be kind of a counter to my "theres no telltale signs of a transmasc egg" thing and it illustrates that transmasc eggs are harder to predict rather than theres just no signs

winter is the fujo queen, her main thing in the story is being a stalker fujoshi who harasses the boys specifically because theyre gay and even makes them kiss for her blog at one point she was originally a hateful caricature of a fandom girl back when she was created in like 2010 but now shes good and we like her okay, i know from what i just said it seems like a stretch but she is

her heart is basically never in the right place but i think winter has a lot of value as a representative of this kind of person, on some level i WAS her when i was younger, yknow shes 15, and she is weird because this kind of character could really go ANYWHERE as an adult, where we currently have her she is one of those fujoshi girls that is 100% using yaoi as an exploration of her own queerness. as the story progresses she starts hanging out with a girl i mentioned earlier named maddie and this part is not super developed but theyre supposed to team up while having completely different motivations and struggling to understand where the other is coming from, thus gaining an interest in each other through mutual curiosity and eventually dating

maddie is already an out lesbian, shes actually mostly present in the story as lukas' (lorens love interest) best friend and they bonded through both being out of state queer kids

i lost the picture but ive already drawn a more progressed winter where she started dropping a lot of her femininity but i dont know if she was going to become more just butch or nonbinary or actually transition but theres SOMETHING going on with her, i think it depends on how much she relates to the yaoi stuff that shes so obsessed with, is it all just about the idealized freedom of sexuality? does she want to BE the yaoi? i dont know, im not sure which one i like best

all i know is that if she DID transition maddie would not transition with her like michaels and kitkat they would probably just be friends

edit: forgot to say what i said on discord which is that i thought id be hesitant to have winter transition because then wed have no fujoshi representation but i realized kitkat could 100% take over as fujo queen

[marcy-lan-starlight]

the way i look at it is to compare the fascist’s current and previous culture war targets. if you look at them in order its pretty easy to see a fairly linear progression of ignore->hatred->(begrudgingly) acceptance->near full acceptance, with new groups every 5-15 ish years, with each new group being chosen based on their proximity to cishet abled white men.

like, if we look at the current and past few targets (trans people, gay people, immigrants, poc) we can see how far from the abled white cishet guy the culture war was 30 or 20 or 10 years ago, and where it is right now (trans people). with that we can map a [probable] course for the targeting->acceptance for the next few targets.

with trans people currently being the targets and having been the main targets for a while now, theres probably about 5 ish years left of targeting trans people, then the next target is most likely either furries or otherkin & therians, but probably all 3 groups at once since bigots arnt good at telling them appart, especialy since we’ve already seen some mild targeting by US mainstream fascist news outlets. that will probably continue for about 10 years due to the direct proximity to transness speeding it up in acceptance. then after that its likely that they’ll target some other racial minority (will vary based on country and will most likely be randomly chosen) that will probably be another 5-10 years, depening on how “lucky” they get with their choice of target. then theres a high likelyhood of the fascists circling back to a recent target (probably trans people or therians & otherkin)(or maybe just black people again, they fucking love that one, you can see black people appear as a main target at least once per roughly 5 cycles). after that is the earliest i can see them latching onto systems as a target, maaaaaybe if we get lucky it will be a cycle or two earlier, but theres no way systems are getting targeted before otherkin & therians, and they’re still busy with trans people right now.

theres ofcourse lots of potential for variability due to circumstances, like with east asians getting only 2 years because most of the hatred got tied to the pandemic, and when people started ignoring COVID their hate died down with it, but generally you can expect at least 5 years focused on each group from what ive seen. that means theres at least (discounting any extreme circumstances) about 15 years until begrudging acceptance of plural people, but also means that in all likely hood it wont be more than 45 years till then… wich is a painfully long time, but is also still within most of our lifetimes (based on the average age of tumblr users at least). and also, like Sophie said, just because society isnt there yet, doesnt mean your family & friends wont be. the average person is pretty open minded or at least doesnt care enough to be hateful and can be easily educated.

“general scocietal acceptance” usualy just means the bigots finally gave up, but the people who’re accepting of you will be accepting waaaaay before that point.

do you think plurality will become widely accepted any time soon? i fear that my plurality will have to be hidden from most people my whole life. i wish i could tell our parents but i feel like they would immediately take me to a mental hospital..

i wish plural education could move faster lol

Widely accepted? I wouldn't count on it anytime soon. Sorry.

As Ghandi never said: "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

While the quote isn't from Ghandi, it is still a pretty accurate one for how movements tend to go. And the problem is, we're still in the ignoring stage with a side of mockery.

Before we can get widespread acceptance, we need widespread awareness. And when we get widespread awareness, the biggest roadblock we'll encounter is direct opposition. Because then we'll be a threat. We'll be trying to change things. We'll be demanding our headmates be acknowledged as individuals and called by their names, and that's going to make certain people, especially on the Right, extremely uncomfortable. I'm sorry to say that they will lash out.

When Tulpamancers are being smeared not by randos on Tumblr or r/systemscringe, but by Sean Hannity, that's when you can know that the real fight for plural acceptance has started. And everything we've gone through before that has just been a prelude.

And then it will probably drag out for years after that.

But while that prospect is scary, I think it will be necessary for getting to where we need to be.

...

But just because society isn't there yet and won't be for a while, that doesn't mean your parents won't be. Plenty of people have come out to their parents successfully. Others came out unsuccessfully, and then their parents warmed up to the idea later.

I would advise waiting until you're an adult if you aren't already, because parents have a lot of power over minors in their care, and things could go very badly. Best not come out, if you think they would react badly, while they have power over you. Additionally, I don't know if your system is traumagenic or not, but if it is, coming out to parents who may have been involved in that is probably a bad idea. Caution is advised.

...

One more thing, while that quote wasn't from Gandhi, I really love the speech it's believed to have originated from.

Plural acceptance may not come quick! It may not come easy! But it will come, and we are all a part of it just by being here and being ourselves!

The future is plural!

No matter how far off that future may seem!

[batarangsoundsdumb]

hae interrogationes multae respondeant quia demens .

if you read this entire ask post you deserve a gold star and financial recompensation

Um, Obviously because when you’re adopted by a white guy you automatically become white duhhh

this is about this post lmao and yeah youre absolutely right, you have to hand your poc card in when you get adopted by a white guy.

Do you think Cass would listen to Yanni, the YouTube channel epic symphonic rock, or some other stuff? There's some cool mashups but idk if that's up your alley, I kinda feel like I'm pushing it with my weird taste of music by recommending an orchestra cover of metal, but i just love that sort of thing and mashups :P @harvestyourcherries 

i haven’t heard of that? but in my personal (correct) opinion steph listens to classical music, and then both modern and older, and then also stuff like black sabbath, iron maiden, but also hardrock and hardcore. i like the idea of cass just liking the most extreme screaming songs full of noise and then also listen to pachelbel’s 370th sonata yanno? THANK YOU for the rec tho

speaking of ur cass playlist hc...reminds of the time (yesterday) i found 2 playlists randomly on spotify from the same user. one was abt 3 hours of instrumental/classical "dark" & "nostalgic" music. the other almost 11 hours of nothing but hardcore bass/synth/electronic music. just an incredible tightrope act to put on in public. the synth one was also called like "psalms for synth sluts" which is Also incredible

tbh i LOVE synth SO MUCH like for no reason at all but then also cannot handle a poppy electronic beat lmao. but this seems like the kinda thing i’d do but just in one (1) playlist bc i just sort songs by vibe instead of genre? that’s how i end up with britney spears and billy ray cyrus in the same playlist. 

Oh, I want Kate Kane playlist next! It would be amazing if you could do one when you have time and will 🙏

how rude would it be of me to just say no? like sorry kate but idk you and also you seem way too keen on the us military for an institution that homophobically targeted you? (and also commits war crimes) but let’s unpack the fact that the institution that caused the death of your mom and sister and also got you blacklisted for being gay is still one you align with???

'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' --- when i tell you i fucking screamed LOL!!!!!!! i can imagine the cameraman not knowing if he should cut to commercial or keep it on these two weirdos fighting on stage (bruce definitely ruffled dick's hair/noogied him right?? 

about this post but yeah lmao. this cameraman just turns to like the audience to get a reaction and it’s just multiple moments of CLEAR shock.

you are the only funny person on this hellsite

how egotistical is it for me to say that i get this ask multiple times a month? bc it literally happens so often it’s hilarious to me.

Wish there was more john/Bruce content 😔😔😔 was so hungry I actually looked at canon media 😔😔😔 (Justice League Dark babeeeyyyyyy)

check out batman: damned for some mediocre content but at least it’s john/bruce (also very interesting story and stuff, just got very >:( over this weird part where harley quinn tried to r*pe bruce or something? it’s not for everyone)

dick grayson but he's nicki minaj

his anaconda don’t want none,,, unless...... 

Dick Grayson was never a cop, he played Marshall on Paw Patrol

you are SO right. also paw patrol is a fucking good show idc. that shit could’ve been the new steven universe on this hellsite.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS1lI0bLI7-/?utm_medium=copy_link

...

why do people keep reposting my CONTENT. if you are not funny yourself don’t just grab shit off of tumblr and post it on insta,,, get a life. sidenote: should i start an insta and get all these ppl to take my content down that would be funny as hell.

Might I suggest for a Gotham City Meme: something about the true crime fandom thirsting for the rogues gallery

ok can i just say something slightly controversial?? no? i don’t find true crime ppl who are into criminals funny, that shits disturbing irl im not gonna bring that into my very chill universe.

i may have never seen a 'jason cleaning guns in sink' fic but i do know he WOULD

THANK YOU

bestie im sorry to say this to you but while you can, and people do wash their guns in the sink, that is a lot of lead in a very vital part of the kitchen.

people tend to do it in the bathtub.

WHY???? like damn why do you even have guns

i dont think i read many gun sink fics exactly but i have read lots of fics where jason cleanes his guns in the living room. usualy dissembles them and cleans them with a rag i think

lmao fair enough, like i think that’s a large part of what i remember as well.

if you say you've seen/read gun sink fics I believe you. I think those of us who didn't see them are lucky or maybe didn't search for fics by tags or something idk

i mean ive never sought them out but i HAVE seen them,, like definitely i know almost for certain.

saw your tags and I'm interested in Steph/Kara now. They would be the most chaotic couple <3

literally thoooo, i have a wip where they get together in a zombie apocalypse and like UGGGHhhh i am so in love with them.

I am the Breece anon. Thanks for the recommendation; am reading now. I’ve always been a hardcore Superman fan because I love my pure himbo farm boy. My logic is, if one Bruce is a Broose, then multiple Broose are a herd of Breece. And this is a hill upon which I will perish.

fair enough,,,, like moose, meese, goose, geese, bruce, breece. i get your logic and i stand by it as well. (glad you enjoyed the comic recs!!!!)

It's a beautiful day in Gotham, and you are a group of horrible Breece

OH my god dude lmao

there only being 42 fics on ao3 for tim and bernard is honestly so sad i need more

it’s like twice that now!!! we did it lads. (tho very sad that my fic isnt number one but like number 4 :((((  )

i'm too late you already did the poll lol but may i suggest bethy (bernard + timothy)

shit dude that wouldve been so fucking funnyyyyy. think ppl have just stuck to timber tho, tim/bernard kinda died down recently and i think it’s too bad, they’re a great couple and i love them.

Wait, hear me out

Bernothy @redlightofdawn

great recommendation (lmao this ask is from like a month ago) but very sorry to announce that NARDTH is the superior shipname

Wait, we know that bernard likes milfs (Tim's step-mom) but what about dilfs? gilfs?

Wait no, I regret sending that ask

these were two seperate asks and they’re HILARIOUS. in my personal opinion tho,,, milfs, gilfs, dilfs are just about vibes and bernard is just attracted to sexy ppl who may sometimes be milfs, dilfs, or EVEN gilfs.

crime in bludhaven would drop to half if nightwing had a boob window. in this essay i will-

WHERE’S THE ESSAY ANON, WHERE’S THE FUCKING ESSAY

Wait if Barbra and Tim r at opposite ends at all times what happened to Barbra once everyone’s Tim’s ever love before started dying lol

she won a lottery ticket and spent 2 weeks on a resort in the bahamas before returning home and finding out that the joker was arrested for tax evasion and then spent a month staying at her big tiddie goth girlfriend’s house before conner came back to life and she broke her pinkie playing table hockey.

Why is the opposite end thing so funny and compelling to me. Tim comes back from his depression quest for Bruce and Babs is now a literal god

lmao when tim loses his spleen barbara reaches nirvana.

Are you still taking music recs because I have three songs that remind me of Jason that I think you'd like

send to me or lose a toe

🌸 ⭐ put this star into the inbox of your favorite blogs. it’s time to spread positivity! ⭐🌸😋

thanks, i wont tho on account of i wont.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMduBy3Sr/

⬆️

This is the whole of Blüdhaven and everyone anywhere.

Nightwings ass alone saves more people in a calendar year and does more for so society than most heroes do their whole career.Also u are one of the funniest tumblr pages out there. The vibes are unmatched and the memes and tags ✨send me✨.Thank u and goodnight @julia-flow 

fanksss also lmao.

That's going to be a little bit difficult to explain, but

There's some music that you listen to and you think, "oh my gosh, I can perfectly imagine Dick Grayson singing this song, with the same voice as the singer because that voice matches with Dick Grayson"?

oh yeah totally lmao. i have a lot of songs that i think are just entirely dick grayson yanno? kind of all of my playlists have that vibe, but i really find bleachers to fit with dick? idk.

"Lois lane/Superman" fics this, "Lois lane/Clark Kent" fics that, (/lh) let's get into the real good stuff. Some people ship Lois, Clark, and Superman as a throuple. Most popular fic tag for sure

yes totally, i think they’d be absolutely killer on ao3 and clark gets so fucking embarassed about it.

I miss your post, hope you’re doing okay!!

haha this was like 2 months ago, but i was doing fine then too! just didn’t have a lot of inspiration in terms of content.

Doot doot!

noot noot

I’m confused. What did DC do now? Like with nightwing? And another sibling? Please spoil everything for me

lmao they gave him a secret sister plotline where they had his dad cheat on his mom with tony zucco’s wife, bc dick’s life wasn’t traumatic enough yet.

sorry but it's so funny that batman is called "the dark knight" when the gotham city baseball team is called the gotham knights. it'd be like if a vigilante was running around new york called like "the scary yankee"

lmaooo no. but like yankee comes from dutch names or something so wouldnt it be HILARIOUS if gotham knights came from like german names and bruce would be running around called the dark KLAUS UND NIEK @graysonnightwing 

(not a batcest shipper) it’s so funny to me that the responses are “i’m a batcest shipper because i can differentiate fiction from reality and and it doesn’t bother me personally, but i understand why you oils think it’s weird” to “i wish all batcest shippers a very fucking die”

yeah lmaoo. i personally basically flipped my entire stance around to ‘i dont care please leave me and everybody else alone’ bc i think there’s really no point in starting a moral dillema over some fucking fandom bullshit. Please just,,, go home,,, log off, find a nice forest to have a little walk in and remember that somewhere in history, somebody probably died in the place you’re standing. and you will also die someday, and somebody will have to look at your internet usage and see you fighting multiple people anonymously while being named ‘nightwingsbuttchin200186′ like... calm down, we’re all gonna die this is not the thing to worry about.

so since like "wards" don't really exist in modern society almost all the batkids are foster kids, right? i used to work in the system and imagine: monthly visits from social workers and guardian ad litems, bruce having to get permission to take the boys anywhere out of state, calling their social worker at like 8 a.m. like "yeah dick broke his arm again... a gymnastics accident this time...." their poor social worker. bruce send her a huge bouquet and box of chocolates every month to stay on her good side

i imagine the social worker just getting into the case like ‘yeah let’s get this kid a good guardian’ and then ending up having to work with 22 y/o bruce wayne and his 50 y/o dad. and so this social worker is like ‘okay we can work with this, this is the best home i can find’ and then like it ends up landing on its feet and then the kid gets adopted and then they get a call a year later like ‘uhm so hi, this kid tried to steal my tyres can i adopt him?’ and like 3 years later. ‘okay so basically, my neighbours’ kid imprinted on me and now they’re dead, can i keep him?’ two years later it’s like ‘okay so this assassin child-’

ever since I saw that one post of yours, the meme that's something like "I know that abba's backup dancer got me" with a picture of discowing, I've been haunted. Every once in a while I'll be minding my own business then the image of abba's backup dancer dick grayson aka nightwing aka discowing will flash in my mind and I'll be frozen in place. Today at work I was in the middle of folding clothes and suddenly once again discowing entered my mind and I suddenly lost the ability to see anything except He. Thank you.

wow. the IMPACT.

Braver than any US marine man props to you🤝

this shit is about the time i wrote an article on batcest, like man,,, the fact that i didn’t get cancelled is MIRACULOUS. also like,,, uh if anybody on here did gossip on me,, send screenshots i’d love to see it.

Hello, just wanted to say your article was great. Thank you for taking the time to provide an unbaised answer. It should provide people with nuances they couldn't possibly conjure on their own.

May I ask where your username originates from?

yes you may (also thanks!!!) i thought it up when i was trying to find an original username bc i didnt want to be called like ‘timdrakes something something’ or ‘jason todd something smoething’ or ‘dick grayson something something’ yanno? so i thought batarangs, they sound so dumb and that’s my username story... now it’s my whole entire brand lmao.

yno that bit in kick ass where red mist asks kick ass if he wants a hit of his blunt, was that the inspo for stoner tim

no? it’s bc i think stoners are hilarious and drugs are great. (dont do drugs tho) 

How would u feel if someone actually wore one of those bruce or ollie pride shirts u edited

fenomenal next question.

Dick as lil huddy and Jason as James gave me radiation poisoning and now I’m screaming crying throwing up so thx for that

(Rico suave as Tim is perfect tho literally no changes needed)

i was so funny for that shit wasn’t i??? lmao i loved those weird ass fancasts

You're doing the Lord's work by providing us with all these Gotham/Metropolis citizens memes, thank you for being so relentlessly funny @nellethiel-aranel

you’re welcome!! i really enjoy making memes, but getting validation for my content and my memes is REALLY nice.

Bruce is such a slut in your memes and honestly i love that for him @rhodey-rhudert-rhodes-main 

he’s that much of a slut irl too dw.

Bruce and Alfred have an emergency pride flag for the batkids. Oliver Queen printed an emergency "I love my gay son" t-shirt and as soon as Roy told him he was dating Jason, Oliver started wearing that shirt everyday and Roy always cringes when he sees it. Oliver also has an emergency "I love my lesbian daughter" shirt just in case for Cissie.

lmao YES i had a post like this bc like all of their kids/family members are so gayy

stop bringing back batfam fancasts it is not real it is not real it is not- 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

oh yes it is my darling.

did discowing burn down the notredam because he hates the bees? @allulily

no he did it bc fuck the french.

im gonna beg for 1 thing and 1 thing only. please please please put physical by olivia newton john on dick's playlist

okay then beg. bc i wont. physical reminds me too much of glee and that hurts me mentally.

your playlist is sorely missing some Madonna. Specifically Into the Groove, Like a Prayer, and Vogue

i’m scared of madonna that’s why she’s not on there. she haunts me in my dreams.

suggestion: son of batman by aaron dews for dick’s playlist🤩

sorry, i listened to it and the vibe didn’t agree with me.

Hear me out, metropolis citizens sending rare pair fics of Clark Kent x Superman fics to Lois to edit

yes, absolutely hilarious. even more funny if they send like physical copies, no address attached and lois sends it back marked with red ink, SOMEHOW

Imagine all the smut Clark must of read editing the fics

clark reads smut confirmeeed

NOT LOIS READING SUPERBAT PORN AND EDITING IT A 2AM 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hc that alfred is a meta that boosts healing factor of the people around him. if the bats are injured as much as they seem to be they would be doing bat stuff MAYBE half the year. no one including alfred knows about this. whenever the kids move out they inexplicably dont recover from injuries as fast and feel better whenever they visit the manor they just chalk it up to homesickness. bruce just thinks he heals really fast. alfred thinks everyone doesnt take care of themselves properly @finchcollector

that’s actually such a great idea, but i think that alfred would find out and learn how to concentrate it better so he can help more people, bc he’s great and i love him.

One of your dickfast posts reminded me of that tweet that goes: 'so you've had sex how many times? Yeah technically that's not a bromance' lol that's dickwally or dickroy

literally tho. like that’s all of dick’s friendships. once it gets past a certain time dick is like ‘wow i wonder what it would be like to make out with wally, wally come make out with me’ and wally’s like ‘we’ve done this like 40 times, dick, you know what it’s like’ and dick is like ‘sorry are you complaining?’ and they just make out.

superfam and batfam associations??

-batman and superman

-dick/barabara and supergirl?

-conner and tim

-jon and damian

pls enlighten me I am confused

nope,,, uhm batman and superman, but dick and superman as well, and then conner and tim, jon and damian and steph + babs with supergirl

I came across a fic in which Wonder Woman calls Batman "Stella" (like Stellaluna, the children's book) and I can imagine the batkids hop on the trend and maybe copies of the book appear at random places (aka, everywhere Bruce frequents)

sorry can’t reciprocate that was the name of my high school chemistry teacher and it gives me nightmares to think about.

good human what are your pronouns?

wouldn’t you like to know?

I need me some gothamites preferring harley over joker memes

everyone prefers harley over joker youre just very fucked up if you dont

don't understand why people try to add like veteran policy to the batfamily

dick pulling out his veteran batfam member card so he can eat first: step aside, peasants

Do you know the song Simmer by Haley Williams? It (the first verse anyways) reminds me of Jason? It's about rage.

damn yeah i LOVE HAYLEY!!!! youre right thoo

Okay so I like listen to your stoner Tim Drake playlist 24/7 but would he listen to skegss? Also I keep adding songs mentally it’s killing me 😩✋🏼 Anyways,, I literally love and worship your playlist 😃🤞🏼 And uh yeah have a good day ✨

stoner tim drake playlist is lyfeeee. also dont know who skeggs is? i’m stupid? have a good day!!

All the Robins (and Batgirl) decide to trade costumes for one night just to fuck with Batman and all the villains in Gotham. @subspacecadet 

batman knows it’s them youknow but like,,, what does he call them? he’s like ‘red hood?’ and 3 people answer and he’s not about to compromise some identities so he’s just Pissed.

I aspire to treat cops the way my dad treats them. This man is a 45 year old Asian immigrant to the US and the treats them like his pets. He talks about them like unruly children. Sometimes he pays off local cops to shut up and stop acting racist. And usually it works. I don’t know why but I can see Oliver Queen doing this

vibes... and also yes? oliver queen handing a local cop a donut to shut the fuck up lmao. but yanno i commit enough crimes to not really want to ever see a cop ever, so they kinda scare the everloving fuck out of me.

seeing as tim hasn't aged in years, that means he was 17 at peak emo tumblr era. im back on my emo tim bullshit and im not letting it go

emo tim had a wattpad account send tweet

People seem to think that batman is so dark and serious when the rainbow batsuit is right there. He wore it with no shame.

dude the 60s were a DIFFERENT TIME

dick grew up in a circus, jason grew up on the streets, and tim was probably raised by the internet

all of them cuss every other word and you cannot tell me otherwise

bitch i KNOW but dc has to change to an 18+ rating if they want to sell comix with swear words in them so we gotta deal with imagining the swear words in ourselves

thoughts on teen titans and young justice

haven’t seen teen titans on account of havent seen it and young justice was LITERALLY my favourite thing ever, tho i do gotta admit it’s not at all similar to the young justice comics unfortunately. i really wouldve liked to see timmy bart kon cassie and cissie animated on tv!!

ew ew ew how to delete batcest shippers I genuinely digust them

log off tumblr?

Okay as poc who was called racist for calling an Italian pastabrain: in the batfam are Italians bit Damian just yells various insults about the others being Italian. Just him yelling “What are you doing you moronic spaghettihead!” At steph etc

huh? i meant real italians. homeboy is telling steph he hopes she chokes on her fucking garlic.

I think it's dumb as hell to pull the batman is the best fighter in the batfam argument because like it's just irresponsible of Bruce to let his kids fight when they couldn't possibly be on his league or something

fair enough, but also like who cares they could all kill you just sit down and take a beating.

lady shiva, thalia al ghul and Selina Kyle are all milfs @notanothertimburtonenthusiastugh 

unfortunately, i have to admit,,, you’re right

why tf didn't someone give joker a death sentence already? like he's a mass murderer...give him the electric chair treatment wtf

idk i think plenty of people would have tried to murder him already (boring answer is: he is a popular character so they can’t kill him off bc he brings in lots of money)

There’s no such thing as “ copaganda”.

all american media is propaganda. happy to clear this up for you

is it bad that I find lady shiva owa owa

no. find her as owa owa as you want.

aight I'm guessing the order of your favs in batfam:

1. tim

2. Steph

3. dick

4. Duke

5. the rest

you’re wrong but it’s cute that you tried, i generally don’t have favourites, but i have a special place in my heart for steph, tim, dick and cass. bc they were like my introduction to batfam. but damian, jason, duke, bruce, babs and alfred are NOT FORGOTTEN OR UNLOVED

oh my god i was literally just readily willing to believe that italians werent white ty for clarifying it was a joke im so dumb sdkvjskdfs

i mean some italians aren’t white? italian is a nationality as well as an ethnicity, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

since I saw so many people doing headcanons about the nationalities of batboys, I see Dick as an Italian.

dont know if youre serious or not, but sure.

super random but

jason 🤝 damian

old english

lmao fair enough.

tim absolutely has 1 gay uncle and his parents shit talk said uncle all the time so after bruce adopts him he specifically reaches out to this uncle to be like "heyyyy just so you know you majorly influenced my life yes i know i havent seen you since i was 5 and at the family reunion yes i know you dont remember my name idc thank you im gay too" and then they never talk again.

yuppp lmao that’s definitely something that could happen. i can also consider tim having no family members, like none. until he does like a dna test and he realises he has like an aunt living barely 2 miles away from him who’s like some illegitimate child of his grandpa.

I dare you one of them sends clark superman/clark fic and clark corrects the shit out of it and then goes like ps his dick is not that big, just telling as someone who has seen it. internet either explodes or goes who tf did he not fuck at this point.

i think everybody would call clark a buzzkill and try to cancel him over that.

so you're telling me Tim Drake wouldn't buy Starbucks?

no. dunkin donuts all the way

One of my favorite things is imagining people finding out jason came back from the dead and being like "oh no does he have magic powers now?!?!?" and he just pulls out a gun and tries to shoot joker

now he doesn’t even have the gun :) lmao

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

bruce gets codename ‘ugh’ everytime. he hates it.

crazy that tim being a 17 y/o ceo and a stoner who does brand deals are all actual canon things written in detective comics comics and not made up for shits and giggles by you, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb @rowdeyclown

SO CRAZY HUH?

batman au where everything is the same but his utility belt is bright pink

absolutely, but i raise you, his boots light up like sketchers when he kicks people.

unbeknownst to the superhero fandom writers in the dcuniverse, clark and BRUCE are one of the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag on ao3. clark writes the best lois x superman angst, full of unhappy endings and scenes that are a so detailed you'd think you were in the middle of a superhero beatdown. bruce made an ao3 account to fuel "the do the butts match" thing, and makes batman/bruce fics from time to time. he wrote a superbat fic as a joke but ended up making it REAL porny. @concrastinator

dude they’re WAY too busy for that. Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan on the other hand are the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag writing what is Mostly porn.

When the dining table topic gets to politics, Steph says "eat the rich" as the solution

bruce just silently takes away her fork and knife while she’s talking.

[the-kipsabian]

wrestling asks: 1, 2, 5, 13, 14, 16, 19, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 37, 39 ~

1. favorite current male wrestler im trying to think who ive been flipping my shit over the most recently, but yeah i think we have to go with trent. youve heard me literally cry over him the past few days and while yeah theres a lot of names up there with him, currently i think i can name him my number one. greg just makes me very weak fucking fight me

(rest is under a read more cause man there ended up being a lot of things lol)

2. favorite current female wrestler god this one is. so much harder tbh. i love so many girls but i also dont know if ive really ever picked any faves from the current rosters. tho now that i think about it, i might just have to give it to deonna purrazzo? shes amazing and watching her recently has been an absolute treat, god what a queen

5. favorite tag team why would you do this to me. how am i supposed to choose. my brain is fighting over so many rn but i think. it has to go to breezango? theyve been so entertaining since the very beginning and i still very dearly love these bois, they are talented as hell and deserved so much better than what they were given tbh

13. the best looking diva female superstar i can answer this one again since theres a many lol (i say and immediately my brain locks up as i cant think of anyone LOL)

buuuut lets do zelina. cause she makes me gay and shes tiny and just. helluva cute. fight me. also a literal queen so hell yes we stan

14. the best looking superstar uuuUUUH. fuck do i need to pick another one LOL

lets go to the other end of the spectrum, kip sabian! hes cute, i love his hair, his smile could destroy me for days, CROP TOPS and. i dont mean to objectify but dat ass tho

16. the best gimmick i already talked about seth so lemme bounce around a bit and mention mjf

not only is he better than you (and you know it). but he takes that to such extremes its amazing and hilarious at the same time. hes so over the top it works perfectly for him, and how he keeps the kayfabe going outside the ring too is fucking fantastic. hell he literally puts his own parents on blast on social media sometimes its fucking wonderful. he absolutely owns that shit, despite not being like the top guy of the company or even having held any titles recently, but there he just goes - being better than anyone else cause fuck you thats why. its fucking amazing i tell you lol

19. the best mic worker god theres. probably like ten million people i could mention in this one lol. im just trying to think who i love listen to speak honestly, but im trying not to be biased to my. other tastes lol (looking at you jay, i love your accent but my god it gets hot in here when you get angy and that doesnt work for this one LOL)

..you know what i think i gotta give this to cm punk. thats kinda outside the box for me but its also a very obvious answer, cause this man is very good tho. the way he speaks speaks volume and the way he talks is high key just mesmerizing. you just gotta listen to every word he says whether you like it or not. and im not even talking about the legendary promos rn, but just in general. this man is a god on the mic honestly

24. which wrestler would you like to see make a return? oh my god.. well i mean. define a return tbh. if we're talking about ppl that have retired officially, im heavily leaning towards aj lee tbh cause man i miss her in the ring.

if we're talking about just someone that hasnt been in the ring for a while due to, well you know, company bullshit releases. definitely breezango. i know dango is active but i havent seen him in anything cause im too lazy to try to look for stuff, but breeze hasnt done anything and im like. pls my boi come back i miss you and your precious face and in-ring abilities :(

(..also do kip and trent count for this like they are both out with injuries and i miss them both dearly i need my dumb bois back on screen pls)

26. one unpopular opinion of yours. ..impact is the best wrestling there is on television right now. dont even fucking @ me you know im right LOL

27. who do you consider underrated? ..how much can i repeat myself if i say kip sabian? man is hella talented, absolutely unrecognized about it, and he deserves the world. also a huge ass sweetheart and im just ugh. pls return soon kip ive seen your 'underrated and over it' stuff i need you back to kick ass soon plEASE

28. what about an over-rated wrestler? how many toes am i ready to step on is the question LOL. im gonna take the easy way out on this and just say charlotte, i never really got behind her hype and while im not denying her talent or anything, i just think theres more deserving girls in the roster that could easily take her place and at least slow down her title reigns cause man. i get it live up to the dad hype cause you brother couldnt but holy shit creative calm the fuck down okay

30. you get to make your own stable. who would it consist of? what is their name? listen i think we already know im bad at names so im just completely gonna sidestep that one LOL. also im taking this question as like. who would i put in a stable together, and not as who i would be in a stable together with, so lets roll with that lol

..tho ive been sitting on this for fucking ten minutes now and my brain is completely empty. get back to me about this at some point maybe i'll eventually have an answer for you lol

37. if you were on the original nxt who would you choose as your pro? are we only including ppl in that timeframe or can i pick whoever i want? cause if its whoever, its sami zayn. he has a style i adore, i feel like that would include some really fun on-camera chemistry, and he would either just enjoy being there or make it into a very dramatic "reality tv" which would also be fucking hilarious. also its sami, its a really good chance to actually learn something really valuable even tho this isnt like. probably actually couching and shit but you know. i'd never miss that chance tho

39. what is your best wrestling related memory? can i name three? cause i think i have three lol 1. when i introduced this interest to my wife like last year. im very selfconcious when it comes to telling ppl about my interests that are kinda out there, cause ive been dealing with a lot of shit that comes with it for a loooong time tbh, but its a huge part of me and shes my best irl friend and i was like. im gonna do it she can judge me all she wants. and she got SO into it and was super excited that i shared this with her and we watched a whole lot of stuff that weekend and everything was super great. god i love her

2. my first ever live show. so wwe took like a ten year break between coming to finland, and then they decided to show up again in 2019. now me and my brother are both adults compared to the last time they were here, we were both making our own income and were like FUCK IT LETS GO. and thus we ended up in our first ever live show. i still fucking tear up thinking that oh my god i saw all these peeps live. i was one of the few people (there was like. four of us, me and my brother and some kiddos across the arena) chanting 'sami zayn sucks' which is still one of my fondest memories ngl LOL. such an emotional and amazing night, would do again in a heartbeat and i dont even watch this company anymore lol

and 3. those two nights we watched battle in the valley with @ss-trashboat (feels high key weird to tag you in this since you asked this LOL). the first night the whole karl thing happened and i fucking lost my mind, you literally heard me cry on voice. and the second night just. as a whole. seeing buddy again after months since his release, you freaking out over will, just juice, both of us losing it over jay. and being sleep deprived to hell and back on both nights cause lol timezones and just man. i love wrestling and i love you so much this whole thing honestly meant so much to me im ah <33

wrestling asks ~

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel IV:

WHY ARE THEY CALLED CLASS VII?

WHO ARE CLASS VI?

Anyway - I started playing Trails in August, and I’ve finally, finally caught up (yes I know Hajimari I can’t read Japanese) and like... what do I do now?

It’s a fantastic series and I’m so, so glad I picked up Trails in the Sky on a whim last summer

This game was long. Is it longer than the other ones? It felt that way

The best part was the first chapter because Rean wasn’t in it and yeah I still don’t like him!!! But seriously, it was astonishing how much more I was enjoying things without him

I audibly groaned when goddamn bonding points returned in the second chapter

Actually that was a lie, the best part was Any Time My Angel Estelle Was On Screen

I missed her so much

I let her get the final hit of the game against the boss because she’s the best

Speaking of angels I caught three Wazy cameos!!!

Also Gilbert came back and if there had been a camera on me... I quite literally teared up a little I was so thrilled

I hate the curse it is dumb and rips all the nuance out of the characters. People do not need a goddamn evil curse to be swayed to extremes by overzealous nationalism. Trails I know you are better than this, I played Sky and Crossbell

Fav new location was Milsante (liked Alster too, though). I really like going to tiny little outposts and villages in JRPGs, they make the world feel more real

What the hell was up with the Osgiliath Basin? As in, Giliath Osborne??? Is this going to be a Hajimari thing?

Oh yeah, HOT TAKE, Alan Richard >>> Giliath Osborne. I was reading an LP of Sky FC while playing the game, and Richard’s motivation is clearer and less over-complex, more sympathetic, and he’s just generally a far more human character

Alan Richard best political antagonist in the series fight me (Rufus Albarea distant second)

For best supernatural/cult-y antagonist I’m stuck between Weissmann and Joachim. Or maybe Campanella lol

Oh uh speaking of characters named Georg I will never not hate everything about the George and Angie subplot. Angie should have died and George should have stayed evil, or it shouldn’t have happened at all. As it is, it was a complete waste of time - you could take it all out and NOTHING would change

Angie would have been the perfect character to sacrifice as well, she’s just important enough that it would feel like ‘oh shit’s getting real’ but not so important that it’s unbelievable

(like Olivier. I could not fully believe they’d actually kill him, and the moment Laura told me ‘they never found the bodies’ I was like, oh, so they’re definitely all still alive, cool)

I mean, it would be a Bury Your Gays, but honestly... there are things I like about Angie, but is anyone really looking to her as a lesbian role model? I hope not. Yikes

So yeah I guess I hate George now for getting my hopes up and then being boring. Shame

I did the Towa romantic ending, of course. I genuinely think she’s the best match for Rean, of all his love interests

Chaaaracters

Rean: Still the least interesting person. Not a good sign when I’m sadder about the robot dying than the main protagonist yeeting himself into the sun (side note, the two endings thing? Unnecessary and dumb). There is no reason girls would like him this much, blah blah I’ve said it all before. Liked his new hair. Honestly would have respected it if they’d had the balls to kill him off. I basically never even used him in battle lol, Juna became my new team leader

Juna: Honourary protagonist imo. I’ve changed my mind since CS3, she’s my fav new Class VII without a doubt. She’s just really good and full of personality and depth and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM WHY

Kurt: pls falcom don’t try to force this aroace king into a nonsense ship with Sully I liked her but what are you doing, anyway Kurt is great and he got cool new swords and he got to hang out with Mueller, who I adore, I love Kurt

Altina: I also love this little bunny. Her relationship with Millium is so lovely and seeing her grow and become her own person made me so happy and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM I LITERALLY SAID SHE HAS THE BEST RELATIONSHIP WITH REAN OF ALL THE GIRLS BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T DO THAT IN THE LAST GAME WHY DO YOU HATE ME????

Musse: Yeah I’m still not sold on Musse but I liked her better this time! I like a smart, confident girl! Just stop being weird about your teacher and we’d be golden!

Ash: Good boy. Sweet boy. Ash and Joshua game now Falcom

Alisa: Still cannot believe she’s presented as the deuteragonist by the marketing - but you know what? Solid arc, she got some closure with her parents, maybe she and Jusis can get together for tea and complain about their messed up families. She’s never going to be a character I like all that much, but I don’t dislike her. I just wish she hadn’t clearly been written as ‘Rean’s love interest’ before anything else

Elliot: I love Elliot, I really do. I mean, I wish he hadn’t been flanderised to the point of speaking in music puns half the time, but he’s a solid, consistently pleasant character

Laura: Goddamnit Falcom please give Laura anything resembling an emotion regarding her dad dying. Also you tell me she’s kind of oblivious and stuff but we never see it. I like Laura but she really could have been more

Machias: I love Machias, fight me fan base. He’s so funny to me. It feels like, at this point, all he really wants is a nice office job, near a nice coffee shop, where he files papers and sometimes gets to yell at corrupt rich people, but NO, he has to run about in dungeons and fight monsters, and are you FUCKING kidding me, ANOTHER crazy snake cultist!?!? It’s great, he’s the only one who’s just done with it all and love it

I low key headcanon that he and Jusis are kinda dating at this point, but we don’t see anything because the games are from Rean’s POV and they don’t want to tell him because they know he’d be weird about it

Jusis: I still really like Jusis! He’s interesting, and his surrogate brother-sister relationship with Millium is so sweet (yes, I saw that bouquet catch, Falcom, and I hate it, stop it, gross). Awesome to see him confront his brother, obviously I let him have the final blow. Rufus was a great antagonist. Jusis has some of the best development over the games, and is also really fun to use in battle (apparently I am the only one who feels this way though :/ ah well)

Fie: I was surprised by how much I liked Fie’s confession scene, seeing as I don’t like Rean/Fie at ALL. Fie finally gets to have feelings about her dad, and we see her working with Zin at the end! Very happy for Fie, best girl

Emma: Ahhh I still find Emma kinda dull and exposition heavy, but she also had a nice arc, I liked her relationship with Rose, all good

Rose beat me at Vantage Masters for 40 minutes lol

Gaius: It’s still extremely funny to me that Gaius became one of the most important people on the continent *off screen*. And he still doesn’t really do anything. He has his own airship now, I guess. Justice for Gaius

Sara: Kind of faded from relevance after CS1, but I do really like her all the same. And I loved her speech at the end

Crow: At the end his hair got darker and everyone was like ‘you’re back to normal!’ and I literally did not realise he was meant to have been looking different

But anyway Crow is a really good character and I literally never didn’t enjoy him. I love the bit where Jusis and Machias team up to call him a cringy edgelord, because they are right. Crow is fantastic

Towa: Towa has never done anything wrong in her life and all of Erebonia should pay for her therapy

Patrick: I cannot believe how much I love Patrick now, compared to CS1. He’s just such a sweetie. Good boy

Elise: Take her to the sun with you, Rean. Pointless character

Alfin: Is she the heir now? I hope so. She’s such a funny character, not my fav, but I enjoyed her

Angie and George: Should have died, moving on

Celine: I love her, but did she really need a human form? No, no she did not. Great character though

Tita: Special mention, because you know what? I do not like this version of Tita! Like I said, I was reading FC recently and she was so much better there! Now a third of her lines are just her saying ‘Agate’ in various different tones. And it feels like she’s lost a lot of her confidence, where’s the little girl who followed us up Carnelia Tower? I would have preferred them to just not bring her back at all

Duvalie: Haha I love Duvalie she’s great. Stop implying that she’s crushing on Rean. Literally WHY would she. Ugh

Rose: Everything about Rose is great, I would play a full game about her backstory. More Rose

Ships!

Obviously I like Machias/Jusis because I am BASIC

I didn’t like Olivier/Schera back in Sky, but you know what? They sold me. It’s cute (even if I feel Schera’s character was neglected in favour of Being A Love Interest, sigh). Though I’m not sure when Olivier made the switch from ‘Schera is one of many people I flirt with’ to ‘Schera is my one and only’?

But am I the only person who’s kinda on the Oliver/Schera/Mueller train? I’m not normally into OT3s, but Olivier and Mueller have one of the best dynamics in the series, and Schera and Mueller would probably get along great if they were ever allowed to properly interact. And you know Olivier would be down

Like I say, I do not like Jusis/Millium at all, it’s not a ‘I like another ship better’ thing, it just massively skeeves me out because of the maturity difference 

Ash/Tatiana was unexpected but adorable

Patrick/Elise, because I want Patrick to be happy and Rean to be mad

Also Elise/Alfin, sorry Patrick

I hope Anton and Sharon really do get together. Sharon deserves unconditional love and Anton deserves a happy ending

Sharon also deserves to hook up with Sara like once

I also sort of feel like Sara/Claire would be fun

I’ve actually like Gaius/Linde from CS1, I’m happy it’s kind of a thing now!

If Lila/Maybelle is the LET’S GO LESBIANS Trails ship, then Emily/Theresia is LET’S GO BABY LESBIANS

Vincent/Margarita. They’re both horrible people. At least this way no one else has to deal with them

Joining my Kloe/Josette in the ‘crack ships I love that have very, very little canon basis’ is Fritz/Kairi, based on their interactions in that one mission and then that they’re eating together at Mishelam. It’s pretty much just a height differences thing, lol

Miles/Elnan. I have literally no justification for this

Other stuff There was this one scene where Gaius says how nice it is that Mueller cares about Olivier and Mueller just snaps his head round and the scene ends, and I don’t think it was meant to be funny but I laughed for like a full minute

The intro to the music at Mishelam is extremely creepy to me

I love the Pom Party mini game a whole lot

There were... a lot of typos in the second half of the script. It’s massive, so I’m not mad, but I hope there’s a patch at some point

BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL I love her

Uh if we’re still doing romance next arc please give us a gay option, no Crow did not count

I hate divine knight battles! I really do! That last one against Ishmelga was really hard and not in a fun way! In a ‘this is bullshit fake difficulty’ way. Please don’t bring them back!

The true final battle, though? FANTASTIC, now THAT is a final boss! One of the best in the series, like that’s such a fun gimmick!

I got it trapped in break state and spammed Heaven’s Kiss/Quick Star, because I’m a strategic gamer 

I am embarrassed by how long it took me to recognise Lucy

KLOE CAMEO!!!

Oh and I assume Kaela is going to be important next arc, since it’s in Calvard?

I love Thomas??? And Rosine???

Why was the grandmaster reveal hidden behind watching the ending twice, why do that? Great scene, though

My theory is that she is Aidios, I will cling to this for as long as possible

I probably have like a million other things to say that I’m just not remembering right now. Look forward to random shouts into the void about it in upcoming weeks, followers

I really enjoyed this overall, despite the problems I mentioned above. It was just fun, I like the cast, the gameplay is great... just a solid game

Trails is a really fantastic franchise - not perfect, but what is? I’ve had such a fun time with it over the past half-year, and I cannot wait to see what happens next. Thank you, Falcom, the localisation team, the VAs - stellar job all around

This is normally where I’d end on a joke but like. Nah, I’m just happy. Cue ‘The Whereabouts of Light’

[jaywhere]

im about to drop so much unnecessary information but i think i need to like write this down and get it out of my system bc i dont think ive ever actually like put it on paper all in one place but

i went to graduate school in like 2019 i already knew a bunch of the profs in the program and id promised myself that if i got into this program specifically i would bite the bullet and transition bc it was going to be the cheapest option so id actually have the money and i would have at least some social support bc id be close to home and like. yadda yadda transitioning is bad grad school is toxic you end up spending like 8-12 hours a day with 30 random high achieving people and its Bad, trans stuff was not the only thing that everyone was bad about.

i have been trying very hard recently to find like joy in being a man and loving myself and all that extremely gay shit but back then i was this like tightly wound ball of anxiety and insecurity and transitioning in that environment while not knowing a single other trans person irl was kind of unhinged of me and i dont mean to sound like an asshole but i did graduate with a 4.0 and im good at my fucking job now despite all that shit and i am extremely brave and awesome for that. and i could spend a lot of time talking about how all of that fucking psychologically fucked me up but i am here today to talk about one specific person who at the time i made a lot of excuses for but looking back on it im. i just need to write it out lmfao.

so i went to grad school not for fun academic reasons but bc my current profession is like one of those things where u gotta have a special license and training and all that jazz, not gonna doxx myself but u get it. one of the pieces of that is u have to get a certain number (like Many Hundreds) of direct hours practicing how to do this job, usually on site at the university for the first year and then externally as a graduate intern at some kind of real world job site. some programs make you find your own internships but mine was one where we were directly assigned -- a thing my anxious undiagnosed adhd ass was specifically looking for lol -- and there was one lady who was in charge of finding those placements and picking out which student goes where. she also had minimal teaching responsibilities where we had a 1-hour long lecture with her once a week and it was extremely pointless everything else im about to say aside this lady was either sleep deprived all the time or really just not very smart

so you know me, baby trans, publicly transitioning in this toxic environment, constant microaggressions from my peers -- dear lord one time this lady in her 40s with like kids who used to be in the military made me sit with her in grad work room and explain to her what rights exactly i think i dont have as a trans person a lady from the fucking MILITARY who was enlisted in the fucking DONT ASK DONT TELL ERA and then i just had to move on and sit there for like three hours studying -- christ!!! anyways it was not great but this particular professor would literally constantly misgender me in her class, like to the fucking point where i had other students point it out like "why does she do that like youre not even raising your hand" and it became this whole thing where i was like. fuck do i need to sit in the back and even though my adhd ass really needs to be in the front do i need to just start loudly interrupting her so she feels as embarrassed as i do or am i gonna get in trouble for that can i ask other students to help me out JOKES ON YOU i tried that and it did not fucking work for like 8 different reasons

so i eventually just started trying to interrupt her and tbh it made her do it more frequently and draw even more attention to myself and i honestly would have just started skipping the class if it wouldnt have flunked me and you know how theres that whole thing they do in academia (other minority postbach homies will understand) where theyre like "well you say this thing is due to [minority status] but you didnt clearly communicate to us your needs why are you only telling us now" and its like i dont fucking know what about any of this situation (massive power difference between me and a prof, ability of prof to literally end my career before it starts, ability to make my life so miserable i get depressed and completely stop functioning only to say im not "cut out" for your highly selective program) makes academics think anybody is gonna feel okay communicating openly and honestly with them. so i never fucking complained like a chump just jay out here living in literal hell all the time always

and then she gives us these. god awful fucking case study type presentations. they are based on real people, one of them is trans. i wasnt assigned to the group that had that case but i got this awful feeling about it so i read through it and the whole thing was so fucking awful, like calling this poor trans woman's name a pseudonym bc its not her birth name, giving really inappropriate details about like gential surgeries which were really not relevant, super outdated language like we're just throwing the word transsexual around and defining "passing" wrong, i'm pretty sure misgendering this poor lady just to be like "well JUST to be CLEAR she (he) is really a MAN"

and like setting aside how awful that made me feel because, you know. looking back on it that's what literally everyone around me was thinking about me all thrle time. i had this whole conversation with myself where i was like. i have not complained i dont want to rock the boat i have approached literally every interaction ive had here trying to be a fucking model minority and it is straight up killing me a little. but i cannot let my classmates think this is an acceptable way to talk about trans people. shit that happens to me is my choice, shit that impacts others is not.

so i made an office hours appt with this lady. there was no fucking way to casually talk to her so it was like formal appt a week in advance felt like i was gonna throw up for days and i walk in psyching myself up to be so nice and helpful and understanding i just want to learn this shit and get my fucking degree. i explain so nicely like hey this maybe isnt the best. i wouldnt feel good if someone talked about me this way. i know it must be hard to find resources about trans people. we're so niche. id be happy to help you find another resource. we could maybe even salvage this one, or we could use it as-is and also talk about why all these things are bad. i dont want to take away everyones opportunity to learn about trans people, its so valuable and important, i just want it to he good info. i was so fucking -- i do not think i could have behaved better

and anyways here are some things this lady said to me during this meeting: oh yeah i thought when you made this appt it might be about this. she misgendered me like three fucking times -- how the hell do you even do that in a 1-1 conversation??? -- and acted like she didnt notice every. fucking. time. she did it. lady had the gall to like brag??? complain???? to me about how she ignores the emails she gets from turning point usa like WOW THAT MUST BE SO FUCKING HARD FOR YOU...ignoring emails...dear god, the moxie! (foreshadowing) and then admits that she knew the resource might have been shitty when she assigned it but felt assured that i would come to her and let her know if it was bad. which to this day makes me so fucking angry i spent so many hours freaking out about that meeting NOT FUCKING STUDYING -- and the whole fucking program was so vocal about racial/ethnic diversity and disability she would have immediately realized how inappropriate that sentiment is if it had been about NEARLY ANY OTHER MINORITY GROUP!!! and then she fucking is like "well ill just scrap it and we wont talk about trans people at all" and i kept pushing like hey no, hey no, please dont do that, dont let all these people graduate without having to have this conversation just once. and she was like eh and i OFFERRED to find someone to try and come give a fucking training (that didnt involve a fucking privledge walk and extensive discussion of the word womyn god i hate universities so much!!!!!!) and she was like uhh maybe and i immediately fucking went and found some folks to do it ANYWAYS bc i was struggling so much

and then covid hit like two weeks later and none of that mattered anyways!

i then lost all of my opportunities to get hours on campus (while other folks were able to continue virtually). it was entirely random but it was extremely shitty considering id gotten fewer hours in the fall bc the program had just relocated and there were all of these resource issues. i was meant to be included in an intensive project over the summer where i'd get a ton of hours because of the focus area i'd chosen, but i ended up getting less than half the hours that had been projected bc we had to do it virtually. so i ended out my first year of grad school with something like 85 hours out of 400. i wasnt in close contact with all my classmates but as far as i could tell i was definitely on the lower end in my cohort.

the semester starts in like august and this lady does not give me an internship placement until late october. i am literally the last person to be placed along with my classmate who shared the internship site with me.

in addition, the location and setting in which i am placed. i live in a major city in texas -- not awesome but i do not feel actively unsafe out in the world and there are visibly trans people Around. she assigned me to the kind of location where pulling into the wrong driveway as a visibly queer or nonwhite person can get you shot. and its a setting for trans people that is, i would say, at significantly higher risk of getting you fired or written about in fox news.

its august. i have been on t for about a year, but i hadnt had top surgery yet. and im likr 5'1 and kinda chubby. i have just started to reliably pass but its very context dependent and i have to put a Lot of work in.

this lady hasnt seen me since february. no one from the program has. she straight up does not think i pass. as she made abundantly clear to me.

not once did she ever try to contact me to let me know who of the people id be working with knew i was trans, give me any advice on how to approach the situation, or offer me literally any kind of support.

i have thought about this a lot over the years, because at the end of the day nothing ended up happening. i spent like an hour and a half every day driving to this internship fucking STRAPPED in my binder so i ended up wearing it for like at least 10 hours a day for months. i had to show my id to the front desk staff every time i went in and they would print me out a sticker i was supposed to wear with my deadname and my picture from my license where i was very clearly a woman. id have to wear just long enough to leave the office and immeditely strip it off in the hallway and discreetly throw it away before my supervisor saw, because i quickly INFERED that my supervisors did not know i was trans. the front office ladies would whisper about me every day. i was literally constantly on edge worrying when she shoe was gonna drop and my supervisors or the site admin or a client would find out and i'd get kicked out of the internship.

and this lady had spent so long yelling at us about how she cannot guarantee that youll graduate on time if you turn down an internship and you go on the bottom of the list for a new placement if you get kicked out and if you have to stay to get more hours you have to pay for a whole other semester of hours. i was already behind bc of covid.

i want to make it clear that in hindsight i understand that this was discrimination, quite obviously actually. at best it was straught negligence and at worst outright retaliation. at the time i really thought about complaining to the director or making a title ix complaint but i knew they were just going to blame it on covid. and if i went through and made a complaint and they completely agreed and removed me from the site, covid would be a great excuse to not give me another placement right anyway so either way i was just. boned.

my next placement was a lot safer thankfully but it was at the exact same setting as before. which, you know, not the best setting for trans people and the way this job works out, if you don't get practice hours in a specific setting its really hard to make the shift after graduation. i ended up getting a job at this place after actually which is great but its like. i got shut out of this whole area of my field. and that is NOT typical, even with covid most of the people in the class got more varied placements than i did. like ive told people in my field about getting two of the same type of job site and they were like "wait you can do that and graduate" and like a ton of people dont even WANT to have varied placements bc they already know exactly where they want to working im sobbing. like ive been trying to get into the one area of my field where we work with trans people and its so hard bc i just dont have any of these foundational experiences i need for that!!!

and now i am. screaming im screaming no im moving out of state bc we are getting to the point where if i stay here and things get any worse im going to be able to get charged with a sex crime for pissing at my place of employment and lose my fucking license or just have to explain it to every fucking landlord and licensing board for the rest of my life forever and like. just like the placement, is it likely to happen? probably not. but i dont deserve to live in the fear of losing my livelihood every day!!

so im in the process of leaving the damn state bc its not fucking safe for me. and the state im moving to needs this fucking paper filled out by my graduate program saying im competent to do this damn job and i did all the hours which is so fucking stupid bc they GRADUATED ME with a fucking 4.0!! and i have emailed this lady twice trying to get her to fill out the damn paper and she has not responded

im just like. so tired. i thought so hard about filing a complaint with the chair or title ix. i didnt, because i didnt wanna "burn the bridge" or whatever and i wasnt gonna win anyways. like i knew it would just be me having to relive all that shit and getting told i didnt advocate for myself well enough and its actually my fault AND I WAS PROBABLY RIGHT lets be real but i am like. regretting not doing that bc then at least there would be a paper trail.

i had like a whole fucking freak out today realizing that this lady 100% has the power to put me through that exact same awful insidious kind of discrimination that's so hard to meaningfully prove and its making me feel out of control. i know im putting the cart before the horse it is just like. its genuinely hard to describe how awful and dehumanizing everything was during that time in my life. i pretty much stopped writing after that first placement and i fucking always had ignorant fucking assholes talking shit to me in my dms and ao3 comments, trans people picking fights with me over fanfiction and fucking say shit like "no trans person would ever say xyz" and "hes a disappointment as a trans person" and "i just dont think his trans fic is good representation" in public, zero fucking apology, i got on antidepressants for the first and only time in my life. and i was in a fucking emotionally abusive relationship! that shit broke my fucking brain!!

i am doing better now not the same guy anymore i have joy sometimes and i am functioning better than i literally ever thought possible and i am going to move so i can have a life.

but also even though it feels very bad like im talking every time i think about this my chest gets all tight like im gonna have a panic attack and it has been SO LONG since i felt that way, i am going to send the emails and and call the front desk and email the department chair and fucking drive up there and bother the shit out of her until she does it. and like hey maybe she fucking wont! but if she gives me a hard time. it will cause me significant professional consequences and little if any professional gain but like fuck if i deserved any of that!!! its been so many years and i keep talking down to myself like it wasnt that big of a deal im just being self-centered it was probably a coincidence youre blowing things out of proportion bc thats how all my cis classmates talked about it but like i WASNT. i wasnt, i was not being dramatic or sensitive or whatever. i was not safe and i had basically no power in that situation and it was messed up. i finished my hours fucking three days before the deadline! three days from having to pay like $3k more than all my classmates and cancel my fucking top surgery if i wanted to graduate!! lady fundamentally changed the course of my career for no motherfucking reason!!!!

all that to say if she gives me a hard time i am going to file a discrimination complaint against her national certification it takes like a year and there's like 0% chance i'll like "win" in arbitration or whatever regardless of whether or not she signs the stupid fucking paper. ill either have to pay like $3k more go to back to school or pay like $1k to pull some morally dubious license and certification nonsense or try to transition to another setting if she doesnt. but like fuck her and every academic like her who thinks they can get away with that kinda shit without any consequences

NOT TO BE DRAMATIC BUT I YHIMK GRAD SCHOOL GAVE ME TRAUMA ACTUALLY

[sargentr]

my fave drarry fics of all time, part one

so, after discovering i’ve officially been reading drarry fanfic for 4 years now, i decided to show my (quite big) list of favorite drarry fics. there are 46 in total, but i’ve listed 10 down below. the first three are my absolute favorites but the rest are equally as good

most of my notes are fresh from when i wrote them post-reading. i’ve changed some, seeming less like a crazy unstable bitch, but fuck these were all emotional as fuck. enjoy

ps: i dont really know how to tag people i dont follow. i cant try and tag the authors later. soz!!

pps: most of these i read when i was really into a bottom!draco phase, so most of them contain that, some are switch tho (as it should be, yikes past me)

1. Everything That Happen is From Now On / ~43K 

After surviving a brutal assault, Draco tries to navigate the tumultuous waters of his mind, and embrace a bit of love and trust in his life. After all, the smallest steps forward can begin to heal the most fractured of souls

okay so before i get in to how beautiful this story is, i wanna say that it does touch on rape quite explicitly. i cried like an idiot reading the entire thing, because draco’s pain is navigated in the most beautiful and realistic way. it touches on a subject very risky for me, very personal, and i still can’t think of a better drarry story. draco’s very draco about it all, and harry is very harry about it all. it’s just perfect, and messy, and tender, and sad. i’ve reread it more than any other fic, and it doesn’t disappoint. 

2. Pocket Full of Starlight / ~46K

When Scorpius Malfoy and Jamie Potter meet at Quidditch camp, they take an instant dislike to each other. Then they discover their lives are more connected than they could possibly imagine.

ah yes. the magic of kid fics. the TASTE

parent trap au. i read this one recently, like 3 months back, and absolutely fell in love with everything about it, partially because the parent trap is legit one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. its just. the essence, the IDEA, is soooo mf beautiful. i cant get enough of reading when harry or draco finally meet the other twin, or how they cant stop loving each other even after 11 years. my heart clenched throughout the whole thing. 

3. Temptations on the Warfront / ~180K

Draco Malfoy is forced into hiding with the Golden Trio and dragged into their search for horcruxes. What ensues is a journey of redemption, unexpected friendships and an unwanted, turbulent romance with Harry Potter. Warnings for swearing, sexual content, and dark themes. 

this was the first drarry fic ive ever read, and before this mf i HATEDDD this pairing. so you can imagine how much it took to convince me otherwise, bc i was 100% scorbus before this.

to be fair, horcrux hunting with draco involved is, possibly, my favorite trope ever. its unique. theres tension, both sexual and life threatening. in some ways it romanticizes the war, but fuck it it aint a real war. 

slowest of burns. amazing. life changing. long as hell. nothing else to be said except read it right now i demand it.

4. Clouding the Senses / ~58K

As everyone returns to Hogwarts for a final eighth year, some people are coping better with the aftermath of the war than others. After encountering a very drunk Draco Malfoy one night, Harry realises that maybe those that lost loved ones aren’t the only ones trying to escape the war. Blaise Zabini seems to think Harry can help Malfoy, that the Slytherin might actually listen to him. Harry is not so sure. Dependence is a tricky thing, and one addiction can quickly shift to another.

everyone that reads drarry loves 8th year fics, but this ones just kinda different from all those normal (yet entertaining) ones. draco’s an alcoholic in this, and one night harry tries to help him and whoops, one thing leads to the other and they start having casual sex. its really, really amazing how both draco and harry navigate the addiction, i really cant say it has any flaws. 

i know the author got a lot of hate on their fics and thats why they took them down, but they’re truly one of the best drarry authors out there. i’ve reread this a couple of times, and the tenderness, the love and confusion is all very on character. a+

5. Restraint / ~153K

Someone casts the Imperius curse on Draco Malfoy, and whatever the instructions may be, Harry finds himself an unwilling target. The encounter leaves him torn between pleasure and revulsion. As they fight in the aftermath, a tense game begins. Harry fights to convince Malfoy, and himself, that he was not affected by that initial encounter, or any of those following it.

Faced with a series of escalating encounters, Harry must come to terms with desiring things he never thought he could, things he wishes he didn’t respond to. They each use signs of arousal as weapons against each other in a mad struggle to finally shame the other into backing down for good. 

But it’s only after the game is over that Harry starts to understand.

this is by the same author of clouding the senses, and i read this just this week. at first, it’s shocking, because it plays around with consent in a very unsettling way. when communication comes in, and its starts getting healthier, you can really understand where the author found the idea of playing with consent. it is, in my opinion, 100% characteristic of how they would behave post-war, with that grief and confusion. it’s also dom/sub in some parts, and that’s mf hot. 

it also has my favorite tropes in it, but it’s a spoiler to say which one. i’ll probably mention the trope in the list along with a bunch others, but when u finish reading you’ll know which one ;)

6. Humbug / ~30K

Draco has been taking his casual relationship with Harry for granted. Visits from four key ghosts the night before Christmas just might shake up his priorities in life.

(felt like it was valid to just paste what i wrote in my notes app after reading this)

(FUCKKKKKK HOW TO EVEN START?!!!?? just a fucking bonus, draco is THE best bottom o ever exist i love my bottom son so much. this story isnt only amazing it’s excruciatingly painful to read, harry and draco have been sleeping together but harry is completely in love with him. draco doesnt see how much harry cares for him or how much hes hurting harry by treating their fling like its just that, a FLING. with that, draco is haunted by three ghosts. one of the past, the present and the future, AND THEY SET THAT IDIOT STRAIGHTTTT 1800000/10. the gays DO KEEP MF WINNING!!!

7. in your arms, rests my world / ~24K

Harry presses his mouth to Malfoy's forehead; he wants to tell him that he’ll never leave, that he wouldn’t dream of it.

“You make me feel safe, Potter” Malfoy whispers. “You keep me safe.”

the friends with benefits trope doesnt ever disappoint, top 5 tropes fr, especially if its also 8th year. harry and draco get into their little thing, but of course nothing ever is simple between them. by the preview, you can clearly see how much draco likes harry (also another 10/10 trope, the ‘i’ve been in love with harry potter since i was 11′ one). my only tiny issue with this is that harry fucks it up just a tad, but it of course adds up to the drama of it all, which i absolutely love.

noting it also touches on non-con/rape and, and all in all, is extremely angsty. one i was tense from beginning to end. but i am gonna say it ends amazingly and v happily.

8. Playing the Hero / ~29K

Nobody kissed me like Harry did. He kissed like he flew; he kissed like he duelled - with his whole being, not caring about anything else. I had never felt as vulnerable as I did when he kissed me, seizing all and any control I had over myself. But when Harry kissed me, I felt free...

so the thing about angst is that it ignites that mf feeling side u that even tho it hurts you cannot get enough of. this fic was EVERYTHINGGG. it made cry and laugh and smile. also another trope i absolutely adore is them breaking up and not being 100% ok with that, bc ding ding!! YALL STILL LOVE EACH OTHER!! 

i cant describe how i felt, honestly. i would just paste my notes (i wont bc spoilers) but it looks like i went thru sum shit. deadass

9. fine i’ll hold my breath / till i forget it’s complicated  / ~ 15K with the two parts

Harry and Draco become friends with benefits, and Harry thinks it's more complicated than it actually is.

u know, fluff is a drug. i dont know if its beucase 90% of drarry fics are about angsty get-togethers, but i had butterflies in my stomach when i read this. its adorable. draco is so clearly in love, he jusT SMILES A LOT I CANTTT. 

its cute. i love it to death. have some fluff before starting your day.

10. Un Noël très parisien / ~14K

When Draco crossed paths with Auror Potter at a political function in Paris, he was not expecting their former animosity to change into something rather more intriguing. But he could be certain their casual flirtation would not last more than the night, couldn't he?

look. i know i named a lot of my favorite tropes here, but i cant end this without mentioning how much single dad draco affects me. i love scorpius and how much he changes draco in every fic he appears. i love parent draco and i shant be silent about it (especially when scorpius is legit just a year old in this. i died)

as it states, harry and draco have a one night stand but draco thinks thats it, that it was all he was ever gonna have. he’s wrong of course, and the path it takes, with both scorpius and harry there, just melted my mf heart.

well kids that’s all i have for now. imma work on a part two with 10 other fics i really love!1

[timerogued]

feel  free  to  ignore  my  rambling.  it’s  half  past  four  in  the  morning  and  i’m  gonna  be  ranting  about  homophobia  /  biphobia  treatment  i  get  from  my  mum.

alright. so. my mum’s very much stuck in the “oh it’s a generation thing.” when it comes to being open about finding gay couples too much. the type of person to say its too much or why do they need to show us this when it’s on tv, or flat out saying eww i don’t want this. she’s... expressive when it comes to rights, saying y’know everyone should live who they want to be so long they don’t flaunt it. 

i’m extremely open about my sexuality. flags, pins, outfits, making jokes out of it whenever i can. i’m definitely a flaunter. of course some people take a while to get used to their kids coming out and i can respect that. around my mum the only thing i really did was chat about potential girlfriends which she wasn’t exactly fond of. the moment i had a girlfriend, she wouldn’t speak about them, nor would she ask how we were doing. when i had a boyfriend, it was always about them. now that i have a boyfriend, she’s very into our lives and how we are. which, again, i don’t mind, i appreciate it. just wish she had the same energy when it came to me dating girls.

it’s taken like, ten years for her to accept that i’m queer. there’s been no conversations on it, but when we did some forms it was asked what her kids identified as in regards to sexuality and gender. we were on the phone about it, and she goes “i put you down as bisexual because that’s what i thought you would have wanted.” so, rather than putting it down because that’s what i am, she only did it because she thought... i’d be angry otherwise? idk. it rubbed me in the wrong way. i’ve yet to tell her about my gender identity. 

ive been thinking about this recently because i was watching a tiktok. it hit me that she’s never really accepted who i am and has always tried to steer me in other directions. whether it’s clothing, stating that i should try wearing something that isn’t so out there, mentioning before she didn’t like me calling some of my clothing “queer” because it would insinuate that i was queer. not to mention that every damn time i get my hair shaved / cut short she pretends to throw up, make gagging noises. she did this in the middle of a supermarket once. even now i expect it and it shouldn’t really happen. 

and i just. i don’t know. i’m tired in a way. but i’m craving for that “i accept you” that i know i’ll never get. i still feel privileged because at least i’m not being chucked out etc, or worse like i know others do, yet its the small remarks and her defiance, almost? which grate me pretty badly? i don’t know. 

[curlytemple]

niche interests list 

okay sure yes this is fun! i havent posted a thing like this in such a long time. thank you new gal pal @scottspack for tagging me! 

pigs????

alright first lets throw it back to preschool! my fav childhood toys were my baby doll (snookums) and a plush pig that my grandma got me that i just called ‘pig’ ...i watched the babe movies countless times, and piglet? that anxious little guy GETS ME bro. when my preschool did a nativity play and my class got to choose an animal to be in baby jesus’ manger, my mother recalls me saying that i would be a pig because jewish people (jesus christ) wouldnt eat me. she has no idea how or when i learned about kosher foods. ironically despite my namesake i was too afraid of the movie charlotte’s web to watch it more than once because the scary farmer tries to kill wilbur for being small and the pretty spider dies. 

sugar creek gang 

OKAY this is a book series from the 40s-70s about a group of christian little boys in indiana who went on adventures in the woods and helped people. my dad read a LOT of chapter books to me as bedtime stories when i was little (see also the mandie series, nancy drew and the hardy boys, little house on the prairie) but sugar creek gang is one that really hit. i read all 36 books with dad and at least once again on my own. there was a series of 4 or 5 movies in the early 2000s when i was the Perfect age to have a crush on most if not all of them. this might be too much detail but i have to tell you about these boys. we WILL not be revisiting the heavy religious themes. 

 the narrator is bill who is Good and Kind and wants to be a doctor when he grows up. his best friend is a chubby boy nicknamed poetry because he memorizes and quotes poems, he is the Detective of the group. BIG JIM is the leader of the group who is supposed to be like, 14, which was very cool and hot, to me. and yes there is a little jim, who is the baby of the group. then there is CIRCUS who is known for his climbing and acrobatics, and his FIVE SISTERS AND BEAUTIFUL SINGING VOICE. dreamboy. i’m almost done listing boys, i promise. a boy called dragonfly who is allergic to everything and hella superstitious. later in the series a new boy named tom moves to town and tom has an older brother bob who is NOT A CHRISTIAN (bully) 

tangentially, the buttercream gang, a movie from 1992 that was almost definitely made by some christians who grew up reading the sugar creek gang series which i’m guessing on vibes alone. will spare you Good Boy details but scott is in love with his best friend pete who moves to chicago and falls in with a bad crowd and scott just refuses to stop LOVING HIM. very gay christian film in retrospect. 

peter pan

so i know liking disney’s peter pan isnt niche, but it was the way i liked it. tinker bell stan from day one, i watched all of those disney fairies movies, even the ones that came out after i was definitely not intended audience. there was an online pixie hollow game where you could design your own fairies and play mini games where you gathered dew drops or something. had a HUGE CRUSH on jeremy sumpter in peter pan (2003) then i got really darkly obsessed with the idea of growing up when i was 12 or 13, and everything peter pan was deeply My Shit for my entire adolescence. i read the original book and every other twisted version of the story i could find and seriously freaked myself out about wasting my youth. 

shug

you’ve probably heard of jenny han now, or at least the netflix adaptations for to all the boys i’ve loved before and the sequel ps i still love you (always and forever, lara jean, coming soon?) but before she wrote THOSE, she wrote my first ever Favorite Book, about annemarie “shug” wilcox, a girl in the summer before starting middle school. it is SO engraved on my heart i cannot explain. i felt so incredibly understood and cant even tell you how many times i read it. thinking about all of the ways it made me feel SEEN is actually making me very tender so i’m gonna go on.  

the summer series

on the subject of jenny han, since she was now my Favorite author, when she came out with the summer i turned pretty in 2009, i was ALL IN. it’s not summer without you, and we’ll always have summer were published the next two years. a coming of age series about a girl isabel “belly” conklin who stays at her mother’s best friend's house at the beach in the summers. i really could talk about it forever yall. i actually dont know how to be succinct about it. i will try. her mom’s friend has TWO BOYS. one brother, jeremiah, is the golden boy and her best friend who is in love with her! the older one CONRAD is her childhood crush who's just sort of around while belly is firmly getting over her childish feelings and going out and experiencing teen beach life with jeremiah for the first time and figuring out who she is and wants to be! by the end of the summer he admits he feels differently about her (hence belly internalizing this as The Summer I Turned Pretty) and they get together. this is already too much so i will just say that the next two books deal with a PROFOUND LOSS and the selfishness of grief and the SELFLESSNESS OF CONRAD and i will absolutely lose my shit if netflix picks it up for a second jenny han series adaptation. 

pappyland

this was a kids show in the 90′s that features a character named Pappy Drew-It, an artist dressed like a 49er who lives in a magic cabin in pappyland. there’s tons of characters and music and life lessons but the meat of every episode is a detailed drawing how-to (pappy is actually a cartoonist, michael cariglio) and i have a hard back cover sketch book from my grandpa that i FILLED with drawings that pappy and DOODLEBUG taught me to do. there is a running gag that pappy always breaks his crayons.  

boy meets world

i KNOW this is beloved by many but i’m counting it because i’m simply too young to have such an obsession with it! the show ran from 1992-2000. i was born in 1996, but reruns on the disney channel and abc family cemented it as one of my favorite shows. cory and shawn, closer than brothers, shameless homoromantics, shawn is cory’s first wife!!!!! truly showed me what a best friend can and should be!!!!!! the great love of your life!!!!! TOPANGA, the og weird feminist girl who said stop shaving your legs and start speaking your mind, ladies! the characters are so richly developed that they are real people to my heart. YES every character on this show is in their late 30s-early 40s and YES i feel like we grew up together. in season one they’re in the 6th grade and we follow them all the way to COLLEGE. countless poignant life lessons, often literally dictated by the wise and hilarious MR. FEENY, cory’s next door neighbor and somehow one of his teachers for YEARS. my love was only solidified by the 2014 girl meets world reboot, centered on cory and topanga’s daughter and her best friend. (which was literally cancelled because disney didn’t want to transition from a kids show to a teen show, something essential to the original. also because that teen show would have had CANON LESBIANS. extremely shameful move in 2017!) boy meets world lives rent free in my heart and i will never evict it!!!!!!!

i consulted my mother when i got stumped for more and she reminded me that i had obsessions with the impressionist art period and babies and ANYTHING fairies or pixies, and i was way too young when my love of the canadian teen after school special degrassi began. she also said bob ross, which i was hesitant to include because he’s been super ~trendy in recent years, but to be fair (To Be Faaairrr) she’s right! i don’t think people really watched the joy of painting as much as i have throughout my life. best sick day show of all time.

lastly i could honestly list anna herself as a niche interest, my mom actually metioned that ive always hyperfixated on my girl friends (gay) but i’ll just note that YES friday night lights, YES barry lyga novels. love to share so many things with you, niche or not, they’re niche in Our Mind.

[no-more-rqs]

the thing is, a lot of the people who say "im pro-endo but anti-endos can interact" will be best friends with people who constantly post hate about endo systems or theyll sometimes even be best friends with people who legitimately harass people and send people death threats. and, a lot of the time, these people arent close to any endo systems - kinda like the group of people who call themselves "endo-neutral" and then exclusively befriend and interact with anti-endos and hold very anti-endo beliefs and arent actually "neutral" at all but just say that theyre neutral so they can reblog moodboards and whatever with no consequences (saying this as someone who was one of those people for a while).

also, the idea that "all/most anti-endos are uneducated children who dont know what endos actually are" is a strawman fallacy i see a lot (anti-endos do this too towards pro-endos). the majority of anti-endos do know what endo systems are, and the majority of anti-endos are very educated (even if theyre educated on very cherry-picked sources, they do have sources, most arent just completely making things up). and, from my time in the anti-endo community, anti-endos are actually mostly adults or older teenagers (like 16/17). anti-endos are wrong because they cherry-pick outdated and debunked sources, not because theyre children or dont actually understand things. a lot of the time people on the internet will use "theyre all children" as an argument when its 1, factually wrong, and 2, ageist. a 13 year old pro-endo is not inherently incorrect about everything because theyre 13, either. (obviously you arent saying all of this or using it as your main argument like a lot of people do, but i figured id point it out anyways since i see this a Lot. its also something ive done myself because, like one of my favorite archaeologists said recently, literally everyone makes logical fallacies because its basically human nature to do that)

id also like to argue that many anti-endos are as bad as a lot of homophobes, just not on a national scale (theyre not as bad as nazis, i was just using that as an example of an oppressive group thats on like 100% of dnis). save for a select few anti-endos who just "dont want non-disordered systems to use actual systems' terminology" or whatever, the majority of anti-endos believe that all endo systems are either confusing their plurality with something else, actually are traumagenic but dont realize it, or are faking out of malice (just like how very common arguments towards gay people is either "youre just confused" or "well their attraction isnt the same as us straight people"). anti-endos post endo systems' private posts to make fun of them on very popular subreddits such as r/fakedisordercringe (just like that one libsoftiktok person or whatever her username was). many anti-endos harass endo systems for simply existing (even if they try to claim it "isnt real harassment" when they repeatedly send people asks saying that theyre liars and horrible people for "faking"). anti-endos have, in the past, doxxed endo systems and even caused at least one endo system to commit suicide (iirc, i heard about this a while ago so i might be remembering wrong - but i do have a couple friends who have been made extremely suicidal because of harassment from anti-endos). anti-endos arent just an online thing either - a couple of my irl friends are endo systems and theyve gotten harassed and hated irl too (including one of my irl friends having an anti-endo bring several of their anti-endo friends to "debate" him by just interrupting him constantly to say "thats not real", "thats impossible", "youre spreading misinformation", etc for twenty minutes until he was finally able to get them to leave). i know people who have had professionals tell them that being endogenic is impossible and that theyre faking for attention - ive had professionals doubt my DID diagnosis because im not anti-endo. obviously, not all anti-endos do every single one of these things, but most of them do this enough for it to be harmful (and id say that even telling someone "hey you dont exist" and nothing else is still very harmful, especially to people with paranoia or anxiety). anti-endos are not just "kids online who say mean things sometimes", they are a legitimate hate group, they arent any less harmful to people just because their community is smaller.

the majority of "pro-endo but anyone can interact" people used to be fully pro-endo until they realized that they could just interact with anti-endos and no one would care as long as they put "anyone can interact" on their profile. the reason why theres tons of anti-endos in the mogai community now is because all the formerly pro-endo bloggers dont care anymore because they and all their friends arent endo systems so they see no need to care. they post stuff like "anti-endos who dont harass people are amazing i love you" (because apparently the harassment is the only bad part, and the fact that theyre invalidating peoples entire existences doesnt matter) and get tons of notes because a lot of the people in that community do not actually care about endo systems. its incredibly unsafe for endo systems to have people claim to be pro-endo and then directly expose endos to harassment.

theres probably a lot more i could say but its currently 40 minutes past when i promised id go to bed so im going to end it here lol

"im pro-endo but i dont mind anti-endos interacting" would you allow a homophobe to interact with you? a transphobe? a racist? an ableist? a nazi? why is it suddenly different and "not as bad" when the discrimination, harassment, and death threats dont affect you specifically? why is it suddenly a "nuanced situation" when you arent the victim? are you really "pro-endo" if you refuse to even do the bare minimum to stand up for them instead of being best friends with people who want them to not exist?

[possiblyimbiassed]

What happened to Sherlock? Part VIII - The Sign of the Hetero Norm (1)

Why does Mary Morstan play such a prominent role in BBC Sherlock? 

I’m surely not the only one asking myself this; while she’s barely mentioned in canon after marrying Watson, she’s all over the place from TEH and onwards in Mofftiss’ adaptation. And when I recently read this excellent fic by @discordantwords, a couple of things dawned on me, that I think have been brewing in my mind for quite some time. Which brings me to the long promised continuation of my marathon meta series about what I think we’re actually seeing in this show. Because the entire point of Mary Morstan seems to be to prevent Sherlock and John from getting together in a romantic relationship - a story of hetero norm. This eighth installment will explore the ‘case’ of little Rosie, and the role she and her mother plays in this show. 

This far I’ve published an intro and seven installments, each with corresponding attempts to test my hypotheses:

Introduction - The game is on (explains the method of analysis) Part I - Blog vs TV-show Part II - Re-living memories Part III - Drugs and weirdness Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (1) Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (2) Part V – Bizarre scenarios Part VI - Live and let die (1) Part VI - Live and let die (2)

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (1) 

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (2)

This installment will also be parted in two, and the second half can be found here (X). Many of the screen caps from BBC Sherlock in this meta are from Kissthemgoodbye.net - thanks! And thanks also to Ariane DeVere for the incredibly useful transcripts!

My next hypotheses is, in and off itself, a clear and straightforward prediction that can be explicitly verified or falsified once we finally get to S5, so it will be extra fun to see what happens with it in future: 

Hypothesis #8: John is not the father of Mary’s baby

(Disclaimer: My suspicion here only concerns John’s biological offspring. It would still be possible that John, and perhaps also Sherlock, might father the child - if it exists - by adoption. It does not exclude a metaphorical reading where the baby represents, for example, Sherlock’s and John’s relationship. I also want to stress that this hypothesis is an attempt at logical reasoning based on observations in the show and in ACD canon; it’s not meant to be ‘gossipy’ and has nothing to do with whether I would actually like to see this happen or not - that’s a whole other story. ;) )  

This hypothesis has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now, but I don’t think it’s just a hunch; there are actually a series of reasons that have made me come to this conclusion. 

(Continued under the cut)

But first of all: can we debunk my hypothesis at this stage in the story, by testing it ‘scientifically’? Well, not really, since the show doesn’t provide any reliable evidence that confirms John as Rosie’s biological father. Not even IRL would this have been possible without a DNA-test (or without physical circumstances that would have made any other option impossible). And the only thing that the show tells us about human DNA-tests is that not even this procedure is 100% reliable, as shown in ASIB:

JOHN: You were dead on a slab. It was definitely you. IRENE: DNA-tests are only as good as the records you keep. JOHN: And I bet you know the record-keeper. IRENE: I know what he likes, and I needed to disappear.

DNA is brought up in TGG (Ian Monkford’s blood) and again in TST (the identification of Charlie Wellsborough’s body), but since John’s fatherhood is never questioned in the show, little Rosie is never tested, as far as we know. The remaining evidence that speaks for John being the father is circumstantial: that John and Mary obviously must have been living together at the approximate time of conception. And that they both act as if they’re both Rosie’s parents.

So I guess that in order to get any further with this, I’ll have to start at the other end, analysing the characters and see if I can find evidence that support my hypothesis - on a textual level as well as metaphorically and on the meta level. 

Mary’s function in the story

I think we can safely say that Mary is the most controversial character of BBC Sherlock. Some viewers love her, others hate her, but I can’t recall anyone claiming to feel indifferent towards her. Mofftiss have indeed managed to push forward a character who is hardly even visible in canon, once she’s married to Watson. In BBC Sherlock, however, Mary totally dominates the show from HLV and onwards. Her appearances may have been increasing in numbers and length already from her introduction in TEH. But from the point where John wakes up in HLV, there isn’t a single case where she’s not somehow involved. Up until TFP, everything is about ’Mary’. And even then, once we might have believed we’d got rid of the ghost of this hijacking protagonist, she comes back, only to once again take over the narrative with a weird and basically inexplicable voiceover. She seems like some kind of obsession; a brain ghost stuck on someone’s mind.

This is rather different from ACD canon, where Mary Morstan has extremely few lines as soon as she’s no longer a client, but Watson’s wife. Personally I find it hard to see the lovable aspect of this character in BBC Sherlock, since she constantly shifts appearance, behaviour and motivation; it’s almost impossible to pin down who she actually is. Which makes me convinced that Mary is not meant to be a real, believable character that we can relate to as such - at least not all the time. And maybe that goes for canon as well.

But what then is the purpose of her, what’s Mary’s actual function in the narrative, looking at the subtext? I think there’s basically three of them, and by no means mutually exclusive:

1. Mary is a metaphor for heteronormativity and its power over people when they internalise it

2. Mary is a façade or ‘beard’, where a straight marriage is established to cover up a story of a gay relationship

3. Mary is a mirror for Sherlock; by substituting himself with a female spouse for John, Sherlock can be with John ‘by proxy’, trying to figure out John without having to face his own real problem: reveal his emotions and risk failure.

As soon as Mary firmly puts her foot in the show, it all becomes a spectacle, a demonstration of how to keep up a straight facade at any cost. After TSoT, no-one ever assumes John and Sherlock are a romantic couple; Mary is the ultimate ’proof’ that John is indeed straight. Which is of course illogical, because why would a bi person stop being it because they married someone, no matter of which sex? Mary admits it herself by telling Sherlock that ”neither of us was the first, you know”. And Sherlock complains that John is dancing around Sholto ”like a puppet” even after the wedding ceremony. But in all the episodes after TSoT, John is happily freed from people’s assumptions regarding his sexual orientation. Gone are all the gay jokes, and John Watson is miraculously ‘cured’. 

I think this is perfectly illustrated in the fic by @discordantwords​ that I mentioned above. The plot follows logically on TFP, as things would be if everything we’ve seen from HLV and onwards is actually meant to be ‘true’. Mary is now dead and John lives alone with little Rosie. For a case, in order to get close to the suspects, Sherlock is planning to fake his own wedding with Janine Hawkins, and John is feeling jealous and excluded – especially when he finds out that one of the murders that Sherlock is investigating had involved a wedding of a gay couple:

"Why all of this, then?" he asked. He tipped his head towards the kitchen, where Janine was fiddling with the kettle. "I could have just—wouldn't it have been easier for us to just—?"

"You're not gay," Sherlock said.

"Well," John paused. "No." He cleared his throat, looked back at the wall. "But everyone already thinks we're a couple. Wouldn't be that much of a stretch, really. For a case."

"No one has thought that for quite some time."

This fanfic rings perfectly true to me, considering S4 on the surface level; John and Sherlock appearing as a couple wouldn’t work after John’s own wedding in TSoT. Because gone is now every allusion to John being anything else than straight. Gone is also John’s admiration for Sherlock; from HLV and on, he hardly ever even speaks about Sherlock in a positive way. (Which also makes me wonder: was ‘The Fall’ also about Sherlock feeling he had fallen from John’s pedestal of admiration?). For the rest of the show, it’s only Sherlock whom we see suffering from (presumably) gay pining. It’s only in Sherlock’s Victorian imagination that Moriarty tells them to ’elope’ together, while John in TLD is shown to be exclusively fixed on his dead wife. 

On the surface, Sherlock seems to support John’s relationship with Mary, while I’m sure he is actually suffering deeply. But I think, metaphorically, that Sherlock is acting like some kind of self-sacrificing Christ figure. (Don’t forget Irene’s words from ASiB: “I think you’re damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it’s yourself”). He bears the ‘cross’ of torture by seeing John with someone else, until he can’t stand it any more and trashes himself on drugs. This is what we see at the beginning of TEH, John holding hands with a woman in front of Sherlock’s grave:

Why can’t we see Mary’s face already here? I think it’s because this is from Sherlock’s POV; he’s either seeing or imagining them from behind. She might have a hidden face but a familiar shape because by the time Sherlock is recalling this, he already knows what Mary looks like. But at this point in time, maybe he didn’t? In any case, it must be devastating for Sherlock to see or imagine John with someone else, when he should be there to mourn him, Sherlock. 

Thinking about John with Mary, Sherlock can’t even sleep. He is tortured on a cross and dies for all our ’sins’, doesn’t he? On the meta level Sherlock Holmes sacrifices his life, he extinguishes his true self, in the name of heteronormativity. So that John can have his straight marriage, even if it’s dysfunctional. But our worst ’sin’ as an audience, I believe - our ultimate mistake - is to buy into this narrative without questioning it. That’s literally letting the hetero norm rule.

King David the Adulterer

Mary’s ex-boyfriend David is introduced in TSoT, but after this episode he never shows up again. But this seems very random to me; why is David even there, and why is he depicted as some kind of rival to John? What is his narrative purpose? David is often blurred out in the scenes, but he is definitely present during the whole wedding reception, where his role is to be an usher (showing people their places/seats). David gives the impression to be single, since he attends Mary’s wedding without any partner as company.

Sherlock, who meets David alone at 221B during the wedding planning, deduces that he still seems to have an intimate relationship with Mary. Only recently I discovered this meta from 2014 called The Baby Problem by @abitnotgood​, which brings up pretty much exactly the same suspicions I have had for quite some time now. The main points are the following:

Mary was dating David for 2 of the totally 5 years she had been undercover with the false name Mary.

They’re still close enough friends for David to attend the wedding, which might indicate their breakup was unwanted from one or both parts.

Mary’s reactions during the wedding reception indicates that she still cares for David.

Sherlock finds out that David has “offered to be her shoulder to cry on no less than three occasions.” 

David sits at the same table as most other major characters, which indicates that he’s important.

David doesn’t look particularly happy while toasting for the bride and groom.

To these I could also add that Sherlock gets so suspicious about David that he threatens him with keeping a close eye on his whereabouts with Mary. From a story telling POV, when a character is suspected by the main character who is a genius detective, there should actually be some reason for this - shouldn’t it?

So who is David? Does he appear anywhere in canon? I actually think he does. In ACD’s short story The Crooked Man (CROO), the name David plays a symbolical role. The story is about a (supposed) murder of a middle-aged military officer, colonel James Barclay. It’s a classical Sherlock Holmes mystery with a door locked from the inside and the key missing. The death seems to originate from a domestic quarrel between the colonel and his wife. (Which is particularly interesting considering the Watsons’ ‘domestic’ in HLV). 

Turns out the colonel died of fright when he saw his old rival Henry Wood, whom he had betrayed in the war and deliberately left to be captured by the enemy. Henry was repeatedly tortured and crippled and held prisoner for many years, until he could escape back to London and a coincidence brought his old love interest in his way, who was now married to the colonel. (Hmm... tortured by the enemy. Been away. Love interest married. Does this seem like anyone we know? ;) ). Henry was “the crooked man” of the story, who was bereft of his loved one because of James. 

But the name David was mystically uttered by Colonel Barclay’s wife while quarreling with her husband - why? Holmes claimed it was a biblical reference to the drama of king David, Batsheba and Uriah. King David committed adultery with the beautiful Bathsheba, who was married to his soldier Uriah. Bathsheba got pregnant after sleeping with David, while Uriah was out fighting a war. David tried to cover up that fact by sending Uriah home, but Uriah refused to leave his comrades. Then David betrayed his rival Uriah the same way James betrayed Henry: by deliberately leaving him exposed to the enemy. The only difference was that Uriah died on the battlefield, while Henry was caught and crippled. Which leads us almost inevitably to Captain John Watson - he is a soldier who was crippled by the enemy too, wasn’t he? ;)

What about Rosie?

Although Mary is dominating the show from TEH and forwards, John’s and Mary’s daughter - little Rosie - is subjected to the opposite treatment; she has very little screen time, and we never learn about a single character trait of hers. In ACD canon the Watsons never had a child, as far as I know. And – even in Victorian times – I believe it would have seemed strange with the Doctor spending so much of his free time (besides work) together with Holmes, obviously neglecting his family duties. So since Mofftiss have introduced a totally new ingredient to their adaptation - a time-consuming baby - one would think this has to have a clear purpose, right? I would have expected Rosie to play a part of her own, someone the audience could relate to just like the other characters, if only still a baby. 

But instead, Rosie is seen most of all as an obstacle. Mary is balancing her while discussing a case with Sherlock. Rosie is handed over to John like a sack of potatoes when the family goes on to solve a case with Sherlock; she doesn’t make a sound and we don’t even see her little face. We see John change Rosie’s diaper once (basically to show that he has a toy daisy behind his ear, which is apparently a good flirting device), and then we see Sherlock trying to babysit her at 221B, getting hit in the eye by her toy. We also hear her cry in the background once, and see Molly hold her once. And that’s about it. 

When Sherlock texts them from the London Aquarium at the end of TST, Mary and John debate which of them is going to have to stay with the baby, but finally both of them show up at the Aquarium – without Rosie. And this happens not long after Mary has taken a ‘little trip’ around Eurasia ending up in Morocco and John and Sherlock going after her – little Rosie staying at home. Which means weeks without any of her parents. If S4 were real, I’d feel truly sorry for little Rosie.

In TLD, Rosie is more absent than her dead mother! While Mary haunts the episode, all we hear about the baby is John’s tremendous guilt for neglecting and abandoning her (which he manages to do completely). John does seem to have enough spare time and energy to go on another case with Sherlock, though, in the middle of his therapy session. At the end of TLD, all is supposedly fine again with Rosie (until John gets shot with a tranquiliser), but we never get to see it. But then in TFP John goes on a long journey with Sherlock to a far away island, and not a word about Rosie. She’s not even present when John receives Mary’s DVD at home. At the end she’s suddenly there again, though, without any comment. 

Based on this, it doesn’t seem farfetched to ask if this little character is even supposed to be real. There’s a subtle hint in TLD which could point in this skeptic direction: 

Sherlock: “And, of course, I hadn’t really anticipated that I’d hallucinated meeting his daughter.” “Still a bit troubled by the daughter. Did seem very real, and she gave me information I couldn’t have acquired elsewhere.” 

John: “But she wasn’t ever here?”

An earlier quote from TGG could also question John’s fatherhood: ”Of course he’s not the boy’s father - look at the turnups on his jeans!” (Sherlock while watching telly with John in TGG, right after the fourth ‘pip’).

And - of course - if S4 is all imaginary, only happening in Sherlock’s head, Rosie would probably not even have been born yet. 

There are also some more subtle hints about Rosie’s narrative function: John’s guilt about cheating on Mary in TLD is connected to the baby. John specifically mentions that he was “cheating” on Mary while she was taking care of Rosie: JOHN (to Ghost!Mary): “We texted constantly. You wanna know when? Every time you left the room, that’s when.  When you were feeding our daughter; when you were stopping her from crying – that’s when.” This does make the (otherwise rather exaggerated) texting affair sound a bit more damning for John, doesn’t it? ;)  If this is all taking place inside Sherlock’s head, it might rather reflect one of Sherlock’s (possibly) major excuses to himself for not confessing his true feelings to John; it might (once the baby is born) disrupt a whole family and affect an innocent little child.

John and Mary’s relationship

The other day I took to re-watch this little piece of extra material from S4: statements by Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington about John’s and Mary’s relationship (X). Every time I see this video I’m just laughing so hard. Please don’t miss how Martin is struggling to keep a straight face without smiling, after claiming “they’ve been through stuff already in S3 that would test any couple.” (Yep. Like the discovery that Mary is actually a contract killer who shot his best friend and hasn’t even revealed her real name to John). Or how Amanda avoids looking at the camera when she’s lying talking about Mary’s feelings towards John, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Great acting! :)

I mean, this cannot even be intended to fool anyone; I think this is meant to signal to the audience that the marriage we’re seeing is a dishonest, superficial construction made up of empty words. It’s very similar to the scene in HLV where Sherlock tells John about his ‘relationship’ with Janine. Platitudes like “we’re in a good place” are not only included, but also called out in the very same dialogue. John: “You got that from a book!”  Sherlock: “Everyone got that from a book!”. In the video clip, overly sweet violin music is playing when Martin and Amanda talk about their characters’ supposed deep love for each other, but this is mixed up with sitcom-like scenes where this love is made very hard to believe in, like Mary about to give birth in the car and roaring to her husband to pull over, or John telling Mary that he simply intends to forget about a recent past where she very nearly murdered his best friend.  

John’s marriage actually seems terrible from start; he can’t even keep himself off Sherlock’s blog comments during his own honeymoon. Which I believe is canon consistent; in ACD’s stories Mary Morstan even encourages Watson to never leave Holmes’ side. And the bad marriage is also confirmed in HLV by Wiggins’ and Sherlock’s deductions about John’s cycling to work and keeping his shirts ‘folded and ready to leave’ at any moment.

But what’s Mary’s position in this? Let’s say, as a mental experiment, that she knows from start about John’s feelings for Sherlock. Why would she want to be together with, and even go on to marry, a man who is obviously in love with someone else? Well, while I don’t buy the facade-climbing Ninja!Mary who tries to kill Sherlock in HLV, she could still be dishonest in her approach to John. She could still be on some sort of mission related to Sherlock, where her role simply is to get in between John and Sherlock, while she actually is together with someone else (and even carrying that someone’s child). Her aim could be to hurt Sherlock as much as possible, for a specific reason. 

As far as I see in TEH, Mary seems suspiciously eager to befriend Sherlock. Instead of behaving like one would expect from someone in love who just got their special moment ruined by a rival; with anger or at least annoyance, and of course supporting the beloved - Mary immediately sides with Sherlock.

And she seems to side with him most of all on an intellectual level, taking part in his explanations of how he managed to fake his death.

“Oh, he would have needed a confidant...”

So - what can we deduce about Mary?

If everything we see in the show after TSoT only has happened inside Sherlock’s head (as I’ve tried to make a case for in this meta series), from this follows logically that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, there is no Assasin!Mary, no SecretAgent!Mary, no Martyr!Mary and - of course - no Ghost!Mary. Because up until the wedding, Mary seemed to be just an ordinary woman. The character’s appearance from HLV and onwards would all be fabrications of Sherlock’s drug-influenced mind, albeit loaded with a lot of metaphorical meaning from his subconscious. 

But Mary still seems to exist on some level, doesn’t she? She is referred to by John on his blog, talked about by other people on the blog (including Sherlock), and she even makes comments on it on no less than ten occasions. On the blog, John is clear about getting married to Mary. And after Sherlock’s final blog post ‘The Sign of Three’, it also gets obvious that Mary is now pregnant. 

And – most importantly – if S4 is all-fake, this also means that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, Mary’s drama-loaded death in TST never happened. Mary is still alive! So if Mary is a ‘façade’, a ‘beard’ and/or a mirror for Sherlock on a meta- and sub-textual level, who is she on the textual level? Well, I think there are some clues in the show, and also a lot of subtext material in ACD canon to draw from, which might have been developed into actual story line in the show.  

And this will bring us to the second half of this meta, which you can find here (X).

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @sarahthecoat​ @gosherlocked​ @loveismyrevolution​ @sagestreet​​ @tjlcisthenewsexy​​ @elldotsee​​ @88thparallel​​ @devoursjohnlock​​ @sherlock-overflow-error​​ @yeah-oh-shit​